“How are you feeling?” Mark asked.
“Way better. Thanks. But I didn’t sleep at all last night, so I think I might go up and take a nap. Hey, thanks a lot for looking after Pepper.” She added, “You’ve been a good friend.”
That seemed to settle him, more so when she said, “Would you like to come over for dinner tonight? I’ll make something good.”
“That would be great,” he said.
“See you at 7:30, then.”
Mark left.
If she didn’t make it home by then, she doubted she’d make it home at all. At least there would be somebody there for Pepper.
If it developed that she brought Will home with her, she would deal with that eventuality when the time came.
After Mark left, Emma did take a nap. She amazed herself that she could fall asleep. She figured it was testament to her resolve. She set the alarm for 4:30 p.m. to give her time to prepare.
Later, in her bedroom with Archie’s Beretta, she first made sure it was safe and clear. She field-stripped the pistol down to its component parts: frame, slide, barrel, recoil spring, and cam block. She carefully lubricated each piece before reassembling the gun. She remembered watching her dad clean his guns. The pleasant odor of Hoppe’s gun oil was a deep-seated memory. Archie had wanted her to feel comfortably knowledgeable about weaponry. Thanks to him, she did. Emma ratcheted the slide back and forth. It was smooth as silk. Finally, she loaded fifteen 9 mm Parabellum rounds into one clip, which she snapped back into the Beretta’s polymer grip. She loaded a backup clip, too. If thirty cartridges weren’t enough, she was in more trouble than she cared to imagine.
The kitchen windows were awash with rain. It was a July thunderstorm, a classic, with thunder and impressive displays of lightning.
Upstairs she found a pair of sneakers which would maintain traction when wet. She’d had them for years. She wasn’t quite sure what difference it would make, but she dressed all in black, including a black hat. Her darkest windbreaker was navy blue, but it was dark enough, and, more importantly, long enough to conceal the holster she clipped to her belt.
Now came the hard part, waiting. She was sorely tempted to have a shot of whiskey, but she knew that would be weak, if not foolish. She needed all her strength, determination, and clear-headedness going forward.
At five o’clock she turned on left-wing television, MSNBC. Chuck Todd was anchoring “MTP Daily.” Instead of distracting her from clock-watching, the political news raised her blood pressure. She turned it off.
With a deep breath and tears in her eyes, she gave Pepper a long, affectionate hug goodbye. She retrieved the Beretta from the kitchen, loaded her holster, said another good-bye to Pepper, and drove to Ella T. Grasso State Park.
The parking lot was typical of an under-funded Connecticut state park. Overflowing garbage barrels and vandalized picnic tables. There were no cars in the parking lot, probably due to the rain. If Will had driven there, he had concealed his vehicle somewhere else. Maybe he hadn’t arrived, or perhaps he would be a no-show.
She delayed leaving the comfort of her car while she watched the windshield wipers try to beat the downpour. She wished that Pepper was sitting beside her. Eager to protect her. With a sudden stab at courage, she pulled the hood of her windbreaker over her head and kicked open the front door. Before she reached the trailhead of Pequot Trail, she was soaked. Wind-driven rain stung her eyes. She couldn’t hear anything other than the racket of raindrops hammering her hood.
Rivulets of water streamed down the uphill trail, and her usually reliable sneakers slipped on rocks and roots. Occasionally, out of nervousness, Emma felt for the grip of her Beretta under her windbreaker. She told herself she was simply getting prepared. The canopy of trees bridging the trail, combined with heavy thunder clouds, darkened her path. Although it was a quarter ’til six, the path was inky.
Emma figured she was about half a mile up the trail. She began her search for the Sharpie-marked oak tree. Not sufficiently mindful of her steps, she tripped on an aboveground root. She went down hard. Her knee caught a rock and added a new, sharp pain to her catalog of complaints. She swore and used a low branch to lift herself back to her feet.
She continued looking for the tree Will had described. She didn’t think that her knee was seriously injured, but it ached like a sonofabitch and forced her to compensate with a limp.
