by J. D. Barker
“They didn’t try to subdue him?”
Stack shook his head. “This was an execution. They came through the door, spotted him, put a bullet in him. Flat-out execution. You know how I know? It was in his eyes, his face. When someone dies like that, they’re frozen, caught in time. One second they’re alive, the next they’re not. His face, his expression, read total surprise. Another second or two, and he might have registered fear or anger, but he was dead before the light bulb on those thoughts had a chance to ignite. We got a lot of rain earlier, and we found some muddy footprints leading from the front door to the entrance of that room—three sets—they only came in far enough to shoot the guy, no prints deeper into the room. That tells me they came for him. Burglars would have tossed the room, these guys didn’t.”
“Then why did you write it up as a B&E?”
Stack clucked his tongue, took another sip of beer. “That was my captain’s idea. Dormont is a nice, safe neighborhood, always has been. We had no real proof this was an execution, and he didn’t want that to get out in the press. If I hadn’t written it up as a B&E, he would have put someone else on the case, and I wanted to stay on the case.” He shook his head. “I was damned stupid back then. Still not sure I wised up. Anyway, he said if I proved it was an execution and caught the people behind it, we’d update the report, say we held back in order to catch the perp. I went along with that. Shouldn’t have, but I did.”
He finished the beer, set the bottle on the table next to the others, and retrieved a fresh one. “We found the female vic on the stairs. Pretty little thing. The ME put her around twenty-three, maybe twenty-four. No older than that.”
Fogel frowned. “Why the guess? No identification?”
“You read the report. You know what we found, what we didn’t find.” He waved a hand at her. “Let me get this out, then we can go into all that. If I don’t tell you this part now, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get it out at all.”
“You found the woman on the stairs,” Fogel prompted.
He nodded. “Her clothes were all torn apart, obvious signs of rape. Probably multiple rapes, since we had three perps. The ME found at least two blood samples when he ran a kit. Tech in ’78 wasn’t what we got today. She had been shot in the head, too, just like the male. Unlike the male, her face was well past ‘surprised.’ Frightened wouldn’t even cover it. She looked worried to me. Not about what was happening to her at that moment, but at the thought of what was going to happen. I…” He trailed off for a second, cleared his throat. “I found these scratch marks on the wall, on the wood steps, too. I think she was trying to get upstairs. Do you have any kids, Detective?”
Fogel shook her head.
“Me either, but I know the look. I’ve seen that look on other victims—when the parent is worried about their child far more than whatever they feel for their own well being. I eased past the lab guys and the photographer at that point, and went up the stairs. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I tried to prepare myself for the sight of a dead baby. I’d seen them before, worst possible thing anyone could ever see. One of those images that sticks in your mind till the day you die, maybe past that, too. I guess I’ll find out soon enough,” Stack said.
His eyes filled with pain, sorrow. He forced it back down as best he could and went on. “The smell hit me first. Not the smell of a dead body, or even a burnt body, although that’s what they looked like, more of a dry, dusty smell, like opening the door of an attic that’s been shut up for a long time. There were three bodies on the floor. I’d never seen anything like it. They looked burnt, dried out, like something drained every ounce of moisture out of them. You’ve seen the pictures. One of the photographers said they looked like all the life had been sucked out of them, nothing but a shell left. The ME said they reminded him of the victims at Pompeii. Have you ever seen the pictures of the bodies found at Pompeii after the volcano erupted?”
Fogel shook her head.
“Look it up. That’s what they looked like to me, too. Like they were made of nothing but ash. Like if I were to touch them, they would crumble away into dust, just fall apart. They were all on their backs, but two of them looked like they were reaching out for something. Their mouths were open, all three, caught in some kind of silent scream. The bodies were on the floor, lying around a bed. A small bed. A kid’s bed.”
Fogel frowned. “You didn’t mention a kid at all in your report.”
“Because we didn’t find one. Didn’t find anything to indicate there had ever been one. The bed was empty. The room was more or less empty, too. No sheets on the bed. No clothing in the dresser. No books. No pictures. There was an empty bed, an empty dresser, and a chair next to the bed, nothing else. My gut said it was a kid’s room, but there wasn’t a single thing in there to back that up. Aside from bare furniture, it was completely empty. Felt like a kid’s room, though.” He took another sip of beer and pointed at her with the bottle. “That takes me back to what you asked earlier, about the identification. We found nothing in the house. No IDs on the adults, no photographs on the walls, not even a single utility bill. Kitchen cabinets and refrigerator were all bare. The adults were living out of suitcases. We found two in the master bedroom—his and hers. Bathroom had toothbrushes and a small travel kit with shaving gear, hairbrush, and the like. Not a single personal touch in the house. Turned out the house was owned by a real estate investor who lived in Florida, and he had no idea anyone was living there. He kept the utilities on so the pipes wouldn’t freeze. Paid some company to stage the place with furniture. Hired a landscaper to maintain the exterior. The two gunshot vics were squatting.”
“You think there was a kid, and someone snatched it,” Fogel said, more of a statement than a question.
