by Leslie Wolfe
31
Spirits
Frank Livingston was just pulling out of his driveway as they approached, and Elliot turned on his flashers for a second to get his attention. With frustration clearly visible on his face, he put his white Toyota Tacoma in reverse and stopped short of entering the garage. Then the garage door came down, as he left the comfort of his truck and rushed under the shelter of his covered porch.
That was an interesting choice, considering the heavy downpour. In his place, Kay would’ve reversed all the way into the garage, opting for dry clothes; maybe he had something to hide in his garage, or was just embarrassed by the cluttered space, common for California garages turned storage space.
Livingston waited for them with a stern expression on his face, arms crossed at his chest despite the raincoat he was wearing, its sides flapping in the wind with a rustling sound.
“You’re making me late for work, Detectives. What now?”
Kay rushed to the porch, but by the time she got there, her shoes were squelching, and her jacket was soaked. She swallowed a long curse; this rainy season might’ve been a record or something; it should’ve been over already.
“No worries, Mr. Livingston, they know we were coming to see you. We called the school first.”
That shut him up promptly and brought a shade of ash to his face. “What’s this about?”
“Lying,” she replied coldly. He instinctively took a small step back. “Like when you omitted to tell us about the true nature of your relationship with Cheryl Coleman.”
Panic drained the blood from his face. His dilated pupils locked on Kay, pleading, scared. “Please, Detective, I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just that my wife,” he added, lowering his voice, “doesn’t know. And it’s not like Cheryl and I were seeing each other anymore. That’s over, for almost six months now.” He clasped his hands together, tightly, his knuckles white. “Please, Detectives, can we keep this between us?”
He glanced briefly at Elliot, then back at her. Her partner didn’t react in any way. He seemed more interested in studying the man, in hearing what he had to say.
“That depends, Mr. Livingston. If we have your cooperation, you’ll have ours.”
“Thank you,” he replied quickly, letting out a long, relieved breath of air. “Anything you want to know, just ask.” He looked around quickly. “It’s better if we stay out here. I hope you understand.”
There wasn’t any other car in the garage, and his was the only vehicle in the driveway. His wife must’ve left for work already.
“Is your wife at home?” Kay asked, regardless.
“No, but my mother… um, she can’t keep secrets that well, you know. It’s her Alzheimer’s.”
“All right, we’ll stay put and we’ll keep our voices down,” Kay reassured him. “Tell me about your affair with Cheryl.”
He shrugged ever so slightly. “It didn’t last long, only a few months. She’d been alone after Calvin died, grieving, struggling. Then, one day she asked for my help to change the fluorescent light on her kitchen ceiling. One thing led to another, and…” He veered his gaze sideways, his cheeks flushed. “I really don’t know how it happened or who started it. I do remember telling her my marriage was over though.”
Kay listened, unwilling to interrupt, eager to hear what he’d be willing to share.
“Cheryl was a beautiful woman, Detective. Charming, funny, and vulnerable. Strong too and hardheaded sometimes, stubborn as they come.”
“How did your relationship end? Who broke it off?”
“She did,” he replied, lowering his gaze for a brief moment. His voice was tinted with sadness that was reflected in the lines around his mouth and the drooping corners of his eyes. “She said she’d met someone else, and soon thereafter, there was another man coming by to see her.” He sighed, pained. “My guess is she was uncomfortable living next door to me, to my wife. And I was, um… too much of a coward to tell Diane I wanted a divorce.” He drew breath and looked at his shoes for a long moment of silence. He seemed defeated, empty inside. “Because I loved Cheryl with all my heart, Detective. She was my second chance at feeling young again, at being alive. She was only thirty-five and I—I’m pushing fifty.” He swallowed with difficulty, still avoiding Kay’s eyes. “She was right to leave me behind.”
“Were you upset when she dumped you?” Elliot asked. “I bet that made you feel like crap.”
“I was heartbroken,” he answered candidly. “But if you’re asking if I held a grudge or anything, the answer is no. I loved Cheryl and wanted her to be happy. That’s why—” he stopped mid-phrase and bit his lip. “Anyway, do you have any other questions? I need to run.”
“That’s why what, Mr. Livingston?” Kay asked.
“Nothing, really, just feeling guilty for having slept through her ordeal, that’s all,” he replied a little too quickly for Kay’s liking. He was definitely hiding something, and he’d almost spilled it. He shifted his eyes as if following the trail of a fly through the air, but couldn’t escape Kay’s intense, demanding gaze. “Something she said, that’s all, but I don’t think—”
“What was it?”
“When she was asking me to not be upset when we were parting ways, she said there was someone else and that she had to find the truth.”
“That’s what she said? She had to find the truth? About what?”
He shook his head. “That was all of it, I swear. I asked her a few times, but she pulled away, as if regretting saying even that much.” He clenched his jaws for a moment. “I remember asking her because she was cold about it, factual, sad even. She didn’t sound like a woman who had found a new love, but I chose to think she refrained from saying more, from showing emotion, because she didn’t want to hurt me.”
Kay changed direction. “Do you know the name of Cheryl’s new boyfriend?”
