by Leslie Wolfe
When Doc touched the toddler’s neck, searching for a heartbeat, the little girl shifted and whimpered quietly, without waking up from her death-like sleep.
“Oh, God,” Kay whispered, covering her mouth with a gloved hand. “She’s alive. Let me take her—”
“We need photos first,” Doc replied, the sadness in his voice unmistakable. “Before this pool of blood gets trampled some more. I promise you we’ll work fast.”
His assistant started taking photos, moving swiftly through the crowded kitchen and shooting various angles after placing crime scene markers near all the relevant smudges and bloodstains.
“The neighbor found the body,” Elliot announced. “Frank Livingston. He lives next door with his wife and his mother. They’re outside if you’d like to speak with them.”
“I will, yes,” Kay replied, unable to take her eyes off the little girl. Every fiber of her was urging her to pick that child up and take her somewhere safe, somewhere where she could be cleaned of her mother’s blood and cuddled in dry, warm clothes. Where she could start forgetting the horrors she’d witnessed.
But her blood-soaked clothes were evidence, and her tormented memories could hold the key to catching her mother’s killer.
“There were three girls in the household,” Elliot continued. “Julie, sixteen, and Heather, eight, are missing.”
That poor little girl is essential to finding her sisters. “How much longer?” she asked Doc Whitmore’s assistant in an impatient voice.
The young woman glanced at her, surprised. “About ten minutes, maybe?” she replied, immediately resuming her task.
“Make it five while I walk the scene,” she replied, and immediately rushed away. She couldn’t bear seeing that little girl lying in her mother’s blood for another moment. She wanted to scream.
“I’ll get formal statements from the neighbors,” Elliot offered after shooting her a somber look. He didn’t move though, as if waiting for something.
She went straight to the back entrance, the focal point of Cheryl Coleman’s last seconds of life. Three suitcases were clustered next to the wall. The light was still on in the kitchen, fighting the gloomy daylight that came in through the windows, but Kay turned on her powerful flashlight to examine some scuff marks on the floor closely. A chair downed with one of its legs broken, a long, deep gash into the side of a cabinet, and scattered shards from a teapot spoke of the struggle that had taken place.
“Single stab wound to the lower abdomen,” Doc Whitmore announced. “She bled to death in a matter of minutes. By the volume of blood loss, I’d be willing to bet a pretty penny the blade severed her abdominal aorta.”
“Time of death?” Kay asked, staring at the back-door handle, smeared with blood. The unsub had stabbed Cheryl, and then what? Grabbed two girls and walked out? No… a fight had ensued. He’d dropped the knife on the floor, and that meant he didn’t feel threatened by either girl. But he had to subdue them, to silence their screams somehow, because they must’ve screamed. Those scuff marks, that’s where one of the girls must’ve kicked erratically, trying to free herself from his grip. Why not hold on to the knife, and threaten the girls into submission with it?
Ah, but you’ve never stabbed a woman before, have you? Kay thought, pacing the floor slowly, examining the scene from all angles. You had no idea what it would feel like, how slippery gushing blood could be, and that’s why you dropped the knife. Right… there. She ended her thought with a finger pointed straight at where the knife was still on the floor, marked with a yellow tag bearing the number four in black font. “Then what happened? I believe the eldest attacked you, didn’t she?” Kay whispered, unaware she was voicing her thoughts.
Kay crouched by Cheryl’s body, now positioned faceup, ready for Doc Whitmore’s liver probe to take a temperature reading. Although touched by death’s fog, her eyes were still intense, as if she was about to come back to life and rush to find her missing daughters. Once again, Kay stared along the line-of-sight Cheryl had during the last moments of her life.
The back entrance door.
“Liver temp puts the time of death between nine and eleven p.m. last night,” Doc Whitmore said, sighing heavily when he stood up, the probe still in his hand. “This door was found open, and it was nearly freezing last night. That will increase the margin of error in the time of death determination—”
“The door was still open when they found her, right?” Kay asked, not even acknowledging Doc’s statement.
