With hurried steps, he rushed out from under the bridge. His mind raced for a rational explanation. In the open air, his head whipped around searching for signs of an earthquake, even though tremors were uncommon for the area. This side of the field was just as barren as the other and there wasn’t even a tree to use as a reference.
But then he saw it: a freight train was heading out of town toward him. It was just coming out of the big, wide turn before the bridge. It towed so many cars, Denton couldn’t even guess at the number. He watched it start to climb the slope up to the bridge, as the shuddering in the ground grew. There was nothing unusual about it. At least six of them must pass by here every day.
Why would someone choose to live here, he asked himself?
With his eyes still trained on the locomotive, he pulled his handkerchief from his back pocket. Linda had given him a box of monogrammed hankies one Christmas and he always kept one on him. They were almost never used. Mostly they went from the pocket to the wash and back again. But he was glad to have one with him.
He wiped off the hand that had touched the wall, as his gaze traced the track back to Bexhill. The rail line sat on the Western edge of town. He had only been by that way once, back when it seemed important to learn every part of his new home. It was the farmers’ end of town. Beyond it were the fields and dairy farms. There wasn’t much there, as he recalled: some cheap houses; a warehouse or two; and on Federal Street, a few stores. He remembered the controversy a few years back when a big supermarket chain opened up a new branch around there.
The town was farther away than the water treatment plant, but perhaps it was a more likely direction to approach the bridge from. Walking along the tracks would be an easier way to get out there, except they were fenced off. Still, there might be holes here and there, and people can climb. He scanned the field, and his eyes stopped on a depression in the grass beyond the bare earth and gravel surrounding the bridge.
Once he was closer, he was able to tell it was a trampled path. His eyes couldn’t follow the trail very far, but he’d bet anything it led straight to town. Where else could it go?
Denton went back to Reynolds’s camp. Underneath the bridge, the noise was unbearable, as freight cars continued to rumble overhead. The plastic tarp was still flying in the breeze, but could no longer be heard. He decided he was done. There were too few possessions left, and it was far too contaminated by other people to make any type of assessment. He took one last look at the wall and headed back to the car.
Crossing the field, he spotted a can of spray-paint lying in the weeds. There was a yellow smudge on its side. On a childish whim, he kicked it. The can bounced along the grass, then rolled down the bank and into the river.
Only once it was in the water did he wonder why a homeless man would have spray-paint. Probably it was just so he could paint the eights. Like the other victim’s, he must have been compelled to do it and found the means somewhere. There were probably cans scattered about the bridge, dropped by kids after they left their mark just like the one he had kicked. It would explain the smaller eights, all done in random colors—the dregs of discarded cans. But the large one would have required more. At least a full can, maybe even two or three. He must have had to buy it somewhere. It was the explanation that made the most sense. But where?
Back in the comfort of his Mercedes, Denton turned up the heat and rubbed his hands to get the aching chill out of his fingers. When warmth began to return to them, he searched his GPS for the stores closest to his location. He set the first one on the results list as his destination and drove straight to Federal Street.
The inside of the new Food Fair looked identical to the one on the other side of town and the one at the Elmwood Mall. He had no idea how popular it was, but on a Monday afternoon, it was close to deserted. Passing through the seasonal section, he saw an older man restocking wrapping paper among the artificial trees.
He got three full steps past him before turning back and asking, “Excuse me, do you sell spray-paint?”
The clerk scratched the back of his head and looked out the large front window, but eventually said, “No sir, we don’t. You should try the farm supply store down the street.”
Denton raised an eyebrow, but before he could say anything, the man said, “Baye’s Feed and Supply…been here almost forever. They carry all sorts of things. They’ll fix you up.”
“Baye’s,” Denton repeated.
As he left, he chewed on his lip trying to figure out why that name sounded so familiar.
Chapter 8
Two Years Ago
DENTON LAY AWAKE NEXT TO LINDA, listening to drops of icy rain clicking against the bedroom window. The alarm clock’s digital display read 4:22.
The missing girl plagued his thoughts. He was no closer to finding her or the mysterious Mr. 8. Ever since the day at the train bridge, it had been a frustrating waiting game, made all the worse by how tantalizing a lead Baye Feed and Supply seemed at the time.
After leaving the Food Fair, he went back to the car and reviewed his notes. He was determined to find out why Baye had seemed so familiar. Skimming the first page with his observations on the case, he came across it: the victim, Meyers, had driven a delivery truck for them. Although extremely tenuous, there might be a connection between the second and third victims.
He went straight there, but the trip did little more than confirm that they sold spray-paint, and Reynolds had been in there.
As Denton walked through the aisles, he managed to talk to a couple of clerks and an assistant manager. When he asked them about Meyers, they were all very sorry and still in shock that Garry had been murdered. None of them could think of anyone who would have wanted to harm him. They hadn’t noticed any change in their delivery man prior to his death, but they didn’t know him very well to begin with. Garry Meyers was usually on his route and very rarely at the store.
Only one of the clerks remembered Ray.
