32
RIBBONS OF SNOW BLEW across the highway as Kate drove home that night—no music, no radio, just dead silence. Back at the condo, she took a hot shower and had a light supper. The she poured herself a glass of wine, curled up on the sofa, and opened the box of police files. She spent the next couple of hours rifling through first-officer’s reports, evidence submission slips, suspect interviews, and witness statements.
Kate poured herself another glass of wine and looked through Hannah Lloyd’s file. There were dozens of photographs, but two of them stood out. One was a snapshot of the petite fourteen-year-old posing for her high school yearbook. She had a wide innocent face, long auburn hair, and a self-conscious smile. The second photograph showed irregular shapes jutting out of the forest floor. The top layer of dirt had been whisked away, exposing the partly mummified remains—part of a ribcage and two skeletal fingers clutching a bit of decayed fabric. Hannah Lloyd’s shaved skull peeped out of the dirt. Was the killer taking souvenirs? Was this an act of aggression or a form of worship?
Kate leaned back and closed her eyes. She went back to the balmy summer night she’d left her sister alone in the cabin, while she and the cute boy had wandered off. They settled on a patch of grass in a grove of evergreens and made out beneath the August moon. Overwhelmed by a surge of hormones, Kate didn’t see or hear anything unusual that night—no vehicles coming up the logging road, no screams or shouts. All she heard was the boy’s heavy breathing in her ear and the muffled beat of her own lustful heart.
But there had been a strange noise in the woods that night, deep and territorial. Five ominous hoots. Hoo-hoo, hooooo, hoo-hoo.
“It’s a ghost,” the boy teased, but Kate knew a great horned owl when she heard one. They were the largest nocturnal birds in New Hampshire, rust-colored with snow-white throats and tufted feathery horns. They had piercing yellow eyes, and their hoots came in series of fives. Hoo-hoo, hooooo, hoo-hoo.
The boy put his hand down Kate’s pants and frantically unhooked her bra, and she vaguely recalled seeing splashes of light around the cabin in the distance, but she figured it was just her sister exploring, shining the flashlight around, because that’s what Savannah did. She was the Curious George of little girls.
Kate wasn’t completely irresponsible; at one point she tried to get up to go check on her sister, but the boy pulled her back down and kissed her all over, which made her swoon, until she was lying flat on the prickly ground, mesmerized by the things he was doing to her body.
“Wait,” she hissed cautiously.
“What?”
“Do you hear that?”
Hoo-hoo, hooooo, hoo-hoo.
“Kiss me,” he commanded.
She kissed him. She did whatever he wanted. She lost her virginity that night. She lost everything that night.
Now she sighed in defeat as she put the files back in the box. There was nothing she could tell Palmer he didn’t already know. Her actions had been written up in the police report. She’d confessed everything to Detective Dunmeyer, down to the last lurid detail—the blood in her underpants, the stickiness between her legs, the boy’s half-hearted attempts at consoling her afterwards—and worst of all, how she’d taken her sweet time getting dressed and going back to the cabin and finding it empty.
The phone rang. Kate picked up. “Hello?”
“Did I wake you?” It was Palmer Dyson.
“Can’t sleep,” she admitted groggily. “I was looking at those files you sent over.”
“Yeah? What do you think?”
“I have my impressions, but nothing earth-shattering.” A shiver made her draw her knees to her chest. “Do you want to hear them?”
“Nah. Let’s talk tomorrow. I just took a couple of Ambiens.”
“Actually, I could swing by your place first thing. What time’s good for you?”
“I’m wide open.”
“Really?” she teased. “You’ve got nothing penciled in?”
“I’ve got like zero social life.”
“How’s nine o’clock sound?”
“Sounds good. There’s something I’d rather tell you in person anyway.”
She frowned. “What?”
“Tomorrow,” Palmer said, and hung up.
