“Doctor, could you tell me more about him? I need to know everything I can in order to track him down.”
So the doctor did so, and it was all quite chilling and grotesque, of course. Just like most psychotic serial killers that she had run into. “Did the family commit him? Or was it the court system?”
“Well, actually, he killed his grandfather, and also a man who married some girl with whom he was infatuated. Both of them with his bare hands and some kind of club. The coroner said that Fitch beat his girlfriend’s new husband to death, still whaling on him until he could barely lift his arms to strike him anymore. They had to knock him unconscious to stop him. Both victims died, of course. Fitch was still in his teens. That’s when the family decided he was way too dangerous to be allowed to roam free and his temper much too volatile to remain living at their farm with the rest of the family. So they brought him over here to us, tied up nice and tight in the back of a pickup truck. After that, he vowed he was going to get out and kill them all. One by one and in the worst possible manner.”
Well, well, what’d you know. Claire found that more than interesting since she had checked the background of all Fitch and Parker crimes in Canton County and had seen no mention of any such crime. She told the shrink as much.
“They probably didn’t report it to the police. They keep to themselves. I believe the victim was one of their own. I doubt very much if they ever report any kind of crime occurring on their property. In our sessions, Fitch talked a lot about the fights they liked to sponsor out around where he was born, and how he was the best of the best. Truth? He just loves to fight and hit other human beings until they stop moving. Anywhere, any time, anybody, and that was exactly the way he put it. He said it gave him great pleasure, as nothing else could. Although he was transferring much of that onto his fictitious brother that he referred to as Bones.”
Great news, just what she wanted to hear when she went out looking for him again. “And he vowed to kill the members of his own family?” It appeared that he had already started out upon that deadly murder quest. Blythe Parker was a Fitch, and one that was easy to get at, all frail and alone in that big empty house of hers. Easy pickings for a homicidal maniac on the loose.
Black was still asking doctor-specific questions. “Did Fitch ever transform into his alter ego in your sessions?”
“No, but he did it with some of the other patients, especially after Landers managed to get away from here. We caught his violence on camera several times in the common room. It was a textbook transition. Fitch always seemed rather subdued and quiet when in his day-to-day reality, the one in which he wanted us to call him Punk Fitch. But when he became Bones Fitch, and as I said, that’s the name he called his imaginary brother, he became angry and irate and loud and brutal and looking for a fight. He did manage at one time to beat another patient seriously enough that he had to be hospitalized in the intensive care unit for a week. That’s when we realized just how dangerous he was and the kind of brutality of which he was capable.”
Wonderful, just great, now she’d probably have to strap all three guns on her person,
Claire thought. “And you are absolutely certain there is not another brother, a twin called Bones?”
“Yes, absolutely convinced. We did in-depth family histories with the people who brought him here, members of the Fitch family. They all knew that he was convinced he had a twin brother, but they swore to a person that he did not. They said his fantasy about having a twin called Bones started very young, at which time Fitch made up several imaginary playmates, but he was especially adamant about the brother named Bones. We got the same information from the family in which he grew to manhood. All of it was well documented by every doctor on our staff who worked with him.”
“Let me get this straight. Now you are telling me that this guy’s not really a Fitch?”
“No, I’m not saying that. Mr. Fitch is a Fitch on his mother’s side. She was a Fitch. His father was a Parker.”
“I see.” Claire thought about that a moment. “That’s surprising. Considering how the two families loathe each other.”
“Yes. The mother was shunned for a time, until her family took pity on her and allowed her to return to the fold. Apparently, her husband was rather brutal, to both her and the boys, so after our patient was born, she took him and went back home to live. When he was about five, she died, and his father took him back to live at the Parker household. That’s when we believe his personality split into the Bones and Punk personalities.”
“So what was this guy’s real name? The name on his birth certificate?”
