by Blake Pierce
“What?”
“How old are those shoes?”
“I don’t know. A year or so.”
“Is that the kind of shoe you used to wear when you went climbing?”
“No. Apparently, you know jack shit about climbing. These are not good shoes for that. I use these for hiking.”
“You can do that on your bad knee?” Timbrook asked.
“Yes. The doctors have been on me to exercise it more.”
“What exactly caused your accident?” Mackenzie asked.
Lutz shook her head, fuming now. “I’m not answering any more of your questions. Not until I get a lawyer in here.”
“Fine. What I do need from you is one of your shoes.”
“Why are you so fucking obsessed with my shoes?” Lutz was livid now. Her eyes were wide and she was trembling with rage. Mackenzie thought she might be getting a glimpse of the version of Lutz that had made so many appearances in bars.
“We need to compare them with prints found at a crime scene.”
Lutz actually laughed at this, slapping her cuffed hands on the table in front of her. She immediately started to kick off her shoes under the table, still laughing the entire time. Using her right foot, she literally kicked one of the shoes out to them, striking Timbrook on the leg. Timbrook picked it up and looked at the bottom. Her face went slack for a moment and she then showed it to Mackenzie.
It was a match.
Or, at least, it appeared to be. Even the better of the two prints they had to work with wasn’t completely clear. But there was more than enough visible to show that the bottoms of both shoes were pretty much identical.
Slowly, Timbrook walked over to Lutz. She knelt down directly beside the woman and did her best to lock eyes with her. “Ms. Lutz…when was the last time you were out for a hike?”
“Two days ago.”
In Mackenzie’s mind, another link fell into place. We got her, she thought.
“And where did you go hiking?” Timbrook asked.
Lutz shook her head and started to laugh again. This time, it was more like a cackle. Something about the sound of it caused Mackenzie’s guard to go up a bit. When she looked to the woman, it only made it worse. There was something in Lutz’s eyes that looked hazy and distant. It was a look she had seen a few times before in the faces of people that weren’t all there—people that had some sort of detachment from reality.
“Answer me, Ms. Lutz,” Timbrook said.
“Timbrook…”
But Mackenzie’s warning came about two seconds too late.
Mid-cackle, Lutz drove her head forward. A sick thud filled the room for a moment. Timbrook groaned out as she fell backward, grasping at her face. Lutz fell partially forward on the table, like a bored kid at school, howling and laughing all at once.
Mackenzie dashed for Timbrook while Ellington handled Lutz. Timbrook was getting back to her feet, using the wall for support. Her hand cupped the lower hand of her face but Mackenzie could already see the blood.
“Where the hell did that come from?” Timbrook breathed through her hand and the blood.
“Quiet,” Mackenzie instructed her. “You sit down and tilt your head back.”
Timbrook did exactly that as Mackenzie knelt down beside her. Meanwhile, Lutz was still laughing, now suppressed to giggles. Ellington had her on her feet and pressed against the far wall.
“Got a holding cell in this place?” he asked Timbrook.
“Take her out to Waverly or Petry. They’ll handle it.”
“No talking,” Mackenzie said as she slowly removed Timbrook’s hand.
The blood was coming from her nose. The slight skew along the lower bridge told her that Timbrook’s nose was broken.
“You dizzy?” Mackenzie asked.
Timbrook shook her head. “It’s broken, huh?”
“Yeah, she got you pretty good.”
“But we got her, too, right? It’s her…”
Mackenzie was hesitant to say anything at first. But then she saw the blood on Timbrook’s face and the sheet of paper with the photo of the shoe print from Devil’s Claw.
“Yeah,” she finally said. “I think it just might be. I think we got our killer.”
***
While Timbrook was taken to the hospital to get her nose tended to, Mackenzie and Ellington sat in the little conference room where she had been doing her best to help tie this case up for the last few days. Ellington still looked distracted and out of sorts. This bothered Mackenzie, but not more than the feeling that she and Timbrook may have just unknowingly crossed a line. And it was a line that she should have seen.
“What’s on your mind?” Ellington asked.
“Brittany Lutz’s medical records. We know she had a concussion. But I want to know how bad. I want to know if she could have suffered some other kind of brain-related trauma. There near the end, right before she headbutted Timbrook…”
“Yeah, I saw. And those laughs.”
“If she is the killer and it turns out that she’s got some sort of mental condition because of that accident, she’ll likely walk. And the local PD—and us, as well—could be in a lot of trouble.”
“You think it’s her?”
“It makes sense. I mean, the pieces all add up, right down to those shoe prints. This new question mark of whether or not she might have some sort of mental detachment makes it seem even more likely. But there’s something about it all that just sort of feels off. And I don’t know what it is.”
She grabbed the papers in front of her and looked at them. She then held up her phone, opening up a picture she had taken of Lutz’s shoe after she had been placed in the holding cell. The pattern was the same, as was the size and placement of the New Balance logo, half of which was partially cut off in the print. After much studying and staring, that much was clear. She studied the edges right where the heel and arch met. There could be some discrepancy there, but it was too hard to tell because of the dragging of the foot.
