They kill, p.12
They Kill, page 12
“How can I help you?” Velda asked, voice toneless and devoid of inflection.
Grace looked at her, unclear what was happening.
“Go fuck yourself,” Grace said.
Velda didn’t speak as she undid the snap on her jeans, pulled down the zipper, and slipped her hand inside her underwear. A second later she began vigorously masturbating. Her face remained expressionless as she did this, as if she were sleepwalking or in some kind of trance.
“That’s disgusting,” Grace said. “Stop it.”
Velda immediately withdrew her hand from her pants, but she made no move to zip up her jeans.
Interesting….
“Touch your nose,” Grace said.
Velda did so.
“Bite your tongue.”
Velda did this too, biting down hard enough to draw blood. Her expression didn’t change, though. It was as if she no longer felt pain. Or if she did, she didn’t care about it.
Grace attempted a smile again, but with no more success than she’d had before.
“I think I know how you can help me, Velda dear. Wait right here while I pull my car up to the front, okay?”
Velda didn’t respond. She simply stood there, motionless, barely breathing, a thin line of blood from her wounded tongue running from one corner of her mouth.
Grace grabbed a bottle of Blanton’s, and this time she did break it open on a shelf. She drank it down as she walked toward the front of the store, swallowing several shards of glass that had fallen into the bourbon. As dry and painful as her throat was, she barely noticed.
Chapter Seven
Al Mills had worked as a law officer in Bishop Hill since he was twenty-five. He was forty-four now, which meant that next year he’d have twenty years in and could retire at half pay. His wife wanted to move somewhere warmer, like Florida or California. Al liked the desert climate better and was hoping to talk her into moving to Phoenix. He wanted to start his own security business, and he was looking forward to being his own boss.
Not that being a cop in Bishop Hill was a bad gig. It was a nice enough place to live, and crime was relatively low. Mostly speeders, drunk drivers, petty theft, vandalism, bar fights, and domestic violence. Murder was rare, and when it happened, it was usually during an argument between people who knew each other. You hardly needed the deductive skills of Sherlock Holmes to work here. In fact, he’d never drawn his service weapon once in the line of duty in the last nineteen years.
Although retirement was never far from his mind these days, he liked to think he didn’t suffer from short-timer’s syndrome. He tried to approach his shifts with the same work ethic as he had on the day he’d started. But when he heard over the radio that some psycho had killed a couple by the college using some kind of weapon that burned out their eyes, for fuck’s sake, he couldn’t help feeling grateful that he hadn’t gotten the call. The last thing he wanted was to get killed shortly before he retired. His wife would never forgive him.
He was driving through the parking lot of a shopping center on the east side of town – which people called the ‘Least Side’ because of how rundown it was – when something strange caught his eye. An extremely thin, almost skeletal woman wearing what appeared to be a pink robe along with a matching pair of fuzzy slippers stood next to a Lexus. The vehicle was parked alongside the curb in front of Happy Hours liquor store, one of its rear doors open, and a younger woman stood close by, holding a dolly loaded with four large cardboard boxes. The top box was open, and the older woman was pulling bottles of liquor from it and putting them in the vehicle’s back seat. That wasn’t the only dolly either. There were two more, each holding four boxes, all of which presumably also contained liquor. There was no law against buying booze in bulk, but it was certainly odd. What bothered Al most was the way the older woman was loading her car. Instead of having the other woman – who Al assumed was an employee of Happy Hours – load the boxes into the trunk, the older woman was loading the bottles one at a time into the back seat. Maybe she needed to do it that way for some reason, had some kind of physical condition that prevented her from lifting full boxes. She did look frail. But then again, she could’ve driven the liquor home in the boxes, opened them when she arrived, and carried them in a couple at a time – assuming she didn’t have anyone to help her. He couldn’t escape the suspicion that the only reason anyone would want the bottles loose in their car was for easy access, meaning there was a damn good chance they intended to drink while they drove.
If he had short-timer’s syndrome, he would’ve said fuck it and driven on by. Whatever was happening here was hardly the crime of the century. But he was determined to do his job to the absolute best of his ability until the day he handed in his badge and weapon.
He pulled up behind the Lexus and parked. He didn’t hit the cruiser’s lights, though. Right now he was just checking out the situation. If it turned out to be nothing, he’d be on his way. If not, these two women would have some explaining to do. He turned off the cruiser’s engine and climbed out of the vehicle. He didn’t undo the snap that secured his weapon in its holster. Neither of the women looked particularly dangerous, and he didn’t want to come across as a hard-ass right off the bat. A large part of police work was communicating with people, and it was hard to get them to talk – and even harder to get them to listen – if they thought you might pull a gun on them any second.
“Good afternoon, ladies.”
The woman standing behind the dolly didn’t look at him, which set off alarm bells for him right away. Everybody looked at a cop approaching, regardless of whether they were innocent or not. People responded like they were small animals sensing the presence of a much larger predator approaching. They froze and fixed their gazes on what they saw as a potential threat, waiting to see what was going to happen next and hoping the predator would pass them by. But not this woman. She stared straight ahead without expression, as if he didn’t exist. Was she on something? It sure as hell looked like it.