“Yes, that’s how the neighbor knew something was wrong,” Elliot said, approaching her slowly.
Kay shot him a quick glance, wondering why he’d delayed interviewing the neighbor’s family. Then she looked out the back door’s window. The driveway ran parallel to the house, and it had been kept empty by first responders in a desperate attempt to preserve the integrity of the crime scene despite the weather. Cheryl’s car must’ve been parked in the garage. Maybe the assailant’s vehicle was in the driveway the night before? Then, maybe the neighbor might’ve noticed something.
A few yards to the right, she could see the back of the ambulance. A couple of deputies had erected canopies that barely withstood the wind, weighed down with sandbags, improvised rain shelters for the deputies, and crime scene technicians swarming the place. Underneath one of them, stomping in place and wrapped in an EMS blanket, was the neighbor who’d found Cheryl’s body. He was speaking with two women, probably his wife and his mother, huddled closely together.
They were out of earshot, the sound of the howling wind and hammering rain making it difficult to hear someone, even if they stood a couple of feet away. But their body language was a different story. The older woman kept saying something that made the man shake his head several times, then underline his statement with appeasing hand gestures. Whatever she was saying, he disagreed with her and wanted her to shut up. The younger woman, sporting a bad haircut with unevenly trimmed bangs, wearing a huge shawl wrapped around her neck, threw side glances all the time, her eyes round with fear.
“Let’s talk to them,” Kay said, then opened the door and rushed through the rain in her disposable coveralls. They were now ruined for their intended purpose, but at least they did a good job of keeping the weather from soaking her clothes some more. She slipped and nearly fell when her plastic bootie landed in a puddle of mud, but Elliot’s hand grabbed her arm and stabilized her.
“Thanks,” she shouted over her shoulder, just as they reached the canopy. “Detectives Sharp and Young,” she said, patting her pocket out of the habit of showing her badge, but it was unreachable without removing her coveralls. “I understand you were the one who found the body?”
The neighbor was pale and visibly upset, the corners of his eyes drawing lower, brimming with tears. Tension drew two deep, vertical lines flanking his mouth. His hair, all white, showed a receding line that made his forehead appear tall, distinguished, composed. Yet, he seemed perplexed and far more affected by the neighbor’s death than Kay had expected.
“Um, yes, it was me. I’m Frank Livingston, and this is my wife, Diane,” he said, turning halfway toward the woman with the bad haircut. “My mother, Elizabeth,” he added, touching the woman’s forearm. “Go home, Mother, please. It’s too cold for you.”
The older woman ignored him, probably thrilled to have some excitement in her life, even if it were of the morbid kind. That’s what her entire demeanor was telling Kay. She had a willful spark in her watery blue eyes and a stern smile on her lips, the mark of stubbornness. She was dressed too neatly for a casual walk across a driveway and about fifty feet of soaked lawn and had bothered to apply lipstick and put on jewelry. The old woman wasn’t going anywhere.
“Call me Betty, my dear,” she said, revealing age-stained teeth when her smile widened. “Everyone does.”
“Thanks, I will,” Kay replied, then turned her attention to Frank Livingston, whose squirrely gaze avoided his wife’s but tried to stare his mother down. The man had secrets
. “Mr. Livingston, please tell us how you found the body.”
Frowning deeply, he clenched his fists for a brief moment, his eyes shooting daggers at Kay. “The body, the body. All you people can think of is the body. She was a human being! Cheryl was her name. Can’t we at least pretend to show some civility?”
Oh, so it hurts on a personal level, Kay thought. Interesting. She raised an apologetic hand. “You’re absolutely right, Mr. Livingston, and I apologize. Please tell me about Cheryl. How did you know something was wrong?”
He cleared his throat quietly before speaking, his eyes darting again, avoiding hers just as he’d been avoiding his wife’s. “That door was open, and that never happens. I saw it as I was getting into my car to go to work.”
“Where is work?” Elliot asked.
“Chester High,” he replied quickly. “I’m the science teacher.”
“Did you go inside the house?” Elliot asked.
