What You Don't Know

by JoAnn Chaney

  “This doesn’t feel like Seever,” Hoskins says, watching the techs carefully zip Simms into a black body bag.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Seever kept his victims. Buried them under his house. He wanted them close, and he wanted to keep under the radar. But this.” Hoskins takes a breath, slowly, but not deeply. “This guy isn’t even bothering to hide the victims. He tied those last two together, he wanted them to be found at the same time.”

  “Okay.”

  “He’s targeting people, specific people. This guy wants us to find these women and immediately connect it to Seever. You saw that article this morning about Brody and Abeyta? People are already making the connection to Seever.”

  “It’s a lot of work to set up these murders so it looks like Seever’s involved,” Loren says. “Why would this guy go to all the trouble?”

  “I don’t know,” Hoskins says. “I stopped trying to understand the shit people do a long time ago.”

  “You should see one more thing,” Loren says, putting the cigarette out against the side of the house before stepping inside. “Down here.”

  Hoskins follows Loren, slowly picking his way out of the kitchen and down a hall—so short it could barely be called that, a few feet at most—and into the only bedroom. It’s small. A futon bed pushed against the wall takes up most of the room, a cheap dresser eats up the rest. There are textbooks on the dresser, a calendar tacked up on the wall. It’s probably a freebie from a bank, but the pictures are good. Scenes of Colorado, it says. It’s open to November still, the photo of jagged red rocks jutting up out of snow-covered pines.

  The blankets are wadded at the end of the bed, caught in the no-man’s-land between the mattress and the frame, the bottom sheet covered in fans of dried blood.

  “Up there,” Loren says, and it takes him a moment to notice the words written above the flimsy metal headboard in heavy black letters. He wonders if the guy had written them up there while Simms was still alive, if she’d had to look up at those words as she’d been fighting, trying to survive. He hopes not.

  It’ll never be over.

  “There’s no way Seever’s in contact with anyone on the outside. He doesn’t write letters, he doesn’t have access to email. No one visits him anymore except his wife, and half the time he’s so drugged up he can’t find his own dick. I don’t see how he could have anything to do with this.” Loren sighs. “But then there are the fingers. No one ever knew about those.”

  “Yeah, but there were plenty of guys working that crawl space. Any one of them could’ve let it slip, told someone. It was in the case files. There were photos taken. It could’ve gotten out a dozen different ways.”

  “What about this shit?” Loren asks, pointing at the words above the bed. “That never made it into any of the reports at all. That was between me and you and Seever.”

  “What’re you saying?”

  “How would this guy know to write those words up there, unless he’d heard them before?”

  “If you think I’m guilty of something, say it,” Hoskins says. “Don’t be a pussy. Ask me.”

  “You never told anyone about him saying that, did you?”

  “No.” Hoskins answers immediately, without thinking, and realizes that’s a lie a moment too late. Because he did tell someone—Sammie. “I never told anyone.”

  “I never told anyone either,” Loren says.

  Loren looks at him, then away. Another throwback to when they were partners. Being suspicious of each other. It’s hard being chained to one person for so long, and there were times they hadn’t handled it well.

  “You think I killed Carrie Simms?” Hoskins asks. “Is that what you’re getting at?”

  “Did you?” Loren asks.

  “You’re really going to ask me that when you look like Seever’s doppelgänger?”

  “Don’t act like this is new, Paulie. You know how I work.”

  Yeah, I do, Hoskins thinks. Seever’s the best thing that ever happened to him. Seever made Loren’s career, it got him a promotion, a private office, a nice raise. Seever made Loren a legend, and after it was all over, after the hunt was done, everything seemed so bland in comparison. So tame. These three dead women are perfect for Loren; he gets to go back to Seever, life is one big carousel and here they are, back where it started, like star football players reliving the playoff game.

  “Bullshit,” Hoskins says. “It was never like this before. And now he’s in prison, so you can cut the crap.”

  “Okay,” Loren says. “Maybe I dressed up like Seever for you.”

  “What?”

