Chapter 11
Once again Max and Alan walk toward the front door of a home which has had a life torn away. The home of someone now living a nightmare and wondering if they'll ever wake up. They’re hoping they'll rise to find their loved one just where they last saw them.
“Remember about compassion,” is all Alan offers before they're at the door, knocking and waiting. Max looks around and makes mental notes of all the unimportant but annoying things he can see, like how the bushes haven't been trimmed in years and the windblown dirt and dust hasn't been swept from the porch in maybe just as long.
Alan can see Max’s eyes darting around at the scene before them and knows what he’s thinking and says, “Stop judging her on the state of her yard.” Alan didn’t say the rest of what he was thinking, that he thinks Max’s immaturity and seeming inability to take the job seriously will get him into trouble one day.
“Seriously, I'm not. But, you know, if I was to offer some constructive criticism, I'd suggest, at the very least, paying someone to do the gardening or even moving to an apartment. It's why I live in one. I hate gardening.”
“Maybe she has better things to do with her time?”
“So move to an apartment! Why own a garden if you aren't going to look after it? I bet inside is even worse. I bet she still has wallpaper. Who still has wallpaper?”
“You haven't even seen inside yet. You don't know that.”
“You want to put money on it?” Max says as the door opens to reveal a grey haired Jessica, in her late fifties and near as makes no difference to morbidly obese. It was her son who had been found propped up against a tree in a park. She has her grey streaked hair in a very unkempt bun. Over her ample sized body is stretched an old and tattered man's sweater, even though it's not cold, in a horrible green colour and a pair of blue denim jeans. The blue and green clash loudly. She smiles as best she can, revealing missing teeth, and invites the detectives in without introductions although Alan manages to get his badge up before she waves them in.
The three sit in a lounge room decorated with a purple coloured floral wallpaper which, upon spotting, Max nudges Alan and nods an ‘I told you so’. On the coffee table Jessica places two cups of tea which Max and Alan must have said a polite 'no thanks' to at least three times during the walk from the door before realising they were going to get one whether they drank it or not.
While making the tea Jessica offered up no end of detailed descriptions about her day and what her pets have been up to. Sitting down with the two detectives she launches straight into talk about her son without prompting.
“Clive was a lonely boy. He’d stay in his room on his computer for hours. Some days I’d only see him when he came out for food. He enjoyed all things gaming and computers. He worked in computers.”
Max musters up his compassion, “And the last time you saw him?”
“When he left for work on Tuesday. Really, his only enemies were online.”
“Really?” Alan is surprised. “Online?”
“Yes, in his computer games. He liked the sword and dragon ones.” That wasn’t what Alan thought she meant.
“He had friends he played with?” Max asks as his phone rings. He cancels it after a quick glance at the screen.
“You wouldn’t think it but he had quite a few friends. All computer people. A couple are girls too. He didn’t date any of them.”
Max and Alan nod at the irrelevant information. “You can provide us with their details?” Alan asks with his head still nodding.
“Sure. But, it couldn't be any of them because, I mean the news has said there's been a lot of murders, yes? And Clive would be just one of them? The news said last night that there might be more, yes?”
“We're chasing all leads,” Max offers.
“So you haven't gotten very far? It's been a week now, yes?”
Alan smiles, amused by the innocence of Jessica’s question, “It's not that simple.” And changes the subject. “So Clive was the sort to have a schedule someone could have learned?”
“Well, yes. He left for work at the same time every day. Caught the same train. Walked the same way. He gets stressed easily so we tried to keep things as straight forward as possible.” Jessica smiles and continues, “He liked yogurt... would you like some?”
On their walk back to the car Max's thoughts are no longer on Jessica’s poorly manicured garden. “She had a point asking why we want a list of her son’s online friends when literally, in every conceivable way, nothing connects the victims. It's unlikely we'd find all these people with one particular shared acquaintance. These aren't murders of passion. They're well-constructed, well thought out, immaculately planned and executed attacks without, seemingly, any emotion. There are no mistakes in any of these deaths that give him away. He can dump bodies in the middle of the city leaving us with no usable CCTV footage or witnesses. Even the poison is made of household items so common it'll be impossible to trace them. Not even a fingerprint.”
By now they're at the car and after listening patiently to Max all Alan can offer is, “We've got the burns.”
Max is about to respond when his phone rings. He answers it this time, “Hey.” Thalia's voice projects out, “Hey. When are you home?”
“Not sure.”
“Will you be here for dinner?”
“Can't say. I'm in the middle of something, I'll speak to you later.” Max hangs up the phone abruptly without waiting for a reply or saying goodbye.
Alan is less than impressed, “After that massive rant you can't even speak to your wife for five seconds?”
Max is straight on the defensive, “Come on man, without fail she calls me every day.”
“Devastating,” Alan says sarcastically.
“I see her every morning and every night. We have hours each day during which time we can communicate face to face.”
“And do you, when you're home?”
“Do we what?”
“Communicate? Do you talk to her when you're at home?”
“We're married.”
“And you said it's been ten years. Nothing stays the same. You need to work with the changes.”
