Devil's Pasture

by Richard Bannister

  I couldn't imagine the terror the woman must have felt in her last moments. After contemplating that for a beat, I said, "How did he do so much damage to the door?"

  "He used some kind of ax, maybe a drywall one or a climber's ax. He could have brought it with him, but he could also have picked it up from the woodpile we saw out back. We'll take the door with us to try to identify what he used." Andrews shrugged.

  "We need to find her name." Usually, letters or a credit card bill gave us something to work with, but the mountain of junk covering the floor hid any such correspondence. "And let's bag up as much as we can. We can sort it later."

  Two bathrooms in a house that size seemed unnecessary. I entered the master through a narrow doorway in the main bedroom. Somehow the builder had managed to shoehorn a green tub-shower, a matching vanity, and toilet into the tiny room. It was half tiled in pale green with soft white paint on the upper half of the walls and ceiling. The bathmat and towels were all neatly stowed. I could still smell the fragrance from someone's shower. Beth? A variety of female grooming products, which hadn't suffered the same fate as everything else in the house, lined a windowsill. Had the killer found what he was searching for before he got to this room? Among the makeup and lotion dispensers, I found three prescription pill bottles—two for Elizabeth Gervais, and a bottle of Vicodin for Ashley Logan, prescribed only five days earlier.

  Five minutes after calling Jackie, an assistant at the station, I received Ashley's DMV photo on my phone. In the picture, her hair was a natural color and shorter—more of a pageboy look—but there was no doubt she was the deceased woman lying on the bed. The address on file for her driver's license, issued three years earlier, was different from where we found her, but that could be for any number of reasons.

  In the main room, I said, "Listen up, we have a tentative ID—Ashley Logan aged thirty-three."

  "I've heard of her." Kramer looked up from inspecting something on the floor. "Ashley works with my wife at City Hall. She's the mayor's assistant."

  "Look what we have here." Mason was standing on a step ladder peering into one of the ceiling light fixtures. "There's a miniature video camera up here. I bet we'll find more."

  "Could be the friendly neighborhood pervert," I said. "Or maybe the killer was keeping an eye on them to see what they knew. If that's the case, we're looking at a much higher level of sophistication. How did the killer watch the camera feed?"

  "He would have connected the camera to the home Wi-Fi network. I found their router on top of a kitchen wall cabinet. The killer could have viewed it from anywhere on the internet."

  "Could they be watching us now?"

  "No. I unplugged the broadband connection. If we take it back to the lab, we might be able to find where it was being viewed, if not by whom—"

  A bright burst of light lit the room for an instant accompanied by the snap-whoosh sound of a firecracker.

  Everyone jerked their heads toward the coffee maker, which Kramer had been examining moments earlier. A fountain of white-hot fire had erupted from the top, sending showers of sparks cascading to the carpet. Thick smoke billowed out from the epicenter and quickly began filling the room. Everyone froze for a second. Andrews yelled:

  "Everybody out now."

  "Get out! Get out now!" someone else was screaming.

  I saw I'd drawn my pistol and re-holstered it. As we shoved one another toward the front door, the fire was an eerie white glow through the thick smoke, which was quickly filling the room. Chris was first to reach the door and unbolted it. He turned and grabbed my arm, nearly pulling it out of its socket as he dragged me down the steps into the front garden. I turned to see Kramer and Mason catapult out of the house, clutching their yellow forensic evidence bags. Behind them, flames danced around the interior. By the time we reached the lawn and caught our breath, the front windows had exploded, and flames were licking through them.

  "What the fuck was that?" I asked.

  "An incendiary device," Mason spat. "We could all have been killed."

  "You think it was intended to get us or to destroy the evidence?

  "Maybe both? It was in the coffee maker. The lid to the reservoir was stuck down, but I didn't think anything of it," Kramer muttered.

  I looked around for Andrews and saw him running toward the house, a fire extinguisher from the van in his hand. I tackled him, and despite the difference in our sizes, we both went down heavily.

