The Killing Vision

The Killing Vision - By Will Overby



WEDNESDAY, JULY 4

9:00 PM

Although the heat had baked the ground hard and dry throughout the day, the sun had now set, leaving a layer of humidity over the town like a wet blanket. Hoards of people—some from Cedar Hill, some from other communities, a few of the students still in town at the college for summer classes—had converged on Riverside Park for the annual band concert and fireworks spectacular. Families had spread picnics over the grounds, and many were enjoying a watermelon or a cool drink in the deepening twilight, slapping away the mosquitoes that had swarmed up from the sluggish river below.

At precisely nine o’clock, the first bursts of color exploded in the velvet sky, bringing cheers from the crowd. Smaller children squealed with delight, and some of the older teenagers took advantage of the distraction to sneak off underneath the old grandstand to make out.

Missiles screamed through the sky, then erupted in showers of spinning sparks, their smoke trails extending into the darkness like the legs of giant descending spiders. Several large explosions shook the ground; a young woman screamed with surprise, and several people with her laughed.

The booming of the fireworks echoed throughout the river valley, stirring the brackish water as well as the debris of tree limbs clawing at the shore. With each vibrating explosion, a pile of rotting logs at the water’s edge shifted a bit more until it finally broke apart and the trees drifted away, leaving a mangled, twisted bundle that floated and bobbed in the darkness.

Kelly Sutton and Mark Davis had slid down the bank away from the crowd to a small landing at the edge of the river. Mark’s plan was to get Kelly away from her parents and friends so the two of them could fool around under the fireworks. They had been together now for a few weeks, and the time was nearing when Mark expected more than just a goodnight kiss.

Kelly repeatedly shoved Mark’s groping hand away from her breasts as they kissed. “Not here,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Somebody might see.”

Mark looked around. “There’s nobody else down here.” With one finger he slipped a strand of her hair out of her eyes and kissed her forehead. “Come on.”

She slid away from him slightly. “It’s too hot. Let’s wait ’til we get back to my house. Besides, it stinks down here.”

“It’s just fish.”

“Smells like something dead.”

“Probably a ’possum or a cat or somethin’.”

A large explosion over their heads made her jump, and she settled back into the crook of his arm. The boom vibrated the ground beneath them, and Kelly felt the stirring in her chest that only added to the intensity of her pounding heart. Mark kissed her lips again, and this time she kissed back. After a moment, she pulled back to catch her breath; both of their faces were slick with sweat. “Come on, let’s go. It really stinks down here.”

A bright flash of colors briefly illuminated something at the edge of the water. Kelly squinted at it in the sudden darkness. “What is that?”

“What?”

“There. Floating. See it?”

“Yeah.” Mark grabbed a stick and scooted toward the water. He poked at the bundle, then stiffened.

“What is it?” Kelly asked. She moved up beside him.

More fireworks exploded over them, and in the flare, Kelly saw the rotted, green upturned face, its mouth yawning open in silent agony.

Kelly screamed, but her voice was lost in a barrage of erupting shells.





THURSDAY, JULY 5

6:01 AM

If he kept his eyes closed, maybe he could fool himself into thinking he was still asleep. Maybe the soft light filtering through his lids was just some sort of sleep-induced hallucination. Beside his head, the clock radio droned on in his right ear. Toby Keith.

Blindly, Joel reached out and slapped the snooze button and blessed silence filled the room. He rolled over and opened his eyes. F*ck. But today was Thursday, and that meant he only had to make it through two more days before the weekend. It had felt good having a day off yesterday, even if it had been close to a hundred degrees.

He stretched his massive frame spread-eagle across the double bed and stared at the ceiling. There were several cracks snaking across the white plaster, like tiny highways on a barren landscape. It reminded him briefly of the Martian canals. But that made him think of something else, something dark, so he pushed it from his head.

The light through the dusty curtains was subdued. It was going to rain today for sure. What was that old rhyme? Red sky at morning, sailor take warning, or some shit like that. Only the sky wasn’t red, just gray and lifeless.

He peeked under the covers, down past his rotund belly, to his underwear. Was anything happening down there this morning? Any party in his pants today? Nope. Nothing. Limp noodle city, baby. Actually, he hadn’t had an erection in so long, he could hardly remember what it felt like. Or what it looked like, for that matter. It was probably shriveled up past the point of no return. Like a f*cking raisin.

He reached out and grabbed a crumpled pack of Marlboros off the bedside table, pulled one out with his gummy lips, and lit it. First one of the day. God, it felt good, sucking that sweet nicotine down inside. He placed the ashtray on his chest, the amber glass cold against his skin, and balanced the cigarette on its edge, watching the steel-blue smoke curl upward from the smoldering glow of the tip, feeling the pleasant buzz in his chest.

