The Face of Death (15 page)

It’s a sad little shrug. “I knew he wouldn’t kill me. I knew if I just stood there and watched, and did what he said, and didn’t try to get away, he wouldn’t hurt me. Because that’s how he wants me. Alive and in pain.”

“In my opinion and experience,” I say, after a moment, my voice careful, “alive and in pain is better than dead.”

She appraises me. “You think so?”

“I do.” I point at my scars. “I have to look at these every day, and remember what they mean. It hurts. I’d still rather be alive.”

A bitter smile. “You might not feel that way if you had to go through it all again every few years.”

“I might not,” I say. “But the important thing is that, right now,
you
still do.”

I can see her considering this. I can’t tell what she decides.

“So,” she continues, “he stood over Laurel for a minute, just looking down at her. Her body didn’t move, she didn’t even blink—but she cried.” Sarah shakes her head, her expression haunted. “A single line of tears from the corner of each eye. The Stranger smiled at her, but it wasn’t a happy smile. He wasn’t making fun of her or anything. He almost seemed sad. He leaned forward and he closed her eyes with his fingers.”

We hadn’t known until now that he closed their eyes pre-mortem. It confirms my belief that men are his primary target. He closed Laurel’s eyes because he didn’t want her to see what was coming.

Big deal—he still killed her.

I park these thoughts, for now.

“And then?” I ask.

Sarah looks away from me. Her face changes, along with her voice, becoming wooden, mechanical. When she speaks, it’s a staccato. “He stood up. Picked her up, stood her in the tub. He slit her throat. Bled her out, dropped her on the rug.” She’s trying to hurry through this memory. It takes me a moment to realize why.

“You were closer to Laurel than you were to Dean, weren’t you?” I ask softly.

She doesn’t cry, but she closes her eyes tight for a moment.

“She was nice to me.”

“I’m sorry, Sarah. What happened next?”

“He had me help him move their bodies into the bedroom. He didn’t really need my help. I think he just wanted to keep my hands occupied so I couldn’t run away. We carried Dean in first, and then Laurel. He grabbed them under their arms, I took them by the feet. They were so pale. I’ve never seen a person white like that. Like milk. We laid them on the bed.”

She goes silent.

“What, Sarah?”

I see a little bit of that same emptiness I’d seen in her last night. Some of the girl at the window, gun to her head, singing a one-note song.

“He had a long leather case in his pocket. He opened it up and took out a scalpel. He handed it to me, and he told me…he told me…he told me…how to cut them. ‘Throat to waist,’ he said. ‘One slice, no hesitation. I’m letting you do this, Sarah. Letting you expose what they really are, inside.’” Her eyes are a little glazed. “It’s like I wasn’t really there. Like I wasn’t in myself. I just remember thinking, ‘Do what you have to do to stay alive.’ Thinking that, over and over and over, as I took the scalpel and I went over to Laurel and cut her open and I went over to Dean and cut him open and I peeled their skin back because The Stranger told me to and there was muscle, and he made me cut that too, and peel that away and now there’s bone and guts and he made me put my hands inside and
pull
and
pull
and
pull
and it was like rubber Jell-O and wet and it smelled and then it was”—her head slumps forward—“over.”

The words had rushed out of her, not stopping, a flood. Emptying her and filling me, sewer water, a death-river, horror at high tide. I want to stand up and run away and never see or hear or think of Sarah again.

But you can’t. She’s got more to say.

I look at Sarah. She’s gazing down at her hands.

“‘Do what you have to do to stay alive,’ that’s what I kept thinking,” she whispers. “He just smiled and filmed the whole thing. Do what you have to do to stay alive. To stay
alive.
”

“Should we stop?” I ask.

She turns to me, dreamy-eyed but confused.

“What?”

“Should we stop? Do you need a break?”

She stares at me. She seems to come back to herself. She presses her lips together and shakes her head.

“
No.
I want to get through this.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Maybe, maybe not. But I need to hear the rest of it, and I think she needs to tell it.

“Okay. What happened next?”

She rubs her face with her hands. “He told me to come downstairs with him. I followed him, down to the family room. Michael was there, sitting on the couch, naked. He was paralyzed too.

