by Dan Padavona
“Let me start with the names you gave me.” Chelsey pointed at the pictures. “May I hang on to these?”
“For as long as you need.”
“I’ll make copies and hand the originals back to you at our next meeting.”
“How long before the investigation begins?”
“Right away. I’ll call you with a progress report in forty-eight hours.”
Santos thanked Chelsey and shook her hand again. LeVar watched him leave and waited until the front door closed. A car motor fired in the parking lot.
“What’s your opinion of Santos?” he asked.
Chelsey knew LeVar had listened in while he worked on a different case.
“The numbers say the husband is usually responsible. Sounds like the investigators wanted Santos for the abduction.”
“But you don’t believe he killed Harmony and disposed of the body.”
Chelsey anchored her dark, wavy hair behind her ear.
“If he did, why would he open up an investigation?”
“For appearances?”
“Doubtful. The investigators gave up on Santos four years ago.” Chelsey tapped a pen against the desk. “I’ll make a few calls. Poplar Corners doesn’t have a police department, right?”
“It’s too small.”
“That means the Nightshade County Sheriff’s Department has jurisdiction.” Chelsey chewed her lip. She dated Thomas Shepherd, the county sheriff. But Thomas had worked in Los Angeles as an LAPD detective four years ago. “I’ll speak to Thomas. Maybe his deputies recall the case.”
Through the window, Lawrence Santos’s car turned out of the parking lot and raced past the village shops. Chelsey wanted to trust him. But she’d learned to never let her guard down. Was Santos a murderer hiding behind a sob story?
3
Thomas Shepherd stopped his silver Ford F-150 along the curb outside St. Mary’s church. So much for his day off. Deputy Lambert’s cruiser stood two spaces ahead of the sheriff’s truck. Outside the doors, Lambert strung yellow police tape, the wind forcing the tape to dance and snap at its whim.
The church was a mammoth concrete structure with intricate carvings etched into the exterior. Eight stone steps led to the entry doors, where a greeter would welcome parishioners for service under normal circumstances. But there was no service today.
Thomas assessed the disheveled mop of sandy hair across his head. No comb could tame the beast. He fixed his hat over the hair and tugged it down, then he hopped out of the cab. As he climbed the steps, a truck backfired. He flinched, spun, and reached for his weapon. Loud noises always bothered and confused him. Since a gunshot nearly took his life in Los Angeles, he jumped at anything that sounded like gunfire. He counted each step as he swept his gaze across the entryway. It was a habit he hadn’t kicked since the family doctor diagnosed him with Asperger’s syndrome during his childhood.
Gloom hung heavy inside the church vestibule. He blinked and forced his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Voices carried from inside the church as Deputy Lambert questioned Father Josiah Fowler. Thomas didn’t trust Fowler. Sheriff Gray felt convinced the priest ran his wife off the road and killed her, and Thomas held Gray’s opinion in high regard. Last year, the Thea Barlow murders tore the village apart. Why hadn’t Fowler suspected his assistant? Still, Wolf Lake villagers worshiped Fowler. Even Thomas’s own mother had loved the man, until Thea Barlow broke into her house and attempted to murder her husband. The doctors had diagnosed Mason Shepherd, Thomas’s father, with late-stage lung cancer. Since the Thea Barlow arrest, Thomas’s father had passed.
Father Fowler appeared as if he’d gained twenty pounds since the last time Thomas saw him. Girded by black horseshoe shapes, the priest’s eyes looked tired, defeated.
“Sheriff,” Fowler said in acknowledgment, as Lambert stood off to the side.
“Tell me what happened here.” Fowler repeated his story for Thomas. “And you’ve no idea who this man was?”
Fowler drew his lips tight.
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. The sacramental seal binds me.”
“A madman leaves a severed hand in your church, and you won’t reveal his name?”
“Confession is between the confessor and God. I would never break that trust.”
Thomas held Fowler’s eyes. How would he figure out who left the box in the confession booth, if Fowler protected the man’s identity?
