Dead Last (27 page)

THORN SAT FOR A WHILE
in the crushed velvet chair before the bright gray static, staring down at his own hands, still swollen from clubbing the baseball bat into the light pole. Another in a long string of similar episodes, Thorn going psycho, erupting in a volcanic fury. Like building that bonfire two days ago, Thorn in zombie mode, setting ablaze everything he owned, everything he cherished, everything he’d worked so hard to create.

Now his blood was circulating in Sawyer and Flynn. His volatile nature transmitted through the tangled web of genes and inherited traits.

What started in those innocent bedroom hours a quarter century before, a morning bathed in the quiet springtime sunlight, April Moss and Thorn tangled on the cotton sheets, their sweaty bodies cooled by breezes from Blackwater Sound; those few hours together had set in motion a long chain of events. Rusty’s death nudging April to write an elegy of compassion for a woman she didn’t know, an act that some unbalanced maniac used as a road map to murder a woman in Oklahoma, which propelled Buddha Hilton out of her quiet town and onto a jet plane, into a rental car, a journey that ended with her curled up in a cold bathtub in Miami, naked, suffering a gruesome end.

He stared at the gray fuzz on the screen. Opening and closing his swollen hands. He traced and retraced the chain, link by link, the long inevitable sequence. The moonlit night at the Islamorada bar, the pretty high school kid flirting, the giddy tequila shots, the drive back to his place, and on and on and on until it became this day in this room, a day haunted by the deaths of many and by the foretelling of more to come.

There was only one way to tell the story. Foolhardy, reckless Thorn had set this whole damn thing in motion, tipped the first domino, and a quarter of a century later they were still falling one by one by one.

He was still staring at the static on the screen when someone entered the room behind him, walked to his side, and reached around the edge of the chair to pry the remote from his hand. He aimed it at the television and switched the channel to the cable news.

April Moss was being interviewed once again outside the coral house.

Thorn turned his head and looked up at Flynn Moss holding the remote, studying the televised interview that was taking place just yards beyond the parlor window.

The blond CNN woman was asking April questions, and April was answering them quietly and with tense restraint.

“Ben Silver called Mom a few minutes ago, ordered her to get outside and face the cameras. She looks good on-screen, don’t you think? Fleshes her out nicely. Direct sun pops the highlights in her hair, erases some of her pallor. Shows off the beautiful angles working in her face. But then you probably already noticed that.”

Flynn walked over to a nearby chair and sat. He glanced at Thorn, shook his head, and grimaced or smiled. It was hard to tell. Then he turned back to the television. Flynn had on a simple white T-shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals. An outfit almost identical to the one Thorn had worn every day for most of his life.

The reporter asked April if she planned to write more obituaries. The question seemed to take her by surprise. She blinked and stuttered the beginning of a response and stopped.

“Ms. Moss,” the reporter said. “Apparently your work is fueling these horrific murders. But the publisher of
The Miami Herald
tells us he has no intention of pulling you off your normal assignment. Will you go along with that? Will you write more obituaries even if by doing so you put more innocent people at risk?”

April stared straight ahead.

“It’s my job,” she said. “Unless they fire me, I’ll keep writing.”

“The killer called again. Did you know that?”

“I heard.”

“He claims responsibility for five victims. On July third an elderly gentleman in Hialeah was his first. Then he’s killed at one-week intervals afterward, cut the throat of a male nurse in Atlanta, shot a teenage boy in Fort Lauderdale, stabbed a female lawyer in Oklahoma, and the brutal beating of the sheriff last night. Do you have any comment on this string of horrors?”

April said she was sorry. Sorry for the families, for the victims. Very, very sorry.

“Do you know how the killer is selecting his targets?”

April said no, she had no idea.

“But he’s using your obituaries as his road map. You have no clue what he’s basing his actions on?”

“No idea.”

“Have the police been exploring these avenues?”

“I wouldn’t know what avenues they’ve explored.”

Three other reporters had hustled over from their trucks to join the impromptu news conference and were half circled around her. The chunky guy elbowed to the front, jabbed his mike at April.

