The Complete John Wayne Cleaver Series: I Am Not a Serial Killer, Mr. Monster, I Don't Want to Kill You, Devil's Only Friend, Over Your Dead Body, Nothing Left to Lose

by Dan Wells

  “He protects them until he gets into a rage,” he said. “Then they just become targets of opportunity. He attacked the mayor’s assistant, and he was just a bystander.”

  “But he didn’t kill him,” I said, “and he only attacked him because it was part of his plan. He’s too meticulous for targets of opportunity—if he can’t kill you, on the terrain he’s scoped out and prepared for, he won’t kill anybody at all.”

  “You really think so?”

  No. “Of course,” I lied. “This is a very careful, very organized man.”

  “Then he’ll follow me,” he said, “and catch me while I’m leaving town.”

  “Not if you leave now. It’s only eight o’clock—he may not have even read the paper yet. Get out while you can and come back in a week when it’s safe.”

  Pause. “I won’t be safe until he’s caught,” said the priest. “I’m going to leave, but tonight I’m going to call the police and ask them to patrol the neighborhood—if he’s there, looking for me, they might pick him up. If I don’t tell them until late, they won’t have time to tip their hand with a stakeout.”

  No! I was going to use your house as the trap. But his suggestion made sense, and I couldn’t think of any way to talk him out of it without sounding suspicious. “That’s a good idea.” Maybe I can use the mortuary—it’s on the edge of town, in a neighborhood with no streetlights. I’ll have to get rid of Mom.

  “And you, John,” he said. “I want you to promise me you won’t get involved.”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course you’ll promise me or of course you’ll get involved?”

  Tricky guy, this priest. “I promise I won’t get involved,” I lied. If I had a nickel for every time I broke a solemn promise …

  “Good,” he said. “I’ll tell the police to watch for you, too, just in case.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “I’m leaving town on your recommendation,” he said. “I think that speaks for itself. I’m grateful that you called to warn me, but I want to make sure you’re safe.”

  “Thank you,” I said, tapping my notebook with the early drafts of the letter. “I promise I’ll stay away.”

  We hung up, and I scouted around the mortuary a bit, looking for good places to hold someone. All of the obvious choices were too obvious—I couldn’t just tell him to get into the closet and expect him to comply. It had to be somewhere he would naturally go anyway, and that meant the entry—but our main doors had glass and it would be far too easy to escape through them.

  Our side door, on the other hand, was perfect. There was a solid wooden door that led into a small stairway; from there you could go through another solid wood door into the mortuary, or up to a third wooden door that led into our house. I’d need to barricade those doors even further, to stop a desperate demon armed with a hatchet, but I could do it, and it could work.

  Time for phase two.

  17

  Half an hour later I said good-bye to my mom and left the house, but instead of driving to school I parked a half a block from Father Erikson’s house and waited, watching. True to his word, he emerged a while later with a suitcase, got in his car, and drove away. I waited a few minutes more, just to be sure, then pulled into his driveway and slipped into the backyard. Normally I’d try to sneak in more subtly, but his call to the police tonight would take care of that—anything I did to the house would be blamed on the Handyman. I put my foot through a basement window, reached in carefully to unlatch it, and slipped inside.

  The priest’s basement was surprisingly mundane—no weird religious paraphernalia, just stacks of old furniture and boxes full of airplane magazines. I went upstairs and found the priest’s home to be just as neat and well kept as it had been the other night.

  If the Handyman was going to attack the priest, he wouldn’t leave anything to chance: he needed to know his victim would be here when he came, and he needed assurance that the victim would trust him enough to let him inside. In other words, he needed to call ahead and make an appointment. All I had to do was make sure that call came to me. Wearing gloves, I picked up the phone and hit the button for voice mail. The system asked for a password, and I typed in the standard default of 1234. It didn’t work. Crap. I needed him to talk to me directly so I could set everything up. Do I dare stay here all day? I don’t want to be seen here, by him or by the police. What will he do if he calls and gets voice mail instead? I smiled and shook my head. He won’t dare leave a recording of his voice. There’s something about it—an accent, maybe, like I’d thought before—that scares him so much he didn’t say a word at the dance. He’d look for another number and call the church. Maybe I’d have more luck there.