Dragging because she was favoring that side, she thought. Even the impact of the footprint tells you it was Lutz. Why are you making this harder than it has to be?
She knew why. It was because there was something that felt wrong about it all. And even though she did not yet know what it was, it was a feeling that had proven useful in the past.
“Hey, Mac?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you. I’m sorry if I screwed things up by coming out here to be with you. In hindsight, it wasn’t the best call. I think I felt it on the plane over here. But this whole being apart thing is new to me, too. And it’s harder now that we have a kid, you know?”
He reached out across the table for her hand. She let him take it. She had not even stopped to consider how her going back to work might affect him—especially on a case that he was not involved in.
“I miss him,” Ellington said. “After just a day, I miss him. Is that nuts?”
“No. I do, too. So much that it hurts.”
She gave his hand a squeeze and got to her feet. She looked out the window and saw dusk approaching. “Come on,” she said. “I want to grab a bite to eat and check in on Timbrook.”
As they got to their feet and started for the door, Sheriff Duncan stepped into the frame. He looked as if he were in a hurry, his face a little red and his eyes bewildered. But when he looked at Mackenzie, he smiled.
“Damn good work, Agent White. I do apologize if I seemed stubborn at the start.”
“Hey, what matters is that it looks like we got our killer.”
“Timbrook’s broken nose seems worth the sacrifice, huh?”
She bit back the first comment that came to mind. Instead, she said: “Timbrook is an amazing officer. Her insights are sharp and, at the risk of seeming arrogant, she’s taking a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle grief from most of the men here. Let her do her thing, Sheriff. She’s going to do some great things if you let her.”
Duncan looked to the floor, nodded, and then h
urried on his way.
“You want to get out of here?” Ellington said.
“Yeah, let’s do that. Dinner, Timbrook, and then home. To Kevin.”
“Well, I already checked on flights out of here. The soonest one without several connecting flights isn’t until eight o’clock in the morning.”
She surprised herself when she leaned over and kissed him. It was a brief but passionate one and in it, she was reminded of how warm he was—of how caring of a man he could be. And because of that, it almost made sense that he had come out here to her. She wondered if she had been too hard on him.
“Then I guess we’ll have to spend the night in my motel room.”
“That sounds kind of great.”
They left the conference room and headed for the exit, hand in hand. But even then, Mackenzie was not able to consider the case closed or to tell herself she had finished a job well done. Something nagged at her in the back of her mind, something that made her wonder if the partially crippled woman in the holding cell would even be capable of killing.
That nagging feeling followed her out into the late afternoon and did not let go.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Crickets and some kind of tree frog was all he could hear. His own footsteps seemed to get drowned out by his own anticipation—his own desires. As he stepped up to the base of the rock wall, he felt like he might very well be the only person on the planet. He reached out and touched the rock. It was warm under his hand, despite the cooler temperature of the night.
He realized that this was risky. Less than twenty hours ago, the police had been here, looking down at the body of Charles Rudeke. The body, of course, had been removed, but there were still some slight signs of his body having been there, as well as the passing feet of the police.
He still could not believe he was a murderer. More than that, he could not believe how natural it felt. It had been hard the first time—cutting Mandy Yorke’s line and then watching her fall. At least then he had not touched anyone. He had only snipped a line and then hid to watch the results.
But with Bryce Evans and then Charlie Rudeke, it had been different. He’d been more intentional. He had touched them, had made it a more deeply connected event. Their deaths had not been as passive as cutting a rope. He had laid hands on them. He had killed them, plain and simple.
And it had felt good. It still felt good. He wasn’t sure why. He honestly wasn’t even sure why he was doing these things in the first place.
At first, he’d thought it was envy. But it was something more, something he could not put a name to. He did not feel that these people deserved to die. They had done nothing to him, after all. But they had to die. If he was ever going to move on with his life and get over his own fears, he knew he’d have to do some drastic things.
The alarming thing was that now, even after having killed three people, the act of murder did not feel drastic to him.
He looked up the face of the rock wall. The moonlight made it look like some sort of massive tomb or gravestone. He smiled, placing his hands in a slight crevasse and remembering what it had been like not too long ago—climbing, off of the ground and in the air with life and death balance above and below him. He looked up and imagine himself climbing. He imagined himself up there with no ropes, no harness. Just his hands, his heart, his bravery.
But even the thought sent a spike of fear through him. He shuddered. It made him feel weak and insignificant. It made him feel an anger that he had never quite learned how to express properly.
But he was learning. And soon, he’d find a way around it.
Even if it took a fourth, fifth, or sixth murder, he’d rule over his fear and find a way to start climbing again.
And he thought he knew exactly where to continue.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
By the time Mackenzie and Ellington showed up at the hospital, Timbrook was already checking out. She was signing the last of her paperwork on the visitor side of a row of glass partitions in the central lobby when the agents found her. She was signing with one hand and holding an ice pack to her nose with the other. She gave a half-hearted smile when she saw them approaching.
