The Beholder, a Maddie Richards Mystery (26 page)

“I’ve got my own asshole, Detective Ortega,” Maddie said, “I don’t need you to be one for me.” While saying it, Maddie decided she liked her new partner. He was perceptive and seemed to carefully pick when and how to make his points.

“If you don’t have anything further, Sergeant Richards. I’m going off duty until my shift.”

When Maddie went out to check on Officer Martin she found that Sue had left, leaving the murder books updated. When Maddie got back in her office, the front desk buzzed to say that a Gary Packard was on the phone.

“Put ‘im through.” She closed her door.

“Maddie,” Gary said, “I don’t want to alarm you, but there’s something I think you should know.”

She didn’t like the tone of his voice. “What?”

“Something odd has happened twice today. The first time a little after nine, and then about an hour ago, while I was in the kitchen at the front of the house. The same car came down our street. Slow. Not too slow. I couldn’t see the driver. He had one of those pull up sun screens on the driver’s window.”

The muscles in Maddie’s stomach tightened. “And?”

“Call it a policeman’s intuition, or maybe I’m just a bored, suspended cop making something out of nothing, but the way I see it, the driver was watching your house as he drove by.”

“Did he stop?”

“No. Nothing that would indicate he was any more interested in your house than the house on either side of yours. But I thought you should know.”

“Describe the car.”

“Dark. Four-door used Chrysler, probably 2000, maybe 01. I never got the angle to see the plate.”

The Beholder profile
.

***

“Hi, Mom. How’s your day going?”

“Madeline Jane? You never call during the day? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Mom. How ‘bout there? Everything okay?”

Maddie heard an air-poof; her mother had just sat down. The woman hated to stand. If she was doing something, fine. Otherwise, she got off her feet.

“Are you sick or something?” Maddie’s mother asked.

Despite her concern over what Gary Packard had just told her about the car, Maddie smiled. “Just thought I’d check in, I probably should have been doing it all along. A new habit. Okay? … Mother?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry I got cross with you the other day. You know, about that attorney who came by.”

“I understand, dear. I’ve been giving that a lot of thought. Mr. Gray caught me off guard. I think your spin on it was right. We need to talk more about all that.”

“Sure Mom. Are you going out anywhere today?”

“No. Maybe hang out a few clothes that are in the washer. They dry so much fresher outside.”

Maddie felt a jolt of relief. They were far from out of the woods, but it helped a great deal to know that her mother was beginning to comprehend what Curtis and his new babe, Yvonne, had up their sleeves.

“Am I keeping you from anything, Mother?”

“Nothing that can’t wait, I was just about to make some chicken salad. It’s an easy meal and a big batch will let you make a sandwich when you get home late, which you’ve been doing a lot lately.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. “I love you, Mom.”

“Oh. Go on with you now.”

“Where’d you pick up that saying?”

“Just watched a great old Dennis Morgan movie on AMC. He could do Irish like nobody, ‘cept maybe Barry Fitzgerald, but Dennis was a hunk.”

“Have you and Kirk Douglas broken up?”

“No. He’s still my main squeeze. That’s how Dot says it.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Mom.”

“Will you be home for dinner tonight?”

“I’m gonna try. Keep an eye on Bradley. His television time limit is off for this week. He can have his friends over to watch with him if he wants.”

“You’re always telling him to play outdoors instead of vegging out with the TV. What’s up?”

“Nothing much and I heard there might be a smog alert this week.”

“He’ll say, ‘That’s cool.’ I’ll tell him.”

If Gary had been right about the car, Maddie thought, Curtis could be behind it, trying to spook me into sending a patrol car? Then he could use the police records as proof that Bradley was endangered just by living with me, so no cruiser. Could the Beholder be trying to distract me? Is he personalizing our cat and mouse game? Or, am I just turning paranoid? Then again, being paranoid doesn’t mean no one’s out to get you.

Maddie decided right then she’d go home early. If her ex had been behind the drive by, she wasn’t about to play into his hands by telling anyone at the station. The city could protect itself for one night. She’d been on overtime for days. She was ready—past ready—for a normal night at home, besides, that would let her keep an eye out for the car Gary described.

