The Fear Collector (31 page)

Like the potential stalker former boyfriend across the table from her.

“Do you know who she’s talking to?” she asked Alex directly.

“How would I know?” he said.

Paul had been itching to move the needle. All this making nice, all this respect for the rich judge with the rich client, was turning his stomach.

“You weren’t there that night?” he asked.

Before Alex had the chance to answer, Judge Weber put his fingers to his lips and the teen clammed up.

The judge didn’t say anything, but it was clear to both detectives that he saw what they hadn’t noticed at first, second, and fifteenth view of the tape—the car.

“This interview is over,” he said, his eyes meeting Grace’s with a cold, decisive stare.

“Do you drive your dad’s car?” Paul asked.

Judge Weber stood up, pulling his client to his feet and pushing him toward the door. “Don’t answer, Alex. We’re done now.” Before exiting the interview room he turned to Grace.

“I always thought you were one of the good ones,” he said. “Guess there really aren’t any more of those around here, are there?”

“Glad to know you’re able to double dip. Must be nice to get a pension and have a job at the same time,” Paul said.

The judge smiled. It was a cold smile, the kind meant to punish or humiliate rather than charm.

“Yeah, it is. And yes, I make a lot of money. Goodbye, Detectives Alexander and Bateman. Rotary at noon. I enjoy being a part of my community. You know, because I can afford to.”

Paul turned to Grace.

“Jesus, I don’t know who’s more of a prick—the judge, the kid, or his dad.”

“Did you have to piss him off?” Grace asked.

Paul glowered. “Did you have to be so respectful?”

“Don’t go there,” Grace said, frustrated by the whole situation. “I’m not the one with a thick Internal Affairs file.”

“Low blow. But so what? Did you see the look on the judge’s face when he saw the car?”

“Oh yeah. Let’s name him.”

“Suspect?”

“Person of interest. Let’s rattle the Mortons’ gilded cage a little and see what falls out.”

J
eremy Howell was six when his mother, Peggy, told him who his father was. Peggy would later say she held off for years because her son was too young to completely understand. It wasn’t that she thought the boy was dumb. Far from it. After all, how could he be anything but brilliant? Indeed, there was no arguing that Jeremy was smarter than the average second grader at Geiger Elementary—the same school his father attended when growing up in Tacoma. Jeremy had been reading at the fourth-grade level and could recite all fifty states and their capital cities—something that Peggy was sure was nothing short of genius.

Peggy, her son, Jeremy, and daughter, Cecilia, were living in her late mother’s house on Ruby Street back then. She told people she was a widow whenever they asked about Jeremy’s father. Most assumed the boy’s dad had been killed in a car accident or maybe in combat in the Army or Air Force. With a pair of military bases nearby, it was easy to allow people to think whatever they needed to believe.

Peggy could never tell anyone that he’d died in the electric chair.

Jeremy was watching a Superman cartoon when Peggy decided the time was right. She went over to the set and turned off the sound.

“Hey, Mommy, I was watching that,” the boy said.

“I know. But what I have to tell you is more important than a cartoon.”

He looked at her, studying her face for some kind of hint about what could be more important than what he was doing at the moment of her unwanted interruption. He didn’t like it when his mother talked to him like that, as if she knew what was best for him. He knew best all by himself. He looked back at the silent TV as Superman went after Lex Luthor.

“Jeremy,” she said, taking a seat on the sofa—the sole piece of furniture in the front room. “Your daddy was a very important, famous man.”

This seemed to interest Jeremy and he turned his attention away from the silent TV to his mother.

“Who?” he asked.

Peggy wanted this particular disclosure to go perfectly. She’d planned it over the past several nights as she lay in her bed staring at the ceiling and conjuring the words that would not scare, but make him understand the importance of what she was imparting.

“I will tell you,” she began. “But I want you to know something first.” She waited for him to acknowledge the meaning of her caveat, and the six-year-old nodded slightly.

“What, Mommy?” he asked, using the “mommy” word because he knew that she liked it when he did so.

