“Before he died—” Stride said.
Kelli nodded. She knew what he wanted. “I carved the word TEUFEL into his chest.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea. Don’t you see? It wasn’t me. It was like a signature.”
“Did Jet do the same thing to you?”
“No. He did despicable things, but not that. I’m telling you, I don’t know where the inspiration came from to do that to him. It didn’t come from inside my head. It came from somewhere else.” She grabbed the fringe of her jean shirt and pulled it up to her neck, exposing her full, young chest, which was covered by a sports bra. “See, Mr. Stride? No Devil here.”
He gestured for her to cover herself. “Tell me about Percy.”
Kelli looked ready to cry at the sound of his name. “Percy. He found me. It was night, and I couldn’t see, but I heard someone in the ruins below. He was calling my name, shining a flashlight around. I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t. He came upstairs, and his light was in my eyes. I just sat on the ground next to Jet’s body. The Devil was gone. I was myself again. I had nothing left inside, no strength, no tears. I was as ruined as this place, Mr. Stride, and Percy knew it. There was something so strong and tender about him. I fell in love with him right then and there. I was in a kind of wilderness, and he followed me there and found me and carried me back.”
“Did you tell him what happened?” Stride asked.
“I told him everything.”
“What did he say?”
“For a long time, nothing,” Kelli replied. “I was in his arms. He held me, and I cried and cried and cried. I think I cried for an hour. I was so relieved that it was over. All that time, he had this frozen look of horror on his face, and he didn’t say a word. But he never let go of me. I could have stayed there like that forever. And then when he finally spoke, he said: ‘I killed him. Not you.’”
“Did you ask him to lie for you?”
“I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. I would have told everyone, but Percy said it wasn’t safe. He said there were people who wouldn’t understand what I did, no matter what I’d been through. That somewhere in those hours, self-defense became vengeance, and vengeance became murder. That I would probably go to prison, and even if I didn’t, this would follow me for the rest of my life. I’d never escape it.”
Stride knew that Percy was right. On a strict legal basis, Kelli Andrews was guilty of murder. There was a free pass for self-defense, not revenge. He didn’t know if a jury would have convicted her of anything, but it was impossible to be sure. As the details emerged, the public whispers would have started. People would have gaped at what she did. They would have begun debating when she stopped being a victim and became a killer. She didn’t escape. She didn’t walk away when she had the chance. She set a trap, and then she tortured a man to death. I repaid him in full.
A prosecutor would have stood up in a courtroom and said: “You can sympathize with this woman, but you cannot let her go unpunished.”
Percy knew all that.
Stride asked himself what choice he would have made, finding Kelli next to a dead body in the Novitiate. Hearing what she’d done. Having her cry herself out in his arms. Cops had to make value judgments about right and wrong all the time. He’d done it before and had to live with the consequences, but some consequences were harder than others. Percy had carried the guilt all the way to his own death.
Stride asked himself the question, but he had no answer.
“Percy didn’t do this alone,” he said. “He had to have help.”
Kelli nodded. “He called Tom Bruin. Tom came to the Novitiate. I told him the story, too, just like I told Percy. Percy convinced him to help me. To lie. Together, they dressed the body, and you couldn’t see what I’d done to him that way. Then they staged the gunshots. When the police came, Tom oversaw the removal of the body and did the autopsy himself. He falsified the records. He arranged the cremation. They created a myth. Percy became a hero. It wasn’t what he wanted, but that’s what people were looking for her. Nobody wanted the truth.”
“And you and Percy?”
