Beyond the Mask Read online

“I’m going to bed,” Frank said. “Your room is down the hall on the right. There’s a lock on my door if you’re thinking about killing me in my sleep.”

  Bentley laid his hand across his chest and affected a hurt look. “That was never my style, Frank. Don’t you remember?"

  III.

  Dial tone. That low monotonous sound that told you the line was open. It was something that Frank missed sometimes. Lost amid the rapid changes that shook the world. Actually, they didn’t really shake the world anymore, they lulled the world. House phones become cell phones, VHS becomes DVD which becomes Bluray, dial-up becomes cable becomes wi-fi. All these changes and so quickly and the world just figures it out and moves on. No one ever thinks about what we lose while were making all those changes.

  Dial tone was a loss. It was an annoying sound most of the time, but it was something to listen to while you held the phone and contemplated making a tough call. Maybe calling your crush to ask her out.

  Only the worst thing that could happen in that scenario was the girl would say no. The call that Frank needed to make could result in much worse. How would she take the news? Would she do something rash?

  Not Katie, Frank thought. She’s tougher than that.

  But how tough can a person be?

  No sound but the beating of his own heart as he looked at the cell phone glowing in his hands. Katie’s number was already punched in; all he had to do was press the green button and it would start to ring.

  Instead, he put the cell phone down on the bed and plopped down next to it. His clothes were already off, he was down to his boxers, but the gun was on the bed. The gun was going to be by him at all times, he had already decided that.

  Frank grabbed his laptop from the bedside table and fired it up. This was a change from the wild march of technology that might actually serve him well.

  He went to the County website and punched in his password so that he could access his private email and folders.

  The report wasn’t in yet, wouldn’t be in until the next morning probably, when forensics had a chance to go through all the evidence at the scene, but there was a preliminary finding report filed by Rick. It reaffirmed Frank’s belief that it was more than personal preference that had caused him to bring Rick with him after the election. Rick knew how Frank operated and if there was a better quality for an Undersheriff to have, Frank didn’t know it.

  The report was sparse and simple. As of yet, there was no word on forensics. The lab geeks were actual police in the County sheriff’s department, not like the scientists for hire that a lot of other police departments employed, but they took their time just like any other lab geek.

  There were defensive wounds on the body: broken fingernails, red marks on the arms. But they were superficial. Bentley was right; the attack had come on quickly.

  Man runs in, grabs Sheila, slashes her throat and then leaves. No one had seemed to see anything except for the old guy next door and his statement was more than suspect. It had been proven to be an outright lie.

  Towards the end of the report Frank saw something that caused his breath to lock in his throat. This was something that they hadn’t found when Frank had been there.

  Bitterness pierced his heart. Of course they had continued the investigation without him, that was what they were supposed to do, but it still hurt.

  Being elected Sheriff had been a great thing. In charge of a large police force, resources and money at his disposal, a chance to do things the way he wanted. The only person he really had to answer to (besides the citizens who had elected him, of course) was the Governor. Even that was a formality. The Governor and the state legislature approved his budget and made their suggestions, but for the most part, they left Frank to run his department his way.

  Still, the trade-off was the distance being the boss caused. When he had been a detective each case he had was his and his alone. Being in charge meant that a lot of other people did the footwork.

  Rick had put the words at the end of the preliminary in bold: Piece of glass found on a table near the body. Glued to a plain, white index card. Red number 1 written below the piece of glass. Bagged and marked as evidence #19.

  What the fuck could that mean? A piece of glass? Forensics would get their look at that as well, maybe be able to tell them where it came from. Could be a break.

  Frank thought of Bentley’s words: there will be more. Seemed he was right again.

  His hand brushed the phone and Frank picked it up. Katie’s number was still on the display. He wanted badly to wait for morning, but something like this couldn’t wait.

  IV.

  “Hello,” Katie said. Her voice was slurred. She had either been drinking or sleeping. Frank prayed it was the latter, but wondered if it might be better if it were the former.

  “Hello, Katie.”

  There was silence from the other end of the line. Frank waited, but it was difficult. Silence during a phone conversation or on the radio seemed to last longer than silence anywhere else. Seconds became minutes, minutes became hours.

  “What happened?”

  “Can’t this be a social call?” It was a stupid thing to say, but sometimes things just had a way of coming out of your mouth.

  “I know that he’s out,” Katie said. “I heard it on the news. Even way over here Michigan. It’s national news.”

  “Yes, he’s out.” And he’s staying with me, Frank thought.

  “It’s Mom, isn’t it?”

  Frank heard the hitch in her voice. He could almost taste the tears through the phone. Katie was holding on, but barely. Her voice was still slurred; Frank had now ruled out sleep as the cause.

  “I’m sorry, Katie.”

  “He killed her,” it was not a question.

  “Actually-”

  “I suppose I should just come back there already so he can kill me too.” She uttered a short, humorless laugh. “Get it over with.”

  “Bentley didn’t kill her,” Frank said.

  That silence again. This time Frank didn’t wait for her to speak again.

