Stone Shadow (26 page)

Several years ago Joseph Hackabee let himself experiment with his lifelong fantasy: that of actually taking a human life and getting away with it. For a number of years he killed sparingly. But then the feelings the hot desires the overpowering needs for the act of random murder began to assail him at every turn. He made a plan and began to lay groundwork for a plausible scapegoat: his loathsome and weak sibling.

By surreptitiously inserting himself into the Dallas—Fort Worth area he was able to carefully structure a plan of grave sites and underwater locations where he could hide some of the dozens of victims. Others, he would show in the “picturing,” and then he would create an irresistible scenario into which Bill could then be placed. He knew his other half inside out. Knew that Bill could never extricate himself. And he would find the lure of notoriety impossible to resist.

The plan worked beautifully. It was only because of the intrusion of this—this woman. What a bothersome thing she'd become. She was dangerous. He would have to cause her to disappear. Soon.

They are inside and she is telling him about criminal intent and insanity and his subliminal processes begin winking signs of warning to his survival system. He sees Noel Collier as a stumbling block. She must be eradicated.

But now she moves toward him and he fakes his beautiful smile that so inflames her and the soft whispered endearments and does what he knows he must for the moment, what he has done since his infancy when he learned to please on command, hoping to survive another day of bewildering torture, he forces the thoughts necessary to stimulate his twisted, sick libido and relies on his fine body to come through as it so often does, the testes putting out the testosterone, the system blocking off the cortisol, his inner autopilot keeping him on course as he knows it will always do.

And slowly, subtly, he works to pry, nudge, coax, unbalance, tease, titillate, suggest, hint, infer, soft and gentle cadences making her trust him and like him, the richness of his voice making her want his mouth and the promise of what he says he wishes to do to her, and she melts under his experienced and brilliant touch, and he will have her to. himself soon and then he will make this bitch pay.

D
og had spent the night in the sling chair, and as Jack got out of bed to let it outside, he scrawled a note for himself to find a good home for it and brushed against the unread medical abstracts. He glanced at the point where he'd stopped reading, where another logjam of technical mumbo-jumbo had collided with his lack of scientific training, and he'd passed over pages of “chorion” and “placenta” and “intrauterine” and “superfetation” to words and phrases better understood.

The last thing he remembered reading was the part about the physical criteria for determining monovular twins. The part about how their ears and teeth should be alike, that the hair color, texture and thickness be the same, their eyes identical in color, the same skin color and texture (had Joseph gone the Mantan route?), blood typing, et cetera, and he'd left off reading where the words “etiology” and “dichorionic placenta” appeared in the same sentence.

He tried to focus on the paragraph again, and “arteriovenous” and “polycythemic” slammed into his brain and he read “most twins are born prematurely, and maternal complications of pregnancy are more common than with single pregnancies.... Theoretically, the second twin is more subject to anoxia than is the first because of the possibility that...” and as he detuned he remembered something that Dr. Vinson had said about a split-second cutoff. A moment's damage that could wipe out a human conscience. And for the first time he thought there might actually be something in all that hocus-pocus about thought manipulation on a neural pathway.

And frighteningly he recalled the Hackabee story of an orphanage fire, and a pair of foster parents long dead, and the entire alumni of that Branson agency coincidentally deceased—save for the old gentleman who'd fortuitously found his way to Alaska, perhaps just in time, and Eichord felt a cold stab of deep and very real fear. If Joseph Hackabee was the killer, he would be an extremely lethal adversary.

He drove in to work early, stoked on adrenaline rush, fear, and the sense of a mounting climax. Not a nervousness or even a professional apprehension so much as a feeling of icy resolve. It was nearly there. The hard evidence would soon fall into place or there would be none. It was as much in the hands of the team, task-force computers and people now working in faraway cities, the vast resources of MacTuff, as it was his.

An irony was that the racial situation had vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The press were back on the president's case, and with no new corpses, the best that media could do with the Grave-digger was to ponder some conspicuously missing persons in the Plano area. The tabloids had a Jackie-O in Noel Collier, and her beautiful face and flamboyant track record continued to appear whenever the Grave-digger updates got more print space and air time.

