CrimeSeen2014.06.09 Read online

  “Listings, our marriage wasn’t doing well for a long time before I found out… what she was doing.” He looked down again, then back up at her. Like he was forcing himself to say something. Not something painfully bad, but something painfully good. “You don’t have to worry about competition from Val. I never would have wanted it to end the way it did, but I thank God every day that it brought you and me together.”

  He wasn’t smiling, but the sun was back. She smiled for them both. “You are such a pussy,” she said.

  Evan nodded. Shrugged. “One of us has to be in touch with their – oof!”

  The last sound was the sound a person had to make when either hit by a car or by a patent-pending Listings-hug-and-kiss-combo. She hugged him hard, kissed him harder, and he was gracious enough to pretend not to notice her wiping a few tears off her cheeks when they parted.

  “Make the call before I change my mind,” she said, pointing at the planner.

  “You won’t. I’m too good in the sack.”

  He smiled.

  Listings felt good. Maybe this wasn’t the correct move, but it was the right one.

  The sun was out.

  But even as she thought that, she heard his words in her mind: “I never would have wanted it to end the way it did.”

  She had seen Val. Throat cut, stabbed twenty-three times. The memory would never leave her.

  And the investigation, the investigation she had been a part of, had helped run… it had ended up in the cold files. A failure. She would never forget that, either.

  The sun was out, but a shadow lingered, always there. Always waiting to swallow the warmth and cast away the light.

  Wrong

  Val’s Day-Timer said “House” on one of the pages. And that was something that Evan would have wondered about, if he had ever seen it. But he hadn’t. It was her list of numbers, and he didn’t really know what was in it. He trusted her, he always had.

  He wondered how many other couples were like that: living in utter trust, never knowing the secrets the other carried in plain sight.

  Under the word was the number. The one that he didn’t recognize. He knew the others, either because he recognized the names above them or in the vaguely familiar way that we reserve for things that matter to someone important to us, but which are of no great importance to us. Things like the birthday of a friend of a friend, or the life facts of a character in a parent’s favorite book. Things that we recognize when seen, if only dimly.

  The number was alien to him. But it still made his nerves sing like he was standing on a subtly electrified surface.

  He dialed it.

  And she answered. On the second ring Tuyen picked up and said, “Hello?” in a voice that he would have been able to pick out in a New York subway at rush hour.

  “Why is your name in my dead wife’s phone book?” he said.

  Dead silence fell over the line. He would have thought she terminated the call, only he hadn’t heard any click or beep.

  “We should talk,” she said.

  “We’re talking now.”

  “In person. Somewhere safe.” Her voice trembled. She was truly terrified, he could hear it. And he didn’t think it was an act, either. Years of talking to witnesses and perpetrators had given him a sense of who was lying, who was trying to play him.

  Tuyen might be trying to play him. But she wasn’t lying. She might be showing what she felt for effect, but the feelings were real.

  “Why? What are you afraid of?”

  The young woman laughed, sounding a bit hysterical. The laugh made his nerves stop singing. Now he felt hollow inside. Moving toward inevitable doom.

  Leave this alone.

  But he knew he wouldn’t.

  “What am I afraid of?” she said. “So many things, Mr. White.”

  He decided to avoid the subject of her fear. For now. Later he could ease into it. First things first, he thought. Get a meeting, find out what she knows about Val.

  “Where do you want to meet –“ he began.

  Listings had been listening to his side of the conversation. Her phone rang. She picked up. Turned away a bit and said, “Listings” with her usual on-the-job brusqueness.

  “Seven o’clock,” said Tuyen. “St. Mary’s on Barrow Street.”

  Evan knew the place. A Catholic church, a fairly large one considering it was in a part of the city that was less in need of cleaning up than a tactical nuke.

  “Fine,” he said. Tuyen hung up so he turned to Listings. She was nodding at whoever was on the other end of her call, something Evan always thought was weird, even though he knew he did it as well: facial expressions and gestures for people who weren’t even there. It was like watching a twenty-first century séance.

  “You got it,” said Listings. She hung up. “That was Geist,” she said. “He wants us to meet him.”

  “Where?” said Evan.

  Listings told him, but he was barely listening. Because at the mention of Geist’s name he felt his stomach clench. Like he was on a rickety ride at a carnival that hadn’t passed inspection, and now the thing was getting ready to explode right under him. It was a mixture of full-tilt power and uncontrolled velocity. A sense that he was moving fast, that the screws were all coming loose.

  That the world was about to tumble to pieces around him.

  Terror

  Listings flicked the light switch in the A/V room. Up, down, up, down. The rattle-tap of the plastic irritated her, because it did nothing. The room stayed dark.

  She was almost glad. She fed the irritation. Stoked it like an ember, blowing it to a slow-burning flame of anger that would sustain her through the fear that had gripped her since Geist asked them to meet him here. That grew when they saw the still-deserted evidence locker.

