Bad Thoughts bs-1 Read online

  “I don’t know.” Bennett leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands cradling his head. He dropped one of his soft, white hands over his eyes and squeezed the flesh around his temples. “I really don’t know why I asked that.” And he didn’t; the thoughts had just bubbled out of him. He had a strange sensation that they had been whispered to him and that other things had been whispered to him. He felt a sudden chill.

  Shannon still had his eyes closed. His breathing had become more shallow, to the point of being nonexistent.

  “Get him out of it,” Elaine Horwitz ordered.

  “I’m really sorry, Elaine, I have no idea what made me say those things-”

  “Please, just bring him out of it!”

  Bennett looked helplessly at Horwitz. He wanted to explain what happened but there was no explanation, at least none that made any sense. Reluctantly, he turned to Shannon to talk him out of his hypnotic trance. Nothing happened. He tried it again without any response.

  “What’s wrong?” Horwitz asked.

  “Sometimes it takes a few times,” Bennett lied. He had never had that happen to him before. He had never even heard of that happening before. The golden rule of hypnosis is they always come out when you tell them to-no matter how deep they’re in it they come out. No matter what, they come out. He went over it a half dozen more times without any reaction. A panic overtook him. Without realizing it, he grabbed Shannon by the shoulders and started shaking him.

  “Stop it!”

  “Give me a moment, Elaine-”

  “Let go of him now!”

  He turned briefly but before he could respond Shannon caught him in the mouth with a left jab, and then a hard right into the middle of his forehead. The hypnotherapist staggered back a few feet and then Shannon was on top of him, sending him crashing to the floor. Shannon’s hands found his neck. As his air was cut off, Bennett’s face turned a mottled red, his tongue thickening as it pushed its way out of his mouth. As Shannon increased the pressure, Bennett’s tongue pushed further out.

  Elaine Horwitz watched in horror. She stood paralyzed until it fully hit her what was happening and then she moved quickly, grabbing Shannon around his chest, trying to pull him off. The dullness disappeared from his eyes. He looked puzzled and then disappointed as he stared into Bennett’s face. Recognition seeped in and he released his grip.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as he got off the hypnotherapist.

  Bennett started to cough and then rolled onto his knees, vomiting. The bruises along the side of his throat stood out like a knife wound. Shannon stared blankly at them and then sat back down in his chair.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

  After a while the vomiting stopped. Bennett tried to stand but his knees buckled under him and he fell back onto the floor. As he lay in kind of a sprawl, he put a hand to his mouth where he’d been hit and pushed at his teeth with his thumb.

  “They’re loose,” he said.

  Horwitz tried not look at him. “Should I call an ambulance?” she asked.

  He pulled his hand away from his mouth. “Oh, God,” he groaned as he looked at it. “I’m bleeding.”

  Horwitz called for an ambulance. When the attendants came, they noticed the bruises along Bennett’s throat and looked suspiciously at Shannon. One of them asked what happened.

  “There was an accident,” Horwitz explained weakly.

  They didn’t seem to like that explanation until Shannon showed them his police badge. Then they put Bennett on a stretcher. After they left, Elaine Horwitz found she couldn’t stop shaking. In a voice that didn’t sound quite right to her, she told Shannon not to blame himself for what happened.

  “You were someplace pretty awful, weren’t you?” she asked.

  Shannon didn’t say anything.

  “You were back with your mother. But you weren’t alone, were you, Bill? He was there with you.”

  Shannon murmured that he didn’t know what she was talking about.

  The adrenaline of the last twenty minutes caught up to her. “I’m not stupid,” she said, her voice cracking. “I saw the way you attacked Mark. I saw the look on your face. You haven’t been telling me the truth about how your mother died.”

  She paused, waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t, she told him she couldn’t see him anymore. “I can’t treat you if you’re going to lie to me,” she said stiffly.

