The Devil's in the Details

By Vanessa Christie

LOVE, BETRAYAL, VIOLENCE, REDEMPTION, AGE-OLD SINS AND THE UNCERTAIN FUTURE... The Devil’s In the Details is artist VA Christie's debut short fiction collection, a series of stories stretching from sun-soaked San Diego to the bayous of Louisiana to other worlds, and a diverse cast of characters — including a lost former detective

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atmosphere Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781646693443

Book preview

Complex part 1

The apartment complex was a step away from a rendezvous hotel, but not a big step. Arranged on a U with a courtyard in the center.

It took DB three trips to get his belongings into the building. Something like a miracle nothing was stolen on the way there or back.

Most of the tenants stayed a few months before leaving. One old man the exception, in residence over a decade. The type reluctant to go outdoors, newspaper taped over windows, notices of management’s displeasure ignored.

On the third trip he noticed the resident pretty girl. Too pretty for the location and she knew it. In all probability she was thinking the same thing about him.

Hi, DB said. I’m new.

Me too, she told him. Two months.

What’s his story? he asked, pointing toward the obscured windows. The pretense of ignorance was better at this stage he had found.

She looked. Her first mistake.

Her second was inviting him over.

Her name was Casey; he learned as he studied her apartment, filled with the requisite mystic self-help books, favored rom-coms on DVD, copies of Pre-Raphaelites on the walls.

Nice, he said, unimpressed by her attempt at taste.

He swallowed her off-white wine that tasted like pee.

They say he’s one of those the ‘government is watching me,’ or ‘aliens, Sasquatch are real’ types, she told him looking out the window toward the old man’s apartment.

Really? he asked.

Well, who knows? She shrugged. But it would seem he pays his bills. And, she shifted to a whisper, the neighbors say he pays with some government pension. So the ‘government spying on him’ part wouldn’t be difficult.

He listened to her tell him about her life; the schools and friends and first car and musical preferences. He nodded when appropriate and shook his head on occasion as well. He did not invite himself into her bed that night, though he was clear about the intention to do so in the near future.

The next time he saw Casey, he said all the right things and made all the right moves.

I heard a rumor, he told her as he listened to the steady tempo of her heart, around town about our mysterious neighbor.

Yeah? Casey murmured, sounding less than fully involved with the conversation he had planned.

That he kills people, he said.

He watched her pale eyes go wide. This was going to be even easier than the last time. That or he was getting better.

It took a great deal of effort to extract himself from her fear-cling.

The thing, he stated, is to watch him. Now from what I’ve seen, the old man doesn’t go out. So he must have people, his victims, come to him. Facebook. Craigslist. Tumblr. Could be anything. He gets them to come to him. And then….

He grabbed Casey inciting a half-scream. It was followed in short order by some genuine clamor on her part.

So, he said, interrupting Casey when she began to tell him about her day. The thing to do is to get him to leave his apartment. Serial killers have trophies. If what you read on the internet is true.

Don’t you have any hobbies? Casey asked him with an infuriating touch of sarcasm.

The timing was not right he warned himself, letting the flash of anger ebb. Ordinary people could only focus on one thing at a time; she had not been ready to think about anything that mattered to anyone else.

You, he said quickly. You are my hobby.

It was not a lie. Not entirely, anyway. He watched the girl smile. Well, she was used to admiration, was probably planning a future, which, for all she knew, he would be a part of.

Look, Casey said, unless he can turn into a bat, I’ve never seen the old man leave his place. There is no actual way of getting into his apartment, in the first place. As for being a killer or whatever, well they say serial killers are very rare. Fortunately. He’s probably just strange or whatever. Anyway, it’s not like, I mean, neither of us are staying here…long. Right?

Where there’s a will, he said, there’s a way.

Hello, he said after his call was redirected a few times. Typical of the government to make a concerned citizen wait as long as possible. It sounded like the call was taking place on a submarine, or some form of relay system involving tin cans. Yes, he continued, I think there’s a gas leak at my apartment complex. Yes. Ah huh. Yes. No. Not my apartment, I don’t think. I’ll double-check but I think it’s from a neighbor’s place. Yes.

He gave the address and hung up the payphone.

It was not long before the workers arrived one by one, forcing the residents onto the street.

A man and a woman staggered outside suggestively wrapped in towels. Two marriages down the drain in all probability.

DB looked for a head of hair the setting sun would burnish gold. It would not be hard to fall for her. By now several probably had.

Casey looked toward him and showed her flawless teeth.

Let’s go, he told Casey.

What? she asked.

Old man Tom’s out of his apartment; let’s have a look around. He angled his head toward an old man pallid as a prisoner, blinking like an owl even in the fading light.

Casey refused to even glance in the old man’s direction.

Are you out of your mind? she hissed. There’s gas. We’re supposed to wait outside. Remember?

It’s only dangerous if someone lights a match. Come on.

I think this obsession of yours has reached an unhealthy level. Do whatever you want, she told him, and walked away.

It would have been better if she had come but he had prepared for her refusal. He concealed her hair and nail fragments within the dark apartment. When she turned up dead, everyone would suspect the local weirdo, especially with her DNA in evidence.

