Already Chosen, page 16
“That’s right,” Nate confirmed. “Why? Do you know something?”
Detective Thorson nodded. “I handle a lot of – well, a lot of incoming paperwork,” she said, all but verifying Laura’s assumption. “I’ve seen a few reports about a tailor who lives locally. He’s been reported a few times for odd behavior.”
“There aren’t any logs in the system,” Nate said, frowning.
“No, there wouldn’t be,” Thorson replied. “Every time, it gets dismissed. I only know about it because I’ve seen the same name come up a few times. He’s kind of a loner, I think. I’ve driven by his store, but it’s just an empty storefront with a couple of mannequins in the window – he works on his own and you have to place an order ahead. When he is there, he often ends up scaring people on the street. That’s where the reports come from.”
“Where is the store?” Nate asked, getting up from behind the computer already.
“Well, that’s the thing,” Thorson said. “The business shut down recently. His erratic behavior had been running over onto the work he delivered to his clients. We actually had someone report him for ruining a jacket of theirs by sewing it up all weird. We referred them to file a suit since it wasn’t exactly within our remit.”
“So,” Laura said, making a careful summary of the situation to be sure she was getting it right. “We have a tailor, who works locally and almost certainly with mannequins, who is already known for erratic and increasingly strange behavior, who also recently had a trigger event in the form of losing his business?”
“Yes,” Detective Thorson said, and blushed slightly. “I’m sorry, I should have put it together earlier. I just didn’t think of him until I heard you mention tailors.”
Laura couldn’t blame her for not thinking of it. From the way she talked about it, she hadn’t had much personal involvement in the case – she’d just handled the paperwork briefly. If she did that for all the cases that came through the precinct, or even just the majority, that would be a lot of cases to try to remember.
“We’d better pay him a visit at home,” Laura said decisively. “You know where to find him?”
Thorson brought her hands out from behind her back, revealing a sheaf of paperwork. Some of it evidently related to the searches she’d done on wholesalers, but the paper on top held what Laura could clearly see was a handwritten address. “Yes, ma’am.”
Laura considered it for a moment. She usually hated working with new people – especially since it forced her to hide her abilities even deeper and start the usual old lies all over again. But today, at least, she had something of a confidence boost. Maybe it was being with Nate again, having her partner back on her side. Either way, she was feeling generous.
“Would you like to come along with us?” she asked.
Thorson’s eyes widened almost comically, and she nodded faster than Laura had seen a person nod before. “Yes, ma’am,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Laura looked up at the dark building, squinting her eyes. “Are you sure this is it?” she asked. “The place looks like it should have been condemned.”
Detective Thorson nodded eagerly. “I’m sure,” she said. “I’m pretty sure it would have been, if any building inspectors came over. It’s definitely not up to code. I guess over the years the revenue from the business dwindled and he hasn’t been able to maintain it. I only know rumors, but I think he inherited the place from his parents.”
“Is he home?” Nate asked, leaning forward to crane his neck past Laura and look out of the car’s window. It was getting dark even though it was still late afternoon, a consequence of the lateness of the year. “There aren’t any lights on.”
“No car parked outside, either,” Laura said.
“There never is,” Detective Thorson replied. Laura glanced at her sitting in the backseat, through her rearview mirror. “I pass this way on the way home. I’ve never seen a light there. I have seen him moving around outside from time to time, though. I remember because the first time I noticed him, it was right after I’d seen him in the precinct for one of his reports.”
“Alright,” Laura nodded. “Curtains and blinds are closed. I guess you wouldn’t bother doing that if no one was home.”
“Unless you wanted to stop kids from breaking in and trying to hold a party in the local haunted house,” Nate said, making it clear exactly what he thought about the appearance of the place.
“We should take a look, at least,” Laura said. She glanced in the rearview again. “You coming in with us, Detective?”
Thorson hesitated. “I’m not really supposed to do active stuff,” she said.
“Because of a disciplinary issue?” Laura asked.
Thorson fidgeted in her seat. “No. The Captain says I’m too small to confront suspects.”
“Did you pass the entrance physical?”
“Yes.”
Laura turned around in her seat so they could lock eyes properly. “Then you’re fit enough for duty. If it’s an unofficial ruling, then come in with us. We’ll cover you if he gets mad. You can tell him we ordered you to come.”
Thorson’s face broke into a hesitant grin. It was like the sun coming out. No one had believed in her – Laura could see that. But she’d come up with a great lead, and her local knowledge seemed to be second-to-none.
They all got out of the car at the same time, peering up at the building before Laura led the way up to the front door. She wanted to laugh at Nate for hanging back from what he’d called the ‘haunted’ house, but as she approached, she found a shiver passing over her spine, too.
Something was off, here. She didn’t know what, yet, but it wasn’t right.
She reached out and knocked on the cracked, peeling wood of the door, which had apparently once been painted a deep shade of red. Now, there was nothing but scraps of the paint left, looking like nothing so much as blood pooling out of the door itself. Another reason to shiver. Laura listened, but there was no response.
