by S W Vaughn
I stared at the words on the screen for a long time, trying to make sense of them — trying to decide if it really mattered. What kind of nutjob sees a building full of people who’ve been shot to death, and decides to set it on fire?
And hadn’t there been another body? That tow truck driver.
Hell, maybe he was the arsonist. I hadn’t even bothered to see if he was still breathing.
Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure he’d been shot at all.
I wondered what the state police tip line would think if I called them up. Hey, maybe you should round up all your friendly neighborhood tow truck drivers. One of them is the nutjob who burned a bunch of bodies. How do I know that? Miss Cleo told me.
Anyway, at least I was dead. Chilling as it was to see my own name listed as deceased, that meant I was free to move on with my life.
As soon as I found the asshole who was threatening to resurrect me.
I headed back to Google, this time running a search on the Kid Glove Killer. The most recent result was an electronic version of the article I’d read back in New York, stating that it’d been six months since the last victim and they still had no leads. I forced myself to read it again, to see the dead women’s names, to remember who I was working for and why I had to finish what Donovan North had started.
I went back and forth between the Google results and more articles, forum discussions, blog posts, and comments, reading everything, finding nothing new. I’d gotten to page three of the results when I spotted something familiar.
Stab and Shoot: The Hyperbolic Paradigm of Serial Killers in the Modern Epoch.
Reluctantly, I clicked through. The link led to an Amazon page with that awful cover and a description of the book, which apparently featured an ‘exclusive segment’ on the Kid Glove Killer. The book had had a total of twenty reviews, with an overall average of 1.7 stars out of five. That seemed … low.
There was a breakdown for the reviews. One five-star, three two-stars, and sixteen one-stars.
Ouch, indeed.
I read through a few of them, cringing in second-hand embarrassment for poor old Donnie, even though I still hated his dead, crispy-fried ass for squealing to Nicky.
Horrible. Don’t waste your money.
Everything in this book is total bullshit. Is this guy even a cop?
Disgusting, senseless, a jumbled mess, riddled with typos and wrong words. Author needs a dictionary and an editor, badly. Or he should just die.
Seriously this was the WORST!!! book ever. really stupid. Im getting a refund.
The single five-star review was a massive block of text from someone with the username YOUALLSUCK, and it didn’t seem to say anything at all about the book. It was a rant condemning all the other reviewers for being ‘haters’ and ‘jealous loosers’ who ‘f*cked their mothers’ and wished they had the balls to write something like this.
Wow. Apparently, the publishing world was a violent place.
I couldn’t help wondering if Donnie-boy had written that five-star review himself. It sure as hell sounded sock-puppety.
I closed the browser with a forceful click, as if it would let me delete what I’d read from my brain, and then spent a little time poking around the laptop. But there was nothing to see, at least on the surface. No documents, no photos or downloads, nothing in the recycle bin.
Not helping. I shut the thing down and put it on a side table.
Maybe there was something useful in the stupid book.
I hauled myself up and headed for the bedroom, half-hoping there wasn’t actually a copy of Stab and Shoot in the box of paperbacks so I wouldn’t have to attempt reading it. But it was in there, ugly cover and all. I tossed it on the bed and went back out to the main room for the six-pack of beer from the mini-fridge to help me through the ordeal of reading the WORST!!! book ever.
Right now, I really needed a drink or six.
Chapter Twenty
Preston
She was at her desk by seven that morning, before just about everyone except Kratt. The day stretched out in front of her like a desert horizon, long and flat and seemingly endless. Yesterday, just for a moment, she’d had at least the faint hope of closing this case when Scott Loomis had popped into her crosshairs. Today she was back to nothing.
Well, almost nothing. She had the First Baptist Church.
And her father’s cryptic statement about the nameless boy who’d lived at the creepy house.
It was too early to start making phone calls, so instead she gathered all her notes and records about the Reynolds and Mathers cases, and then grabbed a notebook from her desk drawer and turned to a blank page. She’d make a list of all the similarities between the victims and run each of them down.
She grabbed a pen and started with what she knew:
Blonde hair, blue eyes
Early twenties
Working class jobs (R waitress, M cashier)
Scott Loomis
First Baptist Church
She thought for a moment, and then added Crazy Susan’s. Lynn Reynolds had worked there, and Bethy had mentioned that she’d seen Chelsea Mathers at the popular bar and grill with some of her friends.
She’d take any connection she could get.
By the time she finished going through everything she had yet again, her list had only expanded by three more items: cat owner, Holly’s House of Hair, and LJ High School. That last one was a stretch, since there was only one high school in town and everyone attended it, save for a handful of kids whose parents chose to homeschool. But the victims had been one grade apart and had gone to school together for three years, so it was possible that the killer knew them from school.
Extremely unlikely, but possible.
She sighed and glanced at the clock. Just after eight, and people were starting to drift in now. Officer Liam Roda, who had the unfortunate distinction of being Henderson’s patrol partner, had come into the bullpen and headed straight for the coffee machine. She could hear Vonda moving around at the front desk. Chief Palmer must’ve slipped in while Preston was reading, because her office light was on and her door was closed.
