“You said no killing.” Buggy confirmed. “Very clearly.”
“Yet here we are,” Milo pointed to Rochelle. “She just tried to blow her face off.”
“Unfortunately.” Eli walked toward Rochelle. “Rebecca has many demons. She’d rather die than give up her power, wouldn’t you my dear?”
He wasn’t sure who was worse; Rochelle or Eli. “You made her do it.”
“Did I?” Eli smiled. “I don’t recall telling her to harm herself.”
“It was that word.”
“What word?”
“Fin-fucking-is.”
“Was it?”
“I’m so tired,” Rochelle said. “I want it to be over.”
“You sit,” Milo ordered. “And don’t move a fucking muscle.”
His gut was on fire. How would he explain this? Cunt wanted an arrest, not a body. He’d have to figure something out, because he had no way of proving Eli made Rochelle do anything. Although, he had to admire the poetic justice present in the near cluster-fuck that he’d just witnessed.
“Should we go check on Charlie?” Nina asked.
He would bet they wouldn’t find Charlie still breathing. “No. I’ll do it after I tie Rochelle up. Buggy can call the cops. I’ll be right back. Eli, you’re coming with me.”
“I should stay here with Rochelle.”
“Do I look like I stepped off the stupid train? You and me, in the barn, now.”
“Fun.”
CHAPTER 22
Milo shone the flashlight on the barn doors. The right side was open, and he saw footprints in the mud leading toward them. A slight breeze carried a familiar scent to his nose. “Stay behind me.”
“What do you think we’ll find?” Eli asked.
“Not sure,” he walked to the doors and then gently eased them open. He shone the light inside. “But with this group, it pays to be careful. They’re full of surprises and not the good kind. If he’s not dead, she probably pumped him up on LSD or something and he’s just waiting to wale on us with a machete.”
The barn was empty, save for a few boxes stored along the walls, and an old tractor parked at the back of the building. He darted the light around, pausing as he caught two glowing orbs in its beam.
He stopped walking. “What is that?”
A soft meow echoed in the darkness. That meow was followed by several more.
“Jesus.” He stepped back, but Eli’s skinny frame prevented him from exiting the barn. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Cats?”
“Yeah.”
“It is. You don’t like cats as I recall.”
“No.” He swallowed. His throat felt tight, like it was closing up. He imagined how many more cats might be hiding in the many nooks and crannies of the barn, waiting for him to walk by, step on their tail, and unleash the fury of a thousand Hells upon him. “You go ahead of me.”
“You’re the one with the gun,” Eli pointed out.
“You’re the one with the voodoo lips.”
“I am not magical.”
“How’d you get Rochelle to try to shoot herself? And don’t make out like I’m the lunatic. I know what I saw in there. You mind-fucked her.”
“Whatever I did, it neutralized her. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Not exactly.” He took a deep breath and stepped forward. He’d have sworn his balls shrunk just a little as a shadow darted past his feet.
“It’s impossible to make someone take their own life,” Eli said. “The brain’s self-preservation instinct is far too strong.”
“Liar. Rochelle used hypnosis to get the crazies to do what she wanted. She probably learned that trick from you.”
“Let’s say I did influence her actions, my... voodoo lips are no match for cats. They do as they please, and I can’t stop them.”
Another shadow. He stifled a scream. He’d find Charlie. These cats would not prevent him from doing his job. Of course, if Charlie was dead, and the smell of human barbeque told him he probably was, there was no point in going any further. Charlie didn’t need help anymore.
No. He steeled his shaky resolve. He had a gun, after all. Those cats were messing with the wrong guy.
He needed a distraction.
“So?” He said. “How did you hypnotize her so that she’d still obey you a couple of decades later? Oh Christ, are those fuck-nuggets like crazy time bombs? You think Rochelle rigged them to go off if she died.”
“That is possible. I taught Rochelle many techniques, including suggestive phrases to suppress compulsions,” Eli said. “However, I’ve never used it to harm anyone.”
