Beneath the Mask of Sanity Read online

  “I got a call last night, Frank’s in the hospital.”

  “What happened?”

  “He was shot, five times.”

  “Shit!”

  Dunham put an arm on Rick’s shoulder. “Keep it down. I don’t want this to get around.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I just got off the phone with Seleca General, he’s in a coma.”

  “Seleca, that’s over in San Ignace. What the hell was he doing over there?”

  “I don’t know, but the police found his body in some woods in the tri-city area. There’s some shanties over there that the bums put up.”

  “I think I know where you’re talking about.”

  “They found him with another body. Some bum that had been cut to shit, plus a dog. The other two were buried and whoever did it, was going to bury Frank too, but the cops musta scared him off. They found a shovel next to him.”

  Rick shook his head. “Who’s covering the case?”

  “Walters from San Stephan. The woods are technically theirs.”

  “So why are you telling me this?”

  “Because we’re going to the hospital.”

  “We are?”

  “Yep. San Stephan’s got a couple guys over there, but Frank hasn’t woken up yet.”

  “Do you really need me to go?”

  Dunham’s mouth tightened. “Yeah, I do. Frank was over there investigating the Braddock case.”

  Rick’s eyes slanted down. “That’s my case. Did you tell him to do that?”

  “No, and I didn’t know about it, but it’s the only reason I can think of that he’d be over there.”

  “So you think he found something out and this guy got the drop on him and tried to kill him?”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about,” Dunham said. “Walters told me that the bum had been killed awhile ago. They weren’t sure exactly how long, but from the amount of decomposition, at least a week or so ago.”

  Rick’s eyes widened. “Do you think the guy that got Frank is the same guy that killed Braddock?”

  “I hope not, because if it is then we’ve got a serial killer.”

  61.

  The hospital room was cold. Dunham felt the flesh on his arms pop out in goose bumps. There was a uniformed officer standing outside of the room.

  “Names?”

  “I’m Chief Harry Dunham and this is detective Rick Pappas. We’re from Yucca. We work with Frank.”

  The uniform’s face didn’t change and his voice remained hard. “I.D.”

  Dunham grabbed his wallet and flashed his badge. Rick did likewise.

  The uniform nodded. “Okay, you can go in, but if he regains consciousness you notify me immediately.”

  “Of course,” Dunham said.

  Frank lay on the hospital bed. Someone (probably one of the nurse’s aides running around in their green scrubs) had covered him to the middle of his chest with the white sheet. There were four monitors next to Frank’s bed. They ran silent, but Dunham figured that they were probably beeping at the nurse’s station.

  He had been in enough hospital rooms to recognize one as Frank’s heart beat, and another as his blood pressure. Wires ran from the machines to Frank’s bed, where they disappeared underneath the sheet, making it impossible to see where they connected.

  “Are you friends of his?” A voice asked behind them.

  Dunham burned and saw a tall blonde woman with a hard, lined face and sharp green eyes. She wore blue scrubs and had a chart opened in front of her.

  “We work with him,” Dunham said.

  “You should talk to him. Let him know that you’re here. We find that in a lot of cases like this, it’s good to hear someone they know.”

  Dunham walked over to the bed and sat in the chair next to it. He reached out his hand and placed it on Frank’s arm. The skin was warm to the touch and seemed vibrant enough.

  “Hey Frank, it’s me.” Dunham looked up at the nurse and Rick. They were staring back at him. He felt a flutter in his chest. He hadn’t been so nervous since he’d been a kid asking Donna Decicco for a date.

  “It’s Dunham. We need you to come back to us buddy.”

  The nurse walked over to the monitors and scribbled some things down her chart. Dunham pointed to a thick plastic tube jutting from Frank’s nose. “What’s that for?”