  Hanging on a row of nails in the kitchen was a collection of keys—spare keys to the church building, I assumed. I took them all and drove to the church. The parking lot was empty, and I went around to the back and started trying keys. One of them worked, and I put it into a separate pocket so I could remember which one it was. The church was large and empty and quiet, lit with a vaguely yellow light from the wavy, tinted windows. I wandered around, peeking into classrooms and storage closets, until at last I found the priest’s office and tried more of the keys. Another one worked, so I dropped it into the same pocket as the first and let myself in.

  The office was sparse, with various pictures and statues of Jesus the only real decoration, though there was a calendar on the wall with more airplane photos. I thought about simply waiting in the chapel, but I didn’t know who else might have a key and show up during the day. I didn’t want any interruptions or bystanders. I picked up the office phone, hit the voice mail button, and tried the 1234 password again. It worked this time, and I almost laughed. I guess he doesn’t expect anyone to break into a church. I listened carefully to the voice mail options, found the one for call forwarding, and entered the number for Forman’s cell phone. I confirmed the forward and left the church.

  I was ready for the demon’s call, but I still didn’t know how the demon worked. I needed to be ready for anything. I got in my car and drove to Max’s house for phase three: steal a gun.

  While I was driving, the phone rang.

  I looked at the caller ID—it was nothing I recognized, and it wasn’t in the phone’s memory. Probably a local number. I answered carefully.

  “Hello?”

  Silence. “I’m sorry,” said an elderly female voice, “I thought this was the number for Saint Mary’s.”

  Is this really an old lady, or is it a fake out from the Handyman? Is it Nobody, calling on his behalf?

  “This is Saint Mary’s,” I said quickly. I have to keep him talking. “Can I help you?”

  “Well,” she said slowly, “is Father Erikson there?”

  “May I ask who’s calling?

  “It’s Fran from the sewing circle; he knows me.”

  Do I trust her? Would the Handyman disguise himself as Fran from the sewing circle? How would he do it—how would he even know about her? I shook my head. This is probably a real call.

  “I’ll let him know you called,” I said. “Thanks.” I hung up and pulled onto Max’s street. His car was still in his driveway, and I stopped to think. I couldn’t very well break into his house with him still in it.

  I looked at the clock: 10:30 AM. There wasn’t any reason for him to be home this time of day unless he was sick, and that meant he wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. If I wanted to get in, I’d need to talk to him. I parked by the curb, walked up to the door, and knocked.

  He opened it, saw me, and frowned. He was wearing a long black coat, slightly too long in the sleeves so that it hid his hands. “What do you want?”

  “How you doing?” I asked.

  “Where’s your girlfriend?”

  “School, I guess. I’m ditching today.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and squinted. “What do you want?”

  “I’m just saying hi. Why aren’t you at school?”

  “W
hy aren’t you?”

  “No reason.”

  He looked past me, out to my car, at the street. “Is Marci with you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I glanced back at the street. “Is that good or bad?”

  He half shrugged, half shook his head. His eyes were blank.

  “Can I come in?”

  He sneered, or tried to, but he sighed halfway through and stepped back, opening the door wider. I stepped in, and he walked to the couch, leaving the door open. I closed it.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Like you care.”

  “I just thought you’d be happier to see me—we haven’t hung out in a couple of months.”

  “Yippee,” he said, falling onto the couch. “My best friend’s not ignoring me anymore.”

  “I wasn’t ignoring you.”

  “Thank you, oh great and wonderful John, for descending from your place among the gods to speak to me. I apologize for failing to leap with joy upon seeing you.”

  “You don’t have to be that way about it.”

