Once Dormant

by Blake Pierce

  Art continued, “Sam tells me Chief Crane thinks the killer was just some drifter who’s long gone.” Then he squeezed his daughter’s hand and added, “But you don’t think so, do you, Punkin?”

  Riley could tell that Sam was struggling to keep her emotions in check.

  Sam said, “Dad, these agents want to talk to you because you worked on the Bonnett case.”

  Art’s expression clouded a little.

  “Is that right?” he said. “Yeah, I remember you said you thought there might be a connection between what happened to the Bonnetts and how Ogden got killed. But I’m sure they’ve got nothing to do with each other.”

  “What do you mean?” Sam asked.

  Art shrugged and said, “Well, we’ve got a surefire suspect in custody for the Bonnett killings. Claude Burns, the drunk who lives next door. You know about that.”

  Sam wiped away a tear.

  She said, “Dad, Mr. Burns was cleared ten years ago. He had a solid alibi. And he’s been dead for five or six years now.”

  Art wrinkled his brow and said, “Oh, yeah. Drank himself to death, didn’t he? Everybody saw it coming.”

  Sam nodded, then she gave Riley and her colleagues an imploring look.

  She needs to talk to him alone, Riley realized.

  Riley glanced at her colleagues, who seemed to understand. Together with Dominic, they all quietly got up and stepped outside into the hallway.

  Riley said to her companions …

  “This was a mistake.”

  Jenn said, “You couldn’t have known he’d be like this.”

  Riley shook her head silently and thought …

  I should have known.

  Sam warned me.

  And now they were losing precious time while a killer was at large.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Riley’s thoughts were full of conflicting images as she and her companions stood waiting in the hallway for Sam to come out of her father’s room.

  Sam and her dad had obviously enjoyed a close relationship, unlike what Riley had experienced with her own father. Art had greeted his daughter warmly. Even when his mind was confused, he’d never been angry with her, much less threatening.

  Riley’s own father had been cold and angry. The last time Riley had seen him alive, they had actually come to blows. She had let her sister, Wendy, take the responsibility for him when he became ill. Riley had even refused to go to his funeral. Although she knew that her father had helped make her the excellent agent that she had become, Riley’s memories of him were never warm.

  It was clear that Sam’s father was fading, a process that was likely to be slow and painful. But the time that they’d already spent together had been rewarding, and Sam’s memories of him would be pleasant.

  Finally Sam stepped out of her father’s apartment into the hallway. As she pulled the door shut behind her, she burst into tears.

  Riley watched as Dominic rushed over to Sam and gave her a hug. Then Sam and Dominic both went over to talk to Nurse Spahn, who was standing a short distance away.

  Riley’s heart went out to Sam. She also felt terrible that she’d instigated what had just happened.

  Sam and the nurse were talking quietly, but Riley could make out a few words that the young officer was tearfully saying.

  “Please give him another chance … He’ll try to be better … Talk to me before you change anything … We’ll work something out.”

  Riley could easily understand what was going on.

  Because of his wanderings and his growing confusion, Sam’s father’s status at the assisted care facility was coming into question. Sam was surely desperate that he might be moved into a part the building for more dependent residents, where his freedoms would be vastly curtailed.

  The nurse nodded sympathetically, and Riley sensed that she was agreeing to Sam’s appeals, but …

  It’s only a matter of time, Riley thought.

  Riley didn’t know much about dementia, but she was sure the man she’d just talked to in that room wasn’t likely to get better. At least, not for very long periods of time. Riley could only imagine how Sam felt to see her once vigorous, keenly intelligent, and still loving and kindly father slipping away from her.

  Finally Sam and Dominic walked back over to Riley and her colleagues. Her face looked determined as she brought her tears under control.

  Riley touched Sam on the shoulder and said …

  “Sam, I’m awfully sorry. You surely don’t want to keep working today. You can stay here with your dad or Dominic can take you home …”

  “No,” Sam said, swallowing one last sob. “Dad doesn’t want that. He told me he wants me to keep at it today and not worry about him. And that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Dominic said to Riley and her colleagues, “What should we do now?”

  Riley didn’t have stop to think. There’d been a place she’d wanted to visit ever since she’d arrived in Rushville.

  She said, “Could we go to the house where the Bonnets were killed?”

  Sam nodded and said, “We’ll need to stop by the real estate agency that handles the property. I’m sure they’ll let us see it.”

  As they walked through the building on their way to their cars, Sam added …

  “At least he didn’t get upset when I talked about the Bonnetts. I was afraid he would.”

  *

  There was blood everywhere.

  Art Kuehling couldn’t shake off his horror.

  He had never imagined that human bodies even contained so much blood.

  He was looking down at Leona and Cosmo—or at least what was left of them.

  Starkly lit by the bedroom ceiling light, their faces were all but unrecognizable. Lumps of brain and fragments of their skulls lay around them on the white sheets amid the blood.

  Leona’s eyes were closed. Art wondered—had she felt any pain at all, bludgeoned in her sleep like that?

