The Killing Vision (16 page)

Finally, after an eternity, Marla looked away, back
toward the television.

* * *

9:45 PM

Carmelita’s body coming to rest
at the same spot on the riverbank had been brilliant, even though it had just
been a stroke of luck.

Last night when he got himself
together he had carried Carmelita out to the car and had driven to his spot. 
The water was deep here and alive with the croaking of frogs.  First he scoured
both sides of the river, making sure he was alone.  Then he dragged her out of
the car toward the bank.  She was still stiff, and it was an effort to maneuver
her.  He poised her on the edge, and the sheet around her unfurled as she
tumbled freely to the water below with a hollow splash.  With shaking hands, he
lit a cigarette and watched to make sure she floated, not taking a drag until
he could tell she was drifting downstream.  Then he balled up the sheet and
threw it into the car.  Sweat was pouring off him in the heavy air.  Quickly
checking the weed-choked path behind him, he started the car and coasted out to
the highway, where he switched on his lights and headed east toward the lake.

About five miles before the
entrance to the state park, he turned off the main road and headed back into
the darkness, where the thick undergrowth of the woods hugged tightly to the
gravel lane he followed.  Ten minutes later, he pulled into the driveway of an
abandoned farmhouse and grabbed the sheet from the back seat.  On the backside
of the house was an old well, its wooden cover gray and splintered with rot. 
He lifted the edge of the cover and threw the sheet into the blackness
beneath.  He didn’t hear a splash, and he wondered if the well had gone dry, if
perhaps that was why the house had been left empty.

As he stepped back into the car,
a sparkle on the floorboard caught his attention.  It was a crucifix.  For a
moment he was puzzled.  Then he remembered it dangling from Carmelita’s neck as
she slid into the passenger seat, and how he had caught his thumb in the chain
as he grabbed her.  He held the crucifix before him; Jesus’ agonized eyes were
black and hollow.  He shuddered, then looked away and shoved it into his
pocket.

Now, back in the solace of his
special place, he held it up before him.  He touched it lightly with his
fingertip and watched it spin.  Jesus’ eyes caught his.

Jesus was watching.

Thursday, July 12

8:30 AM

Pettus rubbed his temples and leaned back in his
chair.  Halloran’s reports were spread out on the desk before him, and both
sets of photos of the body dumpsite were in his lap.  He looked from one pile
to the other.  His black eyes seemed to have sunk deeper into his brown face
the last couple of weeks.

Halloran sat upright.  His tongue tasted his lips
for any leftover nicotine.  He blew out a breath and took the last swallow of
cold coffee from his cup.  Beside him, Chapman chewed on his thumbnail and
bounced his leg.

Pettus plopped the photos down on top of the
reports.  “I’ll say this, Mike. You’ve got some damned big balls.”

Chapman snorted, then covered it with a cough.

Halloran looked at him, then back at Pettus.  “Yeah,
so I’ve been told.”

“There’s no way a judge will give us a warrant for
the mayor’s house based on what you’ve got.  There’s no evidence linking him to
the girls.  None at all.”

“I know that,” Halloran said.  “I just want your
permission to talk to him.”

“I don’t know, Mike.”  He ran a large hand over his
closely-cropped hair.  “This department’s been on rocky ground with Carver
since his wife got a ticket for parking in a handicapped zone.  I’d hate to do
anything to piss him off again.  He does control our budget, you know.”

Halloran nodded.  He liked Pettus, he really did. 
He was fair, and he was smart.  As the first African-American police chief in
Cedar Hill, he had dealt with considerable controversy during his tenure. 
Cedar Hill was by no means a racist community, but many in the town—mostly
old-timers—had given Pettus a rough way to go; they apparently didn’t believe
Cedar Hill was ready for a black police chief.  He had endured everything from
indifference to outright hatred.  Things had peaked during a city council
meeting in which two councilmen (one black, one white) erupted into a fistfight
over Pettus’ firing of a white officer.  Only after the mayor stepped in and
publicly gave his unconditional support for Pettus did things in the city calm
down.  Halloran could certainly understand why Pettus wished to remain on
Carver’s good list.

