“Not possible,” Jax said. “Melissa Grant called us.”
“What do you mean ‘she called you’?”
“Two nights after we put the father in the jail, my office received a call from a blocked number. We believe it was her.”
“You believe.”
“We analyzed the recording. According to the software, it was not an exact voice match. But I’m telling you it was her. The caller knew things only Melissa Grant could have known.”
“For example?”
“A detailed account of what her father did to her mother and sister. Specifics we’ve not released anywhere.”
“Could be an accomplice.”
“Not in a murder suicide deal.”
“Why do you call it that?”
“It’s all in my interview with Spence Grant, the father.”
“And you think she’s been taken to the Coeur d’Alene wilderness?” Meyer said.
“The abductor told us where he was taking her.”
“You spoke to him?” I said.
“He got on the call after the girl. Said that we’d never find them, not in an eternity of searching.”
“He said that? Used ‘eternity’ in that context?” I asked him.
“Yeah. Exactly like that. Why?”
“It has a familiar ring.”
“The bastard even gave us his name.”
The warmth drained from my body. A name? Eternity? All I could think was Calypso. But it couldn’t be him. Not in this world.
“What was the name?”
“Annir,” Jax said.
A wave of relief washed over me.
“Does that name mean anything to you?” I said.
“Not a thing.”
“I know it,” Meyer said. “It’s from a poem in the Book of Ossian entitled Cath-Loda.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“What book?” Jax said.
“The Book of Ossian. A collection of poetic tales handed down through the Scottish ages. Annir was an evil presence. To quote:
“A fire that consumed of old. He poured death from his eyes along the striving fields. His joy was in the fall of men. Blood to him was a summer stream, that brings joy to the withered vales, from its own mossy rock.”
“Meyer has a bit of a photographic memory,” I said.
“I gather,” Jax said, unimpressed.
“He’s studied many of the ancient Scottish texts,” I said. “It can be useful.”
Meyer interjected, “Most of the lore was passed down by the spoken word. The poetry of Ossian is one of the only known written accounts.”
“Whatever the man’s name is,” Jax said, “we’re doing everything we can.”
“Good,” I said, anxious to change the subject. “When can I talk to Spence Grant?”
“You’re not talking to Grant,” Jax said. “Are you out of your mind?”
“You called me in.”
“You’ve been here less than an hour.”
“Like I said, you called me in.”
“And don’t make me sorry I did. This is my domain. Not the world according to Bobby Mac.”
“Message received,” I said. It was another of those times when it paid to back down. And it was his domain. His town, his department, his case.
“Look, I get you asking, I do. I’m just not convinced you interviewing the suspect is a good idea. We don’t want to contaminate the case. Besides, I’d have to clear it with the County Attorney.”
“Do me a favor then…just ask.”
“Fair enough,” Jax said. “Until then, I have the initial interview on DVD.”
~ ~ ~
The interview was beyond chilling. Spence Grant told the story of how he butchered his wife and youngest daughter with the banality of a man reciting back the grocery list to make sure he didn’t miss anything. I’ve talked to many murder suspects, and you learn quickly that nothing ought to be surprising. You give up trying to connect with the mind of someone capable of such brutality and unchecked evil. But Spence Grant was unlike any other I’d ever encountered. How could anyone be so matter-of-fact about the terrible acts he’d committed against those he ostensibly loved more than any other?
According to Grant, he used chloroform first on his sleeping family. Said he didn’t want them to wake up again. But the chloroform was not what killed them. The voice told Grant that each death had to be personal—that he was charged with this sacred duty and that the method was as important as the act itself.
The wife went first. Grant used a curved deboning knife to cut her throat. He vividly recounted what it felt like, sitting there on the bed as her lifeblood streamed from her body and pooled around his legs and buttocks. He said the warmth filled him with such love for her.
Next Grant murdered his youngest daughter, Millie. He said he held her in his lap and used the same knife he’d used to kill his wife. Said he sliced his little girl from her stomach to her chin—describing the act as would an adorning father telling the story of opening a present Christmas morning.
The most intriguing part of the interview came when Jax asked him why he spared his oldest daughter, Melissa.
“I had not planned to,” he said. “But I was informed there is still work for her before she joins the others.”
Grant said his original intent had been to murder all of them and then take his own life. He told my brother the voice stopped him after the first two murders; told him to spare his eldest for a bigger plan.
-CHAPTER SIX-
THE COEUR d’Alene National Forest is one of three parcels of land that make up the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. It is extremely rugged country, populated by evergreen hills, craggy mountains, grizzly bears, and over half the state’s surface water in lakes, rivers, streams, and tributaries. Truly one of the last places on earth you want to have to search for a person.
Or a body.
“Priest River?” I said to Jax in his office.
Meyer was cleaning up in the Men’s room.
“What?”
I pointed to a spot on the map in his office. “There’s a Priest River?”
“Just north of us.”
“And Saint Joe National Forest?”
