The creep was sitting close to the aisle, so Hutch slid all the way over to the right side of the seat, then glanced around quickly before leaning forward an inch or so to peer over the guy's shoulder. He was trying like hell not to be obvious about it, but the creep was so absorbed in what he was reading it probably didn't matter.
And what Hutch saw made him wish he hadn't been so goddamn curious.
His stomach lurched, the beef sandwich he'd eaten earlier doing a quick and nasty three-sixty before worming its way up toward his esophagus.
He stared at the pages just long enough to see two images that could never again be unseen. The kind that take the direct route from eye to brain, burn themselves onto the cerebral cortex and remain there like scar tissue for the rest of your natural life. On those pages were two of the most gruesome photographs he had ever laid eyes on, each rendered in a stark, clinical black and white-which only intensified the horror.
The first was a photo of a blond woman who must have been in a devastating car accident, because there was a steering wheel embedded in her face-so deep that it looked as if her flesh was growing around it.
And if this wasn't enough to get the upchuck express on the move, the photo on the page facing it featured a corpse of indeterminate origin whose body was half eaten away by maggots, several of which had nested in what was left of the victim's right nostril.
Hutch slammed back in his seat, squeezing his eyes shut, feeling his gorge rise, the acidy burn of bile in his throat. But closing his eyes was a bad idea, because the imprint of what he'd just seen was still floating in the darkness behind his lids. He immediately opened them again and looked out the window at the night rushing by, trying to focus on the lights in the distance.
Jesus H. Christ and all his disciples.
He sat there, trying to purge himself of this optic assault, when something unexpected happened-even more unexpected than the sight of those horrific photographs.
Beneath the clatter of the wheels on the tracks, he heard a faint, high-pitched mewling sound. A quiet keening whimper that wasn't truly a keen or a whimper. A sound not fueled by pain, but by…
…Well… by joy. That was the only way he could describe it.
What. The fuck?
Realizing it was coming from the creep, Hutch once again gave into his curiosity and turned from the window, taking another look over the guy's shoulder. He knew he shouldn't do it, but couldn't help himself.
What he saw this time made him shudder with revulsion. Made him want to jump to his feet and run screaming from the train car.
All of the creep's attention was focused on a new page, a new photograph-this one in garish, living color. And Hutch had been wrong about black and white upping the intensity of the images.
Color was worse.
Much, much worse.
The page was filled with a shot of a naked woman lying face up in an alleyway, her eyes glazed, her throat slit, her bloodied body covered with raw, gaping knife wounds, two of which had been judiciously placed where her nipples should have been.
And as he made that strange, joyful mewling sound, the creep carefully ran his fingertips over the image as if he were caressing the body of a willing and beautiful lover.
— 29 -
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Matt said. "You want to pass that by me again?"
They were standing in his living room, Matt wearing a threadbare terrycloth robe, fresh from a shower and still toweling his hair. He seemed a little distracted, but Hutch was pretty sure he'd heard every word.
Hutch had called the moment he got off the train, then headed straight over. What he'd seen was something that needed to be shared. Immediately.
"I'm telling you, the guy's a freak. A fucking psycho."
"This is the guy we saw at lunch, right?"
"Right. Crew cut, black glasses. He's a regular. One of the trial junkies."
This was the first time Hutch had been to Matt's apartment and it was obvious by the clutter-endless stacks of books, piles of newspaper, dirty clothes strewn about-that he lived alone, a confirmed bachelor after a nasty divorce. One of their friends had mentioned that Matt was in the midst of an ongoing relationship with a very much married flight attendant from Boston, but there was no evidence that she'd been around lately. If ever.
"All right," Matt said, tossing the towel to the floor, "let's think this through."
"What's to think about?"
"Just calm down a sec. The book this guy was reading-what did it look like?"
"You mean besides all the dead bodies?" Hutch felt another wave of revulsion shudder through him. "I don't know, like a textbook of some kind."
Matt nodded. "Probably an autopsy manual. There's a guy at the Post, keeps one in his desk. Drags it out whenever he wants to get a rise out of someone. Pretty disgusting stuff."
"Disgusting doesn't even come close to describing it," Hutch said.
"But maybe there's an innocent explanation. Maybe this guy's a medical student, studying forensic pathology."
"And maybe he holds tea parties every Saturday and makes regular donations to the Red Cross. That still doesn't explain what I saw. And heard."
"So he gets off on the photos. So what? I've seen some pretty weird stuff in my day, and a freakazoid with a death fetish is probably about a three on a scale of ten."
"You're kidding, right? A three?"
"Have you ever seen that video on the web-Two Girls, One Cup? Now that's some seriously screwed up shit-no pun intended."
"I don't think you get it," Hutch said. "The woman in that photograph might as well have been Jenny. Slit throat, knife wounds and all. And if he's a medical student, what's he doing at the courthouse every day? He's been there since the start of jury selection."
Matt snorted, reminding Hutch of Nadine. "So what are you saying? That this guy's the real killer? That's pretty fucking convenient."
"All I'm saying is that it's worth exploring."
"And how are we supposed to do that?"
Hutch spread his hands. "You're the reporter. Are you telling me you've never done a background check?"
"It usually helps to have a name."
"So we get it somehow."
"How? Walk up and ask him?" Matt snorted again. "Hey, buddy, we think you might be the guy who should really be on trial here. You want to give us your name so we can pass it on to the cops?"
"I'm serious," Hutch said.
"Oh, I know you are. But as much as I'd like to think you're right about this guy, we can't be checking up on everyone in that courtroom who gives us a bad vibe."
"Bad vibe?" Hutch said, shaking his head. "The guy gets off on dead bodies. Dead bodies that look just like Jenny. He's been sitting in on the trial from day one and he's just about the sickest son of a bitch I've ever encountered. And I live in Hollywood. That ain't a bad vibe, Matt. It's a Richter magnitude earthquake."
Matt held up his hands. "Okay, you've made your point. I doubt if it'll come to anything, but it doesn't hurt to check him out. And now that I think about it, there might be a fairly painless way to get his name-assuming we have a little help."
"From who?"
"That old guy you were talking to during the breaks yesterday. One of the other trial junkies."
"Gus?"
"That's the one. Didn't you say he used to be a bailiff there?"