“His birth name is Preston Parker, but he wanted everybody to call him Punk Fitch when he moved back in with his mother’s family, which he did in order to be with the girl he loved at the time. When he was in residence here, he would become angry if we called him Preston Parker, and insisted that we call him Punk Fitch. So we did so, in order to keep him calm and cooperative. I believe, however, that the dominant personality is Bones.”
Good grief, was this guy a whack job of epic proportions, or what? “So he
is
one of the Parker brothers who still live out there in the hills?”
“Yes, but when we tried to interview them, they wouldn’t claim kin to him, either. They said he wasn’t their brother, and never had been. We couldn’t get them to admit it. Personally, I believe that they are so afraid of him that they didn’t want to tell us anything. I think they feared that if he ever got out, he’d go after them if they told us anything about him. Therefore, they completely denied his existence. This is a very strange case, believe me.”
Claire glanced at Black. He was wearing a massive frown, one of professional bent. When he looked like that, it meant that said subject was big-time weirded out up to the rafters. “Surely there were school records that verified Preston Parker’s existence. School pictures that we could obtain? Surely you have pictures of this Punk/Bones guy while he was under your care?”
“All the Parker children were homeschooled. No school records could be found. No medical records to speak of. A few hospital visits for the father and a couple of the boys, but the admission information given was vague. But yes, we do have a picture of him when he was admitted here.” He opened the manila file in front of him and slid a photograph across the desk to her.
Claire picked it up and stared at it. It was a close-up of a young man who looked a whole hell of a lot like Paulie Parker. Problem was, though, he also looked a whole helluva lot like a younger version of Patrick. And Percy. And Phin. And Petey. And Chef Phillip. The guy in the picture even looked a slight bit like the randy little Malachi Fitch. Yep, they all looked so much alike that they could be quintuplets or sextuplets, especially now that they were all older and bearded and dressed exactly alike in green and brown camouflage. Oh, fabulous. And inbreeding raises its ugly head. One of them was a psycho who was killing people right and left. All she had to do was figure out which one it was. Maybe she’d just arrest them all, and wait for the full moon to see who howled.
Claire sighed, not exactly thrilled at the road she could see stretching out ahead of her. “So he was a Parker as a child, and it was a Parker father who beat him when he was small. Do I have that much right?”
“From what we can ascertain. We interviewed everyone in both families who would agree to talk to us. That’s the way we understood it. But some of the stories they told didn’t always make sense to us or go along with what the Punk Fitch personality told us.”
“No kidding,” Claire said. “Think any of it is true?”
At that juncture, Black decided to jump into the fray. “Are there other credible extenuating factors from his childhood that indicate he was DID that far back?”
“Yes. Punk told us that he was often placed into dog pens and metal cages for punishment and for long periods of time, and without food or water, but that apparently caused him to bear a strong love of canines. He admitted that he adopted their habits and that he enjoyed licking other people and himself the way dogs do. He told us that it gave him insight into their souls and what they were thinking. Especially if he managed to insert his tongue into their mouth or ears.”
Well, yuck, yuck, and more yuck. “Well, that’s just about as gross as gross can get, Dr. LeCorps.” Man, she just could not get that name to roll easily off her tongue. Same went for cadaver and decapitation.
“Yes, it is. But it was something he felt he had to do upon meeting someone new. Sometimes he was strong enough to physically force himself on his victims. Not so with Thomas Landers. Landers liked the licking. Punk apparently taught Landers how to lick the face and neck for sexual gratification, and Landers took to the whole process at once. It was a very clinically significant development in their relationship. You can see why, I’m sure.”
And Claire was beginning to see why, all right. They were after a super psycho/pervert/dog licker, to be sure, but that wasn’t exactly news to her. She had seen Paulie Parker’s frozen body and the bloody brutality of Blythe Parker’s murder, too. Bones Fitch/Punk Fitch/Preston Parker/Nut Job was indeed a whacko of the highest order, all right, and he was running all over the place and probably licking God knew what as they spoke. Great. As far as Claire was concerned, he could be anybody in either one of the Fitch or Parker clans. And the Petrovs, too, with their murderous proclivities, as far as that went. Maybe she should arrest the whole lot of them, all three families en masse, and make the world a safer place in which to grow and prosper and stay alive. Meanwhile, she would take a copy of Dr. LeCorps’s file home with her and read about crazy people until she went crazy herself. Which wouldn’t take long, not the way things were going.
