by Thomas Kies
I’d been in their company when we’d tricked our way into the home of the nasty pimp named Lucifer and rescued four young girls.
Originally, Shana had told me she earned a living as a physical therapist, which was her own inside joke. When Shana Neese wasn’t out saving the world, she was a professional dominatrix with a successful dungeon in New York.
Physical therapist, my ass.
I never knew how John Stillwater earned a living.
“Okay, Nathaniel. I’ll come into the city. I’m going to have to try to figure something out so that I can get away without spooking our new owners.”
“I understand completely. Call me when you think you can get here even if it’s after hours. I’m looking forward to meeting you.”
I grinned again. Then the reporter in me kicked in and I asked an inappropriate question. “Hey, you don’t happen to know a woman named Shana Neese, do you?”
I honestly don’t know if it’s possible to feel a man blush over the phone, but at that awkward moment, I was certain Mr. Rubin’s face was flushed a deep crimson. I heard him sigh, then he said, “John said you’re very good at what you do. Let me know when you can come to town.”
I struck a nerve.
Was Nathaniel Rubin a client of Shana’s?
* * *
I was just pulling into the parking lot of the newspaper when my cell phone chirped. Driving through the alleyway to the employee lot in the back, I recognized the number on the screen. “Hey, Mike.”
“Genie, we just got the autopsy report back from Foley.”
I drove into my usual spot against the back of the building and parked. “How did they die?”
“Drowned. But that’s not all.”
I left the car running and the heater ramped up. “Tell me.”
“They’d both been tortured—burned and beaten. Foley says they had burn marks that could have been caused by a blowtorch. They both exhibited dozens of marks that may have come from a whip or a metal cord.”
“And the tall guy in the video was wearing, what, a bondage hood? Was this an S&M scene that went horribly wrong?”
I heard Mike exhale. “An S&M scene on steroids. One more thing. Foley thinks that the Jane Doe may have been raped.”
“Is it possible that he’s seeing evidence that the Jane Doe and the judge might have had sex earlier in the evening? Like you said, Eva Preston thought her husband was having an affair.”
“Foley said there was evidence of tearing and abrasion. Whatever it was, he said it was rough.”
I turned off the Sebring. “What’s the latest on Merlin Finn?”
“When you do your follow-up piece, you can include that he’s officially a person of interest and that the police are encouraging anyone with information about Mr. Finn to call us.”
We said goodbye and I got out of the car. Then I glanced up at the employee entrance in the back of the newspaper building. As cold as it was outside, I didn’t want to go inside.
Suck it up, Genie.
I trudged up the concrete steps and opened the door. Taking off my coat and hanging it on the department coat tree, I avoided looking into my old office. Instead, I went straight to my desk in the middle of the floor and started checking my emails.
“What do you have new on the marina homicides?”
Reluctantly, I slowly turned and looked up into Lorraine’s face. She was staring back down at me through those silly glasses. “Cause of death. Medical Examiner says they were tortured before they were drowned. There’s evidence that the woman was raped.”
She balled up her fist and shook it in front of her chest as if she were celebrating a touchdown. “Nastier the death, the better the ink.”
I considered myself to be a cynical, hard-bitten journalist always on the prowl to sell more newspapers. I was starting to think that Lorraine Moretti was beyond that. That she was as bloodless as Robert Vogel.
“What else do you have?”
I attempted a smile. “Cops say they have a person of interest. Merlin Finn, the white supremacist who busted out of Lockport Correctional two weeks ago. Preston was the presiding judge at his sentencing. Finn is still on the run.”
“Oh my God, can this story get any better? Get at it, Genie. I want to see what you have in the next thirty minutes.”
I watched as she slithered back to the editor’s cube.
Thirty minutes, huh? You’ll get it when I want you to have it.
Nathaniel Rubin’s offer was looking better and better.
Chapter Nine
Before I started the follow-up piece on the homicides, I looked up as much as I could find on Merlin Finn. Other than the easy-to-find information on his arrest and conviction for killing two rival gang members and then his spectacular escape from prison, anything before that was almost nonexistent. He was born an only child in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His parents moved to Westchester County, New York, when he was seven. His mother cleaned other people’s houses; his father worked in construction.
He graduated from high school but there was no record of going on to college. The only other bits of information I could find were a couple of arrests for minor infractions like possession of marijuana and petty theft.
I punched up the transcript from his trial. With Judge Niles Preston presiding, the trial had lasted three days. I read through the prosecuting attorney’s presentation of the State’s case offering evidence that Merlin Finn had been the head of a crime organization affiliated with the Russian Mafia.
Say what?
I scanned the rest of the document, but there wasn’t any specific reference to Wolfline Contracting or the Tolbonov brothers. It made sense, though, didn’t it? White supremacists and Russians working together?
I continued to scan without really knowing what I was looking for. I read through the prosecution’s case. It was open and shut. Someone had tipped the cops off that two men were buried in shallow graves on Finn’s backwoods property. When the bodies were recovered, Finn’s DNA was all over them. They found a torture chamber in his basement complete with the victims’ DNA. The coroner concluded that the two men had been tortured and shot.
