The Cruelest Cut

by Rick Reed

  “Will you have any more?”

  Says Judy to Punch,

  “My eyes are too sore.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Well. Didn’t expect this, Eddie thought, and watched the nurse pull the curtains over the windows of the tiny cabin. He’d followed her from the gas station, where she’d bought a bag full of goodies and a case of beer, to somewhere called Patoka Lake Cabins, almost a two-hour drive northeast.

  It hadn’t been hard following her on Interstate 64. Hell, he was right behind her a couple of times, but he allowed a car or two to get between them from time to time. She’d turned off on Indiana 231 North, taking the back roads through small towns that were sometimes nothing more than a truck stop with a few mobile homes. Eventually, when she’d stopped at an office that looked like a log cabin, he pulled off the road like he was checking a map.

  The hard part was the last couple of miles as she wound her way into the woodlands, back through gravel and then hard-packed dirt roads, climbing steeply at first and then dropping down into the valley that made up Patoka Lake.

  When Eddie saw her slow, he pulled off in a turnaround and waited. She turned down a short gravel drive and stopped in front of a cabin surrounded by trees.

  He and Bobby had given her a few minutes and then walked the last couple hundred yards, circling around the cabin to the west, and then coming back around to a densely grown area where they could watch the front of the cabin without being seen.

  Until a few moments ago she had been scurrying around. Then he heard music coming from inside. Romantic type stuff. Apparently she was expecting someone. To Bobby, he said quietly, “If a dude shows up, I’ll just do him, too.”

  “I wonder if her nose is itchin’?” Eddie asked, and then answered his own question. “’Cause she’s about to get company.”

  That was when she shut the curtains and the front door. Eddie hoped it wasn’t locked. It was such a nice-looking little place, he’d feel bad about huffing and puffing and blowing her house down.

  Inside the cabin, a disappointed Tisha Carter was just closing her cell phone. Janet had changed her mind again. After all the planning, not to mention the expense, Janet was not coming. Well, there’s nothing I can do now, she thought. I can’t get my money back. Might as well enjoy the cabin.

  “Dammit!” she said, and just as she got the word out she heard the cabin door. Her heart leapt with anticipation. It’s Janet. She was just teasing me, she thought. It was the last happy thought she would ever have.

  Captain Franklin leaned back in his chair and listened to Jack and Liddell’s theory. Maddy Brooks remained quiet, letting the detectives take credit for what she considered her own idea.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Franklin was saying. “You’re telling me this nut is sending these notes to us as messages about whom he’s going to kill next?”

  “Well, more precisely he’s sending the messages to Maddy. We are finding notes at the scenes of the murders, but, the best we can figure it, she has gotten a note in advance every time,” Jack said. “And the note about the Lamar kids had my name on it. We didn’t find that at the scene.”

  “And you can’t tell us anything about how the notes are getting there, Miss Brooks?” Franklin asked.

  She blushed slightly before answering. “Our receptionist was the one that found the notes.” She seemed to weigh her words before going on. “Lois is her name. Lois Hensley.” She waited to see if anyone recognized the name. Franklin did.

  “Hensley? As in Mayor Thatcher Hensley?”

  “That’s her,” Maddy said and made an ugly face as if to say, See what I have to put up with?

  Franklin asked, “Has anyone questioned her yet?”

  “We wanted to bring you up to date first,” Jack responded.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Franklin said.

  Maddy cleared her throat. “There’s something else you need to be concerned about, gentlemen.”

  Franklin noticed Maddy looking at Jack, as if waiting for him to explain.

  Jack looked at the floor while Liddell spoke. “We think the killer might be targeting Jack.”

  “What!” Franklin exclaimed, although he privately had believed the same thing.

  Maddy jumped in. “The last note to me wasn’t a rhyme—it was a riddle.”

  “So,” Franklin said, “this guy is nuts.”

  “Maybe nuts, but very shrewd,” she said. “I think—we think—that the last note is a riddle for Jack to figure out.”