  “I know that he didn’t kill her because he was with me when she was murdered.”

  More silence.

  That click. There was another thing that technology had robbed from people, the click when someone hung up the phone. You never knew if you’d dropped the call or not. Sometimes, Frank had gone on speaking for a few minutes before he realized that whomever he was talking to was gone.

  You couldn’t slam a cell phone either. Slamming a phone down could have a cathartic quality to it. Pushing a button wasn’t the same at all.

  “Katie, are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” she said. The slur had corrected itself a bit, but her voice was raw and throaty. Not good signs.

  “I was at a bar and he was there too. Trying to talk to me.”

  “Why?”

  “He says he’s changed. He doesn’t want to kill anymore.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I don’t believe it either,” Frank said; although his voice lacked the conviction he wanted. “But I do know that he didn’t kill her because we have a pretty reliable time frame.”

  “Because I was talking to her,” Katie said. “I was talking to her on the phone right before it happened, wasn’t I?”

  “I don’t know,” Frank said. “I know that she was obviously alive when you two talked. She died before the cops I called to watch her got there.”

  “You should have called them sooner,” Katie said. There was no anger in her voice. It was almost as if she were instructing a child why his misbehavior was unacceptable. Somehow that was worse than if she’d raged at him.

  “Did she say anything on the phone? Anything that might give us a clue?”

  “No,” Katie said. “She didn’t say anything important at all. We talked about work; we talked about my love life, which is nonexistent. She wanted me to do something about that. She wanted…” Katie’s voice cut off in a fit of sobs, but she recove
red quickly. “Grandkids. She told me she wanted to have grandchildren.”

  “I can’t express how sorry I am,” Frank said.

  “What does it matter? She’s dead. Who killed her? You say it wasn’t Bentley, so who did it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He’s behind it somehow,” Katie said. “You might not believe it, but he is.” Her voice had become cold.

  “We’re looking into everything.”

  “I’ve been waiting for this phone call all day, you know. Started my drinking early. Like mother, like daughter.”

  “Katie…” He trailed off. There was nothing to say.

  “I’ll book my plane ticket tonight. I know where to find you.”

  Frank took the phone away from his ear. Call ended blinked in red on his display.

  V.

  Sleep was probably out of the question, but Frank was lightly dozing (in that weird state of not really awake and not really asleep) when the knock came at the door.

  Although knock wasn’t really the word for it. This was a pounding.

  “Please open up. Frank I need you.”

  The gun, which Frank had placed near his pillow, was in his hand before he even knew what was going on and his thumb released the safety.

  He stood up and walked to the door.

  “What’s wrong?” He said through the door.

  “Can you please open up? I need to talk to you.”

  Alarm bells went off in Frank’s head.

  “What’s this about?”

  “I had a nightmare.”

  His hand reached for the knob, but he hesitated for a second. An internal debate raged. In the end, the yeas won over the neighs.

  Bentley was covered in sweat. The brown hair, which Frank was still getting used to, was plastered to his forehead. He was panting and Frank could see the throb in his neck as his pulse raced along.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Frank asked.

  Bentley rushed into the room and grabbed a hold of Frank. His muscles stiffened as Bentley hugged. He had swung the hand holding the gun to the side but he kept an eye on it from the corner of his vision.

  Then the arms released and Bentley took a step back. There was a sheepish smile on his face. “I’m sorry.”

  Frank walked to the far side of the bed and sat down. “Tell me about it.”

  Bentley sat down on the other side of the bed. His back was to Frank, but he made a half turn with the upper part of his body, so that he could at least look in Frank’s direction.

  “It was about before,” Bentley said.

  “When you were in the hospital?” Frank asked.

  Bentley shook his head. “No, before that. When I was still on the road. When I was hurting those people.”

  What is this fresh hell? Frank thought.

  “You were dreaming about the killing that you did?”

  Bentley nodded. He sniffed. Frank couldn’t see any tears; Bentley was turned too far away.

  “It started a few months ago. The dreams, I mean. They’re horrible. I’m back on the road, going from place to place, and looking for victims. I can see their faces; they swim up to me like they’re drops of water. All elongated and oblate. It’s their eyes that affect me the most. Their eyes seem to pierce right through me. They accuse, those eyes, they know that I’m going to kill them.”

  “Isn’t that how it was?” Frank asked. “It never bothered you before.”

  Bentley jumped up from the bed and whirled on Frank. The gun was up and aimed at Bentley before Frank had even registered a thought. His hands and his mind had been trained by years of service.

  There were tears. They were streaming down the kid’s cheeks. Frank saw for the first time that a kid was what he really was. Underneath it all he was just a young man, only a few years older than Katie.

  Frank lowered his weapon.

  “I know you don’t believe me. I know no one will ever believe me, but I’ve changed. I’m not the same person that you met. That was Charles Hester. I told you once that Charles Hester was dead, that was a lie then, but it’s true now. The person I was is dead and all that’s left is Bentley.”

  “Maybe,” Frank said.

  Bentley smiled. “You mean that?”

