The Buried

by Kathryn Casey

  “No?” I asked. “Then what have we been doing here?”

  “We’ve been edging up my victim count,” he said, staring hard at me. “As a profiler, you should understand that. I don’t have a problem with being put to death. Hell, I deserve it.”

  “I won’t argue against that,” I said. I knew what was coming next. I’d thought about this off and on. That there was more at play than a few extra months of life for Kneehoff.

  “I did this because I wanted credit for all my killings, every victim,” he said. “I want those who come after me to understand…to know how many I killed. I want the folks who look me up on the Internet to appreciate my accomplishments. I want them to know that it wasn’t just the five you charged me with before you shuttled me off to death row. That there were thirteen women in all.”

  “That’s supposed to be an accomplishment?”

  “It’s my legacy,” he said. “And now, with my friend’s help, once Kristilynn dies, the number of killings I participated in will kick up one more notch, to fourteen.”

  I leaned back in the chair, disgusted, exhausted, and frustrated. “You’re not going to help me?”

  “No.”

  “You’re going to let me sit here talking to you, spinning my wheels, while Kristilynn dies?”

  “I am.”

  “Then we have nothing to talk about,” I said.

  I stood and the guards moved forward as I shortened the distance to Kneehoff. He looked up at me and smiled. “And yes,” I said. “Under these circumstances, I will tell the warden we’re done. They can reset your execution date. As soon as possible.”

  “But I thought we’d become such good friends,” he said.

  “You’d better hope there isn’t a God,” I whispered. “An eternity burning in hell can last a damn long time.”

  As usual, I left first, before they walked Kneehoff out of the interview room. When I closed the door behind me, the warden waited.

  “That didn’t go well,” he said. He’d been listening in via an audio hookup. “You get anything out of it?”

  “I’d hoped for more, but this helps. He called the person a friend. It’s someone he knows. He knew about Kristilynn’s abduction before I told him. I could see it in his responses. Somehow they communicated. Like he said, no phone calls.”

  “So a letter?” the warden asked.

  “Keep him in the holding area, and let’s toss his cell.”

  The hallway we took through death row’s Pod A was painted stark white, the doors and windows edged in black. Out of the cells we passed, inmates barked at us and called me names that referenced my sex, unflattering terms.

  “Knock it off!” the warden yelled, pounding on the door of one inmate who became more graphic than the others.

  I ignored them, and the warden had a guard unlock Liam Kneehoff’s cell. We all wore gloves in case we found anything that could become evidence.

  “Get rid of everything extraneous in here,” the warden ordered, and the guards moved in. “Leave everything paper. We’re looking for a letter. Some kind of communication.”

  A guard wheeled in a cart and loaded up Kneehoff’s typewriter, his desk lamp, his hotpot for his tea and coffee. One threw Kneehoff’s snacks into a box, while another shook out his clean uniforms, looking for anything hidden among them. I pushed the mattress up against the wall and looked underneath it.

  Nothing there.

  “Let’s take his papers to a place where we can take our time and look through them,” I suggested. They loaded it up on another cart, stacks of newspapers and magazines, a thick mound of correspondence.

  As we left, I turned around and scanned Kneehoff’s cell emptied of all creature comforts. “It looks better this way,” I said to the warden. “Maybe you can leave it like this, so he’ll have nothing to distract him from contemplating his execution?”

  “We can put a stop on his newspapers, books, etc., as punishment, at least for a while,” the warden offered.

  “What a pleasant idea,” I said.

  Minutes later, the guards walked Kneehoff back to his emptied cell, while the warden sat with me at a table in his office. The two of us divided the pile of letters. We skimmed each one, some from women offering sex, apparently in the event that they found a way to be smuggled in to the prison. I shook my head wondering about anyone delusional enough to want to be in a cell with Liam Kneehoff. Didn’t they understand that they’d never leave alive? But maybe that’s what they wanted? A death wish?

  “There’s nothing here,” the warden said. “Lots of sick letters, but nothing that looks at all like what you’re looking for.”

