A Soft Barren Aftershock

by F. Paul Wilson

  He raised his right fist with the thumb stuck in the air.

  “I hear you, Mr. Santos.”

  “Call me Pete.”

  “I’m Gerry. And if the government didn’t need the testimony so desperately, I might be tempted to do it myself.”

  We shook hands, then I got out of the car and walked around to his side. He rolled the window down.

  “Thanks again,” I said. “You didn’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Sure you won’t tell me his name?”

  He smiled. “These are some bad dudes we want to put away with this trial. But don’t you worry. Once all the legal proceedings are over, justice will be done.” Again, the thumbs-up sign. “We’ll see to it that she gets what’s coming to her.”

  And then he drove away, leaving me standing on the path, gaping.

  Her?

  It wasn’t working.

  The day after Jessica’s body was found, I went back to my apartment—Martha got the house, so I’ve been living in a two-bedroom box at the Soundview Condos—and trashed the place. All except Jessica’s room. The second bedroom had been reserved exclusively for Jessie. I went in there and with a black magic marker drew the outline of a man on one of her walls. Then I took the biggest carving knife I could find and attacked that figure. I slashed at the wallboard, driving the blade through it again and again until I was exhausted. Only then was I able to get some sleep.

  I’d done that every night since Jessica’s death, but tonight it wasn’t working.

  Caskie’s last words were driving me crazy.

  My little Jessica had been slashed to ribbons by a woman? A woman? I couldn’t believe it. It gnawed at my insides like some monstrous parasite. I couldn’t work, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. The FBI knew who’d killed my Jessica and they weren’t telling. I had to know, too. I needed a name. A face. Somewhere to focus this rage that was coloring my blood and poisoning every cell in my body.

  A woman! Caskie must have been mistaken. Jessica had been—I retched every time I thought of it—sodomized. A woman couldn’t do that.

  I lasted two days—and two nights of heartlessly attacking the male figure outlined on her wall. Then I acted.

  First thing in the morning, I took a trip to the nearest FBI office. It was on Queens Boulevard in Rego Park. I knew I’d given agent Caskie my word, but . . . my daughter . . . her killer . . . no one could expect me to hold to that promise. No one!

  I was in the lobby of the FBI building, searching the directory, when I heard a voice to my left.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  I turned. It was Caskie. I stepped toward him with my hand extended.

  “Just the man I was looking—”

  “Don’t talk to me!” the hissed, staring across the lobby. “Get out of here!”

  “No way, Caskie. Your people know who killed my daughter and they’re going to tell me, or I’m going to the papers.”

  “You trying to ruin me?”

  “No. I don’t want that. But if I have to, I will.”

  He was silent for a moment, then he made a noise like a cross between a sigh and a growl.

  “Shit! Meet me outside. Around the corner in the alley. Ten minutes.”

  He walked away without waiting for my reply.

  The alley was long and narrow, blocked at the far end by a ten-foot cyclone fence. I waited near its mouth, keeping to the shady side. Midmorning and already it was getting hot. Caskie showed up a few minutes later. He walked by as if he hadn’t noticed me, but he spoke out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Follow me. I don’t want to be seen with you.”

  I followed. He led me all the way back to the rear of the building. When we rounded a rancid smelling dumpster, he turned, grabbed me by the front of my shirt, and threw me against the wall. I was caught by surprise. The impact knocked the wind out of me.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?” he said through clenched teeth.

  I was ready to take a shot at his jaw but the fury in his eyes made me hesitate. He looked ready to kill.

  “I told you,” I said. “I want to know who killed my daughter. And I’m going to find out.”

  “No way, Santos.”

  I looked him in the eye.

  “What’re you going to do? Kill me?”

  He seemed to be considering it, and that made me a little nervous. But then his shoulders slumped.

  “I’m so fucking stupid!” he said. “I should have minded my own business and let you stew for a year or two. But no, I had to try to be Mr. Goodguy.”

  I felt for him. Actually, I felt like a shit, but I couldn’t let that stop me.

