by Leslie Wolfe
Emerging from the locker room with a smile on her lips, she found Elliot, wearing Jacob’s red plaid shirt that looked unexpectedly good on him, waiting for her in front of the nap room, ready to keep watch while she conducted her session.
She opened the door slowly, seeing Erin asleep on the bed, but Heather still up, sitting as she usually did, on the side of her cot, her back straight, her shoulders tense, her entire body rigid. On the next cot, by her side, Farrell had fallen asleep. The deputy had taken her task seriously, not willing to go home for the night and leave the girls with someone else. As a mother, she had to know how important any trace of stability was for the girls, and rotating through caretakers wasn’t cutting it.
Touching Farrell’s shoulder, she woke her up. The deputy scooped Erin in her arms and walked out of the room, leaving Kay alone with Heather. A few moments later, propped against pillows and with her eyes closed, the little girl was ready for another session.
“Breathe with me, slowly, and follow my voice into deep relaxation. You are now in a profound trance.”
Kay watched carefully to see if Heather was comfortable. Her shoulders had relaxed, the tension in her face was gone, her eyes were closed, still moving on occasions, but the thoughts that crossed her mind didn’t seem to anguish her too much.
“What you will see cannot hurt you. You’re safe, here with me. You’re telling me the story of what happened on Monday night. It’s like watching TV together. Tell me what you see.”
Her jaws clenched slightly before she spoke. “Julie’s late. Mom’s mad. She wants us to go.”
“Go where?”
“As far away from this place as possible,” she replied, her voice altered, sounding more mature. Those must’ve been Cheryl’s words.
“Someone’s at the door. Do you know that man?”
The girl startled, her eyes moving rapidly. She writhed, as if her entire being was urging her to run, but she was stuck in place and time, on that terrible night.
“You’re safe, and you’re strong. Nothing can touch you.” Kay spoke slowly, barely above a whisper. “Breathe in, hold it for a moment, and breathe out.” She watched her relax, her eye movements slowing down. “Do you know that man?”
Heather shook her head a little, and a whimper came off her lips. “He’s going to take Julie.”
“Does your mom know him?”
“Yes.”
She paused for a moment, thinking how to phrase the next question so that she wouldn’t influence the answer. Heather didn’t know the man’s name; she’d asked her twice and got the same answer. “What does your mom say when she sees him?”
“Oh, it’s you,” she replied, again in her imitation of her mother’s voice.
How interesting. She must’ve been expecting someone else, but she definitely knew the man who later took her life.
“How about the day before? Was there another man visiting mom?”
“Uh-uh,” she mumbled, a frown scrunching her forehead.
“Two days before, then?”
“Yes.” She was becoming agitated again.
“Let’s watch that story together,” Kay whispered. “Tell me about that man.”
Heather gritted her teeth and shifted in place, clasping her hands together in her lap. Whatever she was remembering was making her uncomfortable.
“Mom took us upstairs, in her bedroom.” She paused between words, as if remembering with difficulty. “We’re not allowed in there without her, but she says it’s okay.” She swallowed and licked her dry lips, then her jaws clenched again. “She does that every time he comes.” A flicker of a smile touched her tense lips. “So we wouldn’t hear what they talk about. But I don’t mind, I like cartoons better.”
“What did you watch that night?”
Another hint of a smile. “Cars. The weasel hates it, but Julie tells me the cars’ names and I love Mater. He’s funny. Julie likes Cars too.” A shattered breath engulfed her last words, then a quick, reactive movement rippled through her body, as if something had startled her.
“What just happened?”
“Bang.” She clasped and unclasped her hands nervously. “Downstairs. But mom came up to us.” Her voice changed pitch. “You girls stay here, you hear me? Don’t come down.”
That must’ve been the moment when John Doe had been shot. Heather didn’t speak of arguments or screaming or any violence. Just bang.
“Then what happened?”
“We watch Mommy through the window.” Her voice had dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “If she catches us, it’s bad. She’ll get mad.”
“What did you see?”
“Lots of rain. She hates rain. Julie’s afraid of the rain.” A quiet, tense giggle. “Mommy carrying the man back to his truck. It’s big, like Mater. Julie says he fell asleep, because he was tired, but I think she was lying. He got all wet in the puddles because Mommy dropped him.” She chuckled lightly. “She carries me too when I’m sleepy. She says I’m too heavy now.”
“Then what happened?”
“Julie didn’t let me watch. She brought cookies and milk and we watched TV.” She let a shuddering sigh leave her chest. “But Mommy left and didn’t come back until, um, I don’t know. Julie watched me brush my teeth, and she was mean. She pinched me and it hurt.”
“Why was she mean?”
Another flutter of a smile. “I laughed at her at dinner. I told Mommy about Julie’s boyfriend, told her she’s in love with Brent. She kicked me under the table. Then she pulled my hair when Mommy wasn’t looking.”
Kay looked toward the door and saw Elliot’s face in the window, watching, listening. There was a boyfriend in the picture too, someone they had no idea existed. Someone who could have answers.
“Tell me about the truck. Did you see it well?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t supposed to,” she whispered, her voice tinged with fear.
