What Doesn’t Kill Her Read online

  He made a tiny hand gesture in reference to the much grander one he’d just made. “I thought our new member should know that she wasn’t the only one here… the only one in the world… to have lost everything.”

  She hadn’t known of David’s tragedy, but he seemed aware of hers.

  “This group has done me good,” he said to Jordan, “and it can do good things for you, too. But it starts with you letting it. You can’t allow this thing to fester inside of you. Or it will kill you.”

  “What doesn’t kill ya,” Levi muttered.

  Jordan turned to him sharply.

  “Makes ya strong?” He held up his hands in surrender and returned to silence.

  She supposed he was just trying to help. But what Levi had said—did that mean this long-haired goof knew who she was, too, and what she had gone through? How much did they all know about her?

  Dr. Hurst said to David, “I understand that you’re writing again.”

  David gave up a halfhearted shrug. “If you can call it that. Certainly nothing that’s worth a diddly damn.”

  “Are you working on something now?”

  While the writer stammered for an answer, Jordan felt a tingle at the back of her neck. She knew she would want to talk to David, and away from group. The crime against him and his family bore at least vague similarities to her own family’s tragedy, despite some jarring differences. She and he had both been spared. In her case, at least, it had been intentional. Had the same been true in David’s?

  Glancing up, she noticed that the group was wrapping up with David, eyes again slowly turning her way.

  Jordan tried to think of how to say that she had nothing to say when the man bearing signs of plastic surgery spoke up, in rescue.

  “I’ll go next,” he said in a measured baritone. “My name is Phillip. This is my second meeting.”

  Heads swiveled in his direction. Phillip had short brown hair and, unlike the other more casually attired members, wore a white shirt and red tie under a navy blue vest, with navy slacks and black loafers. He sat square in the chair, both feet on the floor, his hands folded in his lap.

  Then there was his face.…

  Angular, with high cheekbones and a pointed chin, his skin unnaturally white, his eyes light brown, his nose little more than nostrils, like two holes poked in snow. Lips virtually nonexistent. Though his speech was relatively normal, his breathing between words was clearly audible.

  “I didn’t speak at the last meeting,” he said, “but now the time seems right for me to share my story.”

  Everyone watched him expectantly. Though the damage to his face made it hard for Jordan to estimate his age, he must be somewhere in his thirties.

  “Go ahead, Phillip,” Dr. Hurst said.

  “I was walking my dog in Rockefeller Park,” Phillip said, sitting woodenly on the metal chair. “Near Wade Avenue Bridge.”

  Knowing nods; a well-known area.

  “What kind of dog?” someone asked.

  Dr. Hurst said, “That’s really not of any—”

  “English bulldog,” Phillip interrupted. “Named Cromwell.” He smiled and it was fairly ghastly. “I named him after a hero of mine.”

  This elicited a few impressed smiles and nods, but Jordan had no idea who Phillip was talking about.

  “Anyway,” Phillip said, “I was walking with Cromwell—this was two and a half years ago, winter. Cloudy, getting dark, but we’d walked that route, oh, hundreds of times before.”

  Jordan allowed herself to be drawn into the man’s account. She knew what he had to say would be terrible, and rather than bother her, it made him seem an ally.

  “Cold evening,” Phillip said. “Snowing earlier, but wasn’t when we were walking. I saw a man coming toward me with a shovel in his hands. I assumed he was a park employee, who’d been out clearing the sidewalks.”

  Phillip paused, inhaled, the sound resonating, punctuating silence that sat among them like another member of the group.

  “As we neared each other, I nodded at him,” Phillip said, eyes flicking around the circle. “When we were almost even with each other, the man swung the shovel, hitting me in the face.”

  Two members, a woman, a man, shuddered, as if feeling the impact.

  Unconsciously, a hand rose to brush his wounds. “It felt like he hit me with his car, but only in my face, my head. Everything went black, not in the sense that I lost consciousness—just vision. My feet went up and my head went back.”