  "It's no use. Don't be a martyr," I yelled, though Andrews' ear was only a foot from mine.

  He rolled onto his back, a look of resignation on his face. "There goes the evidence. Damn," he spat.

  Flames from the windows, including the one in the bedroom where we'd found Ashley, were licking toward the roof. Rage and frustration boiled within me at being so thoroughly outwitted.

  I jumped to my feet and yelled: "Get the neighbors out!"

  As we ran to evacuate the nearby homes, I heard sirens and bullhorns in the distance.

  ATOP THE ROCK outcropping behind the houses on Maple Street were circular depressions worn smooth by members of the Maidu tribe—Native Americans, who ground acorns and other nuts there. The man dressed in black was lying next to one of the larger artifacts but paid them no heed. His attention was focused on the burning house. He didn't look like anyone's notion of a person who would brutally slay women. The timer he'd set to give himself a couple of minutes to escape had malfunctioned. Cheap foreign junk. Despite that, he was relieved to see the device eventually fulfill its purpose. He lowered his binoculars, pulled a phone from his shirt pocket, and speed-dialed a local number.

  "It's taken care of. Everything is destroyed."

  CHAPTER 4

  ANANDA WAS AT the Melrose Café on Jackson Avenue sipping an almond milk latte. She had an hour before her night shift at Abbey Mount Hospital was due to start. Kayla Ellis, a friend, and a reporter for The Examiner had earlier left a frantic voicemail message. Something about her friends being murdered, she said. Another person died as well as Beth? Ananda had replied in a text, suggesting they meet at the Melrose at 6 p.m., but now her friend was fifteen minutes late.

  Ananda had needed a heavy dose of herbal supplements to get back to sleep after Prentiss' visit. She was still surprised at herself for not discovering he was a detective until he visited her apartment. Not that it mattered—she liked the idea of having a cop boyfriend. Ananda considered it synergistic with her profession as an ER nurse. They'd talked for an hour at The Bluebird Cafe last Saturday, and she must never have asked. It was one of her top qualifying questions for prospective boyfriends. One she usually pried out of them in the first five minutes. Ananda's ex was a lazy bastard who sponged off her, and she was not eager to repeat the mistake.

  As she had laid in bed, trying to get some sleep before her night shift, her mind kept returning to what had happened to the reporter right outside her apartment. Beth had been killed on the way to visit her, and it shocked her to the core. Ananda couldn't understand why they needed to meet. She'd told the woman everything she knew only a couple of days earlier and lent her a photograph—one she had difficulty parting with.

  Ananda found her vivid imagination, both a blessing and a curse. The picture of Beth's brutal stabbing had stuck in her head and prevented her from falling asleep. She finally chased it away by concentrating on a fantasy with Detective Prentiss. She visualized him, sweeping her off her feet with his powerful arms, setting her gently on a bed. Except it wasn't her bed. She was in a forest and could hear a babbling brook nearby. Above her, the sun was shining through the branches and leaves. She wore a long white chiffon nightgown. Prentiss lay beside her, dressed all in white from his tie to his suit. He was strong yet gentle as he kissed and caressed her. She couldn't remember how far they got before she drifted off. But now Ananda had a moment of doubt, wondering if sex with the detective would be as good as it was in her fantasies.

  "Sorry I'm late. It's been a horrible day. The worst I can remember." Kayla
's words broke her reverie.

  "Come and sit down. What would you like to drink?" Ananda said as she focused on her friend.

  "My stomach is churning. I feel too nauseous to keep anything down."

  "The dead woman was a friend of yours?" Ananda had decided to keep her meetings with Beth to herself.

  "Beth was a close friend and a co-worker, but it's far worse. Her partner, Ashley, was also murdered. The killer torched their house. What sicko would do something like that?" Kayla's eyes were red and teary, her black shoulder-length hair unkempt.

  "I'm shocked. Do you think someone targeted the women because they were gay?" Ananda had never got on well with Ashley and had only met Beth twice.

