Deeper Than The Dead (13 page)

Even Dixon, who had seen his share of abject violence, looked undone by this. He turned away, shaking his head. The idea that Lisa Warwick had been literally locked inside her own head with a terror of something so evil was too much to fathom.

Vince would have said a prayer for the girl, born and bred Catholic that he was. But he had not been on speaking terms with God in a very long time. He found a stool off to the side of the autopsy bay and sat down on it, tuning out as Mikado’s assistant turned on the oscillating saw to pop the cap off Lisa Warwick’s brain.

Over the years he had seen so many cases as brutal as this one, and every one of them left him feeling like ten years had been drained from his life. He felt as old as Methuselah, as brittle as bone. He felt as if he would turn to dust and fall to the yellow-tiled floor to be swept up later with the medical waste.

“How do you get used to it?” Mendez asked quietly.

“Kid,” Vince said. “The day you get used to
this,
turn in your shield and your gun. You won’t belong to the human race anymore.”

“So what are you thinking, darling?” Franny asked. He handed her a glass of white zinfandel and sat down beside her on her back porch steps. “Are you harboring a fugitive in your fifth-grade class?”

Anne drank a good third of the glass. The evening was chilly. They were both wrapped in thick sweaters. They sat close together to share body heat while Franny’s basset hound and cocker spaniel sniffed their way around the backyard, drifting in and out of the pale back porch light.

“Of course not. I just find it unnerving that Dennis may have seen something going on in the woods before yesterday. Are there other bodies out there? What the hell is going on? Now another woman is missing …”

“It’s like yesterday we woke up in a Disney movie, and tonight we’re in a John Carpenter movie,” Franny said. “Maybe Jamie Lee Curtis will play you in our movie.”

Anne looked at him from the corner of her eye. “Will you be my sidekick?”

“Honey, I AM your sidekick.”

“Who will play you in the movie?”

“Richard Gere, of course,” he answered without hesitation. “He’s secretly gay, you know.”

“You think every good-looking man on the planet is secretly gay.”

“No, I don’t. The hot detective from this morning? Definitely not gay.”

“You didn’t see him. How do you know he’s hot?”

He grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “You just told me.”

Heat rushed to Anne’s face. She blamed the wine.

“You should definitely take a run at him.”

“He’s a little busy right now,” Anne said. “So am I. I need to find a way to get through to Dennis. Frank Farman tells me Dennis is fine. He found a horribly murdered woman, but why should that bother him? I guess if it wasn’t the first dead person he’s seen buried in the woods, it’s old hat to him.”

“He probably made it up, honey,” Franny said. “Dennis Farman is a nasty, creepy little shit. He’s been looking up his teacher’s skirts since he was in the third grade. He’s probably got a collection of S and M porn magazines under his bed by now. It’s not a stretch to imagine him making up stories about bodies buried in the woods just to scare other kids.”

Anne sighed, reaching out a hand to touch the nose of Chester the basset hound, who had lumbered up the steps to check on them. “I guess not. He did try to bring a dead cat for show-and-tell one day.”

“No effing way!”

“Oh, yeah. The first week of class. He found it on the road on the way to school, flattened.”

Anne shuddered at the memory of the incident, and at the memory of the look in Dennis Farman’s eyes. She had dismissed it that day, preoccupied with the need to properly dispose of the carcass, but she could see it now in her mind’s eye: a weird kind of excitement that went beyond a child’s natural curiosity.

“He probably bit it and gave it rabies,” Franny said. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“You were out sick,” Anne said. “The root canal.”

“Oh my God!” he exclaimed, dramatically throwing his head back and clamping his hand over his heart. “I thought I would die! That was horrible. I thought I would have to go directly from Dr. Crane’s office to the morgue.”

“Peter Crane?” Anne asked. “Tommy’s father?”

“Yes. Dr. Dream Dentist. He’s hot.”

“But not gay.”

“No. And his wife scares me. Have you seen those shoulder pads? Yikes! Honey, Joan Crawford had nothing on that one.”

“So I’m learning,” Anne said.