  Phillip’s hands moved behind him, miming his effort to break his fall.

  “I felt my balance go, but I couldn’t get my hands down fast enough to brace me. When I hit, I cracked my head on the sidewalk.”

  “My God,” the woman halfway around the circle said. Then she covered her mouth, as if to prevent further comment.

  “Still, I didn’t lose consciousness. I was awake, seeing flashing lights—seeing stars, as they say—with blood running into my eyes. I knew what he was doing, though. Every single thing. He stole my wallet, my watch, my dog.”

  “He stole your dog?” someone asked.

  Phillip gave a weary nod. “I’m afraid Cromwell wasn’t much of a watchdog. I like to think he looked back at me with regret, as my assailant dragged him off. But I heard no whines, much less barks. Canines can be fickle.”

  Next to Jordan, Levi blurted, “Did they catch the jag-off?”

  “Cromwell or my assailant?” Phillip said with dry humor. “Neither, I’m afraid.”

  “Did you see your… your assailant’s face?” someone asked.

  Phillip shook his head. “He wore a hoodie, up, and it was getting dark. It all happened so fast. And yet I remember it in slow motion.…”

  There was a long silence.

  Finally breaking it, Phillip said, “But I learned one thing, at least, on that cold winter night.”

  They looked at him the way a disciple might at Christ or maybe the Dalai Lama. Would the secret of life be revealed?

  “I can take more than I ever dreamed I could,” Phillip said matter-of-factly. “And I learned that you have to focus on what’s important in life. Which is two things, come to think of it.”

  But what, Jordan wondered, if you didn’t have anything important in your life?

  Directing his comment to the stalled writer, Phillip said, “You have to do what you were put here to do.”

  By whom? God? The same God who allowed terrible things to happen to damage these people?

  Dr. Hurst asked, “And what is that for you, Phillip?”

  He smiled, and this time it wasn’t ghastly at all. “I’m a teacher.”

  As they shuffled out after the meeting, Jordan mulled it all. Among the people she had met here, one was still trapped by what had happened to his family, while another had managed to turn an attack on himself into something positive.

  David Elkins was a survivor, but one who had been absent at the time of the crime. The survivor Phillip, like her, had been personally attacked—perhaps not to the extent she had, but certainly violently assaulted.

  Two survivors—one positive, one negative. She felt close to both men, in their misfortune.

  But closer to Elkins.

  Was she crazy, thinking his family’s intruder might have been hers?

  She was well aware that she was posing herself this question while walking on the grounds of a mental institution.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mark Pryor sprinted up the alley, the material of his Men’s Wearhouse two-for-one suit pants straining, suit jacket unbuttoned and flapping, tie flapping too, his white shirt cool with underarm sweat, his Florsheims scuffing on the concrete.

  “Freeze!” he yelled, but why did he bother?

  The kid he was chasing, on this warm spring day—white, maybe twenty, surfer-blondness undermined by the dopey dragon tat running down his left arm—was way out in front, running as effortlessly as a track star among wannabes. This was probably due in part to the perp’s better aerodynamics—
after all, he wore only Reebok running shoes and a red leather thong.

  Mark had ten years on the freak, but even so was still the youngest detective on the Cleveland PD, only recently promoted. Right now, he felt like the oldest, lungs burning, legs aching, as the mismatched pair entered block three of the pursuit. The detective had his gun in hand, but that was mostly just a threat, and might have been a baton he was hoping to pass to a relay runner.

  Charging hard, Mark entertained the thought of shooting the perp—he was barely closing the distance between them—but that was only a fantasy. The paperwork and condemnation that would follow, even if he just winged the guy? Not worth it. Not close to worth it.

  Anyway, Detective Mark Pryor had never shot anybody.

  Ahead, the alley came to a T and his only real chance to catch Perry the Perv, as the youthful perp was known to the neighborhood, was anticipate which way the kid would go and beat him there.

  “Left,” Mark said between gasping breaths. A command, though Perry couldn’t hear him. Almost a prayer.

