by Tim Waggoner
“Sure thing, Sheriff. They’re the ones who called dispatch.”
She could hear the whoop of his siren in the background, and she knew the deputy was already on his way. She put her cell on speaker, placed it on the nightstand, and continued talking as she jumped out of bed and started to get dressed. “I figure it’s too much of a coincidence that there should be a fire the night after the break-in and the murder. Maybe the killer set the fire, in which case maybe he’ll stick around to watch the place burn. You know how firebugs are. Once you get there, take a good look around. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll catch the son of a bitch.”
“You got it, Sheriff. Anderson radioed me a minute ago. He’s en route as well.”
Joanne was in the process of buttoning her uniform shirt and she stopped.
“Danny’s left the Coulter residence?”
Her displeasure must’ve come through in her tone, for Alec said, “Something wrong, Sheriff?”
The deputies on the night shift didn’t normally call to clear their every move with her, which was how it should be. The action was at the Café right now, and there was a possibility they might have a chance to catch Ray Porter’s murderer there. Still, she didn’t like the idea of leaving Debbie unguarded. The thought gave her an all-too-familiar cold sick feeling in her stomach and a tingling at the base of her skull.
She finished doing up her buttons. “You two check out the situation at the Café. I’ll go see how Debbie Coulter’s doing. Call me if you find anything.”
Without waiting for a reply, she grabbed her cell and disconnected. She stuck the phone in its belt pouch, grabbed her gun holster, and ran out of the bedroom without bothering to put it on. She couldn’t afford to waste any more time.
She had a Feeling.
• • •
Debbie Coulter lay awake on the living room couch, TV and lights off, not thinking, not feeling, just being numb. She’d gotten precious little sleep the night before, and it looked like tonight was going to be a repeat. She wasn’t too worried about her safety. Sheriff Talon had arranged for one of her deputies to watch over her tonight, and it was comforting to know that she wasn’t alone.
When she heard the cruiser’s engine start, she sat up. She rose from the couch and started toward the picture window when the high-pitched wail of a siren cut through the night, and flashing red lights were visible through the divide between the curtains. She ran the rest of way, grabbed hold of the cord, and opened the curtains just in time to see her guardian roar off down the street.
Though she knew there had to be a good reason for the deputy’s departure, she couldn’t help feeling abandoned. Maybe he’d return once the emergency was over. She hoped so. She didn’t think she’d be able to make it through the night without someone —
Her thoughts trailed away as she saw movement across the street on the Duvalls’ lawn. She didn’t know them well. The couple kept their distance from her and wouldn’t let their kids come anywhere near the mother of the infamous Carl the Cutter. But she knew them well enough to realize that the trenchcoated man running across the lawn was not Mr. Duvall, nor was the figure in the hooded sweatshirt pursuing him. She watched in horrified fascination as the first man fled toward the street, trenchcoat flaring open behind him like a pair of wing, the hooded man close behind, moving with the strength and grace of a predatory cat. The hooded man easily caught up with his prey, grabbed him by the shoulder —
Was that Tyrone Gantz? What the hell was he doing here, so far from downtown?
— and spun him around. The hooded man raised his right hand and light glinted off the metal object in his grip. The hand swept across Tyrone’s throat — she was certain now that it was Tyrone now — and a fountain of dark fluid that could only be blood gushed forth.
“God, no … please …” she said softly, not even aware she’d spoken.
Tyrone took a couple staggersteps to the left, then collapsed to the lawn. The hooded man regarded her for a moment before kneeling and rolling Tyrone onto his back. He pulled up Tyrone’s shirt to expose his abdomen and began cutting.
A strange sense of unreality washed over Debbie then, and without consciously willing it, she turned away from the window and started walking toward the front door. Her fingers felt nothing as she turned the deadbolt and unlatched the chain. She watched her hand grip the knob, turn it, and push the door open. Cool night air washed over her. Although she wore only a nightgown she didn’t shiver, and though her bare feet touched the porch’s concrete, the sensation didn’t register. She crossed the porch, stepped onto wet grass, and continued walking toward the street.