“Like I said, we found no evidence of a kid—no clothes, no toys, the room was completely stripped down. Nothing in any of the bathrooms to indicate a kid, but that woman’s face…” He trailed off, raised the beer to his lips, and drank.
“Here’s the thing, though,” Stack went on. “We found three dead perps in that room. Their shoes matched perfectly to the three sets of prints we found downstairs. So if there was a kid, who took the kid?”
“A fourth?”
“A fourth,” he repeated. “I spent more than a decade looking for that fourth and got nowhere. When other bodies started piling up—a new one every year, always on that same date—today’s date—I grew convinced there was someone else out there. I was certain the same someone killed the first three, took the kid, took all evidence of the kid, and has been killing once a year ever since, and that person is a ghost and once they get their claws into your head this case doesn’t go away.” He raised the bottle again, brought it to his lips, then changed his mind and set it beside the empties on the rickety table. “You need to walk away from this. Let this mess retire with Faustino. He caught the bug from me, and if you catch it from him, you’ll spend the rest of your career hunting a ghost. You’ll spend every day of the year waiting for the eighth of August to come around. You don’t want that. You don’t want any of it.”
Fogel knew he was probably right. Faustino hinted as much. But this case was already in her head. It took root. And there was nothing she liked more than a good puzzle to solve.
“How many bodies does Faustino have on that board of his now? Thirteen? Fourteen?”
“Sixteen.”
Stack’s eyes fell to his beer bottle but he didn’t pick it up. “Seventeen, by day’s end. You can be sure of that, as sure as the ticking of a clock.”
“You said the adults were squatting. Did you find a car? They might have been living out of a vehicle, keeping all their stuff in there.”
Stack shook his head. “Thought about that. Back then, abandoned cars were reported directly to the mayor’s office and towed to a city yard by a company called McGann and Chester. Not sure who handles that sort of thing nowadays. We put a flag on three square miles surrounding that house, looked at every car that got towed in for
the next few months. We had a couple contenders—cars full of clothing, mostly—but the prints never matched the man and woman from the house. They weren’t in any of the databases, either. Local or federal.”
Stack’s eyes hadn’t left the beer, and he finally reached for the bottle, finished it off. “I did twenty-eight years with the Pittsburgh PD, twenty-four of those with homicide. In that time, I solved well over a hundred cases. The few unsolved I left behind will probably stay that way. I know I did everything I could on them. My record is solid, I’m at peace with that. This is the only one that nags me.” He lowered his voice, his fingers picking at the label on the bottle. “My gut tells me the whole thing is about the missing kid, always has been. All those bodies. The ME back then was a buddy of mine, and when he did his exam of the woman, he confirmed that she gave birth at least once. I didn’t put that in the report, but you should know. Faustino knows. I’m certain there’s a kid out there, somewhere. That child would be at least fourteen years old now, maybe older. You really want to bust open this case, you find the kid.”
6
The ceiling of the long hallway vaulted at the center, a large arch that began with elaborately thick crown molding at the base and curved to a height of at least eighteen feet. The ceiling with the arch was coffered in deep mahogany over what appeared to be marble slabs. Dotting the elaborate millwork every ten feet were crystal chandeliers.
A staircase filled the center of the hallway’s mouth, wide at the base and curved as it disappeared into the next level. As I approached, I realized the staircase not only went up at least two more floors, but down as well, disappearing into a basement level.
Smaller hallways and doors split off from this center throughway on both sides. The doors were all closed, and within each hallway stood no less than two people dressed in the same long, white coats as the others. Their eyes followed as I followed Stella through the center of the house and out through one of five sets of French doors at the back onto a large, rounded cobblestone patio.
Stella stood out there, waiting for me, her gloved hands clasped at her back, her dark hair catching the wind and fluttering over her right shoulder. “You shouldn’t dawdle. It’s not polite to keep your hostess waiting.”
“I’m sorry, I was just admiring your home.”
“You shouldn’t apologize so much unless your goal is to cement your social standing somewhere beneath whoever the apology is directed. I suppose in this case, that may be true. Ms. Oliver has made it quite clear you are beneath me and always shall be beneath me. Perhaps that is why you follow behind me rather than walk at my side? The intricacies of psychology fascinate me so.”
I crossed the patio and came to her left side. “I meant to say, your house is beautiful, almost to the point of distraction. I want to take it in, not rush past.”
“If that is what you meant to say, then you should have just said it. This house, it’s only a place. No better or worse than any other.”
“It’s much nicer than where I live.”
“Nicer? Yes, of course. There is little doubt of that. But better? These are two very distinct things, and one could argue both sides, I suppose.”
She stepped to the edge of the patio, past white metal furniture and white roses in tall vases, to a winding cobblestone pathway weaving away from the house and out into the immense yard. The lush grass rolled away from the patio, through hills of varying heights dotted with trees. All were tall and well groomed, a canopy of green holding the slightest hint of orange and brown as the hand of fall touched them, one by one.