Upon identifying each oak, she would stop and inspect it. Between the rain and the paucity of ambient light, she wasn’t sure that she would spot a black X on tree bark. She did not want to miss it, or all would be for naught.
About ten minutes later, she found it. She was surprised how easy it was to spot and how sinister it looked.
There was no obvious trail where she was supposed to turn.
She took a left, as instructed, and had to bushwhack through face-high branches, heavy with water. She was already soaked, but the prospect of fighting through one hundred and twenty-five yards of branches and scrub was disheartening.
With another quick check of her Beretta, she soldiered on.
Soon she saw the clearing. Still dark, but brighter than the woods.
She hesitated at the edge.
If Will was nearby, he wasn’t obvious.
She withdrew her Beretta before stepping out from the relative safety of the forest. She held it barrel-down at her side. Black against navy blue, which, she thought, would be hard to see even in the lighter clearing.
“Will,” she called, “it’s Emma. I’m here. Are you out there?”
Her answer was more rain.
She walked slowly into the middle of the clearing, doing frequent 360s to watch her flanks and to see if he was following her. In the center of the circular clearing was an old charcoal pit. Emma studied the tree line around her. Still, she couldn’t see him. She called again. No answer.
Maybe Will had gotten cold feet. The whole premise of his text was so bizarre in the first place. And hurtful, too. Emma wasn’t sure what to do. She thought about Pepper. If she had been here, she would have been able to flush Will in a matter of seconds. Compared to her partner, Emma was effectively blind. And, of course, she didn’t have Pepper’s nose.
Suddenly, despite the rain, she heard the noise of twigs snapping behind her. Rattled, she lifted her gun and assumed the shooter’s stance. She couldn’t see anything, but the noises kept getting nearer. Someone was moving through the woods. After a few tense moments of staring at nothing, she saw a black face appear under an evergreen bough.
She almost laughed. She had never before been relieved to encounter a black bear in the woods. The bear showed herself, an adolescent, and peered at Emma curiously. It appeared unaggressive and made a calm about-face and wandered back into the woods.
Emma watched, lowering her weapon. That was when she saw something that shouldn’t have been there. It was right where the bear had been sniffing. Something purplish against the dark, wet bark of a maple tree. She approached cautiously, limping, with her gun at the ready.
She was about ten feet away when she realized what she was looking at.
Emma’s heart broke.
54
The Investigation Takes a Turn
Two discolored human hands were tied together at the wrists around the tree. Emma couldn’t see what was on the far side of the trunk, but she knew. There was a line of duct tape encircling the tree above the hands. There was another strip of duct tape above the first.
At about six feet away, a gust of thunder-wind blew her way. The horrible stench carried by the waft made her gag. She covered her nose and her mouth, but that did not stop the rotting smell from entering her nostrils.
She put her Beretta back in its holster.
Steeling herself, she moved into a position where she could see the other side of the tree.
Oh, sweet Jesus, she muttered to herself. How could anyone be cruel enough to do such a thing? The human depravity on display was beyond civilized comprehension.
/> The sweet, svelte body of Vanessa Mack was bound to the tree by duct tape. Underneath her armpits and around her forehead. Her open eyes stared at Emma. Her throat had been slashed like Deb’s.
Vanessa’s face and body were nearly unrecognizable. She must have been in the forest for all of the five days since she’d disappeared. Her bloated body had ballooned to twice its size. In some places, her skin was purplish; in others, a dark brown-red; and some parts of her body were coal black.
Putrefied flesh had sloughed off in sheets. There was a pile at the base of the tree.
Emma was too furious to be afraid. She stared at her old friend’s face and watched a fly walk across her eyeball. There was a maggot mass between her thighs. The flesh eaters entered and exited her body at will. Angrily, she tried to swat them away, but there were too many.
