Blindsighted

“He pulled her teeth out and ripped her rectum open. How could anyone call what he did to her making love?”

  He shrugged, as if the answer was lost on him, but said, “Maybe he kept her so drugged up that she didn’t feel it. Maybe she didn’t know what was going on until after.”

  Sara considered this. “It’s possible,” she said, uncomfortable with the scenario.

  “It’s what she said, anyway,” he answered.

  The room was quiet but for the compressor on the freezer cycling down. Sara went back to the autopsy, using clamps to section off the small and large intestines. They were limp in her hands, like wet spaghetti, as she lifted them out of the body. Julia Matthews had not eaten anything of substance during the last few days of her life. Her digestive system was relatively empty.

  “Let’s see,” Sara said, placing the intestines on the grocer’s scale to weigh them. A metallic clink came, like a penny being dropped into a tin cup.

  “What’s that?” Jeffrey asked.

  Sara did not answer him. She picked the intestines back up, then dropped them again. The same noise came, a tinny vibration through the scale. “Something’s in there,” Sara mumbled, walking over to the light box mounted on the wall. She used her elbow to turn on the light, illuminating Julia Matthews’s X rays. Her pelvic series was in the center.

  “See anything?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Whatever it is, it’s in the large intestines,” Sara answered, staring at what looked like a splinter in the bottom half of the rectum. She had not noticed the sliver before or had assumed it was a problem with the film. The portable X ray in the morgue was old and not known for its reliability.

  Sara studied the film for another few seconds, then walked back to the scale. She separated the terminal ileum at the ileocecal valve and carried the large intestines to the foot of the table. After using the faucet to clean off the blood, she squeezed her fingers down from the base of the sigmoid colon, searching for the object that had made the noise. She found a hard lump about five inches into the rectum.

  “Hand me the scalpel,” she ordered, holding out her hand. Jeffrey did as he was told, watching her work.

  Sara made a small incision, releasing a foul odor into the room. Jeffrey stepped back, but Sara did not have that luxury. She used the pickups to remove an object that was approximately a half inch long. A rinse under the faucet revealed that it was a small key.

  “A handcuff key?” Jeffrey asked, leaning over for a better look.

  “Yes,” Sara answered, feeling a little light-headed. “It was forced up into the rectum from the anus.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess so that we would find it,” Sara answered. “Could you get an evidence bag?”

  Jeffrey did as he was told, opening the bag so that she could drop the key in. “Do you think we’ll find anything on it?”

  “Bacteria,” she answered. “If you mean fingerprints, I seriously doubt it.” She pressed her lips together, thinking this through. “Turn the lights off for a second.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  Sara walked toward the light box, using her elbow to turn it off. “I’m thinking he put the key up there relatively early in the game. I’m thinking the edge is sharp. Maybe it tore the condom.”

  Jeffrey walked over to the light switch as Sara peeled off her gloves. She picked up the black light, which would highlight traces of seminal fluid.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, and the lights went out.

  Sara blinked several times, letting her eyes adjust to the unnatural light. Slowly, she cast the black light along the incision she had made in the rectum. “Hold this,” she said, giving Jeffrey the light. She slipped on a fresh pair of gloves and with the scalpel opened the incision farther. A small pocket of purple showed in the opening.

  Jeffrey gave a small sigh, as if he had been holding his breath. “Is it enough for a DNA comparison?”

  Sara stared at the purplish glowing matter. “I think so.”

  Sara tiptoed through her sister’s apartment, peeking around the bedroom door to make sure Tessa was still alone.

  “Tessie?” she whispered, shaking her slightly.

  “What?” Tessa grumbled, rolling over. “What time is it?”

  Sara looked at the clock on the bedside table. “About two in the morning.”

  “What?” Tessa repeated, rubbing her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  Sara said, “Scoot over.”

  Tessa did as she was told, holding up the sheet for Sara. “What’s wrong?”

  Sara did not answer. She pulled the comforter up under her chin.