  He looked up at her briefly, then without saying a word, got up and walked out of her office. As the door closed behind him, Elaine Horwitz felt a chill run through her. She grabbed herself and leaned forward, trying to keep from shaking. She couldn’t stop it, though. It went through her like an electric current. It made her teeth chatter. And then she got hysterical.

  Chapter 21

  The bartender gave Shannon a tired, well-practiced smile. “What can I get you, buddy?”

  Shannon asked for a bourbon. He was sitting at the bar at the Black Rose, sitting at the same stool he had sat on before blacking out a week earlier. The bartender poured him a shot and slid it in front of him. He asked if Shannon wanted to start a tab.

  Shannon nodded. He didn’t recognize the guy but that didn’t mean anything. He held out his hand and introduced himself. The bartender, a bit dubiously, accepted it and gave back his name as Tom Morton.

  “Tom, let me ask you something. Do you remember seeing me here a week ago?”

  “I don’t get you, buddy.”

  Shannon showed an embarrassed grin. “About a week ago I got really shit-faced and am trying to piece some stuff together. I know I was drinking here around six-thirty. I’m trying to figure out what I did afterwards.”

  The bartender’s broad face darkened. “Yeah,” he said, nodding, “I remember you.”

  “Was I with anyone?”

  The bartender removed the shot glass from in front of Shannon. “I think you better leave.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Come on, buddy, get out of here, okay?” The bartender started to reach for something under the bar. Shannon took his badge out and laid it out in front of him. As the bartender looked at it he moved away from what he’d been reaching for.

  “You’re a cop?” he asked, his voice sounding queer.

  “That’s right. What’s going on?”

  The bartender didn’t say anything.

  “I asked you what’s going on?”

  “Yesterday a couple of FBI agents were in here showing your picture around,” he said, a pained expression creasing his face. “That’s how come I remember you.”

  “That’s it?”

  There was a hesitation while he looked as if he had a bad attack of gas, and then he told Shannon they wanted to know if he had left with anyone. “They were also showing another picture around.”

  Shannon stared at him until he let it out that it was a picture of the woman who had been stabbed to death on Beacon Hill the previous week.

  “They wanted to know if you met her here,” he added.

  “Did I?”

  The bartender gave Shannon an odd look. “I don’t even remember you here,” he said. “They came back later and asked around to some of our regulars. Betty was the only one who remembered you. She said you were drinking alone.”

  The bartender put the shot glass back in front of Shannon. “On the house,” he said before walking away.

  Shannon looked long and hard at it. His mouth all of a sudden felt dry. He found himself wanting the drink, wanting it badly. His hand shook as he picked it up. He held the glass for a moment, his arm stiff, the joints in his fingers throbbing. Some of the alcohol spilled on his sleeve. With some pain, he forced the glass back onto the bar.

  He got up and left, the bourbon softly whispering to him.. .

  *****

  Of course, Elaine had been right earlier, he had gone someplace pretty awful. He had gone right where the hypnotherapist had led him. Right back to Herbert Winters.

  As he left the Black Rose, Shannon
found himself wondering about the dreams he’d been having, about why he felt so helpless in them. Why he felt so weak and ineffectual in them. Earlier, when he was under hypnosis and thought he was lashing out at Herbert Winters-when he thought he was squeezing the life out of him-it felt better than anything he could remember. When he realized it wasn’t Winters but the hypnotherapist, for a brief moment anyway, he didn’t want to let go. He didn’t want to give up that feeling. He would’ve given anything to have been able to hold on to it.

  But there was nothing to hold on to.

  Shannon drove aimlessly as he tried to sort the events out in his mind. He had almost killed that man because of where he’d been brought to. What he didn’t know was if he had ever been brought there before-if that was where he went during his blackouts-because if he did, God knows what he would be capable of.

  He tried to swallow. His mouth felt as if he had gargled with a handful of sand. As he drove past a liquor store, he involuntarily slowed down. The world seemed to slow down with him. A bottle of bourbon would make everything so much easier. Especially after a few shots. Especially then.

