SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set (73 page)

Shadow changed the channel to one of the stations where the five o'clock news would begin in just a few seconds. She eyed the clock on the wall. Hurry up, she thought. Tell me the bad news so I don't have to keep waiting for it.

“He said he'd do another one if you didn't, so we know he did.” Charlene said this around a small scalloped cracker between her square, slightly off-white teeth.

Shadow sighed and shrugged. What was she supposed to do about it? She had been hunting for some sign, some . . . signal . . . in the clubs for two nights running. What else could she do? And what good was her search? Was the Copycat another woman disguising her voice on the phone some way? Was it a man mad as a hatter, with wall eyes and a sardonic sneer to his lips? If the cops couldn't catch him, how was she supposed to do the miraculous?

But then they hadn't found her out, either. Because she was careful.

Which meant so was the Copycat.

So how was she to . . .?

The lead news item was the murder.

“I told you so,” Charlene whispered.

The video-cam on the scene took a far-off shot of the restaurants hugging the channel two miles from where Shadow and Charlene sat at the kitchen table. In the distance was the navy blue bay leading to the Gulf of Mexico. As the camera scanned, viewers could see the outline of Galveston Island dozing in a golden haze of noon sun. Then the camera shot tightened and zoomed until the viewer could see the body bag and the men lifting it onto a gurney.

Shadow sat rigidly, holding her breath. Son did not lie. He had waited for her no more than one day and then he struck again.

The crime scene shot dissolved and the female anchor was saying something about the police asking for civilian help in identifying the victim. As the anchor listed the specifics, a grainy police sketch filled the television screen.

“The man was five foot, seven inches tall, and weighed approximately one hundred and forty pounds. Brown thinning hair, brown eyes. He wore contacts. There was a distinguishing mole on the right collarbone. If anyone has any information about this man . . .”

Shadow gasped and knocked over the Dijonnaise bottle with a clatter. Charlene turned to her silently, watching.

Shadow knew the victim. She didn't really know him, but she'd seen him in the clubs, seen him in the Blue Boa, for that matter. He was . . . wait! She had seen him somewhere else. And it was recently. It was . . . she closed her eyes to concentrate. Remember, she admonished, you've got to remember, this is important.

It was at the . . . St John club. She had gone there after her set at the Boa, just poking around, wondering what she was going to do. She . . . wait . . . she walked in . . . and . . . she saw a man she knew, but he was in some kind of disguise—that or else he had a twin brother who was older, heavier, mustached. But that only entered her mind for a moment because she knew it was him, not a brother, not a cousin. It was him, disguised.

Frank.

She had seen this latest victim with Frank. Was it Frank whose voice spoke to her on the phone, who called himself “Son,” who was the Copycat? Could it be? The man who read Travis McGee novels and watched comedic movies? One of the few customers she had felt at ease talking to, a nondescript, nonthreatening, asexual friend?

“Jesus,” she whispered.

“What is it?” Charlene asked. “You know the dead man, don't you?”

Shadow rooted herself in the present. She gazed vacantly at Charlene, the pit of her stomach sinking. “Yes, I know him,” she murmured. “And I know who killed him too.”

~*~

He crouched in a tangle of vines that hugged the brick wall. For minutes at a time he sat this way, knees creaking and aching, feet going to sleep, numb as rock. Then he would rise, slowly, thinking of soap bubbles drifting skyward, how pure and clear and silent they were, and turn again twisting from the waist.

Inside the window he could see them at the far end of the kitchen where they sat at a table eating and watching TV. The crazy woman in the gray sweater, that sweater she wore despite the killing summer heat, and Shadow, dear, lovely Shadow of the black midnight hair and bronzed skin. He knew her name was Katherine but, sorry, she was no Katherine, or Kate, Kitty, Kathy, Kat. She was Shadow. It was as pure and clear to him as the thought of soap bubbles rising. She had taken the name and wasn't there something grand, something original in the act of choosing one's own name that made it real and meaningful? Katherine was a name parents chose for a girl child, a baby they hope will grow up straight, strong, and completely diligent. Shadow was the name of things that slipped along the earth, covering it, protecting it from the fury of the sun. The Son.

