Ghost Writer, page 4
“She says you’re never home for dinner. Why not?” She crossed her arms emphatically.
“Meg, I’m busy. I’m a senior fiction editor now. I’ve got a lot more responsibility. I’m trying to get some more time at home, but it’s hard right now.”
“My friend Robyn said that her dad’s married to his job. Is that what you are? Married to your job?”
Jonathan grabbed her hand. “Meg, no. I’m not. I’m just busy right now. That’s all. Things will calm down. I promise.”
“My friend Katie’s dad divorced her mom because her mom had an affair with her boss. Are you and Mom getting a divorce?”
“Where do you get these friends?”
“Daddy, don’t change the subject.”
Jonathan sighed. It seemed she had grown up overnight. She was asking too many questions. Too many right questions. “We are not getting a divorce.”
“Good.” Meg finally released some of the tension and anger as she tilted her head to one side. “I think you and Mom should have another baby.”
Jonathan laughed and choked all at once. “W-w-what?”
Meg smiled, obviously proud of the fact she had shaken up her father. “My friend Isabelle’s parents just had a new baby. She said it’s cool. They’re, like, young again. And she likes having a baby around.”
“Well, what about Sophie?”
“Dad, Sophie’s three. I’m talking a newborn.”
Jonathan pulled Meg to him, gave her a strong hug, and then stood. “Well, I don’t think you’re going to be able to convince your mother of that.”
Meg laughed and said, “But I’ve got you convinced?”
Jonathan pointed his finger at her, winked, and said, “Meg, you know you’ve got me wrapped around your little finger.” He stepped to the door and flipped out the overhead light, leaving her reading lamp as the only light. “Don’t stay up too late.”
“I know. You either.”
Jonathan nodded and quietly shut the door. In the next room he could hear Kathy putting Leesol to bed. He quietly walked across the hall into their bedroom and quickly changed clothes. He hopped into bed and pulled out Clyde’s manuscript from his briefcase. He was finding the place where he’d left off when Kathy came in. She glanced at him, the manuscript, and then went to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. Although he felt guilty, Jonathan hoped she would stay in there awhile. At least maybe he could get some work done. He’d only been able to read bits and pieces of Clyde’s novel, and wanted to read more in hopes of getting a better idea of what Clyde was doing with this story. He was hesitant about telling Nellie of it until he knew more. He shifted through the pages to find the place where he left off.
I walked down the long corridor as if it were my first time, though I’d probably walked it twenty times or more. The guard’s keys clanged loudly against the steel door as he unlocked it, and another guard methodically flipped a switch. The heavy door moved slowly to the left, and I walked through it.
“Need me, Agent Spade?” Mitch Richards, the guard on duty, asked.
“No, thanks, Mitch. I’m okay. I could do this in my sleep,” I lied.
Mitch smiled, but as he locked the door behind me, he said, “I know, Keaton, I know. Just remember to stay away from the glass, and don’t give him anything.”
The first time I ever made this walk, ten years ago, my feet had felt like lead, and the only thing that had kept me walking was my dignity. I was just about to make special agent in my department at the FBI, and I wasn’t about to let some quirky freak like Dietrich Donomar ruin it for me.
My heart had pounded so hard in my chest I thought surely everyone could hear it. It amazed me how hard it was still pounding.
A lot of people liked to compare Donomar to Charlie Manson, but I always thought that was an understatement. On the street, one might mistake Donomar for some type of male model or maybe a business executive. He was tall and domineering, and he had chiseled features that seemed to me to be like what one of those mythical Greek gods might look like.
He was, oddly, clean-cut and well mannered, his hair cut above his ears and his body language gracious and smooth. Not only that, he was brilliant.
He could multiply six-digit numbers within seconds. His mathematical capacity was equivalent to that of a computer on board a NASA space shuttle, so a few people had said. He also had a remarkable appreciation for classic literature and oftentimes in the middle of the night could be heard reciting Shakespeare, and even playing the different character voices.
He’d captured the dark imagination of the world. Several movies and books had been written about him, and whenever he was featured on a news magazine, their ratings would soar. The vice president of the United States had been quoted as saying, “Not even Stephen King could have thought up something like Donomar.”
He’d finally been captured ten years ago, and after more than forty hours of questioning, we had concluded that Dietrich Donomar was probably responsible for more than 150 murders inside the United States.
The strange thing about Donomar was that he didn’t fit any particular serial-killer pattern. Most serial killers killed their victims in the same way or followed some other distinct pattern, like the look of their victims, or a location, or some other constant. But Donomar killed both male and female, young and old, every race, from poverty to the richest of the rich. And he never killed in the same manner, either. Sometimes it was horribly bloody, and other times it seemed to be peaceful and painless. Some women he raped. Others he didn’t. One of his most notorious killings was that of an older woman in a nursing home who was dying of cancer. The papers had reported that she was suffering, but the family wouldn’t allow euthanasia. Donomar walked into the nursing home late one night and killed her by suffocation. Yet another time he killed a vibrant, healthy young athlete who had a bright future in front of her. He only had one weakness. He had to brag. And so he kept something from each victim to remember them by. That was it.
