Dark Places (19 page)

Uriel's grandma never bothered them again. She was always groggy, couldn't remember a thing, and Gabriel's dad began to think she might be suffering from Alzheimer's disease. They had plenty of white pills because Gabriel had begun to sell dope to other kids at school. So Uriel and Gabriel were free. They could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. They experimented on animals they caught, and Gabriel even found a black-market kind of place where he could order exotic spiders and bees and scorpions and even poison frogs, from mail-order houses in Australia and the Amazon and Asia. The UPS trucks brought the shipments to Uriel's grandma's address, and Gabriel pretended he lived there.

It was fun to get new creatures, and sometimes they would keep his grandma unconscious for days at a time, and she would be confused and wet the bed. She cried a lot and said she just couldn't remember anything anymore, and sometimes Uriel would feel sort of sorry for her, then he would remember that she was going to take Gabriel away from him if she was ever herself again. So he kept putting white sleeping powder in her tea, and she never caused them any more trouble.

Gabriel had gotten a job in town at the hospital as an orderly. So after a while he bought himself an old white van without any windows. He got it cheap because it was an old dry cleaners' delivery truck that had lots of miles on it. It still had racks in the back to hang clothes on, and there were boxes of plastic bags left over that they'd used to cover dry-cleaned clothes with.

That's when Gabriel decided it was time to take somebody back to the cave and send him to heaven. They cruised the road every night, looking for anyone out alone, and Gabriel decided the first victim probably should be a young girl or old person who wouldn't be strong enough to put up much of a fight. They drove around in nearby counties, looking for a likely candidate, but nobody was ever hitchhiking alone or riding a bike home or anything, so they ended up checking out the hoboes under the Interstate bridge.

One night they got real lucky and found just one old tramp lying drunk beside a campfire that had almost burned out. It was strange. They tiptoed up, afraid they'd wake him, but then realized that his skin was hot to the touch and he was mumbling stuff they couldn't understand. He was real sick with pneumonia or something, and Gabriel said he was a perfect candidate to send to heaven and put out of his misery.

They backed the van up to the fire, and together they dragged him and finally got him up into the back compartment. He wasn't too heavy, and he kept saying, “Baby, baby, that you? I missed you, baby. . . .”

Uriel wondered who he was talking about, but the old man never really opened his eyes. They stopped the van on an old logging road where there was a well-hidden back entrance into their cave, and Gabriel slung him over his shoulder and carried him the rest of the way. Inside the cave, Gabriel laid him on the ground.

“What're we going to do with him now, Gabriel?”

“Well, let me think. We gotta get him off to heaven pretty quick. He sure ain't gonna feel nothing. I bet his temperature's way over 100. Let's just see what it is.”

He pulled a thermometer out of his pocket, the one he'd stolen from the hospital ER when he was cleaning up late one night. He stuck the end of it in the old man's ear, and the digital screen read 103.

“Yeah, he's probably dying, all right. Let's just sit here and see how long it takes him to die. Or we could help him along like you did with that puppy over there.”

He pointed at the cage where Uriel had put the puppy a long time ago. The carcass was covered in lots of webs now. It'd smelled awful for a long time, but the sulphur of the springs helped mask the odor of dead things, so it wasn't so bad any more.

“We could dump him in with those new scorpions we got and see what they do.”

“Yeah, or we could just slit his wrists and see how long it takes him to bleed out. I heard a doctor at the hospital sayin' how a girl committed suicide in a plugged-up bathtub, and the blood was almost three inches deep. He said she left a note sayin' she didn't want to make a mess for her mom to find. That's pretty thoughtful of her, isn't it?”

“Yeah. Let's do that. He needs to go on up to heaven and be with his baby again. He's got nobody to take care of him but us. Let's just cut him and see what happens.”

They each took hold of one of the man's arms and drug him to the big galvanized washtub where Gabriel kept captured animals until they could kill them with spiders or snakes. The last one was a baby raccoon they'd put in with a big black scorpion from Egypt that they'd ordered from an exotic pet store in Scottsdale, Arizona. Gabriel lifted the man and sat him upright in the tub with his back leaning against the taller edge.

“What're we gonna cut him with?” Uriel looked around, searching their cutting tools in the wooden shelves against the wall.

Gabriel smiled. “Look here, Uriel, I brought you a present from the hospital. It's called a scalpel. That's what the surgeons cut people open with. I stole it out of the OR. It's sharper than a razor.”

Uriel took the scalpel and smiled. “Gee, Gabriel, that's real nice of you. Man, I bet it'll slice through about anything.”