“This is weird,” she muttered, casting a glance behind her at Detective Thorson. From the hopeful expression on the detective’s face, Laura didn’t have to ask again whether she was sure if someone still lived there.
Laura reached out again, and on a whim touched the door handle. She didn’t even have to turn it – the door had clearly been left just on the latch, and when her fingers brushed over it, it simply slid open.
Laura swallowed. She wasn’t superstitious, herself. Even if she had been – she had psychic visions already. The supernatural or weird shouldn’t have scared her. She was still wearing the thin bandage on the side of her hand after the last time she’d been too close to a serial killer, a burn that felt so normal now she barely thought about it, almost healed. She shouldn’t have been afraid to come up against another, not given the number of times she’d faced killers and come out victorious.
But still, there was another little shiver down her spine, making her glance at Nate for reassurance this time.
He looked even more unnerved than she did.
“Guess we should go in,” Laura said, out loud, just to hear someone else agree with her.
Nate nodded firmly. “Could be someone in distress, with the door hanging open like that.”
“Right.” Still, Laura had to take a deep breath before she forced herself to step forward, willing a vision to come when she touched the wood again, a warning that would tell her what to expect on the inside.
Of course, there was none.
Laura stepped into a dark and dim hall, barely able to see anything. She grabbed her phone and turned on the flashlight, hearing two steps of footsteps move onto the wooden floorboards behind her. She cast the beam around and frowned; the place looked abandoned. There were personal effects everywhere, yes: framed photographs on the walls and on shelves, a few keys on a hook, even a couple of pairs of old men’s shoes shuffled under a bench seat near the door. The problem was, all of it was coated in dust and cobwebs.
It didn’t look as though anyone had been here in an awfully long time.
Laura glanced back at Nate and Thorson, not wanting to make a sound still, just in case. Nate was right about teenagers seeing this place as an open invitation to come inside. There was no knowing what they were about to walk into. She made a signal with her hands, gesturing to Nate and to the left, then to Thorson and to the right, and finally to herself and straight ahead.
The others nodded.
Laura moved with stealth down the corridor, hearing the others pad off to the sides as quietly as possible. The floorboards creaked as she moved along them, an unfortunate effect she couldn’t control. They needed to be stealthy here, but there were some things you couldn’t avoid in a building of this age.
The route she had taken led into a long kitchen space, covering the back part of the building. She cast the beam from her phone in a slow arc. There was nothing – no one. No sign of recent life. There were dusty, moldy plates stacked up by the sink, holding the remains of some long-dead meal. She listened, but there was no low buzz from the fridge to indicate it was turned on. She didn’t dare open it, imagining the smell of spoiled food that would spill out as soon as she did.
It was creepy, the whole place. Like someone had got up one day and left halfway through their normal daily life, then never come back. As if they’d simply fled some awful incident. A flood, a forest fire, a volcanic eruption, the onset of war. Some kind of evacuation. But the house was undamaged, preserved perfectly as it had been on that one day – just coated with a film of dust over it all.
Satisfied the room was clear, Laura moved back to the corridor. Twin beams of light swept from both the other sides of the hall and convened as she approached – Nate and Thorson had also conducted their searches. Laura raised her phone just slightly to illuminate their faces without blinding them, watching them both shake their heads. Nothing.
Laura was about to suggest the stairs, hoping they would be structurally sound, when a noise made her breath catch in her throat and froze her in place.
A voice?
Was that a voice?
She glanced at Nate. He had heard it to. He nodded to something behind her slowly.
Laura turned and looked. Another door, one she had overlooked. It was difficult in the pitch darkness; she must have swung her beam of light too far to one side and not seen it, sandwiched between two dusty, thin cabinets in the hall. She shivered lightly. There was a faint noise again, something that sounded just like a voice, even if too distant to work out what it was saying.
She reached for her gun at her belt, loosening it. On second thought, she drew it. If their killer was down there, they could be about to walk into a very dangerous situation.
She moved forward hesitantly, shining her light on the door. There were patterns in the dust around the handle and on the floor, as though someone stood here often to open it. This was it. It had to be.
Laura reached out for the door, bracing herself for a vision that did not come, and then slowly and carefully slipped it open.
To her relief, despite the age of the door and the house, there was no creak as it swung out towards her. It must have been regularly oiled, kept in good shape while everything else was falling apart. If this was the only area of the house that was used, it made sense.
To her dismay, but also not to her surprise, it was not another room that awaited them beyond the door.
It was a set of stairs, leading down. Down into a basement.
Laura took a deep breath, trying not to think about the burn on her hand and the fact that she’d been tied up in a basement when it happened, and stepped out onto the top of the stairs.