I had worked closely on the case with Pierce Jenkins, an FBI profiler and a good friend. In Donomar’s trial Jenkins had been the foremost advocate for keeping Donomar alive. He wanted to study him, try to find something that made him tick, some sort of pattern, some sort of childhood tragedy . . . something . . . that made Donomar who he was. But in the last few years, Jenkins was growing increasingly frustrated and had finally told the press, “I don’t know. He’s probably the closest thing to pure evil I’ve ever seen. I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve seen a lot of horrible things. But Donomar scares me the most.”
Later that evening, over drinks, I’d asked Jenkins why Donomar scared him so much.
“Because he doesn’t fit into our box, our definition of evil. He breaks all my rules. And I suppose that’s why it took us so long to find him.”
Those words echoed in my mind as I continued down the corridor. I didn’t know why my nerves always got to me like this, and I certainly wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, though I suspect most everyone felt the same way, especially judging from the almost absurd precautions the prison took to keep him secured.
Unlike the famous fictitious serial killer Hannibal Lecter of The Silence of the Lambs, Donomar was very conversational, and what made him even more eerie was that he wasn’t eerie in the least bit. It wasn’t out of the question that you might’ve had drinks with him at a bar. Maybe a few of his victims did.
I took in a deep breath and reminded myself to keep my guard up, however “friendly” Donomar might appear. Three years ago one of the guards had taken a liking to Donomar and had foolishly been reckless by not going through the entire handcuffing procedure used by the prison to move Donomar from his cell to his one-hour recreation time. The guard was found hung by his own uniform in the hallway leading to the rec area, Donomar simply standing there waiting for someone to come get him.
Curiosity kept nudging me closer. I hadn’t visited Donomar in over a year, so I was pretty surprised when I got the letter from him asking me to come visit, that we needed to talk “urgent business.”
As I approached his cell, I couldn’t quite see him, but I could hear him. Breathing. Probably reading. I clenched my fists together one final time before Donomar came into sight. I closed my eyes as the glass window came into view, and then, with one final step, I approached the front of the cell and saw—
“If you’re going to read, go downstairs.”
Jonathan about jumped out of his skin. “What?”
“I’m tired. I can’t sleep with your light on. You know that,” Kathy said as she climbed under the covers.
Jonathan laid the manuscript on his bedside table. “Kathy, I’m sorry. If it had been anyone other than Clyde, I would’ve insisted we reschedule.”
“If it had been anyone other than Clyde, you’d be sleeping on the couch.”
They looked at each other, then Kathy let a little smile slip. Jonathan grabbed the moment and started laughing. Kathy laughed, too, and they shared a light moment together. It was like old times, when fights were just fights and not permanent records etched into the stone of their hearts. The laughter died down, and then Kathy turned to him.
“You should’ve come home tonight, Jonathan.”
Jonathan suddenly grew very anxious, tired of continually explaining, convincing, apologizing. “Kathy, what do you want me to do? We’ve got three children, and you insist they go to private schools. We’ve got bills to pay.”
“I know that. But you’re not paid by the hour, you know. You don’t have to work eighty hours a week.”
“I didn’t get where I am by slacking. And besides, Nellie’s pressuring me. My last five books have—”
“I’d hardly call forty or even fifty hours a week slacking!”
Jonathan felt it coming . . . that horrible, irritated feeling that usually accompanied some sort of striking verbal explosion. “Let’s just drop it,” he managed under clenched teeth.
“Yeah, fine, let’s remain silent and dysfunctional, Jonathan. Let’s just pretend we don’t have any problems. I’ll put a smile on my face and tell Pastor Gregory on Sunday that you’re ‘working again.’ And you can spend a couple of minutes a week with the children just to pacify them. And the whole time you’re making your stupid publishing house a ton of money, your family is falling apart.”
Jonathan silently begged himself to remain in control. For his own sake, he had to remain in control. “The family is not falling apart. You’re overreacting.”
Tears filled Kathy’s eyes. “You and I are falling apart. Can’t you see that? It’s not the same. We’re not the same.”
Jonathan felt himself turn ice-cold. “Kathy, for crying out loud. We’ve been married twenty years. I’m not going to get goose bumps and giddy when you walk through the door.”
Her tears started flowing, and Jonathan immediately regretted saying that. But she always pushed! She pushed and pushed and pushed until he finally broke in some way! Why did she always have to do that?
Predictably she threw the covers back and hurried off to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. At least the tightness in his chest would subside now. It always did when this sort of situation finally met some sort of resolution—even if that resolution was his wife locked in the bathroom.
Eventually she’d have to come out. And until she did, he could rest. He leaned his head back against the headboard and at that exact moment came to a monumental conclusion in his life.
He was tired.
At forty-five, Jonathan Harper was worn out, exhausted, completely drained of life. He was tired of trying to love his wife. He was tired of trying to be the best editor in the industry. He was tired of trying to please everyone. He was tired of turning down the things that would make him happy. He was tired of all of it.