“Is there anything you can tell me?”
“I must respect the man’s privacy, depraved as he is.” When Thomas blew out a breath, Fowler raised a hand. “There is one thing. The man seemed to know me. He assailed me with the horrible murders, and he spoke of St. Mary’s church many years ago, though he remained vague and spoke in circles. He’s a troubled man, I fear.”
“Many years ago, you say? You were the priest when I was a child.”
“Yes, and I recall you rarely attended mass.”
“I came out okay. How long have you been at St. Mary’s?”
“Twenty-four years this August,” Fowler said, puffing out his chest.
Thomas glanced at the towering ceiling, then across the walls. Though the stranger’s confession remained sacred, perhaps modern technology would provide Thomas with the answers he sought.
“Do you have a security system, Father?”
“We have alarms on the front and back doors. But the church is open to the public during confession hours.”
“What about cameras?”
Fowler shook his head.
“None.”
Of course.
“Did anyone see the man coming or going?”
“I queried my assistants, and nobody saw the man.”
“Anyone else in the building for confession?”
“Mrs. Carr arrived two minutes after the man departed. She didn’t see him, either.” Something buzzed inside Fowler’s robes. Though he held to the old ways and refused to break his sacramental bond, Fowler embraced technology. He removed a phone from his pocket and squinted at the screen. “My apologies, Sheriff. I must take this call.”
“Don’t go far, Father. I’m not finished questioning you.”
Fowler’s robes fanned out behind him as he strode through the entry doors and descended the steps toward his basement office. Thomas turned to Lambert.
“Please tell me you have something to go on.”
Lambert motioned Thomas to follow. The sheriff slipped gloves over his hands when they stopped at the third pew from the back. Thomas gazed down at the severed hand inside the wooden box. The flesh was pallid, almost snow white, the blood dried and crusted where the madman had sawed the hand off at the wrist.
“Fowler claims the man placed the box beneath the seat inside the confessional booth. He carried it out and placed it on the pew so he could get a better look. After he opened the box, he called our department.”
The slight fingers branching out of the hand told Thomas this was a woman’s hand. Pink fingernail polish strengthened his opinion. He searched for an identifying mark—a wedding ring, tattoo, deformity. Nothing stood out.
“Any women go missing over the last few weeks?”
“None.”
Thomas scratched his head.
“All right. We need to dust the box for prints. And fingerprint Fowler so we can rule him out.”
“Gotcha. I started dusting the booth before you arrived. There must be three or four dozen sets of fingerprints on the walls, the chair, and the door. It’s a cluster.”
“Concentrate on the box. We know Fowler and our visitor touched the box. There should be prints. That is, if the guy didn’t wear gloves. We need county forensics. I’ll call them in.”
Thomas peeked inside the booth. The compartment held a putrid, stuffy smell. He ran his eyes over the room. Nothing but a chair, a box of pamphlets, and a latticed opening on the wall. While Lambert worked, Thomas passed through the vestibule and stepped into the bright outdoors. He was perplexed and troubled. This couldn�
��t be happening again in his county. There were still people in Wolf Lake who trusted their neighbors. Few locked their doors at night. How would they react if they discovered someone sliced off a hand, placed it in a box, and delivered it to Father Fowler?
Shielding his eyes from the sun, Thomas studied the road. The church owned an expansive plot of land. One hundred yards down the street, the neighborhood began. Someone must have seen the stranger’s vehicle pull up to the church. A blue SUV and a white hatchback were parked along the road. He took a photograph with his phone, zooming in so he recorded the license plates. Chances were the vehicles belonged to residents. But he wanted to be sure, just in case the stranger was nearby, observing him.
The obvious question tugged at him. Why deliver the body part to Father Fowler?
Someone had emerged from the priest’s past to haunt Nightshade County. And his work had just begun.
