Beyond the Mask Read online

  Frank knocked on the door. He could hear the howl of a cat and the shuffle of papers.

  “Wilbur!” A female voice bellowed from inside the room. “That better be you with your rent! You’re two months back now.”

  The door opened and a large red-faced woman with kinky black hair filled the doorway.

  “You ain’t Wilbur,” she said.

  “No,” Frank said. “I’m Sheriff Miles with the Yucca County Sheriff’s office.” He produced his wallet and showed her his star.

  She glared at it for a minute. Big was really an understatement. Frank had never before seen such a large woman. She was almost a wonder. Her head was completely round and her black hair was kept short.

  Probably because of the curls, Frank thought.

  He could imagine that if it had been allowed to get longer the hair wouldn’t so much grow out as grow up, making a large black helmet.

  As it was, the little hair that was on her had already made a kinked ball.

  Her eyes were close-set and beady little black points.

  Yet it was her body that his eyes kept coming back to. She was wearing a white housedress with blue and red flowers printed on it. It looked as big as a bed sheet. Frank thought that they used to call that style of dress a moo-moo.

  Her arms seemed to drip with fat. The soft flesh on the underside hung down like warm dough being poured from a bowl to a pan.

  Her breasts were massive. They looked like basketballs stuffed down her shirt, but they were being pulled down by the force of gravity against their tremendous weight.

  The belly that the breasts were resting on was perfectly round. She looked roughly ninety-five weeks pregnant.

  “Finally showed up, huh? A little late ain’t you?”

  “What do you mean?” Frank asked.

  “You people called me a couple days ago. Someone named Pompous. Told me he was coming down to talk to me.”

  Rick, Frank thought. He had gone to Ellison’s and then he was going to see this woman. Rick doing Frank’s job again. Physical pain, to match what he was feeling inside racked his body.

  “Well what the hell do you want?” The woman said.

  “Your name would be a help,” Bentley said.

  “Who are you? The guy who gets the coffee?”

  “No, I’m the hero. You know the one who gets the girl.”

  The woman laughed and it shook her entire mass. It was as if a titanic earthquake was rippling through the peaks and valleys of her flesh.

  “I’m Annie Parks. I run this shithole.”

  “We wanted to ask you about a man who was murdered here.”

  “The geek?” Annie asked. “Yeah, fucking shame that was. He was always on time with his check.”

  “Do you mind if we come in for a minute, Mrs. Parks?”

  She eyed him up and down. “It’s Miss Parks, Mr. Officer man, but you should call me Annie. More intimate that way.”

  Bentley offered Frank a smile.

  Annie stepped out of the way of the door and gestured for them to come in.

  They stepped through the threshold.

  Frank saw the cat. It was the Annie of the feline world. It looked like an orange and white ball and its legs seemed too short for its body. When it saw the new people walking in, the cat jumped down from a disheveled looking recliner and hit the floor. There was a meaty thud and then the thing trotted off with a speed he couldn’t have given it credit for if he hadn’t seen it for himself.

  The place was a mess. There were candy wrappers and cast off McDonald’s and Wendy’s bags. Most of them had circles of grease staining the white paper on the bottoms.

  Annie stepped in front of them; pushing Frank to the side with her belly as she moved past them towards her living room area.

  Frank wasn’t even sure if she’d felt him.

  “Come on in and sit down,” Annie said.

  If she was embarrassed by the state of her domicile she did not show it. Her face was cracked in a large smile, which showed a set of almost blindingly white teeth. They looked like dentures, but Frank had an idea they were real.

  The living room consisted of a sagging love seat that was concave in the middle. On either side of it were two recliners. The one on the far side looked like it had an orange fur cushion.

  Frank quickly sat on the one closest to him. Bentley shot him a glare but said nothing as he sat down on the cat chair.

  Annie didn’t so much sit as she plopped into the love seat. Frank heard the creaking of wood as the piece of furniture took her girth. He wondered how much longer it would agree to do that before it just snapped.

  She sat in the middle and took up both seats. She kicked her feet out and rested them on the coffee table in front of the love seat. There was a half-eaten Big Mac resting on its paper wrapper and a bowl of what used to be cereal but had been reduced to mushy paste.

  The television was on and Drew Carey was smiling at some blue hair who was trying to decide if the price of the car she was attempting to win started with a one or a two.

  Annie picked up the remote and hit mute, but kept the television on.

  “Now, what did you want to ask me about Collins?”

  “We haven’t been able to find any family for him.” Frank said.

  “They’re dead,” Annie said. She was still watching the television when she said it. “Parents died in a fire when he was a little boy.”

  “He told you this?” Frank asked.

  “You fucking dumb bitch!” Annie screamed at the screen. “That thing ain’t no more than fifteen thousand.”

  “Annie?”

  She turned towards him. “Huh? Oh yeah, he told me about it. I needed references when he first moved in and he told me that he didn’t have any family. Parents only children, him only child, parents dead in the fire. I remembered it because I thought it was kinda sad.”

