Abattoir (13 page)

“Anna?” Su Ling asked. “Darling, what are you doing? What’s the matter?”

The girl didn’t look up from her work, didn’t speak. The expression on her face was blank, strangely calm, in stark contrast to the frenzied motion of her hand on the paper.

The girl stopped suddenly, her gaze rising from her tablet to the ceiling.

“Anna?” Su Ling asked.

The tablet fell from the girl’s hand, her eyes growing distant and unfocused.

Cantrell kneeled to the floor and began picking up the sheaves of paper, examining each one carefully then sharing them with Su Ling.

They exchanged puzzled glances as they looked at the indecipherable drawings until, near the bottom of the pile, Cantrell stopped. He examined this one very carefully, before handing it to Su Ling.

“You’re not going to believe this . . . ”

Su Ling’s expression dissolved into shock. She began to ask a question, but was interrupted:

The sound was loud, but muffled. A gunshot?

Cantrell and Su Ling looked at each other for the briefest of moments before another sound shattered the predawn silence:

The scream came from somewhere above, then again, louder this time, accompanied by the sound of frantic running.

Doors opened on several floors, voices muttering.

Cantrell and Su Ling rushed out the flat and peered over the railing. They caught only a glimpse of the running woman, totally naked, fleeing in absolute terror down one of the hallways above. The woman’s long red hair almost totally covered her face, her breasts and torso drenched in blood.

§

Cantrell tried not to stare at the broad spray of blood and other matter that covered Derek Taylor’s once elegant mirror.

Detective Maudlin had no such aversion. Indeed, he examined the spray with minute obsession, no doubt drawing conclusions and forming theories that only an experienced homicide detective could. It suddenly struck Cantrell that the detective really enjoyed his work.

Behind them was a deja vu of official activity—the same crime scene attendants who had been in the Exeter only too recently, collecting forensic traces, dusting for fingerprints, going through every inch and fiber of the flat with fine tooth combs.

“We picked up the girl a few blocks from here,” Maudlin said to Cantrell as he scraped blood samples onto a fresh cotton swatch. “Stark naked, hysterical, covered in blood. We haven’t gotten a coherent word out of her yet. She’s still in a squad car downstairs, wrapped in a blanket.”

Cantrell could not think of a reply.

“She’s about 30, Cantrell. Redhead, pretty. According to her driver’s license, which we just found in a purse by the side of the bed, her name is Susan Lordes. Know who she is?”

“No.”

“Come on. You must have seen her coming and going.”

“Derek had a big party last night, lots of people. For all I know, it might have been the first time she was here. Why? Do you suspect her?”

Maudlin smiled. “You and I know better, Cantrell, but I have to do my job.”

“In other words, you’re saying that Derek killed himself.”

“You said it, I didn’t. I’m just an old cop on the scene.”

Maudlin paused, and sealed the swatch inside a plastic bag. “In this case, however, it’s a matter of being
back
on the scene, isn’t it?”

Again, Cantrell aid nothing.

“Last time we talked, Cantrell, you said something about bad luck and coincidence, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. So?”

“And I told you I don’t believe in either one. I was willing to suspend disbelief long enough to accept that maybe, just maybe, this kind of thing could happen in the same place two times in a row. But this is number three, and as they say, third time’s the charm.”

“You’re right,” Cantrell replied, a trace of anger creeping into his voice. “But that doesn’t help us, does it?”

The detective looked him in the eye. “Look, I can’t advise you on a professional level. I’m just a dumb public servant who’s seen way too much over the years . . . ”

“What’s your point?”

“You and I know that something is very wrong with this place. I’m no fortune teller or psychic, and I’m not sure I believe in any of that shit, but something is obviously wrong. You’ve been denying it from the beginning, and maybe I have too. But I think we’re at the point of no return. Denial isn’t going to cut it anymore . . . ”

“But what the hell do you want me to do? What the hell
can
I do?”

Maudlin gently removed his latex examination gloves and deposited them into a haz-mat bag. He rubbed his callused palms together and watched the technicians survey every millimeter of the death scene.

“I’m not much good at advice, but it seems to me you’ve got two choices, Cantrell: One, you can suck it up, pretend none of this ever happened and hope your luck changes. Or two, you can give refunds to all your tenants—if there are any left after today—board this place up and cut your losses. And then move on with your life.”

§

Su Ling gently closed the door to Anna’s bedroom, grateful that the commotion hadn’t awakened her. She walked into the living room and peered out the window, barely parting the curtains.

In the brilliant sunshine of what promised to be a beautiful autumn day, the courtyard was filled with people and assorted vehicles: Numerous journalists and their camera crew; print photographers, their cameras flashing; reporters scribbling in their notebooks, jostling for position with the TV people.

Several policemen were guarding the front door, allowing no access. The press was obviously hungry. Neither Maudlin nor Cantrell had said a word to them; they were eager to get something in by their morning deadlines.

One person in the crowd caught her attention; tall, thin, white-haired, dressed all in black. He looked vaguely familiar, as if she’d seen him on television or in a magazine.

The man was beginning to attract the attention of others as well. Su Ling watched as several reporters and cameras headed towards him, the man beginning to speak.
Feeding time.

She opened the window, allowing in a stream of cool morning air.

The crowd grew silent, and she was able to hear pieces of what the stranger said:

“It’s clear to me that the Exeter is much more than an upscale loft; it’s . . . ” The breeze obscured his next few words, “ . . . most likely a case of demonic possession or poltergeist . . . ”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

A reporter asked something about the Sloanes and Stu Brown.

“These things don’t happen by accident,” the man said. “There’s a clear pattern to events that have taken place here.”