“How about this,” Chapman said.  “We just talk to
him about the investigation, how things are going.  Kind of feel him out.”

“That’s fine,” Pettus said, “so long as you don’t
insinuate anything.  You all just remember—we have no evidence linking him to
these girls.  Nothing.”  He looked hard at Halloran.  “Be careful.”

Halloran swallowed.  “I will.”

Pettus stacked up the reports on the desk.  “In the
meantime, you said you want another search of those riverbanks.  I agree. 
Let’s go ahead and do it.  And I’m going to call in the state for assistance. 
We need to find something.  Anything.”

* * *

10:30 AM

Marla had been in a stew ever since Wade and Derek
left for work.  Earlier it was easy to keep her mind off of things as the two
of them rushed around in their frenzied morning routines.  But after Joel
picked up Wade and Derek spun out of the driveway toward town, after she sat
down in the living room with a second cup of coffee to relax a bit before
starting the laundry, after she turned off the
Today
show because she
couldn’t take any more of Savannah Guthrie’s damned perkiness, she had started
to brood.

Wade was seeing someone.  She knew it.  It wasn’t
just a one-time fling like he usually had.  This was different.  She didn’t
know how she knew, but she did.  Was it that girl whose number she had found in
Wade’s pocket?  Missy?  Or was it someone else?  And why did she even give a
damn?  One thing was sure:  whoever she was, she had been with Wade last
weekend.  Wade wasn’t even trying to hide it.  He wasn’t even pretending he was
out doing something else.

She took a sip of coffee and her gaze fell on the side
table.  Wade had left his phone.  She remembered Joel calling last night, and
she wondered if he had ever told Wade about her frantic call Sunday morning. 
If so, Wade was keeping it a secret—she couldn’t even begin to guess why. 
Maybe Joel hadn’t said anything to him.  But then Joel had seemed angry.  Joel
had—

Marla set down her cup and picked up the phone. 
Before she could stop herself, she looked at the call log.  Maybe Joel
hadn’t
called last night.  Maybe it was Missy.  Or someone else.  Her heart pounded,
and her hands had begun to shake. 
555-4376
. She jotted it down.

That wasn’t Joel.  Was it Missy?  She couldn’t
remember.  She hit redial, and as the phone on the other end began to ring, a
sharp pain began to throb in her temple.

The call connected.  Voice mail.  Two girls. 
Giggling.

“Hi, this is Abby—”

“And Shelley!”

“Please leave a message.”  There was more giggling
followed by the beep.

Marla disconnected the call.  She stared at the phone
until tears blurred her vision, then hurled it across the room.  It slammed
into the wall, leaving a mark.

So which one was he fucking, Abby or Shelley?  Or
both?  She paced blindly around the room, sobbing, banging her fists against
the sides of her head.  Damn him!  God
damn
him!  To think he had been
talking to the bitch, right in front of her.  What a fool she was, what an
idiot.  And why was she surprised?  Wasn’t it just like him?

Ignoring the tears sliding down her cheeks, she
trudged upstairs to the bathroom and grabbed the laundry hamper.  She pulled
the damp towels from the rack and added them to the pile of dirty clothes, then
lugged the basket out across the hall to Derek’s room.

She blew out a disgusted breath.  Papers, clothes,
CDs, magazines. . . everywhere she looked was a pile of crap.  Here was a plate
with petrified pizza crusts on it.  An empty Butterfinger wrapper peeked out
from beneath the dresser.  The mini-blinds in the window hung cock-eyed, like a
drunk had tried to raise them.  She shook her head.  Why did she even bother? 
Why did she even bother living?

She sank to the bed.  Fresh tears stung her eyes. 
One of Derek’s shirts lay rumpled among the sheets.  She pulled it to her face
and dabbed at her cheeks.  The shirt smelled of Derek— Irish Spring soap and
Tag body spray and the faint hint of masculine sweat.  Her little boy had
become a man.  She buried her face in the shirt.

