signs were wrong.
He drove past his street. It was cordoned off. Police cruisers kept traffic from turning down the road. Onlookers were standing, gawking. He knew they were staring at his house.
This would have been easier if he hadn’t let himself be stabbed, but he had. Now he would make the best of it. He had his knife under a newspaper on the front seat next to him.
He turned on the radio, trying to find a news station. Finally, one tuned in and he listened to see if he heard his name. After thirty minutes of aimless driving, he didn’t.
Henry still had a few things to take care of. He pulled the SUV into a driveway. For a few seconds, he just sat inside it. Then he got out and walked to the front door. His finger found the doorbell.
It was a pretty one story house. Painted green with white shutters, it had a large covered porch. The woman that answered looked at him, surprised.
“Henry? What is it?” She asked.
“It’s your sister, I’m afraid Hilary was kidnapped last night by the serial killer the newspapers are calling the Flesh Hunter. They found her body about an hour ago. I thought I should tell you in person,” Henry answered.
“Oh my God. Come in,” Bell Turner said. She was Hilary’s younger sister by four years. They had never been close.
“We have to talk, Bell,” he said. He was holding a newspaper. “I know that Grace and Henry were not my kids, not biologically. But I found her diary this morning. Hilary had an affair with your husband.”
“What?” Bell shook like someone had turned on a cold stream of air.
“I’m sorry, Bell, I just wanted you to know. Henry was actually your husband’s son. I thought he was my brother’s until I read the diary.”
“Henry,” Bell sat down suddenly. Her body seemed to collapse. Henry tried not to smile. He was going to make the bitch’s entire family suffer for saddling him with the monster. She was directly responsible for Henry Junior killing himself. The bitch thought only of herself, never of their children.
“Let me make coffee,” Henry slipped into the kitchen. He found the coffee and began brewing a pot. He was desperate for a cup. He hadn’t had a cup since he’d been stabbed. The coffee smelled like heaven as it brewed. He shoved the folded newspaper into his back pocket. Taking his time, he fixed two cups of the strong black liquid, added cream and sugar to Bell’s and headed back into the living room.
He handed her a cup and took a sip of his own. It tasted wonderfully bitter as it warmed his mouth and throat. The steam felt refreshing on his face. He sipped it gently a few more times. Bell just held her cup, her hands shaking. Henry knew she was thinking about this mind-blowing information. Her husband, Ed Turner, was a state trooper. He wondered if she was considering what to do to him when he got home.
The phone rang. She looked at it and threw it across the room. It hit the wall and shattered. The action seemed to break her even more. She set down the cup and began to sob.
“Was that Ed?” Henry asked.
“Yes,” Bell wiped at the tears and tried to compose herself. “Probably calling to tell me that Hilary was dead.”
“We all knew she was like this, Bell, I don’t think we should hold it against her now,” he said, trying to soothe his sister-in-law.
“I knew, but my own husband. How could she do that?”
That was the confirmation Henry was waiting for. Bell had known about the plethora of affairs. She had known and never said anything, just smiled when they saw each other.
Bell began to cry again. Henry wrapped an arm around her. With the other, he drew the knife. Bell was just as responsible for Henry Junior’s death as Hilary had been. The knife entered between her ribs, puncturing her lung. Her eyes grew wide. Her mouth opened and an odd gurgling noise escaped her lips.
Henry drew the knife out and leaned Bell back against the couch. She was trying to reach for the wound. He knew he only had a few minutes to finish. He lifted her shirt and plunged the blade into her stomach. He closed his eyes, relishing the feeling of the blood flowing over his hands, then moved it upwards.
The knife hit Bell’s sternum. Henry jerked it out and watched as the woman’s insides spilled out onto the floor. Her eyes stared for a few more seconds. Her last breath escaped her lips.
Blood and intestines dribbled from her abdomen, filling the room with the smell of copper and shit. Death was always messy. He wanted to take a patch of her skin, but knew he didn’t have time. Instead, he moved up to her, put the knife in her cheek and removed the entire section, skin, fat, everything. The hole in her face oozed bloody mucus.
