A Good and Useful Hurt (20 page)

Mike saw Doc’s car through his apartment window, and he trotted down before Doc shut off the engine.
Doc looked tired but happy; Mike knew the feeling. Sleep with them in your head made real rest impossible. Mike felt better than he had the night before, but it still wasn’t a true night’s sleep.

Doc said, “How was your research?”

“Good. We need more information, though.”

“Similar story on my end. They did their best, but perhaps there’s only so much that can be taken from them. It’s worrisome.”

“How so?”

“We have five of the eight we know of already in our program, so to speak. Only three remain, and the chances of our luck holding and those three also having been cremated is slim at best. More troubling is that even if they have been, and we can contact them, there’s no guarantee they’ll know any more than the others. The girls are doing well to remember what they can, but I wonder if the attacks were just too damaging. A camera with a shattered lens can only capture so much of a picture.”

“We need to try.”

“We will, have no doubt of that, but I think we also need to be ready to reconcile ourselves to the idea that we may fail. It’s possible that we will, and we can’t torment ourselves over that possibility. It would be a shame to come this far just to fail, but we’re doing all that we can.”

“I’m not going to able to deal with failing. They were angry with me last night, I could feel it. I think they could tear us inside out if they wanted to.”

Doc’s brow furrowed. “Angry? How do you mean?”

“I was in the interrogation chamber again. There was screaming out in the hall when I first arrived, screaming and yelling. Deb and Annie were fine when they walked in the room, but the next three looked as they had when they died. They looked dead, but it wasn’t like with Deb—it was awful. So I talked to them for a little bit, and they healed right in front of me. I could see their eyes change from black into how they were supposed to look, full of light and alive.”

“You went to them with no love. You knew Deb and Annie, so you had love for them, but the other three were just victims to you. Dear God.”

“What do you mean?”

“Suppose that they could have hurt you in some way. We have no way of knowing if they even could, of course, but how could we know until it was too late? Maybe they were hostile because you saw them as a tool, as just the dead. Mike, I think you need to love them. You’d gone to sleep tired and indifferent, and they came to you angry and dangerous. You talked them out of it, but how awful, for them and you.”

“What did you do that was different?”

“They came to me whole. The forest I met them in was full of wildlife, and they came with flowers in their hair. They were full with life, and they could feel the love from each other and from me.”

“Even Deb? She’s been so cold.”

“Mike, Deb was raped and murdered, and she’s been resurrected in our minds to try and catch the man who did it. It’s not unreasonable for her to be angry. Deb was a strong woman, and she was made powerless. She wants revenge, and everything else, even you, is secondary. You need to embrace them if we’re to cull all of the information on this man. We need you at your best in order to get the best from them. Fall asleep with love for them. Love all of them; tell them of the world and the sun and the smells of wind and food. Remind them of life. I’m sure Deb told you that she would fade the less you thought of her; well so too would the memories of life fade from them. The more life you give them, the more they can give back.”

Mike was sweating and rolled down the window of the car. Could he have been that close to death? It wasn’t hard to figure Doc was right, but what would have happened if he’d died there? Would the human still live while the mind died, or would the physical toll on his mental being cause him to die in real life? He shuddered and asked, “Who do you want to talk to next?”

“I think the family of Jessica Drake. She was the second victim, nineteen, died last summer on break from college. She was killed just a few blocks away from where Angela was murdered.”

“Let me guess, by some factories?”

“Exactly, just a mile or so from a large manufacturing district. I get the feeling that Jessica wasn’t that close with her parents.”

“Why’s that?”

“Most kids on leave from college are looking to save on expenses, but she had an apartment, even when she was away from school. It’s just a feeling I got from the online videos of the mother reacting to the crime. She looks upset but more weary than miserable, almost as though it was just one more problem in a life full of them.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“I don’t expect it to be. I brought my checkbook just in case.”

Mike turned to Doc with his mouth hanging open. “You think she’s gonna fucking
charge
us?”

“As a matter of fact, I’m surprised it hasn’t already happened.”

Doc turned the car onto the highway, and Mike watched the city fade in the rearview mirror.

The house was small, and the yard was a disaster.
Children’s toys were strewn about. Empty beer cans lay in the lawn and in a flowerpot which held no flowers. The two cars in the driveway, an old van and a truck, had as much rust as paint. The truck had a Hooters bumper sticker, and another in the window that said “Bow Hunter.” Doc shut off the car and turned to Mike.

“How would you feel about talking to this one?”

“Me? Why?”

Doc waved his hand at the yard. “Your appearance could be an asset.”

“Are you serious?”

“Look at the yard.”

