Текст книги "Blind Rage"

Автор книги: Terri Persons

Соавторы: Terri Persons
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Chapter 9

“BRACE YOURSELF,” SHE said, cracking open her apartment door and flipping on a ceiling light.

He ran his eyes over the messy room. “I suppose it doesn’t help if your roommates are sloppy.”

“I live alone.”

“Open mouth. Insert foot.”

She sighed. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You sound tired,” he said.

“Long day.” She took off her vest and tossed it and her purse onto a chair. “Can I get you something?”

He took off his coat and draped it over the back of the chair. “Sit. I’ll get you something.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. Sit. I mean it.”

She kicked away some empty Chinese takeout cartons, picked a cat off the sofa, and lowered herself onto the cushions. “The kitchen is bad.”

“I’ll manage.”

“Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

“I’m going to use your bathroom first.”

“Down the hall,” she said, pointing.

She bent to pull off her boots. Heard the toilet flush and the bathroom door pop open.

“How about I pour you a glass of wine?” he asked as he headed to the kitchen. “Do you have any?”

She chewed her bottom lip. “I really shouldn’t, but I guess a little would be all right.”

“After all,” he said, “it is a special occasion.”

“You’re right. If you can find it, go for it.” Because of her meds, she didn’t react well to alcohol. She became dizzy and drowsy. She didn’t want to think about her illness tonight, however, and told herself a single glass couldn’t hurt. She heard him opening and closing drawers and hollered, “Corkscrew’s in the drawer to the right of the sink!”

After a few minutes, he reappeared with a tall tumbler filled to the top with red wine. A paper towel was wrapped around it. “I filled it a little too full.”

“Good thing I don’t work until tomorrow afternoon,” she said, taking the drink from him.

He went back into the kitchen. “Now I’ve got to find a second clean glass.”

“Good luck with that,” she said after him. She took a sip. She hadn’t had booze in a while, and it tasted off to her. It was also flooding her body with warmth, however, and that couldn’t be a bad thing. Putting the glass to her mouth, she tipped it back and swallowed hard.

SHE AWOKE on the floor, with him on top of her. Her jeans and sweater were off. How had that happened? She couldn’t remember. She was dizzy and felt out of control—like one of her up days.

He reached around with both hands and cupped her buttocks under her panties. At the same time, he lifted his right knee and pressed it into her crotch. “Do you like that?”

“Oh, God,” she moaned.

“Excellent.” His mouth went to her breasts.

“That’s good,” she panted.

He rolled off her, reached down, clamped his hand over the waist of her panties, and ripped them down. “You won’t need these.”

“This is not how I expected things to go tonight,” she said.

“Are you complaining?”

“Hell, no,” she said, and gave a short, hysterical laugh.

“Stop talking,” he said.

“Why?”

“You’re ruining the moment.”

She watched while he unrolled a condom over his erection. “You came prepared.”

He crawled back on top of her. “Please stop talking, Kyra dear.”

She gasped as he entered her and wrapped her legs around his hips. “You’re a horse.”

As he pumped, he cupped his hand over her nose and mouth. “I instructed you to stop talking.”

Only after he climaxed did he remove his hand.

Shoving him off her, she panted a question to the ceiling. “Were you trying to suffocate me or what?”

“Who are you kidding?” he asked, sprawled out next to her. “You loved it.”

She closed her eyes, trying to make the dizziness dissipate. “So what if I did?”

A cat walked across his legs, and he kicked at it, but it danced out of the way. “Cutting off oxygen at precisely the right moment during intercourse heightens the orgasm.”

“I’ve read about that,” she said, her eyes still shut. “People hang themselves. Autoerotic something.”

“Autoerotic asphyxia.”

“Yeah. I’ve always wanted to try that. It sounds so hot.”

“It is hot.”

She opened her eyes in time to see him reach down, remove the spent condom, and slip it inside the front pocket of his discarded pants. She found that behavior odd but didn’t question him. “I’ve heard it’s dangerous. People have accidentally died that way.”

“There are lots of variations on that theme,” he said.

She went onto her side to look at him. “What do you mean?”