Strangers in long, white coats stood among the trees, all eyes on us, so many I couldn’t count them all. When Stella looked out across the lawn, looked out at them, they diverted their gazes. Some even stepped behind the trees, but none left. If anything, it seemed more were coming, but I couldn’t tell from where.
Stella started down the cobblestone path deeper into the yard, and I quickly fell in step beside her, careful not to fall behind this time. “Even within a forest, one can feel trapped while others find freedom within the confines of a prison cell.”
“Is that why you wrote ‘help me’ on the bench? You feel trapped?”
Stella smiled. “Oh, that was so long ago. Just the workings of a child’s overactive imagination. You should pay it no heed.”
“So you don’t need help?”
From the corner of my eye, I caught one of the people in white slipping around the trunk of a large oak, attempting to stay opposite us, out of sight.
“I have need for nothing,” Stella replied. “I wrote that in a moment of weakness.”
Stella paused and took a step closer to me. She stood on her toes, leaned toward me, her mouth only inches from my ear. When her warm breath slipped over my neck, the blood coursed through my body. “Be mindful of what you say,” Stella whispered. “The trees have ears here.”
She fell back on her heels, and her brow furrowed. “You smell atrocious, like you slept at the bottom of a Dumpster behind that greasy spoon of yours.”
“I’m sor—”
Her dark eyes narrowed, and she drew in a breath, ready to scold me again.
“This is what work smells like,” I quickly said before she could say anything.
“Tsk, tsk, poor Jack. Why someone would purposely subject themselves to daily filth is beyond me.”
“I like the people there. They’re friendly. Mr. Krendal takes care of me. He takes care of Auntie Jo, too. They’re like an extended family,” I said.
“Your aunt is still alive, then?” Stella asked. She had begun walking again, following the cobblestone path.
“She is.”
“She is what?”
“My Auntie Jo, she’s still alive.”
“Not well, though, I presume?”
“She has cancer. It’s advanced. I’m not sure how much longer she’ll be around.”
“Perhaps she will join your parents soon. I presume they are still dead?”
I didn't answer.
With each step, the scent of vanilla wafted over to me, and I found myself edging closer to this girl. Her dress brushed my pant leg as we walked. I looked behind us, back toward the house, and found Ms. Oliver also on the cobblestone path about a hundred feet behind. Our eyes met briefly, and I turned back around.
“Why do they all follow you around like this? That Oliver woman is behind us.”
“What else are they supposed to do with their time?”
“It seems weird.”
“Perhaps to you, but for me, it would be odd not to have them follow me. I cannot remember a moment where Ms. Oliver wasn’t at arm’s reach.”
“What about all these other people? Why are they here?”
“Where else should they be?”
I stopped. I’d had enough of this.
Stella went a few more steps, and then she stopped, too, and turned back to me. “What is it, Jack?”
“Why am I here? I try to talk to you, and you answer in riddles. It makes my head hurt. I’ve known you for half of my life, but I feel like I don’t really know you at all. You brought me here. Or more accurately, had me brought here. You obviously wanted to see me. Tell me why. We’ve been doing this for eight years, and I don’t understand what it is, what this is.”
She looked to the ground, shuffled her feet, a pout on her lips. “I didn’t realize I had become such a burden on you.”
“You are not a burden.”
“Perhaps you should forget me.”
“I’m not so sure I can.”
“Then you need to learn to live in the moment. The past is gone, and the future is always just out of reach. Now is all that really matters.” She turned from me, her long hair rolling through the air as she started further down the path, calling after me. “Come, Pip! There is something else I wish to show you!”
She rounded a corner and disappeared from view.
I stood there for a moment and nearly turned around toward the house, but then
I felt Ms. Oliver’s eyes on my back and knew she probably wanted me to do exactly that. She wanted me to leave this place, to leave Stella and never come back. And that thought was enough to make me follow after Stella, follow her down that cobblestone path through the trees.
7
Detective Faustino Brier sat on a bench on the sidewalk across the street from the apartment building where Duncan Bellino lived, a paperback copy of Jaws in his hand. The alley where Andy Olin Flack had been found was less than a block up on the right, and the diner where Flack most likely ate his last meal stood across the street from that.
The kid was in the building, he was sure of that. The kid wasn’t in his own apartment, he was sure of that, too. Bellino was under investigation for trafficking, and about three months earlier, Detective Horton in Narcotics asked a judge for a warrant to bug the boy’s apartment and it was granted. They tapped the telephone in the kitchen and placed five microphones within the apartment—one in the living room, one in the kitchen, one in each bedroom, and another in the bathroom. Detective Horton was currently in the red van with Carmine’s Carpet on the side parked half a block away along with three other Narcotics officers waiting for something worthwhile to get picked up. Faustino had known Horton for the better part of a decade, so when he asked if he could listen in today, Horton gave Faustino a portable receiver, and told him he owed him no less than four Steelers tickets. He could listen, but he couldn’t listen within the van. A homicide detective sitting in on a narcotics sting would only raise questions if the wrong person were to catch sight of him.