  “I have something to show you,” Geist had said. “Something important.” And it was him, she was sure of it. But at the same time, he sounded wrong. Gone was his usual cheerfulness, the sound of a man who ate-drank-slept at the feet of his work and found immense joy in the doing of it.

  He sounded haunted.

  One more up-down, and she slammed her fist into the wall hard enough to dent it. “I get that we can’t hire a competent mayor, but you’d at least think the taxpayers could shell out for an electrician.”

  “Captain?” said Evan. He moved into the small room, poking around the equipment. Listings followed, but even in the near-complete darkness it didn’t take long to verify that they were alone.

  Evan turned to her. He looked thin. Not physically, but emotionally. He looked like a rubber band that some kid had been snapping too long, and now was cracked and on the verge of breaking. “He’s not here,” he said. “You sure he said to come down –“

  “Yeah,” Listings said. The small fire was still there, burning away the fear but also singeing at the edges of good feelings. She snapped the word. Would have kept on snapping, maybe started an argument right there, but something interrupted her.

  Light.

  A flash, a bright flare.

  The monitor. The television screen that Evan and then Geist had been watching.

  It sparked. Then turned on.

  Evan looked at her. She wondered if she looked as freaked out as he did.

  Evan went to the carrel where the equipment was. She pulled out her phone, thinking she would dial Geist and find out where he was. If they knew that then all this was moot, and –

  (and then they could ignore the impossible thing that just happened, the impossible things that were going to happen)

  – they could go find him. But as soon as she had her phone in hand she remembered: “Dammit. No signal down here.”

  “Listings.”

  Evan was gesturing for her to look at the TV screen. Static showed, black and white pixels crawling across one another like electronic amoebae vying for dominance.

  It illuminated something on the screen. She couldn’t make it out at first. It was red.

  The VCR hummed and cli
cked. The distortion from the Mystix security tape appeared again. Just as unnerving and somehow unnatural as before.

  And now she saw what the red stuff was. Blood. It looked almost like a mask on the screen.

  “Who turned on the tape?” she said. Praying Evan had done it without her noticing.

  “I don’t know,” he said. The VCR was a front-loading model and he poked a finger through the light plastic cover, feeling inside. She didn’t know what he was looking for. Then he spoke, and she understood: “And there is no tape. It’s empty.”

  The fire burned away. Only cold ash remained. Fear.

  Then the distortions on the TV disappeared, and fear was replaced by terror.

  Watching

  The screen was only clear for a moment. But that moment was long enough for Evan. Long enough, and far too long.

  Val appeared. She was screaming, though no sound came from the television.

  The image jumped, and a scarlet knife was in a bloody hand, falling and rising and falling and rising, like a silver phoenix born not of fire but of flesh.

  He saw his wife’s stomach ripped open by the blade, and felt his own stomach turn inside out.

  Then the image disappeared. Evan realized he was crying.

  “Val,” he sobbed.

  The screen had returned to its distortions, the waves that hid so much – so much that he didn’t want to see.

  They parted again.

  “Geist!” shouted Listings.

  It was. On the monitor, the captain could be seen in the A/V room, watching the same TV that Evan and Listings now watched. Leaning in close, touching the screen with his face. And on that television, the one he was watching, there was another image of the captain. Also pressed against the same TV, also watching, that screen also holding an image of himself. A television in a television, a captain watching a captain watching a captain in a loop that got smaller and smaller until it disappeared in a distant spot on infinity’s horizon.

  Beside Evan, Listings whispered, “What’s going on, White?”

  Evan couldn’t speak. He shook his head, but had no words. Understanding had no place in something like this. Reality had fled, and – he was realizing – might never return again. So what place had logic in the dark fantasy land where they now lived?

  On the monitor, all the Geists pressed into the screen. Awful cracking sounds came out of the TV speakers, amplified and resounding with feedback as the sounds battled for dominance.

  Blood dripped around the edges of the many faces of Geist. So much blood. He didn’t move.

  “I see it all,” said Evan’s friend. His voice – voices – echoed in the A/V room. “I… understand….”

  Then Listings jumped as something else came into the frame of each of the infinite televisions. A hand, holding a knife.

  “I… understand…,” said the Geists.

  “Then it’s time for you to die,” said a voice. Evan knew the voice. The killer.

  The knife raised.

  “No!” Evan shouted, and reached for the television, as though he might push through the screen and stop what was about to happen.

  The knives fell.

  Again.

  Again.

  Geist was turned into a bloody puppet, along with all his copies, each doppelganger dancing in perfect synchronization. The knife/knives plunged into him/them over and over, blood splashing the screen of the television, the carrel, the rest of the equipment.

  And Geist never moved. Never turned his face from the screen. He sagged, but kept his gaze pinned to the screen as long as he could.

  Then, finally, he fell. Blood surrounded him in a black pool on the carpet. Evan automatically looked at his feet.

  Nothing. The floor below them was clean. Unmarked.

  He returned his attention to the screen.

  The killer turned to whatever camera had recorded all this. Looking right at Evan and Listings.

  “Take a good look at the man who killed your wife, Evan,” he said. He laughed.

