But when a young woman is found dead in a body bag in Chicago's Lincoln Park, Detective David Gold, Susan's longtime friend at the Chicago Police Department, once again calls upon her psychic powers. Traces of foreign blood and strange markings found on the body make one thing certain: a killing this ornate could only be the work of a deranged serial killer. They call him the Undertaker.
Susan is quickly drawn in by the bizarre psychology of the killer, a man who preys on, and prays over, beautiful young women like a fanatic executioner. Plagued by psychic messages that allude to abortion, virginity, and seemingly random quotations from Romeo and Juliet, Susan scrambles for answers. When the best efforts of a determined police force fail to solve the riddle, Susan Shader's controversial gift may be the only way to stop the madman.
Combining the disturbing imagery and virtuosic writing of Thomas Harris and the intricate plot twists of John le Carré, Joseph Glass catapults the suspense thriller to an entirely new dimension. In Blood, he has fashioned a relentless, masterly psychological drama that leads to a most unexpected and bone-chilling climax. And he has given us Susan Shader, a hauntingly appealing heroine we've definitely not seen the last of.
But when a young woman is found dead in a body bag in Chicago's Lincoln Park, Detective David Gold, Susan's longtime friend at the Chicago Police Department, once again calls upon her psychic powers. Traces of foreign blood and strange markings found on the body make one thing certain: a killing this ornate could only be the work of a deranged serial killer. They call him the Undertaker.
Susan is quickly drawn in by the bizarre psychology of the killer, a man who preys on, and prays over, beautiful young women like a fanatic executioner. Plagued by psychic messages that allude to abortion, virginity, and seemingly random quotations from Romeo and Juliet, Susan scrambles for answers. When the best efforts of a determined police force fail to solve the riddle, Susan Shader's controversial gift may be the only way to stop the madman.
Combining the disturbing imagery and virtuosic writing of Thomas Harris and the intricate plot twists of John le Carré, Joseph Glass catapults the suspense thriller to an entirely new dimension. In Blood, he has fashioned a relentless, masterly psychological drama that leads to a most unexpected and bone-chilling climax. And he has given us Susan Shader, a hauntingly appealing heroine we've definitely not seen the last of.
eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
But when a young woman is found dead in a body bag in Chicago's Lincoln Park, Detective David Gold, Susan's longtime friend at the Chicago Police Department, once again calls upon her psychic powers. Traces of foreign blood and strange markings found on the body make one thing certain: a killing this ornate could only be the work of a deranged serial killer. They call him the Undertaker.
Susan is quickly drawn in by the bizarre psychology of the killer, a man who preys on, and prays over, beautiful young women like a fanatic executioner. Plagued by psychic messages that allude to abortion, virginity, and seemingly random quotations from Romeo and Juliet, Susan scrambles for answers. When the best efforts of a determined police force fail to solve the riddle, Susan Shader's controversial gift may be the only way to stop the madman.
Combining the disturbing imagery and virtuosic writing of Thomas Harris and the intricate plot twists of John le Carré, Joseph Glass catapults the suspense thriller to an entirely new dimension. In Blood, he has fashioned a relentless, masterly psychological drama that leads to a most unexpected and bone-chilling climax. And he has given us Susan Shader, a hauntingly appealing heroine we've definitely not seen the last of.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780743211338 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 07/12/2000 |
| Series: | Susan Shader Novels Series |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 400 |
| File size: | 496 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter Four
"Career criminal Calvin Wesley Train was found guilty of first degree murder with special circumstances today by a jury in Madison, Wisconsin, after a hard-fought trial which took nearly five months."Train, who abducted and killed third-grader Harley Ann Saeger last year, was defended aggressively by high-profile attorney Alexander Penn. An eloquent witness in his own defense, Train insisted he had no memory of harming the girl..."
Loud music was playing, so it was somewhat difficult to hear the reporter's voice. The bar was full of regulars who worked in the Loop and were here for a beer or a cocktail before heading for home.