“What’s the verdict?” Mackenzie asked.
Timbrook slid the paperwork over to a woman behind a glass partition, turned to them, and sighed. “She broke it. Luckily, it won’t require surgery. The docs realigned it and I just need to keep it iced. I won’t lie, though…it hurts like a bitch.”
“Do you need a ride home?”
“No.” She then grinned sheepishly and added: “Tyler is on his way to pick me up.”
“We’ll get out of your hair, then,” Mackenzie said.
“You’re fine. Look…I’m glad you came by. I wanted you to know how much of a pleasure it was to work with you these last few days.”
“The pleasure was all mine.”
“Thanks for the sentiment, but I know you’re dealing with a lot back home. I hope I was of some help in wrapping this case.”
“You were. And I made no secret about how well you did. I might have put a little something in Duncan’s ear.”
“Are you by any chance a hugger?”
Mackenzie shrugged while Ellington chuckled. “She is not much of a hugger.”
“But I make exceptions,” Mackenzie said. She then stepped in and gave Timbrook a brief, friendly hug. “Keep up the good work, Sergeant Timbrook.”
They broke the hug and Mackenzie realized that she was more eager than ever to get back home. When she thought of Kevin with Ellington’s mother she did get upset, but she knew she needed to let that go for now. She was learning that she and Ellington had a lot of things to work on now that they were parents.
As if on cue, she spotted a child as she and Ellington headed for the exit doors. It was a little girl, sitting next to her mother. The little girl was working on the craft of tying her shoes, along with the assistance of a tired-looking mother. The girl’s shoes featured one of the ponies from My Little Pony, both on the sides and on the bottom. It was an extremely tacky shoe, so tacky that for a moment, it was all Mackenzie could think about.
She focused on the sole of the girl’s shoe, complete with the slightly embossed face of a pony. It was unique-looking, that was for sure. But it also made her think of a rather un-unique shoe that she had been focusing on for the past several hours. Habitually, she started to glance around the waiting room, taking note of the shoes on everyone’s feet. Most wore sneakers, though there were a few Croc-style slip-ons and even one woman in a pair of high heels. But in terms of the sneakers, she was surprised to see how similar they all were. She saw familiar brands, including several pairs of New Balance, which of course brought Brittany Lutz’s shoes to mind.
“Mac, you okay?” Ellington asked.
“Yeah,” she answered as they reached the automatic doors and walked through them.
“I know that look. You’re not completely happy with the way this all turned out, are you?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You think grabbing dinner might help?”
She nodded, though her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking of shoes, but more importantly, she was thinking of how a woman with a permanently damaged knee might make it up and down the same trails that she herself had struggled with. She then considered the faded and dragged edges of the footprints they had been studying from the case and slowly, Mackenzie was able to place a name to that feeling that had been nagging her since placing Lutz in a holding cell.
That nagging feeling was doubt.
***
There was a tepid feeling in the air between them as they settled down into the hotel for the night. It was an unspoken agreement they could both feel—that there would be no sexual reconciliation between them. Typically, Mackenzie was the aggressor in the physical aspects of their relationship and though she was up for it physically, she could not get there emotionally. It was yet another clue that they had some things to work on.
&nbs
p; Mackenzie was not at all surprised that she found it difficult to fall asleep. While it felt incredibly good to have Ellington there after three nights without him, her mind was simply scattered everywhere else. She wondered how Kevin was doing with Ellington’s mother. She wondered how Sheriff Duncan and the rest of his force were handling the sudden arrest of Brittany Lutz as the primary suspect of the three recent murders.
But she was also thinking about shoes and the sort of mindset it took for someone to get a thrill out of climbing mountains. She felt that she could identify with it because, as her recent resurfaced memories were showing, she had once dabbled in it. And as she lay awake, staring into the darkness, she started to understand that her doubt came from that place. She felt that she was starting to misunderstand the mentality of climbers.
Once the pieces had all started to fall into place and the ending of the case looked to be right on the horizon, she had allowed herself to assume that the killer was likely striking out of jealousy or envy. She supposed that could be fundamentally true, but something about it did not seem to make sense. Climbing a mountain or a simple rock face—even the act of coming to the top of a climb and peering off of some high precipice like Devil’s Claw—wasn’t just about bravery and skill.
It also came down to adrenaline and an absence of fear that the majority to rational-thinking humans tended to cling to. It made her think that the killer might not have been killing out of jealousy at all. Maybe there was some other reason.
When she rolled over and saw that it was two oh-four in the morning, she realized that sleep might not even come at all. She’d been hoping to fall asleep quickly, to get back home as fast as possible and take Kevin up into her arms. But here she was, obsessing over a case that anyone else would likely have considered closed.
But she couldn’t get there yet. Truth be told, the more she thought about it, the more she started to think that Brittany Lutz did not deserve the holding cell she was currently in. If anything, she needed some sort of psychological help.