The Tower (1999) (27 page)

Darby showed them to the front door. When she swung it open, she let out a startled cry. A photographer had jumped from his car onto the front walkway. No more than twenty yards from Darby, he raised the camera to his eye.

Jade quickly stepped forward, blocking Travers from view. He slid his arm across Darby's shoulders just as the photographer started shooting. Although Darby was too shocked by the photographer to notice, it made him feel sleazy. It was a cheap move, but given the opportunity and the potential payoff, it was one he had to take.

The photographer ran back to his car and hopped in, tossing the camera into the passenger seat. The car had been left running.

Travers pushed past Jade just in time to see the car pull away. "Press?" she asked.

Jade nodded. "Wouldn't have gotten past the men if they hadn't checked him out," he said. He pointed to the black Oldsmobile across the street and the driver waved, then gave a frustrated shrug. "Not much they can do to stop them if they're clean."

Travers shook her head. "Only two kinds of people need getaway cars," she said. "Bank robbers and photographers."

Darby placed a hand on her chest to slow her breathing. "It's okay," she said. "Madonna and I, we're used to it."

Travers laughed. "Well, thanks for your time."

Darby looked up and caught Jade's eye. He was alone with her for an instant, alone in her private world. He could almost sense the depth of her pain in the slight wrinkles around her eyes.

She mustered her strength and smiled.

He smiled back.

Chapter
37

I N the afternoon, Allander's hunger pangs finally distracted him from his quiet reflections. Rising and stretching, he headed back to the main road. He whistled as he walked, enjoying the lightness of the sound and the freedom of the notes as they drifted on the wind.

As he rounded a bend in the road, a large field spread before him to his left. He hopped the mossy wooden slats of the fence and made his way slowly through the field, skimming an open hand on top of the waving yellow foxtails. His feet sank slightly in the rich ground with each step. The far end of the field sloped up to the top of a little hill, and a farm-style house sat at its peak.

Allander resumed whistling and headed for the house. He rapped the door with his knuckles. It was a large wooden door, with lines and ridges, worn with time and use. The sign posted along the country road had advertised a "learning school."

Allander imagined that the teacher lived and taught in the same house, for it had been described as a "residential school" on the map he had seen at the bus station. The door was opened by a homely, middle-aged woman who wore her hair pulled back neatly in a bun.

"Hello. My car broke down and I was wondering if you would do me the great favor of allowing me to use your telephone."

She glanced down at him. She was a rather sturdy woman, and she stood with her arms crossed, pushed out from her chest by enormous breasts outlined like boulders beneath her apron.

"Well, sure. I'm just getting dinner ready, but why don't you come in and use the phone right down that hallway there."

Allander made a half bow, placing one hand on his stomach and extending his other hand open from his side. He nodded his head slightly. The gesture was meant to convey "thank you" and "you can trust me" and "I'm charming" all at the same time.

The woman smiled in amusement and stepped back, opening the door the rest of the way to allow him to enter.

Once in the car, after leaving Thomas and Darby, Jade told Travers of his private discussion with Darby, and of her secret. Though she tried not to show it, Travers was shaken by the story of the rape. When they arrived back at Jade's house, they both began to read through the psychology books that Jade had taken out of the library.

Travers shot Jade a look of annoyance when he began to chew on an ice cube. He, of course, didn't notice.

"What was the deal with that promise?" she asked. "Why did Darby tap your chest?"

Jade shook his head dismissively.

Sensing she wouldn't get any more out of him, she turned back to Totem and Taboo, and they read in silence.

"The style and location of the house suited him, I can tell you that," Jade said after a while.

"The whole castle on a hill thing going on? Family as royalty?"

"That's what I'm thinking. I'm betting he chooses another elevated house. Set apart from the others. And there's all this"--Jade leaned closer, holding the book up to his nose--"errant prince-child complex shit."

"The prodigal son avenging himself upon the king and queen--"

"--or mother and father," they said together.

Jade's face clouded. "He's like a fuckin' plague descending on the house. Punishes the parents, then toys with the children like playthings."

"Do you think he'll always kill the parents?"

"If you'd like, you're welcome to join me for dinner. Earl and the kids are at a baseball game, so they won't be back until later. Earl always says there's nothing like baseball at dusk, but I think . . ." Her voice droned on incessantly in the background, carrying through the house to Allander.

He walked right past the antique phone on the little wooden table and began opening doors to the rooms off the hallway. He found the laundry room and leaned over the dryer to open a cabinet. A large iron sat back safely from the edge. Allander smiled as he removed it and began to wrap the cord around his wrist.

"I thank you so much for your hospitality," he called down the hallway as he walked toward the voice still emanating from the kitchen, the iron swinging freely at his side.

Jade paused for a second, biting his cheek pensively. He grimaced as he ran his thumb across his bottom lip. He had come to trust Travers with more and more information.

He rose to his feet. "I have something to show you."

The iron, matted with blood and tangles of hair, swung back and forth, still wrapped around Allander's wrist. It dangled just above the floor as he peeled a piece of crisp skin off the turkey and dropped it into his mouth, savoring its rich flavor.

He turned on the radio, and a Beethoven piano concerto, The Emperor, played loudly from unseen speakers.

The woman's arm protruded from around the corner of a large cooking block situated in the middle of the kitchen. Thin, dark hair stood out against the forearm, and the wrist wore a gold watch. It ticked, and Allander took comfort in its consistency.

