The Killer's Wife (13 page)
Authors: Bill Floyd
I
came awake suddenly, to full daylight. It was the next morning, the first day Daphne Snyder’s family would awake to the realization that she was gone forever from their lives. Sitting bolt upright in the bed, gasping, my head thudded with a dense pain ten times more leaden than the worst hangover I could remember. The flood of ambient light through the curtains was so sharp I could barely see. Such utter silence, the house felt abandoned.
came awake suddenly, to full daylight. It was the next morning, the first day Daphne Snyder’s family would awake to the realization that she was gone forever from their lives. Sitting bolt upright in the bed, gasping, my head thudded with a dense pain ten times more leaden than the worst hangover I could remember. The flood of ambient light through the curtains was so sharp I could barely see. Such utter silence, the house felt abandoned.
“Oh, no,” I moaned, pushing my legs off the edge of the
bed. I had to use the wall to hold myself up as I staggered down the hall to the nursery. Empty.
bed. I had to use the wall to hold myself up as I staggered down the hall to the nursery. Empty.
Downstairs, I was so dizzy and nauseous that I barely made it to the sink before I threw up. I didn’t know what Randy had given me, but it was more powerful than the average sedative. Puking helped clear my mind, even though it didn’t sharpen my blurry vision; the edges of every object shimmered like sunlight on ice. Once I wiped the tears out of my eyes, I saw the note sitting on the chopping block, and what he’d used for a paperweight.
Hon
, he’d addressed it.
Gone to take Hayden out for some fresh air and attend to some business. Be home later this afternoon. Call me if you want to talk before then. Love, Randy.
, he’d addressed it.
Gone to take Hayden out for some fresh air and attend to some business. Be home later this afternoon. Call me if you want to talk before then. Love, Randy.
And, placed atop the note, the key to his shed.
Not that it was labeled as such, and I don’t know if I could’ve picked it out of all the others on his key ring. But there, sitting where it was, I had no doubts.
I almost called the cops right then. I should have. I should have called them the day before, as soon as he’d dragged himself up the stairs, bloodied and soaked. When the operator or dispatcher (or whatever those people were called) answered, I could have said: “I don’t know if this will mean anything to you, say for example in the case that a girl was recently killed near my house, but …”
Technically, I wouldn’t even have had to call 911, because we knew a cop: Todd Cline. He still lived in our old neighborhood; he’d been the one to drop all the disturbing hints about the Renault family after their murder a few years ago. Even though we’d moved, we still went to the same church—albeit
much less frequently—where we often ran into Todd and his family. Todd Cline, with his requisite cop mustache and barrel chest and his soft-spoken manners. Todd Cline who’d told us that Trudi and Dominique Renault had suffered greatly at the hands of their killer, that he’d done some unspeakable thing to their eyes … The Renaults. Oh, God, Randy, no. I couldn’t have called the cops after I saw the news last night; he was hovering like a bodyguard by then. He’d have surely intervened if he found me leafing frantically through the church directory for Todd Cline’s phone number. But I could’ve fought, I could’ve not drank from the cup he proffered, I could have stabbed him with a kitchen knife and taken my son and driven all the way back home to Oregon …
much less frequently—where we often ran into Todd and his family. Todd Cline, with his requisite cop mustache and barrel chest and his soft-spoken manners. Todd Cline who’d told us that Trudi and Dominique Renault had suffered greatly at the hands of their killer, that he’d done some unspeakable thing to their eyes … The Renaults. Oh, God, Randy, no. I couldn’t have called the cops after I saw the news last night; he was hovering like a bodyguard by then. He’d have surely intervened if he found me leafing frantically through the church directory for Todd Cline’s phone number. But I could’ve fought, I could’ve not drank from the cup he proffered, I could have stabbed him with a kitchen knife and taken my son and driven all the way back home to Oregon …
Too late now. I picked up the key and promptly dropped it again; my fingertips were numb. More lingering effects from—
say it, you know it now, you
know—whatever drug my husband had given me. The sound of it crashing to the countertop was disproportionately huge in our empty house, and adrenaline sent an icy aftershock through me. I grabbed the key and held it in my fist and read the note again. I opened my palm. I realized, with my stomach twisting anew, that for the first time in years, my husband was trying to talk to me. He was trying to have a meaningful conversation.
