Gray Matter

by Shirley Kennett

  In the main bedroom, Schultz slid his hand under the pillow and discovered an envelope. It was brown and unmarked on the outside. Turning it over, he saw that the envelope fastened with bendover metal tabs, and it had been opened and closed so many times that one of the little tabs had broken off. His hands tingled as he handled the envelope, squeezed it, felt a thick stack of something inside. He carefully bent back the remaining tab and slid the contents out onto the bed. The flashlight picked out photos so startling and gruesome that Schultz felt his gorge rising as the pain and terror depicted sank in on him. There weren’t enough photos, not for thirty or so victims. There was probably another stash elsewhere in the house. With shaking hands, he replaced the instant pictures, closed the tab on the envelope which thankfully did not break, and slid the package back under the pillow.

  In the kitchen, Schultz pulled open drawers, looking for a cleaver and the knives the killer had used to carve the skin of his victims. Nothing. Eager to get out now, he scanned the countertops with the flashlight. He found a well-used wooden carving board, scarred and gouged, with dark stains that had soaked into the wood like red wine into a linen tablecloth. Rare roasts? Or something more horrible, something his mind veered from considering.

  He came to the refrigerator, and paused with his fingers on the handle, reluctant to open it, almost certain what he would see inside. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door. The light inside was bright enough to blind him momentarily, then he took in the milk, carton of eggs, and other innocent items. The cool air that drifted out and pooled at his feet felt refreshing. He closed the door, and the kitchen was plunged back into near darkness as though the light had been sucked back inside the refrigerator. He waited a moment until his eyes adjusted to the minimal glow of the night light, then pulled open the separate freezer door. There, held in the beam of his flashlight, nestled one on either side of the Pecan Swirl ice cream, he found two severed heads.

  Their eyes were open, ice-glazed, and they seemed to plead for the dignity of the grave.

  Schultz closed his eyes and then closed the freezer, but the image stayed with him all the way back out to his car. He told Anita, talking low and hurriedly, what he had discovered. As they had discussed earlier, she would now request a search warrant for the murder weapon, citing a “usually reliable informant” who had seen suspicious activity in Hampton’s kitchen. It was tenuous, and Judge Harworthy would probably know that Schultz himself was the informant, but the judge owed Schultz a favor. Schultz knew Harworthy played bridge every Saturday night, and would sign the warrant between hands; he made sure Anita knew the address. Then he hunkered down in his Pacer to wait for the warrant and for Dave, who would be bringing the Evidence Technician Unit. When they arrived he would re-enter the house, legally this time, and “discover” the heads and the photos.

  CHAPTER 28

  PAULEY MAC WANTED TO park his pickup in an alley a block away and walk to the bitch’s house, just as he had done a couple of times before. But this time, he had to be closer. He was going to need the case, and he didn’t want to carry it from a block away—too conspicuous on the street. He approached the house slowly, cut his headlights, turned boldly into her driveway, and pulled around the back of the house. He turned off the engine, rolled down his window, and sat listening and watching. The kitchen light was on, so she was almost certainly home. No outside lights came on, no doors opened, no face appeared at the window.

  He was unobserved.

  He pulled on his gloves, reached up and moved the switch for the interior light so that it wouldn’t come on when he opened the door, and slipped out of the truck.

  He was heading for the back door when he heard the sound of a car engine close by. He moved around to the driveway, prepared to make a break for it on foot if someone should pull in, trapping his truck. Edging a little further, he could see into the front yard. A car was parked on the street in front of the bitch’s house, and a man got out of it and went up to the front door. Unseen in the shadows of the trees and irregular shapes of bushes, Pauley Mac ducked down and listened. He heard a distinctive knock, one rap, pause, three more. A minute later, the door opened and he heard the bitch’s voice, but couldn’t make out any of the words she or the man said. They talked softly, face to face, and the wind carried the sounds away from him.