“Yep.”
“Saints, priests…what is it with the land up here?”
“A lot of the French trappers and miners who settled this country were of Catholic descent. You should know that. It’s your heritage as much as it is mine.”
“Religion isn’t heritage,” I said. “It’s a personal choice.”
“Spoken like a true heathen.”
“Don’t give me that shit. I believe in God. That’s enough for me.”
“What if he doesn’t believe in you?”
I thought about that one for a moment.
“I’ve never been that sure he does.”
Jax pointed to my left leg.
“How’s that working for you? The new leg that is.”
The new leg. It was the most he’d said in ten years about my prosthetic, as if merely discussing it might bring the same misfortune down on him, too.
“It’s given my profession back to me,” I said.
“The department didn’t give you any grief?”
“You know, typical bureaucratic nonsense…but ultimately, I proved to them I could handle the job physically.”
“No more track star, though.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
“No, just saying. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Truth is I just received a new sprinter prosthetic last month. I’ve been training for a triathlon. Running the 400-meter again, actually.”
“Bullshit.”
“Before I left Denver, had my time down to sub sixty seconds.”
“Damn, Bobby. That’s great.”
The newest leg had really completed my rehabilitation. Coming back to the force—making Detective, returning to full action—that had been a huge accomplishment. But there was a time when my running
defined me. Basketball had always been something I was known for, but my days in track were the ones that stuck with me. My true love.
I ran the 400-meter and the anchor leg of the 1600-meter relay in college. Set a conference record of 47.2 seconds in the individual race that still stands today. In the years following college I nurtured the running into a distance and mountain trail regimen that had me hopeful to compete in the Iron Man triathlon in Hawaii one day before my fortieth birthday. Losing my left leg in the line of duty put an end to those dreams.
Until the Flex-Foot Cheetah. The Cheetah was designed by Össur, intended for use by both professional and recreational amputee sprinter athletes. South African Oscar Pitorius—“Blade Runner”; the fastest man on no legs—set the world Paralympic records in the 100, 200, and 400-meter running on a pair of Cheetahs.
“I’m really happy for you, Bobby. I hope you know that.”
“It’s made me feel whole again,” I told him. “When I lost the leg—those first few months—I thought it was over. I thought I was over.”
“I guess rumors of your demise were exaggerated?”
“Hell yes,” I said.
~ ~ ~
Amanda arrived that evening and I met her at the small, two-runway airport. She looked amazing, walking that austere walk of hers, gliding across the blacktop, closing the distance between us with poise and effortlessness. When she was closer I could see her baby bump. She noticed me staring and her mouth curled in a sardonic smile.
“Don’t say a word,” she said. “I’ll watch what I eat later on.”
“You look great.”
“Says you.”
I kissed her softly.
“May I?” I said, looking down at her stomach.
She nodded, and I placed my palm over our child.
“Don’t think this makes an honest woman of me,” she said.
“I know better,” I said, and kissed her again.
We drove to my hotel room and I made her dinner in the little kitchenette: sautéed pearl onions, baby potatoes, seared trout, and a pan of apple crisp. I retrieved an armload of split logs from the deck and we shared a sparkling apple cider basking in the warmth of a nice blaze in the wood-burning fireplace.
In the bedroom I slowly undressed her, running my palms against her alabaster skin, smooth as the surface of a polished stone. I pulled her nakedness against me and we molded together as one shape as we lowered to the pillow-top bed.
I kissed her red lips and she wrapped her arms around my back, drawing her nails softly across the span of my shoulders. Her breathing skipped and she sighed softly as I kissed the side of her neck, tugging on an ear lobe with my teeth.
The lovemaking fulfilled me, made me whole again. It was gentler this time, both of us wary of the new life growing within her.
Afterward, Amanda lying in my arms, we talked.
“You seemed tense when you called me last time,” she said.
“I thought you were dumping me.”
“I considered it,” she said, smiling.
“You’d have been better off. I’m a lug.”
“That’s what I love about you, Mac. That, and the fact you are such a fucking pushover.”
“Your New York accent has returned nicely.”
“I look forward to you softening it.”
“There are some things that even I cannot do,” I said.
“Are you sure you’re okay with all this?”
“I told you how I feel. I couldn’t be happier.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not knowing why I’m thanking you.”
I kissed her again and wondered if we should be worried about the prospect of bringing another baby into a world where fathers listened to voices in their heads and were capable of cutting their little girls into pieces.
-CHAPTER SEVEN-
JAX TALKED to the County Attorney and he agreed to allow me an interview with Spence Grant. I was nervous about confronting the man who had murdered his own wife and daughter. I did not understand such heinous disregard for the things that are important in this life. We only get one pass through—when we are lucky enough to be given a wife who loves us, and a pair of beautiful daughters who adore us, it befalls us not to screw it up.