Most of the dinner tables were unoccupied, but a few patrons were having dinner at the bar. The place served a variety of sandwiches and hamburgers.
Miranda Becker was drinking a margarita and waiting for her cobb salad. It had been a long day and she was too tired to face going home alone and cooking a solitary supper. She had been here before, with friends, and knew the food.
But there was another reason, one she did not like to admit to herself. Doug might come in here on his way home.
He wouldn't be alone, but that was one reason she wanted to see him. To see who he was with.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the bar. She looked pretty, she thought. The slight pallor, the dark eyes, the long hair. She had lost weight, and was wearing a snug sweater and tight slacks she could not have fit into six months ago.
She looked like what she was: a woman who had cut her links to the person she was only a short time ago. A clean slate. A person trying to start over.
Unfortunately, the despair under her careful makeup and new clothes was as visible as the slight wrinkles around her eyes. She was not as young as she used to be. The clock was ticking. She had invested four years in Doug and got nothing out of them. Now she was four years older. Her market value was slipping with every birthday.
She sipped her drink and shook her head slightly. It was hard being a woman. She hated this jungle in which all unmarried women had to compete. There was no honor in it, no value. Only the frantic struggle to get chosen before others. The battle to grab off the available man before another attractive, smart, eligible woman got him first.
The face in the mirror was still young. But the battle she was fighting made her feel old before her time.
She remembered Jane Fonda in Klute, the prostitute dragging herself into a music bar to look for men, doing a half-hearted ersatz of swaying to the music with a bright smile, then abruptly faltering, sagging, her face expressing the disgust and loneliness she felt inside. Then pulling herself together, exhaustedly...
That was what Miranda saw in her own face as she looked in this mirror. A bright, eligible young woman trying to look attractive, trying to hide her emptiness and despair. This was not real. This was not living.
"Hello. Haven't we met?"
The voice belonged to a face that had appeared at her side in the mirror. He didn't look familiar.
"I don't think so," she said, her voice intentionally off-putting.
"I guess I must have seen you here before. I'm in here pretty often."
The bartender was approaching. The jukebox was playing the Phish tune she liked, "Bouncing Around the Room." The stranger ordered himself a glass of wine without offering Miranda another margarita. She studied his face in the mirror. A tall man, rather good-looking. Not in the way Doug was good-looking, but not bad.
He sipped at his wine in silence before turning to her.
"I hate this season."
Miranda gave him a low-voltage smile. "Why?"
"It's the doldrums," he said. "The weather stinks. Summer won't be back for a long time. There's nothing to look forward to but Thanksgiving with the relatives, and then the holidays. I'd feel better if it was March."
"Then what would there be to look forward to?" Miranda asked, hearing her own depression in her voice.
"Summer, anyway." He twisted the glass of wine, watching the pattern of the condensation.
"What happens in the summer?" Miranda asked, knowing she was encouraging him.
"I'm a sailor," he said. "I have a sailboat here in the marina." He looked at her. "Do you sail?"
"I have." She nodded. "But not in a long time."
"I love to get my feet off dry land," he said. "It's an escape. I know it's dumb, but when I get away from the shore I feel free. I feel cleansed."
She knew what he meant. But she had never felt that way, not at all. Boats stank of bait and fish. The slapping of the water against the hull grated on her nerves, and she was prone to seasickness. She never felt liberated at all on a boat.
"Well, you can escape for a while," she said. "But you always have to come back to dry land."
"I'm afraid that's true," he said, smiling at her in the mirror. "And dry land isn't all it's cracked up to be."
To her surprise, she was getting over her embarrassment. He seemed a decent sort. Friendly, self-deprecating. She wondered whether he sensed her mood and was playing to it, or whether he himself felt sad and empty, as she did.
"Tell me," he said. "What do you do for escape?"
She thought for a moment.
"Think," she said. "Read. Music, sometimes."
"I envy you." He smiled. "Thinking has never done it for me. All I do is brood."