  "The word among my co-workers at The Examiner is Beth's death may be related to something she wrote. But I don't know how it would account for Ashley's murder or the fire."

  "What could Beth possibly have written that would make her a target for a killer?" Ananda struggled to hide her mounting apprehension.

  "Nothing likely to set anyone off, as far as I know. The Examiner isn't that kind of paper. Beth was going to write a series of articles about local government corruption. She had a lead on some other big story, but she wouldn't talk about it."

  Ananda stood. "I need a sandwich before I go into work, or I'll be hungry in the night. Are you sure I can't get you anything? Some soup, maybe?"

  "Just water. It's the only thing which will stay down." Kayla finger-combed her hair from her face.

  Ananda went to the counter. It mortified her to think Beth's article about her daughter Asha could have something to do with the deaths. A few minutes later, she returned carrying a tray. She set a ham sandwich, another almond latte, and a glass of iced water on the table.

  "I was outside their house, watching with a group of reporters." Kayla's voice was cracked and raw. "A guy from The Chronicle was monitoring police radios and heard them talk about finding Ashley. But then the fire started before they could get her out. By the time the fire trucks arrived, the place was completely involved. She was a good-looking woman. I keep seeing what happened to her in there—the flames burning her up."

  "Have you ever taken sedatives?" Ananda asked.

  "Not since my mother died when I was a child."

  "I'm sure if you tell your doctor what happened, he'll prescribe you Ativan. It could be just what you need for a couple of weeks."

  "I've told you about the compulsions I occasionally get. A mild form of OCD. The medicines they prescribed were awful. I was better off without them."

  "Then try something herbal like Valerian. It's mild and might help if the stress makes you feel obsessive. Plus, it will help you sleep. I use it all the time when I'm on nights."

  "Thank you, nurse. I will."

  "Who do you have to talk to about how you're feeling?"

  "My two closest friends are dead. There's Matt, I guess. He dated Ashley before she moved in with Beth. He's intelligent, but in many ways, he's a typical guy when it comes to discussing feelings."

  "I have to go to work." Ananda drank the dregs of her latte and stood. "You can talk to me. I work nights for the rest of the week. Early mornings and late afternoons are the best times to catch me. I'm off Friday, then Saturday I'm back on days. Text me anytime. I'll call you back when I can.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE RHYTHMIC THUMP of the Chinook's twin rotors is reassuring as we navigate the Afghan landscape, until—

  Boom, boom.

  Two deafeningly loud explosions shake the craft violently.

  The instrument panel of the pilot in my field of view has gone dark. The copter pitches backward and the engines emit an earsplitting high-pitched whine. The moon shining through the front illuminates the shattered windscreen. I can see the pilot's body is missing from the chest up, and his blood is spattered everywhere. Is the second pilot still alive and flying the copter?

  A fierce wind streams through the hole in the glass and buffets the two other soldiers and me. The Chinook starts to rotate, tossing us around the cabin like rag dolls. I'm not religious, but I say a prayer, convinced I'm living my last moments on earth. We're falling as if we're in a fast descending elevator. I know we were flying low and following the contours of the ground to avoid enemy detection. How far will the Chinook fall? Fifty feet? A hundred feet? The sudden screeching of metal is louder than anything I've ever heard, as the rotating descent jolts abruptly to a halt.

  When I open my eyes, leaves, and branches fill the cabin. The nearest soldier is staring in disbelief at the thick tree stump protruding from his chest. His head flops forward. A gash in the side of the other soldier's neck gapes wide. I know he's gone too. The pungent smell of gasoline is overpowering. I must get out before the fire starts, but branches have me pinned to the cabin floor. Unlike the crew and two other passengers, I've survived the crash only to die a painful death as I'm immolated in the ruined copter.

  I jolted awake and sat up in bed. Breathing hard, I struggled to remember where I was. My bedside clock showed 1:30 a.m. The safety was still on the pistol clutched in my right hand. I must have grabbed it from my nightstand. In the future, I'd have to keep it farther out of reach when I slept. The same for the tumbler of water which had tipped over and was streaming rivulets across the hardwood floor.

