The Face of Death (14 page)

15

“
YOU AND MICHAEL WERE HAVING SEX?”

I’m proud of myself. I’ve managed to keep my voice steady and judgment-free at this revelation.

“No, no, no. Sex is something that happens between two people that are equal. I was
fucking
Michael. So he wouldn’t lie to Dean and Laurel and make them send me away.”

“He was forcing you?”

“Not physically. But he was blackmailing me.”

“With what? What had you done?”

She shoots me a look of incredulity. “Done? I hadn’t done
anything
. But that wouldn’t have mattered. Michael was the perfect son. Straight As, track team captain. Never did anything wrong.” The bitterness in her voice is like acid. “Who was I? Just some stray they’d taken in. He said if I didn’t have sex with him, he’d plant pot in my room. Dean and Laurel were nice people, and they were good to me—but they didn’t have much tolerance for anything…unusual. They would have sent me away. I figured I could hold out for another two years, till I was eighteen, and then I’d be a legal adult and I could leave.”

“So you…had sex with him when he asked you to.”

“A girl’s gotta eat.” Her voice drips with sarcasm, and a hint of self-loathing that makes my heart ache. “He just wanted me to blow him and he liked fucking me.” She looks down at her hands. They tremble in counterpoint to the hard face she’s showing me. “Hey, I haven’t been a virgin for a long time. What’s the big deal?”

“The Kingsleys didn’t suspect?”

Sarah rolls her eyes. “Please. I told you, they were good to me—but they
really
liked thinking that everything in their life was perfect.” She hesitates. “Besides…they
were
good to me. I didn’t want them to know about Michael. It would have hurt them. They deserved better.”

“So, you were putting your nightgown on. What happened then?”

“He showed up at my bedroom door.”

“Michael?”

“No, The Stranger. He just appeared there. No warning. He was wearing panty hose over his face, like he has in the past.” She chews her bottom lip for a moment, caught up in a memory. “He had a knife in his hand. He was happy, smiling, relaxed. He said hello, acting all jolly and normal, and then…he said he had a gift for me.” She pauses. “He told me: ‘Once upon a time, a man deserved to die. He was an amateur poet, this man, a gifted one. He made pretty words, but he was darkness inside. One day I came to the man, I came to him and I put a gun to his wife’s head and I told him to write her a poem. I told him it would be the last thing she’d ever hear before I blew her brains out. He did what I said and I killed them, praise be to God. Once they were dead, I pulled their insides out, so the world would see their darkness.’”

The message, I think. He disembowels them so that we will see who they really are.

I note the religious bent as well. Fanaticism in serial killers is nearly always a sign of insanity.

But not in this case. His faith wasn’t sparked by his desire for revenge. It’s something he grew up with.

“Did he give you this poem?” I ask. “Was that the gift?”

“A copy, yeah. He said he retyped it for me. I put it in the pocket of my nightgown after he made me read it.” She nods toward the table next to her hospital bed. “It’s in the drawer. Go ahead. He was right, it’s pretty good, when you consider the circumstances.”

I reach over and open the drawer. Inside is a folded square of nondescript letter-sized white paper. I unfold it and read:

IT IS YOU

When I breathe
It is you

When my heart beats
It is you

When my blood flows
It is you

When the sun rises
When the stars shine

It is you
It is you.

I’m a barely casual reader of poetry, unqualified to judge what I’ve just read. I only know that I like its simplicity, and I wonder about the moment in which it was written.

“It’s true, you know,” Sarah says.

I look up. “What’s true?”

“If he says it happened that way…then it happened that way.” She closes her eyes. “The Stranger told me that the ink on the original is smudged because the poet cried while he was writing it. It also has his wife’s blood on it. ‘Beautiful pinpoint drops,’ he said, ‘because the blood misted from her head when I shot her.’”

“Go on,” I say. “What happened next?”

She looks off, her voice faint.

“He asked me how I liked the poem. He seemed genuinely interested. I didn’t answer. He didn’t seem to mind. ‘It’s good to see you again,’ he said. ‘Your pain is more beautiful than ever.’”

“Sarah, how accurate is your memory of the way he talks and what he says? Don’t be offended.”

