“Want some coffee?” I ask as Claire comes in. She glances at me nervously, turning her Smokey the Bear hat around and around, hand over hand, as if she were steering her Sheriff’s Dept. SUV in a u-turn out of my cabin.
“No thanks. I, ah…just got a call from the Los Angeles Police.” She looks at me to see if this means anything. It doesn’t.
“They want to talk to you.”
“About what?”
The Smokey the Bear hat turning hard right, right, right.
“Well, I didn’t get much information from the detectives there, but I guess there was a homicide—a young woman—and they think maybe it was some kind of…copycat situation. From one of your books?” Her eyes flick up at mine for a second.
Shit. I have wondered occasionally about something like this—some random wack-job mimicking a gruesome murder from one of my books. I sit on the couch, hoping it’s a mistake.
“What makes them think it has anything to do with my books?”
“Evidently the young woman was found in a, uh, manner that a victim in your book was found.”
“Which book?”
She looks down. “I’m not sure…you know I haven’t really read much of your work.” Claire seems embarrassed. I remember her telling me she hadn’t read any of my books on our first date, as if it mattered to me. She’s too solid, too practical. Maybe even disapproving. She’s a fourth-generation Congregationalist. Her ancestors wouldn’t have messed around with me. They would have burned me at the stake for conjuring spirits, lickety-split.
“Okay. Sure. They can call me here at home.”
“Actually, they want you to come to Los Angeles.” She holds my gaze steadily.
“Why?”
“Like I said, they didn’t give me much information.”
“Well I need more information. Tell them they can call me and I’ll help them any way I can.”
“Look, Jack, I don’t want trouble any more than you do, but they said it was important that I get you to cooperate.”
Again the steady look. What the fuck does that look mean?
“Is there something you’re not telling me, Claire?”
Round and round the hat goes. I wait, biding my time trying not to notice how she fills out her olive uniform, how the dark stripes on her slacks follow the curves of her thighs, the way she wears her holster just slightly lower around her hips than regulation probably dictates… If she had worn her uniform on one of our dates things might have worked out differently…
“It’s not so much what they—” she begins. “They just said there were an awful lot of…consistencies with the murder scene and what was in your book.”
She stands there, turning her hat and looking at me.
“That’s it?”
“Pretty much. They were pretty tight-lipped.”
I look out the window. The color is all but gone from the trees. Most of them are bare now, against a slate November sky. The ground is hard from the night frost and soon it will be covered with snow. I turn back to Claire, who is standing in the middle of the large braided rug on the living room floor. She looks out of place, the rug’s pattern of brown and white rings encircling her. I suddenly realize this is the first time a woman has set foot in this cabin in three years. It’s not a happy thought. The phone rings.
“Jack,” the voice of Arnie Brandt, my agent. “Have you heard?”
“I have a member of Featherton’s finest right here in my living room as we speak. What do you know about this, Arnie?”
“Well, I don’t know what she’s told you, but this detective, Marsh, I think his name is, called me from L.A. to track you down. We may have a problem.”
Arnie never called unless he had something concrete to say—news which was either good or bad. He’s using his “bad” voice.
“They won’t tell me anything more,” Arnie says. “They want you to come to L.A. so they can talk to you about it.”
“So I’m told. What do you think?”
“I think we’d better get out in front of this. You’re about to deliver and we don’t need this kind of publicity. I think you should go and cooperate in every way you can before this gets a chance to hit the press.”
And the shit hits the fan.
“Alright,” I say finally. “I’ll get the next flight I can. Have you talked to Joel?” I ask, meaning Joel Fisher, my lawyer in New York.
“Not yet. Obviously we need to keep him in the loop, but I don’t think you need to bring him along to L.A., per se,” Arnie says carefully. “Nobody at Terrapin knows yet, as far as I know. Just go and talk to the LAPD. That’s all they want at this point.”
I hang up, relieved to see Claire holding her hat still and giving me a wan smile. I look at her and shrug.
“Okay,” I say.
THINGS PAST
It was his fifth birthday but he didn’t know it. He didn’t know his name; he didn’t even know he was awake until he heard the Witch’s voice. In the dark place it was sometimes hard to tell when you were asleep and when you were awake. But the sound of the Witch laughing with a man woke him. The light under the door shone into the dark place and, after endless hours of complete darkness, the faint light hurt his small eyes. He was too young to understand the sounds from the room outside the closet, but he had heard them many times—the Witch laughing and moaning and shouting vulgar things to different men over the wild, thrashing music. He didn’t know the concept of “mother.” He only knew the dark place and the sounds with the men and the abrupt, terrifying attacks from the Witch. He hated her and wished her dead.
He knew it was wrong to hate. At least, he knew others thought it was wrong. But he couldn’t understand that. He had been to Sunday school—a day care center at a local church—when his mother was briefly incarcerated. He had no other family anywhere; he had never been to kindergarten, never seen a doctor, only rarely been outdoors. So when Social Services found him they didn’t know what to do with him. The people from Social Services were all the same: dull, officious, with their forms and clipboards and limited eye contact. No one said, “Your mother pleaded guilty to felony possession of methamphetamines and she’s doing thirty days at the county jail.” They simply said, “Your mother’s at County,” as though he would know what that meant. They had precious little time to spend on him, so Social Services took him to the day care at First Baptist and moved on to the next intractably messy and irresolvable case.
