The Skin Collector(Lincoln Rhyme)

Chapter 59





Leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, Billy watched his aunt Harriet – his mother’s sister – add soap to the washer.

She asked, ‘Did you see anybody in the lobby? I was worried the police were watching me. I felt something.’

‘No. I checked. Carefully. I’ve been up there for an hour.’

‘I didn’t see you.’

‘I was watching,’ Billy said. ‘Not being watched.’

She lowered the lid and he glanced at her breasts, her legs, her neck. Memories …

He always wondered if his uncle knew about their time in the Oleander Room.

In one way it seemed impossible that Uncle Matthew had been oblivious to their affair, or whatever you wanted to call it. How could he miss that the two would disappear for several hours in the afternoon on the days when she wasn’t homeschooling neighborhood children?

And there had to be shared smells, smells of each other’s bodies and of perfume and deodorant.

The smell of the blood too, even though they would shower meticulously after every afternoon liaison.

All the blood …

The American Families First Council had a religious component. The tenets didn’t allow members to use birth control any more than they sanctioned abortion and so Harriet ‘invited’ Billy to the studio above the garage only at that time of month when they could be absolutely certain there’d be no pregnancy. Billy could control his repulsion, and, for some reason, the sight of the crimson smears inflamed Harriet all the more. Oleander and blood were forever joined in Billy Haven’s mind.

Uncle Matthew might not even have known about that aspect of women’s bodies. Wouldn’t surprise Billy.

Then too, when it came to what she wanted, Harriet Stanton could look you in the eye and make you believe just about anything. Billy didn’t doubt that whatever story she spun for her husband he bought pretty much as-is.

‘This will be your art studio,’ she’d told thirteen-year-old Billy, showing him for the first time the room she’d decorated above the detached garage of their compound in Southern Illinois. On the wall was a watercolor he’d done for her of an oleander – her favorite flower (a poisonous one, of course). ‘That’s my favorite picture of yours. We’ll call this the Oleander Room. Our Oleander Room.’

And she’d tugged at his belt. Playfully but with unyielding determination.

‘Wait, no, Aunt Harriet. What’re you doing?’ He’d looked up at her with horror; not only was there a strong resemblance to his mother, Harriet’s sister, but Harriet and Matthew were his de facto foster parents. Billy’s mother and father had died violently, if heroically. Orphaned, the boy had been taken in by the Stantons.

‘Uhm, I don’t think I want to, you know, do that,’ the boy had said.

But it was as if he hadn’t even spoken.

The belt had come off.

And so the bloody years of the Oleander Room began.

On the trip here to New York, there’d been one liaison between the two of them: the day of Billy’s escape from the hospital – where he’d gone not to mod another victim but simply to visit his aunt, ailing uncle and cousin Josh. Billy had hardly been in the mood to satisfy her. (Which is what sex with Aunt Harriet was all about.) But she’d insisted he come to the hotel – Matthew was still in the hospital and she’d sent Joshua out to run some errands. Josh always did what Mommy asked.

Now, with the washer chugging rhythmically, Billy asked, ‘How is he? Josh said he looks pretty good. Just a little pale.’

‘Damn it,’ Harriet said bitterly. ‘Matthew’s going to be fine. He couldn’t be courteous and just die.’

‘Would have been convenient,’ the young man agreed. ‘But it’ll be better the way you planned it originally.’


‘I suppose.’

Better in this sense: After they had completed the Modification here in New York, they’d return to their home in Southern Illinois, murder Matthew and blame it on some hapless black or Latino plucked at random from a soup kitchen in Alton or East St Louis. Matthew would be a martyr and Billy would take over the American Families First Council, building it into the finest militia in the country.

Billy would be king and Harriet queen. Or queen mother. Well, both really.

The AFFC was one of dozens of militias around the country all joined in a loose alliance. The names were different but the views virtually identical: state or municipal or – best of all – clan rights over federal, ending the liberal media’s lock on propaganda, complete cessation of aid to or intervention in foreign countries, a ban on homosexuality (not just gay marriage), outlawing mixed marriage and supporting separate (and not necessarily equal) doctrines for the races, kicking all immigrants out of the country, a Christ-inspired government, homeschooling. Limitations on non-Christian religious practices.

