Now or Never (49 page)

At last he was there. He rose up on his knees and lifted his hands in supplication. “I’m home, Mother,” he said. “I’ve come home, just the way I promised you.”

The woman revolving slowly in the limpid ocean-green liquid could not answer him because her mouth was stitched shut. She could not see him because her eyelids were stitched. She could no longer suckle him because her nipples had been cut off. And she had been dead for many years.

Her fleshy body was in as perfect condition as the day he had embalmed her, and her stitched-up mouth seemed to smile in a way it never had when she was alive.

He had always known he would stop her evil talk, once
and for all, one day. It was one of the reasons he had decided to become a doctor. Doctors could get away with things other people could not. They had access to poisons and drugs; they could decide the cause of death and sign the certificate with no questions asked. When he learned about forensic pathology, it was like being handed a gift. As a pathologist, he knew exactly what to do with a dead body.

He had killed her on a sunny summer afternoon by the side of a dreary little lake in Washington State. She had not been feeling well and he had told her he would take her for a drive. He had been feeding her small amounts of arsenic in her orange juice—not enough to kill her but just enough to make her complain to the neighbors that she was sick.

They sat on the bank overlooking the lake and he listened to her bitching about him as usual. “Heaven knows, you’re the doctor,” she ranted on irritably. “And you can’t even cure your own mother. You never were good for much as a boy, and now you’re even worse. You’re not even a man.”

He hadn’t thought twice about it. His glance was as chilly as his heart as he turned and chopped her across the neck. Her eyes went big, and she stared at him, surprised, as she sank into unconsciousness. He dragged her from the car, ripped open her dress, and began to punch her, his head down like a boxer. Punch after solid angry punch. He sat back to catch his breath, then he fell on her, biting her, clawing her. And then he raped her. He thrust into her again and again but couldn’t climax. She was right. He was a failure.

Crazed with anger and humiliation, he took the scalpel and slit her wrist. Her bright red blood spurted out and he felt the excitement mounting inside him. He grabbed her other wrist and ran the knife across it, and as she was dying, his own juices spurted along with her blood.

He was shaking with the thrill of it, the sheer exhilaration of what had happened. He was the one in control now. He thanked her every night of his life, after that, for finally showing him the way.

He wrapped her in the body bag he had brought with him, zipped it up, and lifted her into the trunk of her own white Lincoln Continental. He turned on the radio, humming happily along with the Brahms violin concerto as he drove slowly back home.

When he was safely back in the garage and the door had clicked shut, he opened the trunk, lifted her out, and carried her into the kitchen. There was no blood, no mess—everything was in the body bag. He had his equipment stored in the garage—the instruments, the embalming fluids, the containers. He covered the floor with plastic cloths, put on his rubber gloves, and began.

A couple of days later he informed his mother’s few friends and neighbors that she had suffered a stroke and died in her sleep. He said it had always been her wish that she be cremated and that there would be no service. Those who wished to remember her could send a donation to the charity of their choice.

A few weeks later he told them he had been offered a job out of state. He put the house up for sale and said good-bye. Then he packed her embalmed body into the trunk, along with the rest of his baggage, and drove to Chicago.

With the proceeds from the sale of her house, he was able to buy a nice home in Bloomington Hills. When he moved in, he gave her her own room just like before, and built an aquarium for her so he could see her whenever he needed to.

It gave him great pleasure to watch her spinning gently in the eddying preserving fluid, smiling soundlessly at him as he told her about “his girls.”

Later, he moved to San Francisco, then to L.A. for a
while, then on to various other big cities with colleges where there were plenty of girls. And finally, he moved to Boston.

He knelt before her, his hands clasped meekly. The blood was still seeping from the wound in his neck.

“I’ve finished now, Mother,” he said.

He lay down in front of the aquarium. He took the bloodstained knife from his pocket, and wiped it fastidiously. He turned his hands palm up and stared at them for a long moment. Then he drew the scalpel cleanly across first one wrist then the other, the perfect pathologist to the end. He held up his bloody hands to show her. “I did it, Mother,” he screamed. “I did it.”

