by J. D. Barker
“Holy hell,” Gimble muttered.
Begley blew out a soft whistle. “You’d think the Manson family were having a block party by the looks of this.”
Deputy Bulloch unloaded Begley’s cases from his trunk and set them in the street while Labrum rounded his own car and gestured toward the mobile home. “That’s the sheriff over there under the carport. He’s talking to the coroner.”
“What’s the sheriff’s name?”
“Burt Moody.”
“I’ll stay with these until you get situated,” Deputy Bulloch said, gesturing toward the two black cases and speaking for the first time since they’d landed.
Gimble took one more look at the large crowd, shook her head, and ducked under the tape with Dobbs and Begley close behind.
Sheriff Moody saw them approach, said something to the coroner, and walked toward them. “You must be Special Agent Gimble?” He gave Dobbs and Begley a wary glance. “This your team?” Moody looked to be in his mid-fifties. His neatly cropped brown hair was peppered with gray, and he was in surprisingly good shape for his age. His beefy arms strained at his uniform, and his stomach was flat.
Gimble said, “Part of my team. The rest are coming by car. I’ve got marshals en route too. They’re probably still an hour or two away.” She glanced nervously toward the mobile home. “Please tell me you didn’t let anyone in.”
His brow furrowed. “As instructed. I’ve kept everyone standing around out here with their thumbs up their asses waiting on you to come and save the day. Think we gave that Kepler fellow enough time to get away? I can hold my boys back another hour or two if you think that makes sense.”
“Who told you this was about Kepler?”
He held up his phone. “Google, Reddit, MSNBC, and Lou Jacobs from our local CBS affiliate. If this is supposed to be a secret, somebody dropped the ball and gave it a swift kick over to the press hours ago. All the major networks are probably right behind your people, coming in from Vegas.”
Dobbs glanced down at Gimble’s fingers, expecting them to twitch. He figured she’d lash out, but she said only “What have we got inside?”
“A complete clusterfuck, and I couldn’t be happier you called dibs,” he replied. “Follow me.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Dr. Rose
When the phone rang, Rose Fitzgerald nearly knocked the lamp off her desk scrambling for it. She hadn’t planned on sleeping, had just wanted to lay her head down for a few seconds. According to the grandfather clock in the corner of her office, it was a little after one in the morning.
Her fingers closed around the phone as the shrill ring cut the night again. She fumbled with the lock screen, hit Answer. “Megan, where the hell—”
“Not Megan.”
“You?”
“Me.”
“What do you want?”
“I missed you, Dr. Rose,” he said. “Wanted to hear you. I’ve got exciting news.”
He always spoke in short sentences but dragged each word out—two syllables became four, four became eight. There was no emotion there, no feeling.
Dr. Rose stretched her legs under the desk, her tired bones creaking. “I’m hanging up. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
“Like what, Dr. Rose?”
“Like this, with this cat-and-mouse bullshit of yours.”
“I’m on the mark, Dr. Rose. Finally. You should be happy for me. It feels…wonderful. So free. I felt the need to celebrate,” he said. “I met someone tonight, Dr. Rose. Someone…special. She helped me celebrate. She had long brown hair and the most beautiful eyes.”
“Had?”
“A wonderful listener, like you. How are you sleeping these days?”
“I sleep just fine.”
“So alone, though. Half the bed cold. Half the bed still made when you crawl out in the morning and wander the halls of that tomb you call home.”
“I’m not alone. I have Megan.”
“Do you?”
She looked around her office at the mess Megan had left behind.
He said, “Do you miss him, Dr. Rose? I do. I miss our little chats. Dr. Bart would be so proud, don’t you think? Of my progress? His star pupil, shining bright. Why do you think he ate the gun, Dr. Rose? Was it you? I think he got tired of listening to your nagging. Your constant berating. A bullet, the only way to silence your whiny banter, and now Dr. Rose is all alone.”
“He didn’t shoot himself. He died from an aneurysm.”
“His body pulled the trigger, that’s the only real difference.”
“Why did you call me?”
“To tell you I’d be home soon. For the funeral. Back where I belong. To see you. To say hello to Mr. Patchen. So many reasons. I have a feather in my pocket. Can’t wait to give it to you. Feathers for everyone. You sick, twisted bitch of a—”
Dr. Rose ended the call and slammed the phone down on her desk.
Chapter Fifty
Dobbs
For Dobbs, crime scenes always carried a certain silence, a stillness. Like walking into an abandoned house. The Eads house had been ransacked—the couch overturned, the cushions slashed, stuffing removed. Every book, framed photograph, and knickknack had been pulled from shelves and left on the floor. The carpet crunched underfoot with broken glass. In the small kitchenette, the table was overturned, every drawer pulled out, the contents spilled. The cabinet doors were all open. Broken plates, shattered glasses, pots, and pans littered the linoleum floor. The refrigerator and freezer were both open; half the food was on the ground.
“Vela can weigh in when he gets here, but to me this goes well beyond a search. There’s anger here,” Gimble said.
