11
Harlan sat very still. He wanted to get up and hit the woman in the bed across from him, but he was pretty sure that the other police, the locals, were only tolerating him because of the big man in the corner.
Ed Clark wasn’t a large man, but he certainly carried himself like he was nine feet tall with the heart of a stone cold lawyer. He simply exuded calmness and strength, and a bit of don’t fuck with me that he could tell these men didn’t get or respect. He was the kind of man that kept heads cool and tempers under control. Also, he was pretty sure that Ed might have hurt one of them if they hadn’t allowed him to be a part of his.
“I don’t know why you’re saying these things to me. I need to be released so that I might continue the Lord’s work. He calls me his child.” The man standing next to him snickered at Alex. “I’m not trying to be funny. He came to me and told me that they were sinners, and that I needed to bring them to justice.”
“You mean murder them. And I don’t believe for a minute that you have this connection with God, lady.” Harlan started to stand up and tell the man to shut up when Ed cleared his throat. With a small shake of his head, Harlan sat back in his chair and waited. The cop continued to speak. “You killed nine women and four men. And you blew up a school and could have killed seven hundred other people. You’re saying that the Lord had told you to do that?”
“That’s enough.” Ed stepped forward and looked at him. “Would you please take over this case for the city, Harlan? This man is being relieved of his duties.”
“What do you mean, relieved of my duties? I was sent here by my boss, who said I was to get all the information I could from this person so we don’t mess things up.” Ed told him he was close to doing just that. “No, I’m not. I’m asking her if she was really being told what to do by the Lord and Savior.”
“No, you’re not. You’re leading her. And you’re making assumptions that you have no information about. Why is it that you know she killed those people? Did you see her do it? Did you witness the crimes?” The cop said that he hadn’t, no one had and lived until yesterday. “There you have it. You’re assuming information that you don’t actually have. As a representative of the mayor, I’m relieving you of your duty here.”
Before he could comment, because there was no doubt to Harlan that he would, Harlan stood up and helped the cop to the door. When he reached for his weapon, Harlan drew his first and put it to the man’s forehead. It was the first time in ten years that he’d had to draw it, and it made him just a little nervous.
“You do that and we’ll end this right now.” Harlan let his gun bite deeply into the other officer’s head before he spoke again. “I’m not going to stand down and let you make this a mistrial. And that is exactly what you’re doing.”
“I’m not going to stand for this either. My boss is going to hear about what happened here today.” Harlan told him good, to go ahead. And that confused the man. “You’re going to be in so much trouble when I get done telling my boss.”
“So you said. Twice now. But I don’t care. Why don’t you go ahead and bring him back here with you and we’ll talk about this? But not before I talk to this woman.” He pushed him, just enough that he was out of the room, before closing the door in his face. Harlan turned to Ed to ask him to begin recording this conversation.
Harlan looked into the camera that was being held by another cop who was there, and stated the date and time. Then he asked Alex to state her name, which she did, even going so far as to say her name was Saint Alexandra Grace, right hand to the Lord.
“Miss Grace, I’d like to talk to you about your relationship with your Lord.” Her face brightened in that moment. She looked excited instead of upset. And just like that, Harlan knew two things. Alex believed that she was speaking with the Lord, and that she was as nutty as a fruit cake at Christmas.
“Oh sure. He’s the one that told me it was time for me to take out the whores of the world. I was working on that when I got hurt. I don’t know why that man tried to hurt me…I only shot him at my Lord’s command. But I’ll take care of him for the Lord when you’ve released me. When I spoke to my Lord, he said that it was my duty to make sure that they didn’t teach our children their ways.” He asked her when the Lord had come to her about this, shocked that she’d just admitted to trying to murder the off-duty cop. “Just after we were allowed to go into our rooms to ready them for the first day of classes. I guess about a couple of months now. It’s always very hectic then. Some of the teachers go overboard, but they’re young yet and haven’t figured it out. The parents don’t care what the room looks like so long as the kids are gone all day. I had gone to my home that night after seeing what a mess I had, and he spoke to me then.”
“After or before Mr. Winter was killed?” She asked him who that was. “The man that we found in your home. He’d had his neck broken, and then he’d been cut up and put in a trash bin by your home. You don’t remember him? We found evidence that you’d had sex with him just before he was killed.”
