Abandoned: A Thriller (37 page)
Read Abandoned: A Thriller Online
Authors: Cody McFadyen
Then:
Don’t let anyone make you use the word
bitch
until you’re ready, brother. This is about you, not other people. You work through it the way that’s best for you, period.
Next:
Good first post. Strong stuff.
And finally:
You won’t say it, so I’ll say it for you, brother. She’s a bitch. A fucking cunt. I’m sorry if that offends you. That’s not my intent. But I’m more sorry that you went through that. People say that men have commitment problems, like it’s a male-only condition. Bullshit. Women are just as wired to be twisted as we are. It’s not a “man condition.” It’s a human condition. A man who did to a woman what your wife did to you would be called a bastard, or a motherfucker. So I’ll say it again: She’s a bitch. A cold, fucking cunt.
“I think we left our mark,” Alan observes.
“Good job. Now what?”
“Chat room?” Leo asks.
“Go ahead,” Alan replies.
I switch views now, watching in real time as Leo clicks on and logs in to the Brother Chat room.
“We’ll lurk for a bit,” Leo says.
“Lurk?” I ask.
“Just like it sounds. We watch but don’t take part. It’s pretty common for newbies. Good manners, even. You sit back and observe and try to learn the rules. Every group has its standards by which you’re judged and its own rules of etiquette. Violate the first one, and nobody will take you seriously. Violate the other, and no one is going to talk to you. I already see a rule for this chat room that’s unusual for chats in general.”
“Which is?”
“Most chat rooms are quick back and forths. Just like real conversations. This chat room has a lot of soapboxing. That’s strange enough in and of itself, but the real shocker is that the others in the chat room actually shut up while that’s going on. There’s no heckling, no stepping on each other’s conversations.”
I watch the screen. It takes me a moment, but I see what he’s talking about. Right now a member who calls himself KingEnergy12 is preaching.
Misandry is not just being legitimized psychologically. It’s being made law. The original intent of laws to protect women, as stated, was simply to raise the rights of women, not to lower the rights of men. But in practice, that’s exactly what’s occurred. We have created a society where a belief system about men has been inculcated as a collection of false facts. You see examples of it in every walk of life. Take a look at television sometimes. What kind of man do you see portrayed there? Let’s see. You have the silly daddy, a kindly fumbler with the best of intentions but a few brain cells missing. He’s guided through his own stupidity by his wiser wife, who is endlessly patient with his genetically programmed inabilities. You have the man’s man. He watches sports, farts and laughs about it, and lives to hog the remote and slam back those brewskies, baby! He’s trained young in all the ways to get the stripper glitter off his clothes, and he lives by the rules of
look but don’t touch
, or
touch via lap dance but don’t fuck.
His (again) wiser wife puts up with her Neanderthal because she knew what she was getting into when they got married, and, besides, he comes through in the clutch. Other luminaries include the wife-beater (Lifetime channel, anyone?) and the pedophile.
We’re inundated with stories about the deadbeat dad, the husband who raped his wife, the stepfather who sexually abused his stepchildren. Women, meanwhile, are celebrated everywhere. The female boss who is a cunt-on-wheels is defended with the phrase
a driven and demanding woman is called a bitch, while a driven and demanding man is hailed as an example.
Well, I’m sorry, but a bastard’s a bastard and a bitch is a bitch, ladies. No one likes to be treated poorly by anyone, regardless of the gender of the abuser.
A few seconds pass without him typing anything further.
“I think he’s done,” Leo says. “I’m going to type something.”
“Start simple,” Alan says. “Take it slow.”
Leo begins:
Hello, New here. I don’t have a lot to say yet, but I had to speak up briefly. I’m going through a lot just reading the things on this site and watching the conversation in this chat. It’s a strange feeling. I feel liberated on one hand and guilty on the other. Still, I’m glad to be here. That’s all I wanted to say.
KingEnergy 12 replies:
Welcome, brother. That guilt you feel? That’s been educated into you. Men have been trained to feel bad about asserting themselves as men. If we do, we’re sneered at, called “old-fashioned,” “misogynists,” or “woman haters.” A man who claims his masculinity is a knuckle-dragger by default. It’s all smoke and mirrors, brother. It’s conditioning, nothing more, nothing less, and it will fade in time.
