Hush (32 page)

"What about Jonas Sandberg, of Sweden?" Ivy
asked. "When he was finally captured for the murder of twelve
teenage girls, he was put in a mental institute. Sweden is lax when
it comes to incarceration. At night he would sneak out and murder
young men, then be back in bed by morning. Nobody thought it could
be him because he'd never killed men before, and the method he used
was completely different from the murders of the young women. It
wasn't until emphysema kept him tethered to an oxygen tank that the
murders finally stopped. He sadly voiced his inability to continue
killing to another patient, who turned him in."

"For chrissake, Ivy," Max said with a touch
of humor. "I was just stating my opinion and my concerns. I'll keep
my eye on this case, but I'm also not going to let it distract
me—and I don't want it to distract you either."

She was crouched on the ground near the
shattered snow globe, already distracted. "It's the same kind." She
pointed. "There's part of the baby's blue blanket. There's part of
the mother's head."

"The lab will be able to determine whether or
not it's an exact match."

She let out a deep breath and stood up. He
could tell she'd already decided this was her fault, and that Alex
Martin had been killed by the hand of the Madonna Murderer.

They got in the car and headed toward
Headquarters.

"Your instincts were right about the letter,"
Ivy said. "I should have listened to you. That's why he killed him.
Because of the letter. Because he knew Alex was behind the
dead-baby letter. He probably thought Alex wrote it. He killed him
to make sure there would be no more letters."

It was possible, Max thought, yet he was
unwilling to commit vocally. "It's so outside his MO."

"This was a crime of anger. Maybe he's taken
on another persona to deal with people like Alex, a persona who is
even more hate- and revenge-driven."

"If that's the case—and I'm not conceding
anything here—was there anyone else he could perceive as being
involved in the letter writing?"

"I suppose he could suspect other employees
of the paper, all the way from the editor to the people in the
print room."

"That's strictly supposition. We need hard
facts. I'm still not sure this was the Madonna Murderer at
all."

"What if we discovered that one of the
Madonna Murderer's victims has been buried at that cemetery? Would
that give us enough of a connection?"

He picked up his cell phone and pushed speed
dial. "This is Detective Irving. Get in touch with Records and find
out if any of the Madonna Murderer's victims were buried at St.
Anthony's Catholic Cemetery." That was followed by a long pause.
"What's the address? Okay. Got it." He ended the call. "Write this
down," he said to Ivy. She dug into her bag and pulled out pen and
paper, quickly jotting down the address.

"What's going on?"

"Regina Hastings. She's been reported
missing."

"Grab that map out of the glove compartment,
will you?"

Ivy found it, quickly locating the street Max
had given her.

"Tuesday was the last time anybody saw her,"
Max said.

"The day she canvassed. You're going to have
to get in the right lane to take exit 12B. Didn't Ramirez go by her
place?"

"Yeah, but there was nobody there. Said he
just figured she'd spent the night somewhere else."

"What about the forms she faxed?"

"Maybe she didn't fax them."

He grabbed the mobile phone again, punching a
single digit for speed dial. When someone answered, he said, "Get
the forms that were faxed from Officer Hastings's place. First make
sure there's a questionnaire for every name on the printout sheet.
Then take the faxes down to Documents. Have them determine whether
or not they were all written by the same person. My hunch is that
one of the printout names won't have a matching answer sheet, or
one of the sheets will have been written by someone other than
Hastings."

He ended the call and focused on the road and
the traffic, edging his way in between two semis to finally hit the
right lane just as the exit came up.

Ivy continued to guide him through several
turns. "There it is. Spring Green Apartment Complex."

A black-and-white patrol car was wedged in at
an angle near the doors.

Max pulled in and stopped in a no-parking
area. Inside the double doors, he flashed his badge, which quickly
granted them access to the heart of the building. The manager
spewed out directions to Hastings's room, as if she'd already done
it several times in the last few days. "There's already people up
there!" she shouted after them as Max and Ivy took to the
stairs.

