“Rhymes?”
“Drug charges.”
“That too.”
“Seeing that made me happy, and I thought nothing of it, this weird association of his, that is, until this Rose Killer came to town.”
Hearing that made my skin crawl. “Now listen up, cop, if you think …”
He moved like a cat, and before I knew it his foot was pressed into the side of my face. “What part of ‘shut up’ are you having a hard time with?”
I groaned from the pain. After a few seconds he got off me and sat back down.
“From a crime scene like the one up at the Crowley property, you’d think a guy might call his wife, or his special lady, just to tell her he may not be home for a while. That’s what any man would do, especially when you have federal agents crawling in and out of your asshole, and that’s what Pearce had done a million times at crime scenes. But what did he do when they found that poor woman up there? He called you. Why is that?”
“Oh, you mean I can talk now?”
“Briefly, yes.”
“Well, it seems that our good buddy Pearce liked bouncing his cases off me. I think he felt better talking to me than you because I had a better relationship with your wife than you did.”
Detective Van Buren turned red, which made me happy on the inside.
“Maybe you should have tried following her,” I said. “You sonofabitch!”
He jumped up again, toward me, and this time he reached inside his jacket. Out came the police-issued handgun. He grabbed a fistful of my long, flowing hair with one hand and pressed the barrel of the gun into the side of my nose.
“Do it,” I said. “Do it.”
“It’s not over, you piece of trash. They may have put my friend in the ground. We may be in the middle of nowhere, with all kinds of creatures doing God knows what out in those woods, but you mark my words. I will not rest until you’re the one in a cage. I don’t trust you. And I don’t know what Pearce was involved with you for, but I will not allow his memory to be tarnished by whatever the fuck you two had going on. I don’t know why he called you from the crime scene, but if you had anything to do with that murder, I’m going to find out about it. Why? Because you’re a fuckup. You’re all fuckups, and I’m better than you. And when that time comes, when I find what I’m looking for, enough to put you away, you’ll have nowhere to run to, and nowhere on this fucking earth to hide. Do you understand that, man?”
“Do it now.”
“Don’t be so greedy, Higgins. Your time will come. And then it will be over.”
He got up and put the piece back in the holster under his jacket.
“You’re the one that’s been calling me, aren’t you?” He smiled.
“I knew it,” I said. “You’re a twisted sonofabitch, you know
that?”
“Let’s keep this little chat between you and me private, okay? If you go to my people, you’ll only be hurting yourself more, because I can guarantee they won’t listen to a word you have to say about this. And I’ll find out.”
“Figures.”
“Don’t make it hard for yourself. And remember, whatever you’ve done, you could always turn yourself in, save me the trouble of having to come down on you, because it’s only a matter of time.”
“Great.”
“You may be wondering what my motivation was, coming in here and showing you what a little connie you are, huh?”
“Not really. I kinda presumed you had the wrong house to begin with….”
“You’re a funny guy, you know that? Remember some of these lines when you’re in prison getting drilled up that hairy old ass of yours. But anyway, I’m here just to let you know that I’m going to get you. It may not be today, and it may not be tomorrow, but it’s coming and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it. You bastards always fuck up, and I’ll be there when it happens. I just wanted you to know that. You’ve started saucing it up all over town, Higgins, getting into punching matches with all the lowlifes in this town, just like old times.”
“Hardly,” I said.
“Shut up. That tells me you’re weak, you’re already running from something up in that feeble old head of yours, and that tells me I won’t have to wait long to put those hooks on you again. I’m going to be watching you. Wherever you go, I’ll be over your shoulder. I’m going to be so close to you, I’ll be like cancer, practically inside you. And I’m going to break you.”
He turned and headed for the door.
“Hey!” I shouted.
He turned his head.
“Pearce was a good man,” I said. “The best man I ever met. It doesn’t mean anything to you, but I had nothing to do with anything. More important, neither did he.”
He said nothing, just turned his head back and went for the door.
“Hey!” I shouted again.
He stopped.
“What about these fucking handcuffs? Get these fucking things off me.”
He fished around in his pants pocket until he came up with the key. He held it up to the light, let it glisten.
“This goddamn Rose Killer has to be stopped,” he said. “I don’t know where he came from or where he’s going. I don’t know if what’s been going on down here are copycat killings. The feds think it’s the real deal, though. The one thing I’m sure of is that the killer is still here.”
“How do you know that?”
“We found another body,” he said.
My mouth fell open on its hinges.
“I almost wish it was you, but I know where you were last night. In a way, it’s a shame,” he said, then threw the key at me. It landed by my feet. “But I’ll find out what your involvement is in all this. In regards to the handcuffs, get used to ‘em.”
“What exactly do you think I’ve done?”
He walked out as if I’d said nothing.
The TV confirmed what Van Buren had said. There was another body. Her name was Betsy Ratner. She was a teacher for second-grade kids at one of the local schools. She was twenty-eight years old. She was a single lady, though from the photos they showed she seemed to be a rather pretty girl with long dark hair and wide, innocent eyes. She had gone out with some of her girlfriends last night, and drove home somewhere in the neighborhood of two o’clock in the morning. She was inebriated, but comfortable enough to drive home alone.
Shortly after two o’clock in the morning, her car rolled down her driveway, went across the street at a speed of five miles an hour or so, and went into a car parked across the street, which set off the alarm. The police were called, and when they arrived they saw that the driver’s-side door to Betsy Ratner’s car was hanging open. There was a spot of blood on the driver’s seat, and several more drops on her driveway, but no Betsy Ratner.
Her body was found at the crack of dawn in Wild Oaks Cemetery, naked and posed on Detective Daniel Casey Pearce’s grave. Two wild, red roses were stuffed into her hollow sockets.
This murder was different from the Rose Killer’s previous kills for several reasons. Right off the bat, the evidence pointed to a blitz attack, hence the blood on the driveway and the unsubstantiated report that a bloody log was found in the bushes outside the house. He must have knocked her out in a hurry. All previous evidence pointed to mutilation occurring postmortem. Differing from other instances, the body was found in a matter of hours instead of days. This in itself was an oddity. It was as if the killer hadn’t been as methodical as he usually was, didn’t take as much time as usual. I reckoned this incident was much more impulsive than those in the past. There was a more urgent need for him to do what he did than was typical. Because of this rushed feeling to the crime, it felt much more sloppy than it ever had.