4
At the top of the stairs, he pulled the string and shed light on the basement. Then he descended the steps, passing the washing and drying machines. Spiderwebs hung like silk from the rafters, the gossamer alive with black, spindly legs as he ducked beneath. At the rear of the basement, he pushed aside a fifty-gallon plastic box and moved his hands along the concrete wall. Even with the light on, he had a hard time finding the entrance. His hand touched the subtle imperfection in the wall. With a shove of his shoulder, he muscled the hidden door open.
The atmosphere inside the secret room was humid, neither warm nor cold. A vast nothingness hung over this enclosed space. Water bled off the earthen walls and formed puddles in the corners. Along the far wall, a tree root snaked through the dirt and protruded into the prison.
He kept the light off inside the underground enclosure. A small rectangle of illumination extended from the basement into the prison. Thick iron bars divided the enclosure into three cells. He wrapped his hands around the bars and tugged, satisfied when they refused to budge.
One person occupied the cell on the left. The other two cells remained vacant. For now.
The man bent on one knee and observed his prey through the bars. On the dirt floor, a young man lay naked and curled into a ball with gooseflesh rippling along his body. The victim was Scott Rehbein, a nineteen-year-old college student. The man gleaned this information from Rehbein’s driver’s license. He snickered. Young people today were stupid animals. They were experts at posting videos and pictures to social media sites, and they craved attention from people who didn’t care about them. These idiots measured their worth by the number of likes their posts received. But they had no useful skills.
Capturing the boy had been easy. After following him through the parking lot to the college library, he slipped behind the boy’s car. Certain nobody was around, he stuffed an old rag into the tailpipe, grinding it in good and deep. Then he sat inside his Tesla in the neighboring lot and waited. Rehbein studied for almost two hours before he exited the double doors with a backpack slung over his shoulder. The man remained calm as he waited for his prey to take the bait.
Rehbein unlocked his car and tossed the backpack onto the passenger seat. A moment later, he slammed the door and turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered and failed. Three more frustrated turns of the key got Rehbein nowhere.
The man started the Tesla. It was dark then, the dim glow on the western horizon the only memory of the departing sun. Nobody came to help the boy. Rehbein leaned against the door. The boy punched the hood, blaming the car for his incompetence. Predictably, he pulled his phone from his pocket and fired off a text, no doubt a plea for help from a friend or roommate. Or an angry post to social media about the dealership that sold him the car.
With the parking lot vacant of students, the man pulled into the next space and waved a friendly hand. Rehbein glanced up for a moment, then back to his phone.
“What seems to be the trouble?”
Rehbein shoved the phone into his pocket and tugged at his mahogany hair.
“Goddamn car won’t start. I just changed the oil. This shouldn’t be happening.”
The man struggled to contain his laughter. Rehbein knew nothing about cars.
“Hmm. It’s probably something simple. Let’s see if we can get you started.”
“Thanks, bro. I was about to call my roommate for a ride.”
“No sense troubling your roommate.” The man nodded at Rehbein’s car. “Pop the hood and I’ll have a look.”
Rehbein gave the man an uncertain glance and slid into the car. With the door open, the dome light cast dim illumination over the interior. Rehbein’s hand moved to the gas cap release as the man bit his tongue.
“It’s under the headlight. Reach down, my boy.”
With an embarrassed grimace, Rehbein searched for the hood release. A loud pop announced the boy had passed his first test toward becoming a functional adult. The man lifted the hood and gave a cursory glance at the engine.
“Ah.”
Rehbein poked his head through the door.
“You figured it out already? Can you fix it?”
“There’s a toolbox in the backseat of my Tesla. Bring it to me, and I’ll have you on the road in seconds.”
A relieved grin spread across the boy’s face.
“Right away. And thanks.”
The man waited until Rehbein crawled inside, searching for the nonexistent toolbox. The boy balanced one knee on the seat as he swept his hand through the dark.
“Hey, man. I don’t think there’s a—”
The Taser shot Rehbein from behind. The boy lurched forward and twitched on the seat like a dying fish. After he confirmed nobody had wandered past, the man zapped Rehbein a second time, shoved his legs into the Tesla, and slammed the door.
