The Atheist's Daughter Read online

  He sensed another presence in the room. Her eyes bright with interest, Mrs. Norton watched their victim fight for survival.

  Susannah’s fingers curled over the rim of the bathtub. Bracing her legs in the tub, she propelled herself from the water. Rage in her eyes, she glared at him. Wet and slippery, she twisted from his grasp. Mr. Brass heard a sharp whistle of sound as she sucked in air.

  Fiercely, she bit down on his smallest finger. Shock filled her face as her teeth cracked against the unyielding digit. A piece of tooth shattered, falling from her mouth.

  “Good effort,” Mr. Brass said. Grabbing her hair, he used his other arm to press against the soft folds of her stomach. He forced her body down to the bottom of the bathtub.

  “Gently,” Mrs. Norton said. “There’s to be no bruising, no broken skin.”

  Easy for her to say. This one’s a fighter.

  She proved it when, flailing, she again found a hold on the slick edges of the tub. He let her face rise from the water. Spreading his fingers, he gave her a single gasp of air before he pushed her down. Her head hit the tub with a dull thunnnng.

  Five years for one, he thought.

  Weaker now, Susannah struggled upward. He let her lift from the bottom of the tub but not quite high enough to break the water. He could feel the bones of her skull as he brought her head down.

  Thunnnng.

  You’ve had so many years, he told her silently. Years of taste and smell and touch. I want my time.

  Give it to me.

  Bucking, fighting, she brought her torso out of the water but he kept his palm over her airway. This time, there would be no respite. Enjoying his power, he forced her head down.

  Thunnnng.

  Her arms trembled as Susannah tried to surface once more. Her hands slipped from their perch, falling into the water. Under his hold, she softened, grew limp.

  No paradise for you, meat. Not when you die like this.

  No chance for redemption. No hope for salvation. Nothing left for you at all.

  Nothing but the Void.

  She sank to the bottom of the tub, her eyes open but blind. The lost fragment of tooth lay beside her, trapped between flesh and porcelain. He retrieved it, tucking it inside his shirt’s top pocket. A trail of water dribbled after it.

  It was nearly time to feed.

  Mrs. Norton crept closer. Jealously, he hunched over the body in the tub.

  She’s hungry, too, he thought with sharp awareness. What will I do if she chooses to take the meal?

  He knew he dared do nothing. If she wanted to feed, she would.

  He darted a sideways glance at her. Delicately taking the broken piece of Susannah’s fingernail from the bathroom’s linoleum flooring, she put it in her mouth. Swallowing it, Mrs. Norton left the bathroom.

  Bending over the tub, Mr. Brass unhinged his jaw. He stretched his mouth wide, and then wider. Inside his throat, he could feel the vortex, whirling.

  The greedy beast senses she’s close. It’s as ready as I am.

  The woman’s essence rose from her body, no more solid than the morning’s mist. As it lifted toward salvation, toward some unseen circle of Heaven’s light, he inhaled.

  Her presence came into him, filled him. He absorbed the five years that should have been: the joy, the happiness, the good health.

  He devoured it all.

  Color washed into him. Increased sensation arrived and, with it, the sweet arrival of life itself. He could feel his heart pump. He could taste the air he breathed. The clothing covering him suddenly felt wet and cold. His shoes felt too tight around his feet.

  He lifted up, filled. For a few short months, his body would be rich with the needs, possibilities and vulnerabilities of the flesh. He rubbed his hands together, one over the other, feeling the friction of his skin. He pressed his fingertips to his face, feeling his nose, his eyelids, his ears. Pursing his lips, he blew across his wrist. Wonderfully, the air coming from his mouth felt warm.

  The meat was hollowed, the interior of the bath tub clearly visible through her frame. Inside the shell of her stomach, he saw what was left of her essence. The size and shape of a flower’s petal, it shriveled inside of her, curling into itself as it turned from gold to brown.

  Then it winked away, leaving nothing behind.

  “Sorry,” Mr. Brass said, meaning, I’m sorry I can’t do this to you again.

