Deja Blue (14 page)

Mother had doted on him. He had been her special child. She’d ignored the other children she’d brought into the world, ignored them as if it were a mission to do so. As a result, he’d been successful, had become a professional in his field, while two brothers and a sister had come to no good whatsoever. One brother died of meth addictionrelated complications, the other had died in prison. He’d been put away for armed robbery, got into a fight on the inside, and was stabbed to death.

The sister had become a prostitute and a drug user. She died a brutal death as well.

Mother’s death had created a paroxysm of trauma in the killer; it was in fact the catalyst that’d caused his initial bouts with insomnia and sleepwalking and thoughts of murder.

Sleepwalking had become his euphemism for killing. He did it, but he didn’t do it. He was not fully in control.

He needed to salvage his mother’s bureau mirror. The frame at least. It was a lovely old frame, after all. But he didn’t have time now, and out in the wider world eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeGods but there were reflecting surfaces everywhere. What boggled his mind even more than this fact, was that people looked right at him, but somehow they did not see him. Did not see that he was the Dream Killer, that he had committed multiple murder, and that his inner self screamed it, but no one heard; no one smelled death on him—or if they did, they kept it to themselves.

This inability of others to see through him simply amazed him. That no one could taste it in the mouth and nostrils as it rose off him, further amazed. That no one could hear his thoughts on the matter completely amazed him as well.

But no one had ever truly seen him for what he was capable of; not even Mother.

No one could stop the thing in the mirror. His other and deadly self.

He’d donned his green suit and tie, and he then hurried out, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, from tension, from nerves, and from fear. Fear of being caught, and fear of not being caught. Fear of being stopped, and fear of not being stopped.

Dichotomies. He was surrounded by them. His life, his very self, had become two forces at odds. A dichotomy of mind.

Time to go on shift. He shifted all right. All day long, he’d shift from left to right, up to down, around and through to avoid his other self. He prayed any calls he must attend would be in dark places. As for the church confessional, it was the only place he knew that didn’t have mirrors, a place where he didn’t have to see himself. And no matter what horrors he related to the priest, it remained confidential—the beauty of confession. Sure the old man pleaded with him to seek professional help, to turn himself in to authorities. How had he last put it? Pay to Ceasar…no give unto Ceasar, Ceasar’s due, give unto God His due.

Time to go to work; must not change a single pattern. So long as he stayed in his routine, the sheep out in the world would never know he was a killer.

FOURTEEN

It was a thin, long trailer atop one of the terraced foothills all around the city, at the end of a tributary of a path that could hardly be called a road in rural St. Albans. Like Dunbar, the area had its own police department independent of Charleston. As a result, Chief Orvison had to clear their visit to the first murder scene after they’d finished at the bank vault. She’d gotten very little else from the notes. In a sense, she felt they’d been psychically ‘degraded’ just as a DNA sample physically degrades over time.

As in Dunbar, the local cops, sporting their own special uniforms, looked to Rae like so many forest preserve officers. The home itself appeared to be holding up a telephone pole not feet from the rear. Wires ran to the trailer house making it appear on life support. The place looked like a dog refuge at the end of a rather long driveway of stone and overgrown weeds, which was in fact a road with a name, Finch Lane—a worn rut on either side of a green patch indicating use made by some six to seven families on this hardscrabble cow patch of lane.

“Chose his first victim with the kind of care you don’t normally see in a sleepwalker,” joked Orvison as they approached the trailer.

Orvison seemed bent on pushing Kunati’s face in the psychic aspects of the investigation. After he and Rae had left the bank and had a quick dinner, Orvison had phoned and ordered the younger detective to be on hand when Rae and he opened the door on the first victim’s bedroom. Kunati hadn’t lingered at headquarters but had gotten here ahead of them. He stood at the bottom step, smoking, pacing, looking edgy or was it simple frustration, or did his body language say disgust? Most certainly, the black detective was unhappy. Rae assumed it was due to her insistence at coming here to the first crime scene in this kill spree.

Rae noticed a small rear deck addition, and from the worn path going to it, she imagined the occupant had routinely used the back door and grill. The front yard had become a little garden, and hedges below the windows looked like an attempt at making the place homier. She imagined it was an attempt at making it appear like a ranch home but failing miserably.

“I see what you mean.” Rae considered what

Orvison meant: last house on a road where there was only one way in, one way out. Home out of sight of any others as the closest was set off by huge honeysuckle hedges. Access afoot meant climbing up from the main road, perhaps two hundred yards below this hill, easy if one cut through yards, over fences on terraced roads below. “Still, hard to believe no one saw him come or go.”

“Not so much as a dog’s bark,” Orvison said. “Access by car is easy and at the three o’clock hour, whose gonna hear or see anything? Once he got back here, no one could see either the car or the plates.”

They parked and climbed from the car, Rae noting just how invisible the car, the trailer home, and they had all become here.

“What I want to know is this,” began Rae, “what did the victim here have in common with the others?”

“That’s the million dollar question, but this is not Deal or No Deal, and up till now, we got no winners. Only losers.”

“She’s the furthest outside the city,” commented Rae.

“Told you it was out-of-the-way.”

“Isolated,” Kunati added, joining them.

“Secluded,” Orvison finished. “I see what you mean, Chief,” Rae replied, doing a full 360 turn to take in the lay of the land. She took in the rolling hillside. While she could easily see rooftops below, due to the angle of the road, no one looking up could have seen the intruder even if he parked his car here before the house. She seemed to recall some mention of tire marks having been cast.

