by Blake Pierce
She actually reached out to touch it, but then realized …
This is a crime scene.
Don’t touch anything.
But then she heard Crivaro speak from beside her …
“It’s OK to touch her, just slightly. It might trigger your instincts. That’s what you’re here for.”
As Riley touched the face, she felt what seemed almost like an electric jolt, then pinpricks of pain all over her body.
As she cringed from the pain, Crivaro said in a gentle, encouraging voice …
“That feeling you’re getting—you’re empathizing the victim, not the killer. That’s natural. I feel some of that myself right now. But you’re not likely to get much insight that way. You know the next step—get into the killer’s head. Take a few deep breaths. Close your eyes. Try to relax. Visualize what he did. Try to see it through his eyes. Engage all your senses.”
Riley breathed long and slowly, but it wasn’t so easy to relax.
After all, her task now was to fathom the unfathomable.
Keeping her eyes closed, she tried to imagine the killer going through these last steps—dragging the wrapped-up bundle across the shoulder of the road to this spot, hammering the large nail into the top of this post, unwrapping the blanket from the bundle, then hoisting it up and tying into place, and finally …
She paused as she continued to feel the cold flesh under her fingertips …
Maybe he touched her, like I’m touching her now.
The body had already been dead and drained of blood, so it had been cold like it was right now.
How did it make him feel to actually touch his horrible handiwork?
She felt as though the energy was draining from her body.
She sighed a deep, despairing sigh and said aloud to Crivaro …
“I feel like I did last time I tried this. Sheer exhaustion. Numbness. Maybe even … disappointment.”
Her eyes were still closed. She heard Crivaro say …
“Good. I think you’re probably right. Try to go back further, to when the victim was still alive and he was torturing her.”
Riley shivered and murmured, “Oh, Agent Crivaro, I don’t know if I can …”
Still speaking gently, Crivaro said, “You can do it, Riley. Try opening your eyes now.”
Riley opened her eyes and found herself staring at the bundle again.
She felt a renewed jolt at the sight of that dead, staring face bleached out in the glare from the halogen lights.
This was much different from when she’d been to the crime scene where Hope Nelson’s body had been found.
The intense light and her fingers on the flesh made this seem too, too real.
She spoke slowly …
“I think … he must have killed her in some place that he considered safe, somewhere out of the way, a lair that only he knew about.”
She studied the bundle for a moment, noting how the body seemed to have been tightly bound in duct tape before it had been wrapped in barbed wire.
She remembered something she’d read in the reports of the earlier murders.
She asked Crivaro, “The other victims had been subdued with chloroform, weren’t they?”
“That’s right,” Crivaro said. “It’s a good guess that this one was too.”
Riley moved her hand around, letting her fingers rest on some duct tape.
She said, “He couldn’t have bound her up with the tape after she woke up. He did it when she was still unconscious. But he had the barbed wire all ready, laid out and arranged under the body as he bound her up. And when she started to regain consciousness …”
Riley shuddered deeply …
“That was when he began to tie the barbed wire into place. And he was vividly aware of her terror and pain. And terror and pain … that was what this was all about for him. He got tremendous satisfaction from the woman’s suffering. And yet …”
She paused for a moment, then said …
“It wasn’t sadism … exactly. Not really an act of cruelty. Well, it was cruel in its way, but it wasn’t … gloating or malicious. I know that doesn’t make sense …”
“Go on,” Crivaro said.
“It was all about his pain, not his victims’ pain. I …”
She felt on the verge of understanding something truly terrible about the killer.
But then her feelings began to ebb, and she felt her whole body slacken.
“I’m losing it,” she said to Crivaro. “I’m not getting anything else.”
Crivaro touched her on the shoulder and said, “That’s OK. You did good. It’s a good start. We can work with those impressions. We can build on them. Come on, let’s go talk to the police chief.”
She rose unsteadily to her feet. As she and Crivaro approached the police chief, Riley glanced back at the bundle and remembered what Crivaro had said barbed wire was sometimes called …
“The devil’s rope.”
Those words seemed horribly appropriate.
Something dawned on her as she remembered that empty numbness she felt sure the killer had felt as he left his victim here …
He’s not done yet.
The killer wouldn’t stop killing until the entire experience satisfied him from beginning to end …
And that’s never going to happen.
Never.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Riley was aware that Chief MacNerland was gawking at her as she and Agent Crivaro walked toward him.
She realized …
What I was doing just now must have looked pretty strange.
But then, it couldn’t have looked any stranger than it had felt. In fact, it had felt worse than strange. It had been horrifying.
Riley wondered, could she ever get used to trying to find her way into the mind of a murderous monster?
Did she want to get used to it? How deep into that darkness would her strange talent take her?
Crivaro asked Chief MacNerland …
“What do you know about how Anna Park was abducted?”