  Not for the first time, he wished his victims could return to life. If the Dark Ones granted him one wish, this is what he would want: the opportunity to kill a mortal, someone such as Susannah Guitierrez, over and over again, year after year, for all of eternity.

  Drown her, stab her, shoot her, strangle her.

  Endless feeding with the same victim, a new manner of murder every time. It was his only fantasy.

  From downstairs, there was the sound of the front door opening.

  “Ms. Guitierrez?” a female voice called. “Susannah? Are you home?”

  “I smell coffee,” a second voice said. Female, again. “Let’s check the kitchen.”

  He was searching for a weapon when Mrs. Norton’s hand dropped upon his shoulder. Following her, he slipped down the stairway as a light came on in the back of the house. When the two of them went through the open front door, he could hear the intruders talking to one another in the kitchen. Alarm was growing in their voices but it hadn’t yet taken hold.

  Soon there will be screams.

  Following the outcry, there would be sirens, then ambulances, and police cars. People would be panicked, running everywhere.

  It would be a wonderful sight.

  Mrs. Norton proceeded down the cement walkway. She fussed at her clothing, smoothing the sleeves of her jacket. When she was done, she eyed him critically. “You’re wet.”

  “I can feel it,” he said, with pride.

  A cry of alarm came from Susannah’s house. The sound throbbed with pain. Then – sharp and cutting, piercing the air – a woman screamed.

  “I’m going to the main boulevard,” Mrs. Norton said. “I’ll find a ride. When you’re presentable, you’ll collect the auto and return to the café.”

  “Let me get the car now.”

  “The police are coming. What will you say if a patrol car pulls us over? How are you going to explain your wet clothes?”

  “I don’t know.” Well, what did she expect him to say? He had muscle, he had strength. He wasn’t the smart one. “I’ll wait, then. Find a place to hide.”

  “Not here.”

  Mr. Brass said, “There’s one of those storage unit places behind the baseball field. Eastside Storage, maybe a mile from here. Lots of trees, plenty of cover. It would be easy to spend an hour there.”

  “Very well.” Her soft-soled, tan shoes made little noise as she followed the sidewalk.

  He touched at his shirt. The fabric was rough and garish. The buttons felt too big between his fingers. His pants weren’t any better. They were coarse and cheaply stitched; he should have bought better.

  An hour ago, his clothing hadn’t mattered. Now that he was alive again, he cared.

  He’d find better soon enough. The shirt and pants would be dry by the time he reached the storage yard. If he saw a store in the area, maybe he could go shopping. If not, he’d return and collect the piece a shit car.

  But was this any way to start this grand, new year, wasting so many minutes on such an unnecessary task?

  Still, what choice did he have? He didn’t dare return to the café because Mrs. Norton would be waiting there.

  Which means, he reflected, she won’t know if I go to the storage unit or not. She doesn’t check me for lies, not anymore. She only checks Mr. Locke.

  Did he dare be so bold?

  When he heard the first, faint wailing of sirens, he felt happy.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  For once, even Liz didn’t want to talk. Ear buds fed her music while she sat on the molded plastic chair. She’d redone her make-up twice now, hiding the track
s of her tears. Her eyes remained red.

  Kristin sat in the connecting chair beside her. In the Sheriff Station’s bathroom mirror, she’d seen the strain on her own face. She didn’t worry whether she’d start crying again. She felt as if she’d already used every tear in her body.

  Every now and then, Deputy Kane would glance up from her desk and look at them. She’d already taken their reports and shared the results with the Sheriff. She’d have been glad to send them on their way if only Kristin hadn’t asked to stay longer.

  “Another bathroom slip and fall,” one of the paramedics said, wheeling Susannah’s body from her house. Kristin wasn’t going to let it go so easily. She requested to speak with Sheriff Archer.

  “It should only be a few more minutes, girls,” Deputy Kane said apologetically. Which was apparently true, or at least it was something the Deputy believed to be true. Talking on the telephone and greeting visitors at the desk, she hadn’t lied once since they’d been escorted to the plastic chairs.

