“What’s THAT?”
My face was congenial, introducing two old friends at the market. “Ava Davanelle, meet Jeremy, my brother.”
Ava offered her hand. “Hello, Jeremy, I’m ple—”
“What is it DOING HERE?” Jeremy jumped from his bed to face me, indicating Ava only with the slightest flicks of his head. “We can’t talk with IT in here.”
“She’ll sit in the corner if you wish. Out of the way.”
“I won’t talk, I won’t. NOT with IT here.” I shrugged.
“You promised me we would TALK and then…MY NEED.”
“SHE’S here!”
“I invited her. She stays.”
He closed his eyes and crossed his arms. “I refuse to say another word.”
“Then our deal is—” I waved my hand, Nothing.
Jeremy false-charged Ava, snapping his teeth before retreating, a display I’d seen in monkeys establishing dominance and territory. I started toward him, but Ava’s eyes told me, Stay put. He circled her, lolling his tongue and slurping; he made claws of his hands and raked them toward her, hissing. He growled and shrieked, hawked and spat on the floor beside her; he mimicked masturbation, moaned, and pretended to ejaculate over her.
She yawned.
He turned to me, pleading. “IT CAN’T STAY! PLEASE send it, her, away, Carson. I have my needs, our…ritual. We need time together.”
I looked at my watch. “Our time has already started.”
He crossed his arms and tapped his foot. “You won’t hear what I know. I know, Carson. I know who it is.”
“You know how to manipulate. It’s your only real talent.”
He began a child’s singsong voice: “I know who it is, and so do you…”
I didn’t know if he was lying or his auger-twisted mind had found a connection we’d missed. I was betting he had as much a need for me as I did for him.
I said, “She stays.”
Jeremy gritted his teeth, snapped twice at the air, and retreated to the corner. He pretended to study his nails, glancing at Ava from the corner of his eye.
“So tell me, dear lady,” he said, polishing his nails on his shirt, “do you whore much?”
“I whore never,” she said cheerfully.
“All women whore. It’s in their SOULS! What do you do that makes you think you don’t whore?”
“Are you inquiring about my job, Mr. Ridgecliff? I’m an assistant pathologist with the county morgue.”
Jeremy pushed from the wall. He began circling Ava. I tensed, moved closer.
“OH, FOR THE UNHOLY LOVE OF GOD!” he screamed, pushing at the sides of his head. “When will all this POLITICALLY CORRECT BULLSHIT CEASE! A tender li’l thing like you wading through dead bodies? Do you pick at them? Touch a pinch of tissue here, a strand of sinew there? Or do you just watch and point as A LOWLY MAN DOES THE WORK? Say, you, sir, could you pluck out that purple thing there? Looks like a greasy tomato? Put it in this pickle jar. It’s a Christmas gift for a lover. What DO you do with dead bodies, sweet thang?”
Ava stepped in front of Jeremy and stopped him cold. He slid to one side, she moved in front of him. He sidestepped, she blocked. They looked like Latin dancers. Jeremy froze, nowhere to go. Ava smiled sweetly into his eyes.
“I do a lot of things with dead bodies, Mr. Ridgecliff,” she crooned, “but most of all I like to slice open their bellies, climb inside, and paddle them around the room like canoes.”
Jeremy twitched as if prodded by voltage. His neck clenched and he hissed through his teeth. He retreated to his bed and sat, eyes closed so tightly it seemed he was trying to keep even thoughts from entering. He sat for a full minute before his eyes opened, already staring at Ava. His voice was frost on an ivory window, as cold as the smile creeping over his lips.
“You just bought yourself a seat at the table, girly. Hope you enjoy the view.”
He turned from Ava and snapped an open palm toward me. “Did the drugstore process the latest glossies, brother?”
I passed Jeremy the photos of Burlew. I had previously brought everything on the beheadings. He’d this time asked for rundowns on every unsolved murder for the last year. Jeremy set everything beside him on the bed and started by studying the photos of Burlew. A hellish smile lit my brother’s face.
Mr. Cutter wiped sweat from his brow, set the level on a shelf with other tools, and gazed proudly over his evening’s work. The new autopsy table sat in the center of the room, gleaming beneath a hooded utility light hanging from the cabin’s low ceiling. Getting the table was the purest form of providence; the universe intervening again. He’d shunted the drain out through the hull, neatness counting. The nearest paved road was two miles away and there were no power lines, so he’d rigged up an electrical system from banks of car batteries in the bilge. A small Honda generator charged the batteries, but he rarely used the noisy contraption.
He went to the pilot house. The wheel, instrumentation, and most everything else had been stripped out. Years ago some optimist had hauled the boat from the river to its high storage blocks, planning a refit. But it had fallen into decrepitude, waiting for Mr. Cutter to boat by on a scouting run and realize the universe was bringing back the pieces, setting the board for another game.
Mr. Cutter watched the moonlight wash over the field and, two hundred feet to his left, across the short channel of river branching from the main course. He couldn’t see the river itself, the view blocked by a thick stand of brush almost encircling the shrimper. He returned to the cabin. Time to put the final images in place. The ones telling Mama the story.
