Never Alone (43 Light Street)

by Rebecca York

  She’d wanted…

  She wasn’t willing to put a name to the rest of it. And what did it matter, anyway? In the end, she’d understood that she had to confess her sins and understood that he wouldn’t grant her absolution. So she’d told him what she knew and how she knew it and watched the expression on his face harden into something that shredded the tender core of her being.

  THE STATE PARK was a good place to bury a body, Damien thought as he opened the trunk of his car and removed the bundle wrapped in plastic garbage bags.

  “You dig deep, then scatter the leaves and debris back over the ground, and nobody will ever find the grave,” he said, speaking aloud. He did that a lot: talked to himself. But there was nothing wrong with it. He liked his own company best, after all. So why not voice his thoughts when he wanted to?

  The cops hadn’t found the other four graves up here. They wouldn’t find Hallie Bradshaw. He was sure of that. Sure all his plans would work out just the way he wanted.

  Lisa Stapler was different, though. Special. He’d wanted them to find that body. Wanted to humiliate her, even in death. The way she’d humiliated him all those years ago.

  So he’d used her as his calling card. His announcement that something important was going on. But he’d just given them a hint, a teaser, when he’d left her where he knew the body would be discovered.

  But up here was private. Safe. Anonymous.

  He had tramped this ground before, so the three-quarters full moon was enough to light his way as he marched through a stand of trees, then into a meadow where he knew the soil was easy to work.

  He was smart and careful. He’d bought the textbooks from the criminal investigation courses at the University of Maryland. He knew how to make sure that the police wouldn’t find any trace evidence they could use at Bradshaw’s house. Just the way they hadn’t found anything at the other crime scenes.

  “And the neighbors?” he asked himself aloud, continuing the dialogue with his own favorite conversationalist. “Don’t worry about the neighbors. They didn’t see anyone besides a carpet cleaner go into her house. And they didn’t notice there was a woman wrapped in the Oriental rug the carpet cleaner carried out.”

  Bradshaw and the other women hadn’t been all that much of a challenge. The men had been more difficult to control. They were bigger, heavier. But his hours in the gym had paid off and he had been able to handle them, too.

  Hallie had been alive after he’d hit her over the head and spirited her away from the town house.

  That was part of his plan. He’d taken her to the locked basement room in his Mom’s old house—where the two of them had looked at the Glenelg High School yearbook together. Looked at all the pictures of her in the Spanish Club, the Booster Club, the cheerleader squad and the homecoming queen’s court. They’d gone over all her stupid achievements—each one a nail in her coffin lid. There were no pictures of him, except in the pages where there were head shots of all the seniors.

  Like all the rest of his victims, she hadn’t even remembered him. That was how important he had been to her.

  “But you knew me pretty well by the time I finished with you. Didn’t you?” he asked as he set her plastic-wrapped body on the ground and began to dig.

  While he worked, his mind was busy making plans to punish the next hotshot member of her graduating class.

  AFTER LEAVING the restaurant, Cal headed home—to the computer system that duplicated many of the features he had at the office.

  Dad had inherited the redbrick rambler off Frederick Road six years earlier from his older sister, Martha. Cal had seen her only sporadically over the years, because she’d lived in Maryland and they’d lived outside Greensboro, North Carolina. But she’d urged him to consider the University of Maryland for college. And he’d liked living in the state. Then Dad had retired from a job in the Greensboro finance department and had wanted to make a change, so he’d followed his son north.

  After college, Cal had applied to the Baltimore Police Department because that was where the action was. He’d gotten accepted to the same police academy class as Hannah Dawson. They’d both been good patrol officers. Young recruits on the fast track, with undercover assignments and other special gigs that had led to quick promotions to the detective squad.

  It was a system that chewed up and spit out promising talent. Hannah had burned out after the shooting of that kid, Sean Naylor. Cal had opted to move to Howard County where there was less crime and less pressure—and where he could help take care of his dad, after he’d been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Two months after he’d moved to the county, his father died. And now here he was, in an unfamiliar environment, wondering if it was where he really belonged.

  He’d left a pressure-cooker job for one that should give him some breathing space. But he was still pushing himself—partly because the habit of working overtime helped fill up the long evening hours.

  So as soon as he got home, he changed into comfortable clothes—jeans and a T-shirt—then he warmed up a mug of coffee from the pot that was still sitting on the kitchen counter from the morning and took it into the spare bedroom that he’d set up as an office.

  Pulling up his chair in front of the computer, he booted the machine. Before the Windows program took over the display, he could see the shadow of his features reflected on the monitor like a ghost.

  He rubbed his hand over his face, wondering why he’d chosen that particular metaphor. There were no ghosts. No spirits called up by little old lady psychics at seances who imparted information from the afterlife. Spirits didn’t solve crimes. Psychics didn’t solve crimes. Stuff like that was a total bunch of crap invented by Hollywood to fill movie theaters.

  Crimes were solved through hard work, persistence and logical deduction.