“Until tonight.” He shone the light through the abandoned stalls. He almost gave up on finding Charlie when he noticed a heap of blankets in the stall on the far left side of the barn. “Shit.”
“What?”
“I think it’s Charlie.” He walked slowly to the stall, his ears burning as he listened for the cats he knew were watching them. As he approached the stall, he saw blue sneakers peeking out from beneath the blanket. They were black at the edges, as were the ankles above them.
“Oh my goodness,” Eli said and then coughed. “Do you smell that?”
Milo nodded. He smelled the same odor at Pyro-Pete’s crime scene and knew exactly what it was. He stood over the body, reluctant to peel the blankets back, but knowing he had to. Taking a breath through his mouth, he bent. He took the corner of the blanket and then gently pulled it back.
“Fuck me,” he gagged.
Something moved near Charlie’s burned hand.
“Jesus!” He said and the ball of fur looked up. It licked its lips. Milo retched, but managed to choke the vomit back down. “Get the fuck out of here, you furry little demon. Go on.” He kicked at the cat. It hissed, but ran away. “Fucking vile, all of them.”
“Is that your Charlie?” Eli sounded unperturbed.
“Yep.”
“How can you tell?”
“Wild guess. He’s not at the house, and she was going to drug all of us. Two plus two equals mass murder. And four, but I’m speaking metaphorically here. If I were speaking literally, I’d say in this case two plus two proves my point about the unlucky nature of twos and fours in general.”
“Are you all right?”
Milo wasn’t. He shook his head. Numbers didn’t matter. Charlie did. He was there to get justice for Charlie, lying freak show that he was, and the ones before him.
He dropped the blanket and then turned to shine the light at Eli. “How’d you do it?”
Eli sighed. “I had no part in this.”
“I meant Rochelle.”
“You aren’t going to let the matter rest, I see.”
“I usually don’t let criminals just walk away from their crimes,” he said. “It’s kind of my job to catch them.”
“You can’t prove I did anything.”
“You can’t prove you didn’t.”
“The burden of proof isn’t on me, though, Detective Smalls.”
Damn it. He was right. Milo felt itchy. It was probably the combination of cats and the general filthiness of the old barn. Or maybe it was knowing Eli would probably get away with murder if he wanted to, because he was right; Milo couldn’t prove he did anything.
Fuck. It went against everything in him to just drop the matter. Eli tried to kill someone. Sure, that someone was a whackadoodle doctor that tortured her patients and then killed them, but a life was a life. He was supposed to protect hers, even if she was a bigger cunt than Captain Cunt.
He’d trusted a stranger, which was his first mistake. He knew better. His only excuse was the shit show with Rochelle and the others put him off his game. The plan was to get her to confess and then arrest her. The plan was not to have her put a bullet in her face. He couldn’t stand when things went awry. Order was important. As soon as he finished processing the scene, he’d arrest Eli too. He’d find something to charge him with once they interrogated Rochelle.
Fu
ck, was he sweating? His shirt was wet so he must be sweating. He needed a shower. The smell of burned flesh, cat piss, and barn dirt threatened to overwhelm him. He shivered. How could he be cold if he was sweating?
“You’re in shock.” Eli said. “Just take a breath and—”
“Don’t you fucking go all hypno-voodoo on me, Doctor Death. I’m not above tit for tat. You just remember that.”
“What do you mean?” Eli held his hands up.
“It means you keep your witchcraft out of my head or I’ll shoot you in the face.”
“I can’t get in your head, Milo. You’ve never been hypnotized and I doubt it’s possible to put you under. Your will is far too strong.”
“Get the fuck away from me,” he said. Fuck, he couldn’t breathe. “Can’t flatter this guy into dropping his guard. Christ, I feel dizzy.”
“Deep breaths. Count as you take them. One in, and two out. Three in, and four out.”
He found himself breathing in the rhythm Eli told him to. They reached eight, and Eli stopped. “Nine in.” Milo breathed in. Fuck. “Ten out.” Ten wasn’t a good number. “Eleven in… twelve out.”