“I have a gift for voices and what people say. It’s not a photographic memory or anything. I can’t remember it exactly, not word for word, not like that. But I’m pretty good. And I really concentrate on him when he’s speaking. The way he talks. The things he does.”

“That’s good, it will help,” I encourage her. “How tall is he?”

“A little over six feet.”

“Is he black or white?”

“White and clean shaven.”

“Is he a big man? By that, I mean, is he fat or skinny? Muscular or weak?”

“He’s not fat, but he’s not thin. He’s very strong. He has a perfect body.
Perfect.
Not a flaw on it. He must work out like crazy. He’s well built without being all pumped up.”

I hear Barry’s pen scratch away.

“Go on,” I say. “What happened next?”

“‘I’m almost done sculpting you, Sarah,’ he said. ‘Ten long years, full of ups and downs and twists and turns and sorrow. I’ve watched you bend and break. It’s interesting, isn’t it? How many times a human being can shatter and still keep moving forward? You’re not the same little girl you were when we began this journey, are you? I can see the cracks, the places where you had to glue yourself back together.’” Sarah shifts in the bed, restless. “This isn’t exact, okay? It’s not word for word, but basically it’s what he said and how he sounded.”

“You’re doing fine,” I assure her.

She continues. “He had a bag with him. He opened it and pulled out a small video camera and pointed it at me.”

“He’s done that before, hasn’t he?” I ask.

She nods. “Yes. He says he’s documenting my ruin. That it’s important, that without it there’s no justice.”

Killers collect trophies. The video is his.

“What did he do next?”

“He focused on my face, and he said: ‘I want you to think of your mother.’” She turns to me. “Want to see what he saw?”

Before I can tell her no, I really don’t, her eyes change and I forget to breathe.

They fill up with a grief and yearning as vivid as a sunrise. I see hope unfulfilled, a fundamental loss of heart.

She turns away. I can breathe again.

But how can she?

“What then?” I push out, a little shaky.

“He just sat for a little bit, watching me through the camera lens. Then he started to talk to me. ‘Do you know what one of the most exciting parts of this is for me, Sarah?
The things I can’t control.
Take this place, for instance. A family that is kind to you without being truly warm. A son who shows the world a perfect face, but blackmails you so you’ll suck his cock. It’s amazing. On the one hand, all chance. I didn’t make this home. On the other hand, you are only here because of me. Did you ever think of that while Michael’s cock was in your mouth? That you were there, looking up into his eyes, because of the things I’ve done?’”

Sarah gives me a sardonic smile. “The answer is yes. I did think about The Stranger, some of those times.” I note that her hand is still trembling.

“Go on,” I encourage her.

How’d he know Michael was abusing her? A mental note I keep to myself, for now. I don’t want to break her rhythm.

“He got nasty, then.” She stares off, remembering. “He said: ‘Do you know what Michael made you, Sarah, the moment you got down on your knees in exchange for his silence? He made you a whore.’”

Sarah’s hands fly up to her face, startling me. She covers her eyes and her shoulders tremble.

“Are you okay?” I ask her in a soft voice.

She heaves out a single deep breath, almost a sob. A moment passes and she drops her hands back into her lap.

“I’m fine,” she says, toneless.

She continues putting a voice to the man she calls The Stranger.

“‘Chance, but not really,’ he said. ‘All I had to do was place you on the road, as God willed me to. I knew I could count on human nature to make your journey hard, as long as I was there to remove the kind ones. The ones that care are always a minority, Little Pain. A raindrop in a storm.’” She looks at me. “He’s right. He may have stacked the deck and given my life a push, but the people that did bad things to me?” She rubs her arms as though she’s cold. “He didn’t
make
them do those things. They did them on their own.”

I want to comfort her, to tell her that not everyone is bad, that there are good people in the world. I’ve learned to stifle this instinct. Victims don’t want sympathetic words. They want me to turn back time, to make it
not have happened.

“Go on,” I say.

“He kept on talking. He likes to hear himself talk. ‘Our time together is going to be done soon. I’m almost ready to complete my work. I’ve found the last few pieces I’ve been searching for, and soon, I’ll reveal my masterpiece.’ He stuffed the camera back into the bag and stood up. ‘It’s time for the next leg of your journey, Little Pain. Follow me.’”

