by Kate White
“Must have been used for meetings or lectures,” Alice concluded.
I moved toward the front door, and as soon as I reached it my heart skipped. It was open, but no more than a sliver. I pressed my hand to the weathered wood and pushed. The door eased open several inches with a long, low creak. Hearing the sound, Alice spun in my direction.
“Jesus,” she said, catching sight of the opening.
I brought a finger to my lips in a shushing gesture.
“Is somebody in there?” she whispered.
“I don’t know, but we need to find out.”
“I’ve got a flashlight in my tote bag. Let me grab it.”
While she hurried back to the car, I studied the building, holding my breath. Could this really be where Shannon was? I certainly didn’t relish the idea of going inside. If she was hiding here of her own free will, it meant she’d become unhinged and we could end up in a difficult confrontation. If she’d been abducted, well, then, the situation might prove a whole lot scarier. There was also, I knew, the chance that we’d find Shannon’s body inside.
And, of course, there was still the chance that this wasn’t the place the caller had meant at all.
As soon as Alice returned with a flashlight big enough to explore a mine shaft, I eased the door all the way open and we stepped inside.
Alice slowly trained the beam around the room. With that and the little bit of daylight seeping through the windows, we could see well enough, and yet there was really nothing more than what we’d glimpsed from the outside. As the beam of the flashlight briefly settled on the floor, we caught sight of a field mouse zipping along the baseboard.
Then something else caught my eye. There were marks on the floorboards where the layer of dust had been disturbed, as if someone had walked through here—and not all that long ago. I supposed it could have been a rep from the diocese collecting chairs or other furniture that had been left behind.
Or it could have been someone else.
My stomach knotted as a warning flare launched in my head.
“Look,” Alice whispered behind me. I turned and saw that she was now facing the short wall on the right and directing the beam at two doors several feet apart from each other. Together, we tiptoed toward the closest one.
With Alice still holding the light, I tugged open the first door. Behind it we found a small half bathroom, both the sink basin and toilet bowl brown with mineral stains and reeking of sulfur. There was no indication that either had been used recently.
Maybe a storage room, I thought, as I reached for the next door, but as soon as I eased it open, the beam of the flashlight fell onto a staircase plunging into darkness. To a basement. Oh, beautiful. Just what I was hoping for.
“Should we check it out?” Alice asked, with an expression that said, “I’ll give you a thousand bucks if you say no.”
I could relate to her fear. The idea of going downstairs practically made my knees weak. But there was a chance that Shannon was below, and if she was still alive, she would need our help immediately.
I nodded. As Alice stepped ahead with the flashlight, ready to descend, I motioned with a finger for her to wait. I tiptoed to one of the old folding chairs and carried it back, then leaned it against the open basement door. The last thing we needed was for it to slam shut with us on the wrong side.
Since Alice had the light, I ended up following her down the stairs, both of us cautiously hugging the wall as we went. After about a dozen steps, the basement opened up beneath us.
It turned out to be finished, with fake wood paneling and a row of small, high windows at the rear, which allowed a tiny bit of sunshine to creep in. Even before Alice directed the beam around, I could see the space was empty except for a couple more folding chairs and a decrepit whiteboard easel. It smelled as if mold was growing in every crevice.
“Nothing here,” Alice said.
Except, I realized, as my pulse began to race, the dust on the paved cement floor had been disturbed, too. There appeared to be fairly fresh footprints, and they led toward the wall at the far end.
“Run the light over there, will you?” I told Alice, pointing with my chin.
It was more fake wood paneling, with a small furnace at one end and the base of the fireplace at the other. The scuff marks, oddly, stopped at the middle of the wall. As Alice bounced the beam over the surface, I finally saw the three cut lines. We were actually looking at a door in the middle of the wall, one that was flush with the paneling. A tiny metal latch poked out from the seam on the right.
“It’s got to be some kind of storage space,” Alice said, seeing it, too.
“Right. We’d better check inside.”
I didn’t have a good feeling. Someone had been down in the basement lately and either had removed objects from the storage space or put something there.
I crossed the floor, reached out, grabbed the little latch between my fingers, and pulled.
It didn’t budge at first, and I wondered if the door had been sealed. I jiggled the latch back and forth. Finally it stopped fighting me, and I heard a shifting sound behind the door and pressure against my arm. Whatever was inside was trying to get out.
I lurched back, and the cupboard door flew open. Something dark, and long, and slippery spilled out, slamming against my thighs. A huge trash bag.
I jumped back another step as the bag fell partially on my feet. It landed with a thud but also a squishy sound, and then I heard the end burst open with a pop. A smell hit me like a punch in the face, making me retch.
I knew that smell. I knew it from stories I’d covered and a few awful moments I’d faced in life. It was the putrid smell of a decaying human body.
Chapter 7
BEHIND ME ALICE GAGGED.
“What— Is it Shannon?”
“Probably.” I had to fight like a bitch not to chuck my breakfast. “But we gotta leave.”
Alice gagged again, and the beam of the flashlight caromed around the basement. As I turned to flee, the beam bounced briefly over the open closet.
