by Dan Padavona
Bell reached across the table and touched her arm, a small gesture to let the woman know she sympathized.
“We’ll find him, Mrs. Deering. I promise.”
Stephanie sniffed and produced a ragged tissue. She stamped the cigarette out and slid the ashtray away.
“I’m sorry. It hits me at the strangest times, you know? Sometimes it’s just the way the light moves across the kitchen, and I think it’s time for Kacy to wake up and I’d better grab her before it gets too late. And then I remember.”
Another tissue was in Stephanie’s hands. She sniffled.
Bell closed her notebook and put down the pen. It seemed to put Stephanie at ease.
“If you want to take a break—”
“No. Please continue. I want you to find who did this. I want you to find him and put a bullet in his head.”
“I’ll do everything I can to find him, Mrs. Deering. Let’s talk about school.”
“Sure.”
“Did Kacy have enemies?”
“Not Kacy. Never. Don’t get me wrong. She wasn’t one of the popular girls, but she never had a problem with any of them.”
“No fights, no drama?”
“Nothing like that. I don’t think the in-crowd knew she existed.”
Bell could relate. She’d floated through high school like a ghost, clinging to a tight-knit group of friends, barely acknowledged by the various cliques.
“What about boys?”
Stephanie smiled wistfully, eyes turning misty again.
“She was…is…a very pretty girl, my Kacy. Lots of boys were interested. Not that I was home much, but when I was the phone rang off the hook, always some boy looking for her.”
Bell sat forward and held Stephanie’s eyes.
“Did any boy pay your daughter an unusual amount of attention, perhaps too much?”
“Well, she was with Braden. Lots of boys tried and tried, but she was happy dating Braden.”
Stephanie’s brow wrinkled. She paused, lips moving as if working out a problem in her head.
“Mrs. Deering?”
“Now that you mention it there was one boy who took things too far.”
Grabbing the pen, Bell reopened the notebook.
“What was the boy’s name?”
“Ethan, I think.” Stephanie nodded. “Yes, Ethan Lancaster.”
“When you say he took things too far, what exactly do you mean?”
“Let me think for a moment. This was two years ago when Kacy was only a sophomore. He was an older boy, a senior, but he’d failed a grade way back. He used to call Kacy several times a day. Likely more than that, because sometimes I’d pick up the phone and there’d just be silence on the other end.”
“Did Kacy ever tell him to stop?”
“At first, I think she was flattered. The idea of an older boy and all, and this was before she dated Braden. But the calls kept coming, and that worried Kacy. And me, of course. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Hurriedly scribbling notes, Bell glanced up.
“Mrs. Deering, at any point did Kacy think someone was following her?”
“Ethan broke into her bedroom one night.”
Bell froze.
“Broke in? Did he hurt Kacy?”
“No. I caught him before he...I don’t want to think about what he intended.”
“Your daughter’s room is on the second floor. How did he get up that high?”
“There’s a lattice running up the back of the house,” Stephanie said, pushing up from her chair. Bell followed her across the kitchen where they peered along the backside of the little two-story. A vining plant, dead and wilted, snaked through the lattice. “See what I mean?”
“I see it. I hardly think it would support my weight. How big was Ethan?”
“Bigger than you. Heavier, too. What you do is climb a few feet and stand on the window sill. Otherwise, the lattice will snap. From there you grab the lower roof and pull yourself up if you have strong arms. Or if you’re light like me.”
Craning her neck, Bell looked up the side of the house. The climb appeared awfully steep.
“Sounds like you’ve done this before.”
“Agent Bell, I’m coming and going so often I can’t count the number of times I’ve locked myself out of the house.”
Bell wanted to get a better look at the lattice and window from the backyard. She filed a mental note to do so when the interview finished. They returned to the table. Stephanie slumped into her chair.
“Back to Ethan. Did he break the window?”
“No. It was summer and Kacy left her window open, which I told her not to do on account of the weatherman calling for storms. Still, he needed to pop the screen out of the window. That’s how I heard him.”
“Please tell me you called the sheriff.”
“Wasn’t anything they could do. It was dark, and I never got a good look at his face. Besides, if you think Sheriff Lerner is a waste of space, you should have known Sheriff Myers. What a piece of work.”
“Did they question Ethan?”
“Oh, sure. They sent a deputy to the Lancaster’s house. The boy claimed he was in bed sick that night, and the father vouched for him. You can always tell a Lancaster is lying when their lips move.”
After the interview finished, Bell photographed the lattice and searched for additional entry points. In the hot interior of the rental car, Bell sat in silence. The wind ran up and over the windshield and made a whistling noise. She recalled no mention of Ethan Lancaster in Lerner’s briefing, which struck her as odd.
Bell turned the key and rolled down the windows when the engine fired. Her clothes smelled like an ashtray and she wanted a shower.
Before she took the car out of gear, she dialed Gardy. The special agent was just leaving the Coral Lake Suites when he answered.
“We have a problem, Gardy.”
“Yeah?”
“Kacy had a stalker.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Gardy was waiting in the village common with Sheriff Lerner when Bell pulled the car curbside. The shoppers strolling the sidewalk all stared at her. They knew who she was, and it reminded them of the danger hiding within the village.