He reached over and outlined her lips with his index finger. “How about a warm soak in the tub before we go another round?”

She locked her lips over his finger and sucked hard while he slowly withdrew it. “What have you got in mind?”

“A variation on a hot theme.”

She hesitated. “I don’t know.”

With the tips of his fingers, he combed through her spiky hair. “You are so beautiful, Kyra.”

“You are so full of shit.” She grabbed his caressing hand and brought it to her mouth. She chewed on the heel of his palm.

“There’s a lovely frailty about you that I find … arousing.” He tipped her onto her back and went down on top of her. “Your life has been so—”

“I don’t want to talk about my life,” she said, her lashes lowered. “My life has been horseshit, but I’m getting it together.”

“I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.” He kissed her on the mouth. “Let me run a bath for you, beautiful.”

She looked up at the face hovering over hers and was embarrassed by his attention. She couldn’t stop herself from rambling. That out-of-control feeling again. “That tub’s bigger and deeper than you’d think, and we could both fit. I’ve got scented oils in there. Bubbles, too, if you want to get real fancy. Don’t use the lavender bath salts, though. They’re in the jar with the purple ribbon around it. I keep them on the counter for decoration.”

“No lavender bath salts. Got it.”

She was glad she’d kept the bathroom clean and organized. “Candles,” she said. “The matches are in the medicine cabinet.”

“I hope I can remember all this.”

“You’re a smart man,” she said. “You’ll figure it out.”

“You’re right.” He reached up, snatched an afghan off the couch, and draped it over her. He took down a throw pillow and slipped it under her head. “Don’t exert yourself, unless it’s to masturbate.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

He got on his feet. “Think salacious thoughts while I draw you a bath.”

“That won’t be difficult.” She rolled over onto her stomach and watched his muscled body move and flex as he went down the hall to her bathroom. The guy was a surprise. Under his clothes he was built like a professional athlete. She listened as the water started to drum the porcelain. A man had never before run a bath for her. She heard him opening and closing the medicine cabinet. He was going to go for the candles. Great. Maybe she could get him to shut off all the lights and make love by candlelight. Despite his flattering words, she felt as fat as a pig, and scrunching up in the tub wasn’t going to make her gut look any prettier. She hoped like hell he opted for the bubbles. Every woman looked better buried in bubbles.

He came back into the front room and stood over her with his hands behind his back. He was unabashedly proud of his body, and he should be, she thought. “What do you need?” she asked.

“What do you need?”

“I can’t think of a thing.”

“More wine,” he suggested, and went back into the kitchen.

“More wine!” she yelled after him, and laughed. She sat up, pulling the afghan over her midriff but continuing to expose her breasts. The best part of her, she figured. He returned with another overflowing glass. She accepted the tumbler and dropped the paper towel on the floor. “I’m starting to enjoy this.”

“There’s more to come,” he said with a small smile.

“You’d better check on the tub. I don’t want that filled to the brim.”

“Right,” he said, and headed back to the bathroom.

Her back propped against the couch, she sighed and took a drink of wine. Wondering what water recreation he had in store for her, she was anxious for the tub to fill.

She was half-asleep by the time he came for her, and she could barely hold her head up as he tore the afghan off her. “What took you so long? Is the water still hot?”

“The water is perfect,” he said, wrapping an arm around her and lifting her to her feet.

The room started spinning. Her head flopped backward and she felt herself going down, falling into a black pit. “I’m tired.”

“No wonder,” he said, scooping her into his arms. “The meds you take, mixed in with all that wine, a dangerous cocktail. You trying to kill yourself or something?”

“No, no,” she said. Her head was resting against his bare skin, and she liked it. He smelled like perspiration and the remnants of good cologne. His words were confusing her, though, and she told herself to stop listening to them. Stop remembering and replaying them.

“How about I pour you a glass of wine?”

“I filled it a little too full.”

“You trying to kill yourself or something?”

A wave of nausea rolled over her as he carried her down the hall, and she groaned. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Don’t get sick on me, Kyra,” he said, stepping into the bathroom and adjusting his hold on her. “That would be very unladylike.”

