The Dark Heart

by Julie Cave

  When the conversation eventually petered out, Chloe went upstairs to brush her teeth. She stared at her reflection in the mirror without seeing herself. She avoided looking into her own eyes, because what she found there was depressing. Instead she focused on all the little things she hated: round cheeks — who could tell if there were any cheekbones in there at all — double chin, glasses. She fantasized about being one of those fat girls who went away for the summer and came back thin and beautiful. Wake up, loser, that’ll never happen. She spat and rinsed, and returned to her room, sitting down on her bed.

  From her book bag, she pulled out a notebook and drew a line right down the middle. On the left, she wrote BAD and on the right she wrote GOOD. On the bad side, she wrote:

  Grace doesn’t like me anymore

  I don’t have any friends

  Jessica Hunter hates me

  Therefore everybody hates me

  I’m fat

  I’m ugly

  On the good side, she wrote:

  My mom

  My dad

  I’m smart

  She stared at her handwriting so long the letters began to swim in front of her eyes. The bad side seemed so much longer, so much more serious.

  Chloe shoved the book away and logged onto Facebook. She scrolled down the screen, looking at boring and useless updates, including what friends were eating, wearing, and doing. Briefly she wondered what the point of Facebook was. Did anything interesting ever happen? Did she really care about what people she barely knew were thinking? What they were eating? Where they went with their friends?

  She clicked on the red notifications flag that told her about activity on Facebook that involved her.

  Her heart was seized with a cold, vicious fist as she saw that there had been plenty of activity already this morning.

  It had begun with Jessica Hunter:

  I had a dream last night that you were dead. I wish you would do everyone a favor and kill yourself!

  Utterly shocked, her seat seemingly falling away from underneath her, Chloe continued to read.

  Sarah Mallister > Chloe Jones I wish you would die. Nobody likes you.

  Alice Greendale > Chloe Jones Everyone thinks you’re a loser. And a freak. I think you are a freaking loser.

  Jessica Hunter > Chloe Jones Want some suggestions on how to do it? You could take some pills. Or walk in front of a train.

  Shaun Kruger > Chloe Jones Maybe your old man has a gun?

  Jessica Hunter > Chloe Jones Maybe cut your wrists.

  Sarah Mallister > Chloe Jones Then I wouldn’t have to look at you in school. I’m so sick of looking at your stupid fat face.

  Jessica Hunter > Chloe Jones Maybe you could starve yourself to death. Then at least you’d look hot for once in your life.

  Shaun Kruger Nah it’d take too long. Anyways, nothing would make her look hot. She’s too ugly.

  Alice Greendale > Chloe Jones Gas yourself in your mom’s car.

  Jessica Hunter > Chloe Jones Stop wasting air, oxygen thief! You don’t deserve to live.

  Chloe kept reading. She could not tear her eyes away as her tormentors began to outdo each other with calling her names until it finally ended with a chorus:

  Loser, I wish you would die!

  Chloe stood suddenly, feeling as if she wasn’t even in her own body. She went to the bathroom, and washed her face with shaking hands. She stared at herself in the mirror. Is that what I am? A loser? Fat? Ugly? Worthless?

  She searched her features for a hint of beauty and couldn’t find any. Nothing, there is nothing there. I am nothing. I am nobody. I am what they say I am. Why do I deserve to live?

  Numbly, she went back to her room and lay on her bed. She marveled that this is what it felt like to be the most hated person at school. She was the only person who had no friends. Everyone knew she was a loser, and fat, and ugly. They hate me because I look different from them.

  It really did make sense.

  As horrible and mean as Jessica and her minions were, they did understand the true social order of teenagers. They could uncannily pick the value of each girl and boy, and rank him or her accordingly. Those who were found wanting, like Chloe, were treated as the worthless losers they were.

  Chloe listened to her mom close the front door and drive away. She lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling.

  She was too empty, too numb to cry.