Mike did, then turned back to Doc. “You think I look like these people can relate to me? I don’t live like this.”

“You look like you could.”

Mike opened the door, left the car, and walked to the front door. He could hear a dog going berserk from inside the house, and he hoped he wouldn’t be meeting it.

A heavyset woman answered his knock. She wore a powder blue shirt and matching sweatpants. Even before she spoke, Mike caught the odor of stale beer. Her greeting was postponed as she screamed at someone about the dog, which thankfully seemed to be locked away behind a door. She closed the door and stepped outside.

“Sorry about that. What can I help you with?”

“It’s kind of a delicate issue. I had some questions for you about your daughter.”

“Don’t got one. You’ve got yourself the wrong address.”

“Are you sure? I thought you had a daughter named Jessica.”

“Now what in the world do you want to talk about Jessica for?” She eyed him warily and took a step back. “You a cop? You have to tell me if you are. I know my rights, and if you’re a cop I want you out of here.”

“I’m not a cop. I need to talk to you about your daughter’s murder.”

She put a hand on her left hip. From the rear of the house Mike could hear someone yelling at the dog, and more barking.

“I’m listening.”

“My girlfriend was killed by the same man who killed your daughter. The man in that sedan across the road lost a niece to this man as well. We’re trying to figure out who killed our loved ones using a new technique that’s probably going to sound pretty unbelievable.”

He took a breath and just came out with it: “What we’ve found is that by mixing the ashes of these deceased loved ones with ink and giving ourselves tattoos, we can communicate with them while we sleep.” The woman was looking at Mike as though he’d just grown horns or departed a spaceship parked in her front yard.
Why did I let Doc talk me into this?

“Now, I know this sounds crazy, but what we need is just a few grams of your daughter’s remains, assuming she was cremated. We’re thinking that if we’re able to talk to enough of his victims, maybe we’ll be able to put together a bio that’ll help us discover who this murderer is, and stop him from doing it again.”

She was just flatly staring at him.

“Is there any part of that you want me to describe in greater detail?”

She took a pack of cigarettes from a voluminous pocket on her left haunch. She lit it and eyed him while her hands and lungs worked to fire the thing. Mike could feel her gaze poring over him, looking for madness or lies in his dress and demeanor. Finally, she said, “Well, that’s fucking ridiculous.”

She drew long from the cigarette, her jowls shaking as her lungs sucked in the toxins. Then she said, “Hang on,” and turned and walked back in the house.

Mike waited for a long minute that felt five times as long. When she returned in a fresh haze of blue smoke, the cigarette had been halved, and she was holding a white box that was about a third the size of a shoebox.

“I always thought it was morbid keeping her in the damn shoe closet anyways. Here.” She handed him the box.

Mike was as surprised at the weight of the thing as he was at the gesture. “Ma’am, I appreciate it, but I only need a little bit to make—”

The woman was shaking her head. “Nope. You want her, you got her. Jessica hated being here when she was alive, and if she could hate it when she was dead, I’m pretty sure she would. We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of stuff, and that was the way things were when that man killed her. I need to get back inside. You have a nice day.”

She turned away, and the door snapped shut behind her. Mike stared at the box for a few moments and walked back to the car.

Doc turned the engine on as Mike crossed the road. When Mike slid into the seat, Doc looked at the package and said, “Bit more than we needed.”

“Yeah. That was weird. I don’t think that woman cared a damn bit what I had to say or about what we did with that box.”

Doc shook his head. “Yesterday we started with the easy one and today with what I expected to be the most difficult. I suppose the manner of it is of no concern.”

“Jesus, Doc, you’ve got to be shitting me! This is a box of powdered person! What in the hell am I supposed to do with it?”

“Put it in a good place, I suppose.”

“Like in my apartment?”

“Yes, and you better wrap your head around it and fast. You’ll be meeting the contents of that box tonight. I don’t suppose I need to remind you why?”

Mike grumbled. The last thing he needed was a reminder. The memory of the night before might fade over time, but for now it was just as vivid as finding Deb in the first place. Mike set the box on his lap and tried not to think about the box or the woman or anything else.

The next house was just a few miles away, and this time, when the car stopped, there was no question of Mike taking the lead. This one was Doc’s. Mike watched his friend walk to the door, but most of his attention was on the box.

Such a wonder that a person would hand over the remains of their child to a stranger, just to be rid of them. To Mike, everything felt like a stage of death right now. Things could get ugly with these families, and that was reasonable. But to be given the remains of someone’s little girl? It was almost too depressing to think about. Sure, Deb’s family had been in a hurry to dispose of her remains, but this seemed so much worse. Mike wasn’t sure it was even healthy to imagine the mental state that would allow such a transgression to occur, especially involving a total stranger. Wrapped up in thought, and in the box, Mike barely even noticed Doc’s return until his friend was seated and accelerating.