Up three flights and down the hall to the
right. Apartment 324.

The door was open; they could hear voices
long before they got there.

Inside were two women, one close to fifty,
the other about twenty-five. They were speaking to a uniformed
officer who was taking down notes.

Max introduced himself and Ivy.

The women turned out to be Regina's mother
and sister.

"Regina always calls me every two or three
days," the older woman said. "Never goes any longer than three,
ever. I called her several times, leaving messages, but she never
returned my calls. I have a key to her apartment, so I came over.
Her car was here, but she wasn't. But she doesn't always drive, so
I tell myself she's probably at the police station. I know how
she's been working with you, Detective, and I know she's been
putting in long hours. So I told myself not to worry, even though I
was worried, even though I couldn't help it because that's the way
mothers are, isn't that right?" she asked, directing the question
to Ivy.

Ivy smiled and agreed.

"My daughter tells me I'm worrying for
nothing, but she'll put my mind at ease. She calls the number Gina
gave us, the emergency number of the task-force office, and they
say she hasn't been there for three days. Something's wrong. I can
feel it. Something's very wrong."

She began to cry, and her daughter put her
arm around her, trying to comfort her.

"If that Madonna Murderer got her, I don't
think I can live. I don't think I can live with that in my mind
every single day of my life. It's the first thing I'll think of
when I get up, and the last thing before I go to bed at night." She
broke down completely and her daughter led her away to a couch in
the corner.

"What about contamination?" Max asked the
officer.

"They told me they've both been in and out of
here since yesterday. Probably touched almost everything." He
lowered his voice so the women couldn't hear. "Even though they
called to report her disappearance, it seemed like the sight of me
and the uniform made everything that much more real. She's been
going off like this every few minutes."

Max nodded and pulled out his phone. "We need
the mobile crime unit," he said into the receiver. He gave them the
address. "We'll need them to comb the place for fibers and possible
bloodstains, plus dust every surface for prints. Also tell them
they'll be examining and transporting a car."

As soon as he disconnected, his phone rang.
It was the third time Ramirez had called in an hour. "We don't know
anything new," Max told him. "But when we do, I'll call you." He
disconnected and slipped the phone into his pocket.

"Don't touch anything else until the crime
lab is done," Max said as he and Ivy left the officer to finish
questioning Regina Hastings's mother and sister.

From the description they'd been given, they
found Regina's car—a little green Toyota—in the parking lot, under
the shade of a corrugated-steel-covered carport.

"It looks brand-new," Ivy said as they
approached.

Without touching anything, they peered in the
windows. Nothing. Not a piece of trash, a gum wrapper, nothing.
Using the remote and extra set of keys Regina's mother had given
them, Max popped the trunk. The lid flew open, and they stepped
closer.

"Oh my God," Ivy said, bringing a hand to her
mouth.

There was Regina, or what used to be Regina.
She'd been badly beaten, her face bruised and grossly swollen.

Ivy leaned closer. "My God, Max. She's still
alive."

"You can't get these refilled," the
pharmacist said, trying to give back the empty brown containers.
"Not for another week."

"But my mother's out of her medicine. She's
in pain. What if I pay out of pocket?"

"I'm sorry. These are both controlled
substances. If she's been taking them as directed, she should have
enough for another two weeks. She hasn't been giving her medicine
to anyone else, has she?"

"Of course not."

He was sweating, and acting suspicious, but
he didn't care. It took all of his willpower to keep from jumping
across the counter and wrapping his hands around the guy's throat,
choking him, then taking the drugs he needed. "She can't see very
well, and she dropped some down the sink. She's not supposed to
stop these things cold turkey. You know that."

"I can't refill them."

Was the guy smirking at him? It looked like
he was smirking. It looked like he was glad he couldn't refill the
prescriptions. "Let me use your phone," he demanded. "To call her
doctor."

