House of Skin (38 page)

It was a table and on it was the girl. Her throat had been slit, bright scarlet rivers bathing her chest. She looked to be dead, but I wasn’t sure. Death wasn’t an absolute in the Territories. Her face was tight, stretched painfully over the architecture of her jutting skull. Her skin, no longer pale, was the livid color of a bruise. A fly lit on her nose, then buzzed away. A discolored tear slid from one staring eye. Between her lips, a cigarette with a bent filter smoldered.

“So, you’ve arrived, have you?” a voice asked.

I turned. A man stood there
…
or a caricature of one. He seemed to be two-dimensional, cut from black vellum. He had height, length, but no width. When he turned sideways, he no longer existed. Where his face should’ve been, there was an X for each eye and a slash of a mouth drawn in white chalk. He carried a straight razor in his papery fist.

“Who are you?” I inquired.

The man giggled. “The one who will instruct you. Look there.” He motioned to the wall. All my calculations were scrawled on the wall in chalk. The missing ones had been added. I took out my little book and copied it all down.

“You should be proud,” he said, his voice not seeming to come from that chalked-in mouth of his, but from above and behind me. “You’re only one of few who’ve ever made it this far.”

“What is this place called?”

“I call it home, nothing more. My own little subcellar of creation.”

“I can leave now? Whenever I please?”

“Yes, if I let you.” He brandished the razor.

I had my own out by then. He closed in and I lashed out, slitting a gaping hole in him. He was indeed made of something like paper. I could see through the wound, yet blood, red and real, flowed from it.

The man laughed. “Very good, Doctor. Very, very good.”

He swung out with his own razor, but I side stepped his lunge. I opened his throat, then his belly. It was like slicing cardboard. He slumped to the floor, something which might have been his anatomy bulging from the openings I’d made.

“Nasty,” he said. “I guess you can go now. No more time to play.” He struggled vainly with his papery limbs and pulled himself into a corner. He stuffed his internals back in the wounds.

The wall was opening now, the one with the equations scribbled on it. It started as a thin aperture of light and soon yawned wide to admit me. An endless corridor revealed itself. I started in and the wall sealed behind me. It took me what seemed hours to reach its twisted end.

And then, before me, the world.

Fenn was going to give Lisa the rest of the day to come clean, but no more. He was sick of her shit and if he had to arrest her, so be it. God knew he didn’t want to. He wanted nothing less. He wasn’t entirely sure if he loved her any longer, but he still liked her, and there was no getting around the fact that he lusted after her.
Like a dog in heat,
he reminded himself. She was a lovely woman, though. Maybe it wasn’t love, but infatuation as she herself said. Fenn could live with that. If only he knew what she was up to, what she was keeping from him. This was the only thing that soured his feelings for her: the lies and deception. Gulliver had been right, the woman definitely had a hidden agenda and much as Fenn tried, he never really got to know her.

But soon, hopefully.

And speaking of Gulliver, where the hell was he?

Fenn was going over to Soames’ apartment. He had a warrant and he was going in to have a look see. It took him about fifteen minutes to fight his way through traffic. He showed Soames’ landlady the warrant and she gave him the key and a dirty look she probably reserved just for cops. The other cops assigned to Soames’ murder hadn’t been there yet. They were still following the possibility that he had been killed by someone inside the hospital. That was a good thing. Fenn wanted to be the first one.

It wasn’t much of a place.

Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, a little living area that had been transformed into an office of sorts. It smelled of must and dampness inside. Fenn tried the office first. There was nothing in the file cabinets about Eddy Zero or Cherry Hill. Nothing whatsoever to link Soames with Lisa Lochmere. He tried the desk next. Nothing too interesting. But the bottom drawer was locked. Fenn fished out the letter opener he’d seen and set to work on the lock. It wasn’t much of one. For looks mainly, not practical security. He popped the mechanism within a few minutes.

There were three things inside. A box of Giants baseball cards from the fifties in mint condition. Probably worth a small fortune. A deck of pornographic playing cards and a small, spiral-bound notebook. Fenn took up the notebook. The first section of pages were covered with tight scribbling concerning the numbers and whereabouts of bank accounts, life insurance policies, and assorted phone numbers and addresses. Nothing much of interest there. The second section was more revealing. There were diary entries here dating back twenty years. Fenn lit a cigarette and started to read.