She blinked in the blinding whiteness of the walls and tile work. There were no candles lit, and all the lights were on. “Too bright,” she said, and buried her face in his chest.

“Here we go,” he said, carrying her over to the tub.

She turned her head and looked down into the water. The tub was filled to the top, just like the wine-filled tumbler. “Too full.”

“Stop your complaining, Kyra.”

She suddenly noticed his gloves. He was naked, except for his hands. Had he been wearing them all night? “You’re going to wreck the leather,” she mumbled.

“I suppose I am.” He leaned over and dropped her into the water, sending waves splashing over the sides and onto the floor.

The water was cold, and even in her drunken, drugged stupor, she realized something was terribly wrong. She gasped one word—“No!”—and started to sit up, but he pushed her back down. Her torso was under water while her feet were sticking out and banging frantically against the faucet and the wall.

Eyes closed and holding her breath, she flailed her arms and kicked her legs, but the only object she was certain she struck was the un-yielding hardware of the tub’s taps. The water and the meds and the booze all worked to muffle her senses and weigh down her limbs. It was as if she were fighting and dying in slow motion. After a minute or two, she couldn’t feel his hands on her anymore; all she sensed was something heavy pressing against her chest and keeping her from sitting up. Was he even there? She opened her eyes, but everything above her was blurry. The water rushed inside her mouth and nostrils. Was it real or a bad dream? She tasted something flowery. Her final thought: Bastard used the lavender bath salts.

Chapter 10

RETIRED HIGH SCHOOL shop Teacher Hudson Black scratched his backside over his flannel boxers as he shuffled down the hallway of his apartment. Eleven in the evening, it was the usual hour for the first of his four late-night visits to the toilet. As was his habit, he silently cursed his enlarged prostate and promised himself he’d make a doctor’s appointment in the near future to deal with the problem.

He stepped into the bathroom and flipped the light switch up, but nothing happened. “Fuck,” he grumbled to the dark cell.

Whenever he sat on the john to get his stingy stream going, he passed the time with a crossword puzzle. That required enough light to read. He flicked the switch up and down four more times, each time issuing a curse.

He reached around the doorway, fumbled along the wall, and flipped on the hallway fixture. It didn’t cast enough light for him to work the crossword puzzle, but it did allow him to notice something strange.

The bathroom’s globe-shaped light fixture was so filled with water, it could pass for a fishbowl. The floor under the light was wet, too. He glanced up at the ceiling and frowned while scratching his crotch. Crazy bitch upstairs was up to her old shenanigans again. He should have guessed something was amiss when earlier that night he’d looked out the window and caught a glimpse of her coming up the walk with a man. Then while he was using the facilities for one of his many postdinner pees, he’d heard them overhead banging and thumping and making all sorts of godawful racket. They were probably doing the dirty deed in the tub.

Because she was such a head case, he and the other tenants had grown accustomed to her crap the last couple of years and pretty much ignored it. When she was having one of her hyper episodes, she’d have the television and the stereo blaring. She’d be dancing and hopping around like someone had plugged her full of quarters. At two in the morning, she’d start running the vacuum and moving the furniture. Sometimes she’d bring home armloads of shopping bags filled with clothes and shoes and purses. Bringing boys home to bang was not out of the ordinary for her either. He swore he never saw her with the same one twice.

Her hyper episodes had made her down days seem almost pleasant. She’d be dragging her sorry butt around the building like it was the end of the world, but at least she was quiet. She did have that one day when she brought the cops to the building after swallowing a bottle of baby aspirin or some such shit. It was a weak-ass suicide attempt, but it seemed to get her the help she needed. Her up-and-down episodes weren’t nearly as frequent after that.

This water damage told him she was up to her old tricks, however. Come sunrise, he was going to phone the super and complain.

Carefully avoiding the area directly under the dripping ceiling light, he padded over to the john. With a sigh, he dropped his boxers and lowered himself onto the stool. He grabbed the puzzle book and pencil off the top of the toilet tank. Holding the book open on his lap, he squinted in the weak light thrown into the bathroom from the hallway. There was enough light to make out the empty blocks but not nearly enough to read the clues. Still, he flipped through the pages once just out of habit, then put the book back on the toilet tank.