  “Are you saying he’s doing this to get Jack’s attention?”

  “Not only for that reason,” Jack said. He felt a knot forming in his stomach. “It’s more like I’m having my nose rubbed in it.”

  Maddy said softly, “He may have already killed again.”

  “Deputy Chief Dick said I was supposed to report to you, Captain,” a voice said from the doorway.

  They all looked up to see the haggard-looking figure of Detective Jansen leaning in the doorway, wheezing like he’d just finished a marathon race.

  “What’s he doing here?” Liddell asked.

  “Detective Jansen is on the case with us now,” Jack said. “I’ll fill you in later.”

  “So who’s gonna fill me in?” Jansen asked and lecherously eyeballed Maddy Brooks.

  Franklin spoke up. “Detective Blanchard is going to take you to the squad room and get you started,” he said to Jansen, and then to Jack, “Jack, I need a moment of your time.”

  Liddell looked at Jack, then turned and led the missing persons detective out while Maddy watched their retreating figures. “Detective Blanchard doesn’t look too happy,” she remarked.

  Jack, who was barely holding it together, shot her an angry look.

  “Maddy,” Captain Franklin said quickly, “would you give us a moment, please?”

  Before she left the office, Franklin called out to her, “Maddy.”

  She turned and smiled, expecting to be let back into the meeting, but Franklin said severely, “Not a word about any of this on the air.”

  She assumed the look of a deer caught in headlights and wondered if he had been reading her mind. “Not a word, Captain. I promised, didn’t I?” And she left the office.

  When Jack came back into the detective squad room, Liddell was explaining to a half-interested Jansen that they were going through the files to see if they could find a connection between the victims and the killer, or between the killer and Jack.

  Liddell looked relieved when Jack came in. “Maddy said she was going back to the station to see if she could narrow down when the notes actually arrived,” he said.

  Jansen looked up, saw Jack, and said, “How we gonna find anything in these damn files, Murphy?”

  Jack responded calmly, “The captain wants you to go to Channel Six and try to nail down the exact times those notes were delivered. See if they have security cameras. You know the routine.” But he only half believed that Jansen really knew what he was doing. And even if he did, he didn’t think Jansen would give half an effort. Jack added, “We’ll deal with these files.”

  Jansen paused, weighing the possibility of losing track of Murphy against the idea of being at the television station around gorgeous babes like Maddy Brooks. The deputy chief would be pissed if he found out Jansen had left Murphy alone. But he could always say that he was ordered to by the captain. “Captain Franklin, huh?” he said, and put the file down that he hadn’t opened yet.

  “Yeah, the captain,” Jack lied. “I guess he figured since the mayor’s mother is going to have to be interviewed, it should be someone with more seniority and tact than me doing it.”

  “The mayor’s mother?” Jansen said to Liddell. “You didn’t tell me nothing about the mayor’s mother being involved in this shit.” His face took on a pained look, as if he’d just swallowed an ice cube and gotten brain freeze.

  “Well? You didn’t tell me you were blowing Double Dick,” Liddell responded. “So we’re even.�
��

  Jansen ignored the insult, grabbed his hat, and waddled out of the squad room. As soon as he was out of earshot, Liddell asked, “What’s really going on, pod’na?”

  Jack told him about the conversation with Captain Franklin. How Franklin said the mayor was putting pressure on the chief, and that he believed that there was going to be a coup attempt by Deputy Chief Dick to replace Pope.

  “Chief Double Dick.” Crossing his arms across his big chest, Liddell said, “Ugh, me Chief Double Dick. Me fuck’em up’em wet dream.”

  Jack didn’t laugh. The thought of Dick becoming chief wasn’t funny.

  “Is that really possible?” Liddell said, getting serious. “Is there no God?”

  “God’s got nothing to do with it,” Jack said. “If he did, Jansen would be a wart on Double Dick’s ass.”

  Liddell laughed until he almost choked.

