Fetish (24 page)

As the two detectives neared the Lane Cove house, they turned the siren off. They didn’t want to scare Ed Brown into a dangerous reaction or a quick getaway.
If
he was there.
If
. Andy prayed that he was right. Suddenly, an image jumped out of the thick, black night like a neon sign.

“Did you see that?” Andy said, hitting the brakes.

They skidded to a halt and Andy threw the car into reverse. He’d seen something near the trees.

The blue VW van was partly submerged on the edge of the river.

“Jesus, look at that,” Jimmy said, throwing open the car door.

Andy jumped out and ran down the bank, the headlights illuminating the van like a pale ghost. He drew his gun. The van was half-submerged, the back end rising out of the water. He held his Glock high in front of him, waded over to the driver’s side door and cautiously looked inside. The cab was empty, the windshield broken. He examined the driver’s seat quickly—there appeared to be blood streaked across
the open window frame, and also across the steering wheel.

“Phone for backup!” he yelled out to Jimmy. “I need a flashlight over here. It’s hard to see into the back, but I think it’s empty. There’s blood. The bastard may be hurt. They can’t be far!”

The door was jammed. Andy squeezed through the window and slid onto the front seat. Gun poised and ready, he squinted and checked the back of the vehicle. There was no time. He struggled out the window and pushed through the water to the river’s edge. Jimmy was hurrying towards him with a flashlight. Andy snatched it from him and shone it across the gravel.

There were clearly visible drag marks.

Ed Brown was leaning over her, his breath putrid and hot against her neck. Makedde tried to spit at him, but the rubber gag caused the spittle to drip from the corners of her mouth, down her chin. She pulled at her restraints, but only felt the twine bite unforgivingly into her flesh. She could see the man’s face clearly so close to hers. The lamp light played across a deep gash on his forehead. The split was long, still oozing blood, but his eyes were alert, alive, dancing in sadistic satisfaction.

“You’re drooling, Makedde.” Her name sounded loathsome on his lips. He was holding something in his latex-gloved hand…bringing it to her throat. It was a surgical sponge, dripping with disinfectant. He was cleaning her down, removing the river’s soil and smell. His hands slipped over her naked body, over the goose bumps, pausing on her raised nipples. The cloth moved over her breasts, her navel, down her stomach. She tried to close her legs, but her ankles were held too far apart.

She tried to pretend she was somewhere else.

I’m walking on the beach, walking free, not here. Not with that stinging cloth pushed between my legs. Please…

Ed turned from her. He was reaching for something, pulling something from his toolbox with both hands. She strained her head, saw a sharp tip. He moved down her body, towards her bound ankles, caressed her bare feet with his fingertips, and slid something around her foot. Her shoes! He had fetched her stilettos from the van and was now placing them on her feet.

“Mother…” he sighed.

She felt so groggy. Her breath was shallow and laboured and she was trembling. He was walking back to the toolbox, arranging implements, laying them on the plastic sheet, then wiping them clean. Makedde made out what looked like a scalpel, a knife with a long sharp blade, pliers…

She forced her legs back and forth violently.
Break the twine!
It bit angrily into her. The pain was overwhelming, but she had to keep on. The bed posts protested with loud creaks and strains.

Ed stood over her, lips twitching. His slim, gloved hands held the disinfected scalpel elegantly and her eyes followed the progress of the sharp tip towards her naked body, towards her naked breast, her cold raised nipple.

There were few houses in the area. No neighbours close by. That’s why Cassandra had liked it. The privacy.

The drag marks led to the house. They had to be there.

Andy sprinted up the gravel road, vaguely aware of Jimmy’s presence a few feet behind him. His wet pant legs pulled against his knees, trying to slow him down, but he ran with all his might. Nearing the house now, just beyond those trees. A light—a dim light—the bedroom window. Andy raced across the grass, a flitting shadow. He ran for the front door, gun extended.

The scalpel blade pressed on her breast, ready to pierce. She wanted to scream. She wanted to fight back. She prayed it would end soon.

His eyes were so close to hers and yet they were so distant, part of another world she could not comprehend.

“Are you ready, Mother?”

Mother?

Those words, so terrible, spitting from those mean lips
. Are you ready…Mother?
Her father about to push her down the slide, those gentle hands holding her.
Are you ready?
Her mother, unveiling her sculpture, a clay figure.