Leo types:
I hope so. I could really do with feeling good about myself.
Another member types:
Hey, I read your story. You just put it up today, right?
Yeah.
Wow, man. That was a hell of an account. I really appreciated your honesty, and I definitely felt your pain.
Thanks. It was tough to write all that, but … I don’t know. I felt better after too. Not fixed, but better. Anyway, I have to go now, but I just wanted to say that I appreciate you guys being here, and the site, and what you have to say.
KingEnergy 12 types:
Come back anytime, brother. You’re welcome here, and you won’t be judged.
Leo leaves the chat without replying.
“Good touch,” Alan says. “Being a little bit nervous at the end.”
“It’s not like I’m totally clueless when it comes to online undercover work,” Leo says. “I’ve played a pedophile before. This is harder.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Being a pedophile was nothing like being me. It was an act from start to finish.”
“Whereas this …?”
“I don’t see things the way these guys do, I’m not saying that. But … it’s a little too easy to slip into this role.”
“Dance with the devil, son,” Alan says.
“Yeah.” Leo sighs. “I like computer work better.”
“You’re doing fine,” I say. “So what’s the plan now?”
“He needs to do some day trading,” Alan says. “Slow and easy.”
“Give me a call when you go back into chat.”
“You got it. Bye.”
The microphone clicks off. A moment later, the connection to Leo’s PC is severed.
I think about what I’ve read, what I’ve watched being typed in that chat room. Part of me feels for these men. I don’t sense rage in all of them. Some simply seem confused, hurt. My hand finds my belly and I wonder: What if I have a son? Should I think about these hurting men, worry about what role model my boy should look up to?
The only answer I can find is Tommy. Tommy is unassertive about being a man. He just is one. His masculinity is a part of him, as natural
as breathing, unconfused. I could do worse than raising a son to emulate such a man.
My cell phone rings.
“Barrett,” I answer.
“Hey, boss woman.” Kirby’s cheerful voice—not much different from her killing voice, but comforting nonetheless. “Thought I’d report in, give you a little update on where your money’s going.”
“Tommy’s money, you mean.”
“It’s all one big green pile now that you’re married, right?”
I don’t bother asking her how she knows about the marriage. “What’s the briefing, Kirby?”
“So far, so nada. Nothing happening. No signs anyone is following her or even has eyes on her.”
“That’s good news.”
“But not really, right?”
When a threat is out there and we know it, we’d rather it come out to fight than hide. We can win a fight. All we can do about the other is worry.
“No, not really.”
“Well, don’t fret about it, boss woman. We’re on the job. Raymond’s not much for company, but he’s a good listener.”
“You’re not taking shifts?”
“I decided to add a few people. Raymond and I are on the evening watch, and a couple of my other buddies are there during the day. Nighttime is the right time when it comes to killing people, don’t you think?”
“I suppose.” I consider asking her about her “buddies” but realize maybe I don’t want to know. Raymond was creepy enough. “I appreciate you taking the night shift, Kirby. You’re right, it’s the time of greatest threat.”
And it’ll let me sleep, knowing you’re out there, watching us.
“No problema. Well, not
no
problema—it’s cutting into my sex life, I have to be honest, but that’s what friends are for, right? The guys’ll just have to come in the daytime and get some afternoon delight. Law of supply and demand.”
“You being the supply, I take it.”
“Of course! Hey, did you see how I did that, a little intentional pun? ‘Come’ in the daytime?” She giggles.
“Good-bye, Kirby.”
“Later, alligator!”
I hang up, shaking my head.
“Have we heard anything from Earl Cooper?” I ask James.
“He said he’ll have something for us by late afternoon. He also said not to expect very much.”
“Reassuring.”
“Collecting facts,” he replies, either missing the light humor or ignoring it.
“On that note: Tell me about the other victims.”
“All women,” Callie says, picking up a file from her desk and opening it. “Eight years ago, on June thirteenth, Elizabeth Harris was found on the steps of the Chatsworth police station, prefrontal lobes mutilated in the same way as our current victims. She’d been abducted a little more than seven years earlier, and her husband was the prime suspect.”
