Phobia KDP (19 page)

“Who?” Tucker asked.

“Cheryl Brandt. She was curator for the Bramble Art Gallery in Carlisle. It’s just a small place that features local artists. Her boss says she didn’t show up for work this morning. He tried to call her house and couldn’t get an answer.”

Herne raised an eyebrow. “She misses one morning at work and he thinks it warrants a call to the police?”

Saxon shrugged. “I don’t know much more. Sheila got the information from the Carlisle PD dispatcher. They’re cousins. The Carlisle boys are on their way to check it out now.”

“We don’t have jurisdiction there,” Herne said.

“Chief Greiner and I go back pretty far. He was a damn groomsmen at my wedding for Chrissake,” Tucker said. “I’m sure he won’t mind if we just take a look.”

Herne pulled a few bills from his wallet to cover the tab and tip, and the three of them left the restaurant under the watchful eyes of other customers.
They’re scared. Confused. They’re wondering why we haven’t captured The Healer. But they don’t feel real animosity for us,
Herne thought.
Not yet.

Herne knew that the entire town would start screaming for action if The Healer continued to remain at large. The residents had already responded to their own fear. They’d started locking windows. Bolting doors. Distrusting strangers. And even eyeing their own friends with suspicion.

And, God help them, he feared there would be more deaths before the town would rest in peace again.

Tucker pulled the car up to Cheryl Brandt’s curb. The instant Herne stepped out, he knew that the woman inside apartment Number 3 had died at the hands of The Healer. He didn’t need to the yellow police tape or the flashbulbs of the news crews to confirm his suspicions. He simply smelled the fear from the gathering crowd of onlookers, the emotion so thick and heavy that it was almost palpable.

A set of stairs outside led to Cheryl’s second floor entrance. The door to her unit—a flimsy door meant more for the interior of a home than the main entrance of a dwelling—stood ajar, splintered at the doorknob. Uniformed officers milled around the scene, their thick shoulders and shaved heads painting a picture of authority.

Tucker stood outside the tape, his eyes watching the crowd. When Carlisle’s Chief of Police walked out of Cheryl’s apartment, Tucker ducked beneath the yellow tape and moved toward him. Saxon followed.

Herne remained outside the tape with the rest of the onlookers. He closed his eyes and imagined the killer walking outside of the apartment building. Watching. Stalking. The killer would have surveyed the scene for hours. Perhaps days. He would have known Cheryl’s habits. Known the habits of her neighbors. The killer might be an expert at surveillance. A pro. Just like Morales.

“They ain’t brought the body out yet, if that’s what yer closin’ your eyes about,” said a voice. Herne opened his eyes and turned to the woman beside him. Spongy pink curlers hung limply in her gray hair. When she spoke, the scent of pink peppermint candy wafted through the air. Herne guessed her to be almost as old as his grandmother. The woman assessed him with her watery eyes. “I would’ve thought that a big boy like you wouldn’t be scared of seein’ a dead body,” she said.

“It’s never easy to see the dead,” Herne replied.

The woman sniffed. “I seen lots of dead bodies in my day,” she said. “When you get to be my age, you get used to seeing your friends dead. They’re laid out in caskets, of course. But dead is dead.”

“Dead is dead,” Herne repeated. He closed his eyes again. The Healer wasn’t looking for death. The Healer was looking for something else. Glory, maybe. Or a sense of satisfaction.

“It’s harder, though, when the young die. Like Cheryl,” the woman said.

“Did you know Cheryl?” Herne asked.

The woman nodded. “I knew her. We weren’t friends. She was just a young one, and young people don’t want anythin’ to do with old geezers like me. But she’d nod a greeting if we passed on the sidewalk or stairs. And she wasn’t above askin’ to borrow an egg or a cup of sugar, although that’s not the type of things young people do today. They don’t bake, you know. They just buy pies and cookies from the grocery shelf. It all tastes like cardboard, if you ask me.”

“You were her neighbor,” Herne said. The woman’s abrasive manner appealed to him. In another time or another place, he might have passed an enjoyable hour chatting with her about the degradation of society’s youth.

“I live downstairs,” the woman replied. “In the apartment below her.” The woman lowered her voice. “People are saying Cheryl is dead. And if she is, her body’s been rottin’ in that house since this weekend.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I haven’t heard a peep out of her since Saturday morning. And usually she plays her TV every evening, from six o’clock until midnight.”

“Maybe her TV is broken,” Herne suggested.

The old woman sneered. “Fine. Believe that if you want, Mister. But I’m telling you, she either wasn’t there, or she wasn’t alive. I haven’t heard her voice. Haven’t smelled any food cookin’. In case you ain’t noticed, the walls and doors of this house are paper thin. And full of cracks, too. There ain’t much that goes on in one apartment that the rest of us don’t know about.”

“But you did hear her on Saturday morning, right?” Herne asked.

“A little bit after eight o’clock. She was dancing.”

“Dancing?” Herne asked.

“Stompin’ and bumpin’ like that horrible dirty dancing young people do these days. All crazy, like they’ve been possessed by a demon. Ain’t nothing like the dances I remember from my youth.” The old woman sniffed again. “Anyway, I could hear the thumpin’ going on in her apartment. And the music, too. That terrible music that talks about killin’ and shootin’. The kind of music that colored boys listen to. It should be banned.”

“Did she play the music all morning?” Herne asked.

The old woman shook her head. “It was only on for about fifteen minutes. Good thing, too, because I was about ready to go up and complain.”

I’ll bet you were,
thought Herne.

Tucker poked his head out of Cheryl’s door and yelled down at Herne. “Art,” he said. “Get up here.”
The old woman grabbed his arm as he turned to go. “You a cop?” she asked.