She could just take off for somewhere today.  It
didn’t really matter where.  No one would even know she was gone until late
this evening, and by then she would be miles away.  Wade probably wouldn’t even
come looking for her.  And her parents most likely wouldn’t give a damn.  But
Derek. . .  she just couldn’t leave Derek.  And Derek wouldn’t leave Wade.  He
still loved and admired his dad; he hadn’t yet learned what an asshole Wade
was.

She wadded up the shirt and tossed it into the
laundry basket.  Her gaze fell on Derek’s computer in the corner.  The
screensaver was flashing pictures of bikini-clad models posing and cavorting on
a beach.  She watched it for a moment, remembering something Derek had shown
her once on the internet.  The phone number she had jotted down was in her
jeans pocket.  She pulled it out and stepped over a pile of magazines toward
the desk and flopped into the chair.  She chewed her lips as the modem
connected with a series of squelches and beeps.  She hoped she remembered the
website Derek had pointed her to.  She typed in the address and the page blazed
onto the screen.  Her shaking fingers keyed the telephone number into the
search block, and in thirty seconds she had Abby’s last name.  A few more
keystrokes and she had a street address.

Now she knew where the bitch lived.  She stared at
the monitor.  A smile had crept onto her lips.

* * *

1:30 PM

God, it was hot.

Halloran had loosened his tie and unfastened the top
button of his shirt.  Sweat was trickling down his neck and pooling in the
hollow of his throat.  He wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his shirt and
parted a clump of tall weeds with the toe of his shoe.  Nothing there.  He took
a gulp from the lukewarm bottle of water in his hand.

All around him other members of the search team—some
of them state boys—were carefully combing the riverbanks.  They had started at
the landing by the park and were working their way upstream on both sides of
the river to Caneyville State Park.  So far they had come almost a quarter of
the ten-mile distance.  Several bags of items had been collected—mostly trash—but
anything that might link to a suspect, whether it be a candy wrapper or a foam
cup, could turn up here.

Across the sluggish water, Chapman’s red head bobbed
among the tangled vines and limbs.  Chapman’s intensity for the investigation
was impressive.  Since Sarah Jo’s body had been pulled from the river he had
spent every hour at the office going through the evidence, had spent many late
evenings looking at photos and following up leads.  Halloran couldn’t help
feeling proud; he’d trained Chapman after all.  He was becoming a good
detective, and his drive and conscientiousness were innate traits that couldn’t
be learned in a police academy.  He would be a natural to head up the whole
department someday.

“Lieutenant!”  One of the state guys stood in a
small clearing.  He beckoned Halloran closer and pointed to the ground.  “Got
something here.”

Halloran climbed up the bank toward the officer. 
The bank was steep here, and he almost lost his footing in the loose soil.

Atop the knoll was a set of tire tracks.  They
weren’t fresh, but they couldn’t be more than a couple of days old.  The ground
had been soft and muddy when they were made, and now the treads were preserved
perfectly in the hard dirt.

“Excellent,” Halloran said.  “Take an impression and
get it to the lab.”

He blew out a breath and took another sip of water. 
Onward and upward.

* * *

5:05 PM

Derek had just spent eight hours of hell in the
kitchen of the Dairy Queen on Fourth Street.  He punched his timecard and
emerged into the blinding sunlight.  It was hotter out here on the asphalt
parking lot, but not by much.  He hated it here—fucking hated it.  The days
were all a massive blur of flipping burgers, mopping floors, and scraping the
grill.  Half the time he couldn’t remember what he’d done all day, as if he was
just a functioning robot.

Today he happened to glance at the front line and
spotted his old algebra teacher, Hicks the Prick, at the register.  The Prick
ordered a grilled chicken sandwich, which had to be cooked special.  Derek spit
on the meat before he tossed it over the flames.  He would have been fired had
anyone seen him, but nobody did.  Frankly, he didn’t care.  If he got fired it
might be the best thing to happen to him.  But he had to admit, watching The
Prick walk away with his tainted sandwich gave him a real feeling of
satisfaction.