  Perry’s nickname, incidentally, came from everyone knowing that he collected jars of his bodily fluids in his rathole apartment and applied their contents in various unspeakable ways to, in, and on various mentally challenged teenage boys, who he also collected.

  Right now Perry was lathered in sweat, and the last thing the detective wished to do was lay hands on this noxious sex offender, and shooting the creep would prevent that. But how could you explain it to a shooting board? Bringing down a guy armed only with a thong.

  Mark picked up speed and cut a diagonal line toward the left corner—if Perry went right, then he was in the wind, good and g.d. gone. But the young detective was betting on left, because Perry hadn’t done anything right in his whole pathetic life.…

  True to his nature, Perry veered left, where Mark was coming up fast. The detective launched himself, his shoulder driving into the Perv’s ribs. He’d been the team kicker back in high school, but he knew how to tackle, all right. As much as he despised having to touch this lowlife, Mark hugged him tight and together they flew.

  “Motherfuh…”

  That was as far as Perry got before his nearly bare body skidded into the pavement, Mark on top of him, and the air whooshed from Perry’s body like a balloon a fat kid sat on.

  All that bare flesh had made a body’s worth of skinned knee of Perry, and the pebble-and-trash-strewn alley put up more fight than he did. Mark could imagine how painful that was—his knee burned where he had skinned it on the concrete and torn his pants. At least he had another pair at home. Of course, the jacket was filthy now and a mustard stain decorated a sleeve.

  He cuffed Perry’s hands behind him, then stood, brushing alley crud off as best he could. Perry lay on the ground, blood leaking from cuts and scrapes, wheezing like a fish on the deck of a boat, whimpering, trembling.

  “What were you chasin’ me for anyway?” Perry finally managed pitifully, as Mark hauled the scraped, bleeding, living carcass to its feet. “I wasn’t doin’—”

  “You have,” Mark interrupted, “the right to remain silent,” and continued to Mirandize the Perv, who continued to insist he’d done nothing wrong.

  Mark said, “Nothing wrong? You were in your bedroom getting ready to rub God only knows what onto Cleotis Redington.”

  This in reference to a mentally challenged teenager Perry had violated on more than one occasion.

  “That was strictly consexual.”

  “Consensual, dipstick.”

  “Consenting, consexual, whatever.”

  “Perry,” Mark said with a sigh, “I already told you, you have the right to remain silent. Do us both a favor and do so.”

  Perry shut up and this gave the prisoner a chance to take stock of his situation. “Hey, man,” he said. “I hurt. I’m really hurting.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have run.”

  And Perry started to cry, the way a little kid does who had skinned his knee. In this case, all over.…

  A heavyset guy in a cheap suit lumbered up next to Mark and stopped, hands on his knees as he sucked air. Detective Robert Pence.

  “Good… good… good,” Pence panted. “You… you… caught… him.”

  Six-three, near three hundred pounds, a few months from retirement, Pence had been assigned to keep an eye on the rookie detective. But to Mark, it sometimes felt the other way around.

  Out of shape or not, pretty much over the hill maybe, Pence remained a good, smart cop.

  “We got him all right, Bob.”

  “The helpless twerps of Cleveland can rest tonight,” Pence said. “But it’s your bust, Marky Mark, not mine.”

  “Your snitch’s tip led us here.”

  “Yeah, caught the Perv in the act, and isn’t that one for the memory books? But kiddo, last thing I need in what’s left of my career is another bust. What are they gonna do, add another five bucks to my pension? Use this, sonny boy—take it to Captain Kelley. Get on his fuckin’ radar.”

  Mark winced.

  “I know you don’t like that kind of language, kiddo, but this’ll get his attention. And then we—you—will have his attention on that other little matter.”

  “Think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “He shrugged it off last time.”

  “That’s because you insisted I take the lead. To him, I’m yesterday’s news, and he’s not wrong. This will be your show. I’ll be long gone, kiddo. Do it. Convince him.”

