by Rachel Caine
“No sir, I don’t know where she is right now. I think I know where she was,” I say. “Might be able to confirm her identity if you send me her prints and file. We’ll be processing a car shortly, and if the prints match up, then this could help close your case.”
That makes me his new best friend, and I hear his tone warm way up when he says, “Well, Detective, I sure would like to be of help to you. Happy to send the file along. Email okay?”
“Yes sir, that would be just fine.” I give him my contact info, and we shoot the shit a little, meaningless pleasantries that small towns still value, and then I tell him I have to get going. I can read this man even over the long expanse of telephone wires; he’s not telling me everything he knows, and it may not be in that file either. It could take some honey and a crowbar to get the rest of it out of him, and I’ll need to be careful about when I apply either of those. Small-town chiefs like to keep a town’s secrets, in my experience. And Penny may have had good reason to be shut of the place.
I’m going to need to play this game with more than one police department. I tap my pen against the pad in front of me as I consider strategies, but really, I don’t know enough yet to get fancy with it. I don’t know how long it’ll be before the Iowa chief sends me his file—if he sends it; cordiality is no guarantee—and I feel time burning away with every second.
I pick up the phone and call the police department associated with the second name Gwen provided . . . in Kentucky. I feel a little knot of tension ease when I hear the familiar notes of a black man’s voice on the other end of the line. “Detective Harrison,” he says. A nice voice, deep.
“Hello, Detective, I’m Detective Kezia Claremont, Norton Police Department out in Norton, Tennessee. How y’all doing today?”
He makes a sound that isn’t quite a laugh, isn’t quite a sigh. “Same as usual, ma’am. What’s up?”
“I need to see if you’ve got an open file on . . .” I check the name again, just to be sure. “Tammy Maguire.” I spell it out for him, and hear keys clicking. “This would have been about seven years ago, maybe eight.”
“You ought to work for a mining company,” he tells me after a moment. “’Cause you just struck gold. Tammy Maguire’s wanted here for felony theft. You got her in Tennessee?”
“Not quite,” I say. “She’s a missing person.”
“Here too. Skipped out before we could make the arrest, no sign of her since.”
“Out of curiosity, what kind of theft?”
“She cleaned out her boyfriend’s bank account—wasn’t that much, a few thousand—and stole his car on top of it. Plus, she swiped checkbooks from a couple of old ladies she was cleaning houses for, pretty much drained their accounts as well. Real piece of work, this one.”
I think about her husband, Tommy. Bank accounts, car, house, all transferred to her just before his disappearance. Maybe Sheryl had stepped up from stealing and ghosting to something more brazen. “You think you could send me that file? I’d like to compare the prints you have on file.”
“You’re welcome to it,” he says. “I’d love to see this one taken down. Stealing from your boyfriend . . . well, okay, fair enough, we all get burned time to time with bad choices. But she had no call to ruin those old ladies who trusted her in their houses. Cold.”
“Very,” I agree. I’m starting to think I understand how Sheryl sees people: obstacles and opportunities.
But if that’s so, why have the babies? She must have known they’d tie her down, commit her to a life that was infinitely riskier than the one she’d been living even if she hadn’t killed Tommy for his cash and belongings. Staying put means a chance arrest, getting fingerprinted, maybe even for something as simple as speeding. And that leaves her wide open to being discovered, especially since she’s got a felony on her record.
I provide my email to this detective, just like before, and check my in-box ten minutes later. Detective Harrison from Kentucky is fast on the draw; I have the file on Tammy Maguire, and it’s fairly thick. I print it out and start reading the particulars, including complainant statements. It’s fairly pathetic stuff, even through the dry language of a police report. Mrs. Rhodes states that she did not realize her checkbook was missing until she went to the bank to withdraw money for shopping and was told her account was overdrawn. This caused Mrs. Rhodes to miss payments to her electric and water bills, and these were only paid due to the charity of her fellow church members. In other words, Tammy had left an eighty-year-old woman dead broke in the wintertime in Kentucky, without giving a single shit if she froze to death.