  ****

  At the office, Dinah waited with great impatience for the time difference between Virginia and California to pass, so that she could call USC. In the meantime, Elise returned a call from Dr. Walker, who had done the autopsy on Lola/Rachel while they’d been in Norfolk talking to Flora Keenby.

  “Hi, Detective. Hi, Dinah,” the doctor said. “What a great morning!”

  Dinah smiled. “Good morning to you, too! You did the autopsy on Lola Albright?”

  “Indeed. Well, let’s get straight down to business.” He shuffled some papers. “Now. This woman was 37 years old, which matches the age given on her driver’s license. She was in relatively good health, though she was a little on the underweight side of things. She was a reasonable consumer of alcohol; I wouldn’t go so far as saying she was an alcoholic, but there was quite a bit of fatty tissue in her liver which is otherwise unusual on someone who wasn’t obese.”

  That was interesting, Dinah thought as she wrote this down. Malia Shaw may have had a devastating and obvious addiction, but perhaps Lola had struggled to cope, too, and self-medicated with alcohol.

  “She had never been pregnant, or birthed a child,” continued Dr. Walker. “The remaining internal organs were quite unremarkable and consistent with a woman of her age. The manner of her death was very similar to that of Malia Shaw. Cause of death was asphyxiation caused by manual strangulation — again, I could find no evidence that a rope or cord was used in strangling her. I still tend to believe that the killer used his hands to kill her, and I say his hands because it’s vastly unlikely that a woman would possess enough strength to both subdue and kill the victim. Though Malia Shaw was probably an easier victim, given her drugged state, Lola Albright was by no means a large woman. However, in this regard, I have some good news. Lola fought back.”

  “Really?” Dinah’s ears pricked up and she looked at Elise, who leaned forward.

  “I scraped some tissue from underneath her fingernails. Whoever killed her left behind some DNA.”

  “That is good news,” agreed Elise.

  “Now, although she was found on a rural property, I don’t believe she was killed here. The time of death was about 12 hours prior to her being found there, and I believe the man who owns the property indicated he’d been in that particular part of the woods earlier that day to collect firewood.”

  Dinah remembered this. “Yes, that’s true.”

  “So I would say that Lola was killed elsewhere, and dumped on that property under the cover of night — and snow,” said Dr. Walker. “I didn’t find any evidence of where the kill site could be, I’m afraid.”

  “So 12 hours prior would make it . . . Monday afternoon when she was killed?”

  “Precisely.”

  Lola/Rachel’s death had taken place exactly a week after Malia’s. Whether that was a coincidence or not was beyond the scope of Dinah’s understanding at the moment.

  “Anything else of interest?” she asked.

  “In summary, that was all you’d be interested in,” said Dr. Walker. “I trust it was helpful.”

  After they’d hung up, Elise said, “I know you want to call USC, but I think we need to visit Angus Whitehall. What do you think?”

  “Okay,” agreed Dinah. She would be able to call USC later in the day.

  Elise took the keys and they drove to the First Baptist Church. This time, when his secretary Shana saw her coming, she didn’t bother trying to stop her. Instead, Shana rolled her eyes melodramatically and picked up the phone, ostensibly to warn her boss.

  Angus was leaning back in
his chair with a wry smile when Dinah and Elise entered.

  “I feel like we’re spending so much time together, we’ve become friends,” he said.

  I’d rather swallow battery acid, thought Dinah, then she shook herself. Don’t be nasty.

  She smiled. “Hi, Mr. Whitehall,” she said. “Just a quick visit today. I know you’re a busy man.”

  He nodded. “Well, I did tell you that I didn’t want to speak to you without my lawyer present.”

  “I understand,” said Elise. “But I just wanted to go over your alibi for Lola’s death, which you’ve already given. I won’t ask any other questions.”

  Angus frowned. “I see. Wasn’t it on Tuesday? I was home with my wife.”

  “That was when she was found. But she was actually killed on Monday afternoon.”