Another obscured question, and a partial answer:

“ . . . my hope that the owners will consent to allow me to do a full psychic investigation . . . confident that I will be able to cleanse . . . ”

Su Ling closed the window, retreating to her couch. She suddenly felt very alone, very afraid. The sound of the gunshot from Taylor’s flat; the sight of the young woman screaming down the hallway, were horrific enough. But somehow the scene below, with all the frenzied reporters and worried policemen, made it all horribly
real
.

She wanted Alex, wanted him here beside her.

§

Another curtain, another window; a day later:

Sharon Knaster gazed out from her third floor flat to the now vacant courtyard and parking lot below. Yesterday’s chaotic entourage—police vans and cruisers, antenna-sprouting media vehicles, the black coroner’s van—had finally departed, leaving the building and its occupants in peace.
Peace?
Hardly.

The Exeter was quiet, but the tension remained, like the bad odor permeating the old walls of the structure. Since the apparent suicide of Derek Taylor, hardly a soul had ventured beyond the doors of their individual apartments. Even pets—the few whose owners had ventured out for walks—seemed skittish and morose.

The tenants themselves avoided one other, staying away from the common areas of the building, almost as if they feared a plague, or that they were somehow collectively guilty . . .

Guilty? Of what?

The answer came to her in an instant:
Of
staying
.

Despite herself, she couldn’t keep from watching the 10 o’clock news last night. They led with the “ . . . apparent suicide in Derbytown,” angle, and milked it for every ounce of sensational value. She watched as a man who identified himself as a world famous medium courted the cameras and scribes like a lover: He spoke of poltergeists and possession, restless entities and “unfinished spiritual business.”

Con man.
She angrily shut off the TV.
Damn charlatan . . .

Knaster’s education and experience told her one thing—everything had a logical explanation. Spirits and things that went bump in the night were not the stuff of science, and she was a scientific person.

She remembered reading Joseph Campbell and his explanation for fear and myth—how people create myths to put a form to things they don’t understand and are afraid of.

And yet . . .

Was it rational, was it even
possible
, that the things that had taken place in the Exeter had
no
supernatural connection?

Was it reasonable to believe that a millionaire would go mad and burn all of his money; that a wife would murder her husband; that a young man would shoot himself after making love, all in the same building,
in just a few months
?

Hell if I know, she thought, sitting at her kitchen table.

Whatever she believed, she had no doubt that she was no more immune to the Exeter than the rest.

For the first time in her life, she’d been having trouble sleeping. The insomnia had been going on for several weeks. She often woke in the middle of the night with the strange sensation that someone was watching her, accompanied by a sense of dread she couldn’t quantify.

Just the other night, she could have sworn that her mother was sitting at the end of the bed, watching her. She could almost smell her rose perfume
,
so real was the momentary vision. When she rose to a sitting position, there was nothing there but the rumpled form of her blanket
.

Her mother had died alone, more than 20 years ago. She’d tried to get there in time, but the plane was delayed by weather. There was nothing she could have done, but she still blamed herself. It horrified her to think that her mother had no idea of who she was, or where, or what goddamn year it was, when she closed her eyes for the final time.

Sharon had spent the last 30 years devoting herself to the study of Alzheimers and still wasn’t even close to anything resembling an answer . . .

Stop it; stop it right now, before you drive yourself crazy.

This was perverse nostalgia, with a generous sprinkling of good old fashioned guilt . . . classic patterns. Sometimes she wished the human mind was more like a TV; just the flick of a switch, then blissful nothing . . .

A sharp knocking at her door jolted her.

Who the hell could that be? She rarely had visitors before nine in the morning. Maybe a cop, or a damn reporter. Hell, maybe even the idiot mystic . . . ?

No; a surprise more welcome than any of these: Su Ling, with little Anna dressed prettily in pink Oshkosh overalls.

“Su Ling, what a surprise.”

“Are . . . are we late?”

“I’m sorry . . . what do you mean?”

“We have an eight o’clock appointment. Or did I get it wrong?”

Knaster was immediately embarrassed.
Of course
they had an appointment. She’d written it in her journal a week ago.

“I’m sorry, my mistake. Come in.”

Su Ling entered, her silent, expressionless daughter by her side, and took a place on the couch in Knaster’s study. She handed Knaster a small bundle of notebook paper. The doctor immediately knew what it was.

The scribbling was, for the most part, as indecipherable as all of Anna’s earlier work. Still, Knaster took the time to examine each one carefully, as if reading an unbound manuscript, page by page.

“There is one thing you should know, Sharon,” Su Ling said as Knaster examined the papers. “Anna went almost a whole week without drawing anything. Then, last night—just before that gun went off—I found her in her room. All of these came from last night. She was at it for almost an hour.”

“Indeed,” Knaster replied, her eyes returning to Anna’s work.

Erratic, random lines and circles; scrawlings; violent, jagged forms. As always, they appeared to be without logic.

But one page was different. Su Ling had kept it separate from the others, and gave it to Sharon when she was finished with them.

“What do you make of this one?”

Knaster gasped when she saw it.

An eye—a large, staring, horrified eye.

The composition and shading showed amazing skill; astounding even, considering the artist’s age.

Knaster looked at Anna and held the picture up for the girl to see.

“Anna,” she said quietly. “Is this
your
eye that you’ve drawn?”

No words, no reaction.

She turned to Su Ling.

“This is remarkable.”

Su Ling nodded. “I know. I realized that the minute I saw it. What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know, but it gives me hope. It’s a beginning of some sort, I’m sure of it.”

Su Ling smiled. She might not have had she known what Knaster was thinking:

Whatever it was that eye was looking at, she thought, I hope I never see it.

12

Sharon Knaster couldn’t get the image of the eye out of her mind.

There was something frantic,
demented
, about it. It haunted her. Since Su Ling had brought the drawings earlier that day, she’d found herself unable to concentrate on anything else.