  “Tube feed. It’s where he takes his meal.” The nurse looked down at her watch. “Which, I should be giving him at any minute.” She saw the look of horror on Dunham’s face. “We didn’t want to intubate him. All his life functions are normal now, he just won’t wake up. Dr. Crenshaw didn’t think, after all he’d been through, that putting a hole in his neck was a good idea. This is a good alternative.”

  The nurse walked over to a small brown table in the corner and picked up two cans with blue and white lettering, spelling out Nutrin 1.5. The word Nestle, in much smaller letters, ran across the bottom.

  “Nestle makes that?” Dunham asked.

  The nurse nodded. She opened both cans and poured the thick, cream-colored contents into a plastic I.V. bag. The tube to Frank’s nose filled with the stuff.

  “That must be the worst tasting shit that they make,” Dunham said.

  The nurse smiled. “I’ve never tried it, but I can’t imagine that it’s that tasty.” She threw the cans in the garbage and walked out the door.

  Dunham tightened his grip on Frank’s arm. Rick shifted from side to side; he hadn’t moved more than two feet from the door since they’d arrived.

  “You gotta wake up Frank,” Dunham said. “You’ve gotta tell us who did this to you.”

  62.

  Katie was standing by her locker with Brenda when Bentley walked up.

  “What kind of help do you need exactly?” Bentley asked.

  “Just more of a general overview really. Sometimes Mrs. Franklin goes so fast that I can’t keep up with her.”

  “I think I can help with that.”

  “Brenda’s going to come too, if that’s okay.”

  “The more the merrier, Bentley said.”

  They didn’t talk much on the walk home. It wasn’t like the other night, the cunt was with them. At least the walk was a short one. It took only five minutes or so for them to arrive in front of the Katie’s house.

  “Are you coming up too Brenda?” Katie asked.

  Brenda looked from Katie to Bentley and then back again. “Actually, I think I’d better get home. I’ve got some history to study.”

  “We’ll see you soon,” Bentley said.

  “Hey, Mom!” Katie called as they walked through the door. “Are you home?”

  “I’m upstairs!” A voice called back.

  Then there she was, the woman from the picture. The woman that he’d seen at the mall. That was her.

  She walked out onto the landing, with only a towel wrapped around her wet body. Water dripped off onto the carpet.

  She voiced a little scream when she saw Bentley and ran back the way she came. “Why didn’t you tell me that we had company?” Sheila shouted. Her voice took on a cavernous, echoing quality that comes from being in a bathroom with tiled walls.

  “Sorry, Mom. This is my friend Brandon. He’s helping me study for math.”

  “That’s nice,” Sheila called back.

  “We’re going to go up to my room now, so don’t come out of the bathroom.”

  “Actually,” Bentley said. “Do you have a bathroom down here; I really need to go.”

  “Sure,” Katie said. “It’s right down that hallway, first door on the right.”

  “You go upstairs; I’ll be up in a couple minutes.”

  Katie opened her mouth and then she smiled and nodded. “Oh, okay, I see. Take your time.”

  Bentley started down the hall until he heard Katie’s door close. Then, he turned and walked back towards the living room. He looked around, getting a feel for the layout of the house.

  There’s still time, Bentley thought. Just have to h
urry. He ran to the front door and slipped out, making sure to keep noise to a minimum as he closed the door.

  64.

  Brenda had walked about two blocks. She didn’t like to rush when she walked. Katie was always zipping around wherever they went. In school, in the hall, it didn’t matter, she was in a hurry. Brenda liked to take things slow. She stopped in front of a blue house near the center of the block. It was like an ink stain on a sheet. The blue was so bright that it almost hurt her eyes. Almost every other house on the block was either white, or some kind of muted pastel color.

  The lawn had been allowed to run amok. Weeds dotted the green, robbing the lawn of any beauty. There were four bushes in front of the house. Two on either side of the long walkway. They too, had been allowed to grow without seeing the hedge clippers. Branches poked this way and that; there was no uniformity to the plants at all, just a mass of things here and there.

