by Matt Witten
Lynch and the morgue attendant pulled the handles on one of the drawers and a long tray rolled out. There was a girl’s body on it, with a white sheet draped over her.
The morgue attendant removed the sheet.
It was Amy.
My poor baby.
“That motherfucker,” Danny said.
Lenora moaned, “Oh …” and stumbled backwards.
The morgue attendant put an arm around Lenora’s back to stop her from falling.
Susan ignored everything else in the room. She put a hand to her heart and stepped closer to Amy.
Her daughter’s eyes were wide open. They looked terrified.
Her forehead had a big bloody gash. Dried blood ran down her pale white face onto her neck.
Her neck was bruised, like Lynch had said. Susan could see the purple and yellow under the blood.
There was some kind of pattern in the blood. Susan fixated on it, and realized what it was: imprints of the necklace beads.
Amy was wearing her necklace when the killer strangled her. The beautiful necklace she never wanted to take off. She only got to wear it for one week.
“Where is it? Where’s the necklace?” Susan said.
“It’s missing,” Lynch said.
Susan frowned in bewilderment, then figured it out.
The killer had taken the necklace, for a souvenir.
He enjoyed killing Amy so much, he saved a keepsake.
In that moment, a passionate desire to make that man suffer overwhelmed Susan’s heart and soul.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28, PRESENT DAY
TINA AND SUSAN pulled into the tiny one-room bus station in Gloversville at two thirty. Tina opened the back of her pickup and brought out Susan’s suitcase.
“Thank you,” Susan said.
Tina gave her a hug, enfolding her in her strong arms. “Good luck, honey.”
As Susan waved goodbye, she resolved to remember that really, the world was full of good people.
Then she rolled her suitcase into the bus station. The place smelled of wood varnish and felt cozy. There was only one customer, a young bearded guy sitting in a far corner. He was munching lazily on French fries while he listened to music on his iPhone.
From behind the counter, the ticket agent, a guy in his sixties with a thick gray walrus mustache that was beautifully combed and cared for, greeted her. “Afternoon, young lady. What can I do you for?”
Susan stepped up to the window. “Hi. I’d like a ticket to Hodge Hills, North Dakota.”
The ticket agent raised his eyebrows, which were thick like his mustache. “Hodge Hills, North Dakota, huh?” he said doubtfully. “Well, let’s see what we got for ya.”
He typed away on his computer, humming an old pop song that Susan almost but couldn’t quite place. In the corner, the bearded young man bobbed his head to whatever song was on his phone.
“Well,” the ticket agent said, scanning his computer screen, “you can take an Adirondack Trailways to Buffalo, then we’ll put you on a Greyhound to Toledo, Midwest Trailways up to Chicago, another Greyhound to Minneapolis, Windstar to Fargo, then up to Hodge Hills on a Dakota Northern.” He looked up at her. “Sure you don’t want to take a plane?”
“How long will it take?”
“You got a few layovers, as you can imagine. It’d take you three days.”
“It gets in on Wednesday?”
“That’s right.”
So if she took the bus straight to North Dakota, she’d be there three days early. “Wednesday’s fine. What’ll it cost?”
The ticket agent looked dubious, but he said, “Three hundred nineteen dollars and forty-six cents.”
“Okay,” Susan said. If she managed her money really carefully, maybe she’d even have enough for the return trip. Or she could call Terri or somebody and ask them to send her a couple hundred dollars. They’d figure out how to do it.
Well, she couldn’t think about that now. She reached in her coat pocket and decided to start with one-dollar bills, because they made up the bulkiest stacks. She’d tied them up with three rubber bands, which she removed now. She laid the bills down one by one in front of the ticket agent and started counting out loud.
“One, two, three, four, five …”
The ticket agent and the bearded young man both stared at her, clearly wondering if she was actually going to count out three hundred nineteen dollars, one by one.
“Six, seven, eight …”
Five minutes later, she was done, and her coat felt a lot less heavy.
“Impressive,” the ticket agent said. “May I ask where you got that money?”
Susan didn’t want to go through the whole “my daughter was raped and killed and I’m going to the execution” thing again. “I won a bar raffle,” she said.
The ticket taker smiled. “Lucky you!”
“Yup. When does the bus leave?”
“Six thirty tonight. About four hours. You want me to recommend some of the local sights?”
Susan looked over at an old wooden bench across the room. “Actually, could you just wake me up when it’s time to leave? I’m exhausted.”
“That’s what you get for living the high life. Sure, I’ll wake you up.”
Susan lay down on the bench and closed her eyes. Before she knew it, the ticket agent was gently shaking her shoulder. “Young lady,” he said.
She opened her eyes and sat up. Outside the sky was darkening, and through the front window she saw an Adirondack Trailways bus.
“Your chariot awaits,” the ticket agent said.
“Thanks.”
She reached for her suitcase but he beat her to it. “I’ll get that.”
He rolled the suitcase outside and stowed it in the luggage compartment at the bottom of the bus, while Susan pulled her coat and scarf tighter against the wind. She showed her ticket to the bus driver, a chubby man in his forties.
