In for the Kill

62

The sun cleansed, purified, burned away whatever festered and gave pain.

At least for a while.

The Butcher sat on a bench at the Seventy-second Street entrance to Central Park and tilted his face up to the warm sunshine. He'd dreamed again last night and had been in no mood for breakfast this morning. He was tired from lack of sleep, and there was a sour taste beneath his tongue that persisted no matter what he did.

Not that he couldn't shrug off his dreams when he was awake.

Not that he couldn't at all times differentiate dreams from reality.

Except during his dreams, of course.

He almost shivered with the chill he felt even in the warm sun.

After his morning shower, he'd taken a walk, thinking that might stir his appetite and then he'd stop somewhere and have at least orange juice and coffee. And of course he wanted to read the morning Post he'd picked up at a kiosk during his stroll to the park. He was always interested in what the media had to say about the killer who so baffled the police and intrigued the public. Even the grand gray lady, the Times, the paper of record, sometimes ran news items on the Butcher, and right on the front page, above the fold.

Sherman smiled up at the sun. He'd found fame, in an anonymous way. Had he always sought fame? Or had it only been after he'd begun to act on what he'd known, what he'd felt?

He cautioned himself that it could be dangerous, this hunger for publicity. It was a hunger that at times consumed its own compulsion. Sherman had read the literature on serial killers and knew as much about them as Quinn. Well, maybe not that much. Quinn had actually met serial killers, whereas Sherman merely…was one. His smile broadened and he almost laughed out loud, sharing the joke with the sun.

He was still tired and his legs felt heavy, but he was definitely feeling better. He'd sit here a while, read the paper, and enjoy the day in its full and early bloom. After glancing around the park and then out at the busy avenue, he drew his reading glasses from his shirt pocket, slipped them on and adjusted the frames at the bridge of his nose, and opened the paper in his lap.

Ah! Interesting.

He leaned over the paper, peering at the photograph on page two. Not merely interesting. Astounding! Mom and Quinn, in some kind of room, perhaps an office. Mom was seated at a table, a sheet of paper before her, and a pen in her hand. Quinn was standing close by, just behind her, his hand resting gently on her shoulder near the curve of her neck. She was staring not at the paper or camera but up into Quinn's eyes.

And the way he was looking at her!

How dare-

Sherman felt a cold, cold pressure just beneath his heart. He closed his eyes and waited until it went away before he looked again at the photo in the Post.

Now he smiled. Making himself arrange his facial muscles at first, but then the smile became genuine. Reason had supplanted emotion.

This photograph was obviously a trick. He laughed out loud, a kind of strangled giggle. Quinn! He didn't hate him, didn't want to kill Quinn. After all, he'd chosen Quinn. And Quinn hadn't let him down. Sherman laughed again, this time in admiration at the wiliness of his opponent. The old "Killer's Mother Signs Statement" trick, but with a twist. Wonderful! Audacious! Mom as bait while having an affair with the lead detective. All a lie, of course. Quinn had come up with something new, something innovative, that could be added to all the other misdirected claptrap written and spoken about serial killers and their mothers.

Misguided and unhappy professors in musty classrooms or lecture halls half full of bored students, TV chatterhead pop psychologists mouthing the tired phrases of others, spoon-feeding pap in sound bites to the millions, what did they know? Who were they to presume?

Well, let Quinn be smug for a while. Sherman knew better. Who was this asshole detective really? And how innovative was he? Did he think he'd invented flush toilets or the forward pass?

He realized he was clenching his jaw. No anger. No need and no reason for anger.

Sherman knew the police were getting anxious, wondering if he'd actually rise to the bait and confirm their cleverness. They were the ones feeling the pressure. They were planting staged photographs in the newspapers. They were the sources of amusement being laughed at for their futility. They were the ones lost in the swamp.

As he stood up from the bench, he folded the newspaper, then walked over to a nearby trash receptacle and dropped it in with the rest of the detritus of humanity.

Then he began to walk, still not hungry.

Around two that afternoon he fell asleep in his recliner and dreamed of Quinn and Mom gazing at each other…that way. Of them doing other things. Of Sam Pickett and the sounds that had come from Mom's bedroom, the squeal of the bedsprings and crashing of the headboard against the wall, over and over and over until it became like distant thunder that wouldn't quit, that wouldn't allow peace or safety, that remained fear on the horizon.

The squeal of the bedsprings!

The squeal of the bedsprings!

There was no way to stop it, or to stop the distant thunder from moving closer and closer.

The past threatened like a summer storm, roiling the darkness of his mind, and other sounds and images rose unbidden to the surface of Sherman's memory: the lapping of black water in moonlight, the persistent droning of insects, the smooth dark movement in shadowed glades, the shrill scream of the power saw cutting through-

The squeal-

The storm grew in intensity and roared in on him like a hurricane.

It gathered him struggling to its bosom, and he surrendered to it.

He expected darkness when he opened his eyes, but light flooded in through the window. He sat for a while staring out at the city, still there and not a dream, miles of soaring stone and glass and angular stark shadow and bright sunlight. The past was over and gone. Outside the window was the present.

Now! Real!

He swallowed his fear and the bitterness of sleep and dreams.

A trick. The photo in the newspaper looked real but it was a trick.

But the dream echoed and flashed in his mind and Sherman was furious, perspiring, his heart hammering.

Calm, damn it! Calm…A trick…

He recalled fishing in the swamp, the bait taken, the hook bare. Sometimes a gator would yank at the line, breaking it and sweeping away hook and bait with an invisible awesome power. Quinn would learn there were creatures you didn't fish for. Quinn could never imagine. He'd never been where Sherman had been, or learned the hard lessons. You didn't stalk creatures that regarded bait and hunter as gift and prey.

Quinn could never imagine.

Sherman reached for his cell phone and pecked out Lauri's cell phone number. Cell to cell, like a living organism. His heart slowed its pace and he was breathing evenly at last.

She answered on the third ring.

"Hi," he said. "Miss me?"