She would die now…
she was ready to die
. Wait. She pulled herself back. That was it! She would pretend. It could stall him. Anything. Try anything.

She rolled her eyes back in her head and shook violently on the bed, convulsing and groaning. The scalpel pricked her as she moved, tearing her skin, but then moved away. She choked on the gag, as convincingly as she could manage. The movement
hurt, her ribs screaming out, everything immersed in pain, but the scalpel had pulled away.

He was speaking to her now. What was he saying?

“You forget my expertise. You’re not dying until I say so. Mother’s going to be cured right. No fooling.”

She tried to speak, to demand he release her, but the sounds coming from her throat were inhuman, her jaw too swollen.

“I told you there was to be no talking. And yet you refuse to desist.” He shook his head slowly, then smiled and bent over her, placing his hands around her skull. She felt the straps around her head tighten painfully for an instant and then release. He pulled the rubber ball from her broken jaw, strings of blood and saliva hanging from her mouth. She tried to speak. He cocked his head to listen. He was playing with her now, teasing her.

He answered her chokes and moans. “No, I won’t let you go. No. But you have such beautiful toes. Lovely toes. Would you like to taste them? Suck them for me?”

She nodded, gurgling a bit as she tried to speak. She looked down to the twine biting through her ankles.

“Remove the twine? No, no. I don’t think you’re that flexible. No, I’ll bring the toes to you. Shove them in your mouth. You can bite down on those pretty polished toenails.”

The scalpel moved down her naked skin, down her legs, down to her right foot. He muttered something, “The right foot, because it’s
right
…” He slipped the shoe off and dropped it on the wooden floor.

Makedde closed her eyes, felt the scalpel sink in, the pain hot and unbearable as it sliced through. She screamed, the sound blending with everything. Noises everywhere, sounds filling her ears, colour danced before her eyes, red, green, swirling, such pain, she was falling away…

A loud blast. He’d shot her, he’d stopped cutting and he’d shot her. She opened her eyes, tears flowing down her face, everything blurry. Something wasn’t right, she was still alive. Another blast. Wait—something on her—heavy. Someone…him. The man. He was on top of her. Red in the air, floating—now falling.
Blood?
Blood everywhere.

His face was close to hers, tongue protruding, those shocked eyes staring at her. His jerking body crushed against her…a heavy sack of twitching blood and flesh lying across her.

Words…words in her ears. “It’s all over now, Makedde.” Her name sweet again, no venom in the sound. “You’ll be fine. I’m here Makedde, I’m here. Quiet. It’s all right. Don’t try to speak. You’re safe now.”

Andy. The voice was
Andy.

A weight being lifted off her, that convulsing mass taken away. The staring eyes no longer watching. She felt light. Her ankles suddenly free, the twine cut away. Her wrists now.

Softly—softly, something falling on her, cloth, a blanket covering her. She turned on her side and swept the cloth into her, tears filling her eyes, sobbing with joy and relief, pulling her arms and legs into her, holding herself, holding her pain.

Curled up in a tight ball, they carried her to the ambulance.

Andy Flynn strode down the corridor, his partner at his heels.

“After all that, she still won’t believe her son did it,” Jimmy said, shaking his head.

Andy didn’t respond. It was taking shape now. Serial killers were never made overnight. He had to figure out the Stiletto Killer. He thought about Ed’s polite and unobtrusive presence at the morgue.

“Hello…Earth to Flynn, do you read?”

“Yes, Jimmy. I hear you. That woman’s a lost cause. She’ll never come around. Eileen Brown was a prostitute, Jimmy. Different men every night, dolled up in stilettos and miniskirts with her young son looking on. Drugged out and angry, blaming her kid for being born. Little Ed snapped.”

“ To say the least…”

“The homicidal triad. You were right. The house was torched when Ed was ten. He did it, Jimmy. He tried to kill her when he was
ten
.”

“Yeah. But he didn’t kill her, he crippled her.”

“Exactly. But he’s been symbolically killing her ever since.”

“So if all these malakas are really wanting to kill their parents, why don’t they just do it?”

“You’d have to ask a psychologist about that one. Guilt? Displaced anger? Edmund Kemper killed his mum and practically gave himself up, but only after killing hoards of innocent women. And our Ed Brown took his time in the end, even though he knew we were onto him. Maybe in some way he was giving himself up, too.” Andy was rambling again. “All he had was his mum. He waited on her hand and foot for decades after the fire. Her clients would have left after she lost her legs. Her son was the only one she had to take care of her. And I guess she was the only one Ed had, too.”

