by Chris Culver
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. After twenty years, this was so tenuous it didn’t even feel like a lead, but I used my cruiser’s laptop to open the license bureau’s database. St. Augustine County had three residents with the last name Pennington. Two of them were in their late twenties, which meant they would have been in elementary school twenty years ago. The third resident, though, looked right.
I checked my messages to see whether Dave Skelton had called me back, and then I put my car in gear and drove toward my house. Instead of pulling into my driveway, I drove past it and turned left at a mailbox with the name Pennington written on the side.
Susanne must have seen me pull in because she came outside with a smile on her face. I hugged her tight on the front porch. I didn’t usually like hugging people because it felt too intimate. Susanne hugged without ulterior motives, though. She wanted nothing except to be my friend. Seeing her usually made my whole day brighter.
“Have you had lunch, honey?” she asked, pulling back a moment later. “I’ve got good turkey in the fridge.”
“No, but this isn’t a social call,” I said. “I’m here because I’m working a case. Have you ever heard of Pennington Hotels?”
The smile slid from her face. She blinked a few times and then drew in a breath before smiling once more.
“That was my husband’s company.”
“We found a pair of bodies on property your husband once owned,” I said. “You mind talking about the company and your former employees?”
Her smile dipped once more, and she considered me before nodding.
“I expected this to catch up to me.”
The remark surprised me, but I tried to keep my face neutral.
“You expected what to catch up to you?”
She put a hand on my elbow.
“Come on inside, sweetheart,” she said. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
27
Though we lived a quarter of a mile from one another, Susanne and I had identical houses. The family that built her home saw my house during construction and liked it so much they put up one of their own. Unlike my house, though, hers had never gone vacant, and it had all the original architectural details. I was more than a little jealous.
We walked through her living room to the kitchen at the home’s rear. There, she made coffee, while I sat and waited. When the coffee finished brewing, she sat across from me at her small breakfast table and handed me a mug. For a moment, we sat and sipped. Then I cleared my throat.
“You don’t talk about your husband often,” I said.
“He was a bastard,” said Susanne.
She didn’t elaborate, but she didn’t need to. She didn’t speak poorly of people without reason.
“What happened to his hotel?”
She cocked her head to the side. “You’ve never heard of Pennington Hotels?”
I shook my head. She smiled.
“Pennington Hotels, my husband’s company, operated forty-three locations across Missouri, Tennessee, Iowa, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Kansas. We even owned a spa in Hot Springs, Arkansas. We were high-society folk.”
“What happened?”
Susanne sipped her drink and shrugged. “When Stanley died, he left debts to pay. I sold the company to pay them.”
I nodded, though her stiff mannerisms told me there was more to the story than she had let on. That didn’t change what I needed to know, but it made me think.
“As I told you earlier, I’m working multiple murders,” I said. “The most recent involved a young man and woman who died on property once owned by your husband’s company.”
“Stanley and I owned a lot of property back then.”
“I understand,” I said. “Thad and Trinity aren’t the only crimes tied to that area, though. About seven weeks ago, we found a car belonging to a young woman named Paige Maxwell on property bordering your husband’s property. She and her boyfriend were abducted and held in some kind of dungeon. They escaped, but the man who abducted them nearly killed them.”
“I saw the story on the news. It’s awful.”
“It is. Here’s where we’re at with the investigation: We have a serial murderer who dumped a car near your husband’s property. Someone—possibly the same person—murdered two more young people in the same area. This second murder required knowledge only a local would have.”
“And you think this local worked for Stanley,” said Susanne, drawing everything together before I could say anything.
I nodded. “It’s a long shot, but it’s a possibility.”
“No one’s worked for Pennington Hotels in a long time. Where were your bodies found?”
“Just off County Road 10. According to our records, it once had a twelve-hundred-square-foot cinder-block building and a gravel driveway. Does that sound familiar?”
A tight smile formed on Susanne’s lips.
“That does, actually. I went there several times after commissioning pieces for our house. It was Pennington Hotels’ woodworking shop. Back then, it made sense to have someone in-house to repair cabinets and tables and other furniture. A man named Edward worked there. I don’t remember his last name, but he built the table we’re sitting at and the coffee table in my living room. He was a nice man.”
If he worked on the property for any length of time, he’d have the local knowledge needed to kill Thad and Trinity. I nodded.
“Is he still around, you think?”
“Maybe,” she said, shrugging, “but if he’s alive, he’s older than I am.”
That put a damper on things. Susanne was a capable woman, but I doubted anyone her age could do what the Apostate did.
“That’s helpful,” I said, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “While I’m here, can I ask you another question?”
“You can ask me any question you want, sweetheart,” she said.