  Brenda smiled. It was like life. No one was around to clip your life into perfect order, why should someone do it to the plants?

  She took a step forward and then an arm wrapped around her. The hand tasted like clothes and covered her mouth. Another arm wrapped around her waist and suddenly she was in the air.

  Brenda tried to scream, but all the noise hit the glove. She tried to draw in more breath to let out another salvo, but the arm around her waist pressed in and she felt a strange void in her stomach and chest.

  Leaves brushed past her vision, the whole world seemed to be spinning and she couldn’t focus on anything. Suddenly, she was looking at the sky. Black spots buzzed around the blue above her. Then, a face appeared.

  She tried to draw in breath to call to Brandon for help, but still couldn’t. Then, she saw the knife in Brandon’s hand.

  Her mind spun out. Thoughts ceased, reason ended. There was only one thing to do, get away. Brenda tried to roll over on her side, but Brandon’s hand shot towards her face. A starburst of pain rushed through her body. Pain radiated from her abdomen. Brenda looked down and saw the hilt of Brandon’s knife jutting out of her stomach. Brandon leaned by her ear and whispered. “I just wanted to know that my voice is the last thing you’re ever going to hear you little cunt bitch.”

  Brandon grabbed the hilt of the knife and pulled up. Pain tore through Brenda’s stomach and chest. Her body could no longer take it and she descended into the blackness, knowing that she would never come back.

  65.

  Bentley took out the clean clothes from his backpack and shoved the bloody ones inside. He wanted to run back to Katie’s house, but he didn’t want to attract the attention of anyone that might be watching, so he walked and tried not to think about how long it was taking him to get back.

  During the walk, he examined his hands. Nothing had soaked through the gloves, nor were there any splatters on his skin. He whistled a random assortment of notes that couldn’t really be called a tune as he walked. The house rose in the distance. Instead of continuing on a straight path, Bentley turned left at the intersection and walked down another residential street.

  The first house had a tall wooden privacy fence and he walked passed it. The second was guarded by a mere chain-link fence. Bentley looked at the driveway; there were no cars in it.

  “My lucky day.”

  There was no lock on the gate leading to the backyard and Bentley opened it. He thought about reaching into his pack to grab the gloves, but then decided against it. Not only would it take longer, but there was the chance of smearing blood on him. Besides, it might be a risk, but a small one. It wasn’t as if the police were going to cover every inch of ground, dusting for finger prints.

  Bentley walked across the lawn, not hurrying, not dawdling. He vaulted the fence into the next yard, feeling like Ferris Beuller.

  Bentley hopped the last fence and into the Braddock’s yard. He never saw the pair of eyes that spied him from the window.

  The back door was unlocked and Bentley entered the house. It was quiet. He proceeded slowly, expecting one of the girls to pop out at any second.

  He rounded the corner and saw her. The Wife. She was standing with her back to him at the kitchen sink. There was a dish rag in her hand with little white soup bubbles bursting on it.

  It wasn’t too hard to sneak passed her. The dumb cunt was staring at her dishes, not moving. It was as if she died right there on the spot and was only waiting for the coroner to come collect her corpse.

  Bentley thought about unsoldering his backpack. Walking over and pulling out his knife. He could see the blood flow from the bitch. He would open his mouth and taste.

  That was something that he’d resisted with the cunt he’d just killed. Not only would that kind of mess take longer to clean, but she wasn’t what he wanted. Tasting her blood would only fill his mouth with rot and death. What he wanted was life.

  He skirted around the kitchen and found the staircase. His Prize was waiting for him up there, and it wouldn’t do to keep her any longer.

  66.

  Dunham’s hand was still on Frank’s shoulder, but he sensed no movement. The only sign of life was the warm radiation caused by the man’s blood flow.

  There was a brief knock on the door. Rick was still standing by it and he turned and smiled. “You must be the doctor?”

  “Yes, Dr. Crenshaw. And you are?”

