He collapsed on the motel bed. Before he closed his eyes, the blinking red message light on the phone caught his attention.
He pushed the message button and let the short message run through. “A letter? Here?”
He jumped from the bed and hurried out of the room.
The stamp stood alone across the top of the envelope, with no return address, and it didn’t have a cancellation imprint or postmark. The letter must have been slipped into the motel mail, either at the motel or through the mail carrier.
He rushed back into his room and threw all of the locks. The envelope had the same cursive loops and circular dots as on Agnes’s first letter—the letter from Lilin.
Hair raised on his arms. Lilin knew where he was staying.
He turned the envelope over. Should he open it here, or at the police station? Bransome was at home, and it wasn’t a good night to bother him. He’d give up his plans in the time it’d take him to hang up the phone, but he needed the time away with his wife.
Jason sat on the bed. Should he open the letter or leave it until tomorrow morning? Would Bransome be mad if he brought it in opened and contaminated? But how could he wait? It was addressed to him, Jason Powers. It was a message to him, maybe time sensitive. Maybe Agnes’s safety was at stake.
He tapped the short end of the envelope on the tabletop a few times and grasped the other end to tear it open, but stopped. Gloves. He had a pair of gloves in his jacket pocket. He pulled them on and tore the edge off the envelope. A single, folded sheet was inside.
He wiped a spot on the top of the thigh-high chest of drawers and carefully opened the paper, pulling it flat on the wood. The hand that addressed the envelope also wrote the message—Lilin’s hand.
IHAVE AGNES. SHE’S ALL
RIGHT FOR NOW. I’M NEARLY
DONE. DON’T INTERFERE. LET ME
FINISH MY WORK.
Nearly done? he thought. Kill off Eddie and it’s all over? Is that what she meant? Is that the finish of her work? If so, maybe it would be best to let her do it. Eddie’s death wouldn’t be a loss to the world. If that stopped the killing, it would be a reasonable compromise.
But what about Agnes? The letter said she was all right. For now. What if she was a target? It could be jealousy that was driving Lilin. Jealousy over the life Agnes had, and she didn’t.
A strange twinge tugged at Jason’s stomach. The sensation felt like fear. The kind of fear one has when someone close was in danger. He had an overwhelming urge to find Agnes. Make sure she was safe. This wasn’t a reporter’s desire for a story; it went beyond that.
Jason slumped on the bed. Why was Agnes so important to him? Why was she occupying his thoughts, motivating his actions? Eugenia. Was that it? It was strange. When he thought of Agnes, Eugenia didn’t pop into his mind. Not like she did with other women. Something in other women always reminded him of his ex, always made him feel like she was there with him, encouraging him, setting him up again. But not with Agnes. Why?
Jason went into the bathroom and splashed water on his face. Was he developing feelings for Agnes, as Lilin thought? Was he being selfish to suggest her life was more valuable than Eddie’s? But Agnes hadn’t killed anyone. That was his gut feeling, even though it went against Bransome’s instincts. Who was right? Who would win the battle of waistline intuition?
Jason walked back out of the bathroom and froze. Maybe Lilin’s goal was to kill them both, to clean out the whole family. To pull out all of the family secrets, like weeds. Roots and all.
It didn’t matter. Agnes was in trouble no matter how it was figured.
He wished he could induce a temporary lobotomy so he could live in the present without having to plan for the future or to worry about it. So he could go to sleep. So the morning would appear in an instant of conscious time.
There was a way, but it clouded the following day with a hangover. It would also dull his defenses. If Lilin knew his whereabouts, he needed to stay sharp. The swish he had heard go past his ear when he jumped over his patio wall was probably from the razor she used to emasculate her prey. It was close then and it was still close now.
Jason startled awake. His hands groped for his crotch. He last remembered watching the clock flick past three. That was a bad dream ago. He rolled on his side and looked at the clock. It glowed a red 6:05. Bransome would be in by seven, even if he and his wife partied hard last night.