***

Steve Gibbs hadn’t acted like some career criminal who rose at night like a bat to soar above the city. He hadn’t sneaked home or sneaked out through a rear window. Gibbs carried himself as an everyday citizen. He went to work, to lunch, then home to watch television. Spend time with his domineering aunt and putter around the house. He was an easy stakeout.

Then that changed.

Gil Ortega and Sue Martin got to the medical examiner’s office as they had each afternoon to watch Gibbs’s car, tail him home, and be his unknown companion until at least an hour after his bedroom light went out. Each day had been a carbon copy of the day before and the day before that.

Today, the parking space outside the M.E.’s office where Gibbs parked was empty. After sitting tight until four-thirty, Sue went inside.

“Steve never came back after lunch,” Dr. Ripley told Sue. … “No. He hasn’t called in. I haven’t seen him or heard from him since the noon break. Frankly I’m a little worried. This isn’t at all like him. I can set my watch on Steve’s comings and goings. He’s very punctual.”

Gil and Sue headed for the home of Steve’s Aunt where they found the door on her detached garage up. The aunt’s white Camry in its usual place inside to the left, but Steve’s dark four-door sedan was not there.

Maddie wanted the tailing of Steve Gibbs to be on the QT, so Gil couldn’t ask the department to issue an all-points bulletin. Gil and Sue decided to hold their position and wait for Gibbs to come home.

***

After dinner Maddie helped clean up the kitchen. Then she sat with Bradley while they read more of the Hardy Boys. After he went to sleep, she joined her mother on the back patio. The sun was down and the temperature had dropped below furnace hot.

Her mother put down her crossword puzzle. “How’s the case going? Any progress, dear?”

“Not much. You know that I wanted this case, wanted the lead. Now it may sink my ship.”

“You always liked being in charge, Madeline Jane. So, that doesn’t surprise me.”

“I do, don’t I? Well, all that might end with this case. I can see the headline now: Phoenix’s hotshot cop broad goes down in flames.”

“Listen, Sweetpea,” her mother said, using a nickname she had left in mothballs since Maddie’s childhood. “You’re a great detective.” Maddie scoffed. “Now you are, dear. How do I know? Your father told me. That’s how. I never mentioned this before, but your Pa busted at the seams with pride when you made detective.”

“He never said that.”

“That wasn’t his way, the way of the men of his time. But he often said, ‘Our Madeline Jane is a crackerjack cop. She’s got a bright future,’ he’d say, all puffed up like the NBC peacock.”

“He never told me,” Maddie repeated, feeling good for the first time since the start of the Beholder case.

“I begged him to tell you. He only said, ‘one day you tell her. You’ll know when it’s right.’ I think that’s now, Madeline Jane, so I’m telling you. You’re a crackerjack detective.”

That night in her dream, Maddie watched Gary Packard wash his pickup wearing a pair of tight Levis and a wet tee. She went to him. They looked at each other, but said nothing. He pulled her in close, his wet front soaking her camisole, and kissed her, one of those long, wet, searching kisses. She awoke, her body feeling hot. She went into the bathroom. Sticking her head in the toilet would have been faster, but she settled for cold splashes from the sink and a wet hand held against the back of her neck.

She went back to bed and remembered the dream in more detail. Gary had stood back and looked at her wet breasts like they were cupcakes served at a kid’s birthday party. And she wanted him to peel back the cup and lick the icing.

Chapter 38

Katie Carson’s doorbell took her attention away from the notes she was drafting for a possible second special report on the Beholder case. She had made a deal with Maddie Richards and the police department, but from what she had learned the department had made little to no progress. She closed her laptop and went to the door. Through the peephole she saw a man on her porch, standing directly under the dome light, his hat shadowing his face.

She opened the door, but not the locked screen. He tilted his head back bringing the light onto his face.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Yes. But why have you come to my home?”

“There are things I know, Ms. Carson, developments regarding the Beholder, things that need to come out. And you are the only member of the media not in lockstep with the police department’s official statements. This is Tuesday and if the Beholder follows his pattern, he’ll kill again in two days. What I have to tell you, well, it needs to be reported to the city.”