“We’ve got at least some idea,” MacNerland said. “She was teaching a class at the community college last night. A while after the class was over, a local man came across Anna’s car, abandoned right near the school. The driver’s door was open and the motor was still running and the headlights were on. Apparently she was abducted when she came out from her last class and was starting to go home. Whoever took her must have gotten her to stop the car and get out of it. The guy who found the car called us right away.”
MacNerland shook his head and added …
“I knew right then that she was in serious trouble. I was just hoping it wasn’t … this.”
Crivaro asked, “Were there any witnesses to the abduction itself?”
“No,” MacNerland said. “But several of Anna’s students came out of the building with her. They walked her to her car, then headed off in a different direction. We’ve already rounded up the students, and we’ve been interviewing them at the station.”
“I’d like to talk to some of them too,” Crivaro said.
“Be my guest,” MacNerland said. “Several of them have gone home already, but I think three or four of them are still at the station. I’ll take you right there.”
As MacNerland drove them into town, Riley saw that Wynnewood was larger than Dighton. It was more like Lanton, the Virginia town where she had gone to college. Still, Wynnewood was very much a typical Appalachian small town, and its streets seemed almost eerily peaceful and quiet at this time of night.
But Riley was sure that the town wasn’t nearly as tranquil as it looked right now. Word must have gotten out about Anna Park’s disappearance, and then about her murder. Behind closed doors, the citizens of Wynnewood were surely trembling with fear.
When they got to the police station, Chief MacNerland led them into a small conference room. The four students who hadn’t gone home yet were sitting at a table being interviewed by a cop who was taking notes.
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Riley and Crivaro sat down at the table, and MacNerland introduced them to the students. Riley was a bit surprised at the range of their ages and backgrounds. But she reminded herself that the school was a community college. People of different types and ages went there for different reasons and with different expectations.
The youngest, Jane Hunter, had graduated a year ago from the local high school. She was trying to get course credits to help her continue her college education elsewhere—in Glenville, maybe.
Then there were Rudy and Lark Chesterfield, a couple in their fifties. They were retired “empty nesters,” they said, and they enjoyed doing a variety of things together, from playing bridge to taking ballroom dance classes. Anna had been teaching a class in romantic poetry, which they thought would be fun to study together.
“And we were right,” Lark added. “Anna was such a wonderful teacher.”
Rudy shook his head sadly and said, “She had so much to offer. What happened to her was … so horrible.”
The last student was a convenience store manager in his thirties named Fred Combes. He seemed to be especially distraught.
“This is my fault,” he said. “I should have insisted that she join us after class. Or I should have stayed there until she drove away.”
Jane touched Fred gently on the hand and said, “How can you say that? This wasn’t your fault. This wasn’t any of our fault.”
Then turning to Riley and Crivaro, Jane explained, “After class, we asked Anna to come to the local bar, so we could keep talking about the poetry of John Keats. We were all very excited about what she’d been teaching us about him. She thanked us for the invitation, but she said she wanted to drive on home.”
Fred seemed close to tears now.
He said, “She wanted to go home and write, she said. That was her ambition. She wanted to be a writer. She’d taken the job at Wynnewood Community College to support herself while she wrote. She liked Wynnewood, she said, because life was so peaceful here, and she could really devote her spare time to writing.”
In a choked voice he added …
“I should have insisted. I shouldn’t have let her drive home alone.”
At first Riley was a bit startled by Fred’s seemingly irrational sense of guilt. But as he kept talking, it dawned on her …
He was in love with Anna.
He’d taken the class just to be close to her.
And now this terrible thing had happened to her.
Riley felt a stab of sympathy for him.
Then Lark Chesterfield began to murmur softly …
“When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teaming brain …”
Her husband joined in and they kept reciting in unison …
“Before high-piléd books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain …”
The couple’s voices faded, and then Fred Combes continued alone …
“And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more …”
This was too much for poor Fred. He broke down and sobbed uncontrollably. Jane put her arm around him and added in a gentle voice …
“… on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.”
Fred kept on crying, and Lark and Rudy both had to wipe away their tears as well.
Riley and Crivaro looked at each other with surprise, not sure what had just happened.
Still comforting Fred, Jane said to Riley and Crivaro …
“Anna was teaching us that poem in class that night. It’s a sonnet by John Keats, and it’s about how he was afraid of dying young, before he’d done all the writing that he thought was in him. He had good reason to be afraid. He died really young.”
Composing herself a little, Lark added …
“Anna cried when she read that poem to us. She’d recently turned 25, she said—the same age Keats was when he died. She, too, had ‘fears that she might cease to be’ before she got to do everything she wanted to do in life—especially all that she wanted to write. But she felt safe here in Wynnewood—‘on the shore of the wide world,’ as she put it. And she felt so, so grateful to have such a nice, peaceful place to live.”