  He didn’t stop for the booze. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t stop. Instead, he headed towards the Central Square precinct. He wasn’t even sure why until he got there.

  Chapter 22

  As Shannon made his way through the precinct, he passed DiGrazia at his desk and gave him a nod. The look DiGrazia returned stopped him dead in his tracks. He walked over to his partner and asked what was eating him.

  DiGrazia had turned back to his paperwork. He ignored Shannon.

  “It sure looks like something’s eating you. Come on, what’s your problem?”

  “Whatever it is, it’s not as big as the one you’ve got,” DiGrazia murmured without looking up.

  “What are you talking about?”

  DiGrazia just smirked. His eyes, though, remained dead.

  Shannon pulled up a chair. “Look,” he said, “if you’re pissed at me for not helping interrogate Roberson or Hartwell’s ex’s, I’m sorry, I couldn’t. I’ve been put on desk duty. Brady wants me to keep away from the investigation for the time being.”

  “Why would I want you to help me interrogate them?”

  “What you were telling me before-”

  “Forget that,” DiGrazia said. “I wasn’t thinking straight. Probably suffering from sleep deprivation. The FBI’s right. These ain’t no paid hits. What we got is a true psychopath. But where the FBI is fucked is the way they’re going at it. You know why?”

  Shannon shook his head.

  “I’ll tell you, pal. I don’t think Roberson and the other two were killed by the same guy.”

  “Why’s that?”

  DiGrazia showed a thin smile, his teeth barely breaking through it. He stared at Shannon for a long moment before asking if something was wrong. “You sound kind of sick,” he added.

  “Nothing’s wrong. Why weren’t they killed by the same guy?”

  “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?” DiGrazia asked, ignoring Shannon’s question. “Your voice doesn’t sound quite right. Like maybe you need a drink of water or something.”

  “Cut the crap, okay? You got something to say, spit it out.”

  DiGrazia shook his head, making a tsking-type noise. “Getting kind of touchy, are we? Now what was I talking about-oh yeah, why Roberson wasn’t killed by the same guy as the other two. It’s really pretty simple. She was stabbed in the throat. The other two were stabbed in the mouth. We got different individuals doing these murders. The FBI shouldn’t’ve made the assumption they did. They should be doing what I’m doing right now. Want to guess what that is?”

  Shannon found himself shaking his head.

  “I’m doing a computer search for other murders where women have been stabbed in the mouth. I figure twenty years is enough to go back-”

  DiGrazia stopped himself and gave Shannon a long, thoughtful look. “You don’t look so good all of a sudden,” he said. “What’s wrong, sick or something? Jesus, you look like you’re falling apart right in front of me.” There was no warmth or empathy in his eyes, nothing but a cold detachment.

  “Man, you’re white as a sheet,” DiGrazia continued after a long moment, his bare-fanged smile tightening. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost. Is that what’s troubling you, pal, ghosts around?”

  Shannon didn’t say anything. He just turned and walked away.

  *****

  DiGrazia watched as his partner made his way down the hallway. Shannon’s reaction was interesting. More than interesting. Even if he hadn’t had that dream he’d think so. And maybe even if he hadn’t gotten those twenty-year-old newspaper clippings sent to him-maybe even then…

  That morning he had found an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch envelope against his apartment door. Stuffed inside were photostatic copies of newspaper clippings. The articles were twenty years old and detailed the murder of Shannon’s mother. He had read them halfway through before putting gloves on. Now the envelope and its contents were inside a plastic evidence bag locked away in his bottom desk drawer.

  He hadn’t yet decided what to do with them. He would like to get them dusted for fingerprints because if there were any, and they matched Shannon’s, that would be that. Because if Shannon had left it for him, it would’ve been a cry for help; a plea to stop him before he killed again. Word had come down that physical evidence had cleared Shannon of the Roberson murder, but as he had reminded Shannon, Roberson hadn’t been stabbed in the mouth. The other two had. Just like Shannon’s mother.