“Whoa, Doc. Rush to get out of there. Any luck?”

“Perhaps.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Our young lady, Hladini? Not cremated. I improvised.”

“What do you mean
improvised
? What did you do?”

“I saw no other option, time was limited, I needed to get something…”

Mike stared at his friend, the box forgotten. “Will you just spit it out?”

Doc held up a small plastic bag, the kind they’d been collecting ashes with when they didn’t use a vial or jar. Inside of it were a few strands of what looked like thin black string.

“Where did you get her hair?”

“I asked to use the restroom.”

“Jesus Christ, how could you possibly know if that’s even her hair?”

“I spoke to the mother for a few moments and tried to explain myself, but the language barrier proved to be too thick. I was able to get from her that Hladini had not been cremated, however. I could tell from the pictures that the father was estranged and that Hladini had no sisters. I asked to use the restroom and slipped into what had to be Hladini’s room. I found the brush on the dresser, took a few hairs from it, and left. We can just incinerate them and mix them with the ink, I assume. Or at least it’s worth a try.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

Doc grimaced. “We’ll have to hope for the best with just seven of the eight.”

Mike lay in bed that night, wondering if he was going to need a sleeping pill.
He was consumed with terror at the idea of the girls being like they were when they’d first come in from the hall, but of course those thoughts just compounded the terror. Surely bad thoughts before sleep would be as apt to bring a bad dream now as ever. He hoped to meet the new three already healed—three, that is, if the hair even worked.

Just when Mike decided that, yes, he was going to need the pill, sleep took him. He was smiling at the last thought he’d had, a happy memory that never happened of he and Deb working together on an art project. She laughed as he fell asleep, a happy laugh that he’d never heard enough of, and one that wakeful ears would never hear again.

He woke in the interrogation room. Mike scanned his surroundings. The mirror and walls were as they should be, and even the chip marks the door had put in the stones by the steel frame had been repaired. Mike heard footfalls in the hallway, a lot of footsteps, but no yelling or arguing. Finally the door swung open and Deb entered, followed by Annie and the rest of them. The last three were new faces, but they looked undamaged; they stood separate from the others, looking at him and the room they’d found themselves in. They did not look angry as the others had, but they seemed uncertain, confused.

Mike said hello to them all, and they all returned his greeting, one after the other. Then he asked them how they felt.

The first girl who spoke was Jessica; Mike could sense it before she told him. She was a petite girl with thin, straight, black hair. Her clothing was plain, just a sweatshirt and jeans, and she spoke to Mike in a quiet voice.

“He wanted to hurt me, and he did. There’s not much else to say about it.”

“Can you describe him?”

“He was tall and thick-chested. I don’t know what happened to the other girls, but he took his time with me, almost an hour I think. I was living alone, so there was no one to hear me, to know that I needed help. He knew it, too. He used a knife on me, and he used rope—the rope he’d almost kill me with, and then he’d let me breathe for a while. By the end I wanted to die so bad I was begging him for it. That’s what he wanted, I could tell. I’ll bet it’s what he wanted for all of us, for us to suffer long enough to beg him to kill us. He wanted me to be compliant with him, wanted me to enjoy what he was doing. And then he made me beg him for death. He petted me like a kitten, and then he pulled that rope tight the last time and I was happy.

“That was the worst part, to be happy that I was dying, but I was—I died smiling. There was so much viciousness and awfulness in him that I could tell I was the first success.

“He’ll do this forever if he can, and it will be worse every time. I don’t know how I know that but I do—I know it as sure as I know anything.”

“Do you remember any facial features?”

“No. He wasn’t ugly and his eyes were green, but otherwise, nothing. He was just a man.”

She stepped back, and Mike watched Deb walk to her. The two spoke in hushed tones that Mike could neither hear nor wanted to hear.

“I’m Lily.”

“Hello, Lily.”

Lily had been the last one Mike and Doc had found, the one they’d come the closest to not meeting. Mike’s arm was still sore from where her father had grabbed him. His eyes had lit up at the mention of the daughter’s name, and Mike knew they’d made a bad mistake, possibly even a fatal one. The man had roared at them while the thin little wife, who it turned out looked just like her daughter, spoke to him softly. He’d screamed at them, had thrown them onto the lawn, first Doc and then Mike. Mike had lain there on his elbows, and though there was pain, he was almost laughing. Why hadn’t they
all
reacted this way?