Lerner, who’d carried a dejected disposition from the moment he met them at the airport, suddenly beamed.
“Yeah, I know all about Ethan Lancaster. He worked with Norwood Construction until recently before the guy up and broke the foreman’s nose over some petty bullshit. Ethan is a hothead and a violent one at that. About a week afterward we nailed him on a DUI. It’s one thing after another with that guy. I’ve been saying it’s only a matter of time before he does something crazy, but I never expected anything like this.”
“Slow down,” Gardy said. “It’s a helluva leap to go from bar fights and climbing through a girl’s window to hacking her into pieces.”
“Is it a leap? I thought that’s how these serial killers get started. Committing sex crimes and the like.”
Bell shook the windblown hair from her eyes and lowered her voice as a middle-aged couple passed.
“Except he didn’t rape her.”
“Well, I might not know much about profiling, but I guarantee you Ethan Lancaster did this.”
The sheriff’s office was a brick building with white columns running up the front. By the time they arrived, Deputy Crandall, a young and muscular man with short stubble popping out of his face, said Ethan Lancaster was already on his way.
The tiny office was cramped with desks, making it a challenge to weave toward the back. The interrogation room was gloomy and held a small table with two plastic chairs on the left end and one on the right.
Ethan took longer to arrive than expected. A half-hour later Deputy Crandall led Ethan into the room. The man sat across from Bell and Gardy, rocking back on his chair and chewing on a wad of gum. There was a chip missing from a front tooth, otherwise Bell thought women might have found Ethan attractive. The beginnings of a beard circled his
round face, hair tied on top of his head. A man bun, she laughed to herself. What kind of bad boy sports a man bun? The younger man looked strong, physique thick and pudgy, muscles crafted from hard labor rather than a gym membership. Physically he fit the rough profile she’d shaped in her head. The human body was built to survive trauma. Bones were hard, muscle tendons tough and resilient. It took strength to chop a body into pieces.
The deputy waited for Gardy’s signal, then stepped outside the door.
Gardy nodded at Bell to begin.
“Thank you for coming in, Ethan. I’m Agent Bell, and this is Agent Gardy.”
She reached across the table to shake his hand. He glanced at it and kept rocking back, a derisive grin on his face. Bell pulled her hand back and flipped open Ethan’s folder.
“You’re a busy man. In the last year alone, an assault, a DUI, and two separate charges for public intoxication.”
He leered.
“The assault was bullshit. Guy swung on me first.”
She shuffled through the papers, shaking her head in wonder. It seemed Ethan couldn’t stay out of trouble.
“Tell me more about the assault.”
“It was a fight.”
“Okay, the fight.”
Ethan rocked forward. The metal chair legs clonked down on the floor.
“Gerry gave me shit about not working an extra hour. We were falling behind on a roofing job, which was his fault for taking on too many jobs in the first place. Told him I was busy, that I had shit to do and couldn’t stay. Gerry said either I worked the extra hour and finished the job or he’d fire me, so I told him I’d sue his ass. You can’t force someone to work extra hours without paying them. I mean, this is America. Right?”
“Then what happened?”
“Gerry got up in my face and acted tough, said he’d throw my ass off the site himself if I ever talked to him like that again. I told him to try. By then the rest of the guys had come over to watch the shit-show. Guess Gerry felt he needed to prove his manhood now that we had an audience. He shoved me, I shoved him. You know how it goes. I guess it got a little out of hand with the both of us screaming. I don’t even remember hitting him. I mean, one minute he’s yelling in my face, and the next he’s on his back, nose all crooked and bleeding, and I got two guys on my arms pulling me away.”
“You said he hit you first,” said Gardy, sharing a glance with Bell.
“If I said that’s what happened, then that’s what happened.”
“Ethan,” Bell said, resting her elbows on the table and propping her chin up with her hands. “Is it common for you to hit someone and not remember?”
Ethan’s eyes darted between Bell and Gardy.
“I get mad sometimes is all.”
“So it’s possible you’ve hurt someone in the past and don’t even remember doing it.”
Ethan’s fingers curled and uncurled in his lap, clenching into fists, knuckles white.
“I see what you’re doing. Trying to put words in my mouth. If this is about that bitch, you can forget it.”
“What bitch?”
Ethan was almost shouting now. He rose a few inches off the chair and leaned aggressively across the table.
“Kacy Deering. Who else would we be talking about? I mean, that’s why I’m here, right? Because you think I was the one who did it.”
The door opened. Deputy Crandall met Gardy’s eyes, and the special agent raised a hand to say the situation was under control. Crandall nodded and returned to his post, glaring at Ethan until the door closed.
“Two years ago you broke into Kacy’s bedroom.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“Are you denying it happened? The mother says she saw your face.”
Bell didn’t blink over the lie. For the first time since the interview began, Ethan looked visibly rattled. Not surprising as for two years he’d believed it was too dark for Stephanie Deering to see.
“You got it all wrong.”
