The Tangerine Killer (29 page)

At first I couldn’t grasp it. My fingers felt like fat sausages. Finally I had it and he hadn’t even noticed. I lay my arm back down by my side and waited for him to turn around.

"You know," he said. “There were so many women I could have had. But did I stray? No. I waited for you."

He thumped the table and the metal tools rattled like keys.

"You were the one. It was always you."

"Why me?" I asked softly. "What about Lisa? You liked her, didn't you?"

I remembered how he flirted with Lisa when we were kids. He scared her just as much as he had me.

"Lisa was an angel," he whispered. "Pure. Kind. I would have married her."

He picked up a long knife and held it up to the light. Its blade reflected his mad face. "She should have married me. It was our baby. She was meant to be with me."

The baby in the pictures had been Lisa and Matt's? I wondered how that happened. Lisa and Matt as a couple? It didn't seem like a plausible explanation. He probably raped her.

"What happened?" I asked.

"She found out she was pregnant and that was when she hooked up with Frank. I watched her fuck him on the first date. It wasn't like her at all but she had to, you see? She had to convince him that the baby was his and she did. When he found out she was expecting, he asked her to marry him. He didn't love her, it was an obligation. An arrangement. It was all wrong."

"What happened to the baby?"

"She was beautiful. A beautiful baby girl and there that bastard was, holding her, kissing her. My baby not his. I used to sneak into the house at night and hold her in the nursery. I'd sit there for hours, just watching her sleep. So innocent and pure. Then one night Lisa found me there. She went ballistic. Said she was going to call the cops. Call the cops on me? I was the kid’s father. I had a right to be there."

"Of course you did," I said.

I didn't add that he had no right at all. If he raped Lisa that child was nothing he could hold claim over. No wonder she'd been such a mess. I knew now why she blamed me. Why we’d never spoken after I left. Matt had been there all along. Watching and waiting. When I left town, Lisa had become my substitute and Matt fixated on her instead. Two girls who were almost sisters, who could have passed for one another at one time. She must have gone out of her mind.

"She didn't call the cops, I knew she wouldn't. She was scared, you see? Scared they'd find out the truth. She put locks on the windows but she couldn't keep me out. I was always there. Then one night the baby wasn't in her crib. Lisa was sitting in the corner, crying. My little girl limp in her arms."

His shoulders hunched over and his body started to shake. Was he crying? I couldn't believe it. The bastard hadn't killed the child?

"What happened?"

"Lisa killed her," his voice shook.

"Why would she do that? Kill her own baby?"

"She said she had to. She couldn't stand to look at her anymore and know she was mine. She smothered her with the blanket. I should have killed the bitch right then and there but I couldn't believe it."

“Then what happened?”

I had to get him to come back to the table. My body was on fire. The parts I could feel were loudly protesting the restraints but there were others that I couldn’t feel at all. I didn’t know how much longer I’d last.

“I took the baby away.”

I knew where the child ended up. She was the one we found in the belly of the alligator. He fed his own baby to his pet gator. How could that be love? The child deserved a decent burial. An inquiry into its death. What if Lisa hadn't killed her? What if it was all an accident?

"How did Lisa explain that one away to Frank?" I asked.

I hardly thought he would have taken that one sitting down.

"She told him he wasn't the real father. That her real father came and took the baby away. Then she lied to everyone else."

I imagined that scene playing out in my head. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

“That baby wasn't really dead was she?" I said. "You took her because you wanted your own little life sized doll. Something to dress up and play with and when she was older you were going to terrorize her like you terrorized me. You'd have your own little sex slave locked up in this very basement. You could do whatever you wanted to her and no one would ever know. What happened Matt? Did she cry too much? Did you find the whole baby thing too much work? I bet you shook her to shut her up. You probably didn't mean to kill her but you did. You killed your own child and fed her lifeless body to your pet lizard. How sick is that?"

He spun around and lunged at me with the knife. Held it against my neck, his face filled with rage and fury. I finally had him.

"You don't know anything about me," he spat.

"You’re wrong," I said calmly. "It's me you don't know anything about."

With what little strength I had left, I raised my free arm and jabbed the scalpel into his jugular. He staggered back, shock on his face. Then dropped the knife he was holding. I used it to slice through the remaining restraints and sat up groggily. The room swam around me, my heart pounding and erratic.

Matt clutched at the scalpel. A trickle of blood ran down his throat and pooled at the bottom of his neck.

"I wouldn't pull that out if I were you," I said. "Right now that's the only thing stopping your jugular from pumping out gallons of blood."

He spluttered and gargled. He was going to pull it out, I knew he was. I didn't have all the answers but I didn't care. One less sick fuck in the world was all that mattered to me. I'd probably never know why he targeted me. Why he hated me for so long. Lisa had just been an innocent victim. Someone he could get his hands on who reminded him of me. Jill was just in the way. He played everyone in town. Now he would pay with his life.

"You'll never be free," he whispered. "I'll always be a part of you."

He smiled then, a sick twisted smile that I wasn't expecting.

"I had you first, you know. I had you and you can never take that away from me."

"Shut up," I shouted.

He started to laugh, the blood running thicker now. "I tasted your sweet breasts. I touched you in ways you can't even imagine and then I fucked you."

“Shut the hell up," I yelled.

He started to laugh.

It couldn't be true. I would have remembered something like that. I would have fought back, told someone.

"You were begging for it. All those short night gowns and sundresses. You used to flaunt yourself in front of me like a little whore. What did you think was going to happen?"

It wasn't true. He was just messing with my head. I staggered from the table, my feet unsteady beneath me. Then stepped closer and held the knife out in front of me.

"Say you never touched me and I'll let you live."

He threw his head back and laughed. Blood squirted from the scalpel still lodged in his throat.

