I would have liked to use my blade on Johnny. Taking my time. Watching his reaction to dying slowly, his pain prolonged. But blades, though lethal, take time to make someone bleed out. I couldn’t chance someone walking by. Seeing me in his driveway plunging the blade in while he screamed and coughed blood over me. I had to kill him quickly. A part of me is furious that I reverted to my old self. Furious that I failed in fighting off the urges that lay dormant the last ten years. Another part of me is convinced I killed Johnny because he was spearheading the reopened investigation into the Butch Spangler death and the Five Point cases. He was allowing the investigation to re-open, so I had to kill him. It was the ultimate warning to drop the investigation. They’ll have to drop the cold cases now and work overtime finding Johnny’s killer.
Or so I thought until tonight, when Ana Maria came on air from the hospital. There was no update on Chief White’s condition, she reported. She said an anonymous hospital employee had said it looked grim for Johnny. “But this changes nothing.” Ana Maria looked into the camera, and seemed to be looking at me. Challenging me. “We will continue investigating the killings of the three officers a decade ago and the Five Point Killer cases.”
I slip my ski mask in my pocket. In case they wake up.
I stop two blocks from Anderson’s house, the crunching snow under my tires louder in the frigid night air than I would have wanted.
I step out and bundle my hoodie around my face, leaving my heavy coat in the car. Where I’m going, I don’t want to risk a bulky jacket scraping against anything.
I walk through back yards of this neighborhood, the downed rotted fences making it easy to go from house to house. Only a few people brave enough to live in this part of town, with so many abandoned and run-down houses providing the homeless and bums off the railroad places to crash. And a place to rob or beat the unsuspecting passerby. But this late at night, the hobos have long ago succumbed to the booze they had for dinner.
I reach the alley in back of Anderson’s house. Yesterday I walked by, figuring out the best way to get inside, and I avoid clumps of frozen snow as I make my way around the side where I wait at the corner of the house by the front door. I pause, listening. A dog barks the next block over, and in a cottonwood overhead an owl says hello. But no one stirs in the house.
I take out the ring of try keys from my pocket, wrapped in a rag to keep them from rattling against each other. They’ll fit most old door locks, and many dead bolts manufactured in the last few years.
I put one foot atop the rickety porch and slowly put weight down, testing. But Anderson has replaced much of the wood, and it takes my weight.
At the door I stop and listen. I put my hand against the door. Even if I can’t hear someone walking around, I’ll be able to feel vibrations on the door. It remains as lifeless as a tombstone, and I unwrap my ring of keys. They have served me well in years past, and I know there’ll be one that fits this lock. I work my way around the ring—perhaps ten or twelve keys—slowly inserting each until …
The lock clicks open. I pocket the ring, and listen a final time before cracking the door open. It creaks ever so slightly and I raise up on the knob, taking weight off the door, and open it wide enough to slip by. Inside, I close the door and stand against a wall, allowing my eyes to adjust to the darkness. And more importantly, waiting for my heart to slow. I fear nothing being inside this house. What I fear is that my excitement will override my instincts. And I will make a mistake.
I breathe deeply, aware that the throbbing in my head is slowly lessening, and I start for the staircase. Off to one side a light glows, another room, perhaps a night light, and I turn to the staircase railing. I reach for it, then pull my hand back. Just one more opportunity to make noise. I know. I have experience.
I step to one side of the stairs, knowing that more noise is possible if I put my weight in the unsupported center, and carefully put my weight down. Step by step I test each rung before I ascend another. When I reach the top floor, I once again pause. I feel my temples throb, my heart race, and I breathe deep as I look around the hallway.
Three doorways open into the hallway, but there are no doors on any room. When I feel composed, I once again keep to one side of the hallway and inch down. I feel the floor beneath for any sign of it giving me away, and peek around the first door. Ana Maria. What the hell is she doing here? She sleeps on her side. Almost in a fetal position, like a child. But she is no child. She wants to find me. She wants to destroy me.
I pull back, wondering what she’s doing in Anderson’s house. I become angry at myself. Back in the day, I would have never taken anything for granted. I would never have entered any of the victims’ houses without thoroughly checking. Everything. Including what cars were parked in the neighborhood. But it will never happen again. I will never again leave anything to chance. Ever.
Ana Maria snorts and I freeze. When she settles back again, I debate what I should do with her. But I stick to the plan. I’d decided to visit Anderson and send him a message before learning she slept over. As much as I would like to see the terror in her eyes once again, I stay on plan and continue down the hallway.
The next two rooms have been stripped of lath and plaster. Bare wires dangle from the walls. A light fixtures swings in the center of the rooms. I pass by on the way to the room at the end of the hall.
The last room, like the other three, has no door and I look around the corner of the jamb. Anderson sleeps on his back. Even in the dark, his wispy blond hair is tussled and lies off to one side of his balding head. His feet stick out of the comforter, big, oversized feet, and I smile. What I wouldn’t give to tickle his foot. And when he awakened suddenly, carve another throat under the one he’s got. But I have an agenda. I really don’t want to hurt him. I want him off my case.
I step inside his bedroom and listen intently. His breathing is deep, consistent, and I know he’s in deep sleep.
I approach his bunk—a camping cot, really—and squat down five feet from it, studying him. Even at his age, he would be a handful, with his thick shoulders and arms, his heavy, muscular hands outside the covers. But I have to send a message, and I spot that message under his bunk.
I crawl on my belly, spreading my arm out until I can grab his slippers. I carefully pick them off the floor and stand up. I look a last time at Anderson sleeping, almost regretting that all I want to do is send a message, and backtrack my way out of the old house.