The radio blared on again, and the ashtray tumbled off his chest when he jumped, spilling ashes, crushed butts, and his lit cigarette across the sheets. “Shit!”

Gary Hamby of the WCDH morning show was just starting the news. Joel was in the midst of cleaning up the mess on the bed when he heard the report of the body they had pulled from the river last night. It was Sarah Jo McElvoy. The fourteen-year-old girl had been missing since April. Her throat had been cut.

Joel wondered briefly if he might be able to find the killer, wondered if by touching Sarah Jo’s lifeless body the vision of her attacker’s face would swim before him. But he knew better. The few times he had touched a dead person he had come away with nothing.

After standing in the numbing flow of the shower for ten minutes, Joel pulled on his coveralls and sat down at the kitchen table for another cigarette and a mug of black coffee.

He leaned back and stretched, feeling the soreness in his shoulders from climbing the cable tower at work the other day. He had almost asked Wade to do it; Wade was older, thirty-three, but he was in much better shape. But he knew Wade would get pissed. Wade was like that; you couldn’t ask him any favors because he resented it, and he held it over your head for the rest of your life. Even if he was your older brother. Besides, climbing the tower was Joel’s job.

He had been halfway up when the pain shot through his left arm, a pain so sudden and sharp he thought at first he had been stung by a hornet. But there was nothing. Sweat poured down his face, and despite his lack of fear of high places, his head spun with vertigo. His boots slipped off the tower. For a brief, horrifying moment he knew he was going to fall. He was going to plummet straight to the bottom of the ridge that held the tower. The safety equipment holding him, the same straps and buckles he barely looked at when he put them on, would fail, would break under the strain of his weight. He clinched his eyes shut and braced his body, waiting for the plunge.

But it never happened. The safety harness held, and he was able to regain his footing, resting his head against the hot metal of the tower while he tried to catch his breath.

“Hey,” Wade called up to him. “Let’s get on with it. It’s almost time for lunch.”

Joel climbed the rest of the way to the top without incident, made a great show of pretending to inspect the cables, and inched back to the bottom. He doubled over and rested his elbows on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. He fully expected Wade to lay into him for almost falling, but he didn’t. Wade had apparently either not seen or didn’t care.

Wade clapped him on the back. “You’re gonna have to start workin’ out, man,” he said.

And now as he sat at the table in the dim kitchen, Joel massaged his arm and shoulder. For a while he had thought he might have suffered a light heart attack. That scared him worse than the possibility of falling to his death. But this morning he still felt sore, and he was fairly sure he had just pulled a muscle. But he was still going to find an excuse to not climb during the next tower maintenance.

* * *

When Joel pulled the cable truck into Wade’s driveway, Wade was standing on the front porch, grabbing one last cigarette since they were not allowed to smoke in the company trucks. He flicked the butt out into the yard and motioned for Joel to get out.

Joel glanced at his watch as he slid out and slammed the door behind him. “We’re gonna be late.”

“Got something to show you,” Wade said. He stepped off the porch and headed up the drive toward the old barn at the back of the house.

Joel followed hesitantly. “You didn’t kill another copperhead did you?”

Wade glanced at him and grinned; he knew Joel was deathly afraid of snakes. Once when Joel was twelve and Wade was sixteen, they had found an old snakeskin out in the woods. Wade hid it in a box in the closet, and they both forgot about it. Wade found it some time later and decided to have some fun with it. Joel awoke one morning to find the skin draped over his pillow. By the time he realized it was just the old skin, he had already wet the bed in fright.

Wade pulled back the heavy weathered door and light spilled onto a shapeless mass hiding beneath a rust-stained tarp. “Got a great deal on this from a guy over in Russellville. He and his brother even drove it over here.” He whipped off the tarp, and Joel sucked in his breath.

Sitting in the shadows of the barn was a red Ford Mustang convertible, its tattered top folded back. There were a couple of rust spots on the front fenders, the bumpers were tarnished, and it was missing the chrome “R” from “FORD” on the hood, but it was a Mustang just the same. Everything from the scowl of the nose to the pony emblem on the gas cap signified power. The car seemed to be in motion even though it was standing still. Joel reached out to stroke the dusty surface with his fingertips—guiltily, as if he were touching a naked woman. “What year?” he asked.

“’Sixty-five.”

“How much you pay?”

“Twenty-five hundred.”

Joel whistled softly, peering down the side of the car for any telltale ripples. “Needs a lotta work.”

