It was wrong, but Paul’s deadly mistake, the devastating meeting with Michaela, and George’s fainting spell had prodded me into pulling my thumb out of the butt of my love life, so to speak.
(Ugh!)
As analogies went, that one sucked, which wasn’t to say it was inaccurate. But if someone as brilliant as Paul could set up a woman to be murdered and never understand why that wasn’t helpful, I wasn’t going to keep playing should-I-or-shouldn’t-I with Patrick. He deserved better, and so did I.
In ten minutes my worldview had changed forever. Things in my past had to be looked at again, because what I thought had happened had perhaps never happened. Meeting Michaela, finding out my split into Shiro and Adrienne was a result of my mother murdering my father before my eyes, thinking finding a man who wanted me would solve problems rooted in childhood, joining up with BOFFO … all of it was true and none of it was true.
Nothing could be taken for granted. In a world where everything changed in a blink, it was no time to settle and no time to watch and wait and hope situations resolved themselves.
I wasn’t a cop, I wasn’t a crook, I wasn’t a freak, I wasn’t an ordinary woman. I wasn’t a daughter and I was no longer an employee—maybe. (I was still puzzling that one over.)
But I was a woman who was capable of love and passion and who did not need to grab someone back just because they grabbed first. I didn’t want someone to fix me, I didn’t want to bake cookies and visit my doctor and passively hope to become a whole person while cashing baker’s paychecks. I didn’t want to start every phone conversation with “Sorry, but…,” and I didn’t want to apologize for how I lived and where I worked and what I did. My choices were unconventional and some were brilliant and many were idiotic, but they were mine. Time to own them.
More: it was time to give up the suit. It wasn’t even the boyfriend I was giving up (though Patrick would disagree). It was the suit of armor I had jammed him in. Say, I’ve got an idealized version of the man I’ll be with due to a turbulent childhood—that’s the phrase of the week: turbulent childhood—and whether it fits you or not I’m just gonna make you wear it, okay? Okay. Thanks again for uprooting your life!
Maybe that’s why I was in inappropriately high spirits. It was possible Sussudio would get the drop on me. Shit, why not? I was a mental patient who wasn’t even a real FBI agent! There was every chance he or she or they would get the drop on me. If I was dead I wouldn’t have to worry about the look on Patrick’s face when I broke him two days after we moved in together. (Broke up with him is what I meant. Yes.)
“This could be it for us, George,” I warned him. “We’re just gonna roll up on this guy. It’s dumb, even for us.”
“Are you trying to seduce me?”
“No, not ever. How many times do we have to talk about this? Every time you wonder if I’m trying to seduce you, the answer is no, not ever. Also, because I’m still freaking over Michaela’s Arvin/Jack reveal, I didn’t tell her where we were going. She’s not an FBI supervisor, right? Right. Why should we tell her even one thing? Right? Right.” Was I rebelling against Shiro’s mother figure? Yep. Was it a stupid-ass time to do it? Yep. Weirder: even knowing what I was doing and why, and knowing it was insane, wasn’t making me change my mind.
“I like where you’re going with this. Talk more about how you being a clichéd dumb bitch movie heroine might lead to me getting stomped to death by a guy who hates it when suicides won’t commit.”
“Well, if you liked that, you’ll love this: there’s every chance he’ll kill us. He’ll conk us over the head with a lamp or something equally hackneyed, then drag our limp bodies to the garage, start his car, and wait for us to succumb. The good news is, we won’t feel the headaches, dizziness, convulsions, respiratory arrest, or death. The bad news is, we’re dead. The other good news is, since we’re dead, every single one of our problems is over, for us at least. Also, we’ll leave great-looking corpses.” It was true! And it wasn’t just vanity; hemoglobin binds to CO way more than it binds to oxygen, and the chemical reaction left corpses with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. (The things I learned reading Stephen King and being a fake FBI agent.)