say it, you know it now, you
know—whatever drug my husband had given me. The sound of it crashing to the countertop was disproportionately huge in our empty house, and adrenaline sent an icy aftershock through me. I grabbed the key and held it in my fist and read the note again. I opened my palm. I realized, with my stomach twisting anew, that for the first time in years, my husband was trying to talk to me. He was trying to have a meaningful conversation.
T
he backyard was still damp from yesterday’s storms, but the sky was clear and the lawn sparkled, a field of
diamonds in the morning light. Birds clustered around the feeder, flying off and realighting in tight orbits as I walked past them from the house to the shed. The whole world felt as numb as my tingling extremities. It took only about twenty steps to reach the shed, and I wondered at the gulf that I’d always sensed yawning between the two structures. Randy’s world, and the world we shared. Now he was finally going to open up to me.
he backyard was still damp from yesterday’s storms, but the sky was clear and the lawn sparkled, a field of
diamonds in the morning light. Birds clustered around the feeder, flying off and realighting in tight orbits as I walked past them from the house to the shed. The whole world felt as numb as my tingling extremities. It took only about twenty steps to reach the shed, and I wondered at the gulf that I’d always sensed yawning between the two structures. Randy’s world, and the world we shared. Now he was finally going to open up to me.
It was your basic ten-by-ten storage building, erected by a couple of kids the hardware store had sent over, hauling the entire kit in their flatbed. Just lumber and siding and two small windows on either end, the glass papered over from inside. In all the time we’d lived in our new house, I’d never once set foot in there. I’d respected his privacy, his need to have his alone time. He’d often reminded me of how essential it was for his peace of mind. I put the key to the padlock and hoped in that last moment that maybe I was wrong, maybe it was simply a spare from work that he’d used to hold down his note, maybe he’d really suddenly developed an interest in being alone with our son, maybe—but it slid right in, seemingly frictionless. I left the padlock lying in the grass, then turned the knob and the door opened.
Inside it was dark. Daylight barely penetrated the shingle paper he’d stapled over the windows, and I had to fumble for the switch. An overhead light came on, a naked bulb that flooded the space with a yellowish blur that somehow still left room for shadows. It smelled strange in there, but I couldn’t place the odor right off. Something medicinal,
chemical … The light didn’t make the room feel any less claustrophobic. A single rolling chair on castors sat in the middle of the plywood planks that made up the flooring. I moved it to one side so I could get around. I left the door wide open behind me, and kept checking it, half dreading that Randy would come racing out the back door of our house, waving a knife and howling about Bluebeard’s wife.
chemical … The light didn’t make the room feel any less claustrophobic. A single rolling chair on castors sat in the middle of the plywood planks that made up the flooring. I moved it to one side so I could get around. I left the door wide open behind me, and kept checking it, half dreading that Randy would come racing out the back door of our house, waving a knife and howling about Bluebeard’s wife.
Nothing here was outwardly disturbing. Two big sets of shelves and drawers, blond unfinished wood with brass handles, were lined up against either wall, and then there was a full-sized closet or cabinet at the very back. Some sort of picture or drawing was tacked onto the double doors back there, but I ignored it for the moment, frightened of trying to take in too much at once. I opened the first drawer on my left-hand side, and my breath stalled in my throat. The drawer was full of ammunition, boxes upon boxes, several different caliber bullets. I picked one up and read: REMINGTON .357 HOLLOW POINT/50 COUNT. In the next drawer down were the guns themselves, six altogether, all of them holstered in leather. I didn’t recognize the caliber or the brands, only the ugly black look of them. Randy had told me he went shooting once in a while with some people from work. He’d never told me he owned a gun. The next drawer contained knives, again sheathed in leather slips so polished and oiled they felt supple to the touch. I pulled a few of them out. Randy was into variety: there was one with a long serrated blade; another that was shorter and hooked at the end; still another that was notched on one side and flat on the other, sharp enough that when I laid it down gently
onto the countertop, it cut into the wood. I put the knives back where I’d found them. In other drawers were other tools I didn’t recognize: something like a suction cup and another silvery utensil that looked like it belonged on a surgeon’s tray; rolls of duct tape; a handheld component that featured a small screen and a GPS logo; a box of rubber gloves and a hairnet; and coils of thick rope, tightly wound, and set out in symmetrical stacks.
