Phobia KDP (27 page)

Once the call was Lori Sims, asking for another interview. Herne declined, but he kept his tone friendly. “I might have another tip for you soon,” he said. “But I’ll call you. Stop calling me.”

Usually the phone call was from Tucker. A furious, tired Tucker.

“These fucking state cops,” Tucker said. “They have their fucking heads up their asses. They don’t know a goddamn thing about this town.”

“What’s happening now?”

“They’re hell bent that Skeeter is the killer. Can you fucking believe that? And good ol’ Mayor Harvey is going along with it. He keeps calling and insisting that I arrest Skeeter. I refuse to do it.”

Skeeter. He was Hurricane’s only homeless person, and each day he wandered from one end of town to the other, carrying an army green backpack. His lanky frame always bent slightly to the side, as if he tried to keep one ear closer to the ground. No one knew his age—probably fifty-three or fifty-four—and no one knew where he’d come from. And, until a few years ago, everyone wanted him removed from the town.

Skeeter was finally accepted in Hurricane the day he saved Ruth Snable’s life. A young Mennonite girl just blossoming into adolescence, Ruth possessed a face so beautiful that some men had considered tempting her to leave her faith. She’d been sent back to the house from the strawberry fields to fetch lemonade for her family. It was June, the peak of the harvest, and the family sold quarts of strawberries at their small roadside farm stand.

Ruth was on her way to return to the fields with the lemonade when a pack of wild dogs ran toward her. They were silent, with teeth bared. She ran back to the house, but the dogs pounced as she reached the front porch.

Skeeter, only a few yards down the road, saw the attack. Despite his looping, leaning gait he reached Ruth in a matter of seconds, and he beat at the dogs with his backpack, screaming the banshee song of a man possessed.

The dogs ran off. Ruth, terrified and bloody, continued to scream in the corner, her face buried in her hands. Despite her Mennonite heritage, her face had been her vanity.

So Skeeter earned his place among the folks of Hurricane. But it was a double-edged sword for Ruth, who carried the deep, ugly scars of the dog attack across her chin and left cheek. She had her life, a life the dogs would have taken if given the chance, yet she turned away from Skeeter whenever they passed each other.

But he was always free to take his fill of Snable’s strawberries in the summer.

“What makes them think Skeeter is our killer?” Herne asked, amused.

“I don’t fucking know. Someone saw him hanging around Amanda’s house before she was killed. And there are rumors he was hanging around Charles Emmert’s place, too.”

“Skeeter hangs around everywhere,” Herne said. “He has no place else to go.”

“I fucking know that,” Tucker said. “But try telling that to these state dumbasses. They’ve got the poor guy in my office and they’re giving him the third degree. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. The guy’s a simpleton for Chrissake. He couldn’t organize murders like this even if he had a lifetime to plan. I’m not fucking arresting him. Either the state boys are arresting Skeeter themselves or I’m letting him go. Mayor Harvey can kiss my ass.”

Herne hung up the phone and went back to his video feed, watching the fuzzy screen until he felt as if his eyeballs would bleed.

The next night it was more of the same. Unrevealing video. Whiskey and smokes. And an angry call from Tucker. This time Tucker was ranting about Herne.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Tucker asked. “We need to put our heads together. Figure out our next step. It’s almost fucking Saturday, and you know what that means.”

Herne knew what it meant. But he couldn’t tell Tucker about the illegal video. He couldn’t enlist Tucker’s help to review the feed. It was on his shoulders alone. And he was starting to feel as if it was a wild goose chase.

“I’m working on my own angle,” Herne said.

“I know I’m no fucking big detective like you, Art. But do you think you could tell me what angle you’re pursuing? What the hell are you doing?”

“It’s nothing. Just a possibility. I’m not going to waste your time with it unless it pans out.”

“Are you fucking drinking again?” Tucker asked. “You better not be hitting the bottle. I swear to Christ, if I find out you’ve been wasting away these last few days…”

“I’m not drinking,” Herne said, glancing at the empty glass by his hand.
Well, not much,
he thought.

Finally, on Friday night, Herne saw movement on the video. New movement. Someone other than the tired cleaning woman. It was after hours, about eight o’clock, when Lochhead’s secretary walked through the door.

Sarah Coyle wore her usual oversized skirt and blouse. Her thin, blond hair sat in a knot on the top of her head, and she pushed her thick glasses up her nose as she walked toward her desk.

Herne straightened his back, watching the screen with renewed interest. It was the most action he’d seen in Lochhead’s office all week.

She pushed aside the items on the desk—the pencil holder, some files, a paperweight—clearing a small space on its surface. Then she hopped up on the desk and crossed her legs, wearing an expectant expression.

Herne sat back in his chair. It was barely possible that the person Sarah was awaiting was the killer, who used the secretary as a way to access Lochhead’s office and records.

Then Sergeant Christopher Frey of the Pennsylvania State Police entered the office. He grinned when he saw Sarah. He moved toward her, arms outstretched, and cupped her flat breasts in his hands.

Herne watched dispassionately as the two lovers enjoyed their tryst. Frey tried to remove Sarah’s clothing, but she insisted on wearing it. Instead, she pulled up her skirt to allow him access to her body. All the knobs and bumps of her knees were visible on her thin legs.

When they finished, Frey dressed quickly. He didn’t kiss her before he left. He simply said a few words before walking out the door. She stayed behind to return order to her desk, moving everything back to its place on the surface. She glanced around the room one last time. As the camera caught her face, Herne saw her lips pressed into a grim line. Then she turned off the lights and walked out of the office.

Herne sighed. So far his video surveillance had resulted in no new information.