  “Hey, look,” I said. “I appreciate what you tried to do, but it just didn’t work the way you thought it would. Instead of easing my mind, it’s done just the opposite. It’s made me crazy.”

  Caskie’s expression was as bleak as his voice.

  “What do you want, Santos?”

  “First off, I want to know why you said the killer was a ‘she’ the other day?”

  “When did I say that? I never said that.”

  “Oh, yes you did. As you drove off. And don’t tell me I misunderstood you, because I didn’t. You said, ‘We’ll see to it that she gets what’s coming to her! So how could Jessie’s killer have been a woman if they’re tracing the killer through DNA analysis of the semen they found in . . .” My stomach lurched.

  Caskie’s smile was grim and sour.

  “You think the Bureau can’t get a local coroner to change his report for matters of security? Wake up, Santos. That was put in there to make sure no one ever has the slightest doubt that they’re looking for a male.”

  I wanted to kill him. Here I’d spent nearly a week believing Jessica had been raped before she was slashed up. And it had never happened. But I kept calm.

  “I want her name.”

  “No way.”

  “Then I go to the Times, the Post, and the News! Right now!”

  I turned and began walking up the alley. I’d gone about ten feet when he spoke.

  “Ciullo. Regina Ciullo.”

  I turned.

  “Who is she?”

  “Bruno Papillardi’s ex-girlfriend.”

  That rocked me. Bruno Papillardi—New York City’s number one crime boss. His racketeering trial had been in the papers for months.

  “Is she that important to the case?”

  “The way the judge is tossing out our evidence left and right, it looks like she’s going to be the whole case. She may be a psycho, but she’s not dumb. She made recordings while she and Bruno were in bed together. Seems that when all the grunting and groaning is done, Bruno tends to brag. There’s one particularly juicy night where he talks about how he personally offed a Teamsters’ local boss who wouldn’t play ball. With Regina Ciullo’s testimony, we might be able to nail him for more than racketeering. We might get him for murder-one.”

  I didn’t care about Papillardi. I cared about only one person.

  “But Jessica . . . why?”

  Caskie shook his head.

  “I don’t know. I’m not a shrink. But I know your daughter wasn’t the first. Regina Ciullo’s done at least two others over the past two years. The others were just never found.”

  “Then how do you—?”

  “She told us. She gave us the slip on the Fourth. She returned the following morning around three a.m. We found the knife in the back seat of the car. We made the connection, put the pressure on her, and she told us. We’d always known she was weird but . . .” He shuddered. “We never realized . . .”

  I wanted to run from the alley, but I had to see this through.

  “So you can see our dilemma,” Caskie went on. “We can’t turn her in. At least not yet. Papillardi’s people are combing the whole Northeast for her. If she’s arrested she won’t survive her first night in jail. And if by some miracle she does, her lawyer will immediately enter
an insanity plea, which will destroy the value of her testimony against Papillardi.”

  I swallowed. My throat was gritty

  “Where are you keeping her?”

  “Are you kidding? I tell you so you can go out there and try to do a Rambo number on her? No way.”

  “I don’t want to kill her.”

  “That’s not what you said the other day at the cemetery.” I smiled. It must have been a hideous grimace because I saw Caskie flinch.

  “I was upset then. A little crazy. I couldn’t stick a knife in someone. Besides, I already have enough information now to kill her. If I want her dead. I can call Papillardi and tell him she’s in Monroe. He’ll do the rest. But I don’t want that. I just want to know what she looks like. I want to see a picture of her. And I want to know where she lives so I can drive by every once in a while and make sure she’s still there. If I can do that, I can survive the wait.”

  He was studying me. I hoped I’d been convincing. I prayed he’d buy it. But actually, I hadn’t left him much choice. “She’s staying on Shore Drive in Monroe.” I couldn’t restrain myself.

  “In my hometown?” You brought a child killer to my hometown?”

  “We didn’t know about her then. But believe me, she won’t get out of our sight again. She’s hurt her last kid.” Damn right! I thought. “I want to see her file.”