“The Stranger laughed, and patted Michael on the head. ‘Boys will be boys. But you already knew that, didn’t you, Little Pain? Michael was a nasty boy. He had a video camera going while you were down on your knees. I found the tapes on one of my prior trips here to reconnoiter. Don’t worry though, I’ll be taking them with me. It can be our little secret.’ He yanked Michael off the couch and dragged him across the rug.” She frowns. “I still had the scalpel. He hadn’t taken it away from me. That’s how sure he was that I wouldn’t try anything.” She shrugs, miserable. “Anyway. He dragged Michael over to me, and he told me it was my turn. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘You saw how I did it upstairs. Ear to ear, a big red grin.’ I told him no.” She shakes her head, a gesture of despair. “Like it mattered. Like it would make a difference.” Her smile is pained and crooked and full of self-hate. “In the end, one thing you can count on about me—I’ll do what it takes to survive. ‘Do it,’ he said, ‘or I’ll cut the nipples off your breasts and feed them to you.’” She pauses, looking down at her lap. “I did it, of course,” she says in a small voice. She looks up at me, fearful of what I might think. “I didn’t
want
him to die,” she says, her voice quavering. “Even though he blackmailed me and made me have sex with him and all those things, I didn’t want him to die.”

I reach over and take her hand. “I know you didn’t.”

She lets me hold the hand for a moment before pulling it away.

“
God.
Michael just bled and bled and bled.
God.
And then The Stranger had me help him carry the body upstairs. He put him on the bed, in between Dean and Laurel.

“‘It’s not your fault,’ he said. I thought he was talking to me, but then I realized he was talking to Michael. I was afraid he was going to make me cut him open too, but he didn’t.” She pauses. “I started to get mad. I think he saw it, thought I might actually try to do something, because he told me to drop the scalpel. I did think about trying to stab him. I really did. In the end, I did what he told me to.”

“And you’re here and alive,” I say, trying to encourage her.

“Yeah.” Tired again.

“What happened next?”

“He told me to come into the bathroom with him. He went over to the tub, and dipped his hand down into the blood. He started flicking it at me, saying, ‘In the name of the Father and the daughter and the Holy Spirit.’ He got blood on my face and other parts of me.”

The teardrop spatter I’d seen last night, I think.

“Is that exactly what he said? ‘In the name of the Father and the daughter and the Holy Spirit’? Not ‘Father and the Son’?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Go on.”

“Then he told me it was time to get busy. He said he needed to express himself. He took off his clothes.”

“Did you notice anything about him?” I ask her. “Any birthmarks, scars, anything at all?”

“A tattoo. On his right thigh, where no one would ever see it unless he was naked.”

“Of what?”

“An angel. Not a nice angel, though. It had a mean face and a flaming sword. Kind of scary.”

An avenging angel, maybe? Is that how he sees himself, or is it just a symbol of what he’s doing?

“If I had a sketch artist work with you, could you describe the tattoo?”

“Sure.”

I don’t see this perpetrator settling for a design selected from a book. He would have had the tattoo done to his custom and exact specifications. It’s possible we could track down the artist.

“Anything else about him?”

“When I saw him naked, I could tell that he shaves his body. Armpits, chest, legs, his cock, everywhere.”

This isn’t uncommon for a clever, organized offender. Most make a study of basic forensics and work to reduce their chances of leaving trace evidence behind. Shaving body hair is something serial rapists do all the time.

“What about moles? Scars?”

“Just the tattoo.”

“That’s good, Sarah. When we find him, that’s going to help us nail him.”

“Okay.” She seems listless.

“He took his clothes off. Then what?”

“He was hard.”

“You mean he was erect?”

“Yeah.”

I bite my lower lip, ask the question I’m dreading. “Did he…touch you?”

“No. He’s never fucked me, or tried to.”

“What did he do next?”

“He took two pairs of handcuffs out of the back pockets of his pants. ‘I need to lock you down now,’ he said, ‘so I can do my work without worrying about you running off.’ He cuffed my hands behind my back, and then he cuffed my ankles. He carried me into the bedroom and sat me on the floor. I didn’t fight him.”

“Go on.”

“He went downstairs and came back up with a big pot.”

“A cooking pot?”

“Yes. He filled it with blood from the tub and then…” She shrugs. “You saw the bedroom.”