“Ed Kemper, Ed Gein, Ed Brown. What is it about all these psychos named Ed?” Jimmy asked.

Andy laughed. If only offender identity were as simple as a common first name.

A doctor emerged from Makedde’s room and walked up the hall in their direction. “How is she?” Andy asked.

“Improving. Getting a lot of sleep. She’s healing well. We successfully drained the subdural haematoma—”

Jimmy stopped her. “Oi, English please.”

She paused. “We drained her brain haemorrhage. If she had gone untreated for much longer, she would have had serious trouble. But she’s a fighter. Strong as
an ox. We can’t say for sure, but at this stage we’re optimistic there will be no residual effects on the brain.”

Andy smiled. “What about her big toe?”

“The microsurgery appears to have been successful. Time will tell. She won’t have much feeling in it, but she’ll walk fine.”

The doctor excused herself and they continued towards room 312. Sitting in a chair outside her room, a young blonde in a short skirt was reading a magazine. When Jimmy noticed her, he nudged Andy’s side. Andy ignored it.

Before they reached the door, Jimmy pulled him close and asked in a whisper, “Does she know about Ed?”

Andy shook his head. Makedde had not been told. She didn’t need to know that Ed was temporarily in another wing of the same hospital. He was well guarded, and as soon as he was treated for a concussion and his shoulder and chest wounds, he would be transferred to Long Bay to await a committal hearing.

They approached a tall, grey-haired man who stood in the doorway. He was conservatively dressed, probably in his mid-fifties. Andy introduced himself. “Hello, I’m Detective Flynn and this is Detective Cassimatis. You are…?”

“Leslie Vanderwall.” The accent was Canadian. He
offered a hand shake. Makedde’s father had deep blue eyes like his daughter. His face was tired and worn, though still handsome. His clothes were wrinkled.

“Mr Vanderwall, I’m so pleased you could make it down—”

“I should have flown in weeks ago and taken her home,” he replied sharply.

“I’m so sorry. She’s been through more than anyone should have to,” Andy offered.

“When’s the committal?”

“I’m afraid it could take some time to get the brief together. I’ll see to it that her travel is taken care of when we need her to return for the hearing and the trial.”

Mr Vanderwall nodded. His voice softened. “I was glad to hear you’d been cleared over your wife’s murder. My condolences.” Andy nodded his head. “You saved my girl’s life,” Leslie went on. “I could never thank you enough.”

Jimmy interrupted them. “She’s waking.”

Makedde stirred in her bed, her face swollen and multi-coloured, jaw wired shut. A large raised bruise covered her face on the left side. A section of her head was shaved.

The blonde woman was in the doorway now, looking in. “Hi. I’m Loulou,” she said. She was wearing heavy make-up and looked a bit like Cyndi Lauper in her heyday. Andy thought there was something odd
about her eyebrows. He and Jimmy introduced themselves.

Mr Vanderwall had gone to his daughter’s side, and the rest of them stayed near the doorway to give the father and daughter space. Mak blinked away her sleep and opened her puffy eyes, joy enveloping her face at the sight of her father. She nodded silent hellos at her three other visitors, suddenly awake and alert.

“You’ll be fine, honey,” her father reassured her. “You’re healing well. You’ll be back to normal in no time.”

Andy wanted to make her laugh. “Oh, Miss Money Penny, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” he said.

Leslie Vanderwall looked up, puzzled, and through her wired jaw, Makedde began to laugh. It was wonderful. It was the sound of a survivor.

Brilliant white clouds stretched out, an endless Arctic landscape suspended in the air, soft pillows of mist cradling them as they flew steadily over the Pacific. Flying never bothered Makedde, but the white-knuckled grip on the arm rest of her companion didn’t go unnoticed.

“You all right, Dad?” she mumbled through an uncooperative jaw.

He turned, his face pale and startled. “You’re awake.”

“Yes. Wouldn’t miss this view for the world.”

“I knew you’d like the window seat,” he said, attempting to sound composed.

“I knew
you
wouldn’t like it. I still can’t believe you flew all the way across the planet to get me.”

He looked at her wearily. “I kind of liked it better when you couldn’t talk.”

