Beyond the Mask Read online

  Frank looked into Bentley’s eyes, trying to suss out a lie. He didn’t see one. “Okay. Let’s take a seat. I’ll listen to what you have to say.”

  II.

  They elected to take a booth. Bentley said that it would be more discrete and Frank had no reason to object.

  Before they sat down, though, Frank excused himself to go to the bathroom. It was a shit-and-piss-smelling one stall bathroom with a urinal next to the stall. The counter was wet with the leavings of other drunks who had used the facilities.

  Frank pulled out his cell phone and got an answer on the first ring.

  “Pappas.”

  “Rick, it’s Frank. I want you to get a couple of cars over to Sheila Braddock’s house.”

  “I already did,” Rick replied. “Pulled a couple of guys off the highway and put them on it. They should be there soon.”

  Frank let out a sigh and thanked Rick. When he came out of the bathroom, Bentley had found a booth and was tapping his hands on the table, waiting.

  Frank sat down and gave Bentley a go-ahead gesture.

  “To begin with, I need to tell you I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve put you through. Your tongue, almost killing you.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you do owe me an apology for that.”

  Bentley seemed hurt. “It’s not all bad is it? I mean, your career did pretty well. County Sheriff? How many votes did putting me away win you?”

  Frank shook his head. “You haven’t changed at all.”

  Bentley’s eyes narrowed for a second and then he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to come off as callous. I was just trying to point out some kind of bright side.”

  “There is no bright side,” Frank said. “You killed people and ruined families.”

  “That’s fair,” Bentley said. “Again, I’m sorry for the pain and suffering that I caused you.”

  “I don’t give a shit about your sorrys.”

  “Probably not.” Bentley leaned forward. “What I really want to tell you about is my time in the hospital. When I first went in there I fully intended to find a way out. Somehow to trick the staff into believing I had reformed.”

  “It took you ten years,” Frank said. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

  “I am,” Bentley said. “I’m basically a genius. I say this with no sense of pride or accomplishment. It’s just a freak of nature that I was born with. Of course, I was also born with some part of my brain missing, so I guess every gift has a downside.”

  “You’re a pessimist,” Frank said. “An optimist would say that your downside came with a gift.”

  Bentley uttered a short laugh. “I guess you’re right. You’re still as perceptive as ever.”

  “So why did it take you ten years to fool them?” Frank asked.

  Bentley leaned on the table and closed the distance between his lips and Frank’s ears.

  “It didn’t. I had most of them fooled in a couple months. I went to the group therapy sessions; I went to the one to one sessions. I took the medication. It didn’t take them long to determine that I didn’t have psychosis. After that, most of them began to believe that I had started to reform. But there were two people who didn’t believe it.”

  Frank knew who they were. “Abrams and Jenkins.”

  “Right,” Bentley said. “Abrams, because he knew all along what I was. Jenkins was different though. He was just as smart as I was and he knew most of the tricks. He treated Robert Parr, did you know that?”

  Frank hadn’t known it. He hadn’t done much research on the staff at the hospital. He had tried to put Bentley behind him after their final conversation at the hospital. He had followed Abrams because of the part that prick played in freeing Bentley from jail, but that had been it.

  “No,” Frank said.

  “Parr was just as bad as I was, probably worse actually. He killed more people and he ate them.”

  “I know,” Frank said. The Parr case had been southern California, but he knew about the facts. Those that he hadn’t read in the paper, he had heard from the unending gossip that goes through all police offices.

  “Everyone was sure that Parr was nuts. He had gone to great lengths to prove it. He withdrew from society, he talked about having hallucinations. He made me look like an amateur. He even kept a notebook with all his crazy ramblings in it that the police found after he was captured, but it was all crap.”

  “How do you know this?” Frank was shocked by the level of knowledge and the accuracy of it.

  “Jenkins told me most of it. This was about a year after I was admitted. He told me because he wanted to show me that I could stop the act; I was never going to fool him.”

  “He didn’t do a very good job watching Parr, though,” Frank said. “Killed another inmate didn’t he?”

  “Yeah and he got the gas chamber for it.” Bentley looked at Frank. His eyes were bright and expectant.

  “So?”

  “Justice was served wasn’t it?”

  Frank’s mouth dropped open. “Are you telling me that Jenkins set Parr up to kill that patient?”

  Bentley smirked. “I thought you’d like that part. The other patient was a murder. Of course, he really was psychotic, but so what? Two fewer murderers in the world.”

  “And Jenkins told you all this?”

  “What he didn’t outright tell me I figured out on my own.”

  “Why should I believe anything you’re saying?”

  “It’s all there to look up,” Bentley said. “And you could talk to Jenkins if you wanted to.”

  “I still don’t see what this has to do with anything.”

  “I realized that I couldn’t trick Jenkins. It was impossible, but did that keep me from trying? No. I still had to go to the sessions and I still had to take the medicine. Then something started to happen.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I started to feel things.”

  “Really?” Frank raised his eyebrows.

  Bentley leaned back on his side of the booth and spread his arms out resting on the top of the padded bench seat. “You have that selling-a-bridge look in your eyes again, Frank.”