Riley felt a lump form in her throat.
Don’t cry, she told herself.
She knew that would be completely unprofessional. But keeping her emotions to herself wasn’t easy right now. She remembered Chief MacNerland saying about Anna …
“She was one of our most popular teachers, students just loved her.”
Now Riley could see just how true that was. She could also understand why. Anna Park had brought her most personal thoughts and feelings to her work. She’d inspired all four of these students so deeply, they’d memorized a sonnet just because of how much it had meant to her.
Riley wondered …
Did I ever have a teacher who inspired me like that?
She quickly realized that she once had. That teacher had been a psychology professor back at Lanton, Brant Hayman. But Hayman had turned out to be a murderous monster who had almost killed Riley. In fact, she was due to be a witness at his murder trial the day after tomorrow.
Riley felt sure that Anna Park hadn’t been anything like Hayman. She hadn’t hidden any inner evil, any need to manipulate and murder those around her.
She’d been a good, generous, and brilliant woman who had died much too young.
Riley’s sorrow was starting to turn to anger.
She didn’t deserve this, she thought.
These people don’t deserve this.
It was a horrible injustice that Anna Park had been snatched so brutally out of their lives. Nobody should have to face that. Not a little child losing a parent and not an adult losing someone they valued.
Riley found herself brooding silently as Agent Crivaro kept asking the group questions, trying to determine whether any of them had seen or heard anything that might serve as a clue about Anna’s murder. It quickly became apparent that they hadn’t. Agent Crivaro thanked the four people, and Chief MacNerland sent them home.
Chief MacNerland called a local motel and reserved two rooms for Riley and Crivaro. Then he lent them a car so they could drive there and get some sleep. It would be dawn soon enough.
Riley and Crivaro didn’t say a word to each other during the short drive to the motel. They checked in at the front desk, then headed back outside and started toward their rooms.
Crivaro called out and stopped Riley …
“Wait. We’ve got to talk a minute.”
Riley turned and looked at him.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You’re angry,” Crivaro said, walking toward her again.
Riley hadn’t realized how much she was showing her anger. Not that she thought it mattered.
In a tense voice she said, “Yeah, I’m mad as hell. A kind and caring young woman got killed, leaving some really good people to grieve. They’ll probably never get over losing her—especially poor Fred, who was obviously in love with her and thinks it was all his fault. Sure, I’m angry about it. So what?”
Crivaro shrugged slightly and said, “So—get over it.”
Riley was truly surprised now.
She said, “Isn’t it good to get angry at times like this? Isn’t getting angry part of our jobs, part of what drives us?”
Crivaro smiled knowingly, as if reflecting on long personal experience.
He said, “No, it doesn’t do you a damn bit of good, believe me. It’s human. It’s natural. At times like now, you’re going to feel angry. I feel angry. But when we get up in the morning, we’d better be over it, or else neither one of us will be worth a damn as detectives.”
“I don’t understand,” Riley said.
Crivaro shuffled his feet and said, “The way I look at it, anger’s like sneezing. Sometimes you can’t h
elp sneezing. Sometimes you’ve got to sneeze and get it out of your system. But it’s stupid to think there’s anything righteous or good about a sneeze, and it’s the same with anger. It’ll just cloud your judgment, stop you from thinking straight.”
Crivaro patted Riley on the shoulder and added …
“So go in your room, and scream into your pillow, or pound on the floor if you have to. But get it out of your system. Get done with it.”
Without another word, Crivaro walked to his own room and went on inside.
Riley went into her room and realized she was hyperventilating and shaking all over from sheer rage.
She remembered what Crivaro had just said …
“Get over it.”
She now knew he was right. Feeling this way might be natural, but it sure wasn’t helpful. But what was she going to do about it? She doubted that screaming into a pillow and pounding on the floor would do any good.
But she knew she had to do something.
She collapsed on the bed, and before she knew it, a torrent of uncontrollable emotion poured over, and she was sobbing her heart out.
That’s it, she thought as she wept.
That’s what I need.
She cried and cried for long minutes, until she was too exhausted to feel much of anything except a numb, tired kind of sadness. Then she took a shower and got ready to go to bed.
When she climbed under the covers, she heard her phone buzzing on the nightstand.
She picked up her phone and saw that the call was from Ryan.
Strangely, she simply didn’t care.
Ever since the ugly scene at their apartment last night, she’d been desperately anxious to hear from, or to call him, to try to straighten things out between them.
But right now, at this moment, she didn’t care if she saw him or heard his voice ever again.
All she wanted was to catch the fiend who had killed those three women in such a hideous way.
She ignored the buzzing phone and rolled over and went to sleep.
*
Morning light was peeking through the curtains when Riley was awakened by a sharp knock at the motel room door.