“Why does he call you ‘Little Pain’?” I ask.

“It’s his pet name for me. His ‘Little Pain.’” The look in her eyes is savage. “I
hate
it!”

“I don’t blame you,” I murmur. “What happened next?”

“I started to move toward the door, like he asked, but then I stopped. Useless, I know, but I felt like I needed to make him force me to walk out that door. Like it meant something that I didn’t go on my own. Silly.”

Maybe, I think, but it gives me hope for you.

“What then?”

“‘Don’t be difficult,’ he said, and he grabbed me by the arm. He was wearing thick gloves, but I could still feel how hard and strong his hands were. He led me down the hall to Dean and Laurel’s bedroom.” She gives me a wistful look. “That window I was sitting at when you came in? I remember seeing it then, thinking what a beautiful day it was.”

“Go on,” I coax her.

“He pushed me down the hallway that leads to their bathroom.” She shivers. “That’s where he had them. Dean and Laurel.”

“Were they alive?”

Her gaze at me is weary. “Of course they were. They were naked, and they were alive. They weren’t moving. I didn’t know why until he told me. ‘Drugged,’ he said. ‘I gave them an injection.’ Miva-something chloride he called it. I can’t remember the exact name. He said it kept them aware, that they could feel pain and hear us but that they couldn’t move much.”

Score one for me on the drugs, and one for Tommy on the muscle relaxant, I think.

Something occurs to me. “Sarah, his voice—would you recognize it if you heard it? Not just the words or the way he speaks, but the tone of it?”

She nods, somber. “I can’t forget it. I dream about it sometimes.”

“Go on.”

“He had Dean facedown. Laurel was on her back. He set his camera on a tripod, and put it on record. Then he picked Dean up like a baby, no effort at all, and stood him in the bathtub. ‘Come here, Little Pain,’ he said to me. I walked over to the tub. ‘Look into his eyes,’ he told me. I did.” Sarah swallows. “I could see that he’d told the truth. Dean was…
there.
He knew what was going on. He was aware.” She shivers. “He was also terrified. You could see it in his eyes. He was so scared.”

“Then what happened?”

“The Stranger told me to step back. He angled Dean’s head forward, so his chin stuck out.” She cranes her own neck, showing me. “‘When you know the moment of your own death, you know the meaning of both truth and fear, Mr. Kingsley,’ he said. ‘It makes you wonder what comes next: the glory of heaven or the fires of hell? I tortured a student of philosophy not long ago, a bad, evil man. I cut him, I burned him, I shocked him. I was waiting. I had told him before we began: If he could come up with a single original observation about life, I would end the pain. On the morning of the second day, while I was castrating him, he screamed:
‘We are all living in the moments before our own death!’
I kept my promise, and gave him release. I remember that truth before I kill someone.’”

Sarah swallows. “Then The Stranger cut Dean’s throat. Just like that.” Her voice sounds distant and amazed. “No warning. So
quick.
The blood spurted out. The Stranger kept Dean’s neck angled so the blood would go into the tub. I remember thinking that I couldn’t believe how much of it there was.”

About five or six quarts in the average human body. Not even enough to fill up a kitchen sink halfway, but blood is supposed to
stay inside,
so six quarts can seem like sixty.

“What happened then?”

“It went on for a while. The blood was spurting at first, then it was dribbling. Then it stopped. ‘Look into his eyes again,’ he told me. I did.” She closes her own eyes. “Dean was gone. Nobody home.”

She’s quiet for a moment, remembering.

“He lifted Dean out of the tub and laid him down on the carpet.”

A long silence.

“And then?” I prod.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she whispers.

Her voice is filled with self-loathing, and she can’t meet my eyes.

“What, Sarah? What am I thinking?”

“How could I just stand there while he did these things and not try to get away?”

“Look at me.” I put some force into my tone and make her face me. “I wasn’t thinking that. I know: He could move fast. He had a knife. You didn’t think you’d be able to get away.”

Her face twists, once. She shudders, a wave, head to toe, involving the whole of her.

“That part is true, but…it’s not the only reason.”

Once again, she can’t meet my eyes.

“What’s the other reason?” I keep my voice gentle, free of judgment.