  And that dream he had…

  DiGrazia almost never remembered his dreams, but this one he couldn’t get out of his mind. It was so damn real, so damn much like being pulled through a nightmare. Every god-awful detail of it.

  In it DiGrazia had become aware of a presence nearby, a presence that seemed to have floated out of nowhere. As it moved towards him he could smell it as if it were real, he could just about taste it in his throat. It was worse than raw sewage. Worse than anything he had ever imagined. And it was so strong, so overpowering. ..

  It was next to DiGrazia then. Without looking at it, DiGrazia knew that it was something obscene, something malignant. The smell, though, kept DiGrazia from facing it. Even if he could have, there wouldn’t have been much for him to see because it kept too close to him, most of the time right up against him as it whispered into his ear.

  DiGrazia at times caught brief glimpses of it. He remembered seeing its mouth, a tiny slit that was more of a knife wound than anything else. The image of it stood out in his mind. Along with those hands; bloated, dead-white hands.

  It told DiGrazia that he was who Shannon became when he blacked out. That he was the one in control when the two women were murdered. It-he-talked for a long time, his breath hot and fetid against DiGrazia’s ear. His voice becoming excited as he talked about the murders, about the horror each woman went through. The hotness of his breath was unbearable. He told DiGrazia that he appeared briefly in November. He asked DiGrazia to seriously consider how Shannon was able to find Janice Rowley’s body and whether Roper was a little too neatly packaged as her murderer. He promised there would be more murders. That he was just getting his second wind.

  DiGrazia woke up with his heart pounding. He felt dirtier than he had ever felt in his life. It was as if that smell had somehow permeated through his dream and had gotten into his skin and his hair. For a brief heartbeat he could smell it and it sent his stomach reeling and him stumbling for the bathroom. After he was done he took a long shower, scrubbing himself raw. Later, he found a bottle of whiskey and tried to make sense of his dream.

  He had just about decided it was nothing but his nerves, and maybe some resentment towards his partner. After all, he got his ass chewed off by Brady for keeping Shannon’s blackouts a secret. But when he found that envelope outside his door and read through the clippings, he began to look at the dream differently. And he couldn’t keep from thinking
about the obvious. He couldn’t keep from replaying that dream. That god-awful dream…

  *****

  DiGrazia made a decision about the evidence bag locked away in his desk. Later, he would check its contents for prints. If there were any and they matched Shannon’s, he’d nail his partner to a cross. He’d fucking skin him alive.

  *****

  Shannon stood quietly in front of Dr. Ronald Chaucy’s office. His talk with DiGrazia had unnerved him and he wasn’t quite sure what to do next. He started to move away and then found himself opening Chaucy’s office door and walking in. Dr. Chaucy, a plump man of about fifty, had his eyes closed and his hands folded across his belly. The doctor had been working as a psychiatrist for the Cambridge Police Department for fifteen years, mostly doing prisoner evaluations, occasionally evaluating the competency of an officer. He opened an eye as the door closed behind Shannon and reluctantly pushed himself upright.

  “Hello, Bill,” he murmured as he cleared his throat. His eyes bulged slightly from his round face. Thick layers of skin sagged under his jaw. “Martin told me you’d be coming around.”

  “Sorry for interrupting your nap.”

  “I was meditating.” Chaucy shrugged his rounded, stooped shoulders. “Why don’t you take a seat?” Chaucy turned towards his desk and picked a few papers from it. As he read through them, a frown pulled down his lips. He reached back to his desk and picked up a notepad and a pen.

  “Martin filled me in somewhat,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on with you, Bill?”

  Shannon sat across from the psychiatrist. “I’ll tell you, Ron, I really don’t know.”

  “Tell me about your blackouts-are drugs or alcohol involved?”

  “I was drinking heavily before it happened.” Shannon hesitated. “But I don’t think the booze had anything to do with it.”

  “Uh huh.” Chaucy scribbled something into his notepad. “Why’s that?”