From the moment he arrived at the day care he was stunned—overwhelmed—so much so that he couldn’t speak for days. His young mind soaked up the sights and sounds, the songs, the picture books, the caring, compassionate women who ran the center—and the daylight. For the thirty days his mother was “at County,” he was passed from family to family at night, and during the day he sat, entranced, and listened to the songs the other children sang and looked at the picture books of baby Jesus and Mary and the angels…and he loved it all so much that he cried often. The women thought he was sad but he didn’t know how to explain that his tears were pure joy. He had never once told anyone about any feelings he had. He didn’t know how. He knew, even at this young age, that he was different. He could see the tender feeling in the women at the center; he could tell they loved Jesus and wept for his suffering. But the bleeding wounds of Jesus excited him in a way he couldn’t tell the women about. Even at this young age he knew he couldn’t tell anyone about those feelings. Later he would come to understand the special feelings, and they would bring him power and pleasure in measure with the heaven that the dying Jesus promised. In my father’s house are many mansions.
But on the brink of turning five, it was much simpler. He loved everything about the day care, but most of all he loved the stories. Daniel in the lion’s den, Jonah in the belly of the whale, and his favorite—David and Goliath. He thought a lot about small David killing the brutal giant. He thought of it constantly and it comforted him.
Sometimes the families who took him in at night read fai
ry tales to their children. The happy-family children delighted in the stories and slept soundly after hearing them. But to him, the sorry young charge, the fragile charity case, the fairy tales loomed as large as the Bible stories, and he did not sleep. Because he had now learned about witches.
He thought one day he would tell stories to others. He could feel the budding urge to tell others about his life, his story, his Witch. He knew that his life had gone horribly wrong. He knew it when he saw the way the day care children lived with their families. They slept in beds, they were fed and clothed and loved. He felt the desperate need to be listened to, to be paid attention.
The women at the day care were surprised at how quickly he learned his letters and began to read. They encouraged the bright young boy when he printed his alphabet with his big red pencil, and then, soon, his name. He had a gift, they told him, and he nearly burst with pride and happiness, although he couldn’t express his feelings. They thought he was shy. “Don’t hide your light under a bushel,” they told him. And it increased his longing to learn one day to tell his stories to someone—to anyone who would listen.
Then his mother was released from her prison and he was returned to his. But he was blessed with a miracle—a present from one of the women at the day care: the small figure of an angel. She was head and hands only, eight inches tall, pink lips and blue eyes against pure white porcelain, her perfect little hands pressed together in prayer. In the dark place her presence soothed him in the hours of his torment, the hours of crying, begging, screaming… He would look at the Angel in the half-light, the Witch’s cluttered pile of filthy clothes his bed. The Angel looked down on him over her praying hands, head tilted slightly, Mona Lisa smile, her eyes china blue ovals of infinite compassion bordered by fine, dark lashes painted with delicate brush. He did love her. As much as he hated the Witch.
He pressed his hands to his ears to shut out the sound of the Witch and the man and the pounding music. But the sound wouldn’t stop. Tears ran silently down his soft cheeks and he thought he would begin screaming—a thought which terrified him. Screaming meant the door would fly open and the light would blind him and then would come the hands of the Witch—sometimes open, sometimes closed, once holding a high-heeled shoe which left a bleeding dent in his temple. He bit his lip to keep from screaming. Bit down hard until he tasted the warm wet salt of blood.
And then, that night, on his fifth birthday, just when he could bear no more, another miracle—
The Witch sounds were drowned out by the Angel’s voice.
He took his hands from his ears, astonished. The Angel had never made a sound before. But now he heard her clearly—her voice filled his ears, his head, his small heart.
He lay on the hard floor, mesmerized by the sound, as clear and sweet as a blackbird’s song. She was singing to him—a song he had learned at the day care.
Jesus loves me, this I know,
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong,
They are weak but He is strong.
She sang softly as he wept and finally slept. He dreamed of being held in the arms of the Angel, held like the baby Jesus in the picture books, held and kissed and caressed.
Loved.
CHAPTER TWO
She is sitting across the aisle from me on the plane. Small and round, late fifties, Nieman Marcus from head to toe, and she is reading my last book, Killer Unbound. She is reading with the intensity I like to imagine everyone has when they pick up a book of mine at an airport, which is where most people pick up my books. We are halfway to Los Angeles and she is halfway through the book when she happens to glance up and see me watching her. I look away quickly, but not quickly enough. From the corner of my eye I see her check the back of the paperback, where my postage stamp-sized photo is sequestered between the bar code and ISBN number. I feel her look back at me. I wish I’d splurged on first class.
“Excuse me,” she leans across the aisle toward me. Her wire-framed glasses are smudged at the edges with makeup and her breath is stale.