She nodded. But she had spoken honestly. Thinking was indeed her greatest escape. She could sit in a chair and let her mind roam aimlessly over a landscape made up of memory, reflection, imagination, mixing elements of them all, drifting through them without being held by any particular one. She had learned how to do this as a little girl, when her parents were fighting or when something at school got her down. The mind was a powerful escape if one knew how to use it right.
"It's a two-edged sword," she said diplomatically. She could see he was the type who forgot his troubles through recreation. It would be difficult for him to understand her. She felt a bitter twinge of irony as she realized she was sizing him up for a relationship. She looked at his image in the mirror. Together they made a handsome couple.
"What kind of music do you like?" he asked.
This was the turning point, she told herself. One more personal word about herself and he would ask her to join him. It was up to her.
She glanced at the clock. Six forty-five. Doug might still show up. If he did, he would not be alone. She hated the idea of letting him see her eating a solitary supper at the bar. Wouldn't it be better if she were with someone?
Besides, why not start over? What difference did it make if she had wasted four years of her life on one man?
Ancient history, she thought sadly.
She looked once more at the face in the mirror. Inwardly she sighed.
"Mozart," she said.
Two hours later Miranda awoke with a crashing headache that forced her to keep her eyes closed.
The peculiar smell in her nostrils seemed to be the source of the terrible pain. Chloroform? She didn't know.
She was lying on her back, her hands and feet tied to the corners of the bed. Was it a bed? Or just a mattress? It felt strange against her skin.
She drifted in and out of consciousness. What was going on? What had happened? She remembered the stranger in the bar, a drive in his car, a drink. Then nothing.
She fought the headache, clenching her eyes shut and moaning softly. She suspected it was morning. Was she in his bed, or hers? Had she done what she was afraid she had done?
He came into the room, interrupting her reflections. He was wearing a surgical mask and a scrub suit. He seemed busy, preoccupied. Miranda thought she was dreaming.
He knelt by her side, tied a tourniquet around her arm, and stuck a needle into her. He was muttering to himself, but her terror combined with the effects of the drug to keep her from understanding.
Now she realized the ceiling was mirrored. She could see herself lying naked, tied to the mattress. This could not be a dream, she thought.
"Hold still," he said.
A plastic bag was attached to the needle in her arm. She saw it filling with her own blood.
"What are you doing?" she cried.
Only the formless mutter answered her. She could feel her blood going out of her. She opened her mouth to scream, but passed out before she could utter a sound.
When she came to, she felt pain in her hands and feet. She instinctively tried to pull her hands to her face, but they were tied down. She knew now that this was not a dream.
"Help!" she screamed. "Help me!"
He came back into the room. The look in his eyes had changed. They were sparkling with expectation. His hands were held up. He was wearing surgical gloves. In his right hand was a scalpel.
As he came closer she saw that he was naked from the waist down. A long penis swayed between his legs, erect and moist.
"Don't," she said in a trembling voice. "Don't."
He crouched beside her.
"Just relax," he said.
He placed the blade at a point just below her rib cage.
"The important thing is to relax..."
The blade cut into her, then downward. Pain exploded inside her. The scalpel fell to the floor with a clink. Now he was holding a long knife, poised in both of his hands. The rhythmic mutter had started again behind his mask.
He raised the knife high with both hands and plunged it into her. The shock knocked the wind out of her, silencing the scream on her lips.
In the mirror blood formed a halo around her body.
Instinct told her that death was at the terminus of this moment, and the realization brought resignation in its train. She floated outside herself, toward the ceiling in which she was mirrored. She saw the spreading sea of blood, and recalled his description of leaving dry land for something liquid and free. She saw the half-naked man working over her naked body.
Ancient history, she thought. She was past caring.
But now, as she floated past him, she made out the words behind his mask.
"Blessed art thou among women..."
He was praying.
Copyright © 2000 by by JSL Productions, Inc.
Chapter Five
Susan was still under the emotional cloud of the Harley Saeger verdict. She wanted to get back to normal as quickly as possible. She had patients to think about, and writing, and plans for a visit to California to see Michael and to have a conference with his second-grade teacher.