  “It is,” Frank said.

  “You said he was a geek,” Bentley said. “Why? Because of the butterflies?”

  Annie laughed. “Those stupid things. He was always going to park to catch them things then pinning them up. Kept bringing ‘em to show them to me. Like I was going to be impressed by that.”

  Something wasn’t right. Frank couldn’t put his finger on it, but his alarm was sounding louder than ever now. Was it the butterflies? Something about the butterflies?

  “But, no that’s not why I called him a geek. It was his job.”

  Annie put her feet down and leaned forward as far as her weight would allow her. She grabbed the spoon from the bowl of cereal and shoveled a heap of it into her mouth.

  “What did he do?” Frank asked.

  “Owned a store,” Annie said. “Computers, televisions, cell phones. He found broken down shitty ones, sometimes he bought broken stuff offa people. Then he’d fix ‘em up and sell him in the store. He knew all that shit. How to fix all those electric things.”

  “Do you know where this store is?”

  “Down on Lex,” Annie said. “Computer doctor or something like that.” She was again looking at the television. Little dribbles of milk were running down the corners of her mouth. “Passed by it once, recognized it from his application.”

  “Do you know where on Lexington?” Bentley asked.

  “Downtown. By the strip malls.” She looked annoyed at being pulled away from her television.

  “You said he didn’t have any references,” Frank said. “Did he have any friends?”

  “Actually, handsome, I didn’t say he didn’t have any references. I don’t take in peoples with no references. He only had one, and I was leery about taking him on only that. Turned out good though, like I said he always paid on time.”

  “Who was his reference?” Frank asked. “Did you ever see him?”

  “He came over from time to time. I ain’t no busy body. I don’t spy on my tenants, so maybe I didn’t see him every time he came, but I don’t think he visited much.”

  “Do you know his name?” Bentley a
sked.

  “Short little guy,” Annie said. “Looked like I could break him in two if I got on top of him. Henry something, I think.”

  “Harvey?” Frank asked. “Harvey Ellison.”

  “Yep, that’s the guy,” Annie said. “Just a little fella. Jumpy too.”

  “Let’s go,” Frank said. He bolted out of the chair. “Thank you Annie.”

  Bentley rose from his chair and looked at Annie. “You don’t watch the news, do you?”

  “Hell no,” Annie said. “Nothing but misery on that fucking thing.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Frank sprinted to the car. He looked back and saw Bentley walking at a standard pace.

  “Let’s go!” Frank shouted.

  “To the computer store?”

  “Fucking right.”

  Frank flicked the key and the car roared to life. Then he drummed his hands on the steering wheel and waited as Bentley almost strolled across the parking lot.

  “Get in the god damn car!”

  Bentley finally reached the door and sat down. He hadn’t had a chance to close his door when Frank thundered forward. Bentley swung to the right and then regained himself and yanked the door closed.

  “You trying to kill me?”

  “Trying to get there.”

  “Don’t worry; I’m sure it’s not going anywhere.”

  “Ellison might, though.”

  Bentley laughed. “You think he’s living there?”

  “Why not? He’s got nowhere else to go.”

  “If he’s switched his hunting schedule to the evening then he isn’t going anywhere either.”

  “We don’t know what he’s doing,” Frank said.

  “You think that Collins killed his parents?”

  The question threw Frank for a minute and he almost slammed into the back of a car as his motored on. He jerked the wheel hard to the left and cut off another car as he made his way around him.

  Why he didn’t use the official car, he had no idea.

  “I…don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “Well I do,” Bentley said. His voice was once again calm and impassive. “If he was the kind of guy who hung around with Ellison, then I’m sure he knew what the man was.”

  “Ellison could have hid it.”

  “No reason for Ellison to seek out any friends either. Remember this wasn’t just a passing acquaintance. He lowered himself to coming to that mess of an apartment building to see Collins. Guys like Ellison don’t make friends unless they’re friends that share similar interests.”

  “Burned his parents?”

  “Sure. Where was he when it happened? Where were they when they died? I’m guessing it was their house since they died together. Why wasn’t their son with them?”

  “Because he was outside lighting the place on fire?”

  “That’s what I think. Any unexplained arson deaths recently?”

  There was one. It hadn’t occurred to Frank before, but there was…two, actually there were two of them. Families that had been burned in their homes. First one had been ruled an accident, but the second one was still an open investigation of arson.

  The Sheriff’s office had consulted a bit on it, but it wasn’t their case.

  “You might be right,” Frank said.

  “I’m always right,” Bentley said.

  Frank swung the car to the left and slowed down. They were on Lexington. The businesses that crowded the street downtown were crammed in tight.

  He scanned the signs above each store. People walked the street. Not as many as would be in the shopping districts downstate, but enough of them that Frank didn’t want to create a panic. Plus, he didn’t want to miss any of the signs.

  “There it is,” Bentley said.

  He was pointing to a squat, square building near the intersection of Lexington and Concord. The sign above the door read: Electronic Doc.