She checked her watch and sighed. She had gone to the sheriff’s office to speak personally to Mendez, but had been told he was gone for the day. She had called the number on his card and left a message for him to call her back as soon as possible. She had yet to hear from him.

Now that it was getting late and she was worn out from the day’s events, she began to think maybe she had overreacted, that Mendez would listen to her message and roll his eyes and think she was being hysterical. He and Frank Farman could have a laugh at her expense.

“You know,” she said. “I’ve always felt like I can read my kids pretty easily. I’m a quick study. I meet their parents at conference time and think I have a handle on their home life. Boy, was I naïve . . . or arrogant . . . or something.”

Franny put his arm around her and hugged her tight against him. “Put it away for tonight. Tomorrow is another day, Scarlett.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. What happens tomorrow? The four horsemen of the apocalypse ride into town? I’ve lived here my whole life. People don’t get murdered in Oak Knoll. Women don’t get kidnapped. Fifth graders don’t find dead bodies in the park,” she said. “
I’m
upset.
I’m
scared. How are my kids supposed to deal with it? How am I supposed to convincingly help them deal with it?”

“You do the best you can,” Franny said. “It’s easier for me. Five-year-olds are focused on themselves, their immediate little worlds. And their immediate little worlds are safe and mostly happy. They don’t really understand death. They don’t know what evil is.

“Your kids have started to figure out there’s a world out there that isn’t always a nice place. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that you let them know it scares you too,” he said.

“Fear: the human condition,” Anne said. “Hey, kids, this is what you have to look forward to as you grow up: a world gone mad.”

Franny tossed back the last of his wine and set the glass aside. “Enough of your dark thoughts, Negative Nancy. I’m going to pour more wine, and then we’re going to talk about my favorite topic: me! I’m going to throw a fabulous party for my fortieth birthday next year. It’s going to have a carnival theme. I’m calling it
Franival
!”

Tired as she was, Anne managed to laugh. “I love you, Francis.”

He smiled like a saint. “Everyone does.”

Game one of the 1985 National League Championship Series. The St. Louis Cardinals versus the incredibly awesome best team in baseball: the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The day before, Tommy had thought about how much fun it would be: just him and his dad on the couch in the family room, watching the game, eating hot dogs and popcorn, drinking sodas (strictly forbidden by his mother). Wednesday nights his mother had a meeting of one of her many organizations and didn’t get home until late.

Now the game was playing, and Tommy wanted to lose himself in it and get excited and cheer for his team, but he couldn’t make himself feel the way he wanted to. He sat on the couch, his too-big Dodgers T-shirt swallowing him up, his scorecard abandoned on the coffee table with his Dodgers souvenir pencil. Fernando Valenzuela was pitching. The Dodgers were up by one in the top of the sixth.

His father sat at the end of the couch, reading newspapers during the commercials.
Los Angeles Times
,
Santa Barbara News-Press, The Oak Knoll Independent
. Every so often he would look over.

“What are you thinking, Sport?”

Tommy shrugged.

“Are you hungry? I can make the popcorn now.”

Tommy shook his head. He glanced over at the paper his dad had put down on the coffee table. There was a photograph of yellow crime-scene tape tied to two trees and uniformed deputies bent over looking at the ground. The headline read:
MURDER
IN
THE
PARK
. Below it, in smaller bold type:
CHILDREN
MAKE
GRUESOME
DISCOVERY
.

“I’m just making sure none of these has the names of you kids in the story,” his father said.

Tommy said nothing. He didn’t want his name in the paper. Unlike Wendy, he wanted this all to go away as quickly as possible.

“Dad? What’s a cereal killer?” he asked. “How can you kill someone with cereal?”

“Not cereal, like breakfast cereal,” his father said. “Serial with an
s
, as in a series of events. A serial killer kills a number of people over a period of time.”

“Why would anyone do that? Are they mad at the people they kill? Or are they just crazy?”

His father seemed to think about his answer before he gave it. “I don’t think people really understand why someone turns out to be a serial killer. I think it’s really complicated. But it’s not something you need to worry about, Tommy.”

“How do you know? What if the killer saw us, and now he wants to kill us too?”

