The Fourth Monkey: A twisted thriller you won’t be able to put down

14

Diary

“Would you like honey in your oatmeal, dear?”

Mother made wonderful oatmeal. Not the prepackaged kind, no sir. She purchased raw oats and cooked them to a magical deliciousness and served them with toast and juice at the little breakfast nook in our kitchen.

“Yes, Mother,” I replied. “More juice too, please?”

It was a little past eight in the morning on a sunny summer Thursday.

I heard a gentle knock at our screen door, and we both turned to find Mrs. Carter standing on the stoop.

Mother grinned. “Hey, you. Come on in.”

Mrs. Carter smiled back and pulled open the door. Thanks to the bright sun, I saw the outline of her legs through her dress as she stepped over the threshold. She gave my shoulder a squeeze and smiled before walking over to my mother and giving her a light peck on the cheek.

I have to say, after yesterday, it was fairly tame. However, I did catch a glance as it passed between them.

Mother stroked the other woman’s hair. “Your hair looks absolutely stunning today. I’d kill for hair like that. I’m having an Irish coffee. Would you care for one?”

“What is Irish coffee?”

“My, my, you are young in the ways of the world, aren’t you? Irish coffee is coffee with a splash of Jameson whiskey. I find it’s the perfect pick-me-up on a warm summer morning,” Mother told her.

“Whiskey in the morning? How devilish! Yes, please.”

Mother poured her a steaming cup of coffee, then took down a little green bottle with a yellow label from the cabinet I was not permitted to open. She removed the cap and topped off the mug before passing it to Mrs. Carter. I couldn’t help but notice that their hands lingered together a moment longer than one would think necessary.

Mrs. Carter took a sip and smiled. “This is to die for. It must do wonders during the winter.”

Mother looked at the woman and tilted her head. “Isn’t that the same dress you were wearing yesterday?”

Mrs. Carter blushed. “I’m afraid so. I desperately need to do laundry today.”

“I can’t let you go through the day in yesterday’s clothes. Follow me.” She stood and started for her bedroom, taking the bottle with her. “I have a few dresses I don’t wear anymore. I bet they would fit you perfectly.”

Mrs. Carter smiled at me and chased after Mother, her Irish coffee in hand. I watched them disappear down the hall, Mother’s door closing as they stepped inside.

For the briefest of moments, I considered staying there at the table and finishing my breakfast. After all, it is the most important meal of the day. As a growing boy, I understood the importance of nourishment. I didn’t do it, though. Instead, I tiptoed down the hallway and put my ear to her door.

Nothing but silence came from the other side.

I went outside and circled the house.

Mother’s window was on the east side, above a large rosebush shaded by an old cottonwood. Careful to ensure I could not be seen from the street, I positioned myself to the side of the tree and turned to the window. Unfortunately I was still rather short, my thin body that of a boy, and only the ceiling of the room was visible from that angle.

I quickly ran to the back of the house and returned with a five-gallon plastic bucket. Placing it upside down beside the tree, I climbed atop and again turned to the window.

Mrs. Carter’s back was to me, watching Mother as she dug through her closet with the ferocity of a dog creating a hole for its favorite bone. When Mother emerged, she held three dresses. Words were exchanged, but I was unable to make them out, as Mother’s window was closed. She wasn’t one to open her bedroom window, even at the peak of summer heat.

Mrs. Carter reached behind her head and untied the bow that held the back of her dress together. My breath caught in my throat as the thin material fell away. Aside from thin white cotton panties, she was naked. Mother handed her one of the dresses, and she slipped it over her head. Mother then stepped back and appraised the other woman. She produced the small green bottle with the yellow label and drank directly from it. She shivered, grinned, and handed the bottle to Mrs. Carter, who hesitated only for a moment before bringing the bottle to her own lips and taking a drink.

I knew what alcohol was, but I couldn’t recall ever seeing Mother drink, only Father. It was commonplace for him to pour a drink or two after a long day at work, but not Mother. This was new. This was different.

Our neighbor handed the bottle back to Mother, who drank again, then passed it back, the two of them laughing silently behind the glass.

Mother held up one of the other dresses, and Mrs. Carter nodded with enthusiasm. She removed her dress and walked over to Mother’s large mirror, holding the second dress against her chest.

My heart quickened.

Mother stepped up behind her and brushed her hair to the side, revealing the curve of her neck. I peered in as Mother kissed her ever so tenderly on that spot where neck meets shoulder. Mrs. Carter closed her eyes and leaned back slightly, pressing against her. She dropped the dress to the floor. In the mirror’s reflection, I watched as Mother’s hand inched up the other woman’s stomach and found her right breast.

