The Boulevard Monster, page 14
One night I also spent a few hours researching lavender, curious if the scent Luther carried had any significance to his being. All I found were hokey spiritual sites that claimed the scent promoted calmness, higher consciousness, inner peace, and symbolized a search for higher purpose, spiritual connectivity, or love. There was nothing about lavender related to powers or abilities. Maybe Luther thought it would help him seduce his victims, or calm them down, making it easier to kill them. Or maybe he just liked the smell. I don’t know. Maybe it reminded him of his mom or the pond or something.
Sure to keep out of view from the blue jay perched in the pear tree outside the library window, I flipped through various books on beasts and monsters while Sera feverishly jotted down notes for her report. I watched the cruiser across the street and checked the blue jay more than I actually read, though. Like me, the bird seemed to occasionally check the cruiser. It flew over to the roof of Sonic a couple of times, staying for five or ten minutes before coming back.
In the silence of the library, I once again became all too aware of the invisible clock that was counting down to my unraveling, the numbers decreasing as steadily as water from a faucet. The cops were watching, following, pressing. The birds and Luther were watching, knew I was under suspicion. Ryan was “getting too close” to the truth. Although she tried to hide it, Brianne was still suspicious of me.
The clock was ticking, and there was only one way to stop it before it stopped me.
We left the library, and on the way to Brianne’s doctor’s office, Sera rambled on about her report and about how ridiculous Mr. Hayes was. As I listened, I constantly glanced in the rearview mirror but didn’t see the cruiser following.
We parked next to Brianne’s Fit, walked inside, and found her seated in the small waiting room. She had on her Golden Corral clothes. Her sweaty hands were on her knees, and she had a nervous look in her eyes.
Sera sat between us and excitedly grabbed Brianne’s hand. “Beth Anne said her mom knew she was going to be girl. She said she had a feeling that told her that only mothers can have. Do you have that feeling? What do you think the baby is? A boy or girl?”
Brianne glanced at me, then looked at Sera and shrugged.
“I hope it’s a girl,” Sera continued. “I’ve always wanted a little sister. Susie told me if you are carrying the baby in your back it’s a boy, and if you carry it in the front it’s a girl.” Sera touched Brianne’s belly. She had a tendency to be handsy like her mom. Always touching and hugging and leaning and rubbing. Esperanza had touched the head of any baby she crossed, the cheek of any kid she saw, and gently laid her fingers on every adult’s hand she spoke with. She’d said it made people feel secure and special to be touched by someone who cared. “You haven’t gotten much of a bump in front so it’s probably a boy,” Sera added. “I’d love to have a brother, too.”
Brianne smiled and said she had no idea. She just wanted the baby to be healthy.
“Me, too,” Sera said.
Before she could ask anything else, I asked Brianne, “Is Ryan coming?” She’d called him the night before to invite him. She’d invited her mom, too, but her mom had claimed to be ill.
Brianne shook her head. She looked like she was about to burst into tears. Taking a cue from Sera who was still holding Brianne’s hand, I put my hand on Brianne’s shoulder. She met eyes with me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, figuring Ryan’s no-show probably had something to do with me. Ever since our argument, he’d uncharacteristically avoided me at work, been short with me when he had to interact, and although he occasionally talked to Brianne on the phone, he hadn’t been by the house once, increasing my belief that he was the one behind the anonymous call.
As we sat in the quiet waiting room, waiting for the doctor to call Brianne back, my eyes roamed to the parking lot outside, searching for an unmarked cruiser, and it occurred to me that maybe the cops had been keeping an eye on me for a long time. Maybe I’d only just noticed them. Maybe ever since—
“Brianne,” Dr. Stevens nurse called out from behind a partially opened door. She had a calm smile on her face and spoke soft and delicate. “Come on back.” She led us to a room where Brianne changed into a gown and lay down on a table. I stood on one side of her, Sera, the other, holding her hand.