Twenty minutes later he’d gone through them.

And in the process had learned a great deal about Mr. Soames. His connection with William Zero was quite apparent. Apparently Soames had been a cop once upon a time and had been dismissed for some shadowy dealings concerning a pornography ring. Fenn pieced this together mainly from references Soames made of his former business dealings. The most interesting thing he discovered was that Soames had been practically an accomplice in Zero’s murders. He had been a pimp of sorts and had gotten women for Zero and his associates, known collectively as the Templar Society. Soames wrote that he had been unconcerned with what these degenerates did with the girls until they turned up missing. He became very concerned when two of them were identified as murder victims of Dr. Blood-and-Bones. They’d been found in the brewery, the same one Gulliver had seen Eddy and Spider do their nasty work at. Everything was starting to fit into place. But he still knew nothing of Cherry Hill or Eddy Zero. The rest of the notebook was blank. He searched the apartment and turned up nothing.

But there had to be something. Some record of his affiliation with Lisa Lochmere and Eddy Zero.

But where?

He picked up the notebook again. There was an Irene Soames listed amongst the phone numbers. Sister? Wife? He dialed the number.

“Is this Irene Soames?” he asked.

“Yes.” The voice sounded old, weary.

He told her who he was and what he was doing. “I wonder if I could have a word or two with you?”

She sighed. “I was wondering when you boys would get around to me.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your—” Brother? Husband? He never had a chance to wonder. She cut him off.

“Brother, Lieutenant. And don’t be sorry. He’s better off dead.”

This was getting good. “I wonder if I might drop by and ask you a few questions.”

“No. I have to catch a plane. If you have questions, ask them now and make it quick.”

She wasn’t even going to be around for the funeral. There was hate here, deep-set and real. “Ah, okay. First off, we learned that your brother was involved with a pornography racket. You wouldn’t happen to know the names of anyone he associated with then, would you?”

“No and I don’t want to. I only know it destroyed his family. That’s all I need to know. It turned his daughter into a monster.”

“Come again?”

“That bastard would’ve swung by a rope if I had my way.”

Oh yes, this was getting good. “What do you mean it turned his daughter into a monster?”

“Just what I said.”

“Could you be more specific?”

She was silent for a time. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to tell now. He sexually abused her, Lieutenant. His own daughter. He used to dress up like a clown and rape her. He forced her into making those damn movies. Those filthy, terrible movies.”

“Pornographic films?”

“Yes, that sick sonofabitch. He should’ve been locked up.”

Fenn agreed with that. No wonder Soames was trying to kill himself. The guilt must’ve been eating him alive. Pathetic bastard. It was appalling. “The daughter’s name was—”

“Cherry.”

Bingo. “Cherry Hill?”

“Yes.” She sounded on the verge of tears now. “He destroyed that poor child. His own goddamn daughter. Later, Cherry became … ill. She attacked her mother and her brother. She killed them both … with a wire. She took their heads off it with it.”

He knew about that part. “Is there any more you can tell me?”

“What else could there be? Cherry was sent to an institution. Later on, they decided she was fit to stand trial. She pleaded guilty. Showed no remorse. She was sent to prison. She escaped. After that, I don’t even like to speculate.”

“You’ve been very helpful.”

“I hope you wrote that down, Lieutenant. I never plan to speak about this again to another living soul.”

Fenn thanked her and she gave him a grunt and hung up.

He lit another cigarette and leaned back in Soames’ chair. He knew about a lot of things now. About Soames. About Cherry Hill. All he needed was the link between her and Eddy. According to Lisa, Cherry had been infatuated with Eddy at Coalinga. Later, she’d escaped from prison and now both she and Eddy had visited Lisa, who was their former psychiatrist. Lisa no doubt knew what was going on here, but it wasn’t going to be easy cutting through her lies.

He took Soames’ notebook with him and jotted down what Irene Soames had told him. He went out to his car and drove until he came upon a row of adult video stores and stroke parlors. He went in the first video place he saw.

He flashed his badge and the proprietor looked nervous.

“I’m looking for a film with a girl named Cherry Hill in it. Got anything like that?”