He turned his attention to the older woman then. She’d been putting a pair of bottles in her car as he walked up, but now she withdrew and turned in his direction, giving him his first good look at her. His earlier impression of the woman as skeletal had been more on the mark than he’d realized. She looked like a cancer victim in the last debilitating stage of the disease, her body devoured from the inside out. Only a few wisps of hair clung to her otherwise bald scalp, and her skin looked as tough and dry as old boot leather. Her face was a skull covered by a paper-thin layer of flesh, and her hands were twisted, bony claws. She exuded a harsh astringent odor, as if she’d recently taken a bath in one hundred proof alcohol. The sight of her was so disturbing that Al undid the snap on his holster and kept his hand close to his weapon. His instincts told him to turn around without saying a word, get back in his cruiser, and drive away without looking back. But he was a sworn officer of the law, and he remained where he was. When he spoke, his voice was calm, but firm.
“Would you mind telling me what—”
The skeleton woman opened her mouth wide, wider than should’ve been possible, and a stream of brown fluid jetted out. Al tried to bring up his hands to shield his face, but he was too slow. The liquid splashed into his face, and he took a step backward, spitting and gasping.
“What the fuck?”
He took hold of his weapon but didn’t draw it. He stood motionless, all thought and feeling gone. In that moment, the consciousness that called itself Al Mills ceased to exist, and in its place was an empty vessel, ready to serve its new master. Al was never going to retire, never going to start a business and be his own boss. All because he was too damned conscientious. Not much of an epitaph, perhaps, but it would have to do.
* * *
Grace looked over her new servant. He was tall and fit. Not bad-looking either. His black hair had more than a little gray in it, but she thought it made him look distinguished. She’d always found a man in uniform sexy, but the fact that his uniform was currently wet with her vomit dulled the effect quite a bit.
“Help her load the car,” she ordered.
The officer’s face showed no expression as he stepped forward. Grace moved out of the way and watched as he took over the task of emptying boxes and placing bottles in the back seat of her Lexus. He was able to work faster than she had, and in no time at all the job was done. After placing the last bottle in the car, he stepped back and stood next to Velda, both of them motionless and expressionless as they awaited her next command.
Empty cardboard boxes lay on the sidewalk where the officer had tossed them, and Grace kicked one aside as she walked up to the man. Up close, he was even more good-looking than she’d thought, and she reached out and stroked his cheek with her claw fingers. If he was truly hers to command, she could make him do whatever she wanted to her – and she could think of a lot of delightful activities they could engage in. But the thought did nothing for her. Sexual desire was a distant memory now. She had only one need, and the back seat of her Lexus was filled with it. Still, a police officer could come in handy in many other ways, so she decided to keep him. First, though, she wanted to test his loyalty.
“Shoot her.”
The officer showed no hesitation. He drew his weapon, turned toward Velda, pointed the barrel at her head, and fired. The gunshot was much louder than Grace expected – she’d never been around guns before – and it startled her. Velda’s head snapped back as the rear of her skull exploded in a spray of blood and brains. She collapsed, falling onto one of the cardboard boxes and crumpling it. The officer holstered his weapon, turned back to Grace, and awaited her next order.
She was pleased with his performance. “Good boy,” she said, and had to resist an urge to pat him on the head. She hooked a thumb toward the Lexus. “You’re driving. Get in.”
The officer opened the driver’s side door of the car, slid into the seat, then closed the door after him. He put on the seat belt and Grace laughed, a hollow, brittle sound, like bones tumbling down a flight of stairs.
“Safety first,” she said.
She went around to the vehicle’s passenger side, got in, and selected a bottle from her back seat supply at random. She opened it, removed the cork, and took a healthy swig.
“Do you know where Gold Medal Bank is, over on Kennard Road?”
“Yes.”
“That’s where we’re going.”
She’d worked there as a loan officer for thirteen years until they’d thrown her ass out on the street. She wanted to pay the old gang a visit and let them know how she felt about being unceremoniously kicked to the curb. And when she was done there, she’d have her new friend drive her to the Historic District so she could drop in on Sierra at ArtWorks. She still wanted her goddamned purse back.
The officer started the engine, put the car in gear, and pulled away from the curb. Grace liked having a chauffeur. It made her feel important. Better yet, it left her hands free so she could drink all she liked as they drove. She finished the bottle she held, rolled down her window, tossed the empty out, then turned around to get another.
She smiled. This was turning out to be a pretty goddamned great day after all.
* * *
Getting through class was tougher than Sierra had anticipated. It was an introductory drawing class, and the students were working on drawing various small objects they’d brought from home – keys, silverware, flashlights, kids’ meal toys, pill bottles, mini-staplers, and such. The catch was they had to swap objects with another student and draw the new one. Sierra didn’t have to lecture, which was good since she didn’t think she’d be able to string together two coherent thoughts today. But she had to walk around and give feedback to students as they worked, and she had difficulty concentrating on their drawings. In a lot of ways, delivering a canned lecture would’ve been easier. She was mentally exhausted by the time class ended, and she was more than ready to leave campus and go in search of Jeffrey. She hoped Marc had had enough time to get used to the idea of hunting down his dead boyfriend, but if she had to go it alone, she would.