In her own words.
Just in time too; that damned detective was crawling around asking questions, smelling something. No matter. This part of the journey, the only part the detective could affect, would soon be history. Mr. Cutter would remove his mask and makeup and shine as himself.
Jeremy spent a half an hour with the photos, then another hour with written reports. Ava and I sat to the side as Jeremy grunted at the photos, sniffed them, ran his hands across them as if secret messages were imprinted in the colors, then scattered them across the floor like confetti.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the pathologist who had his ticklers removed by a bomb? This changes EVERYTHING.”
Jeremy held up the investigative report on the Caulfield incident and pretended to study it through a lorgnette. It had been included as a sidebar report on the Mueller killing.
I said, “Caulfield? There was a murder attempt, but it was aimed at Mueller.”
“So I read, brother. Someone stuck a bombaroo up Mueller’s fundament knowing when he awoke he’d attempt to remove the obstruction and jellify his exhaust system. The man’s lifestyle prepared him for such discoveries. Yawn, what is it this time…a pumpkin? A cocker spaniel? Who could anticipate the man’s heart would explode first and he’d be sent to the morgue.”
I said, “The bomb wasn’t meant for Caulfield. It was horrible misfortune.”
“Put yourself in Caulfield’s booties. He’s worked years for the moment, he’s given a postmortem he’s not expected to have, and gets his touchy-feelies turned to paste. Bye-bye, career.”
“What do you mean, the post wasn’t expected?” I plucked the sheet from Jeremy’s hands.
“It’s all there. Mueller’s postmortem was scheduled for Dr. Peltier. She graciously stepped aside and let Caulfield be head chopper.” He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, my, was that Freudian?”
I read the report. At the last moment Clair gave the post to Caulfield. This was all new to me; it hadn’t been our case. Jeremy sneered. “Maybe good doctor Caulfield got a little pissed about the substitution.”
“How do the words fit in? I can’t connect them.”
“DON’T START with the WORDS! They don’t have to make sense to YOU!”
“I want them to mean something,” I said, confounded that the thick scrawl of phrases didn’t resolve into order, lacked the fingersnap moment of That’s it!
“Mean something? MEAN SOMETHING? What do you know of meaning? Did you know what the burning silk pad over the eyes of Adrian’s little dolly meant? Your people were saying it was a way of hiding. I told you it was a bond of love…Didn’t I tell you Adrian loved his fires far more than any female could ever love any male and didn’t I send you away from here looking for arson? The first step in—may I call him Joel? Thank you—Joel’s selection process? That Joel would find people at his fires and follow them until LOVE HAD ITS WAY?”
It didn’t make sense for Joel Adrian to see fire as a spiritual entity. It didn’t make sense for him to believe his set fires tapped his victims for death. I hadn’t seen it, but Jeremy had, as well as the fires selecting the next four victims. I couldn’t see into the world of Joel Adrian, for which I daily thanked God, but Jeremy could. How could I doubt him?
I nodded. “You were right, Jeremy. I can’t argue that.”
Ava spoke up. “Your participation saved lives, Mr. Ridgecliff.”
Jeremy turned to Ava and his lips curled into a sneer. “You see it as saving lives, witch. I see it as BETRAYING JOEL ADRIAN!”
Ava startled and her purse fell, its contents spilling across the floor. The red lighter spun on the white tile.
“Oh, don’t get so excited, honey,” Jeremy said, smiling at the lighter. “We’ll get there.”
He stood and began circling again. “Caulfield lost his career on the first day he went to work, Carson. Years of work gone in a”—he smiled—“fingersnap. I think your boyo is a wee bit PO’d at his old boss for slipping his digits in the blender. Think of the bodies as—postcards, that’s a nice analogy. Postcards from hell. Miss you, wish you were here. She will be, if our boy has a word in the matter.”
Ava said, “Why no heads?”
Jeremy jerked his head to her, veins cording in his neck. “Because SOMETHING has to be MISSING, girly, and missing fingers would point to him. Is that an oxymoron? And consider: Can even the most perfect body function without a head? No. Can even the most perfect pathologist function without a hand?” He said, “Tell me, how were the heads removed?”
I replied, “With near-surgical precision.”
Jeremy crossed his arms and tapped an impatient toe. “Is that not a signature for a man dedicated to slicing and dicing?”
Ava frowned and said, “It wasn’t surgical precision. There were hesitations, he was off track.”
“He’s got half a fucking hand, WHORE!”
Suddenly Jeremy was on the floor and my hands were around his neck. He made no attempt to fight. Ava was over me, pulling me away. “Carson. Stop!”
I released my grip. Jeremy looked at Ava, confused. “Thank you, dear,” he said, recovering and standing. He glared at me.
Ava said, “If he hates her so much, why doesn’t he—”
“Remove her hated head? He’s making something, laying a foundation. He’s suffered, and he’s planning for her to pay back the pain with heavy interest.”
Jeremy smiled and took a bow. “Our work here is done, Tonto,” he said. He turned to Ava. “Got that lighter, sister?”