No sign of Detective North yet. He’d probably be the type who reported for work at nine, and not a minute earlier. And there she went being hard on him again.
Today, she’d make a conscious effort to cut him some slack. Give him a chance.
Be on the same side.
She was debating whether it was too early to call the Baptist church and try to get Reverend Fehily on the phone when Vonda shuffled over to the counter gap between the front end and the squad room, waving an arm over her head. “Preston,” she called across the mostly empty space. “Got something for you up here.”
Brow furrowing, Preston stood and made her way to the counter. “What is it?”
“No idea,” Vonda said, and handed her a thick, sealed business-sized envelope with her name computer-printed across the front, and nothing else.
Not her married name, but her maiden name.
PRESTON GOBLE
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she took the envelope from the receptionist’s hand. It had a little heft to it, felt like it was stuffed full of folded papers. “This didn’t come in the mail,” she said, stating the obvious. “Who gave it to you?”
Vonda shrugged. “Found it sitting on my desk when I came in.”
“Okay. Thanks,” she said slowly, and turned away to walk back to her station.
She sat down, placed the envelope on the desk in front of her, and stared at it for a minute. Who would’ve sent her something and used her maiden name? It wasn’t like she had any friends who’d been out of town for years and didn’t know she’d gotten married. Everyone she knew was right here in the Junction, where they’d always been.
The idea that it could be rigged or booby-trapped occurred to her. Anthrax? Live spiders? Some kind of bomb? There was nothing hard or … crunchy in there, but that didn’t rule out the possibility of poison.
>
She just couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to poison her.
Silently chiding herself for stalling, she grabbed the envelope, ripped it open, and pulled out what was inside, which turned out to be just what it felt like—a thick stack of folded papers. The top sheet was blank, save for two words typed in the very center of the page:
For Preston
Fresh chills invaded her bloodstream. The papers were loose, no staples or clips, so she lifted the top sheet aside with a slightly shaking hand and looked at what was beneath.
It was a photocopied picture, a little blurry but in full color, of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl around fourteen or fifteen years old, leaning against a fence somewhere in the country. Dark jeans, black t-shirt, bright green jacket. A disinterested scowl on her face, a lit cigarette dangling from one hand. It was the girl from the woods.
Beneath the photo, someone had printed: Diamond
Jane Doe had a name.
Had she been one of the foster kids?
Breath caught in her throat, Preston turned the page carefully over onto the face-down top sheet. The next page was another photocopy. Diamond’s birth certificate. Last name: Schilz. Birth parents: Douglas and Eleanor Schilz.
She was that woman’s biological daughter.
The birth certificate joined the photo. Beneath was another copied page. Foster care records, showing the placement of a ten-year-old boy named Rocky Fornell with certified foster parents Douglas and Eleanor Schilz.
The child’s name wasn’t immediately familiar. And she wondered what happened to Mr. Schilz, that there had been no mention of him in the information she’d received about Eleanor from the county.
She turned her notebook to a fresh, blank page and wrote down the name and age: Rocky Fornell, ten. It looked like the rest of the papers from the envelope were similar to this one, all foster care records. There were so many of them. She flipped through slowly, writing each child’s name and age in the notebook.
Sarah Ellison, nine.
Jacob Butler, thirteen.
DiAnn Paxton, fourteen.
Eva Carrol, eleven.
When she turned the page about Eva over and found the next name, she was suddenly unable to breathe.
Donovan North.
Twelve.
It felt like her heart had stopped. She pounded her chest, as if that would jump-start it, and somehow the action forced her to take in a huge, gasping breath that she nearly coughed out. She held it instead, until black spots swarmed across her vision and she was on the verge of passing out.
When she finally exhaled — slow, controlled — her heart thumped in her ears. At least it was beating again.
With more effort than she expected, she added her new partner’s name to the list, but her thoughts wandered as she printed the letters one by one.
How did this happen?
Why hadn’t he told anyone that he’d lived in Landstaff Junction?
What did it mean?
She had no answers, but she couldn’t dwell on it right now. There were still more pages to go through, more names to write. There had to be some kind of explanation. She’d ask him, when he came into the station.
She turned almost forcefully to the next page.
Henry Reilly, eleven.
Meredith Wells, thirteen.
Anton Fehily.
Once again, the hammer swung into her chest. She hadn’t imagined it, the sense that the reverend and Detective North knew each other. Anton had been ten years old when he came to live with the Schilzes. She ran a finger down the page to check the years he’d been there — foster homes were only allowed up to four kids at a time, and they had been staggered, moving in and out of the house over a period of at least fifteen years. Anton had lived with them for five years and was in the last group, the ones who’d still been there when Eleanor Schilz was arrested and sent to prison.
She flipped back to Donovan’s page.