“Y—yes. I called out, and when she didn’t answer, I went inside.” As if realizing he might’ve done something wrong, he rushed to explain. “I didn’t step on anything, didn’t touch anything either. When I saw them lying there like that, I rushed out and called nine-one-one.”
Diane Livingston was watching her husband with an intense stare, her mouth slightly agape. If there had been more than a neighborly relationship between Frank and Cheryl, Diane didn’t know anything about it. But she seemed afraid, as if Frank was about to say the wrong thing. She didn’t seem hurt, or suspicious, or jealous. No, just genuinely sad about Cheryl’s death and unexpectedly afraid.
“Had you noticed anything last night?” Elliot asked. “Unusual traffic, loud noises, maybe a car in the driveway?”
Frank locked eyes with his wife for a moment, then shook his head. “No, nothing. With this storm raging, I didn’t hear anything either. Maybe she screamed, called for help or something, but I didn’t hear her.” His voice trailed off toward the end. He sounded choked. “I can’t believe this happened, only a few yards away from where we’re sleeping.”
“Was Cheryl’s daughter near her body when you found her?” Kay asked.
He managed eye contact with Kay for the briefest of moments. “Erin? Yes. I assumed she was dead too.” Swallowing with difficulty, he took one step closer to her. “Two other girls are missing, you know, Julie and Heather. I told the other cops. Maybe they ran away, scared. But why didn’t they come to us?”
“Ran away?” the older woman blurted, grabbing Frank’s sleeve with knotted fingers. “How can you be so naïve? I told you… how many times did I tell you?” The more she spoke, the higher the pitch of her voice, as if the fire of her emotions was fanned by her words. “I told you, and you didn’t do anything about it. And now she’s gone. That sweet, innocent girl, gone.”
“Never mind my mother,” Frank intervened, physically inserting himself between Betty and Kay. “It’s just her Alzheimer’s talking. She was diagnosed last January.”
“I’m not crazy!” Betty reacted, slapping her son with her frail hand. “Now that she’s gone, you’ll never find her again,” she said to Kay, then shifted her attention to Elliot. She braced her hand on Elliot’s forearm.
Uneasy, the detective took a step back. “Ma’am, please—”
“Will you listen to me?” Betty insisted. The gaze in her fixed eyes was intense, almost maniacal. “That girl’s gone! And everyone knew it was coming.”
4
Sacrifice
The sky wept.
He stood in front of the tall windows and watched the heavy rain hit the ground, exploding in tiny droplets, then melding into rivulets of muddy water streaming down his driveway. Seen through the wisps of white sheers lit by yellow, dimmed chandeliers, the gray, loaded clouds didn’t seem any less menacing. Every now and then, one of them flashed with bluish light, then thunder rolled, sending echoes of doom through his heart.
Mother was angry.
She must believe he’d forsaken her, and now she was demanding her due.
But he hadn’t forsaken her; he would rather have his own life ripped out of his chest. He hadn’t shut his eyes to sleep a single night without whispering a prayer to her, without thinking of her. She was in every dropped leaf touching the ground in fall and in every budding blade of grass pushing through molten snow in spring. She was in the call of the birds and the howling of the wolves on the slopes of Mount Chester. She was in the mesmerizing blue California skies just as much as she was in the forlorn gathering of clouds, hemmed with lightning and reminiscent of slate and charcoal and graphite.
She was in his blood. She’d always been.
Pushing aside the sheers with pale, thin fingers, he drew closer to the window and rested his heated forehead against the cold glass. From up close, the sound of rain hitting the pavement of the driveway seemed louder, as if the transparent pane was not able to keep her demons at bay.
Her message was clear. She demanded another sacrifice.
Water had pooled on his lawn, raising mud above the dormant, trim blades of grass and escaping between the edge boulders onto the asphalt. Right between the concrete slabs that formed the path to the entrance, rain had washed the earth away, leaving crevices between, tiny openings that were nothing if not reminders of the big ones.
He hadn’t offered Mother a sacrifice in a long time.