Makedde still couldn’t speak very well, but over the weeks she had gradually improved. She could go home for a while, but it wasn’t over yet. There would be a committal hearing, and almost certainly
a long trial to follow. There was indisputable evidence that Ed Brown was a killer, but as with so many victims, it could take the police months to assemble a case. She didn’t know when she would have to go back.

Makedde had learnt the man who abducted and attacked her intended to try for the McNaghten defence, claiming diminished responsibility due to mental illness. There was already one forensic psychiatrist who believed that Ed Brown’s psycho-sexual disorder was somehow interwoven with a homicidal impulse to kill women who wore stilettos. For Ed, any woman in stilettos was a whore, and all whores needed to be killed to be cured of their promiscuity.

In light of his unhealthy relationship with his mother, this defence had some value. The basis for legal insanity was delusion, and that type of delusion, if genuine, would qualify. However, Ed’s sadism, precise methods and sexual interference with his victims suggested a very different side; someone purposely killing for sexual satisfaction, not seeking some delusional “cure” for perceived sins. He wasn’t a textbook psychopath, but on the other hand, did he really qualify as insane? It remained to be seen how the jurors would view it.

Put him away Makedde, put him out of your mind.

The flight home was comfortable, with ample leg
room and plenty to read. The
Sydney Morning Herald
and the
Telegraph
both sat on her lap. Every day there had been an article about the Stiletto Murders, but it no longer made the front page. Mak was more interested in an article about the once powerful heir to the Tiney and Lea surgical supply empire who was now being divorced by his wife and sued for everything he was worth. Poor James Tiney Jr. He had been demoted too. It seemed that his father, who was a board member of the AMA and had been a topnotch surgeon at one stage, was ultra-conservative. He didn’t take the news of his son’s adultery well.

“Tiney Junior. No wonder he had a Napoleon complex.”

“What?”

“Nothing Dad.”

An impeccably coifed stewardess moved through the first-class cabin offering treats.

“You’ve never flown first class, have you Dad?” “No,” he replied, staring with determination at the sick bag in the seat pocket in front of him.

“See the things I do for us? If it wasn’t for all this we’d be jammed up against those lavatories in the back, hearing a flush every thirty seconds. And maybe we wouldn’t even be arriving home in time for the birth.”

“Yes. Pushing you around in a wheelchair with that precious toe of yours and those fluttering
eyelashes is an effective combination. Not to mention that thing around your neck.”

“It’s a collar and cuff, Dad.” She had to wear it until her collarbone healed. It had been artfully decorated with a few choice messages from Andy, Loulou and even Charles, scrawled in felt pen. She remembered Andy’s message,
Please keep in touch. Love, Andy.
We’ll see, she thought to herself. We’ll see.

“I’m going to be a grandfather,” her father said.

She grinned. “And I’ll be Auntie Mak.”

She thought about her family. And Ed’s. She had been shocked to see the old photo of Eileen Brown. Mak looked so much like Ed’s mother when she was young. A copy of the photo of her and Cat had been found in Ed’s wallet, too. Andy must have been relieved to know that Ed was obsessed with Makedde
before
Andy became involved with her. She sensed he still couldn’t forgive himself for not finding her sooner though. And she couldn’t forgive herself for not believing him. Regardless of his temper and his motive, when the search of Ed’s bedroom turned up Cassandra Flynn’s gold wedding ring, there could be no doubt of his innocence.

Andy cared about her, and she cared for him, but there were a lot of problems between them, and now there was distance, too.

No more fear. Never. Fear is worse than death itself.

“Nothing freaks me out now,” she said. “Nothing. From now on, anyone messes with me, they’re toast.”

“Toast, eh?”

“Custard fried French toast. Besides, do I have psycho magnet written on my forehead, or what? Between Stanley and Ed, I have four lifetimes of bad karma out of the way. I should be so lucky now that miracles spring from my fingertips—”

An unexpected jolt stopped her mid-sentence.

The plane dropped, free-falling for a second or two. Mak’s stomach seemed to hit the ceiling and fall back down. Instantly she grabbed for her father’s hand, holding it tight.

The plane quickly levelled out and a seatbelt sign flashed above their heads. The tension around them broke, chatter resuming nervously up and down the aisles. Father and daughter held hands tightly as the sound of seatbelts fastening clicked around them.

In that moment she knew the answer.

Makedde, no longer a psycho-magnet?

Don’t bet on it. You’re in for a bumpy ride.