  Once we finished with the letters, we started going through the newspapers. Kneehoff had a stack of them, at least a couple of months’ worth, and they were careworn from being read and reread. Worried I’d miss something, I went page by page.

  “This is going to take a while,” the warden said. “I wish we knew where he put it.”

  “Every minute I’m here, I’m not out looking for Kristilynn,” I murmured. “This is my fault. I promised her that she’d be safe.”

  The warden didn’t comment, just kept his head down helping me search through the newspapers. Then I remembered the Houston Chronicle article I’d looked at earlier on my laptop, the one with the photographs of the women. I ruffled through the pile, looking for the edition it ran in. I found the right one with a story about Kneehoff starting on the front page.

  I turned to a page inside, the one with the chart. The images of the thirteen women stared back at me. There I found a narrow sheet of paper. I unfolded it.

  I GOT YOUR MESSAGE. I UNDERSTAND.

  I WILL TAKE CARE OF IT.

  F.T.

  The warden read the note over my shoulder. “F.T.?” he asked. “Who’s that?”

  I slipped the note into an evidence bag to be sent for fingerprints.

  “Fellow traveler,” I answered.

  Forty-one

  “Beau Whittle has Kristilynn Cavanaugh.” I called Sheriff Delgado as I pulled out of the prison parking lot.

  “Kristilynn Cavanaugh?” Del asked. “Do I know her?”

  “No. Not personally. She’s Liam Kneehoff’s…the I-45 Strangler’s final victim, the one who survived.”

  “Well, I’ll be a…the one you mentioned the other day? You were staking out her house at night?”

  “Yup. Del, we need to find Kristilynn fast. He’s going to kill her.”

  “Why would Beau have her? Are you sure?”

  “I’ll explain later. Meet me at Edith Mae’s house. I’m already on my way.”

  As soon as I hung up with Del, I called the captain. He was at the scene, at the house on Willoughbee overseeing the forensic team and handling the press.

  “Beau Whittle has Kristilynn and her neighbor,” I said. Then I explained how I put it together, and that I felt absolutely certain.

  “What do you want us to do? Should we release this to the press?”

  “Go ahead. Put out a bulletin to law enforcement. And, yes, alert the public. We need everyone looking for Beau. I’m on my way to meet Del and do a knock and talk with Beau’s mother. Seeing her son’s photo all over the news as a murderer and kidnapper could convince her to cooperate. We need help looking for this POS.”

  I arrived at Edith Mae’s house just as Del pulled up. I glanced down the block and saw an unmarked car parked four houses away. “Glad the captain kept the tail on her,” I whispered. Del looked over at the car, then back at me and nodded.

  Once on the porch, I rang the bell. Del pounded with the side of his fist so hard I thought the door would cave in.

  “Edith Mae Whittle, open up! This is the sheriff!”

  “I’m coming. I’m coming,” she shouted back. “It’s the middle of the night, you know. You got no right to wake me in the middle of the night!”

  The door opened a crack, and one wrinkled eye looked out, slender fingers with chipped nails curled around the door’s edge. �
�I don’t want nothing to do with this, Sheriff. You got a problem with my boy, you go off and find him. You arrest him. But you leave me alone!”

  “I don’t care what you want, you open up this damn door and talk to us, Edith Mae, or I’ll wake the judge and get a search warrant so fast it’ll make that head of yours spin.”

  Edith Mae drew back, scowled at him and slowly opened the door.

  “Damn it, Sheriff,” she said. “You got no reason to be here. Least ways you could have waited until the sun rose. Wake an old woman up in the middle of the –”

  “Shut up!” I ordered.

  She scrunched her eyes until they nearly closed and opened her mouth, ready to let me have it.

  “Mrs. Whittle, stop talking!” I ordered, leaving no room for dispute. “Sit down on that couch, and you don’t say a word. Not one word until I’m done. Do you understand?”

