“Interesting,” McConnell said, cogs turning in his mind. He picked up his dry erase marker. “Any idea what his grand plan might be?”
“Bombing, mass shooting, the other clichés,” Peak threw out there.
With his horrible handwriting, McConnell jotted the words down on the whiteboard. “How about you, Harroway?”
“Poison is his signature. I’m thinking he’ll try to do something similar. Perhaps go after a town official or disrupt a banquet.”
“We have the fall fundraiser coming up,” McConnell said as he took down Rachel’s note. “I’ll make sure all of our chefs are properly vetted and the ingredients tested.”
“Just spitballing here, but he could go after the local water supply,” Rachel theorized.
McConnell replied, “That would make quite the splash.”
Peak scoffed. “The guy is diabolical, no doubt, but the chance that he could pull something like that off is severely unlikely. We have to remember that the Halloween poisoning only worked because he was able to distribute the poison by hand. Whatever he does next, he’ll be directly involved.”
Peak made a good point, Rachel believed. With each one of the Poisoner’s murders, he was watching. That was how he was able to quickly snatch up the children after their mothers died.
“These are all possibilities.” McConnell walked over and took one of Peak’s fries. “My desire is that the man is caught before he’s able to act out any of them.”
Peak gave him a subtle death glare as McConnell mindlessly munched the fry.
“Agreed,” Rachel replied.
Peak filled his jaws with another big bite of his burger, and spoke with garbled speech. “We need to find out his real identity. A name to go with Rachel’s lovely sketch.”
Rachel took another sip of her soft drink. The sugar made her head hurt. “I don’t think he chose the house on Spring Street by chance.”
“Check there,” McConnell said. “By the way, your report from that night was a bit fuzzy. What prompted you to go there, exactly?”
Rachel felt her heart rate quicken. “I thought I saw someone inside with a similar jack-o’-lantern mask. I wasn’t sure if it was worth reporting with all the other pressing chaos, so I went in solo.”
Rachel hoped the lie would hold.
McConnell eyed her, curious. “Women’s intuition?”
“Something like that.” Rachel played it cool. It was really Ashton’s guidance.
McConnell put the top back on the marker. “I’ll let you two get to work.”
He left. Rachel took a breath. She wondered if it was bad that she had told her boss more lies than truths over the last decade.
Peak balled up the cheese-filled tin foil. “The police searched the house on Spring Street from top to bottom. It was dusty, and there were footprints, but no fingerprints or any strands of hair to be found. The poisoner knows how to cover his tracks. It will probably be a dead end, except for the forty-year-old bones.”
“Maybe we should take a crack at it. We are both Gifted investigators,” Rachel replied.
“Was that a joke?” Peak asked dryly.
“An attempt at one,” Rachel replied with small smile. “This burger has washed away my troubles.”
Peak pushed out of his seat. “Good. There’s only room for one cynic in this relationship.”
They decided to save a few bucks in gas money and take Peak’s car. Main Street was uncharacteristically quiet. An eddy of wind sent detached flyers swirling and dancing across the street. The victims’ faces on the waterlogged printouts smiled. The ink was smudged on some, giving them black eyes with inky tears. The word “vigil” had turned into a blobbed text. Under the cloudy night sky, Peak plowed through them and hung a left into down a side street. He clearly didn’t miss the traffic. Even after two weeks, most locals grieved behind the locked doors of their homes. In small towns like these, tragedy was always amplified.
“Let’s stop at my father’s church first,” Rachel said as they neared the Presbyterian church.
“Forgot your Bible?” Peak asked dryly.
“The Orphans led me here during our initial investigation. It can’t hurt to spend five minutes giving it another check,” Rachel replied.
Unable to deny that logic, Peak pursed his lips and pulled into the parking lot.
Rachel got out and stretched. The Poisoner had called her twice via her personal line. The first time was after Rachel escaped the rented estate he set ablaze, and the second was Sunday evening when one of the local congregants from her father’s church stole Rachel’s house key, intent on giving it to the Poisoner. The man had been blackmailed, of course. Rachel stopped him, retrieved the key, and didn’t press charges. Thus, Rachel had two goals with this meeting: one, find out how the Poisoner got her phone number, and two, if he attended the church on a weekly basis.