“I’ve got some blood,” Begley said, crouching down and studying the edge of the table with the help of a penlight. “Not much. Probably someone grabbed it with some kind of cut on their hand.”
“The victim has a cut on her right hand, right here,” Moody said, gesturing toward the meat near his own thumb. “Every room in the place looks like this. Your man tore up every inch.”
“You said a neighbor called this in?” Begley asked.
Moody nodded. “Florence Ostler, across the street. She wandered over when Erma didn’t show up for their Sunday-night card game. She gave us the description of the car and ID’d Kepler as ‘that handsome boy from TV.’ I figured you’d want to do a photo lineup, so I’ve got someone sitting with her back at her place. She’s seventy-five, a bit shook up, but she seems sharp.”
Although light streamed in from the floods outside, the only light in this room came from the freakishly large television. It was tuned to one of the cable news channels and paused on a close-up shot of Gimble and Dobbs at the car fire earlier.
“Well, that’s a little creepy,” Gimble said.
“Gets creepier.” Moody took several giant steps across the room, picked up the television remote, and pressed a button; the screen went dark. Scratched across the surface from the bottom left corner to the top right were seven words:
I SEE YOU—DO YOU SEE ME?
When the sheriff pressed the button again, bringing back the frozen image, the words vanished, became nothing more than smudges barely visible in the bright, colorful scene. He flicked it off for a second time, and the words were readable again. He did that several more times.
“Okay, we got it,” Gimble said. “You can stop that now.”
He set the remote back down on the floor.
“Is this the murder weapon?” Begley asked. The beam of his flashlight was focused on a chrome-plated nine-millimeter on the kitchen floor.
The sheriff shook his head. “Nope. He didn’t shoot her. Come on.”
He led them down a short hallway to a small bedroom.
Erma Eads’s large body was sprawled on the bed, a stained comforter bunched around her. Her hands and feet were bound with what looked like electrical cords. She stared forward, her eyes bulging from their sockets and lined with blood.
Begl
ey leaned over her. “We’ve got hypoxic damage, petechiae.” Using the penlight, he studied her face. “Oh, hell.”
“What is it?” Gimble asked.
“He glued her mouth shut. Her nose too. She couldn’t breathe—must’ve died from asphyxiation.”
“There’s a bottle of superglue on the floor over here,” Dobbs said.
Gimble knelt down beside the bed. “I see something under her.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Written Statement,
Megan Fitzgerald
Roy was kind enough to include batteries for my new cassette player, but unfortunately he didn’t give me a baseball bat, which was what I desperately needed to keep the leech sitting beside me in 2B from bothering me when I unboxed my newly acquired hardware.
“Would you like me to help you with those?” He fondled his own pair of headphones with the unabashed fervor of a fourteen-year-old boy getting his fingers on his first pair of moist panties. His sweaty hands left glossy streaks on the plastic. He kept wiping them on the seat.
Big strong man save helpless girl from technology.
What a tool.
The gate agent had upgraded my seat to first class when I told him this was my first time flying—the same thing I say every time I hand over my boarding pass—but I was seriously considering moving back to row 17 to get away from this guy. “I’m fine, thank you.” I gave him a smile, and that was a mistake—you don’t smile at guys like this.
He wasn’t bad-looking. Twenty years ago, he might even have been hot, but I’d be willing to bet he hadn’t set foot inside a gym in about a decade, and his gut was happy for it, straining against the seat belt as he turned toward me. “My name is Warren. Heading to Flagstaff, huh?”
No, Warren. I’m actually heading to Poland, but I like the food court at Pulliam Airport, so I figured I’d make a quick stop. “I’m visiting family.”
When I leaned forward to put the empty boxes under the seat in front of me, I caught Warren looking down my dress at my lacy black bra. He didn’t avert his eyes; he just smiled. “You know, I met my second wife on a flight just like this. We were both flying back from Barbados. Didn’t talk for the first hour, but once the ice broke, you couldn’t shut the two of us up.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “By the end of the second hour, we were up there in the first-class bathroom banging away like rabbits in the spring.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “She orgasmed so loud, we thought half the plane might applaud when we came out. If you slip the flight attendants a couple hundred, they’ll watch the door for you.”
“I’ve heard that.”
He leaned even closer. He smelled like beer and onions. “Have you ever…”
My fingers went to one of the buttons on my dress, but I didn’t look at him. I lowered my voice. “I think it’s best when you do it with a stranger. Someone you know you’ll never see again. Everyone thinks about it when they get on a plane. You can tell by the way they check out the other passengers, size them up, pick one out.” I licked my lips. “I’ve done it twice; it was incredible.”
Warren didn’t seem quite prepared for this; sweat started to trickle down from his temples. He nodded toward the bathroom. “It’s empty. I’ve been watching.”
I fiddled with the button on my dress—unbuttoning it, then sliding it back in, then out again. I still didn’t look at him. “First class isn’t a challenge. Meet me in the bathroom at the back of the plane. The one on the left. I’ll knock twice so you know it’s me. Give me a few minutes, though; we don’t want anyone to figure out what we’re doing.”