It turned out she would not be able to catch her breath. David Gold was in her waiting room when her last patient of the day left. He looked overlarge and out of place in the leather armchair, a copy of People in his hands. He had crossed his long legs, and his shoulder holster bulged behind the lapel of his rather threadbare suit jacket.
"You again." She smiled, her arms crossed.
"Got a minute?" he asked, throwing the magazine on the coffee table.
"Come on in."
He entered her inner office, which was cluttered with books and computer supplies. A Macintosh of recent vintage was on the little table, attached to an external Zip drive. Susan was in the habit of writing down notes on her patient sessions on the computer during her lunch hour and at the end of the day.
"What's up?" she asked.
"We found the damnedest thing this morning," he said. "Out by the lake, near Grant Park. A woman's body. Stabbed to death. Really butchered."
"Is that so unusual?" Susan asked.
"She was wrapped in a body bag," Gold said, settling his long frame into the extra chair in Susan's inner office.
"A body bag." Susan pondered the odd notion. "That's certainly peculiar."
"I've seen them in every place and container," Gold said. "Cut up in little pieces, in cars, in boats, even one in a coffin once."
"In a coffin?"
"Right in the front parlor at Smithfield's Funeral Home, in Carbondale. The funeral director came down one morning and found a corpse laid out that didn't belong. We never solved that one."
He shook his head. "But a body bag -- that's a new one."
Susan said nothing. She sensed he was leading up to something.
"Pretty tragic," he said. "A young woman. Worked here in the Loop as editor of a business trade journal. Not married. Very intelligent, from what I can gather. She must have been good-looking, too -- before."
"Do you have any ideas?" Susan asked.
"Not a one," he said. "I went over to her office this morning. She had a small staff. They can't believe it. We called her family. The mother's dead, but the father lives in a retirement place down south. He's flying up." Gold shook his head again. "A hell of a lot of stab wounds," he said. "She didn't have much blood left in her."
He looked at Susan.
"ME has the body," he said. "I was there this afternoon. The techs dusted her apartment today, just in case. She lived pretty near you. Lincoln Park."
"What was her name?"
"Becker. Miranda Becker."
There was a silence.
"What have you got going?" Gold asked.
Susan smiled. "Same old stuff."
"Want to stop over there with me?" he asked. "It's on your way home, almost."
Susan looked at her computer. "I have to write down a couple of things. Let me meet you there."
Gold wrote the address on one of Susan's Post-it pads.
"We can have a drink after," he said.
"All right."
The apartment was in one of the older buildings in Lincoln Park, with a good view of the lake but very little floor space. It had a look that was at once feminine and businesslike. The curtains were bright, the fabrics on couches and chairs colorful. There were a couple of attractive throw rugs on a beige carpet. The bookshelves and cabinets were walnut, as was the computer desk, which dominated the small living-dining room.
On the walls were prints of paintings by old masters. Vermeer's View of Delft was on one wall, and Breughel's beautiful Hunters in the Snow, a painting Susan knew, was over the couch. There were also a couple of Rembrandt portraits and a religious picture that Susan guessed was by Botticelli.
There were heavy art books on the shelves, along with business and computer journals and paperback novels. While Gold talked to his office on the phone, Susan wandered past the books, letting her fingertips brush the spines. Many of the English and American classics were represented, along with modern novels that seemed well-thumbed. Sue Miller, Toni Morrison, Anne Tyler. The Good Mother was a hardcover. The Great Gatsby was the old Scribner paperback, badly worn along the spine.
Miranda Becker was a reader. Looking into the small bedroom, Susan saw a pile of library books beside the bed, all bearing bookmarks. Like Susan herself, Miranda must have liked to read several books at the same time, opening the one that appealed to her each night when she got into bed.
The TV was an old Sony portable. Significantly, there was no VCR. Miranda could not have watched much television. There was an exercise bike in front of the TV, a relatively new Tunturi similar to Susan's own.
On the bookshelves were pictures of Miranda, her parents, and siblings.