The pharmacist dragged the phone across the
counter, dialed the number on the prescription container, and
handed him the receiver.

"Dr. Paragus is out of town," the
receptionist said. "You'll have to call back Monday."

"This is an emergency," he said through
gritted teeth. "An emergency. Do you understand the meaning of that
word?"

"If it's an emergency, you should go to the
emergency room," the female voice at the other end of the line said
coolly. "Otherwise call back on Monday."

He slammed down the receiver.

Kill the bitch.

Kill them all.

You don't know me. You don't know who I am.
You don't know what I've done, and what I can do.

"Wait!" The pharmacist yelled from behind the
counter. "You forgot your containers."

Without turning around, the muscles in his
neck as taut as piano wire, he lifted one arm and threw the finger.
He strode out of the pharmacy, only slightly aware that people were
staring at him. Fuck you, he thought. Fuck you, ugly old man. Fuck
you, ugly old lady. Fuck you.

He walked, with no thought of his direction.
Angry, angry, angry. Shit, shit, shit. He ducked into the first bar
he came to and ordered a shot of tequila and a beer.

Shit, shit, shit. What was he going to do?
She was waiting for him. Waiting for him to return with her pills.
Things had been going so well, they'd been getting along so
well.

He couldn't go back.

How could he go back empty-handed?

He could tell her they couldn't refill the
prescription. But then she would wonder why. And maybe she would
figure out that he had upped her dosage.

For a few days, he'd actually liked her. One
night, he'd even sat next to her bed and read to her from Reader's
Digest.

He couldn't go back.

He had to go back.

He ordered another tequila and beer.

An hour later, he was coming out of his
slump. What was he afraid of?

Baby.

She was a crippled old woman. What could she
do to him? Nothing. He was the one in charge, he was the one with
the strength, the power.

Shouldn't drink, a voice in his head said.
Remember what happened last time?

Nothing.

Nothing happened.

Are you sure, the voice taunted. Are you
absolutely sure?

YES! YES! I'm sure. I'm absolutely sure. So
shut up. Just shut up!

He ordered another drink.

Time became nonexistent. Occasionally, he
would look at the hands on the clock above the bar, but they meant
nothing.

"Closing in five minutes," a voice announced.
A voice that seemed to come from the end of a long tunnel. "Want me
to call you a cab?"

You talking to me?

"Hey buddy. You need a cab?"

"No," he said clearly, straightening away
from the bar.

He turned and left the seedy building,
stepping out into a confusing collage of rain and darkness and
reflected neon.

He walked, the rain falling down on him,
plastering his hair to his head, but he couldn't feel it. He
stopped and raised his face to the sky, his eyes wide open,
droplets hitting him, blinding him, but still he couldn't feel
it.

He continued walking.

Suddenly he was beside his car. Correction:
his mother's car. He tore the parking ticket from the wiper and
tossed it to the street. Then he got inside and stuck the key in
the ignition.

Autopilot. The car seemed to be on autopilot,
making all the correct turns, going the correct speed, staying in
the correct lanes, finally taking him home, finally parking, not in
the garage, where he'd hidden that bitch cop's car for a while, but
in the alley behind his house. Correction: his mother's house.

Lights were on upstairs, but he tried to
ignore them. He let himself in the side door that led directly
downstairs, to the basement. He moved quietly, each wooden step
creaking, telling on him.

"Is that you?" she shrieked from
upstairs.

He froze.

"Get your ass up here!"

He stood there trembling.

"Get up here! NOW!"

Something warm and wet ran down one leg,
filling his shoe and spilling over. The overpowering smell of urine
hit him in the face.

Slowly, because she was his mother and he was
a good boy, he went up the steps. He walked through the
kitchen.

He found her in the living room. She hadn't
left her bedroom in weeks, but somehow she'd managed to drag
herself to the couch. She shoved herself to her feet and stood
there, tottering, trying to balance on her good leg.