by Peggy Webb
As the tipster considered the suggestion, the transformation was so sudden Julia almost missed it.
“You bitch!”
Timing is everything.
When he lunged, Julia’s foot connected with his crotch. The Jack o’ Lantern killer clutched himself and bent double, howling with pain.
Never hesitate.
The voice that had played in her head since her captivity, the voice of her beloved step-father, Joe Chin, made Julia sure and strong.
Hesitation will get you killed.
In the smooth, sure moves Joe had instilled since Julia was old enough to learn the ancient art of self defense, she aimed a lethal chop to the back of the monster’s neck.
She didn’t wait to see if the killing blow had done its work. She ran.
Chapter 7
Flanked by Joe and Rachel, surrounded by FBI and the Chicago PD, Julia faced the media frenzy outside the steps of city hall.
“What was it like to be in the hands of the Jack o’ Lantern killer?”
“Were you the one who found the bodies of the other victims in his basement freezer?”
“When did you know your informant was also the serial killer?”
“Tell us how you escaped.”
Julia answered all their questions except the last one. The Chief of Police took the microphone.
“No more questions. Miss Ford has suffered a traumatic experience and is under the care of her doctor. You can read her statement.”
The statement had been so carefully crafted by a coterie of FBI agents, detectives and lawyers that you might misinterpret the truth buried in a barrage of legalese. You might read about the lethal blow to the Jack o’ Lantern killer’s neck and believe it had been administered by the first on the scene, Special Agent Patrick Richards.
Joe shielded Julia from the cameras as he and Rachel hurried her off, but nothing could block her memories.
She had not found the bodies. That had come much later, after she’d made the frantic call to Rick. He’d led the charge that made the grisly discovery after storming the home of Dr. Jim Foster, a fortress in Lincoln Park on Burling Street, a hulking mansion that occupied eight blocks. It was the perfect hideaway for the Jack o’ Lantern killer to carve victims into Halloween caricatures while he maintained normalcy as Chicago’s pre-eminent plastic surgeon giving society’s aging elite the illusion of youth.
But she was the one who had killed the man with her bare hands. That was a stain on her soul that would never go away.
“Julia.” It was Rick, hurrying toward them, everything he felt reflected in his eyes – love, concern, guilt.
“I can’t talk to you now, Rick.”
She leaned into Joe as he bundled her off to the car that would take her back to his and Rachel’s penthouse apartment.
The soft knock at her door jerked Julia out of sleep, her heart pounding. It took a few minutes for her to realize she was no longer captive in a dank basement but safe in her parents’ home in a room that was painted the color of sunshine and smelled of roses.
“I’m up.” She grabbed a silk robe and curled into a bright blue wing chair with deep cushions.
Her mother entered, carrying a tray with enough food to satisfy six hungry men. Rachel had been doing this for the past two weeks. Julia had regained her lost weight, but it was going to take more than croissants and freshly squeezed orange juice to repair the damage to her soul.
“You don’t have to keep doing this.” She grabbed her coffee from the tray Rachel had set on the French provincial table next to her chair.
“Joe’s doing the cooking. Not me.”
“I’m not talking about food.” Joe and Rachel were hovering and worrying over her as if she were a child. “I can’t keep imposing on you two like this.”
And yet she couldn’t go home, couldn’t bear to face her apartment, her job. Her… What was Rick? Certainly he wasn’t hers.
“Joe and I have been talking about your future, and we’ve decided you need a change of scene.”
“I could take a vacation. I’m long overdue for one.” Bill would not only approve, he’d already encouraged it. Take six weeks, Julia. You’ve more than earned it.
But then what? Back to chasing stories like the Jack o’ Lantern killer? The thought shivered her bones.
“Look at this.” Rachel flipped open a magazine, spread it on Julia’s lap and tapped a two-page, full-color layout with her pearly pink fingernails. “It’s a bit off in the wilds, but it sounds like the perfect vacation spot for you.”
The title of the magazine article was “California’s Best Kept Secret.”
Julia began to read. Tucked into the foothills of the Sierras is your dream come true, a community of civic-minded, forward-thinking individuals who have rediscovered the simple joy of living.
The article went on to mention some of the well-known billionaires and brilliant intellectuals who were the movers and shakers of a city that had no pollution, no political divisiveness and best of all, a zero crime rate.
Could that possibly be true? Julia felt a surge of hope for the first time since she’d been taken.
“See.” Rachel clapped her hands. “I knew I could make you smile.” She leaned in to hug Julia. “Joe and I think a little getaway to this small town out west might be the best way for you to put everything that happened behind you.”
Suddenly Julia began to dream of more than a little getaway. As she studied the photographs of picture-perfect homes on shaded lots with a mountain range in the distance and a river running through it, she imagined herself falling asleep to the sound of moving water instead of sirens. She pictured herself walking along cobblestone pathways in the town square instead of the mean streets where the homeless roamed and killers lurked in dark alleys. She dreamed of writing about music instead of murder, of pies instead of pickpockets.
There were many things she’d have to do before she could go, including telling Rick goodbye and severing a relationship that had been doomed from the start.