  One thing was obvious: he wasn’t a door-to-door salesman. He had to be from the police, and his presence here was a clear threat to Pauley Mac. Should he leave, abandon his plans, try again some other time?

  No, no. Get the bitch, scratch the itch, tonight, tonight is right.

  Dog continued his tirade in wordless images that stimulated Pauley Mac. Other voices chimed in like disembodied sports announcers, calling the play by play: Ma and Pa; Arleen, that librarian he had invited into the inner circle who had the cruel, cruel center, like biting into a piece of chocolate, expecting caramel or mint or butter cream and getting a mouthful of dry leaves that turned to acid; Dick, the mechanic, the one guest who was himself a killer, had smashed his victim with a wrench and lapped the sweet, rich, warm blood; others who were jealous of the living…

  By the time Pauley Mac focused on the task at hand, the man had gone back to his car. In another minute, all was quiet again. He slid his gloved hand inside his pants pocket, hefting the weight of the pewter toad that rode there. He could feel the metallic coolness of it against his leg through the thin lining of his pocket. He ran his fingers over the spiky projections on its back, then pressed his palm over them until his skin hurt through the glove.

  Letting go of the heavy chunk of pewter, he checked the knife at his waist. He wore a four-inch serrated blade in a quick-release sheath attached to his belt and positioned so that he could punch the button with his right forefinger and have the handle eject up into his palm for a sure grip. He didn’t wear the knife often; hadn’t, in fact, since he moved to St. Louis. But this was a special case. He hadn’t had time to stalk and plan like he usually did, so he brought along some extra insurance. The knife was good in quick, tight circumstances where he needed to bring his arm up into an unprotected belly rather than swing it in an overhead arc.

  Pauley Mac checked the street: no cars moving, no one out walking the dog or jogging. He decided on the front door rather than the back because she had already opened the front door to the police officer. She would probably think he had forgotten something and come back. So he went to the front door, moving like the shadow of something evil flying overhead.

  One quick rap, pause, three more.

  Excitement rising, Pauley Mac disciplined himself—and Dog—by making himself count off the seconds until the door opened. Thirty, forty, forty-five. His senses were heightened. Standing in the darkness, he could hear the soft footfalls of a neighbor’s cat out hunting, feel the breeze that rustled its whiskers, smell the faint scent of mouse here, rabbit there, see the tiny movements under dry grass where juicy mouthfuls squirmed. There, the sound of the bolt slipping back, pulling free of the door jamb, a sucking sound, like a miniature cock pulling out of a slippery cunt. The imagery turned on Pauley Mac sexually, and he held his breath as the door swung open and light spilled out, clasped him with bright hands and drew him forward.

  PJ heard the knock at the front door. Someplace inside her it registered that the sound was a little off; the force of the knocks and the rhythm were not quite the same as last time. But she rose from the table, thinking that at least she would have a chance to ask when the team was getting together tomorrow.

  She turned the safety bolt and opened the door. When it was just a few inches open, she felt pressure on the other side of the door. It was steady and strong. Intimidating. Fear bolted through her, weakening her legs and sending deep, silent shivers down her spine.

  “Dave?” she said softly, knowing that it wasn’t Dave.

  Pauley Mac moved quickly to put his foot in the wedge of light, before she could see his face.

  As the opening widened, he put his left hand on
the door and shoved inward. Still she had not seen him, at least not fully, but surely she sensed that something was wrong, for there was resistance to his push on the door. He turned sideways and slipped into the opening, his right hand gripping the pewter toad in his pocket.

  Inside, he saw her, her hand still on the doorknob. She was pushing against the door, a reaction to his initial shove, and without his counterbalancing pressure on the other side of the door, it moved freely, slapping back into place against the frame. She had slammed the door with him inside.

  PJ began to push back on the door, but the open space widened in spite of her efforts, and someone slipped inside, like a slice of the blackness of the night outside suddenly intruding into her kitchen. She was still pushing on the door, and with no resistance, it slammed shut. She turned to face the intruder, already knowing in her mind and in her quivering gut what she would see.

