Bad Thoughts

Chapter 24

Did he know about them?

Shannon could honestly answer that he didn’t. Whether he had suspicions about them was another matter. Any lawyer cross-examining him on the stand would have a hard time proving otherwise.

But he sort of knew about them, didn’t he? About the things Susie would tell when he’d be fading in and out around his yearly breakdowns. The way she’d claim he’d act. But, then again, Susie had stopped telling him about those things years ago, and it was easier to simply ignore, to pretend they never happened…

His suspicions went further back than Susie, though. They went back to when he was a teenager living in California. Back to maybe three years after his mom’s death. By then, he and his dad had stopped acknowledging each other’s existence. They lived in the same house, cooked food in the same kitchen, sometimes sat in the same rooms, but they never talked or even looked at each other. More specifically, they’d look through each other. Days, sometimes weeks, of that would go by; all the while a low burning rage would be filling up Shannon’s lungs, both stifling and suffocating him. When the pressure would get too great, when he could no longer breathe because of it, he’d have to get someplace alone. Then it would all come out of him; the rage and the anger and the tears. It would pour out of him like the insides from a gutted animal.

But did they really exist? Were they voices whispering to him or was it just noise echoing through his mind? Because there was nothing concrete, nothing substantial. Only a vague sensation of whispers dying deep in his head.

But he’d have a sense of what the whispers were telling him (if they were, indeed, whispers and not simply his own mind racing towards a breakdown), or more specifically, what the whispers were saying, because they never seemed directed towards him. About what a patsy he was being or if they were in his shoes they’d kick the shit out of the old man instead of the wall of his room or how unfair it all was. Especially, how unfair it all was.

Back then he ignored them. But he did have suspicions about them.

He had gotten back late that night. Susie eyed him somewhat suspiciously as he walked into their apartment but accepted his explanation that he’d had a late session with his therapist. For the most part it was true. He and Elaine had spent hours talking, first at a coffee shop and then at a restaurant.

Elaine had insisted on knowing the truth and Shannon broke down and told her all of it, the words just sort of bubbling out of him. He told her what he found when he got home the day his mother was murdered. He told her the things Herbert Winters had done to him and what his father later accused him of. When he was done he couldn’t look at her. Instead of feeling any sense of relief, all he felt was disgust.

“Bill, there’s nothing for you to be ashamed of.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Bill, please, look at me.”

He forced his eyes up to where he was looking at her. “You know,” he said, “when I picture my mom in my mind I can only see her dead. I’d give anything if I could close my eyes and see her alive.”

“Do you have any pictures of her?”

“Not a single one.” He shook his head. “The only image I’ve got of her is what’s in my head.”

“I’m so sorry-”

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.”

“I can still feel for you, Bill. Knowing what you went through, I’m amazed at how well adjusted you’ve turned out.”

Shannon couldn’t help laughing. “Yeah, I could be a poster boy for mental health, couldn’t I? Me and all the little people living inside me. We could make it a group shot.”

“First of all, I doubt you’re suffering from multiple personality disorder. As I’ve been telling you all night, your dreams are not any indication of it and I haven’t seen any symptoms. Second, most of the year you are healthy.”

“Yeah, but not all of the year.”

“No, not all of the year. But considering what you suffered through, first with your mother’s murder and then all those years of emotional abuse from your father, most of the year’s pretty good. We just have to figure out how keep you from breaking down during that one small opening every year.”

Elaine Horwitz took a sip of wine, a warm smile spreading over her lips. The smile made its way up to her eyes, leaving them sparkling.

“You know,” she said, “for the first time since I’ve been treating you I really feel positive. Like we’ve turned a corner.”

Shannon didn’t feel quite so optimistic, but he kept quiet about it. If nothing else, it was nice to see Elaine smiling. They finished their dinner. Elaine, over coffee, told him she’d find a psychiatrist who specialized in multiple personality disorder to evaluate him but she didn’t believe anything would come of it.

That was all hours ago. It was now almost four in the morning. Too quiet to sleep. Too damn quiet to do much of anything. He could feel Susie’s small, warm body against him. He could feel her chest barely rising with each breath. So quiet. Eventually, he closed his eyes and stopped thinking. Eventually.

Winters was waiting for him. As Shannon drifted into unconsciousness he saw Winters off in the distance, his malformed face cold and expressionless. Like polluted ice. From far away he could smell the foulness from him. As Shannon watched, Winters’s bloated body flew towards him.

“I’ve got a lot to tell you, Billy Boy,” Winters breathed in his singsong voice as he moved closer, now only a foot from Shannon’s face. “You’ve been a busy little shit tonight. We’ve both been busy tonight.”

Shannon froze. For a moment he thought about lashing out at Winters. As he imagined himself grabbing Winters by the throat, as he imagine himself throttling that smirking thing, he felt his strength drain out of him. His arms fell dead at his side.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he forced himself to say.