He shook his head firmly. “No. I never met him, just saw him from the driveway a couple of times, and both times it was almost dark.”
Elliot showed him John Doe’s photo on his phone. “Could this be him?”
He looked at the photo, seemingly puzzled and worried at the same time, while a frown landed on his brow. “Yes, this could’ve been him; I recognize his hair. But this man’s also dead. What’s going on, Detective?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Kay replied. “One more thing, Mr. Livingston. Could we speak with your mother?”
“My mother? Why?” He plunged his hands in the deep pockets of his raincoat. Kay could tell he’d clenched his fists.
“She might know more than she’s saying. Does she look out the window often?”
He seemed uneasy, hesitant, as if what he was about to say would be self-incriminating. “She spends her entire day by her window, daydreaming. Her mind’s not what it used to be.”
“Where does her window face?”
A short sigh left his lips. “That way,” he pointed toward Cheryl’s driveway, then slid his hand back into his pocket, as if trying to hide the slight tremor Kay had already caught.
“Then she might know something, Mr. Livingston. Please, we won’t take long.”
Reluctantly, he unlocked the front door and invited them in. Kay gave the familiar living room a quick look, noticing what had changed. The dining-room table was clean and set for dinner, with a table runner holding spices and a vase with fresh-cut wildflowers. Everything was in perfect order—the sofa pillows symmetrically laid out and fluffed, all surfaces shiny and clear of dust. Diane Livingston might’ve stopped being her husband’s lover, but she was definitely trying to be a good wife.
The old Mrs. Livingston came eagerly to meet them, and, to Kay’s surprise, approached her with an unsteady but energetic gait and placed two hearty smooches on her cheeks. “Dear girl, come, sit down with me.” She grabbed Kay’s hand with bony fingers and dragged her to the table. She took a seat, while Frank helped his mother take hers. “No one comes to visit me, you know. What a pleasure!”
“Same here,” Kay replied. “I wanted to ask you about Cheryl, and what happened the night Julie disappeared.”
“Aah, that,” she replied, then extended a trembling hand and pinched Kay’s chin with a loving gesture normally reserved for young children. “Are you a first daughter, my dear?”
Kay locked eyes with Elliot for a brief moment. There was amusement in his eyes, mixed with incredulity. “Yes, I am,” she replied, feeling an unexpected chill travel down her spine as she said the words.
“How old are you?” she asked, and Elliot stifled a smile. Then Betty touched her arm in a reassuring gesture. “Never mind, my dear, and forgive me for asking. I remember you’re a police officer, and that means you’re too old.”
Kay frowned. “Too old for what?”
“For the spirits to take you,” she replied, and Elliot turned away to hide a smile. But the woman seemed to firmly believe what she was saying. What if she wasn’t delusional after all? If Kay were to admit for a weird, twisted moment that Betty was sane, what questions would she ask of her?
“How old would you have to be, to be taken?”
“Under twenty, I presume,” she replied calmly, as if she were the sanest person to ever walk the earth. “I never really kept track. The spirits want them young—fifteen or sixteen, rarely older than that. I was happy I had a son, not a daughter, and he had sons too.”
Kay bit her lip, angry she hadn’t paid more attention to the report, where the victims’ ages were clearly mentioned. Finding out that there were so many had been unsettling. In her entire career, she’d never heard of a serial killer to keep on killing for fifty-seven years, without stopping, without getting caught. And what did that mean for Julie? Being taken by someone with so much experience in abducting and probably killing women? She didn’t have a chance… she was probably dead already. Without realizing, she gritted her teeth and thrust her chin forward. Until she found Julie’s remains, she wasn’t going to stop looking for her.
“Tell me more about these spirits.”
“Ever since I can remember, they have taken girls to never be seen again. They are merciless, you know, the spirits of the valley; they can’t be defeated. Cheryl tried, twice, and she still died. They took that sweet little girl anyway.” She turned to Frank and asked, “Where are your manners? Give us a glass of lemonade, or something.” Then she turned back to Kay. “They live forever.”
“Have you seen any men visiting Cheryl?”
She shot her son a quick, inquisitive glance. The old woman knew a lot more than her son was giving her credit for. “No,” she replied calmly. “Just the spirits came calling. Twice,” she added, raising her frail voice a little and holding two knotty fingers in the air.
Frank Livingston brought a pitcher of cold lemonade from the fridge and filled three glasses with slightly trembling hands. Whatever his mother knew, it scared him—the same uneasiness she’d witnessed before when speaking with the Livingstons still present, although his affair had been exposed. It had to be about something else.
She didn’t touch her glass, and neither did Elliot, but Betty brought hers to her lips with both hands and took a few sips.
“What do the spirits look like? Can you describe them?”
“I don’t see all that well,” she said, a touch of sadness in her voice, “but I’ll try.”
Kay kept a straight face, although she felt like swearing out loud. Was she wasting precious time on a woman who made absolutely no sense?
“First, darkness swirls around the houses where firstborn daughters live. Then, when the spirits come calling, darkness engulfs the house, and only wisps of white can be seen streaking through as they approach.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, just as Kay was getting ready to leave. Reluctantly, she had to admit her time was more valuable than that.