  She watched his face. He raised his eyebrows but showed no other concern. No dancing hands this time.

  “So you’re asking me where I was Monday afternoon?”

  “Where were you on Monday afternoon?”

  “I’m quite happy to answer that, because the answer is so easy,” said Angus. “There was a communications meeting here at church. I was here for the whole thing, because I chaired it.”

  “What time?” Dinah asked, trying to mask her dismay.

  “It started with lunch at noon and went until six in the evening.” Dinah heard the note of triumph in his voice and had never wanted to punch someone so badly as right now.

  She clenched her teeth together and counted to ten before asking, “You were at the meeting for the entire time?”

  “Yes. Ask anyone. There were plenty of people here.”

  He met her gaze and for a moment she saw the depths of his relief. Yet he had still not been honest with them. In that moment, she just knew with every tendon, muscle, and sinew that lying was second nature to this man, that lying rolled off his lips as smoothly as oil, that deception came to him as naturally as breathing. She wanted to scream at him that she knew about him, that she knew what lurked in his dark heart. She knew lies festered there, lying coiled around each other like a nest of snakes.

  “Thank you for your time,” Elise said, standing up. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Please call my lawyer from now on,” Angus suggested. “I really don’t want to talk to you again without him present.”

  Elise and Dinah left. Dinah felt a flush creeping from her neck up to her face. Ordinarily, a solid alibi like that would rule somebody out as a suspect. But this time, Dinah wasn’t ready to give up so easily.

  For one thing, the medical examiner wasn’t going to swear in court that Lola/Rachel had been killed between noon and six in the evening. The truth was that Angus could still have been responsible. Dinah just couldn’t shake off the feeling that if anyone was capable of sneaking out of a meeting to kill a woman, it was Angus.

  I know who you are, Angus. I know you are a pastor, but I see something else. I see cruelty and violence. I see a dark heart hiding something dreadful. I know you aren’t who you pretend to be. I know you, Angus, because you remind me of me. I feel the weight of shame, just like you. I see the oppression of guilt in you because I know what it feels like.

  The only way you will be free is to tell the truth. For the truth will set you free.

  ****

  Dinah sat at her desk in the office and then prowled around for several minutes with such a cantankerous look on her face that even Elise left her alone. She tried to marshal her thoughts into some order, but stubbornly, her mind refused to consider anyone else could have murdered the women except Angus Whitehall. To that end, she wanted to drive back to his office and arrest him right then. Eventually, she sat back down at her desk and called the university in San Diego. A woman in the Student Affairs office answered.

  “Hello, I’m Dinah Harris, a consultant with the Ten Mile Hollow Sheriff’s Department in Virginia. I’d like to talk to someone about two former students, whose murders I am investigating.”

  “Oh, my!” said the woman. “How awful. I’ll transfer you directly to the vice chancellor.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dinah listened to classical music interspersed with rousing descriptions of student life at USC.

  Finally, a deep male voice said, “This is Vice Chancellor Jerry Shilberg. How can I help you?”

  Dinah introduced herself again. “I am investigating the murders of two women here in Ten Mile Hollow. Several leads indicate that both women attended your campus, and I’d like to get as much information about each of them as possible.”

  There was a long pause. “Detective, you know we can’t just give out private information.”

  “I understand,” said Dinah, not bothering to correct him. “However, you must know that student rights are terminated upon death.” She couldn’t help adding, “Terminated much like these two women were.”

  “Very well, Detective,” said Shilberg, with reluctance. “You’ve made your point. When were they students here?”

  “It would have been in about 1994,” said Dinah.

  “What names?”

  “The first one is Rachel Sutton.”

  There were a few moments of clicking.

  “She was a student here in the mid ’90s,” said Shilberg.

  “What about Theresa Scott?”

  A few more moments of clicking led the man to confirm: “Yes.”