Dr. Stevens was sixty-something, six-foot-something, had silver hair, a tremulous left hand, and moved as delicately as his nurse spoke. First, he examined Brianne and listened to the baby’s rapid heartbeat. Then he pulled the monitor close the bed, slathered her belly with jelly, and began strobing the wand over her skin. Her free hand grabbed mine, tight. She hadn’t said more than a handful of words since Dr. Stevens had entered the room. She’d been overly concerned with the health of the baby in the past few weeks, obsessively searching the Internet for birth defects, deficiencies, and diseases. We’d fought about it a couple of times, and I’d unwisely told her she might be the first person to have a baby damaged by the Internet. She hadn’t talked to me for two days after that.
As Dr. Stevens moved the wand around, the shape of a curled, large-headed human became visible on the screen, eliciting a happy chirp from Sera. My heart sped up, and I smiled a gigantic smile. “There it is,” Sera said. I glanced at Brianne and saw she had closed her eyes.
Dr. Stevens kept his eyes on the monitor. “Good size. Right on schedule. Looks healthy as we’d hoped for.”
“Are the arms and legs there?” Brianne asked.
Dr. Stevens slid his eyes at her and smiled with one side of his mouth. “Yes.” He patted her leg with his shaky hand. “Look for yourself. Everything looks great.”
Brianne opened her eyes. Sera motioned at the monitor. “Look. There’s the little person that’s been making you have to pee all the time.”
I ran my hand over Brianne’s head, my thumb over the worry creases in her brow.
“Let’s see if we can get a good angle…” Dr. Stevens said, moving the wand a touch. “Ah, look.” He pointed at a white smudge between the legs. “It’s a boy.”
I’d be lying if I said a profound feeling surged through me and changed the way I saw the world. Or if I said an immeasurable happiness overcame me. I was happy the baby was healthy. I was happy it was a boy. But Brianne’s anxiety had more than half of my attention.
Sera squealed loud, and everyone looked at her. “Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t help it. I’m going to have a brother!”
“Thank God,” Brianne whispered, breaking her silence.
“I thought you didn’t care if it was a boy or girl?” Sera asked.
“I don’t,” Brianne answered. “I’m just glad he’s all there.”
“He looks perfect,” Sera said. “Right, Dad?”
“He does,” I agreed.
Brianne was thirty weeks pregnant before she was willing to decorate the baby’s room. We bought a crib and matching changing table/dresser from local Mercy carpenter Luke Knowles, who makes everything by hand and without toxic chemicals. It cost a pretty penny more than the snap-togethers at Mel’s Furniture, but it’s what Brianne wanted. Her fear of the baby being born with genetic deformities had morphed into us causing other deformities after the birth by exposing the baby to chemicals. BHT, BHA, phthalates, and all that jazz.
Luke brought the crib and dresser by on a Saturday, and the following morning Brianne and I were putting the final “boy” touches on the room. We used to mock our friends when they had a baby on the way and would decorate in the traditional blue or pink, sports and princesses, but when our turn came, we fell right in line with them. We joked about it all morning, like old times, her blaming me for our slip into mainstream, me blaming her.
Brianne’s friends at the Golden Corral had had a baby shower for her the week before and had pitched in and bought a slew of diapers and onesies for her. She was folding the onesies and stacking them in the dresser, her round belly making it hard for to reach the back of the open drawer, when she asked me to go get the rocking chair from the garage.
“All righty,” I said.
“I think that’s last thing we need to bring in and we’ll be done.” She stopped folding and glanced at me. “Then we can take a break and have some lunch.”
“Pretty hungry, huh?” I asked.
“Starving.”
“If you want, I’ll go by Rosa’s after I bring the chair up and get some of those chicken tacos you like.”
She nodded and a soft smile stretched across her face. Like her breasts, her cheeks had plumped up in the last week or two, giving her face a round cherub quality. Keeping her eyes locked on mine, she dropped the onesies, walked over, knocked my lucky Ranger’s hat off my head and kissed me, swirling her tongue around inside my mouth. She tasted sweet, like freshly squeezed orange juice mixed with vanilla ice cream, which she’d had for breakfast. She slid her hand down my abdomen and rubbed my crotch. “When’s Sera supposed to be back?” she asked.