The hooded figure was still working on Tyrone, but he looked up as she reached the sidewalk and stepped into the rain-slick surface of Marwyck Lane. Though she tried to see the face within the hood, only darkness was visible, and she wondered if maybe Tyrone’s killer didn’t have a face, if instead of bone and flesh the hood was filled with solid shadow.
“Carl?” She spoke her son’s name softly, but in the night’s silence it sounded loud as a gunshot.
The hooded figure stood and began walking toward her, the instrument he’d used to cut Tyrone still held tight in his right hand. Debbie squinted as she tried to focus on the weapon, but it was difficult to make out details from this distance and in this light. Her Carl had used a hunting knife on his victims, but whatever the hooded figure held was smaller than that. For that matter, she’d never known her son to wear a hooded sweatshirt either. He’d been gone a long time, though, and it was only natural that he’d changed somewhat. She had too. She was older now, heavier, and she feared Carl wouldn’t recognize her.
“Carl, honey. It’s me. It’s your mother.”
She stepped to the center of the street, stopped and waited for her boy to join her. The hooded figure continued walking toward Debbie with a determined stride, and she wondered what he would do when he reached her. Would he embrace her? Cut her throat? Either would be all right with her, just as long as they could be together one last time.
As Carl stepped off the curb, Debbie smiled and raised her arms, beckoning her son to come to her. Everything would be okay now that her baby had returned.
She saw bright lights out of the corner of her eye, heard the sound of a car approaching at high speed. She turned and saw a sheriff’s cruiser coming down the street toward them, roof lights flashing an angry red. But instead of slowing as the vehicle approached, it angled toward Carl and accelerated.
“No!” Debbie shouted. “You can’t take my boy from me! Not again!” She ran between the oncoming cruiser and her son, determined to do whatever it took to protect him. She’d failed Carl when he was alive, hadn’t seen the signs of madness and evil growing within him, hadn’t prevented them from taking him over. She wouldn’t fail him again.
“Run, honey!” Debbie shouted. She didn’t turn to see if her boy heeded her words. Standing awash in the headlights’ glare, she squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the impact to come.
• • •
“Shit!”
Joanne yanked the steering wheel hard to the left and slammed on the brakes. Her cruiser skidded on the wet asphalt, jumped the curb, and plowed into the yard of the house across the street from Debbie’s place. She held on as the ass-end of the vehicle spun around, rear tires churning up a spray of grass and soil, before finally coming to stop with the grill facing the street. She hadn’t felt an impact, but she was relieved to see Debbie standing in the middle of the street, unharmed. She was even more relieved to see the man in the hooded sweatshirt running away from Debbie. As Joanne had approached, she’d seen the body lying in the yard, along with the glint of her headlights reflecting off the blade held in the hooded man’s hand. You didn’t have to be a trained law-enforcement professional to do the math on this one. She’d intended to ram the son of a bitch with her cruiser to save Debbie’s life, but she hadn’t counted on the woman turning psycho on her at the last instant and throwing herself into the crui
ser’s path.
Joanne jumped out of her vehicle and drew her 9 mm. “Are you all right?” she shouted to Debbie. But the woman didn’t look at her. Instead she faced her fleeing attacker, hands cupped to her mouth, and yelled, “Run, Carl! Don’t let them take you again, baby!”
A chill rippled down Joanne’s spine upon hearing Debbie’s words, but she dismissed it. The man in the hooded sweatshirt was more slender than Carl Coulter. She realized then that for an instant she had actually considered the possibility that the attacker might be Debbie’s dead son. Maybe Debbie isn’t the only one going psycho around here, she thought.