  Once you see Sheriff Archer, what are you going to say? Kristin asked herself. Got a plan, some plan, any plan at all?

  Nope. I got nothin’.

  If she wanted to be taken seriously, she’d have to watch what she said. Instinctively, Liz understood this, too. Talking to the Deputy, she hadn’t mentioned a word of Kristin’s dream.

  It would remain between the two of them. She wouldn’t tell the Sheriff any of it: How things went white when she saw Susannah, how a rasping noise followed her loss of sight, how she smelled the stench of new plastic. All of it, for now and forever, a secret.

  Otherwise, no one would believe her.

  Sheriff Archer would listen to her because she insisted on being heard, but he knew her history. He’d remember when he was only a Deputy Sheriff and was called by the school to escort her to the Center for the Fractally Whacked.

  Kristin leaned over to Liz. Her friend removed one of the plugs from her ear.

  “Do you think Deputy Kane told the Sheriff?”

  Liz seemed lost at first. Then she said, “You mean, the whole fainting thing?”

  “I didn’t faint. I nearly fainted.”

  “Close enough.” Liz replaced the ear bud. “When we saw Susannah going into the body bag, I wanted to pass out. I was just glad you did it first.” Tucking her legs under the chair, she stared off into the distance.

  “I didn’t pass out,” Kristin protested.

  Tragic as it was, it wasn’t Susannah’s death that left her feeling weak-kneed. Not directly. It was the body bag itself which made her suddenly feel sick.

  To begin with, she’d always thought those types of bags were black, appropriately colored for a mortuary. Now she knew they came in white. She never imagined the bag’s zippers were so large and heavy or that their slider rasped so loudly when its teeth bit together. She never realized how strongly a new body bag reeked of a chemical plastic smell.

  Too late wise, as her mother would have said. She’d been given the clues, for what little good they did her. She couldn’t help but feel she should have done something. Somehow, she should have saved Susannah.

  Now my mother’s best friend is gone. Dead...and maybe worse than dead.

  Transformed.

  The body in the tub didn’t belong to Susannah any longer. The thing in the water was a hollow shell. Lacking all but the outlines of blood and muscle, organs and flesh, it was as empty as the ghost people who had come to town.

  Susannah had been drained and Kristin knew who’d done it.

  Mr. Brass.

  When the ambulances parked in front of Susannah’s house, he was there. Dressed in store label jeans and a five dollar Hawaiian shirt, he lingered beside the rear doors of the ambulance. He watched with avid interest as the paramedics brought the stretcher out of the row house’s front door. Entranced by the body in front of him, he’d never noticed Kristin.

  She’d seen him, though. No longer a blank canvas, he now had too-pink skin and dark hair. He showed yellow teeth when he smiled, as he did when the stretcher carrying the body bag bumped over the curb and rolled past him. There were brown freckles on his oversized hands and a white scar running along the side of his neck. His arms were cordoned with heavy veins that existed to feed his thickly-muscled arms.

  He wasn’t a glass man anymore. Seeing him on the street was like watching some bizarre black-and-white photo newly colorized by the death of a good woman.

  How could such a thing happen? She didn’t know. But she believed in what she saw and she thought her conclusion was reasonable – if only it hadn’t been so impossible.

  Too impossible to share with Sheriff Archer or anyone else. Less so, of course, because of her reputation as Winterhaven’s very own Mad Hatter.

  Deputy Kane lowered the telephone receiver from her ear. “Your grandmother is here, Liz. She’s in Visitor Parking.”

  “I have got to get my car back.” Tugging out the ear buds, Liz told Kristin, “It is seriously weird to be your friend.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too. Call. Later.”

  “Promise.”

  Liz left through the side exit. A few minutes later, the Deputy gestured toward the Sheriff’s office.

  Kristin opened the frosted glass door. Squeezed into a shiny black chair, Sheriff Archer sat behind his large wooden desk. “Take a seat, Kristin. Always good to see you.”

  “Good to see you, too, Sheriff,” she said.

  “Not like this, though.”

  “No, never like this.”