His knees crumpled, and he sank to the ground. He lay on his back, watching his blood and his life gush away, as he had with others so many times before. He turned his head slowly, so he could see her. Hatred bubbled from him like the blood.

“Bitch,” he said.

Harry wished he were driving the Jag—the Ford’s sirens were screaming as he cut through the straggling traffic, shooting the red lights, but it still wasn’t fast enough for him. He was trying to keep all thoughts of Mal in the back of his brain, concentrating the force of his energy on Blake. Mal was okay. He didn’t want to let himself think what he would have done to Blake if he had killed her, but it would not have been nice.

The Ford’s tires screeched as he swung sharp left into the nice suburban street, the squad cars following noisily behind. Lights flashed on in upstairs windows as startled neighbors leaped from their beds to see what was happening. But the house of Dr. Bill Blake was dark and silent.

“This is it, Rossetti.” Harry flung open the car door and reached into his shoulder holster. The Glock fit his palm like a glove, smooth and lethal. Keeping to the shadows,
he walked to the house, Rossetti behind him. The SWAT team spilled from the patrol cars, went down on one knee, and shouldered their rifles, aiming at the doors and windows. Lights were set up and focused on Blake’s neat, well-kept house, and down the street officers were keeping back the swelling group of neighbors. Clutching their bathrobes around them, they gawked in astonishment at the drama taking place on their quiet, respectable street.

Roadblocks had been flung hastily up around Boston, and patrol cars were on the lookout. Harry didn’t know if Blake was in there, but they could take no chances.

He took the microphone and said, “Dr. Blake, you are surrounded. I’m asking you to open the front door and come out with your hands over your head. It’s in your own best interests to comply.”

The silence from the house was palpable. A plane droned high overhead, and the stars glittered in the clear sky.

“Blake, this is your last chance,” Harry said into the mike.

The marksmen shifted their positions, creeping closer. Some were stationed on the roof of the house opposite; more had gone over the wall to the back of the house.

The silence stung his ears. Harry glanced at Rossetti. He shrugged. “I’ll bet a hundred he’s in there.”

“Let’s go for it,” Rossetti said.

Harry gave the signal, and shots rang out, shattering the upstairs windows. Still nothing happened. Harry shot the lock off the door, but it still wouldn’t open.

“There’s enough goddamned bolts for a fortress,” Rossetti muttered, struggling.

Keeping close to the house, they ran around the side. Rossetti smashed a window, then flattened himself against the wall, listening. The silence was so total, Harry could hear his own blood pounding in his ears. He quickly
punched out the rest of the glass, and they were over the sill and inside.

Searchlights lit the kitchen with a surreal glow. The refrigerator door was open, and an almost-empty bottle of vodka stood on the counter. Even from that distance Harry could see blood smeared across the white tiles. He looked down, following the trail through the open doorway, into the hall. He looked at Rossetti and nodded.

The SWAT team filtered silently after them, flattening themselves against the wall. Three of them dropped to their knees, their rifles trained on the dark area at the top of the stairs.

Harry’s mouth was set in a grim line as he remembered Summer Young’s last words. He thought, sickened, of the way pretty Suzie Walker had looked when they found her, and of Dr. Blake carving her up, again, on the autopsy table, his knife poised over her as he hummed a happy little tune. He thought about the terrible things Blake had done to Mal, and that she had never gotten over them. He wanted to get Blake so bad he was trembling.

He took the stairs two at a time, Rossetti after him. At the top, they swung around, checking. The upper hall was empty, all the doors were shut, and everything was in darkness. Rossetti nudged Harry, indicating with his eyes a faint greenish glow under one door.

Harry heard something. He leaned forward, listening, to the faint gurgling sound. Like a swimming pool, he thought, puzzled.

He gave the thumbs-up to the hit squad; they raced up the stairs. He flung open the door, and he and Rossetti charged in, guns ready.

Harry held out his arm to stop the men. Blake was lying in a pool of his own blood. His eyes were open, and it didn’t take a genius to know he was dead.

“What the fuck …” Rossetti exclaimed, stunned.