"She has a brother and sister," Gold called across the room. "Both older, both married. The brother lives in Oregon, the sister in Tennessee. I've already talked to both of them."
Only one of the photographs seemed recent, a Christmas family shot from a couple of years ago. The rest were older. Yearbook pictures of the brother and sister. A posed family portrait from a long time ago, when the siblings were all children. The faces were interesting, Susan thought. The brother and sister took after their father. They both had his sandy hair and square chin. Miranda, the youngest, resembled her mother, a handsome woman with dark hair and sad, intelligent eyes.
There were few things in the world Susan found more fascinating than family pictures and family albums. One could tell a lot about people from the way they posed when they were with members of their family. Particularly when the pictures could be compared to shots taken with friends.
Miranda Becker was very attached to her family, Susan guessed. There was a protective air about her older siblings in the photos. Miranda was at least five or six years younger than her brother and sister. A late child. The parents seemed loving but perhaps a little remote, as though they presided pridefully over their three children but did not know them terribly well.
A picture of the two sisters together was especially eloquent. The older sister was shorter than Miranda and heavier. She had the look of an aunt already, though she could not be much older than thirty. Her hand was on Miranda's shoulder, protective and, Susan thought, admiring.
"Do you know what the brother and sister do, David?" she asked Gold.
"The brother is some kind of businessman," Gold said. "The sister is a housewife, I think."
That sounded right to Susan. The sister seemed homey and sheltering. Miranda, on the other hand, looked like the family's outsider, not only because she was physically distinct from her siblings but because there was something private behind her smile, especially as she grew older. Something she kept from the family.
"Look at this, Susan."
Gold had opened the computer desk and was pointing to some manila folders.
"This isn't business," he said. "These look like manuscripts." He had one open. "Look. It's a short story."
Susan looked at the folder. A manuscript of about twenty pages, printed in typewriter-style lettering, bore the title "Ancient History." She squinted to see the author's name. Camila Rhys, she read.
"Writing under a pseudonym?" Susan asked.
"With rejections, too," Gold said, pointing to a handful of rejection letters from literary magazines. Susan caught a glimpse of one of the polite rejections: "...writing is fine and fluid, but we felt the central characterizations lacked believable shape. The overall thrust of the story, we also feel, is too negative for our readers..."
"A closet writer?" Gold said, raising an eyebrow.
"Looks like it," Susan said. "I wonder if any of her work was published."
"We'll find out," Gold said.
Susan felt a brief pulse of awareness inside her. She sensed that these creative writings tucked into the dead girl's desk had been important to her.
"May I hold it?" she asked Gold.
He handed her the folder. Susan turned over the story's pages, one by one, letting her fingers brush the printed words. The first line struck her. I wouldn't go back there again. Not if you paid me. The story seemed to be about a relationship. The last line repeated the haunting title. Ancient history.
"David, could I read this?" she asked.
"Sure," he said. "Everything's been dusted already. I'll sign it out to you. Does it seem important?"
"I suspect it may be," she replied.
She looked in the bathroom. Alfred Sung perfume, some Anne Klein toiletries. Nothing remarkable except the fact that the dead girl liked quality fragrances. Susan had the sense that Miranda was intelligent and cultured. Her disdain for television entertainment, her preference for reading and art books, rhymed with the expensive perfume and the elegant prints on the walls. A bright, upwardly mobile young woman who took herself seriously. Did her sophisticated tastes signify a loyalty to her parents, or a rebellion against them? Susan could not tell.
"Do you know where she went to college?" she asked Gold.
"Smith, I think. Or maybe Sarah Lawrence. One of those chichi places back east. She went to private school, too. Rosemary Hall."
"Were her parents wealthy?"
"I don't know," Gold said.
An unmarried young woman who wrote fiction in her spare time. A lonely young woman, Susan guessed. With something to hide, perhaps.
The only remarkable thing about the bathroom was a rather large supply of sanitary napkins in the tiny closet. There were five large boxes of super absorbent maxi-pads. Perhaps Miranda had been having trouble with her periods. Or perhaps she simply liked to be careful.
