Final Cut (11 page)

His stepfather, Frank was worried a bit about him because it had become obvious that Bill was not sleeping that great. He hadn’t really told anyone about this, but if it was that obvious that his stepfather pointed it out then he must have been looking crazy peaked under the eyes. Teri had not said anything to him, but it was quite possible that she was just too caught up in his charisma and charm. It could be devastating. He had to laugh at his skewered viewpoint of himself.

“I know you think you are ok because you are a young man and you feel like you can go forever. But trust me when I tell you that if you don’t get proper rest then eventually nothing in your body really works correctly,” Frank replied.

Bill knew that Frank was just trying to help and he was showing some concern. It was actually pretty touching seeing how his real father had never showed any ounce of concern or compassion for neither Bill nor his mother. All he had ever shown them was abuse and pain. Bill had often dreamt that Frank had shown up years before he did to save he and his mother from the hell that they had found themselves trapped in. But Frank had not shown up until Bill was almost a man himself. It was still nice to have now, but he still found himself longing for memories with a father growing up that he would never have. It still hurt when he thought about it.

“I understand. You’re right. I haven’t been getting the proper rest. It’s been difficult since the accident though. It’s like my mind is tired and my eyes are tired, but my body just isn’t.”

“That is perfectly normal to go through that for the first couple of months,” Teri said.

“Is that so?” Frank asked.

“Yea. Well, when you think about it his entire body was at rest for almost three months. It does not need rest, but his mind and certain vital organs do or they will begin to shut down. Eventually the body and the mind will get synced back up again and he will be fine. I’ve seen it happen a lot.”

Frank paused for a moment and Bill could almost see the gears working in his mind wondering what type of hooey that was that this girl had just said, but he eventually smiled and said “Oh, ok.”

Bill appreciated that his parents were making an effort to accept Teri and to give her a chance because it was probably pretty obvious how close he was to her. He wanted to wrap his arm around her and pull her close enough so that he could whisper sweet nothings in her ear and possibly give her some sweet kisses, but Bill was not a total animal and he was able to control himself in front of his parents.

“So, are you just going to stay awake until your body decides that it needs sleep?” Frank asked.

Bill rolled his eyes, but he knew that Frank did not mean any disrespect towards Teri by his question. He observed Teri to see what her reaction was, waiting for her to shake it off or waiting for her to get offended. Teri paused a few moments and then pulled a fast one by ignoring the fact that anything that could be taken in an offensive manner had even been said.

“Well, the mind probably won’t let that happen. It will force Bill into little micro sleeps for a while until his body catches up with him.”

Teri uttered her reply with that same sweet smile that Bill had grown to love and adore. He could see the gleam in his stepfather’s eyes that he saw something special in Teri too. That was starting to become very clear.

“So, Teri you are Buzz’s younger sister?” Frank asked. “How come we haven’t seen you much around? That boy used to come over here all the time, from what Estelle tells me.”

“Well, I was away at school of course and when Bill and Buzz were kids they did not want much to do with me. I was a girl and I was much too young to hang out with them. It was tough, but I got through it,” Teri said with a laugh.

“That’s great,” Frank replied.

That was Frank’s standard reply when he really had nothing else to say or add to the conversation. Bill couldn’t help but laugh to himself when he heard it. It was always said with that same monotone and the same pitch. It was very cliché and routine. And Bill loved it dearly.

His mother had fixed her specialty—spaghetti. Bill had actually not had his mother’s amazing spaghetti for what seemed like an eternity and while he was eating it he had the realization that he had not enjoyed it since before he went into the coma. Even after the time he had been out he still felt like he had missed out on so much.

Bill noticed that Teri was watching him. Her eyes were soft and focused right on him. The way she looked at him often made his heart feel like it was melting right in his chest. When he used to hear people talk that way or saw something like that in a movie Bill used to laugh his head off at it, but now it was starting to make sense to him and he realized on how much he had allowed himself to miss out on.

But did he miss out on things because of something to do with him? Or was it just circumstances beyond his control? It was something he was going to have to think about. Since he met Teri he had experienced hope and feelings that he had never experienced before. It was new and exciting, but he still wanted to take things slowly. He was just that kind of guy and he hoped that she understood that.

Bill realized that he was staring without smiling so he cracked a smile through his lips and watched as her sweet lips parted to reveal a smile back to him.

The evening finished up with a few rounds of cards and some more chit chat anything and everything. It was a nice relaxing evening, but of course for Bill there was no such thing anymore. He was finding it easier to put Daisy Fox to the back of his mind, but she was always there like a haunting shadow that would always remind him of what happened to her. The pain of her death would always overshadow any little bit of joy Bill would ever be able to find in life until it was solved. He knew that, but he had all but given up trying to find out what happened.

He had the blood spatter evidence, but that did not clear him of any wrongdoing necessarily. If he was looking at it rationally it did, but the cops did not look at things rationally. They were all worried about how it would look for the Chief’s step son to be indicted on murder charges. As shocking as it would be for the community it might very well bury Frank and it would dismiss all of the hard work he had done over the years to keep the community safe.

Bill would not be able to live with himself if he destroyed his family and his family’s good name that way. Even though he was innocent. He knew that he did not kill that girl.

He was hoping that after the blood spatter there would be something else turning up to help him in the investigation so that he could uncover clear cut hard proof that says Daisy Fox was killed in this house on this day and time and this person did it. Right now he only had half of the equation. He didn’t even have a body or a lead to where the body might be buried.