“It just happened, Mr. Stride. I told you, it wasn’t about gratitude, and it wasn’t about fear either. I wasn’t worried that he was going to expose me. We were an unlikely couple, but we fell in love.” She added: “If there’s anything I feel bad about, it’s that Percy’s and Tom’s friendship was never the same after that. Percy claimed not to be conflicted about what he’d done, but I didn’t believe him. Tom, well—he could barely stand to be around me. I saw the guilt in his face whenever he looked at me. He’d compromised his principles to help me, and to a doctor like Tom, that was almost unforgivable. I felt awful. He never got over it. I also think—I think Tom didn’t trust me. Percy believed me about the demonic possession. He believed in evil and sin. He thought the Devil was real. Tom wasn’t so sure. He never said anything to me, but I think he wondered if I was really just a liar and a killer. Or maybe he thought I’d sprout horns and kill Percy in his sleep. Whatever it was, I felt grateful to him, but we never really got along.”
“Now here we are,” Stride said. “Four years later, you’re back at the Novitiate.”
“Yes.”
“Greg Hamlin,” he said.
“Yes, I know.” Kelli came and put both hands on his shoulders. She was uncomfortably close. “I didn’t need to tell you any of this, Mr. Stride. It was a choice. I know it makes me look guilty. Either I’m insane, or I lost control when I found out about Hamlin’s past with Jet, and I did the same thing all over again. I only have one thing to say to you: I’m innocent. When all of this is done, you’ll have to decide if you want to turn me in for what I did to Jet. But Greg Hamlin? No. I didn’t kill him.”
“Percy almost certainly believed that you did,” Stride told her. “He must have been convinced that you’d done this terrible thing. You’d killed again, just like before. So he covered up for you—again—and then he was so devastated that he couldn’t live with himself. You wanted to know why your husband killed himself. That’s why.”
Kelli backed up. She covered her face with her hands. “I know.”
“You said you were afraid that Percy killed himself because of you. This is what you meant, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Percy didn’t say a word to you about Hamlin? About what he suspected?”
“No, he kept it all to himself. He never shared it. I can’t imagine him lying there—thinking that I—”
“The evidence says you’re guilty,” Stride reminded her. “Hamlin’s history with Jet gives you a motive. Hamlin called you—it was the last call he ever made. Percy probably found evidence in the camper. I’m willing to bet that the evidence pointed at you and that he took it away and destroyed it. The police also found a brown hair in one of Hamlin’s wounds. Will it match yours?”
“I didn’t kill him!” she insisted. “I know how this looks. All day, I’ve been thinking to myself, am I crazy? Was I in some kind of fugue? Could I have done this to Hamlin and not even realized it?
“Maybe the Devil came back,” Stride said, his voice heavy with cynicism.
“Mr. Stride, I know what it sounds like. I know you don’t believe me. I remember every minute I spent with Jet Black. All of it. I know what I did to him, but I couldn’t stop myself. Someone else was using my hands, directing my brain. But I remember it. And that’s why I know I didn’t kill Greg Hamlin. There’s no missing time haunting me. I can tell you what I was doing hour by hour for the last month. Yes, I killed Jet Black. I have to live with that, but I did not kill Hamlin. That’s the truth.”
“Then who did?”
“Don’t you think I’ve been asking myself that? I have no idea. The only thing I can think of is that it was someone else who was possessed in the exact same way I was. That’s where it came from. TEUFEL. The same killer, Mr. Stride, but using different hands to commit the crime.”
Stride shook his head. That wasn’t righ
t.
Like Percy, he had to make a choice. Put Kelli Andrews in cuffs and take her in—or believe what she was saying. Believe her in the face of everything that pointed to her guilt. Once Sheriff Weik had her in custody, the investigation would be over. She wouldn’t escape punishment this time. The sympathy of the jury would give way to reality. She’d be staring at prison bars for years to come. Maybe that was justice.
She was hard to read. Guilty or innocent. A victim or a psychopath.
Stride knew one thing. The Devil hadn’t come to Shawano. He wasn’t carving words into a man’s chest. Human beings did that.
“There’s nothing mystical about this, Kelli,” he said. “If you didn’t kill Hamlin, someone else did. It’s someone who knows what you did to Jet Black.”
Kelli looked into the shadows. The white rat was gone.