  “Okay, that’s enough. We’ve got work,” Jack said, looking at the two large stacks of folders.

  “Do warts wear hats?” Liddell asked.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Jack tried to concentrate on the stack of files on his desk, but the last riddle kept nagging at him until a sense of urgency swept over him. This case was like nothing he had ever come across, and the normal methods of investigation didn’t apply. Murphy’s Law said that if something could go wrong it most likely would at the most inopportune moment. Not only had Maddy Brooks broken her promise to the captain, by going on the six o’clock news and hinting that the police suspected the recent killings were the work of a serial killer, but she had also claimed the police had dubbed the killer “Mother Goose.” That would bring every nut job out of hiding to get their faces on camera.

  These cases had been screwed from the beginning, which only confirmed the rule. There were no witnesses to interview, the bodies were hacked into sushi, and the victims seemed to have nothing in common.

  That last thought brought him out of his reverie. “Liddell,” he said.

  “Huh,” Liddell said, his nose still buried in a file.

  “What if these victims are all connected somehow?”

  Liddell stopped reading and looked at him. “Connected how?”

  “Well, why did the killer pick these particular people? What did they have in common?”

  “We’ve been through this, buddy. They didn’t have anything in common except dying a horrible death.”

  “I knew Timmy Ryan,” Jack said. “And Anne Lewis’s name sounds familiar. She was a psychiatrist or psychologist, right?”

  Liddell leaned back, and his chair creaked loudly with his weight. “But she wasn’t your psychiatrist, was she?”

  “No,” Jack said, and wondered if his partner could ever be serious. “Wait a minute. Where’s that file?” He rummaged around on his desk and found the case file on Anne Lewis and her husband. Flipping through some of the reports, he finally stopped and pulled a page out.

  “Here it is,” he said, holding up the paper. “Jansen worked on this case,” he said, and Liddell moaned and covered his face with both hands. “Let me finish. Jansen said in the one and only supplement he wrote that besides her private practice, Anne Lewis worked as a court-appointed psychiatrist.”

  Liddell caught his meaning. “And what if she knew the killer?” he finished Jack’s thought. Then he looked at the pile of paper on his desk. “That means more files, Jack. We’ll need someone to put all this stuff into a database so we can search for connections.”

  “I’ll see the captain,” Jack said. “See if he can spare some real help.”

  “Better get that corporate shrink of Maddy’s in here, too,” Liddell said, causing Jack to turn and look questioningly at him. Liddell explained, “Well, he seems to be an expert on Mother Goose.”

  “Don’t you start it, too, Bigfoot,” Jack said and left. He’d had all of the Mother Goose crap he could stand for one night. Even the mayor had come in to ream the chief and demand to know what was being done about “Mother Goose.” When the chief couldn’t produce a solid suspect, the mayor suggested that the police should “bring in a psychologist, like on CSI.”

  Jack wondered if the mayor really didn’t know that CSI was just a television show, and not real life. Also, that the police department didn’t use psychologists to solve cases. But then he would have to explain that Ghost Hunters was also just entertainment for the weak-minded or bored, and that they probably wouldn’t be able to speak to the spirits of the deceased to get information. Sometimes it’s better to just keep it zipped and let them think they’re helping. But if the mayor kept this up, the investigation would turn into a circus and Jack would be just another clown.

  “The bitch clawed me, Bobby!” Eddie screamed. He sat on the floor of the cabin with his hand clamped to his right ear. Blood seeped between the fingers of his hand, and his ear burned like hell.

  Eddie picked up the corn knife and started to get up. “I’m gonna take her fuckin’ head clean off.”

  Bobby just shook his head sadly. “She’s dead, bro. Besides, that would mess up the message.”

  Eddie dropped his arm. Of course, Bobby was right. When she was found, she had to look just like this. If he did any more cutting it would screw things up.

  “Okay, I guess we can get out of here, Bobby.” Eddie started toward the door, but then remembered the note. He took it out of his pocket, grabbed the woman’s face roughly, and forcing the jaws open, shoved the note into her mouth and as deep as he could into her throat.

