“It was like he was being torn apart inside, ready to cry or scream or throw things. I was scared, but didn’t say a word, and it passed. Then he took my hand and asked questions. He was so concerned, so nice. Then I went to fetch some drinks and sweets and that’s when we talked about Bernie, the good things, the happy things. We talked for a half hour. Then he had to go. He said he’d be back next month, we’d go to dinner, talk longer.”
“Did he tell you how to get in touch with him?” I held my breath.
“Only that he’d call. We’d go to dinner somewhere nice, somewhere Bernie would have liked.”
I resisted banging my head on the desk. When we hung up I called Mobile Regional and confirmed what I already knew: There was no record of a Frank Cloos ever having worked there. I called Ms. Rudolnick back, asked if I could send a fingerprint team to her house, pretty much knowing nothing would have been touched.
I started for home a few minutes later, stopped by Sally Hargreaves’s desk on the way out.
“How’s your progress with the rape and beating victim, the blind woman?”
Sally nodded and shot a thumbs-up. “I’m feeling better about her, Carson. She’s tough, a survivor. She has one minor surgery coming up tomorrow, hopefully heads home by mid-next week. She’s using her hand again, too. It’s improving daily.”
It stopped me. “What do you mean, using her hand?”
“She had two fingers broken in the attack, another severely dislocated. The doctors were afraid there might be nerve damage, but apparently-”
“You never mentioned the fingers.”
Sally gave me a so what look. “They were the least of her injuries.”
“Can I meet her, Sal? Talk to her?”
“She’s recovering from horror, Carson. I’m not sure she should relive those moments. Why?”
“I’ve got a dead girl who had broken fingers, torture, probably. Maybe it’s the same perp.”
“Can you wait a bit? Let my victim get home, return to familiar surroundings, familiar routine?”
“The perp’s a psycho. If he’s on the road I think he is, there’s another woman in his sights right now.”
Sal closed her eyes and shook her head.
“Carson…”
“We’ve got no leads, Sal. The guy’s a cipher.”
Sally frowned. Fumbled through her purse for her phone.
“Let me make a call.”
A half hour later we were sitting beside the bed of Karen Fairchild. She was petite and Caucasian, dark- haired, with a voice still husky from screaming and being choked. Her face was swathed in white bandages tinted pink at the edges with antibiotic cream. Despite her travails, she greeted me without apprehension, and I gathered Sally had both explained the reason for my visit and presented me in a kindly light.
One of Ms. Fairchild’s hands was contained in a soft brace, the fingers supported. On the other hand, several fingertips were bandaged from nails tearing off as she’d defended herself. No traces of the perp’s blood or skin had been found beneath Ms. Fairchild’s nails, or anywhere on her body, and Forensics had determined Ms. Fairchild had been thoroughly bathed before being dropped-literally-at the hospital.
Like the trip to the hospital, the bathing was anomalous, a moment of careful thought and organization in what the victim recalled as a night of psychotic mania in a barn.
“It wasn’t a horse or cow barn,” she said, answering one of several questions I’d asked. “It was probably an equipment barn.”
“You can tell?” I asked.
“It was part of my training at blind school, Detective Ryder. The teachers would bring us samples of dirt from an animal barn, and we’d have to differentiate it from a barn used for storing equipment.”
“What’s that supposed to teach you?” I asked, amazed.
The white ball of swaths and dressings laughed through the exposed mouth, jiggling the tubes tracking into her arm. I looked at Sal. She held a laugh tucked behind her hand.
“Ouch, my leg,” I said.
The pile of bandages smiled through lips still bruised and puffy from stitches.
“Sorry, Detective. I grew up on a farm west of Movella, Mississippi, know a bit about them. I smelled grease, fertilizer, plain old dirt. Hay was around. But I didn’t smell any animals nearby. They have a strong odor, even from a distance. The more I think about it, I suspect the barn hadn’t been used in a while, years maybe. There was a smell of mold and decay, like the hay was old.”
“And you don’t know how long you were held at the barn?”
The laugh disappeared. “Time didn’t have any meaning that night.”
“Do remember when your fingers were broken?”
“It was very painful. It was when he was…on top of me. He had my hand clenched in his. While he was pushing he kept ordering me to say I loved him. I wasn’t saying it loud enough, and he kept bending my fingers farther and farther backward until I was screaming the words. I finally passed out.”
“You woke up at the hospital.”
“When I realized I was alive, I was amazed. He kept telling me I was going to die. Laughing as he said it.” She looked toward me and her lips pursed in question. “I’m not complaining, Detective Ryder. You’re excellent company. But aren’t you a homicide detective?”
“My partner and I are also part of a special team, the Psychopathological and Sociopathological Investigative Team, and deal with very disturbed minds. I know it’s tough to tell us these things, but we learn from each story. It adds to our store of knowledge about such criminals.”
She looked straight at me as if she had perfect vision and her eyes weren’t covered in gauze.
“Then you’ve smelled it, Detective Ryder.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Smelled insanity.”
“I never knew you could smell insanity.”
Her voice tightened with the memory. “It’s a foul, ugly smell. I couldn’t smell it at first, when he was just talking to me, pleasant, almost reasonable. Then he started getting angry for no reason. That’s when I noticed the smell. It got stronger as he…handled his needs. Like smoke getting thicker.”
“What’s it smell like?” Sal asked, her voice a whisper. “Insanity.”
Karen Fairchild shook her white-swathed head.
“There aren’t any words for it. You have to be there.”
CHAPTER 25
Lucas lay on the floor of his office, blinds drawn, absentmindedly watching his new television. He’d also bought a chair and desk at Staples. The TV sat on the desk with the volume low. The blond woman with the dead eyes and paste-on smile was gesturing at letters. It seemed she’d been gesturing at the stupid letters most of Lucas’s life. He wondered what she’d be like to fuck, figured she would be like some kind of appliance, like a toaster.
“Bend over, hon, I need to set you on medium dark.”
Lucas chuckled to himself and studied the televised puzzle. The answer on the board was a place name. Someone yapped about buying a letter. Lights flashed, letters turned. Four words, Lucas mused, letters numbering three, four, five, and eight.
N????????????X???N??
Lucas yawned, mumbled, “New York Stock Exchange.” The contestant didn’t see it, her mouth open like a cow’s.
“Moronic bitch!” Lucas yelled. “Retard.”
He caught himself. Closed his eyes. Saw a man with a button nose and lopsided grin running through a peaceful woods.
Mumbled, “Sorry, Freddy.”