Too long.
Under the threat of tears, he closed his eyes with heavy lids that welcomed the darkness. He steepled his hands in front of his chest and rested in silent darkness for a while, the only sound the drumming of rain against everything it touched.
“Mother Earth, hear me,” he whispered, “I beg your mercy and forgiveness. Hear your child, as I stand before you today. The tears you cry for your children burn my skin and stab my chest. Show me the chosen path, and let me bring you a worthy sacrifice to heal your wounds and dry your tears.” He paused for a moment, listening, and gentle, distant thunder answered his prayer. “Mother Earth, hear your child,” he continued. “Be the bond between the worlds of Earth and those of Spirit. Let the sacred winds echo your voice and carry your wisdom across the land.”
He listened again, but only rain rapped heavily against the windows. She was still angry, waiting for him to deliver on his promises, to heal her wounds. By the edge of a concrete slab, the crevice had deepened, ominous, reminding him of another, a hundred feet deep, where Mother’s wounds were bleeding heavily.
“This time, the sacrifice will make you happy,” he whispered, leaving the comfort of the cold glass panes and starting to pace the room slowly, his feet making the gleaming hardwood squeak quietly. Yet he couldn’t take his eyes off the rain-soaked landscape outside. Those were Mother’s tears, falling heavy, filled with anguish and pain, unforgiving.
He returned to the window and clutched his hands together, his grip tight, white-knuckled. “You’ll be happy, Mother; I swear it on my life,” he whispered in a low baritone. “The girl is young and pure, untouched. And her blood… her blood is the real sacrifice.”
Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed that the skies were starting to clear somewhere toward the west.
Mother had heard him. She was accepting the sacrifice.
5
Heather
Elliot stayed behind to wrap up the Livingstons’ interviews while Kay returned inside the house after swapping her coveralls and booties for dry ones. She didn’t mind having to change and didn’t say a word to Jodi, Dr. Whitmore’s versatile assistant. The young brunette avoided Kay’s glance, fearing reprimand for not wrapping up the photos faster, but Kay’s mind was elsewhere, still under the spell of the old Mrs. Livingston’s strange statements. Was she a senile woman, like her son had insisted? Or did she know something that her son and daughter-in-law Diane didn’t want Kay to learn about? As soon as she got a moment, she’d go back to speak with Betty, ideally with no witnesses around, just for diligence’s sake. Considering the woman was most likely pushing eighty, chances were the intervi
ew would end up proving to be a waste of time and reconfirming the Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
For now, there were more pressing issues, a little girl in dire need of immediate care and finding her two older sisters alive. The first hours are always critical in child abductions. The two Montgomery sisters had been taken almost twelve hours ago, halving the time when the odds of recovering an abducted minor alive were highest. After the first twenty-four hours elapse, the chances of ever seeing the child returned alive drop with every hour to almost zero after two full days.
Forcing her lungs to fill with air and exhaling slowly, Kay took a brief moment to think of her priorities. First, she needed some DNA to attach to the missing persons case files. With DNA on record, law enforcement everywhere could have something to match against if either of the sisters were recovered. Realizing she hadn’t yet walked the upstairs part of the scene, and knowing that she’d be more likely to find Julie’s DNA on a hairbrush or in loose hair fibers with roots attached she could recover from the girl’s bed, she climbed the stairs quickly, taking in every detail of the scene.
There wasn’t a single drop of blood that she could see upstairs, and everything was in order, as much order as could be expected from a household with a working mother and three daughters. Each of the bedrooms had its own brand of clutter and mess. The largest room, where Cheryl had slept alone, showed only her side of the bed covers tangled and messy, while the other half was untouched. The clothes she must’ve worn the day before were still hanging on the back of a chair, a beige, button-up blouse, and black slacks. There was a vague smell of dental office in the room, probably brought with her clothes. The dressing table was littered with cosmetics and accessories, nothing fancy, just the typical drugstore brands. The room seemed peaceful, utterly untouched by the tragedy that had brought the demise of its resident.