“Nobody knows,” she insisted. “There are only three people who ever knew the truth about the Novitiate and what really happened to Jet. Me, Percy, and Tom Bruin. And now two of them are dead.”
18
The caller ID on Stride’s phone read KARL WEIK. He tapped the Ignore button and slid his phone back into his pocket. It was the fourth call he’d ducked in the last hour and the second since he’d arrived at Anna Bruin’s house. The sheriff was getting impatient.
“You’re a wanted man,” Anna told him with a smile.
“Sometimes.”
Her child Mya gurgled through the baby monitor. Her daughter was asleep, but she made happy, innocent noises, as if she were having good dreams. Mya’s babysitter Sophie hummed and sang through the speaker, too. Her vocal playlist had shifted from Lady Gaga to Pink.
Anna turned the volume down. “Bad news travels fast,” she said. “I’ve been getting calls all day since people found out that the murder took place in Tom’s camper.”
“What have they been saying?” he asked.
“The rumor is that Kelli murdered Greg Hamlin,” Anna replied, with a note of wonder in her voice. “Percy found out and covered it up. That’s why he took his own life.”
“Do people around here think Kelli is capable of murder?”
“Honestly? People don’t know what to think about Kelli. They’re curious. They feel bad about what she went through, but they wonder how it changed her. You can’t go through something like that and come out the same on the other side, can you? You have to be a little off. Fragile. Capable of anything.”
“So it doesn’t shock you,” Stride said.
“Oh, it surprises me. And yet? I told you before that Tom was wary of Kelli. He was always strange around her. Distant. It took a toll on his relationship with Percy. Me, I like Kelli. She’s obviously got tremendous courage, and I respect that. She does good work, too. It’s not just abusers. She counsels a lot of kids through tough things. Loss of parents, loss of siblings, divorces, abuse, whatever. As a nurse, I know some of the kids she works with. They love Kelli.”
“That means something.”
Anna had a delicate smile, like china. “I gather you think she’s innocent.”
“I really don’t know.”
“Well, you’re helping her, aren’t you? Even though the sheriff obviously doesn’t want you to. It sounds to me like you don’t believe she did this. If that’s true, then I’m glad she has an ally. Around here, once people decide you’re guilty, then you’re guilty.” She paused and added: “I’m not sure why you came back to me, though. I don’t know how I can help you.”
“I’d like to know what you remember about the events at the Novitiate,” Stride said.
“The Novitiate?” Her chin tilted downward, and she studied him over the tops of her glasses. Her neck was long and slim. “That was four years ago. Why does it matter now?”
“Your husband and Percy were both involved. I’m curious what they told you.”
He watched her face. He really only had one question, but it was a question he couldn’t ask her. Did you know? Anna and Tom Bruin had been in love. She’d been at his bedside as he wasted away and died, just as Stride had been with Cindy. Those were moments without secrets. Times of confession. He wanted to know if Tom Bruin had divulged his guilt to his wife.
Did you know?
Did you know that Kelli killed Jet Black?
Did you know that your husband helped Percy cover it up?
Anna listened to the soft sounds of Sophie singing on the baby monitor, but he thought she was buying time to calculate an answer. He also thought she was wondering what his motive was in asking.
“Well, it was horrifying,” she said.
“Kelli never shared any details publicly about what happened to her. Did she tell you? Or did Tom or Percy?”
“Only bits and pieces. Enough to turn my stomach. Jet Black, what a despicable man. He’s no loss to this world.”
“Did Percy have any regrets about killing him? It’s typically traumatic for a cop, even when it’s a good shooting.”
Anna pursed her lips. “Percy rarely talked about what went on that night.”
“Did Tom?”
“No. Neither of them did. I respected their privacy. I think it was hard on Percy that he was celebrated for taking a life. To him, it was what he had to do, but he didn’t take any pleasure in it. I’m sure he would have rather seen Jet Black rotting in a cell for the rest of his life.”