Unlike Mrs. Carter’s, Mother’s eyes were open. I know this because I could see them. I could see them staring back at me in the mirror’s reflection as her hands drifted down the length of the other woman’s body and disappeared within her panties.

15

Porter

Day 1 • 10:31 a.m.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office was on West Harrison Street in downtown Chicago. Porter and Nash made good time from Flair Tower and parked in one of the spaces out front reserved for law enforcement. Eisley had instructed them to meet him in the morgue.

Porter had never been a fan of the morgue. Formaldehyde and bleach seemed to be the air freshener of choice, but there was no disguising the fact that the morgue smelled like feet, stale cheese, and cheap perfume. Whenever he stepped through the doorway, he was reminded of the fetal pig Mr. Scarletto had forced him to dissect in high school. He just wanted to get out as quickly as possible. The walls were painted a cheerful light blue, which did little to help one forget one was surrounded by dead people. The employees all seemed to wear the same nonchalant expression, one that made Porter wonder what he’d find if he took a gander inside their home refrigerators. Nash didn’t seem to mind, though. He had stopped halfway down the hallway and was peering into a vending machine.

“How could they run out of Snickers bars? Who’s in charge of this shit show?” he grumbled to nobody in particular. “Hey, Sam, can I borrow a quarter?”

Porter ignored him and pushed through the double swinging stainless steel doors opposite a green leather sofa that might have been new around the time JFK took office.

“Come on, man. I’m hungry!” Nash shouted from behind him.

Tom Eisley sat at a metal desk in the far corner of the room, typing feverishly at a computer. He glanced up and frowned. “Did you walk here?”

Porter considered telling him that they did, in fact, drive quite fast, lights and all, but thought better of it. “We were over at Flair Tower. We tracked down the victim’s apartment.”

Most people would have asked him what they found, but not Eisley; his interest in people started when their pulse stopped.

Nash came through the double doors, the remnants of a Kit Kat on his fingers.

“Feel better?” Porter asked him.

“Cut me some slack. I’m running on fumes.”

Eisley stood from the desk. “Put on gloves, both of you. Follow me.”

He led them past the desk and through another set of double doors at the back of the space into a large examination room. As they stepped inside, the temperature felt as if it dropped twenty degrees. Low enough for Porter to see his breath. Goose flesh crawled across his arms.

A large round surgical light with handles on either side swung over the exam table at the center of the room, a naked male body lying atop. The face had been covered with a white cloth. The chest had been splayed open with a large Y incision that started at his navel and branched at the pectoral muscles.

He should have brought gum — gum helped with the smell.

“Is that our boy?” Nash asked.

“It is,” Eisley said.

The dirt and grime from the road had been washed away, but there was no cleansing the road rash, which covered his skin in patches. Porter took a closer look. “I didn’t catch that this morning.”

Eisley pointed at a large purple and black bruise on the right arm and leg. “The bus hit him here. See these lines? That’s from the grill. Based on the measurements we took at the scene, the impact threw him a little over twenty feet, then he slid on the pavement for another twelve. I found tremendous internal damage. More than half his ribs cracked. Four of them punctured his right lung, two punctured the left. His spleen ruptured. So did one kidney. The head trauma appears to be the actual cause of death, although any one of the other injuries would have proved fatal. His death was near instantaneous. Nothing to be done.”

“That’s your big news?” Nash balked. “I thought you found something.”

Eisley’s brow creased. “Oh, there’s something.”

“I’m not big on suspense, Tom. What’d you find?” Porter said.

Eisley walked over to a stainless steel table and pointed at what appeared to be a brown ziplock bag filled with —

“Is that his stomach?” Nash asked.

Eisley nodded. “Notice anything odd?”

“Yeah. It’s not in him anymore,” said Porter.

“Anything else?”

“No time for this, Doc.”

Eisley let out a sigh. “See these spots? Here and here?”

Porter leaned in a little closer. “What are they?”

“Stomach cancer,” Eisley told them.

“He was dying? Did he know?”

“This is advanced. There’s no corrective treatment when the disease gets to this point. It would have been very painful. I’m sure he was well aware. I found a few interesting things in the tox screen. He was on a high dose of octreotide, which is typically used to control nausea and diarrhea. There was also a concentration of trastuzumab. It’s an interesting drug. They first used it to treat breast cancer, then discovered it helped with other types of cancer too.”

“You think we can track him down with the drugs?”