Jason turned the faucet in the shower stall. One of his favorite cinematic sequences was the shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, but he always viewed it through Anthony Perkins’s point of view, going with the eye of the camera. Now he stood in Janet Leigh’s bare feet, the water beating on his shoulders, the steam flowing across his visual field.
He had lined the floor with all of the extra towels he could find and pulled the curtain halfway, so he had a clear view of the bathroom doorway. Through the mirror he could see the edge of the front door. He twisted the water valve toward cold. It would have to be a lukewarm shower today, so the mirror wouldn’t fog.
Bransome spread the letter on a clean piece of paper on the laboratory bench. “No sense doing the envelope. If she wore gloves for the letter, she’d wear them for the envelope as well. Besides, there’d be several other sets of prints all over the envelope.”
Jason stepped closer. “I disagree. The letter wasn’t run through the post office. It doesn’t have cancellation imprints. She could have delivered it directly to the motel.”
Bransome shrugged. He grabbed the can of ninhydrin, sprayed the letter and envelope, and hung them in the modified film drying cabinet. “We’ll have to process all the prints. We’ll compare them to yours first. Then we’ll see if the motel clerk is in the system. We’ll have to do a side-by-side with Agnes’s prints to see if there are general similarities. You want to continue with them, or are you getting bored with the grunt work?” He closed the cabinet and flipped the fan switch. “I really appreciate it.”
“I better not. I have a funny feeling about handling anything that involves my own prints. Besides, I have to send some information to one of my colleagues in Santa Rosa to keep the paper up on the case. It won’t take long.” He studied Bransome’s face. “How’d it go with the missus last night?”
“We cranked up the fireplace and curled up on the couch in front of the television. It was wonderful. I didn’t think about this place for a minute.”
“You’re a lucky man. I’m stuck in a room that smells like cigarettes and sex, and they aren’t even my smells.” Jason kicked at the floor. Would marital happiness ever come his way, or was he destined to live with those smells for the rest of his life?
“When are you planning to go back to your apartment?” Bransome said.
“I don’t know. Not until something shakes loose with this case. If you’re going to take my picture, I’d prefer it be with a smile on my face and my danglies intact.”
“A couple of weeks ago I’d have preferred the file shot.”
“You’re a pal, Detective.”
Bransome laughed. “Go to hell. I’ll be your pal when we put this murderer behind bars.” He slapped his hand down on Jason’s shoulder. “How’s that for an incentive?”
“Better than a paycheck.” Jason gave a single chuckle. “Speaking of that, I think I will double the bet. Agnes is a victim, not a murderer.”
“I want to agree with you, but I can’t. I still have to go with my intuition. I’m coming in your direction, but I believe I’ll drag my feet a while longer.”
Jason sat down on the corner of a desk. “I can’t stand this waiting. I’m worried Lilin will kill both Eddie and Agnes. Is there anything we can do to find them?”
“I’ve been agonizing about that. We have APBs on all of them and on the GTO. The people in Marin County are supposed to be checking the cabin at least twice a day. Other than that, we have no leads. On a sitting-or-doing scale, we’re way to the left.”
Jason stood and clapped his hands tog
ether. “There might be something we can do. I was getting hang up calls at the old motel, and now I’m getting them at the new place as well. I didn’t tell anyone where I was staying. It’s our only means of contact going in that direction. Is there anything I could say that would help flush them out?”
Bransome paced around the desk. “I could put a trace on the phone.”
“The caller’s too smart. Besides, my guess is they’re from a cell phone. All the caller has to do is move around and triangulation will only tell us where he or she was, not where he or she is.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right. Then we have two choices. You could say something to inflame the situation, hoping it would accelerate it, or say something to defuse the situation. Since we have no clue where they are, the first won’t do anything useful and probably will give a bad result. The second’s our only choice.”
