Alex Kava - A Perfect Evil

There was the twitch, the slight grimace at just the mention of the bastard’s name. He wondered if she was conscious of it.

“The morgue is never locked,” Maggie countered. “Anyone could have had access. And much of what happened with Stucky was publicized in the newspapers and tabloids.”

“There’s still more.” He’d left this for last. The most incriminating evidence was the most questionable. “We found some stuff in the trunk of his car.” He let her see his skepticism. Was it Ronald Jeffreys all over again? They were both thinking the same thing.

“What kind of stuff?” Now she was interested.

“The Halloween mask, a pair of black gloves and some rope.”

“Why would he have all that in the trunk of his abandoned car if he knew we were hot on his trail? Especially if he was responsible for framing Jeffreys in the same manner? Also, how did he have time to do all this?”

It was exactly what Nick had wondered, but he wanted desperately for this to be all over.

“My dad just more or less admitted that he knew someone may have planted evidence.”

“He admitted that?”

“Let’s just say he admitted to ignoring the discrepancies.”

“Does your father think Eddie could be the killer?”

“He said he’s sure it’s not Eddie.”

“And that makes you even more convinced that it is?”

Jesus, she knew him well.

“Timmy has a lighter the guy gave him. It has the sheriff’s department emblem on it. It’s a reward type thing that my dad used. He never handed out that many of them. Eddie was one of about five.”

“Lighters get lost,” she said. She stood up and slowly made her way to the window.

This time her mind was clearly far away. She even forgot about the slit in the back of her hospital gown. Though from this angle he could only see a sliver of her back, part of her shoulder. The gown made her look small and vulnerable. He imagined wrapping his arms around her, wrapping his entire body around hers. Just lying with her for hours, touching her, running his hands along her smooth skin, his fingers through her hair. He simply wanted to get lost in her for a very long time.

Jesus, where in the world was this coining from? He dug his thumb and forefinger into his eyes, feigning exhaustion, when it was really that image he needed to dig out.

“You still think it’s Keller?” he asked, but knew the answer.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s just hard for me to realize I’m losing my touch.”

Nick could certainly relate to that.

“Eddie doesn’t fit your profile?”

“The man in that cellar wasn’t some hothead who lost his temper and sliced up little boys. This was a mission for him, a well-thought-out and planned mission. Somehow, I really do think he believes he’s saving these boys.” She stared out the window and avoided looking at him.

He had never asked what had happened in the cellar before he got there. The notes, the game, the references to Albert Stucky- it all seemed so personal. Perhaps he could no longer count on Maggie to be objective.

“What does Timmy say?” She turned to him finally. “Can he identify Eddie?”

“He seemed certain last night, but that was after Eddie chased him down the ridge and grabbed him. Eddie claims he spotted Timmy in the woods and went after him to rescue him. This morning Timmy admitted he never saw the man’s face. But, it can’t all be just coincidence, can it?”

“No, it does sound like you have a case.” She shrugged.

“But do I have a killer?”

He stuffed his few belongings into the old suitcase. His fingers traced over the suitcase’s fabric, a cheap vinyl that cracked easily. He had lost the combination years ago. Now he simply avoided locking it. Even the handle was a mass of black tape, sticky in summer, hard and scratchy in winter. It was the only thing he had of his mother’s.

He had stolen it out from under his stepfather’s bed the night he ran away from home. Home-that was certainly a misnomer. It had never felt like his home, even less after his mother was gone. Without her, the two-story brick house had become a prison, and he had taken his punishment nightly for almost three weeks before he left.

Even the night of his escape, he had waited until after his stepfather had finished and then collapsed from exhaustion. He had stolen his mother’s suitcase and packed while blood trickled down the insides of his legs. Unlike his mother, he had refused to grow accustomed to his stepfather’s deep, violent thrusts, the fresh tears and old ones not allowed to heal. That night, he had barely been able to walk, but still he had managed somehow to make it the six miles to Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church where Father Daniel had offered refuge.

A similar price had been paid for his room and board, but at least Father Daniel had been kind and gentle and small. There had been no more rips and tears, only the humiliation, which he had accepted as part of his punishment. He was, after all, a murderer. That horrible look still haunted his sleep. That look of utter surprise in his mother’s dead eyes as she lay sprawled on the basement floor, her body twisted and broken.

He slammed the suitcase shut, hoping to slam out the image.

His second murder had been much easier, a stray tomcat Father Daniel had taken in. Unlike himself, the cat had received room and board with no price to pay. Perhaps that alone had been reason enough to kill it. He remembered its warm blood had splattered his hands and face when he slashed its throat.

From then on, each murder had become a spiritual revelation, a sacrificial slaughter. It wasn’t until his second year of seminary that he murdered his first boy, an unsuspecting delivery boy with sad eyes and freckles. The boy had reminded him of himself. So, of course, he needed to kill him, to get the boy out of his misery, to save him, to save himself.

He checked his watch and knew he had plenty of time. He carefully placed the old suitcase by the door, next to the gray and black duffel bag he had packed earlier. Then he glanced at the newspaper folded neatly on his bed, the headline garnering yet another smile: Sheriff’s Deputy Suspected in Boys’ Murders.

How wonderfully easy it had been. He knew the minute he had found Eddie Gillick’s lighter on the floor of the old blue pickup that the slick and arrogant bully would make the perfect patsy. Almost as perfect as Jeffreys had been.

All those evenings of excruciating small talk, playing cards with the egomaniac, had finally paid off. He had pretended to be interested in Gillick’s latest sexual conquest, only to offer forgiveness and absolution when the good deputy finally sobered up. He had pretended to be Gillick’s friend when, in fact, the conceited know-it-all turned his stomach. Gillick’s bragging had also revealed a short temper, mostly targeted at “punk kids” and “cock-teasing sluts” who, according to Gillick, “had it coming.” In many ways, Eddie Gillick reminded him of his stepfather, which would make Gillick’s conviction even sweeter.

And why wouldn’t Gillick be convicted, with his self-destructive behavior and all that damning evidence tucked neatly inside the trunk of the deputy’s very own smashed Chevy? What luck, stumbling across it in the woods like that, making it so easy to stash the fatal evidence. Just like Jeffreys.

He remembered how Ronald Jeffreys had come to him, confessing to Bobby Wilson’s murder. When Jeffreys asked for forgiveness there hadn’t been a shred of remorse in his voice. Jeffreys deserved what had happened to him. And it had been so simple, too. One anonymous phone call to the sheriff’s department and some incriminating evidence was all it had taken.