“It’d be a short bridge to cross.”
Pierce eyed Margaret. There was that look of disdain again. In full fury, this time. “In a way, I’m flattered that you consider me a suspect. That’s what you’re alluding to, is it not? It’d be my guess that you think I’ve got another chamber where I have a second collection of skeletal remains. Human remains. I have to tell you, the thought chills me to the bone.”
Chilled to the bone. A subtle play on words. Was he toying with her again? “You seem to know so much about the case it’s logical to reason-”
“That I’m your man.” Pierce finished her thought. “If I were, would I align myself so closely with the police, the enemy, so to speak?”
“There are any number of reasons why a criminal would align himself with the police. I’d be a convenient way to keep tabs on the investigation.”
“The information I’ve shared with you has been collected from various news articles.”
“But the Benjamin woman?”
“Mere speculation, and nothing more.”
“A killer like the one we’re after is looking to be caught.”
“Is that a fact?”
“It is.”
“Well, then, get out your handcuffs. You’ve got me. I’m all yours. I confess. I’m your man. I deserve to be punished for my actions. What’ll it be? Lethal injection? Electrocution? Perhaps a firing squad?”
He was mocking her and Margaret didn’t like it. “I meant what I said about the authorities being lenient on a criminal who confesses.”
“Would that be true for someone who preys on innocent women, stalks them, and bones them? Somehow I don’t see that happening. That sort of viciousness would surely be punished. As you put it, to the full extent of the law.”
Margaret stared across the table at Pierce. The disdain he had exhibited earlier was gone, replaced now by a look of bewilderment. Were Driscoll’s instincts wrong? Was Pierce not the depraved killer he thought him to be? Was she having lunch with an innocent man who was simply a radiologist with a passion for bones? Or was Driscoll right about Pierce? Was he a ruthless murderer? If so, she was now sitting a mere four feet away from a madman.
Chapter 84
“Did anyone call?” Doctor Pierce asked as he scurried past the Department of Radiology’s reception area.
Grabbing a stack of messages, Alicia Simmons, his secretary, tagged along behind him. “Dinner date, 6 P.M., at Bruxelles. Doctor Meyers called to confirm. Jimmy down at Crown Motors called, the Mercedes will be ready on Thursday, said he’s sorry for the delay, something about waiting for a part. Your tailor called, your suits have been altered and are ready for pickup. And a Miss Langley called, sounded urgent.”
“What was that name? The last one?”
“Langley, Priscilla Langley. Here’s her number.”
Pierce reached his office and fell back in his chair, staring at the rose-colored slip of paper. It had been ages since he had spoken to her. What could be the matter? An ominous and unsettling notion crept into his psyche: this could only mean trouble. Who was stirring things up? he wondered. The parents of the now shattered teenaged interloper? The inquisitive Margaret? The dogged police lieutenant at the helm of it all? A whirl of emotions enveloped him. He willed it to go away, but it persisted, and the telephone number on the slip of paper became etched in his mind. He reached for his phone and punched in the number. Priscilla Langley’s voice sounded in his ear.
“Is that really you?” he panted.
“Son, there was a man here in South Dorset, a policeman, asking all kinds of questions.”
“Questions?”
“About a girl who died in your hospital.”
“Patients die here, it’s a goddamn hospital! What’s this policeman’s name?”
“Lieutenant John Driscoll.”
Pierce thought his pounding heart was about to rupture. Frenzied thoughts emerged, ran rampant, and collided inside his brain. He could feel his entire body trembling. He brushed back the hair from his furrowed brow, only to find it dampened with perspiration.
“Colm, are you in some kind of trouble?”
The question went unanswered.
“Colm?”
“Yes?”
“You are. You’re in some kind of trouble. Talk to me, boy.”
Pierce couldn’t control his trembling. He pounded his fist against the side of his desk.
“Colm?”
“I have to go now,” he said slowly and deliberately. “You’re not to worry. I’m not in any kind of trouble. I’ll see to it that this policeman is reprimanded for causing you to worry.”
“But, Colm-”
Pierce hung up the phone. His eyes fell, once again, upon the scribbled message. He crumpled the sheet of paper in his hand and flung it against the wall. He stood up. A dizziness overcame him. He sat back down. He pounded both fists on the top of his desk. The disturbance brought Alicia Simmons into the room.
“Is everything all right?” she asked.
“It will be,” Pierce said, dismissing her. His eyes became fixed on the wall in front of him. His heart was still beating rapidly inside his chest when he heard his father’s voice, distant at first, but gathering volume.
“What’s keeping those eyes, Colm?”
A shriek came from atop the basement’s shelving, shooting splinters of fear up my spine. A skittering sound followed.
“Bugler, what was that?” cried Mother.
“Daddy, we got rats!” Becky whimpered, her brown eyes pooling with tears.
“That ain’t no rat,” Father grinned.
A second shriek, more bone-piercing than the first discombobulated me. The box leaped out of my hands, launching the agate eyes into their own frenzied trajectories. My father’s face went through a transformation. The muscles of his jaw knotted. A furrow cut deep into his forehead.
“Now look what you’ve done!”
He stood up. My heart burst.
His face became warlike. He let loose a cry, unfathomable and archaic, like the howl of a Celtic warrior.
My sister and I watched in horror. I knew my life hung on his very breath. He could choke me with his brute hands or spare my life.
He ground the strewn eyes under the heel of his hiking boot, leaned his distorted face into mine and said, “I could snuff you out, son. And it wouldn’t matter much to the sun, or the moon, or the stars.”
Father scraped fragments of glass from the heel of his boot and sprinkled the translucent dust on my head. Then he bolted upright, the tumor clawing at his intestines. “I spawned you, son, and I can snuff you out,” he said, staring inquisitively into my eyes, examining my pupils like an ophthalmologist. His attention had been drawn back to his taxidermy. “This gutted pheasant, needs brown eyes,” he murmured, inspecting the blue of my irises. “You’ve got your mother’s eyes, Colm, and Rebecca’s got mine, brown.”
A piercing shriek tore through me. A vulture had leaped from the murk of the cellar’s joists, swooped down, and clenched in its claws the entrails of the gutted bird.
“Ain’t she a beauty?” Father boasted. “Just a week ago that critter was scanning the Alps for a stray lamb, and now this honey is mine. A real live lammergeier!” The sneer returned to his face. “Becky, come over here and give your Daddy a wet one.”
Without warning, Father grabbed hold of my sister and flattened her body on the gurney. He poured some liquid on a rag and brutally smothered her face with it. Becky whimpered. But the noise slowly ceased as my sister fell into unconsciousness. Father then reached for the melon scoop and plucked out both of her eyes.
I grabbed hold of Father’s sleeve, restraining further assault on Becky.
“Let go of my arm,” he growled through clenched teeth.
Holding the rag he used on Becky, he turned his attention to me. Soon I too fell victim to unconsciousness.
It was the coppery scent of blood that nauseated me, waking me from my deep sleep.
Becky was still on the gurney. Two of Mother’s abandoned tailor’s mannequins stood, oddly enough, on either side. The newly mounted pheasant was staring at her through new eyes, and Becky returned the stare through two gaping holes, each one oozing blood.