“Oh, Carl. Yes, it was just after that. I’d just had the best climax with him when he just dropped over me. I didn’t know what was going on, and had gotten out of the bed when he just stood up with his head all twisted up. My Lord said he had used me to end his life. He was a sinner, you see. But he needed to talk to me about doing his work, and he thought that having a body to do it with would be easier on me. Plus, Carl was a sinner like those teachers are.”
“But you slept with him. What does that make you?” He watched her face…the confusion was there. He decided to try a different approach when she didn’t seem to have an answer for him. “What does your Lord think of you having premarital sex with a man who was married to someone else? And why didn’t your Lord just kill Mr. Winter on his own? That would have saved you the added murder on your sentence. Why did he have to have you do it?”
“I didn’t question my Lord. I have before, but he gets so upset with me that I try very hard not to do that. Besides, what sort of person thinks that it’s all right to question the divine savior?” He said that he would if he’d been asked to murder people. “I didn’t murder anyone. What I did was follow the directions of my Lord. I was making the world a better place for the children. Those whores, they were teaching them bad things. I was simply the instrument that he used to make it better for everyone.”
“Make it better for whom? Not the families that are left behind. Nor do I think any of the people that knew these victims of yours are very happy with your work. Did you happen to see him…your Lord, did you see him?” She said that she’d not. But then neither had he. “True, but I’m not going around killing innocent people either. What about the bomb in the school? Do you know anything about that?”
“Yes. It was the first time that I failed my Lord. I was told to see how to make it, and that I was to set it up on a desk for someone to find and open. He was not at all happy with me. He said that I was to get her to open it on the first day of classes. But she didn’t do that. Someone else did.” He asked her if she’d meant the first day of school. “Yes. That way I would have been able to get all of them at one time for him. I would have too, had she done as I wanted her to. Now I have to find them all and end their sinning. Taking them from this earth so that our children will be safe is how I have to make it right. They’re whores, and I needed to do as I was told.”
“So you keep saying. You do realize that the children would have been in the school had the bomb gone off, don’t you? All those children that you’re trying to protect from whores, wouldn’t they have been killed too? What did your Lord think of the loss of life of the children?” She let him know what she had been told. “So the children, they were expendable in this plan of yours. That doesn’t sound like the Lord that I know. He’s a forgiving and compassionate man. This sounds to me like it’s the work of a woman scorned.”
“I don’t know what you mean. But I did what I was told, without question. I’m sure that anyone would have done the same thing, without question as I have done.” He wasn’t having any luck at tripping her up. She smiled at him when he sat back in his chair. “I have so much more to do for my Lord. I’d very much like to be let go from these chains so that I might do it. I don’t suppose you know where that man that I didn’t remove from this world is right now, do you? I have been told that he must be taken out for not paying us the respect that we deserve.”
She held out her hands like she fully expected him to just say okay and release her. Instead of getting into any kind of debate with her about why she was locked up and not going to be released, ever, he pulled out the pictures that he’d been carrying around since he’d gotten in on this case. He laid them out in front of her.
They were pictures of the men that had been there cleaning the building. Men with children on their laps and in their arms. Smiling to the person who had taken the photo. Happy men, who had simply gone to work one night and lost their lives in the most senseless way possible.
“What about Mr. Hardgrave? Or Mr. Fleming? What about their deaths?” She asked him who they were. “Well, they weren’t whores, that’s for sure. They were a part of the cleaning crew that was in the building that you blew up with your bomb. Their families are struggling to figure out why you murdered them for no reason.”
“I told you, I didn’t murder anyone. I was doing the Lord’s work.” He could hear her temper then; it was the first time since they’d started questioning her over three hours ago. “I was told to put it on her desk so that she’d open it and all of the whores would be gone from this earth.”
“You said that the Lord told you to put it on Tisha’s desk, correct?” Alex looked away, then back at him with confusion again. “So he didn’t tell you to put it on her desk. Why did you? You picked her for a reason. Did she slight you for some reason? Was she your target all along? What did she do to you that had you putting the bomb on her desk?”
“She was a whore, that’s what I was told. And as for putting the box on her desk, yes, he did tell me to do that. He told me to make the bombs and put them around the building. Besides, it’s not like she would have noticed an extra box. She got stuff all the time that she bought and made us all look bad.” Harlan waited while she tried to gather her anger around her. “She was the perfect whore to do it to. Her getting things delivered to the school meant that she’d be the one that would open it without question.”