  If so, her husband hadn’t been so lucky.

  His eyes were wide open as he lay sprawled in an awkward position beside Leona.

  He’d awakened when he heard the attack on his wife, and he’d put up some slight struggle before he’d succumbed to the same fate.

  Art shuddered deeply, then retraced his steps down the hall to another bedroom, where the Bonnett couple’s oldest child, Martin, lay—his face more mangled than even his parents’ faces were …

  And just one year away from his high school graduation, Art thought.

  Martin’s eyes were closed—like his mother, he hadn’t struggled before he’d died.

  What might he have been dreaming about just before the first hammer blow hit?

  Girls, maybe, Art thought.

  Or maybe music.

  The walls of Martin’s room were covered with posters of his favorite musicians—rock ’n’ roll and hip-hop, mostly.

  After all, Martin had been a typical teenager, much like Art himself had once been.

  Art wasn’t sure if he could force himself to look again into the last bedroom.

  I’ve got to, he thought.

  I’ve got to be strong.

  He walked down the hall. The overhead light was still on little Lisa’s room.

  This was the most jarring sight of all—a sea of pink decor and stuffed animals and princesses, with a horrible island of blood and violence at its center.

  Lisa’s face was even more horribly mangled than the others.

  Poor kid, Art thought.

  Lisa had been the first to die—and even while she was being murdered, the rest of the family remained blissfully asleep until they died the same way.

  Art was shaking all over now.

  He’d never in his life imagined such horror …

  Art’s eyes snapped open and he found himself staring at the tabletop where he’d left a game of solitaire half-finished.

  He was sitting slouched in his chair.

  Was it a dream or a memory? he wondered.

  Had he dozed
off, or was this another of his recent mental lapses, or …

  Does it even matter?

  He was still shaking all over with horror at the images that had come back to haunt him just now.

  It was real, he thought. Too real.

  When his daughter and Dominic and the FBI agents had been here, he’d managed to talk about the Bonnett killings without betraying his deep, lasting horror.

  He’d carried that horror around for years, doing his best to keep it to himself.

  And now that his mind was finally going, was the horror going to devour him completely? Was he going to disappear into an endless nightmare of blood and smashed skulls?

  Would there be no escape from it?

  He remembered trying to comfort poor Sam just now. The poor kid, she’d seemed so distraught about what was happening to him.

  He’d said to her …

  “Stop worrying about me. I’ll be all right. Just get back to work. Catch that killer.”

  Those had seemed like the right words to say at the time.

  But now he wondered—had he made a mistake?

  Should he have told Sam to walk away from the case, away from her job, away from everything that had to do with violence and death?

  She wouldn’t have listened, he told himself.

  She was a stubborn girl and always had been, and she was determined to follow her own path in life.

  And the path she’d chosen was to follow in his own footsteps.

  But she had no idea where that path would surely lead.

  The nightmare was only beginning for her.

  Art Kuehling was sure of it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  During the drive to the real estate office, Riley couldn’t shake off her feelings of guilt. She couldn’t get the images out of her mind of the retired and fading cop back in Hume Place and of the young cop in tears.

  She was aware that Bill kept glancing at her from the driver’s seat as he followed Sam and Dominic in their car.

  Seeming to read her thoughts, he said …

  “Stop beating yourself up about it. What’s happening to Sam’s father isn’t your fault.”

  Riley sighed and said, “I know, but I shouldn’t have insisted on talking to him.”

  “So what if you hadn’t?” Bill said. “What difference would it have made?”

  Jenn added from the back seat, “Riley, Sam visits her dad a lot. She was going to have to deal with this—probably a lot sooner than later. It might even be better this way.”

  Riley fell silent. Bill and Jenn were right, of course. Perhaps she wouldn’t be so upset if she could make any sense of this case.

  She felt sure that Gareth Ogden’s murderer intended to kill again.

  But when?

  She hadn’t gotten any answers from her visit to Sam’s father. She hoped that getting a look at the Bonnett house would be more helpful.

  The police car pulled up in front of a realty office in a section of the town’s business area that had seen better days. The surviving storefronts there looked both old and old-fashioned—a tailor, a shoe repair shop, a drycleaner, and the like. Many of the other small businesses had been boarded up.

  Bill parked their car behind the cops and they got out. The painted sign in the storefront window that said “SUMPTION REALTY” was chipped and faded. From outside, the place looked so decrepit that Riley wondered if maybe they had come to the wrong address. Maybe Sumption Realty was just another of the town’s apparently numerous defunct business.

  The office was gloomy and stuffy as they walked inside. The few pieces of old furniture needed dusting, and she could even see a cobweb in one corner. The condition of the place was hardly any surprise, now that Riley thought about it …

  Real estate isn’t exactly thriving in Rushville.

  A wizened, somewhat elderly woman was sitting at a desk reading a newspaper. Despite a sign that said NO SMOKING, she was puffing away at a cigarette. A drinking glass and bottle of whiskey were on her desk.

