The Sleep Experiment Page 14

  “I’m good, my friend. Catch any students making out in the bushes tonight?”

  “Pepper sprayed the shit out of them.”

  They laughed. Wallis lit a cigarette.

  “So how’s that experiment of yours going?” Roger Henn asked. “What you doing down there anyway?”

  “Oh, you know, what all scientists do. Run rats through mazes and mess with effervescent test tubes.”

  “While cackling evilly and striking dramatic poses.”

  “Exactly.” Doing his best imitation of Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein, Wallis spread his hands and said, “It’s alive!”

  They laughed again.

  “So how are you, Rodge?” Dr. Wallis asked. “Quiet night?”

  “We got an interesting feller back at the station on remand,” Henn said. “Says he’s a pickpocket, and you gotta hear how he allegedly spends his weekends. Takes his local train to San Francisco International Airport Saturday morning, dipping all the way. At the airport, buys a pack of envelopes and stamps and posts what he calls his ‘takings’ back to his home address. Then he dips some more around the departures lounge before taking a cheap flight to Phoenix, Santa Fe, fucking Topeka—wherever he feels like sightseeing for a day or two, still dipping and posting the cash back, so none of his ill-gotten gains are on him if he ever gets busted. And he says he never does ’cause if anyone ever notices they’ve been pickpocketed, he drops the wallet instantly and points it out to the person, like a Good Samaritan. Says he’s lost count of how many people fucking thank him.”

  Dr. Wallis tapped ash from his cigarette. “So how’d he get caught tonight?”

  “DUI.”

  “Ah, yes. The bane of the midnight shift patrolman. Speaking of which, how does a cop get stuck on graveyard duty anyway?”

  Henn shrugged his beefy shoulders. “We got a shift bid policy. Patrol officers bid by seniority.”

  “But you’re what? Thirty-five? Thirty-six? You must have a fair bit of seniority under your belt?”

  “Thirty-seven, and yeah I do. But I don’t mind the dark side. Less nuisance report calls, and most of the other cops, being more junior, are less cynical about life than the guys on the other shifts. But shit.” He yawned. “I do get tired sometimes.”

  “Because what you’re doing isn’t natural, Rodge. Humans are diurnal. We’re not meant to stay up all night and sleep in the day. It works against our circadian clock.”

  “That’s right, you’re the Sleep Doctor. Got any recommendations how to make me feel less tired?”

  “Sure, get enough sleep.”

  “Easier said than done. You ever try sleeping in the daytime?”

  “Your brain can be tricked into going to sleep under the right conditions. Get some blackout shades for your bedroom, or an eye mask. Earplugs too for when your neighbor decides to weed whack or mow in the middle of your night.”

  “Yeah, I might try that, doc. Neighbor has a dog that never shuts up.”

  “You can try changing out your lights as well. Get some low-wattage ones. Maybe even red ones.”

  “Shit, no! I ain’t gonna turn my house into a brothel.”

  “You asked for my advice.”

  “I’ll stick with the eye mask and ear plugs.”

  Dr. Wallis shredded his cigarette beneath his toe. “All right, Rodge. It’s been fun, but I have to get home myself. Have a good night.”

  Roger Henn continued his patrol east along Hearst Avenue, and Wallis returned to the Audi, pleased at how calm he’d remained while speaking to a police officer with Penny’s body hidden a dozen feet away.

  Making a U-turn, Wallis left Berkeley and drove west along I-580. Thirty minutes later, just past the prison where Johnny Cash recorded an album live, he continued west along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to Samuel P. Taylor State Park.

  He had been an outdoorsman in his younger days, and he’d discovered the park quite by accident a dozen years ago while driving to Point Reyes National Seashore. It quickly became a favorite place of his to spend a solitary weekend camping, hiking, and mountain biking. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d come out this way, but it must have been more than five years ago now.