“It’s all right. What color was it?”
She hesitated for a moment. “White.”
“Was anything written on it?”
The answer didn’t come immediately. Her eyes moved a little slower, frowns appearing and disappearing in rapid sequence on her brow. She was trying to see into her memory—into the images she’d captured a few nights ago without paying attention, through thick falling rain. “It wasn’t written, but the letters were there anyway.”
Kay wondered what that meant. “Can you read the letters?” She held her breath.
“Um, F, minus, one, five, zero.”
Was she talking about the tag?
Frowning, Kay looked at Elliot. He was scribbling something on his notepad, then he tore the page and placed it against the window. Just as she read Elliot’s note, she realized she already knew the answer.
She was describing a Ford F-150.
The F-150 branding wasn’t written on the back of the truck; it was embossed into the truck gate. That’s what she meant when she’s said, “It wasn’t written, but the letters were there anyway.” Smart little girl.
Then a thought chilled Kay’s blood. The odds that two different men came by the Coleman residence seeking to do harm had just dropped even further. By all appearances, they also seemed to drive similar trucks. And those odds were infinitesimal.
Was Heather confused between the two days?
Or, could it have been the same truck? Where did Cheryl leave John Doe’s truck, after dumping his body by the side of the interstate? This looked less and less like self-defense.
But she didn’t learn from Heather that John Doe had threatened Cheryl in any way. On the contrary, she’d learned John Doe had visited before, more than once. Only last Saturday, for some reason, Cheryl had shot him dead in her own kitchen, while her little girls watched cartoons in the upstairs bedroom.
As she visualized the scene, another question emerged, just as unsettling.
Why didn’t Julie react in any way? Heather may have been too young to understand what was going on, although kids her age have w
atched enough TV and played enough video games to know more than their share about shootings and death and crime in general. But Julie should’ve screamed, should’ve shouted something like, “Mom, what have you done?” or “What happened?” Or something. Anything but bringing cookies and milk for her sisters and watching cartoons while she knew her mother was loading a corpse into a truck right outside their window.
Everything about this case was insane, as if she’d crossed into a parallel universe somehow, where things and people and events had a different way of unraveling.
She had one more question for Heather, although she didn’t much expect an answer that made any sense.
“What did your mom call the man who fell asleep at your house on Saturday?”
The same flicker of a smile touched her tense lips. “Mom made us call him uncle, but she called him baby, like she calls us. But he wasn’t my brother,” she chuckled lightly. “He’s way too old to be my brother.”
“How old?”
“He’s got white hair,” she replied with the definitive stance children have about old age, a hint of distaste coloring her voice. “He’s old.”
She exchanged a quick glance with Elliot. John Doe had salt-and-pepper hair, but to a child, that could’ve seemed like white, and the middle-age man could’ve seemed like old.
Everything they’d learned so far seemed to point to Cheryl Coleman killing John Doe,
the man she was probably having an affair with, in cold blood.
27
A New Day
The dawn of a new day found him dozing off in an armchair he’d pulled over by the tall window, the white voile sheers touching his face gently as he breathed through his mouth. His head rested on his bent arm, positioned so that the first light would reach his eyes.
Rain had fallen all night, an ominous concert of sounds he knew so well. Mother was still raging, her pain raw, her blood still being spilled.
At first, a somber shade of gray lent its light to the sheers, the first barrier between the new day dawning and the thick darkness still filling the room. Then light, wounded and drab and weak, crept inside the room, touching his eyes in passing.
He woke with a start, then left the comfort of his armchair for the close proximity of the window, from where he could see the sky, his hands propped against the sill, his head bent backward. Ashen and almost dark toward the west, it was shrouded in cotton-like clumps of dirty clouds, shaded and leaden and powdered with traces of electric silver, endlessly restless, fretful and spasmodic while heading north, pressed to make room for others just like them.
Not a patch of azure anywhere to be seen.
As soon as the light had started contouring cloud shapes in deep slate grays, he rushed from one window to the next, staring at the sky, looking for a sign as the sun was about to rise.
Instead, the skies opened, sending rain down angrily, Mother’s fist slammed against his door in reverberating, menacing thunder.
She had spoken; she expected her atonement in young blood.
Tomorrow, when the sun would be at its highest, he would deliver.
Defeated, he walked over to the window behind the bookcase, dimly lit by the pale lightbulb hanging from the basement ceiling, and looked at the girl. She hadn’t moved in a while, her tear-streaked face pale, seeming whiter against the dark strands of her hair. Sometimes, her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear any sounds.
His heart yearning, he touched the glass with his hand, the coolness of the surface a reminder of death, of the frailty of life, of the ephemeral dream living people all shared, when it was Mother who decided who lived and who died.
A tear started for the corner of his eye and rolled down slowly on his face. He was still looking at the girl, but his mind had wandered in the past, recalling the first sacrifice he’d laid at Mother’s feet, and how the agony of that offering had nearly killed him.
Would this time be the same?
Leaning his forehead against the cold glass, he pulled out his locket and inhaled the scent of warm earth, of life and death that came from it. Pressing his lips gently against it, he murmured words with no end, imploring, defending, appealing to Mother’s warm heart to let the girl live, to spill his blood instead.