“Farewell, my lady,” the ticket agent said, and despite his corniness, Susan wondered what it would be like to kiss a man with a thick mustache like that. Then she gave herself a surprised little smile. She usually didn’t have those kinds of thoughts anymore. Getting out of Luzerne and having an adventure, going someplace when she wasn’t even sure how she’d make it back, must be bringing out that side of her.
She got on the bus, joining the nine or ten people who were already there. Most of them were traveling alone and spread themselves out so they occupied two seats at once. Susan sat in an empty seat in the middle of the bus and spread out too. There was plenty of room for her arms and legs. This isn’t so bad, she thought. I can take three days of this.
The bus pulled out into the late November night and headed west on the winding, two-lane county highway. She looked out at the rolling hills and her mind started to drift.
She wondered what the Monster looked like now. Was his hair turning gray, like hers? Probably. She wondered what his life in prison had been like.
She thought back to the very last time she saw him, twenty years ago, after he got convicted. Now that the trial was over, he was no longer trying to act sympathetic. He allowed his anger to burn brightly on his sneering face.
The Monster sits at the defense table with his lawyer. His eyes are pure, black hatred.
“Ms. Lentigo?” the judge says.
It’s time for her to give her victim impact statement. Danny squeezes her hand. She walks to the front of the courtroom on shaky knees, each step feeling like a mile. She’s wearing a pink and purple wool sweater, because those were Amy’s favorite colors.
She looks down at the sheet of paper in her hand, where her speech is all typed up. But then her eyes blur over and she can’t read a word.
She looks up and sees the Monster’s hostile glare. Her eyes suddenly clear. She steadies, her rage overriding her nerves. She doesn’t need this paper. She’s been practicing this speech in her mind ever since the moment the Monster was caught. When she speaks, her voice rin
gs strong.
“You’re not even human,” she says. “You raped my seven-year-old daughter while she was lying there bleeding.”
The Monster interrupts her. “You fucking idiot—”
The judge slams his gavel. “Shut up or I’ll have you gagged.”
Susan spits out furiously, “You took her tiny neck in your big hands and you strangled her.”
The Monster interrupts again. “That’s not what happened—”
The judge is about to bang his gavel down even harder, but Susan doesn’t need him. She moves closer to the Monster and her look of cold dead hate, a thousand times more powerful than his, like it’s been summoned by the demons of hell, silences him. She hisses, “I hope you get raped in prison.”
Then she turns to the judge. “But life in prison isn’t enough for this man. I demand that he be sentenced to death!”
She turns back to the Monster and says, “And I pray your execution will be slow and painful.”
The Monster glowers back at her, but can’t work up the nerve to say anything.
She goes back to her seat, and Danny puts his arm around her. She doesn’t want to cry but can’t help it.
Danny holds her close.
Now, twenty years later, Susan wondered if the Monster had been raped in prison, and whether she would really want that. She decided if she was being honest the answer was probably yes.
The bus was slowing down, and Susan watched the two-lane highway become the main street of a small town. The air brakes wheezed as the bus stopped in front of a place called the Canajoharie Diner. The greyhound on the roof showed it doubled as diner and bus station.
“Canajoharie. Canajoharie, New York,” the driver said. He stood up and faced the passengers. “Okay, people, I’m taking a little break. Feel free to get off the bus and wash up, just be back here in fifteen minutes. And if you’re hungry, may I recommend Sylvia’s apple pie. Homemade and delicious.”
Susan got up, stretched, and followed him off the bus. So did most of the other passengers, at least the ones who weren’t asleep.
Inside the diner, with its cheerful waitresses and comfy-looking booths, Susan smelled fresh-baked apple pie and newly brewed coffee. She thought it was the most amazing combination of smells she’d ever encountered in her life. She went to the bathroom—freshly cleaned, she noticed—and then got in line at the counter with three of her fellow passengers. The pie underneath the glass cover had a golden crust and a glistening apple filling.
This was one of the few diners she’d ever been in that was as good as Molly’s. Maybe even better!
When it was her turn, she smiled to the middle-aged woman in the Canajoharie Canaries baseball cap, presumably Sylvia, who was taking their orders. “That apple pie looks absolutely amazing.”
The woman smiled. “Fresh out of the oven, hon.”
“I’d love a piece, and a cup of coffee too.”
“That’ll be two fifty,” the woman said, as she brought out the pie.
Susan reached into her coat for one of her wads of bills. She’d used up almost all of her ones at the Gloversville bus station. She decided she’d pay with a five—
What the fuck? Her coat pocket was empty!
She reached deeper. Nothing.
She reached into her other inside pocket, on the other side of her coat. Nothing.
Was she going crazy? She tried them both again. Then she reached into her outside pockets.
Nothing.
“Hon?” the woman behind the counter said, holding out a slice of pie on a paper plate. “Are you okay?”
Susan stood there, mouth open. She had the money when she got on the bus, right? She was positive she did.
“Excuse me,” she said, and ran outside. The driver was just coming back from his break and he was at the open door of the bus, about to go in. She intercepted him, out of breath. “Somebody stole my money.”
The driver stopped. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I had four hundred seventy dollars inside my coat. One of your passengers stole it.”