  “Bonnie Kane says you think Susannah’s death wasn’t an accident.” He rested his hand on top of the stack of papers on his desk. “The EMS guys disagree.”

  “The EMS guys are wrong.”

  “I was out there maybe an hour ago,” he told her. “There wasn’t any sign of forced entry.”

  “The door was unlocked. When Liz and I got to Susannah’s house, we walked right in.”

  “Honey, it’s a shock. I know,” Archer said. “Doesn’t make it murder.”

  Not knowing what to say, Kristin viewed him stolidly.

  He told her, “The way I make it, Susannah got up to start her day. Turned on the coffee, ran the tub. She’s ready to get into the water, feels a little dizzy, maybe she passes out. Probably the heart, possibly a CVA. She goes down, sends water everywhere, bangs her head. Drowns. A sadness, without a doubt. I’ll cry at her funeral, you know I will. But it was an accident.”

  “Sheriff....”

  He flipped to the second page of the EMS report. “‘Minor trauma, consistent with stroke or seizure’. A little bruising around the face. Broke a tooth, probably on the edge of the bathtub.” He folded the page back. “You get Susannah’s age, things happen. Not always good things.”

  “Do you remember three years ago?”

  “I’m not saying the case ends here,” he continued. “I’ve already contacted the County Coroner. It’s protocol. I’ll bet you dollars to donuts what he’ll find. A lot of water in the lungs, a residue of soap, probably the remainder of one of those Weight Watchers meals Susannah was always eating.”

  “Three years ago,” Kristin said. “The Two Rivers’ Convenience Store. Somebody broke in over the weekend. Riffled the cash register, took over four hundred dollars worth of wine and beer.”

  “I remember.”

  “Dusty Harrison was blamed for it. He’d lost his job, needed the money. He didn’t have an alibi. There were two eyewitnesses placing him at the scene.”

  “The Galloway sisters,” Archer said. “Somehow, you knew Dusty was innocent. Those Galloway girls did it.”

  “I knew they weren’t telling the truth. You listened to me then.”

  He sighed. “Bonnie says you have a suspect for me. You think, maybe, one of the owners of the new café had something to do with Susannah’s death.”

  “I saw the café’s cook outside of the house.”

  “Before or after the ambulance came?”

  “After,�
�� she admitted.

  “Could just be somebody on ghoul patrol. All it takes is the cry of a siren to bring ‘em out. Happens all the time. It’s a little disturbed, not criminal.”

  “He wasn’t acting right,” Kristin said. The Sheriff raised a questioning eyebrow in her direction. “He seemed pleased with himself. Happy, in a strange way.”

  “Clothing all wet, buttons missing from his shirt? Any signs he’d been in a struggle?”

  “I only saw him for a few seconds.”

  “So that would be a ‘no’.” Reaching into his desk drawer, Archer retrieved a notepad. He scribbled something on it. “You know this guy’s name?”

  “Brass.”

  “First name?”

  “Mister.”

  “Jesus and Mary, can’t you give me a little more than that?” He clipped his pen onto his shirt pocket. “Tell you what. Things slow up here, maybe I’ll nose around a little.”

  He rocked back in his chair, his image growing fuzzy. It shook, faded, then he disappeared into the white wall behind him.

  “I’ll get his first name, run a background check.” Archer’s voice spoke from somewhere in front of her. “Nothing official –”

  He continued speaking but the words were buried beneath the sound of metal grinding over metal. The stench of plastic filled the office.

  “Kristin?”

  He popped into view, regarding her curiously. The walls behind him returned, wanted posters pinned to their surface. The rasping noise was gone. “You okay? You’re as pale as a ghost.”

  The smell of plastic lingered in the air.

  “Kristin?”

  She said, “I need to get home. Mom’s probably worried.”

  “Not a bad idea.”

  “I was being stupid,” she said, rising to her feet. Not a lie, not today. After all that had gone on, she didn’t think she could stand losing her mouth. “Thinking it over, I mean. The paramedics were there. They wrote their report. If they say it was an accident –” Careful with your words now “– then they ought to know.”