  The distortion returned to the television, hiding his image. Then the monitor turned off, leaving Evan staring at nothing but the faded reflections of Listings and himself. Listings’ face was so bloodless it seemed to shine in the hazy glass of the screen. She weaved on her feet, and he reached for her, steadying her. She was warm. He clung to her, to her warmth, to the fact that she was here and real and something he could touch.

  He needed that. Because he thought he was starting to understand. More than that, to believe. And some beliefs were by their nature not just terrifying, but deadly.

  Haunting

  Listings turned toward the door. Or maybe she turned away from the screen. Probably it was the latter. She had to get away from here, had to get away from the impossible thing she had just seen. This was no rape, no murder. This wasn’t even a father being torn limb from limb by a demon in human form.

  This was….

  She had no words.

  She didn’t know what to do, but knew she had to get out of here. She had to find someone to do something. She chafed under the quasi-military structure of the police force sometimes, but right now she wanted – desperately needed – to find someone to whom she could pass this buck.

  Evan grabbed her. “Where’re you going?” he said.

  She tried to pull away. “To get someone!” she said. Her voice sounded like that of a child, the voice of an Angie who had never seen her daddy murdered. An Angie who never had to be tough, never had to kill anyone. An Angie who needed to get away.

  Evan yanked her toward him. “It won’t help.”

  Listings tried to shake free again. Evan’s fingers clamped down tighter. “What do you –“

  He jerked her over. Violently this time. He looked mad, and she wondered if he was going to hit her. The prospect terrified her. What if Evan ceased to be the man he had always been? What if Val’s death really had changed him?

  Of course it did. How could that not have changed him?

  Evan pointed at the floor. “You said he called. Geist just called.”

  Listings didn’t understand. She pushed him with her free hand. “So let go and maybe we can get someone to help us catch this sonofabitch!”

  “If he just called, then this guy killed the captain and made an impossible video of it and cleaned up an entire corpse’s worth of blood in under ten minutes.”

  Listings shook her head. She didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to see any more of what she was seeing, didn’t want to know any more of what threatened to make itself known to her.

  She wanted to curl up in her father’s arms and sleep. Even if he was dead. Even if that meant she had to die. She just wanted to stop this.

  “So he’s still close,” she whispered. “He’s close. We can –“

  Evan shook her. Hard. “Don’t you get it, Listings?” He looked at the blank monitor. It flared to life for a moment, as though it had been waiting for their attention.

  The captain’s blood, illuminated by the static, was gone. As if it had never been.

  I’ve gone nuts.

  Then Evan’s crazy, too.

  Oh, Jesus, please, God, please, don’t let us be crazy.

  Daddy, where’s your arm?

  “Don’t you get it Listings?” said Evan again. His voice was low in the darkness, but still cut through her. “This isn’t a murder case.” He took a breath, as if gathering himself.

  NO! Don’t say it!

  (“You can’t kill a man who’s already dead.”)

  “It’s a haunting.”

  Listings shook her head. But she knew it wasn’t a gesture of disbelief, it was a gesture of refusal. It was the body language of someone presented with proof of truth that went against the lies they preferred to live. It was the same thing she had done when she realized her daddy was already dead, and she hadn’t been able to say “I love you” one last time.

  “No,” she said in the same Angie-voice. “There’s something going on here, but
it’s not –“

  “We shot him, Listings. Point blank, right in the chest. And he’s still here. Still killing people.”

  Evan slumped a bit. She tore free. “I’m calling this in. I’m –“

  “You’re what?” Evan didn’t grab her again. He suddenly sounded exhausted, like he hadn’t slept in a million lifetimes. “You’re going to tell someone that we have a murder with no body, no suspect, no killer? Show them a tape that doesn’t exist on a monitor that turns on when it wants to? You going to report that to our superior?” He laughed without a trace of irony. “Oh, wait. He’s dead, too.”

  Listings felt like crying. “What are we going to do?”

  Evan looked at the monitor again. So did she.

  It remained dark. Just a blind eye, looking at everything, understanding nothing.

  Church

  Evan stood in the back of St. Mary’s looking for Tuyen, wondering what she could possibly do to shed light on what was happening. Worrying that any light shed would only illuminate monsters that had remained safely hidden… and were better left unseen.

  The church was fairly typical. Though not huge as some of the cathedrals downtown, it still managed to impress. It was laid out in the traditional cruciform pattern, with pews extending up the nave and out the transepts – the wings of the building that Evan thought of as the arms of the cross.

  He and Listings stood in the vestibule, next to several confessionals. Stations of the Cross could be seen, lining the walls of the nave and extending partly into the vestibule itself, each represented by a brass plaque showing a scene from Christ’s walk to Golgotha. His face was agonized in many.

  Above the stations, stained-glass windows showed biblical scenes. No doubt bright and cheery during the day, they were now dark and grim. The pictures they painted were not hopeful, but seemed to Evan like grim reminders that all light must fade, all color must dim and die.