He rubbed his face in his hands and felt his throat swell with tightness. He tried to hold back the tears as long as he could, but they finally fell. He prayed Kathy wouldn’t come out of the bathroom at this moment of pathetic weakness.
But if he didn’t let this go now, he was afraid he might just have a heart attack or a stroke or some other stress-related illness. And besides, he was feeling for the first time in his life absolute hopelessness, most especially in his marriage. He couldn’t feel anything for Kathy anymore . . . at least nothing close to what he’d felt for her when they were first married.
He’d never once considered divorce, and if he were honest, he was too much of a coward to consider it now. Nevertheless, for the first time in the twenty years they’d been married, he wasn’t sure he could see another option. Kathy was miserable, and he obviously wasn’t providing what she needed. He, in turn, was restless and suffocating.
He turned his head to the side and picked up a picture of his three girls. Meg was holding a five-month-old Sophie, and Leesol had her arms wrapped around Meg’s waist. Just looking at them brought the purest joy imaginable, and it was because of them that he would not leave. Only because of them.
He sighed and suddenly realized he had to go to the bathroom. He flipped the covers back, stood, and made the long walk downstairs.
chapter 4
Jonathan left the house early, before Kathy was up. He’d opted to go ahead and sleep on the couch, not as a sacrifice or even a peace offering, but simply to avoid any more conflict. Plus, it made it easier to leave in the morning.
The office was quiet, void of the hectic busyness that buzzed around him on a typical morning. He had opened the blinds to his large window, letting the soft, glowing rays of the early sunrise filter hazily into his roomy corner office. He relished the moment’s serenity. Although he didn’t have any peace on the inside, he was, at the moment, able to control his surroundings to some degree.
He had the choice not to pick up that ominous manuscript that sat on the edge of his desk, and for several moments he resisted the urge. But the more he looked at it and the more he remembered what he’d already read, the more his curiosity began to get the best of him. He slowly reached for it and noticed his hand trembling.
Why am I so scared? Jonathan thought. What am I afraid of?
He flipped a few pages to where he’d left off. He had almost convinced himself this manuscript was an entire coincidence when yet another sentence grabbed his attention.
Young Jonathan had found his solace by spending the majority of his time in the barn. Nearly a year had passed since his brother’s death. Jonathan had retreated inward, not able to handle his own grief, and certainly unable to handle his parents’.
On this particular night, the air was notably cold, and Jonathan had left the house in only a thin sweater and his pajama bottoms. He hardly noticed the crunching snow on his bare feet as he kept his hands warm by tucking them deep within his armpits. He wondered if anyone would even notice if he just kept walking and never came back.
He glanced back at the large old house he called home. Over a year ago it had always seemed welcoming and warm. The chipped exterior blue paint gave it character. The screen door hanging on one hinge simply showed the house was used to its maximum.
But now it was all different, and in the dark the house loomed over Jonathan like a nightmarish beast. He carefully walked in its shadow, hiding in the darkness so as to escape safely to his barn.
He opened the large barn door with a hefty pull, and it creaked in a way Jonathan had never noticed before. He closed it behind him and felt around for the lantern he’d left hanging on the wall by the door. He found it with ease and lit it quickly.
Over him he heard a faint rumble of thunder, a sound that had calmed and soothed him ever since he could remember. Most kids his age were terrified of storms, but Jonathan embraced them, and at the first sign of a threat, he would race to the window and watch the falling lightning. That’s when he felt close to God, when God’s voice rumbled overhead in the clouds.
The three horses in the barn acknowledged his presence by shaking their heads. He walked over to his favorite, Spice, and stroked her long nose.
Without warning he heard the barn door creak. Turning around, he held the light above his head. He hoped with the approaching storm it was just the wind, but soon enough he could see his father entering.
“Jonathan? What are you doing?” Jonathan didn’t budge, his back against one of the stable doors. His father moved forward, and Jonathan lowered the lantern down next to his knees, casting a strange mixture of light and shadow on his father’s face.
“Jonathan?” his father repeated, now only feet from him. Jonathan felt himself growing reticent, humiliated that he’d been caught. He wanted to turn and run, but there was nowhere to go.
His father’s tall figure stood over him, and Jonathan could only peer up, speechless. But he knew he couldn’t remain silent for long. His father would demand an explanation.
“Son, I’m talking to you. Answer me.”
Jonathan’s grip tightened around the lantern’s handle. “I was checking on Spice.”
His father walked around him and touched the horse, checking her quickly and authoritatively. He finally bent down to Jonathan’s level.
“Jonathan, I know you miss your brother.”
Jonathan swallowed hard. He felt the hardness in his heart lifting. His father had hardly talked about Jason’s death, and because of that Jonathan had held everything inside. But now, as his father’s eyes, bright with reflecting orange and yellow light, stared into his, all he wanted to do was cry and be held. He felt his father reach out and wrap his large hands around his own.
“Jonathan,” he said softly, “I need to know something.”
Jonathan nodded, tears rolling down his face faster than he could’ve wiped, if he’d wanted to. At last, his father seemed like his old self and Jonathan felt like a normal kid again, vulnerable, fragile, and loved by his father.