He had not chosen his name. He had adopted it, however, and made it as fully his own as if he had made the choice himself. He was not Frank, that was a pretend name, a made-up-on-the-spur-of-the-moment name. He was also not the name his parents gave him, that name on the spines of his books, the name he used to sign checks, to pay his taxes to the government.

He was the son of his mother. The son of his father. The son of the world. He was kin to every man and named for the Savior, that King of Kings.

His lips curved, a smile splitting his face in two like a knife blade. He should have been a real writer, his thoughts were so marvelous, melodic, and poetic. It was true that's what he should have been had things been different and had he been willing to sacrifice his ideals.

So what was he besides a mimic? Really?

The one free man, unencumbered and light and airy as a soap bubble.

His attention drifted from the thoughts playing through his mind to the women inside at the table. Shadow stiffened and knocked over a jar on the table.

He heard the clatter from where he stood. The crazy woman said something. Shadow closed her eyes as if to think. When she opened them she spoke. He couldn't hear anything they said. How he hated that!

An itching along both arms caused him to look at the vines he had his hands looped through. Probably sumac or poison ivy. Poison, yes, he rather liked poison, especially liked how it made them bleed from all their orifices as if they were bags of blood leaking. That's all any of us are, he thought, carcasses hauling around so many pints of blood.

When next he looked through the window the kitchen was empty, the table deserted, the television mute.

He slithered down into the vine-covered earth, his back to the wall, and he waited, breathing regularly and evenly, psyching himself to leave his hiding place, and return once again across the city to the darkened house where his mother waited.

Always so patiently.

Thirty-Six

“We have to move out of here.” Shadow moved irritably around the bedroom pulling out drawers and lifting out stacks of folded clothes. These she put on the bed. She went to the closet and found the old suitcase she had brought from the hospital.

“Why? What's going on?” Charlene hung in the doorway, a scarecrow of a woman, her hair in disarray, baggy sweater hanging almost to her knees.

“I know who the Copycat is. He knows me. He knows where we live because I told him. Don't you get it?” She paused in the packing and turned to face Charlene. “I told him things about us because I liked him. Can you believe it? I liked him! He didn't seem like the other guys. He's just this . . . average, normal kind of guy. That's what I thought, anyway. I told him where we live, in a huge house called the Shoreville Mansion. I told him, it's in Seabrook. He's probably been dumping the bodies from here, right off our pier for all I know.”

“We have to tell somebody,” Charlene said pensively, her gaze shifting erratically from Shadow to the suitcase to the windows on the far wall.

“We can't tell anyone. Christ! Am I supposed to go to Mitch and tell him I killed four men and now there's this psycho who's been killing the others for me? Do you think anyone would believe me? If I'm ever caught, there won't be any excuses that will hold up. I'm as guilty for four murders as I would be for eight. If the cops catch one of us, that's all they'll want. They won't need two killers to pin it on. There's no way they'll believe I didn't kill the others.”

“Where are we going to go?”

Shadow sank onto the bed. “I don't have enough saved to get us an apartment and pay all the utility deposits . . .”

“What will we do?” Charlene's voice was on the edge of hysteria.

“Now just hold on, let me work it out. We just can't stay here any longer. We have to get as far away from here as we can.”

“Mitch said we could move in with him.”

Shadow looked at her. After some seconds she said, “I guess that's our only alternative. We move into the camp of the enemy. At least Son won't try to contact us there.”

“Sun?”

“That's what he calls himself.”

“Sun and Shadow . . . it's like a poem. Black and white, cold and hot, sun and shadow.”

“No, I don't think he means ‘sun’ like the sun in the sky. I think he means ‘son,’ what a mother calls her little boy.”

Charlene gave her a puzzled look. “It's awful funny, isn't it, how it's gotten so complicated . . . and strange.”

“It's not funny at all,” Shadow replied. “It's a nightmare and we can't wake up.” She failed to add that it was a nightmare she had first created and one she was now solely responsible for sending back to hell where it had come from.

~*~

Samson was floating on air. He had been in the middle of a shower when Big Mac called through the bathroom door that he had a phone call. He took it on the bedroom extension while water dripped and puddled around his bare feet.