The breath Warren drew in was audible, this nasally inhale. He nodded quickly, fumbled with his seat belt.
“Oh, and Warren?”
He turned back to me.
“Take off your wedding ring. I won’t be able to look at that.”
He nodded again and tugged at the ring as he made his way down the aisle toward the back of the plane.
I figured this bought me at least twenty minutes.
I took one of the cassettes from my purse. The label read Dark room—M. Kepler—August 13, 1996.
I slipped it into my tape player and pressed Play.
There was a moment of static, a soft hiss, then Dr. Bart’s voice: “I’d like to give you something, Michael, something special for talking to me yesterday. For sharing what happened at the motel.”
“What?”
I almost paused the tape at the sound of Michael’s voice; he sounded so young, just a child. A little kid. I did the math—only four years old.
Dr. Bart went on. “Whenever one of my friends shares something with me, a secret, something personal, I give them a sparrow feather. What you shared with me yesterday, what you told me about your mama and Max, that earned you a feather.”
“And I’m your friend?”
“I’d like to think so. I think you and I could become great friends.”
A rustling sound.
“It’s soft,” Michael said.
“That’s from a Henslow’s sparrow, my personal favorite. They make the most beautiful sounds. We have several nests on the grounds. Perhaps later I’ll show you one.”
“And I can keep it?”
“Yes, Michael. That one is for you. I’m hoping you’ll share another secret with me today. And if you do, you’ll get another feather.”
“How many can I get?”
“As many as you want.”
“I’d like that. I’d like a bunch of them.”
“I’m going to turn out the light now so we can talk.”
“With no distractions,” Michael said. “Like last time.”
Although Michael was able to say the word, he stretched it out, emphasizing each syllable. Diz…track…shuns.
“When we talked yesterday, Michael, you were extremely helpful. I’d like to continue our conversation, if that’s okay with you.”
Michael didn’t reply.
“You told me your mama was sleeping in the bathtub. Can you tell me what she did before she went to sleep?”
“Yeah.”
“What did she do, Michael?”
“She took off her clothes and washed them in the sink.”
“That’s good, Michael. Let’s start there and slowly move forward through what you remember. What were you doing when your mama was washing her clothes?”
“I was sitting on the bed.”
“Watching TV?”
“No, watching Mama. I wanted to see where she would hang her clothes. She already washed some of my clothes and some of Max’s clothes and hung them up everywhere. I wanted to see where she would hang her clothes ’cause there was no places left.”
“And where did she put them?”
“On top of the air conditioner. She said they’d dry fast there.”
“That’s very smart.”
“Mama is smart.”
“What did she do next?”
“She turned on the TV for me and said she was going to take her medicine. She asked if I remembered what I was supposed to do after she took her medicine, and I told her I did.”
Dr. Bart said, “And what was that?”
“I was supposed to wait for a commercial, then take the rubber band off her arm. Mama said if I don’t, it’s bad for her cir…cir…lation.”
“Circulation?”
“Yeah. I was supposed to take the needle out, too, if it got stuck. Sometimes it gets stuck and Mama falls asleep, so I have to take it out. That’s gross, but I do it.”
“Your mama, she took her medicine in the bathtub?”
“She likes the water. Her medicine works better in the water.”
“And did you do these things, Michael? When the commercial came on, did you go into the bathroom and take the rubber band off her arm…and take out the needle?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You took out the needle?”
“I put it on the counter so it wouldn’t get stepped on. One time, Max s
tepped on it and Mama got mad.”
Dr. Bart cleared his throat. “Michael, do you know what an autopsy is?”
Michael didn’t answer.
“You need to speak aloud, Michael, for the recording. Do you know what an autopsy is?”
“No.”
“It’s when a doctor checks someone after they die to figure out how they died.”
Michael still said nothing.
“The doctor checked your mother, and he found no evidence of medicine in her system. In fact, he didn’t even find traces of medicine from past use,” Dr. Bart said. “I do know from the police report that Max regularly used heroin—do you know what heroin is? I think you do. The needle, the rubber band, these are all things you’ve probably seen Max use. I think that’s why you’re able to describe them to me. But you never saw your mama use heroin, did you?”
Silence.
“Why are you lying to me, Michael?”
Silence.
“I thought we were friends?”
“Mama’s medicine made her fall asleep.”
“Your mama drowned,” Dr. Bart replied. “Did Max tell you to say these things if someone asked you? To protect him?”
“No.”
“If we’re going to be friends, you need to tell me the truth. I’d never lie to you, Michael. It’s important you’re honest with me.”
Silence.
“Did you ever help Max do heroin? Take medicine?”
Nothing from Michael.
Dr. Bart sighed. “If you’re not going to talk to me, I’m afraid I’ll have to take my feather back and give it to one of my real friends.”
When Michael finally spoke, his voice was so low it was barely audible. “Mama was sad. She was crying. He said if we gave her some of Max’s medicine, she’d feel better. I wanted Mama to feel better.”