The Barrens & Others by F. Paul Wilson Page A

line!
    "I have to ask you something to be sure you are who you say you are."
    "Yesh?"
    "Do you take anything from the victims – I mean, besides their faces?"
    "Money. Take money."
    This is him! The department had withheld the money part from the papers. Only the real Facelift Killer could know!
    "Can I ask you something else?"
    "Yesh."
    Harrison was asking this one for himself.
    "What do you do with the faces?"
    He had to know. The question drove him crazy at night. He dreamed about those faces. Did the killer tack them on the wall, or press them in a book, or freeze them, or did he wear them around the house like that Leatherface character from that chainsaw movie?
    On the other end of the line he sensed sudden agitation and panic : "No! Can not shay! Can not!"
    "Okay, okay. Take it easy."
    "You will help shtop?"
    "Oh, yes! Oh, God, yes, I'll help you stop!" He prayed his genuine heartfelt desire to end this was coming through. "I'll help you any way I can!"
    A long pause, then:
    "You hate? Hate me?"
    Harrison didn't trust himself to answer that right away. He searched his feelings quickly, but carefully.
    "No," he said finally. "I think you have done some awful, horrible things but, strangely enough, I don't hate you."
    And that was true. Why didn't he hate this murdering maniac? Oh, he wanted to stop him more than anything in the world, and wouldn't hesitate to shoot him dead if the situation required it, but there was no personal hatred for the Facelift Killer.
    What is it in you that speaks to me? he wondered.
    "Shank you," said the voice, couched once more in a sob.
    And then the killer hung up.
    Harrison shouted into the dead phone, banged it on his desk, but the line was dead.
    "What the hell's the matter with you?" Jacobi said from the office door.
    "That so-called 'fairy' on the phone was the Facelift Killer, you idiot! We could have had a trace if you'd stuck around!"
    "Bullshit!"
    "He knew about taking the money!"
    "So why'd he talk like that? That's a dumb-ass way to try to disguise your voice."
    And then it suddenly hit Harrison like a sucker punch to the gut. He swallowed hard and said:
    "Jacobi, how do you think your voice would sound if you had a mouth crammed full of teeth much larger and sharper than the kind found in the typical human mouth?"
    Harrison took genuine pleasure in the way Jacobi's face blanched slowly to yellow-white.
    *
    He didn't get home again until after seven the following night. The whole department had been in an uproar all day. This was the first break they had had in the case. It wasn't much, but contact had been made. That was the important part. And although Harrison had done nothing he could think of to deserve any credit, he had accepted the commissioner's compliments and encouragement on the phone shortly before he had left the office tonight.
    But what was most important to Harrison was the evidence from the call – Damn! he wished it had been taped – that the killer wanted to stop. They didn't have one more goddam clue tonight than they'd had yesterday, but the call offered hope that soon there might be an end to this horror.
    Martha had dinner waiting. The kids were scrubbed and pajamaed and waiting for their goonight kiss. He gave them each a hug and poured himself a stiff scotch while Martha put them in the sack.
    "Do you feel as tired as you look?" she said as she returned from the bedroom wing.
    She was a big woman with bright blue eyes and natural dark blond hair. Harrison toasted her with his glas.
    "The expression 'dead on his feet' has taken on a whole new meaning for me."
    She kissed him, then they sat down to eat.
    He had spoken to Martha a couple of times since he had left the house twenty hours ago. She knew about the phone call from the Facelift Killer, about the new hope in the department about the case, but he was glad she didn't bring it up now. He was sick of talking about it. Instead, he sat in front of his cooling meatloaf and wrestled with the images