“Wait,” I said. Holding my breath, I reached back to steady Alice’s arm and trained the light on the rear of the closet. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There were two more black trash bags lying on top of each other, though not as stuffed-looking as the one at my feet.
“Jesus,” Alice said, following my gaze.
“I know.” I grabbed her elbow. “Let’s go.”
We scrambled back across the basement and tore up the stairs. By the time we were out of the building, my lungs felt ready to explode.
“You okay?” I asked after a few gulps of oxygen.
Alice nodded, gasping for air herself.
“Man, this is awful,” she said finally. “What the hell was in those other bags?”
“I don’t know. But I bet not anything good.”
I pivoted, searching the area with my eyes. Was someone out there, watching our every move?
“We need to call 911 pronto,” Alice said.
“Let’s do it from my car, though. Whoever wanted me to find this place may have eyes on us now.”
“Jeez, good point.”
We took off at a jog to the Jeep, and after locking us in, I reached 911, explaining that another reporter and I had stumbled upon what seemed to be human remains, possibly belonging to Shannon Blaine. Keeping an eye out the window, I gave the dispatcher the name of the road and explained we would be waiting at the base of it, right by the lake.
As I dropped the phone in my lap, I noticed how clammy my hands were. Though I’d always realized an outcome like this was in the cards, the reality was crushing. That lovely young woman, with two little kids pining for her return, was most likely inside the bag that had burst out of the closet and opened at my feet. And it had clearly been foul play that had put her there.
“Love how you used the word stumble,” Alice said. “Killian’s gonna take issue with that.”
“I know he’ll be pissed, but it’s no
t like we were given any reason to think the worst. We weren’t even sure if this was the place the caller was referring to.” I turned toward Alice so I could look her in the eye. “I’ll take full responsibility, but you might be blamed for tagging along. Is that going to create problems for you in town?”
“Nothing I can’t live with. And thank God we did investigate.” She directed her gaze toward the two structures we’d come from. “I wonder why the killer picked this spot. Maybe he went on retreat here years ago.”
“Or he’s just familiar enough with this area to know about it.”
Alice lifted one bushy eyebrow. “Cody’s from Texas, of course, but he’s lived here long enough to have heard about the place. Shannon might have even gone on retreat here and told him about it. And he might be the one who called you.”
“But if he murdered his wife, why would he want her body found?”
“Remorse? Guilt?”
“Then why not just turn himself in to the police?”
“Well, then the caller could have been a friend of his he confessed to, and the person decided to lead you here.”
“Yeah. But if it was someone trying to do the right thing, why make those taunting comments about Shannon being a good Catholic girl?” Despite how distorted the voice had been, I kept coming back to the tone, which had made me picture a sneer on the caller’s face. “No, it must have been the killer. . . . And shit, what if there are other bodies?”
“I counted two more bags. You?”
“Same. Though did you notice how much thinner they looked than the first one—not the bags themselves but the contents? Maybe there’s only evidence stuffed in those. From the crime scene.”
“Or there are two more bodies, but he had time to dismember those. . . . You know what this means, of course. We could be talking serial killer.”
I nodded. That horrifying possibility had occurred to me, too.
Off in the distance, I caught sight of a motorboat slicing across the lake. It was hard to believe that as we sat near this horrible grisly scene, life was proceeding normally for other people.
“That would fit with the phone call,” Alice said. “Don’t serial killers like to broadcast clues, practically begging to be caught?”
“Some do, yes, but not all. . . . Have any other women been reported missing in the past few months?”
When I’d done my research on the area before driving north, I certainly hadn’t turned up anything like that.
Alice slowly shook her head. “No, not that I’ve heard of—and I certainly would have caught wind of news like that at work.”
I thought suddenly of the blond woman I’d seen jogging on the road, and my stomach clenched. But if she had gone missing, wouldn’t her family or friends have tipped off the authorities to that fact?
“What if the guy’s a trucker?” Alice said. “Or someone else who covers long distances for work and ends up here periodically?”
“Meaning?”
“He murdered two other women in different locations, and because this seemed like a safe dumping place, he hauled their bodies here. On his last trip he killed Shannon and added her body to the pile.”
“Yeah, it’s possible. But I’ve always heard that serial killers like to stick to what’s called a killing field. And how would this one have known about the retreat center?”
“Could be a guy who’s originally from the area and moved away. He might have even come here on retreat as a teenager and known it was closed now.”
I bit my lip, considering her theory. “But it has to be someone who’s around here now. Because he—or at the very least someone who knows him—had to have been aware of my talking to Tom Nolan about Shannon, about her being a Catholic. And then he got his hands on my cell number somehow.”
“And what’s all this Catholic stuff about? What the guy said to you. And this place. What if—?”
She didn’t have a chance to expand because the quiet outside the car was pierced by the roar of engines. We swiveled our heads to see two sheriff’s department vehicles shooting down the road in our direction. I felt relief but at the same time I had to remind myself: Prepare to have your butt kicked—and hard.