“But the investigation stalled because a body was never found.” I deliver it as a statement.
“That’s correct. Her husband, one Marcus Harris, killed himself a few days after the discovery of his wife. He left a note, saying that he was ‘sorry.’ It was assumed that he was responsible for the mutilation as well as the abduction, and the case was closed.”
“Strange.” I frown. “If he was willing to kill himself, why didn’t he say anything about Dali? What did he have to lose?”
“He had a daughter. She was twenty at the time. She went missing the day after her mother was found.”
Something inside my stomach plummets into an icy abyss. “Was she ever recovered?”
Callie consults the file. “No.”
“Dali probably gave him a choice,” James says. “Keep your mouth shut about me and take the blame, or your daughter suffers the same fate as your ex-wife.”
“He would have killed her after Marcus’s suicide,” I say. “She was no longer ‘necessary.’” I exhale. “Well, we have an answer to the question of how Dali ensured Marcus would take the fall. What happened to Elizabeth?”
“She never came out of it. She died of a blood clot to the brain three years ago.”
“Nothing came up when Elizabeth was found about Dali? He didn’t text the cops or drop off a stray greeting card?”
“Not a word. The police assumed, understandably, that Marcus Harris had been keeping her somewhere all that time. They chalked the mutilation and suicide up to an unbalanced mind. The disappearance of the daughter confirmed, more than disproved, this.”
“I’m assuming he had an insurance policy?”
“Four hundred thousand dollars. He’d recently collected, and all the money was accounted for. He hadn’t sent any of it away.”
“No notes,” James muses. “Dali took care to remain hidden. The current circumstances remain a significant anomaly.”
“Tell me about the next victim.”
“Oregon, four years ago. November twelfth. Two patrolmen were on a coffee break. They came back out to find Kimberly Jensen in a body bag, which had been left in front of their cruiser.”
“Bold,” James says.
“Kimberly had been abducted from a supermarket parking lot—you guessed it—more than seven years earlier. She was thirty-five at the time. Her husband, Andrew, was—surprise—the prime suspect. She’d been having an affair and was seeing a divorce lawyer.”
“I guess he’d collected on life insurance and kept the loot?”
“Greed is a bitch.”
“Kimberly?”
“Inhaled her own saliva and developed pneumonia. She died.”
“What about the husband?”
“Evidence fell from the heavens. Very fortuitous.”
“What?”
“An electronic diary on his computer, filled with seven years of monthly entries, all about Kimberly and how he’d kept her confined. A storage space in his name complete with chains in the floor and Kimberly’s DNA. Things like that.” She smiles. “Andrew killed himself before the cops could pick him up.”
“Starting to see a pattern here with the suicides.”
She shrugs. “Cowards are cowards, the whole day long.”
“No notes left behind, I assume?” James asks.
“Not a one.”
I sigh. “Two for two on Dali staying off the radar. Next?”
“Hillary Weber, forty-five, found by tourists on a side street leading off the Vegas strip three years ago. Hillary had been taken like the others, and the husband, Donald, was in the cross hairs. He’d been in the middle of a contentious divorce and had a very busy little penis.”
“Tell me one or both is still living.”
“I wish I could. Donald crept into the hospital three days after she’d been discovered and finished Hillary off with a pillow. Then he hopped into a car and crossed the border into Mexico. There was no contact until last year.”
“And?”
“They found what was left of Donald in the desert. His eyelids had been cut off and he’d been staked out nude, in the middle of the Mexican summer. There was no sign of the money.”
“So,” James murmurs, “kill yourself or go to jail, but if you run, he finds you.”
“Did Dali plant any evidence?” I ask.
“Doesn’t appear that way, but then, Donald moved very quickly, didn’t he? I suppose he saved Dali the effort. And before you ask—no, Dali didn’t leave behind any clues to his existence that time either.”
“Three for three,” I murmur. “The notes telling us he exists are the first.” I glance at Callie. “Circumstances on these three victims seem to contradict your ‘evolving paradigm’ theory about why he let Heather go with her brain in working order. Somehow, I think death would be a sufficient deterrent for most of these men.”