For lack of anything better to do while he sat, he counted the drips from the light fixture as they hit the puddle on the floor. It was going to be a long night, and it was that crazy bitch’s fault. With any luck, the super was going to kick her nutty ass out onto the street by week’s end.

Chapter 11

WHILE TALKING ON the phone with Garcia, Bernadette looked over at Creed, and he shook his head solemnly.

“Who found her? When?”

“Downstairs neighbor noticed water dripping from his bathroom ceiling last night and left a message for the building caretaker this morning. Caretaker goes upstairs this afternoon, knocks on the girl’s door, doesn’t get an answer, lets himself in. Finds her dead—faceup in her own bathtub.”

Bernadette reached for a pen and a pad. “Same profile as the other victims?”

“Pretty much. Name was Kyra Klein.”

“Kyra Klein,” Bernadette repeated, looking at Creed. He scratched down the name.

“Early twenties,” Garcia continued. “Undergrad student at the U of M. Lots of problems. Tried to off herself a couple of years ago by swallowing some pills. She’s been seeing shrinks for …”

Bernadette heard some papers shuffling on Garcia’s end. “Let me guess. Depression? Anorexia?”

“Here it is … bipolar disorder.”

“Bipolar disorder,” she repeated, so Creed could keep up with the conversation. “That’s where people have big-time mood swings, right? They go from the highest high to the lowest low?”

“Something like that,” he said. “She was being treated with lithium.”

“Lithium, huh? I’ve heard of it.” She looked over at Creed, and he shrugged. “But we’re not … I’m not sure what that does exactly.”

“It’s serious shit. You don’t want to take too much.”

“Are you saying she overdosed?”

“Crime scene found an empty bottle in the medicine cabinet,” he said.

Bernadette tapped her pen on the pad. “So this could be a suicide.”

“There are restraint marks on her body and bruises on her legs, just like with the other bathtub victim,” he said.

“The killer slipped her a mickey to make his job easier, but she still put up a fight.”

“There was an empty glass with traces of wine in it,” he said.

“I’ll bet the lab finds traces of lithium, too.” She clicked her pen. “I want to talk to the doc who prescribed the stuff. Got the bottle handy?”

Paper shuffling on Garcia’s end. “I’ve got the name of her therapist.”

“That won’t do me any good,” she said. “They can’t prescribe drugs. I need the psychiatrist.”

“I’ll get his name off the police.”

“Did anybody see anything? Hear anything?”

“The downstairs neighbor, the fellow with the place right below her place, heard banging last night. Figured she was up to her old manic ‘bullshit,’ as he put it. He did see her enter the building earlier with a man.”

Bernadette looked over at Creed and said: “The neighbor saw her with someone? With a man?”

“Big blond man. That’s all he can give us. All the neighbor basically saw was the top of the guy’s head.”

“A big blond dude in a state filled with big blond dudes,” she said. “That’ll get us far.”

“Plus it was dark out, so who knows if he even got the blond part right.”

“No one else heard or saw anything?”

“Police are doing their usual. Going door to door. So far, nothing. Apparently Miss Klein was the village eccentric, and folks stopped paying attention to her comings and goings. Her gentleman visitors. I’ve been told she had a lot of those.”

“Was she hooking?”

“No. I think the sexcapades might have something to do with her manic spells.”

“I really need that doctor’s name.” She clicked her pen a couple of times.

“I said I’ll get it,” said Garcia.

“How much of this is being released to the media?” she asked.

“Police are withholding her name until they can reach her brother. He lives out in Seattle.”

“Her parents?”

“Both dead.”

“What is being handed out to the press? What are we saying about this?”

“We aren’t saying squat. Like I’ve been telling you—”

“This belongs to the Minneapolis cops. I know, I know. What are they telling the reporters?”

“Not much. Woman found dead in her home. Possible OD. That’s it. They aren’t even mentioning the tub. They know we need to keep a lid on these deaths until we know what’s going on.”

