Serial (26 page)

Edmundsville, 2010

Since Eddie had gone away to school in Iowa, Link went to coin shows and conferences more often. He’d changed jobs and worked for Krupke Currency Exchange, a large coins and precious metals dealer. Much of the work was done on the Internet, but there was also a lot of travel involved. Link and Eddie were still in close touch via e-mail, and still discussed coins. Eddie would request certain coins for his collection, and Link would often find and purchase them. When he returned home, he’d put them in the drawer along with Eddie’s collection portfolio.

Beth watched Link through the window as he stepped down off the porch and walked to where the Kia was parked in front. He would take the car, or sometimes the pickup truck, and leave it at the airport in Kansas City while he was away—this time at a coin show and auction in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He hoisted his big carry-on into the passenger side of the car and walked around and climbed in behind the steering wheel. He’d packed his sport coat and was wearing a white shirt and paisley tie. Beth noticed that he’d put on a little weight the past few years, and he wasn’t so nimble working himself in behind the steering wheel.

The sun-baked red car gave a rumbling roar, telling anyone within earshot it needed exhaust work. Link backed around so he was headed down the long dirt and gravel drive, then shifted to drive and was on his way. Beth stood at the window and watched until all the dust behind the car had settled.

Though they weren’t wet, she wiped her hands on the dish towel she was holding. After a slight detour to toss the wadded towel onto the sink counter, she went to the phone and called Sheriff Wayne Westerley.

Within two hours Westerley was parking his SUV, with its red and blue lights on the roof and the big sheriff’s badge painted on the doors, exactly where the Kia had been parked. He stepped down from the vehicle and hitched up his belt with the holster and law-enforcement paraphernalia hanging from it. Beth thought he’d put on weight just as Link had, only Westerley still had a flat stomach. His face and shoulders appeared somewhat broader in his tan sheriff’s uniform. He moved easily and with his familiar muscular grace as he came up the wooden steps to the porch.

Beth opened the front door and they looked at each other. Beth felt something tugging at her. She hadn’t expected that. Or had she?

Westerley was sweating, as if the SUV’s air conditioner didn’t work. He smiled. “Been too long,”

“It has,” Beth said. She wished she’d thought to make some lemonade, something. She returned his smile. “Get you something to drink? Glass of ice water to cool you down?”

“Be fine.” He removed his Smokey hat. His dark curly hair looked the same. Not even a fleck of gray.

As she was going into the kitchen she saw him placing the hat on the coffee table as he sat down on the sofa. She could feel herself slipping back in time. It was a pleasant but unsettling sensation.

She came back with a glass of water poured over cubes from the refrigerator ice maker. Nothing for herself. She handed Westerley his tall, clear tumbler and then sat down in the wing chair that was angled toward the sofa.

He sipped his water and grinned. “Just what I needed.” He glanced around. “Where’s Link?”

“Off to Cedar Rapids to a coin show.”

“He’s still heavily into that, huh?”

“Heavily. Working for a coin and precious metal company now. Mostly on the computer here at home, but he does some traveling, too.”

“And Eddie?”

“Away at school.”
Nobody here but the two of us.

Westerley took another swallow of water. She watched his Adam’s apple work in the strong column of his throat.

He observed her with a half smile, as if this was an ordinary visit between old friends. He knew it wasn’t, but he couldn’t figure out where it was going. He put his glass down on a
Coin Universe
magazine. “You said you had a problem, Beth.”

“Did I say that?”

“Gave that impression.” He had a hard time keeping his gaze away from her cleavage showing above the scoop-neck white blouse she was wearing with her jeans. The jeans were faded and tight, molded to her body. Dressed for seduction? He realized his breathing was ragged. Took another sip of water. He felt like pressing the cold glass to his forehead but didn’t.

Beth squirmed in her chair. Whatever they were going to discuss made her uncomfortable. “I do have a problem, Sheriff.”

“Wayne. Name’s Wayne, Beth. Remember?”

She began absently wringing her hands in her lap. Her hands looked older, he noticed, though it hadn’t been
that
long since he and Beth had last seen each other. Edmundsville and Hogart weren’t all that far from each other, and in the same county.

“I do have a problem, Wayne.”

Sure. You have a son in college.
That was his first guess. “With Eddie?”

“No.”

“Not with that bastard Salas?”

“No. Or maybe yes. More with Link.”