He’d also been there five years, arriving a few weeks after Anton and leaving at the same time.
What the hell happened in that house?
Moving faster now, Preston went through the rest of the pages. Five more names went on the list. All of the foster kids that stayed with the Schilzes were between nine and fourteen years old when they arrived. She went back through the pages and added the years they’d been there, creating a rough timeline of who was in the house, and when.
Four of them had been there when Eleanor was arrested. And all had arrived before her daughter was killed in the woods. Eva Carrol, Jacob Butler, Anton Fehily, and Donovan North.
She wondered if Eva Carrol had blonde hair and blue eyes.
She wondered which of the names might belong to the boy her father had mentioned with such contempt.
She wondered if she’d be able to hold it together long enough to ask North about all this — and whether she would believe his answers.
But for now, she had a lot of work to do.
Chapter Twenty-One
Marco
I might have been running late.
Honestly, I had no real idea what time I was supposed to report to work, other than it was probably in the morning at some point. The real Detective North knew, but I couldn’t ask him. All I knew was that I’d fallen asleep trying to struggle through the train wreck that was Stab and Shoot, hadn’t set an alarm, and it was 8:30 A.M. when I woke up.
So I’d showered, dressed, and ran out the door so fast that I didn’t even have time to say good morning to Mrs. Muldoon at the front desk.
I was going to get an earful about that the next time I saw her.
At least it wasn’t a long drive to the police station. I climbed into the SUV and headed for town, thinking about nothing in particular. I really couldn’t brain that much before coffee. In fact, getting to the Dunkin was about the only thing on my mind.
Right up until I caught a glimpse of erratic movement in the rearview mirror, and on closer inspection found that a certain rusty, pale green junk bucket of a pickup truck practically had its nose up my ass.
Oren Beauford.
I gritted my teeth and sped up, thinking he was just trying to muscle me along. But the truck accelerated to match my speed, even when I walked it up to ten miles over the speed limit. So I tapped the brakes a few times, slowing back to normal. Beauford would just have to get over it, or pass me.
Or ride my ass like an ancient metal demon, which seemed to be the Option C he’d chosen.
This was ridiculous.
I eased the gas pedal down. Five miles over the speed limit. The truck matched me — and then exceeded me for a few seconds, long enough to tap my bumper and snap me forward until the seat belt tightened across my chest.
“What the hell?” I shouted aloud, as if the crazy old man could hear me. “Are the Red Sox really this important?”
He backed off to a respectable distance, and I breathed easier for a few seconds. But when I glanced in the mirror to make sure, the grill of his truck filled my view.
And he rammed me again.
This time it was more than a love tap. I jerked forward so hard that the edge of the seat belt cut into my windpipe, gagging me. The SUV swerved, and I fought for control of the wheel as my foot automatically gunned the accelerator, trying to keep ahead of the aggressor.
Then he was pulling out into the oncoming lane, racing up and gaining ground fast. He came even with me, and I caught a glimpse of his sneering hillbilly face, his eyes glittering with hatred.
I saw the movement, the sharp jerk of his wheel to the right. He was trying to sideswipe me. Run me off the road.
Immediately, I mashed the brake down. The SUV slowed, but not soon enough to completely miss the truck. The back end of the metal beast smacked into my driver’s side door, and the Jeep lurched and spun on two wheels, coming around to land crookedly across both lanes with the nose pointing back toward the hotel.
Oren Beauford accelerated away with an unholy screech of rubber, booking
it toward downtown Landstaff Junction.
If I was still me, I’d have hunted that son of a bitch down and shot him dead for this.
But I was Detective Donovan North. And murder was against the law, even if I really, really wanted to kill someone.
I managed to get myself pointed in the right direction with a three-point turn, but instead of continuing on my way, I pulled off the shoulder and sat there for a minute. Nothing was broken, but I’d have a few nasty bruises from the seat belt, and who knew what kind of damage he’d done to the Jeep. At least it was still running.
Once the adrenaline spike faded, I put the vehicle in gear and drove the rest of the way into town. I’d be damned if I was going to face any more of this day without caffeine, so I took the time to hit the Dunkin drive-thru and added a big, crumbly shot of sugar to my order in the form of a chocolate chip muffin, which I finished in record time.
I parked in the back lot at the police station and used the employee door, like I was supposed to. Calm. Collected. I could handle this. Hopefully, I didn’t look as rattled as I felt.
But when I walked into the bullpen, it seemed that everyone stopped to stare at me. Especially Officer Farnsworth and Detective Clarke, who were both standing at her desk and talking in low voices until they noticed me and froze.
Clarke’s expression was shock, and something like embarrassment. August looked … bewildered. Possibly betrayed.
I kept my own features neutral as I walked toward them, ignoring the glances and whispers from everyone else. “I’d say good morning, but it doesn’t look like there’s anything good about it,” I said, trying to keep it light. “Everything okay?”
Neither of them said anything for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, August blurted, “Why didn’t you tell us that you used to live here?”