“Sounds like everything is under control,” she said evenly. “What’s left for me to do?”

“I’d like you to spend your time working this case in a way that the police and our agents can’t.”

Her eyes drifted over to her wall of yellow Post-its, but she knew that that wasn’t what Garcia was talking about. Unlike her previous bosses, Garcia was blunt about asking for her sight, and she found that validating. Creed didn’t approve of her ability, however, and she didn’t want him to overhear. She swiveled her chair around so her back was to her office mate. “I need the scarf, unless there’s something else we think the killer touched. Did he leave anything behind with this victim? Was there anything he obviously touched, something portable you can grab?”

“I don’t know. Crime scene is still inside. I’m calling from my car.”

She wondered if Garcia was embarrassed to have someone overhear his end of the conversation with her, and then told herself to stop being paranoid. “I’d like to join the mob. While I’m there, maybe I’ll see something I can use.”

He gave her the address. The apartment was on the west bank of the campus, while the previous victim’s home had been on the east. “Make it quick,” he said. “There’s a lot of stuff here, and they’re going to town with the bagging.”

“What do you mean, a lot of stuff?”

“You’ll see.”

OPENED CAT FOOD cans and pop cans. Empty Kleenex boxes surrounded by wads of tissue. Half-spent rolls of toilet paper and paper towels. Empty cigarette packs. A coffee mug filled to overflowing with cigarette butts. Spilled bags of potato chips. Banana peels and orange peels. A bowl of shriveled grapes. Cans of whipped cream. A massive collection of Chinese takeout cartons. Unopened mail and rolled-up newspapers with the rubber bands still wrapped around them.

The odors—the strongest came from the cat waste and the rotten fruit—made Bernadette nauseous. Keeping her hand over her nose and mouth, she walked deeper inside. Even in the middle of the day, the drapes were drawn. With the lights out, it would have been as dark as a cave. As dark as Klein’s mood, she imagined.

“Hi,” she said to one of the crime scene crew.

“Want a mask?” one of them asked through his mask.

She shook her head and continued gawking at the mess. She was well aware that people with emotional and mental problems let their housekeeping go to hell, but this was stunning.

Weaving around the men and the garbage they were picking through, she went into the kitchen. Dirty dishes were mounded in both sinks and it stank like sour milk. Each of the stove’s four burners was topped with a saucepan; she didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to check what was inside them. The dishwasher was open and the bottom rack was pulled out. A lone plate covered in tomato sauce sat in wait. Was it a feeble attempt at starting the cleanup, or was it the last housekeeping chore the young woman managed before falling into some sort of emotional abyss?

When she went back into the living room, something brushed up against her shin. Looking down, she saw the furry source of the feline odors. “Cats,” she grumbled, and pushed the animal away with the side of her shoe. It detoured over to the Chinese takeout cartons sitting under the coffee table and stuck its head inside one of the boxes.

“Want to take him home with you?” one of the crime scene guys asked.

“No, thanks,” she said, snapping on her gloves. “Where’s the body?”

He pointed across the room to a closed hallway door. “Help yourself. We got what we needed out of there. Bedroom is all clear, too.”

“Anybody come up with any DNA goodies?” she asked through her hand.

“Nothing under her nails or anything easy like that.” He sat back on his heels and sighed. “Maybe we can come up with some people hair buried in all this stinking cat hair.”

She nodded and walked into the hallway. The instant she pushed the bathroom door open, a kitten scurried out. She was surprised to find the bathroom uncluttered and relatively clean, save for the smelly litter box tucked into a corner. Klein had allowed herself one tidy space. A refuge of sorts.

While pulling the gloves tight over her fingers, Bernadette ran her eyes around the compact bathroom. No signs of a struggle, but the floor was a lake. The guy in the apartment below must have gotten quite a shower. She went over to the side of the tub, a white rectangle that was built into the wall. It was short but deep. Deep enough to drown someone.

Klein wasn’t quite as emaciated as the first girl, but she was close. Instead of long red hair, she had a cap of short black hair. Bruises on her body. Feces in the water. No rose petals this time, but something floral scented the water. Again, her evening had started out as something pleasant and morphed into murder.

