Authors: Ed Gorman
Then, good, reasonable and competent cop that he was, he set about finishing his search, moving down the narrow hallway to the kitchen.
The stench here was much worse. Images of the headless torso flashed in his mind. He felt sick.
He found more chalk marks on the tiled kitchen floor. The white appliances looked dim and dirty in the gloom. His eyes fixed on the refrigerator. He could still see Beth Swallows' head inside there, staring out at him, as if she were waiting for human company. Next to the refrigerator was the tall, narrow pantry where he'd found the headless corpse. The door was closed. He tried not to remember how obscene she'd looked with her head gone.
Inexorably, he walked slowly toward the refrigerator.
He pictured himself the night the body was discovered... moving at about the same pace...walking closer, closer to the refrigerator.
Putting forth his right hand, as now.
Taking the silver refrigerator handle, next to the built-in juicer, and pulling it back with his gloved hand.
Watching the door come open, the bright burning light from the refrigerator interior painting him a wan silver color.
And then the door opening all the way—
And the light growing brighter, brighter—
And sitting right there, staring right up at him, the most horrible sight he'd ever—
But there was no bloody and begrimed head waiting for him tonight.
Somebody, Albert Kemper probably, had scoured the refrigerator until it shone white and clean.
Cozzens shook his head, the image of Beth Swallows' head vivid again, and—
H
e didn't see it in time. Or hear it in time.
The other closet door opening.
The woman stepping out, the butcher knife in her hand.
Only too late did his eyes move to his left.
Only too late was he aware of the knife coming down in a flashing arc, directly into his right eye.
He screamed and tried to fire but she was stronger than she'd appeared in his momentary glimpse of her.
She tore the knife from his eye and pushed him into the refrigerator door, the gun falling, unfired, to the floor.
So much hot blood. So much screaming pain. He was blind; he was frenzied.
And then, distantly, as if it was happening to someone else but somehow his own body was registering the pain, he felt the butcher knife begin to move in and out of his chest in a rhythm that was almost sexual.
He tried to scream for help but somehow no sounds came.
He tried to push away from her but somehow there was no place to go.
He was seven years old and swimming in a municipal pool with his cousin Harry; he was eleven years old and hitting the winning home run in a softball game; he was twenty-two and making love to his wife on their wedding night. He was
—
He was dying, and reviewing his life in the process.
He was beyond pain now as he slid down the refrigerator, coming to sit almost comically on the floor, legs
spraddled
, palms turned outward.
This time, she put the butcher knife right in the center of his forehead and left it there.
He didn't mind. There were only moments left before all history came crashing down, all life, all human utterance and aspiration, gone forever, his life gone forever. He was about to learn the answer to the question most fervently asked by each generation:
Is There Life After Death?
No, he didn't mind at all.
He just sat there, bleeding, dying.
Waiting, but for what he was not sure...
5
W
hen she was done vomiting, she went back down the hall to the kitchen and took another look at him. Even with the stench, even with the steaming blood, there was something dreamy and unreal about it, just as there had been something dreamy and unreal about killing Beth, and she had to be sure, as if she'd just awakened from a terrible sleep, had to make sure that it really had happened.
Detective Cozzens had fallen over on his side. He looked like a drunk in a high school sketch. Even the butcher knife handle protruding from his forehead had a certain loony quality to it.
She touched trembling fingers to her face. She was afraid she was going to be sick again. But she was glad she'd come back here. The night she'd killed Beth Swallows here, she'd dropped an earring and had to flee just as
Cobey
was starting to wake up, the earring falling down a floor grate. Tonight, she'd opened the grate and found the earring lodged down there where the police hadn't searched...
She began to back slowly out of the kitchen, the image of the dead detective receding, receding.
She was afraid now, and confused, and the taint of blood was high and hot in her nostrils.
She moved through the shadows of the apartment until she found the same window she'd come in.
Then she was gone; gone...
1
C
louds of steam rolled and tumbled within the narrow glass shower stall. The pink and appealing flesh of Anne Addison was lost somewhere inside.
As always, hot soapy water gave her the feeling she sought, one of cleansing not only her body but her soul as well.
She parted her legs, working the bar of Dove high up the sleek inside of her thigh. She was careful not to touch herself sexually, because the notion of sex would again ignite memories she was constantly trying to forget.
She hummed to herself, an old show tune. In both high school and college she'd been in many plays, always minor roles, limited by the fact that her voice was terrible. But in the shower...
She smiled to herself and soaped her face once again, long fingers tapering down the luxurious angles of her cheekbones.
She enjoyed holding her face up close to the shower nozzle, the pain almost pleasure. She closed her eyes, letting the steady blast of the shower numb her face, push her off into
some other world where there were no memories, no regrets, no guilt...
