Distemper

by Beth Saulnier

  “Hold on,” I whispered. “Let’s think about this for a minute. Maybe this isn’t our guy at all, or maybe you’re right that all he did was clone the phone and sell it to someone else. But if you’re wrong, I’m the last person who should show up at his doorstep.”

  “Right. He knows what you look like.”

  “No shit. If he sees me he’s going to know we made him. And God only knows what he might be packing in there.”

  “Alex, look around this place. If this is your murderer, there’s no way he brought those girls up here kicking and screaming. The whole place has got to be crawling with security cameras.”

  “So maybe he took them somewhere else.”

  “Well, there’s only one way we’re going to find anything out. You hide, I knock.”

  “What are you going to tell him?”

  “I don’t know. I guess the same thing I told his prof.”

  “Yeah, but what if he isn’t drunk?”

  “I’ll make it sound good.”

  He strode down the hall and I watched from the corner as he rapped on the door once, twice, three times. There was no answer. Mad tried the knob, but since it had been locked four times over, it was no surprise that it didn’t budge.

  “Okay, what now?” he said when he came back to my hiding place.

  “Well, what do we usually do?”

  “We nose around.”

  “You up for it?”

  “You bet your ass I am.”

  “Where’s the ambition coming from all of a sudden?”

  He glanced down the silver-carpeted hallway and back to the four locks. “I don’t like this guy.”

  We pulled out our press passes and knocked at Vandebrandt’s next-door neighbor. The door was answered by two girls who, between the two of them, seemed the apotheosis of the phrase “Jewish American Princess.” They were dressed nearly identically, in Armani painter’s pants and little cropped Calvin Klein T-shirts (one black, one gray) that didn’t come anywhere near the waistbands of their jeans. The faint smell of pot smoke drifted into the hall as they checked out first Mad, then his press pass, then me.

  “Hey, what can we do for you?” Black T-shirt said to Mad.

  He answered directly to her perky little B-cup bosom. “You think we might ask you ladies a few questions?”

  “About what?” said her gray-shirted friend.

  “About the guy who lives next door.”

  Their faces twisted into identical pouts.

  “Oh, that freak,” they said almost in unison.

  Gray T-shirt stepped into the doorway to give Mad the full view. “Like, what do you want with that loser?”

  “Can we come in for a sec?”

  The girls looked at each other, hesitated but a millisecond, and opened the door wide—this in a town that had seen four murdered women in as many months. Were they nuts? Or did they think Mad was just too cute to be a killer?

  “Like, have a seat,” one of them said as they both disappeared into the kitchen. The entire apartment was carpeted in white shag. In the living room, two black leather couches hulked around a chrome coffee table on which lay a thirty-dollar bottle of wine and a very large bong. The former I knew not because I’m any kind of connoisseur, but because the price tag was still on it.

  They came back in carrying two more glasses, plus a plate with grapes, a big slice of Brie, and box of wheat thins. This either meant that they were trying to be hospitable, or they were getting a bad case of the munchies.

  “So, like, who do you work for again?” Black T-shirt asked.

  “The Gabriel Monitor,” Mad said, charm oozing from his invisible Nordic pores. “I should introduce myself. My name is Jake Madison. My friends call me Mad. This is my colleague, Alex Bernier.”

  “Well, hi Mad,” Gray T-shirt said, putting down the food to shake his hand. “I’m Jennifer, and this is my sister Joanie.”

  “Joan,” the other corrected as she sidled up to Mad on the couch. She looked like a Joanie to me. Come to think of it, the other one looked very much like a Jenny.

  “You ladies are sisters?”

  “Twins!” they said.

  Get me out of here, I thought, realizing we’d just stumbled into one of Mad’s favorite sexual fantasies. If one of them pulled out a big tub of tapioca pudding, I’d be spending the rest of the night in the hallway.

  “And you know what I think?” he said, smiling that wolf smile of his. “I think you just might be California girls.”

  “Beverly Hills, 90210!” they chanted. “How’d you know?” I felt more nauseous than I had outside Budweiser Row.