Still, I would be lying if I said Spence Grant did not intrigue me. First, even a homicide detective is capable of feeling awe toward a specimen like that. Second—and this one is hard for me to admit—the man was engaging, confident, and even strangely witty. It wasn’t that I liked or admired him; those feelings would have been impossible. But I found that I also did not hate him. I really wanted to detest the man—his crimes went beyond unthinkable or unconscionable. Yet he elicited in me a false sense of camaraderie. And it angered me. Consequently I think I was too hard on him. The deputy who pulled me off Grant and then arrested me certainly agreed.
“Who are you?” he said when I entered the interview room.
He wasn’t rude. His tone was that of a child asking the same question: pure, innocent curiosity.
“Detective Robert Macaulay.”
“Jax’s brother from Denver,” he said. “I love that city. Gloria and I used to ski Winter Park every other year, before the girls were born. We’d stay at the Brown Palace on our first and last night in the city. Magnificent landmark hotel.”
“Gloria. That was your wife.”
“She’s still my wife.”
“That’s a funny way to look at it,” I said. “I think you put an end to the nuptials, Mr. Grant. With punctuation.”
“Call me Spence. That’s only because you are short-sighted, Mac.”
“Detective, if you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not. No offense intended.”
“Tell me a little more about you murdering your family.”
“See, now you’re trying to get a rise out of me.”
“You seem surprised.”
“I just don’t understand why. I’ve already confessed.”
“There’s the matter of your missing daughter.”
“Melissa’s fine.”
“Then you know where she is?”
“So do you. Not to be obtuse, Mac…er, Detective.”
“On second thought, call me Mac.”
“She’s in the Coeur d’Alene wilderness, Mac.”
“Did the man who took her tell you that?”
“Annir,” Grant said. “He’s no man. Not any longer.”
“You told my brother—Chief Macaulay—that he was the Devil.”
“Originally I thought he was. Not a nice soul.”
“Yet you seem oddly at ease with her abduction.”
“Again, not to be picky, but she wasn’t abducted. Not really.
“Because you’re okay with it?”
“Because I agreed to it, yes.”
“Seems to me you might have been under some duress.”
“Duress?”
“Annir sounds like someone accustomed to having his requests granted.”
“That he is.”
“Maybe you’ve had second thoughts since then.”
“I’m fine with my decision. As parents, we are tasked with making the hard choices. Particularly ones a father makes for his little girls. When you have a daughter, you’ll understand.”
“How do you know I don’t have a daughter?”
“Your brother told me you have one son.”
“Yes, it’s true.”
“Was true, you mean.”
“What does that mean?” I said.
“You have a daughter now. Growing inside your girlfriend.”
“How the fuck…”
“I’m sorry, Mac. The voice told me.”
He couldn’t possibly know anything about the pregnancy. I hadn’t even told Jax. And Amanda didn’t know anyone here.
“How did you…?”
“I wish I could tell you how it works. Sorry to be so cryptic, but the voice, it doesn’t have a nam
e. I used to think it was just my conscience, but clearly that’s not the case. I’ve never been clairvoyant.”
“So the voice told you about my baby?”
“Your daughter,” he said. “She’s just the size of a peanut right now.”
There wasn’t so much as a flicker of surprise in Spence Grant’s eyes when I came across the table and took him to the floor.
It was fortunate for me—and for Grant—that the interview was being monitored. Though I had no way of knowing, Jax had stepped out of the observation room and asked one of his deputies to take the witness role in his absence. Thank God the man was quick to react. I only had a few moments with the murderer beneath my fists, but it was enough time to do a lot of damage.
“DETECTIVE,” Deputy Bill Severs shouted as he burst into the room and yanked me off the defenseless prisoner, who was then bleeding heavily from his lip, right ear, and broken nose.
Severs put me face down on the floor, cuffed me, and read me my rights.
Spence Grant never made a sound.
~ ~ ~
“What the HELL were you thinking,” Jax asked me in his office, me still in plastic tie cuffs.
“Can you take me out of these?” I said.
“No, Bobby, I can’t. The County Attorney is on his way over here. Bad news flies in this town. How the fuck do I even remotely explain this? Grant’s attorney is going to be shooting at fish in a barrel on this one. He may even get his client released, do you realize that?”
“That’s a crock. The man’s a multiple murderer with victim number three still out there somewhere.”
“This isn’t the big city. Charges of brutality are taken seriously here in Smalltown, U.S.A.”
“I get it. Do you think I spend my time in Denver kicking the shit out of my prisoners?”
“I honestly don’t know. You had less than an hour with mine and couldn’t keep your hands off him.”
The County Attorney, Saul Xavier, came thundering into the precinct.
“Is this him?” he bellowed. “Is this the dipshit who just assaulted a prisoner in my custody?”
“He’s in my custody, Saul. Sit down,” Jax said, a lot calmer than he’d been just a moment ago. He walked around to me, motioned to give him access to my backside, and clipped the cuffs. I rubbed my sore wrists as Xavier went mad again.
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