onto the countertop, it cut into the wood. I put the knives back where I’d found them. In other drawers were other tools I didn’t recognize: something like a suction cup and another silvery utensil that looked like it belonged on a surgeon’s tray; rolls of duct tape; a handheld component that featured a small screen and a GPS logo; a box of rubber gloves and a hairnet; and coils of thick rope, tightly wound, and set out in symmetrical stacks.
The nausea was back. I kept glancing behind me out that open door, which seemed miles away even though it was only a few feet.
On the other side of the room, the first drawer I opened revealed documents, all neatly sorted in laminated slipcovers. I picked up a Wisconsin driver’s license with Randy’s face on it. His name was shown as Gerald Hamby. Another ID, this one from Delaware, was for Wilson Hamby. I dug through and kept coming up with more: passports, bank cards, credit cards, all in fake names. I wondered if the bank cards were valid, if there was a monetary balance on the other end of them. (It was revealed at trial that he had several thousand in each account.) Randy had always been assiduous when it came to savings, so he probably had money to spare. I was starting to understand why he’d never let me in on the family finances. All his macho crap about it being the “man’s responsibility” was exactly that, but I’d never really fought him on it. I’d always been a little thankful I didn’t have to deal with that aspect of our lives.
Then I saw a folder with my initials on it. I opened it and more cards slid out into the drawer. Staring back at me
from another Delaware ID was my own face, the same photo that appeared on my California driver’s license, except Randy had renamed me Debra Hamby. I riffled through the remaining cards and documents until they were all spread out on the countertop.
from another Delaware ID was my own face, the same photo that appeared on my California driver’s license, except Randy had renamed me Debra Hamby. I riffled through the remaining cards and documents until they were all spread out on the countertop.
Inventory: five different ID cards for him, three for me. We were the Hambys or the Johnsons. I was Debra or Darlene. A passport was made out for Darlene Johnson, the same photo as on the other documents. I swallowed and thought quite clearly, like a voice was speaking aloud inside my head:
He thinks you’re going to be cool with this. He thinks you’ll go along with it. He may think you already suspected.
My immediate reaction, one that was purely defensive, simply to keep me from tearing my hair out, was to get furiously pissed. The sonofabitch had actually convinced himself that I would go along with whatever secret life he’d been leading, as though it were something everyone did, some pedestrian little indiscretion like our neighbors’ indulgences, Felicity Conrad’s fondness for Percocets or Dan Youngblood’s affair. Everyone knew these tidbits, all the neighborhood women dished on them whenever Felicity or Dan weren’t physically present. Such missteps were accepted as the natural price for a life of entitlement, a calm serene surface with sharks trolling underneath. Sharks, our neighbors could assimilate.
He thinks you’re going to be cool with this. He thinks you’ll go along with it. He may think you already suspected.
My immediate reaction, one that was purely defensive, simply to keep me from tearing my hair out, was to get furiously pissed. The sonofabitch had actually convinced himself that I would go along with whatever secret life he’d been leading, as though it were something everyone did, some pedestrian little indiscretion like our neighbors’ indulgences, Felicity Conrad’s fondness for Percocets or Dan Youngblood’s affair. Everyone knew these tidbits, all the neighborhood women dished on them whenever Felicity or Dan weren’t physically present. Such missteps were accepted as the natural price for a life of entitlement, a calm serene surface with sharks trolling underneath. Sharks, our neighbors could assimilate.