  Riley, Bill, and Jenn produced their badges and introduced themselves. The woman took a hard look at Sam and Dominic, who were both in uniform, then just nodded.

  She turned back to the agents and let out an irritable growl.

  “FBI, huh? Well, I don’t guess you’re here to buy or rent. What’s up?”

  Riley said, “Can we speak to whoever is in charge?”

  The woman tapped a long ash off her cigarette.

  “That would be me,” she said. “Carol Sumption. What can I do you for?”

  Sam said, “These agents would like to look at the old Bonnett house.”

  Carol shrugged and said, “Well, I’d ask you why, but I guess you’ve got your reasons. I don’t much care about that place one way or the other. It’s owned by the late Cosmo Bonnett’s brother, Louis. He lives in Albuquerque, and he lost interest in the property years ago. I’ll find you the key.”

  As she rummaged through a desk drawer, Riley asked a question that had been on her mind for a while now.

  “Did Amos Crites ever show any interest in the house?”

  Carol snorted and said, “Hell, no. Nobody ever did. It’s damned hard to sell any house in this town. It’s even harder to sell one where four people got beaten to death with a goddamn hammer.”

  Then with a rough chuckle she added …

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  She found the key and handed it to Riley.

  A moment later, Riley and her colleagues were following the local cops’ car through town toward the Gulf. The house they were looking for was just a few blocks from the beach.

  When they got out of their vehicles, Riley could barely make out the “FOR SALE” sign in the front yard. It was covered with weeds and vines. The whole front yard was overgrown with palmettos and other greenery, and the house was in bad need of paint—although no worse than many of the apparently inhabited houses that Riley could see nearby. As in most of this town, there were no sidewalks and the street was in need of repair.

  Riley remembered Carol Sumption mentioning that the present owner had long since lost interest in the place. Apparently so had the Realtor herself. It looked like nobody had taken any care of this house for several years now.

  Riley and her four companions pushed through the encroaching brush toward the house. Riley took out the house key as she approached the front door. But as she reached out to use it, she saw that the door was open just a crack.

  Riley looked at the others, and she could tell they were all wondering the same thing …

  Is somebody in there?

  Riley took a closer look and saw that the latch was broken. Someone had forced their way in. She gave the door a gentle push, and it opened.

  As she and the others went inside, Riley saw that the interior was in shocking condition. In the hallway across the living room, the ladder that led up to the attic was pulled down. At the bottom of the ladder was what was left of the house’s air conditioner unit, which seemed to have been ripped out and thrown down from the attic.

  Wide gashes had been torn in the walls, and wallboard and insulation hung in scraps all around them.

  Dominic explained, “Copper thieves. They raid a lot of empty houses here in Rushville.”

  Dominic walked over to a wall and pointed inside a particularly ruined section.

  “See?” he said. “They kicked through the drywall and pulled out all the wiring—stripped the whole house, it looks like. They did thousands of dollars of damage—and they probably got away with just a few hundred dollars’ worth of copper.”

  The brazenness of the theft struck Riley as rather breathtaking.

  She asked, “But how did they do all this without the neighbors noticing?”

  Dominic shrugged and said, “They probably pretty much just hauled off and did it in broad daylight.”

  Sam added, “These thieves probably just drove up in what looked like a utility truck. They did all this damage while making themselves look
like they were here on legitimate business.”

  Riley rather doubted that no one in the neighborhood had caught on to what was happening here. She thought it more likely that the neighbors simply hadn’t cared what became of this abandoned old house where four innocent people had lost their lives.

  Peering around the wreckage, Riley could visualize what a pleasant little home this must once have been. There remained some surviving built-in furnishings, including corner cabinets and shelves and a brick wall with a fireplace and a hearth.

  Sam asked Riley eagerly, “So are you going to do it again? Get into the killer’s mind, I mean?”

  For a moment, Riley felt uncertain.

  She asked Sam and Dominic, “Do either of you know anything about what this place looked like when people still lived here?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Sam said.

  “Sam and I were still in our early teens,” Dominic added. “We didn’t live in this neighborhood, and we barely knew the Bonnetts.”

  Riley kept looking around, assessing the situation.

  It might not be easy to get a sense of the killer, but even so …

  It should be possible.

  After all, she’d seen crime scene photos of the victims. And she knew the orders of the murders themselves. That meant she could be pretty sure of the route the killer had taken through the house.

  Riley took a few long, deep breaths and tried to imagine how the killer had felt, standing where she now was in the living room. Of course it had been late and night and the family was sound asleep but …

  How did he get in?

  Had he picked the front door lock?

  Possibly, Riley thought.

  If the bedroom doors had been shut and the air conditioner steadily rumbling, perhaps the killer would have felt confident that none of the Bonnett family would hear him.

  Still, it seemed unlikely that the killer would have taken such a risk.

  Riley walked out onto the porch pulled the door shut behind her. She turned slowly, looking all around.

  Her eyes fell on an outdoor thermometer mounted on the outside doorframe. She peered closely at it and saw that the glass had long since been broken. Following a hunch, she reached for the edges of the thermometer.