Peggy looked serious. “This is very important. Remember when I told you that sometimes people hate other people for no reason.”

“Like you hated your mom?”

Peggy shook her head. “I had reason. No, I mean, like sometimes people get the wrong idea about someone and they just decide that hating is better than understanding.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Your daddy was accused of doing bad, bad things. He did not do them. He was not a bad man, but a lot of people thought he was.”

“What did they think he did that was so bad? Was he in jail?”

Peggy nodded. “Yes, he was in jail. They said that he did terrible things.”

“But what terrible things?”

Peggy swallowed, this was the hard part. He’d been raised in a world that condemned evil. Horror and shock were the routine responses to murder. Repulsion, too. “They said he killed someone.”

Jeremy’s eyes widened as he took in that bit of information. “Who did they say he killed?”

“Some girls. Some girls.”

Jeremy pushed his mother to be as direct as she could.

“Did he kill them?” he asked.

Peggy shook her head with exaggerated vehemence and patted him gently on one knee. The boy recoiled a little; his mother’s touch was a rarity and he didn’t always like it when she tried to show any affection. Affection seemed foreign and uncomfortable.

“No, son,” she finally said, “he did not. He absolutely did not. He never should have been in prison. Not for one minute.”

“Is he in prison now?”

Peggy looked at the TV. She hadn’t thought things completely through. She thought that she could explain what happened to Jeremy’s father after he was a little older. It was the stupid school’s fault having to shove a stupid “family tree” assignment at her. It seemed so unfair.
What about those slutty moms who can’t figure out which guy is their child’s father? How were they going to wriggle out of the school assignment?

“No,” she said, her eyes now welling with tears. “Your daddy died in prison. He never got to get out and be with us. He wanted to. He really did. He loved you and he loved me. No matter what anyone says about him, remember that. Remember what I’m telling you.”

Jeremy nodded. “What is my daddy’s name?”

“Theodore,” she said.

Jeremy shrugged a little, searching for a connection. “Like one of the Chipmunks?”

Tears were streamed down Peggy’s face. The emotion was genuine. “Yes, like one of the Chipmunks. But everyone who knew him called him Ted.”

Jeremy thought a moment and reached for the remote control. He didn’t ask his dad’s last name. The name Theodore was bad enough.

Despite her tears, Peggy felt relieved. She patted Jeremy once more and went to the kitchen cabinet, where she kept a bottle of inexpensive vodka hidden behind a box of Rice Chex. A drink was in order. Her son would get the full disclosure later. She had to ease him into the truth with lies. In due time, he’d find out just how special he was. There would be no shame at all. Just the kind of pride that comes from knowing that greatness courses through a family bloodline.

G
race wanted to believe that her husband, her mother, her partner, would understand her obsession with her sister’s murder. And yet, she didn’t really understand it completely herself. Lisa’s and Kelsey’s murders and Emma’s disappearance were fresh, new. They called for her to help them claim justice, but it was her sister’s case that propelled her forward. She hadn’t slept for two days. She’d been living on coffee and junk food. While Paul was working the missing girls case file, she excused herself.

“I don’t feel so good today,” she said.

“Bug’s going around.”

When he said that, she thought of Ted’s VW bug. Every word now seemed tied to the serial killer.

“I’m going to head out, okay?”

Paul nodded. “Sure. Got things covered.”

Ted didn’t cover his victims
, she thought. He left them out in the open.

She logged on to the DMV database and retrieved a name and address for Daphne Middleton.

She’d pay Ted’s old girlfriend a visit. Daphne was the girl that many in the media pontificated had been the catalyst for his murders.

Daphne’s cross to bear was bigger than Mt. Rainier.

T
here were a lot of things Jeremy Howell would like to forget. For a time, he really tried. He thought that if he took prescription drugs from his mother’s stash in the kitchen cupboard (behind the iodine and bandages—no matter how many times he’d hurt himself, she’d never seemed to be able to find those first-aid supplies). He’d once read that electroshock therapy had been used to literally jolt the memories from those haunted by things they could not escape. One time in the basement, he cut the cord off of an old desk lamp, thinking that he could attach the loose wires to his temple and somehow get relief. He didn’t go that far. He was too afraid that if there was anything good inside him, that, too, would be obliterated. In time, Jeremy came to understand that there were things that were etched so deeply in his memory that he could not erase them no matter how hard he tried.