“Hill? No, we got Cherry Divine, Cherry Wild, Cherry Pie, Cherry Road. We even got Cherry Kiss. No Hill that I can think of.”

“Dig me out the others then.”

The man did and showed Fenn into a private showing booth. It took him the better part of two hours, but he found what he was looking for. Cherry Hill had a stage name. It was Cherry Wild. She was a young thing at the time. A teenager, maybe fifteen or sixteen. It was hard to believe a father could let his kid get involved in something like that. Regardless, she was a beauty. He couldn’t help but get aroused by the sight of her doing her thing. No wonder the night manager at Lisa’s hotel was so taken with her. She must’ve blossomed into quite a woman.

Quite a dangerous woman, he reminded himself.

For Cherry Hill was a homicidal maniac.

And she was on the loose.

There was a knock on Lisa’s door that afternoon. She expected Fenn or Eddy or Cherry and dreaded them all in their own way. But it was none of these people. It was Cassandra. The girl she’d met downstairs in the lounge. She was wearing a dark business suit with matching skirt and a veiled hat. She looked ready for a funeral.

“I’m really sorry to intrude,” she said. “But I think we should talk.”

Lisa said nothing. Words were beyond her. Now what could Cassandra have on her mind? Her guest pushed past her and Lisa was struck by an overpowering scent of perfume. It was sickening.

“Could I get you a drink or something?” Lisa asked.

Cassandra shook her head. “No, I never drink anymore. It doesn’t agree with me. I’m not keeping you from anything, am I?”

“No, of course not.”

“It’s important that we talk.”

Lisa sat down. “About what?”

“Eddy Zero.”

Lisa felt a headache coming on. Eddy again. Cassandra was involved in this, too? Christ, what next? She’d been secretly hoping this would be about some personal problem. Anything to distract her mind for a while.

“You’re tracking him down. You told me that much the other day. I’m afraid I wasn’t totally honest with you then. I do know who he is and what he is. I probably know better than anyone else.”

Lisa chewed her lip. “I’m listening.”

“This is really hard to say. I wouldn’t have come forward unless I felt it was necessary. And it is.”

“Tell me,” Lisa urged her. “Nothing you could say would surprise me.”

Cassandra laughed softly. “Don’t be so sure, lady.”

“I’m waiting.” Lisa realized there was an edge to her voice, but she didn’t really give a damn if she was being rude or not.

“The other day you remarked that I was familiar, that you thought you knew me from somewhere. You do. I said you were familiar, too. And you are. I knew from where. I sought you out that day. I wanted to talk to you, to feel you out as it were.”

“Why? Where do you know me from?”

“The first girl Eddy murdered in this town was at his father’s old house.” She stopped and let that sink in. “But what you don’t know is that I was there when it happened.”

“You witnessed it?” Lisa asked.

“I was the victim.”

Lisa just stared. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. The body that was found in the house was never identified, was it?”

“No, but—”

“But it turned up missing from the funeral home along with a certain undertaker named Fish. Right?”

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid I’m the missing cadaver.”

Lisa sat up. She could say only one thing: “You’re crazy.”

“No, not at all. I’m probably one of the few sane voices in this entire mess. Look, I’ll prove it,” she said, taking a tissue from her purse and holding up her right hand. As Lisa watched, she began rubbing at it with the tissue. It took only a moment and when she was done, the tissue was stained with dark make-up and her hand was stripped of color. The revealed flesh was gray and mottled.

Lisa was on her feet now. “This … can’t … be …” her voice was saying.

But it was.

She’d been in enough dissecting rooms and morgues to know dead flesh when she saw it. There was no life in that mottled gray skin. Cassandra was either dead or this was an elaborate joke. But she knew better. Once upon a time people returned from the grave on occasion. Back in the days before embalming. They were usually victims of catalepsy, but that was rare. Usually, they expired in their coffins, waking six feet under the earth. But that sort of thing didn’t happen anymore. And Cassandra definitely didn’t fit into that category anyway. She’d been murdered. There was no doubt about that. Slashed to ribbons. And even if some freak occurrence had allowed a bit of life to languish in her body, the following autopsy would’ve taken care of that. Yet, this person before her who claimed to be their Jane Doe, was very much alive.