Busted (43 page)

"Why don't we go sit down?" The man's grin widened.

"No," Chris snapped. "Why don't you tell me why the hell you're in my house?"

Chris started to move towards the stranger. He was close enough that he could shove Toby out of the way and close on the man before he could do anything.

Unfortunately for Chris the man was faster than he'd expected. Despite the surprise he still managed to put a knife to Toby's throat.

"Ah, ah, ah, Detective. Let's not be hasty." The grin got wider.

Chris immediately backed off, the anger and fear flaring up in equal parts. They seemed to push back the fog, and he embraced them, and the clarity they brought. Paradoxically, the clarity made it more difficult to see the man's face, but Chris could worry about that later. He was paying more attention to the knife.

"What do you want?" He growled.

"Is that any way to treat a guest, Detective?" the man asked with a mad grin.

Chris needed time, time for an opportunity to disarm this madman and get Toby safe. The anger inside was keeping his head clear, but he couldn't tell how long that would last. The gas, or whatever, was fighting him.

"You're early," Chris said slowly. He was looking for something, anything, to engage this guy. The longer he talked the more chances there would be for him to do something. "We didn't expect you for a few days yet."

The man had broken his pattern once, with his attempt on Joe. That had been bothering him ever since — serials didn’t break their pattern, not until they started to break down themselves. It was tied up in the reason they killed, as much a part of their madness as the actual murders. When the pattern started to go it meant they were too.

"You can thank your Mister Hennessey, Detective," he said. "Such a nice man. So very… interesting."

He narrowed his eyes and glared at the man. He was still having a difficult time focusing on his face. Half the time it seemed like an old man's, the other half the young punk he'd run into.

"Call me Bruce," he said. The constant use of his title made him think of Batman. It was only a pity he didn’t have a utility belt and handy side-kick.

"Oh, very good, Detective," the man said. There was childlike glee in his voice and Chris tensed, hoping the knife would move, but it didn't. Chris gave a slight acknowledging nod. The reference was intentional, now he just needed to figure out what it meant, if it meant anything at all.

"You wanted to sit?" Chris asked.

"Yes, well, we do have one more coming for dinner, don't we?"

A chill ran up his spine. He was referring to Joe, he had to be. There wasn't anyone else that he could be expecting. As much as Chris wanted Joe in his life and his home under other circumstances, he was glad he wasn't there now. He'd already been hurt once, just missing being killed. There was a good chance that he or Toby wouldn't make it out of this encounter alive.

Chris’ brain spun, trying to figure out what to say. This guy was waiting only because he expected Joe to come. If he knew he wasn't, there wouldn't be any reason to wait to kill Toby, and try and kill Chris.

"He might be a little while," Chris said. He wasn't sure if anyone else in the world was cursed with knowing when people lied, but he wasn't taking any chances. If Chris could tell, maybe this guy could. The statement he made was vague and, strictly speaking, true. Joe might be a little while, though probably only when measured on geologic timescales. He could still stop by, though.

He wished, desperately, that Joe was there right now, wished it hard enough that his vision blurred for a moment. He had a sudden vision of Joe stepping through the kitchen door and whacking the nutcase over the head with a tire iron. No such luck, though the nutcase twitched a little. It was like he wanted to turn and look over his shoulder. That was interesting. Something in Chris' face must have looked like he had actually seen Joe. That could come in handy later, as a distraction.

"Should we go sit down while we wait?" Chris asked. "I can fix some dinner, if you like."

"Oh, I shall feast later, my little two soul," the man said, licking his lips. "We can wait for a bit."

Chris looked at Toby, trying to gage how he was doing. The boy was staring, jaws slack and eyes glassy. Whatever was in the gas this guy was using must be stronger closer to him. That made sense, if it was something he was carrying. The antidote had to be effective for a while, since the man himself didn't seem affected. Chris wasn't too sure about that, given how erratic his actions were.

"So," Chris said, pulling out a chair from the kitchen table and sitting down. The feigned nonchalance was immensely difficult, but he did it because he had to. "You have me at a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I don't know you."

"I'm shocked you don't remember me, Detective," the man said.

"It has been a while," Chris said quickly, before the man could take offense. Implying he wasn't important would be dangerous. "Toby called you Grandfather, but I'm afraid you don't look like my father, or his… mother's." The failure to be dead, or rotund, ruled the both of them out. He could picture Megan's father as a serial killer, assuming he lost sixty or seventy pounds.

"He's such a polite boy," the man said, stroking Toby's hair with his free hand. Chris felt his skin crawl as he watched the touch. He wanted to lunge over and yank the man's hand away, to break all his fingers for having the gall to touch his son. He gritted his teeth hard enough that they squeaked.

"He knows the proper way to respect his ancestors," the man said. He looked slightly offended.