Many, many Americans held these views or some of them but the problem such militias faced in expanding membership wasn’t their views, but that they were run by people like Matthew Stanton – aging, unimaginative men with no appeal whatsoever except to aging unimaginative men.

There was no doubt that Uncle Matthew Stanton had been effective in his day. He was a charismatic lecturer and teacher. He believed to his core in the teachings of Christ and of the founding fathers – the devout Christian ones, at least. But he’d never had a win like the Oklahoma City bombing. And his proactive approach to fighting for the cause was the mundane killing or maiming of an abortion doctor occasionally, firebombing a clinic or IRS office, beating up migrant workers or Muslims or gays.

Harriet Stanton, though, far more ambitious than her husband, knew that the militia would die out within the next decade unless they brought new blood, new approaches to spreading their political message and appealing to a younger, hipper audience. The Modification had been her idea – though spoon-fed slowly to Matthew to make him believe that he’d thought of it.

As Harriet and Billy had lain on the settee in the Oleander Room several months ago, she’d explained her vision to her nephew. ‘We need somebody in charge who can appeal to the new generation. Excitement. Enthusiasm. Creative thinking. Social media. You’ll bring the young people in. When you talk about the Rule, they’ll listen. The boys will idolize you. The girls’ll have crushes. You can get them to do anything. You’ll be the Harry Potter of the cause.

‘After Matthew’s dead your stock’ll be through the roof. We can bring hundreds, thousands of young people into the fold. We’ll take over Midwest Patriot Frontier.’ This was a legendary militia not far from the AFFC hometown, headed by two visionary leaders. ‘And we’ll keep going, spread around the country.’

Harriet believed there were vast swaths of the American people who hated the direction the country was going and would join the AFFC. But they needed to know what dangers were out there – terrorists, Islamists, minorities, socialists. And they needed a charismatic young leader to protect them from those threats.

Harriet and Billy would save them all.

There was another reason for the coup. Harriet had limited power in the AFFC as it existed now – since she was, of course, merely a woman, the wife of the founder of the Council. Billy and the new generation believed that discrimination against women deflected from the important issues – of racial segregation and nationalism. As long as Matthew or his kind – the hunting and cigar-smoking sort – were in charge, Harriet would be marginalized. That was simply not acceptable. Billy would empower her.

Now, in the laundry room, he felt her gaze and finally looked back. This locking of eyes was as he’d remembered it for years. When he was atop her, every time he would press his face into the pillow but she would grip his hair and draw him back until they were pupil-to-pupil.

She asked, ‘Now, what are the police leads like?’

‘We’re okay,’ Billy said. ‘The cops’re good. Better than predicted but they bought your description – the Russian or Slav, thirty, round head, light blue eyes. The opposite of me.’

When Amelia Sachs had ‘rescued’ Harriet in the hospital, the woman had come up with a false description for the Identi-Kit artist, to lead the police away from her nephew, who’d come to the hospital not to ink another victim to death but merely to visit Matthew.

Billy asked about his cousin, was he handling everything all right?

‘Josh is Josh,’ Harriet said distractedly. Which pretty much described the mother-son relationship in a nutshell. Then she was laughing like a schoolgirl. ‘We’re having quite a trip to New York, aren’t we? Didn’t turn out the way we’d planned but I do think it’s for the best. After the heart attack, Matthew’ll be seen as weak. Easier for him to … go away when we get back home. God works in mysterious ways, doesn’t He?’

His aunt stepped forward, gripping his arm, and with her other hand brushed fingers across his smooth cheek.

A light flashed on the washer and it moved to a different portion of the cycle. Harriet looked at the machine with a critical eye. Billy recalled that at home she let clothing dry naturally on lines. He pictured them now, slumped body parts, swaying in the breeze. Sometimes she would bring lengths of clothesline to the Oleander Room.

He now saw that Harriet’s hands were at her hair and the pins were coming out. She was smiling at him again. Smiling a certain way.

Now? Was she serious?

But why did he even bother to wonder? Aunt Harriet never kidded. She walked to the laundry room door and closed it.

The hypnotic rhythm of water sloshing was the only sound in the room.

Harriet locked the laundry room door. Then snapped out the overhead light.