“But she didn’t, did she? You put it on her desk the night before, and she didn’t open it when she was there. You didn’t know that did you, Alex? That Tisha would be there before the teachers were to arrive? Before the children were dropped off and let into the building. You knew that she’d be there in the morning, and you were hoping for a full house when it went off.” Her face reddened, her lips became a tight white line. Anger seemed to come off her in waves; her entire demeanor was hard, pissed off. “She didn’t open it that night or the next morning like you had planned, did she? Instead she left it there and asked her dad and others about it. That was how we figured out that she had nothing to do with it, her checking around to make sure that she’d not been sent the wrong box. Her dad, as well as the company that she orders things from, confirmed for us that she wasn’t the murderer, you were. You set her up to be killed with several hundred others, children included. Didn’t you, Alex? You failed to kill anyone you wanted dead then, so you went out and killed them on your own.”
“She should have just opened the fucking thing. Her name was on it. Why did someone else get it in their fucking head to open something that didn’t belong to them? Those fuckers needed to die too. They deserved it for fucking up the plan I worked so hard on.” Ed moved back, the camera in the cop’s hand not shaking either when he too backed away. Harlan felt his hands sweat in his excitement. He was close now to finding out the real reason for all of this, and he was sure that Ed knew it as well. “I was told to make the bomb so that I could take out all the...so that the Lord could take out the whores of the school. Because of some idiot that couldn’t read, I failed. What was I supposed to do but go after them on my own? At the direction of my Lord.”
“You said you could take them out. Not the Lord, but you could. What did Tisha do to you that upset you enough to want to kill her?” He didn’t think she was going to answer, so he laid the other pictures of the men on her table. The one that the medical examiner had taken when he figured out which parts of the men went with what pieces. “Those men, they worked hard, loved their families and children, and you killed them. Murdered them for your own personal gain.”
“No. No. No. I told you. I did not murder anyone. They weren’t supposed to touch the box. I put her name on it so she’d open it.” Harlan stood up and handed her the pictures of the school. Of the bodies of another man that they’d yet to identify hanging from a tree. The twisted sled that haunted him so much was there near the crater where the school had been. When she turned and looked at him instead of the pictures, he smiled at her. “You should know that you’re making my Lord very upset right now. He doesn’t like to be questioned.”
“Upset enough to have you try and murder me? I don’t think you’re going to be able to do that, Alex. I’ve already had them remove your weapons of choice. And I’m pretty sure that as locked up as you are right now, you couldn’t even get close enough to hurt me. And you want to, don’t you? Not his Lordship, or whoever you’re using as your scapegoat. But you…you want to get up and bash my head in.” She told him she had work to do and would be free soon enough, and he’d have to wait and see. “No, I don’t think so. We have you for the murder of fourteen people. I don’t think you’re going anywhere anytime too soon.”
“I’d like for you to leave now. You’ve upset me, and when my Lord finds out, he’ll have to take action against you. I’m his servant and he cares for me. I would very much like it if you left now. I’m busy.” Harlan asked her why. “I need to pray about your soul. You’re a bad man, and I think it would do me good to pray for you.”
“All right, but know this, Alex. We’re going to finish this, you and I. And when you’re on trial for the murders of all those people, I’m going to be right there telling them what a sick fuck you are.” Ed cleared his throat then, reminding him, he was sure, that things were being recorded. “You pray for me if you wish, Alex, but I’d be more worried about your own soul than mine. You think on that.”
~~~
When the men left her, Alex thought about what the nasty man had said. The man was just too arrogant if he thought that he didn’t need her to pray for him. He was going to have to be taken out of this world, her world, for just being too stupid to believe that her and the Lord weren’t working together to save the innocent.
You have done well, my child. But getting brought here has made it difficult for you to finish what you have begun. I don’t think that officer is going to let you go soon enough for you to work with me. She said that she’d be out of here soon enough. I need for you to finish the jobs I have put you to, Alex. There is much work yet to be done. You should not have allowed yourself to be caught.
“I asked him to release me and he didn’t.” The man had ignored her completely when she’d asked him. “I think he’s a bad man, my Lord. A terrible man that should have been on my list from you as well. There are so many people conspiring against us. Whatever shall we do?”
You are correct in that, yes. But you have failed me again, Alex, my child. Whatever shall I do with you? Alex lay back on the bed and felt tears fall. You have done so well until now. I will have to find another to finish this for me.