“That all sounds pretty great. We’d better pray he doesn’t have a hybrid.”
“I didn’t even think about that,” I said, appalled. “What if he does? How will he murder us and make it look like a suicide?”
“He’s probably got lots of stuff in-house for just that purpose,” George soothed. “He’ll hold a gun on us and force me to suffocate you or make you drown me, or he’ll make us some Drano smoothies.”
“Okay, that’s good. But why do you even care? For me it’s about not having to deal with my love life or Michaela’s lies or my entire career being made up or wishing I’d had some protein for dinner and not a Blizzard. But you like life.”
“For me, it’s about getting rid of this headache. It’s not just the pain, it’s having to dig up a bottle of Advil and something to drink. The whole thing, it’s exhausting. Why didn’t you two stop me from hitting my head so many times? Selfish bitches.”
“Yes, that should have been our focus during that devastating confrontation. Your forehead.”
“What I said.”
“Ready to probably get killed?”
George sighed and rubbed his forehead, which was now purplish and swelling. “Dare to dream, baby.”
chapter forty-eight
“Know what?” George asked. “I just had a thought.”
“Good for you, Georgie.”
We had parked as far up the block as we dared and were examining the trim house, where lights were on in the living room and kitchen. Ian Zimmerman owned this small ranch home in that blandest of all Metro Area suburbs, Little Canada.
Another thing the movies got wrong: serial killers tended to live in respectable homes in the suburbs, not farms o’death (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) or houses with their own cavernous, crumbling basements and enormous dry wells, perfect for hunting, killing, and storing victims to be skinned (The Silence of the Lambs). I’d never once fake-arrested a killer who lived in an abandoned tract home built on an ancient cemetery
(“You left the bodies and you only moved the headstones!”)
or found so much as a severed finger in an amusement park. Heck, most of the time I fake-arrested bad guys in broad daylight. If we’d been a little quicker with Zimmerman, or if Paul hadn’t gone on his “setting up a pro for murder to save other pros” spree, we’d be trying to fake-arrest this guy in the sunshine.
“Your thought?” I prompted. No cars in the driveway, but lights on inside. No second floor. No basement windows … this might not be fatal.
“If I’m not a real cop, I’m not playing by real-cop rules.”
“Agreed. That’s why we’re sitting here without backup. Also so I can help Shiro rebel against her chosen mother figure.”
“Yeah, boring. I’m over Michaela’s sexy treachery now. So I was thinking, if Zimmerman doesn’t kill us, or me at least, I’ll probably kill him.”
I groaned. “You can’t kill him.” Unless it was self-defense, but it was never good to remind George of that loophole.
“No, I can … look!” He showed me the paper with the copy of Zimmerman’s driver’s license. “Five-six, one-fifty. Heck, you could probably take him.”
“No, George, you can’t.”
That stopped him short. “Can’t as in I’m morally opposed, can’t as in I don’t know how, can’t as in the guilt will keep me up at night, can’t as in I’m worried I’ll get in trouble … what?”
“Um, can’t because we’re the good guys.”
“Oh!” George’s expression cleared with understanding. “Shouldn’t. That’s what you meant. Can’t is … that’s a whole other thing.”
“I’m terrified of you sometimes, Black George,” I admitted.
“Thanks.” He seemed pleased. And I was surprised I was surprised. “I like ‘Black George’! Makes me sound like a pirate.??
?
“You stole that line from The Losers.” It was George’s favorite graphic novel and movie.
“Yep.”
We both took another minute to look at the house. We’d driven around the block a few times; a lovely, quiet little burb was Little Canada. A quiet night for Sussudio’s neighbors.
“What do we do?” he whispered, which was odd because unless Sue was hiding under the car, he couldn’t hear us. Maybe not even then. “Just march in there and arrest him?”
“We can’t!” I hissed back. “We don’t have lawful authority. We’re not FBI agents; we’re private investigators.”
