Collecting Cooper

by Paul Cleave

  We drive through the perimeter the media have set up around Grover Hills and questions are yelled at us and spotlights pointed at us and the officer is blinded by one of the cameras and clips one of the reporters with the side of the bumper. She is sent flying into the dirt. She gets up screaming abuse at us and threatening to sue before realizing her mistake, that being more hurt means a bigger story and more compensation, so she goes quiet and collapses into a heap. Every camera lights her up and she lays there in a caricature of pain. The officer stops the car and gets out and takes a couple of steps toward her, but is blocked by cameras and more lights all pointing at him now. He raises his hands to shield his eyes. I leave him to it and walk toward the building, passing a couple of cops coming back my way to help their colleague.

  Two more bodies have been found since I’ve been gone, both of them in the same grave. There seems to be no pattern as to where the bodies have been laid out, probably because the people doing the digging were crazy. Nobody gives me so much as a second glance as I walk over to take a closer look. The two bodies are fresh-looking, lots of skin slippage, dark veins protrude from underneath their skin as if they are worms feeding and burrowing their way beneath the blotchy surfaces. My stomach turns for the second time tonight. One man is wearing jeans and one is wearing shorts and they’re both wearing T-shirts that are stained with fluids that have seeped from their bodies.

  One of the medical examiners, a woman by the name of Tracey Walter, comes over. Last time I saw her was when I was working on the Burial Killer case. Back then she had black hair tied into a ponytail, now it’s been dyed blond but the style is the same. She always has an athletic look about her, as if she might break into a jog at any time.

  “Who let you in?” she asks, at least grinning as she says it.

  “Schroder asked for my help.”

  She offers me her hand. “It’s clean,” she says, then seems to struggle holding it there as I shake it. Last year she was pretty angry with me and I don’t blame her. I almost got her fired when I stole evidence from her morgue.

  “So what can you tell me about these guys?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” she says. “No way in hell Schroder asked you for an opinion.”

  “He did. Just not on this case,” I admit. “Come on, Tracey, I’m trying to find Emma Green.”

  “And you’ll stop at nothing.”

  “Is that such a bad thing?”

  “It is for the people who get in your way, even the innocent ones.” “Any idea who they are?” I ask, nodding down toward the two men.

  “Not yet,” she says. “Bodies haven’t been touched yet.”

  “Then let’s touch them,” I say. I crouch down on the side of the grave and tug sideways at the shorts on the closest victim, twisting them until I can get to the back pocket.

  “What the hell, Tate?”

  I come up with a wallet and hand it to her probably an hour or two earlier than the plan, but there’s no time to mess around with protocol. There’s no cash, and there are no credit cards and no license. I reach into the second grave. Same tug on the pants. Same trick. The back pocket comes around the same way and a wallet with the same amount of nothing inside it comes free.

  “Great,” she says. “Thanks for being so helpful.”

  Close to the side of the grave, I take a better look at the bodies. “You notice how similar they look?” I ask.

  “In what way?”

  “Same height, same hair color, same bone structure,” I say. Rot and decay has taken some of the details away, but there’s plenty of skin and flesh left to see the similarities. Tracey crouches down and shines a flashlight into the face of one, then the face of the other. The eyes are milky white with dark brown centers.

  “It’s hard to tell right now,” she says, “but they certainly do look alike. They could be brothers.”

  “Brothers?”

  “Yes. Related.”

  “I know what you mean,” I say, getting back up. Brothers. Twins. Orderlies. “How long have they been in the ground?”

  “No longer than a week,” she says. “Why, does that mean something to you?”

  “Possibly. I gotta go.”

  “You know who they are, don’t you?”

  “I’m working on it,” I say, but I’m not sure she hears me because I’m already racing off looking for a car I can borrow.

  chapter forty-eight

  The cell door is open and the air coming in is slightly cooler than that already in the room. In the doorway is Adrian, he’s holding a gun and a Taser, and standing next to Cooper is Cooper’s mother. Cooper can see the corridor behind Adrian and this isn’t Sunnyview or Eastlake, he doesn’t know where in the hell this is.

  “What is he talking about?” his mother asks him.

  He turns toward her. There is enough artificial light coming from the corridor behind Adrian to see her clearly. Wherever they are, they have power. This could be a house. In town somewhere? No way of knowing.

  “I don’t know,” Cooper answers, and his mother, aside from looking scared, is suddenly looking every one of her seventy-nine years, plus some. For the last few years she has had a look on her face as if she’s been sucking on a lemon, now she looks like that entire lemon has been jammed into her mouth. Her gray hair is a tangled mess, and even if Adrian Tasered her he’s still surprised he got her out of the house without her clawing her way back in for a comb and lipstick. She’s wearing a nightgown that has all the shape of a rectangle that he gave her two years ago for Christmas because he found it on sale for ten bucks. “You can’t listen to anything he says. He’s completely crazy.”

  “I’m not crazy,” Adrian says. “Look, look at the blood on him. He’s a killer.”