“Get back in your house and lock the door until I get back!” Joanne had no idea whether Debbie was lucid enough to obey her order, but she appeared to be uninjured, which was a hell of a lot more than could be said for the person lying in the yard. Joanne unclipped the flashlight from her belt as she ran over, but even before she turned the beam on, she knew the man was beyond anyone’s help. His eyes were wide and staring, his throat had been slashed, and a triangle bisected by a jagged lightning bolt had been carved into his stomach. She supposed she shouldn’t have been, but she was surprised to see the dead man was Tyrone Gantz. Had he been killed because he’d witnessed the break-in at the Caffeine Café last night, or had he simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Either way, she decided, the poor man was just as dead.
Joanne didn’t have to consider her next move. Debbie wasn’t hurt, Tyrone was very dead, and his murderer — who definitely was not and could not be Carl Coulter — was hauling ass out of here. Two people had been killed in her county in the last twenty-four hours, and Joanne was determined that there wouldn’t be a third. She took off running after the hooded man.
In the time it had taken her to check on Debbie and Tyrone, the killer had disappeared between two houses, and Joanne headed in the same direction. As she followed, she was well aware that the killer might be lying in wait for her, so she swept her flashlight’s beam back and forth as she ran. The light would give away her position, but it would make it damned difficult for the killer to jump out of the dark and ambush her. Of course, if he had a gun in addition to his knife …
No. If he’d had a gun he’d have used it on her when she first arrived on the scene. A man like him didn’t shy away from bloodshed, but he was the type who preferred to do his killing up close and personal. Shooting her wouldn’t have been any fun for him.
Joanne passed between the houses and saw that neither had privacy fences enclosing their backyards. She assumed the killer had scoped out the location earlier and chosen this as his escape route for that very reason. Most likely he had a vehicle parked somewhere close by, probably on the next street over, and that’s where he was headed right now. She had to catch up to him fast or he’d get into his car and vanish into the night. There’d be no way she could get back to her vehicle in time to give chase, and her other deputies were at the Caffeine Café, checking out a fire she was now sure had been set to draw away the man guarding Debbie. They couldn’t help. It was all up to her.
Breathing hard, sweat cold on her face in the autumn air, she stopped near a concrete birdbath in one of the yards and panned her flashlight beam around, listening for the thump-thump-thump of feet pounding on the ground. But she saw nothing, and the only sound she heard was the throbbing of her own pulse in her ears. No engine noise, though, so she knew the killer hadn’t reached his vehicle yet.
She was debating whether to continue searching the yard or run over to the next street and check there when she finally heard the tell-tale rustle of someone moving through the grass — coming from behind her. She started to spin around but it was too late. She felt something hard collide with the back of her skull, saw a bright white flash behind her eyes, then darkness rushed in to swallow her. Her last coherent thought was that it was too bad she’d never get to hear Dale chide her for screwing up so badly.
• • •
Though it was closing in on three in the morning, Marshall still wore his suit. It had been a busy night and he was bone-weary. It took an effort to walk up the steps to Sanctity’s second floor, and he thought, The years must finally be catching up with me.
After Joanne and Dale had left, he’d been forced to play host to visiting relatives for the remainder of the evening. After-dinner cocktails liberally seasoned with stultifying conversation — most of it from lower-ranking family members desperate to curry favor with him — eventually culminating in a Gathering before the Reliquary. Leading the ceremony always took a great deal out of him, so much so that he’d almost begged off tonight, but considering the current situation in the county, he’d gone through with it. Who knows? Perhaps it would help.
But now that the relatives were bedded down for the night — finally — and the servants had finished clearing away the detritus of the evening’s revels, Marshall could get some sleep … after performing one final task.
He reached the second floor and made his way through the halls without aid of illumination, for no member of the family, even those coming to Sanctity for the first time, needed light to help find their way around. He stopped when he came to Lenora’s bedroom and took hold of the doorknob, but he hesitated before turning it. He knew it wasn’t locked. No door in Sanctity was. But his relationship with Lenora was strained enough as it was, and he was reluctant to damage it any further by checking up on her as if she were a little girl. Nevertheless, he was the family’s Second, the one responsible for seeing to its affairs in the outer world. And most importantly, he was Lenora’s father. He had to check on her.