  My bedroom was silent but for the rhythmic thwok-thwok of the ceiling fan over my bed. It wasn't the first time the noise and blowing air had wormed its way into my dreams. But disappointment flooded me as much as the nightmare—after a two-year absence, and ten years since my time in Afghanistan, the night terrors had returned.

  CHAPTER 6

  PATRICK WHITEHEAD WONDERED if his week could get any worse as he drove into Abbey Mount Hospital. He'd been getting home late for the past couple of weeks, and Sophia was getting increasingly bitchy about it. She'd retaliated by waking him several times every night wanting sex. Whitehead suspected she knew he'd be too tired to perform. The girl was half his age, less if he was truthful with himself, which he often wasn't. He believed honesty was overrated and often caused the jams people got themselves into.

  Sophia had only recently moved in, but now it seemed she was using many of the same tactics as his ex-wife. Although once her eyeshade was on and her earplugs in, Vicki Whitehead—Mayor Whitehead—wouldn't wake for stampeding elephants. Sophia had started giving him the look; changing the television channel without asking while he was watching. She was like a cuckoo who'd flown into his nest and was trying to take over. This morning, he'd overslept after Sophia had risen early and gone out without waking him.

  Whitehead scanned the line of parked cars in the staff lot. They were all high-end German and Japanese models that put his cheap little domestic car to shame. It was time for a new car, a new girlfriend, and a new job. He'd been the manager of the hospital's Services Department for over thirteen years.

  Back in the day, he'd overseen all the non-medical departments, but over time the cafeteria, then the meals service, and the cleaning service had been outsourced. All that remained was the Clinical and Business IT division. Whitehead was thankful it had grown into a burgeoning department, responsible for not just computer systems, but patient billing and records, clinical prescriptions, and documentation. His department employed over half of the hospital's full-time staff.

  But what was foremost in Whitehead's mind as he pulled to a stop in a parking space reserved for doctors, was the event of eleven days earlier. His head was reeling as he pushed through the glass swing doors and summoned the elevator. He'd left the hospital at midnight, and thanks to Sophia, he'd had precious little sleep since.

  Time was running out for Petrov to unearth who was responsible for the intrusion. Whitehead needed to make that clear to the leader of the Networking and Infrastructure Group. It wasn't like someone physically breaking in, Petrov kept saying. There were no damaged locks or broken windowpanes to see, just discrepancies in a few computer logs and large data transfers which no one could account for. Wh
itehead relied on Petrov's assurances that something had happened, and he'd agreed to put all their resources into finding the person responsible for the hacking.

  Petrov had been monitoring the senior staff's emails and snail mail, ever since he discovered the break-in, expecting an extortion message. It came in the form of an email to Lewis, the CEO, and demanded a small fortune in Bitcoin in return for not releasing patient records. The hacker described them as showing a series of medical mistakes and systemic overbilling. He emphasized his point by attaching a copy of a letter detailing the accidental removal of a patient's wrong kidney.

  Even after the arrival of the ransom demand, Petrov had continued to advocate trying to pay the blackmailer off. Whitehead had another idea of how to deal with the miscreant, provided he or she lived within a reasonable traveling distance of Stockbridge.

  Whitehead couldn't care less about the reputation of the hospital. He needed the job to pay his car loan and his mortgage and knew he'd be out on his ear the moment senior management learned of the intrusion. The problem was not just that Lewis and Brickman disliked him and the way he worked, which they frequently called lackadaisical to his face. The real problem was that he'd gone against their wishes and installed cut-price security software from a company in Romania on all of Abbey Mount's computers. He'd been assured it was as good as anything available, and the firm had agreed to inflate the invoiced price on the condition that he split the overage equally with them.

  The elevator dinged at almost the same time as his phone. Now, what did Sophia want? As the doors opened, he read a message from Andrei Petrov: