Face Off (29 page)

Harry looked at the stooped, balding little man who was in actuality about his own age, but who seemed years older. He had to ask his next question. “Did you help Randal kill any of those girls, Stanley?”

“No, no, no.
I've
certainly never killed anyone, Harry! You know me better than that. When I cut on people they are already dead!”

“How long have you known Randal was the butcher?”

“I knew from the first body I saw. It was the eyebrow. Like mother's. Her father caught her wearing makeup when she was fifteen, and sliced off her eyebrow. Not just the hair, he scarred her up pretty bad. She wouldn't leave the house without drawing it in.”

God, Harry thought, it's a never-ending cycle. From parent to child, to their child, and on. It never stops. “Why didn't you turn him in, Stanley? How could you let him keep killing over and over and over? Didn't you feel some responsibility?”

Stanley's head tilted up with a look of astonishment. “My responsibility was to the brother who watched out for me all those years. This time
I
had to save
him!
”

“Whose blood did you turn over to the FBI and Genericode for analysis?”

“Just a bum's. A dead bum with no police record, and nothing else to distinguish his blood from the blood of anyone else. I had always told Randal if he ever got in trouble, to insist a doctor be the one to draw blood for any DNA profiles. He insisted, and I was right there. It was just that easy.”

“And the body parts at Randal's apartment? That is the part I can't understand at all. Why
try
to implicate your brother?”

Stanley threw back his head and laughed. “Well, that just shows how much smarter I am than you, Harry. Too much evidence, especially when it turns out not to
be
evidence, makes it easier to get someone off than just about anything. Wasn't I right? Didn't Caswell have to release my brother? And if worse came to worst and it went to trial, why, you boys would have been laughed out of court! Randal understood, after I explained it to him.”

Harry hated to admit it, but more than likely Stanley Davis was right. Clark's attorney would have screamed that the evidence had been planted, and it would certainly have looked like it to any jury if it couldn't be explained. To Stanley he said, “Maybe not so smart, after all. That was the part which kept bugging me. Where would anyone come up with fingers and toes that had been removed because of gangrene? The only answer I could come up with was a teaching hospital of some kind. Perhaps stolen from a lab as a lark by one of the medical students. And of all the people associated with this investigation,
you
were the only one who that might apply to.”

“Mother used to hold us after she had beaten us, did you know?” Stanley ignored the spiel Harry had just delivered, lost in another world.

Harry's answer was soft. “No, Stanley. I didn't know.”

“She would come into the bedroom and grab us and hold us tight. She would cry, and say,
Forgive me, Father, for I know not what I do. Forgive me, Father, for I know not what I do.
She was very religious. Never missed a Mass that I can remember. Sometimes she would pray for days about not hurting us, especially Randal. But then in the blink of an eye, she would lock him in the bedroom with her, and I could hear Randal's screams as she tortured him, hour after hour.” Stanley looked at Harry with vacant eyes. “I've always wondered which was worse—going through the torture, or listening to it.”

Harry stood up. Looking at his longtime associate, he figured they both must have been equally bad. “You know I have to take you in, Stanley.”

Stanley put both of his hands up as though to push Harry away. “No. Not yet. Randal needs me. I won't let someone else cut on him. I have to wait for him. I have to tell him I'm sorry for what I have to do to him.” Stanley stood and walked over to the corpse lying on the table. “It's important that they know you care for them.”

Before Harry could stop him, Stanley hopped up on the autopsy table and lay down by the dead body. “I'll be right here when you need me, Harry. Just let me know when they get here with my brother.” He began caressing the old woman's face. “Now, don't you worry. I'm not going to hurt you. Why, you won't feel a thing.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

Suzanne's eyes swept over the people exiting the small USAir nineteen-passenger plane. She spotted her mother the instant she started down the stairs, her red hair glistening in the sunlight.