Eisley nodded slowly. “Probably. Trastuzumab in particular is administered intravenously for an hour, no less than once a week, possibly more often at this stage. I’m not aware of anyone offering this particular medication in private practice, which means he probably went to a hospital or a high-end cancer treatment center. There are only a handful of options in the city. It can cause heart complications, so they monitor patients closely.”

Nash turned to Porter. “If he was dying, do you think he stepped out in front of that bus intentionally?”

“I doubt it. Then why kidnap another girl? I think he’d want to see it through.” He turned back to Eisley. “How much time do you think he had left?”

Eisley shrugged. “Hard to say. Not much, though — a few weeks. A month on the outside.”

“Was he on something for the pain?” Porter asked.

“I found a partially digested oxycodone tablet in his stomach. We’re testing his hair for older medications, things that left his system. I imagine we’ll turn up morphine,” said Eisley.

Porter glanced at the man’s dark hair. Hair retained trace evidence of medication and diet. 4MK cut it short, no more than an inch long. The average person’s hair grows half an inch per month, meaning they should be able to get a history dating back at least a couple of months. Drug testing of hair was nearly five times more accurate than a urine sample. Over the years, he had seen suspects flush drugs out of their system with everything from cranberry juice to consumption of actual urine. There was no flushing out your hair, though. This was the reason many drug addicts on probation shaved their heads.

“He has hair,” Porter said quietly.

Eisley furrowed his brow for a moment, then realized Porter’s point. “I didn’t find any sign of chemotherapy, not even a single cycle. It’s possible they discovered the cancer too late and traditional treatment wasn’t an option.” Eisley walked over to another table. The man’s personal effects were neatly laid out. “That little metal tin right there” — he pointed to a small silver box — “is full of lorazepam.”

“That’s for anxiety, right?”

Nash smirked. “Being a serial killer is an odd choice of pastime for someone with anxiety issues.”

“Generic Ativan. With stomach cancer, doctors sometimes prescribe it to help manage acids. Anxiety leads to increased production, lorazepam cuts it back,” Eisley said. “Chances are, he was calmer than any of us.”

Porter glanced down at the pocket watch, now tagged and sealed in a plastic evidence bag. The cover was intricately carved, the hands visible beneath. “Were you able to get prints from this?”

Eisley nodded. “He got a few abrasions on the hands, but the fingertips weren’t damaged. I pulled a full set and sent them to the lab. Haven’t heard back yet.”

Porter’s eyes landed on the shoes.

Eisley followed his gaze. “Oh, I almost forgot about those. Check this out, very odd.” He picked up one of the shoes and returned to the body, then placed the heel of the shoe against the man’s bare foot. “They’re nearly two sizes too big for this guy. He had tissue paper stuffed in at the toes.”

“Who wears shoes two sizes too big?” Nash asked. “Didn’t you say those go for around fifteen hundred?”

Porter nodded. “Maybe they’re not his. We should dust them for prints.”

Nash glanced at Eisley, then around the room. “Do you have a … never mind — I got it.” He hurried over to another counter and returned with a fingerprint kit. With expert precision, he powdered the shoes. “Bingo.”

“Lift them and send them to the lab. Make sure they understand how urgent this is,” Porter said.

“On it.”

Porter turned back to Eisley. “Anything else?”

Eisley frowned. “What? The drug evidence isn’t enough for you?”

“That’s not —”

“There is one other thing.”

He led Porter to the other side of the body and picked up the man’s right hand. Porter tried not to look into the gaping hole in his chest.

“I found a small tattoo,” Eisley told him. He pointed at a small black spot on the man’s inner wrist. “I think it’s the number eight.”

Porter leaned in. “Or an infinity symbol.” He pulled out his phone and snapped a picture.

“It’s fresh. See the redness? He got it less than a week ago.”

Porter tried to make sense of it all. “Could be some kind of religious thing. He was dying.”

“I’ll leave the detecting to you detectives,” Eisley said.

Porter lifted the edge of the white cloth covering the head. The material peeled away with a sound not unlike Velcro.

“I’m going to try and reconstruct his face.”

“Yeah? You think you can do that?” Porter asked.

“Well, not me,” Eisley confessed. “I’ve got a friend who works at the Museum of Science and Industry. She specializes in this sort of thing — old remains and such. She spent the last six years restoring the remains of an Illiniwek tribe discovered downstate near McHenry County. She normally works with skull and bone fragments, nothing this … fresh. But I think she can do it. I put in a call.”