33
HANNAH LLOYD’S CRIME SCENE photos pushed their way into her dreams, and Kate woke up on Thursday morning in an absolute panic, clawing at the air. She sat up in bed with her temples pounding as the nightmare slowly receded. Something about skeletal fingers digging up fistfuls of spiders.
It was 5:00 AM, and James’s side of the bed was empty. She missed him with a big sorry ache. She got up and opened the window and inhaled a chill blast of arctic air, and it shocked her lungs like a scoop of ice cream. She tried to shake off any lingering grief that should’ve ended with Blackwood’s death and called Nelly at home, despite the early hour, but gave up after the tenth ring. The Wards must be avoiding the barrage of media calls, and who could blame them? Kate refused to answer her phone for the same reason—old friends calling to commiserate, reporters requesting interviews, bloggers trolling for click-bait. Savannah Wolfe was trending on Twitter. All she could do was wait it out, until the media winds blew over. How long that could take was anybody’s guess.
She showered and got dressed, then grabbed her keys and headed for New Hampshire. Once she’d left the greater Boston area behind, the drive was relatively hassle-free, with very little traffic on the road. She passed dozens of New England villages nestled in snow-covered valleys, their lacy Christmas-card quality soothing her nerves.
Detective Dyson lived on the east side of Blunt River, at the end of a meandering country road. She parked in front of his tattered Queen Anne, took the shoveled walkway up to his rickety front porch, and knocked on the door.
They shook hands, and he seemed fully awake and brimming with energy. “Come on in. Watch your step. Gotta fix that.”
The house was sunny and spacious, with old-fashioned drafty windows and gorgeous woodwork. The furniture was a blend of modern-discount and family heirlooms. Dozens of storage boxes were stacked around the living room, giving it a garage-sale feel. Every surface was covered with old police reports, dirty dishes, and textbooks on criminology. A standalone whiteboard in the corner was covered with names, dates, and timelines. There was a map of Blunt River County tacked to the wall, with colored pushpins indicating various abduction points.
“See what happens when your obsessions take over?” he joked. “They grow like kudzu. Grab a seat. Coffee?”
“Sure.”
“Long trip?”
“Not bad.”
“Be right back.” He ducked into the kitchen.
Kate glanced around the living room, at the hardwood floor and river-stone fireplace. A mahogany desk with an outdated PC and fax machine was bracketed by two glass-fronted bookcases crammed with leather-bound volumes. She took a seat in a plaid armchair facing a brown corduroy sleep-sofa.
“So,” he said, returning with two steaming mugs on a tray. He handed her the milk and sugar and sat down on the sofa. “Let’s talk.”
She smiled uncertainly. “You said you had something to tell me?”
“First.” He held up a finger. “What’s your profile? What do you see in those files?”
She understood what he was looking for: a psychological cold reading. “My first impression? Well, we don’t know anything about the fate of the four missing girls, so it’s difficult to prognosticate.”
“What about the others?”
“If you accept the theory that the suicides and accident were staged murders,” Kate said, “and that the killer is obsessed with the victims’ hair… then the next thing we need to do is look for commonalities between the victims. On face value their ages and physical characteristics are all over the map. But the two things they all have in common are their sex and general age range.”
“Female children?”
“Yes. But I didn’t see anything in
the files to indicate they were raped, which tells me this isn’t a sexual deviant. This is something different. A predator who’s triggered by the hair of young females.”
“Why? What’s the psychological significance?”
“It’s likely the result of childhood trauma.”
“So he’s acting out some sort of psychological ordeal from the past?”
“Possibly. Shaved heads and shorn hair are pregnant with meaning for him. The act of removing the hair is heavily symbolic.”
“Symbolic of what?” Palmer asked.
“I don’t know. Perhaps a form of punishment.” It didn’t escape Kate’s notice that they were speaking as if she accepted the premise. “After World War II, the Allies shamed female Nazi collaborators by shaving their heads and parading them in front of a jeering crowd. It’s a method of defeminizing. Or else he could be infantilizing his victims. By shaving their heads, they become like helpless infants. No longer a threat to his manhood.”