  “Is something wrong?” Tessa repeated.

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Is that girl really dead?”

  Sara closed her eyes. “Yes.”

  Tessa sat up in bed, turning on the light. “We’ve got to talk, Sara.”

  Sara rolled over, her back to her sister. “I don’t want to talk.”

  “I don’t care,” Tessa answered, pulling the covers away from Sara. “Sit up.”

  “Don’t order me around,” Sara countered, feeling annoyed. She had come here to feel safe so that she could sleep, not to be pushed around by her kid sister.

  “Sara,” Tessa began. “You have got to tell Jeffrey what happened.”

  Sara sat up, angry that this was starting again. “No,” she answered, her lips a tight line.

  “Sara,” Tessa said, her voice firm. “Hare told me about that girl. He told me about the tape on her mouth and about the way she was put on your car.”

  “He shouldn’t talk about that kind of stuff with you.”

  “He wasn’t telling it as a point of interest,” Tessa said. She got out of bed, obviously angry.

  “What are you so pissed at me about?” Sara demanded, standing, too. They faced each other on opposite sides of the room, the bed between them.

  Sara put her hands on her hips. “It’s not my fault, okay? I did everything I could do to help that girl, and if she couldn’t live with it, then that’s her choice.”

  “Great choice, huh? I guess it’s better to put a bullet in your brain than to keep it in all the time.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “You know what it means,” Tessa snapped back. “You need to tell Jeffrey, Sara.”

  “I won’t.”

  Tessa seemed to size her up. She crossed her arms over her chest, threatening, “If you don’t, I will.”

  “What?” Sara gasped. If Tessa had punched her, Sara would have felt less shock. Her mouth opened in surprise. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Yes, I would,” Tessa answered, her mind obviously made up. “If I don’t, then Mom will.”

  “You and Mom hatched this little plan together?” Sara gave a humorless laugh. “I suppose Dad’s in on it, too?” She threw her hands up into the air. “My whole family’s ganging up on me.”

  “We’re not ganging up on you,” Tessa countered. “We’re trying to help you.”

  “What happened to me,” Sara began, her words clipped and precise, “has nothing to do with what happened to Sibyl Adams and Julia Matthews.” She leaned across the bed, giving Tessa a look of warning. They could both play at this game.

  “That’s not your decision to make,” Tessa countered.

  Sara felt her anger boiling over at the threat. “You want me to tell you how they’re different, Tessie? You want to know the things I know about these cases?” She did not give her sister time to answer. “For one, nobody carved a cross on my chest and left me to bleed out in the toilet.” She paused, knowing the impact her words would have. If Tessa wanted to push Sara, Sara knew how to push back.

  Sara continued, “For another, no one knocked out my front teeth so they could sodomize my face.”

  Tessa’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, God.”

  “Nobody nailed my hands and feet to the floor so he could fuck me.”

  “No,” Tessa breathed,
tears coming to her eyes.

  Sara could not stop herself, even though her words were obviously acid in Tessa’s ears. “Nobody scrubbed out my mouth with Clorox. Nobody shaved my pubic hair so there wouldn’t be any trace evidence.” She paused for breath. “Nobody stabbed a hole in my gut so he could—” Sara forced herself to stop, knowing she was going too far. Still, a small sob escaped from Tessa’s mouth as she made the connection. Her eyes had been on Sara’s the entire time, and the look of horror on her face sent waves of guilt through Sara.

  Sara whispered, “I’m sorry, Tessie. I’m so sorry.”

  Tessa’s hand slowly fell from her mouth. She said, “Jeffrey is a policeman.”

  Sara put her hand to her chest. “I know that.”

  “You’re so beautiful,” Tessa said. “And you’re smart and you’re funny and you’re tall.”

  Sara laughed so that she wouldn’t cry.

  “And this time twelve years ago, you were raped,” Tessa finished.

  “I know that.”

  “He sends you postcards every year, Sara. He knows where you live.”

  “I know that.”