Westerley leaned back in the sofa and crossed a polished black boot over his knee. “Just relax and tell me what it is, Beth.”

She leaned forward slightly, as if to compensate for his settling back into the sofa. “You ever notice how much Eddie looks like Link?”

Westerley drew a deep breath and stared at her. He
had
noticed the resemblance, though he’d never made mention of it. “There’s some physical resemblance,” he said, “and people pick up the mannerisms of who they’re always around. Who raises them.”

“It’s more than that, Wayne. Like you said, it’s physical.”

“You do know what you’re implying, Beth.”

“I do. And I wouldn’t imply it to anybody but you.”

“But why—?”

“I don’t know why, Wayne. Link would be the one to tell you that, if what I suspect is true.”

“Jesus, Beth! What do you want me to do?”

She shook her head as if in sudden pain. “I’m not sure. I thought maybe you could tell me.”

“You did the right thing. I’m glad you called.”

“So am I.”

“I think you’ve given this some thought, Beth. We both know a possible way to make sure. DNA. A paternity check.”

“I can’t just up and ask Link if we can do that.”

“You wouldn’t have to ask him. I know people at the state lab where the tests are performed. It might take a while, though. They’re always running behind.” He ran a finger around the rim of his glass, as if expecting it to sing like fine crystal. “You sure you want to do this, Beth?”

“What do you need?” Beth asked.

“DNA samples of Link. And of Eddie.”

“We can find something, I’m sure. Some of their hair, with the follicle still attached.”

Westerley sipped his ice water.
She’s been reading and learning about this
.

Beth continued: “Link’s cigarette butts are still in the ashtray by the porch glider, and maybe someplace else in the house. Eddie keeps his own toothbrush here for when he visits. And we might even get nail clippings from both of them.”

Westerley nodded, thinking it all over. She might have already collected those samples. “Has Link been a good father to Eddie?”

“The best,” Beth said. “God help me, that’s what makes me suspicious—the way he treats Eddie, just like he’s his natural son. As if Link knew he existed and couldn’t keep away from him, so he married me to raise his own child.”

“Your rapist would want to be a true father to your son?”

“His son, too.”

Westerley pursed his lips and gave an almost silent whistle. “I can’t think of that ever happening, Beth.”

“But it
could
happen, Wayne!” Beth bowed her head. He saw tears glisten an instant before her dangling hair concealed her eyes. “Or maybe I’m sick and guilt ridden so I’m suspicious when I shouldn’t be.”

“You aren’t sick, Beth. Guilty, either. And you’re right about it being possible.” He lifted his glass again and took a long sip of the cold water. Condensation dripped from the glass onto his thigh, spotting his uniform pants. “I’m going to see if there’s enough left of the blood sample from the rape scene to make another DNA match. That’d be hard evidence.”

“Whatever you say, Wayne.”

“No, Beth, it’s whatever you want.”

She took several breaths and extended a hand with tentatively groping fingers, as if trying to find her balance. “I want to know everything, Wayne.”

She lifted her gaze. No sign of tears now. “Even if it means Link is Eddie’s biological father, and the man I’ve been loving and living with is the one who raped me.”

“There’d be serious fallout,” Westerley said. “You ready for that?”

“Of course not. But I need to know. I need the truth.”

“It doesn’t always set you free,” Westerley said.

“But it doesn’t slowly kill you, like a lie.”

When Westerley got back to his office, he found Billy Noth watching a guy from the state who looked about fourteen installing a new computer system. Westerley had been satisfied with the last one, but he’d been told it was five years old and hopelessly out of date.

“This is Jimmy,” Billy said.

The young guy grinned at Westerley. “You’re gonna love this, Sheriff. Put you right inside the heads of the bad guys.”

“Just where I want to be,” Westerley said.

“This baby’s gonna have some RAM,” Jimmy said. “New software’s gonna be ideal for data mining.”

Westerley wondered if Jimmy shaved yet.

“Soon as I’m done here,” Jimmy said, “I’ll give you a short orientation course. Then, you need any questions answered, all you gotta do is click on
Help
.”

And get further confused
, Westerley thought.

That was pretty much the way it turned out. The new software was a lot like the old, only with additional speed and muscle. Trouble was, Westerley forgot how to use those new muscles almost as soon as Jimmy finished explaining.

“If you’re past fourteen years old,” Billy Noth said, smiling, “it’s hard to remember this crap.”

