Innocent Monsters

by Doherty, Barbara

  And now she could hear footsteps moving closer, closer and closer to her, so close she could finally see the shadow of the man coming for her.

  From somewhere deep in the house, Kaitlyn’s voice was calling again and again it sounded different, like the voice of a frail old woman, but it didn’t ask her to please don’t tell mother. This time she was saying, It’s him, Jessica. It was always him...

  And the man outside the door got closer still. Now Jessica could see his legs, his hands clutched in fists by the side of his thighs, his face...

  Murderer, murderer, MURDERER...

  “Murderer!”

  Jessica woke up on the sofa sweating, a hand on her mouth to stop the word from coming out of it again.

  25 January 2001

  THE PHONE rang by the sofa the next day around one in the afternoon. Jessica opened her eyes and grabbed the receiver, surprised she had managed to fall asleep again after the dream and for so long.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s me.”

  She was hoping it wouldn’t be him, she was hoping William had decided to stay alone for ever so that she’d never have to face the thought in the back of her mind again, so that she’d never have to ponder the possibility of calling Charles Brown again.

  “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. You ok?”

  “I’m ok... I’m sorry about yesterday. Sorry I didn’t call.”

  “Yeah, well, Lisa’s gone.” She sat up on the sofa. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to see her again. Probably never.” She waited for him to say something but she heard nothing. “...William, can we meet today?” There was still no answer from the other side. “William? Are you still there?”

  “Yes. Is everything ok?”

  “Yes, everything’s fine. I just need to talk to you.”

  “Ok. Yes, we can meet.”

  “Where?”

  “I was going to ask you if you felt like taking a walk. It’s a nice day.”

  “Walk sounds good. Where?”

  “How about the Aquatic Park? It’s close enough to both of us. I’ll buy you an ice-cream.” Her lips curled, and he knew he had made her smile. “An hour? By the East side entrance?”

  “An hour and a half. I need to have a shower.”

  They both hung up and Jessica finally stood off the sofa and made herself a pot of coffee, stood by the window thinking, took a shower and got ready thinking, left the apartment thinking, still exploring all the different reasons William might have had to be at the Windsor Hotel that night, any reason he might have had to avoid telling her about it, and the more she thought the more the simple notion of him lying seemed preposterous. It wasn’t him. Couldn’t be. He didn’t need any reasons because he was not there that night. It was not him. She wanted to believe it, she needed to believe it because the thought of him somehow linked to her sister was frightening, because what they had was all she had and she wasn’t prepared to lose it because of some look-alike jerk in the reception of the Windsor Hotel waiting for her sister.

  The east side of the Aquatic Park opened on a vast meadow populated by kids playing with their kites. Jessica stopped to watch the coloured paper shapes swooping and soaring, littering the clear afternoon sky. William was sitting on the grass nearby, his chin lifted to the sky, admiring the movement of the kites himself. She walked towards him and reached him before he could see her coming, placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “Hi.”

  He looked up at her with a strange expression in his eyes, a light that made him look like a child, as brittle as a thin crystal glass. How could anyone with eyes like these deceive her, lie to her?

  She smiled at him. “Ever owned a kite?”

  “Nope.” He stood up brushing grass off his jeans and kissed her lips. “Never had the inclination. But I like looking at them. You?”

  “I remember this one time my mother took me and my sister to fly one. It was see-through with the image of a swallow on it. I must have been, what? Five maybe. I think it was a present for Kaitlyn’s birthday, from my grandmother.”

  Jessica remembered the three of them laughing, herself, her sister and her mother. She remembered the smell of wet grass, the light of the sky just before the end of the day, Kaitlyn’s delight, a pair of bright red wellington boots on her feet.

  “Have you ever been at the Windsor Hotel?” She asked him calmly.

  “Sorry?”

  “The Windsor Hotel, ever been there?”

  “Might have. What does it have to do with kites?”

  “Nothing. Nothing to do with kites at all, it’s just... This is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “The Windsor Hotel?”

  “Remember Lisa thought she had seen you somewhere? She seems to think she has seen you there.” He was listening with half a smile on his lips. “She said she saw you there back in November waiting for my sister.”

  “Weird. To be honest I’m not even sure what your sister looks like, Jessy. How could I have been waiting for her?” The half a smile still intact on his lips. “Is that it?”

  She half smiled back. “That’s it.”

  “Funny you should ask me about this: that guy you know, the one that sent you that card at Christmas... Charlie Brown? He left a message on my answering machine this morning.”

  She’d felt confused, even angry when Roger mentioned him, but hearing William pronouncing his name now was terrifying.

  “What did he want?”

  “He just said he needed to ask me a few questions about you and your sister. Any idea what that’s all about?”

  He sounded calm, too calm.

  She shook her head. “He seems to think there’s still an open investigation regarding my sister’s death.”

  “I thought you said she killed herself.”

  “I think she did. Personally, I think he’s wasting his time.”

  “Any idea how he got my number?”

