A Shadow Fell (11 page)

             
             
             
             
             
             
             
2
4

             
I
got
a quick flight to Phoenix by catching a connector out of Jacks
onville, Florida, to Dallas. By
noon the next day I was at my
mother’s side.
She was resting comfortably and smiled weakly when she saw me. She held out her hand. “Mom, I’m so sorry,” I said.

             
“Hush,” she said. “I’m fine.”

             
“I spoke to the doctor. He says you’ve had a mild heart attack but you’re going to be okay.”

             
“I know, dear. Stop worrying.
Your father was all worked up too. I sent him down to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee. You should go see him.
”

             
I patted her hand. “
I will but first I want to talk to the police.
There
’s
a police detective
outside
right now
. I’ll be back
in a little bit
.”

             
When I approached
the Phoenix police detective, who was speaking with a uniformed officer in the hall,
he
introduced
hims
elf
as Roger Kirk
land
.

             
“What can you tell me, Detective?”
I said.

             
             
“
We have a preliminary confirmation that it was Henderson,” he told me. “
Looks like he was acting as a deliveryman. He pulled up in a white mini-van with no lettering on it
, wearing a white cap,
and
was
carr
ying
a box wrapped in brown paper
up the walkway to your parents home
.
Luckily – very luckily – the next door neighbor happened to see him and recognized him immediately. She screamed and got the attention of several other people in the vicinity. Henderson then immediately took off. Your mother’s heart attack actually happened after the fact when being told what had occurred. She didn’t even see Henderson herself.”

             
“No luck on
tracking him from here
?”

             
“Afraid not. By the time we got the call and responded
he was long gone.”

             
I found
my dad
in the
hospital cafeteria.
He was sitting at
a table with a cold cup of coffee in front of him,
looking utterly
bewildered
.
             
Seeing me
he
stood and we held each other for a long
moment
.

             
“I’m so sorry, son,” he s
aid.
“I should have been here.”

             
“
You have nothing to apologize for
, Dad
.
If
anything I should be apologizing for bringing this down on you guys.
”

             
“
Have you seen your mom?
”

             
“
Yeah,
I
just came from her room.
She’s resting comfortably and doing well. The doctor told me it was a mild heart attack and he expects her to recover completely.”

             
He nodded his understanding but still seemed dazed by all that had happened. He and my mother were simple people. Danger was not something
with which
they were accustomed to dealing. At this stage in their lives they certainly didn’t need the kind of excitement they were getting.

             
A few days later my mother was released from the hospital and back home. I stuck around for a day after that and then got a flight back to Florida. I
would have preferred to stay longer with my
folks
but I had a wife who needed me even though she didn’t yet know it.

             
             
Con came to see me the day after my return.

             
“We gotta get this fucker, Jack,” he said. “The Feds ain’t doing it.”

             
“
Yeah, I know,” I said wearily. “I got that.”

             
             
My insides churned
.
Things were so much simpler for
Hender
s
on
now than when he’d been an undetected serial killer. Back then he had ingeniously set up countless poor suckers to take the fall for his murders and that had all required a lot of planning and work.
N
ow he had nothing to hide.
I
n fact he was probably glorifying in the attention he garnered from it all.

             
             
Con scratched his whiskers while he ruminated. “Wouldn’t surprise me
if that was Henderson that camped out up there on the mountain
,” he said
.
             
“Maybe the best
chance
of getting him is to go back. If he was there then he’s
likely
set up somewhere within hiking distance.”

             
“
N
ot necessarily
,” I pointed out
.
“
It could be he just decided to visit one last time
.
”

             
“If it was just a one-time visit why would he have gone to
the
trouble
of
cover
ing
up the fact he’d been there?
”

             
His thinking, of course, mirrored my own.
“You’re probably right,” I said.
I
believed Henderson had
an
irrepressible
need to spend time at the site of that cabin. It
was
where he
had
killed his sister and that singular event brought him the greatest joy of his life
.
He needed
to relive that joy and the best opportunity for him to do that
wa
s to be where it happened.
It’s why he
had
brought so many of his victims back
t
here to kill them.

             
“
T
here’s only one way we’re ever going to know for sure
,
”
Con said. “We could go back up there. Maybe he’s been back. If he has, we might be able to pick up his trail this time.”

             
             
             
             
             
             
             
2
5

             
“
Are those flowers for me,
Jack
?
” Callie said when I walked into her roo
m. She was standing unaided and walking
awkward
ly with the aid of her
therapist
, an angel of patience named Paula
. I saw she was also gaining a little of her lost weight back.

             
“For you, beautiful lady,” I said.

             
             
She beamed. My heart skipped three or four beats.

             
But then it was like a light went out in her eyes. “Why the sad look?” I asked.

             
“I
can’t remember anything,” she moaned. “It’s driving me crazy. I need
to remember but I can’t.”

             
“You will in time. You just have to be patient.”

             
“
They said my name i
s Callie Parmenter.”

             
“Yes, that’s right.”

             
“What’s your name, Jack?”