“So, what? Citizen’s arrest?”
“Do you know how to make one?”
“Shit, no. I was happy with the lie about us being Feebs. Wait, I’ll look it up.” He jabbed at his phone. “C’mon, Wikipedia…”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“Shut up … ah! Okay, citizen’s arrest. Practice dates back to medieval Britain … ancient sheriffs encouraged citizens to arrest bad guys…”
“Something that will help us in this century, please?”
“Shut up. I hate you—okay, here it is … okay, you can do a citizen’s arrest in Australia … and New South Wales … and Ireland … India…”
“Something that will help us in this country, please?”
“I will slice off your face, you nagging skank!” Awww. It was our first whisper-scream fight. “Oh, here it is, the United States. Hmm, any state can do it except North Carolina. Remind me to stay the fuck out of North—”
“We live in Minnesota! We want to arrest a serial killer in Minnesota! Find out what we need to do in Minnesota or I’ll slice your face off, you whiny selfish sexually harassing egotistical shortsighted unscrupulous shithead!”
“Whoa! Say it, don’t spr— Here it is! We can do a citizen’s arrest if we think a felony has been committed, and if we’ve got reason to believe the person we’re arresting committed it. Well, duh. But that’ll work. Ooh, and listen! In Minnesota a private citizen can not only arrest someone, we don’t have to tell the cops … we can even bring in the suspect ourselves. Yay, Minnesota!”
I sagged with relief. “Then let’s get to it. Death awaits. Or glory. Well, not glory, because the cops will get the win. I bet the FBI will wish BOFFO was real if we get this guy.”
“Yeah, hold on to that dream. What do you think? Take the back? And no, that’s not a sexual euphemism.”
“Sometimes it must be great having such a one-track mind.” I thought about it. Small house, and Zimmerman was probably alone. We could kick in the back door and draw down on him. We could knock on the front door and when he answered, surge inside. We could split up: while I played helpless female and knocked helplessly at the front door and tried to engage Zimmerman in conversation while looking helpless, George could come in from the back. That could be bad for me, but it gave George the best chance of success or, barring that, survival.
I decided to give him two gifts: “You can go up the back.”
“Ooh!”
“What if it’s not him?”
“You mean what if he’s out trolling suicide groups and someone else is here watering his plants or whatever?”
“Right. We could tip him off.”
“He’s retarded,” George reminded me, “or he wants to be caught.”
“Stop saying retar—”
“If it’s the word you don’t want me to say, to wit, retarded, then he’ll be too retarded to worry. And if he wants to be caught, he won’t give a shit.”
“There are flaws in your logic, but damned if I can find them. Shall we?”
“We shall!”
We crept from the car and snuck up to the yard like kids past curfew. Or so I supposed; I didn’t have any real experience with that, but it seemed right. We were about thirty feet from the front door, and I started to go to the right so George could swing around the back.
“Luck,” I whispered.
“It didn’t suck all the time we were fake partners for the fake FBI.”
“We were never fake partners,” I said, genuinely touched. “Be safe. As safe as you can given that we’ve decided to do this reckless thing.”
“Try not to get your stupid ass killed, you worthless twat.”
I knuckled away a tear and started up Zimmerman’s sidewalk, making no further effort to be quiet or stealthy. I wanted all his attention on me. Hopefully while he was shooting me in the face, George would get the drop on him.
(What if you live through this and emerge triumphant?)
Now that was retarded.
chapter forty-nine
I knocked on Zimmerman’s door, conscious of my HK P2000 left and low beneath my jacket. I was thankful I didn’t have Shiro’s Desert Eagle lurking back there. She loved the gas-powered cartridges, but I hated the weight and the length.
“Helloooooo?”
(Nobody out here but us fake FBI agents.)
“Anybody hoooooome?”
I heard footsteps, rested my hand on my hip just above the holster, and put on a big smile.
