READ:
ON MONDAY, 28 NOVEMBER 94, AT 0811, WISCONSIN SERIAL KILLER JEFFREY DAHMER WAS PRONOUNCED DEAD BY THE MEDICAL UNIT AT COLUMBUS COUNTY DETENTION CENTER IN PORTAGE. C.O.D.: MASSIVE
FRONTAL CRANIAL CONTUSIONS. A SUSPECT, INMATE TREDELL ROSSER, SERVING A 90-PLUS-YEAR SENTENCE FOR 1ST DEGREE MURDER, IS BEING HELD AS THE PRIMARY SUSPECT. ROSSER IS SUSPECTED BY STATE PSYCHIATRIC AUTHORITIES OF MAINTAINING A GANSER SYNDROME WITH RELIGIOUS CONNOTATIONS.
ADVISE: N/A
00-33-00
Of course, she hadn’t seen it until now due to her working night shifts for the week. It had been sitting here the whole time. She recalled the image, though: Dahmer’s actual body on the tilt-lift autopsy platform, bruised facial tissue and a clotlike mask of dried blood. It was even more disgusting than the drained-pale face of her nightmare.
Helen threw the fax into the waste can. The last thing she needed right now was another reminder of Jeffrey Dahmer. It was, in fact, the last thing she’d ever need.
««—»»
“—mbus County correctional authorities, along with Sheriff Tritt J. Tuckton of the Columbus County Sheriff’s Department, aren’t entirely ruling out the possibility of a recently rumored multi-person conspiracy in regard to the brutal Monday morning murder of convicted serial-killer Jeffrey Dahmer.”
Helen stared flabbergasted at the radio as she parked the Taurus.
“Dahmer’s body is scheduled to be cremated on Thursday—”
click.
Helen let herself into Tom’s with the key he’d given her a year ago; they’d exchanged keys, “for convenience’s sake,” but Helen had to admit it was more for her own convenience. Lately she felt so tired. Her own apartment was in the Madison outskirts, closer to Monona, while Tom owned a nice condo in the south side just down from McGinnis Circle. A much closer drive, in other words, for Helen. And the way she felt just now, she couldn’t have driven to her own place in a million years.
Her frequent fatigue was just one of many of her self-formed jinxes—the fates reminding her she was getting old, and they seemed to remind her with a fury.
She expected, as always, to hear the familiar sounds of Tom’s computer video games squawking when she entered.
“Tom?”
No answer, yet she could see him standing there, within the open sliding door which led to the balcony. Cold air blundered into the apartment.
“Tom?”
“Oh, I’m out here. I didn’t hear you come in.”
Helen dropped her purse and briefcase, kept her Burberry coat on as she went to him. His tone of voice seemed undistinguished, leeched, somehow, of the verve she’d come to know quite well.
“Dr. Sallee called,” Tom went on, still gazing into the sky.
“Dr. Sal—…, oh, damn. I missed—”
“He said you missed your appointment this afternoon.”
She had indeed. “I completely forgot,” she admitted, but said no more. Helen always felt hard-pressed to down-play her weekly appointment with Sallee, who’d been counseling her now for several years. She felt inhibited to admit that she was seeing a psychiatrist. This Tom easily sensed, and rarely asked about it.
What was wrong with Tom? Here on the balcony he seemed to wear a caul of sullenness, which was completely unlike him.
“Is something wrong, Tom?”
“No, no,” he nearly stammered. “I’m just…looking at the sky, thinking.”
The black sky seemed to shine, winking in a cloudless sea of stars. An egg moon hovered low on the horizon. “Thinking about what?” she asked, and put her arms around him.
“Dahmer,” he said.
Helen’s wince strained against her face. “Why bother thinking about that schmuck?”
Tom didn’t turn but instead remained rigid where he stood. “I don’t know. It’s just…weird.”
“What’s weird, honey?”
Silence. Staring. The stars flickered. “Even the gods have a sense of irony, don’t they? It’s weird, what I did today, I mean. I mean, that guy cut up over a dozen people, and today I cut
“You mean because it was Dahmer.”
“Yeah, yeah. I guess that’s it.”
Even Tom, she supposed, a happy go luck and a morgue jokester, had his doldrums. But Helen could fathom where he was coming from. In this job victims were statistics—-they could never be anything else. But when they had names? When they had faces you’d seen in the papers? It changed the whole mix.
Helen tightened her embrace.
“Come inside.”
“Yeah, good idea. It’s cold.”
“Let me warm you up.”
««—»»
Tom made love to her in a keen ferocity, or at least that’s how it began. Generally, their lovemaking was on the lazy side, low-key and laid back, which was what Helen liked. Slow, slothy stress-relief after a long day.
But tonight…
No trimmings, no precursory glass of wine nor touchy foreplay and cuddles. Helen herself had to admit an odd spark. Perhaps it was diversionary. Perhaps seeing the body of a serial killer lying on a morgue slab posted some crude, inner-conscious primacy. At first she felt put off, even shocked, at the immediacy by which Tom commenced: tugging at her clothes as they stumbled out of the living room, one hand venturing unabashed up the back of her skirt to molest her buttocks, the other pawing her breasts. They never even made it to the bedroom. The floor would have to do.