Blood Brothers
Making a plan to kill their betraying brother didn’t take very long at all. Punk and Bones had always liked keeping things simple, which was just easier, and all. So they decided to hide out in the hotel’s parking lot on the night of his fight and wait for Punk’s true love’s new love to come outside. He had the last fight, the showcase one, and most everybody was gone before he had showered and finished up in the locker room. When he finally did show up, he was all alone and the parking lot was nearly empty. So as soon as he put his gym bag down so he could unlock his car door, they attacked him from behind with baseball bats and knocked him down with double blows. Then Bones hit him again and cracked his right kneecap before Punk could get the duct tape over his mouth. He screamed in agony, and they dragged him behind some trashcans, but nobody heard, or came outside, or anything, which was very lucky for them.
Then they tied him up and threw him in the back and took off in the orderly’s Jeep and headed for a nice deserted place in which to take their time breaking him up. It was snowing hard again but they were used to that and the new Jeep was well equipped for bad weather. The roads were nearly deserted so late, and they turned onto a cleared road that led up into a big state park. Punk stopped the Jeep, and Bones got out and unhooked the chain across the entrance. Then they drove inside, found a good spot, and then got out and left the car lights on. They dragged their moaning, groaning brother to a high cliff that overlooked the lake. It was pitch dark, still snowing, but the white snow reflected the headlights and made things nice and bright, as they flipped a rope over a tree limb and strung him up to a tree by his wrists. They stood under him, both holding the old aluminum baseball bats that the three of them had played with as children.
Bones said, “You wanna go first? Since he’s screwin’ your girl?”
Growling with rage at the mental picture that brought up inside his mind, Punk swung the bat against their victim’s spine. He didn’t hear any vertebra snap so he hit him again, harder this time. Bones laughed at the way Punk was yelling and cussing at their trussed-up brother. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about! You miss that while you was locked up, Punk? You glad you’re back here with me, the way it oughta be?”
“Just hurry it up and hit him. We gotta get rid of him and make my girl a free woman again, now that I’m back and ready to get married. Nobody’s gonna stop me now from havin’ her. Nobody.”
“Sounds good to me. You’re finally showin’ me some guts. Don’t know why you want that lily-white tail, anyways. She sure don’t do it for me.”
“Nothin’ does it for you except breakin’ people’s bones. Go ahead, it’s your turn. Hurry up. Somebody might see the car lights.”
Punk stood back and watched Bones raise the bat over his head and bring it down hard on the man’s collarbone. It snapped, but their brother probably didn’t feel anything anymore, not now that his spine was splintered all apart. But the furious revenge was still burning hot inside Punk, a hard red rage that he’d locked up so long, just at the thought of other men sleeping and having sex with his girl. Now he was wreaking his vengeance, and he was gonna enjoy it.
So he took his turns with passionate eagerness, beating one brother alongside his other brother, glad for Bones’s help. Maybe he didn’t swing his Louisville Slugger with the same kind of maniacal glee that Bones did, but he bet he was getting a lot more satisfaction. It felt good to be free from those stupid doctors. It felt good to kill somebody, somebody who had touched his woman’s pure white skin while he’d been gone.
After almost an hour, the blizzard intensified so much that they could barely see where to aim their blows. They couldn’t hear the bones pop anymore, either, and they were cold down to their marrow. So they cut the broken corpse down off the tree limb and heaved him as far as they could off the cliff and into the water below. Nobody was gonna find what was left of him until the snow melted and the park opened in the spring, if even then, after the animals had gotten to him and dragged his broken bones to hell and back, which was just good enough for him.