The choir was leaving when Rachel and Peak marched inside. Flanked by stained-glass windows and floored with red carpet, the sanctuary welcomed the detectives. Liam stood at the altar, reviewing his notes. He was dressed in a white button-up free of wrinkles, and black slacks pulled up to his belly button. He smiled widely at Rachel’s approach and met her with a big hug.
“What a pleasant surprise,” he said to her and then looked at Peak. “Good to see you’re in good health, Jenson.”
“My diet of carbs and junk food is paying off,” Peak replied dryly.
“Pastor Jim has given me the floor to speak this Sunday,” Liam said proudly. “I was planning on spending time in prayer this evening as preparation, but I have a few moments if you’d like to talk.”
Rachel showed him the sketch of their killer: the handsome Italian man. “Familiar?”
Liam gazed into the man’s dark eyes. “Seems so.”
Rachel and Peak exchanged looks, surprised by the revelation.
Liam handed it back to Rachel. “Every few months, I see him. He lingers in the top upper balcony. Never talks much and leaves before the service is through.”
“Have a name?” Peak asked.
“No. The man has a way of vanishing into a crowd. A skill common amongst some of the flock.” He chuckled before refocusing. “If I had known this was the man you were looking for, I would’ve pursued him more fervently.”
“Don’t worry about it, Dad,” Rachel said. She felt to blame. During the Sunday service, a day after the dead mothers of the abducted children led her here, Rachel saw a man of similar description to that of the sketch but chose to pursue the nervous suspect in the choir instead.
“Where did this man sit?” Peak asked.
Liam pointed to the far corner of the balcony pews. Rachel frowned heavily. That’s where I saw him. If she weren’t in the Lord’s house, she would’ve cursed loudly.
A music chime filled the empty sanctuary. Liam walked over to the second front pew and withdrew his cellphone from under a hymnal. He checked the number. “Scam, and they’re always trying to sell me some lucky coin.”
Peak gave Rachel a telling look. Rachel addressed her father kindly. “Dad, do you always store your phone there?”
“Here? Yes, I…” He covered his mouth, and his eyes glossed over. “Oh, Rachel. I’m… I’m so sorry.”
Rachel took his phone. It took her two seconds to unlock the screen, find her name, and see her private number. “That’s how he did it. That’s how he got my private number. Thank God you didn’t have my address in here.”
Liam tumbled over his words. “I only rarely leave it unattended. He must’ve… when I was chatting after service… Rachel, please. Forgive me.”
Rachel gave him a hug. “I do. It’s not your fault, but I need you to be careful, okay?”
“Yes,” Liam agreed with conviction.
“And toss out your communion wine and juices and the little wafer things,” Peak added. “The Poisoner favors consumption.”
“Thank you, Jenson,” Liam said graciously.
“Last thing, Dad,” Rachel said. �
�Remind Pastor Jim and the congregation to lock their doors at night.”
“We always do.”
“Do it anyway.”
Liam placed his soft and veiny hands over hers. “I will.”
Rachel gave him a final hug before heading out.
Peak sighed. “Well, that solves that mystery.”
Rachel sank into the passenger seat, relieved that the case was finally moving along. Since Halloween, she’d left her personal phone at the station, ready for recording the moment the Poisoner called again. If they could get his number, the station could trace his GPS. Rachel had purchased a new phone since then and was in the grueling process of transferring her contacts over.
“Good call on the communion elements,” Rachel said as she added Liam’s number to her contact list.
“It could be part of the Poisoner’s grand scheme. Google the other churches around here. We’ll give them the same spiel.”
On the short ride to Spring Street, Rachel contacted the local churches and left a brief message. It felt good, knowing that she might have saved a few lives. Now it’s up to the churches to take action. Rachel metaphorically washed her hands of any lack of responsibility on their part and turned her muted-green eyes to the paint-free two-story house built upon a mound of dead earth.