We climbed out of the Jeep and walked briskly toward the spot where the two vehicles had jerked to a stop. Before we even reached them, another car came barreling down the road, spraying dirt everywhere. This one, according to the logo on the door, belonged to the state police.
Sheriff Killian exited one of the first cars.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded, stepping so close I caught a whiff of menthol from his aftershave, which I should have been thankful for after the rancid smell from minutes ago.
“We found what I assume is a corpse in the basement of the smaller building,” I said, as calmly as I could manage. “It fell out of a closet, in a large black plastic bag. We saw two other bags as well.”
He locked eyes with me, his expression incredulous, as if I’d just told him the Loch Ness Monster had reared its head above the waterline of the lake shortly before he arrived.
“You told 911 it was Shannon.”
“I said it might be Shannon. We didn’t look in the bag, of course. But it was clear from the shape and the smell that there were remains inside.”
“And do you want to tell me what in God’s name made you come down here?”
I quickly explained about the call, and that it had inspired me to research Sunset Bay, trying to determine if something around here was connected to the church. This place popped up on the radar.
“Sheriff, I need to take partial responsibility,” Alice interjected. “When Bailey asked me if I had any clue what the caller was referring to, I told her about the center and offered to drive her here.”
Nice, I thought. She wasn’t afraid to take the heat.
“You know, Alice, I would have expected more from you,” Killian said. “Not from Ms. Fancy Pants. Those big-city folks play by their own rules, but I thought you were in a different league.”
Killian glanced back at two deputies and cocked his head toward the building in a gesture that said, “Let’s go.” After commanding a third deputy to remain with the cars, he swiveled back to Alice and me and bored in with slate-colored eyes. “Stay put,” he commanded. Then he and the two deputies strode up the bank, their polyblend pants making swishing sounds in the tall, dry grass.
I leaned against the hood of the car and considered how I could defuse the situation with Killian. He knew I was from New York, which meant he must have checked me out online after I lobbed the question at the press yesterday. I hated the label he’d just tagged me with in his huff. I should have told him that though I owned a few cute dresses and some killer shoes, I was hardly a fancy pants.
Almost fifteen minutes passed, and though there was no sign of Killian, one of the deputies eventually emerged from the smaller building, flashlight in hand, and began an inspection of the exterior of the big stone house, fruitlessly jiggling the front door lock a few times. Finally, Killian and the other deputy stepped out of the small structure, and Killian joined the guy inspecting the larger building while the other deputy trotted down to Alice and me. He explained that we would both have to drop by the Warren County municipal building in order to make statements to the sheriff once he returned. Alice could drive herself there. I was to go with him.
“But what about my car,” I protested. “And Alice’s is at the diner.”
“You can leave yours at the top of the road and find a way to retrieve it later,” he said, unmoved by my plight. “The sheriff ordered me to accompany you. We’ll get Ms. Hatfield back to her vehicle.”
Alice turned to me. “Call me when you’re done. I’ll give you a lift.”
“Thanks.” I was clearly in the hot seat, and I appreciated her support.
The ride to the municipal center took about twenty minutes. I rode in the passenger seat, not the rear of the vehicle, but, still, at stoplights people craned their necks f
or a better glimpse of me. I’m sure they wondered if I’d pulled some bitch chick move, like tried to crush a cheating bastard of a boyfriend with the front end of my car.
I assumed I’d be in for a long wait once I was deposited at the location, since Killian would be up to his ass in body bags for a while. Or technically speaking, contractor bags. They were thicker and sturdier than regular trash bags, and I knew from some research I’d done for another story that they were available in a variety of sizes, even six feet long.
Was it really Shannon inside the one that had tumbled out? If she’d been snatched by a serial killer while jogging, she also might have been raped and tortured. I cringed as I wondered how long she’d been alive and terrified before being killed.
And if there were bodies in the other bags as well, this story was going to blow up big-time. I felt a wave of guilt over the next thought that popped into my head: traffic for my Crime Beat posts would explode, too. This story had more layers than Dodson could have imagined, and I was smack in the middle of it.
I ended up waiting close to two hours for Killian. I’d been without food or caffeine since my meager breakfast, and I could feel my energy flagging. I used part of the time to jot notes in my composition book. I also replayed my brief conversations with Nolan, trying again to recall who was in the vicinity at the press conference, but except for the main players, it was a blur of nameless faces.
When Killian finally arrived, his expression was beyond grim. I bet he was wishing he’d hit retirement age before ever coming across a scene as grisly as the one he’d encountered this morning.
Two people trailed him into the sterile interview room, a deputy whom I didn’t recall from the scene, and a female state trooper.
“Start from the beginning,” Killian said bluntly. “With the phone call. And don’t leave anything out.”
“Of course,” I said. I wanted him to see me as an asset, not a thorn in his side. “I’ve been reviewing everything in my mind so I can be as thorough as possible.”
I shared every detail I recalled and showed him my phone so he could see when the blocked-number call had originated. The state trooper made a note of my number and service provider. I also explained that the caller had probably been at the press conference yesterday and seen me speaking to Tom Nolan, or that Nolan had mentioned our conversation to someone.