“Sure you do. You let me out tonight and I had fun, Billy. We both had a hell of a time.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No, you don’t, do you?” Winters asked, bemused. “You don’t even know anymore when you let me out, huh? But you do know I’m in you. You know I’ve been fermenting inside you for years, Billy Boy, getting nice and ripe. You can smell the ripeness, can’t you? Breathe deeply, Billy Boy.”

Winters took a long, deep breath and winked. “I got news for you, Billy, there are others, but I’m the dominant one inside you now. I’m the one who comes out whenever I want, ’cause in reality I’m the true essence of you.”

Winters watched as the numbness spread across Shannon’s face. “What’s the matter, boy?” he asked, “the truth a little too painful?”

“That’s nothing but crap-”

Winters shook his head sadly, his small knife-wound of a mouth smiling sympathetically. “You know it’s the truth, boy. You know you let me out after you left that redheaded sweet thing of yours. What’s too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget, is that it? Well, let me refresh your memory, boy. Let me tell you what we did tonight.

“We found us a whore, Billy,” Winters continued after waiting patiently for Shannon to respond, “just a young thing, no more than eighteen. A cold, unhappy, frightened little girl. And she was exactly what we were looking for, Billy. Exactly what we were looking for. And in a way we were exactly what she was looking for.

“A knife just wouldn’t do for tonight. Not the way we were feeling. For tonight we needed something special. You remember all the things we used? You remember what we pushed into her until she hemorrhaged and died? Think hard and try to remember. Try and remember how long it took.”

Shannon looked like he was deep in thought. Winters grin turned darkly obscene. “Think harder, Billy Boy. Give it everything you got.”

“That smell,” Shannon murmured.

Winters laughed. “Just like fresh gardenias, huh?”

“Earlier today. That smell…”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It was in Elaine’s car. We both smelled it when we got in. I thought an animal had died under her hood.”

Winters blinked twice.

“It was much fainter than this. But it’s the same smell.”

The little color in Winters’s face drained out of it. His slit mouth froze into a forced grin. “You’re confused, Billy.”

“No, that smell-”

“Yeah, you are, you little shit. You’re losing your mind, Billy Boy. You don’t know whether you’re coming or going anymore.”

“I know about that smell.”

“You know why you know it, huh?” There was a long pause. “You want to know why you know it?”

Winters stopped, a caginess momentarily pushing his lips into a small circle. When he continued his soft doughy features were relaxed, his grin again playful.

“You know it because it’s from inside you, Billy. Deep inside you. It comes out when you let me out and sometimes even a few hours before me. And you did let me out tonight. Liza Keenan would attest to it if she could. If rigor mortis hadn’t frozen that cute little mouth of hers, she’d tell us all about it, if she still had a tongue that is. Remember that name, Billy Boy. Liza Keenan. Try and remember all the fun we had with that whore.”

Winters’s image started to drift away. Shannon stood and watched as it floated off into the distance and then disappeared completely. Then there was nothing but blackness. A moment later there wasn’t even that.

When Shannon woke later, he thought about his dream. He played it back in his mind slowly, analyzing each detail of it. What Winters had told him about the smell was bullshit. It had been in Elaine’s car before either of them had gotten into it. The rest of the dream was bullshit, also. He could account for every minute from when he left Elaine to when he showed up at home. The dream was nothing but crap.

Still, he wondered about that smell. About what it was doing in Elaine Horwitz’s car.

Joe DiGrazia showed up later that morning. As Susan opened the door for him, he looked through her, his face showing as much compassion as a granite block.

“I need to talk to your husband,” he told her.

“Hi, Joe. Bill’s in the bed-”

DiGrazia brushed past her. Susan, surprised, followed him to the bedroom. Shannon propped himself up as his partner walked in.

“I’d like to talk to your husband alone,” DiGrazia grunted over his shoulder.

“Is this about Rose?” Susan asked.

“Rose Hartwell?”

“Yes.”

DiGrazia slowly turned to face her, his granite face clouding ominously. “Why’d you ask that?”

Susan tried to smile but it got stuck halfway. “I-I don’t know. I guess because Bill hasn’t said anything to me about it.”

“That’s kind of odd, isn’t it? Your neighbor gets murdered and your husband, who’s a cop, doesn’t tell you anything about it. Why do you think that is?”

“Joe, leave her alone.”

“No, I want to hear what Susie has to say.”

“I said leave her alone,” Shannon ordered. He turned to his wife and suggested maybe it would be better if he and Joe talked in private. Susan looked apprehensively at him, doubt wrecking her mouth. She nodded and left the room.

“What’s going on with you, Joe?” Shannon asked after the door closed behind his wife.

“Come on, buddy boy, you should know better than that.”

“What are you here for?”

“What do you think I’m here for?”

Shannon sighed wearily. “I’m not in the mood for this. Cut the crap, okay?”

“No, come on. You’re a bright guy. Tell me what I’m here for.”

“I have no idea.”

“You’ve been with me on enough murder investigations. Come on, make a guess.”

Shannon didn’t say anything.

“You disappoint me, partner,” DiGrazia said, shaking his head as he showed his disappointment. “I want to search your apartment. If I have to, I’ll get a warrant.”