Like Harrison had noted: cold.
I’m mostly done reviewing that file when the Penny Carlson file comes through, and unlike Harrison’s thorough and concise documentation, this one . . . isn’t that. The statement is written longhand, and whatever patrol officer wrote it down wasn’t exactly a calligrapher by nature; I have to puzzle over scribbles until my head hurts to figure all of it out, especially since he was no wordsmith. I finally start transcribing it into a document for clarity, making my best guesses at some of the words.
It’s verbose, with lots of digressions about Penny’s family members, her grades, friends, and general state of mind. The Rockwell City police are used to dealing with other kinds of crime . . . probably the same we have here in Norton: petty thefts, domestic violence, drugs. Missing persons investigations are not their specialty, and I could drive a truck through the holes I spot in the questions they asked.
But it boils down to a simple set of facts, in the end: Penny Carlson didn’t much like her life. For all that her friends and family claimed to think the best of her, nobody had seemed overly upset—or surprised—when she’d suddenly pulled up stakes and vanished. I wondered if that had ever changed with the years she’d been gone. The word cold resonates with me again, because Penny clearly hadn’t cared anything about the worry she’d cause the people she left behind. Maybe because she knew that while people professed to love her and like her, they’d move on pretty quickly.
I find myself doodling a note to myself. Some people are hard to love.
Interesting. Not that I’d put it in the file, but I wonder if her folks sensed something about Penny/Tammy/Sheryl that wasn’t that obvious to most. I’m on the fence about calling the family to find out; on the one hand, if they have moved on—and the file kind of indicates they have, since they stopped pestering the police after just a few months—then I don’t want to open up healed wounds. But if they haven’t, if they’re existing in a hell of not knowing, maybe I can help them grab a breath of free air.
And what if Sheryl’s really dead this time? Or a child murderer?
That’s what stops me. Until I know more, I can’t pull that string. I don’t know what it would unravel, and I don’t want to be responsible.
Prester would tell me that I’m being stupid, that maybe the reason her family stopped asking about Penny was that she got in touch. Maybe so. But I have other things to do before I have to take that road.
Gwen still hasn’t gotten anything in the way of video yet from the woman we talked to out in the sticks, and though I know it might not be smart, I’m too restless to stay still. I tell the sergeant where I’m going and head out.
It’s a long, cool drive out into the budding green hills, and I have to stop and check my directions twice along the way. It’s easy to get turned around out here. I don’t pass many cars on that tight little back road, just one rusted pickup that looks like it’s mostly held together with Bondo, and a shiny SUV that makes me briefly curious before I recognize the tags. It takes up most of the road, and I have to drive right on the precarious edge to avoid getting my mirror taken off as it whizzes past.
The SUV belongs to the Belldenes, our local Dixie Mafia hill folk with a compound not too far from here . . . and a pretty substantial drug business. We play tag with them pretty often, but I don’t bother to pull them over today. One thing about the Belldenes: they aren’t going anywher
e. They succeeded in driving Gwen Proctor out of Stillhouse Lake through threats and leverage, and I’m not giving up that grudge anytime soon, but I got other fish on the line right now.
To the Belldenes, drugs are just business, and business is good. I can’t imagine them drowning two little girls in a car, no matter what other crimes they’d condone. Deep down, they’ve got some kind of morality, and this is so far over that line you can’t spot it from space.
Which, it occurs to me, is why it’s possible that they did see something; they’d be out all hours in rural areas. Maybe they made that 911 call. But chasing down that lead will be dangerous, and I’ll need a hell of a lot more than just a hunch.
I pull into the driveway that Gwen and I visited. The McMansion looks quiet, no cars visible. I step out and walk up to the door, careful to stay in range of the cameras. I ring the bell and step way back, holding my badge.