She turned her attention back to the story of the town. The article ended with a quote from the Mayor. Come to Shutter Lake and discover Paradise.
Could she? As Julia traced her fingers over the images of that perfect little town at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a sense of peace stole over her.
Shutter Lake just might be the solution to all her problems.
The End
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©2018
Chapter One
Thursday, October 11
Only twenty days ‘til Halloween. Julia knew. She’d counted. Every October for the last five years.
As if she needed any reminders, ghoulish carved pumpkins decorated doorsteps, faux bats hung from trees, and ghosts lurked in every dark corner of her neighborhood – the one she’d deliberately chosen when she moved here. Nothing bad could ever happen in a neighborhood on a street named Harmony. On a quiet street where kids tossed balls at twilight and mothers stood in doorways calling them to supper, where the blue-ribbon school was just a few blocks away and the police station was within easy walking distance.
For that matter, nearly everything Julia needed was within walking distance. Until now. Until Dana Perkins had pulled her out of a safe rut and asked her to dredge up investigative skills from a life she’d left behind. One of Dana’s students at Shutter Lake School was missing, and she would not rest until the girl was found.
Less than an hour ago Dana had pressed her again about the girl as they stood in front of City Hall where Julia’s instincts told her Chief of Police Griff McCabe was lying about closing in on a killer. Everybody in Shutter Lake was up in arms about the town’s first murder. How could Julia refu
se? Her adopted paradise was in an uproar and so was her friend. It wouldn’t kill her to drag out her investigative reporting chops and try to find the girl, would it?
Julia shifted her bag to a more comfortable position on her shoulder as she strode toward her cottage, a modest craftsman where culinary herbs grew on the kitchen windowsill and light poured through the windows in every room. Lots of light. Julia couldn’t stand the darkness. Nor the pumpkins. Those grotesque masks. She wanted to walk up and slap every one of them.
She glanced around as if someone might have read her thoughts. Satisfied that her secret was safe, she climbed the steps and fitted her key into the lock on her front door. It was painted bright yellow, the color of hope, and beyond was Julia’s orderly cocoon.
The ornate Victorian wall-hung mirror in the hallway showed a tall, slender woman on the wrong side of forty with long blond hair windblown and blue eyes untroubled. Julia Ford, lifestyle columnist for the Firefly, a weekly newspaper few outside of Shutter Lake had ever heard of, a paper she’d have dismissed as insignificant before she came here.
She nodded at her reflection, satisfied. Her mask was still in place, but that didn’t mean Dana hadn’t seen right through her. She was the school principal, a psychologist, for Pete’s sake. She could spot a lie a mile away, even if it was just a little white one. Why had Julie ever told Dana, of all people, she’d ask for help from her former friend in the FBI, former being the operative word?
For reasons too numerous to even think about, Julia would never ask Patrick Richards for help of any kind, professional or otherwise. She could find that girl all by herself, thank you very much.
She kicked off her shoes then padded barefoot across dark oak hardwood floors to her kitchen and the Eastlake sideboard she’d found at a hole-in-the wall store in nearby Grass Valley. Good Stuff, the owner called the store, an apt name for a converted warehouse filled with antiques that would cost twice as much in New Orleans or New York.
Julia filled a mug with hot water from her Keurig then made her favorite drink, green tea chai from a mix she ordered online. No offense to Nolan Ikard down at The Grind. Or to Dana, who was practically addicted to his Macchiato Espressos.
Fading light coming through the stained glass in Julia’s kitchen window turned her walls a rainbow of soft pink and gold. She loved that about California - the mild weather and the perpetual sunlight that gave Shutter Lake a golden glow.
Until the glow got tainted by murder. And now a disappearance. A runaway? A kidnapping?
She carried her drink into the sunroom she used as an office – deep wicker chairs with daisy print cushions, glass-topped tables scattered about and littered with magazines on antiques and gardening and music, a small French country desk with a comfortable swivel chair tucked into the corner. Julia flung open the curtain, set her drink on the trivet she kept on her desk and powered up her computer.
“Let’s see where you’re hiding, Josie Rodriguez.”
A photo in the society pages of an earlier issue of the Firefly showed an exotic dark-eyed teenager, now seventeen according to Dana. Her uncommon beauty was set off by a lace gown and pearls, compliments, no doubt, of the Windermeres who flanked her. The caption underneath read Benefactors of Shutter Lake Symphony Orchestra with Exchange Student.
Josie was named only once in the full page article about Katherine and Quentin Windermere, her host family who not only funded the city’s symphony but also its community theater and ballet. The arts community had other benefactors, of course. The town was filled with wealthy families who had distinguished themselves in the fields of science and medicine, mathematics and technology. But none gave so generously as the Windermeres, nor made a point to attend every concert, ballet and play performed in Windermere Center for the Arts. The imposing Grecian-inspired structure had been built entirely with their money in the heart of downtown Shutter Lake.
Julia knew this first hand. She was a great lover of music, a passable singer and a better than average pianist. She never missed an arts event in Shutter Lake and had interviewed the Windermeres many times in the last few years.
She grabbed pen and pad and started writing. Symphony, Katherine W.