Normally she had an office hour after class, but she intended to skip it today, hoping the department chair wouldn’t notice. But she had to walk by her office – really a space she shared with other part-time faculty – on her way out of the building, and when she did, she groaned inwardly. A student from one of her summer classes was standing in the hall outside her office, waiting.
The girl – Sierra couldn’t recall her name at first – smiled as she approached. The student was a petite African-American girl with large owl-eye glasses who always wore oversized sweaters to class, even when it was warm out.
“Hi, Ms. Sowell! I was hoping that I could pick up my portfolio from last semester?”
Sierra remembered the girl now. Her name was Jennifer Greer, and she had an annoying habit of bending her sentences as if they were questions. Sierra did her best to smile back at Jennifer.
“No problem,” she said.
As she fished around in her bag for her keys, she saw the office next to hers was open and a light was on inside. Fantastic. The last thing she needed today was to have an encounter with Mandy Porterfield. If she could get Jennifer’s portfolio to her quickly, maybe she’d be able to sneak past Mandy’s office without the woman noticing.
Fat chance of that, she thought.
She unlocked her office, turned on the light, and went to her cubicle, Jennifer trailing along behind. There were six cubicles crammed into the office, and Sierra’s was all the way in the back. None of the others were in use at the moment, which suited her just fine. She didn’t feel like saying hi to any of her fellow teachers right now. The portfolio cases from the summer’s advanced drawing class were lined up on the floor next to her chair.
“See yours?” Sierra asked.
Jennifer stepped forward, flipped through the cases until she found hers, then picked it up.
“Thanks, Ms. Sowell. See you later!”
Jennifer left and Sierra followed her out. She locked the door as Jennifer headed down the hallway, and she was beginning to think she was going to escape without having to deal with Mandy when she heard, “Good afternoon, Sierra.”
She turned and saw Mandy Porterfield standing in the open doorway of her office.
“Hi, Mandy.” She didn’t bother trying to conceal the disappointment in her voice.
Mandy taught in the mathematics department, but she didn’t fit the bookish, nerdy stereotype of a math professor. She looked more like a headmistress at an elite – and extremely strict – private school. She wore her auburn hair up in a tight bun and dressed in conservative business attire: suit jacket, knee-length skirt, blouse buttoned all the way to the top. She preferred subdued colors – blues and grays, mostly – and never wore patterns. No jewelry of any sort, and her makeup was so understated it was almost impossible to tell she wore any at all. She was almost six feet tall and always stood ramrod-straight, which only served to accentuate breasts so large they must’ve caused her constant back pain. Tall women often wore flats to keep from drawing more attention to their height, but not Mandy. She wore heels, every damn day, even in wintertime when she might have to walk through snow.
People thought of mathematicians, when they thought of them at all, as logical, methodical, emotionally restrained beings, fleshly incarnations of calculating machines. Mandy, however, was a woman of strong passions, but those passions had nothing to do with math, teaching, or her students, and everything to do with the campus organization she was lead advisor of: the Traditional Values Club. If there was a socially conservative cause – especially if it was related in any way to sex – Mandy wasn’t just for it; she thought everyone else should be too. And if they didn’t agree, she thought there should be laws to force them to. Right was right, as far as she was concerned, and when it came to what was right, the end justified the means – always.
Sierra hated walking by Mandy’s office. She displayed graphic pictures of aborted fetuses on her door, along with printouts of messages like Homosexuality is a Choice: Choose God Instead and Chastity is Sexy. Save Yourself for Marriage. Sierra didn’t share Mandy’s beliefs, but that wasn’t why she loathed the woman’s door display. She thought Mandy’s signs – especially the ones with the dead bloody fetuses on them – were unprofessional and created a threatening environment for students. Sierra had complained to human resources about Mandy’s pictures before, and while she was always promised the matter would be ‘looked into’, nothing ever happened. She’d heard that Mandy had a lawyer on speed dial and was ready to sue the college the instant anyone in the administration so much as suggested she remove the pictures from her door.
As far as Sierra was concerned, Mandy Porterfield was a bully – most likely a sexually repressed one – and having office space next to her was the worst thing about teaching at Riverbank.
Mandy gave Sierra a thin, bloodless smile.
“Will I see you at today’s meeting? Everyone’s welcome, you know. I’d love to see you come.” Her smile widened almost imperceptibly.
Sierra hated it when Mandy did this. She’d say things that sounded like double entendres, speaking them in a honeyed purr that was almost but not quite vulgar. As near as Sierra could tell, Mandy said these things without any conscious awareness, but that only made them creepier.
Sierra glanced at a flyer taped to the wall beside Mandy’s door.
Traditional Values Club Meeting Today.
1:30–2:30. Library Meeting Room C.
Today’s Discussion: Homosexuality, the Bible, and You.
She faced Mandy once more.
“My brother was gay, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with him.”
“You’re such a good sister, Sierra. So loyal. It must have been difficult to lose him.”