“Not until this afternoon,” I answered, running my hand up under her shirt.
She grabbed one of my belt loops and led me to our room. Our sex life had always been healthy. No matter what else was going wrong in our life, the sex was always good. We often joked that our libidos had been separated at birth. But in the last month, or sex life had exploded from good to fucking awesome. Brianne seemed to want it all the time. Something about the pregnancy, maybe the hormones, I don’t know, made her like a rabbit in heat. All I had to do was sneak my hand down her pants and squeeze her ass when no one was looking, or even just give her my best sexy wink, and she would start surveying the area, searching for the proper location to do the deed. She said her orgasms were more intense lately, longer too, and she wanted to get the most out of it before that baby reamed her. I was more than happy to oblige. I told her she could use me as her sex slave whenever she wanted.
When we finished, she hopped in the shower, and I dressed and headed downstairs to get the rocker. Storm clouds were brewing to the west of town, and I flicked on the TV as I passed through the living room to check the weather on the noon news. A tornado had skirted the north side of Mercy two weeks earlier, causing Brianne to demand we have a storm shelter installed in the backyard. A guy from Blankenship Tornado Safety was supposed give us an estimate on Friday.
I found the rocker in the corner under a quilt. My dad had given us the hand-made rocker. It was the same one my mom had rocked me in. She called it our Lurth portal. “When I start rocking,” she’d always said, “just close your eyes and hold on tight.” Brianne and Sera had worked together and made some blue and white, back and seat cushions for the chair. Using the seat cushion to help balance the chair on my head, I had taken two steps upstairs when I heard Michelle Farmer, the same lady who’d reported on the missing Boulevard girls months earlier, talking about them again. My legs froze and all my after sex-giddiness disappeared. I turned and watched the screen.
“The number of the missing Boulevard women has now been reported by some people to be six or seven, all having gone missing in the past two years,” Michelle said. “All of them are suspected to be prostitutes, and I found one woman who worked with them who was brave enough to talk to us.”
The screen cut to what appeared to be a prostitute standing on the corner of Roosevelt and the Boulevard in front of the Night-Bye-Night Motel. Her face was blurred out and her voice distorted. She wore cut-off jeans and a sloppy tank. Sores and scabs dotted her visible arm. “All of us are scared of the Boulevard Monster,” she said, her voice oddly as gruff as a man’s. I wasn’t sure if the media had altered it on purpose or her throat had been marinated in smoke and liquor for far too long. “Something nasty and evil is out here with us. We all feel it. It’s scary to be out at night now. Dangerous. Even if you aren’t working. That monster could be behind any dark corner waiting to snatch you. You never know.” The woman shook her blurry head. “Those girls who went missing were just trying to make a living. Doing the best they could for themselves. They didn’t deserve to be taken or killed.”
“Have you seen anything suspicious in particular you can tell us about?” Michelle asked.
“Just shadows that I stay away from.” The woman wiped at her blurry face with a blurry hand, then added, “Right now everything out here is suspicious. Rumors are flying like bats out of Hell. Everyone thinks they’ve seen him. Hiding. Waiting. Hating”
The screen cut back to Michelle Farmer in the studio. “I spoke to two other women off record, and they confirmed this woman’s sentiment. Everyone walking the streets of the Boulevard for any reason is terrified. Rumors of the Boulevard Monster’s identity are growing with no end in sight. I reached out to Detective Morrell at the Mercy Police Department for an interview, but he denied my request, saying the investigation was ongoing, and that the department is doing everything it can to find the missing girls, following up on every lead. If you have any information on the missing Boulevard women or the identity of the so called Boulevard Monster, call Crime Stoppers.” The number popped up on the bottom of the screen.
I hurried over to the TV and shut it off when I heard the floorboards in the upstairs hall creaking. Brianne stopped at the top of the stairs. She was drying her hair with one towel, another tied around her waist below her baby bump. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I was just checking the weather and getting the rocker.” I continued upstairs, suddenly feeling hot, flushed. Guilty as hell. “You want to ride to Rosa’s with me?” I asked. She stepped out of my way, and I passed her without making eye contact.