As Eichord drove to work he tried to get inside the head of the man in question. He worked to resolve the disparity between Le Face of Joe Hackabee and The Man. The mask he wore was all but impenetrable. For a handsome, talented, brilliant, successful and seemingly well-adjusted citizen to be, in private, a mass murderer—it was a tough sell. True, a couple of the perps who had taken down big numbers of young women had been in fact physically attractive and, at least superficially, “normal’ in their life-styles. But this was something else, this Hackabee thing. The sheer numbers alone made it so difficult for a sane person to fathom.

He'd barely parked his car and walked in the building when Mandel said, “Jack?” The voice had a sharp, serious edge of urgency.

“Oh, hello,” he said to the bulky figure standing in the doorway of the homicide squad room.

“Check it out,” Dr. Mandel said, laying a folder in front of him. He opened the file and saw Ukie's personal bio, titled Minnesota Multi-Phasic Personality Inventory. “Okay,” Mandel said, reading over his shoulder, “skip all this here"—he reached around Eichord and flipped past the lengthy history, past a Stanford-Binet—"here."

Eichord began to read the summary of the drug-induced test on SUBJECT: Mr. William Hackabee. He speedread word blocs about Ukie's very real fantasies. About his lack of a boundary between fantasy and reality. His fragile, schizophrenic personality, his frightening illusions of extreme power and terrorized vulnerability. He read Mandel's conclusions about Ukie's delusions and paranoia, and what he had said under drug-induced hypnosis. It sat him bolt upright in the chair and then he was pushing away from the desk even as he finished the paragraph.

“Where's the vid—” he started to say, but a nodding Dr. Mandel had anticipated him and placed the black cassette box in his hand. They headed for the monitor room, Sue Mandel telling him, “It was chancy, it was a gamble, but damn ... this new stuff is dynamite with pentathol, and it's super-potent. Opens up the old neural doors,” he told Eichord as he looked at him with a meaningful glare. They went in and Jack took out the tape and placed it in the machine, turning the power on and adjusting the controls.

The tape was marked and slated like a real movie, and then there was a period while the camera focused on Ukie, who appeared to be heavy-lidded but awake, and he heard Mandel's voice slightly off-mike saying, “Bill, how do you feel?"

“Fine.” Ukie slurring the word. Fine sounding like “hiiiii."

“Are you comfortable?"

Eichord adjusted the volume up slightly. The doctor spoke to Ukie in quiet, reassuring tones as he began.

“Yes. Fine."

“Just relax, Bill."

“Relax.” (We-laaaahhhh.)

“You know I'm a doctor. And I'm your friend. I'm here to make you feel better.” Mandel's voice getting louder.

“Better."

“You're a little boy, Bill. And we want to know how you feel. Tell the doctor how you feel. Are you sick?” Emphasizing the last three words.

“No."

“You're not sick, are you?” A very loud voice now.

“No. I'm not sick."

“Are you hurt?” Mandel's voice like a steel chisel.

“Yes. Hurt."

“Where do you hurt, Bill?” Insistent.

“Here. Privates."

“Do you hurt in your privates, Bill?"

“Yes."

“
Why
do you
hurt
in your
privates?"

“They hurt me there."

“Who, Bill?” No answer. “Who hurts you in your privates?"

“They do."

“Who hurts you in your privates, Bill?"

“Ma and Pa hurt us there."

“Ma and Pa hurt
who
there?"

“Yes.” The jaw fell slack.

“Ma and Pa hurt
us
there."

“Yes."

“Hurt Bill and ... who else?"

“Hurt Bill and Joe."

“How do they hurt you there?"

“No.” His face was contorted as he spoke. Words slurred.

“If you tell me how Ma and Pa hurt you I can make you feel better."

“Better."

“Yes. Much better. Now tell how Ma and Pa hurt you and Joe in your privates."

“No. Can't tell.” He was starting to move.

“Just relax, Bill."

“Relax."

“How do they hurt Bill and Joe?” Ukie shook his head violently. Mandel stayed with it a little longer but he seemed to be losing Ukie so he got him comfortable, relaxed, quieted down, and said, “Bill, you're a big boy now. All grown up. You feel much better."

Ukie smiled a heavy-lidded smile and nodded, “Yes."

“You feel so much better now."

“Yes."

“Bill, you like the doctor, because you know I'm your friend."