He stepped around the corner of the block to admire the rest of the body. The face was severely battered. Allander thought he could discern the distinct shape of the iron from the indentations in the forehead and right cheek. One of his swipes had missed the head and punctured one of the generous breasts, but it bled far less than the other wounds.

A pool of blood drained from her head and ran along the seam where the floor met the cooking block. Allander waved his hand to the music as he bent over, delicately dipping his index finger into the blood like a paintbrush.

Jade returned to the room with the small wood carving he had stolen from the Atlasias' bathroom. The detail on it was extraordinary, the solid chunk of wood transformed to a lifelike rendering. From the etched initials and date on the bottom, Jade knew that Allander had carved it, and had done so when he was only fourteen. Already, it showed the hand of an imaginative thinker.

Jade set it down on top of Allander's sketch of the sets of hands. The carving showed three monkeys sitting side by side, blended together at the midsection. The first one covered his eyes, the second his ears, and the third his mouth. Their hands matched those in the drawing perfectly--one set facing each other, one set pointing at each other, and a solitary hand angled up at forty-five degrees. The three monkeys looked as if they knew a great secret. As if they spied someone stalking you, lurking in shadows behind your back.

An ideal symbol for repression. Allander's own parody of the Freudian process.

"Oh my god!" Travers exclaimed. "See no evil, hear no evil--"

Allander stood before the large pane of glass that provided most of the light for the modestly decorated family room. His finger was covered in blood, and it ran down his forearm, dripping off his elbow.

He stood back and admired his lettering. "S N E." Same initials, different meaning. Speak no evil. Not much risk of that happening.

In the kitchen, the woman's mouth drooled profusely, spilling blood onto the wooden floor. It leaked from the hole where her tongue had once been.

Allander felt no sexual desire for her. The killing was easy, so the thrill it brought was lessened. Her screams brought ecstasy, of course, as did the sound of her body being battered. But without the sexual challenge, it just wasn't the same. He'd be moving on soon, moving on to the real object of his desires.

But she was an educator; she had the hypocrisy written thickly across her face. He detested educators who spewed forth nonsense. He had warned little Leah about them too. They talked just to hear themselves speak, but they feared the truth like all others. Well, he had stopped her tongue at last.

He finished his lettering and wiped his hand on his shirt. Then he went into the kitchen, stepped over the woman's body, and fixed himself a drink. After taking care of the body and the floor, he found himself a clean shirt in a drawer and put it on. Heading back to the front of the house, he pulled a large wooden chair around to face the front door, and began his wait for Earl and the kids to return home.

Chapter
38

J A D E continued to chew ice. It helped to keep him focused. He cooled himself by running the cup across his forehead occasionally, enjoying the drops of water that rolled down his face.

"You want something to drink?" he asked Travers. He got up, peeling his bare back from the couch.

"Sure. Iced tea?"

"Water."

"Water's fine."

She heard the shoveling of ice cubes and sighed. She didn't know how much more ice crunching she could endure.

"We're at a standstill," she said when he returned.

"What are you talking about? We just figured out his pattern, what he's doing."

"Yeah, but how does that help us in catching him? In stopping him?"

Jade looked at her disdainfully. The doorbell rang, and he left to answer it without responding to her question.

Tony smiled broadly as he pushed past Jade and walked into the entranceway. "There's these two sperm swimming. And they're exhausted. They've been at it forever, seems like hours. Finally, one turns to the other and says, 'Hey! How much longer we got?' Other sperm looks back at him and says. 'Who you kidding? We just got past the esophagus!'" His laughter started as soon as he finished the joke.

Jade laughed, three notes descending the scale.

"Aren't you going to ask me in?" Tony said.

"You are in."

"Farther in?"

"Would you like to come farther in?" Jade asked flatly, turning his back on Tony and heading to the living room.

"Why certainly. I'd be delighted." Jade watched Tony's face when he saw Travers sitting on the floor. He could tell Tony was impressed by her.

"You didn't tell me your partner was here," he said.

"One of your friends, I'm surprised he doesn't think I'm the maid," Travers shot back without looking up.

Tony turned to face Jade, his eyebrows raised. "And all the charm of a rottweiler."

"Rabid," Jade said. "A rabid rottweiler."

Travers kept flipping pages.

Tony took a step back and pointedly looked Jade up and down. A pair of ripped shorts, no shirt, no shoes and socks. "You didn't have to get all dressed up just because I was coming over."

Jade grabbed the leg of his shorts. "What, this old thing?" he said.

Travers smiled, but still refused to look up.

"I gotta hop in the shower," Jade said. "Play nice with the rottweiler." He disappeared down the hall.

Tony sat down heavily on the couch. "So. I see you've met the ever unpredictable Jade Marlow."

Travers looked up at Tony and studied him carefully. There was a softness to his face, and she wasn't surprised to see the wedding band on his finger. She decided she liked him. "You could say I've had the pleasure."

"Frustrating, huh?"

"And more. Sometimes he's impossible. I take that back. He's always impossible."

Tony laughed and extended his hand. "Tony Razzoni."

"I know. You're one of the only people he talks about civilly. Anyone else I figure he would've shot at the door."

"I've dodged a few of his bullets," Tony said. He chuckled. "He's very intense."

Travers slammed down the file she'd been studying. "Intense? About what? About himself? He doesn't give a shit about anything else. The victims, the families--nothing."

She immediately regretted her outburst, embarrassed to be showing emotion about someone she presumably didn't like.

Tony ran his hand over the stubble on his chin, and looked at her knowingly. She hated that he knew Jade was under her skin.