“How do you know that?”
“I don’t believe in cabals. Tee. I don’t believe in secret summonses or mysterious inheritances or a gathering of the trolls or aliens. I don’t look for fancy explanations. Maybe it’s just a predisposition because of my training, but this stinks all over the place. If they have anything else in common, I can’t find out what it is. They range in age from twenty-five to thirty-six, they’re male, they live around here, and that’s it.”
“Except for their mothers.”
“Except for their mothers’ names. The mothers don’t have much in common, either, although I need to look at that further. It’s not as if they just got off the boat from Copenhagen. Most of the families have been here for many generations. Their only link to Scandinavia is the surname.”
“Who would care if they had Scandinavian names? What difference does it make?”
“I have no idea.”
“And who would even know the surnames?”
“Bingo, Tee. No wonder you’re the chief. Who would know the names? You didn’t know your nephew’s mother’s maiden name. And not only know the names, but know them correctly, by spelling. Someone with access to records, obviously. And what kind of records have women’s maiden names?”
“Marriage records.”
“Correct, but marriage licenses don’t tell you if the woman has or had or will have a child.”
“Hospitals, birth certificates.”
“Which will tell you a child was born, but not if he’s still alive at least twenty-five years later, or if he lives around here.”
“We need something where a woman with a Scandinavian last name tells you she’s got a son at least twenty-five years old?”
“Or vice versa. A form of some kind where the son gives his mother’s maiden name.”
“Hell, John, that could be credit-card applications, job applications, a lot of things.”
“Except I’m sure these men didn’t all apply for the same job. The army takes that kind of information, but only two of our men were in it.”
“Social security?”
“No.”
“The goddammed census, I don’t know, what?”
“The census is an idea. Tee, although I don’t think they take that kind of information, but I’ll check it out.”
“You know the answer already or you wouldn’t be jumping me through the hoops. Where would you get the information?”
“Insurance. There are other ways, but they’re harder and not local. The same insurance salesman could easily cover our four towns. And he doesn’t even have to sell you a policy to get the information. They offer to see if they can beat your present insurance rate, you know. Just fill out the form and they’ll get you a free quote, no obligation to buy.”
“I always knew I didn’t like insurance salesmen. So we have to find out if the same insurance salesman talked to all of these men who disappeared?”
“To begin with, we have to see if the same one talked to even two of them. That’s something to start with, but it won’t be easy to find out. Would your wife remember if you had a talk with an insurance salesman six months ago? A year ago? We don’t know how long this guy waits once he selects his victim.”
“Victim? You’re sure that’s what’s going on?”
“Nope. I’m still hoping it’s a case of mass amnesia. But in the meanwhile, I’ll stay cynical.”
“But why the mothers? Wouldn’t it be easier to just pick men with Scandinavian names, if that’s what you were after?”
“Easier, but it would make for an obvious pattern. I only stumbled onto this because of the actor. It wouldn’t show up in a routine scan of the victims’ case studies. It didn’t for you, did it?”
“You think Mick’s dead, then?”
“I think we should start checking out insurance salesmen.”
“Damn it, Becker, I’m not Laurie! Tell me what you think. Is he dead?”
“Did you get a ransom note?”
“Of course not. Why would anybody kidnap Mick? He doesn’t have any money…”
“You’ve checked hospitals, traffic fatalities… It’s not just Mick, there are eight of them. Christ, Tee, you brought this thing to me yourself. What did you think it was? Things like this go on. All the time, all over the country. Read the newspaper; there’s a new case every other month. The Hillside Strangler, the Atlanta murders, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy. There’s some farm couple in Missouri in their seventies who killed at least twenty and counting. Sometimes I think it’s a national competition. And the newspapers are just interested in the big numbers. You never even hear about the creep in Arizona who got caught after three, or the one in Baton Rouge who… Maybe I’m wrong. Tee. Give me another explanation.”
Tee was silent for a moment. Becker looked away, giving him the time in privacy.
“Okay,” said Tee at length.,
“Sorry. Maybe I’m wrong.”
“Okay.”
“It’s my experience. Tee. My training. I look for the worst.”
“I accept that it’s not UFOs… It’s just that Mick and I… okay.”
“It’s not just about Mick, Tee.”
“I know.”
“It’s happening faster, his pace is accelerating. He took the first four in thirty months. He took the last four in eighteen. The time between Timmy Heegan and Mick was only two months. His appetite is getting ravenous, the need is consuming him.”
“The need?”
“That’s what it is. That’s what it becomes. Maybe not the first time; that could be accident or fluke or experiment, but after that, you start to want it-if you’re that kind of person. After awhile you need it, you need the rush of adrenaline or the sexual thrill or whatever it happens to be in your case. Like any addiction, you need more and more. The more you get, the more you need, until eventually, like any addiction, you overdose… Killing grows on you.”
Tee noted the intensity with which Becker spoke and looked away from it. There were some things he didn’t want to witness and some he didn’t want to know.
“Well, so. Insurance salesmen. How much time do you think we have until his ‘appetite’ makes him take somebody else?” asked Tee.
“Mick disappeared fourteen days ago. I’d guess we have a month, maybe less.”
“Unless he stops.”
“Stops?” Becker laughed. “He’s in too far to stop. It’s in his blood, in his gut, it makes him dizzy with desire. He can hear it like a howling in his ears.”
Tee watched Becker with growing unease. He did not want to know how his friend knew such things.
Chapter 6
Dyce made his way through the pillows as he maneuvered across the bedroom, taking care not to step on them, even though they were everywhere underfoot. Helen filled her bed with pillows when she was not in it, at least ten of them arranged together like children propped against the headboard. Two of them were for sleeping, but the others-a motley group of calico-patterned cats, gingham dogs, hand-stitched samplers with pictures of cottages and comforting proverbs, and compact, satin-covered cushions suited for a doll-were lined up for decoration or solace, Dyce did not know which. When they got into the bed, usually with much display of sexual urgency, Dyce would sweep as many of them to the floor as he could take with his arm. Helen would remove those from her side of the bed rapidly, but with care. He knew she did not approve of his style of inconsiderate dumping, but she never mentioned it. Later, if they were out of the bed, even for a few minutes, she would line up all the pillows again. It made no sense to him, but he had decided it was a female crotchet, one he couldn’t expect to understand but must learn to tolerate if he was to exist in her world.
“It’s all right,” Helen said. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
Dyce pushed a red and white checked cat out of the way with his foot. Someone had sewn plastic whiskers onto the pillow’s face and they pricked his foot as he brushed against them while digging with his toes for his underpants that were buried under the cushions.
“I love it just having you hold me. We don’t have to do anything,” she said. She always said the same thing, and it sounded more accusatory to him every time.