Rob Zombie - Lords of Salem

He held out his hand. “Give it here,” he said.

Alice folded the paper over, handed it to him. He took it and tried to look at it a moment at arm’s length, but the print was too small. He fumbled his reading glasses off the end table and began to read.

MURDER VICTIM IDENTIFIED

The victim in the murder that rocked Salem, MA, yesterday has now been identified as Jarrett Perkins, 33. His body had been dismembered and mutilated, though the degree and nature of the mutilation has not been released by the police.

Early this morning, Maisie Mather telephoned the police station. “I want to confess to a murder,” she said. “I killed my boyfriend.”

“She seemed calm and collected,” according to the 911 operator she spoke to. “When I asked her how she was sure her boyfriend was dead she said, ‘Because he no longer has a head.’ When I asked her for the address, she gave it without hesitation and added, ‘Please come take me away before it happens again.’ ”

When police arrived, they found Perkins dead and Mather weeping, sitting in a pool of his blood.

Perkins, originally from Trenton, NJ, moved to Salem nearly a year ago. He is reported to have met Mather at a local music show shortly after arriving and had, according to friends, been seeing her ever since.

Mather, a lifelong resident of Salem and descendant of Judge Samuel Mather, a man notorious for his role in the Salem witch trials, has fully confessed to the murder of Perkins. She has, however, claimed not to have been able to control her actions.

“Clearly she is laying the groundwork for a non compos mentis plea,” said Prosecutor Michael Stewart, a plea otherwise known as not guilty by reason of insanity.

When asked if the state would encourage such a plea, Mr. Stewart shook his head. “Considering the brutality of the crime itself and the nature of the mutilation, we have no choice but to pursue the maximum penalty.”

That penalty would be multiple life sentences. Massachusetts abolished the death penalty in 1984.

According to her own confession, Mather was engaged in intimate acts with Perkins when an uncontrollable urge struck her. She got up, shaved her head, carved a symbol into her chest, and then killed Perkins with a pair of scissors.

When asked why she had done it, she claimed she didn’t know. When asked what the symbol meant, she also claimed she did not know. Police have not released a description of this symbol.

Mather is described by her former employer Brian Conn as “a normal, ordinary person. I never would have expected anything like this to happen in a million years. I can’t even believe it was her.” Neighbors describe her as “sweet” and “generous to a fault.”

Mather has no history of mental illness.

Francis sighed. What was life coming to? What happened to the good old days when you could just hide behind a rock and, as long as you stayed there, you wouldn’t get shot? Never any dismemberings in a Western. At least not that he could remember. There was a picture next to the article and he took a close look at it. Yes, the face meant something to him. He could see a resemblance to the old paintings of Judge Mather of course, but it was more than that.

“Hmmm,” he said.

“What?” said Alice.

“She looks familiar,” he said. Where was it? Where had he seen her before? “I remember this girl.”

Alice rose and went over and stood behind his shoulder, looking down at the picture. “I don’t think I know her,” she said.

Francis snapped his fingers. He had it. “She came to that summer fund-raiser we had at the museum last August. She was a sweet kid,” he said. “Didn’t seem the type to go in for dismembering.”

“What do you think would drive a girl like that to do something so dark?” asked Alice.

Francis kept studying the picture. The resemblance to Mather was there, but with very little sign of Mather’s intractability and cruelty. No, at the fund-raiser she’d been completely normal, really a lovely person. It just didn’t make any sense. “Hell, I don’t know,” he said, feeling depressed now. “I don’t know why anyone does anything anymore.”

Alice put her hand on his shoulder, squeezed it. For a while they were silent, staring at the picture of the girl.

“It isn’t like she just woke up one day and thought, ‘I’m going to shave my head and murder the first person I see.’ ”

Francis shrugged. “Maybe that’s exactly what it was like,” he said.

Chapter Thirty-three

God, her head hurt. Her awareness of the night before was blurring now. Weird shit, that was what it was. She felt like she was really losing her grip. She had screamed herself awake—how fucked-up was that? And now she was walking in her sleep as well? What the hell? She’d woken up in the hall, pounding on the door to apartment number five. Or thought she had. She wasn’t even sure of that anymore now that it was light outside. The nightmares she’d had seemed so real, so vivid, and that shit of falling asleep in the bath and that fucked-up dream were the worst of all. How could she have gotten to sleep after that? To top it off, she had had too much of Lacy’s wine, so when she wasn’t busy screaming herself awake or listening to her heart beat louder and louder in her ears she’d been queasy and could feel the room spinning around her. And there was a period, she wasn’t sure if it was real or another dream, when she’d been kneeling on the floor and vomiting into the toilet, with Steve, sweet dog that he was, wagging his tail next to her and licking her face and trying to cheer her up. Or maybe he was just trying to get a taste of that vomit, who knows? Gross.

With all that, she felt more tired than she had when she’d gone to sleep. It was like each night was worse, like every night whittled away another thin sliver of her sanity. She’d been doing well over the last year, been holding it together. But she needed something to relax her, mellow her out a little, or there was no way that she was going to make it through the day. She wasn’t going to do something extreme—she wasn’t going to call her dealer up. And she definitely wasn’t going to get some gear. No, just something to relax, something harmless. Relatively so, anyway.

She stumbled her way to the dresser. She began digging through the top drawer, piling underwear and socks on top of the dresser until the drawer was empty. Shit, it wasn’t there. She’d been sure it would be there, remembered putting it there just as backup, just in case. But it wasn’t there now. Maybe she had the wrong drawer? She bent lower and opened the next drawer down and this time she simply pulled the whole thing out and dumped it on the bed. Her hands quickly pawed their way through the contents, searching, tossing clothing left and right. She was just about to give up when…

Ah, there it was. She knew she had one. It was the butt of a joint, half smoked or so, really dry shit, something like a year old and likely to be more than a little harsh by now, but what the hell? It’d still have some kick.

She stepped back. Steve was there, lying on the floor, staring at her.

“What?” she said to him. He kept staring at her, ears flattened a little. “I just need a little something to steady my nerves today,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’m not getting into all that shit again.” What, now I have to justify myself to a dog?

She took the lighter off the counter and flicked the flame on, sucked on the joint. She drew the smoke deep into her lungs, held it. Ah, it felt good. Too good. Gateway drug , she thought. The NA guys definitely wouldn’t approve. Though they wouldn’t approve of the wine either, so what difference did this make? Anyway, this wasn’t what she’d been addicted to so it didn’t matter. Steve was still staring at her, probably thinking much the same thing that the NA guys would have, she reckoned.