Gold was on the phone, talking in low tones. Susan opened the medicine cabinet. A bottle of Advil, some birth control pills. Melatonin. Bottles of Darvon, Percodan, the prescriptions dating from about six months ago. Also a bottle of Ambien, prescribed somewhat later. The girl needed some help sleeping.
Gold hung up the phone and came toward Susan.
"Something else," David Gold said.
"What?"
"There's blood on her body that isn't her own." Gold looked perplexed. "Quite a lot of it. They're typing it now."
"She must have fought back," Susan said. "Were there defensive wounds?"
"Not that I saw. But I didn't spend that much time with the body. We'll ask Wes later."
"That, and the body bag..." she said.
"Yeah. Something isn't kosher here."
Gold stood tapping his fingers against his pant leg. "Anything else, Susan?"
Susan stood looking at the apartment. Gold glanced at his watch, but did not rush her. She had a strong feeling about Miranda Becker. A feeling of family, and of something else.
She went back into the bedroom. The bed was a double bed, attractively furnished with a fine comforter, pillow shams, a bed skirt. The young woman who slept here valued her sleep, and perhaps her comfort when in bed.
The bed was in a somewhat odd position, a bit too near the door. When Susan sat down on it she understood why. A person lying against the pillows could look out and see clouds or the moon along with the tips of two large skyscrapers. The windows of one of the buildings reflected the lake. It was a tiny sliver of view, but it was eloquent and quite beautiful.
Susan let her fingers graze the pillow. Her eyes closed. She felt languid mornings spent floating in and out of somnolence, dreams alternating with waking thought, a long, slow process of waking up.
You have your whole life ahead of you.
Susan's fingers were tingling. She felt something warm and something cold. A tremor went up her arm. The warm was family. A long time ago. Belonging, remaining. Happiness.
The cold was something internal and painful. Something hopeless.
Susan bent forward, holding her stomach. Gold, at the door, was watching her.
"She had an abortion," she said.
"When?" Gold asked
"Recent. A few months ago, not more. That's why the sanitary napkins. And the pills. She had some bleeding for a few days. It..." Something took Susan's breath away. She stared unseeing at the wall above the window. "She..."
Ancient history.
A bitterness, Susan thought. A deep, angry bitterness.
Gold was silent, waiting.
"She had a lot of suicidal thoughts in this bed," Susan said. "Some before the abortion, but mostly afterward. I should never have been born. Things like that. Also..."
Susan stood up and walked back to the living room. She picked up one of the family portraits which showed Miranda with her brother and sister. The family seemed so proud of her...
She struggled to clarify what was going through her mind. It was exhausting, for no message reaches a psychic unalloyed.The surface tension of the mind is so great that messages can only penetrate it at the price of a certain violence. Once a hole is punched, disparate signals from other sources rush in like detritus sucked into a vacuum. Some of these come from the past, others from the future. All have to compete for space with the psychic's own unconscious thoughts and feelings. And if there are resistances within the psychic to certain painful thoughts or themes, the psychic material may be distorted by these resistances, just as though it were a dream thought or an unconscious thought. Susan had written a paper on this phenomenon a couple of years ago.
"Sailing," Susan said aloud.
Gold stood in silence, looking at her.
"Sailboats," she said. "Out on the lake. People...Sailing." She shook her head as though trying to clear away cobwebs.
You can escape for a while, but sooner or later...
"The father doesn't know," she said.
"Whose father? Her father?"
"The baby's father. Doesn't know she was pregnant. Doesn't -- " Susan passed a hand over her brow. "Doesn't know about the abortion. That's what she thought about at night. She couldn't sleep. That's why she got the sleeping pills. Her thoughts kept her awake. There was anger at the father. Grief over the dead child..."
With a last effort Susan grasped at the thread hidden among the others.
"There's something else," she said.
The quarry slipped away. "I can't get it," she said.
"Okay," Gold said. "We'll find the father. That's a good start."
