The Chilling Spree (35 page)

“Yeah, I got that part, right down to the
Adam’s apple Maya noticed at the first crime scene.”

“And we didn’t notice it,” Johnny said.

“Well, technically, Maya and I –”

“We as in the men at the crime scene,” he
said.  “You’d think we’d notice something like that right off
the bat, wouldn’t you?  Hell, we’ve got the damned
thing.  We ought to be able to spot it a mile away.  Out
of curiosity, I don’t suppose you can explain to me why we have
this knob and the ladies don’t.”

“Mmm hmm,” I hummed a rather absent reply to
his question.  My mind was still scouring the obscure details
of the case trying to figure out what I’d missed. “During puberty,
the thyroid cartilage grows, gets longer and sort of fixes in one
spot when the larynx becomes lodged in the throat.  It’s not a
primary sex characteristic, and women can develop one too.”

“So it’s not a given that a guy will have
big one?”

“No,” I drawled.  “Is that important
somehow?”

“Does it have anything to do with having a
masculine voice?” he asked.

I gazed at his profile, the prominent
forehead, wide jaw with its sharp angles, the heavy stubble that
had grown in less than a day around his coiffed goatee.  Along
the neck jutted forward the very trait in question.  More deep
words rumbled from his mouth.

“Doc, are you drifting off again?”

“No, Johnny.  I was just
thinking.  The changes we were talking about, they start in
puberty.  What else significant happens during that period of
maturation in young men?”

He frowned and glanced at me.  “Let’s
not play twenty questions tonight, dear.”

“Your voices change.”

“Ok, I’ll bite.  Why is that suddenly
sending you off into pensive la-la land?”

“What if the change in voice was so
negligible that it wasn’t particularly different from say a woman
whose vocal range made her an alto, for instance?”

“His voice box might not have all that junk
making it look big and masculine.”

“And he might pass for female all the
more.”

“Shit, Helen.  Didn’t that little prick
Underwood tell you he met a couple of babes in one of the
amphitheater’s annex buildings that afternoon?”

“He did,” I nodded slowly.  “And I’m
wondering if we were ever able to find those ladies and confirm his
alibi for the time of Goddard’s murder.”

“We’ll find out soon enough.  First we
need to talk to Kyle’s parents.  I pray to God that these
people aren’t as cold hearted as the Tippets were.”

“Is that why you want me to be part of this
conversation?  Sic the mean profiler on them if they don’t
respond appropriately?”

Johnny chuckled and lifted my left hand to
his lips.  “It’s funny, Helen.  I’m supposed to be this
tough guy, hard as nails, the career detective who never gave up on
the ideals he had as a young man.  And yet I’m a complete
wreck when people don’t act the way I think they should. 
Meanwhile, my better half is so much stronger than I am, and she
knows it.  You always have been, haven’t you? I hope you don’t
hold that soft spot against me.”

It sucked me right back into the vortex of
my silent but very emotional dilemma.  It seemed like Johnny
was unconsciously integrating more memories by the second. 
How much time did I have before he turned on me and yelled,
“
Murderer!
”? He had no context this time, no mad love – even
though my denial made me wish like hell that his actions spoke
louder than words, I knew they didn’t. Until I heard him say it out
loud,
I love you, Helen
, it wouldn’t be the same. Couldn’t
be the same.

My throat dried in an instant, parched and
packed with the most arid sawdust imaginable.  This was all
borrowed time.

“Now what on earth did I say to warrant all
this tension?  That was a compliment, sweetheart.  I
wasn’t being critical of you.”

“No, you were just being critical yourself,”
I croaked.  Where’s that handy bottle of water when you really
need it?

“Doc?”

“You’re remembering so much, Johnny.”

“And you’re afraid of it, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Why don’t you just tell me what
happened?”

Ha!  The dilemma of exponential
proportion paralyzed my vocal chords.  What could I tell him,
the lie that I fobbed off as truth last time?  Or the real
truth? 

“Is it really that terrible?”

“You went to see my father,” I said
carefully. Would a few carefully placed details make him
spontaneously remember the rest? And would he react the same way
this time as he had last time?

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I wouldn’t talk to you.”