  “I think you know why?”

  “Yeah, I do. But here’s the thing, it’s true. I started to have feelings. Not guilt, not at first. Just this weird sensation. I don’t know. How do you explain what feelings feel like?”

  “You got me,” Frank said.

  “Well it was sadness. I was feeling sad. I was feeling sorry for myself.”

  “You never felt that before?”

  “No.” Bentley shook his head. “No, I’d never felt anything for myself or for anyone else. But there it was. Sadness. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what it was at first and I didn’t talk about it with anyone for a long time. But those shrinks.” Bentley wagged his finger in Frank’s direction. “Those shrinks are good and they pulled it out of me. Jenkins heard about it, of course. He didn’t say anything at the time, he told me all of this later, but he heard it and he didn’t believe it.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “Just listen, Frank, please listen.”

  “Talk.”

  “The thing was, it wasn’t bullshit. It was real. Something that I was really going through.”

  “So you felt sorry for yourself, so what?”

  “It was more than that. Once I allowed myself to feel that, other things started happening. I was watching an episode of Family Guy in the common room. This was something I just did, watch TV in the common room, I mean, so that people would think that I was becoming more normal. I was watching this show and they made some joke and I laughed.”

  “I think that’s the point of that show,” Frank said. He had never seen Family Guy, not his type of humor, but he had heard about it from other guys at the station. The young guys mostly.

  “Yeah, but I never thought anything was funny before. Not something like a TV show. That stuff is meant for normal people to find funny.”
/>   Frank thought about some of the quotes that the younger officers had repeated from the show and he wondered how normal the people who found the show funny actually were.

  “Yet I laughed and I felt something too. I felt happy.”

  “So you just gained emotions? Just like that?”

  “It wasn’t a quick process,” Bentley said. “Remember we’re talking about years here. But the medication and the therapy just stuck with me. I found myself doing some of the exercises that the therapist recommended and not just to keep up appearances, but because I actually wanted to do them. Things like writing a journal, writing down how I felt about things, talking about my urges.”

  A glisten began in Bentley’s eyes and Frank thought, crocodile tears.

  “I wrote about the things I’d done. I finally started to come to terms with how I’d hurt the people I hurt.”

  “And you felt bad about it?”

  “Not at first. At first I just felt neutral about it, but that was a breakthrough in and of itself and I didn’t even realize it at the time. Do you know why?”

  “Because it didn’t give you pleasure?”

  “Exactly. The only time I had really felt anything before was when I was hurting people. I made me feel superior to them. Like they were animals and I was the proud hunter.”

  “And that went away?”

  “Yes. I felt nothing about it. Then, I started to feel bad about it. I went to sleep crying some nights.”

  “Stop,” Frank said. “You’re breaking my heart.”

  Bentley shook his head and let out a long sigh. “There’s nothing I could ever say to convince you is there?”

  This was so close to Frank’s own thoughts at the hospital that for a moment he was rendered speechless. Bentley stared at him, expecting some kind of answer.

  “No,” Frank said. “I saw behind your mask. I saw what you really were. Just because you’ve switched out one mask for another doesn’t mean I’m going to believe you now. Fool me once…”

  “I know,” Bentley said. “But I’m not fooling you and, I hope, in time you’ll come to understand that. Because I need to apologize to Sheila; I need to apologize to Katie. I need to try and get them to understand that I’m not the person who I was.”

  Frank laughed. “You’re not going to get the chance. As per our arrangement I believe you owe me a confession.”

  Bentley opened his mouth to answer, but he was cut off by the burr of Frank’s phone. Frank fished it out of his pocket and held it to his ear.

  “Sheriff Miles.”

  “Frank?” Rick’s voice. It didn’t sound like good news.

  “What’s up?”

  “I need you to get over to Sheila’s house right now.”

  Frank closed his eyes and gripped the phone so hard he was afraid that it might shatter in his hand.

  “She’s dead isn’t she?”

  “It’s a bloodbath.”

  Frank’s eyes snapped open and lazered in on Bentley. The kid was staring at him with eyes that seemed cautious.

  “What did you do?” Frank asked.

  “What do you mean?” Rick asked on the phone.

  “Nothing,” Bentley said at the same time.

  “I’m on my way,” Frank said.

  He slid out of the booth, keeping his eyes on Bentley the entire time. Bentley followed his gaze.

  “You’re coming with me,” Frank said.

  “Where?”

  “Just come with me.”

  Four

  I.

  It was a long drive to Sheila’s house. Made longer by the fact that Frank had a passenger in the back who he wasn’t talking to. A couple of times, Bentley had tried to ask questions and each time Frank had returned nothing by silence. After the third or fourth question the kid had gotten the message and shut up.

  They came to the mouth of Sheila’s street. A couple of stately palm trees flanked either side of it. A county sheriff’s cruiser was parked slantways across the street, blocking the path.

  The officer standing in front of the car saw Frank and waved his hand. Frank returned the wave and waited for the officer to get into the car and move it enough so that they could get by.