Herne almost nodded his head.
Old habits die hard,
he thought wryly. “No,” he said. “I’m not a cop.”

“That’s a shame,” she said. “You’d make a good cop. I have a sense about these things.”

Herne didn’t reply.

The apartment felt chilled, as if the air-conditioning had been set just a notch too high and then left to run indiscriminately. A few cops lingered inside Cheryl’s kitchen. Saxon stood in the living room. Herne saw her wrinkle her nose at the floral printed curtains.

“Flowers aren’t your thing?” he asked.

She shook her head. “My mom loved floral prints. I spent my whole childhood in a printed garden. I grew to hate pansies.”

Herne moved through the living room and into the bedroom, where Tucker and Chief Greiner stood. Herne was certain that Greiner’s tie, its tip resting too high on his pot belly, was a clip-on.

“Art, this is Nick Greiner, Chief of Police here in Carlisle.”

Greiner’s hand, soft and plump, reached out for the obligatory handshake. “Rex has told me about you,” Greiner said. “You used to be with the Philadelphia department, right?”

Herne nodded.

“Why’d you retire?”

“I ran out of things to sacrifice,” Herne replied.

Greiner stared at Herne for a moment before glancing at Tucker, who shrugged in response.

“The Healer was here,” Herne said.

Greiner turned to Herne, his voice sharp. “How do you know that?”

Because he leaves a presence that colors the room with the taint of terror and death. Because I can imagine Cheryl’s fear in this apartment, as he carried out his crime while surrounded by bright floral prints.
Aloud he said, “Because Rex wouldn’t have called me up here for any other reason.”

“She’s been dead at least twenty-four hours, maybe more,” Tucker said. “She’s in the bathroom, if you want to see the body.”

“I do,” Herne said. “But first I want to see her bedroom.”

He walked slowly around Cheryl’s bedroom as Tucker and Greiner watched in silence. Cheryl’s matching comforter and sheets were printed with purple violets. A wallpaper border of honeysuckle vines lined the walls of the room.

A small table and mirror, slightly larger than the standard vanity, sat in the corner of the room. Herne noticed it contained a few different boxes of baby wipes and an aerosol can of dry shampoo. He recognized the shampoo instantly. It was the kind the hospital used on his aunt when she’d been dying of pancreatic cancer. He remembered thinking about its absurdity. His aunt—his favorite aunt—had been weak and helpless, barely able to raise her arm to touch him. Her sallow skin, so yellow against the cold white sheets of the hospital bed, seemed to sink into her bones and erase every trace of the beautiful woman she’d once been. Yet the hospital had insisted on cleaning her hair with that ridiculous dry shampoo. As if she cared about her hair. As if anyone did.

Next to Cheryl’s vanity was a trashcan. Herne peered inside, but saw nothing other than wadded, discarded baby wipes.

The bathroom only had room for one man. The others stepped aside so Herne could enter. Cheryl Brandt lay on her back in her bathtub, her feet and hands bound with tape. The tub was dry except for a few tiny pools of water, no more than a few drops, that seeped out from underneath her body. Her blue eyes were wide, and Herne saw the terror in them. Her face had contorted into a twisted mask. Her mouth gaped like a fish gasping for air. Herne could almost hear her silent screams in his head.

Other than a few bruises, there were no signs of traumatic injury.
But her death
was
traumatic
, Herne thought.
Traumatic and violent.

“Jesus Christ,” Tucker said from behind him. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Herne faced the two men. “She’s been dead since Saturday,” he said.

“And how the hell do you know that?” Greiner asked.

“Saturday was his day to heal,” Herne said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

This time the Pennsylvania State Police arrived. Three murders in three weeks had attracted their attention and they had no intention of allowing city cops to continue the investigation.

They brought their own crime scene team, a coroner, and two troopers. Sergeant Christopher Frey was a hairy, barrel-chested man. He did all the talking. He reminded Herne of a well-trained gorilla, the type that beats its torso when it wants the attention of others. His lean partner, Corporal Rod Jenkins, simply stood and listened.

“I want everything you’ve got, Chief,” Frey said to Tucker. “All the photos. All the files. All the evidence. Let’s get this cleared up.”

“I’m not handing over this case,” Tucker said through clenched teeth. “I’ll cooperate and give you what you need, but I’m not stepping out.”

Greiner stepped forward. “We’re all in this one together, Frey. This homicide happened on my doorstep.”

Frey nodded, but his tone was condescending. “Of course.”

His acquiescence amused Herne, who knew that the state police would do their best to completely take over The Healer case and shut out both the Carlisle and the Hurricane PD.
We’ll have to find The Healer on our own now,
he thought.
We’ll be out of the loop.

Herne knew that Tucker had asked Paul Lee, the Hurricane Medical Examiner, to visit the crime scene. The Asian doctor had managed to take a quick look at the body before the state police coroner arrived. Herne appreciated the efficiency of the physician. It had been years since Herne had needed medical attention—and he wasn’t planning on making an appointment any time soon—but if he ever needed emergency care, he wouldn’t mind if Paul Lee was the doctor who arrived on the scene.

“They’ll be doing their own autopsy,” Lee said as he huddled with Herne and Tucker in the corner. “I see indicators of adhesive on her mouth, like it was taped closed when she died. But I don’t see any obvious signs of massive violence. Just a few bruises. No wounds, broken bones, or head trauma.”

“Drug overdose?” Tucker asked.

Lee shrugged. “Maybe.”

Herne shook his head. “She drowned.”

Tucker stared at his friend. “How do you know?”

“Because she was frightened of water.”

Herne turned and left. There was no need to flip through Cheryl’s address book. No need to ask the troopers if they’d found any business cards. Herne knew where to go next.