The building had a truncated roof, shattered windows replaced by plywood sheeting, and a set of rickety stairs ascending to the ominous wooden door. Yellow police tape striped the entrance. A low chain-link fence with a latched gate bordered the property. Yellow, dead grass and dirt painted the enclosed landscape. A large dead tree jutted from the dirt. Its roots dipped, burst forth, and returned to the earth like fat, dirty sea serpents.
“Pleasant place,” Peak said sarcastically.
Rachel became light-headed as she approached. “Not so much.”
She remembered the crazed Orphan inside who blew her apart with a shotgun, failed to kill her with supernatural means, and then turned her own weapon against her. The weapon that the Poisoner now held. Rachel involuntarily reached for her replacement 1911 Colt pistol clipped to her belt. It didn’t feel right. She needed her Glock 22 back. However, it wouldn’t do her much good in this place. The Delinquents remained. Through a small hole in the upstairs window’s plywood sheeting, Rachel felt someone watching her.
Peak lifted the rusty latch on the gate and stepped aside, allowing Rachel to step through.
“The Orphans inside are from the seventies, judging by the furnishings and their dress.”
“I know,” Peak said. “I searched this place up and down Halloween night.”
“Maybe you missed something,” Rachel said, not having been here since her last deadly encounter. Dead grass crunched underfoot. A broken wasp nest lay at the base of the tree’s trunk. A murder of crows cawed and took flight from the roof. Rachel felt invisible bugs burrowing into the flesh of her arms and back. The sensation meant one thing. Evil. She told Peak her concern.
“Wait here, if you must,” he said.
Rachel shook her head, masking her fears behind a determined spirit. “We do this together.”
They unlocked the front door and shined their flashlights into the dark, dusty corridor. To the direct right was the door to the study. The stairs ascending to the second floor were on the same wall. A small storage room rested beneath the stairs. There was a closet beyond that. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were on the other side of the hall.
Peak shut the door behind them, closing them into the dark house. No light breached the boarded window. Dusty particles swirled in the dry, musty air. Rachel took cautious steps forward. They decided to search the upstairs first and work their way down. The stairs led to an opening that branched into three rooms: two bedrooms and a bathroom.
Rachel stepped into the bathroom while Peak dipped into the smaller of the bedrooms. Rachel popped open the mirror, revealing a medicine cabinet with a dead roach inside. She shut it and checked the piping underneath the sink. Cobwebs lingered in the far corner. When she pulled her head out, she felt an icy wave splash over her.
Standing in the bathtub was a boy with denim overalls and a friendly jack-o’-lantern mask slightly tilted to the right side.
“Ashton,” Rachel whispered.
The boy raised his arm and finger, pointing at the mirror behind her. In her peripherals, Rachel saw the intimidating middle-aged man wearing the stained muscle shirt. She twisted back and shined the flashlight into her own reflection. No one. When she went to speak to Ashton again, the boy had vanished.
Rachel moved out of the bathroom and joined Peak in the small bedroom. A wardrobe stood at the far back wall. Apart from that, the room had no furnishings. Peak shook his head, having searched it. He stepped out past Rachel and went to the master bedroom. Rachel eyed the wardrobe. The world seemed to twist around it for a moment. She blinked, and reality returned to normal. She approached the wardrobe, grabbed the little wooden knobs, and pulled it open.
Ashton cowered in the corner, holding himself tightly and trembling. Rachel took a knee. “Hey, I want to help you. Will you let me?”
Ashton spoke through his mask. His voice was as small as a summer breeze. “He hid him away.”
“Who?” Rachel asked.
“Father.”
A shotgun cocked. The hairs on Rachel’s neck rose. She slowly craned her neck to look at the hulking man in a sweat-stained muscle shirt, suspenders, and khakis. His graying black hair was cropped short and gelled over. Silver flakes sprinkled his mustache and beard, which ran together and covered up the bottom third of his long face. Smelling of alcohol, he glared at her with black irises and held his hunting shotgun level to his beer belly. There was gravel in his angry voice. “I told you not to come back here.”