Emma was surprised she didn’t feel sick to her stomach. She was too angry. She did feel her body sway a bit. She found a tree a few yards away and sat on the ground in a puddle of water, her back against the trunk. She stared at Vanessa, weeping. Emma’s hand still covered her nose … to little effect.
She heard herself say, “I swear to you Vanessa, and to you, too, Deb, that I will find the savage who did this.”
She kept staring at the body hoping to see something that would give her some hint, some clue. But she knew that that would be a hollow hope. She reached for her iPhone in her pocket. It was time to call 911.
Before she did, she used the flashlight feature and studied the body some more. In the light of the flash, she noticed that Vanessa’s right hand was closed into a fist. She stood and approached the body. Taking a deep breath, she reached for Vanessa’s hand. She didn’t have any gloves. Vanessa’s hand opened easily. Rigor mortis had long since released its deathly grip.
Along with some skin and flesh, a button fell to the forest floor.
She found a Kleenex in her pocket and picked it up. With the help of her iPhone, she examined it carefully. It did not look like a button that Will would own.
Unless her marriage had been a complete fraud, she now felt more confident that Will could not be the killer. This death scene seemed to prove it. Yet, doubts remained.
Before dialing 911, she put the button, wrapped in Kleenex in her pocket. She intended to keep it there. She still had a fingerprint kit at home.
Emma gave 911 the directions to her location and explained the nature of the call. A new dispatcher blurted rather unprofessionally, “Jesus H. Christ!”
She agreed to wait at the oak tree on the Pequot Trail for the police to arrive.
And arrive they did. An army of cops and, lastly, Skip Munro and the Major Crimes team. Everyone except Stella.
Detective Buzz Buzzucano had called the fire department. They set up quartz halogen floodlights powered by portable generators. The scene suddenly became the night-time set of a horror movie. The responders had to shout over the din of the generators.
They cordoned off a wide area around Vanessa’s body. No one was allowed in while Buzz and the Major Crimes photographer took photographs from all angles. When the overall photographs were completed, Skip’s crew, dressed in white Tyvek suits, gingerly approached the body. Before each step, they searched the ground in front of them with powerful flashlights.
When they were right next to Vanessa, one of Skip’s guys called out, “Lieutenant, you better see this.”
Skip looked where the trooper pointed his flashlight. A flap of skin lay on the forest floor at Vanessa’s feet. There was a black L. Emma had missed it.
Skip said, “Holy shit.”
Buzz and Skip joined Emma on the perimeter.
“I’m sorry for your loss. I know she was a friend,” Buzz began, “But how the hell did you find her?”
She showed them the text which he had received.
Skip said, “Well I’ll be damned. I was steering away from your husband. But with this, I no longer can.”
“I still don’t think he’s our man,” Emma stated. “Will could never do this to Vanessa. He was as fond of her as I am … was.”
Buzz said, “I completely understand why you don’t want to believe that your husband is Mr. Sharpie. With all due respect, it’s good that you’re off the case. But you better know, though, the Hampshire Police Department will continue to search for Will.”
“Where’s Stella?” Emma said. “I felt sure she would be the first to arrive.”
Buzz looked uncomfortable. “She told Max that she had a date tonight. She’s not answering her cell phone.”
Skip took a sudden step backward. He said, “What’s that on your hand, Emma?” He directed his flashlight.
Emma looked down. Her hand was covered with bits of Vanessa’s hand. In the havoc, she hadn’t even noticed or felt it. She thought quickly. She had already taken the decision that she, and no one else, would find the owner of the button. Foolish? Perhaps, but she was angry. She needed the satisfaction of bringing Mr. Sharpie to justice. For Deb, Vanessa, and even for Ethan.
She said, “I didn’t bring a flashlight. I had to make sure that Vanessa was actually dead. I felt her carotid artery. That must be where the stain came from.”
Both Buzz and Skip looked skeptical. Skip said, “But she’s been dead for, well probably five days. That doesn’t make sense. Here, let me see your hand.”
She held out her hand, palm down.
“Turn it over,” Skip said. It sounded more like a command than a request.