  “Sara,” Tessa began, a begging quality to her voice. “You have to tell Jeffrey.”

  “I can’t.”

  Tessa stood firm. “You don’t have a choice.”

  Friday

  18

  Jeffrey slipped on a pair of underwear and limped toward the kitchen. His knee was still stiff from the buckshot, and his stomach had been upset since he walked into Julia Matthews’s room. He was worried about Lena. He was worried about Sara. He was worried about his town.

  Brad Stephens had taken the DNA sample to Macon a few hours ago. It would take at least a week to get something back, perhaps another week to get time on the FBI DNA database to cross-check for known offenders. As with most police work, this was a waiting game. Meanwhile, there was no telling what the perpetrator was up to. For all Jeffrey knew, he could be stalking his next victim at this very moment. He could be raping his next victim at this very moment, doing things to her that only an animal would think to do.

  Jeffrey opened the refrigerator, taking out the milk. On the way to get a glass, he flicked the overhead light switch, but nothing happened. He mumbled a curse toward himself as he took a glass out of the cabinet. He had disconnected the kitchen lights a couple of weeks ago when a new fixture he had ordered arrived in the mail. A call had come from the station just as he was stripping the wires, and the chandelier sat upended in its box, waiting for Jeffrey to find the time to hang it. At this rate, Jeffrey would be eating by the light from the refrigerator for the next few years.

  He finished his milk and limped over to the sink to rinse the glass. He wanted to call Sara, to check on her, but knew better than that. She was blocking him out for her own reasons. He didn’t really have a leg to stand on since the divorce. Maybe she was with Jeb tonight. He had heard through Marla who had been talking to Marty Ringo that Sara and Jeb were seeing each other again. He vaguely remembered Sara saying something at the hospital the other night about a date, but his mind could not connect her words. Since the memory had come after Marla had deigned to mention the gossip to him, he could not rely on it.

  Jeffrey groaned as he sat back down on the bar stool in front of the kitchen island. He had built the island months ago. He had actually built it twice, because he had not been pleased with the way it had looked the first time. Jeffrey was above all things a perfectionist, and he hated when things weren’t symmetrical. Since he lived in an old house, this meant that he was constantly having to adjust and readjust, because there wasn’t a wall in the house that was straight.

  A slight breeze stirred the thick plastic strips lining the back wall of the kitchen. He was vacillating between French doors and a wall of windows, or extending the kitchen out about ten feet into the backyard. Some kind of breakfast nook would be nice, a place to sit in the mornings and look out at the birds in the backyard. What he really wanted was to put a large deck out there with a hot tub or maybe one of those fancy outdoor barbecues. Whatever he did, he wanted to keep the house open. Jeffrey liked the way the light came in during the day through the semitransparent strips. He liked being able to see into the backyard, especially at times like right now, when he saw someone walking back there.

  Jeffrey stood, grabbing a bat out of the laundry room.

  He slid through a crack in the plastic strips, tiptoeing across the lawn. The grass was wet from a slight mist in the night air, and Jeffrey shivered from the chill, hoping to God he did not get shot again, especially since he was dressed only in a pair of underwear. The thought occurred to him that whoever was lurking in the backyard might collapse from laughter rather than fear at seeing Jeffrey standing in the yard, naked but for his green boxers, holding a bat over his head.

  He heard a familiar noise. It was a lapping, licking sound, the kind a dog made while grooming. He squinted in the moonlight, making out three figures by the side of the house. Two of them were short enough to be dogs. One of them was tall enough to only be Sara. She was looking into his bedroom window.

  Jeffrey let the bat hang down as he tiptoed up behind her. He wasn’t worried about Billy or Bob, as the two greyhounds were the laziest animals he had ever seen. True to form, they barely moved as he sneaked up behind her.

  “Sara?”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Sara jumped, tripping over the nearest dog. Jeffrey reached forward, catching her before she fell on her backside.

  Jeffrey laughed, giving Bob a pat on the head. “Peeping Tom?” he asked.

