“I’m so tired,” Daley muttered, rubbing his eyes.
“You should go to bed,” Nick said in a soothing voice. “You’ll feel better about this tomorrow. You’ll get a grip on yourself.”
Daley nodded. He looked at his brother compassionately. If everyone else deserted him, Nick would always be there. Nick was his blood, his right arm, his shelter. He did not have to prove himself to Nick or swear allegiance or utter devotion or the promise of steady comfort. Nick was his brother. His family. If he lost everything else and his world collapsed into blackness, he would still have Nick. They would never have to fear loneliness as long as they were both alive.
Daley smiled at his brother. “I’m all right,” he said. “I think I’ll go to bed. You’re right. Tomorrow things will look better.” He paused. “But I will miss her.” He stood and went to the stairs. “I’ll miss her more than I can tell you.”
Nick stared at his brother’s back with an odd expression of peacefulness and contentment on his face. At last, he thought.
CHAPTER 15
IT HAD BEEN two weeks since Marjorie Sider’s murder. February was a mimic, a soft pretender to spring. Houston’s temperature rose to the high seventies and stayed there. Nights were still cool and the winds often gusty, but the days sparkled. Marjorie was buried on one of those fake spring days, her father shuffling his feet in embarrassment at the graveside. He stared at the ground and wished he was home in San Antonio, away from the curious, pitying stares of the strangers attending his daughter’s funeral.
Though he was introduced to Marjorie’s friends, they were not his friends, and during the service he suffered, knowing the strangers knew of his daughter’s mutilation. They knew she had to be buried headless. It was such a total embarrassment that he left before the end of the service, jumped into his rickety ’69 Chevrolet, and headed back to his apartment, where he could feed the mongrel dogs he collected and pretend he had never been a father.
Five days after Marjorie’s burial the killer left his home at seven in the morning. His destination was uncertain, as was his victim. He only knew that he would kill another woman and that she must be very old.
If he could kill an old woman, he would be purged. He might even be able to stop his killing. He would be cleansed in the blood. The child and the other woman were not enough. People were calling him a serial murderer. He was not sure what that meant, but he liked the sound of it.
After it was determined the heads of his victims had been cut from their bodies with a length of wire, one newspaper dubbed him “Wireman.” It was a catchy phrase, and he hoped they would use it again. He almost called the reporter who first used it and told him he appreciated his insight, but then decided that would be too much like bragging. They might misinterpret what he was doing and think he was doing it for media attention, and what could be farther from the truth? Besides, he had no desire to communicate with the authorities anyway. Let them guess. Let them organize task forces. Let them turn all their wonderful deductive and scientific powers of investigation in his direction. He had no urge to help them.
He drove toward Galveston, continuing to think his erratic but pleasant thoughts. Before he was far outside the city limits of Houston, he changed his mind, exited Highway 45, made a U-turn, and headed for southeast Houston. He drove around Hobby Airport and parked once along Telephone Road to watch the jets take off and land. At nine-thirty he walked into the Ramada Inn restaurant across from the airport complex and had a cup of coffee. He stared at a barren tree, a real tree dug up from the soil and set into cement in a copper canister, looped in small white Christmas lights. The holiday season was long past. He could not make sense of the peculiar piece of decoration. The room was too festive for warm February, too bright and cozy for his mood.
He paid for his coffee and left. He drove through various subdivisions in southeast Houston looking for a house. It was no good trying to kill someone on the streets in broad daylight. As he cruised down one street of older homes, he spied an old woman in a badly ironed cotton dress emerge from her home and start toward the street. He parked beneath a pecan tree and watched the elderly woman in his rear-view mirror as she walked to the corner. He could just make out the bus-stop sign.
She was the one—his intended victim. If she was taking a bus, her home would be empty for hours. He could break in and wait for her. Simple. Easy. The elderly were not any problem. They had witnessed the face of death many times throughout the years.
He stroked his thighs, kneading the knotted muscles of his knees. He saw her board the city bus. He backed up the street and turned into the gravel driveway that wound behind her house. He was careful, so careful.
His eyes watched the neighboring houses for fluttering curtains in the windows. No dogs barked.
He jimmied the wood-frame backdoor with a knife blade. It creaked and gave easily. Inside he paused, adjusting to the dim light. The house smelled as old as the woman. Old house. Old woman. He crinkled his nose at it.
He spent an hour leisurely searching the rooms. There were hairy dust balls beneath her rusty metal bed, layers of dust on the ancient and scarred furniture. When the mailman came up the front steps to deliver the old woman’s mail, the intruder ducked behind a heavy chair and waited until he heard the envelopes fall into the slot. Not a dog barked. Curious, no dogs. That was a puzzle, no dogs. Yet it was all part and parcel of a master plan. Things were going his way.
Around noon he searched the refrigerator for something to eat, but could find nothing except an open can of sardines floating in congealed tomato sauce, one stiffened square of American cheese, and a few wilted green onions. There were no covered leftovers and the cabinets were nearly bare. What did she eat? Did she survive on water and air? She should be glad to die and get it over with. Why linger on in misery? She should be grateful she was the chosen. He would wait until afterward to eat.
He amused himself by looking through drawers. He read old shriveled letters dated thirty years earlier. He found a shoebox of yellowed receipts. He found stacks of magazines with tattered edges. Ladies Home Journal, Reader’s Digest, and Saturday Evening Post were piled on each other. He put everything back carefully where it belonged. The thin rubber gloves he wore insured anonymity. They were smart, but he was smarter. It was somewhat frightening to learn they knew he used a wire. But they would know nothing more. Not if he could help it.
Toward evening he began pacing. The house was becoming oppressive with its poverty and dust and smell of age. What if the old lady had gone off to spend the night elsewhere? He would give her until twilight, no longer. With the setting of the sun he would leave her house and she would be spared. On the streets, in the dark, he would eventually find another old woman.
He paced like a panther in a cage.