House of Skin

BONES

They were driving back to the House of Mirrors.

Fenn had suggested a drink, but Lisa had other things in mind. She was obsessed with the idea of finding Eddy Zero, he was beginning to think. But he supposed that anyone that was any good at what they did were slightly obsessed. It only stood to reason. There’d been more than one instance in his many years as a cop that he’d displayed similar compulsive behavior. Sometimes that’s what it took to get the job done.

“I know you don’t want to do this,” Lisa said. “But just humor me, okay? One of these times, we’re going to get lucky.”

“Or unlucky. It depends on how you look at it,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

And she didn’t, poor driven thing. “What I mean is, I really don’t relish the idea of running into Eddy and Spider in a deserted house at night. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve dealt with plenty of bad boys in my time. I know how to take care of myself. But we’re dealing with two psychopaths here. Your basic criminal—thief, purse snatcher, mugger—are cowardly by nature. They’ll run at the first sign of trouble to save themselves… but a psychopath, they’re unpredictable.”

“Maybe we should get help,” Lisa suggested.

Of course, that’s what they should have done. But Fenn was just crazy enough to want to go it alone. He hated the idea of sharing Lisa with anyone else, even if that meant the safety of a couple of cops for back-up.

“There’s something I should tell you, Mr. Fenn,” she said and he could sense a certain menace in her tone. “I came back here by myself the other day after we were here. I don’t know why, but I felt I had to.”

“And?”

“And I saw something very strange.”

“Tell me.”

She did. It didn’t take long. It was just something about a dead cat that had been stripped of its meat. He didn’t see the connection.

“Don’t ask me to explain any of it. All I know is that it scared the hell out of me and I don’t know why,” she said.

“Who could blame you? Alone in this damn place.” Fenn was sincere. “My imagination was doing a little number on me when we were here the last time.”

She nodded. “Except I don’t think it was my imagination.”

“We’ll see.”

He knew Lisa well enough by now to know that she wasn’t the imaginative type. If she saw something that didn’t properly fit into her scientist’s view of the world, then chances were, it was something strange. But what it could possibly have to do with the matter at hand, he couldn’t say. It was enough for him that they’d be alone together—he hoped, at any rate—and that was enough for now.

He loved her, he knew. There was no getting around that. It was unconditional love for he still knew very little about her. Gulliver seemed to think she had a hidden agenda and Fenn agreed. But it was reaching the point where he really didn’t care anymore. When the time came, she’d show her secret face to him.

And would that be a good thing or bad?

Finally, they arrived at the house.

They took flashlights and went in. It was like a crypt in there at night: dusty, silent, a smell in the air of plaster rot and subterranean drainage. But, as before, there was something more, a palpable miasma of decay in the air that was not so much physical as spiritual.

“Christ,” Fenn said. “What a place.”

“You feel something?”

“Yes.”

“Me too,” she admitted, knowing for sure it wasn’t just her imagination.

They didn’t waste any time trying to figure out what it was. They went directly up to the attic. The dead animal had no real smell, just a yellow ghosting odor of old death. They played their lights over the bones and Fenn studied it minutely for some minutes.

“What do you make of it?” Lisa asked after a moment.

He shook his head. “The same thing you did. It looks vacuumed clean. Like its matter exploded and was drawn towards this wall. Right at that fucking mirror. Crazy.”

“What could do something like that?”

“Maybe we’d better ask Eddy about that.”

Fenn examined the mirror itself. He ran his fingers over it. The glass felt warm. “I’d love to know about the mirrors. Zero filled the house with them. Nobody ever really knew why.”

“There was a reason, I’m sure, but the man who knew is long gone.”

Fenn lit a cigarette, wiping the mirror’s grime from his fingers. “That’s something else that’s bothering me,” he said between drags. “Old Doc Bloodand-Bones disappeared twenty years ago. And since, no sign of him. What gives? Is he still hiding out? Is that even possible?”

“Possible, but not probable. You have to keep in mind the kind of guilt one suffers in association with crimes of this nature. Many murderers aren’t caught simply because they kill themselves before the law gets to them. The guilt proves to be too much.”

Fenn was massaging his temples. “So you think he committed suicide?”

“Probably. Otherwise, we would have heard of him. An obsessed individual like Zero could only hold back so long before killing again. And he would do it in his trademark style of dissection. He couldn’t change his M.O. anymore than the color of his skin. If he was active, there’d be no hiding the fact.”

Fenn nodded. “You’re probably right. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They went back out to Fenn’s car in silence. His headache was back in full force. It had drained the color from his face, set his lips to trembling.

“With any luck,” he said, chewing aspirins, “we should have Spider pretty soon. I have a couple of boys watching his place. They’ll get him if he shows his mug.”

“Then we’re almost there,” Lisa said, relieved. “We should wrap up this mess before long.” But she was wrong.