“Sure. Let me get changed real fast.”
As she dressed, I put the rocker where she wanted it, then went to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face, to rinse off the guilt. That was the first time I’d heard the name Boulevard Monster. It was a fitting name for Luther. I couldn’t have come up with a better one myself.
Twenty
Goddamn Flyers
I wasn’t sure if Luther hadn’t contacted me because he knew the cops were watching or because he’d left town. My assumption was that he had “investors” in various cities in the U.S. and possibly all over the world. It would make sense. To keep suspicion at bay. He couldn’t risk having too many women, prostitutes or not, vanishing all at once. But if a hooker vanishes here and there every now and then in one city, then a few others in another city halfway across the country, who would connect the dots? That would be typical run-of-the-mill occurrences. Often, sad as it sounds, a missing hooker in a large city is like a lost sock. You throw out a few possibilities of what could’ve happened to it and move on. I assumed this was why Luther vanished for months at a time. His reach was long. Web-like. Planned out to the T. He knew better than to stick around any one place for too long.
Either way, I was glad Luther hadn’t contacted me. I’d had time to do more research, and time to assemble a killing kit. Despite how ridiculous it sounds, in a backpack in the garage I had three sharpened stakes, one made from oak, one from birch, and one from elm. I had a bottle of holy water I’d swiped from Saint Stephens on Western, a bulb of garlic, a crucifix, a large knife, a container of lighter fluid, and a box of waterproof matches. Overkill? Maybe. Paranoia? Definitely. But I had to be ready for anything. I still had the rifle in my garage, the handgun and a machete in my truck.
Time had also given my guilt time to fester. Every time I’d go baby shopping with Brianne, or to the mall with Sera, or to the grocery store, or to Lowe’s for work supplies, I’d see the missing person fliers. One day, when no one was looking, I ripped one off a bulletin board and shoved it in my pocket. Before long, I had secretly swiped one of every missing Boulevard girl. At home, I studied them, memorized each missing girl’s face, birthdate, likes and dislikes, and so on. I had no idea how many of them Luther had killed or how many I’d helped him dispose of, but I was certain I carried some of them to their final resting place.
Those missing girl’s families deserved to give their loved one a proper burial and send-off. I couldn’t imagine if anything like that happened to Sera. If she went missing and I…I don’t want to type about that. The thought alone is unbearable.
I kept the flyers in an old orange and red folder. I hid it on a shelf in the closet in the unused spare bedroom, under a box that held my childhood baseball card collection. The room was littered with unpacked boxes and unused furniture. We called it the Give Away Room. When home alone, I’d go to the room, lock the door, pull the blinds closed (to keep the birds eyes off me), and study the flyers, giving the girls my attention, learning who they were, where they were from. I hoped wherever they were, whatever form they were in in the afterlife, that they knew I was sorry for my role in their deaths, and that I cared about who they’d been.
One Monday after work I went to Wizzards and knocked back four shots of whiskey and three Dos Equis. Brianne was working the night shift and wouldn’t be home to keep an eye on me. The pregnancy had made her extremely horny, but it had also made her frown on my drinking more than ever. I’d been hiding it by drinking Vodka at home instead of beer. The beer odor was hard to mask, took hours to consume, the cans and bottles hard to hide. But I could hide a bottle of Vodka behind the towels on the top shelf in the spare bathroom that Brianne rarely used, take a couple of swigs when I went to pee, pop a peppermint in my mouth on my way back downstairs, and be on my merry way. I just had to be sure not to kiss Brianne for a while afterward. Detective Morrell’s bullshit detector had nothing on hers.
Tipsy and guilt-ridden when I got home from Wizzards that Monday night, I went upstairs, opened the door to the Give Away Room, and found Ryan standing in front of the closet, rifling through my flyers. He hadn’t been to our house in months as far as I knew.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He jerked his head my way, flinched back and tripped over a stack of CDs. I flicked on the light to brighten the room as he caught his balance. He peered at me with surprised yet challenging eyes, like a coyote caught in the chicken coop, feeling no remorse because it was starving.