  “Excuse me, then.”

  “Look, I just thought I’d drop by and say hi. You don’t have to make a huge deal out of it.”

  “Where have you been for two months? What have you been doing?”

  “I’ve been hanging out with Marci—”

  “You’ve been hanging out with a huge group of hot girls and it never occurred to you, even once, that I might like to hang out with some hot girls too. We’ve eaten lunch together every day for six fracking years, and then Marci shakes her boobs at you and I get dropped like a hot rock.”

  “So this is about Marci?”

  “Yeah,” he said, sneering, “it’s about Marci.” It was a face and voice he made a lot, though it was harsher now than usual, and I recognized it as sarcasm. That meant there was something else, but I had no idea what it might be.

  “Sure,” I said, leaning against the front door. “Like you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

  “Whatever.” He stared at the TV for a moment—some action movie full of guns and shouting—then stood up abruptly. “I need to take a dump.” He walked into the bathroom, turned on the fan, and locked the door.

  I counted to five, waiting for him to open the door and yell something else, but nothing happened. I crept silently down the hall to his mom’s bedroom and started looking for guns. I knew his dad used to keep one in the closet, but there was nothing on the top shelf and the small dresser shoved in under the hanging clothes was filled with nothing but socks and underwear. I went quickly to the end table by the bed, found nothing, and then started digging under the bed. There was nothing.

  The front door clicked open, and I froze.

  “Max, are you home?”

  It was his little sister, Audrey; she was eight, and I had assumed she’d be in school too. Max was still in the bathroom and didn’t answer her; with the fan running, he might not have heard her. I took a step toward the hall, but jumped back lightly when I heard Audrey’s footsteps coming toward me. I slipped behind the door and held my breath; she walked past me down the hall, went into her own room, and closed the door. I hurried back out to the living room, jogging on my toes to stay silent, and reached the door just as Max came out of the bathroom.

  He looked at me, almost expressionless. “You just been standing there the whole time?” I tried to think of a response, but he noticed Audrey’s backpack on the floor and shouted loudly. “Audrey!”

  “What!” Her voice was muffled by the closed door.

  “What are you doing home?”

  “What are you doing home?”

  “We’re ditching, and you’d better not tell.”

  “You and who else?”

  Max looked at me, then back down the hall, puzzled. “Me and John, stupid. What are you doing home?”

  “I’m sick; the nurse sent me home.”

  “Shut up, liar, the nurse calls Mom.”

  “Mom told me to wait here.”

  “Is she coming home early?”

  “No.”

  Max stared down the hall, like he was trying to think of something else to say, then kicked Audrey’s bag and stalked into the kitchen. “There’s never any food in this stupid house.”

  What can I do now? I thought. I can’t look for guns with him standing right next to me, and I can’t just leave him here and start wandering through his house. I followed Max into the kitchen and sat at the table, but he walked past me back into the living room, holding a bag of corn chips.

  “Come on,” he grumbled.

  I weighed my options—the basement stairs were right there, and he couldn’t see me from his spot on the couch; I could slip down and look, but how long would it take before he came looking for me? I hesitated, not sure what to do, when I heard Audrey’s door open and her footsteps in the hall. She went in the bathroom and closed the door.

  I smiled. Perfect. I walked into the living room. “Hey Max, can I use your bathroom?”

  “Fine with me.”

  “But Audrey’s in it.”

  “So use the downstairs one; I’m not your jail warden.”

  I nodded and walked slowly to the stairs, trying not to appear excited. Once I was downstairs, I started opening doors—Max’s room, the bathroom, the furnace, a storage room—

  Wait—back in the furnace room. I opened the door again and clicked on a light that hung from the ceiling, but it was faint and pale. Giant blocks and cylinders rose up in the blackness, a furnace and a boiler and a water softener, all capped with a network of twisting pipes and ducts. A tall, black shape loomed in the back corner, gleaming metallically in the dim light. A gun safe.