“About your past, this thing I sensed was
eating you from the inside out.”

This was my worst fear come true.  He
was remembering shit that he wasn’t sharing with me.  Maybe he
already knew… and if I changed the story now, then what?

Better or worse doesn’t apply to matrimonial
vows alone.  Sometimes it applies to lying.  Once you
pick that story, for better or worse, you’re stuck with it. 
Regardless of holes or implausibility.  It’s a marriage of a
different kind.

“You thought I killed Rick.”

“I see.”

I peeked left.  Yep, sure enough, the
infamous masseter muscle of Orion seized in a hard bulge.  “So
I guess, because I threw you out before you really had a chance to
explain yourself, that you wanted to sort of feel Wendell out, see
if he thought I was capable of doing such a thing.  I guess
Dad didn’t have much faith in me either.”

Stony silence.  I couldn’t read its
source any more than I seemed to pull together a cogent profile of
our current killer.  I fumbled through the rest of it, at
least that was how it felt from my incredibly apprehensive
perspective.

“Wendell, I suppose, in an effort to protect
me either way since you told him that the FBI was hounding me
rather persistently as their primary suspect, put a notion into
your head about how to make sure they didn’t suspect me
anymore.”

“And?”

“The weapon they suppose was used to kill my
ex-husband was suddenly found after a fire destroyed a waste
management plant owned by Sully Marcos,” I said.

The vehicle slowed markedly, and I was sure
Johnny didn’t realize it.  At the same time, I had a sense
that he was reliving yet another memory that was lost to him.

“I did it, didn’t I?”

“You only wanted to protect me,
Johnny.  You said you wanted to give me peace.”

His eyes, suddenly cold and accusing, turned
on me.  “So…  Did you kill him?”

Apparently the blanks I filled hadn’t
sparked the recollection of the plausible whopper I told. Either
that, or it wasn’t nearly as plausible as I believed it was in the
first place.  “That’s part of what made me so angry,
Johnny.  I was terrified that the FBI would find out what
you’d done, and then I really
would
look guilty.”

“Are you saying that you didn’t murder
Rick?”

“I’m saying that the gun was never recovered
from where his body was found because I was there.  I
panicked.  I took the gun, stripped it down to parts, which I
threw into several different locations along the Potomac
River.”

“Helen –”

“I didn’t kill him.”  Practice makes
perfect.  The lie became easier to tell the second time
around, third if I counted the night Johnny pedaled my fiction to
David Levine and put what I hoped was the eternal kibosh on the
FBI’s glaring interest in me as a villain.  “But that doesn’t
mean I don’t hold myself responsible.”

His fists clenched the steering wheel until
the knuckles glowed against the green lights spilling from the
dashboard.  “I don’t think I want to hear the rest of
this.”

“You hate me, don’t you?”

“I don’t know how I feel, so until I have
time to process this and figure it out, let’s focus on the murder
investigation at hand.”

Foreshadowing anyone?  I felt the
executioner sharpening the blade poised above my neck and cursed
myself for not devising plan B sooner.  As it was, my rapid
departure from Darkwater Bay was far from being ready at a moment’s
notice. Why hadn’t I spent more time preparing for the inevitable
exit from this cursed city when I had time?

These were the thoughts that kept me from
showing Johnny how completely he’d fractured my heart.

Theo and Marion Goddard were escorted by two
uniformed Downey Division officers to the tiny satellite division
for Bay View on Hennessey Island.  They waited until Johnny
and I arrived before Mr. Goddard jumped up and demanded
answers.

“Nothing ever changes in this city. 
You cops think you can manhandle –”

“Mr. Goddard, we’d like to talk to you about
your son.”  Ice leeched into my veins.  Why shouldn’t
it?  Johnny proved that the little science experiment aimed at
converting me into a normal human being was little more than a
joke.  Dad was right.  Distance is the key to a
successful life in the Eriksson family.

“Kylie?”

I saw Johnny’s jaw sag in the corner of my
eye.

“Then you’re aware of his life as an
alter?”

“Aware of it?”  Disgust pillowed his
words.  “I don’t know what kind of parents you think we are,
detective, but we know our son, and if he wants to live his life a
certain way, we’re not going to be anything but supportive. 
Hell, if Kylie wants gender reassignment surgery, we’ll support
that too.”