Nearby, lightning hit the ground. He heard the crack of electricity exploding in the moisture-filled air just before thunder rolled loudly, rattling the house on its foundation.
She had spoken, her patience worn thin by his indecisiveness, his constant pleading, his weakness.
Come tomorrow at noon, he would prove his allegiance to her, and she’d forgive him, as she’d done many times, lending him her infinite strength.
On the basement floor two stories below, the girl shifted and whimpered softly. He touched the glass with the tips of his fingers, as if caressing her face.
“Soon, my sweet, dear girl, soon. I promise.”
28
Dentist
Sore from another night spent on a cot in the nap room by Heather’s side, Kay rubbed the nape of her neck with frozen fingers, thankful she’d only caught three hours of shuteye. Any more, and she’d be completely stiff, unable to turn her head at all and enduring more pain than a whole bottle of Motrin could tackle. Shifting into the passenger seat of Elliot’s SUV, she finally settled in a position where her back didn’t hurt.
The last thought before she fell into a deep yet agitated sleep the night before had been what she should do about Heather and Erin. She couldn’t hold on to them forever, not with the Montgomerys cleared of any suspicion, not when they firmly demanded to have the girls released into their guardianship, which any judge in his or her right mind would order. It was their right as immediate family, in the absence of a will. But there was something that didn’t let her pick up the phone and make that call, something she couldn’t put her finger on.
It was obvious the unsub was not worried about leaving any witnesses behind; based on the nine-one-one call, he’d been aware of their presence in the house and didn’t care. This indifference to leaving witnesses behind was one of the many strange things about that case.
As for Heather’s ability to provide any useful information that could lead to finding Julie, that was likely tapped out. Not to mention, everything she’d already obtained from Heather had been strange, puzzling, and leading to more questions than answers, as if Heather had shared the group delusion that seemed common to all the events and actors of the case.
Swallowing a frustrated sigh, she opened her laptop and checked the APB she’d put out late the night before on John Doe’s truck, with the only descriptive detail being, “late-model Ford F-150 truck, white.” She didn’t hold much hope; the state’s highways teemed with them. It was the single, most popular truck sold and driven on the roads of California, white being the color of preference in the state where the sun almost always shone.
Nothing. No news on the APB, and nothing useful on the AMBER Alert either.
“This has to be the slowest-moving hurricane I’ve ever seen,” Elliot said, shooting her a quick glance like he’d done a few times since they’d left the precinct.
“It’s technically not a hurricane anymore.” She took a sip of bitter coffee, brewed double strength by a deputy who’d been pulling double duty just like everyone else, but had somehow found the strength to take care of everyone’s needs at the start of a new shift. “It’s a tropical cyclone or something, whatever it is they call a hurricane after it makes landfall and starts disintegrating.”
The wipers whirred rhythmically, alert, accelerated, and were still barely able to keep the windshield clear enough for short-range visibility. Taking the exit ramp, the SUV skidded a little when it hit an area where mud had washed onto the road, carried by flash-flooding waters. Elliot controlled the vehicle with a swift movement and a muttered oath. There was a firm frown above his blue eyes, and his lips, firmly pressed together, revealed his tension.
“Whatever you wanna call it, I’m getting bone-tired of it. This
storm’s as welcome as an outhouse breeze,” he muttered, swerving to a stop at the intersection, then turning on his flashers as he took the regional road due west. He was approaching an area where landslides had been reported, minor ones, not something disruptive, but another could happen at any time, and there was no telling how damaging and life-threatening it would be, after so many days of endless downpour.
It was dark, although it was past nine, and the sun had been up for a while, somewhere behind menacing clouds, laced with dark gray and silver, heavy with water.
“It will be a couple of days,” she said, intending to encourage him, but the tone of her voice was beat, depressing. She willed herself more optimistic and added casually, “These are called storm bands, I believe. We have a few more of these and we’re in the clear. Then it’s sunshine again, until snow season starts.” She gave Mount Chester a long look, as it appeared in the landscape from behind majestic firs with a turn of the highway. It was shrouded in thick clouds, its peak invisible, its base hazy and seeming farther away than the twenty-something miles as the crow flies.
“Not a moment too soon,” Elliot replied, pulling over in the gravel-lined parking lot of a small dental office, the wheels throwing pebbles against the undercarriage as he slammed the brakes to a halt.
The sign above the building said, PERFECT SMILES DENTAL, in white font on blue background, alongside the traditional image of a perfectly white tooth. Cheryl Coleman’s place of employment.
She remembered that place from when she was a kid, scared out of her mind of the dentist, hating the smell of disinfectant and mouthwash, and the grating sound of the drill. Her dentist, an older man with trembling fingers and a permanent expression of suffering on his face, had long since sold the practice to a younger dentist, Dr. Labarre.
The dental office didn’t smell like she recalled—modern materials dealing away with the dreaded odors and replacing them with scents she had to admit were almost pleasing, although the same annoying high-frequency whirring could be heard from one of the exam rooms. Soon, she’d have to get herself on Dr. Labarre’s patient list; her teeth deserved a cleaning every now and then.