  “You and Seever, spending all that time together in that room. Which one was it? Interview Room Two, the one all the way at the end of the hall, right? Good ol’ IR2—isn’t that what everyone calls it? Seever was filling your ear with all his dirty secrets, and you haven’t been the same since then.”

  “What the fuck are you getting at?”

  “I wanted to see your face when you saw me like this,” Loren says. “I thought you were going to shit your pants out there. You and your girlfriend both.”

  Hoskins bites the inside of his cheek, hard, because he’s going to start laughing if Loren doesn’t stop talking. It’ll be hysterical, horsey laughter, and he’s not sure he’ll be able to stop once it gets started. Loren and his stupid shit, his fucking crazy ideas. If you tried to make someone like Loren follow the rules and act normal, you’d end up with a bomb strapped to your car’s undercarriage.

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” he says wearily. “So you can put that stupid-ass idea right out of your head. This is a copycat killer, plain and simple.”

  “I know you haven’t killed anyone. I had you cleared first thing, when Abeyta and Brody were pulled out of the water,” Loren says. He puts his forefinger on the center of the glasses and pushes them up his nose, like Seever always did, and that one movement is so damn true it’s nearly surreal, and Hoskins is hit by a wave of fear so hard it feels like a stomach cramp, nearly makes him double over. “But there’s someone out there who admires Seever, wants to finish his work.”

  Loren had him cleared, and that pisses him off, but he doesn’t argue, doesn’t question why the hell Loren would suspect him first, out of anyone. Maybe he’ll bring that up later, but now he’s too damn tired.

  “I’ve got to go,” he says.

  “You remember Alan Cole?” Loren asks.

  Hoskins shakes his head.

  “He used to work with Seever, supplied the uniforms for the restaurants. The two of them were real good pals, did a lot of partying together, but we were never able to pin anything on him.”

  “The real skinny guy, with the mustache?” Hoskins asks. “Yeah, I remember him.”

  “Jesus, I wish I would’ve ripped that pussy tickler right off his face.”

  “Why do you bring him up?”

  “Cole was charged with sexual assault and attempted murder a year after Seever got locked up,” Loren says. “He bolted, been on the run ever since. I think he’s our guy. The one behind this shit.”

  “Any sign of him?”

  “Not yet, but we’ll find him. Turds like him always turn up, you just have to sniff ’em out.” Loren pauses. “And I don’t want you telling your girlfriend out there about this. That’s the last thing I need, it getting out that we’re looking for Cole, give him a chance to run.”

  “If you’ve already got a suspect, I don’t know why I’m here at all,” Hoskins says. “Sounds like you’ve got it under control.”

  Loren looks at him.

  “The chief’s orders,” he says shortly. “He doesn’t think it’s Cole, still wants us to follow up on other suspects.”

  “Okay.”

  “I already have a task force put together,” Loren says. “You can meet them all tomorrow. In the conference room on eight.”

  “Fine. I need some air.”

  It’s the smell of blood that’s bothering him, the smell of death and pi
ss, but more than anything, it’s the smell of Simms in the room that sends him reeling. It’s not perfume—she probably hadn’t been able to afford anything nice—but just deodorant, powdery and light, and laundry detergent. Basic smells, clean and fresh, and they seem so out of place here, with all the blood, and those words, those fucking words up on the wall.

  Outside, there’s a Korean guy standing in the driveway, leaning against the bumper of a car, getting his blood pressure taken by a paramedic. His mouth is frozen in a wah-wah shape, like one of those unhappy masks they use in theatre, and every time he weeps, clouds of steam come puffing out from his face, only to immediately rise and disappear. Frank Cho, who said Carrie Simms was a good tenant. That she was always thankful for the kimchi and the bean sprouts he’d bring over, that she was quiet and respectful. He’d been hoping she’d renew her lease and stay on another year.