She held her breath, listening for a creak, but the wood held. That wouldn’t be the case further down, she thought, and the other two joining her would put even more pressure on the structure. They wouldn’t have the element of surprise here. They would have the benefit of the higher ground, but only in an enclosed space – and they would have to emerge into the basement presumably in full view of anyone who might be below. Her hand flexed on the grip of her gun, her heart in her mouth. This was dangerous. Maybe too dangerous. Maybe they should retreat as silently as possible and call for backup.
Then the voices floated up to her again from the stairwell. Voices, because there were two.
One of them, soft, impossible to make out fully. A little higher, more feminine, although to her ear it still sounded male. Perhaps someone younger, with a higher-pitched voice. Then there was another that answered, loud and booming. It seemed to echo strangely off the room below and up the stairs, creating an echo of itself that bounced around and confused her ear, making it impossible still to figure out what it was saying.
But it didn’t sound happy. It sounded angry.
Like someone shouting at a prisoner that was trying to reason with them.
Laura couldn’t wait for backup. Not hearing that. She could hear the potential scenario: the killer and his next victim, waiting down there, pleading for his life. There was nothing to say that the victims had to be killed at their own homes or in a public place, after all. Maybe this tailor of theirs had realized that he was close to being caught and decided to lure someone to his own home instead, delaying their discovery.
She couldn’t stand by and wait.
Knowing they would not be able to get the jump on him if they tried to creep down slowly and the wood gave them away, Laura made a split-second decision. There was light coming from below, beyond the bottom of the stairs. She put her phone away, gripped her gun in one hand and used the other to steady herself against the wall, and started to jump down the stairs two steps at a time.
She rushed headlong out of the opening into the basement, whipping her head around in all directions. She swung her gun around towards the first human figure she saw –
And froze, frowning, her brain trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
There was a strange scene spread out before her, one that took her a long moment to digest. There was a long table in the center of the basement, set up like a trestle table for a dinner party for a large group: covered in a white sheet and spread with various dishes across the middle, plates and cutlery in front of each chair, waiting for the guests to choose their food.
And it was not an empty table. At each spot around the table but one, someone was sitting, ready to eat. They were all frozen, as if waiting for something to happen before they could pick up their knives and forks.
At the head of the table, standing, there was one more figure. A man dressed in a dusty black suit, the lines of it streaked with gray. No: when Laura looked closer, she realized that the lines on his suit were marks made with tailor’s chalk, as if to mark out all of the places where the garment was to be adjusted.
He turned towards her, lured by the sound of her footsteps down the stairs, and she found her gun swinging up towards him. At the same time, she had heightened awareness of everything else: Nate and Thorson tumbling down the stairs behind her, no doubt with their own weapons ready to fire. All of the people around the table, any of whom could have been a potential threat.
But none of them moved. Not a single one of them reacted to her presence at all.
And when Laura spared one more glance away from the man dressed in the tailor-ready jacket, Laura understood why.
They were all mannequins.
Each of them was dressed in a different jaunty outfit – some in suits, others in shorts and t-shirts, female mannequins in dresses and skirts. Their faces were marked with paint in the approximation of faces, some of it faded or chipped, clearly from old-fashioned mannequins that were meant to resemble real people. They wore wigs and hats to cover their plastic hair, and for a moment with a brief glance, the effect was actually convincing enough to fool the eye – but not now that she’d had the time to look again.
The tailor was holding some kind of dinner party down here, as though each of the mannequins was a guest in his home.
“Who were you talking to?” Laura demanded quickly. If there was someone else down here –
Nate moved behind her, and she sensed him passing by as he began to scan the rest of the room, gun out and ready.
The tailor said nothing, but his eyes drifted down to one of the mannequins. It was dressed as female, with vivid red lipstick smeared on top of the original paint job, a blonde wig covering the eyes partially.
It clicked: the tailor had been talking to himself. Providing the voices for his guests. Acting out the scene, not just positioning it for visual effect.
There was no victim. He was alone down here.
Still, it was the closest display Laura could think of to what she had seen the killer perform. The idea of all of these guests set up and ready for a full scene, an eerie tableau waiting for him every time he came back to the house. A fake life, so removed from reality that he no longer spent any time upstairs in the main house.
“Frank Geharty?” Laura asked, to which the tailor nodded silently. He was still frozen in place, looking right at her, one of his arms still outstretched in a gesture towards the woman he had been ‘talking’ to. The single movement somehow made his pose even more unnerving: the knowledge that he could move if he wished, and yet was choosing to act like the mannequins around him.
“Clear,” Nate said quietly behind her.
“We’re arresting you on suspicion of murder,” Laura said, putting her gun into her belt with the knowledge that Nate had her covered and bringing out a pair of handcuffs. She opened her mouth to give Geharty his rights, but she found herself stopping in surprise as the tailor turned slowly and placed his hands behind his back, clearly offering no argument against his arrest.
All of which left her feeling more unsure and unnerved than if he had put up a fight or tried to run – and gave her another feeling, too. The feeling that this case, resolved as it seemed to be on the surface, was still far from over.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
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