Her cell phone blared out “Crazy.” Her mother’s signature ring. Not surprising coming from a Tennessee-born woman who grew up in the town Patsy Cline helped make famous. When Julia was ten her mother had packed them off to Chicago where Rachel proceeded to become the belle of the Windy City.
“Mom? What…”
“It’s all over the news about that poor girl’s murder. I think you ought to come home where you’ll be safe.”
Julia’s mother never said hello when she called. She just barreled into whatever subject she had on her mind, completely abandoning the Southern manners she trotted out with regularity in public. Rachel Maddox Ford Chin was nothing if not the Grand Dame of Chicago society.
Julia pictured her mother, an older and shorter but more elegant version of herself, standing in her expensive penthouse apartment - a modern conglomeration of glass and steel - and gazing at a sweeping view of the Windy City’s skyline. Her blond hair would be swept into a French twist and she’d probably be dressed in slacks and one of her ubiquitous silk blouses, tucked in to show off her still-trim waistline. She would definitely be biting off her pink lipstick while she twisted the ever-present rope of pearls around her neck.
“Mom, if I were any safer, I’d be dead. This is the first murder in Shutter Lake’s history, and even if I wanted to write about crime, there’s none to report.”
Until now.
“I’m glad you’re writing about Beethoven and beef stew instead of cat burglars and serial killers. And so is Joe. He thinks you ought to come home, too. I’d just die if anything happened to you out there in the wilds.”
“I’m not in the wilds, and nothing’s going to happen to me.”
Even as Julia said it, a wave of homesickness washed over her. Eating hot dogs in Wrigley Field, made as only Chicago can. Browsing museums with her mom. Sailing on Lake Michigan with Joe and that bossy Lhasa Apso he named Sweetie Pie, which said everything you needed to know about the man who’d been the only real father Julia ever knew.
“That does not make me feel one bit better, Julia. That poor dead girl probably thought she was safe, too.”
“Her name is Sylvia. Sylvia Cole.”
Was. Past tense.
It hit Julia hard that the very thing she’d run from had finally caught up with her – crime, the more sensational the better for the media. She’d covered that beat for years for the Chicago World, the Tribune’s and the Sun-Times’ biggest rival. Too many years to think about. Too many memories.
Julia pushed them aside and took a long, fortifying drink of her green tea chai. It had gone cold, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t as picky about her drinks as Dana.
“You see?” Her mother let out a sigh that bordered on drama-queen level. “That’s just what I’m talking about. That pitiful departed soul was somebody’s little girl, just like you’re mine. My only little girl.”
“According to all the black balloons I avoided like the plague on my last birthday, your little girl is over the hill, Mom.” Her mother chuckled, as Julia had intended. “Is Joe there?”
“Not yet, but he’ll be here in about fifteen minutes. Let me run and get some tea then we’ll chat ‘til he gets here.”
Julia almost let out a dramatic sigh of her own. “I can’t. I’ve got things to do.”
“What can be more important than talking to your mother? Maybe Joe can talk some sense into you.”
Julia would love to talk to him, if nothing else just to let the lilting sound of his voice conjure up happy memories of a childhood spent tagging along behind him, asking a million questions. He always answered with the patience of Buddha. Her stepfather would press his case for her return, but in a way that was soft-spoken and polite.
A way that reminded her of Chief of Police Griff McCabe. And the en
tire falling-down house of cards that had once been the nation’s perfect city.
“I really have to go, Mom.”
Before Rachel could marshal any more arguments, Julia said goodbye and ended the connection. Her computer had gone into rest mode and she brought it back to life.
“Let’s see what else you’ve been up to, Josie.”
School events and academic awards in math, science and music. She’d been a star student with an incredibly bright future, which made her disappearance all the more puzzling. The selection process for exchange students was rigorous at the prestigious Shutter Lake School. After winning one of the coveted spots why would a girl making such stellar grades give it up? Especially when school was in session?
Julia continued to scan the articles. Josie had been photographed in more public appearances with the Windemeres. She had the kind of face loved by a camera lens. And she made the philanthropic white-haired couple, a handsome pair, look even better. No wonder the press always aimed a camera at her.
“Pictures never tell the true story.” Had the Windermere’s been using their exchange students to make them look good? Was their well-documented philanthropy an attempt to hide a dark purpose?
She printed off a good headshot of Josie and made a note to call Katherine Windermere for an interview. Symphony season was in high gear, with a fundraiser planned on the park for Saturday. She had the perfect angle to question the woman.
The Windermeres had been on Julia’s radar for some time now, well before Sylvia’s death. The parade of foreign exchange students going in and out of their home had put her instincts on high alert. With Josie’s disappearance, she could no longer ignore her intuition. She knew how to segue from music to a missing teenager, and she had a knack for getting people to reveal more than they intended.
Julia continued her cyber search and her note taking in the methodical, from-the-ground-up manner that had served her well in her days of investigative journalism. With a jolt she realized she’d missed this. Periodically her former editor emailed or called to lure her back. He wanted her full-time again in Chicago. Lately, he’d said he would settle for freelance in Shutter Lake.