Final Cut (5 page)

“ALL WRAPPED UP”

The jewelry box tumbled from his shaking hands as he closed his eyes and let out a small scream to try to shake the image that he’d just witnessed. He kept his eyes closed for several seconds and rubbed his fingers together. His hands felt filthy suddenly as if he had just been exhuming a cadaver or gutting a fish. He felt dirty all over and instantly sick at his stomach.

What the hell was that? What had he just seen?

It couldn’t be real. It had to be a joke. It had to be Buzz or Andrew pulling a prank on him right? Normally Bill had a pretty twisted sense of humor and could prank and joke with the best of them, but pulling something like this was pretty damn weak. What the hell were these guys trying to do—finish off the job? His brush with death wasn’t close enough apparently.

Bill gathered himself and bent down to pick up the jewelry box. The ears were on the floor now. They looked so lifelike. Where did they get ears—?

Bill’s heart skipped several beats as he held the ears in his hands. They were not fake. He knew real flesh when he gripped it. There was no way these ears were fake.

“Ahh!” Bill exclaimed as he threw the ears to the floor again.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod

Those were real ears that were now on his floor in his living room. What the hell was going on here? How did a person’s severed ears end up in his house?

“Ok, just think Bill. Think. Get a grip,” Bill said to himself hoping the sound of his real voice might reassure him just a bit. He had to get a handle on the situation. But how was he supposed to do that? Nothing in life could ever prepare someone for finding severed body parts in their linen closet.

He had to call the police. He had to talk to Frank at least—NO!

He couldn’t call the police. What if they thought he did this? What if they thought he was having some breakdown after the accident? But how could he have done it? When would he have even had time to do something like this? He had just arrived back home today and there was no way that in his condition he was going around cutting people’s ears off.

They didn’t look fresh.

Bill realized this with total clarity right then. He was not a body parts expert by any stretch of the imagination. But he could tell that those ears did not look remotely fresh. The blood was curdled and caked on. The skin was grey and flaky. Rigor Mortis had set in long ago and the stench rising up from them now was nauseating. He had not smelled this at first, or at least he had not noticed it. Perhaps he had been still half asleep and just had not noticed the smell.

Whatever it was, he knew that this person had been killed a while ago.

The person had been killed. He had not consciously thought of this until right at that moment. The ears were cut off a person probably after they had been murdered. They were souvenirs, just like he’d seen on those crime shows he loved to watch.

He was looking at the clues to a vicious murder right in front of him. He had to contact the cops. He had to tell them what he found.

But what would it look like? Who had done this? Who would have put something like this in his house? That didn’t make any sense. He had been in a coma for three months and just arrived back home. He couldn’t have done it. There was no way they could suspect him.

The murder happened before.

This thought kept occurring in his mind. The rational side of his brain kept pointing out the dangers in doing the right thing and how it would be very bad for him. The murder of this person had obviously happened, possibly months ago. He would be the prime suspect. A dead person’s body parts were found in his home.

How had they got there? Bill had no idea and telling the cops that you don’t know how a dead person’s severed body parts ended up in your home was a surefire ticket to the gas chamber. His life would be over. He would never see the light of day again.

Where was the rest of the body? That was the big question. Where was the rest of this poor person who had suffered in ways that Bill could only begin to imagine? And who had killed them? Whoever it was had decided that putting their trophies in Bill’s house was an ok idea. But the only people who had access to his house without breaking and entering it were his family and friends. And surely none of them could be behind this. He knew those people. This was the work of some dangerously psychotic psychopath.

Jake. Maybe Jake had done this. He had figured out who Bill was and he had decided that he was going to tarnish Bill’s good name even after he killed him. That was a plausible idea, right? It was a stretch but you could not rule out such a thing with a twisted individual like that.

But who had he killed? What poor, innocent person had suffered at the hands of Jake Johnson just so he could tarnish Bill Russell’s good name? Even as he thought about this he had to admit it sounded too farfetched to be believable. Bill just could not stomach the thought of this happening for real. Jake was disturbed, but was he crazy enough to kill some random girl to frame Bill for her murder after his death? Maybe he thought that Nancy might see that Bill was a bad person and that Jake was saving her from her sins and mistakes?

Bill leaned back and closed his eyes with a groan. He did not know what to do or what to think. All of these ideas were crazy sounding and getting worse by the second as he entertained them. He might be in deep trouble. If there was evidence like this in existence that he had committed some horrible crime maybe there was evidence somewhere else that would link him to the murder.

How the hell had this happened to him? He just needed to contact someone for help, but there was no one he could turn to. There was no one he could go to with this.

Bill had to hide the evidence. He did not want to get rid of it because he felt it might be a good way to find out who the victim was and if there was a way that he could trace them to a killer or at least deflect the incriminating evidence away from himself.

Did the cops even know about the victim? Was there body found anywhere close by? Frank had not mentioned finding a body anywhere with its ears missing, but he seldom discussed cases he was working on, not even with family. Besides with everything that Bill had been through it was probably not the best idea anyway. He did not need the aggravation.

He had to do some research. He had to do some digging into any reports of a dead body found with the ears removed. That was a very distinctive signature. He knew this from all the detective shows he watched. That was the one thing the cops searched for first when they identified a victim; they had to find out if there was a pattern involved or if it was a crime of passion and if the victim knew their attacker.

Bill got up off the couch, ignoring the pain that he was agonizing through and grabbed the broom and the dust bin from the kitchen. He scooped up the ears and put them back in the box. Then he placed them back in the linen closet where he found them. He doubted that they would be found there, but he was not sure that he could make it up the stairs to the attic in his current shape.

