Alex recalled what Jessica Coran had said to him about her fear that Matisak had done the victim at 34 East Canal Street just to leave her a message on the wall. “Yeah, that's Cemetery Number 27, as I recall.”
“ That's the place.”
“ Yeah, we were there when they put Surette's body into that city crypt. Gay community is usually more supportive of its own, but he just had a handful turn out for his burial, a bag of losers. I figured at the time it had to do with the AIDS epidemic.”
“ How so?” asked Ben.
“ Well, not that the burial was well publicized or anything like that, but the grapevine sure had it. I just figured, they'd seen so much death in their ranks by then… well, you know our city motto and mentality.”
Ben dryly groaned under the street light. “Life is for the living.”
“ Enjoy it all while you may.”
“ Here's to the here and now.”
“ Don't waste time on bright tomorrows.”
“ Credo of the street punk, heh, Alex?”
“ Look, Ben… I've got a new lead. You want to play it out?”
“ I don't know, pal. Where to and for how long? You already look like you've been rode hard and put away wet.”
“ Just humor me, will you. Let's go see what's cooking on Bourbon Street.”
Ben nodded. “OK, but you're buying.”
Unable to sleep, Jessica now stacked the few items she'd brought with her onto the coffee table fronting the sofa in Kim's room. These consisted of a shredded patch off the prison shirt last worn by Matisak and left at the bloody dispensary where he'd killed Dr. Gabriel Arnold, some blood still adhering to it; a full set of the man's fingerprints; a strange tube which Jessica explained to Kim was part of the apparatus the monster used to drain his victims of their blood; a child's safety pencil said to have been used by Matisak while he was incarcerated, along with a diary he'd kept.
“ Are you getting anything, anything at all?” Jessica asked.
“ This may take time,” Kim assured her.
The tenor of his diary, a self-absorbed diatribe of madness in the handwriting of a disturbed man found below his mattress in the cell which had been his home for years, was at complete odds with the letters of contrition and self-awareness he'd written for Dr. Arnold's eyes. Kim spread her fingers just above these few items lying on the coffee table as she sat on the floor in the lotus position. Her hands slowly revolved in an ever-widening circle over the material possessions of the madman.
She tried desperately to get some reading from the scant objects. “You're right, Jessica. He is quite close, very near, definitely here in New Orleans.”
“ I told you “
“ Quite close. He's an animal, rabid now, with such a single-minded obsession that he must find you…”
“ I know all that. Give me something useful, Kim.”
“ He's biding his time; playing out his hand, so to speak.”
“ Then it was he who wrote that message across the wall at the murder scene last night. He somehow heard the call on a police band. He's very clever. And he somehow got inside with no one seeing him or noticing him. Or else he actually committed the murder to make it look like just another Hearts killing, knowing that I'd know better.”
“ I can't say… not for certain, but I don't believe so. The evil I felt in that room was different somehow.”
“ Somehow different… different?”
“ Matisak's energy is that of a strong, secure type, a man who has accepted his bloody nature; not any doubt in his mind that he's the heir apparent to Satan. The one who killed at 34 East Canal Street, he was not at all sure of his own identity. In fact, he was quite confused, even as to why he killed Dumond.”
“ What about Matisak?”
“ I don't believe he wrote the message on the wall. It… tonight's murderer had an insane attraction for the heart muscle. He was no blood drinker.”
“ What're you saying? That I'm imagining things now? That I imagined it was Matisak's handwriting on the wall?”
“ No, I'm just saying that I'm getting a very confused picture… very confused. It's highly improbable that Matisak was there, and a handwriting analysis would prove beyond doubt that the message left at 34 East Canal Street is not in Matisak's hand.”
“ What about these objects of his? They telling you anything?”
“ I'm sorry. It could be me. I'm extremely tired, having not slept.”
“ Try harder.”
Kim lifted the diary and held it between both hands, one below, the other above, feeling her body heat circulate through the object.
An impression of pure hatred slammed through her. “God, this man is more monster than human.”
Something else I already know, Jessica thought, becoming further frustrated. “I was being watched on the way here. I know he's out there, Kim… out there now. So, you've got to help me hone in on the beast.”
It was a macabre twist on an old theme, Kim thought as she stared across at Jessica: Beauty and the Beast. “I'm trying, but there's too much emotional energy between the two of you, the picture is completely muddled. I see the collapse of a roof, or is it a blanket, maybe a cage-something confining and utterly dangerous coming down over the top of you. You have to be wary. If he catches you up… wait… yes, a trap. He's laid a trap for you and-”
There was a loud drumming pounding at the door which silenced them both. It was after midnight.
“ Who the hell is that?” asked Jessica, whipping out her gun.
Kim went toward the door to stare out through the peephole. On doing so, she instantly drew back, screaming.
“ What is it?” Jessica pleaded, tearing the door open and staring into the dead eyes of Ed Sand. “Oh, no, noooo! God… it's Ed Sand…” Jessica crumpled under the weight of this sight, the massive image physically knocking her back against the dooijamb, where Kim rushed to her, trying to support her as she slid to the floor. The pilot's head dangled, slightly swaying, at the end of a rope coiled about his blood-smeared sandy hair. Jessica's eyes instinctively sought another direction, any other sight than the one before her, and she saw that the end of the rope was twisted about a light fixture in the ceiling. A mixture of bodily fluids, caught in gravity's pull, dripped from the open neck wound and onto the plush carpeting, dying the mild blue a deep indigo. Blood all around the enormous scar had congealed to a near-black scaly texture, telling her that Sand had been killed some hours earlier.
Not twenty-four hours earlier she and Ed had had a quarrel, and he had since sent flowers and a note of apology for being a complete ass, as he'd put it, pleading that she might give him another chance, see him again, claiming that he'd gone to great difficulty to arrange to stay on later in New Orleans so that he might see her again, to patch things up, as he'd put it. Now things-Ed Sand in particular-would never be patched up again. She had ignored Ed and his Humpty-Dumpty plea, knowing that she was not interested, that she wanted to remain faithful to Jim Parry. She had innocently used Ed to get a rise out of Kim that morning on the plane, but since then she had ignored Ed… until now. “The bastard killed Ed.”
Kim instinctively tugged at Jessica where she had slumped half in and half out the door. “Get back inside here, Jess. Your instincts were right, then. Matisak is stalking you.” Kim knew enough about the monster to understand the rising fear within her own being was a healthy one, one of self-preservation. She slammed the door behind them.
Jessica, however, suddenly did a 180-degree turn, pulling away from Kim, snatching the door wide open and pushing past the decapitated head, her. 38 raised and ready, all to a chorus of disagreement from Kim. Searching the hallway for any sign, any movement, she shouted in each direction, “Show yourself, you son of a bitch! Show yourself, Matisak!”
“ Jess, there's something here…my God… in the mouth.”
Jessica returned to see that Mad Matthew Matisak had sent her a note. She shakily reached for the paper that'd been plunged into Ed Sand's mouth.
Special delivery…“What is it? What does it say?” asked Kim, still shaking, disturbed to her core that such