  She shook her head again. “Don’t ask me what he’s doing, I have no idea.”

  William stroked her face, brushed stray hair away from her eyes. “Are you ok?”

  Jessica couldn’t breath properly. Her head was spinning. She needed to sit down but didn’t want to show him how disturbed she really was. Why was Brown trying to speak to him? What did he know that she didn’t?

  “Yes, I’m fine. I’m sorry, I should have told you about him. I had no idea he would try to talk to you. I just... It’s just easier to think that Kaitlyn has killed herself. I know it sounds terrible but I just didn’t want to know about Brown and…”

  William held her hand and squeezed it. “I understand. You don’t need to say anything. How can you move on when there’s someone out there who thinks this case is not closed?”

  There was a kiosk further down the hill from where they stood, just at the top of a lawn rolling down to the beach. Jessica watched a small group of children running madly around it, one after the other, tugging at each other’s jackets, laughing out loud. She remembered how frustrating she found it as a child when, no matter how fast she tried to run, Kaitlyn always ran ahead, always faster. She remembered a hot summer day, when another defeat seemed so unbearable she decided to slow her sister down by grabbing the back of her shirt and pulling as hard as she could; Kaitlyn losing her balance, falling and breaking her arm. Watching her sister going through a great deal of pain and frustration because of something she had done proved very difficult and it was around this time that Jessica promised herself she would always look out for her, make sure Kaitlyn was safe.

  She had not succeeded, that much was obvious, but she could still put things right. If there was anything she should have known about William, she would find out before anyone else could.

  “How about that ice-cream, then? Bet we can ge
t one down there.”

  She nodded, but she didn’t look at his face. She kept hold of his hand and they both started walking.

  She could hear that voice in her head again, the voice of doubt... Think, think about it. Even Brown knows... And she kept telling herself there was no reason to worry, none at all, that everything was going to be fine soon. Fine and clear.

  IT WASN’T a matter of trust. It didn’t matter how much she loved him. It was the voice in her head. It kept telling her things she didn’t want to hear, things she didn’t really believe; it made her see deception where she never noticed it before, it talked and talked and the only thing she could do to make it stop was prove it wrong. Or prove it right.

  That evening William asked her to go back to his place again and she went along. And waited. They ate dinner, she did the dishes and waited, they had some tea, she massaged his shoulders and waited, one hour, two, until he fell asleep on the sofa with an arm dangling down the floor and the other around her waist. Jessica laid quietly on top of him, her chin on his chest, looking up at him, at the ginger beard growth on his chin. She had never met anyone whose beard and hair were of two different colours.

  The house was quiet, the evening darkness only broken by the light coming from the floor lamp by the side of the sofa, and all she could hear was his heavy breathing.

  How much she loved him already, how much she wished she could stop time somehow, make this moment and its stillness last an eternity, preserve both of them from what was bound to happen, from the inevitability of it all. But she couldn’t. She needed to know. So she moved his arm off her waist and carefully moved away from him, slowly, little by little, and once off the sofa she squatted next to him for a while longer to make sure he was still asleep. His breathing was deep, like that of a person who still has hours of rest ahead so she stood up and walked upstairs.

  She went straight for the trunk.

  Earlier that evening she had started searching the house in her mind, trying to think of places where he might keep something hidden and at first she couldn’t really think of anywhere. The whole house was incredibly uncluttered; every piece of furniture, every drawer, absolutely everything seemed to be there for an obvious reason. Drawers in the kitchen only contained cutlery, tea towels and napkins. The sideboard in the sitting room only contained cds and DVDs, the cabinet in the toilet only contained medicines and plasters, the airing cabinet only towels and sheets. She hadn’t spent much time in the bedroom, but she could already bet that the wardrobe would only contain clothes and shoes. But then she remembered noticing a large trunk in there and suddenly she was sure that if William was even capable of keeping anything spare, he would have kept it in there. Suddenly she was sure that in there she would find whatever it was she was looking for.

  Jessica groped in the dark looking for the switch for one of the lamps on the bedside tables. It was ridiculous, she knew that the light of a single bulb would never be bright enough to disturb William sleeping on a different floor, but as soon as she turned it on she stared at the door anyway, for several seconds, half expecting to see him standing there, outraged by her intrusion. When it was obvious that nothing was going to happen, she kneeled on the floor and lifted the lid of the trunk. Unsurprisingly, it was nearly empty apart from a couple of portfolio folders, a squash racket and an empty sports bag, but under the bag she found a large black box which she pulled out and placed on the floor in front of her.

  Jessica felt like a thief with a full house to burgle and only five seconds to do the job; she couldn’t tell if she was feeling hot or cold anymore but she had to do this, she had to open it, go through his things, stop the voice in her head. She had to put things right.

  What she found at first was a few printouts, online articles throughout which William had highlighted words and entire phrases, and she started reading through them, unable to stop herself.

  ...John Wayne Gacy... executed in 1994 for the rape and murder of thirty three boys and men...