Heartless

Owen Walsh did not notice the damage to his Audi until he got to work. Brand new and already far from the perfection he had left the lot with.

Maybe, he thought, started to think. Stopped. No. He must have done it without realizing or someone had backed into the car without leaving a note. Going to be one of those days, he thought.

He had slept. Drugged though. Not the deep and necessary rest he recalled like an absent love.

His insomnia had begun as a once-a-week or even every-other-week issue. Progressed steadily to nights in a row.

Now it was rare if he could get through a night un-medicated.

With the drugging his days were blurs of repletion. He wasted time wondering if he had already said certain things to certain people or only imagined the same cyclical conversation.

In the parking lot he squirted eye-drops, shook rain from his jacket. Gave himself a last look in the glass doors’ reflection, made certain his appearance did not reflect his mind.

Another shift, another series of the same crimes; suspicious deaths, robberies, rape.

A sudden spike in DUIs (strange given all the Ubers and Lyfts, most of which had begun appointing their vehicles with both stickers to become Lubers).

Stolen cars. Stolen bicycles, phones, packages.

The hit-and-run barely snagged his attention.

Owen woke with his heart pounding furiously. He held his chest and waited for the muscle to calm.

Just a dream he told himself. A night like many he had seen, roads slick with rain, flame colored in the streetlamps’ glow.

The shape that turned into a human, eyes that locked onto his own in the dark.

A dream and nothing more, he told himself.

He waited.

Waited some more.

He picked up his phone. Cell phones were not preferable for emergency calls. His fear of moving spurred a more rapid beat.

I… I’m having a heart attack, he said.

He repeated his address.

Waited some more.

A bundle of daisies looked absurd in Gardner’s fist.

Going for early? the man asked. Cardiac event? What the fuck’s that?

JV heart attack, Owen replied.

Lazy, Gardner said. Couldn’t manage the real thing? Had to go for half-assed? Cops have heart attacks, not events. Here, he said shoving the wilted flowers in his direction.

He’d been mistaken; they were white carnations, not daisies.

Carnations are for funerals, asshole, he said more annoyed than was probably warranted. You tell the florist I was dying?

You aren’t?

No, he said. It’s a reduce-stress thing. Anxiety. Diet. Thing. Not a dying thing.

Anxiety? Gardner said. Kid’s got that. Wouldn’t leave his room. Does now though. Expensive problem.

Owen sighed. It was specific, he said. A specific event. Not in general. Fight or flight. My heart didn’t react right.

You fighting or flying?

Neither, he said. I was sleeping.

Bad dream?

Owen nodded.

Must have been some dream.

I don’t remember it, he lied. Just woke up. Heart going.

Fuck.

The heart monitor increased a tic.

A nurse looked in. Admonished.

Get better, Gardner told him, handing him a much-signed glitter-encrusted card intended for twelve-year-old girls.

Owen returned to work two weeks later with a clean-ish bill, a new diet (nix every food that made life worthwhile), and desk duty.

Gardner looked at the rabbit food in a Tupperware he was attempting for lunch.

Gonna start on yoga? Gardner asked leaning on his desk. Go full girl-cop? Yoga and veg? Cleansing? Zentangles? Retreats?

Gardner looked utterly unhealthy. Sweated profusely. Frustrated his doctors with smoking, drinking, poor diet, and lack of exercise. Perfect health was his unearned reward.

Show me how? Owen asked. You like yoga. Don’t you?

Just the... Garner paused. Positions.

That’s what they all say, he said sarcastically. Did you find the…

He hesitated.

The? Gardner asked with a strange expression.

The case from before I had the… uh event. You know the cardiac-

You going to keep calling it an event. Like you were in the Olympics?

Fuck you, Owen said half-heartedly.

Gardner smiled. Oh. Yeah. I think I know the one you mean. Well, it’s easy to catch rapists when they go on you-twit-face and brag about it.

Good, he said.

He would look up the case he had meant to ask about on his own time. Better that way.

He felt his heart sink when he found the file well on its way to frostbitten.

Veteran. A difficult life and a slow death. Very slow. Would likely have survived if the heartless bastard had stopped. Died in the same hospital where his own heart had been shocked back to regularity.

Suddenly his quinoa and squash lunch felt in danger of reappearance.

The scent of disinfectant hit him as he walked through the automatic doors.

He found his doctor in an indoor garden designed to resemble Japan. The reflected sunlight revealed a hint of auburn in her hair otherwise invisible.

She studied him over a pair of square-rimmed reading glasses. The rush of guilt over interrupting her break slow to recede.

Back so soon? Dr. Soren asked. You miss us?

Only you, he replied.

Touching, Dr. Soren said.

He allowed himself some eye drift. I’m surprised you remember me. You must have a heavy caseload.

I remember hearts, Dr. Soren replied. So?

I’m here about a vet. A veteran. Homeless. Died in a hit-and-run. Night before I came for a visit.

Not mine, she said. "Dr. Webber. Still. He was a regular. We all knew