“Is that something he’s considered?”

Marion Goddard stared at the floor.  “I
don’t believe it is, detective.  Kylie is very young. 
Decisions could change in the future.”

I soaked up body language from one parent to
the other.  The father’s defensiveness, his blunt acceptance
sat on one side of the scale.  The mother’s reticence and
seeming desire for her son to pick a role and embrace it balanced
in contrast.

“You’re right.  Youth isn’t the time to
make such drastic decisions, is it, Mrs. Goddard?”

She peeked up at me.  “No.”

“I’m curious about his absence from your
vacation,” I pried a little deeper into the family dynamic.

Goddard snorted.  “I fail to see how
any of this is your business, detective. Or is that the new and
improved Darkwater Bay police department”

“I’ve met him, you know, your estranged
brother,” I refused to pretend ignorance to the true cause of his
affront, forced the issue and counted on Goddard’s reaction letting
some of the family dynamic out of the tightly sealed closet
door.  “Scott said that he and Kyle saw each other
regularly.”

Goddard glared at his wife.  “Is that a
fact?”

Bingo.

“Commander Orion, perhaps it would be better
if you talk to Mrs. Goddard while Theo and I discuss his brother in
private.”

I waited until Johnny ushered her out of the
room to parts unknown.

“He is
not
my brother!”

“Biology would say otherwise, Mr.
Goddard.  Scott says that you’ve had a rather acrimonious
relationship since the day he was born.”

“The little psychopath would say that,” he
muttered.  “Everything
is
always about him, after
all.”

“Is that your official diagnosis?”

He pinned me with a direct stare.  “All
right, so you know what I do for a living.  You know that I
have less than an ideal relationship with one of my brothers.
 You know that I don’t care if my son strongly identifies with
the female gender.  What I don’t know is how any of this is
relevant to Darkwater Bay Police.  Or the state police.”

“Kyle didn’t go on the annual family trip
because he wanted to spend time with his Uncle Scott.  Is that
what you refuse to discuss?  Was the fact that Scott had a
relationship with Kyle the reason you looked like you wanted to
beat your wife a moment ago?”

“I would never raise a hand to Marion! 
Why aren’t you answering any of my questions, Detective
Eriksson?”

“We’ll get to that in a little bit. 
Right now, I want to know why you can’t seem to stand so much as
hearing your brother’s name, let alone facing the fact that your
wife has apparently facilitated a relationship between Scott and
Kyle against your express wishes.”

One hand dragged slowly down Goddard’s
face.  “Will you at least tell me if my son is in some kind of
legal trouble?”

“Kyle is not under arrest, nor to my
knowledge has he committed a crime.  Right now, this is about
his relationship with your brother, who I will say, appears to be
at the center of a very nasty problem that has cropped up in
Darkwater Bay over the past few days.  I’d appreciate
forthright cooperation, Dr. Goddard.”

“I didn’t like the influence that Scott
seemed to wield over my son,” Goddard muttered.  “Kylie has
known for years that he doesn’t feel like a boy.  It probably
started when he was a toddler.  He wanted to be a princess at
Halloween.  Things like that.

“I love my son.  I’m not about to tell
him to be anything less than a hundred percent who he is,” Goddard
explained.  “But Scott… he’s more concerned about the
goddamned image of that stupid band of his.  He thinks that
Kylie should tone it down.  He couches this advice to my son
under the guise of concern for his safety.  He fills my
child’s head with the notion that Marion and I somehow have
ensconced him in this bubble of false security.  Scott thinks
that the world is full of people who will target him and physically
harm him for being different.”

“And you don’t believe that’s true – in
spite of what happened last October?”

His eyes darkened.  “Perhaps Marion and
I do protect Kylie from some of the ugliness in this part of the
world,” emphasis on
this
referring to Darkwater Bay, I
supposed, which to my way of viewing the world was beyond
naïve.  “But other cities practice a much greater level of
sophistication.  Kylie insisted on remaining in Darkwater
Bay.  And he is uncertain about taking the next step in his
transformation into who he really is.”