Suzanne stood behind the roped-off area, impatience getting the better of her as she watched this woman whom she had not seen in twenty-two years, walk toward her. She stepped over the roping and sprinted across the pavement, skidding to a stop in front of the tall, beautiful redhead.

“Mother?” Every word that Suzanne had rehearsed in preparation for this meeting went flying out of her head.

Jean Cole's eyes swept over the younger version of herself standing before her. Her eyes widened in disbelief at the daughter she would have known anywhere. Except that her daughter's hair was brown while her own was red, the resemblance was undeniable. She dropped her purse and grabbed her daughter. “Susie! Oh, God! It really is you!”

All of Suzanne's doubts left her as she tumbled into her mother's arms: “Momma! I remember you! Oh, my God, I remember you!”

Tears streamed down their faces as the two women clung together, drinking in each other's features.

“All this time you were alive!” Jean said. “I have blamed myself a thousand times for your death, and all the while you were alive!”

“The same is true for me,” Suzanne said. “Roy told me it was my fault you had died in that car wreck. He said you were trying to get away from my
witchcraft.
All these years I have felt responsible for your death. I think I believed him in part because I could remember telling you something bad was going to happen when you left.”

Jean wiped tears from Suzanne's face with gentle hands. “Oh, my darling child. If only I had taken you with me that day. You have no idea how many times I have relived that dreadful choice.” The two women entered the terminal and sat down on the nearest seats, hands clasped.

“I left you with a neighbor,” Jean said, “the day I went for help, because I thought it would be better for you. My oldest sister, Alma—your aunt—lived close by, near Tulsa. I knew she and her boys would help me leave Roy. I was frightened of him and what he would do to us if we didn't have some backup getting away.” Jean pressed her daughter's hand. “I didn't take you because I wanted to spare you hearing me tell the family about how horrible Roy was. I thought—it's bitterly funny now—but I thought it wouldn't be good for you to hear me ranting and raving about him.”

“What about Zero, Momma? What part did the dog have in all this?”

Jean nodded. “A big part. The day Zero was killed is the day I left. It all came to a head that awful day. Roy was such a horrid man. He had taught Zero to chase old man Collins's pickup truck when it came by our farm. That morning you were playing in the yard with Zero. I don't know for sure exactly what happened, but I think Zero jumped up on you, or something. You were wearing a new dress I had made for you, and so you got after Zero and told him to get down. That's all, Susie. You did nothing else. But right about then, old man Collins came down the road and Zero took off after the truck and was caught under the wheels.”

Suzanne's head bobbed up and down. “I remember that! I remember screaming for Zero to come back.”

Jean patted her daughter's hand. “Yes. Well, Roy had to blame someone for the dog's death, and he had seen you make Zero get down off your new dress. Roy was always a little frightened of you and your special power, always giving you trouble over it. He decided you had sent Zero under the wheels of the truck on purpose, which was ridiculous. He knocked you down and tore your pretty dress off of you. I don't know what he might have done, but I heard your screams and came running. I hated him then. He had killed every ounce of gratitude I might have felt for his marrying me. All I could think about was getting help and getting away.”

“Is my father still alive? My real father?” Suzanne asked the question, then wondered if perhaps that subject would be best not broached. “If you'd rather not talk about it, that's okay.”

Jean brought Suzanne's hand up to her cheek. “Oh, my darling girl. Yes. Yes, your father is alive. We didn't want to throw too much at you right away. His wife passed away two years ago, and we have been seeing each other again. I hadn't seen him since the day I stormed into his office at Washburn College twenty-some years before, accusing him of killing you. Of course I really was blaming myself, but I needed to lash out at someone.”

“Roy told me last night that my father didn't want you and didn't want me. He said all you were concerned with was saving your reputation. Of course I didn't believe him.”