Harry lifted his eyes from the body on the floor to the
mutilated dead woman spinning slowly, around and around, in the aquarium, and he knew he was looking at the sickness that had lain in the soul of William Ethan Blake.

“Christ,” Rossetti said, shaken, “it’s like a fuckin’ horror movie.”

Officers crowded in the doorway, staring stunned at the grisly scene. “Okay, guys,” Harry said. “Show’s over.”

He was suddenly drained of all emotion. It was beyond him how any man could do such a thing, how he could live with it all these years, the desolation and evil of it.

“Let the ME in,” he ordered as a doctor shouldered his way past the officers. “Business as usual,” he said grimly to Rossetti, as the familiar routine began all over again: the police photographer, the medical examiner, the guys from the crime lab. It was a cop’s life.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said to Rossetti, suddenly formal. “I have to go and see Mal. If he asks, tell the chief I’m off on personal business.” At that moment he didn’t give a damn what the chief thought. After observing what Blake was capable of, he needed to see for himself that Mal was okay.

Rossetti thought Harry looked as sickened as he felt. “Summer Young was right,” he called after him. “He was the biggest bastard of them all. But she can rest easy now, Prof. And so can Suzie and the others.” He crossed himself as he said their names, praying that what he had said was true.

M
AL WAS SITTING
on the yellow brocade sofa in Miffy’s pretty little drawing room. The family portraits gazed down at her, and the black-nosed pugs were pressed against her like a pair of cushions. Miffy sat anxiously opposite, wearing a gold satin Chinese robe with a cloud pattern on it. She was pouring tea.

“Cucumber on the white, smoked salmon on the brown,” Miffy explained, passing her a plate of neat little finger sandwiches.

Mal took a cucumber and smiled her thanks. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to lie down?” Miffy asked worriedly. “After all you’ve been through …” She didn’t finish her sentence because she was afraid to put into words exactly what Mal had been through. It was too terrible, too terrifying. Too close for comfort.

“I’m waiting for Harry,” Mal explained. “I have to tell him about the dog.”

Miffy understood. “Well, at least we know they found that terrible man, Blake,” she said. “He can’t harm anyone now.” Harry had called and told her that Blake had killed himself.

Mal took a bite of the cucumber sandwich. It tasted fresh, simple, and delicious. She took another bite, suddenly ravenous. She smiled. “I could eat the whole plate.”

By the time Harry arrived, she had finished half the
sandwiches. He strode through the door, then stopped and stared at her. Everything he felt about her was in his eyes. Concern, fear, relief. Love.

She was wearing one of his mother’s white cotton nighties with a yellow bathrobe thrown over it. A gauze pad covered a cut that ran from just below her left eye to her jawbone.

He went to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

She looked up at him. His hair was wild, as though he had run his hands through it a million times, and she liked what she read in his eyes. “Now I am,” she said.

“It’s all over, Mal. He’s dead as a doornail. He killed himself, the same way he killed all the others. It’s the best thing he could have done.”

She sighed. “The bastard,” she said softly.

“We know how he got the phone numbers,” he said. “He came to the precinct and brought a report over. Rossetti said he left: him in the office alone for ten minutes, and when he came back, he was fiddling with the computer. He made some excuse about being fascinated by it. Rossetti thought no more about it.”

She nodded. He had been clever—almost clever enough to get away with it. She hesitated, but she had to ask. “What about my … the girl?”

“She’s okay. She doesn’t know anything, isn’t even aware she was involved.” He knew what she was thinking. “She’ll never know about him, Mal. No one knows.”

Mal understood that the girl was no longer
her
daughter. She belonged to the family who had taken her into their lives and their hearts, who had sheltered her, guided her, loved her. The girl would never know about her connection with Dr. William Blake, would never have to carry that horrifying burden. She was bright, young, and lovely. She was happy, and that was the way it was going to stay.

“She’s free. Finally,” she said with a sigh.

Harry took her hand
and kissed it. “So are you,” he said, and she smiled at him. “I almost blew it,” he added. “I thought you would be safe at my place. I didn’t know Blake knew where I lived. I should have realized when I saw the Volvo—I’d seen it parked in the square.”