“So he’s scared of a bunch of girls? Is that what you’re saying?”
Kate smiled. “There are other possibilities. For example, Buddhist monks and nuns will shave their heads as a purifying act before entering the order.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “A renunciation of worldly pleasures.”
“But I think it’s much more personal than that. He may have witnessed something as a child—some traumatic event that disturbed him. His mother or some other powerful female figure could’ve come down with a debilitating disease that caused her to lose her hair, for instance. Or maybe she was mentally imbalanced and shaved it off in a fit of psychosis. Mental illness is a strong contender, since it’s passed from one generation to the next. Whatever the reason, he’s branding them. These girls are his. He puts his mark on them, and they become untouchables.”
“Untouchables?”
“His alone. Forever.”
Palmer leaned forward. “Okay, let’s go with that. Let’s say his mother lost her mind and that he inherited the condition. What’s your prognosis?”
She shrugged. “These crimes are too methodical and well-organized to be the work of a delusional schizophrenic. He’s in control of his impulses. And he isn’t bipolar, because grandiosity would make him want to brag about his exploits. He’d be writing letters to the editor or taunting the police with his accomplishments. There are a couple of other possible disorders… but my best guess is sociopathy. Sociopaths can function normally in society. They can be clever and deceptive and highly manipulative. He doesn’t care about the pain he’s inflicted on others or the destruction and chaos he’s left in his wake. He can’t experience emotions the way most people do. So criminal behavior is easy for him.”
“Which is why he hasn’t raised any red flags yet.”
She nodded. “Otherwise he would’ve been caught by now.”
“Okay,” Palmer said. “What are his weaknesses?”
“A penchant for young girls,” Kate said. “A traumatic childhood. He’s on the prowl. If what you say is true, then he’s developed a pattern of abducting vulnerable children and taking them someplace where he can cut their hair then dispose of their bodies, perhaps in the woods like Hannah Lloyd. Or else he stages suicides to see if he can get away with it. It’s a thrill for him. I doubt he can stop voluntarily, which means he leads a secret life. He hides his true self from the world. And that’s a great vulnerability.”
Palmer cocked an eyebrow. “What’s his motivation?”
“If these aren’t lust kills, then it’s all about power. He selects his victims carefully. He bides his time. There’s nothing rushed about these crimes—the staging of Susie Gafford’s, Lizbeth Howell’s, and Tabitha Davidowitz’s deaths shows that. Which means he’s methodical and well organized. He knows what he’s doing. He enjoys the hunt. He’s devious. He likes to play games. But he’s probably very afraid of getting caught. Bottom line, he hates to lose. That’s his biggest weakness.”
A slow smile spread across Palmer’s face. “I want you to take a look at something for me.” He rummaged through a pile of photographs on the coffee table. “Tell me if this gets to be too much.” He handed her a glossy 8x11 of a young girl with a crescent-shaped bruise on her throat, and Kate recognized six-year-old Susie Gafford, the little girl who had fallen down a well. “See this bruise? That is what you call a compression injury.” He pointed at the photograph. “It occurred antemortem, just before death. Any thoughts?”
Kate studied the photograph. Susie’s eyes were closed. Her lips were blue and her neck was tilted at an angle. Her glossy hair was braided in pigtails and tied at the ends with satin ribbons. It was a horrifying sight, and yet Kate couldn’t tear her eyes away. Susie had cuts and contusions on her body—no doubt from falling fifty feet down a stone well—but Kate could plainly see what the detective was talking about: a distinctive crescent-shaped mark on the victim’s throat, about two inches long and half an inch wide. “Looks like a half-moon,” she said. “A crescent. As if something was pressed against her skin.”
“Exactly,” he said.
There was something oddly familiar about the mark. Kate handed the photograph back and shuddered. Detective Dyson was leading her down a very dark path. “What does it mean?”
