Blackburn’s eyes narrowed. “And you didn’t feel the need to tell me about this before?”
“I didn’t know who I was dealing with. Thought it might be one of my old patients.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“These,” he said, then took the folded pages from his back pocket and handed them across the table to Blackburn. “I got them from Vincent’s website.”
Blackburn and Carmody exchanged another look. “His what?”
“You heard me.” He gestured to the pages. “He calls it his abstract collection.”
Blackburn unfolded and slowly leafed through them, his expression darkening. “Jesus H. Christ…”
“I don’t get it,” Carmody said. “Why would he call you? What did he want?”
“It seems I’ve upset him.”
“Upset him? How?”
Tolan paused, remembering the threat as if Vincent were whispering in his ear at that very moment.
“He thinks I killed my wife.”
THREE
The Artist Presently Known as Vincent
21
He couldn’t remember her name.
The day itself was fresh in his mind, imprinted there, and he found himself thinking about it almost as often as a normal man thinks about sex.
But then he wasn’t normal. He knew that. Had known it since he was five years old, chasing spiders across the front porch of his parents’ small house in Carsonville, using his father’s shoe to smack them dead, feeling the thrill of excitment when that tiny round body popped against the wood, spewing gooey yellow spider guts. Gooey yellow spider guts that, to the one they called Vincent, tasted just like candy.
The family kitten came next. His sister’s kitten, to be more precise. Little more than a rodent, really, a stray she had picked up on her way home from school one day, an annoying piece of gray fuzz and sharp nails that crawled up his pantleg one time too many.
He was nine then, and had already killed and eaten his share of insects — a secret he kept to himself, much like the boy down the street who picked his nose and ate his boogers. He had stayed home sick from school and was reading a comic book in bed when the fur ball climbed up onto the blanket, purring furiously.
He couldn’t tell you what possessed him to reach for his baseball glove, but he did, and quietly slipped it on, smothering the pathetic little creature right where it sat.
He took it into the backyard then, and using his father’s rusty hacksaw, cut it into several pieces, which he scattered in the woods.
His grandmother had once told him that, as a child, living on an egg ranch in Oklahoma, it was her job to destroy the chickens when they were past their prime. She would step on the chicken’s neck, then yank its body, ripping its head from its torso.
The chicken, unaware that its head was missing, would shake and shimmy and flap its wings until it drained of blood and finally died. Then it was off for a good plucking and a place on the Sunday dinner table.
This had always been one of Vincent’s favorite stories. Especially the ripping part. He had tried several times in his short life to duplicate the event, using whatever stray animal he might come across.
But the truth was, killing animals bored him. Seemed like some true crime story cliché that had never really given him that kick to the psyche he craved. And by the time he was fourteen, Vincent began looking for a new thrill. A real thrill.
So he killed his first human.
Ten years old, she was a cute little blonde with freckles on her nose, wearing a pink and green Care Bear T-shirt.
But try as he might, he just couldn’t remember her name.
Nancy? Natalie?
Neither one sounded right.
Naomi? No. Strike that one off the list too.
As much as this bothered Vincent, he didn’t suppose it mattered. Despite this small failure, the moment itself was still etched in his mind. The words they spoke, the path they took, the look of spoiled innocence on her young face.
It’s true what they say.
You never forget your first time.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I told you,” Vincent said. “We’re gonna get ice cream.”
“Out here?”
They were walking through the woods about a block and half from Vincent’s house, Vincent trying to hide his giddiness, wondering if anyone had seen them take the pathway into the trees.
He didn’t think so.
Tightening his grip on the chunk of rock in his pocket, he said, “I had to hide it. My mom doesn’t like me eating sweet stuff. Especially ice cream.”
“Why not?”
“I’m diabetic. Have to take shots every day.”
“Eww,” the little girl said. “I don’t like shots. Does it hurt?”
“Not anymore.”
“How come?”
“You get used to it.”
They were nearing the spot now, the small clearing where Vincent had dug a hole. “We’re almost there,” he told her. “What’s your favorite flavor?”
“Mint and chip. What’s yours?”
“Same thing. I even brought some cones.”
“Really?”
Vincent nodded. “Sugar cones. Just like Baskin-Robbins.”
The little girl smiled at him then, and he could see that she was jazzed, her dim little mind probably filled with the image of a double-decker cone, too stupid to realize that a carton of ice cream wouldn’t last ten minutes out here in the woods before the heat and an army of ants got to it.
They walked through the last cluster of trees into the clearing and the little girl frowned, pointing at his handiwork.
“Look,” she said, stopping in her tracks. “Somebody dug a hole. You think it was a coyote?”
“Could be,” Vincent said.
“I don’t like coyotes.”
“Why not?”
“My dad says they ate Melody.”
“Who’s Melody?”
“My cat. She disappeared last month.”
“Oh?” Vincent said. “What did she look like?”
“Orange and white, with stripes and a little black patch by her nose.”
Vincent smiled and brought the rock out of his pocket, feeling his heart start to thump inside his chest.
“I think I remember her,” he said.
It had been an unsatisfying kill. Probably because the girl had been too stupid to know what was coming, and the reaction was not quite what Vincent had anticipated. She had merely stared at him with a confused look on her face, said “Ow,” then dropped to the ground like an empty sack.
He had thought about trying to step on her neck, but considering her size, that would have been impractical. Instead, he hit her several more times with the rock until she was finally dead. Watching her eyes go dim had given him a small charge — made him come in his pants as a matter of fact — but it was all too abrupt. Too rushed.
The real satisfaction had been in the aftermath of the deed. Not only had he looked at her smashed head and thought, how beautiful, but later, when the police and fire department and his neighbors all gathered together to search for the missing girl, he had felt for the first time as if he were something special.
He remembered traipsing through the woods with his buddy Larry and some of the other neighborhood kids, calling out her name, knowing that he had a secret, and wanting desperately to tell them what it was.
But Vincent wasn’t stupid. Although he knew in his heart that what he’d done was not wrong — she was a moronic kid who deserved to die — he was smart enough to also know that the people around him would never understand.