  ...Arthur Gary Bishop... child molester and serial killer... Somehow I became sexually attracted to young boys and I would fantasize about them naked... All boys became mere sexual objects…

  ...Westley Allan Dodd... executed in January 1994... Dodd began sexually abusing children when he was 13 years old... some of them as young as 2 years old... sentenced... death for molesting... should be punished to the full extent of the law, as should all sex offenders and murderers...

  Dodd’s face was staring at her from the mug shot printed with the article, black hair, thick mustache, the remorseless look in his eyes making it impossible to keep reading, too disturbing. Was this just a morbid obsession with serial killers? Or was it part of a side of him he had kept hidden from her?

  She left the papers on the floor and went back to the contents of the box. Next she found photographs: an old couple, maybe his parents, maybe his grandparents, a dog, a school picture, rows of boys’ grainy faces faded by time; a toddler and a little girl with a large jumper on, the legs sticking out of her skirt nothing but a pair of chopsticks, her face too small to make out, writings on their back reading Helena 7 months, Helena 7 years old – Lafayette – Maine. And another picture, William 18 months, and she smiled at him, smiled at his big blue eyes. Then she thought she heard William cough and all she wanted to do was stand up, throw the box up in the air and run away, but her body stood right where it was, petrified for a couple of seconds, until her hands started moving again and fished out another photograph. It was the girl, the one from the pictures all over his study’s wall, the one in the poster, his ex-girlfriend. She was standing in a meadow with a bunch of yellow flowers in her hands, a dark dress with puffy sleeves and a delicate, invisible smile on her lips. She looked awfully young, her brown hair long and thick, her eyes green, her skin pale and so similar... Almost a spitting image of herself.

  He always goes for the same kind of women.

  She turned the photo over to find a blurred dedication in pen scribbled on the top left hand corner. March ’79. To my life, my sadness, my joy, my madness, my love, my brother. Helena.

  Helena...

  Helena was his sister...

  Helena was his girlfriend...

  I guess you could call her that.

  Jessica could picture them, she could see them naked, together in the same bed, making love, brother and sister and she felt disgusted and nauseous, shocked. But then she saw something else just underneath the photographs, something that not only stopped the queasiness growing in her stomach, it numbed her altogether. Dozens of newspaper clippings were piled at the bottom of the box: an article about her brand new contract with the Jefferson, her interview for The Word, reviews of her book, pictures and pictures of herself. Her sister obituary from the Southern Journal; a small article about her father drunkenly driving through the glass wall of the supermarket, parking right in front of the tills; half a page dedicated to his trial and conviction. Even the short story she had written for the Longfellow school competition fifteen years ago. How the hell could he get hold of all these things? Where? Why?

  Jessica kept blinking, looking at the inside of the box and the picture of Helena still in her left hand, until the voice of her brain spoke to her calmly, as if coming from another person, someone who wasn’t even in the same room, someone who wasn’t feeling scared or mystified.

  See Jessy, the clues are all here: the man was so attached to his sister he actually thought he could replace her with you. He was so obsessed he would have done anything to have you, to have her back. Think. Think about it. Anything, Jessica. Anything... He WAS at the Windsor Hotel, he WAS there waiting for Kaitlyn. Lisa was right and he lied to you. Why do you think? Why do you think he lied?

  Brown was right. Kaitlyn had been killed and William was the man he had been looking for.

  “Jessica, what are you doing?”

  W
illiam’s voice didn’t startle her much, as if she’d been waiting for him to wake up and find her going through his things all along. “You did it.” Her voice was shaking.

  “You did it, you son of a bitch.”

  “Did what?”

  How could he sound so innocent?

  “You killed her, didn’t you? You killed my sister. You did know her and you killed her because...” Because he had to go through her to get to you. “...Because she knew what kind of a pervert you are and she wanted to warn me and if she ever did you would never fuck your sister again.” She was hurt, more than she could remember ever being before, yet she found she couldn’t shed a single tear. “It wasn’t me. It was never me you wanted.”

  William stood in front of her shaking his head, all the muscles of his face contrite in a sad expression. She saw two single heavy tears coming out of his eyes as if squeezed out with a syringe.

  “You don’t understand.” His voice was calm, his eyes fixed on the black in the trunk behind her. “I knew you wouldn’t. I never fucked her. It wasn’t me who fucked her. I loved her, you can’t fuck someone you love. My father, he was the one who fucked her, he fucked us both. Me and her. He fucked us up. You think I liked it? You think I enjoyed it?”

  Jessica was scared, confused and furious but the voice of her brain still managed to sound calm. Any idea what he’s talking about, it was asking, and then it stopped. All she could hear was silence. In that precise moment she looked at William and she understood, she knew what he was talking about, she knew about his hurt, about his pain, about the fear and the violence. She knew about his father. She could feel it. She could read it on his face. And she found she couldn’t shout You did it anymore, but...

  “Tell me you didn’t do it. Tell me it wasn’t you who killed her... Did you? Did you know my sister?”