  Lights flashed up and down the street as police cruisers were parked at regular intervals. Some of the officers were out on the street talking to sleepy looking neighbors. At the house next to Sheila’s an old man stood on his porch and was talking to a deputy in an animated fashion. He was waving his hands all about, his thin gray hair blowing to and fro with each movement.

  Three cruisers were parked in front of Sheila’s house. The door was open and Frank saw Rick standing at the entrance. There were a few deputies around him and he was bent forward, barking instructions at them. Frank parked the car and turned to the backseat. “Don’t go anywhere. I will instruct my men to shoot you on sight if you get out of this car.”

  “Am I under arrest?” Bentley asked. His voice sounded frightened, but his eyes still held that haughty gleam.

  “Not yet,” Frank said and exited the car.

  “We didn’t get here fast enough,” Rick said.

  “It’s my fault,” Frank said.

  One of the deputies rushed up. “We got confirmation on who she was talking to, Undersheriff, sir.” The deputy-a fresh-faced kid with jet black hair who had been out of the academy for a few months-shifted his attention to Frank. “I’m sorry sir; I didn’t realize you had arrived, Sheriff, sir.”

  “It’s fine,” Frank said. “What did you find out?”

  “She was speaking with her daughter.”

  “Does Katie know?” Frank asked.

  “We haven’t contacted her yet, sir.” The deputy responded.

  “Good,” Frank said. “Why don’t you go and see if you can find any witnesses?”

  “Yes sir.” The deputy saluted and ran off.

  “Eager,” Frank said.

  “They all are at first,” Rick said. “Especially when you’re around.” Rick smiled but it was a crippled looking thing.

  “I want to see her,” Frank said. “Tell me what you know.”

  They walked into the house.

  Roman Bodrov was hovering over the body snapping his pictures. A flash illuminated Sheila’s body and then darkness settled in again. Roman set down his camera and turned to his kit, which looked like a tackle box. He pulled on a pair of gloves and grabbed his brush, which resembled something that a woman would use to put blush on.

  “Sheriff,” Roman said. His Russian accent was still as thick as ever, even after almost twenty years of living in America. “I see what I can find for you.”

  “Make it good,” the Sheriff said. He looked down at the body and felt a sting that ran up and down his body. “She was a friend.”

  Roman nodded and began his dusting.

  “Someone slashed her throat,” Rick said. Frank didn’t look up at him; he continued to look at Sheila’s corpse. He couldn’t take his eyes off of it.

  “I can see that.”

  “Roman got some footprints in the mud by the window. Fingerprints on the phone, but he thinks they will all be Sheila’s.”

  “This is starting to look and sound familiar,” Frank said.

  “Yeah,” Rick replied. “I was about to put out an ABP on Charles Hester.”

  “Bentley,” a voice spoke up.

  Rick and Frank turned and saw the kid standing there.

  “I legally changed my name to Bentley. I thought it was kind of a tribute. Bentley wasn’t really that bad of a guy after all and I betrayed him.”

  Rick reached toward his sidearm, but Frank shot out a hand and stopped him.

  “I brought him,” Frank said.

  Rick stared at Frank with his mouth hanging open.

  “Trying to catch flies,” Frank said. He turned to Bentley. “I thought I told you to wait in the car.”

  “You might find something,” Bentley said. His eyes were in constant motion, scanning the room. “This was a rush job.”


  “Are you going to arrest him?” Rick asked. His voice was high and reedy.

  “Not yet,” Frank said.

  Bentley took a step forward and looked at Sheila’s body. “The killer didn’t have time to savor the kill at all. Just slash and done. It doesn’t look like there’s anything missing.”

  “Nothing stolen that we can see,” Rick said.

  Bentley nodded as if this were elementary. “You said that you found footprints by the window, which means this guy was waiting for awhile. Probably for Sheila to get off the phone with Katie. He came in and expected to be able to enjoy this kill, but something changed.”

  “Get him the fuck out of here,” Rick said. He was talking to Frank but still looking at Bentley.

  “What was the time of death?” Frank asked.

  “Frank-”

  “Sheriff,” Frank said. “Don’t forget it, Rick. What was the time of death?”

  “She was alive when she finished her phone call with Katie, that was at seven oh one. So some time between then and eight thirty when the first deputies arrived on the scene.”

  Bentley smiled at Rick. “So I’m clear.”

  “Fuck you,” Rick said.

  “He’s right,” Frank said. “He’s been with me since just after six.”

  “You two buddies now?” Rick asked.

  “Watch your mouth Undersheriff.”

  “Sorry sir. I think I’ll go coordinate the efforts outside. It smells in here.” Rick walked off, brushing past Bentley as he did. The kid lurched to the side but kept his feet.

  Frank looked into Bentley’s eyes. He didn’t like what he saw in them, but he couldn’t have committed the crime either. Frank was his alibi.

  “I guess I won’t get the chance to apologize to her,” Bentley said. He looked down at the body. “That’s a shame.”

  Frank grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him towards the door. “Get back into the car while I do my job here. After that I’ll take you to a bus station and we don’t have to see each other any more.”