Jason plopped back on the desk. “What if I said the DNA tests proved Eddie didn’t father Lilin and Agnes? That could get him off the hook.”
“Not if he abused the girls. The family tie may be the only thing that’s making her be deliberate with Eddie. If he was a nonrelated abuser, she probably would’ve whacked him long before now.”
“So you suggest I do nothing if I get another call?”
“I don’t see any other option at this time. Either way, it’d probably come out bad.”
“Just like doing nothing.”
“I know.”
The phone on Bransome’s desk rang. He answered and turned his back on Jason to help mute the conversation. It didn’t take him long to get agitated, peppering his side of the discussion with obscenities, which danced in the room like they were shouted in a cavern. He slammed the receiver down and turned to face Jason.
“That idiot postal worker in Inverness called the sheriff’s office yesterday afternoon, around four thirty. He told them a man matching Eddie’s description came in earlier and got his mail. The man was driving a lightcolored foreign car. Compact model. Seems the clerk didn’t give a better description because he was admiring a beautiful, black GTO that was parked across the street. When the man left, the GTO left right behind him. That happened around two.”
“He didn’t call them for over two hours?”
“Right. The officers got on it right away. They drove around all evening looking for the GTO, but they didn’t see it. They also stopped by Eddie’s cabin last night, and again this morning. It was untouched.” Bransome shook his head. “They’re keeping an eye out, but they’re at the mercy of an idiot witness.”
“Didn’t they tell him to look for the GTO?”
“Yes, but he said he didn’t make the connection.”
“Didn’t make the connection? Look for a familiar man coming in to get mail. Look for a black GTO. Does the mailman have a problem with a certain white powder?”
“What’s done is done. The important thing is that she was on his tail yesterday afternoon.”
“She’s probably done him in already. His body’s probably floating in Tomales Bay.”
Bransome tugged his belt upward.
Jason imagined a younger Bransome, without the gut, but with the same thick arms and barrel chest. Almost his height, Bransome was probably more than formidable. Probably scary.
“I don’t think so.” Bransome said. “She’s been very public about the other killings. If this is her finale, I wouldn’t expect her to hide it. She’d want everyone to see him with his wiener sliced off. She may even do something symbolic with this one.”
Jason shook his head to reset Bransome’s image. “Like what?”
“Like kill him in a symbolic place.”
“The deputies said the cabin was clean.”
“I’ll have Wilson go check Agnes’s house.” Bransome hurried to the door.
“Jesus. Do you think she would? What a perfect way to frame Agnes.”
He spun around. “Or for Agnes to make it look like Lilin was framing her,” Bransome said as he left the room.
Jason frowned. The closer they seemed to get, the farther they were away. Theories were easy to formulate, but nothing allowed them to rule any out. All they could do was wait and hope. They were doomed to be reactive, as Bransome had said, and Jason hated it.
The day dragged on, worse than the previous one. Bransome had filled him in on the frustrating details. Agnes’s house was untouched, inside and out, and the Marin County boys checked Eddie’s cabin two more times before they set Bransome off by suggesting they stop making any more drives out to Inverness unless there was other business there. They had said something about crying wolf.
There were no prints on the letter. Two types of prints from the envelope included Jason’s and someone whose pattern wasn’t even close to Agnes’s. Probably the motel clerk’s. Bransome delivered the envelope to the lab person to start processing the glue for DNA.
Jason relished the fading afternoon. Back in the motel, he curled up in the bed, inside the covers this time, and looked forward to vegetating in front of the television. He needed to empty his mind, and there were any number of prime time shows that required low double digit IQ points worth of audience involvement.
He chose a reality show with six contestants, three of whom were young ladies in scanty outfits. Poster girls for breast implant surgeons throughout the country. Jason chuckled. One of the girls seriously discussed the importance of mental preparation and strategy before fishing pig uteri out of a vat of mealworm larvae with her teeth. Andy Warhol was right on the money about the fifteen minutes of fame.