“Hey, Uriel, you wanna do the cuttin' this time? You like to see blood spurt. You wanna send him to heaven all by yourself?”

Uriel looked at the man's flushed, gray-whiskered face and the way he was drooling. There was dried vomit on his shirt and snot rolling out his nose. He was dying anyway. They were angels of mercy who could put him out of his misery and pain. And Uriel would get to see his blood, all of it.

“Okay. Show me where I gotta cut him.”

“I've been studying up for this stuff in some of the medical books I found at the clinic. And I made an A in biology last semester, too. There's this artery in the neck, you know. Right here.” Gabriel pushed the man's head to one side with his forefinger and pointed at the side of his neck. “See. But it spurts out really far, if you slice that one open, because it's close to the heart and it keeps on pumping until he's dead. So it'll be real messy. Why don't we save that for some other time, when we're outside and won't get a big mess in the cave? We'd just have to clean it up.”

“Okay.”

“Let's just slit his wrists like that girl who killed herself did. I got a stopwatch. Let's see how long it takes him to stop breathin'.”

Uriel took the scalpel and tested it on his fingers. It was sharper than any of their knives. Gabriel took the old man's right wrist and laid it on top of his stomach. “Look how his veins stick out. That's the way it is with old folks. So cut them. Go pretty deep, too. I got choir practice at church at eight o'clock, and Dad'll be mad if I show up late again.”

“Shouldn't we say a prayer, or something first, Gabriel? So the angels will know to come down and get him and God can be waiting for him.”

“Yeah, good idea. Here, let's hold hands.”

They clasped hands and Gabriel prayed for the man's soul and for God to please have mercy on him. They, the angels of mercy, were sending him home to be with the Lord, where he wouldn't suffer anymore.

“Amen,” said Uriel. Then he took the razor-sharp scalpel and made a deep, vertical cut on the inside of the exposed wrist. The old man jerked and groaned a little. Uriel moved the hand down on the bottom of the tub and then picked up the other one. He cut it the same way, but this one took two swipes with the sharp blade. Then he and Gabriel sat down in folding chairs they'd stolen from the church and ate Backer's barbeque potato chips and drank Dr Peppers and watched blood drain into the tub.

Bud and I spent the afternoon out at the school, getting nowhere fast. Everyone was just as shocked about Christie Foxworthy as we were and more of them showed it. She wasn't universally hated. We knocked off around five, and I spent some time typing reports at my office desk and trying to figure out the connection between Classon and Christie Foxworthy that got them both killed.

At six-thirty I headed home. Snow was still spitting at me, making the roads a little slick, but not bad, passable anyway. I stopped at Harve's long enough to take him the milk and eggs he'd asked me to drop off. He was busy on one of his headhunting assignments so I took off for my place. No lights on, of course. A pitch-black, uninviting home. I hit the button for the garage door and it slowly slid up.

I pulled in, got out, unlocked the door, flipped on the light, and gazed around my new place. It was really nice, and really empty. I checked my phone answering machine. There was no message from Black, but he would've called on my cell phone, anyway. I slung my parka on a chair and picked up the giant remote. I flipped on the fireplace. I considered the hot tub but decided it wouldn't be much fun, not with gruesome visions of scorpions dancing through my head. I looked at the big TV. Maybe I could do some research. There were some things I wanted to know about spiders and scorpions.

I pulled up my Internet provider and Googled poisonous spiders. I got about a million hits. I clicked the first one and got a nice close-up of a spider that I really could've done without. Bud was right about eyes on stalks. Yuck. I read all about necrosis and scrolled through stomach-turning pictures of oozing brown recluse flesh-eating wounds, much like Simon Classon's. I read enough to keep me awake all night and feel imaginary things that made my skin crawl. I was so creeped out, it was pitiful.

I thought for a moment about Simon, as hated as he was, alone out in the dark woods in that sleeping bag. He must've felt those spiders crawling over him, up his legs and arms, over his chest, but he couldn't yell, couldn't move his hands to kill them. He must have struggled desperately inside, squirming around frantically and making them bite him even more. I actually shuddered, a long one that went down the length of my spine.

And Christie. The look in those wide-open, staring eyes haunted me. Pure horror. I wondered if the killer had dropped the scorpions in on her one at a time. Brett Walker said most of the scorpions weren't deadly individually, except for one, which was an especially lethal species called the Egyptian fat-tailed scorpion. I typed that name in and brought up its picture. It was one ugly son of a bitch. Had two large pinchers and a long tail with a stinging spine. Said it was one of the deadliest scorpions in the world. But its range was Northern Africa.