  Those words on the wall, and the missing fingers—they’re small, but it’s the small things that are usually the worst, the ones that cause the most damage, like tumors hidden away in the meatiest parts of the belly, patiently waiting for the right time to spew their poison and kill the host. But it’s not only those things—it’s Loren dressed like Seever, acting like him. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It’s not fair. He needs to be able to move on with his life. But it’ll never be over, like Seever had said. And, somehow, he’d been right the whole time.

  Hoskins’s hands are shaking, and he can’t keep the image of Seever out of his head, sitting there with his wrists chained to the table legs in Interview Room Two, smiling, and probably doing the same thing with Loren, out at the prison. Talking nonstop, barely any pauses between his words, stuffing their heads full of shit. Seever had fucked Hoskins up real good, and now Loren too.

  I’d choke them until they were almost dead, he’d told Hoskins. Then I’d bring ’em back. Resuscitate them. I took a class on it one time, down at the Y. And when they’d come back they’d be so thankful, they’d cry, they’d think I was ready to let them go. They thought I was done.

  “You bastard,” Hoskins mutters angrily. He’s wasted so much of his life on Seever, so much of his time, and now it’s like he’s back again. The snow has started, falling from the gray sky, and the flakes get caught in his eyebrows and melt into little daggers of icy pain. The paramedic with Cho glances at him over his shoulder, then goes back to his patient. “You fat fucking bastard.”

  “You all right, Paulie?” Loren says, but Hoskins has already started walking, out down the driveway, where Carrie Simms’s rice burner is parked, past the main house, because if he doesn’t walk he’s going to lose it, he has to walk even though it’s cold and the wind is blowing and the tips of his ears are already numb. He has to get Seever out of his head, even if it’s just for a few minutes, a few blocks. When he walks he can tune it out, Seever’s whispers, he’s been listening to them for the last seven years and he hears them still, they’ve never ended.

  He ducks under the yellow police tape and fights his way through the crowd that’s gathered at the sidewalk. There’s quite a few out there now. People are drawn to crime scenes like flies to horseshit, regular people looking for excitement, and the freaks, and then there’s the media, always looking for a story, with all their questions, getting into everything, like kids sticking their fingers in light sockets just to see what happens. Sammie’s one of them; she might be the worst, always putting her nose where it doesn’t belong, showing up at the wrong time, and he can’t stop thinking about her and Seever, together, that asshole on top, between her thighs, splitting her open, grinning and grunting, deep in his throat, oh, Hoskins doesn’t need to know what it would be like because he can imagine, and that makes it so much worse.

  Hoskins has only the vaguest impressions of the crowd as he pushes through it, the hands grabbing for his sleeves, trying to force him to pause for their questions. He wishes they’d turn off the flashing lights on the patrol units, it’s like they’re trying to attract more people. Loren will be right behind him, he knows, on the other side of the police tape, snapping photos of the crowd to look at later, because some killers like to watch the chaos they’ve created, to take part in it, like a ghoul feeding off the misery of others. Hoskins is thinking about this as he sidles past a woman carrying a baby suckling on a bottle, Hoskins is looking around, his eyes sliding across the crowd, seeing but not really seeing, so he doesn’t see the face of the man who turned away from him, quickly enough that it caught his attention. The guy has his shoulders hunched against the cold, and he’s walking fast, away from the scene, and there’s something strange about that, no one else is leaving, not until they get some idea of what’s going on. Hoskins is still watching when the man looks back over his shoulder, a little too casually, and Hoskins sees that it’s Ted, the guy in the next office over who’s always so curious, who’s so nice, who wants everyone to call him Dinky.

  Ted, who has access to everything in the police database.

  Ted, who’d just been talking to him about Seever.

  Ted, who sees Hoskins is watching him and breaks into a run.

  It’s not even a contest—Ted is young but Hoskins is quick, and besides that he’s angry; all he can think is that he’s been working with this kid, he’s been nice to him, he even bought him lunch one time, and here he is. It doesn’t matter to Hoskins that this isn’t how police work is done, you can’t fly off the handle and manhandle people, Hoskins has been through this before, he should know better.