  An hour later, as the older detective booked Perry the Perv downstairs, Mark rapped on Captain Kelley’s pebbled-glass door.

  “Come,” Kelley said.

  Mark went in. He had not bothered to clean up, let alone change out of the filthy, torn suit. He stood there for a long moment while Kelley studied the screen of the laptop on his desk and continued typing.

  Captain John Kelley—rail-thin, titanium-hard African-American with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, a pencil moustache, and a hawk nose where half-glasses currently perched—had a reputation for being consistently hard and occasionally fair.

  After an eternity that was perhaps thirty seconds, the captain looked up. “Well, don’t you look like shit? Tell me the other guy looks worse.”

  “Yes, sir, he does,” Mark said. “Bob’s booking him now.”

  “Good. Very good.” He waved dismissively. “Go take a shower. You have spare clothes here?”

  “I do.”

  Kelley returned to his laptop, then glanced up with a frown. “Is there some reason you’re still here, Detective?”

  “I knew taking this lowlife down was a priority for you, Captain, and I thought you’d like to know we got him cold.”

  “I gathered that. Congratulations. Go take your shower.”

  Mark risked a smile. “I thought I might have bought a little… goodwill.”

  “You did, huh?”

  “Maybe… five minutes worth?”

  “Try three. As long you aren’t hoping to sell me that crackpot theory again.”

  And now Mark took an even greater risk. He sat in the chair opposite his captain. “It’s not a theory, sir. There’s nothing crackpot about it.”

  Kelley removed the glasses and pinched his nose. This meant the captain was getting a headache, and Mark knew his time here would be less than five minutes.

  “You believe,” Kelley said with zero enthusiasm, “that a serial killer is operating in Cleveland.”

  “I do, Captain.”

  “You do understand, that despite what the movies and television might have you believe, there is not an epidemic of serial killing in this nation. That it is in fact rare. And that on the rare occasion it does turn up, it is not our business—it’s FBI turf. You do know all that?”

  Mark nodded. “I would be happy if we could convince the FBI to take over.”

  “To take over what? There is no investigation.”

  “Sir, the killings in Strongsville follow the MO.”

  “MO,�
�� Kelley said, and closed his eyes. Whenever Mark used a term that was commonly heard on TV, the captain closed his eyes like that. Finally he opened them. “The FBI doesn’t feel there’s a serial killer at large here, which means there is no modus operandi. No ‘MO’ for a killer that doesn’t exist.”

  “Sir—the Strongsville murders—”

  “Are not our jurisdiction, FBI aside. The father in that slain family was an investment banker. You don’t think he destroyed enough families that somebody couldn’t have gotten a little payback?”

  “But, sir, it’s a family again.…”

  “Christ on a crutch, Pryor, years separate these murders, which only have vague similarities and many differences. That’s not the makings of a serial killer, especially in a city of this size.”

  Mark got to his feet and leaned his hands on Kelley’s desk. “I’ve done some digging on my own, Captain. On my own time. I don’t think he’s killing just here.”

  Kelley gave him a long, cold look.

  The thing for Mark to do right now was say, Yes, sir, thank you for your time, sir, and go clean up as requested.

  Instead, he said, “I think we’re just the perpetrator’s home base. I’ve found other murders, following a similar pattern, in several other parts of the nation.”

  The captain said nothing.

  “They all take place between the murders here in the greater Cleveland metro area. It’s almost like the killer traveled for a period of time, committed one of these atrocities, then traveled some more, committed another, then eventually, would complete the circle with another instance here in Cleveland.”

  Kelley shook his head in slow motion. “You don’t even hear me, do you, Pryor? You know the feds keep track of such crimes. They gather statistics, using sophisticated algorithms that are beyond our capacity. This allows them to focus on patterns like you’re talking about. If what you’re saying was the case, they would know.”

  Mark shrugged. “That leaves two possibilities. They already know and are working without our support, for some reason. Or… they missed one. They may be sophisticated, sir, but it’s not an exact science.”