  “You asshole,” Sara hissed, slapping her hands into his chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “What?” Jeffrey asked innocently. “I’m not the one sneaking around your house.”

  “Like you haven’t before.”

  “That’s me,” Jeffrey pointed out. “Not you.” He leaned against the bat. Now that his adrenaline had stopped pumping, the dull ache had come back to his leg. “You want to explain why you’re looking in my window in the middle of the night?”

  “I didn’t want to wake you up if you were asleep.”

  “I was in the kitchen.”

  “In the dark?” Sara crossed her arms, leveling him with a nasty look. “Alone?”

  “Come on in,” Jeffrey offered, not waiting for her to respond. He kept his pace slow as he walked back toward the kitchen, glad when he heard Sara’s footsteps behind him. She was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans with an equally old white button-down shirt.

  “You walk the dogs over here?”

  “I borrowed Tessa’s car,” Sara said, scratching Bob on the head.

  “Good thinking, bringing your attack dogs.”

  “I’m glad you weren’t looking to kill me.”

  “What makes you think I wasn’t?” Jeffrey asked, using the bat to hold the plastic aside so that she could get into the house.

  Sara looked at the plastic, then at him. “I love what you’ve done to the place.”

  “It needs a woman’s touch,” Jeffrey suggested.

  “I’m sure there are plenty of volunteers.”

  He suppressed a groan as he headed back into the kitchen. “Power’s out in here,” he offered, lighting a candle by the stove.

  “Ha-ha,” Sara said, trying the light switch nearest her. She walked across the room, trying the other switch as Jeffrey lit another candle. “What’s the deal?”

  “Old house.” He shrugged, not wanting to confess his laziness. “Brad took the sample to Macon.”

  “A couple of weeks, huh?”

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “Do you think he’s a cop?”

  “Brad?”

  “No, the perpetrator. Do you think he’s a cop? Maybe that’s why he left the handcuff key in…there.” He paused. “You know, as a clue.”

  “Maybe he uses handcuffs to restrain them,” Sara said. “Maybe he’s into S&M. Maybe his mama used to cuff him to the bed when he was a little boy.”

  He
was puzzled by her flippant tone but knew better than to comment on it.

  Out of the blue, Sara said, “I want a screwdriver.”

  Jeffrey frowned at this, but he walked over to his toolbox and rummaged around. “Phillips?”

  “No, a drink,” Sara answered. She opened the freezer door, taking out the vodka.

  “I don’t think I’ve got orange juice,” he said as she opened the other door.

  “This’ll do,” she said, holding out the cranberry juice. She rummaged in the cabinets for a glass, then poured what looked like a very stiff drink.

  Jeffrey watched all this, concerned. Sara seldom drank, and when she did a glass of wine could turn her tipsy. He had never seen her drink anything stronger than a margarita their entire marriage.

  Sara shuddered as she swallowed the drink. “How much was I supposed to put?” she asked.

  “Probably a third of what you poured,” he answered, taking the drink from her. He took a small sip, nearly gagging from the taste. “Jesus Christ,” he managed around a cough. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

  “Me and Julia Matthews,” she tossed back. “Do you have anything sweet?”

  Jeffrey opened his mouth to ask her what the hell she meant by that comment, but Sara was already rummaging through the cabinets.

  He offered, “There’s some pudding in the fridge. Bottom shelf in the back.”

  “Fat free?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Good,” Sara said, bending at the waist to find the pudding.

  Jeffrey crossed his arms, watching her. He wanted to ask her what she was doing in his kitchen in the middle of the night. He wanted to ask her what had been going on lately, why she was acting so odd.

  “Jeff?” Sara asked, rooting through the fridge.

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you looking at my ass?”

  Jeffrey smiled. He hadn’t been, but he answered, “Yeah.”

  Sara stood, holding the pudding cup in the air like a trophy. “Last one.”

  “Yep.”

  Sara pulled the top off the pudding as she scooted onto the counter. “This is getting to be a bad thing.”

  “You think?”