“You’d better come in.” She stepped back holding the door open. “Please sit down.” After closing the door, she turned back to the man. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Thank you, no. Perhaps you should turn off your porch light. I don’t believe either of us wishes anyone to know I’ve been here.” Katie nodded. “And maybe you should close your drapes,” he added.

KC secreted the last window drape while saying, “Your visit is perfectly timed. I was just working on my notes for another special on this bast—aaaagh.”

The force of the blow buckled her knees; the pain fogged her mind. Her tongue grew thick. She tried to speak, but could not. She tried to swallow without knowing whether or not she had. She took one step toward the phone, straining to keep her eyes open, fighting to keep sight of the light. The room’s light. Her own light. They both went dim. Then out. The floor rushed at her.

She came around not knowing how long she had been out. Instinctively, her mouth began working like a guppy. She pretended to still be unconscious, knowing it would not stop what would happen. She listened to his sounds. She peeked through her lashes to see the tip of his tongue protruded between his lips. He babbled, somewhat incoherently, something about the lure of pain, the evil of beauty. Then his voice became clearer. He was speaking to her.

“I hope you’ll be as feisty as the spick.”

Her muscles locked, blocking her impulse to shudder. The air gave her a frisson. The way air can when you are naked. She worked her mouth as if she were ridding herself of a foul taste. Her hands balled into fists. The tendons of her arms grew taut.

KC had only known real fear a few times in her life. As a child, when her older brother snuck into her room in the middle of the night wearing a grotesque mask. Then as a teen on the way home after dark from a friend’s pool party, a strange man had followed her gradually closing the space between them with three steps to each of her two. Years later, after going into the news business, during her interview of a man in prison who had murdered a priest, she had felt this same cold terror. But now, she could taste it. Her stomach returned something to be swallowed again. Her throat burned.

She wanted to survive. At least long enough to tell Maddie this man was the Beholder. She wanted to open her eyes, but couldn’t. She tried to force them open, but something inside her kept them shut.

She screamed, but no sound came. He had crammed something down her throat.

An intense headache came on suddenly.

She tried to move her legs. She tried to move her arms. She was tied down.

Her throat felt dry.

Her mouth wouldn’t close.

She couldn’t move her head.

He had pinned her down as an executioner straps down a death penalty convict, a fate she would welcome rather than the one the Beholder had brought to her.

KC knew she was on her bed, knew he was near. Near enough for her to hear his breathing. She could feel his breath. It’s warmth. With her head pinned back she squinted. Her vision blurred with tears.

At that instant, he looked directly at her.

His eyes were blank and dark, the cold eyes of a mad dog.

Then a voice pierced her fog.

“Welcome back, KC. You’ve been sleeping while I was working. That is your nickname, isn’t it? KC? Of course it is, and how endearing. It conjures up an image of a freckle-faced young girl, who in another time might have fished with Huckleberry Finn, not a plump-breasted beauty like you.” His voice was both smooth and coarse. “You now have the interview of your career. Scoop one: my identity. Scoop two: Lieutenant Adam Harrison had plans to marry Carmen Diaz. You didn’t know that, did you? Each of my models has increasingly been connected to the police, and now you, the best friend of Sergeant Madeline Richards. I’m flying in their faces, KC. Right in their damn faces.”

KC screamed, but again heard it only inside her head. Her cries muffled by whatever he had stuffed down her throat.

Fear throttled her heart like a strong hand, its soft tissue fighting to function against powerful fingers.

Oh God, strike him down, KC prayed. Strike him down now.

He touched her face. It burned. Her skin felt as if it was on fire, and she knew that like the others, the skin of her face had been removed.

“Yes. I’ve removed your face. Now I want you to show me your emotions. You must know you look hideous, your beauty gone forever. Your power over men destroyed. What are you feeling? Anger. Rage. Pain. Lust for revenge. Show me. I’m waiting.”

She wanted to refuse him. She tried, but could not. She had never felt pain like this. Then her hatred-filled eyes opened fully and she stared.