“I couldn’t help but notice…” she holds up the book, indicating my photo, then pointing at me. “Are you Jack Rhodes? The author?”
“Yes,” I smile politely.
“Oh my God,” she says too loudly and presses the book against her breasts. “I don’t believe it! I’m sitting here reading your book and there you are, right across the aisle from me!”
“Yep. Right here.” Please let there be turbulence. Oxygen masks dropping…screams from the galley…
“I read Killer when it came out. Couldn’t put it down. Then I read Killer At Large, and now Killer Unbound… Oh my God, I just love your books.”
“Well, thank you very much.” I press the button overhead for the flight attendant.
“I always wanted to write. I studied at LSU. Creative Writing. And I’ve always loved the way you have of pulling the reader into the story…”
“Thank you.” I press the button overhead again. Not a flight attendant in sight. They have obviously taken the escape pod.
“I mean, just the way you follow the story…the way you…” she struggles to come up with le mot juste, “…the way you seduce the reader. It’s so good.”
“Thanks.”
“Where do you come up with your ideas? I’ve tried to write…I mean, nothing at all like you—well, in a way maybe a little,” she blushes slightly. “But I just can’t imagine how you come up with so many characters and stories and… Where do you get your ideas?”
“They just come to me,” I shrug. She gives me a blank look. This won’t satisfy her. I pray for a lightning strike. Ah, folks, we’ve just lost both engines and we’re going to have to ditch in the Rockies so please stop talking to one another…
“They just come to you? I can’t imagine. All those characters and the detail…you just make it all up?”
“Pretty much.”
She stares at me as if I were an ostrich in the aisle seat across from her.
“I can’t imagine.”
“It’s not really that mysterious. The story just kind of…tells itself.”
“I just can’t imagine.”
That’s right. You can’t. And I can. Big deal.
A flight attendant who resembles the seventh grade math teacher from Sara’s school reaches over my head and turns off the service light.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
“Just great. Could I get a pillow, please?”
“Certainly.” She heads off to the secret pillow cache.
“I’m sorry, I know you want to sleep, but could I just ask you one favor?”
“Sure,” I smile again. It’s getting harder to smile.
“Could you sign my book?” A timid girl’s giggle as she holds the book toward me. I take it from her and reach for the pen that’s always in my pocket.
“To…?” I prompt her.
“Maryann,” she says, blushing fiercely.
I sign her book and, feeling guilty for being a jerk, I make it a little extra personal. Keep writing! I hand it back and she reads it and the blush spreads from her cheeks and down her neck and for a moment I’m afraid she may explode and blow a hole in the fuselage, killing us all. The flight attendant returns with my pillow.
“Thank you.”
I rest back against the pillow and close my eyes.
“Thank you,” Maryann says.
“You’re welcome,” I say, and close my eyes and turn aside as Maryann returns to Killer Unbound.
Where do you get your ideas? It was the question that finally caused me to stop doing interviews and book signings. Arnie and my publishers were genuinely perplexed. It’s the most common question for an author—an inevitable question. And most writers have a stock answer. Some even enjoy talking about their writing process. Some, in fact, will never shut up about it. But the question irritated me on a deep level. I don’t know why. I once read a quote from George Bernard Shaw, who said that for him writing was like
taking dictation. All he had to do was begin and the play wrote itself. I have no pretensions to the level of a Shaw, or anyone for that matter. I know who I am and what I write and I think it’s pretty good for a white trash kid from West Covina who grew up without a father and a mother whom I barely knew—a mother who drank and drugged all day with one boyfriend after another. I don’t believe in Muses or writer’s block and I don’t read reviews. But I understand what Shaw was saying. I simply sit down every day and write what is already in my head, waiting to be put down on paper. I don’t know how it got there. I don’t question or analyze it, I just write it down. At a book signing once, a flirtatious woman of a certain age asked me if I had a Muse and I said “Yeah, his name is Dave.” She didn’t laugh, but from then on I jokingly called my muse Dave. Dave told me to write this or that. Dave said kill her with a claw hammer. Dave would figure out how to get out of the building barricaded by the SWAT team.
Not that I didn’t wonder at first where all the ideas came from. At first I had privately marveled at my facility to concoct each murderous scheme, each vicious, perfect killing, each elaborate plan to elude capture. It all came so easily, as if each story were already fully formed in my head and I was just taking dictation from some uncharted part of my subconscious. I didn’t want to look too hard at that uncharted part—it was clouded with pain that would stop me in my tracks. My lapse in memory began before Sara’s death, before the drinking. I remember virtually nothing from my early childhood, and I didn’t care to conjure that time to consciousness. I’ve always had the profound feeling that some things are best left unexamined. My writing had kept me sane and sober for five years. It kept my restless mind busy with imaginary situations and problems of my own creation. I would never be lonely as long as my characters were speaking to me. I would never be bored as long as I could sit at my computer and slip into that peculiar trance where their voices were almost audible... Maybe this isn’t normal or maybe it is. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe some rocks are best left unturned.
Killer: A Novel Page 2