For Kunati’s sake, she announced, “The killer parked here, just about where I’m standing.” Kunati tossed down his cigarette butt and frowned.

Orvison and Rae marched up the steps, where Orvison pulled away what remained of the crime scene tape, unlocked the door, and pulled it open. It swung out, taking up the entire small front porch, large enough for perhaps one folding chair. This meant they all must back up and take the doorway one at a time.

“Show me how he got inside,” she said. “Used a credit card.”

“A credit card?”

“That’s all it took on this door,” said Kunati.

“Her lock was so bad that all he need do was slide a hard plastic card between the door and the jamb?”

“That’s what we believe from the scratch marks we found.”

“Did he repeat this method of entry with the others?”

“No…got much harder locks opened, so we believe he invested in some burglar’s tools.”

She tried to see the scratches he spoke of about the lock. “I don’t see anything whatsoever.”

“When no forced entry could be found anywhere in the home, Roland Hatfield began paying very close attention to the lock to determine if it had the marks of having been burglarized, you know, picked. It showed nada, but the paint around it did. He got some heavy-duty equipment down here and took digital electron microscope photos—his latest million dollar toy—and they show significant damage although not to the naked eye.”

“Better lock might’ve saved her, you think?”

Kunati added, “From all I’ve heard, she was a proud woman and wouldn’t take a dime from her family, no matter her troubles.”

“What sort of troubles?”

“Divorce left her penniless with nothing but a mean ex,” replied Kunati.

“No children in the house, thank God,” muttered Orvison. “Father had them at the time.”

“Dr. Hatfield went to all this trouble and expense why?” she asked, as it did seem over and above.

First victim went by a common West Virginia name, “Marci Cottrill, but her maiden name was Hatfield. She was our ME’s sister.’

“Hatfield’s sister? God, that must’ve been tough.” “Yes, yes it was. I’ve never seen Roland Hatfield shaken by anything until that night he walked in here.”

“He didn’t know it was her place when he arrived?” she asked, curious.

“They’d fallen out, you know, years before…guess he hadn’t been in touch in a long time.” Orvison bit his lower lip, recalling that night. “Can’t imagine finding one of my family killed like that.”

“Seems then our boy didn’t pick as carefully as we’d thought,” Rae suggested, her tone inquiring.

“No way he could’ve known she was related to Roland Hatfield, unless…”

“Unless he knew her well,” finished Kunati. “Or unless he was a local,” added Carl Orvison.

“If he knew her,” repeated Rae, thoughtfully. “he may’ve known about the lock, the ease of getting into the house.”

“We’ve ruled out her former husband, Dwight Trent Cottrill, and former boyfriends.”

“Carefully, I hope.”

“We worked that angle for weeks, came up with nothing but solid alibis.”

The unshakable alibi, she thought. How often was it a lie for whatever reason backed by a false assumption of truth on the part of the local authorities? “I’m going to want to read the transcripts of the interviews you conducted.”

She saw Kunati flash a defiant look of anger in Orvison’s direction, as if she’d personally called his interrogation skills into question.

Orvison offered Kunati no encouragement. The chief merely said, “Whatever you need. You’re our guest. We invited you in, Doctor.”

“All the same, you won’t find anything there,” Kunati assured her. “Just be spinnin’ your wheels.”

“They are mine to spin, Detective. Besides, looks to me like everyone is spinning wheels here.”

“I guess they are.” Orvison snorted.

# # #

She found the master bedroom easily enough. “The victim gave up her children to her ex, didn’t she. She was de-toxing, trying to get straight, get her life turned around. These are the senses I’m getting. She hasn’t ever had the children at this location, has she?”

“No, she hasn’t,” said Orvison flatly. “Good hit, Doctor.”

“Wow, and I guess you can tell that from the fact there’s zip number of toys lyin’ about,” said Kunati.

“That was my first clue, yes. The fact the second and third bedrooms are being used as an office and a junk room was my second.” She ignored Kunati and tried to ignore the negative vibes coming from him. She secretly wanted him to go back outside and sit at that bottom stoop. She wanted to tell him so like a mother scolding a child, but she also knew that Orvison wanted another witness other than himself and his camera.

The entire little trailer held a sepulchral odor and an empty feel to it, a cold dampness that infiltrated the mind along with the bone. A mausoleum to poverty, she thought, likely filled with ghosts. She felt the immediate chill as if the place were right this moment growing colder. Then it got colder. Entering the bedroom, the cold made her shiver. She also noticed that there was a broken mirror over the bureau, shattered, and she felt the impact of the blows to the mirror deep within. She pictured each blast to the glass, each hammer blow creating a monstrous spider web with each violent attack. The mirror was in fact a physical representation of a deadly déjà vu effect, each hammer blow representing each blow to the victim’s skull and face.

Orvison realized her concentration had gone to the mirror. “Certainly was no accident…this sort of damage takes multiple blows, perhaps with the hammer…certainly a lot of strength behind those blows.”

Rae said nothing, concentrating, going inward. Spider-webbed by a number of central blows, there remained only small patches of mirror that actually reflected back. As if, she thought, someone had attempted to destroy every smooth inch over that surface. But why? She wondered if it’d been done before or after the killing, and the answer would say different things about the killer. If he taunted her by smashing the mirror first, it said one thing about him. If he destroyed the looking glass after the kill, it said something else about him. However, everything they suspected officially about this maniac pointed to his attacking the defenseless as they slept, and every vibe and image she had gotten about the killings had corroborated this modus operandi, so she was inclined to believe that he’d smashed the mirror after the kill.