“That’s too bad,” Westerley said, “because you’re gonna be the department’s IT guy.”

“What’s that?” Billy asked.

Jimmy glanced from one to the other and shook his head hopelessly. “I’d stay and explain some more, but I’ve got another one of these to install before lunch.” He motioned with a lean, youthful finger for them to step closer. “C’mere. Before I leave, I just wanna make sure you two know where the
Help
button is.”

“Button?” Billy said.

After Jimmy had left, Westerley played with the computer awhile, trying to run through some of the routines he’d been shown. It soon became obvious how much more useful the new system would be once Westerley, or Billy, mastered it. Trouble was, that day seemed a long way off.

Westerley left Billy to play with the computer and walked down to the Hogart Diner for some lunch before he went mad. He made sure Billy understood the
Help
feature. That was the key, Westerley thought. Or button.

Norbert Vanderbilt (not a relation to
the
Vanderbilts), owner and cook at the diner, leaned on the counter and listened to Westerley’s computer woes.

After setting up a customer with a cup of coffee in a window booth, he returned to face Westerley across the counter. “You really need help with anything to do with computers, you oughta talk to my wife’s nephew, Mathew Wellman. Kid’s a genius.”

“Comes to tech, being a kid’s the first qualification,” Westerley said.

Norbert nodded. “Mathew’s only twenty-two and already graduated from Northwestern, got a doctorate from Cal Tech.”

“Expensive education,” Westerley said. “He go on scholarships?”

“Well, when you figure it out mathematically, these places paid Mathew to attend. He somehow worked it out so he made money getting his education.”

Westerley was interested. “So he really knows his stuff.”

Norbert made a backhand flipping motion with his right hand. “Mathew discusses computers and the Internet, nobody knows what the hell he’s talking about.”

“Sounds perfect,” Westerley said.

“He’s on sabbatical for a couple of months, staying at our place, so if you want, I’ll tell him to drop by and see you.”

“Sabbatical? I didn’t think students went on sabbatical.”

“Oh, Mathew’s teaching now. Back at Cal Tech. Making a fortune for such a young person.”

“Jesus!” Westerley said, thinking how nice it would be if he had a sabbatical coming, never mind the fortune. He did have some protracted time off once, after a fleeing felon had slammed an axe handle down on the back of his neck. It took a while for the bones to heal. “Ask Mathew to drop by the office when he has the time,” he said. “I’ll make out a list of things Billy and I can’t cope with.”

“Oh, he’ll be glad to help. He loves problems almost as much as he loves answers.”

New York, the present

Fedderman didn’t go home after leaving the hospital. He went instead to the Albert A. Aal Memorial Library, where Penny worked. Careful to avoid the venerable Ms. Culver, he sat in a corner of the magazine section and pretended to read
Popular Science.

That lasted about five minutes, and Fedderman was asleep.

He awoke with Penny standing over him, nudging his shoulder gently, but again and again.

Fedderman sat up straight and looked around. He and Penny appeared to be the only people in the magazine section. He wiped a hand down his face and looked at his watch.
Good God! Almost nine o’clock.

Penny smiled and leaned close so she could speak softly to him. “The library’s about to close, Feds.”

He smiled back. “That means you’re ready to go home?”

She nodded.

“You hungry?” he asked.

“Starving.”

“Me, too.”

He became aware of a magazine in his lap and placed it on the chair next to him. Then he unfolded his lanky body from where he sat and touched Penny’s arm lightly, as if to make sure she was real. He tapped all the pockets of his new suit to make sure nothing had fallen out, then glanced down to be positive there was nothing of his on the chair cushion.

“So how does Italian sound to you?” he asked.

“Just right.”

Ms. Culver was behind the main desk, but with her back conveniently turned. She was looking for something in a cabinet. It seemed to Fedderman that she was pretending to search so she wouldn’t have to look at him. Ms. Culver seemed to be that way, where he was concerned.

They went to Delio’s, a relatively new restaurant in the lobby of a tall building that contained mostly offices. Soft lighting was provided by artificial candles that looked real in the center of each white-clothed table. A piano was playing somewhere out of sight, and a guy in a suit and wearing a gray fedora wandered by now and then, crooning Frank Sinatra songs. Fedderman thought he sounded more like Bobby Darin, and with the snap-brim hat he looked like Mickey Spillane.