Jean turned her eyes down from her daughter's face briefly. How could she explain that horrible time? “Susie, your father had a wonderful, kind, and loving wife. She was stricken with multiple sclerosis, though, and almost totally helpless. I came to work for them my freshman year at college. Your father, Stephen, and I fell in love. We hadn't planned on it happening, and we both understood that nothing could ever come of it. When I found out I was pregnant, I didn't know what to do. Stephen talked about divorce, but we both knew that wasn't the answer. I could never have stood the pain which that would have caused Muriel, his wife.”

“How did you ever wind up with Roy?”

“I know this probably seems impossible to you now, but at one time, Roy Cole seemed like the answer to my prayers. I knew I was not going to give you up for adoption. I did not even consider that option. I wanted you—more than life itself! I came home for a short visit and ran into Roy again. His father had just died, leaving him the farm. Roy had always wanted me. He had never made any bones about that. One evening I went to a movie with him, and afterward I told him about you, and my problem. He asked me to marry him, and it seemed the perfect solution to everything.”

“I only remember him as mean and nasty. It's hard for me to think of him as having any redeeming features.” Suzanne shuddered at the thought of her beautiful mother in Roy Cole's arms.

Jean smiled. “Truthfully, Roy didn't have many redeeming features. He was lazy, stupid, and a brute of a man. I soon learned to stay out of his way as much as possible. When you came along, I devoted all of my energies to seeing that you had the best childhood possible. I suppose part of the blame for his vile behavior has to rest on me, because I quit trying to make our marriage work. I began shutting Roy out. I couldn't stand for him to touch me, and I didn't like him touching you.” Jean stopped talking as huge sobs engulfed her. “He knew exactly how to hurt me the worst! He knew the one thing I loved in this world was you, so he made me think you had died in the fire, along with him.”

“I can't believe he killed two innocent people just to get back at you.”

Jean shook her head in dismay. “I know. I just learned about that last night when your Harry called.”

“
My
Harry?” Suzanne asked.

Jean's moist eyes twinkled as she gazed lovingly at her daughter. “I don't know—that's what the man said. He all but called me
Mother!
And as I understand it, you don't have ‘the touch' with him. From everything I've read on the subject, that means there is either hate or love greater than the psychic force.”

Suzanne leaned over, kissing her mother's cheek. “It's true. I know it sounds crazy, since we only met a few days ago, but I do love him. And I know you'll love him, too. He and Jessie are waiting at the car for us. He said we should have some time together, without the two of them.”

“And how is my little fireball of a niece? I had no idea she had the gift, also!”

“Also? Is there someone else in the family ‘cursed' with this gift?” Suzanne's smile let her mother know she did not really consider it a curse.

“Yes. I did some research when you began telling me things about people you had touched.” Jean laughed. “I remember the shocked look on the minister's face one day when he came to call, and you told him where he had just been! I don't believe he wanted the world to know he had been in bed with the widow Perkins!”

“Oh, my! How old was I when that happened?”

“About three. Right after that, I talked with as many people in the family as I could, and guess what I discovered!”

“What?”

“Your great-grandmother Ula had the gift—the second sight. It was reported in old town records that she even had the touch of healing.”

“You're kidding! How wonderful! I can't wait to tell Jessie.”

“And I can't wait to show you off to our family! You already know about your aunt Martha, Jessie's mother. She is the youngest sister. Then there is your aunt Alma, who has more sons than any of us can count, and who are all anxious to meet you. Aunt Joyce and her family live in Denver, your aunt June lives in Kansas, and there is one of my sisters who is gone—”

“Vera,” Suzanne interrupted. “She was a teacher and died in a scuba diving accident, right?”

Jean nodded. “Yes. But you'll want to meet her children. Everyone is so excited! We've already planned a big reunion in Pueblo as soon as Amy is back on her feet. We talked to the entire family last night.”

Suzanne stood up, pulling her mother to her feet. “I can't believe I've found you.” She folded her mother in a tight embrace.

“I know, sweetie,” Jean said. “It's a miracle!”

Suzanne smiled at the name, remembering.