The Drifter(32)

CHAPTER 8


SERIAL, AS IN MORE THAN ONE


August 25, 1990: Night

By the time Betsy and Gavin were driving back from that first trip to the lake, both with sunburned cheeks, itchy, bitten ankles, and the remnants of a buzz, Betsy was in deep. Neil Young had been replaced by the Feelies in the CD player. As they sped through the long, tree-lined roads she thought the humming of the locusts, hidden among the leaves, sounded like backup singers, their low, vibrating buzz in perfect rhythm with Only Life. The cool lake water, the sunbaked dock under her skin, the lazy drowsiness of the day, the weird yearning she was feeling for what was happening, even while it was happening, made her think that if she could peer inside her brain she would see the memory forming. At one point, she caught herself staring at the way Gavin’s tattered T-shirt hung over the top of his shoulder and had to talk herself into getting her shit together. From the passenger seat, she could see that his Wayfarers were smudged with greasy fingerprints and that the scruff on his chin was sparse and, from certain angles, a little seedy. But she decided she was fine with it—all of it.

As soon as they were back within city limits, reality was there to greet them. Gavin pulled into Pete’s Chevron to fill up the tank and they ran into Danny, a gangly, perma-grin stoner who wore nubby gray socks with his flip-flops as a sort of signature, the strap that separated the big toe from its companions cramming the fabric between the two digits in the most unfortunate way.

“What up, Gav?” said Danny, as he let the snack-shop door slam behind him with a jangle. He had a pack of sunflower seeds in one hand and a plastic cup for the newly vacant shells shoved into the pocket of his vintage checked shorts.

“Danny,” Gavin announced, in that ambiguous name-shout greeting that didn’t reveal the intentions behind it, no happy “How you doin’, brother” or subtly hostile “Where you been, fucker?” Just Danny.

“What’s your theory on this serial killer thing?” he asked.

“What do you mean, serial?” Gavin said, glancing at Betsy in profile, still in the passenger seat, to see if she could hear him. She could.

“As in, more than one,” said Danny. “It’s confirmed. They found a third body. The first one they found they thought was a fluke, some pissed-off boyfriend who lost his mind. Then they found two more girls early this morning, same weird bite marks on their bodies.”

Danny lifted the empty cup to his lips and launched a shell into it.

“And dude, get this. One of their heads was on the bookshelf.”

“Bullshit,” said Gavin. “You are so full of shit.”

“Ask the guys inside. Cops were in here earlier and they all but confirmed what they’d heard on the police radio. They got some kind of scanner and shit,” he said. “Hey, you don’t have to believe me. But you’ll read it in the paper soon enough. There are three victims. That crazy fucker cut off a girl’s head and put it on a bookshelf. He stabbed all of them something like ten times, in the chest, with, like, a machete or something. I mean, they’re saying that he cut off their tits and . . .”

“Whoa, whoa, we’ve got it. I got the picture,” Gavin said, as he glanced back at Betsy, whose eyes were trained on Danny.

“Fine. Like I said, don’t believe me if you don’t want to.”

“What’s surprising is that you’re still believing everything you hear. In this town?” said Gavin. “Bored-ass people making up stories is all that is.”

“I speak the truth, brother,” he said, shuffling through the parking lot, head shaking. “Why don’t you ask Phil Donahue what he thinks? He’s setting up cameras in the Plaza right now. They think the killer might be dressing up like a cop, or a deliveryman, since there’s no sign of forced entry. It could be anybody.”

“Good idea, Danny. I’ll ask Phil Donahue if he thinks you’re full of shit,” said Gavin.

“Seems like he’s targeting young girls, maybe brunettes? That’s all they can guess about his pattern so far,” continued Danny, despite Gavin’s skepticism, his raised eyebrow. “Not Phil Donahue, dickhead. That murderous lunatic on the loose.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Just you wait,” he said, scuffing across the hot asphalt, in no particular rush. “You’ll see it in the papers, and think, ‘Ole Danny knew all the news that’s fit to print.’”

Gavin and Betsy drove the rest of the way into campus and neither of them dared to say a word. Betsy had a rare moment of absolute clarity. She was still a kid, selfish as hell, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that these dead girls were ruining their moment. During her entire time at college, she imagined the threat came from the young women around her, casting judgment, chastising her for being different, mocking her behind her back. And now there was a threat so visceral and real that she could barely process what was happening around her. It occurred to Betsy, suddenly, that she should feel sympathy for the parents of the victims, or consider their families in some way. She thought, Why wasn’t that my first instinct?

“I wonder if we knew them,” Gavin said at last, when they were stopped at a traffic light. “Like, did I sit next to one of them in class? Were those girls in that room full of five hundred strangers, nodding off to a lecture nobody remembers?”