Twelve was good. Split into threes, though, there were four groups. He breathed to the count of fifteen. Fifteen was good. Three groups of five, or five groups of three. But five left two, and two… He closed his eyes.
“Gonna breathe myself into a fucking coma.” He said mostly to himself.
“Better?” Eli smiled.
“Little bit. I wasn’t joking about the attempted murder. You can’t just walk away from this.”
“Why not? I’ll go with you to talk to the police. I’ll explain Rebecca was my patient long ago. She disappeared and I tried to find her, but I couldn’t. You tracked me down after realizing what she was up to, and I came tonight to help you apprehend her. But Rebecca was too far gone. She wouldn’t listen to reason, and she became desperate to avoid capture. When you tried to arrest her, she grabbed your gun, hoping to end it all, but failed, because you stopped her. All in all, this works out well for you. Perhaps you’ll receive a commendation.”
“You thought it all through,” Milo said. Of course he had. Obviously, Rochelle’s psycho bullshit originated with Eli. He was the master. She was merely a pupil.
And Milo was a fool.
“I know this goes against everything in you, Detective Smalls, but you can’t prove anything, and what I did was an extraordinary measure. I have never taken a life, and I didn’t take Rebecca’s since she’s alive and well.”
He turned to look at Charlie’s body. “She burned him alive, I bet.”
“I imagine she did. Rebecca was always fascinated by pain.”
“She killed another girl by shoving a venomous snake in her ass.”
Eli winced. “That’s very tasteless. Creative, I suppose, but tasteless.”
“And crazy.”
“She is ill. I’m afraid no one can help her. God knows I tried.”
“I suppose there’s worse crimes committed out there than saving helpless loons from a blood-thirsty doctor.”
Eli sighed. “She isn’t blood-thirsty.”
“I’d say she’s at least a little blood-thirsty.”
“It had nothing to do with the need for blood or even death. Rebecca needed everything to be right. She needed order and control. Her desire to fix those people was real. However, she never could deal with failure.”
“You think?” He heard sirens outside.
“She killed Rochelle, because Rochelle ruined her vision of me. That disrupted her sense of security, which then led to feeling as though she’d been made a fool of. She killed that poor stupid boy for similar reasons. Long ago, I realized they weren’t the first, and they clearly weren’t her last. I suspected she killed her parents as well, but there’s no evidence. She did get smarter with practice.”
“Give the girl a star.”
“My point is; Rebecca will keep killing until someone stops her. We’ve stopped her for now, but eventually, they’ll let her out of prison.”
“What’s this “we” bullshit?” He was not taking responsibility for any of it. “You did whatever fuckery it is you doctors do and she tried to eat a bullet. I did nothing.”
“Doesn’t matter. When we tell the police what happened, you won’t have to lie. Rebecca took the gun willingly. Case closed.”
“Not in my mind it isn’t.”
The sirens were now almost deafening. Christ, why didn’t they shut them off? As though hearing Milo’s thoughts, they stopped, but the lights from the police cars still flashed though the barn’s broken windows.
“Come on, Detective Smalls. We have unfinished business in the house.”
“Do we?” He wanted to crawl under a rock and forget the past few weeks ever happened.
“There are still three people in there who are counting on you.”
“Those freak shows aren’t my responsibility.”
“Right.”
“They aren’t,” he insisted.
“Sure. I’ll look after them. Don’t worry. They’ll be perfect for an experimental treatment I’ve been planning.”
He watched Eli walk toward the doors. He stood for a moment, tempted to run out the back and away from the bullshit inside the house. Then he imagined Eli digging in Oz’s head, or Buggy’s. Fuck, he could really do a number on Nina.
I’ll look after them. Don’t worry.
Eli’s words were like daggers in his brain.
“Over my dead body,” he grumbled and followed Eli to the house.
***
“Hard to believe she really wanted to hurt us,” Buggy said as they watched two officers put Rochelle into a cruiser.
