What You Don't Know(45)
“Fine. I need some air.”
It’s the smell of blood that’s bothering him, the smell of death and piss, but more than anything, it’s the smell of Simms in the room that sends him reeling. It’s not perfume—she probably hadn’t been able to afford anything nice—but just deodorant, powdery and light, and laundry detergent. Basic smells, clean and fresh, and they seem so out of place here, with all the blood, and those words, those fucking words up on the wall.
Outside, there’s a Korean guy standing in the driveway, leaning against the bumper of a car, getting his blood pressure taken by a paramedic. His mouth is frozen in a wah-wah shape, like one of those unhappy masks they use in theatre, and every time he weeps, clouds of steam come puffing out from his face, only to immediately rise and disappear. Frank Cho, who said Carrie Simms was a good tenant. That she was always thankful for the kimchi and the bean sprouts he’d bring over, that she was quiet and respectful. He’d been hoping she’d renew her lease and stay on another year.
Those words on the wall, and the missing fingers—they’re small, but it’s the small things that are usually the worst, the ones that cause the most damage, like tumors hidden away in the meatiest parts of the belly, patiently waiting for the right time to spew their poison and kill the host. But it’s not only those things—it’s Loren dressed like Seever, acting like him. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It’s not fair. He needs to be able to move on with his life. But it’ll never be over, like Seever had said. And, somehow, he’d been right the whole time.
Hoskins’s hands are shaking, and he can’t keep the image of Seever out of his head, sitting there with his wrists chained to the table legs in Interview Room Two, smiling, and probably doing the same thing with Loren, out at the prison. Talking nonstop, barely any pauses between his words, stuffing their heads full of shit. Seever had fucked Hoskins up real good, and now Loren too.
I’d choke them until they were almost dead, he’d told Hoskins. Then I’d bring ’em back. Resuscitate them. I took a class on it one time, down at the Y. And when they’d come back they’d be so thankful, they’d cry, they’d think I was ready to let them go. They thought I was done.
“You bastard,” Hoskins mutters angrily. He’s wasted so much of his life on Seever, so much of his time, and now it’s like he’s back again. The snow has started, falling from the gray sky, and the flakes get caught in his eyebrows and melt into little daggers of icy pain. The paramedic with Cho glances at him over his shoulder, then goes back to his patient. “You fat fucking bastard.”
“You all right, Paulie?” Loren says, but Hoskins has already started walking, out down the driveway, where Carrie Simms’s rice burner is parked, past the main house, because if he doesn’t walk he’s going to lose it, he has to walk even though it’s cold and the wind is blowing and the tips of his ears are already numb. He has to get Seever out of his head, even if it’s just for a few minutes, a few blocks. When he walks he can tune it out, Seever’s whispers, he’s been listening to them for the last seven years and he hears them still, they’ve never ended.
He ducks under the yellow police tape and fights his way through the crowd that’s gathered at the sidewalk. There’s quite a few out there now. People are drawn to crime scenes like flies to horseshit, regular people looking for excitement, and the freaks, and then there’s the media, always looking for a story, with all their questions, getting into everything, like kids sticking their fingers in light sockets just to see what happens. Sammie’s one of them; she might be the worst, always putting her nose where it doesn’t belong, showing up at the wrong time, and he can’t stop thinking about her and Seever, together, that asshole on top, between her thighs, splitting her open, grinning and grunting, deep in his throat, oh, Hoskins doesn’t need to know what it would be like because he can imagine, and that makes it so much worse.
Hoskins has only the vaguest impressions of the crowd as he pushes through it, the hands grabbing for his sleeves, trying to force him to pause for their questions. He wishes they’d turn off the flashing lights on the patrol units, it’s like they’re trying to attract more people. Loren will be right behind him, he knows, on the other side of the police tape, snapping photos of the crowd to look at later, because some killers like to watch the chaos they’ve created, to take part in it, like a ghoul feeding off the misery of others. Hoskins is thinking about this as he sidles past a woman carrying a baby suckling on a bottle, Hoskins is looking around, his eyes sliding across the crowd, seeing but not really seeing, so he doesn’t see the face of the man who turned away from him, quickly enough that it caught his attention. The guy has his shoulders hunched against the cold, and he’s walking fast, away from the scene, and there’s something strange about that, no one else is leaving, not until they get some idea of what’s going on. Hoskins is still watching when the man looks back over his shoulder, a little too casually, and Hoskins sees that it’s Ted, the guy in the next office over who’s always so curious, who’s so nice, who wants everyone to call him Dinky.
Ted, who has access to everything in the police database.
Ted, who’d just been talking to him about Seever.
Ted, who sees Hoskins is watching him and breaks into a run.
It’s not even a contest—Ted is young but Hoskins is quick, and besides that he’s angry; all he can think is that he’s been working with this kid, he’s been nice to him, he even bought him lunch one time, and here he is. It doesn’t matter to Hoskins that this isn’t how police work is done, you can’t fly off the handle and manhandle people, Hoskins has been through this before, he should know better.