  The sheriff stood back, folded his arms to watch, as the old woman’s eyes grew wide, and she hobbled over to the couch. She sat down, straightened out her flowered bathrobe, ran her fingers through her mussed hair, and waited. I sat beside her and took one of her hands in mine. At first, she tried to pull it back, but I held tight. Her thin, pale skin felt cold to the touch.

  “You know, your hands are icy. It’s like you’ve already got one foot in the grave, Edith Mae,” I said. “You better make sure you’re right with God before you kick the bucket. All those Wednesday evening pot lucks at the churches won’t save you if St. Peter has a notation on his chart that you aided and abetted a killer. Especially if you sit back and let two women be murdered.”

  “I’m not doing nothin’ to hurt no one,” she said. “Why I tell ya –”

  “I said shut up!” I snapped. “Nothing. Not a word.”

  This time I didn’t fight when she snatched her hand away. She drew in the corners of her mouth and sat back, glaring at me. The old woman was hard, and I doubted that the churches she regularly attended made any difference to her beyond a place to find a sympathetic ear and a free meal.

  “If you’re not worried about eternal damnation, you must have other concerns,” I explained. “Let’s talk about your remaining years here on earth. Do you want to spend them in this warm, cozy house, or on death row, with a cell next to your son’s?”

  “You can’t. Why I didn’t do nothin’ –”

  “Third time I’m telling you to shut up and listen.”

  “Why, you, you’re a…I…I…” She sputtered for a minute, furious.

  Once she quieted down, I explained the Law of Parties to Edith Mae, as the defense lawyer had to Jimi Jo days earlier. I told Edith Mae that her son had kidnapped two women. He was holding them hostage and intended to kill them.

  “If you know where Beau is and don’t tell us, you are aiding and abetting him by keeping his secret. If he kills those women, as all three of us here in this room absolutely know he intends to, it’s capital murder,” I said. Her eyes locked on me, she listened quietly. “And it’s not only his life he’s putting on the line, but yours. Because the sheriff and I will come after you. We promise you that.”

  Edith Mae looked worried. I scowled at her and said, “Now, talk.”

  As furrowed as her brow was, as weak as her voice sounded, she wasn’t giving up. “I’m telling you that I don’t know where he is.”

  “We don’t believe you,” I said. “The sheriff and I both believe you know exactly where your boy is.”

  “Well, you’re wrong.” She looked over at the sheriff. “Don’t you need some kind of a warrant to come into my house and threaten me like this?”

  “No. You opened the door and let us in. We’re here to talk, remember? We’re not arresting you, at least not yet. But we’ll get that warrant for your arrest if you come out on the wrong side of this,” he promised. “If the place where Beau is hiding has any connection with you, if you’re involved in any way, I will personally make sure you’re prosecuted, Edith Mae. And if those women die, I’ll do all I can to get you on death row.”

  She appeared to mull over that for a bit, thought it through. “A jury’s not going to kill an old woman. People wouldn’t stand for…”

  “I will put you on death row!” Del’s face contorted with rage. “And I will speed up that trip the lieutenant talked of to the pearly gates. When you get there, the devil will be waiting. You won’t like where he sends you to spend eternity.”

  Edith Mae glowered at him.

  “I want you there quick,” he said. “I want you there as fast as I can get you, so you can get an early start on an eternity burning in hell.”

  “Well, I –”

  “You’ve got something to tell us,” I said. “We both know that you know where your son is.”

  “No, I –”

  “Damn it, Edith Mae!” the sheriff shouted. “You tell us what we need to know!”

  Her throat closed around a hard swallow. We had her.

  “Well, I’m not absolutely certain,” she said. “But I think it’s possible that Beau’s been staying at a house on the river. One where I used to work. The folks who own it are gone every summer, July and August. I can’t promise, but if I was going to guess where he might hide out…”

  Forty-two

  As Kristilynn and Sandy watched, Beau Whittle flipped channels, chain smoked, and paced the living room. His hands on his hips, bent slightly forward and staring at the floor, he listened to news bulletins coming out of Houston. Off and on he chuckled, but not from joy, rather an anxious rising and falling of the chest, labored laughs. He derided the reporters who mused about why the women were taken and who could be responsible.