Milo stood next to him on the porch. Nina was in the driveway, talking to Captain Cunt. Where was Eli?
“What are we fuckers going to do?” Ozzie asked. “Can’t…g…can’t…ass-smashing-your-grandmother’s-a-rrrr… filthy-fuck-bag… ugh. Forget it.”
“You can’t what?” He urged. “Come on, Oz. Just because Rochelle’s gone doesn’t mean you’re hopeless. She was fucking you up anyway, not helping you.”
“Can’t afford another doctor. Fuck, yeah.”
Milo smiled. “Why don’t we all meet at the pub once a week, just like we did for group?” Why was he saying that? This was his chance to be rid of the maniacs.
“How will that help?” Buggy asked. “We need a qualified doctor.”
“Do you? Well, I’ll help you find a proper one. Doesn’t hurt to have a few people who accept you for who you are, though, crazy shit and all.”
“Eli said he’d treat us,” Buggy said.
“No.” He wasn’t letting Eli near any of them. How he’d pry Nina off Eli’s cock, Milo didn’t know, but he’d try. They weren’t friends, but he felt a little responsible for them. He was the one who brought Eli into their lives. He owed them something.
He searched the front yard, but didn’t see Eli anywhere.
“Why not?” Ozzie asked.
“He managed to get Rochelle to try to shoot herself in the face. You cool with a doctor that can make you blow your face off?”
“Not particularly,” Buggy said. “We can really meet every week?”
“Sure.” Milo was going to regret this. “Pick a day.”
“Wednesday.”
“Why Wednesday?”
“Broccoli soup night.”
Figured. “Fine. Wednesday nights. In the meantime, you two check into County, get a doctor to assess you. I’m sure whatever meds Rochelle put you on aren’t working.”
“County is a shit hole,” Ozzie said. “Fucking cocksuckers and whore-sluts.”
“They’ll take care of you, Oz. You need to see a doctor who doesn’t believe killing a patient is ever okay.”
Ozzie nodded.
Nina walked toward them. She was smiling, but he noticed her cheeks were damp. She’d probably fuck her elderly neighbor into a stroke tonight. He sighed.
The ca
ptain met his gaze. She nodded, put her hand to her ear in a “call me” gesture and then turned toward her car.
“Wait!” He called.
She stopped.
He jogged toward her. “You seen Eli? I told the uniforms to put him in a car.”
She frowned. “No. I talked to him inside, and then one of them said they would take him out... but I haven’t seen him since.”
His gut churned. “Is someone with Rochelle?”
“She’s locked in a cruiser.”
“Is someone standing guard?”
“She can’t escape a locked car, Milo.”
“But someone can get in, right?”
She tilted her head. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying Eli isn’t right. He gives me more heebs than Rochelle ever did. I think she knows something about him that he wants to keep quiet.”
“I’ll check on her.”
He nodded. “And I’ll find Eli.”
“When can we go home?” Buggy asked.
“They’ll want a statement.” Milo didn’t realize they’d followed him. “I’ll drive you guys to the station and when you’re done, I’ll make sure you get home.”
“I think this has been one of the most interesting months of my life.”
“Interesting is a strange way to describe it,” he said. “I’d say tortuous, horrible, even terrifying. Interesting is far too mild.”
“I guess,” Buggy said and then sighed. “Are you sure it was Charlie in the barn?”
He nodded. “I think Rochelle planned a similar fate for us.”
“Ball-sucking-duck-fucker.”
“Amen, Oz.”
“Milo?” the captain called from the cruiser he’d seen them escort Rochelle to earlier.
“Don’t tell me,” he muttered as he walked toward the car.
“You see Eli yet?”
He shook his head. “I’ve barely had time to look. Why?”
“She’s dead,” the captain said.
“How?”
“Choked herself with the seatbelt.”
“You believe she did that by herself?” He neared the car. Rochelle’s arm hung over the seat, her head was arched backward at an awkward angle.
“No, I don’t believe it, but no one saw anyone near the car.”
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