But when I began to understand that Randy thought so little of me, saw me as no more than a mousy enabler who’d be just fine with it all once he’d invited me into his confidence, it was like being slapped in the mouth. Perhaps he
thought that with a bit of patience and explication, I could be made to see that the situation wasn’t so perverse after all, not so horrifying as I’d imagined …
thought that with a bit of patience and explication, I could be made to see that the situation wasn’t so perverse after all, not so horrifying as I’d imagined …
And what, exactly, was so wretched about it? I still didn’t know anything other than that my husband was a gun nut with a whole batch of fraudulent documents stashed out behind the house. I had seen evidence of nothing more.
I put the documents back in the drawer, arranging them as closely as I could recall to how I’d found them. There was still that big, wall-length cabinet at the back of the shed. As I got closer, the drawing tacked onto the double doors of the cabinet resolved into clarity, and my breath locked up again. It was one of Randy’s sketches, much like the one he’d made of me when we were first dating, a thousand years ago: rudimentary and crude, pencil-drawn and shaded. But this one was of a boy who looked to be in his early-to-mid teens. The kid had a lifeless bowl of hair that lent him a mannequinlike aspect, something fake and contrived, a frowning mouth with thin lips, chubby cheeks, and a furrowed brow, as though his image had been captured at a moment of confused self-reflection. And then there were the eyes, somewhat averted from the viewer, creased with what might’ve been either anticipation or some secret but corrupt delight. Without coloration, there was no way to distinguish them from any other pair of eyes, except in that malefic expression. I didn’t recognize anything about the boy at all, but then I started thinking about it and the answer came even as I resisted its implications. I’d seen eyes bearing that sort of gaze before; in fact, I’d seen them on my husband
only yesterday. This was
his
secret look,
his
ponderous mischief,
his
projection, himself as a younger man. Then I suspected even worse: maybe I was wrong, and maybe this was what he wanted
Hayden
to look like someday. Perhaps this was our son, an unhappy future vision of him trapped in his own father’s darkest shadow.
only yesterday. This was
his
secret look,
his
ponderous mischief,
his
projection, himself as a younger man. Then I suspected even worse: maybe I was wrong, and maybe this was what he wanted
Hayden
to look like someday. Perhaps this was our son, an unhappy future vision of him trapped in his own father’s darkest shadow.
I opened the double doors slowly, pulling them out toward me, and everything went kind of sideways.
A
n hour later, I stood pacing in the yard, muttering to myself for the pure noise of it, essentially to keep from going insane. When Todd Cline, the policeman and our old neighbor, stepped out of the shed after being inside for only a few minutes, he said, “I need to call for backup, and I need to get a warrant.”
n hour later, I stood pacing in the yard, muttering to myself for the pure noise of it, essentially to keep from going insane. When Todd Cline, the policeman and our old neighbor, stepped out of the shed after being inside for only a few minutes, he said, “I need to call for backup, and I need to get a warrant.”
“You can’t,” I said. “You know he’s got Hayden. You promised.”
He attempted a gentle smile, but he was pale underneath. The veteran cop, shaken. “I was humoring you until I could find out what you were talking about. Really, Nina, this is something we need to handle, right now.”
I barely remembered coming out of the shed after looking into Randy’s cabinet, at first stumbling and then running across the backyard to the house. I was able to call up vague images of myself flipping through the church directory until I found his number. What had I said to him?
That, I couldn’t really remember, only how relieved I’d been that he was home. It seemed as though he’d said something about how the family usually went out for Sunday lunch, but they’d skipped it today because one of his daughters had a stomachache.
That, I couldn’t really remember, only how relieved I’d been that he was home. It seemed as though he’d said something about how the family usually went out for Sunday lunch, but they’d skipped it today because one of his daughters had a stomachache.
The wait between the time I hung up and the time he arrived was crystal clear in my memory. It was the worst twenty minutes of my life, up until that point.
Cline pondered a moment and continued. “Nina, I don’t know what to tell you. We’ll do everything in our power to ensure Hayden’s safety, but first of all we need to locate Randy and get as many men on him as we can. Can you call him, see where he is?”