Emma complied.
Skip and Buzz examined her palm closely.
“That looks like human flesh … and skin,” Skip said. “Did you touch anything else?”
She lied. “Nothing.”
“I have to say, you seem awfully calm for someone who has just found a dear friend basically crucified to a tree. How do you account for that?” Skip said.
“Simple. I’m no longer afraid. I’m too angry to be scared. This whole series of killings is aimed directly at me, and I intend to find out why.”
“Would you wait here for a moment?” Skip said.
He pulled Buzz a short distance away, they conferred quietly. A few moments later, they came back.
Skip said, “I’m sorry to say that we’re going to have to bring you in for questioning.”
“Why?” Emma demanded angrily. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Buzz said, “Don’t make this difficult.”
“I tell you what, we’re going to be here for most of the night. Why don’t you meet us at headquarters tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m.?” Skip said, throwing her a bone.
She recognized that she had no choice. She probably would be doing the same thing they were, had she still been chief.
“Fine,” she answered. “Right now, I’m going home. Is that okay with you guys?”
55
Coup de Grâce
It is time for my coup de grâce.
But first, I take stock. Despite a few very minor setbacks—the nosy reporter, Virginia Hobson, and Vanessa Mack’s first escape spring to mind—my plan has unfolded brilliantly. Emma is being crushed. I’d love to be inside her head for a moment, just to savor her discouragement and failure.
Summary: in cosmic lockstep, Emma is losing everything she holds dear.
There has been one other minor snafu, which might turn out to be not-so-minor. When I returned home from Ella T. Grasso State Park, I was missing a button. Vanessa’s survival instinct, as she realized she was about to die, kicked in. Whose wouldn’t? I must’ve lost the button in the struggle.
Although Stella has given me no indication that it is so, I have a hunch that the cops are staking out the death scene to see who shows up. I’m too smart to go back.
That aside, the finale or coup de grâce for Emma Thorne is nigh.
My favorite example of a coup de grâce is the beheading of a Samurai to end his agony after seppuku. Seppuku is also known as harakiri, the Samurai ritual of auto-disembowelment.
Gotta give it to those little
bastards!
I get Stella on speed-dial.
She answers on the first ring.
Stella says, “Hi, lover. You’re not still mad at me, are you?”
I laugh, disarmingly. “Of course not!”
I invite her over. I dangle sex. She is pathetically eager to accept. “I’ll bring a nice bottle of wine,” she assures.
Stella arrives in a light floral-print summer dress, carrying a useless umbrella. She runs to the front door where I am waiting for her. Her dress is soaked, but it looks great clinging to her curvaceous figure. I don’t know what she’s thinking.
“Let’s get you out of those wet clothes tout de suite,” I say.
She grins and turns her back to me. I unzip the long zipper, and her dress puddles at her ankles. She spins back, stretches out her arms, and says, “Ta-da!”
I have to say that she looks incredibly desirable in her lacy lingerie. I tell her so. She beams. I lead her to my bedroom.
She gives me one great payload of an orgasm. In due course, I return the favor. While Stella is still moaning, I smother her to death with a king-sized pillow.
It’s been seven days since Emma shot a hole through my arm. The exertion of suffocating Stella re-ignites stabbing pains. But I don’t mind.
I have nearly completed the Final Act.
I examine Stella carefully. I have managed to end her life with no visible marks on her body. I know that Stella loved me, but I just never really felt the same way about her. She was more of the pawn than the queen in my life. Chess is one of my favorite games, played both on a board and in life.
You can buy anything on the Internet. From a website called crimescenesupplies.net, I have purchased a “FEMA blue” body bag for $29.99 and had it shipped to one of my several PO boxes. Crime Scene Supplies also sell other items like casting kits, crime scene tape, evidence bags, and something called an infidelity test. The latter, a semen detection kit, was on sale. Minus 26%. Reduced from $65.00 to $48.00. But I have little need for one.
Ever So Silent Page 25