He was only twelve the first time.

It was autumn and the chill of the tail end of October came at him like a thousand tiny pins stabbing his body. His mother had always insisted that it was healthier for her son to sleep with the windows open, but Jeremy, who always felt cold, didn’t agree. No matter how many times he told her, she insisted she knew best. She was like that.
Always right
. Always the first one to say that she was the expert and that he was her student. Over time he acquiesced. One night when the temperature outside had dipped below freezing, Jeremy got up, shivering, and went to secure the window, open as usual. He shut it as quietly as he could and he dropped the shades to the windowsill and returned to his bed. He wore no clothes, a habit that Peggy had forced on him when he wet the bed in first grade. It had only been one time, but Peggy raged at him as if he’d been the greatest disappointment that any mother on the planet could have.

He was weak.

He was a failure.

“Only a big baby wets the bed. I won’t be cleaning up after you again. Strip. Take off your wet PJs. You’re never going to do this to me again,” she had said in her harsh, gravelly voice. She never soothed. She just didn’t have it in her.

Jeremy, as always, did as he was told. He’d learned long before that morning to fear his mother when she yelled at him. To disobey her was to be sent to the basement, to the bunker-like space that she’d created for him. She called it the “Time Out” room. Whenever he was been sent there to reflect on how much of a disappointment he was to her, he felt his hate for her swell. Hate and fear. With his mother, those emotions went hand in hand.

But that night, when he was twelve, Peggy Howell crossed the line—albeit a squiggly line, because she was never exactly consistent with her edicts. Her rules and admonishments fluctuated like the Northwest weather. All of her warnings, rules, and edicts raced around Jeremy’s head as he slipped between the sheets and the heavy dark wool army surplus blanket.

What happened next, he never told anyone. He didn’t want anyone to make a big deal out of it. He had plenty of reasons to want to destroy his mother, but what she did that night was not one of them.

It was late and he was asleep, curled up on the edge of the bed, lying on his side. The mattress moved a little and Jeremy opened his eyes. Someone was with him. He could feel the presence of another person. His heartbeat amplified. He noticed a beam of light under the covers, piercing the darkness.

It was his mother. She was under the blanket with a flashlight.

What was she doing?

He inched away. She didn’t touch him. She was looking at his naked body. It was wrong. Sick. Creepy. And though it was all of those things, Jeremy didn’t say a word. It was as if he were wrapped in flypaper, unable to move, to speak.

He thought she was going to touch him,
there
. But she didn’t. Not that time. She simply turned off the flashlight, put her feet on the floor, and left the bedroom. A sliver of light flashed from the hallway.

Although not yet a teenager, Jeremy had no doubts whatsoever something was very, very wrong with his mother.

He just didn’t know what it was.

* * *

The next time Peggy Howell cozied up to her son, he was fifteen. Again, it was very late at night. It was spring and the smell of lilacs blooming outside wafted from the open window. After that night, Jeremy would never to be able to smell that sweet, heady fragrance without gagging. This time, Peggy dropped her robe before climbing into his bed. She pushed her naked body next to the teenager, close, but again, not touching.

“Ted, tell me you love me,” she said, her breath caressing his exposed ear.

What?

Her voice smelled of alcohol and cigarettes, a mix of odors that Jeremy knew only too well. Every night before bedtime, she begged him,
ordered
him to give her, a kiss on her dry and wrinkled lips.

The lilacs wafted more, weighing him down. Pinning him so he couldn’t move.

“Tell me, baby. Whisper in my ear,” she said. “Love will keep us together.”

At first, that night when there was no doubt that he was old enough to know better, he pretended not to hear. She wasn’t really touching him, so he thought that it wasn’t abuse. Not in the way that men abuse children. He told himself that it was not sexual. That his mother was lonely. Sad. Depressed.