Page 28 of The Accomplice
He had seen many dead bodies. Something elemental changed when life departed. Blood no longer flowed. They grew cold quickly. The body lost its wonder and became so much dead meat.
Only the eyes retained the reflection of life.
He was fascinated by the human eye. Had been forever. Once, he remembered reading a very old book of crime stories that said a hundred years ago, coroners and medical examiners retained the eyes of murder victims and examined them closely, believing that the image of the killer was somehow still embedded in the back of the eye. Nonsense, of course, but the tale intrigued him.
And so, when his victims were safely dead, he removed the eyes and kept them. At times, in his special place, he would remove the eyes from their jars and hold them in his hands. They were glassy at this stage as the preservative solution had hardened them, like gumballs. He stared at them, wondering if his face was still in there, somewhere.
The sand he used on his victims served two purposes. It would, according to the old stories, make sure they never woke. And it helped hide any traces he may have left behind. He poured the sand into their gaping mouths, red stomachs and hollow eye sockets. Watching the grains stick in their bloody gums and on their teeth. Their bodies a lifeless vessel, and at the same time he felt the power and strength flood into his body.
The Sandman returned his thoughts to the road, and drove past the alleyway on the south side of the block and pulled up at the curb. He felt a mild thrill. It was exhilarating. A rush that began in his stomach and travelled up his spine, into his brain. It was memory. A sumptuous memory that somehow made his body relive the physical intoxication he had experienced that night.
The night he had murdered Lilian Parker and dumped her body in that alleyway.
He got out of the van and made his way across the street. This part of Tribeca was a real mix of cultures. There was a bail bondsman on the corner, next to an artisan coffee shop and a high-end bookstore that mostly sold first editions. Across the street from the bookstore was an all-night laundromat that sat between a dollar store and a ladies’ designer clothes store. The evidence for the increase in gentrification of Manhattan continued, and it was curious to see the parts of the city where the old and the new sat side by side.
The door to an apartment complex which sat above these stores was sandwiched between the clothes store and a bakery. He opened the front door with a key and stepped into the hallway.
While surveilling Lilian Parker last year, the Sandman had taken the loft space in the building opposite hers on a monthly lease. It was too small for an apartment, but it suited small businesses who needed a space but couldn’t afford to rent in the rest of Manhattan and didn’t care what the place looked like. The windows overlooked the street and were high enough on the seventh floor to provide a great view of Lilian Parker’s apartment.
A few days after the murder, he had allowed the lease to lapse. But not before making a copy of the front door key, and the key to the loft, just in case he needed to return. Something he often did. He wasn’t consciously planning for the future, more like creating options. And tonight was the first time he had been in this building in a year.
While he had one plan for success, he had five more ready if anything went wrong. The Sandman always gave himself options. It was this type of critical analysis and hypothetical problem evaluation that had given him an edge in his day job and made him rich.
He climbed the stairs. There was no elevator in this building. With his hand on the iron rail, he inhaled the familiar odors of the place ; the old lady on the second floor who always seemed to be boiling cabbage or burning butter ; the damp corner of the third-floor staircase that had rotted through the wooden paneling, turning it dark green ; the metallic smell of the rails and the musty odor of old wood and dust which was thrown up with each creaking step of the climb.
He reached the top floor. Put his key in the lock, turned it slowly. Having completed a few cycles of the block, he knew the lights were out in the apartment. The current occupant was Peter Durant. An up-and-coming artist of some repute. The tenant who had taken the loft before the Sandman took his tenure last year had been an artist too. It wasn’t that surprising really. In the summer, the loft was flooded with light for most of the day from its two large dormer windows.
The door opened a few inches and the Sandman stopped. Held his breath.
No noise inside. The floorboards were at least as old as the stairs and every inch of them creaked like crazy. He guessed he had managed not to disturb Durant by opening the door. He eased it open further, wincing at the sound from the old hinges, then closed and locked it behind him.
He let out the breath he was holding and turned around to take in the room by the moonlight.
An easel was set up by the window. A table beside it filled with paint bottles, used paint pallets, rags, brushes in glasses of muddy water and pallet knives stained with paint. The room to the left was a bathroom. To the right, a small walk-in closet that was just wide and deep enough to take a thin cot bed. This door was ajar, and he could see a pair of feet jutting out against the open door.
It had been small enough for the Sandman to use as a sleeping area, but Durant was probably a good few inches taller. The Sandman moved around the easel to take a look at the painting first.
It was a self portrait. Not very well done, but he guessed that it was still a work in progress. The painting showed the artist stripped to the waist, wearing only a pair of blue jeans. The musculature was well rendered, but Durant wasn’t going to win any prizes even though he captured and used light well.
It was the sort of thing Carrie would love.
He heard noise. Bedsprings groaning. The rasp of rusty door hinges.
‘Who the fuck are you ?’ said a voice.
The Sandman moved to one side and saw Durant in his sweatpants, bare-chested, standing in the middle of the room. There was paint on his hands, up to his elbows, and flecks covered his stomach and wide chest. If he spent as much time working on his brush strokes as he did lifting weights, he might just get somewhere.
‘I’m an admirer of your work,’ said the Sandman as he moved around the picture and walked casually toward Durant.
The artist tensed. His hands balled into fists.
‘How did you get in here ?’
‘The door was open,’ said the Sandman, taking another step forward.
‘Woah, stay back. You need to tell me exactly who you are and what you’re doing here.’
‘Please, Mr. Durant, relax. I was hoping to discuss a commission.’