“No, please don’t. I’ll take care of it.” She looked over at the camera on the wall and thought about the other man filming her too. “They’re going to twist up my words and make me look bad. I don’t know what to do about that. They must be taken care of, my Lord. You’ll help me, won’t you? You’ll make it so that I can be free?”
I will not be able to help you with this, my child. You will have to do this on your own. But alas, I think even you, a good soldier, will not be able to overcome this task. She asked him why he couldn’t just take the body of someone and have her freed. It takes a lot of energy to do that.
That sounded lame even to her. “But I thought you were all powerful. That you could make things happen.” He didn’t say anything. “You did it once. Can’t you just get someone to come in here and let me go? I have things I need to get finished for you. You said yourself that I have done a good job.”
You have. Until now. His voice sounded mean, and she felt her own temper start to rise up. I think it is time that we no longer depend on each other to get things done. You have failed me.
“I didn’t fail you. You failed me.” She looked around the room when she thought she heard someone speaking. “You’re trying to make me look bad now, aren’t you? After all that I’ve done for you.”
You have done nothing for me. This was for yourself. His voice sounded different, like he was...her father? You never do anything right, Alexandra. Not even when you were little. I tried and tried to teach you things, but you had things in your head that were not right.
“Daddy?” The voice said nothing. “You can’t be here. You’re dead. I know you are. Who is this? Where are you?”
She looked around the room, knowing that someone was lurking in the corner or behind the curtain. Trying to get herself free to check, the chains on her arm pulled hard on her. How was she supposed to do the Lord’s work if they put her in chains like this? Tugging harder, she paused when her father spoke again.
Why am I dead, Alexandra? Do you remember that day? The day you killed me?” She shook her head. You killed me with that knife, and then told the police that I tried things with you, things a man does not do to his own child. You made them think me a monster, when all the time it was you.
“You wouldn’t let me go to that party. I wanted to go and be pretty.” Alex tried to get him to shut up and get away at the same time. “Go away. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I have things I must do for my Lord.”
Your Lord? Christ child, you have no more business thinking the Lord is gonna help you than he will me. And I’m dead and gone. And I’m betting that you’re going to be joining me soon. Won’t that be a hoot? You and me in the same hell you put me in. Alex asked him why he was doing this to her. You mean reminding you that you’re not a good person like you think you are? Or that you’re a murdering bitch? Tell me, Alex. Where is your dear mother? Did you kill her as well?
“She was as bad as you were. Not letting me have what I needed. And I didn’t kill her. I was asking her for the money for the dress and she fell.” The dress. Her mother had been yelling at her because of money. It was always about money with her. So when she was coming down the stairs, her mother took a misstep. “I’m a good person. The Lord has chosen me to do his work.”
His work? You mean murdering poor children? Or do you mean that he picked you to kill off women that had it better than you? You know why they did? Because they worked hard at it. You just sat around and complained that you didn’t have this or that. The only reason you have that teaching degree is because you fucked your way through college. Her dad was screaming at her now, just like he had when she’d been younger. She didn’t like it any better now than she had then. What do you suppose they’re going to say to you when they find that out? Hmm? That you’re as crazy as they think you are?
“I’m not crazy.” The woman that entered the room looked shocked, but said nothing to her. “Come here and release me. By order of my Lord, I demand that you let me go so that I can get out of here. And I want you to stop letting my dead father in here. He’s not nice, and he’s yelling at me for no reason. He’s dead, he should just get over it.”
“Your dead father is yelling at you, and you somehow think I can stop that? I don’t think so. I’m here to check your blood pressure. The monitors are a little off.” The nurse smiled at her then. “You have the entire floor buzzing that you’ve been finally caught. People are wondering if the good Lord himself will come down here and smite you. Is that who you’re talking to?”
“I’m talking to my dead dad. He’s telling me what a horrible person I am. He even said that I’m going to be in trouble for not getting my degree by learning anything. He acts like it wasn’t hard work to fuck those professors.” The nurse just looked at her. “This happened before I was asked by my Lord to come and do his work, so it doesn’t count. I’m a changed woman now. I have the Lord on my side.”