Five minutes later, her right hand groping out of the shower door and snatching a big, nubby, pink towel from the rack, she heard the phone ring out there in the darkness of the hotel room.
She had to rush through the shadows to the phone.
Now, towel-wrapped in the shadows, Anne shivered, goose bumps hard as BBs covering her body.
"Hello?"
Long silence.
"Hello?" Anne's irritation clear in her tone.
Long silence.
"Hello."
Then, "Anne?"
"Yes."
"It's me.
Cobey
."
"
Cobey
! God." Her gaze fixed on the neon green and yellow raindrops sliding down the window. "Where are you?"
"I need to talk to Puckett, Anne."
"Puckett? God,
Cobey
, it's me, Anne."
"Anne, please, listen. Don't get your feelings hurt as usual."
Anne's anger was swift and certain. It lent her body a genuine warmth, dispelling the trembling effects of the goose bumps. "Are you going to start calling me overly sensitive again,
Cobey
, the way you used to before—"
Then she fell silent. As did
Cobey
.
She'd almost said it, almost given voice to the terrible incident that had ended their nine-month romance the time
Cobey
disappeared.
She said, "I'm sorry,
Cobey
."
"I know. It's just the way you are, Annie."
Annie. God, every time he'd called her that during their time together she'd gotten positively girly and weak. There had
been a time when the most romantic word ever uttered was her own name coming from the sensual lips of
Cobey
Daniels.
"Annie."
"Yes?"
"I need to talk to Puckett. I really do."
"Where are you?"
"I'd rather not say."
"You don't trust me?" The hurt tone was back in her voice again.
"It's not that, it's..." He sighed. "Of course I trust you, Annie."
"Good. Because I trust you."
"Then you don't think I killed Beth?"
"No, I don't."
"It's great to hear you say that, Annie. It really is." A pause again. "I'm over near the Daley Center. You know where that is?"
"Yes. Of course."
"I'm in a phone booth." The pause again. "I don't know what to do, Annie. I was hoping that Puckett could help me."
"I could help you."
"Oh, no, Annie, I don't want to get you involved in this. You're—" He stopped himself.
"I'm what?"
"Oh, Annie, I wasn't going to say anything terrible."
"No?"
"Just what were you going to say?"
"Annie, let's not argue. I—"
"Just tell me what you were going to say."
"Jeez, Annie, this is how you always get."
"Then let me say it for you. You don't want me to help you because I'd just get overly emotional and end up going into one of my depressions. And maybe I'd even start drinking again."
"I wasn't going to say that, Annie. I mean, you do get upset about things very easily, but I'd never say you were going to start drinking again. I know you've kicked it and you'd never—"
"I'll be there in half an hour."
"What?"
"Half an hour. In a cab. Now, tell me exactly where you are."
"But, Annie, I—"
"I want to know exactly where you are. I want to help you. Aren't we still friends?"
He didn't say anything for a time. Then, in little more than a whisper, "You really still think of us as friends? After what happened and all?"
"Still friends,
Cobey
. Still friends."
"You know," he said, "at least once a day I think about that. Sometimes, I even have nightmares about it. I wake up covered in icy sweat and I'm screaming and I—"
"I've forgotten about it."
"You have? Really?"
"It's in the past,
Cobey
. I just look to the future."
"But you were so angry. I thought—"
She was in control of herself again. For a long moment, thinking about what had happened there at the end of her nine month time with
Cobey
... Well, thinking about it all again, she'd started to lose it. Felt the old rage once more.
But now...
She stood in the shadows, slender and lovely inside the nubby towel, watching the neon-tinted raindrops, and said, "Tell me where you are,
Cobey
. The longer you're out on the street, the better your chances of getting caught."
"You're sure you want to get involved?"
"Oh, yes," Anne said. "Yes,
Cobey
, I want to get involved."
So
Cobey
, sounding relieved at the prospect of a friend helping him out, told Anne again where he was.
Exactly where he was.
Ten minutes later, her hair still wet beneath the suede, turquoise beret she wore, she reached the elevator.
Two-and-a-half minutes after that, she was stepping into a Yellow cab that smelled of defroster heat and cigar smoke.
I'm coming to you,
Cobey
, she thought.
After all this time, I'm finally coming to you.
The cab pulled away.
Anne leaned her head back and closed her eyes as if she were praying.
The time was finally here. At last; at last.
2
S
he was gone.
Puckett stood just inside his hotel room looking at the dark, empty room, the only light coming from the rain-dappled window. No place is lonelier than an empty hotel room, especially on a rainy night.
She was gone and something was wrong. That, Puckett was certain of.