Open and shut.
Judge Niles Preston handed Merlin Finn two consecutive life sentences without hope of parole.
In one of the news stories, there was a photograph of a woman identified as Bristol Finn, wife of the man on trial for murder. The image was black and white, and the resolution was grainy. She appeared to be in her late thirties, had hair down to the back of her neck, and a hard look on her face.
Pissed off at being photographed? At being married to a killer?
I wrote down the woman’s name and then looked up her address. Was there a chance that she knew where Finn was?
I plugged my thumb drive into the computer and brought up the notebook Betsy Caviness had sent me. Among the entries that made no sense to me was one that referred to a town called Brockton, where the bodies had been found. I clicked through the pages until I found what I was looking for.
April 9, noon, drop pkg, MF, #1 Oak Hill Rd, Brockton
I looked up ownership of the property in Brockton. It was in Bristol’s name but there was an addendum that said there was a sale pending.
Merlin must have made certain that the property was in his wife’s name in case he was ever arrested. He knew that he would most certainly have lost the property if he ever went to prison.
Always plan ahead.
The address was easy to find, but I couldn’t find a phone number, email address, or any kind of social media presence. The only item on the internet pertaining to Bristol Finn was that she attended her husband’s trial.
That entry about dropping a package off for MF appeared nearly every week, for three months, until early June, when Merlin Finn was arrested for a double murder. Then the entries stopped.
Before I got around to hammering out the follow-up piece about the Groward Bay homicides, I wandered over to the circulation department where I knew there was most likely a fresh pot of coffee brewing, mulling over what my next move should be. I made sure that Lorraine saw me as I left the newsroom.
Taking my time, I got back to my desk with my cup of steaming caffeine and put the story together, sending it to Lorraine’s queue. Taking a last gulp of coffee, I stood up and stretched. Without looking at my new editor, I put on my coat and started toward the back door of the building.
“Genie.”
Christ, now what?
I turned. “Lorraine?”
“Where you headed?”
I bit my lip and answered. “I found the address of Merlin Finn’s wife. I thought I’d pay her a visit.”
She nodded slightly. “I need for you to get into the habit of letting me know where you are at all times.”
I felt my face flush with anger. Taking a deep breath, I offered, “Sure. Just so you know, she lives in Brockton. That’s about forty-five minutes from here.”
Lorraine frowned. “This isn’t something you can do over the phone?”
I wasn’t used to being second-guessed. “I can’t find a number for her.”
I watched as the gears in her head spun, processing, thinking about how far she wanted to push me. “See you when you get back.”
My anger burned even out in the biting cold of the parking lot.
Lorraine Moretti and I were not going to be a good fit.
* * *
Ten minutes into the trip, driving past stores and shops decorated with Christmas lights and wreaths and houses with inflatable snowmen and reindeer on their front lawns, I got a call from Mike Dillon. “Mike, what’s up?”
“We caught a break on the Jane Doe.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Her name’s Abigail Tillis, thirty-nine years old, lives in Manhattan. She’s a private detective.”
I was just getting ready to hop on the Merritt Parkway and then onto Route 7 North. “How did you find out who she is?”
“One of her associates in New York read your story online about the double homicide at Groward Bay. He told us that he drove up to Sheffield to identify the body. He said he knew Miss Tillis had come to Connecticut to meet with Niles Preston. He put two and two together. It looks like she was in the wrong place at the worst possible time.”
“Did this guy say why she’d come to Sheffield to talk with Preston?”
Mike hesitated, as if he were thinking about something. “He claims he didn’t know. But he did tell me who she was working for.”
“Who?”
“The Friends of Lydia.”
I felt like I’d just gotten a tiny electrical shock. “What’s this guy’s name?”
“John Stillwater.”
It was the second time I’d heard his name in less than three hours.
I pictured him in my mind. He was in his early forties, tall, about six feet and he weighed in at about two ten. John Stillwater was clean-shaven, had a strong jaw, and a pleasant smile. The lines at the corners of his blue eyes and the sides of his mouth gave him character. The last time I saw him, his full head of brown hair fell boyishly over his ears and the back of his collar. I guessed that he’d been about two weeks overdue for a trim. The square black-rimmed glasses he wore gave me the impression that he was both intelligent and vulnerable.
The despicable Valentin Tolbonov had hinted that John had once been a New York cop but was kicked off the force. I never had a chance to ask John about that.
How are the Friends of Lydia associated with Judge Niles Preston? Did they suspect that he was dirty?
“Did he say if he was heading back to New York?”
“He told me that he’d contact next of kin for Miss Tillis. He also said he’d be in town for another day or so before he went back to the city.”
“But he didn’t say why Abigail Tillis was with Judge Preston?”
Mike repeated, “He claimed that he didn’t know.”
I’ll bet that’s a big fat lie.