"Honey, I fucked you over and over again. I came inside you," he looked smug. "That's right, there's part of me in you. In your blood, in your tissues. I fucked you right up."

I wanted to stab him in the heart. Slide the knife into his chest like butter. Stab him over and over again until there was nothing left but shreds of tissues. A faceless, nameless pile of skin and bone. Instead I reached out and pulled the scalpel from his neck. It slipped out with a slurping noise and the blood pumped out with a vengeance. It splattered down his shirt and squirted over my outstretched arm. I staggered backwards and lost my footing. My legs gave way and I fell, hitting my head on the table as I went.

He spluttered and gasped, staggering towards me. His face white as a sheet, the blood now a giant puddle on the floor. He made one last gurgle, clutching his throat with blood stained hands and then his eyes rolled back in his head. He fell forwards onto me, his head in my lap, my legs pinned beneath his dead weight. That was when I finally screamed.

I don't know how long I lay there. My legs and arms were numb and sore. The force of lying on my stomach for so long had aggravated my broken ribs. It was hard to catch my breath.

I tried to free myself, to push Matt's limp body off me but he was a dead weight. The best I could do was shove his head to the side so that it was no longer stuffed in my crotch. Even in death, the bastard was going to make sure I suffered. My head throbbed from where I hit it on the table. The longer I sat there, the weaker I felt. Eventually I began to drift in and out of consciousness. I wondered if this was where I would die.

In my dreams I was a child again. There was a birthday party. Everyone was dancing and there was a cake and balloons. It was my party. I was eleven. My mother lit the candles on my cake. Derek was beside her, telling her she was doing it wrong. In my memory I knew that Matt was there. I'd forgotten. This was the year he first felt betrayed. Ignored.

I ran to my mother, tried to get her attention but she didn’t hear
 
me. Derek was showing her how to light the candles without dripping wax onto the cake. She didn't even turn around when I begged her to listen to me. Then Matt was beside me. He took my hand and pulled me through the crowd. I tried to break free but he was stronger than I was. I shouted out for someone to help me but everyone was dancing and laughing. The music was playing louder and louder. No one heard me scream as he dragged me into his bedroom and locked the door.

There were lights and voices. Blurred and distant, they wove through my subconscious. I couldn't breathe. I was gasping for air and then I felt a great weight lift off me. I was floating free. Perhaps I was dead. Free from the pain and the suffering. No such luck.

"Sam? Can you hear me?"

I screamed and flailed. I had to escape. Defend myself or die.

"It's all right. It's okay."

Someone held onto me. Arms around me, coddling me like a child. I fought them off. I'd scratch the bastard’s eyes out but then wasn't Matt dead? I couldn’t remember.

"Get the medics down here, and tell them to bring some damn sedatives."

They couldn't contain me. I scuttled like a bug on legs that wouldn't co-operate but there was nowhere to go. Stuffed myself into a corner, trying to get away from the bright light. I couldn't focus on anything. All I saw were giant blobs wavering in and out of my vision. Their voices distorted like an underwater song.

Eventually they overpowered me. I fought like a wild animal but there was too many of them. One sharp prick in my arm and I fell into the dark abyss of nothing. I didn't want to go back there, tried to tell them that but my lips wouldn't form the words. He was waiting for me down there. I’d do anything to stay awake.

Waking up in the hospital was like waking up in the basement of my nightmares. People prodding and poking me. Pulling at my clothes and feeling my broken bones. I screamed and fought as their hands held me down. But I tasted the drugs as they pumped them into my veins, then drifted off into the darkness again.

When I finally woke up I saw Olin's face staring down at me.

"Hi," he said softly.

"Hi," I mumbled. "What day is it? Can I go home now?"

He started to laugh.

"Well can I at least have a cigarette?"

I propped myself up on one elbow, taking a body inventory. All limbs accounted for. Searing pain in every muscle and a pounding head but I was alive. I slumped back on my pillow.

"I think I need more painkillers."

"I'll get the nurse," he put his hand gently on top of mine.

"Wait. Parker?"

"He's fine."

"Thank God."

"No," he said. "Thank you."

I slept most of the day. The doctor came in to tell me I was lucky to be alive. Try telling me something I didn't know. I tried to talk him into letting me go home but he insisted I stay for observation. Something about concussions and internal bleeding. Plus the pesky issue of inhaling an unidentified hallucinogenic. I didn't really care. I pressed the call button for the nurse to bring more morphine. If I was going to have to stay there, I may as well take advantage of the services.

Cops came and went. Some brought flowers, others stood about chatting to Olin. I drifted in and out of consciousness, sleep that didn't satisfy. Matt was still there, lurking in the shadows of my brain. I couldn't get rid of him.

On the second day the hospital psychologist stopped by, a balding man with a striped tie and lined face. He pulled up a chair and looked at me expectantly.

"How are we feeling after our brush with death Miss. Weber?"

"Fine," I said. There was no way I was telling him the truth. They'd never let me out.

"Any nightmares? Flashbacks? You've been through quite a traumatic ordeal you know."

"I'm fine."

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"No."

"Why not?"

God. He was like a dog with a bone. Why couldn't he just accept that I wasn't going to talk about my personal demons with some stranger I just met?

"Look, honestly I'm fine. In my line of work, shit happens. It's not the first time I've been injured and it probably won't be the last."

"Perhaps you should consider changing careers," he said.

He left me alone but his works stayed. Perhaps it was time to hang up my investigator’s hat and call it a day. Was my life really worth the risk? I thought of the late nigh stake outs and the early morning coffee runs on my way to talk to a witness. What would I do if I didn't have that anymore?

Olin came back with coffee and doughnuts from the cafeteria. He offered me the largest, a chocolate covered one. I shook my head.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah."

But deep down I knew I wasn't.