Stride nodded. He had his answer. Anna believed the story that everyone else did. She didn’t know the truth, and if Tom Bruin had kept the secret from his wife all the way to his last breath, then he would have kept it from everyone else.
Percy would have kept the secret, too. To do otherwise would have been to betray his wife. No one knew. Except, if Kelli was innocent, someone had to know. Someone had been able to mimic the bloody details of a secret that only three people had ever shared.
“Your husband was both a medical doctor and the county coroner, right?” he asked.
“Yes. The coroner position was part-time.” Anna glanced at the upscale surroundings of her house with pride and sadness. “It was babies and school physicals and flu viruses that paid for this place.”
“I assume Tom kept records in his practice.”
Anna nodded. “He was fanatical about it.”
“Did he keep personal files off-site, by any chance? Anything connected with his county work?”
“Yes, he kept copies here of all of his office records. He wasn’t particularly trusting of bureaucrats. He assumed floods or fires or locusts or something like that would strike a government building sooner or later. He made personal notes, too.”
Stride thought about the death of Jet Black. He assumed there was an autopsy report in the courthouse but that it didn’t tell the real story. Even so, it was possible that Tom Bruin had kept personal records for himself. Tom was a doctor. A professional. What he’d done was a crime. He had to know there might come a day when he would be forced to tell the truth about Jet Black.
“Do you still have those files?” Stride asked.
Anna shook her head. “What would I want with them? I turned his professional medical files over to the doctor who purchased his practice. As for county work, I called the sheriff and asked what I should do with the records. He said he would send someone to pick them up.”
“Did he?”
She nodded. “Yes. That was soon after Tom died. In fact, as I recall, the sheriff collected the boxes himself.”
Neal Gandy was heading out of his basement office in the Shawano County Courthouse as Stride was going in.
“Hey, Lieutenant,” he said. “You still in town? I hope you don’t have any more bodies to send me. We’re running out of drawers in the morgue with you around.”
Stride smiled at the gallows humor. “You can relax. No more bodies.”
“Well, that’s good. Did you talk to the sheriff yet? He’s been trying to reach you.”
“We keep missing each other,” Stride said.
Gandy smiled. “You know, Weik said if I saw you in he
re, I should lock the doors until he could send a deputy over to put you in cuffs.”
“Is that what you’re planning to do?”
“Hey, I’m not a cop. It’s not my problem.”
“Am I keeping you?” Stride asked. “Are you heading home?”
“I have to pick up Sophie, but she won’t mind if I’m a couple minutes late. What’s up?”
He followed the coroner back inside the antiseptic office. It was small and sparsely furnished. The overhead fluorescents cast sterile light. One wall included a sink, equipment station, and a metal examining table. Another wall was mostly made of gray steel and included a large refrigerator door. Gandy sat down on a wheely chair, his long legs jutting out.
Stride sat down on a similar chair. “What’s the status on the autopsies?” he asked.
“The pathologist asked us to transfer the bodies to Milwaukee to have the autopsies done there. He’s got better equipment than we have. The sheriff’s dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s on these cases.”
“Hamlin and Percy both?”
“Yup. We finally got an ambulance to take the bodies off my hands.” Gandy grabbed a tennis ball from his desk and juggled it. “If you don’t mind me asking, exactly what are you up to, Lieutenant?”
“Honestly? I’m trying to figure out if a fast-moving train needs to slow down.”
“Have you talked to Kelli Andrews? Do you know where she is?”
“I’d rather not say. Sorry.”
“Yeah, I get it. Just so you know, Weik found out about your little excursions to Appleton and Green Bay this morning. You talked to witnesses about Hamlin. He blew a gasket.”
“I figured. Weik wants me on a one-way trip back to Duluth.” Stride leaned forward. “Neal, I’m curious. How well did you know Tom Bruin?”
“We were buddies. I mean, we weren’t as close as him and Percy, but Tom was a good guy. Tough act to follow in this town, because everyone loved him. He’s the one who suggested I go after this gig. He said the MD didn’t matter.”
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