“Friend."

“Bill, I'm here to make you feel better."

“Yes. Better."

“Tell the doctor how you feel.. Are you sick?"

“Siiiiiiiiigh,” it sounded like he said.

"Are ... you ... sick?"

“Mmmmmmmm.” Not a word, more of a moan.

“Tell the doctor, Bill, are ... you ... sick?"

“Nnnn."

"ARE YOU SICK?
” Mandel shouting so loudly it scared Eichord.

“Mmm,” grunted out, Ukie's head slumped over. Jaw slack.

“Bill. Talk to me, Bill.” Still in a very loud voice.

“Nnnnnn.” He seemed to be saying no.

“This is a crucial point,” Mandel said to Eichord as he continued to get only minimal and monosyllabic noises from Hackabee. “You have to take the subject just to that point where he can still function and keep him out there on the edge of the razor. When you're dealing with a new drug like this, and someone like Ukie, you have a lot of variables at work. Now he starts to come around a little and I bring him back but of course that's the meat and taters that you just saw.” His voice was loud and persistent as it came from the speaker system, “Tell me, Bill."

“Yeah,” more like a response this time.

“Bill—I'm here to make you feel good."

“Yes. Good."

“Are you sick, Bill?"

“Nnnnnn."

“Tell the doctor. Are you sick now, Bill? You're all grown up now. How do you feel now?” No answer.

“Are ... you ...
sick?"

“Sometimes."

“What does sick mean, Bill?"

“Don't feel good."

“When you don't feel good, where do you hurt, Bill?"

“Head. Head hurts."

“Why does your head hurt?"

“Hurts real bad."

“Why does your head hurt, Bill?” Nothing. “You're all grown up, Ukie. Ukie is a man, now."

“Fine.” So the brothers had come from a background of child molestation.

“Ukie, how do you feel?"

“Fine?"

“Are you sick?"

“Yes."

Eichord had been riveted to his chair by the admission of Ukie's.

“Ukie, tell the doctor why you're sick."

“Angioneurotic edema, anaphylaxis, anaphylactoid purpura, treponema pertenue, renal impairment, intestinal amebiasis, systemic lipus erythematosus, chlamydia trachomatis, pericarditis, endocervical—"

“Ukie, tell the doctor where you saw those words."

“Words. On a paper thing."

“Do you like to memorize words?"

“Yes. ‘Member words."

Eichord sat motionless.

“Do you hurt in your head, Ukie?"

“Yes, bad there. Hurt bad."

Jack was still nailed by the admission.

“How do you hurt in your head, Ukie?"

“Comes inside to do things."

Jack almost regarded anything else he'd hear as anticlimactic now. This was hard, clinical evidence. Inadmissible or not, it was sufficient.

“No,” slurring the word, his face a contortion of terror. There was no faking this. Ukie Hackabee was scared shitless.

“Tell me about the thing, Ukie—” And Mandel hung in there for a while but it was taking its toll on Ukie, who appeared to have clammed up for good. By the time the doctor brought the session to an end Hackabee's face was streaked with tears. He appeared to be a genuinely tormented man.

“Jesus.” Eichord felt the cold stab of fear.

“Want me to go back and play the part where he says that about Ma and Pa hurting them?"

“No, thanks. I've seen everything I need for now."

“As soon as he's rested I'm going to take him under again and ask him about the killings. I'll wager he'll say he didn't do them."

“Any chance he could be faking the responses?"

“Almost none. The drug is extremely powerful. When he was regressing, the little boy who had been hurt in his Privates—you're getting the truth as he remembers it. There's an almost nonexistent chance that he could have been preprogrammed to respond in a certain way but the odds would be greatly against it. This is an experimental drug that has been used on so-called brainwashed prisoners and what little evidence is in indicates it's a breakthrough deal. I think we can put stock in the tape."

“The conclusions being that Ukie and his twin were abused or molested children.” It had hit Jack so hard he had to force himself to get up and move.

“Right."

“Okay.” He felt like a crushingly heavy weight had just been placed on him, and he knew then, as he moved into action, how much danger Noel Collier was in.

“If Ukie's thoughts are open to his brother,” he asked the doctor, who was following him as he walked quickly toward the squad room, “I wonder how much danger he's in."