He now realized that it was almost six in the morning and the sun was coming up. There was no way he was getting back to sleep anyway after what he’d just been through. And he had physical therapy in two hours. He was normally excited about physical therapy because he saw it as the only way he was going to be completely independently mobile again and plus he got to spend time with Teri, who he had to admit he was crushing on a bit now.

But even her beautiful face and sweet spirit was not enough to shake him out of the funk that he was currently in. His whole body was quivering with both cold and shock. He was hungry as hell, but he doubted he could get any food down him since he could not get the image of the contents of the jewelry box out of his mind. It was just not going to happen.

Bill somehow struggled through a shower (Buzz and Joan had got him one of those nifty shower chairs, which was nice but he hated it simply because it reminded him that he was still not as close to recovery as he’d like to be) and then got dressed and off to rehab.

It felt strange being behind the wheel of a car again. His other car had been completely totaled, but he still had his trusty old pickup truck. He’d had the truck since he was sixteen. It was rusted, beat to hell, and it had over 150,000 miles on it, but it still ran and got him where he needed to go. He used it typically to haul wood supplies and so forth, but for right now it was going to be his primary transportation—providing it didn’t break down and leave him stranded somewhere.

He arrived at his physical therapy appointment right on time and Teri was glad to see him. Bill was a nervous wreck, but he felt that he was hiding it well. He tried to focus on the exercises that Teri was having him do and he struggled to maintain his usual amount of stamina, but he had some other things on his mind dammit.

He kept watching over his shoulder as if he expected the cops to bust into the rehab center in the hospital and arrest him on sight. He hoped that Teri could not tell that something was bothering him, but she was pretty sharp. That was one of the things he liked so much about the girl, but at a time like this it would have helped if she was a bit more emotionally stunted.

“Come on! You are half-assing it today!” Terry yelled as Bill struggled to complete his lap without the walker. It was taking all of his concentration to put one foot in front of the other and when he found himself reaching for the support bars he instantly retracted his hand, determined to not allow this thing to beat him. But it was tough and he knew that he was not going as fast as he normally did.

He just didn’t have it in him to move faster today. He had not slept well, despite being able to sleep in his own house surrounded by all the comforts that he enjoyed. He knew that tonight he was going to have to make it to bed before his body wore out.

Bill finished the run and sat down on the chair to rest. He was really huffing and puffing today and he was ashamed of his performance. If it had been with anyone besides Teri, he might not have cared. He was too wrapped up in the fact that someone was trying to frame him for murder. But Teri made all the difference. He felt a kinship and an attraction to her that he had never felt with anyone before except for Nancy. Was it possible to feel that way about two women in your lifetime? It was true that people often got married and divorced multiple times, but the one thing that Bill had always wondered was whether or not these people really felt the same about all of the people they married. Bill was a bit of an old fashioned romantic and he really believed there was only one true soulmate out there for everyone. It was damn near impossible to get lightning to strike the same place twice.

He thought he might just prove that wrong here.

Teri handed Bill a towel and a bottle of water as she sat down on another chair beside him. He could not help but glance sideways at her cleavage poking out of that sexy nurse’s uniform. He often wondered who had designed the nurse uniform to be so sexy. It was not supposed to be a sexy job was it? Most of its duties involved pretty gross things, even for rehab nurses like Teri. Bill decided not to question such things as they were a gift from God.

Teri was one of those gifts too he thought. He owed her so much. She had helped him along a great deal and he would never really be able to pay her back for all she had done for him.

“You ok?” Teri asked.

“Yea, I’m just really tired. Being back at home and getting into the swing of things has been tougher than I thought it would be. It’s amazing how institutionalized you can become so fast.”

“I understand that. But I’m sure you will be back in top form in no time,” Teri said with that sexy smile of hers. Bill found it hard to believe how he had never really had these feelings for her before. She was really a remarkable woman. And as far as he knew she did not have a psychopathic husband. And her brother was a great friend.

Bill wanted to tell her so badly what he had found. The idea kept popping into his eyes as if it might be a good idea to tell her. He had to remind himself that he was just getting lost in how close to Teri he was feeling, but he was not sure he would ever be close enough to anyone to tell them this. Maybe not even his own mother. Even someone who was expected to love you unconditionally had some limitations to how far the love would go.

The more he thought about it the more nerve racking it was becoming. As much as he was enjoying being with Teri he had to get the hell out of here and do some damn digging. His own life might actually be in danger in more ways than one. Either he was in danger from the psycho killer who decided that his house was a great trophy palace for his murders, or from the authorities who might stumble upon a tip or a crime scene that pointed to him.

At the end of the session Teri congratulated Bill on a job well done, even though he knew he had been dragging ass today. As he was getting ready to leave he had an insane urge that he allowed himself to follow through on.

“Teri, would you have dinner with me tonight?” Bill asked. He could hardly believe the words had tumbled out of his mouth. It was crazy to think that he had just asked her out like that. Usually this was not his way unless he had a few drinks in him, especially when his mind was on the fact that he might be going to prison for a murder he was sure he didn’t commit.

“I’d love to,” Teri said. She quickly wrote down her address and phone number for him. They agreed he would pick her up at seven.

Bill drove home feeling excited despite the dark clouds looming over him right then. For the first time since the accident he was feeling like his old self again for the most part.

Now he just needed to find out where the hell those severed ears had come from.

“STRANGE DINNER PLANS”

Bill finished climbing the stairs and leaned against the wall with his cane huffing and puffing like there was no tomorrow. He knew that the stairs were going to be a challenge but had no idea what a workout they would indeed be. It was pathetic how out of shape he was and how much his muscles had atrophied during his coma. He was definitely stronger than he had been though and his strength was returning with alarming quickness. That was something to be thankful for. A week ago he could not have made it up the stairs even halfway and probably would have plummeted down the stairs and landed back in a coma.