  “I mean maybe,” Frank said.

  Bentley sat back down on the bed. This time he faced Frank fully, folding his legs in front of him on the bed to do it.

  “You’re right, it didn’t bother me before. I didn’t care about those people. They weren’t even really people to me at all. They were more like sheep or cattle. The butcher doesn’t shed a tear for even the calf that he slaughters for the veal does he?”

  “I guess not,” Frank said.

  “That’s what they were like to me. Even the little ones. Even Karen.”

  Fresh drops ran down Bentley’s face. Frank watched him, unsure of what to think.

  “Now, in my dreams, they’re people. I see them for what they really were. Kids, mothers, dads, friends. They had lives and I destroyed those lives. Most of the time, during the day, I can keep a lot of those thoughts at bay, but when I’m dreaming it all comes out.”

  “You’ve got a lot to feel bad about,” Frank said. It was low, almost a whisper, and really only meant for himself. Bentley winced at the words and Frank felt a pang of regret.

  “I know I do. Maybe I’ll kill myself, I don’t know. Even if I can find a way to live with myself, there’s nowhere for me to go, nothing for me to do.”

  “You’re not even thirty yet,” Frank said. “I turned forty-five last year. Trust me, you’re too young to give up on your life.”

  “But those faces.”

  “That’s something that you’ll have to deal with for a long time. Maybe for the rest of your life. It’s part of the punishment.”

  “I think I liked myself better before.”

  “What you were before had no place in society. If you really are gaining a conscience then what you’ll become might be a person worth something.”

  “It’s about more than just saying you’re sorry, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Frank said. “It’s about making amends.”

  “Maybe I can do that.” Bentley stood up and smiled. The sight of it against the tear-streaked face was almost too horrible to look at it, but Frank wasn’t going to look away.

  “Thank you, Frank. I think I can go back to bed now.”

  “Good. I’m tired too.”

  After Bentley left, Frank got up and locked the door. Then he laid his head on his pillow. This time he slept a little more soundly, but still not all the way.

  Six

  The sun had barely crested over the mountains to the East when Frank woke up. He was an early riser by habit, but this was a little too early even for him. What had woken him up was a smell coming from the kitchen.

  Frank dressed and walked out. Now he could hear a familiar sizzle as well. By the time he got to the kitchen, Bentley was taking the last of the bacon out of the frying pan and putting it on a plate with a paper towel over it.

  The paper towel soaked up some of the grease. Franked glanced at the dinning room table and saw two plates there. They were heaped with scrambled eggs; steam still rising off of them.

  “Good,” Bentley said. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to finish before you woke up.”

  “Bentley Grimes is making me breakfast. Where’s Rod Serling because I just walked into the fucking Twilight Zone.”

  “Not at all,” Bentley said as he set the plate of bacon in the middle of the table.

  Instead of sitting down he walked back to the kitchen and carefully poured the grease from the pan into a coffee cup. Frank watched as he put the coffee cup into the refrigerator and then ran water over the pan and began to scrub it clean. He used the sponge on the sink and the bottle of liquid dish soap.

  “I just wanted to say thank you for last night,” Bentley said. He looked up from the pan and motioned with a hand to the table. “Sit down a
nd eat before it gets cold.”

  When he’d waved his hand two tiny soap bubbles floated from it and turned in the air before touching the counter top and bursting there.

  “I’ve got a wife now,” Frank said and sat down.

  Bentley laughed. “No, just an appreciative house guest. I avoided the anal rape that I would have gotten in prison. I don’t really care to receive any now.”

  Frank’s eyebrows rose. “No worries there, trust me.”

  He stuck his fork in the eggs and took a bite. They were good, just a hint of salt and cheese. He ate them in five bites, chasing each one with a piece of bacon.

  Bentley sat down across from Frank. “There’s also an ulterior motive to this feast.”

  Frank paused with the last piece of bacon almost touching his lips. Thoughts of poison entered his head. He hadn’t thought of it before, but Bentley had that look in his eyes again. The I-know-better-than-you look.

  “What’s that?”

  “I was hoping that you’d take me with you to the station today.”

  Frank shoved the last piece of bacon into his mouth and shook his head. “No way. That’s not going to happen.”

  “But, Frank, I can help you on this thing. I know you don’t think I can, but I know this guy better than you do.”

  “What makes you say that?” Frank asked through a mouthful of bacon.

  “Because I used to be this guy. I might see something that you guys won’t.”

  Frank stood up and carried his plate to the kitchen. “I’m sorry, Bentley, but I can’t do that. This is a County investigation and only official members of the County sheriff’s office are going to be working on this case. No outside help.”

  “What am I supposed to do here all day?” Bentley asked.

  “Watch TV,” Frank replied. “Thanks for breakfast, now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll get an early start on the day.”

  Seven

  I.

  The drive to the station was a short one, but it still gave Frank plenty of time to think about all that had happened. Sheila dead, Bentley not responsible, Katie flying in to make funeral arrangements, Bentley living with him. It was crazy, like fever dream kind of crazy, but it was happening.