“I can call, but we won’t know if he’s telling the truth. He could be watching us right now, for all I know.”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” Cline admitted. He took my elbow and steered me back to the house, leaving the shed door hanging open. “Listen, I really need to call this in, though. I’ll explain the situation to my boss and we’ll get some other people involved.”
So I stood there, feeling like I was going to collapse, literally, like every connective tissue in my body would spring free of its moorings and I’d be reduced to a pile of quivering guts on my nicely swept and polished kitchen floor. Cline called the station from his cell phone and spoke with some urgency. After a minute or so he asked me to call Randy. “I need your permission for us to track the call. If he’s on his cell, we might be able to locate him, at least generally. Do you think you can talk to him without
letting him know that I’m here?” he said seriously. “I need to be sure you can do that.”
letting him know that I’m here?” he said seriously. “I need to be sure you can do that.”
I wasn’t at all sure, but I had to know where Hayden was … and that was as far as my mind would allow me to go. I called from the house phone and Randy picked up on the second ring. Cline moved up close to my ear, and I held the phone out a little, so he could hear.
Randy sounded like he was smiling. “How is your morning, Nina?”
“I feel like I’m hungover. Where are you guys?” My voice amazingly steady.
“Well, since the park near our house was cordoned off with the police tape and all, I brought Hayden to Wesley Park, over near the City Center complex. You know where I’m talking about?” Cool and cheery, like he’d never left the key, like he wasn’t holding our son as a bargaining chip.
“I’ve been there once or twice.” I felt my throat clenching, and swallowed quickly. “So, how is the little guy?”
“He’s fine. Sitting right here on the seat beside me.”
“So you guys left the park?”
“We’re in the car. Do you want us to come home, Nina?”
For a moment I didn’t understand him. Todd Cline was holding his cell phone up and spinning his index finger, telling me to keep rolling. I improvised. “I think I’m ready to talk, if that’s what you mean.”
“I’ve wanted to talk to you for so long, babe.”
I held a hand up to my forehead, feeling the damp sweat condensing. “Don’t you think you can trust me?”
The pause lasted longer than I liked, but now Cline was giving me an OK sign. Randy said, “It’s kind of a big deal. I’m still not sure you understand.”
“I just know I want you guys back here,” I said.
“Forty-five minutes.”
“That long?”
“It won’t seem that way. And, babe? Thanks.” He hung up.
I put the phone down and said, “Oh, God, he’s going to kill Hayden, isn’t he?”
Todd Cline patted me awkwardly on the arm. “I don’t think so. HQ said they tracked his signal and he’s about a half hour away. Not quite to City Center, but far enough that we can get things ready. I’m gonna go out front and meet the others. I’ll stay where you can see me, though, and we’ll tell you how we think you should handle it before he shows up. We’ll run through the scenarios. Okay?”
I nodded, reeling in every sense of the word.
He touched me again, this time to steady me. He leaned me against the counter and said, “You did the right thing by calling me. You might have saved someone’s life, maybe more than one.”
“You were in there,” I said, unable to keep myself from reaching out and gripping his shirt; I needed a physical mooring. “Was it what I thought it was? In the petri dish or whatever?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “It looked like the ones I’ve seen. It’s always hard to tell, when they’re not connected to anything else.”
I retained only flash images. If I tried to concentrate on
them, which I most certainly did not want to do, but couldn’t help as my mind kept circling compulsively back, I got only pieces, no sense of the whole. I remembered the sketch of the teenaged boy. I remembered opening the cabinet. There was a computer monitor, silent and blank, and the keyboard tray on a slide-out shelf below. The inner walls of the cabinet papered with color photos: sometimes isolated parts of a face or body—a gashed chin, someone’s bloody teeth, muscle pulled back and exposed; other photos showed scenes that seemed posed, almost tableaux, torn bodies and hanging flesh on polished hardwood floors, on soaked bedsheets. They were like the pictures in the true crime books I’d read while I was pregnant, except no part of them was blurred or pixeled out; this time I saw the faces connected with the savaged flesh. The empty eye sockets. The sockets with objects inserted where the eyes had been; smooth geodes, dice turned to sixes, tiny springs, even one that appeared to have the bulb of some flower sprouting where there had once been sight.