  The park, as Wallis recalled the lore, was named for a man named Samuel Penfield Taylor, who hit it big during the California Gold Rush and used some of his gold to buy a parcel of land along Lagunitas Creek, where he built the first paper mill on the Pacific Coast. When a stretch of the North Pacific Coast Railroad was constructed nearby, the ever-entrepreneurial Taylor built a resort alongside the tracks catering to city-weary San Franciscans. After Taylor died, the State of California took possession of his property for non-payment of taxes, and he became immortalized as the modern-day park’s namesake.

  Dr. Wallis parked the Audi about a mile west of the Camp Taylor entrance, in a pullout on the side of the road. At this hour there were no other cars. He removed Penny’s body from the backseat. Thankfully rigor mortis had yet to affect her muscles, and he flopped her body over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes.

  Across the road, he knew, were trails leading up to Devil’s Gulch. He had no intention of following trails. Instead, he started west off the beaten path into the old-growth forest.

  The towering redwoods blocked any celestial light penetrating the clouds from reaching the ground, but the torch app on his phone served well to illuminate his way. Despite the fact he was in good shape and Penny’s body was thin and light, the trek was not easy. Steep hills and winding creeks impeded his progress, while a light fog shrouded roots and rocks, causing him to stumble on more than one occasion. After ten minutes he was panting and sweating. After another ten minutes he stopped to catch his breath. However, this was not the occasion to be lazy or sloppy. The deeper into the forest he brought the corpse, the better.

  In the end, he pressed on for what must have been another thirty minutes before deciding he had gone far enough. He dumped Penny’s body onto the leaf litter with a sigh of relief. He wiped sweat from his forehead and eyes and shook the numbness out of his shoulders and arms. Then he withdrew the hunting knife he had collected from his home on the way to the park. He’d only used it before to cut rope and clean fish. Tonight’s activity would be very different, and for a moment he worried he didn’t have the stomach to decapitate Penny. But he knew it was a necessary horror. He didn’t own a shovel, and he hadn’t been about to go purchasing one in the middle of the night. Even if he found somewhere that sold them well past the witching hour, he would have to use cash to avoid leaving a paper trail, and the transaction would be suspicious as hell. The clerk would remember him and could potentially provide his description to the police. He supposed he could have waited until morning and popped by Home Depot. But the store had CCTV cameras, and being caught red-handed on camera was worse than any eye-witness account.

  Besides, he didn’t need a shovel. The park was full of carnivorous wildlife. Black bears, cougars, gray foxes, and bobcats were all opportunistic predators that would jump at a free meal. And Penny in the belly of a bear was better than Penny buried beneath the ground, where, if ever discovered, her remains could be identified.

  The problem was her head.

  It was too big for any animal to consume, and even if the elements and decomposition reduced it to a whitewashed skull over time, forensic technology could reconstruct her face.

  So he had to dispose of it properly.

  Crouching, Dr. Wallis commenced the gut-churning job of detaching Penny’s glossy-haired cranium from her body. The five-and-a-half-inch serrated steel blade made relatively easy work of this, even when it came to severing her cervical vertebra, though he get did get blood all over his hands.

  Standing, Wallis thought he might be sick. But a few deep breaths stayed his nausea.

  He picked up Penny’s head by the locks and made his way back to one of the creeks he had passed earlier. He set the head on the bank, then waded into the water to test its depth. It came nearly to his shoulders at
the deepest point, which would be good enough. He scrubbed the blood from his hands, then returned to the bank. Bacteria in the gut and chest of a deceased person will eventually create enough gas to float a submerged body back to the surface of any body of water. You didn’t have this problem with a head though. Still, to be safe, Wallis stuffed Penny’s mouth with small river rocks. Then he lobbed the ghastly thing into the middle of the creek.

  It sank promptly out of sight, and Dr. Wallis continued to his car, satisfied with a job well done.

  ◆◆◆

  He returned to his penthouse apartment just as dawn was painting the rain-scrubbed sky amber, apricot, and vermillion. He showered and changed and was planning to head out to purchase the necessities he would require in the coming days, but the sight of his king bed was too tempting.

