The Christopher Killer Page 5

  As usual, Lyric’s blonde hair, now tipped with cobalt blue, had been woven into stubby braids that curled at her shoulders. Chunky boots made her taller than she already was. Her pants flared dramatically below the knee while her top, a hand-dyed T-shirt spun with brilliant psychedelic colors, hung past ample hips. She always dressed in the rainbow, from bright purples and oranges to bold magentas and greens. “It’s my trademark,” she’d say. “I match my color to my mood.” She and Lyric had been best, if unlikely, friends ever since the day they’d first met.

  Cameryn had been on her way to school, engrossed in avoiding stepping on the sidewalk cracks, when she noticed a house with colored beads hanging in the windows instead of curtains. She remembered thinking how pretty it was to have all those colors winking in the sunlight instead of the plain, heavy cloth her grandmother had put up. Just then the front door had swung open and Lyric had skipped out to greet her, as though she’d known her all her life. “Hi, I’m Lyric and I’m new,” she’d said. “Are you on your way to school? ’Cause if you are, I’ll walk with you.” Cameryn had asked if she was a seventh-grader, but Lyric just laughed and said no, she was in fifth, she was just tall. “What grade are you in?”

  “I’m in fifth, too,” Cameryn replied. She’d hugged her books into her hollow chest while Lyric looked at her skeptically, an expression she had mastered even back then.

  “No way! You’re awfully little for a fifth-grader. Did they skip you ahead or something?”

  “Nope.”

  Lyric had shrugged. “Well, you’re the first person I’ve met who’s my age. Maybe I can sit next to you in class.”

  “Maybe.” This part Cameryn remembered clearly, since she didn’t like being reminded of how small she was and she hadn’t been at all sure she would like this moose of a girl. “But part of the time I’m in a different class.” Stretching tall, she’d announced, “I’m in the gifted and talented.”

  “Cool! Me, too!” Lyric’s face had erupted into a pudgy grin. “I’m glad that I’m smart, ’cause everybody always thinks I’m way older than I am. You know, I think it’s a lot better to be like you and have people figure you’re some kind of genius or something. So what’s your favorite book?”

  That’s where it had begun, the against-the-odds friendship that had entwined them since childhood. Even though they looked, as her father put it, more like “owner and pet,” they’d fought and laughed together like sisters, taking the same advanced classes while arguing over boys and music and the mystic. They were both only children who’d become pseudo-siblings, souls who saw the same world in very different ways. Like psychics, for instance. Lyric had total belief in them, while Cameryn thought they were nothing more than hacks in it for the money.

  “Dang it!” Cameryn cried out now, barely missing a pothole that had appeared in the middle of Apple Street. All the roads save Greene Street were nothing but graded dirt, which meant small sinkholes and ruts could materialize overnight, like acne in reverse. She smacked the steering wheel with the palm of her hand and cried, “I wish the town council would shell out a couple of bucks and pave these side roads. I hate this.”

  “Smothering nature in asphalt isn’t the answer.”

  “Neither is having my car realigned every six months. And if you’re about to tell me I should embrace Mother Earth I will tell you to embrace the idea of walking to school.”

  “All right, all right, you win,” Lyric said, frowning theatrically. “By the way, if you had watched Shadow of Death last night like you promised, you would have seen that Dr. Jewel himself spoke about a dirt road he saw somewhere in the mountains. And please don’t roll your eyes when I’m speaking—that is completely rude.”

  Cameryn checked herself. “Sorry.”

  “To continue: Jewel said after the road-vision-thing, the spirit of a girl appeared to him—a girl from a place where the dirt road or path or whatever it was led straight to water. The dead girl told him her body was out there, lying facedown in the wild. It was so sad. Her spirit said she wasn’t ready.”

  “And you believe this.”

  “Yes, Cameryn, I believe it!” Lyric’s forehead wrinkled and her eyes, wide and rimmed in blue, were earnest. “She told him she was another victim of the Christopher Killer! Do you remember the Christopher Killer?”