  It was the cook from Millie’s Diner, a man she knew to be without conscience, a murderer who killed whenever the urge took him. She searched his face, looking for a sign of humanity there, something decent under the brutal mask. She looked into his eyes and saw chaos, a tumultuous churning of needs, and knew with certainty that this man intended to suck the life from her like a spider savored a moth, discarding the husk when the vitality was spent. Blind terror gripped her, and for a moment she saw his face not as a solitary man’s face at all, but a multitude of faces, all the people he had murdered, writhing beneath the skin of his skull.

  His eyes held her, pinned her to the wall as surely as if they were sharpened wooden stakes, and she knew she was going to die.

  Abruptly her eyes refused to focus on his face. She looked past him, at a picture on the door of the refrigerator, held by a magnet shaped like a butterfly. It was Thomas, asleep on the couch in their new home, this home, with Megabite curled on his stomach. He had fallen asleep reading, with the book toppled against his face and one hand draped across the cat. It was a picture of everything she would be missing, everything this man was going to take from her.

  A little flame of defiance burst into being inside her, and she fanned it into a bright blaze with her anger and the knowledge that she had too much to live for to give up easily. She turned her face and met his eyes, waiting for his next move.

  He relished the succession of emotions on her face, the surprise, the flash of recognition, and then the terror in her eyes when she read her own death on his face. Each of his victims had eventually worn the same look, but for most of them it came late in the process, late enough to be diluted by physical pain and resignation. Nevertheless, he treasured all those moments, perhaps a couple of seconds for each person, sixty seconds total in his life. One minute of living on a plane of excitement most people never reached in their lives. One minute to give meaning to the thousands of other minutes that didn’t measure up to his expectations, the empty minutes during which he was lacking something, was never good enough, never could be good enough because of a bone-deep failing.

  As he committed the moment to memory, he raised his arm, intending to swing downward with the carved toad. His eyes locked in contact with hers so as not to miss anything, any intense emotion that danced and flickered across her face like flames forever out of reach. He suddenly realized that he no longer saw fear. Rather, he saw defiance.

  His arm was already moving downward, and it felt like it wasn’t part of him, just a length of wood weighted at one end, pivoting. She threw up her arm and blocked his, the impact traveling along her arm, down through her body, and through her firmly planted feet into the floor. She reeled with it but didn’t go down. The carved toad flew from his hand and bounced off the kitchen wall, gouging a chunk of drywall, then settled on the floor, facing toward him, mocking him.

  Suddenly the knife was in his hand. He wasn’t aware of pushing the release button and feeling the knife slide into his palm, but there it was. Dog growled, and Pauley Mac opened his mouth to let the sound pass out between his lips. The bitch held his eyes with hers, not looking down at the knife the way most people would. She backed up against the wall. He tried to think, to plan what to do next, but Dog wanted to get loose, was tearing at his insides to get loose.

  Go ahead, Pauley Mac thought, but save something for me.

  She saw his expression change, saw him pull something from his pocket and raise his arm. As if she were moving through a bubble of thick air that resisted her every move, she struggled to raise her own arm in defense. Impossibly slow, she couldn’t make it, suddenly she did have her arm in the right place to block the downward arc of his arm. The force of his blow shook her and she felt as if her bones would break, but she stayed on her feet.

  She caught the glint of a knife in his hand, saw it snaking out at her.

  Dog lunged forward, slashing with the knife. Again she threw up her arm to protect herself. He felt the knife connect with the flesh of her forearm, slide through, glance off bone. The bitch must have felt the cut, felt the searing heat of it, because she froze in place, her arm raised and dripping with hot blood. He came in low with his other fist, felt her blood splash onto his arm, coppery-smelling drops like hot wax, and landed his blow in her stomach. He saw the grimace on her face before she doubled over. Pulling his left arm back before it could be trapped, he swung his right hand, the one holding the knife, high in the air and brought the edge of his tightly curled fist down on the back of her head. She crumpled at his feet.