He’d had himself a little party. Splashed the walls, finger paints from hell.

“How long did that go on?”

“I have no idea,” she says, toneless. “I just know that when he was done, there was blood everywhere. He was covered in it.” She grimaces. “God, he was so
proud
! He finished up and he stood in front of the window for a second, looking out. ‘A beautiful day,’ he said. ‘God made this day.’ He slid it open and stood there, naked and covered in blood.”

“He went swimming after that, didn’t he?”

She nods. “He left me there, left the room, and a few minutes later I heard him splashing around in the pool.” She looks at me. “I was starting to get fuzzy by then. Starting to go in and out. Getting crazy.”

Who wouldn’t?

“Anyway.” She sighs. “I don’t know how much time went by. I just remember lying there, and I felt like I was falling asleep and then waking up, but I wasn’t
really
falling asleep—I don’t know. It’s like I was fainting, over and over and over. One of the times I woke up, he was back.” She shivers. “He was clean again, no blood on him. He was looking down at me. I fainted again. When I woke up, I was downstairs, and he was dressed. He had that pot in his hands. ‘A little here,’ he said. And he tipped it, let some blood spill onto the rug in the family room. Then he said, ‘A little there,’ and went into the backyard and dumped the rest of the blood from the pot into the pool.”

“Do you know why he did that?” I ask her.

The hard, too-old eyes are back. “I think…it seemed right to him. Like a painting. That spot on the rug, the water in the pool, they needed a little more
red
to be just right.”

I stare at her for a moment before clearing my throat. “Fair enough. What happened next?”

“He sat down in front of me with the camera, pointed it at me. ‘You’ve been many things, Little Pain. An orphan, a liar, a whore. My pain-angel. Now you’re a murderer. You just killed another human being. Think about that for a minute.’ He went quiet then, just pointing the camera at my face and recording away. I don’t know how long it went on. I was out of it.

“He undid the handcuffs and told me he was leaving. ‘We’re almost there, Sarah. Almost at the end of our journey. I want you to remember, it’s not your fault, but your pain is my justice.’

“Then he was gone.” She gazes at me. “I went in and out for a little while. Things went black. The next thing I remember is talking to you in the bedroom.”

“You don’t remember asking for me?”

“No.”

I cock my head at her. “Why did you?”

She gives me a measured look of consideration that reminds me, for a moment, of Bonnie.

“Since I was six years old, a man has been coming into my life, taking away anything and anyone I love. And no one believes he exists.” Her eyes move across my face, dancing along my scars. “I read about what happened to you, and I thought, Maybe she’d believe me. I could tell you knew what it was like. To lose everything. To be reminded of it, every day. To wonder whether dying might be better than living.” She pauses. “I got the diary a few months ago and I wrote it all down. Every ugly thing. I was going to find a way to contact you and give it to you.” The shrug is small and bleak. “I guess I did.”

I smile at her. “I guess you did.” I bite my lower lip. “Sarah, what he said to you, about you being a murderer…you know that’s not true, right?”

She begins to shiver. The shivers turn into shakes, full-body trembles, her eyes wide, her face pale, her lips white and pressed flat together.

“Barry, get the nurse!” I say, alarmed.

“N-n-no!” Sarah says.

I look at her. She shakes her head as an underscore and crosses her arms over her chest, hugging herself and rocking back and forth. I watch, poised to hit the call button. A half-minute goes by and the shaking subsides back to shivers, the shivers die away. Color comes back into Sarah’s face.

“Are you okay?” I ask, feeling stupid for asking. It’s an impotent question.

She moves a lock of hair away from her forehead.

“It happens sometimes,” she says in a voice that’s surprisingly clear. “Bubbles up out of nowhere, like a seizure.” Her head snaps around, her eyes meeting mine, and I’m startled by the clarity and strength I see in them. “I’m almost done, do you understand? This is it. Either you find him and stop him or I’m going to take away the thing he wants the most.”

“What’s that?”

He gaze is steady but haunted. Firm yet lost. “Me. More than anything, he wants me. So if you can’t catch him, I’m going to take me away for good. Do you hear me?”

She turns back to the window, back to the sun, and I could argue with her, I could protest, but I realize she’s gone away from us for now.