“I know.” Wade was still grinning with pride. He caressed the black vinyl of the driver’s seat like a lover. “You’ll help me, won’tcha?”

“Sure,” Joel said. He couldn’t help but finger the pony emblem on the grill, tracing the galloping legs and flowing mane.

“Dad?” Wade’s son was peering around the door, his dark hair sticking up in tufts.

Joel jerked his hand back reflexively, as if he had been caught doing something obscene.

Derek padded into the barn, his feet slapping against the packed bare ground. He was wearing only a pair of jeans, and his chest already had that beefy hard look that ran in the Roberts family. The kid was sixteen but big as he was he could easily pass for twenty. “When are we gonna start working on the car?”

Wade reached up to scratch underneath his cap. “Probably this weekend. Joel’s gonna help.”

Derek looked at Joel and smiled. “Cool.”

“Derek!” came a voice from the side door of the house.

Derek blew out a breath. “Guess I’d better go.”

Before he could hit the open door, Wade’s wife appeared in the driveway. Marla’s soft blonde hair was loose and flying about her head. Even so, Joel still thought she was beautiful. He always had. It was her eyes. They were dark and haunted, as though she had endured a great amount of tragedy. But if she had, it had not touched her loveliness. It was almost as if the more she had been tortured, the more beautiful she had become, as if God were overcompensating for her pain. Joel had never touched her, so he wasn’t sure if what he believed was true, but he had never failed to be awed in her presence.

This morning, however, anger flashed in her eyes. “Derek!”

Derek slunk out of the barn toward her. “I’m coming. Jesus.”

“You don’t even have your shirt and shoes on. You’re gonna be late for work!” Derek was working in town this summer at Dairy Queen, and Joel wondered if the boy was as lazy at work as he seemed to be at home. Marla glanced at Joel and nodded in greeting.

“Morning, Marla,” he said as she slipped out of sight.

“Marla, lay off the boy for five minutes,” Wade called after her. “Goddammit.”

Joel looked at his watch again. “We’ve gotta go.”

* * *

On the short drive into town, passing the plows working desperately in the fields before the rain came, Joel turned down the radio and took a quick glance at his brother. Wade sat on the passenger side, staring out at the passing land, chewing his thumbnail. “So, what did Marla say?” Joel asked.

“About what?”

“The car.”

“Oh.” Even though the day was dark, Wade was wearing sunglasses, which made it impossible for Joel to read his eyes when he said, “She didn’t put up much of a fight.”

Joel pondered this for a moment, then turned his attention back to the road. “They found that girl’s body.”

“Who?”

“You know. The McElvoy girl. The one that’s been missing so long.”

Wade nodded. “I’d forgot about her.”

“They said her throat had been cut.”

Beside him, Wade said, “Turn up the radio.”

* * *

As they walked through the front door of the cable office, Betsy, the office manager, stood behind the counter with her arms crossed, several files in one hand. “Well,” she said, “if it isn’t the Roberts boys.” Betsy was good at intimidating people, which was one reason she was successful in her job; in the two years since she had started, overdue accounts were down by sixty percent and employee absenteeism was almost nil. “I was wondering about you two,” she said, tossing her blonde hair, which really meant, You’re late. “Got several orders for you in the box,” she said. “The other guys are already out.” She headed off toward her office.

At the other end of the service counter, Rhonda Rose, the billing clerk, suppressed a snicker. All the guys in the office thought Rhonda was hot. Though only a couple of years out of high school, she possessed the confidence and aloofness of someone much older, someone who was aware of her sensuality but not driven by it. Wade talked about her sometimes, especially after he had had a few beers, going into detail about what the two of them would do in his bed if Marla wasn’t around.

“You guys are in trouble,” Rhonda said, stretching out the last word as if singing it.

Wade sauntered to the counter and leaned over it, propped on one elbow. “Just how much trouble are we in?” he asked, grinning.

She smiled back at him. “Plenty.”

“Then you may have to punish me,” he said. “Joel’s on his own.”

Rhonda rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

Outside, as they climbed back in the truck with their work orders, Wade whistled through his teeth. “Goddamn, she’s sexy. Man, wouldn’t you like to have some of that?”

Joel looked away, feeling his face turn hot. “She’s pretty.”

Wade shook his head. “Pretty. Yeah.” He slugged Joel in the arm. “You f*ckin’ faggot. You could probably go out with her if you wanted to.”

Joel snorted. “Right. I’m every woman’s dream date.”

“You could clean up a little better, you know. Get a decent haircut. Shave off that f*ckin’ goatee.” He grabbed Joel’s dark whiskers and tugged. Joel shoved Wade’s arm away, catching a fragment of thought from Wade’s head.