  She swung her arm wildly and felt the knife biting deep into her forearm. It felt as though a hot poker had been pressed against her arm, opening a gash and burning down through layers of skin and flesh. Blood welled from the wound, and she was mesmerized by it. She didn’t see the next blow coming, only felt it, as his fist connected with her stomach like an explosion in her mid-section. Doubled over, she felt an impact on the back of her skull, and as blackness curled around her, she sadly let go of her hope of survival.

  Dog stood panting over the fallen woman as images whirled in his mind, wordless sequences of cornering, biting, the shallow speeding heartbeat of his prey racing against the thudding of his own heart, taking hold of the warm body, feeling the blood pulse beneath the skin.

  Lost in the sensations, Dog stood until his breathing slowed and Pauley Mac put the knife back in the sheath and checked the woman sprawled on the floor.

  Not dead. Good.

  CHAPTER 29

  SCHULTZ SAT IN HIS car, watching moths circling the gaslight on the lawn next door to Hampton’s house. Something nagged at him, tugged at his thoughts, concerning what he had found at the house.

  Or not found at the house.

  Schultz sat up straight. The carrying case was missing. If the computer simulations were correct, there should be a large case with feet on the bottom that matched the measurements of the indentations in the carpet. Schultz closed his eyes and carefully walked through the house again, mentally this time, peering into each room. He saw no case, unless it was inside one of the boxes he hadn’t had time to search, or in the basement.

  There were several possibilities. The simulations could be wrong; maybe no such case existed. The killer might store the case elsewhere, such as in a rented garage or self-storage bin. He might have disposed of the case, weighted it down and dumped it in the Mississippi.

  Or the case could be missing because it was in use.

  That prospect propelled him into action. He called dispatch and requested an APB on one Peter M. Hampton, Caucasian male, thirty-five years old, five feet seven inches, one hundred forty pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, driving a late model red pickup, Missouri license plate BADDOG, suspect wanted for questioning in multiple murders. He felt a powerful urge to get moving, so he didn’t wait for Dave and Anita. They could handle this scene by themselves.

  Move. Go.

  He drove off, hoping that his hunch was wrong.

  PJ opened her eyes and the world began to spin. She closed them, and gradually the spinning stopped, but the pain in her arm and the bac
k of her head didn’t go away. She couldn’t move her arms and legs, so she floated for a minute or two, just a torso with a terrible headache. She heard a door close, then heard humming nearby, close behind her. The “Star-Spangled Banner.” A stab of fear unsettled her stomach, and she fought to keep from throwing up.

  After the nausea passed, she took inventory of her body. Her arms and legs were tied, and she was sitting on something hard. Her T-shirt and bra were gone, but she was still wearing her shorts. Her breasts ached as though they had been mauled. The thought of him pulling off her clothes and squeezing her breasts while she was unconscious was hard to take, and she tasted the bile in her throat again. Her right arm hurt, but the terrible freshness of the agony was gone, replaced by a throbbing pain. Her arm was tightly bound in some kind of cloth. She could feel wetness seeping slowly into the cloth, and knew it was her blood. The back of her head felt as though someone had cracked open a coconut on it. She opened her eyes again, just slits this time, and was gratified to see that the world stayed in one place.

  Humming. She knew where she was and what was happening to her. But she was still alive. She closed her eyes and thought of Thomas sleeping with Megabite curled on his stomach; of light glinting off Mike’s bald head as he bent to put the lasagna pan in the oven; of Schultz dashing to her rescue when she was startled in Burton’s apartment, his belly preceding him through the door and quivering after the rest of him stopped moving; of standing side by side with him sponging the ketchup letters from her kitchen wall; of Thomas and Winston looking at dinosaurs on the computer, Megabite lazily pawing at the moving forms on the screen.