  “She almost got it right,” Bentley said.

  The lights were off and Frank could barely make out the dark showroom. There were three laptops in the front window.

  “We need to find a place to park,” Frank said. “Not too close.”

  They drove down about two blocks and Frank found a parking spot in front of a meter. He nosed the car in and jumped out.

  Bentley was still standing by the car when Frank turned around.

  “What are you doing?” He called to the kid.

  “Putting change in the meter,” Bentley said.

  “Jesus, I’m the Sheriff, I think I can handle a parking ticket if they write one.”

  Bentley caught up with Frank and he had the little smirk on his face.

  “I just didn’t want us to break the law.”

  Frank pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I need to call Michaels and tell him to send a couple of people down here. Then we need to watch the place to see if anyone comes or goes while we get a warrant.”

  “A warrant? For what?”

  Frank stopped and looked at Bentley. “I respect your ability to get into this guy’s head, but you don’t know anything about police procedure. We can’t just break into a store, and this isn’t a situation where you can just kick in the front door.”

  “Don’t you think we have probably cause? We’ve got Ellison as an associate of Collins. What if you’re right and he’s changing it up again? He could be ready to sneak out the back and kill another family.”

  “His name is on the application,” Frank said.

  “Exactly. As a reference for Collins. That should be enough right there.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Let’s check it out, take a quick look around the place and see what we’re dealing with.”

  “Besides,” Bentley said. “We can pop in, look around and see if there’s any reason to get a warrant. If there is then you can come back with one and cover all your bases.”

  They began walking again.

  “Let’s just see what there is to see.”

  As they approached the storefront Frank could feel his stomach tighten. There was definitely something here; he could feel it.

  Frank continued passed, but Bentley stopped at the window and leaned his face against the glass.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Frank hissed.

  “There’s blood, Frank.”

  A freeze came over him and he stopped walking.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Come look.”

  Frank walked back and looked into the store. There were several glass cases. They held various types of merchandise. Laptop computers, tablets, cell phones, a device that Frank vaguely recognized from years ago. It looked like one of those radio detectors that were supposed to tell you when a cop was in the area so you didn’t get pulled over for speeding.

  He hadn’t seen one in a long time.

  Shelves lined the walls. Desktop models sat on these. They looked old and obsolete, especially when compared to their smaller counterparts under the glass.

  There was a cash register on the glass case on the far left wall. Next to it was a pile of wires and circuit boards.

  “Where’s the blood?” Frank asked. “I don’t see it.”

  Then he did. It was faint, against the back wall, near where the wall opened up and made a doorway.

  “You sure it isn’t a shadow?”

  He shuffled a little towards Bentley keeping his eyes on the back wall. Little bars of light hit the dark store and now Frank could see it more clearly. It was definitely blood. One stripe, impossibly thin, streaked against the wall.

  Frank turned to Bentley. “How the hell did you see that?”

  “I have an eye for blood,” Bentley said.

  “It’s good enough for me,” Frank said. “Let’s get in there.”

  Frank grabbed the bar that ran across the middle of the steel and glass door and pulled. It moved about an inch and then stopped as the bolt hit the door plate.

  “Can’t br
eak it in without making too much noise,” Frank said.

  “Let’s walk around back. Might be a door back there.”

  They walked to the edge of the building. There was a thin alley between Electronic Doc and the next business, which was a small real estate office.

  Frank had to turn sideways to make his way between the two buildings. His hand itched and he wanted to reach for his gun.

  It seemed to take forever to get through the alley to the other side, but they finally came out into a field of drying and dying grass.

  There were a few broken bottles and a privacy fence that ran across the span of all the businesses on this side of the street.

  There was a metal door with no knob. Instead it had one of those pieces of metal that curved down so you could hook your hand under it and pull the door.

  Frank grabbed it and pulled. The door opened so easily that he almost lost his balance. He turned to Bentley, still holding the door open.

  “We need to be very quiet. He could be in here.”

  Bentley nodded and said nothing.

  They walked through the door. It was even darker back here than on the showroom floor. The door was set opposite the opening in the wall of the main floor and Frank could see the display window with the laptops. To the left was a tiny office area. There was a little desk and chair. More wires and circuits cluttered the desk. There was something that looked like a tiny pen with no point. Frank supposed it was some sort of soldering device.

  To the right was a set of stairs leading to the second floor.

  Frank climbed them one at a time, taking a pause in between each step to listen for movement above them. Bentley was close. He could feel the kid’s breath at his back.

  There was more blood on the walls next to the staircase. Long streaks as if Ellison had walked up here after each kill holding out blood hands to leave a trail.

  It took them nearly five minutes to make their way up the stairs at their snail’s pace. Frank hadn’t heard any noise, but he pulled his gun out of the holster as they reached the top.

  There was a small, square landing, which barely afforded enough room for Bentley and Frank to stand there at the same time. The kid was pressing his body against Frank’s back.

  There was a single door to their immediate left. Frank reached out his free hand and turned the knob.