Where did the killer get so many spiders and scorpions? I entered “habitat” with my original search words. It was the dead of winter, below-zero weather. They couldn't survive outside, could they? What did they do, anyway? Freeze and revive? Hibernate underground? I read several articles and found some mail-order places where you could purchase them, exotic snakes and nasty-looking, poisonous insects from Australia, Africa, Asia, and South America. And I bet there were black-market outlets, too. That's probably how he got them to Missouri, but he had to have some kind of lair, a dark place, warm and sheltered, where he kept his cages, or whatever he used to contain them. He sure as hell couldn't let them run free around his house. I searched more about scorpion and spider habits and got creeped out some more. It said they ate each other. I shivered again, then jumped out of my skin when my home phone rang. I definitely had to get my nerves under control.

I walked to the kitchen counter and picked up. It was the long-lost Black.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Where have you been? I've been trying to get hold of you on your cell all day.”

“I've had the phone with me.”

“Check the batteries. You've got to stop letting them run down or you're going to get yourself in trouble some day. I've been worried about you.”

“I figured you were still at the Crazy Horse, you know, enjoying the food.”

He was quiet momentarily, then he said, “Well, well, I do believe you're jealous. Wonders never cease.”

“No, I'm not. Where are you?”

“Still at the clinic. I'm leaving tomorrow for London. Jacques and his wife are spending Christmas there, so I'm going to drop by and say hello. Exchange presents, and all that.”

That would be his Cajun-Mafia godfather brother and sister-in-law from New Orleans that I met last summer, but I didn't dredge up his familial criminal connections. “I guess that means your patient's head is functioning properly.”

“He's out of the straitjacket.”

I smiled a little, then realized he probably meant it. “I'm glad you're coming back. It's getting lonely around here.”

“You miss me? That's a good sign, Claire. Especially since you actually said it out loud. How's your case coming along?”

“He's a serial.”

Silence. Then, “How do you know?”

“I found a girl named Christie Foxworthy with fifty-seven scorpion bites all over her body.”

“Oh, my God.”

“She worked at the school, too.”

“Was she hanging in a tree? Black plastic bag?”

“No, she was locked in a trunk in the Satan professor's house. Who, incidentally, turned out to be her lover.”

“What about suspects?”

“I have a gut feeling.”

“Tell me.”

“Charlie saw fit to saddle me with this psychic wunderkind who pointed Bud and me right to the second vic's crime scene, address and all.”

“A real psychic?”

“As if there are real psychics?”

“Some are legitimate.”

“Wow. That's surprising, you being such a famous, respected shrink, and all that. I thought you guys scoffed at psychic phenomena.”

“I take it you do.”

“I believe in facts, concrete facts, and what I see with my own two eyes.”

“You sounded like Jack Webb just then. You know, the guy on
Dragnet
?”

“Hey, he was one helluva detective. I've seen the reruns, and he always solves his crimes. In a polite police voice, too.”

“Any results yet?”

“No. So many good reasons for killing Classon have turned up that I don't know who to arrest first. Christie was better liked but is just as dead.”

“And Classon seemed so angelic.”

I tried to laugh but couldn't quite dredge it up. And Black could always make me laugh, even when I was depressed by memories of horrible, grotesque corpses, like right now. Maybe that's why I liked him, that and his big, expensive gifts. And lots of other things. He was helping me deal with my past and all the pain I'd kept inside since I was little, that was worth a big something, I guess.

“Tell me about this so-called psychic. What's his name?”

“Joe McKay, and actually he's my primary suspect at the moment, believe you me. I don't trust him. And get this, he had an altercation with Classon years ago that got him expelled from the school and forced into the military. Now he shows up here and, bingo, this place becomes murder central.”

“Sounds like a legitimate motive to me, if he holds grudges. How long ago?”

“Fifteen years.”

“That's a long time to hold on to some boyhood grudge. It's unlikely he'd work up as much rage as it took to kill Simon Classon the way he did.”

“He's also Charlie's protégé, did I mention that? But I'm not backing off, trust me.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Black paused, and I heard a voice murmuring in the background.

“Who's that?”

“Room service. I worked late and skipped dinner, so I ordered something sent up.” He paused. “I miss you, even more than I thought I would.”

“Maybe nude dancers aren't all they're cracked up to be.”

He laughed. Maybe that's why he liked me, too. I made him laugh.

“You gonna make it home for Christmas?”

“By hook or by crook.”