But before Marshall could open the door, his cell phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. He stepped back into the middle of the hallway to answer it, already knowing he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.
“Yes?” he said in a hushed voice.
It was Glenn Gilman, a firefighter who over the years had racked up a truly impressive amount of debt betting on college football — debt Marshall had made disappear in exchange for the man’s lifelong service. He listened without comment as Glenn told him about a fire at the Caffeine Café and, though the details weren’t clear as yet, some sort of disturbance at Debbie Coulter’s house. When the man was finished, Marshall disconnected without saying a word. He slipped the phone back into his pocket, walked up to Lenora’s door, turned the door knob, and entered. His fingers found the light switch on the wall, and he flipped it on.
Lenora’s bedding was in disarray, but his daughter was nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Come dawn, only a blackened husk remained of the Caffeine Café. The charred wood still smoldered in places despite having been drenched by fire hoses, and the parking lot was a wet, sooty mess. The air stank of burnt plastic and wiring, and breathing in the acrid stench coated the throat and sinuses with a greasy chemical residue. The firefighters were gone, having done everything they could, and now it was up to the Sheriff’s Department to deal with the remains. Though just what they could do, Joanne — as the saying went in law enforcement — hadn’t a goddamned clue.
She stood in the café’s empty parking lot, almost in the same spot where she’d stood yesterday morning. News vans were parked on the street, and the on-the-scene reporters stood in front of cameramen, hair and makeup impeccable though the sun had barely risen above the eastern horizon. Joanne wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that these men and women weren’t human, but rather newsdroids that were activated whenever a big story broke. That would certainly explain their always-perfect hair and clothes, along with their empty bright gazes and plastic smiles.
They’d already finished getting a statement from her, not that she had a lot to tell them, and now they were fighting for Marshall’s attention — which was just fine with Joanne. For once she was grateful for him showing up at the scene of an investigation. Her head throbbed so much she felt like she’d mainlined a case of tequila last night. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to anyone, e
specially more newsdroids. The “local community leader” could keep the media at bay so she could do her job.
“What would you like me to do, Sheriff?”
Ronnie spoke in a normal tone of voice, but his words sounded loud as cannon fire to her ears and set her skull to pounding harder.
“I appreciate you coming to work today, Ronnie, but I think the rest of us have the situation in hand.”
As soon as she said it, shed wished she’d chosen her words more carefully. Ronnie’s right hand — gloveless for a change — was swollen, fingers bent at sickening angles, the puffy skin bruised a nasty blue-black. He wore his arm in a sling, and from what she could see it was his sole concession to his injury.
She hurried on. “I’ve got people both out here and over at Debbie Coulter’s.” Not long after she’d regained consciousness, she’d called in every deputy to work the two crime scenes. But once she saw Ronnie’s injured hand — the result, he said, of slipping and falling on rain-slick pavement outside the state crime lab in Columbus — she’d started having second thoughts about calling him in. Not only did his hand look awful, she knew he had to be hurting bad because he’d not only shown up without gloves on either hand, he wasn’t wearing a surgical mask and, for the first time since she’d met him, he hadn’t shaved before coming to work. His hair was unkempt and oily, too, and she thought he hadn’t showered. Before today she would’ve thought it impossible for Ronnie to neglect his hygiene like this. He must be in agony, she thought. It was the only explanation for his appearance.
“Why don’t you go to the hospital and get your hand looked at?” she said. “Bad as it looks, something’s sure to be broken. You need to get it set.” Hell, he’d probably need surgery.
“I went to the ER in Columbus after I dropped off the evidence. The docs said it looks a lot worse than it is. I should be fine, long as I can keep from bumping it into anything. Besides, they gave me some great pain pills.” He grinned, displaying yellow-tinged teeth. His breath smelled stale and foul, and Joanne realized he hadn’t brushed his teeth.