The older clerk adjusted some mason jars on a shelf, making sure they were perfectly in line. “Yeah, there was a bum who came in here a few times. About a month ago, I guess. Although, I thought his name was Callahan.”
“Do you know what he bought?”
“No idea. Why’re you asking? Is he causing problems in the stores around here?”
“No, he’s not in town anymore,” Denton said.
He returned home that night, dejected. He felt as if he were chasing ghosts.
His mood sank even deeper when Margery Biscamp appeared on the local news.
He first heard her name as they flashed a picture of her on the screen. It was a high school graduation photo of a smiling girl, with curly chestnut hair flowing out from under her white mortarboard.
Linda was half watching the small set on the counter, as she made dinner. Denton glanced up from the e-mails on his phone at the mention of the “missing woman.”
“Police are asking anyone with information on the whereabouts of Margery Biscamp to contact the Bexhill Crime Stoppers Hotline. She was last seen Friday afternoon on Milton campus near the Royal Street entrance.” The news anchor announced this without any trace of emotion before he cheerfully launched into some banter with the sport’s reporter about the Bruin’s upcoming game against L.A.
If Linda had been paying attention, she showed no sign, as she dumped a box of pasta in boiling water with one hand and stirred the sauce with her other.
On Tuesday morning, there had been an article about Margery Biscamp in the Bexhill Gazette. Denton learned a few more details from it. Everyone knew her as Maggie. She was originally from Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. And her distraught parents had driven to town to be there for the search.
Her father was quoted, pleading to whoever had taken her, to return his baby girl to him. Her mother said that they were praying for her safety.
Since then, Denton had kept a lookout for updates
. He scanned the websites of all of the local papers and TV stations obsessively, waiting for something new to come up about Maggie Biscamp.
None of the reports mentioned a van. He could only surmise that the police had been unable to get a description and it was no longer being pursued as a lead. Or perhaps they were keeping it out of the news, so the kidnapper wouldn’t know that they had that information.
He tried to talk to Bill—he had so much he needed to discuss with him—but his neighbor had started keeping erratic hours and was never home in the evenings. When he called the station, he was always told that Bill was not in the office. The dispatcher offered to transfer him to his voice-mail, but after leaving four messages, Denton gave up.
The rain continued its drumming against the window. Denton turned over to his other side and flipped his pillow. He could just make out Linda’s outline in the dark bedroom and could hear her breathing softly. At least she was still untroubled by these horrific events. He vowed he would keep it that way. But it was getting harder. Everyone in town now knew about the missing girl. How much longer before the talk of a serial killer would get out?
He tried to force himself to think of something else—anything else. He started walking his thoughts through the weekend getaway in June, when he and Linda drove to the coast.
He got as far as their first night at the bed-and-breakfast. It was a soothing memory, but his mind soon wandered, and then it was a different summer night—one from two years ago. He was sitting out on the Stahl’s back deck with Bill after dinner. Linda and Helen had gone in to escape the mosquitos and to have dessert. The men stayed outside drinking a rare single-malt Denton had brought over. Bill smoked a cigar. It was an expensive hand rolled Dominican, and it was cartoonishly large. Denton had refused the offer of one.
“Let me ask you something,” Bill said, after they had been alone for several minutes. “That stuff you do…could you profile a criminal using it?”
“Sure. I mean, in theory that would be one way to use the techniques.” Denton was a little hesitant. It was always the problem with his particular field of study: what really was the practical application of psychoanalyzing a person by their possessions? As more than one critic had pointed out, there was no therapeutic advantage to the approach. It was far more beneficial to analyze the patient in person. He had often resorted to defending his theories in peer journals by pointing to cases where direct interaction was not possible.
“Several of my doctoral students have studied the application of my methods to criminology.” At least two of them had, anyway. “Another potential use would be if you had a patient with extreme trauma, who is unable or unwilling to speak to their doctor. An analysis of the person’s home could then be used to give insight into their mental state prior to the traumatic event.”
This was his most often used defense: the hypothetical case of a man catatonic in a hospital bed, after suffering extreme psychological stress. But it was all theoretical. He had never actually used his methodology outside of an academic setting, and his critics never failed to pounce on that fact.
“No, I mean, could you profile a criminal?” Bill pointed at him with the stogie.
“Me? What do you have in mind?”
“Strange case.” Bill took a good draw off of his cigar. “Someone’s been going around mutilating cows. Not normally a big police matter. But it’s got the dairy farmers up in arms. And some of them have pull with the mayor.”
Bill rested the cigar in the ashtray and set his drink down. He leaned forward and in a quieter voice said, “Anyway, two of the farms hit are within city limits, so I’m involved. The perp acts at night. No witnesses. Kills the cows and takes parts—organs—away as trophies or something. This morning, we got a call from State Police. Rangers up on Mt. Nazareth found a shack filled with what looks like our missing cow parts. And there was also…” He stroked his chin with his thumb nail and paused as though he were searching for the right words. What he finally said was uncomfortably vague. “Other things.”
Bill leaned back and finished his scotch in one gulp. “State Forensics has been called to come in and look for fingerprints and DNA, but livestock isn’t high on their priority list. They might get to it by midweek, and then it’ll be weeks before we get any results back. In the meantime, this nut-job is still out there, and I’m taking heat from my lieutenant.”
He picked up his cigar and blew on the end to reignite the dying ember.
“When Forensics does finally show up, they’ll bag everything and stick it in an evidence locker. Right now it’s all just sitting there, just as the perp left it. I was wondering if you might take a look at it for us. See if you can come up with some insight, other than the fact he’s one sick son-of-a-bitch, that is.”
“Um, I can’t promise anything, but I’ll take a look.”
Even now, years later, he couldn’t fully understand why he’d agreed to it. Was it because it was a chance to finally prove his theory in real world conditions? Was it because it sounded exciting? Or was it because he was afraid to seem weak and inadequate in front of his friend?
The next morning, they parked at the Ranger’s Station and got in a State Police 4X4 and drove up to the shack with a trooper.
The shack had been built from scraps of wood. It was a chaotic assembly of junk heap odds and ends. There was a door laying horizontal, forming the base of one of the walls. Denton spotted an old-fashioned washboard fitting in like a puzzle piece higher up. The thing looked like a clubhouse built by children.
“You’ll want something to cover your mouth. The smell inside is pretty rank,” the state trooper said.
Out in the open air, the odor was unbelievably horrible; he couldn’t imagine how it could be worse inside. Denton wondered whether he had made a big mistake.
The trooper unlocked a padlock and held aside the police tape for him.
He proceeded alone. Bill stayed by the road leaning against the SUV. He called after him, “Just remember, look with your eyes not your hands.”
He took a deep breath and shielded his mouth and nose with a handkerchief clenched tightly in his fist, before opening the door.
It seemed somehow larger on the inside. It was dark. The only light came from the open doorway behind him and the little bit that managed to seep in through the cracks. He struggled to take in the details as his senses were assaulted. Even with his nose covered, the smell was overpowering. The heat was unbelievable; the dismembered cow organs were literally baking in the July weather. The drone of flies seemed louder than they had any right to be. The combined effect made his brain sluggish and he was slow to comprehend the things he saw.
He lasted about a minute in there, before he ran out, the breakfast he’d eaten earlier rising in his throat.
Staring at the bedroom ceiling, he remembered the humiliation he had felt in that moment. Even though it was hardly his fault. Most people would have been sick with the heat and the smell of rotting flesh.
Directly in front of the door was an altar. The centerpiece was a large, crude carving of a bull’s head. Several of the organs had been nailed to it. Each eye was bulbous and meaty, crawling with dozens of flies.
More organs lay on the floor. Some might have been placed there. Others had fallen, after rotting off of their hooks. There was a long length of intestine hanging from a ceiling beam.
As he thought about it, the intestines seemed to writhe and twist in his mind, until they formed a figure eight. The body parts—there were exactly eight of them—seemed to form two neat circles on the floor. The walls were covered in eights scrawled in blood.
At six thirty, the alarm rang, waking him up.
Chapter 9
The Holy Trinity
LINDA STOOD ON THE STEPS leading down to the den. “Are you going to have any breakfast?”
Denton looked up from his papers. “Yeah, in a bit.”
“Whatcha doing?”
“Just looking over some old notes. Last night, I had a new idea for a project I was working on awhile back.”
“Didn’t get too much sleep, I see?” She smoothed out some stray hairs above his ear, where strands of gray mixed with the dark brown.
He shrugged. “Just a little run down. I think I may be coming down with that cold that’s going around.”
“You better not be.” She let out a resigned laugh that bordered on being a sigh. “You’re such a hypochondriac.”
Denton didn’t like misleading her, but the last thing he wanted was to have to explain to her what was keeping him awake at night. He knew she’d be ready to believe that he was imagining yet another illness. Ever since the time he had thought he had come down with meningitis, Linda was convinced all of his ailments were in his head.
“Well, Gabriela’s going to be here any minute,” she said, letting him know she had to leave.
During good weather, Linda rode her bike to work. In the rain and during the winter, she got a ride in with Gabriela, who lived down the street and worked at the Savings & Loan.
“Don’t get too distracted. You don’t want to be late for class.” Thursdays he had a nine o’clock lecture.
“I won’t,” he said. Then he kissed her goodbye.
It was the same as every morning: two small pecks followed by one long kiss, then two more pecks. It was a routine—their routine. They had done it so many times, it was taken for granted, but it was unimaginable that they would part without those five tender kisses.
When she was gone, and he’d heard the front door close, he went back to the notes he’d made about the shack in the woods.
On the ride back to the Ranger’s Station, he had scrawled them down in the book, while he had sat in the back seat with the window open, getting fresh air. Going over the scribbles, Denton couldn’t remember if they were written in such a trembling scrawl because the dirt road had been bumpy or because his hands had been shaking.
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