Hauser went down the sheet, the details puzzling him at first. A few lines in he began to recognize words, phrases, and he started to form an ugly picture in his head. After the end of the first page he stopped, flipped through a few more sheets, and went to the photographs of the crime scene.
He had known what he was going to see before he pulled it out—Bishop had been precise in that particular way cops had. But there was no way to bolster himself against something like this. Not unless he was some kind of a monster. He picked up the photograph and felt the air lock in his chest, felt the blood stop pumping in his veins, felt his cardiac pistons seize in one massive system reset.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, not meaning to. He stared at the image for a few seconds, the black-and-white doing little to stave off the nausea he felt stirring his empty stomach. Then he dropped the old photo to the desk and let out a low moan.
Staring up at him from thirty-three years ago was Mia Coleridge, body twisted in rigor mortis, teeth brittle white shards amid her bloody face. There was no expression on her visage except for the primitive animal snarl of pain. Other than that, you could barely tell you were looking at a human being, let alone a woman.
Mia Coleridge had been skinned alive.
16
Jake sat in his car under a tree in the hospital parking lot for ten minutes, trying to talk himself into heading east on 27 and not stopping until he was home with Kay and Jeremy. He listened to the radio for a few minutes, hoping that the chatter about the storm would take his mind off of what had happened in his father’s room upstairs. But the radio anchor very quickly began to annoy him with his very un-Cronkite-esque fear rhetoric and pseudo-factoids. Jake shut off the radio with an angry, “Oh, fuck off!”
Jake didn’t have a mountain of available time—not now, not ever—but he needed to clear his head. And he needed to get some work done. Only that had become more difficult the past little while, hadn’t it? The invasive process of turning secrets of the murdered over in his mind so many times that they became worn and polished from examination had started to become commonplace. Maybe he had turned into a ghoul, just like the people he hunted. After all, what did he like about the job? It was the subtleties, the nuances, that separated these monsters. The little signatory differences. The way one held a knife, the way another only bit down with the left side of his jaw. It was in these weird little psychosis-fueled details that their personalities began to shine. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to see these things. Like Hauser rushing out of Reagan’s lab today, maybe Jake needed to find a little of his lost humanity. It was as if he had a keyring in his pocket, only most of the keys just opened ugly places that he had to stop visiting because they were starting to feel too much like home. Kay had been telling him to quit for a while now. A year. And she was right. Hell, she was more than right, she was justified. He had agreed. Promised. All that was left to do was to tell Carradine. Yet he somehow hadn’t. Why?
Which is probably why he had come up here to deal with his father and the mausoleum of scotch and cigarettes and demented, black canvases. It was with a heavy, foul-tasting twinge that he realized that all the things that had gone on between him and his father were of no value any more. Not to him. Not to his father. And certainly not toward gaining any sort of closure. The door had slammed shut when the first threads of his father’s mind had begun to unravel.
What was he going to do? He needed help. Kay would be here this afternoon. But he needed a different kind of help than she could offer, as much as she’d try. He needed someone with a little distance. Someone who wouldn’t care if this was easy or tough on him. Someone pragmatic. Someone who could handle his old man. Problem was, with the exception of his gallery owner, Jacob had successfully driven everyone who had ever cared about him away. Every friend. Every publicist. Every—
Jake pulled his iPhone out and thumbed through the menu. It took a few seconds to find the number, but it was there, three months back. He sat there, the windows open, his thumb poised above the send button. Would Frank care enough to come or had Jacob burned that bridge as well?
He pressed send.
There was the sound of computer chatter, a low throaty whisper of static that sounded like the voice of the Devil played at seventy-eight RPM, followed by a series of clicks that Jake knew were satellite connections being made. It took almost half a minute until the phone at the other end began ringing, a series of double chirps that sounded strange, foreign. After fifteen or sixteen rings, a voice that belonged in a public service announcement against the dangers of smoking answered, “Frank Coleridge.”
“Frank, it’s Jake.”
Frank didn’t prod Jake with phony cheer, he simply took another drag on the cigarette that Jake knew was plugged into his face and said in that singularly unique voice, “What do you need, Jakey?”
“It’s Pop.”
“The—” there was a rasping sound, like someone tearing a dry leaf in half, as Frank took in a lungful of smoke—“fire?”
“You heard?”
“Yeah. Found a note on my door this morning. Neighbor left it.”
Jake rolled his eyes and remembered the nine sacks of mail at the hospital; it was amazing how the fame monster affected people.
Frank continued. “I’ve been out—” another long pull on the cigarette—“hunting. Just got back to the cabin.”
Jake scrolled through his mental filing cabinet for a second, trying to align Frank’s statement with his knowledge of state regulations. “What’s in season in September?”
Frank let out a dark arid laugh. “Nothin’s in season, Jakey. Had a bear kill a foal. Tracked him to high country. Old sumbitch with a bad leg. Only thing he could kill would have been that foal. Maybe a human child. Had to get him before that started happening. I was gone four days.”
“What did you get him with?”
Frank responded with a low laugh. “Lead poisoning. How’d your old man set himself on fire?”
“From what they know, he had oil paint all over his hands. Maybe he was lighting a smoke, maybe he was trying to throw another log on the fire.”
“He torched bad?” This was followed by another tearing leaf.
“His hands are gone. Lost three fingers and they’re not sure if he’ll be able to keep the rest. He was flailing around and ran through one of the plate-glass windows. Cut himself pretty bad.”
Frank whistled. “Without his hands, without his painting, the best thing that could have happened to your old man would have been if a big sliver of glass would have taken his head off. Without painting, not much of Jacob Coleridge is left. And what is, is pretty broken.”
“Frank, I could use your help. I need someone who’s honest. Someone I can trust. Someone who’s pragmatic.”
There was another pause as Frank took in some smoke, coughed one short rattle, and said, “Who says you can trust me? It’s not like your old man and I got along all that well.”
Jake closed his eyes, and dropped his head back onto the leather seat. It was a good question. It was more than good—it was valid. “Frank, cut the shit. I trust you and I don’t trust anyone. I need to deal with Dad’s life and with what’s happened to him. You wouldn’t believe how he’s been living.”