  “I’m not a killer,” Cooper says. Two minutes ago his mother was led into his cell at gunpoint and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it except stand at the back and watch unless he wanted to get shot. She came running toward him and almost rolled both of her ankles on the padded floor and he caught her before she fell. He hugged her hard, he didn’t want her being here but he was grateful to see her in a way, which made him feel immediately guilty, and she was grateful to see him too, to see he was still alive. Somehow Adrian has upgraded from a Taser to a gun. A Taser wasn’t great against two people, but a gun was. A gun could be good up against ten people if none of them had guns either. So Cooper stood back as the cell door was opened and in came his mother. He loves his mother but having her here has complicated things. A lot.

  “Why continue to lie? You don’t need to anymore,” Adrian says. “This is your chance to unburden yourself of all that hate, that hate that made you go and kill other people. Seven now.”

  Two, Cooper thinks, and even then it was really only one. But it will certainly be two once he gets out of this cell. Damn it, the sick fuck is even wearing some of his dad’s clothes, clothes that his mum should have thrown out nearly forty years ago when he walked out on them, but for some reason she kept. “I’m not a killer.”

  “Nice people don’t raise serial killers,” Adrian says, looking at Cooper’s mother. “So why care about trying to keep her happy by lying? She isn’t a nice person.”

  “Young man, you really need some serious help,” his mother says, and it’s the same tone she used to use on Cooper when he was a young boy and he wouldn’t finish his dinner or mow the lawn or was mean to his sister. The same tone she used on him when he stole the car. He’s half expecting her to make Adrian write a letter to his future self. “I don’t know what game you’re playing at here, but somebody is going to get seriously hurt.”

  “I can prove your son’s a killer,” Adrian says.

  “That’s bullshit,” Cooper says. “Don’t listen to him.”

  “He was driving girls out to Sunnyview. It’s a closed down mental hospital and it’s abandoned, and he’d keep them there for. .”

  “You’re crazy,” Cooper says to him, cutting him off. “Don’t listen to him, Mum. H
e’s an escaped mental patient. I used to interview him a few years ago for my book. He killed his family with an ax. He bit off their fingers and used them to draw pictures on the walls.”

  “Oh my God, that’s awful!” his mother says.

  “Wh. . what? I did no such thing,” Adrian shouts. “Tell her, tell her the truth!”

  “The police found him wearing a dress.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “It was his sister’s dress and it was too small for him but he wore it anyway.”

  “You poor boy,” his mother says to Adrian, “what kind of mother did you have to have raised you so wrong?”

  “It wasn’t their fault,” Adrian says. He moves the gun from Cooper’s mother back to Cooper, and Cooper doesn’t like the look of his shaking hand.

  “You had more than one?” she asks.

  “I only killed one of them,” Adrian says, yelling now, and Cooper puts his arm in front of his mother and steps slightly in front of her. “The other one. . the other one died naturally,” he says, “and I never ate any fingers or wore a dress! I would never do that!”

  “I want you to let her go,” Cooper says.

  “Are you sure? Is that really what you want? For your mother to be free to tell the world what kind of man you really are?”

  It’s a good point, and one that he’s been thinking about since Adrian first threatened to bring her back here.

  “I helped you,” his mother says. “I bandaged up your leg and this is how you repay us? You’re so rude and so ill-mannered. If I were your mother I’d be ashamed right now.”

  “Mum,” Cooper says, and gives her a look that suggests it’s time she shuts up.

  “Don’t you look at me like that, Cooper. I’ll speak my mind.”

  She’s going to get them both killed.

  “I knew she was a nasty lady,” Adrian says. “It’s just like the books said. Think of what she’ll tell everybody if I let her go. She may not believe me, but the police will listen to her, they’ll figure things out, they’ll know I’m not lying.”

  “Let her go,” Cooper says, only he doesn’t sound convincing and he’s sure his mother will hear it in his voice, and she does.

  “Cooper? Is any of what he’s saying true?” she asks, stepping back in front of him and turning to look him in the eyes.

  “Of course not,” he says.

  “All of it,” Adrian says.

  “Shut up, young man,” his mother says, throwing Adrian a glare before turning back to Cooper. “Tell me you haven’t hurt anybody,” she says.

  “He’s mad,” Cooper says. “I swear to you he’s mad and he’s making it all up.”

  “Promise me. Promise me you haven’t hurt anybody,” she says, and it sounds like she’s telling him off.

  “Look at all the blood on his clothes,” Adrian says, and he sounds desperate to convince her. “Ask him how it got there!”

  “I was trying to help somebody,” Cooper says. “There was a girl. Adrian stabbed her. I tried to save her, but I couldn’t,” he says, and suddenly he feels like a kid lying to his mother, wanting nothing more than for her to believe him, and if she does, what then? How can he convince her not to tell the police that Adrian kept calling him a serial killer?

  He doesn’t think he can. His mother is nearly eighty-and eighty-year-old women say a lot of random shit all the time, and some of that is going to stick somewhere. There must be a way he can walk out of here with her, he can play the part of the victim and the hero assuming the photos haven’t been found.

  “She bled out all over me and it was awful,” he says, “really awful. I tried so hard to save her but. . but I couldn’t,” he says.