  I walked back to it, ducking under the pipes that ran overhead. The safe was black and textured, like cast iron, though I was sure it was hardened steel. Bloodred lines ran around the borders, and a bright silver handle sat in the center of the door. Above, encased in some kind of metal ring, was a keypad.

  Crap.

  I wiggled the handle, but it was locked. I peered closely at the keypad, as if it held some clue to breaking its own security, but of course there was nothing. It was Max’s dad who was the gun nut, not his mom, I thought. I’ve got to put myself into his mind, like a mini profile. I paused. No, I’ve got to put myself into hers—she’s the one in charge now. Does she care about the guns? No, she cares about her children. She doesn’t lock this up because she’s worried about burglars, she locks it up to make sure Audrey doesn’t accidentally shoot herself. She doesn’t have time to deal with guns she never uses, which means she doesn’t have the combination memorized, which means it’s written down somewhere. It might be somewhere nearby. I looked on the floor behind the safe, up on the shelves that flanked it, but there was nothing to help me. Where would I hide a safe combination from an eight-year-old? I smiled as the realization hit me. On top of a very tall safe. I pulled over a bucket, being careful to be as quiet as possible, and stood on it to reach the top—

  The cell phone rang, startling me, and I stumbled backward off the bucket. I braced myself against the wall, caught my breath, and the phone rang again. I pulled it out, but the phone didn’t recognize the number. Another old lady. I ignored it, but it rang again, and I started to worry that Max would hear. I answered it.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi,” said a man’s voice. “Is this the Saint Mary’s cathedral?”

  “Yeah, about that,” I said, but stopped. There was something about his voice—it was friendly and cheerful, that was easy enough to tell, but there was something else. What was it? I hate trying to read voices over the phone.

  “Yes,” I said slowly. I needed to hear him talk again. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m sure you can,” he said, and I recognized an east coast accent—Boston, maybe, or New York. I didn’t really know accents, but he definitely had one. Exactly like I’d predicted when the Handyman refused to talk to Ashley. “I’m looking for Father Erikson.”


  It’s not a Georgia accent, I thought, but that makes sense—it explains why no one got suspicious when they heard it.

  No one but me. Am I being paranoid, or is the profile I created actually turning out to be accurate?

  “I’m afraid he’s unavailable at the moment,” I said, trying to think of some way to keep him talking. “I’m his assistant, though. Is there anything I can help you with?” Do Catholic priests even have assistants?

  “He has an assistant?” asked the voice. Crap, I guess they don’t.

  “It’s a big congregation,” I said. “He asked me to help coordinate stuff and make appointments and … so on.” I’m such a better liar when I have time to prepare.

  “I see,” said the man. “You wouldn’t happen to know when I’d be able to talk to him, would you?”

  “That depends on what you want to talk to him about,” I said, climbing back up on the bucket. “Why don’t you tell me what you want, and I’ll see if I can help you.” I got a better look at the top of the safe this time and was pleased to see a piece of yellow paper, lined, like from a legal pad, and stuck down with clear plastic tape. There was a series of numbers written on it in flowing, feminine handwriting.

  Yes!

  “I see,” he said again. “Well, it just so happens I’m a reporter; I was in Georgia covering the Handyman killings, and when he came here I followed him to stay on top of the story. I was real taken by Father Erikson’s letter in the paper today, and I wonder if he might consent to an interview.”

  A reporter, I thought. It could be perfectly true—or it could be the ideal cover for a killer. It would give him the perfect excuse to talk to all four victims, and it would earn him their instant trust: he asks for an interview, they let him in, and the first time they turn around he shoots them in the back.

  More than that, his cover as a reporter would give him a foot in the door when it came time to publicize his message. The Handyman had mentioned in his letter at the dance that he’d tried to contact a reporter when his first letter failed to see print. Was it a real reporter or did he simply take his letter to the paper personally and claim that the killer had contacted him?