She was speaking loudly, and she sensed the passengers inside the bus could hear her. She saw two teenagers in the front, a boy and a girl, frowning at her.
Well, screw them. They might be the ones who did it!
The driver asked, “How do you know it was a passenger?”
“Because the money was inside my coat when I got on the bus. You need to search them,” she said, shifting her eyes to glare at the teenage couple.
“Are you sure you didn’t just misplace it somewhere?”
“I’m positive. It’ll be easy to find. It’s big wads of ones and fives and tens and twenties.”
“Have you looked in your purse?”
Inside the bus, the teenage girl giggled. Susan was furious. What the hell is funny about this? “I don’t have to look in my purse,” she snapped. “One of these people took my money.”
The driver held up his hands placatingly. “I’m just saying, it might help if you look in your purse. That usually solves the problem.”
“You look.”
She thrust her purse at him. Now the teenage boy laughed too.
The driver said, “Ma’am, you’ve had your coat on ever since we left Gloversville. And nobody came up to you while you were sitting on the bus.”
“I was sleeping!”
“I wasn’t. If somebody was to reach inside your coat, I would’ve seen it in the mirror.”
“Well, somehow you missed it.”
The driver turned away from her and put his hand on the railing of the bus door, ready to go in. “I’m sorry about the money, ma’am, but we need to get going now. Maybe it’ll turn up in your suitcase.”
“Only way it’ll turn up is if you search these people!”
Now everybody on the whole bus was watching them. The driver said, “I’m not doing that. For one thing, it’s illegal. Now if you want to keep riding, get on the bus.”
He got on. Susan stayed outside, seething.
“Suit yourself,” the driver said, and started to shut the door. But before he did, Susan got on too.
She stood at the front and faced the passengers: the smirking teenagers, the sleazy-looking man with the pockmarked face, the lady with too much makeup who spoke some weird language on her phone.
“People,” she said, “my name is Susan Lentigo.”
The driver said, “Ma’am—”
“Twenty years ago, my seven-year-old daughter, Amy—”
“You need to sit down—”
“—was brutally murdered.”
The driver stood like he was about to escort her off the bus, but then he paused and listened to her. The teenage boy was still smirking, but the girl looked at him and he stopped.
“I’m on my way to North Dakota to witness the killer’s execution. I only have four hundred seventy dollars to my name, and I need it for food and lodging. One of you took this money from me. Please give it back and I will be grateful. I won’t press charges and I will even pray for you. Please. Give it back to me.”
Everybody on the bus stared at her. Then they cast sidelong glances at each other, waiting to see if someone would raise their hand and stand up and return the money.
But nobody moved.
“Please,” Susan said, “I beg of you.”
Nobody moved.
“If you don’t give it back, my dead daughter’s curse will be upon you.”
Nobody moved.
Susan gave them all a look she hadn’t used since that day she confronted the Monster in the courtroom and sat down.
It wasn’t until hours later, just as they were about to hit Buffalo, that Susan had a sudden flash of memory: the bearded young guy eating fries at the Gloversville bus station. Watching me pull bills out of my coat.
Did he steal my money?
Did I get it all wrong?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SUNDAY, APRIL 14, TWENTY YEARS AGO
OFFICER LYNCH OPENED the door
for Susan, Danny, and Lenora, and they stepped out of the morgue. Susan was shell-shocked, whipsawing from the horror of seeing her dead daughter to feeling the power of this new fury raging through her.
A tall man in his early forties, in a blue suit, walked up the fluorescently lit hallway toward them. “Hello, you must be the Lentigo family,” he said, a little formally.
Lynch responded, “Yes, and I’m Officer Lynch. May I help you?”
“I’m Special Agent Robert Pappas,” the man said, shaking Lynch’s hand and then turning to Susan and the others. “I am so terribly sorry for your loss. I want you to know, we’ll be working day and night for as long as it takes until we catch the man who did this. Kidnapping across state lines is a federal crime. We have several more agents coming within the hour, and we’ll work closely with the local police”—he nodded toward Lynch—“as well.”
Susan belatedly realized special agent meant FBI. She looked into the man’s eyes to see if she could trust him and found herself getting hypnotized by his dark irises. She shook her head to clear it.
Standing beside her, Danny solemnly shook Agent Pappas’s hand and said, “Thank you.”
Lenora asked, “What did this fuckhead do to her? Did he rape her?”
Pappas said, “Why don’t we go to the conference room and have some coffee.”
Susan knew that meant the answer was yes.
Why? Why my daughter? Why little Amy?
Her fists tightened and she started punching the cement wall, just like she’d punched Frank yesterday. She couldn’t feel any pain in her hands, couldn’t feel anything except a rush of blood in her ears. It was like her soul had left her body and left behind nothing but rage.
Lenora shouted, “Susan!” and Danny yelled, “Honey, stop!” Pappas grabbed one of her fists and Lynch grabbed the other. She kept trying to throw punches at the wall, but finally she gave up. She heard her fast, shallow breathing growing more regular. She felt weak.
Danny put his arm around her as they walked upstairs to a conference room. She looked down at her knuckles. They were bleeding.