them, which I most certainly did not want to do, but couldn’t help as my mind kept circling compulsively back, I got only pieces, no sense of the whole. I remembered the sketch of the teenaged boy. I remembered opening the cabinet. There was a computer monitor, silent and blank, and the keyboard tray on a slide-out shelf below. The inner walls of the cabinet papered with color photos: sometimes isolated parts of a face or body—a gashed chin, someone’s bloody teeth, muscle pulled back and exposed; other photos showed scenes that seemed posed, almost tableaux, torn bodies and hanging flesh on polished hardwood floors, on soaked bedsheets. They were like the pictures in the true crime books I’d read while I was pregnant, except no part of them was blurred or pixeled out; this time I saw the faces connected with the savaged flesh. The empty eye sockets. The sockets with objects inserted where the eyes had been; smooth geodes, dice turned to sixes, tiny springs, even one that appeared to have the bulb of some flower sprouting where there had once been sight.
When I backed into the rolling chair, I’d nearly screamed. I realized I had my hand over my mouth. I’d always thought of that as an overly theatrical gesture, something you only saw in movies, but there in the shed I found it to be completely involuntary, like my body was trying to keep from breathing something in, some contamination that, if not immediately lethal, would certainly doom me to a life of quarantine. The birds outside were in a raging cacophony, sounding as if they’d gone feral and were tearing at one another, sharp hooked claws gouging feathers and
beaks and black little birdy eyes. Battering wings. After I moved the chair aside, I made the door and started running. I had to find the phone, I had to call someone.
beaks and black little birdy eyes. Battering wings. After I moved the chair aside, I made the door and started running. I had to find the phone, I had to call someone.
Because it wasn’t just the photographs. Beside the computer was a shallow glass dish, maybe three inches deep, half filled with some milky liquid. A pair of stainless-steel hemostats propped up against one edge. Caught in the clamps, sitting in the center of the dish, was a globe the size of a Ping-Pong ball, pearly and shot through with burst vessels. A clot of tissue distended where the steel squeezed it, ropy leakage like something you’d see in an egg white. I recognized it as soon as I saw it, even though I’d never seen anything like it before. My mind simply relayed the information:
That’s a human eye sitting there in whatever that is; oh, God, it’s some kind of preservative
. An X-Acto knife was balanced on the other side of the dish across from the hemostats. I saw small, thin slices cut and laid to one side on the desktop, like he’d been parsing it.
That’s a human eye sitting there in whatever that is; oh, God, it’s some kind of preservative
. An X-Acto knife was balanced on the other side of the dish across from the hemostats. I saw small, thin slices cut and laid to one side on the desktop, like he’d been parsing it.
Todd Cline looked at me now and nodded again. “He wants to be caught, Nina. That’s what these guys do eventually, they snap and they need to be gratified and publicly recognized for what they feel to be superhuman accomplishments. A profiler came and talked to us about this kind of stuff a few years ago, after what happened with the Renaults.”
I acted as though I hadn’t comprehended. I was defaulting to suburban housewife. “‘These guys’? Jesus, Todd, we’ve sat beside you in church.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But what’s out there in that shed … He hasn’t had some kind of sudden breakdown.”
And he was right.
He left me there in my kitchen with the knowledge that he was right, that this had been going on for a long, long time, maybe Randy’s whole life. Certainly for most of his life with me. And then there was the thing Cline had mentioned and I’d deflected, the thing that I knew he had seen and the damning detail I couldn’t seem to unsee. One of the photos on the wall, this one tacked up near the top, was right about at eye level for someone who sat at the computer and visited God only knew what sort of Internet sites. It was a picture of a small boy, his neck at an impossible angle as he lay among the dead leaves on a patch of nondescript dirt in some godforsaken unknown. The eyeless stare, the forever silenced scream, the face of Tyler Renault.
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