The man had looked like he was going to come and kill him, and Mike had a fleeting thought that if he laughed, it might really be the end of him. He wondered if Doc would have had to cremate him for a Mike tattoo, and then the laughter really almost did come, and there would have been peals of it. He was to the brink, the man huffing and heaving by the door, when Mike felt Doc’s arms on his shoulders, lifting him up.

The mother had run outside then, screaming at the husband to go back in the house, to let it end. He eyed them like a feral beast, and then he finally walked in and gently closed the door. The mother had apologized, then pushed a small bag with a scant few ashes in it into Mike’s hand.

That was how he was able to meet Lily.

“Your dad near to killed me,” he told her. “I think he would’ve if your mom hadn’t have been there.”

“He’s got a temper.”

“I think he was in the right. I’d have probably done the same thing before all of this. What do you remember?”

“I was scared, that’s most of it. It happened right in my house; my folks were out that night. He probably watched the house, so he knew that. One minute I was watching TV, and the next he was on me. He beat me up pretty badly. I lost consciousness I’m pretty sure, but I woke up when he was—when he was raping me. I was a virgin, and it hurt so bad I couldn’t believe it. The whole time he was covering my mouth with his hand and I could barely breathe. When he was done, I just lay there. I was stunned, and I’m not sure I could’ve moved for anything. He put the rope around my neck and squeezed and it was over. Everything was over.

“I remember little flashes of his face but nothing of any use. Just that it was awful and it was almost nice to die and not have to remember it.”

“I’m sorry that you had to recall it for me.”

“It’s different now. There’s no hurt or violence here. When I talk about it, it’s like someone else is making my mouth move, like it didn’t happen to me because that stuff can’t happen to good people, and I think I was a pretty good person.

“It can, though. Really bad things can happen to anybody, they do every day, and that day they happened to me. I feel like I took everything for granted for so long, and then all of a sudden it was just over. Everything was over.”

She moved back, and Mike could see Deb talking to her. What was she saying? She appeared to be comforting her, leaning in tight with her arm around her.

Hladini moved that imperceptible step forward to speak. She said, “I’m Hladini. I don’t remember any of it or anything out of the ordinary from that day. The last thing I remember was getting home from work—after that, everything was different.”

Mike realized as the woman spoke that she was the girl that they’d been unable to get ashes from, the girl from the hairbrush. Could it have been that easy for Deb? Was the trip to North Carolina a waste? Mike shook the thought away as best he was able. The trip had been worth it, even with its horrors. He would have done all of that and more to be with her, even if it could only be like this.

“Different how?”

She glanced to Deb and then back at Mike. “Different. I can’t explain it, and I’m not sure you’d understand. Just different.”

“You don’t remember anything about being killed?”

“There’s nothing to remember. I’d assume I was basically dead before I knew it.”

Mike stood, and the women watched him do it. He felt unnerved, and he didn’t know why. They were here to help him, but he still didn’t feel safe.

“Deb, can we talk in private?”

“We could pretend to, but anything you say to me when they’ve been called, they will hear. You may as well just come out with it.”

They watched him, not with the hungry, angry eyes he’d imagined—he’d been wrong about that—but with eyes that longed for something. What they longed for wouldn’t be pleasant, but that unpleasantness wouldn’t be for him. They’d been brought by hate—for the first time, he saw that. They weren’t removed from their pain, but rather
made
of it, of pain and hate and anger that still pulsed as furiously as the blood that had run through them.

He said, “I don’t think we’re going to get the man who did this to you. I can’t find him, and neither can Doc, without more information. Isn’t there anything else anyone remembers? Anything I can use to help that poor girl who hasn’t been killed?”

They were silent.

“Deb, I can’t do this. We’ve got nothing. I want to help more than anything, but I can’t do this. My brain is completely fried, and it’s all going to be for nothing. In a week I’m going to be reading about this poor dead girl, and nothing I’ve done will have done her or anyone else any good. This was a good try, and I have no regrets, but we failed. We did everything we could, but we failed. I’m not a cop, I have no way to know how to analyze this stuff, and I have no database to use to find out anything with the information I do have. We tried. We tried and failed and people are going to die.”

“No. No, I don’t accept that. None of us accepts it, Mike. You have to do better.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Deb stared at him. She was different from the rest: her eyes were still her, she was Deb, and still she was telling and not asking. Their eyes locked, but she was looking through him. “I want you to draw.”

“Draw what? I haven’t been able to draw anything since—you. Just looking at blank paper makes me sick. I don’t know if I’ll ever draw again.”

Mike glanced down at the desk. An enormous pad of paper lay before him, along with two packs of sharpened pencils and a package of charcoals. When he looked back at her, Deb said, “We’ll talk, you draw.”