  “So, ladies, I was wondering if you might be able to help us an eensy little bit.” It was the first time I’d ever heard Mad use the word “eensy.” I hoped it would be the last. “It’s about that fellow who lives next door.”

  The pouty looks took up residence again. “Ooh,” Joanie said, putting a slab of Brie on a cracker. “What do you want with that troll?”

  “It’s for a story I’m doing.”

  “On what?” Jenny asked, nearly lying across Mad’s lap to get to the grapes.

  Mad looked from her to her sister. I could practically see his synapses firing as he calculated how fast he could get rid of me, get back here, and nail them both. He cleared his throat. “On… um… the biggest losers on campus.”

  “No way,” they said in simultaneous glee.

  “So can you help me out?”

  “Well,” Joanie said, “he, like, looks at us funny.”

  “Yeah,” Jenny echoed. “He’s so icky. He’s always giving us the eye, you know, like we’d have anything to do with that little shrimp.”

  “Have you ever spoken to him?”

  They screwed up their faces, as though Mad had asked if they wanted to bear the guy’s mutant offspring. “Like, no way.”

  “Do you see him coming and going a lot?”

  “Well, not like we’d care,” Joanie said with an expert hair flip. “But mostly he just skulks around.”

  “Yeah,” Jenny said. “He’s always bringing big boxes in there, and he looks at you like you’d want to steal his stupid stuff. As if.”

  “Yeah,” her sister said. “As if.”

  “Is he out a lot?”

  “Nah, he hardly ever goes anywhere,” Jenny said. “He just goes to class and comes back at like six and stays in there doing whatever he does. He’s such a creep.”

  “And he doesn’t go out at night?” They stared at him like he was nuts. “Okay, well, do you ever hear weird noises coming from his apartment?”

  Jenny did a mirror image of her sister’s hair-flipping trick. “Just, like, beeping sometimes.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Joanie said, “and one time we had to bang on his door to get him to turn down his cop shows.”

  “Cop shows?”

  “Yeah,” Jenny said. “He, like, loves them. Watches them all night long.”

  “And what did he say when you asked him to be quiet?”

  Joanie rolled her eyes. “Like, nothing. He wouldn’t even come to the door. He turned it down, though.”

  “Why wouldn’t he come to the door?”

  This time, it was Jenny’s turn for an eye roll. “He, like, never does. Like, the building had a Halloween party, and he wouldn’t even open up for the trick-or-treaters.”

  “Yeah,” her sister interjected. “He probably wouldn’t even come out if the building burned down. He holes up in there like a weirdo.”

  Mad shot me a glance. It was nice to know that he hadn’t actually forgotten I was there, considering that I hadn’t had the chance to say one damn word.

  “Well, ladies, thank you so much for all your help. We need to go talk to a few of your neighbors.” He cocked his head toward the exit, and I got the message. I stood up, gave a lame little wave, and walked to the door. “I’d really like to thank you for all the information,” I heard him murmur. “Do you suppose I might have the pleasure of taking you out for a drink some
…”

  I left, figuring I’d rather run into their creepy neighbor than listen to Mad scam a couple of sophomores. He came out a minute later.

  “Jesus Christ, Mad,” I whispered. “Do those girls realize the eighties are over? With all the white wine and Brie and designer jeans, I was expecting them to snort some coke any second.” I followed him to the end of the hall and down a stairwell. “Where are we going?”

  He kept walking until he found what he was looking for. “You up for an adventure?”

  “Huh?”

  “The wonder twins said this guy wouldn’t leave his apartment even if the building was burning down,” he said. “Let’s see if they’re right.”

  20

  “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?” I WAS STANDING BETWEEN Mad and the fire alarm. He’d reached for it once, and I’d managed to fend him off. “Come on, you maniac. Don’t make me mace you.”

  “But I’ve got a really brilliant…”

  “Do you have brain damage? You’re the one who said this place is crawling with security cameras.”

  “You’re right. It’s a crazy idea. I can’t imagine what I could have been thinking of.”