  His mother takes his hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she tells him.

  “He told me where the dead girl was,” Adrian says. “How did he know? That’s what the police are going to ask!”

  “What dead girl is he talking about?” his mother asks. “The one you tried to save?”

  “A different one,” Cooper says. “He’s killed many.”

  “What about the thumb? He cuts people’s thumbs off and collects them in jars! I’ve seen it!”

  “You’re the one who cuts them off,” Cooper says.

  Adrian raises the gun, and Cooper steps further around in front of his mother. It could all end right now. Then Adrian smiles. “I understand why you’re saying these things,” Adrian says. “It’s because you’re scared.”

  “It’s going to be okay,” his mother whispers, her hand tight in his.

  “Don’t cry,” she tells him, and he wasn’t aware that he was. He reaches up and wipes at his eyes. “You’ll get us out of here,” she tells him.

  “I’m sorry,” he tells her.

  “It’s not your fault we’re here,” she says. “You can’t be responsible for others, especially for a young man badly deranged.”

  “I’m not deranged,” Adrian says. “Tell her, Cooper, tell her about the girl I found that you kidnapped. Tell her!”

  “What girl?” Cooper asks, knowing that Adrian must have found Emma.

  “The girl you left at Sunnyview. You were going to kill her.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Cooper asks.

  “I’ll show her to you,” Adrian says, “to both of you. I have her tied up.”

  “You have a girl here you kidnapped?” Cooper’s mother asks, and she’s asking Adrian.

  “I saved her.”

  “You saved a girl who you have tied up. Are you planning on hurting her?” she asks.

  “You don’t understand,” Adrian says.

  “Because you never make sense,” Cooper says to him.

  “You’re scared of her,” Adrian says. “You’ve always been scared of her because she’s dominated you your entire life. It’s what you wrote about in your book. It’s what they all write, all the people who know stuff about serial killers. It’s why she’s here. And you’re lying. I never killed my family. Never had a sister whose dress I never wore.”

  “Let us go, please, please, I’m begging you,” Mrs. Riley says.

  “I can’t. He’s too valuable.” He looks back up at Cooper. “Wait here,” he says, and he closes the door and disappears.

  “Thank God you’re okay,” his mother says, and embraces him.

  “I’m going to get us out of here,” he tells her. “I promise,” he says, and all he has to do is ask her not to go to the police until he’s found out whether or not they know he’s a killer.

  “He’s back,” Cooper says, hearing the footsteps outside the door. The door opens outward and Adrian is back, the gun still in his hand, no chance of grabbing it.

  “I’m doing this to help you,” Adrian says.

  “Doing what?” Cooper asks.

  “This,” he says, and he lifts the bottom of the shirt and clipped to his belt is a small Walkman. Adrian presses play, and Cooper can hear his voice coming back at him, Adrian’s voice too, and in that moment his mother’s fate is set. At seventy-nine years old, she has had her life. He has to cling to that, and he likes to think she would sacrifice herself to save him. That’s the kind of woman she is. He loves her. He just loves his freedom more.

  chapter forty-nine

  I’ve gotten a little more used to the roads now and only make two wrong turns leaving Grover Hills. I pull over at one point and fiddle with the unmarked patrol car’s laptop computer, dirt from the road slowly drifting by as I look up the address I want, and when I have it I turn up the volume on the police band and listen in to the reports coming from different parts of the city. Neighbors of Cooper Riley’s mother have described Adrian Loaner and Emma Green’s car as being seen in the driveway. It was one of the neighbors who called the police when he saw her being put into the trunk of the car. Bloody clothes have been left at the scene, and bandaging and medical tape and bloody rags were left on the dining room table. Adrian went there and forced Mrs. Riley to help him. More information comes in as I drive. An e
mpty grave has been found out at Sunnyview, most likely the location where Jane Tyrone was buried. Fingerprints found inside one of the padded cells has matched those taken from the hairbrush from Emma Green’s flat. The background images in the photos Cooper took match those of one of Sunnyview’s padded rooms. Corpse dogs are running the grounds while they wait for ground-penetrating radar to arrive.

  When I get into town I get caught up in a traffic jam. It’s almost eleven o’clock and hundreds of teenage drag racers with nothing better to do are out in their cars, cruising the four avenues surrounding the central city, proving to their friends and other drivers that they have a volcano of testosterone just waiting to be released, proving a point to the council and government that even though cruising in packs in their modified cars is now illegal they just don’t care, and proving to me that teenagers with this dickhead mentality are nothing more than sheep in their desperation to feel accepted. I listen to the police channel in the detective’s car, learning that there’s an estimated fifteen hundred drag racers circling the streets. Neon lights line the bottom of some cars, bright paint works, lots of chrome, and big mufflers, intersections are blocked and the police are just too busy with other things to care. Passengers in the car in front of me turn to give me the finger. I stare at them thinking about the man who killed my daughter, and how there’s a lot of room out in that forest for more graves. The line of traffic passes a parked car that’s been set on fire. I can see the lights from fire engines about four blocks away unable to get any closer. I manage to turn left onto a side street about a minute later and get clear of it all.