  “They’re clueless,” he scoffed. “Dumber than the catfish I catch outta the river.”

  Then he heard his name, and he looked up. His driver’s license photo flashed onto the screen.

  “This just in, a person of interest in the abductions of the two women, Kristilynn Cavanaugh and Sandy McCuskey,” the reporter announced. “That person is someone whose picture most of us have seen in news reports these last few days. Sources have named Beau Whittle as the prime suspect in the church burnings north of the city and now as a person of interest in the abductions of the two women.”

  On the screen, Captain Williams talked to a small crowd of reporters fighting for attention and calling out questions. “We want everyone in the area to be on the lookout for Beau Whittle. He’s armed and considered extremely dangerous. If anyone sees him, don’t try to be a hero. Please, call 911 immediately.”

  “Shit,” Beau said, drawing out the word to make the one syllable sound like a half dozen.

  “They’ve got you pegged now,” the old woman whispered. Beau looked over at her and raised his hand. She quickly turned away.

  “Looks like they’ve figured it out,” Kristilynn muttered. “Maybe that woman ranger isn’t so stupid after all.”

  She smiled at him, and he lurched toward her. As he got close, he pulled back his hand and whacked her, hard on the side of the head. “You shut the hell up!”

  Her head jerked at the impact, and she looked stunned. Blood dripped from her nose, the bone bent like a broken twig and the skin purple and blue.

  Anxious, he looked around the room, glanced back at the television. “I was gonna wait until tomorrow night, enjoy this longer,” he whispered, as if he meant the information not for the women but to bring order to the thoughts cascading through his mind. “No time for waiting. By morning, half of Texas’ll be looking for me.”

  Beau grabbed the blue dish towel again. Sandy fought him, angled her head away, but he replaced her gag. Kristilynn squirmed, but quickly gave up. “I don’t want you two talking,” he said. “Be quiet! I got stuff to do.”

  With that, Beau grabbed the shotgun and walked away. They heard the door to the garage slam behind him.

  Afraid to move, Sandy cried softly, but Kristilynn held the tears back and concentrated on twisting her hands, attempting to stretch the rope around her wrists. Beau hadn’t t
ied it as tight as he could have because she’d tricked him, used something she’d once seen in an Internet video. At her house, she’d held out her hands in fists, with her knuckles together. That left space between her wrists. When she unclenched her hands, she had play in the rope.

  Determined, Kristilynn manipulated her wrists, back and forth, pulling up and down. Watching, Sandy did the same, but nothing happened. The rope on her hands cut so tight, she felt as if it shut down her circulation. But Kristilynn kept trying, and her rope loosened enough for her to shimmy one hand out, then the other. The rope dropped to the floor. Instantly, she untied the pillowcase gag.

  “Finally!” Kristilynn whispered. “Now to get you untied.”

  Sandy tried to stand to hop toward Kristilynn, but with her ankles bound fell back onto the chair. Sandy looked exhausted, and Kristilynn worried that the old woman might fall.

  “Wait there,” Kristilynn said. “I can do this.”

  Employing all her strength, she worked her way closer to Sandy’s chair, pulling with her arms, dragging her legs. Once she reached the couch’s arm, Kristilynn eyed the four-foot gulf between them. Quickly, she dropped to the floor, and then clawed with arms and elbows toward Sandy.

  At the other woman’s feet, Kristilynn pulled apart the knot in the towels Beau used to tie Sandy’s legs together. With little effort, they released. Sandy leaned forward and draped her arms down and Kristilynn concentrated on the rope around the old woman’s wrists, harder than the towel to untie. Soon it, too, fell away.

  “Praise the Lord!” Sandy whispered after pulling off her gag.

  “Thank him later,” Kristilynn said. The effort had left her drained, and she rolled over on her back. She attempted to pull herself up by grabbing the cocktail table, but it wobbled. She gave up and lay back down. “Please, now, run! You can. I can’t. You have to get out of here!”

  “We do. I’ll help you.”