(fat ugly)

Joel started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot. He hated Wade when he got on these personal trainer kicks. It was bad enough knowing how unattractive you were without having your own brother reiterate it. Besides, Joel knew better than to try to get involved with anyone; he understood that when he touched someone, when he was able see them, they ceased to be appealing to him. There was something both sickening and frightening about being in another person’s head. But of course, that was not anything he could tell Wade.

* * *

8:23 PM

Lieutenant Mike Halloran was standing in the city hospital morgue, watching with sickening fascination as the county medical examiner unzipped the black bag containing what remained of Sarah Jo McElvoy. Her face, the color of rotten egg yolk, was framed with matted, dirty blonde hair that brushed against the gaping, puckered tear in her throat. One eye was gone, its socket sunken and shriveled; the other gazed blankly at the ceiling, white and clouded. Her lips hung open to reveal a mouth blackened inside with river silt. But it was the stench that got him, the smell of putrefying flesh and the fishy smell of the river. The smell of death.

Halloran pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and covered his nose and mouth. He glanced across the table at his partner, Detective John Chapman, a big strapping guy with short red hair and freckled skin. Together the two of them made up the tiny investigations unit of the Cedar Hill police department. Right now Chapman looked pale and grim as he watched the preparations for the autopsy.

The examiner, Carl Scott, whom everyone referred to as “Scotty,” was a grizzled little butterball with a gray mustache, and Halloran had dealt with him often. Scotty was cutting away the remnants of Sarah Jo’s t-shirt, purple with a pink cat on it, what she had been wearing when she disappeared. He pulled the cloth back to reveal the blotchy skin beneath. “She’s quite bruised up,” he said. He turned and scribbled some notes on a pad beside the table. “Lots of decay.”

Halloran looked away. “Well, she’s probably been dead three months, Scotty.”

The examiner looked at him over the rims of his glasses. “Not that long.”

“You sure?”

“Yep.” He continued to strip away the cloth, revealing Sarah Jo’s pitiful, barely developed breasts. “If she had, she’d look worse than this.”

“How long, then, you think?” asked Halloran.

Scotty shrugged. “A few days. Hard to say.”

Below the scraps of the t-shirt, Sarah Jo was naked. When the body had been pulled from the river, there was no sign of her jeans or underwear. Her vulva was purple and swollen, sagging open. Scotty was bent over her now, probing with his instruments and speaking into a ceiling-mounted microphone attached to a recording device. “Some bruising and tearing around the vaginal opening,” he announced. “Some massive trauma to the whole area.” He placed his scalpel gently on the side of the table. “She was raped,” he said without emotion. “Very violently.”

Halloran looked from Scotty to the body splayed out before them. He pressed the handkerchief tighter across his nose and blew out a disgusted breath. He had had all he could stand. He motioned to Chapman. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “You call us if you find anything.”

Scotty didn’t look up. “Will do.”

Outside, the evening had descended with suddenness, and the rain that had threatened all day pelted the sidewalks. Halloran and Chapman trotted to the unmarked sedan and slid inside. The air in the car was hot and thick. Halloran started the engine and put the air conditioner on full blast. They both sat there, drained, listening to the rain hammer the roof.

“I hate that,” Chapman said, not looking at him. “I figured she’d been raped.”

Halloran nodded. He’d expected it, too. More often than not, young teenagers who disappeared fell victim to sexual predators who regarded them as living toys to be tortured and discarded. He had hoped that Cedar Hill wasn’t harboring such a beast. Even in the early stages, when it was still a missing persons case, he had told himself that that kind of thing didn’t exist out here, not in such a small community.

Two days after Sarah Jo’s disappearance, Halloran and Chapman were working with other law enforcement agencies (including the Lake County sheriff’s department and the FBI) and volunteers, to launch a massive search operation. In addition to combing the residential and commercial districts, they had questioned a couple dozen or so kids on the Cedar Hill College campus, searched every building. It had taken weeks. Hardly any of the students at the college were commuters; most either lived in town or in the one dormitory. The college was a private school, which meant it was expensive, and most of these kids were from upscale families in this part of the state. The idea that a student (or anyone else for that matter) could have committed such an atrocious act sickened Halloran beyond words.

After a while Sarah Jo had melted into the list of missing and runaway teens, her face plastered on posters in bus stations and truck stops across the country along with countless others.

Beside him, Chapman continued to stare at the rain-washed windshield. Halloran knew Chapman had a daughter of his own, a cute little bug about two, and he wondered if he was thinking about her now, imagining her broken, lifeless body lying on a stainless steel table under the cold lights of the morgue. Halloran reached over and slapped him on the thigh. “Let’s go home.”