“Serial murderers often try to recreate traumatic events from their pasts. The Apostate goes after young couples. So far, they’ve all been juniors or seniors in high school. He forces the boys to rape and murder the girls. Then, we think, he burns the boys alive…”
Even as I spoke, I knew I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. Susanne squeezed my forearm as she brought her other hand to her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” I said, lowering my voice. “That was too much, wasn’t it?”
Susanne held up her hand to stop me from saying anything else.
“I love you, but I hate the ugly world you live in. I’ve asked you before not to bring your work here. Please don’t make me ask again.”
Part of me wanted to tell her she lived in that same world and that by ignoring the world’s ugliness, she let it fester and grow unchecked. She didn’t need to hear that from me, though. She had seen the world’s ugliness firsthand. I couldn’t blame her for running from it. That was her choice. I softened my voice.
“Most days, I’m not a fan of the world I live in, either. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Sorry.”
She looked at our hands. Neither of us said anything. With other people, silence felt awkward, but with Susanne, it was comforting. I didn’t have many people in my life who made me feel like that, and I appreciated it.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,” she said. “I wish I could. If you’re looking at the history of crime in St. Augustine, I’m not the person you should ask.”
She was right, so I nodded. More than merely being right, though, she made me think. I stayed for another few minutes but then drove back to my station. Doug Patricia, one of our uniformed officers, sat behind the front desk, typing while he spoke on the phone and routed officers somewhere. I nodded hello and walked to the basement.
Where a larger department might have had an entire division dedicated to the preservation and storage of evidence and old files, we had a locked storage vault and Mark Bozwell, an ornery, sixty-year-old asshole who couldn’t keep his eyes above my neckline.
I walked through the basement to th
e evidence room’s heavy steel door. Inside, welded wire cages and steel shelves holding boxes of evidence stretched forty or fifty feet ahead of me and maybe thirty feet to my left and right. The front desk was empty.
“Hey, Mark?” I called. “It’s Detective Joe Court. I’m here to search the file cabinets.”
A cage clanged shut. Then, keys jangled as the evidence clerk walked toward me. Mark had buzzed white hair and shoulders so wide he had to turn sideways in some doors. If he had been a little taller, he would have been big enough to play football in college or maybe even the NFL, but given his short height, he looked more like a wrestler than anything else.
When he turned down the aisle and saw me, he slowed. I could almost feel his eyes on my chest and legs, so I crossed my arms to limit my exposure.
“What can I do for you, Detective?” he asked once he reached his desk, smiling and pretending he hadn’t been checking me out.
“I need to go through the file cabinets,” I said. “The Apostate kills his victims in a unique way. I want to find any cases with similar circumstances.”
Mark narrowed his eyes and nodded.
“How do you plan on doing that? Our modern records are digital, but our case records from before 1995 are paper.”
I forced a smile to my lips.
“I guess I’ll be doing a lot of reading,” I said. He narrowed his eyes at me incredulously, so I sighed and tilted my head to the side. “St. Augustine only gets ten to fifteen murders a year. Even if I search through fifty years of files, we’ll only have a couple hundred murders. Of those, a handful will involve drownings. I’ll pull out the files I need and put everything back after I’m done.”
Mark drew in a deep breath and crossed his arms.
“It’s doable, I guess,” he said. “Sheriff Delgado has asked me to clear any unusual requests with him, though.”
I allowed the smile to leave my lips as a headache formed at my temples.
“You’ve done this job for a long time, Mark. Is it unusual for a detective to request access to old case files?”
The evidence clerk took a step back and held up his hands as if I had attacked him.
“I’m following the procedures the sheriff has outlined for me, Joe. If you want access to the filing cabinets, I’ve got to log the request and cross-reference it to your active caseload. I’m only allowed to give out information if it relates to a detective’s assigned duties.”
I closed my eyes and let out a long breath.
“Fine. I’m working a double homicide involving a young man named Thad Stevens and a young woman named Trinity Foster. It’s possible they were murdered by the Apostate.”
Mark considered me before stooping to pull open the middle drawer of his desk. He pulled out a spiral-bound notebook and flipped through pages. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other as I squeezed my jaw tight.
“My notes from the roll-call meeting this morning say you’re working the cases of Mark and Lilly Foster. The sheriff didn’t mention Trinity Foster or Thad Stevens.”
“I’m working a case. Give me the keys and get out of my way, Mark. I understand that you’re trying to do your job, but so am I.”
He considered before shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Detective, but the sheriff’s made it clear I’m only supposed to give out information if it relates to a detective’s assigned duties.”
“Fine,” I said, taking a step back. “I’ll call the sheriff.”
As I took my phone from my purse, Mark shook his head.
“You won’t get a signal down here.”
He was right because I didn’t have a single bar. I left the evidence vault and walked until I had a connection. By then, I was halfway up the stairs to the lobby, so I figured I might as well go straight upstairs to Delgado’s office and confront him face to face.