“I believe she was strangled with something soft, like a scarf or a blouse, placed over her throat lengthwise and gradually tightened. It was held that way with two hands, one hand pulling on either end. The hyoid bone was intact, meaning she wasn’t strangled with a belt or a cord, or by a pair of hands. We didn’t find any fingernail marks around the throat, which would indicate manual strangulation. Just this single compression injury, inflicted shortly before her heart stopped beating.”
“So she was strangled to death?”
“It’s called soft strangulation,” he explained. “A piece of fabric, when used correctly, won’t leave any telltale marks on the victim.”
“But I’m confused. Why did the medical examiner rule it an accident?”
Palmer ran his finger around the rim of his coffee mug. “Quade and I were always butting heads. I objected to his ruling at the time. But soft strangulation doesn’t leave any trace behind.”
“Except the killer made a mistake, right?” she said. “Because there was something attached to the piece of material he strangled her with. Something that left this mark?”
“Right,” Palmer said with a nod. “Perhaps a piece of jewelry; I’m thinking a pin or a brooch. He made a crucial error and didn’t notice his mistake until it was too late. So he threw the body down the well in order to disguise the manner of death.”
“But I don’t understand. Why didn’t the medical examiner see it?”
Palmer shrugged with resignation. “Her face wasn’t congested or swollen, no petechial hemorrhages, no red dots or streaks in the eyes, no ligature marks, coupled with an intact hyoid bone… he concluded that she struck her throat during her tumble down the well. But you can’t dismiss a compression injury. Especially when some of the blood settled into the back of the body—not much, but enough. Evidence the victim was lying on the ground when she died, not curled up inside the well. If Susie Gafford was his first kill, then the perp was bound to make a few mistakes.”
Kate swallowed hard. They were talking about real events and real people. Real little girls. This discussion was no longer theoretical, and it scared her. She resisted. What if Palmer was wrong? What if the medical examiner was right? “I don’t get it,” she said. “Why aren’t the police all over this?”
“You’re talking about a skilled psychopath—you call him a sociopath, I say tomato. He probably has a good job—a teacher, minister, social worker—and this is his terrain—Blunt River County. He’s comfortable here and can strike at any time or place of his choosing. Otherwise, he never would’ve gotten away with it.”
“And the police don’t see a connection?” she asked incredulously.
“First of all, there are four jurisdictions handling the nine cases,
and each of these departments don’t necessarily communicate with one another. They all have their own hotlines, with thousands of tips pouring in. You’ve got hundreds of witnesses and suspects to track down. It’s easy for an investigator to get bogged down. Like I said, Quade and I strongly disagreed about a lot of things, but his word held a lot of sway. Still does.”
“That’s pathetic.”
“Don’t get me wrong. This is a great bunch of guys I’m talking about. They work their butts off. They want justice, same as me. But they’ve got a job to do and a board to clear, and things can get messy fast. There’s a lot of infighting and there are budgetary considerations. Blunt River depends heavily on tourism, and the powers-that-be don’t want any feathers ruffled unless the police are a hundred per cent sure of their facts.” He shrugged. “So caution prevails. Shit happens.”
“What about Quade Pickler?”
“What about him?”
“Don’t you think it’s weird? He just dismissed you outright?”
Palmer shook his head. “Like I said, he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He’s as easily fooled as the rest of them.”
“So you left it at that?”
“No, I didn’t leave it at that. Given the age of the victims, I interviewed all known pedophiles in the area, family members, neighbors, teachers. It wasn’t until years later that I learned…” He looked at her. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
She nodded slowly.
“I already have a suspect in mind.”
She drew back, unnerved by the revelation.
“He fits the profile I’ve built up of the killer: a loner in a position of authority. He’s a professor at Wellington University, right here in Blunt River. And I think you know him.”
Her heart skipped a beat.
“William Stigler,” Palmer said.
Kate shook her head, confused.
“Professor William Stigler?” he repeated, then frowned. “You don’t know him?”
“No, I’ve never heard of him.” Kate felt suddenly angry. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner, Palmer? Why let me go on and on like that? I feel like such an idiot.”
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