She rose from her seat with an apologetic smile, and Frank followed suit, seemingly relieved.
“Then they take human form,” she whispered. Kay let herself slide back into her chair. “But I never saw their faces.”
“Then what happens?”
“Trails of their blood, bright, living red streaking through the darkness as they leave, taking those poor girls with them.”
“Have you seen them before, these spirits?”
“No.” Betty shook her head. “Not until a few nights ago, I don’t remember exactly when. But I’ve heard stories about them all my life.”
Kay stood, ready to leave. There was nothing there. And still, before leaving, she wanted to see one more thing. “Could you please show me your window, where you saw the spirits from?”
She rose, leaning against the table for support as Frank pulled out her chair and offered his arm, then led the way to a small bedroom decorated with old books, macrame, and several china ballerinas on bookcase shelves. The room smelled of antiquities, of yellowed paper and stale fabric gathering dust. Of old age.
In front of the window, there was a large armchair, covered with a faded blanket. She sat in it, putting her legs up on a small ottoman, then turned to Kay and smiled, her withered lips stretched thin across two rows of aging teeth, still hers. “This is where I spend my days, my dear.”
The window overlooked the Coleman property driveway and the side entrance that the unsub had used. At the street end of the driveway, a lamppost stood tall. At night, it would’ve flushed the property in bright yellow light. So, where was that darkness-whirling-around-the-house notion coming from? What had she seen?
She turned to look at Betty to ask, but froze with her mouth agape. Now in full daylight, she could see the old woman more clearly.
She had cataracts on both eyes.
Everything she might’ve seen would’ve been through a thick blur.
She thanked Frank Livingston and left the house, happy to breathe the fresh, moist air outside. Then, without any words spoken where the Livingstons might still hear them, she grabbed Elliot’s sleeve and tugged gently. “Follow me.”
“Sure will,” he replied, as she was already rushing through the thick rain across the lawn, to the Coleman property. Once there, they stopped under the porch roof.
“I wonder about this darkness whirling nonsense,” she said, eyeing the lamppost. “This thing would’ve lit the place up really well. But we’ve only seen this crime scene during daytime, so I wonder—”
“She’s got cataracts, Kay, she’s legally blind.”
“Yeah, I know. She can’t drive or read, but she can still tell between darkness and light.”
“And she’s got Alzheimer’s, you know better than I do how that screws with people’s minds.”
“Yeah, I know all that, but I still think there’s something to all this madness. The way Frank Livingston seems scared we’ll learn something he’s trying to hide, his mother’s convictions about these spirits, whatever the heck they are—and don’t forget it was the legally blind, Alzheimer’s woman who led us to find there’s a serial killer at large, Elliot. As far as I’m concerned, Betty’s earned some solid credit, and I’m willing to buy everything she’s saying, no matter how delusional it sounds.”
“Fair enough,” he replied, frowning as he saw her taking off her shoes and socks, and rolling up the hems of her pants. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, wipe that smirk off your face, cowboy. Don’t get any crazy ideas in your head.” He hid his widening grin under the brim of his hat for a brief moment, then he lifted it from his head and put it on hers, still smiling as she sprinted through heavy rain toward the lamppost.
She circled it, feeling the pounding of icy razor blades in each heavy raindrop that hit her skin. At the root of the lamppost, the housing had been put on crookedly, making it easy to remove with her bare hands.
Inside, all the wires had been cut.
32
In the Rain
He wore a yellow Helly Hansen waterproof jacket and jeans that were already soaked below the knee. He didn’t feel much of that; he’d pulled the pant l
egs over his calf-high boots, and carelessly stepped in puddles and mud, only thinking of her.
He turned his face up high, squinting between raindrops to see the sky, to restlessly search for that elusive patch of blue that would mean life, for the two of them, together. Instead, the gloom seemed lower and heavier than ever, the wind gusts carried rain-frozen blades stabbing his skin.
He welcomed the cold, refreshing needles against his face. It reinvigorated him, reminding him of Mother’s wrath and her unquenched thirst for blood.
His blood.
“Dear Mother, forgive me, forgive your weak, wavering child,” he whispered, tasting the water on his lips as he spoke. Raindrops seemed to rush toward him, accelerating, driven by a force like he’d never seen before—like white, shiny blades cutting through air, hitting the ground mercilessly one after another by the millions every second, their strength in their infinite number and just as infinite cruelty.
The water tasted a bit salty, as if the immense ocean had been swept by the storm and lifted to the depths of the skies, only to be slammed against the ground later.
He stood on the edge of such a wound, almost at the top of the hill. The gentle slope had opened under the forces of falling water, a slice of the hill sliding downward, carried forward by gravity and its lubricant, water. Where once greenery covered the banks, now the dark brown of the earth was exposed, rivulets of mud rushing to the bottom of the valley like blood leaving the body of a dying wounded.
His dear Mother was bleeding, unable to heal until he did the right thing.
It was decided; despite the burning ache in his heart at the thought of the sacrifice awaiting him tomorrow, this time he wouldn’t implore Mother’s mercy to spare the girl, nor would he waver again. He’d seen with his own eyes the size of her wounds, the depth, the hurt.