The Tower

He rose to his feet. "I have something to show you."

The iron, matted with blood and tangles of hair, swung back and forth, still wrapped around Allander's wrist. It dangled just above the floor as he peeled a piece of crisp skin off the turkey and dropped it into his mouth, savoring its rich flavor.

He turned on the radio, and a Beethoven piano concerto, The Emperor, played loudly from unseen speakers.

The woman's arm protruded from around the corner of a large cooking block situated in the middle of the kitchen. Thin, dark hair stood out against the forearm, and the wrist wore a gold watch. It ticked, and Allander took comfort in its consistency.

He stepped around the corner of the block to admire the rest of the body. The face was severely battered. Allander thought he could discern the distinct shape of the iron from the indentations in the forehead and right cheek. One of his swipes had missed the head and punctured one of the generous breasts, but it bled far less than the other wounds.

A pool of blood drained from her head and ran along the seam where the floor met the cooking block. Allander waved his hand to the music as he bent over, delicately dipping his index finger into the blood like a paintbrush.

Jade returned to the room with the small wood carving he had stolen from the Atlasias' bathroom. The detail on it was extraordinary, the solid chunk of wood transformed to a lifelike rendering. From the etched initials and date on the bottom, Jade knew that Allander had carved it, and had done so when he was only fourteen. Already, it showed the hand of an imaginative thinker.

Jade set it down on top of Allander's sketch of the sets of hands. The carving showed three monkeys sitting side by side, blended together at the midsection. The first one covered his eyes, the second his ears, and the third his mouth. Their hands matched those in the drawing perfectly-one set facing each other, one set pointing at each other, and a solitary hand angled up at forty-five degrees. The three monkeys looked as if they knew a great secret. As if they spied someone stalking you, lurking in shadows behind your back.

An ideal symbol for repression. Allander's own parody of the Freudian process.

"Oh my god!" Travers exclaimed. "See no evil, hear no evil-"

Allander stood before the large pane of glass that provided most of the light for the modestly decorated family room. His finger was covered in blood, and it ran down his forearm, dripping off his elbow.

He stood back and admired his lettering. "S N E." Same initials, different meaning. Speak no evil. Not much risk of that happening.

In the kitchen, the woman's mouth drooled profusely, spilling blood onto the wooden floor. It leaked from the hole where her tongue had once been.

Allander felt no sexual desire for her. The killing was easy, so the thrill it brought was lessened. Her screams brought ecstasy, of course, as did the sound of her body being battered. But without the sexual challenge, it just wasn't the same. He'd be moving on soon, moving on to the real object of his desires.

But she was an educator; she had the hypocrisy written thickly across her face. He detested educators who spewed forth nonsense. He had warned little Leah about them too. They talked just to hear themselves speak, but they feared the truth like all others. Well, he had stopped her tongue at last.

He finished his lettering and wiped his hand on his shirt. Then he went into the kitchen, stepped over the woman's body, and fixed himself a drink. After taking care of the body and the floor, he found himself a clean shirt in a drawer and put it on. Heading back to the front of the house, he pulled a large wooden chair around to face the front door, and began his wait for Earl and the kids to return home.

Chapter 38

J A D E continued to chew ice. It helped to keep him focused. He cooled himself by running the cup across his forehead occasionally, enjoying the drops of water that rolled down his face.

"You want something to drink?" he asked Travers. He got up, peeling his bare back from the couch.

"Sure. Iced tea?"

"Water."

"Water's fine."

She heard the shoveling of ice cubes and sighed. She didn't know how much more ice crunching she could endure.

"We're at a standstill," she said when he returned.

"What are you talking about? We just figured out his pattern, what he's doing."

"Yeah, but how does that help us in catching him? In stopping him?"

Jade looked at her disdainfully. The doorbell rang, and he left to answer it without responding to her question.

Tony smiled broadly as he pushed past Jade and walked into the entranceway. "There's these two sperm swimming. And they're exhausted. They've been at it forever, seems like hours. Finally, one turns to the other and says, 'Hey! How much longer we got?' Other sperm looks back at him and says. 'Who you kidding? We just got past the esophagus!'" His laughter started as soon as he finished the joke.

Jade laughed, three notes descending the scale.