  Cameryn tried to feign interest in the case because Lyric did try to follow Cameryn and her forensic statistics. But paybacks were not fun. “Um, isn’t the Christopher Killer the psychopath who leaves a Saint Christopher medal on the bodies?”

  “Exactly. This one is, like, his fourth victim. See, Jewel always gets a message from the girls after they’ve been killed. The police listen to him. Lots of people believe he’s real. I’m telling you, Cammie, the man is amazing.”

  Cameryn made another turn, past a home painted the color of cotton candy, one she had long ago dubbed the House of Pepto-Bismol. As she bumped past its neatly cropped lawn, festooned with a border of plywood flowers, she wondered at the human ability to have such faith in the artificial reality spun by Jewel and his kind. Like those wooden flowers, the fake stuff was perennial and impossible to kill.

  “You have the strangest expression on your face,” Lyric said. “What are you thinking?”

  “You said Jewel saw mountains, a dirt road leading to water, and a body.”

  “Right.”

  “And you’re not troubled by the fact that mountains and dirt roads would be relevant in at least forty of our fifty states. Not to mention the fact that bodies statistically are almost always found near water.” They were at Greene Street now, and when Cameryn stopped at a stop sign she could feel the heat of Lyric’s look. Cameryn stole a glance at her: A strand of blue had curled itself across her cheek, which Lyric impatiently brushed away.

  “You know what the real problem is?” Lyric asked.

  “No, Lyric, what is the real problem?”

  “The problem is my favorite show, Shadow of Death, is just not geeky enough for you.”

  “Yes. You are right. That would be the problem.”

  “Skeptic!”

  “Sucker!”

  They glared at each other, then dissolved into laughter because it was an old argument and one that would never be settled. Not that it had to be. They’d been friends long enough to be comfortable with each other’s quirks. In their own ways they were both equally stubborn. Lyric had her crystals, Cameryn had her books, and in the end they honored their friendship treaty, the one they’d hammered out long ago.

  Cameryn waited at the intersection as a few cars and a semitruck rumbled by. Down the street, the first shops were opening, their windows radiating butter-colored light onto the sidewalk, soft and inviting. The Steamin’ Bean was opening its door, as was the Olde Silverton Doughnut Shop. The town was waking up.

  That’s when Cameryn saw him. On the corner of Greene and Ore, a figure shuffled along the sidewalk, heading west. He was hunched in a black trench coat that reached to his ankles. A cigarette glowed from his fingertips. Black hair, flat and obviously dyed, hung to his shoulders, and his skin was Wonder-Bread white. He seemed to be watching his feet as they moved, although his head jerked up for just a moment as he crossed a street. Then he lowered his chin, took a drag off his cigarette, and resumed his foot-shuffle.

  “Oooh, man, there he is,” Lyric said softly. “Adam.”

  Cameryn made a tsking sound between her teeth. Although she hardly knew him, he always made her uneasy. “That is one strange kid,” she said.

  “Do you notice how he’s always alone?” Lyric almost whispered, as though she were afraid of being overheard. “He’s been alone ever since he moved here. I’ve tried to talk to him at school but it’s gone nowhere. It’s like he hates people or something.”

  “Did I tell you he’s my lab partner?”

  “No. Get out!”

  “He doesn’t really say anything to me, which is fine ’cause he reeks. He always smells like cigarettes.”

  The
y watched as Adam took another toke, exhaling through his nostrils as though he were a dragon. There had been rumors about him, whispers. He was a Satan-worshipper who sacrificed small animals in secret blood rituals held deep in the woods, a Goth, a dangerous rebel, a drug addict. No one knew much about his father, except Lyric who, while working at her job at Ace Hardware, had sold him painting supplies.

  “Adam doesn’t have a mother,” Lyric had reported. “I met his dad, though, and he had this scruffy beard and a long ponytail down to his waist. He told me he was an artist, but all he bought was regular house paint and great big brushes. What kind of art can you make with that?”

  Like his father, Adam seemed to prefer solitude, eating by himself and studying in the farthest corner of the library. Maybe, in a larger city, a kid like Adam might have found his own, but not here. Silverton citizens would never embrace one so different from themselves.

  “What do you say, Cammie?” Lyric asked her now. “Should we pick him up?”