He waited another moment. Susan stood up, took a last look at the room, and followed him into the living room. He helped her on with her coat. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
"She's looking at him in a mirror," she said. "She's suspicious. She's..."
A headache was creeping through Susan's temples. She shook her head.
"At who?" Gold asked.
"She's not exactly suspicious. A kind of bitter humor. Hopeless."
Gold turned off the lights. They paused at the door.
"Who?" he asked. "In the mirror. The boyfriend?"
She shook her head. "The killer."
Copyright © 2000 by by JSL Productions, Inc.
Chapter Six
"Sources close to the investigation have revealed a grisly detail," the reporter said. "The body of the victim was found in a rubber body bag. Police spokesmen refused to comment on the specific type of bag or its probable origin, but observers have suggested that the killer may work or have worked in a hospital, mortuary, or other location where body bags are found. A possible connection to the armed services is also being explored."
The downtown wind sprayed the reporter's face with frigid raindrops. She pushed a lock of hair from her moistened cheek.
"So far there is no evidence the victim had any enemies, or anyone who might have a reason to harm her," she added. "She led a quiet life as a writer/editor for a business journal here in the Loop. Her friends have expressed shock and disbelief at the crime. When it was suggested that she may have known her killer, co-workers said this was impossible."
An image of a young man in a trench coat outside his place of work appeared on the screen. The video light glared off his glasses.
"I'm convinced she didn't know the killer," he said. "Nobody Miranda knew would be capable of a thing like this. This is some sort of crazy person, some sort of random killing."
As the reporter's face reappeared the anchorman threw in a question. "Meredith, is the body bag the only unusual feature of the murder discovered so far?"
The reporter shook her head.
"Actually, Ted, the police are deeply concerned that the detail of the body bag was leaked," she said. "They have now clamped down on all details of the case, and are refusing to confirm or deny anything about the victim or any suspects they might have. Incidentally, a grim nickname for the killer has already popped up based on the MO of the body bag. He's being called the Undertaker. There is fear in some quarters that the murder of Miranda Becker was only the first in a series."
"Let's hope this is the first and only crime by this perpetrator," the anchorman said. "Meredith Spiers, thanks for your report. In other news..."
The tape paused on the final image of the reporter. Beside her in an insert was a photograph of the victim. They bore a certain resemblance to each other. Both were young, both had dark hair and milky skin. They had intelligent eyes, and the characteristic look of ambitious women. Crisp, straight, serious.
It was hard to say where the victim's photo had come from. It was too recent for a yearbook, and too finished for a family snapshot. It looked like a studio head shot, dramatically lit and very attractive. Why would she need such a photo? She wanted to look good, even alluring. Why would an editor for a business journal want to look so good?
In any case, the glossy image increased her resemblance to the pretty journalist. They looked almost like sisters, framed together that way in the frozen image. Joined by youth, health, strength. Vibrant young women, one dead, one alive.
Two.
One of the mysteries of womanhood, the watcher reflected, was the exponential charge created by the sight of two women instead of one. Their combined attractiveness was infinitely more provoking than that of either one taken separately. There was something almost mystical about it. Like the tandem of Good and Evil, so much more powerful than Good alone.
He lingered over this thought for a moment. Then, still holding the remote in one hand, he pulled down his pants with the other. The penis rose proudly, its tip poised in front of the mouth of the reporter. He held it in his hand, feeling it pulse against his fingers.
He backed up the tape until the reporter was alone, then pushed the frame advance until the insert appeared with the victim's face in it. From one to two, he thought. The spiritual power of addition. Four breasts. Twenty fingers. Two tongues. Two women...
His breathing was becoming short. The shaft was straining in his hand. He let the remote drop onto the sheet. Without taking his eyes from the screen he picked up the glass from the table beside the bed. Warm to the touch. He brought it to his lips, taking in the coppery smell like a benison.
God, he thought, tasting the liquid.
The two faces rose before him, silent, mocking. He groaned.
"This is my blood," he said, holding the glass out to them.
Then, with a gasp, he anointed himself.
Copyright © 2000 by by JSL Productions, Inc.