  In retrospect, I can’t imagine that I fell for that smarmy tone in his voice. But the minute I turned my back, he yanked the fire box.

  “Mad, you fucking juvenile delinqu…”

  I was drowned out by the shrieking alarm. Red warning lights started blinking on the stairs to help guide people out of the building in case of a real fire. Mad jogged back up to the sixth floor, and I couldn’t think of anything to do but follow him. We crouched at the end of the hall, watching the various occupants flee their apartments carrying whatever valuables they’d had time to snatch up. (In Jenny and Joanie’s case it was the wine, the bong, and six pairs of shoes.)

  We kept our eyes on apartment 6-N. Nothing.

  “Maybe he’s really not in here,” I said. “Come on, Mad, let’s get the hell out of…”

  “You got any cigarettes?” I stared at him. “Give it up, Bernier, I know you’re carrying.”

  I dug a pack of Emma’s Dunhills out of my purse and threw them at him. “Take the butts out,” he said. Then he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a miniature flask, and took a swig. “Bacardi 151. Shame to waste it. But whatcha gonna do?”

  “What the hell are you up to?”

  “Give me a notebook. Come on, hurry.” He ripped some pages out, stuffed them in the empty cigarette pack, and doused the whole thing with booze. Then he lit one cigarette off the other until four were burning, set the pack of matches on fire, and shoved the whole pile as far under the apartment door as he could.

  “My God, you’re having fun,” I said when he got back to our corner. “What are you, McGyver?”

  “Don’t worry. I have a plan,” he said, and poured the last of the rum over his head. I was starting to think he’d been nipping the 151 on the sly all night.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Just watch.” Sure enough, not half a minute later the apartment door opened a crack. “Stay here,” he whispered.

  From down the hall, I saw a figure emerge from the doorway. I got a glimpse of black hair and a bright red Benson sweatshirt, but before I could get a good look at him—and, more importantly, before he could figure out that the only thing burning was a pack of Dunhills—Mad went barreling into him at full speed.

  “Hurry up, man!” he shouted in his best pseudo-drunk voice, honed to perfection by many nights of the real thing. “The building’s on fire, man. Come on!”

  They ran toward the nearest fire door, Mad practically carrying the guy under his arm. I heard their footsteps slamming down the stairs until the door shut behind them and everything was quiet except the fire alarm—which, unlike the blaring in the stairwell, was more of a high-pitched tweet than something that would actually roust you out of bed in the middle of the night.

  It seemed like everybody was gone, so I ventured into the hallway. The door to number 6-N was just slightly ajar; Mad had done a good job of not letting the guy close it. I held my breath and pushed it open a bit, then froze; there were voices coming from inside. I was about to flee when I realized the sounds were vaguely familiar.

  Emergency control to Gabriel monitors. Repeat, report of an automatic fire alarm at 249 University Place. Two engines and an EMT requested to respond.

  Copy that. Units one and three responding.

  EMT unit A that is Adam en route.

  It was a police scanner. I should have recognized it right away, considering I’ve spent the past few years sitting on top of one. I called myself a nasty name and opened the door.

  My first impression of the place was that I’d walked into CIA headquarters, or maybe the bridge of the star-ship Enterprise. Every surface was covered with electronic gadgets whose indicator lights were blinking red and white and green. The apartment was dark, lit only by a pair of halogen lamps turned halfway down, and the contrast made the blinking lights seem unnaturally bright. It gave the room an aura that was equal parts calming and creepy.

  I wasn’t sure if I should shut the door or not, so I compromised by leaving it the way I found it, just slightly ajar. That erased most of the light from the hallway, plunging the apartment into slightly deeper gloom. Its occupant obviously wanted it this way, and the mood of the place was starting to make me agree with Mad. I didn’t like this guy either.

  I ventured farther into the room, although I sure as hell didn’t want to. There was something suffocating about it, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what. Maybe it was the sense that the whole elaborate setup was geared toward feeding someone’s even more elaborate obsession. Or maybe it was just that the place was so dark, a whole cadre of knife-wielding maniacs could have been hiding in the corner and I wouldn’t have seen them.