Now in the secret room beside the basement, he snapped a finger to bring the naked boy awake. Nothing. A second snap, and the boy groaned and rolled onto his stomach.
“That’s it. Up and at ’em, as the old saying goes.”
Something wriggled across the boy’s leg. He yelped and slapped at the insect. The centipede scurried into a dark corner.
Instinctively, the boy covered himself with his hands, even as he drifted half-in and half-out of sleep. He didn’t know where he was yet. Rehbein had slept for eighteen hours after the man injected him with a sedative. The boy’s eyes tracked to the dirt ceiling, the walls, the bars holding him in place. Rehbein jolted and crab-walked backward when he spied the man beyond the cage.
“I know you,” Rehbein said, pointing. “You’re that guy who . . .”
“Yes, yes. The guy who helped you start your car.”
“What did you do to me? Where the fuck are my clothes?”
“No need to cuss, young man. There is no need for clothes here. No one will see.”
“Did you kidnap me? What are you, some kind of sicko? Let me the hell out.”
The man didn’t reply. This further unsettled Rehbein, who crawled to the bars dividing his cell from the vacant prisons. The boy yanked the bars, desperation sending him into a panic. On his hands and knees, he skittered to the front of his cell and pushed and pulled on the bars.
“No sense wasting your energy. Those bars are iron. You won’t pull them out of the ground with your bare hands.”
“This is bullshit! You can’t do this to me.”
The man produced a plastic container of food. A slat at the bottom of the cell allowed him to slide the container into the cage.
“I cooked the meal myself. Linguine. One of my best efforts, though it’s several hours old now. You’ll understand I didn’t wish to wake you.”
Rehbein glanced at the container and crawled backward.
“I’m not eating that. You poisoned the food.”
“To what end? I’m in control, my boy. I see no reason to rid the world of you when we’ve only just met.”
“Met? You attacked me from behind and locked me in a cage. You’re a pervert or something. Bet you get off locking people up.”
“Don’t argue, my son. Eat your food before it gets cold. I’m not reheating it.”
Rehbein peeled the lid off the container and hurled the food at the cage. It smashed against the enclosure. Linguine wormed down the bars.
“You’ll attract bugs if you make a mess of your food.”
“Screw you.”
The man gathered a clump of linguine in his hand and tossed it to Rehbein. It landed on the boy’s knee and trailed down to his shin.
“Eat, or incur my wrath.”
“What?”
“Eat, or incur my wrath. Don’t test me, boy.”
“Or what? You’re a coward. Open the cage and see what happens when I get hold of you.”
The man chuckled.
“You’re hardly convincing, covered with leftover dinner and your private parts dangling like a dead eel.” He stood and ran his eyes up and down the cage. The locked door stood in front of him. The key remained in the house, tucked beneath his mattress. “If you wish to survive, you’ll respect my authority. Unlike you, I have useful skills. I control light and dark and hold mastery over your existence.”
“You’re insane.”
The man’s mouth twitched.
“Where I work, I have access to rattlesnakes and black widow spiders. If you wish to awaken to absolute darkness with snakes and spiders inside your cage, I can make it happen.”
“You lie.”
The boy rubbed his arms and edged toward the rear of the prison. As Rehbein took in his surroundings, his gaze fixed on a red splotch of moist earth in the neighboring cell. The blood still held a sharp, coppery scent.
Rehbein screamed.
5
LeVar bent at the knees and lifted Scout Mourning out of her wheelchair. He hadn’t expected the teen to be this easy to carry. Scout seemed feather-light as he hauled her from the handicap accessible ramp fronting the Mourning’s house to his black Chrysler Limited in the driveway. Scout had turned fifteen this year. While she’d lived in Ithaca, Scout lost the ability to walk after a truck slammed into the back of her parents’ car, crumpling the rear compartment where Scout sat.