“That isn’t going to happen,” his father promised. “I’m not going to let that happen. Miss Navarre isn’t going to let that happen. Detective Mendez isn’t going to let that happen. You don’t need to worry, son. You’re safe. We’re all going to keep you safe. Okay?”

Tommy didn’t answer because he didn’t want to tell a lie. Instead, he sat closer to his dad and pretended to feel safe while the Dodgers came up to bat.

Later in the evening, a few blocks away, Wendy sat under her covers with a flashlight illuminating her makeshift tent as she scribbled away in a spiral notebook.

She had told Tommy she was going to write their story and sell it to Hollywood for a movie. Maybe they would even get to be in it. She liked the idea of being an actress, as long as it didn’t get in the way of her being a journalist. All Tommy had said was that it was going to be a really short story.

“No, it isn’t,” Wendy said. They had been sitting outside in the sun during the lunch hour, Wendy busily making notes. “Finding the dead body is just the first scene. Now we have to find out who the dead lady is, and who killed her, and why.”

“That’s the detective’s job,” Tommy pointed out. “I’m not even allowed to play outside now.”

Wendy made a face. “Your mother can’t watch you all the time. She has a job. We have to go back to the woods.”

“No, we don’t.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“It’s grounded until further notice.”

“Don’t be such a wuss,” Wendy said, annoyed. “In a couple of days our parents won’t care anymore. Promise you’ll go with me back to the woods.”

Tommy looked frustrated with her, as he often did. But he always caved in the end.

She batted her eyelashes like her mom did when she wanted something from her dad. “Come on, Tommy. You said you would protect me. You can keep an eye out in case that dog comes back.”

“Or the killer,” Tommy said.

“That would make a great scene in the movie!”

She made notes about it now, as she hid under her covers. She and Tommy were in the woods, creeping carefully toward the place where the body had been buried. It would be almost dark. Maybe there would be thunder and lightning. That would add to the excitement. The killer would be creeping through the woods too, watching them. And just as she and Tommy came around a huge tree, the lightning would flash, and
THERE
HE IS!!!! Looming over them, his ugly face twisted, eyes bugging out of his head, clawlike hands grabbing at them. Their hearts would be pounding as they jumped back and screamed.

Tears filled Wendy’s eyes, and she flung the covers back sending pen and notebook flying.
OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD!!!
WHAT
IF IT
REALLY
HAPPENED
THAT
WAY?

Wendy leapt out of bed and beat it out of her room and down the stairs, yelling, “MOM!!!”

In another house, in another part of town, Cody Roache was awake in his bed too. He didn’t like being awake at night when his mom was asleep and his dad was at work. He
always
heard sounds in the house. Floorboards creaking. Footsteps coming down the hall. And he would hold his breath and try to listen harder until all he could hear was the sound of his pulse pounding in his ears.

He sat in his bed with the covers pulled up around his chin. He was shaking like crazy. Dennis would have called him a pussy.

Dennis had seen dead bodies in the woods. Cody thought about running through the woods, playing commando, stepping on the dead bodies as they ran. He thought he might never sleep again, because in his nightmares he was running through the woods and a hand reached up out of the ground and grabbed him by the ankle. Then he fell down. Then all the dead people started getting up out of the ground as zombies, their flesh rotting, eyeballs falling out of their heads. And he ran to Dennis for help, but Dennis turned into a zombie too, and came after him.

Don’t worry about Dennis,
Miss Navarre had said.

Miss Navarre was nice. Cody appreciated her coming over just to see him. That had never happened before in his whole life—an adult coming to the house just to see him—and not because he was in trouble, either.

But Miss Navarre didn’t know very much about Dennis. She didn’t know the kinds of things Dennis liked to talk about, like doing bad things to girls. And she didn’t know that sometimes Dennis would just get really mad and hit him for no reason. If Miss Navarre knew those things about Dennis, Cody thought, she would be scared too. And she probably wouldn’t want to sleep, either.

Dennis didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to be mad. He wanted to hit someone, kick someone. Miss Navarre came to mind. Stupid bitch. It was all her fault his father had come after him with his belt. If she would have minded her own business, but no, she had to
COME
TO
HIS
HOUSE
to personally tell his parents he had been absent from school.