Kay and Charlene were going to move in with him. Could they? Of course they could! It's what he wanted more than anything. He wondered, however, what had changed her mind. She had dumped him, couldn't see him anymore she said, and now she wanted to move in. She was like a Rubik's Cube. He couldn't get the colors to match all in a row.

Dressed and ready to go to the station, he explained the situation to Big Mac. He needed her cooperation, he said.

“So you're pretty crazy about this woman, huh?” Mac seemed leery.

“I think that's a fair assessment,” he said. “So if you wouldn't mind hanging around this afternoon until they get here . . .”

“I'm the welcoming committee?”

“If you don't mind, of course. I have to get to work and she said they'd be over today. Someone needs to be here to let them in.”

“I'm supposed to make cheese trays and serve coffee?”

“C'mon, Mac, don't give me grief, all right? This is important to me.”

“Seems like you're running a halfway house, all these strangers you keep taking in.”

“That's not fair and you know it. You'll like Shadow. I mean Kay. Shadow's her stage name. I call her that most of the time though. I think everybody does.”

“Oh, that sounds promising. Guess it's better than Big Bad Mama or Miss Melon Titties.”

“Mac . . .”

“Okay, okay, I'll be good. Who's this other character coming with her? And where do you want me to put them?”

“Her friend's name is Charlene Brewster. She's an older woman, a friend of hers who helped her out of a bad situation once. She's kinda nice, cooks a good meal. Put her in the empty bedroom next to yours.”

“And Shadow? She goes in your room, right?”

“I have to spell these things out for you, Mac? You're being a pain in the ass, if you don't mind me saying so. I'm going to be late for my shift, this keeps up.”

“Oh, go on, get outta here.” Mac waved him off. “I'll handle everything.”

“You'll be good, you said.”

“I will. I never seen a man so damned ready to take in strays, but I'll be good. I'll be nice and polite, but I am not hanging around after they get here, you understand? I have things I want to do.”

Samson tried not to smile or he'd insult her. They both knew she had nothing to do at all, nothing but tramp the streets saying hello to all her old street-bum friends, collect empty aluminum cans, and stay out of the confinement of four walls as many hours of the day as possible. He shook his head, stooped to pet Pavlov. I’ll call later, see how you're getting on.”

“You do that. I probably won't be here. Not after they're settled in.”

“Fine. Thanks, Mac.” Samson touched her on the shoulder as he made for the door. He turned, snapping his fingers before he got there. “You need any cash?”

She shook her head and strands of hair from the bun at the back of her head fell loose around her face. “I'm fine, don't worry about me. Now get out of here. You make me nervous.”

Now he did grin. “I think I love you, Mac. See you later.”

Mac stood in the kitchen frowning for all she was worth. “I'm mighty worried about him,” she said to the dog. “He don't act like he's got the sense of a turnip.”

Pavlov flipped then looked up at her expectantly, his tongue hanging out.

~*~

Son felt a prickle of uneasiness begin as he walked up the driveway. The house was dark. Usually there was a light shining in at least one of the rooms. He went directly up the front steps to the door. He couldn't see anything beyond the darkness inside. He circled the house warily, like a cat after prey, wondering why it felt so deserted. He came to the underground garage and saw Shadow's Toyota was missing.

He would break into the house. If the crazy woman appeared or turned on a light, he'd stop, retreat. But something told him no one would hear him because no one was inside. It was empty. This would give him the opportunity to see how they lived.

He tried the wooden door, turning the old metal doorknob. It was locked, of course. He turned, searched around the shelves in the garage and found a crowbar leaning in a cobwebby corner. He took it up and placed the wedge end between the doorframe and the door, near where the lock was located. He heaved outward and the door gave with a splintering crack. It swung open on noisy unoiled hinges. He paused, waiting for a light or a voice. When none came, he entered, the crowbar in his hand.

Just inside the door he was confronted by a spiral iron staircase. He took it to the second floor, paused again, listening, letting his vision adjust to the interior gloom. He could hear the tiny tick-tick of feet scampering away somewhere in the darkness and imagined it was a mouse. He could smell the scent of chlorine from the swimming pool.