Apart from the chirps and songs of birds in the trees, I don’t hear anything from inside the house. I wait for a solid two minutes, then step back up and knock. Forcefully. “Norton Police Department,” I say, and I know it carries. “Hello?”
Not a damn thing. I feel a cool breath move across my neck, and hair stiffens. I listen to my instincts and tuck my badge onto my belt, draw my sidearm, and try the front door. Locked, which I expected. I go to the big picture window in front, but the blinds are shut.
It’s a risk heading around the side, but I do it, driven by something I can’t really define. That’s where I see the curtain blowing in the breeze behind an open window. The mesh screen is five feet away, discarded on the grass.
Shit.
I don’t touch the window, just lean in to look. I don’t see anything in the room, which seems like a spare, crowded with boxes and filing cabinets. “Hello! Norton police, call out!”
Still nothing.
I debate going through the window—it’s plenty big enough—but I could destroy valuable evidence doing that, if there is something amiss inside this house. I pause and call the station, and tell Sergeant Porter that I may have a situation. He snaps from laconic to professional in an instant, and dispatches a patrol car toward me.
It’ll take a while, so I continue around the side and to the back of the property.
The blood shows up thick and dark red in the sunlight. It’s smeared over the grass of the backyard in a long streak. Been there long enough to turn dark and clotted, and the cloud of insects buzzing over it is delighted with the bounty. I hold my breath for a second, then deliberately let it out in a slow hiss.
There’s no body visible, but that’s clearly either a drag mark, or someone crawling. It heads into the trees. I follow it in parallel. It goes from a thick trail to a thin one, then to drops and smears here and there.
I see the soles of her feet first, shimmering in the gloom under the trees. Ghostly white, those bare feet. Her body’s an eerie, cold shade, and I know before I put my fingers to her pulse that she’s long bled dry. There are ants on her, and some trundling beetles. Flies swarming. I swallow hard and move back, careful of my steps, and call it in.
I don’t touch her again. And I don’t leave.
“I’m sorry,” I say. My voice sounds tight and resigned.
Because I think, deep down, that the visit Gwen and I paid got her killed. Whether it was done by the husband, or by someone else, I don’t know and can’t dare guess.
But she was alive, and now she’s lying here naked and dead, and I crouch down, breathing hard, and try not to feel the guilt that pounds at the door in my head.
It takes another ten minutes for the cruiser to arrive, sirens wailing. I walk back around to the front to meet them, and ask the two patrolmen to help me clear the house. The back door’s hanging open; stepping inside, the first thing we see is the kitchen.
It’s neat and organized . . . and covered in blood. Blood splattered on the walls, streaked in frantic marks on the floor. Some on the ceiling. Directional spatter on the clean, white refrigerator and blue countertop and shelves. “Shit,” I whisper softly. “Heads on a swivel. Let’s clear this place, and watch your feet.” I have to say that; these local boys probably haven’t seen too many bloody crime scenes like this one. Can’t say I’ve seen all that many myself, and I take deep breaths to manage my racing heartbeat. Adrenaline is making me jumpy, and I have to consciously work against it. Last thing I want to do is shoot some innocent person hiding in a closet.
I wave the two men one way while I take the other. My way leads me down a dim, narrow hall lined with pictures. I don’t look at them. I can’t spare the attention. There are drag marks clearly visible on the carpet, with blood thickly beaded and dried crusty on top. I hug the wall until I get to the first doorway, take a quick second, and then ease in with my gun ready, finger close to but not on the trigger.
It’s a bedroom—probably, from the look of it, an extra one. It’s set up with a full-size bed topped with a beige duvet and fluffed pillows. A dresser against one wall. No evidence of blood in here, but I check the closet anyway. Empty except for some coats and shoeboxes.
I check under the bed and clear the room. Back to the hallway. There are no other doors my way except a bathroom, and it, too, is sparkly clean and orderly.
The blood rounds the corner. I follow it, and at the end of the hall is another body.