“So how’s the case going?” Penny asked, after they’d ordered and were sipping wine.

Fedderman waited for the crooner to drift into another room of the restaurant before answering. He decided his suit beat the hell out of the one on the singer, even figuring in the fedora.

“We’re making our usual slow but sure progress.” he said. He thought it better not to mention the carpet-tucking knife theory. Not so soon before dinner.

“How’s Officer Weaver?”

“Not good. She’s slipping in and out of a coma.”

“And she never identified who beat her up?”

“Not positively, no. And any other way doesn’t count.”

“But you’ve got a good idea who it was.”

“Not really. Not the way Weaver’s been talking. Her mind’s not right yet. Maybe it never will be.”

Penny hunched her shoulders and shook her head. “God, what a world.”

“Weaver will be all right,” Fedderman said. “She’s a tough one.”

“You think it was the Skinner who attacked her?”

“It would make sense. Serial killers do that sometimes, taunt the police.”

“But why try to kill her that way?”

“He might not have been trying to kill her.”

“But why not? Why beat her up at all, instead of treating her as he did his other victims?”

Fedderman had asked himself the same question. He told Penny what he’d come up with by way of an answer. “Because he’s crazy.”

“Or maybe for some reason he doesn’t want you to think he was the one who attacked Weaver.”

Fedderman regarded her across the table.
It can make you smart, spending all that time in a library.
“Yeah,” he said, “that’s possible.”

Penny sipped her cabernet. “Do you think he’d really try to finish the job while Weaver’s in the hospital?” she asked, replacing the stemmed glass on the table.

“It’s doubtful. I know it happens in books in the mystery section of your library, but in real life a hospital is a pretty secure place.” He looked at her curiously. “Why are you so worried about Weaver?”

She seemed slightly surprised. “I’m not thinking about Weaver now. It’s you I’m worried about, Feds. The killer might have to get past you to get to Weaver.” She reached across the table and gripped his wrist.

Fedderman didn’t know quite what to say. This woman often made him tongue-tied. He used his free hand to reach into a suit coat pocket and withdrew the small velvet-lined box from the jewelers. He held it out to her. It obviously contained a ring, and Penny realized it immediately and her eyes widened. She released his wrist and accepted the tiny box. As she slowly opened it, she peeked inside. She grinned at him.

“Is that a yes?” Fedderman asked. It sounded like someone else’s voice.
Am I really doing this?

“It’s a yes, Feds! And this is beautiful!” She slipped the engagement ring on her finger. It looked slightly too large to Fedderman. Penny extended her hand and stiffened all its fingers, the way women do when displaying a ring. “Beautiful!” she repeated.

“So are you,” Fedderman said, sounding as if he had a frog in his throat.

Penny got up from her chair, moved smartly around the table, and kissed his cheek. She sat back down. She had done all that in a crouch, and none of the other diners seemed to have noticed her maneuver.
Do women practice that?
Penny was still smiling. The Frank Sinatra imitator reappeared in their part of the restaurant. He seemed to sense something and drifted in the direction of their table. He was singing “My Way.” Fedderman’s marriage proposal and ring presentation were now drawing the attention he’d feared.

Penny was still grinning hugely, now in part at Fedderman’s embarrassment.

“It might have been ‘The Lady Is a Tramp,’ ” she whispered.

Fedderman knew that his life had changed forever.

Jock Sanderson stood waiting for the traffic signal to change. He’d wanted a drink badly all day but had made it through without touching a drop. He was proud of himself and dismayed at the same time. It was a weakness, this craving for alcohol, and Jock didn’t like to think of himself as a weak man. Not in any respect. He was the one who was usually in charge of situations. He sensed weaknesses in others and moved in. That was what that prick the Skinner was going to realize one of these days soon—that Jock had moved in on him. He’d provided an alibi for the Skinner and made sure the killer knew that if anything happened to him, to Jock, the cat would be out of the bag. Letters could be left with lawyers, and in safety deposit boxes. The Skinner got the headlines, but Jock was in charge. The Skinner just didn’t know it yet.

