The Killing Vision (15 page)

Wade was still staring at him.  “So who is she?”

“Just somebody I met.”  He picked up the work order,
pretending to check it over.  He was not going to miss this opportunity to make
Wade squirm.

“When in the hell have you been anywhere to meet
somebody?”  Wade pulled off his sunglasses and looked at him squarely.  “Did
you pick up one of those girls that hang around Fourth Street?”

Joel glared at him.  “No.”

Wade was smirking.  “You answer one of those
personal ads on the Internet?”

“No.  It’s nothin’ like that.”  He climbed out of
the truck and headed toward the house.

“Wait a minute.”  Wade caught up to him.  “Just tell
me where you met this girl.”

Joel looked at him.  “Church, all right?  I met her
at church.”

Wade backed up.  “Church?  You don’t go to church.”

Joel grinned at him and rang the doorbell.  Messing
with Wade’s head was fun.

* * *

By the time Joel got home, he was feeling pretty
good about himself.  Talking to Wade had made him realize how much he was
looking forward to his date with Dana.  Though he was still anxious about his
first date in several years, it felt good just knowing he had something planned
out to do, something to look forward to that didn’t involve the TV or Wade.

Thinking of Dana, the memory of her laugh or her
infectious smile, was enough to send a thrill shooting through him.  When was
the last time he had felt that way about anyone?  Hell, when was the last time
he’d even been interested in anyone?  Certainly not since—

Did you know there were canals on
Mars?  

Not since that night.

Really?

Yeah.  A long time ago they
thought that meant there was water there.  And life.

Real Martians?

Yeah.

Hey, Roberts!

He shuddered and forced himself to think of
something—anything—other than that night.

He pulled a beer from the refrigerator and plopped
down on the couch, grabbing the remote and punching on the TV. 
Andy
Griffith
.  God, he loved this show.  Barney Fife just killed him.

He wondered again about his visit to the detective
yesterday.  He hoped he hadn’t come off as a nut, like some loser spouting off
about government corruption and cover-ups, like Clifton.  If Halloran had half
the brains Andy Griffith did, that poor girl’s murderer would have already been
caught.  But nobody ever died in Mayberry.  Not even of natural causes.  A
murder there would be unthinkable.

Good old Andy.

Joel settled back into the couch, watching Andy and
Barney locking up Otis again.

At some point, he fell asleep.  He had to be asleep,
because there he was, by God, standing right on the street in front of the
sheriff’s office in downtown Mayberry.  Glancing down, he could see he was
wearing a brown sheriff’s uniform; the sunlight glistened off his badge.  The
streets and sidewalks were deserted, and not even a bird disturbed the
silence. 

He stepped into the office, and the door slammed
behind him.  His mouth gaped at what he saw.  Barney had pulled Otis’ head
through the bars of the cell.  He had him in a headlock, and his gun was
pointed right at Otis’ temple.

Except Barney wasn’t Barney; he was Wade.  And Otis
was Clifton.

“Don’t make me do it, Andy,” Barney/Wade said.

Otis/Clifton looked at Joel with pleading eyes, eyes
that filled with horror when Joel said, “Go ahead.  Blast the fucker.”

Barney/Wade pulled the trigger, and Otis/Clifton’s
head exploded.

Barney/Wade holstered his gun and straightened his
shoulders, unaware of the blood and brains dripping down the front of his
uniform.  “Now,” he said.  “Now.  Let’s go look at Mars.”

* * *

Joel jerked awake.  His head was thick and fuzzy. 
He rubbed his eyes and reached for his beer.  A laugh escaped him.  He and Wade
as Andy and Barney.  He was going to have to remember to tell Wade about that
one.

He glanced at the television and sat up rigidly. 
That Mexican girl’s picture was on the screen.  He reached for the remote, but
even before he got the sound turned up, he knew they had found her body.

Sure enough, the shaky video footage showed the
shrouded figure being carried from the same spot where the McElvoy girl’s body
was discovered.  Then Halloran was again giving a news conference, flanked
between the police chief and another detective Joel hadn’t seen.  Right now
there was no conclusive evidence that the two murders were connected, but he
was urging the public to come forward with any information that might help the
investigation.

He shook his head.  What would he find now if he
went back to the mayor’s basement?  Would there be a new set of newspaper
clippings added to the first?  And what would he find if he looked around a bit
more?

For a few breathless moments, he seriously
contemplated going back.  He could always say he was checking something with
the cable.  Then, if he was sure he was alone, he could do some snooping. 
Check out the red room some more, look for anything out of the ordinary that
might link the mayor to either girl.  But he knew he couldn’t do that.  He’d
already left a message for the mayor at his office yesterday; showing up on his
doorstep might be a bit much.  He didn’t want Mayor Carver to think he was a
stalker.

No, he told himself.  He’d gone to the police.  He’d
told Lieutenant Halloran everything he knew.  He’d done all he could.  It was
up to the cops now.  Whatever happened was out of his hands.

* * *

6:25 PM

Halloran sat at his desk, the freshly-processed
photos of the body dump site spread before him.  They were eerily similar to
the pictures in Sarah Jo McElvoy’s file.

He stared at them, studying every object, as he had
the others.  There was no sign of any struggle at the water’s edge, so
Carmelita had obviously been killed somewhere else and dumped at the landing. 
Surely she had been brought there intentionally; the odds were just too great
that her body had simply drifted downriver to rest in the exact spot as Sarah
Jo’s.  But there were so many shoe prints and so much contamination of the
scene from the last investigation that anything new would be hard to spot.  He
blew out an exhausted sigh and stacked the photos.