  Eddie stood back and looked at his handiwork. Something’s missing, he thought. He dipped his finger in her blood, and then dabbed it on her nose.

  “That’s better,” he said and smiled.

  Captain Franklin had promised Jack someone to help sort through the mounting files and, thankfully, had rejected the idea of bringing in a psychologist. But before Jack went back to his office, he had to see someone. He left headquarters and drove the short distance to the neighborhood he had grown up in, and parked a little way down from the familiar house so he would have more time to think up a good reason for being there. But the truth of the matter was that he wasn’t sure himself why he was there.

  The sky was dark, threatening rain, and the air had turned cool. Winter was months away, but, according to the old-timers, it would be an especially harsh one.

  He walked down the brick walkway that he and his father had laid when he was a kid, and up onto the porch of the house he had grown up in. His ex-wife, Katie, opened the door before he could knock. When they had divorced, they’d agreed that she would keep the house, and he moved into the river cabin that his grandfather had built.

  “I saw you coming up the walk,” she said, and smiled at him.

  Even with everything that was happening, Katie’s smile warmed him, and he wondered, not for the first time, how he could have managed to screw up their marriage so completely.

  “Hi, Katie,” he said, and waited to be shown into the house they used to share. He knew every nook and cranny of the house, from which floorboards creaked to how the wind would sometimes whistle in the bathroom window if it wasn’t shut tight. She led him into the living room and sat on the recliner, leaving him to the couch, and the thought struck him that Katie had remembered that he couldn’t sit in the chair when he was wearing his gun. He’d always sat on the couch, where he had more room. But even with the fact that she had remembered such a trivial point, he still felt uneasy here. It didn’t feel like his house anymore.

  “How’ve you been?” he asked, inwardly groaning at his stupid question.

  She averted her eyes and said, “Oh, you know…fine, I guess. How’s Susan?” she asked.

  The remark had surprised him. Embarrassed him. Why should I feel guilty? It’s not like Susan and Katie aren’t on friendly terms. Sometimes a little too friendly. In fact, Katie and Susan had become such good friends that he sometimes felt like the outsider. He would have understood it better if Katie and Susan had felt threatened by each other, but ins
tead they had formed a bond around a common cause. And that cause was Jack Murphy.

  He also knew that Katie was dating an attorney. How could she possibly be attracted to an attorney? He had often wondered if she was doing that just to spite him, but Katie wasn’t like that. After he had been released from the hospital, both she and Susan had taken turns caring for him, feeding him, changing his bandages.

  But recently it had all become very uncomfortable for him. And when he was alone with Katie, which didn’t happen often, she seemed uncomfortable as well.

  He realized she was talking to him, and said, “What?”

  “Why are you here, Jack?” Katie asked. Her features clouded with a familiar look of worry. He wanted to apologize for coming over without calling and then run for his car. But he needed someone to talk to that had nothing to do with the case, or the police. When they were married, no matter how serious a case he was investigating, he would sit with her and talk about nothing. Just being near her helped him clear his head, helped him realize that there were still good people in the world, and that he was putting up with this job in the sewer of society for the protection of people like Katie. He had never shared his concerns or the ugly part of his life with her because he was protecting her. He had to keep her clean of all of that. He had to have something unblemished, untouched by evil, to come home to.

  But he knew, in his own way, he had ruined the very thing that he needed the most. She had been right to divorce him. He thought he should leave before he made her worry, or made more of a fool of himself. But then he had an idea.

  “Look, Katie, do you still have those—” He paused, almost saying Mother Goose books, and said instead, “nursery rhyme books you use for class?” Katie taught sixth grade at a school for troubled children, and he knew she had a score of children’s books lying around. He had the book Maddy had acquired from her company shrink, and he was sure he could find hundreds of articles on the Internet, but he had needed to see Katie, to see that she was okay, and to tell her…to tell her what?