  “Thank you,” said Dinah. “I’m not interested in her academic record. What I’m interested in is whether she got into any trouble while she was a student there. Police arrests? Disciplinary action? Anything like that?”

  There were a few moments of silence as Shilberg looked through the students’ records. Eventually, he said, “I’ll start with Rachel Sutton. She was put on academic probation twice during her time here, and failed to enroll in the second semester of her third year. Her enrollment was cancelled shortly thereafter. Whether she had problems with the police, I don’t know. You’d have to ask them.”

  “Campus police?”

  “Right. Now, Theresa Scott. She didn’t appear to have any record of academic probation, but her enrollment was also cancelled in the second semester of ninety-four. Rather abruptly, I might add.”

  “Okay. One last thing: would you mind emailing me any photos you might have had of either of them at the time?”

  “Well, they’d be from their student cards,” said Shilberg. “It’s pretty grainy now, but you might be able to work with it. I’ll have my secretary scan them and email you.”

  Dinah gave him her email address. “Thank you for your cooperation,” she added. “I appreciate it.”

  Her next call went through to the USC Police Department. Dinah gave her credentials to the young man who answered the phone and asked for the chief.

  “I can’t help you there,” the young man said. “The chief’s been laid up with a serious heart problem for a while now. I can put you through to Captain Hamersley, who is holding the place together.”

  Captain Hamersley’s voice was so creaky and old, he sounded like he’d been a permanent fixture at the department since before the Civil War.

  Dinah told him the story of the women’s murders and that the only key she’d found in the past were attendance at the same college, during which Rachel Sutton had completely changed and “done things she regretted.” She ended by explaining how both student’s enrollments were abruptly ended in the ’90s.

  “Well,” said Captain Hamersley. “The name sure don’t ring a bell, but I was here 20 years ago. We don’t have computerized records going back that far. Can you give me the names again and I’ll check our archives and call you back?”

  Dinah did so and cooled her heels for a full hour. She was so edgy that she couldn’t sit still, so she stalked around the office, her mind in high gear. When Hamersley called back, he sounded out of breath. “Where did you say you were from?” Captain Hamersley asked, the vigor fading from his voice.

  Dinah’s heart started beating faste
r. “I’m investigating their murders in Virginia,” she said. “Did you find anything?”

  “Now that I’ve had a look, I sure did,” said the captain. “Scott and Sutton. Glory be; I didn’t think I’d ever hear that unholy pair of names together again.”

  “Can you tell me what you know?” Dinah asked, so excited and impatient she could barely wait for the captain to spit it out. Tell me, just tell me!

  “Those two were bad news, very bad news,” said Hamersley. “Though neither of them were as bad as the fellow they associated with. His name was Robert Langer; a viler creature you wouldn’t find here on God’s green earth. There was an incident here on campus, but as I understand it, there were many more incidents off campus. The San Diego Police Department eventually took over the case as a result.”

  “There wasn’t an incident report in her student file,” said Dinah. She barely dared to take a breath, in case she missed something he said.

  Hamersley sighed. “There wouldn’t be. It was a long, complicated story and the university was trying to protect itself at the time. I’m not sure I even know the full extent of how it all went down. You’d best talk to the old San Diego Chief of Police. He’d remember it, I’m sure. It was a pretty famous case.” He paused. “Although it sounds like you’ve never heard of it in Virginia.”

  “I will talk to the Chief of Police,” said Dinah. “In the meantime, what do you know?”

  Hamersley heaved another sigh, as if the burden of law enforcement was suddenly too great. “You ever heard of the Southern Cross Militia?”

  Chapter 13

  The search warrant came through late that evening, and Dinah stayed at the office late with Elise and her team of deputies, explaining their individual roles during the execution of the warrant. Elise had to spend a lot of time explaining the case to Judge George Emmett, who was initially reluctant to agree to issue a warrant against the town’s Baptist minister. But the probable cause was so strong, and Elise’s stubborn refusal too strong to accept anything else, that in the end, he had agreed.