Free SHUDDERVILLE TWO by Mia Zabrisky Page A

need of a paint job. The widow Kincaid was young and beautiful. She had intense blue eyes, long brown hair and the most delicate features I’d ever seen on a grown woman. She had two kids, a boy and a girl, and that resonated with me right away—I’d been obsessing about the number 13 lately. And here they were, a widow and two kids. I had ten victims notched on my belt. Three more would make it 13. Not that I was going to kill them, mind you. I never knew who would be spared and who would die. It was like a light-switch going off inside my head. Only I wasn’t the one turning the lights on and off.
    The ten-year-old girl was cute as a button. The 14-year-old boy was dumb as mud. He wore a crazy-looking outfit—red plaid shorts, scuffed loafers with no socks, and an orange T-shirt without any logo. The three of them stood inside the kitchen squinting up at me as if I had leprosy. I could tell they weren’t used to having strangers in the house.
    “I always pay in cash,” I said, pulling out a wad of bills, but the widow was going to be difficult. She eyed me with a witch’s intuition.
    “I need to ask you a few questions first,” she said.
    “Sure. Shoot.”
    “What do you do for a living, Mr. LaCroix?”
    That was the name I’d given her. Clarence LaCroix. My real name is Clay Purvis, like I said, but I’ve hated it my whole life. The other kids used to call me Purvis the Perv. “I joined the army a few years back,” I lied, “saw some action, and got hit with shrapnel. Honorable discharge.” I showed her an old scar from one of my encounters with Baldilocks—the sick son of a bitch who’d started me on this path to hell. My mother’s “boyfriend.” His hair was thinning on top, and I used to call him Baldilocks. He was a mean, vengeful son of a bitch, and if I ever found him again, I was going to kill him.
    “Oh?” Delilah Kincaid said, showing more interest and warmth toward me, now that she thought I was a war veteran. The kids ogled the long jagged scar on my left arm.
    “Souvenir from ‘Nam,” I said off-handedly, relishing the newfound respect in their eyes. Like I said, it was 1971 and a war was raging. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart by the Bee Gees was the most popular song on the radio that summer, and it seemed as if the Vietnam conflict had split America in half. Cleaved it like an axe.
    “Did you fight in the tunnels?” the boy asked, his face flushed with excitement.
    “Not me. I fought above ground.”
    “Yessir!” He looked at his mother and laughed foolishly.
    “Andy,” she chided softly, and he settled right down.
    Now here’s the truth. I don’t know much about Vietnam except for what I’ve read in the headlines. But lying has always come easy for me. I guess you could say I was a born liar.
    “And now?” the widow asked. “What is it you do now, Mr. LaCroix?”
    “Odd jobs. This and that. Sometimes I get a gig.” I held up my guitar.
    “You’re a musician?”
    “Don’t worry, I won’t practice inside the house.”
    “Are you a rock musician?” Andy asked, excitedly pumping his fist in the air.
    “I play acoustic guitar and write my own songs.”
    “Would you sing us a song?” the little girl asked.
    “Maybe. Someday.”
    “Cool!” the boy shouted exuberantly.
    “Do you have any references?”
    The widow was the only one paying attention.
    “Yes, ma’am.” I pulled out the phony letters I’d typed up in Taos, New Mexico.
    Her hands trembled as she read my “glowing” references. She had a child’s slender fingers. She was thin-armed and beautiful. She had sparkly blue eyes and an upturned nose.
    “I can pay you a month’s rent in advance,” I told her, waving twenty-dollar bills around. Nobody’s ever refused cold hard cash. It’s just the way most of us are built. Money is better than anything, better than a succulent peach on a hot summer day.
    She hesitated a moment before handing me my phony references back and taking the cash.