Before I made it, my phone beeped with three incoming text messages. All came from a number I didn’t recognize. The first message said Mary Joe?, the second message asked how Paige and Jude were, and the third message asked whether I had asked Jude about the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
It didn’t happen often, but crazy people sometimes liked to insert themselves into investigations to which they had no connection. Maybe it made them feel important, or maybe they were bored and needed something to do. I didn’t know why they did it, but they did. This wasn’t a random crazy person, though. We hadn’t released any information about the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This was him. Again.
I walked to the lobby and texted back.
What do you want?
His response was almost immediate.
You.
I shuddered.
“You all right, Detective?”
I looked up to see Doug Patricia looking at me from the front desk. I forced myself to nod.
“Fine, thank you,” I said. “Call Sheriff Delgado and tell him to come in. I’ve got the Apostate on the phone again.”
Doug furrowed his brow but didn’t move, so I lowered my phone.
“Just do it, Doug!”
Doug nodded and ripped the phone from the cradle as I ran upstairs. The door to the conference room was closed, but I threw it open without knocking and nearly hit Special Agent Bryan Costa.
“Easy, Detective,” he said, furrowing his brow and stepping away from the doorway. “I was going to get coffee.”
I looked around. Costa and I were alone.
“Where’s Lawson?” I asked.
“On a smoke break. Why?”
“Because the Apostate just sent me another text message.”
28
“You sure it’s him?” asked Costa.
“He asked me about the peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” I said. “We haven’t released that information.”
Agent Costa nodded and considered for a moment. I looked around the room. Someone had stacked file boxes against the walls, wiped the whiteboards clean, and taken the laptops from the conference table. It looked like a storage room once more. No one else was around.
“Where’s the rest of your team?” I asked.
“Gone,” said Costa. “We’re pulling back to St. Louis. After finding the evidence boxes at your house, Sheriff Delgado told us we’re no longer welcome in his station.”
I swore under my breath and nodded as I tried to figure out what to do.
“We need to find Agent Lawson and tell him I’ve got the Apostate on the phone.”
“I’ll take care of that,” said Costa. “Keep the Apostate talking as long as you can.”
I nodded and pulled a chair from the table to sit down. For almost thirty seconds, I could only stare at my phone. Then, the door swung open, and Agent Lawson burst into the conference room. He wore a gray suit, white shirt, and red tie. Even from my seat, I could smell cigarette smoke. Costa put his phone into his pocket.
“What’s he said?” asked Lawson.
“Not much yet,” I said. “I asked him what he wants. He said he wanted me.”
Lawson looked to Agent Costa. “Call Jamal and tell him we need this guy’s phone tracked. I’ll call Major Henderson with the Highway Patrol and see whether he can spare troopers. Joe, you keep talking to him. We can’t lose him this time.”
“I’m on it,” said Costa, already thumbing through entries on his phone.
None of them looked to me, so I typed a response without their input.
I want to help you.
I waited almost a minute for his reply.
No, you don’t. But you will once I break you.
Agent Lawson paced on the other side of the table and cast occasional sidelong glances at me as he spoke on the phone. I caught his eye, and he walked to stand beside me and read the messages the Apostate had sent me.
“What do you think?” I asked.
Lawson blinked and considered. “He’s confident, and he’s got a plan. Ask him about it.”
It was a good thought, so I nodded and typed in a message.
Why are you
interested in me?
He didn’t respond right away. I drew in a breath and waited. Finally, my phone buzzed.
Because you know why I have to do this. You’ll help me.
Lawson read it over my shoulder.
“That make any sense to you?” he asked.
“No, but it makes sense to him,” I said, shaking my head. “That means we should be able to figure it out if we think about things from his point of view. He abducts young people—a boy and a girl. He starves them over the course of several weeks to make them cooperative and then gives the boy food if he assaults the girl. He then tells the boy that other men will assault the girl unless he kills her. That’s the story Jude and Paige gave us, right?”
Lawson nodded. “Yeah. Does it make sense to you?”
I shook my head. “Not really, but there’s another step Jude and Paige never got to. After the boy kills the girl, the Apostate burns the boy alive. We learned that from his church. That’s the critical step. He punishes the boy. He sends him to hell. That’s why he thinks I would understand him.”
Lawson furrowed his brow. “You lost me on the last part.”
“When I was a teenager, my foster father raped me. When he got out of prison, he came after me again, and I killed him. I punished him. That’s why the Apostate is interested in me. He thinks we’re alike in some way.”
Lawson looked to Agent Costa. Costa shrugged and continued his conversation.
“Then say that,” said Lawson, straightening. I nodded and typed.
Some people deserve punishment.
I sent it and held my breath. Within moments, my phone beeped with an incoming text message.
Is that why you became a cop?
I typed before either of the FBI agents could say anything.
Yes. I punish those who deserve it.
“Space your messages out. Keep him talking as long as you can,” said Lawson, looking up to Agent Costa. “Where are we with the trace?”