It had been startlingly easy. He wondered, not for the first time, if he had even begun to tap his potential genius.

No one ever saw him. Like a phantom presence, he slipped in and out of his patients’ homes without leaving a trace.

Of course, he did his homework. He knew when the neighbors went to work. He knew what time his patient was most likely to be alone. And he dressed and acted to blend in with the community. He was nothing more than another neighbor. Nondescript. Unremarkable.

This time things had been a bit more complicated. The therapy had involved certain props that required careful transportation.

The Healer felt a little thrill of pleasure as he closed his eyes and saw, in his mind, the face of his latest patient. The patient had struggled, of course. Like a child who has been forced to take a bitter medicine, his patients never understood that their brief moments of pain would lead to health. True health of both the body and the mind.

His greatest frustration was the patient’s inability to understand the significance of the event.

They never seem to understand that they are being healed,
he thought.
They never realize that they’re an integral part of my success. For what is a healer without patients? It is only through them that I can heal them.

He had great sympathy for his patients. He didn’t want them to suffer the way he had suffered as a child. The way he still suffered today. He wanted to free them from their fear. He wanted to help them in a way that he had never been helped.

It’s my calling,
he thought.
My destiny.

He had eventually destroyed the monster of his past. And ever since that day, he knew he was destined to help others destroy their own demons.

The demons that fed their fears.

Perhaps he’d have more time with his next patient. Perhaps he’d be able to more thoroughly explain the genius of his methods.

He smiled at the thought of a long, slow therapy. He was starting to really enjoy his work.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

There was no waiting this time. No wondering. Shortly after noon on Saturday, the call came in.

A teenage girl, May Jackson, had found her father’s swollen body gagged and trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey in his Hurricane home. He’d been locked in his bedroom closet with honey bees.

Herne wanted to see the body—wanted to
feel
the crime scene—but he allowed the state investigators to collect evidence without interruption. Instead, he and Tucker walked into the kitchen. The acerbic odor of dirty cat litter mixed with the musky scent of incense that pervaded the whole house.

“Christ, it smells like a fucking litter box in here. A
hippie
litter box,” Tucker said.

“My father had six cats,” May Jackson said as she walked into the room. “He loved animals.”

Tucker nodded. “Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”

She shook her head. “I’ll try to answer them,” she said. Although her green eyes were red-rimmed from her sobs, Herne was impressed with her calm demeanor. In his experience, teenage girls bordered on hysteria in even the best of situations.

“Did you always visit your father on Saturday afternoon?” Herne asked.

May shook her head, wisps of dark hair escaping the short ponytail that whipped across her round face. “No. I live with my mom in Carlisle. Usually I saw Dad one or two nights during the week. Sometimes Friday night.”

“You didn’t have a set custody schedule?”

“Mom and Dad got along real good,” she said. “So they just kind of winged it. They were both totally hippies anyway. All about doing whatever makes me feel good and whatever made their auras positive.”

Herne grimaced before asking, “So was this visit planned?”

“Actually, no. I had a fight with Mom this morning, so I thought I’d come over and spend the weekend with Dad. He totally didn’t care if I dropped by unannounced. He didn’t have a girlfriend. No real hobbies. He just spent a lot of time reading books and watching movies, smoking his pipe.”

“What time did you get here?” Tucker asked, brushing off a cat that attempted to rub against his leg.

“About eleven,” she said. “As soon as I walked in, I knew something was wrong.”

“Why?”

“There were bees flying around the house. A lot of them. Well, not as many as were in the closet, I guess.” She gulped. “But I saw them as soon as I walked in the door. Dad is—was—very allergic to bees. And he was scared of them, too. He kept a big can of insect killer in the house, even though he hated using chemicals. If he ever saw a wasp or bee, he’d stand as far away as possible and then totally spray the crap out of it, no matter what. Even if it meant getting bug spray all over his lunch or whatever. He totally hated bees.”

“So what happened after you walked in the house and saw the bees?”

“I started calling his name,” she said. “When he didn’t answer, I started to get worried. I mean, there were all these bees in the house. I thought maybe he had been stung and needed help. So I ran around the house looking for him and calling his name. I was pretty freaked out.”

“And you found him?”

“Yes, in the closet,” she gulped. “I wouldn’t have even bothered to look in there at all, except the light was on. My dad was totally a stickler about turning off lights. He was always talking about the energy crisis thing and telling me to save the environment. Anyway, I guess he raised me to always turn off a light if it wasn’t in use. It was an automatic reaction. I opened the closet door and there he was.” She pressed her face into her hands and soft sobs came from her body. Tucker and Herne glanced at one another. At that moment, Saxon walked into the room. She glared at both of them before reaching out to pat May’s back.

“We don’t have any more questions,” Herne said.

May glanced at them, her soft face stricken with grief, as she left the kitchen.

“Jesus. You men are jerks sometimes,” Saxon said. “She’s just a kid.”

Tucker hung his head, the picture of a remorseful boy. Herne almost expected him to scuff his toe across the floor. “Sorry,” Tucker said.

“Want to hear the news? I caught bits and pieces of the chatter upstairs,” she said.

“Give it to us.”

“Hank Jackson was a retired engineer, age fifty-one.”

“A little early for retirement, wasn’t it?”

“Rumor has it he made a killing in the stock market as one of the first investors of AOL. Anyway, it must have been quite the internal conflict when his hippie values had to compete with his newfound wealth. As a result, his wife divorced him. He retired early, moved to Hurricane, and spent his days puttering around the house and volunteering with a few charitable organizations, including Habitat for Humanity and the local animal shelter. He smoked a little weed. We found a baggie of the stuff in the bedroom along with a water bong. It looks like he was just a recreational user.”