  He rams into Ted, knocking him off the side of a car and onto the ground, and then he’s on top of the kid, sitting on his skinny chest with his knees pinning his shoulders, he’s got his hands around Ted’s throat, and Ted is screaming, trying to scream, but Hoskins doesn’t hear any of it, all he can hear is Seever—they thought I was going to let them go, they thought I was done, they were wrong—and then there are hands on his shoulders, pulling him away, and something slammed across the back of his skull, hard and metallic, and it makes a hollow echo in his head that he hears before he actually feels, and the pain makes him let go of Ted’s throat and he stands up, takes a few stumbling steps away on the sidewalk. And then there’s Loren, shouting something he can’t understand, it’s all gibberish, nonsense, and then Loren pushes those glasses up his face—those goddamn glasses and that hair, and Hoskins thinks that it is Seever here, and not Loren, maybe it’s always been Seever—and hits Hoskins across the face with the flat of his hand, knocks him out cold.

  SAMMIE

  Sammie barely makes it to the bathroom in time. She shoves back the metal door of the stall, hard enough that it bounces back and hits her shoulder, nearly knocking her over. The food that dredges up from her stomach and out of her mouth is thick, ropy. Some of it looks the same as it did when she ate it—strands of lettuce, hunks of salami, thick pieces of tomato.

  She flushes, washes her hands, and rinses her mouth, swishing to get all the sour taste out, even the stuff caught in the far back corners, the leftovers tucked between the fat of her cheek and her gums. She’s sweating, hot beads clinging to her upper lip and scattered across her forehead, and clawing through her purse, looking for gum or a mint, because she doesn’t want Hoskins to smell the vomit on her breath. If she ever gets to talk to Hoskins. There’s a stick of gum at the bottom of her bag, still mostly wrapped. It’ll have to do. If the bathroom were stocked with paper towels she’d press a wet one against the back of her neck to help with her nausea, but there are only the dryers that blow hot air. Global-fucking-warming, she thinks. Can’t even get a paper towel anymore.

  She’d still been waiting for Hoskins when he’d walked out of the house, she wasn’t going to let him get away without trying one more time, and she’d seen him shove through the people, there were so damn many, but she didn’t see what happened, only heard the screams and felt the push of the crowd. He attacked a young man, she heard someone say. For no reason at all. Grabbed him and threw him against a car. Tried to strangle him.

>   Then an ambulance had shown up and scooped Hoskins up, and she’d followed it all the way to the hospital, and she’s been sitting around ever since, waiting for some word on Hoskins. She’d let the bored employee at the front desk know she was waiting for him, but the woman had seemed supremely uninterested and waved her off. So Sammie had sat in the hospital waiting room, watching Divorce Court quietly act out its drama on the old TV hanging in the corner and outlining an article on the backside of a receipt she’d dug out of the trash. She doesn’t have anything to write about, nothing that Corbin would actually run, except this, if only she can find out what happened behind that line of police tape. It has something to do with Seever, she knows it—why else would Loren be dressed up like that, why else would he bother visiting him in prison? She has to find out what it is before Chris Weber does, because he surely knows about her talk with Corbin by now, he must know he’s got some competition. Corbin probably called Weber as soon as she hung up, just to rub it in his face. But Corbin’s that type—he’ll do anything to flay a good story out of his writers.

  Of course, she thinks, it doesn’t much matter if she gets anything out of Hoskins. She has the story of the year, of the decade, if only she’d write it: I slept with a serial killer.

  If she gets that desperate, she’ll do it. She’d put all her dirty laundry out to dry, write a big story about working in one of Seever’s restaurants, of the flirting that went on, the charged comments, until there was finally a night when they ended up alone in the restaurant, and they’d had sex on the stainless-steel counter in the kitchen. She was only nineteen when it happened, and Seever was older, much older, and she’d always been attracted to that, age and power and money, and she’d let it go on for months before she was offered a job at the university library that she couldn’t turn down, and she’d quit the restaurant and just like that, it was over. She didn’t see Seever in person again until his trial, and she’d always sit in the back of the courtroom, where there were plenty of people separating them and he wouldn’t be able to spot her.