Max puts on a mocking tone, “Are you a marriage counsellor now?”
“No, but I am more experienced and I can tell you marriage is about communication.”
“Thanks Doc. How much do I owe you?” Max flops himself into the car to indicate he's done with the conversation.
Alan hops in, “Hungry?”
After ordering their meals, Max and Alan pick a table as far from the families and young people crowding the restaurant as they can. The taller detective decides he needs a bathroom break before eating and as he runs off Alan offers up a joke about how old men are supposed to have the weak bladders. He only realises it isn't funny after he says it.
Finishing up in the bathroom Max is washing his hands and as the water runs over them he holds them still and stares at them like they were now somehow different than he knew them to be. They are his hands but now seem to belong to someone else. He thinks of the burns on the murder victims. What had been normal for him, what he never thought twice about, are the large burns covering the palms of both his hands. Burns so deep neither his palms nor his fingers have any trace of a fingerprint pattern left. He dries his hands and stares at the melted skin.
He takes a slow walk back to the table where he sits down opposite the older detective; he doesn't go the menu in front of him or respond to the new weak-bladder joke Alan had been rehearsing while waiting for the younger detective to return. He just rubs the fingers on each hand together as though caressing an unseen piece of fabric.
He looks up at Alan, “I have a mate who lost an eye when he was a kid. Very young, like three or four years old. The accident left a scar on his face so, while they could give him a glass eye, which was noticeable by itself, no one would have thought much of it if he didn't have the scar as well, you know. He saw it himself in the mirror every day but never t
hought of it either. It was what he was used to.”
“Right. What are you keen to eat? I’m thinking I’d like a pizza. Irene doesn’t let me eat them anymore; cholesterol and all that...”
“Listen though. Everyone who saw him, saw his scar, and his fake eye. Every photo he was in captured his scar, you understand? But my point is that everyone saw what was different about him, except him. The scar, the missing eye, to him it was just his face, yeah? You had to point it out or ask about it for him to really remember that he even had those wounds.”
“Your point?”
“My point.” Max holds up his burnt hands, palms out. “These scars are normal to me. They are my hands and I need someone to point out to me that they're not normal, otherwise I’m not even going to think about them.”
Alan puts his menu down and loses the smile he had on his face while Max was talking about his one eyed friend. “How long have you had those?”
“Since I was thirteen.”
“Well,” Alan is more dismissive than Max was expecting, “I guess, it's not a surprise to have burns on the hands of these victims remind you of your own. I'm sure your mate would have remembered his scar if he saw someone with the same kind.”
Max nods his agreement and lowers his hands.
Alan continues, “So what have we got? Bodies with burns on their palms which are superficially similar to yours and your name carved into the skin of said bodies. Your thoughts?” Alan tries to be funny again. “Do you sleep walk?”
“I only know of two people with these scars and I'm one of them.” Max says this more seriously than Alan takes it.
“Who's the other? Your evil twin?” Alan thinks he's hilarious but his colleague doesn't seem amused so he stops laughing. “Do you have an evil twin? Do you have a brother?”
“I have a brother and he is my twin.”
“You never mentioned him.”
“Well we haven't spoken in years. He lost the plot way back. But, we both have these burns.”
Alan leans in for a proper look at the deep scars on the palms of Max's hands. “What's his name?” Alan asks.
“Heath.”
“Years, hey?”
“Yeah. He took off a few months before I got married. I had already asked him to be a groomsman. That's the last I saw of him. Haven’t spoken to him since. My parents kept in touch for a few months. They were concerned that he had some mental issues to deal with and tried to talk him into getting help but one day they called and his number was disconnected. He just disappeared. I don’t know, it’s probably a coincidence. Just my imagination getting the better of me.”
Alan takes a more serious tone than he had previously, “We need an imagination in our line of work. I’ll tell you, this is too coincidental to ignore. We’ll have to add him to the board.”
Max slinks back in his chair like a protesting teenager, “Give me a little bit, I'll check with my old man. But this is stupid, I shouldn't have said anything. It's ridiculous.”
“The bodies are piling up and this is the best lead we’ve got,” is all Alan says as they both read their menus in silence.
The silence of their car ride back to the office is broken by Alan saying, “Just a groomsman? You didn’t ask him to be your best man?” Referring to Max’s brother.
Max takes a moment to remember the question related to their earlier conversation and scoffs, “No way. We weren’t that close. I could hardly stand him, if I’m honest.” Max reflects on his statement. “I’ve often asked myself why we didn’t get along. You know, twin brothers, we should have been inseparable but I went out a lot and had lots of friends, he would stay home and play computer games or read whatever magazine subject he was interested in at the time. We were completely different.”
Alan offers, “Being different shouldn’t have stopped you from getting along.”
“Yeah, true. To be fair, I wasn’t overly nice to him. We were just…” Max tries to find the right word, “…different.”
“So maybe he’s angry at you and this is all payback?”
Max gives an uncomfortable laugh, “Pfft. No. It wasn’t that bad. Like I said, I’m sure this is just a coincidence.”