  “I can’t get that—”

  “You will,” I said, turning. “And by tonight. Or I’ll be on the phone. Bring it to my apartment.”

  I didn’t give him my address. I was sure he already had it.

  Back in my apartment, I took the Magic Marker and enhanced the drawing on Jessica’s wall with a few details. I added a skirt. And long flowing hair styled in a flip. Then I picked up the knife and went to work with renewed vigor.

  Caskie showed up around ten p.m., smelling like a leaky brewery, a buff folder under his arm. He brushed by me and tossed the folder onto the living room table.

  “I’m dead!” he said, pulling off his wilted suit jacket and hurling it across the room. “Two more years till my pension and now I might as well kiss it all good-bye!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “That’s what’s the matter!” he said, pointing at the folder. “When that turns up missing, the Bureau will trace it to me and put my ass in a sling! Nice guys really do finish fucking last!”

  “Just a minute, now,” I said, approaching him but staying out of reach. He looked very upset. “Hold it down. If you return it first thing tomorrow morning, who’s going to know it was ever missing?”

  He stared at me, a blank look on his face.

  “I thought you wanted it.”

  “I want to look at it. That’s all. Like I told you: just to know where she lives and what she looks like. If the killer’s got a name and a place and a face, I can stay sane until the Papillardi trial is over.”

  As I was speaking, my body had been gravitating toward the folder. I wasn’t aware of my legs moving, but by the time I’d finished, I was standing over it. I reached down and flipped the cover open. An eight-by-ten black-and-white close-up of a woman’s face stared back at me.

  “That’s . . . that’s her?”

  “Yeah. That’s Regina Ciullo.”

  “She’s so ordinary.”

  Caskie snickered.

  “You think someone with Bruno Papillardi’s bucks and pull is gonna waste his time with someone ‘ordinary’? No way. Good-looking babes are falling all over that guy. But Ciullo’s weirdness is one of a kind. She’s anything but ordinary. That’s what attracted him.” His voice turned serious. “You really mean that about not wanting to take the file?”

  “Of course.”

  I picked up the photo and stared at it. Her irises were dark, the lashes long. Her hair was wavy and long, and very black. Despite strategic angling of the camera, he nose appeared somewhat on the large side. Her lips were full and pouty. She looked thirty-five or so.

  Caskie peered over my shoulder.

  “That picture’s a few years old, when she was going under the stage name of Bloody Mary. Doesn’t show any of her body which is incredible.”

  “Stage name?”

  “Yeah. She used to be a dancer in a specialty club down in SoHo called The Manacle. She’d do a strip while letting a white rat crawl all over her body, and when she was down to the buff, she’d slice its throat and squeeze its blood down her front as she finished her dance.” Caskie’s expression was sour. “A real sicko, but she sure as hell got to Papillardi. One show and he was hot for her ass. Say, you got any beer?”

  I pointed the way to the kitchen as I continued to stare at the photo.

  “In the fridge.”

  This was the killer of dear Jessica. Regina Ciullo. When she tired of slashing rats she went out and found a child. I felt my pulse quicken, my palms become moist. The photo trembled in my grasp, as if she knew I’d be coming for her.

  “Where on Shore Drive is she staying?”

  Caskie popped the top of a can of Bud as he returned to the living room.

  “The Jensen place.”

  “Jensen! How’d you get her in there?”

  The beer can paused inches from his lips.

  “You know them?”

  “I just know they’re rich.”

  He took a long gulp.

  “They are. And they’re hardly ever home—at least in this home—except in the spring. They’re on a world cruise now. And since Mr. Jensen is a friend of the present administration, and a personal friend of the Bureau’s director, he’s allowed us to stash her in his mansion. It’s a perfect cover. She’s posing as Mr. Jensen’s niece.” He shook his head slowly. “What a place. That’s the way to live, I tell you.”

  The woman who murdered my daughter was living in luxury out on Shore Drive, guarded by the FBI. I wanted to scream. But I didn’t. I closed the file and handed it back to Caskie.

  “I’ll keep the picture,” I said. “The rest is all yours.”

  He snatched the folder away from me.