“Our Susquehanna overnight poll was just released. In our survey sixty-three percent of Americans believe you should be fired from your job.”

“What?”

“Two-thirds of respondents said you should be let go.”

April studied the man but said nothing.

“Do you think you should resign?”

“Why would I?”

“Because your writing has caused such gruesome results.”

April inhaled through her nose, marshalling her restraint.

“I write obituaries. I celebrate the stories of people’s lives. I believe I perform a service to the families of the deceased, and their friends, and to the public who otherwise might never have known these unique individuals.”

“But you understand, don’t you, why the families of the five victims look at this very differently. Whether you intended it or not, your writing has caused five deaths, innocent men and women. People consider you something of an accomplice.”

“An accomplice?”

“That’s what we’re hearing.”

“Go fuck yourself,” April said quietly. “And when you’ve finished that, fuck your poll.”

“Wow, she snuck that one by,” Flynn said. “Good going, Mom. That should seal the deal.”

“What deal?”

“Hey, we haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Flynn Moss, your son.”

He extended his hand.

Was this a smart-ass trick? Draw his hand away and wipe it through his hair? What the hell. Thorn reached out and the kid’s hand was still there. Flynn with a powerful grip. Maybe squeezing harder and longer than would be considered polite.

When Flynn released his hand, Thorn said, “Seal what deal?”

“Haven’t you been watching the news?”

“Not if I can avoid it.”

“Well, it’s the Saturday dead zone for the media jocks, but they’re still going strong about the Zentai Killer, so that part’s good. Only now it’s exclusively about Mom and her obituaries.
Miami Ops
is out of their script.”

Thorn shook his head, not getting the point.

“News people have trouble telling a story with more than one plotline. Either they’re too dumb, or they think their audience is too dumb. But this story has two threads. This maniac is copying our show. And he’s using Mom’s obituaries to do it. How complicated is that? But no, that’s not the story anymore. Now the simpletons have shrunk it down so it’s only about the real-life obituaries. Make it stupid and easy, that’s the motto.

“Looked for a minute like they were losing interest in the whole thing, backing away, then the killer calls, gives them names and dates, a little pep talk, and bing, they’re pumped up again. The frenzy resumes, except it’s all about whether Mom should quit. Her role in the thing. They made a choice: Where’s the juiciest narrative, the rawest nerve?

“Surprise, surprise, they all arrived at the same answer. Doesn’t matter if the killer is copycatting our show. Tell the obituary writer’s story, go after her, drop the other thread. So that seals the deal. Whatever bump we were going to get in the ratings, it’ll be gone by Thursday. The show’s dead. It’s over. Time to update the resume.”

The front door opened and April stepped inside and settled her back against it. She was breathing deeply. Her eyes roved the foyer for a moment, then drifted to the parlor and settled on Thorn and Flynn.

“Come on in, Mom. Join the hootenanny.”

“Not just now.”

She pushed herself upright and headed for the stairway. She stopped and came to the room and looked at Thorn.

“Sawyer’s not coming after all. He’ll drop by later.”

“Where’d he go?” Flynn asked.

“On the boat with Dee Dee and Gus. Said he wanted to take a deep breath. Which sounds like a good idea for all of us.”

“Nice fuck-yous, Mom. Snuck in two of them. Good job.”

April turned away and walked upstairs.

Flynn snapped off the TV and scooted his chair a half foot closer to Thorn. Leaned in and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.

“So it’s just us boys.”

“The code,” Thorn said. “The one the TV killer’s using to pick his victims. How does it work in the show? What’s his system?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. I heard you were some kind of undercover dick or something.”

Thorn let that slide.

“What’s the key to the code?”

“So what’s your story? You’re what, like Tarzan? Live the jungle life in Key Largo, like hide up in the palm fronds and all that cool shit. Swing down on your vine and solve a caper every once in a while, then swing back up to your tree house. That how it is?”

“Exactly like that.”

“So tell me, have you spread your seed to any other young girls? Do I have some half brothers or sisters I should meet?”

“We were talking about the code.”