(Nobody here but us armed Girl Scouts. You want five cases of Thin Mints or ten, punk?)
The door swung open and there was, again, the banality of evil. I would never get over being amazed that bad guys could look so ordinary. I knew it was Ian Zimmerman because he matched his driver’s license picture exactly. That was almost worse than contemplating his murders. You know how every single driver’s license picture in the world is unflattering and looks nothing like the actual person? Not Ian Zimmerman’s pic. The watery hazel eyes, the pockmarked skin, the greasy hair (what was left of it), the bulbous nose … all in vivid living color right in front of me.
Before I could draw down on him, he brightened and smiled, a grin so natural and sweet it was as dazzling as it was startling. His smile was glorious, and his nicest feature. “Cadence! Hi! You finally here to arrest me? Great! Oh, boy, been waiting forever, feels like.”
“What’d you say?”
Ian Zimmerman was the most polite and welcoming killer I had ever tried to fake-arrest. “They told me you’d be along.”
Then, from behind: “Freeze, Zimmerman! Or don’t! Or freeze for a second and then change your mind! Either way I might pistol-whip you to death! I am a fake FBI agent, so don’t fuck with me!”
“No, it’s okay,” Zimmerman said. He’d raised both arms at George’s shrill “Freeze.” “I’m ready. I can’t believe you’re finally here! Jeez!”
“Umm…” George was standing about seven feet behind Ian, his weapon out and pointed at the back of Zimmerman’s head. “In my mind? This went a totally different way. D’you get the same feeling?”
“It seems Mr. Zimmerman’s been waiting for us.”
George just stared. “I have no idea how to feel about this. You tell him why we’re here?”
“To arrest me for killing Wayne Seben, Rita McNamm, Carrie Cyrus, Wendy Dennison, Mike Perry, Sara Torp, Roger Phillips, and Mark Graham. Oh, and I almost forgot—”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Wendy and Mike and Sara and Roger and Mark didn’t fight you.”
“They were the truth. Those other ones were the lies. Which one are you?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Are we gonna have a conversation with this guy or beat him or kill him or what?” said George, as always impatient with social niceties.
“Are you Shiro, Cadence, or Adrienne?” At my dumbfounded stare, the killer said, “The twins told me all about you. They told me what to do and they said you’d be the one to come get me.” He beamed. “I’ve been waiting awhile now.”
“Not twins,” I said, feeling the world start to tilt away from me. “Twins now, yes, sort of. But once they were triplets. We fixed that, though. Didn’t we, George?”
“Oh, fuck me,” George groaned, and I left. I was a coward, yes, and I ran because I was afraid, but I also knew Shiro would catch me.
chapter fifty
/> Or not.
chapter fifty-one
Twins! No never twins they were
like us
They were
three
And now they’re two and they hate
the wheels on the bus
they hate
going round and round
First there were three and now there are two and like us
(but not like us)
they liked us
(but they didn’t like us)
Soon we’ll be one
because we don’t hear the geese.
The geese are flying not dying
and we almost never hear them
except when we sleep
and the feathers are white.
But ThreeFer they like
They like the dead ones
They like when the feathers fly
They like red feathers
The three-now-two hear the geese when
The wheels go round and round
They hear the geese when they’re awake
They don’t like
(us)
they don’t like when they don’t
they hate that they won’t don’t love
they hate that we wouldn’t couldn’t love
them back
their love
is their biggest lie
their love
is to die
(or kill)
(THEY LIKE that better)
If Daddy’s not killing a goose
They’ll kill a goose
The wheels on the bus go
One, two, three
One, two, three
One, two, goose
The wheels on the bus go
Bing
Bang
Boom
chapter fifty-two
“—shooting, you crazy bitch! Stop shooting! Goddamn it!”
The slide had locked open. “Okay. I’m done.” I willed myself not to burst into tears and looked around for Ian Zimmerman’s corpse. There was no way Adrienne hadn’t—