  One by one, I checked out the various devices and gadgets. Most of them left me clueless, but I’m one of those people who needs to assemble a team of experts to plug in my stereo. And, come to think of it, there was nothing like a stereo in the place. There was no television, either, and no CD player or VCR. Whatever all these high-tech gizmos were, they clearly weren’t a home entertainment system.

  But then again, maybe they were.

  I counted a total of three computers, all of them way fancier than mine. One was connected to a flatbed image scanner, another to a laser printer, and another to an eyeball-shaped camera that, as far as I knew, was recording my every move. Although the police scanner looked nothing like the one in the newsroom, I recognized it because it was still spewing details about the nonexistent blaze. I wondered how long it would be before somebody figured out that the only fire in the building was a few smoldering embers outside apartment 6-N, and hoped that the fact it was on the top floor meant I wouldn’t be caught anytime soon.

  As I made my way to the other side of the room, I heard what sounded like another scanner coming from the opposite corner. The volume was much lower, probably because it was near the wall that abutted the twins’ apartment.

  Base to unit nine.

  Yo, Chrissy, how you doin’, sweetness?

  Save it, Stimpson. I got a message from your wife.

  Finally wants to go for a three-way, huh?

  Yeah, right. She says don’t forget to pick up diapers on the way home.

  Stimpson, you are so ball-busted, man. You gonna pick up some baby powder while you’re at it?

  I stared at the black box. This was no ordinary scanner. It wasn’t just picking up the normal dispatcher calls that we get at the Monitor. It was somehow tapping into the car-to-car chatter that’s broadcast on a separate police frequency, and is most definitely not for public ears. The box had a series of buttons on the front, and I pressed one at random. Brian Cody’s voice came out so clearly he could have been standing there.

  … back at the station. Tell him I want the autopsy results yesterday. You got it?

  Yes, sir.

  I’m leaving th
e scene now to do the notification. If you need me try my cell. Cody out.

  Poor Cody. He was on his way to do just exactly what he’d been dreading—drag another family out of bed to tell them that their daughter or wife or sister was dead. I wondered whether he’d want me to comfort him after such a thing, or if he’d just as soon be by himself. I really didn’t know him, not down deep, and it occurred to me that maybe that was why I enjoyed his company so much in the first place. There’s a lot to be said for simplicity.

  Okay, so it wasn’t the greatest time for romantic introspection. I snapped myself out of it and kept looking around the room. In a closet, I found a collection of photography equipment, including a tripod and a number of what appeared to be very expensive cameras. On one bookshelf, I found a dozen cell phones nestled in their chargers, and I wondered whether the phone-cloning business was how Vandebrandt financed his high-tech hobbies.

  When I figured I’d seen all there was to see in the living room, I opened the door to what appeared to be the only bedroom. It was completely dark, so I groped for a light switch and flicked it on.

  What I saw next was the most fundamentally disturbing thing I’d ever had the bad luck to run into, short of an actual corpse. No, there was nobody waiting to pounce on me. There was also nobody tied to the bed, nor a taxidermy collection, or even a copy of the Satan-worshiper’s handbook.

  But along one whole wall, the one you first saw when you walked in the bedroom door, was something that might be generously described as a shrine. And the subject, quite simply, was me.

  There were dozens of my bylined articles, pasted one on top of the other in a creepy college. Every one of my movie columns from the past few months was up there, the little head shot of me and the logo ALEX ON THE AISLE repeated over and over. I counted four copies of the Monitor piece on me finding Patricia Marx’s body, plus several other versions of the wire story that ran in other papers across the state.

  That wasn’t even the scariest part. No, any psycho with a pair of scissors and a newspaper subscription could have accomplished that much. But there were photographs too—pictures of me in the window seat at the Citizen Kane, opening the front door of the Monitor office, covering the psychics’ protest on the Green, walking Shakespeare, getting into my car in front of my house.