             
I had
been
cautioned by her doctor to answer her questions as
candidly
as possible but to avoid topics that might create stress. As she was clearly beginning to put things together for herself it seemed
only
right to
respond honestly
. “I’m your husband, Callie,”

             
She
didn’t appear very
surprised
at this
.
“
Oh
,” she
said. “
I thought
maybe you were my brother
.
How old am I?”
she asked.

             
“You just turned forty
-two
, sweetheart. In case you’re wondering, I’m quite a bit older than you.”

             
“
Do we have any
kids
?”

             
“No,” I said. “We got married just a few years ago.”

             
“What---”

             
“
Okay, that’s enough for now,” Paula said
, saving me from
entering
into
an area that might prove troubling
. “Time for a rest.
”

             
I
told Callie I would come back in an hour to spend some more time with her.

             
Paula walked me out. “
We’re very pleased with her progress
, Mr
.
Parmenter.
Before long she’ll be running around the block.
And I think her memory will come back, too.
”

             
“That’s
good to hear
,” I said.

             
Paula lowered her voice and turned to face me. “I was so sorry to hear about your mother
.
Is she doing okay
.”

             
I nodded.
“She’s going to be fine.”

             
“
You’ve been through so much.
When are the police going to find that horrible man?”

             
“
I wish I knew, Paula.”

             
Doctor Salouf had left word at the reception desk that he w
ished to speak with me
. I knocked on his office door
and he called for me to come in
.

             
“You wanted to see me, Doctor?”

             
He slowly remove
d
his reading glasses and leaned back in his chair.
“First of all please
let me say how sorry I am for this most recent scare you’ve had.
”

             
“Thank you,
” I said.

             
“You must be having a
very
difficult time dealing with so much
going on
in you
r
life.”

             
“
I’d be a liar if I
said I wasn’t
.”

             
“
You know, i
f you
’
r
e
having problems with sleep I
c
ould
---”

             
“Thank you anyway
. About Callie?”
 

             
He looked down at some papers on his desk.
“We’ve
done some preliminary aptitude and intelligence tests
,” he said.

             
There was a very serious look on his face. I braced myself for more bad news.
“And?”

             
“
I
t looks
as though
Callie
is functioning at a
somewhat
impaired
level mentally
.”

             
“But
she seems to be doing so well except for the memory loss.
Isn’t it to be expected that she’d be
a bit
… backward.”

             
“The tests
I’m referring to
are more basic than that
, Jack
.
They measure ability to problem solve.”

             
“
What are you telling me?
Will she be able to
live a normal life?”

             
“Normal is a relative term. Certainly she’ll be able
to
do most of the things
the average
person would do but her ability to complete difficult tasks, reason out complex problems, things l
ike that, will
most likely
be impaired.
Her I.Q. appears to be at roughly the level of a twelve-year-old
child
.”

             
I sat quietly, trying to compute how this would impact our lives together.
As long as
she was happy with her life I would be satisfied with that. My biggest fear was that she might not want to live with me. I was after all
a stranger – at best, a
friend
-
in her eyes. Who knew how she would
feel about
accepting me as a husband
.

             
Doctor Salouf watched me as I contemplated these thoughts. “Things could be much worse, Jack,” he said. “Much
much
worse.”

             
“I know,” I said. “I just want her back. I don’t
give a damn
what her I.Q. is.”

             
             
             
             
             
             
*
             
*         *
             

             
Con had gotten into the habit of simply walking
over to my place
whenever the mood struck
him
. Often I
arrive
d
home to find him parked contentedly on my verandah, beer in hand, tossing a stick for Winston.
I wasn’t bothered by this, but t
he question of his dubious past weighed on me and I wanted to find a way to bring up the topic
of his wife
again without sounding
meddlesome
.

             
             
When I told Con about Callie’s improving physical condition he reacted very enthusiastically. But when I confided that I had told her we were married his reaction was much different. “How did she feel when you told her that?” he asked.

             
“Hard to say,” I answered. “It’ll take some time for her to absorb all the new information she’s getting. I didn’t expect that she’d be bowled over with joy or anything.”

             
“You gonna tell her about your daughter?”

             
“Not until she’s ready. And that might not be for a while.”

             
He pondered this without comment.

             
Although
concerned about Con’s possibly murderous
history
I also recognized his usefulness to me in finding Henderson. If Henderson was, as I suspected,
living somewhere
i
n the mountain
s
I knew I had little hope of finding
him
without Con’s help. Not that it would have stopped me but I wanted to know if I was, in fact, using one murderer to find another.
The
common sense
side of me
dictated that I sho
uld
know;
the emotional side
told me it didn’t matter.

             
Every time I saw Callie st
ruggling with the challenges she faced, every time I woke from another sweaty nightmare with the sound of Tanya’s screams ringing in my ears,
and every time I thought of my sweet-tempered mother,
the only thing that mattered was that I find
, and kill,
the animal responsible for
causing such destruction within my family.
Anything that could aid me to that end was justified.

             
             
That night I had another nightmare. Unlike my previous dreams, however, it was Reuben Henderson’s screams that echoed in my head when I jolted awake.

             
And in contrast to my condition on so many other occasions,
I wasn’t sweating or racked with guilt.

             
I was smiling.