Chris' eyes narrowed. The surveillance video from Joe’s apartment hadn’t been great, but the guy on it had been in his mid twenties. He tried to focus on the man’s face but he couldn’t. The old man overlaid on top was too strong to ignore. That face, its skin sun darkened and wrinkled, looked like any one of a dozen old men from the reservation he'd grown up near. He wondered why he'd be seeing that, why his hallucination would be digging into that part of his mind.

"I'm sorry, Grandfather," Chris said. Giving the man even that much respect rankled. He was a killer and a maniac, and at least a decade younger than Chris. It didn't matter. If that was what he needed to say to keep the man talking, he'd do it. Anything that would prolong the encounter, give him a chance to act.

The title brought back bits of old memories, of tense visits with his grandmother, a brittle old woman who always scared him. She never talked of his real grandfather, not like his Nan had talked of her late husband when he moved to Connecticut. He truly had no idea who his maternal grandfather was. If this man hadn't been at best twenty five without the drugs, this guy could well have been it. That would've figured, somehow, that his own grandfather was a serial killer.

"That's ever so much better," the man said. He had a satisfied smile on his face.

"Would you like a tour of the house while we're waiting for Joe? You've never visited us before." It wasn't much, but it was all Chris could think of. If this guy thought he was family, Chris would treat him like family. Chris prayed he'd take the offer. There were plenty of things around the house he could use as a weapon.

"Yeeeees, I think that would be good," he said. His eyes didn't leave Chris, and his hand twitched a little in ways that made Chris very uncomfortable. The knife edge was much too close to Toby.

"This is the kitchen," Chris said as he stood. "It's not anything fancy, but it does well enough. Would you like something to drink? Water, juice, a beer?"

"No, that's fine," the man said.

"Would you mind if I got myself something?" There was fresh made lemonade in the refrigerator. Strong and tart, it would sting like hell if it hit in the eyes.

"Detective, are you trying to make me think you're up to something?"

Chris stiffened. "Grandfather! Really," he said, trying to sound offended rather than disappointed. The young/old face had a humorless grin, and Chris realized he'd been caught. That didn't matter, there'd be other chances.

He sighed. "This way, then. In here is the living room. You'll have to pardon the mess. We're replacing the couch." That caught in his throat. He'd taken the old, lumpy couch, the one he'd grown up sitting on, and hauled it out to the garage. He had planned on drafting Steve to help him bring Joe's leather couch over this weekend. He wasn't sure he'd make it to see that.

"Moving, Detective?"

"Replacing the couch. Getting a new television maybe." He and Steve hadn't talked about that one. He might have to fight Steve for it.

The man gave the room a quick glance. "No, this won't do. Next?"

Chris tried to shake the feeling that this was the last tour he'd ever give, and moved on. "The dining room and parlor are over this way," he said. The dining room had his grandmother's china cabinet in it. It was fancy, decorative, and very rickety. There was a good chance that he could get it to collapse as they passed it. He wouldn't aim for Toby, but the surprise ought to be enough to give him an opening.

"They're not important," the man said, waving them away. "You never go in them, nobody goes in them. There's no point."

"No point, Grandfather? I don't understand. They're fine rooms, we use them for special occasions."

He didn't say that the last special occasion was three years ago, the last time he'd hosted a family Christmas dinner. Megan had managed to alienate all four of his cousins in less than an hour, something of a record for her. Nobody had been over since.

"There's no life in those rooms, grandson," the man chided. "They won't do at all, and I'm so hungry."

That sent a chill down Chris' spine and left a lump in his stomach. 'Hungry' was always bad with the violently insane. Not that he had a whole lot of experience with those. He was a detective in a small city police department. He had to deal with drugs and gangs and the occasional psychopath. He hadn't ever dealt with this stuff.

What he did have was a connection with this guy, whether he wanted it or not. He also had a reputation as being big and not too smart. That was an image he and Steve had gone out of their way to cultivate, and most people were more than happy to accept. People were sloppy around stupid people. They made mistakes, and Chris needed a mistake.

If he didn't want food, what did he want? He was clearly insane. He'd killed seventeen people that they knew about, and probably had a trail of bodies left behind him in Arizona. Much as he hated to think about it, if he’d preyed mainly on gang members and drug dealers, he wouldn't have been too high a priority to track down.

The way he talked made it sound like he was looking for something exotic, or less tangible. Ramirez and his girlfriend had been killed normally enough. The hiker out in Woodstock had been in the woods for too long to tell if there was much special about her death. Mike's professor friend had been expertly gutted, and had part of his liver missing. The gang in Harford had their throats slit, though the palm reader that had been killed with them had been partly flayed and had her eyes removed. Chris shuddered to think what would've happened to Joe if he hadn't gotten free. What was likely to happen to him.