“Why?”

“I have my reasons. Do I have to get a search warrant?”

“Joe, I didn’t kill those women.”

DiGrazia shrugged nonchalantly. “I believe you, but we don’t know what happens when you black out. We don’t know who takes over then.”

Shannon felt himself trying to swallow. “What are you talking about?”

“Maybe you got another personality inside you. Maybe he’s the one who killed those women.”

“W-why do you think that?”

DiGrazia shrugged again and let a smirk form over his lips. “Let’s call it a hunch, partner.”

Shannon felt very cold around his temples. He only half heard himself ask DiGrazia what he was looking for. DiGrazia started to say something but stopped himself. His smirk disappeared. Doubt softened the hard ridges around his eyes. He pulled an envelope from his inside coat pocket and handed it to Shannon. Inside were the photostatic articles that had been left outside of DiGrazia’s apartment. As Shannon read through them he felt his heart turn to cold sludge and then sink to his feet. Before DiGrazia had showed up he had half convinced himself that Herbert Winters was somehow still alive, that he didn’t really leave Winters with his head hanging by a thread, and that Winters was now out there committing these murders. It was the only thing that made sense. At least it explained that smell in Elaine’s car and the dreams he’d been having. The articles ended that possibility. It stuck a goddamn stake right through it.

“How’d you get these?” Shannon asked.

“They were left outside my apartment.”

“Any idea who left them?”

“I got a pretty good idea.”

“Joe, they didn’t come from me,” Shannon said. One of the articles showed a wedding shot of his mother, Lily. She couldn’t have been more than twenty in it. It was the first time since her murder he could imagine her without a knife sticking out of her mouth, without her dead eyes staring up at him. Without rigor mortis hardening her skin. He had forgotten how beautiful she was, how alive she once was. He had forgotten how much he missed her.

“I was hospitalized for six months after the murder,” Shannon said, his eyes transfixed on his mother’s picture. “I never saw any of these.” He felt a grittiness on the paper. “You dusted for prints?”

“Yeah. There was nothing. I’d like to search your apartment.”

“I told you I never saw any of these.”

“Yeah, I know you did.” DiGrazia started to rub his knuckles impatiently. “Maybe you didn’t. Maybe you got other personalities that collected them for you. I’ve got to know if the originals are here.”

Shannon felt himself choking up as he looked at his mother’s picture. “Go ahead,” he said. “Search all you want.”

DiGrazia started on the bureau, methodically searching through each drawer and then pulling them out and checking the inside of the wooden frame. Shannon watched for a while and then laid back down on the bed and closed his eyes. He tried to imagine his mother the way she had been in her wedding picture, but each time her image would shift into a grotesque death mask. After a while Shannon stopped fighting it.

DiGrazia had moved over to the closet. Off and on Shannon would hear the fat man grunt as he pulled boxes out and searched through them. Shannon wondered about who left the articles for DiGrazia. It was a good question. Someone in the area knew about him and that someone wanted to make sure DiGrazia knew about him, also. A thought struck him. Maybe Elaine had checked up on him and knew all about him before the other night. Maybe she had gotten the articles and left them for DiGrazia. But why? Did she believe he was capable of killing those women? As he tried to sort it out in his mind, DiGrazia interrupted him.

“Okay, Bill,” he said, “I’m done in here. Would you help me flip over your mattress?”

Shannon stared blankly up at him.

“I’d like to look under your mattress,” DiGrazia repeated.

Shannon got off the bed and helped DiGrazia flip the mattress over. There was nothing under it.

“I’m going to search the rest of the apartment,” DiGrazia said. He turned towards the door and stopped to wipe some sweat from his forehead. “I’ll make something up for Susie,” he grunted as he left the room.

Shannon sat back down on the bed. Elaine had seemed genuinely surprised the other night when he had told her what really happened with Herbert Winters. Or did she? He tried to re-create their conversation in his mind. He tried to picture the way she looked at him when he told her about Winters. Because if she had left those articles for DiGrazia, if she really thought he might’ve murdered those women…

DiGrazia was standing in the doorway. Shannon almost didn’t recognize him the way his partner was looking at him. “I’d like to show you something,” DiGrazia said.

“What?”

“Come on. It will take a minute.”

Shannon followed DiGrazia out of the room. “What did you tell Susie?”

“Nothing.” His voice was cold and brutal, barely above a whisper. “She was already gone.”

In the living room, the sofa had been pushed away from the wall and a wooden panel that provided access to the bathroom’s shutoff valves had been removed. DiGrazia got on his knees and shined a flashlight into the opening. He waved for Shannon to take a look.

“You see that?” he asked.

Pushed under some pipes was a plastic bag that Winters had left behind when he had visited the apartment. DiGrazia reached in and pulled it out. Inside were twenty-year-old newspaper articles.

DiGrazia, stone-faced, studied Shannon. “It would be a good idea if we went down to the station,” he said. “Do you want to try to call Susie first?”

Shannon declined without giving the matter any thought.