“You cheated to become a teacher? Why? That’s just not right. I had to work really hard to be what I am today. I had to go without to become a nurse, and you’re saying that you find nothing wrong with cheating? That because you were doing your Lord’s work, that somehow makes it okay?” The nurse didn’t understand, and Alex started to explain. “I don’t think I want to know anything about your life. You killed all those people, and for what reason? No. You just let me take care of you, but I don’t want to know you.”
No matter how hard she tried to get the woman to understand her side of things, she simply ignored her. It wasn’t as if she’d not speak to her…if Alex asked, she’d tell her the progress of her health, but nothing more. People just did not understand what it was like to have been selected for such a journey, and to work with someone as wonderful as her Lord. Well, she was going to show them, all of them, what she’d been chosen to do.
After she was left alone again—even her father had left her—Alex thought of what she’d been doing for the Lord. She’d never once killed anyone, but she could see where people would think she’d done it. The Lord had told her once that she’d been only taking them from this earth so that he could have them near him. Alex had assumed that they’d go to hell, but he said that he didn’t work that way.
“You don’t take them to heaven, do you? I mean, you send them to hell, right?” He said that there was no such place to him. “But the Bible, it says there is a place that—”
Who are you going to believe, my child, me or a book? She said him. Good. There will be no more talk about hell or where the people are going when you do as you’re told. You must believe that I’m taking care of them once you have done as you are told. And that will be the end of this discussion.
She hadn’t brought it up to him again. Alex did think about it, a great deal, but she never mentioned it or questioned him about it. But now, now that her Lord had forsaken her, she thought about it a great deal.
“There is a hell.” Alex knew that there had to be. She knew there had to be someplace they went, not that she thought she’d be there with the other sinners. Not even for ending her parents’ lives, or the neighbors that had butted into how she was living alone in the house. “My parents are there now. I know it. They were just terrible people.”
“You think?” The woman sitting across from her scared her a little. Alex wasn’t sure if she was real or not, and when the woman laughed, the hair on her neck and arms danced. “Yes, I’m very real. I’ve been sent here to ask you a few questions.”
“If you’re here to make fun of me, I’d like you to go away. I have my prayers to say, and I’d like to rest. They’re going to let me go soon, and I have many jobs yet to do.” The woman laughed again. “Who are you?”
“No one you know. At least, you’ve never heard of me. My daughter, you killed her in your spree. Anna Lynn Howard. She taught fourth-grade. It was her first year.” Alex remembered her, and smiled at the things that her Lord had told her to do to the sinner. “I can see that you know her. She was my only child. We’re only given a single child in our lifespan, and you took mine away from me. So as a vampire of considerable age, I am now left alone in this world.”
“She was a sinner. A whore. And now you tell me she was a vampire. The Lord told me to take her out of this world.” The woman said nothing. “Anna Lynn didn’t have any right teaching children. None of the women there did. They were terrible people. Teaching the innocent to sin too. Her death was a necessary thing.”
“Was it? I believe that she had every right to do what she wanted. And you took that away from her.” The woman stood up and moved to the window. Alex thought she could see through her, and had to blink several times before she became solid again. “Anna Lynn loved children. Seeing them grow up into productive humans. Letting her mingle with humans, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”
“I don’t understand.” The woman only smiled at her but didn’t explain. “They were whores, the Lord told me that they were.”
“Anna Lynne was no more a whore than you are a nice person. She told me about you. How you’d take lunch money from the children when they left it on their desks. The time that you had all of them put their hats and coats in a bag to be donated to the children’s home, along with food you’d stolen from the school pantry. Then sent letters home to the parents saying that someone had taken their things. Some of those parents had to work very hard for those small items.” Alex smiled at the memory. She’d gotten a bonus for the most donated items that year. “You’re a monster.”
“I am the Lord’s servant.” She shifted on her bed, trying to see the woman clearly. There was something off about her. Alex didn’t know what it was, but she was sure that she wasn’t there for some reason. “Someone is trying to make me look like I’m not right. They’ve put a camera in my room so that it looks like I’m talking to myself. But I can see you. You’re beautiful, but evil. I can see that.”
The woman turned to her, her smile showing nearly all her teeth. And Alex noticed that a few of them were very sharp looking. Just as she started to move toward her, Alex noticed something else, something that wasn’t right. The woman had long nails and wings.
“What are you?” The woman laughed, causing the skin on Alex’s body to tighten up and feel hot. “I wish for you to be gone. I.... My Lord and I have much to discuss.”
“You’re mine.”