  Cameryn felt her blood stop. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Lyric replied, shrugging. “Why not?”

  “Don’t tell me you like him.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “’Cause he’s got it for Rachel Geller. She told me he’s been after her.”

  “Are you listening? I didn’t say I liked him; I feel kind of sorry for him. Why shouldn’t we give him a ride?”

  “For one thing, he’s smoking. You know I won’t let anyone smoke in my car.”

  “He’ll put it out.”

  “If we pick him up, our social stock will go down.”

  “Like we have any stock. Come on,” she urged, “let’s do a good deed. Just see if he’ll ride with us.”

  But Cameryn just sat, watching him, her car idling. An instant later Lyric threw herself back into the seat.

  “Okay, forget it,” she said. “I was only thinking that if you put out good energy, good energy comes back.” Lyric flipped down the visor, which signaled they were done, which irritated Cameryn. Her friend liked to take in strays, which was fine, but she always dragged Cameryn along for the ride.

  “Sorry, I’m not doing it,” Cameryn announced as she turned on to Greene Street.

  “Whatever. It’s your car, your karma.”

  “I don’t believe in karma.”

  “Then knock some days off your time in purgatory.”

  “You’re hilarious, Lyric. You know that?” Cameryn was determined to drive right by Adam but found herself slowing down as she approached him, her foot pressing on the brake pedal almost against her will. He must have sensed something, because for the briefest second he glanced at her. Adam was in front of the Grand now and he made a strange reflection in the plate glass window. It was an image from a funhouse mirror, white and black and wavering in the ancient glass, like an apparition. At least he has a reflection, she told herself. That’s a good thing.

  “Why do you do this to me?” she moaned as Lyric, sensing she’d won, pressed the button in the armrest. The window glided down and she leaned out on a meaty arm. “Hey, Adam,” she said brightly.

  Adam gave a terse nod and kept walking.

  “You want a ride?”

  He stopped. He took a drag and sent out an angry plume. “What for?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what for?’ So you won’t be late. You’re not going to make it before the bell. Come on, hop in! But ditch the cigarette first, okay? No smoking in Cameryn’s car. You know Cameryn.”

  “Yeah. We’re lab partners.”

  Cameryn gave a friendly wave but his expression remained wary. In the gray light of morning, the paleness of his skin seemed even more pronounced. For a moment she thought he would refuse, but then he shrugged and flicked the cigarette into the gutter. With an expert motion he rubbed it beneath his sneaker and opened the back door to the car. He carried no backpack, which made Cameryn wonder where his books were. Although strange, he always seemed to do well in class. The smell of menthol infiltrated her car as Adam settled into the backseat; he spread his long, thin legs apart, his knees resting against both seatbacks. His coat hung open, revealing a black T-shirt, and a black leather cord with a miniature silver skull hung from his neck.

  “Seat belt,” Cameryn ordered.

  “I don’t believe in seat belts. I believe in fate. If we’re meant to die, we die. If not, we live. Our lives are whatever is meant to be.”

  “If you’re meant to ride in my car you buckle up,” Cameryn shot back as she pulled onto Main. She caught his reflection in her rearview mirror, which revealed only a slash of his face. Adam kept his same, bland expression. “Whatever you say,” he said, and snapped the buckle.

  Lyric was all smiles as she twisted in the front seat, trying to make eye contact with Adam, chatting him up. For a while his replies were clipped. Cameryn was glad she had the job of driving since it gave her a cover for not really engaging in the conversation, freeing her to just listen.

  At first he spoke in fits and starts, unused it seemed to conversation with kids his own age, but it didn’t take long before he warmed up. It surprised Cameryn to hear Adam finally speak in more than a few clipped sentences. He had a good voice. It was deeper than she’d realized, supple in its rhythms, and it had a husky quality, probably, she guessed, from smoking.

  “No matter where we move I always check out the cemeteries,” he was saying. “The one here’s a gold mine of oddities. Lots of funky people have been planted there,” he told Lyric, who by now he was speaking to exclusively. “Reading tombstones is like reading a history book. Hey, see that shop—Silverton Souvenirs? I’m working there now.”