“She, huh?” Nash chimed in. “Did you make a lady friend?” He finished with the shoes and packed up the fingerprint kit. “I’ve got six partials and at least three full thumbs. Three thumbprints, I should say. I don’t mean to imply our unsub has three thumbs, although that would make him a lot easier to identify. I’m going to walk these down. Do you want to regroup in the war room? Maybe an hour? I’ll check in with the captain too.”

Porter thought of the diary in his pocket. An hour sounded good.

16

Diary

Mother saw me, but I did not run away. I knew I should go. I knew this was a private moment, something not meant for my eyes, but I kept watching anyway. I don’t think I could have stopped even if I wanted to. I stayed next to that tree until Mother and Mrs. Carter disappeared from view. More accurately, they sank from view, whether to the bed or the floor, I was not sure.

Beneath me, my bucket wobbled. I wobbled. My legs felt like Jell-O. Wiggle waggle! My heart thudded with a parade cadence. I’ll tell you, it was exhilarating to say the least!

I found myself so ensconced in this activity, I didn’t hear Mr. Carter’s car drive past our house. It wasn’t until it crunched down the gravel driveway next door that I took notice. Mrs. Carter must have heard the car then too. Like a groundhog on the last day of winter, her head popped up in the window frame, her breasts bouncing, her mouth open in a gasp. She spotted me the same moment I saw her. There was nothing to do, I froze looking back at her. She turned and shouted something, and then my mother appeared. She did not look out at me.

Both disappeared from the window.

Mr. Carter’s car door slammed. He was never home at such an hour. Normally he did not return from work until after five, about the same time as my father. He saw me standing next to the tree, perched high on my bucket, and gave me a puzzled glance. I waved. He did not wave back. Instead, he bounded up his front walk and disappeared into his house.

A moment later Mrs. Carter walked briskly out our front door and crossed the lawn, her hands smoothing her dress as she went. She gave me a quick glance as she passed. I offered her a howdy-do, but she did not reciprocate. When she entered her own house, she did so with caution, closing the front door ever so softly behind her.

I jumped down off my bucket and followed her.

I wouldn’t call myself a nosy child. I was curious, that’s all. So I crossed over to the Carters’ lawn without a second thought. I was halfway to their driveway when I heard the slap.

There was no mistaking that particular sound. My father was a firm believer in discipline, and he had brought his hand to my backside on more than one occasion. Without going into detail, I am willing to admit I deserved a good whack or two on each and every one of those occasions, and I hold no ill will toward him for doing so. That sound was well-known to me, and after being on the receiving end (no pun intended) I also recognized the quick scream that followed such pain.

When Mrs. Carter cried out immediately following the slap, I realized that Mr. Carter had hit her. Another slap quickly followed, then another sharp yelp.

I reached Mr. Carter’s car. The engine still made a steady tick, tick, tick. Heat floated above the hood, and exhaust filled the air.

Mr. Carter crashed through the front door as I stood beside his car. “What the fuck are you doing out here?” he growled, before pushing past me and walking across the lawn toward my house.

Mrs. Carter appeared in the doorway but stopped at the threshold. She held a damp towel to the side of her face. Her right eye was puffy, pink, and teary. When she noticed me, her lips trembled. “Don’t let him hurt your mother,” she whispered.

Mr. Carter reached our kitchen door and pounded the frame with his fist. I found it odd that it was closed. Nearly every summer day, the door was opened in the morning and remained that way until late into the night, with only the screen door to keep Mother Nature’s creatures out of the house. Mother must have —

I spotted Mother standing in a side window. She glared at Mr. Carter on our back stoop.

“Open the door, you fucking cunt!” he shouted. “Open the goddamn door!”

Mother watched him but remained still.

I started back toward the house, and her hand shot up, motioning for me to stay put. I stopped in my tracks, unsure of what I should do. Looking back, I see it was naive of me to believe I could do much of anything. Mr. Carter was a large man, maybe even bigger than Father. If I attempted to stop him in any way, he would swat me as if I were an annoying fly buzzing around his head.

“You think you can turn my wife into your own personal rug cleaner?” He banged at the door. “I knew it, I fucking knew it, you insatiable little cunt. I knew something was going on. Always over at your house. Smelling of your stink. I tasted you on her, you know that? Believe it. I sure as shit could. Now I think you owe me. A tit for tat. Or how about a tit for a twat — if I dumb it down, does it make more sense to you? There’s consequences, you little bitch. There’s payment due. Nothing in this world is free!”

Mother disappeared from the window.

Mrs. Carter began to sob behind me.