  “I’m Detective Pappas, this is Chief Dunham. We’re from Frank’s prescient.”

  “I see. Well I’m glad I have someone here. I have exciting news.”

  Dunham looked up. “What is it?”

  “Your friend’s condition has completely stabilized. Our best surgeon came in to work on him and he really owes his life to him.”

  Crenshaw looked down at his notes. “As I was saying, he’s completely stable. Blood count is great. It looks like he should make a complete recovery.”

  “So why isn’t he awake?” Dunham asked.

  “His body has gone through massive trauma. To deal with this the brain has performed a shut down in a sense.”

  Dunham shifted in his seat. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that he should come out of the coma now that the body is stabilized.”

  “How long?”

  Crenshaw studied Dunham for a few seconds. “There’s no way to know. When things like this happen, it’s hard to judge when the brain feels that it can handle the stress again.”

  “Are we talking hours, days?”

  “I’m really not sure, but if I had to guess I would say closer to days than say…months. It really could be at any time.”

  “You understand the sensitivity of this matter,” Pappas said.

  The doctor shifted his focus. “I do. I know that he has something to do with an ongoing investigation. That’s why he’s here.” Crenshaw jerked his thumb at the door, where a different uniformed officer had taken the place of the pervious one.

  “Was there anything unusual about his condition?”

  “Only that he was alive.”

  Dunham’s lips tightened, his eyes hardened.

  “I’m really not the person to be asking, anyway. Dr. Goldberg treated him when he first got to us.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a way we could contact him, do you?” Dunham’s voice had lowered to a hush.

  The doctor took the cue and spoke in muted tones. “I have a phone number, but I already gave it to the other officers.”

  “Rick.”

  Pappas already had his cell phone out. “Then you won’t mind giving it to us as well.”

  67.

  After Crenshaw left, the two officers remained in the room for nearly thirty minutes before one of them spoke.

  “You might as well get back to the station,” Dunham said.

  Rick nodded. “Okay, I’ll go get the car, meet me at the valet entrance.”

  Dunham shook his head. “No, I mean you can go back. I’m staying here.”

  Rick balked. “Sir, Frank’s not coming out of this anytime soon, I don’t see…”
>
  “I’m staying here. I need to be here when he comes out of this.” Dunham lowered his head. “Whenever that is.”

  “Okay,” Rick said. “I’ll need to tell something to the guys.”

  “Tell them you’re in charge, I don’t care. Tell them anything. If you really need me you can call me here.”

  “You’re the boss,” Rick said. He made to walk out the door, but Dunham’s voice stopped him.

  “I want you to call that surgeon. Talk to him. See if you can get anything out of him. The San Stephan guys have probably already picked him clean, but Frank is one of ours. If anyone is going to nail this asshole it’s going to be us.”

  “You got it.”

  Rick left. Dunham pulled his hand off of Frank’s arm and laid his head on his chest. “Come on you bastard. We’ve been through too much together for you let me down now.”

  68.

  Katie looked up when her door opened. Her books were spread across the bed and there were some doodles on the notebook in front of her.

  “You are dedicated,” Bentley said.

  “Jeez, I thought you’d fallen in or something,” Katie said.

  Bentley smiled. “Nope, just trying to make myself presentable.”

  Katie’s face furrowed. “Are those…different clothes than you were wearing before.”

  Bentley looked down. “Yeah, I like to change my clothes after school. I always feel so dirty.”

  Bentley sat down on the bed.

  “Was my mother still in the bathroom?”

  “No, she’s downstairs washing dishes.”

  “Good.”

  Katie leaned in and kissed Bentley. She was hesitant at first, but soon gained a rhythm. Bentley felt her inch closer to him. Her hands rubbed his chest and arms.

  He took her lead and moved his arms up and down her back. Katie’s saliva filled Bentley’s mouth and then he felt an intruder. Her tongue poked its way in and swirled around. Bentley could sense the eagerness and the ignorance in her love.