  “Really?” Lyric asked. “That’s a cool place.”

  Cameryn knew the store. It was small, no more than fifteen feet wide, wedged between two refurbished eateries. Painted a dull olive, the Silverton souvenir shop had none of the charm of its neighbors. Tiny figurines crowded shelves along side racks crammed with cheap T-shirts stamped with the Durango & Silverton train. Behind the counter they sold souvenir spoons and matching teacups. To Cameryn, it was the equivalent of a town junk drawer.

  “It’s a dump. They sell all kinds of made-in-China crap, but it’s got a mind-blowing basement. It’s like a cave down there—earthen floors and walls and an old poker table from the twenties covered in a foot of dust. They got something else down there, too.”

  “What?”

  Adam paused for effect. “A ghost. A prostitute who was murdered around eighty years ago. My boss says she won’t leave until her body is found. But if someone did find her body, it won’t be much—by now it’d just be a skull and maybe a couple of bones.”

  “No way!” Lyric cried. “Are you serious? Cameryn, did you hear that? There’s a ghost in the basement of the souvenir shop.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Cameryn replied, “I heard it.” She had sudden clarity as to Lyric’s motives concerning Adam. Wacky people are always drawn to their own kind.

  “Cameryn doesn’t believe in ghosts,” Lyric said smugly, “but I do.”

  Adam nodded in her rearview mirror. “Science-types only believe their five senses, totally ignoring their sixth one.”

  “Hello, I’m in the car!” Cameryn interjected. She was suddenly feeling left out. “Please don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”

  He leaned forward, his chin between the backs of the bucket seats. “No disrespect intended,” he told her. “My point is I’m not afraid to say I’m a believer. There is more to this world than what we see. When I went to the graveyard I swear I saw a black shape move through the tombstones. It freaked me out. I mean, I actually saw this thing—a being from the other side. Just last night I was watching Shadow of Death—”

  Lyric hit Cameryn’s thigh but said nothing.

  “—and man, Jewel just blew me away. This girl’s spirit was talking right to him. And what’s really whacked is I started wondering if the murdered girl was killed somewhere around here. The way he described the mountains m
ade me think of Silverton. We could have had a murder in our own little town.”

  “Oh, come on!” Cameryn let out a derisive snort. “Why would a serial killer come to dinky Silverton? That’s completely insane. We don’t have murders here.”

  That was true. When Silverton was a frontier town, people were shot all the time, but the violence had dried up since it entered respectability. Her father had told her of a case, barely within Cameryn’s memory, where a wife caught her drunk of a husband cheating and split his skull with a meat cleaver. Patrick said the town felt the jerk had it coming, the judge gave the wife a light sentence, and that was the end of violent crime in Silverton.

  “I would have agreed with you right up until I saw the show, which—check this out—he did live,” Adam replied. “Jewel said he saw orange soil and mountains. Think about the soil around here. It’s, like, the color of pumpkins.”

  “That’s true!” Lyric chimed. “I forgot about that part. Jewel did say he saw the color orange.”

  “You both are delusional.” Cameryn was relieved to be turning into the parking lot of Silverton’s one and only school. It was an old building with arced windows and stone sconces. Since the school housed kids of all ages, she had to be especially careful driving into the school zone. Kids on bikes bumped along the sidewalks on their way to the elementary wing, their jackets zipped snug around eager faces. Older kids walked in clumps. The small parking lot was already overflowing with vehicles, mostly four-wheel drives and pickup trucks, a staple of those accustomed to mountain living.

  As she looked at the cars and the flushed faces of the kids, she realized that this was her reality. Real people contained in real bodies going to a real school made of brick. Of course she had her faith, but hers was old and rooted in time, ancient in its rhythms and as immovable as stone. The saints might intercede when summoned, but the rest of the dead were busy in heaven doing whatever it was souls did, and Cameryn liked the division. It was as clear as the separation between day and night. In her daylight hours, science ruled and questions had absolute answers, while in her nighttime world of faith, candles smoked, wafting prayers into paradise. It was a comfortable partition.