Henry used the kitchen to clean up. Once his hands and arms were blood free, he wrapped the knife back into the newspaper and dug out his cell phone.
“Henry?” Ed’s voice was filled with concern.
“I guess you’ve heard. Well, Bell got to know me up close and personal,” Henry laughed and hung up.
Henry left. His SUV took him away from the scene of death. Closer to another destination. Another woman that needed to die. He drove up to the morgue. The police radio crackled to life. It was Ed reporting that he thought Henry was at his house. Ed was very slow with the report, Henry thought as the car idled.
A black SUV with tinted windows pulled into the parking lot. A coroner’s van arrived at the same time. They unloaded two black bags from the van. Marshal Cain stared at them, waited for the attendants to take them inside. She spent a few moments speaking with the people in the SUV before climbing back into it. He’d have to wait a little longer.
When the parking lot was empty, he used the fire escape to climb to the roof. He took several things from a bag and set them up around him. Carefully, he put a tube into the ventilation system.
Twenty-Five
Gun drawn, I walked through the snow. The whiteness seemed wrong in this place of death. It symbolized innocence and this place was anything but innocent. It had seen butchery, slaughter and death. In my mind, they were not associated with whiteness.
Around me, I could hear Gabriel and Lucas moving. We had taken different routes, unsure what we would find. Their boots crunched on the snow. The crisp, cold layer on top had not yet started to thaw.
The trees threw long shadows on the ground. The branches grabbed at me, trying to tear at my face and hair. Reminding me that I was an interloper, an unwanted guest. I pressed forward.
The woods were silent except our footsteps. No birds, no small mammals, nothing moved. The world seemed to have stopped. We had stepped into a vacuum that defied space and time. It felt as if the world were holding its breath, waiting for us to find the dead doctor.
There was nothing in the clearing. I entered it and lowered my gun. I had expected to find him, alive or dead. I checked the map as Gabriel and Lucas came into view. We all looked around.
Lucas frowned. Gabriel pulled out his own map. Together we compared them. We were in the right spot, but there was no sign of Dr. Henry Ericson. Not even footprints in the snow.
“Fruck!” I crumpled up the map.
“Chill,” Gabriel said. “We just guessed wrong.”
“That’s the problem. We didn’t find him,” I said. “If he’s not here, where is he and what is he doing?”
“I see your point,” Gabriel said.
“Is he out killing more?” I asked.
“If he is, he could be anywhere,” Lucas said.
Together we hiked back to the car. Gabriel started the engine. I stamped my feet, shaking snow into the floorboard.
“We’ve got him on a most wanted list, he can’t get far,” Gabriel said.
“Yeah he can, he has all of northern Alaska to hide in,” I countered.
“It would be very hard to search all of Alaska for him,” Lucas answered.
I shook my head, “drop me at the morgue. Xavier will need some help, I’m sure.”
“You really aren’t that much he
lp in an autopsy,” Gabriel told me.
“Oh I know, he likes me there for living company and he bounces crazy ideas off of me,” I told him.
“Is that why he keeps taking you there?” Lucas asked.
“Yes, I know just enough about anatomy to be very dangerous,” I said.
We arrived at the same time as the coroner’s van. They unloaded the bodies of Hilary Ericson and Tucker Rybolt. I waited on them.
“We have another possible victim,” Lucas said, rolling down the window to talk to me as I stood in the parking lot.
“Who?” I asked.
“Hilary’s sister, Bell. Her husband just reported that Henry called him and threatened her. We’re going to go check on it,” Lucas said.
“Xavier can wait,” I climbed back into the SUV.
We drove to the address. Police squad cars were already there. They were marking off the area. Near one of the cars, there was a state trooper shaking from head to foot.
The house was pretty, painted a light green with white shutters. Wide front windows that let in tons of light or filled the yard at night from the inside. The front door had a window in it and showed no signs of being forced open. We entered the living room.
“What the hell?” Gabriel said.
The pretty pastel pink carpet was sucking in the drying brownish blood. Black spots dotted the floor around her feet. She wore pink house shoes, lined with fleece that made them look soft and fluffy. They too had suffered from the blood, soaking it in, tinting them with brownish streaks.
Her body was leaning back on the couch.