Paul Cleave - Collecting Cooper

“A different one,” Cooper says. “He’s killed many.”

“What about the thumb? He cuts people’s thumbs off and collects them in jars! I’ve seen it!”

“You’re the one who cuts them off,” Cooper says.

Adrian raises the gun, and Cooper steps further around in front of his mother. It could all end right now. Then Adrian smiles. “I understand why you’re saying these things,” Adrian says. “It’s because you’re scared.”

“It’s going to be okay,” his mother whispers, her hand tight in his.

“Don’t cry,” she tells him, and he wasn’t aware that he was. He reaches up and wipes at his eyes. “You’ll get us out of here,” she tells him.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her.

“It’s not your fault we’re here,” she says. “You can’t be responsible for others, especially for a young man badly deranged.”

“I’m not deranged,” Adrian says. “Tell her, Cooper, tell her about the girl I found that you kidnapped. Tell her!”

“What girl?” Cooper asks, knowing that Adrian must have found Emma.

“The girl you left at Sunnyview. You were going to kill her.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Cooper asks.

“I’ll show her to you,” Adrian says, “to both of you. I have her tied up.”

“You have a girl here you kidnapped?” Cooper’s mother asks, and she’s asking Adrian.

“I saved her.”

“You saved a girl who you have tied up. Are you planning on hurting her?” she asks.

“You don’t understand,” Adrian says.

“Because you never make sense,” Cooper says to him.

“You’re scared of her,” Adrian says. “You’ve always been scared of her because she’s dominated you your entire life. It’s what you wrote about in your book. It’s what they all write, all the people who know stuff about serial killers. It’s why she’s here. And you’re lying. I never killed my family. Never had a sister whose dress I never wore.”

“Let us go, please, please, I’m begging you,” Mrs. Riley says.

“I can’t. He’s too valuable.” He looks back up at Cooper. “Wait here,” he says, and he closes the door and disappears.

“Thank God you’re okay,” his mother says, and embraces him.

“I’m going to get us out of here,” he tells her. “I promise,” he says, and all he has to do is ask her not to go to the police until he’s found out whether or not they know he’s a killer.

“He’s back,” Cooper says, hearing the footsteps outside the door. The door opens outward and Adrian is back, the gun still in his hand, no chance of grabbing it.

“I’m doing this to help you,” Adrian says.

“Doing what?” Cooper asks.

“This,” he says, and he lifts the bottom of the shirt and clipped to his belt is a small Walkman. Adrian presses play, and Cooper can hear his voice coming back at him, Adrian’s voice too, and in that moment his mother’s fate is set. At seventy-nine years old, she has had her life. He has to cling to that, and he likes to think she would sacrifice herself to save him. That’s the kind of woman she is. He loves her. He just loves his freedom more.

I’ve gotten a little more used to the roads now and only make two wrong turns leaving Grover Hills. I pull over at one point and fiddle with the unmarked patrol car’s laptop computer, dirt from the road slowly drifting by as I look up the address I want, and when I have it I turn up the volume on the police band and listen in to the reports coming from different parts of the city. Neighbors of Cooper Riley’s mother have described Adrian Loaner and Emma Green’s car as being seen in the driveway. It was one of the neighbors who called the police when he saw her being put into the trunk of the car. Bloody clothes have been left at the scene, and bandaging and medical tape and bloody rags were left on the dining room table. Adrian went there and forced Mrs. Riley to help him. More information comes in as I drive. An empty grave has been found out at Sunnyview, most likely the location where Jane Tyrone was buried. Fingerprints found inside one of the padded cells has matched those taken from the hairbrush from Emma Green’s flat. The background images in the photos Cooper took match those of one of Sunnyview’s padded rooms. Corpse dogs are running the grounds while they wait for ground-penetrating radar to arrive.

When I get into town I get caught up in a traffic jam. It’s almost eleven o’clock and hundreds of teenage drag racers with nothing better to do are out in their cars, cruising the four avenues surrounding the central city, proving to their friends and other drivers that they have a volcano of testosterone just waiting to be released, proving a point to the council and government that even though cruising in packs in their modified cars is now illegal they just don’t care, and proving to me that teenagers with this dickhead mentality are nothing more than sheep in their desperation to feel accepted. I listen to the police channel in the detective’s car, learning that there’s an estimated fifteen hundred drag racers circling the streets. Neon lights line the bottom of some cars, bright paint works, lots of chrome, and big mufflers, intersections are blocked and the police are just too busy with other things to care. Passengers in the car in front of me turn to give me the finger. I stare at them thinking about the man who killed my daughter, and how there’s a lot of room out in that forest for more graves. The line of traffic passes a parked car that’s been set on fire. I can see the lights from fire engines about four blocks away unable to get any closer. I manage to turn left onto a side street about a minute later and get clear of it all.

I drive out toward Brighton where the houses are a little more run-down and where there are fewer people to care. This part of the suburb on the edge of the beach is in need of one half-decent tidal wave to clean it up. I come to a stop outside the address I looked up, it’s a small worn-down house that can’t have many more than a couple of rooms, the kind of place where you’re being screwed if the landlord is charging you anything more than two figures a week. The lights are on inside, which means I won’t be waking anybody, but when I knock nobody answers. I knock a few more times and give it another minute before walking around the house, looking in the windows.

Jesse Cartman is sitting in the living room staring at a TV set that is switched off. He’s completely naked except for a photo album lying on his lap, and two cocktail umbrellas lying on his stomach. His eyes are wide open and unblinking. I tap on the window and he looks over at me. He stands up slowly and the album slides off and hits the floor and he comes to the window close enough for parts of his body to press against it. The cocktail umbrellas have stuck to the sweat and gotten tangled in the hairs on his belly.

“Detective,” he says, the word coming out so slowly it’s like he’s speaking underwater.

“I need to talk to you,” I say.

“Detective,” he repeats, just as slowly.

I make my way to the back door. It’s locked but doesn’t hold up to much of a kick. I figure the landlord won’t notice the busted doorjamb the same way he hasn’t noticed the building getting ready to fall over. The house smells of cat piss but I don’t see any cats. Cartman is still standing in the living room facing the window staring out at the overgrown garden.

“Hey, Jesse,” I say, and he doesn’t turn around. “You forget to take your meds?”

“My meds,” he says, still staring outside.

“Where are they?”

He doesn’t answer. The house is small enough to find the bathroom in about four seconds. The floor is tiled with mold growing in the grouting. The bathroom mirror is cracked and the glass is pitted. I open the cabinet and find a couple of containers of pills. I read the labels and have no idea what they are.