Mrs. Santos had not taken the news of her daughter’s
death very well.  As soon as she spotted Halloran and Chapman at the door, she
began wailing.  It was a hideous sound, a cry of grief that seemed to emanate
from her very womb.  Other women in the house had led her away, eyeing the
detectives as if they were demons.  Halloran told Mr. Santos what they had
found, and the man only nodded grimly, saying nothing, tears sliding silently
down his cheeks.  Finally, after a few moments of uncomfortable silence,
Halloran and Chapman had left.

Halloran was devastated, knowing there was a
murderer in town and that the department had been unable to stop him from
killing again.  He felt powerless, impotent.  Would any more girls disappear? 
He hoped not.  But how many more times would he uncover a young girl’s body? 
How many more times would he have to stand before a mother and tell her that
her daughter was dead?

He pulled out the photographs again, studying the
dirt around the body.  If Carmelita had been placed there deliberately, she had
been carried; there were no tracks to indicate the body had been dragged.  That
would mean whoever they were looking for was an extremely strong individual;
Carmelita was not fat, but she was fairly stocky, and an average-sized man
would have a difficult time carrying her down the rocky bluff to the landing.

He looked at the river behind the body.  Could she
have been dropped there from a boat?  The water was relatively shallow at the
landing, and many years ago a sightseeing boat used to moor there.  It would
not be easy to dump a body from a small boat without danger of capsizing, but
it could be done.  The nearest boat ramp was about ten miles upstream at
Caneyville, so a person would have to haul a boat there and cast off from a
public fishing area, an act certain to attract attention in the middle of the
night.  If a boat had been used, it was likely something small that could be
launched off the riverbank.  And if that were so, a search of the banks
upstream should reveal some evidence.

He had just reached for the phone to call Chapman
when it rang, startling him.  Scotty’s voice on the other end was cracking with
excitement.  “We’ve got a match on the hair you found,” he said.

Halloran sat up straight.  “Sarah Jo’s?”

“Yep.  Just got the call from the lab.”

“Great work.”

“Hey, you’re the one who found it.”

Halloran hung up the phone and stared at it while he
fondled his cigarette pack.  It was time to organize another search of the
riverbanks.

* * *

8:15 PM

Wade was sprawled in the recliner, sipping a beer
and leafing through a J.C. Whitney catalog.  Poring through page after page of
Mustang parts and accessories made his mouth water with anticipation.  Thinking
about what he and Derek could do to the car was almost more fun than actually
working on it.  But damn!  By the time he got everything they needed for it, he
would almost spend another four grand.

Across the room, Marla sat cross-legged on the
sofa.  The TV was blaring some sitcom, and the television audience was roaring
with laughter.  Marla stared empty-eyed at the screen; she was not paying any
attention to the show and he could tell.  He looked at her above the edge of
the catalog, watching her pretend to look at the TV and biting on her nails. 
What the hell was she thinking about?  Where was her mind?

It was times like this that he almost feared her,
when she just blanked out like she was now, though he would never let her know
that.  Knowing how much she hated him sometimes, how little they got along
anymore, he wondered if she was considering leaving him.  Or something worse.  

He had been so pissed when he found out she had
called Joel.  He wanted to go off on her, but by the time he got home from work
he was too tired to get into it with her.  He hadn’t mentioned it, and neither
had she.  But God help her if she ever did it again.

His phone rang, jarring him from his thoughts. 
Marla looked over at him, then turned back to the television.  He glared at her
as he picked it up.  “Yeah.”

“Hello, handsome.”

It took him a moment to place the voice, and then he
realized it was Abby.  “Hey.”

“What’s up?”

“Not much,” he said.  “Just watchin’ TV.” 

“You comin’ out Friday night?”

“I might.”

“We’ll be there around nine.  I get off work at six,
but Shelley’s got to stay ’til seven-thirty.”

“Well, that sucks.”

She laughed.  “Tell me about it.”  There was a
pause, and she said, “Hey, guess what this sound is.”  He strained to hear a
slight raspy, bristly sound.  “You hear that?” she said.

“Yeah, what was it?”

She giggled.  “I was touching myself.  Thinking
about you.”

His face grew hot and he felt a sudden twinge
between his legs.  “Yeah?”

“Mmm-hmm.  Still doing it, too.”  She let out a
slight sigh.

Wade shifted uncomfortably in his chair, trying to
accommodate his growing erection.  “Really?”  He eyed Marla, who was still
staring at the television.

“Yeah.  But I sure wish it was your fingers instead
of mine.”

It was all he could do to swallow.  “Me, too.”

“Are you touching yourself, too?”

“You bet,” he lied, wishing to God Marla would leave
the room.  If she would just go to the bathroom, or go wash the fucking dishes.

“I wish I was there.  Watching you do it.  Watching
your big strong hands giving yourself pleasure.  Maybe I could use my mouth. 
Would you like that?”

“Uh-huh.”  He froze.  Marla was staring at him, her
eyes boring through him.  He shifted the catalog so she couldn’t see the bulge
in his pants.  “It’s Joel,” he mouthed to her, and she nodded and looked back
at the television.  “Go on,” he said into the receiver.

“I can’t wait ’til Friday night,” Abby was saying. 
“Can you come over now?  We wouldn’t have to tell Shelley.  She won’t be home ’til
almost midnight.”

“I can’t,” he said.

“Please?  I’m going crazy over here.  I want you so
bad.”

“Same here,” he said.  “But tonight’s not good.”

She sighed.  “All right,” she said sullenly.  “But
Friday you could come by early, before Shelley gets home.  We could have some
fun, just the two of us.”

“You bet,” he said.  “We’ll push the envelope.”

Marla looked at him as he ended the call and Wade
shook his head.   “If he don’t leave me alone about working on this goddamn
car…”  He opened the catalog back up and took a drink from his beer.  His hands
were shaking.  He pretended to study windshield washer fluid reservoirs.