  Just for an hour, he told himself in a moment of weakness, flopping down on top of the duvet.

  During the latest REM stage of his comatose-like slumber, he dreamed it was daytime in Samuel P. Taylor State Park, the forest still and silent. He was hurrying through the shadows cast by the giant coastal redwoods, glancing back over his shoulder for his unseen pursuer, when a thick fog materialized from nowhere, and within it, a decrepit stone church sprouting from the rotted-out stump of a felled tree. The stone walls were cracked and crumbling in places, and a trail of white smoke, nearly indistinguishable from the fog, wafted from a chimney.

  He crept into the hybrid structure through a gap in the jagged stump. The interior was much larger than should have been possible, and he hurried across the nave and took refuge beneath the cloth-draped altar. Yet even as he hid, the air was shifting and thickening, a darkness was gathering, and when he worked up the courage to peek out from beneath the altar cloth, he found himself suspended in an abyss so vast it would reduce even the tallest redwoods to toothpicks. He was not alone, for the amorphous, monolithic demon now shared the darkness with him, and he knew his time was almost up—

  Dr. Wallis snapped awake with a breathless gasp. Night filled the bedroom windows, disorienting him. It had been morning when he’d lain down. Surely he hadn’t slept all day?

  He sat up and checked his wristwatch. It was eight-thirty p.m.

  “Fuck,” he mumbled. Then, like a zap from a live wire, he recalled his middle of the night excursion, and what he’d done to Penny’s body, and he cursed again in remorse.

  Wallis went to the bathroom, splashed cold water over his face, brushed his teeth, then returned to the bedroom. He collected his phone and was heading to the front door when he saw on the display that he had missed a call from Brook.

  He paused in the living room, conflicted. He rang her back.

  She picked up on the second ring. “Hey,” she said, sounding neither upbeat nor upset to hear from him. Had it only been the day before yesterday when she had been over and Penny had paid the unannounced visit? That seemed like an eternity ago.

  “Hi,” he said, trying to sound more chipper than he felt. “Missed a call from you.”

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have disturbed you while you’re working—”

  “I’m not working right now,” he said promptly. He had to get back to Tolman Hall, he knew. The Sleep Experiment had been unsupervised for more than eighteen hours now. Yet…he was depressed and anxious, and the sound of Brook’s voice was familiar and comforting. He wanted to see her. He wanted to experience the normalcy that her company would offer, even if it was a false normalcy, for the murder of Penny was going to be a stain on his conscience for a long time to come. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Sipping a glass of wine and looking out at the bay.”

  “Sounds nice.”

  A pause. Then: “Would be nicer if you were here with me.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Roy?”

  “I was just thinking… Have you eaten?”

  “Yes, but I could eat again, something light.”

  “How about that izakaya restaurant on San Pablo Avenue. That’s not too far from your place.”

  “We’ll need reservations.”

  “I know the owner. He should be able to squeeze us in. Say, half hour?”

  ◆◆◆

  With the Audi’s top down, Dr. Wallis sped across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, enjoying the roar of the wind in his ears and the great black expanse of night sky overhead. The moon shone bright and full amongst the scattering of stars.

  He parked in downtown Oakland and walked the few blocks to the izakaya. He remained anxious and on edge, worried Brook was going to read in his eyes what he’d done. This was nonsense, of course, just his guilt distorting his judgement, and he told himself to get his shit together.

  The hostess—an Asian woman channeling an Edo-period ninja with her headband, loose black clothing, and slippered feet—led him to a corner table. Brook hadn’t arrived yet, and he took the opportunity to order a drink. The restaurant didn’t stock rum, so he settled for a twelve-ounce carafe of sake. David, the owner, came out from the kitchen to say hello. They’d gotten to know each other on a small-talk basis by virtue of the sheer number of times Wallis had patronized the establishment over the years.

  When the waitress brought the sake, David returned to the kitchen and Wallis ordered a second carafe before he had even touched the first. The waitress, God bless her, didn’t bat an eye.