The man pulled the trigger.
Rachel dived to the floor. Buckshot peppered the back of the wardrobe and Ashton’s jack-o’-lantern mask. She dashed out of the bedroom and slammed the door behind her. Peak quickly rushed from the master bedroom with alarm.
“I saw Ashton—the one who led me here that night. He said his father hid someone away.”
“Was he referring to the bones downstairs?”
“I don’t know,” Rachel said. “I thought those were Ashton’s.”
As Rachel darted down the steps, she saw a middle-aged woman in a blue-and-white dress march down the entrance hallway. She turned into the kitchen and slammed the door. Peak didn’t hear anything.
Rachel opened up the small square door built into the stairs and crawled inside. Peak followed. Like stringy gray hair, cobwebs dangled from the inclining ceiling. The higher the steps, the more head space the detectives found. The dust on the floor had been disturbed. The skeletal boy that rested here Halloween night had been exhumed and taken back to the morgue for a closer examination. They were Ashton’s remains, but if he lived upstairs, who lived behind the secret latch at the back of this room?
Staying low, Rachel removed the horizontal metal bar from the face of the small door and opened into the hidden room where she had discovered Mallory Stix. On her palms and knees, Rachel scurried inside. The ceiling was low and forced her to bow her head when she stood upright. A metal bed frame and thin mattress wrapped in clear plastic pressed against back wall. A tall lamp stood in the corner of the room, along with a collapsible TV tray. There were once old toys, but now they were locked away in evidence. Etched into every wall was the phrase “This is your home.” It repeated countlessly. The curved letters were crude and crooked.
Peak took in the sight of the room. “Remember the basement of the estate?”
It was a hard place to forget. The basement of the rented home was barren apart from a rusted bed frame like this one. Rachel had discovered a single phrase carved into the cement wall above it. “This is your home.”
Ashton crawled out from under the rusty bed frame. Buckshot still peppered his mask.
“Whose room is this?” Rachel asked the Orphan.
His
expression was unreadable behind the black triangular eyes. “My little brother.”
Rachel felt a tugging. She stumbled back and saw the middle-aged man and his frizzy-haired wife standing behind her.
“Do not talk about him in my house!” the man shouted.
Rachel opened her mouth to speak but only saw the brief barrel flash of the shotgun before half of her face splattered the wall with skull and brain.
Seeing blackness, Rachel sank to the floor in a heap. Crimson dotted across the floorboards and swirled around Detective Peak’s shoes. He saw none of it.
“Rachel?” a faraway voice called. “Rachel.”
Rachel blinked. She was standing in the center of the room, where she had been before the blast. The Delinquents were gone. Peak had his hand on her shoulder. He stared at her with his intense, coal-like eyes. “What happened?”
She felt sick to her core. “I have to go.”
Leaving no room for debate, she scurried out of the room, into the entrance hall, and dashed outside. When she got to the curbside, she spewed her dinner on the street. After spitting a few more times, she bent backward to face the night sky and wiped tears from her eyes. The sides of her skull crushed her brain. She blinked, seeing the flash of the shotgun barrel.
Peak cleared his throat.
Rachel didn’t hear him approach.
“You want a drink?” He stood beside her.
Rachel shook her head.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” Rachel swallowed more saliva.
“Forensics cleared the place out pretty good,” Peak explained. “We won’t get anything from there.”
“I know,” Rachel replied. “There’s only one way we’re going to find out who lived in that room.”
5
A Child’s Bones
Despite winter being just weeks away, the Highlands medical examiner’s office was still pumping its AC on full blast. Coroner Woodrow Gates slid on his blue disposable gloves and opened the body locker. He withdrew the screeching metal table, pulling it into view of the detectives. A small, slack-jawed skeleton smiled at Rachel.
The Lost Orphans Omnibus: A Riveting Mystery Page 27