Male, fully clothed, lying facedown, arms outstretched like he’s about to swim. I wince when my brain reconstructs that blood trail; somebody pulled him facedown by his feet all this way. I can see a small gunshot wound in the back of his head. I imagine the exit wound in his forehead will be a hell of a mess.
I check his pulse. Cold as stone. I clear the bedroom—the master, just as clean and neat as the other one—and the closets and the attached bath.
Killer’s long gone.
We have two people dead, and when the other two officers join me, I read from their faces that they didn’t find anybody else. I shake my head and stare at the body.
“Hell of a lot of killing going on right now,” one of the patrol officers says. It’s not helpful, but I let it go because he’s right. Norton’s murder rate for the year just doubled. “Sweet Jesus, there’s a lot of blood.” He’s the younger of the pair, and he looks pallid and sweaty.
“Go on outside,” I tell him. “Radio for the coroner’s office and get forensics moving. Better advise the sheriff’s office and TBI, too—we don’t need some jurisdiction bullshit right now.”
He nods and walks out. Grateful for the chance to be out of here. I don’t blame him; the rank smell of old blood hangs heavy.
“Stay here,” I tell the other officer. I go to the other end of the house—the side the officers checked—and find a home office with a cheap desk loaded with computer equipment. There’s a separate monitor for the surveillance system. I’ll need a warrant to seize the stuff, but if they have a hard drive saving the recording, then we’re in business.
But I look down and realize that though the display is still showing a live feed, there are dangling wires beneath it.
The killer took the evidence.
I’m on the phone to Sergeant Porter as I walk back out to stand guard over the dead woman to tell him I’m going to need a warrant that covers cloud storage of data, too, just in case.
But our killer would have thought of that too. Maybe he forced one of those two dead people to give him access so he could scrub his dirty fingerprints, just like he probably has in this house.
I can’t help but feel a little tingle of unease. Nobody was following me and Gwen out here, I’d stake my life on that. We’d have noticed a car tracing us. So how the hell did anyone know we’d been here at all?
I can feel invisible eyes on me, though. Watching.
And I shiver.
11
GWEN
The morning starts early. I don’t know what wakes me, just that it brings me instantly awake; I listen, and I hear nothing. It’s still dark and, as far as I can tell, peaceful.<
br />
I get up anyway to wander the house like a ghost for the next two hours—putting dishes quietly away, cleaning counters, sweeping floors. Busywork, meant to keep my mind off those damn flyers and the consequences that are most certainly coming for us. When I run out of household tasks, I head to the office, shut the door, and tap into the rushing river of hate that’s always running our direction.
Our new stalker’s been busy. I see him popping up in various troll-friendly hotbeds to leave messages, and when I check, he’s done the expected: he’s posted the wanted poster, complete with our new address. In short order, of course, someone got hold of our home phone number. I’m not terribly concerned; I have a device attached to block unknown numbers, and a one-button block for harassers. So far, no sign of our cell phones being compromised, which is my biggest worry. I do not want these assholes getting to my kids.
He hadn’t signed his earlier work, the initial email, but now he has a handle he’s using. MalusNavis. I make a note of it. That’s striking enough that I’m confident I can track it down.
I take a little while to decompress, and go back to Kez’s case. Sheryl Lansdowne and her shadow identities. Kez doesn’t answer her phone, so I start putting it all into an orderly email document.
Kez calls me back before I finish. It’s a short conversation, but I can hear the stress in her voice. She’s relieved about the new leads I provide, but at the same time, she can’t fail to understand how much this complicates her investigation.
I’ll need to help her however I can. It isn’t like Kez has unlimited resources in Norton, and I’m well aware of the TBI’s jurisdictional supremacy. They won’t want her in their business, and she isn’t going to give it up . . . so I’m in it too.
It occurs to me that I’ve done nobody any favors opening this up as a multistate investigation; the FBI will have their hands on it soon, and that sidelines Kezia even more.