The host had admired the complex weaving of tattoos on one of the male contestants when the phone rang, jolting the 99 percent of Jason’s brain that was on standby.
He felt the tingling of nervous energy course through his body and his thudding heart jumped into overdrive. It was his cell phone this time. Bransome? Agnes? He reached to the nightstand and pushed the speaker button.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“Hi, Lilin.” His heart thumped so hard it seemed to vibrate the bed. “Can I talk to Agnes?”
Silence.
Bransome had said it wouldn’t do any good to bluff about Eddie, but what other move was there? It wasn’t the first time he disagreed with Bransome. And it beat sitting around, twiddling thumbs.
“Did you hear the news? The DNA evidence says that Eddie isn’t your father.”
Quiet giggles built into loud laughter.
The laughter was female, but low-pitched, throaty. Creepy to the extreme. “Lilin. Talk to me. Where’s Eddie?”
She laughed. “Eddie’s at home,” she whispered.
The voice reminded him of his apartment. The smell of the eucalyptus. The sound of the razor slicing the air, close to his ear. “At home, where? In Inverness?” Hopefully far away.
Silence.
“Where’s Agnes?”
“She won’t interfere anymore.”
Panic swept his mind, but the reporter took over. He stood. “How about Eddie?”
“He’s a bastard.”
Her venomous voice surprised him.
“He’s trying to protect himself.”
Jason walked to the window and pulled back the drapes. “Why does he need protection?”
“No-good fucking bastard.”
He rechecked the door locks. “Did he hurt you?”
“Fucking no-good bastard.”
“Did he hurt you and Agnes?”
Silence.
Jason backed away from the door and flopped on the bed. “Is that why Gert and Ella took Agnes?”
Silence.
“Why didn’t they take you, too?”
“Too late.”
“What do you mean, ‘too late’”
Dial tone.
The cell phone startled Jason. Bransome again? He’d just called fifteen minutes ago.
Jason rechecked the clock—2:00 a.m. Had the Marin County boys found something at Eddie’s cabin after all? Bransome had said they were piss
ed about being called on a wild goose chase so late. That they threatened to back-burner the case.
The phone rang again and he fumbled for the talk button. “Is there news?”
Silence.
“Lilin?”
Silence.
“What do you want?”
A whisper: “Eddie’s at home.”
Dial tone.
CHAPTER 31
JASON READIED THE BATHROOM FLOOR FOR HIS HALF-curtained shower. He couldn’t get the two phone calls from Lilin out of his mind. The warm water reset his thoughts, then turned his mind loose into freewheel mode. At home, some of his best thinking came at the expense of his water bill.
She could have made the first call from Inverness, knowing he would phone Bransome, and that Bransome would forward the information to the Marin County deputies. She could have been watching as the officers checked the cabin, angry at Bransome for a late night false alarm. That would give her the time, and freedom from discovery, to carry out her plan. But why the second call? To publicize her act? To taunt?
He turned the water off and toweled his shoulders. His reflection in the mirror caught his attention. Maybe she wanted him to find the body. Body or bodies?
He hurried out of the bathroom, wrapping the towel around his waist, and dug in the nightstand drawer for the phone book. He dialed and made a reservation.
Jason paused in the doorway. The police station workroom was empty. He turned to see Bransome stomping up the hallway.
“What’s up for today?” Bransome said. “More grunt work? I have a pile.”
“I’m heading out on a road trip. A rental car is going to be delivered in half an hour. I have to pay for this one myself so I got a little POS.”
“POS?”
Jason smiled. “Piece of Shit. Don’t worry. I told the delivery guy to use the back door. Is that okay?”
“Yeah. Where you heading?”
Jason thought about telling him, but decided against it. Bransome seemed edgy on the second call, after the Marin County boys found Eddie’s cabin empty. “I’ll let you know when I get there.” He cringed, expecting an objection.
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