* * *

By the time Halloran reached his apartment building, the storm had intensified. Streaks of lightning illuminated the sky as the fireworks had the night before. Just inside the foyer, he wriggled out of his sopping sports jacket and grabbed his mail from the box, then trudged up the stairs toward home.

Mel was meowing on the other side of the door before the key was even in the lock. “Hey, you stupid cat,” Halloran said, scooping him up. “Past dinner time, huh?” He threw his coat and the mail onto the couch and carried Mel into the kitchen, setting him on the counter. The overhead fluorescent flickered to life and Halloran pulled a can of 9 Lives from the cabinet. Mrs. Donovan, his cleaning lady, had stocked up at the grocery today, but she’d apparently forgotten to feed the cat. Mel began to purr, rubbing against Halloran’s arm, then greedily dived into his dinner.

There were some Mexican leftovers in the refrigerator from Tuesday, but he didn’t think he could stomach that tonight. Nothing really sounded appealing. He opened a beer and swallowed a third of it in one drink, then pulled a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket.

He loosened his tie as he shuffled down the hall, the unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. In the dark bedroom, he stepped out of his shoes and stretched out on the bed, wriggling his toes. He reached for his lighter and lit his cigarette. What a terrible twenty-four hours this had been.

He tried to imagine Chapman at home with his wife and kid across town. There he was at thirty with everything Halloran still wanted at forty. A family. A house. Someone to come home to. Chapman had joined the department right after high school. His father had been a cop in a neighboring county, so Chapman had practically grown up in the force. It had seemed to be his destiny.

Halloran on the other hand had knocked about for a couple of years after graduating from college, first working as a manager for a firm that owned several convenience stores before joining the police department in Cedar Hill. He’d truly enjoyed most of the work he did as a cop, though he had to admit there were some rough moments. He had been shot at, spat on, kicked, slapped, punched, and called everything imaginable. After a couple of years he had been promoted to detective. His first partner was a mean son-of-a-bitch named Logan who retired a year later and was replaced with Mark Miller. Miller was a guy just a couple of years older than Halloran, and the two of them had formed an instant bond; in fact, they often hung out together outside work, even taking a couple of weekend fishing trips over at the lakes. But last year Miller had decided to move out west—big-sky country. Halloran, now a lieutenant, was placed in charge of investigations and Chapman had been brought up from the ranks to fill his old slot. Although they got along well, Chapman wasn’t the kind of guy to hang around after quitting time. Chapman had his little family to go home to, and he wasn’t interested in kicking back for an after-work beer or taking off for a long weekend. Marriage certainly changed things, and in spite of his loneliness sometimes, Halloran was grateful to not have that baggage on him.

Not that he hadn’t had chances. There had been several women in and out of his life over the years, and one or two that he had briefly considered marrying. But the nature of his work kept him from getting in too deep with anyone. After observing day in and day out what people did to each other, you got a kind of apathy toward life. You learned to turn off that part of yourself that needed an emotional attachment. You became an animal of sorts—eating, sleeping, working. And once a woman realized that about you, she gave up and moved on to something else. Besides, the crazy hours he worked didn’t leave him much time for a social life.

He took a swig of his beer and felt the coldness spread through his belly. Christ, when was the last time he’d been with a woman? Eight months? A year? He couldn’t remember. Occasionally he found himself sniffing around after Camron, the dispatcher at the station; she was Hispanic—dark-skinned and green-eyed with legs that looked as though they might squeeze the breath out of you if they were wrapped around your waist. He smiled at that; when he fantasized, he usually thought of Camron. Lonely as he sometimes was though, women just complicated things. Period. As jealous as he might be of John Chapman, he knew he was happier the way he was.

No commitments. That was the way to go. He drank to it.

The cell phone rang next to his bed, and he picked it up after the first ring.

“Mike? It’s Scotty.”

Halloran took a drag off his cigarette. “What’cha got?”

“Well, she was strangled before her throat was cut.”

Halloran blew out a stream of smoke. “Christ.”

“And there’s something else. I’ve been looking at some tissue samples…”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m gonna call in my friend from the state, have him come take a look just to be sure.”

Damn, Scotty could be vague sometimes. “For God’s sake, Scotty, what’re you talking about?”

Scotty’s voice was hard. “I was wrong about the time of death. She’s probably been dead for quite a while—maybe since she disappeared. But she’s only been exposed for about four days. That’s based on insect larva found in her mouth and other orifices.”

Halloran clinched his teeth on the butt of the cigarette. “What are you saying, Scotty?”

“Her body’s been kept refrigerated. Probably frozen.”