* * *
Brockton is about halfway between the Long Island coastline and the Massachusetts border. The town’s not much more than a few stoplights, a Baptist church, a Stop-n-Shop grocery store, a few retailers along the single main street, and a couple of restaurants. The farther away from the coast, the more the terrain became rolling, wooded hills. Much farther north and I would have been driving through the foothills of the Berkshires.
I used the GPS in my phone to find Oak Hill Road. Exiting on Route 7, it took me another ten minutes to find the turnoff I was looking for. The address wouldn’t be difficult to find. The road was rutted dirt and gravel up the side of a steep hill, thick forest on either side.
The only house on Oak Hill Road was Bristol’s. I figured I’d come to the end of the line when I approached an old entrance gate with a metal sign that shouted in red letters against a field of white: NO TRESPASSING.
I stopped the car, turned off the engine, and got out. Zipping up the front of my parka, I stepped up to the gate. Glancing left and right, I saw fencing with multiple warning signs saying, “Danger. Electrified.”
So climbing over is out of the question.
Then I noticed a metal post, painted yellow, planted off to one side of the gate. It was topped with a closed-circuit camera, and attached were a keypad and a call box. I pressed the red button on a metal box about the size of a cellphone.
After a few moments, a male, disembodied voice crackled to life. “What is it?”
“I’d like to meet with Bristol Finn, please.”
“Who are you?”
“Geneva Chase. I’m with the Sheffield Post.”
I heard the man snort. “No reporters.”
“I told you who I am. Who are you?”
“None of your damned business, that’s who I am.”
I took another look at the electrified fence. I was starting to think I’d just wasted forty-five minutes of my time driving up there. “Look, I’m working on a story about Merlin Finn. Do you know where he is?”
The call box was silent.
I tried again. “I’m going to be writing a piece whether you talk to me or not. I’d much rather get it right rather than wrong.”
Or not at all.
The man’s voice was replaced by a woman’s. “Have they found Merlin yet?”
“Not yet,” I answered.
There were a few moments of silence. “Can you do the story without using our names?”
“If that’s what you want.”
Without another word, I heard a loud click and the gate started to slide to the side with a humming noise.
I guess this is my invitation.
Chapter Ten
The road to the house was another hardscrabble half mile up the hill. The woods on either side of the dirt path were thick and dark. The clouds overhead were the color of painful bruises, and I had no doubt they were pregnant with snow. I dearly didn’t want to get caught on this road during a snowstorm.
At the very end of Oak Hill Road, the imposing, two-story, fieldstone house came into view. The shingled roof was as gray as the sky; the shutters and the doors were painted red. The building was fronted by a rustic wooden porch and railing.
This huge house in the woods should have struck me as serene and peaceful.
But the man standing on the porch, glaring at me as I drove up, was jarringly out of place. He cradled an AR-15 in his arms.
Parking my car behind a mud-covered Jeep Cherokee, I got out, zipped up my coat again, hung my bag over my shoulder, and closed the car door. Standing next to the Sebring, I wondered what I should do next. Should I wait for a signal to advance? Should I go ahead and climb the steps to the porch?
> There was a third choice. I simply stood there and waved my hand at the man.
He was dressed in a camouflage coat, blue jeans, and black work boots. The hands holding the semiautomatic weapon were protected from the cold by black leather gloves. He stared at me from behind mirrored sunglasses. He was somewhere in his thirties, his black hair was buzzed military short against his scalp, his face was clean-shaven, and his lips were compressed into a near snarl.
He motioned me to climb the steps. Once I’d ascended to the porch, he slung the gun on his shoulder. His voice was low and steady as he reached out. “I need to see your bag.”
I stepped back.
“If I don’t check your bag, you’ll have to leave.”
I took it from my shoulder and handed it to him. He opened it and poked around with his gloved hand. The man gave it back and said, “I need to pat you down.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded.
I placed my bag on the wooden floor of the porch, spread my stance, and lifted my arms. I was pleasantly surprised by the professional manner with which he checked to see if I was carrying a weapon. I would have bet money that he’d take the opportunity to grope something, but he didn’t. When he was finished, he stepped to the edge of the railing and looked up at the sky. Shaking his head, he said, “Okay, let’s go inside.”
The interior of the house was a glorified log cabin—wood grain walls, thick beams in the vaulted ceiling, hardwood floor. There was a fire flickering in the stone fireplace. Deer antlers hung over the mantel. Two fabric-covered couches and two easy chairs populated the living room. An Oriental throw rug lay in the middle of the floor, and in front of one of the couches stood an oak coffee table laden with magazines. I noted that one of them was Guns & Ammo.
I was mildly surprised to see an artificial Christmas tree, decorated and gaily lit, off to one side of the room. There were already some presents tucked away underneath.
A woman in her late thirties emerged from the doorway to the kitchen. She had long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She might have been pretty once. But that was many years ago. Her face was an unsmiling mask of resolution, and she had the air of toughness about her, made even more harsh by the lack of any makeup. Her green eyes were wary, suspicious, her mouth compressed, expressionless. She wore a turtleneck sweater and black jeans and came toward me carrying a steaming cup of coffee. She extended her hand. “I’m Bristol Finn.”