  “You mean it?”

  “Of course. You’ll never hear from me again . . . unless, of course, Papillardi is convicted and she isn’t indicted.Then you’ll hear from me. Believe me, you’ll hear from me.”

  I had put on a performance of Barrymore caliber. And Caskie bought it. He smiled like a death row prisoner who’d just got a last minute reprieve.

  “Don’t worry about that, Santos. As soon as Papillardi’s case is through, we’re on her. Don’t you worry about that!” He turned at the door and gave me another of his thumps-up gestures. “You can take that to the bank!”

  And then he was gone.

  For a while I stood there in the living room and stared at the picture of Regina Ciullo. Then I took it into Jessicas room and tacked it over the head of the latest outline on the wall. Then I stabbed the figure so hard, so fast, and so many times that there was a football sized hole in the wall in less than a minute.

  A week later the walls of Jessica’s room were so Swiss-cheesed with holes that there was no space left for new outlines.

  Time for the real thing.

  I’d been driving by the Jensen place regularly, sometimes three times a day. I always kept the photo on the seat beside me, for quick reference in case I saw someone who resembled Regina Ciullo. I was sure I’d know her anywhere, but it’s good to be prepared.

  The houses on Shore Drive all qualified as mansions—all huge, all waterfront, facing Connecticut across the Long Island Sound. Although there was always a car or two in the driveway behind the electric steel gate—a Bentley or a Jag or a Porsche Carrera—I never saw anybody.

  Until Thursday. I was in the midst of cruising past when I saw the front gate begin to slide open. I almost slammed on the brakes, then had the presence of mind to keep moving. But slow.

  And who pulls out but the bitch herself, the slasher of my daughter, slayer of the last thing in my life that held any real meaning. She was driving the Merc
edes. Speeding. She passed me doing at least fifty, and still accelerating. On a residential street. The bitch didn’t care. The top was down. No question about it. It was her. And she was alone.

  Had she given her FBI guardians the slip again? Was she on her way to find another innocent, helpless, trusting child to slaughter?

  Not if I could help it.

  I followed her to the local Gristedes, trailed her as she dawdled along the cosmetics aisle, touching, feeling, sniffing. Probably looking for the means to whore herself up. As ordinary as the photo had been, it had done her a service. In the light of day she was extremely plain. She needed all the help she could get. And her body. Caskie had described it as “incredible.” It was anything but that from what I could see. I guess there’s no accounting for tastes.

  I caught up to her in the housewares aisle. That was where they sold the knives. When I saw a stainless steel carving set displayed on a shelf I got dizzy. Visions of Jessica’s mutilated body lying on that cold, steel gurney in the morgue flashed before me. A knife like that had ripped her up. I saw Martha’s face, the expressions on her brothers’ faces—Your fault! Your fault!

  That did it.

  I ripped the biggest knife from the set and spun her around.

  “Remember Jessica Santos?” I screamed.

  Shock on her face. Sure! No one was supposed to know.

  I pretended she was one of the outlines on Jessica’s wall. A deep thrust to the abdomen, feeling the knife point hesitate against the fabric of her dress, and then rip through cloth and skin, into the tender innards. She screamed but I didn’t let that stop me. I tugged the blade free and plunged it in again and again, each time screaming.

  “This is for Jessica! This is for Jessica!”

  Somebody pulled me free of her and I didn’t resist. She’d been slashed like Jessica. The damage was irreparable. I knew my duty was done, knew I’d avenged my daughter.

  But as I looked into her dying eyes, so hurt, so shocked, so bewildered, I had the first inkling that I had made a monstrous mistake.

  I slammed my fist on the table.

  “Call the FBI! Check it out with them!”

  They’d had me in this interrogation room for hours. Against my lawyer’s advice—who wanted me to plead insanity—I’d given them a full statement. I wasn’t going to hide anything. This was an open and shut case of a man taking justifiable revenge against his daughter’s murderer. I wasn’t going to be coy about it. I did it and that was that. Now they could do their damnedest to convict me. All I needed was the FBI file to prove that she was the killer.