“
You
were talking about the code, Tarzan. I was talking about you, my old man, my papa, my paterfamilias, my liege.”

“You’re a smart young man.”

“Am I impressing you, Dad? I very much want to impress you. Oh, yes. I want to earn your respect. So you can tell me how proud you are of me, and make me feel all worthy and noble and warm and gooey inside.”

“We might get to that point sooner if you’d cut the shit.”

“Oh, we’re a smart guy, are we? Tarzan, the quipster. Flexing his muscles and trotting out one-liners. Man, you’re a major cliché, Thorn. You’re like right out of some fifties Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet flick.”

“You do your own makeup on the show?”

That sat him back in his chair. He cocked his head and appraised Thorn with a flicker of wariness.

“I have a makeup girl like every actor on the show.”

“But you can do it yourself if you have to?”

“What’s this about, Tarzan?”

“It’s about a young woman who was beaten to death last night with a baseball bat. You ever seen someone beaten to death?”

Flynn slid his gaze toward the TV set and was silent.

“Can you do your own makeup? Say the makeup artist doesn’t show up one day and you have to impersonate someone special. Say it’s a girl you’re supposed to look like. Could you do that yourself? Make a latex mask like the one you were wearing the other day?”

“What is this?”

“This is a simple question. Father to son.”

“Fuck the father shit, okay. Just leave that out of this.”

“I can do that.”

“Yeah, damn right I could do my own makeup. Give me twenty minutes, the right gels, powders, brushes, foundation.”

“And the latex mask, the one you were wearing at the Floridian, did you make that?”

“Am I being accused of something? Because if I am, I want to hear it straight.”

“Did you make that mask?”

“Are you asking me to incriminate myself?”

“Why do you say that?”

Flynn pinched his earlobe, rubbed it between thumb and first finger.

“I’ve done it a thousand times, made masks, worn eyelashes, mustaches, full beards. It’s my trademark. I’m a mountebank. Know that word, Tarzan?”

“I do.”

“Pick a star, Marilyn, Scarlett, Demi, Angelina. Ten minutes, I’m her.”

“And Sawyer, is he capable of that?”

“Sawyer? Eyelashes? Can Sawyer do makeup, make a mask out of latex or gelatin?”

“Can he?”

Flynn moved his chair back to its original position. Settled into it and stared across the room at the portrait of young, mischievous Garvey.

“I wouldn’t know what Sawyer’s capable of.”

“What about Jeff Matheson?”

“What about him?” The jauntiness evaporated from his voice.

“Would he be capable of applying makeup? Creating a mask.”

“What kind of question is that?”

“As far as you know, does Jeff have any of those skills you have? To change his appearance. It’s a simple question.”

“I really don’t know. We played around with shit like that when we were kids. Is that what you want to hear?”

“You got into your mother’s makeup, you and Jeff?”

“A few times. We were kids. Got into trouble. Mom started locking her bedroom.”

Out the front window Thorn saw the shadow of a bird arriving, then the ibis appeared, fluttering to a delicate landing, followed by another then the rest of the flock, touching down in the grass that bordered the drive. They began to hook their beaks into the dirt, strutting a few steps and working the soil.

For the moment all was quiet at the front gate. The reporters had returned to their trucks to monitor the airwaves for other stories, something darker than the Zentai Killer, something bigger, with a higher body count, a more appealing victim, or whatever it was they were always searching for, the fizzy next big thing to fill their bottomless appetites.

“The code,” Thorn said. “What is it? How does the killer pick his victims in the show?”

“Man, you just keep coming.”

“I do.”

“There is no code. That’s the twist.”

“No code.”

“It’s an existential joke. There’s nothing at the core. The killer leaves the obits behind at the crime scene to confuse the issue. Cuts the edges to make it seem like they’re important. But there’s no code. That’s supposed to be next season’s first big reveal. That is, when there was still going to
be
a next season. Cops and the Feds keep looking at the obits, studying them, trying to crack the secret, but there is no code. It’s all a hoax. There is no God. No wizard behind the curtains.”

“Nothing at the core.”