Down the short hall to the bedroom. The twelve-by-twelve space smelled like the inside of a wet tennis shoe. Clothes littered the floor and the mattress. The dresser and nightstands were covered with more dirty laundry, as well as tampon boxes, tampon wrappers, cans of body spray, cotton balls smeared with makeup, and a pizza carton containing crusts. Every drawer was pulled open and had bras or panties or nylons hanging out, as if underwear thieves had rifled through the place.

“God Almighty,” she said to the squalor. It was hard to believe someone actually slept in the room. Did homework there, too, apparently. A tower of texts and a shorter stack of notebooks sat on the nightstand next to the bed.

Bernadette went over to the books and examined the titles on the bindings. A volume on Dorothy Parker. An astronomy text. European history. Economics. Her eyes traveled to the notebook pile. Was there a personal journal buried in there? Carefully, she lifted one after the other. The notebook at the very bottom set off an alarm. On the cover, in black marker, a handwritten title: SUICIDE.

Garcia came up behind her, pulling on gloves. “Find something?”

“Maybe.” Holding it by the edges, she lifted it so that Garcia could see it.

“Shit. What was that about?”

“It can’t be a class.” She opened it and a set of stapled papers fell out.

Garcia bent over and picked up the packet by the edges. “Syllabus.”

“It is a class.” Reading over Garcia’s shoulder, she saw the full name of the course at the top: The Poetry of Suicide. Below the title was the name of the instructor. Professor Finlay Wakefielder. It was an unusual first name and she remembered seeing it before. “Hmmm.”

Garcia looked over his shoulder at her. “Yeah?”

“It was a different class, but he was the instructor. I didn’t think anything of the course title when I first saw it, but now …”

“What’re you talking about?”

“One of the other victims took a class from this Professor Wakefielder. I think it was the June victim. Alice Bergerman.”

Garcia lowered his arms, the syllabus still in his hand. “Coincidence? I mean, if you teach two hundred kids at a time in a big lecture hall, chances are …”

“Biology 101 is held in a big lecture hall, Tony. This sounds like a small lit seminar.”

He raised the syllabus again and stared at it. “What was the other course called?”

“Madness in American Literature,” she said.

“This guy has issues,” Garcia said.

She turned the notebook over and noticed a sticker with a phone number for a suicide hotline. The girl had definitely been interested in the topic. She set the notebook down the way she’d found it. “I’ll check him out tomorrow,” she said. “Tonight I want to go a round with the scarf.”

“You’re pretty sure the killer planted it on the bridge?”

“I’m hoping he did.”

“And that when he touched it, he did so with his bare hands,” added Garcia.

“I can’t guarantee anything, though. Even if he did put his naked mitts on it, I can’t say my sight is going to feel like helping me out today.”

“Should I bring it over to the St. Paul cathedral? I could meet you there.”

It was a decent suggestion. Garcia had accompanied her to churches; the quiet and dimness of the cavernous spaces helped her sight. She eyed the clock on the dead woman’s nightstand. “I’m pretty sure the cathedral has services during the week. Really, it’s still early enough that any church might have stuff going on. Choir practice and whatnot.”

“Meet me in your office, then. You could give it a go right there.”

“No way is that going to work for my sight.”

“There’s no one else around, and if we turned off all the lights, it’d be dark enough.”

Even if the construction racket was gone by the time they got there, Creed could be lurking about. “Cellar won’t work,” she said shortly.

“Then where?” he asked impatiently. “Someplace close. We need to do this pronto.”

“Murrick Place has a basement, dark and empty. The walls are so thick, somebody could detonate a bomb outside and you’d never know it.”

“Do you have a key?”

“We don’t need one,” she said, praying that was correct.

“After we’re through here, I’ll meet you at your loft with the scarf, and we’ll go down together,” he said. “Be ready to work.”

Garcia had an edge to his voice. Bernadette figured he felt guilty he hadn’t produced the scarf earlier in the week. Both of them were wondering the same thing: Could her sight have helped them prevent this?