The light signaled walk, and he crossed the street with the knot of people who’d been waiting with him at the curb. He was wearing Levi’s and a short-sleeved shirt he’d bought at the Wear it Again, Sam secondhand shop off Canal. There shouldn’t be too many secondhand shops in Jock’s future. Not with what he had in mind. He could go live someplace in South America, where there was no extradition treaty with the United States. Or maybe to someplace in the Caribbean. He’d heard that was where some people dropped out of sight and lived like royalty, on those islands. If he kept a low profile, he’d never be found.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the approaching figure that veered slightly so it was headed directly at Jock. When he did notice, he didn’t pay much attention. Only a step or two away, Jock lowered his head, expecting the man to move out of his way, but he didn’t.

Jock pulled up short to avoid a collision, and was about to say something. He found himself looking directly into the eyes of the Skinner. There was something in those eyes, something beyond cruelty and intensity, that froze Jock. The Skinner was smiling faintly, as if something far removed was amusing him.

“Jesus! You gave me a start,” Jock said. They were standing so close to each other that he automatically dropped his gaze to see if the Skinner was brandishing a weapon of some sort. A guy this loony, he might not hesitate to kill someone even on a crowded sidewalk.

The Skinner’s hands weren’t empty. His right one was carrying a small white box.

Jock backed away.
Oh, God, not again!

“Take it,” the Skinner said. “Add it to your collection.”

Jock’s hands remained at his sides, pressed tightly against his thighs. “I don’t have a collection. I don’t want one.”

The Skinner shrugged as if that were no concern of his.

“You’re not going to do this …every time, are you?” Jock asked.

The Skinner seemed to consider. “Only if I deem it necessary,” he said.

“Necessary for what?”

“Consider it a reminder.” The Skinner moved the box closer to Jock, and something changed in his eyes in a way that scared the holy hell out of Jock. “People who wag their tongues out of turn risk the damndest things happening to them.” He smiled broadly. “Not by coincidence, you understand.”

“I understand,” Jock said, and accepted the box.

“Maybe you’ll become a collector, after all.”

“I told you—no! There’s no reason to keep doing this.”

The Skinner ignored Jock’s protests. “Keep that in a cool place so it stays fresh. The poor woman it belonged to was trying so hard to use it right up to the end that it might still have plenty to say.” The Skinner put on an amused expression, toying with Jock.
Sadistic prick!
“Do you believe in life after death, Jock?”

“I’m not sure I even believe in life
before
death.”

“Whatever you choose to do with those unfortunate appendages, maybe they’ll talk to you in your dreams, or even sometimes during the day, when you least expect it. Especially Judith Blaney’s tongue. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“I would,” Jock said.

“Ah, think where that tongue might have been when she was alive. Its many talents. She wasn’t a chaste woman, our Judith.”

Some of his initial fear had left Jock. He felt himself getting angry, or maybe frustrated. He couldn’t tell which. He was the one who was supposed to have the whip hand here, and yet this asshole had the nerve to stop him on the sidewalk and give him somebody’s severed tongue. Sick bastard!

Jock decided to try taking control of the situation. “Listen, you!” he said. “If you think…”

He let his voice trail off as the Skinner simply turned and walked away, glancing back for a final, smiling look at Jock, as if fixing him firmly in his mind.

Jock considered following him, laying a hand on his shoulder, and spinning him around, then handing him back his goddamned box. But he was paralyzed by what he’d seen in the Skinner’s eyes.

He began walking, faster and faster, gripping the small white box in his right hand, digging his heels into the pavement with each step. He might be late for work now. He couldn’t afford to screw up and get fired, all because of some psycho bastard who cut out people’s tongues.

People’s tongues!

The papers and TV news speculated about the tongues being removed because the Skinner was a cannibal and might consider them a delicacy. Jock might be the only one who knew better.

Of course, some other parts of the victims could have been removed and the police weren’t telling the public. They did that sometimes, to weed out the screwballs that made false confessions. Maybe there was something to the cannibal angle. After dealing with the Skinner, Jock could easily believe it. Lord, right now he could believe almost anything!

Noticing a wire trash basket at the next corner, he veered toward it and dropped the small box in it as he strode past.
There!
Maybe it would wind up in the same landfill as the first tongue.

He regained some of his confidence by reminding himself that he knew more about the Skinner than the pathetic psychopath imagined. The next time they met, that might be worth mentioning. It might keep the nutcase from giving him somebody else’s tongue. Or maybe something more personal.

He reached his subway stop, and almost without slowing took the concrete steps down into dimness and dampness. Now and then he stole a glance behind him.

Maybe I should have wiped my prints from the box. Both boxes!

He wished he had a drink.