I thought of Bud's book and was glad he wasn't there to talk about where hooks and crooks came from. I sat up straight when I heard the roar of a four-wheeler filtering through the silent darkness outside my house. A minute later somebody stomped across my porch and banged on my front door.

“Wait a sec. Somebody's here.”

“You never have company. What time is it there?”

“Going on eight.”

I peered out the window and found Joe McKay standing on my porch. He smiled and waved at me like I was his long-lost sister, then pointed to the door.

Black's voice came from the phone. “Who is it?”

“Remember that psychic fraud I told you about?”

“Yeah. What's he want?”

“I'm about to find out.”

“Maybe you shouldn't let him in your house so late at night. You said you suspected him.”

“I'm an armed officer of the law. You think he's going to abduct me?”

“He could make a move on you. I did when I was your primary suspect.”

I smiled. He sure did. And I rebuffed him for as long as my roaring hormones let me. I sure as hell wasn't rebuffing him anymore. “You better hurry home. I might find myself a new boyfriend, a.k.a. suspect. One who psychically anticipates my wanton desires.”

“Don't open the door.”

“Eat your dinner. Call me later.”

I hung up, unsnapped my shoulder holster, and opened the door.

“Well, well, look who's here. If you'd called first, I would've been gone.”

“Is this a bad time?”

“Think about it and maybe it will come to you.”

“May I come in? It's snowing out here.”

“Oooh, more psychic predictions.”

I stepped back. He came in, all frosty and flushed and male. He pulled off his leather gloves and rubbed his hands together. “Mind if I warm up by the fire?”

“Be my guest. What do you want, McKay? And how did you know where I live?”

I stood back and watched him hunker down by the fire and warm his hands. He unzipped his parka and held it out to catch the heat. He didn't look at me when he answered. “I remember from last summer when all the media were televising aerial shots of your house.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

He stood up and turned around. He grinned. “That was some case. You were quite a hero.”

I did not want to talk about last summer. “So are you, according to Charlie. He said you're a decorated vet.”

“Nah, just doing my duty. The guys that don't make it back are the real heroes.” He glanced around. “Nice place. I like hot tubs.”

I stared at him, wondering if that could possibly be the clumsiest come-on I'd ever heard. It wasn't.

“Charlie said you didn't want me helping on the case anymore. If I said or did something to offend you, I'm sorry.”

“Nope. It's just that you're my prime suspect. So, I don't particularly want to share confidential information with you.”

“Me?” He looked truly surprised. Some psychic.

“That's right. Think back, use your powers. Simon Classon, a certain snake in a roll book, expulsion from school, mutual hatred. And now you suddenly have knowledge of a murder victim's whereabouts. You add it up.”

“That thing with Simon was nothing but a harmless prank. He liked to embarrass the kids in my class. I gave them a treat. Shouldn't have done it, though. I know better now.”

“And Christie Foxworthy's body?”

“I saw the house in a vision. I knew it was Stuart's place and made the assumption that he was in the trunk. I'm wrong sometimes. If you don't believe I have the gift, how can I convince you?”

“You can't.”

“But you've got to believe me.”

“Wrong. What do you want, McKay? I'm busy trying to pin these crimes on you.”

“How about a truce?”

“Look. We don't need a truce. You do your thing, and I'll do mine. We don't need to be involved or in communication at all. Thanks for coming by and all, but time to go away and leave me alone. Sorry, but you're out of my investigation, and you're staying out.”

“Listen, detective, you're in danger. I've seen you in the hospital, clear as day, and it wasn't in the past. It's coming. Soon. That's the only thing I've seen so far. You're going to end up hurt, or dead, if you're not very, very careful.”

“I'm a police officer, McKay. Danger comes with the territory. And don't think I'm not careful. I carry a gun and everything. And I don't scare easily, if that's why you're here.”

“The guy who killed Simon is not normal.”

“No kidding, Sherlock.”

“He's focusing in on you. I know it. I can feel it. I can see it.”

“Yeah? Maybe he's figured out where my house is.”

“I didn't do it. I'm trying to help you.” He glanced around, as if some bogeyman was going to jump out of the closet and throw a bucket of spiders on me.

“Okay. I get it. There's a serial murderer on the loose and I should be careful. Got any more specifics for me? Something I could actually use?”

“Goddamn it, lady, you're going to get yourself killed. Just like Classon and that poor girl. You've got to listen to me!”

I thought of deep, oozing spider bites and the scraping sounds the scorpions made, the look on Christie's face. An internal shudder started up and just wouldn't stop.