Bill had spent countless hours and sleepless nights watching those videos and searching for something in there that would lead him straight to the whereabouts of Daisy Fox’s body, or what remained of it. Bill was sure that she had been dismembered and possible set on fire or boiled in acid so that nothing remained but a bunch of ashes on the ground. There was no evidence and nothing tying anyone to the crime of that young lady’s murder.

Bill tried to keep his mind on the good conversation and the fun times with his lady and his family, but as always he felt almost guilty for enjoying anything with this hanging around his neck. He just wanted to be free of it all and he didn’t see any way out.

He had run through all of the different elements in his head so many times he felt like his head was swimming. As he sat right there among people who cared about him more than anyone else in the world he wanted to tell someone. He was so tired of dealing with this thing alone. It had broken him and all but shattered his hope of returning to a normal life. How could he ever really be with Teri and give her the kind of love and attention that she deserved when he was dealing with this damn thing?

With all of the evidence he had of what happened to Daisy Fox he still was not close to figuring out why. Was this the work of some serial killer or was it too personal for that? If it was the work of a multiple murderer then the other victims would have been going missing, but so far he had not heard of anyone else being reported missing since Daisy.

So therefore he was being set up for this one murder and he just did not understand why. It had to be something to do with the accident. Maybe someone had decided that he was never coming out of the coma so he would be a perfect stooge and they never had to worry about the off chance that they might be caught one day.

But this person was going to do this again. From the video they obviously enjoyed it too much. That was why they made a tape of it. If someone just wanted someone dead they didn’t toy with them for hours and torture them until they were a shattered wreck of a human being. They just went ahead and killed them.

Even if they had known this victim it was way beyond personal now. It was just a matter of time before they moved to the next step. They were not going to be able to give up that thrill of the pain they inflicted and the way they had just snuffed out another life. Killing was like a drug to these people and they were never going to stop until they were caught again.

Oh, they probably thought that it was a onetime thing against some twat who deserved it, but what were they doing now with the urge nagging at them and nagging at them to kill again. They would eventually make a mistake. They always did.

But what if they didn’t do any of this? What if he was thinking of these people all wrong based on some books that he’d read? Then they were not going to do anything but sit and live out their peaceful lives knowing they got away with cold blooded disgusting murder.

That was the thing that kept him up nights. That was the thing that was really keeping Bill from sleeping the way he wanted to.

He had to tell someone. He had to get someone else to weigh in on this.

“CONFESSIONS”

Bill waited silently in the comfortable arm chair for Dr. Linda Wild to say something. He had just finished telling her everything. He told her about the ears he’d discovered and the DVD’s and he told her all about the blood spatter on the walls.

She waited patiently until he was done for the most part without interrupting him, which was a bit shocking, but Bill appreciated being able to tell the whole story. Getting everything out in the open off his chest was the most amazing feeling he could have ever described to anyone. It felt like he was constantly struggling to keep his head above the water and something was pulling him down harder and harder. Eventually he knew that he was going to fall and drown. That was all there was to it. He could not keep going on like this without going completely insane.

He felt it now. The power and the control over his life slowly returning as he spoke word after word about what he had been through. He wished he had decided to do this sooner, but he knew that he would have resisted the process and held something back if he’d done it too soon. It had to be now.

A few nights ago when he and Teri had dinner with his parents Bill found himself about ready to crumble and fall to pieces as he was talking with Frank out on the porch while the women were busy cleaning up. Frank knew something was going on with Bill and he just didn’t want to hide it anymore. But of course he could not bring himself to tell Frank exactly what was going on.

He explained to Frank how he had been trying so hard to go to sleep at night, but the stress of everything was crashing down on him and he found himself so worried that he couldn’t get through it all and that he was going to be seen as weak and as a failure by everyone. This was not exactly false information he was feeding his stepfather, but it was not the whole story either.

Frank suggested that he speak to a therapist. Bill rolled his eyes and was reluctant. His high school guidance counselor wanted him to speak to a therapist about his anger issues, but he had resolved the issue on his own. Bill pretty much thought that counselors were a waste of time and they really didn’t help anyone; if you got better it was because you helped yourself. That was all.

But then Frank reminded him that a shrink was not allowed to tell anyone anything. In fact if some of the criminal population would go to a shrink before they committed their next crime then it would make his job a lot easier to deal with.

That was when it clicked for him. The shrink was not allowed to tell anyone anything that a client told them in confidence, unless they led the shrink to believe that they were going to commit a crime in the near future. Then the psychologist would be legally obligated to contact the authorities.

Bill took several deep breaths as Dr. Wild finished up her notes. He noticed that she was rather attractive to be a shrink, but there was something in her demeanor that gave off the impression that if a man approached her in a romantic way he would probably be maimed somehow.

“Wow, that is quite a story,” Dr. Wild said.

Bill almost laughed at the way she said that, as if the words were out of her mouth before she gave them permission to exit.

“You don’t believe me? You think I’m crazy?” Bill asked. He had to admit the way he had just blurted all of this stuff out and even the way he was acting right then could be described as a little crazy. He was just so damn happy though. For the first time since he had come back home he had not felt totally haunted and completely out of synch with the rest of the world.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” The Dr. began. “It is just a bit much to absorb all in one sitting. Is that something you have trouble with? Do you take too many things, too many problems and ball them all up into one giant problem that seems too big to handle?”

“Yes, I do that sometimes. But in this case it all found me. I was just trying to adjust to being back home and looking forward to getting on with my life when this thing just appeared out of nowhere.”

“Now, backtrack a bit. Tell me how you felt when you first came home. Was it scary? Were you somehow feeling that you weren’t going to be ok on your own? That it was too soon?”