He retched out one violent cable of vomit, coughed, spit, and looked over at Jake. “Sorry,” he said, yellow spittle hanging from his bottom lip.
Jake looked down at the sink, usually the primary source of evidence in any messy murder, and once again wished that he was here with some of the hardened bureau boys. He had seen lifers throw up down their own shirts in order not to contaminate murder scenes.
Jake moved past Hauser, like a slow spider. He got to the door to the hallway and saw why Hauser had chucked his doughnuts.
A woman lay on the floor. Or, rather, what used to be a woman. Like Madame and Little X, she was skinless, lifeless. She lay like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man on the rug, arms and legs splayed, scabbed to the floor with lines of glop and fluid that had hardened. There was no small electrical appliance humming away—Jake had been mistaken—the sound came from the black writhing mass of flies that swarmed over her body like an insect exoskeleton. Where the hell had they come from?
Jake stepped over the threshold into the hallway. Keeping clear of the bloodspatter with fluid movements born of experience. Hauser was still clearing his throat at the sink. Jake skirted the area rug where the woman lay, now thick and heavy with her blood. Back in the kitchen, he could hear Hauser at the sink, spitting like he had a down feather stuck to the back of his throat. Jake moved by the woman, past a fan-shaped arc of blood on the cracked wallpaper in the hallway, and into the body of the home.
The house was typical of its kind and Jake knew the layout without having to be told: kitchen at the back, living room and dining room in front, two small bedrooms and a bathroom—all with sloped walls—on the second floor. Basement. Detached garage.
He headed into the living room to be sure that there were no more victims even though the little voice was telling him that she was the sum total of occupants; the unmistakable flavor of a single inhabitant filled the place, even thicker than the smell of blood and the buzz of flies.
There was an old upright piano, a long low sofa in tufted velour, a pair of Barcaloungers, a glass coffee table piled high with copies of People and Us, and a small television with a paperback on top. There was a plug-in fireplace with a few photos perched on the plastic mantel; bright happy splashes of color that smiled from across the room. Other than the few pieces of furniture and sparse reading, the room was sparse, and Jake knew that the woman who lived here worked a lot.
Jake moved toward the photos, stepping high to avoid creating static that might pick up errant trace evidence. He had not been aware that his heart had been pounding until he took the first step and felt the woozy flush of lightheadedness that told him his fuel pump was racing. He took one of the deep belly-breaths that Kay had taught him to use when he had to oxygenate his blood, and the vitriolic smell of death pierced his head like a flechette. He stood still for a second, concentrating on his breathing. When his chest stopped vibrating like it had a live animal in it, he moved forward, taking full breaths, smelling the skinless woman sprawled on the carpet behind him. The photographs had grown from indistinct flashes of color to fuzzy face shapes bisected by white smiles. Another step and the fuzziness hardened, became clear.
He reached for one of the framed photos, and the movement pulled all the blood from his system, as if his arm were a pump handle. His fingers touched the frame and he stared into the face grinning out at him. A woman—and he knew that it was the same woman back on the floor, splayed like a sideshow knife-thrower’s assistant on a spinning plywood wheel—sat on the gunwale of a sailboat somewhere off Montauk Point, the lighthouse behind her by an easy mile. Jake brought the photograph up, his gloved fingers holding it carefully by the corners.
He looked at the face smiling out of the frame, unaware that his breath squeezed though his teeth in ragged birthing pants.
Skinned.
She smiled up at him. Bright white teeth. She looked so alive. So happy.
Now fly-covered on the hallway carpet.
He felt his chest tighten and his heart hammered as he was hit with a bucket of adrenaline. His chest went numb, cold.
The frame slid from his fingers and thudded to the carpet.
There are no coincidences, Spencer’s tinny voice echoed through his head.
Then everything slipped off the edge of the world and went cold as he hit the floor.
Jake knew her.
34
“Jake? Jake?” Hauser’s voice cut through the static brazing his circuitry and the sheriff’s face materialized above him. His breath smelled of vomit and his thousand-yard death stare had been pushed aside with concern. “Jake?”
Jake lifted himself onto his elbows and groaned. “Sorry about that.”
Hauser was eying him suspiciously. “Did you faint?”
Jake shook his head. “It’s not drugs or booze or anything you’d understand.” He stood up, consciously avoiding touching anything.
“Try me.”
Jake stood in place, staring down at the photograph he had dropped. “I have an appliance—a CRT-D.”
“You were right, I don’t understand.”
Jake didn’t move his eyes from the photograph on the floor. “It’s a cardiac resynchronization defibrillator. A pacemaker.”
“Bad heart?”
No, my heart’s fucking perfect, that’s why I have an appliance to make sure it keeps pumping. “I didn’t take as good care of myself as I should have and it translated into cardiomyopathy.” He kept his eyes locked on the photograph. “Whenever my heart rate stumbles, my appliance is supposed to regulate things.” She was smiling up at him, unaware that in a year—two? three?—she would become a nightmare for people in the neighborhood. “I assume that it’s this electrical storm moving in. Any strong magnetic field can affect it.” He lifted his head. “But this is not supposed to happen.”
“We’ll get you to a cardiologist.”
Jake shook his head. “It does this sometimes.” Which was a lie.
“This isn’t the best kind of work for someone with a bad heart, Jake.”
Jake shook his head. “My pulse isn’t affected by work. Not usually.” He bent and picked up the photograph. “I know her.” He replaced the photograph to its perch atop the faux-wood plug-in fireplace.
“Know…her?” the sheriff asked, jerking a thumb at the body on the floor, over his shoulder at roughly the same angle as the Montauk lighthouse in the photograph, now back in its place until relatives came to pack everything up.
“She’s my father’s nurse at the hospital. Rachael Something.” He looked at the photo, at the smiling, live face grinning out at him. Even in the photo it was hard to miss that she looked like his mother.
The sound of cars pulling over outside was punctuated by the thudding of doors.
Hauser’s jaw took on a new shape and his eyes went cop again. “I’m starting to get the feeling that somebody’s fucking with you.” He turned, looked out the window. The medical examiner’s people were outside in their white cube-van convoy along with another Southampton cruiser. Across the street, craning their necks and standing on their toes, the line of journalists looked like alpacas at a petting zoo.
“Let’s go talk to these assholes,” Hauser grumbled, and headed for the door.
But Jake’s eyes were on the woman laid out on the floor. She had looked like his mother. Maybe even more so now.