  The izakaya restaurant was dark, minimalist, and not very large. All the tables were occupied with middle-aged well-to-dos enjoying a night out without the kids. The smells of deep-fried tempura and teriyaki sauce and grilled pork belly aromatized the air, and Wallis realized he hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon.

  Brook arrived ten minutes later in strappy sandals and a sleek cocktail dress. The waitress had cleared the carafe he had polished off, so only one remained on the table, albeit half-full.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said, after they kissed and sat. “I couldn’t decide what to wear.”

  “You look great,” he said.

  “You always look great.”

  “It’s easy when all you have to do is throw on a jacket.”

  Dr. Wallis poured Brook a cup of sake, then ordered another bottle, along with some house-made pickles, edamame, mushroom tempura, and beef skewers.

  “Cheers,” he said, tapping cups and drinking.

  “So I just want to get this out of the way first,” Brook said. “I’m not mad about the other night. I probably overreacted a little by going home. I can hardly blame your assistant for having a crush on you. I have a crush on you. It was just that…”

  “You don’t have to explain anything, Brook,” he said. “And you might be happy to know, I’ve dismissed her from the experiment.”

  “You dismissed her? Oh my, Roy, you didn’t have to do that!”

  “Yes, I did. It was completely inappropriate for her to come by my house like she did. She looked up my address online somehow. That’s borderline stalking.”

  “Well…as long as you think it was the right thing to do, and it had nothing to do with my reaction.”

  “It was the right thing to do,” he assured her. “However, I’m going to have to pick up her eight hours, which means I won’t be available much if at all until the experiment concludes.”

  “Which is, what, another week?”

  Dr. Wallis had told Brook the duration of the Sleep Experiment was twenty-one days, as he had told Guru and Penny and the Australians, but the reality was it would last as long as was necessary to either prove or disprove his revolutionary premise.

  Regardless of this, he said, “Yes, another week.”

  She pouted with put-upon exaggeration. “What am I going to do without you?”

  “Hey, I got you something. Close your eyes.”

  “Really?” Smiling, she closed her eyes.

  “Hold out your hand.”

  She stuck her hand out, palm upward. “Okay.”

  Wallis produced from his jacket pocket the ring Beverley St. Clair ha
d made for him. He tried slipping it over Brook’s middle finger. The fit was a little tight, so he slipped it over her ring finger instead.

  “All right,” he said.

  Brook opened her eyes, which lit up in delight when she saw the ring. “Oh Roy!” she said, holding her hand before her face to admire the piece of jewelry. “It’s lovely! It really is.”

  The ring was sterling silver with a green quartz. On the bottom left corner of the gemstone, as if perched on the edge of a leaf, was an eighteen-karat rose gold ladybug.

  “I wasn’t sure of your size…”

  “It’s perfect.” She took his hand in both of hers and squeezed it affectionately. “Thank you, Roy. I don’t think I’ll ever take it off.”

  The waitress arrived with the third carafe of sake and the food. Dr. Wallis ordered several more dishes, which he ate almost exclusively over the next hour or so. During the leisurely meal, he and Brook spoke about everything under the sun. Their conversation was easygoing and pleasant. They had a natural synergy. They liked the same things. They had a similar sense of humor. What Wallis enjoyed most about spending time with Brook, however, was the way she always put his mind at peace. Her life was simple, which made her simple by extension, but in a desirable way. This was why, he believed, she had cast such a spell over him. She had no pretenses. She didn’t play games. She had no grand aspirations in life and didn’t desire to have any. She had her job, which she liked; she had her friends, the ones he had met down to earth and genuine; she had her silly little houseboat, which she adored; she had her health.

  She lived in the moment, not for some greater moment, and he found himself not only enchanted by this paradigm, but envious of it too.

  “So they’re saying we’re going to be getting a month’s worth of rain in the next week,” Brook was telling him now, taking the last edamame from the dish and delicately sucking the soybeans from the salty pod. “Three storms in seven days. Can you believe that?”