“Good. That’s why we’re here, Ethan. Not to accuse anyone, but to clear up misconceptions and set the record straight.” She flipped to a blank page and clicked her pen. “Why don’t you tell us what really happened?”
The tension fell out of Ethan’s shoulders. He seemed to shrink several inches as he slouched down in the chair.
“First of all, I didn’t break into Kacy’s bedroom. She invited me.”
“Were you and Kacy lovers?”
“I wasn’t dating her if that’s what you mean. Look, it wasn’t any secret that Kacy liked to play around. And when she did, she liked it dangerous.”
Gardy glanced sidelong at Bell and led with the next question.
“How do you mean?”
“Like sneaking guys into her room when her mother was down the hall.”
“You say you didn’t break into the room, but the mother heard you knock the screen out of its tracks.”
Ethan squinted up at the ceiling for a moment, then vigorously shook his head.
“No, no, no. Definitely not what happened. Kacy lifted the screen and let me inside. The thing is it was dark, and her nightstand was right up against the window. I kicked over a picture frame before my eyes adjusted.”
“Then what?”
Ethan smirked.
“Use your imagination.”
“I don’t have much of an imagination, Ethan, so I prefer you humor me.”
Sitting back and stretching out his legs, Ethan locked his fingers behind his head.
“We got in bed.”
“Did you have sexual intercourse with Kacy Deering?”
“We would have. She was into it, and it got pretty hot in there. That’s when we heard her mother running down the hall. Now, I figured Kacy was gonna tell me to hide. Maybe under the bed or such. But the bitch screams rape, for Christ’s sake. I swear that’s how it went down.”
“You didn’t force yourself on Kacy?”
“I’m not bragging, Agent Gardy, but I don’t need to rape a girl to get action. I damn near broke my neck climbing out that window in the dark. I had to swing from the lattice over to the porch roof, and I almost lost it trying to slide down the rail. Then I’m running through the yard and staying in the shadows, and all this time I can hear her whore mother screaming she’s gonna call the cops.”
The room was quiet for a moment. The fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered. Bell watched Ethan fidget, a clue he might not be telling the whole truth.
“That must have made you angry as hell,” Bell said. “Kacy throwing you under the bus like that.”
Ethan paused, measuring carefully what he said next.
“I wasn’t happy but I moved on. Lots of fish in the sea, as the saying goes.”
“That seems a little hard to believe. If you’ll indulge me for a moment…” Bell flipped through the notes from Stephanie Deering’s interview. “The mother remembers you called Kacy several times a day.”
More squirming.
“I take it you have a problem hearing the word ‘no.’”
The young man worked his jaw back-and-forth. They could hear his teeth grind.
“The only problem I have is putting up with bullshit lies. Like Kacy pretending she didn’t invite me into her room. Bitch only did it to save her ass. Yeah, maybe I called her a few times.”
“Maybe more than a few times?”
“You got proof of that?”
“Where were you Friday night?”
A wolfish grin formed on Ethan’s face. It showed too many teeth.
“Drinking beer with my old man.”
“Out in public where someone saw you?”
“Nah, just at his place. Thirty-two Pleasant Street, about half-a-mile from here as the crow flies. Now that’s a silly saying, isn’t it? As the crow flies. Makes you wonder who starts this shit.”
Gardy picked up his phone.
“If I were to call your father now…”
“Yeah, he’d vouch for me. Bet that puts a serious crank in
your shorts, me having an alibi and all.”
After Ethan left, Sheriff Lerner made a call to Corey Lancaster. He leaned against his desk, arms folded. Bell and Gardy sat across from him as the final vestiges of daylight burned at the window.
“His story checks out. Corey Lancaster claims his son was with him Friday night until two in the morning. Of course, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The father might be lying.”
Bell didn’t think so. To the sheriff’s consternation, she ruled out Ethan as the murderer. Besides, Braden Goodrich had arrived.
Though she knew Kacy’s boyfriend didn’t fit the profile, they went through with the interview. The boy was visibly distraught and cried repeatedly, blaming himself for not staying with Kacy.
“I was gonna go back and drive her home,” he said, wiping his eyes on the collar of his shirt. “I figured I’d drive around for a little bit and wait for her up the road.”
“Did you call Kacy?”
“No…no, I didn’t.”
She already knew he hadn’t called but wanted to confirm the boy was being honest. The phone history showed no calls from Braden that evening.
“But you worried over Kacy walking home in the dark. Why didn’t you call?”
He dropped his eyes. Shrugged once and shook his head.
“Because I was mad.”
“You were upset with Kacy?”
“It’s stupid, okay? I thought she wanted…I mean…”
“You thought she wanted to have sex with you.”
“Well, yeah.”
“And you became angry when she didn’t want to.”
He shifted in his seat, looked off into a shadowed corner.
“I wasn’t angry. Just hurt.” He choked on his words and fell silent. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”
Bell ran through the rest of her questions. She knew full well Braden Goodrich had nothing to do with Kacy’s murder.
On their way back to the hotel, Gardy and Bell ate fish sandwiches on the pier. Dusk settled over the village and slashed streaks of magenta across the blue lake waters. The last tour boat of the evening left port. Shop owners turned off the lights and locked doors.