  When the machine had finished booting, he went back to the database he’d been studying earlier, looking for murder victims over the past two years who were twenty-eight and twenty-nine years of age. By midnight he’d found eight unsolved cases.

  THE NEXT MORNING in the squad room, Cal kept looking for patterns that would link the victims. Following his earlier theory, he went to the Glenelg High School Web site, to the alumni roster compiled by some gung-ho former student with a lot of time on his hands.

  In an hour and a half he’d found three men and one other woman besides Stapler. Five stone-cold disappearances—all the victims presumed murdered—and a probable sixth if you assumed Hallie Bradshaw was dead, which he did. All the previous crimes were still unsolved.

  Rocking back in his chair, he stared at the computer screen. It sounded like a plot for a teen horror movie. Only, the victims had long graduated from school. Six homicides all involving classmates of Beth Wagner.

  Cal reported his findings to his boss, Lieutenant Patterson. Three hours after that, Patterson called him into his office, closed the door and laid out the most dang-fool undercover assignment Cal had ever heard of.

  Chapter Three

  A good cop did his job, Cal thought as he turned onto Underwood Road. A good cop didn’t question the decisions of the boss. So Cal had held his objections to Patterson’s nut-brain scheme to a couple of mild observations.

  But violent crime was up in Howard County, and the lieu was anxious to be the one to free the logjam of unsolved cases. He was also anxious to take credit for arresting a serial killer operating in Howard County and surrounding jurisdictions.

  Because, thanks to Cal’s research, that was what the situation now looked like. He’d made connections between cases that nobody else had seen, connections that pointed to a serial killer knocking off members of the Glenelg High School tenth-reunion class.

  Which was why Cal was presently on his way out to Beth Wagner’s sheep farm.

  As he drove, he was thinking he should have called her first. But he’d been pretty sure that if he presented Patterson’s plan over the phone, she’d simply say no.

  So he’d come out here in person to convinc
e her to do something that she wasn’t going to like. Actually, something he wasn’t going to like, if the truth be told. But he supposed he was willing to give it a shot.

  He slowed when he drew close to her turnoff and saw a dark blue car parked near her rural mailbox. There was a guy inside the vehicle. Was he just checking a map or was he specifically interested in Beth’s property?

  The man pulled away as Cal approached, but not before he copied down the license number on his notepad. He’d run the plate later and find out who he was.

  As Cal drove up the long lane, he saw a man in one of the fields. Probably the farmer Wagner had mentioned.

  Quickly he corrected himself. Don’t refer to her as Wagner. From now on when you think about her, she’s Beth. And you’d better get used to it.

  Looking to the right, he saw the guy in the field staring at him. He slowed down, and made a point of returning the interest. After thirty seconds of uneasy eye contact, the man turned back to whatever he was doing with the sheep.

  Pulling up near the house, Cal cut the engine. This time there was no barking from the big ugly dog named Granger. Instead, the animal came up to the unmarked car, wagging his tail. Well, at least somebody was glad to see him, Cal thought as he exited the vehicle and squatted to stroke the animal.

  “Good boy,” he drawled. “So you remember me. That’s good.”

  He and the mutt moved toward the porch, and Cal rapped on the front door. There was no answer.

  “Beth?” he called, trying out the name.

  She still didn’t answer, but he could hear music drifting toward him from somewhere at the back of the house. Something classical that sounded vaguely familiar, although his musical education was too sketchy to serve up the name of the piece or its composer.

  He tried the door, found it unlocked, and thought that folks out here in the country were too trusting. It could be the damn serial killer with his hand on the doorknob.

  His chest tightened at the thought.

  “Beth?”

  He and the dog passed the old-fashioned parlor where he’d interrogated her a few days ago.

  He followed the music, stopping at a room at the end of the hall that was bare of furniture except for a huge loom in the corner and a desk chair. Beth was sitting in the chair, totally absorbed in weaving. He stopped where he was, arrested by the sight of her—the long blond hair flowing down her back and the graceful way she moved as she worked. He didn’t know anything about weaving, but she made it look like an exotic dance as her hands did something with the threads and her foot moved the pedals near the floor.

  He cleared his throat and went back into formal mode, just for the moment. “Ms. Wagner.”

  She jumped, then spun around in her seat, her eyes wide. When she saw who it was, she gave him a pained look. “What are you trying to do—scare the living daylights out of me?”

  “I knocked. I called out. Nobody answered.”

  Her reproving gaze shot to the dog. “Granger, you’re supposed to tell me when someone comes up the driveway.”

  The animal lowered his head slightly, looking for all the world like a little boy who had been caught lighting matches behind the barn. “I guess he likes me,” Cal murmured.

  She gave a noncommittal shrug, then asked, “Do you have some information on Hallie?”

  He watched the way she clenched her jaw as she waited for bad news.

  “Not specifically on your friend.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “To ask for your help in the investigation.”

  She raised her chin. “You think my special talents are a bunch of baloney. Why would you want my help?”

  “It wasn’t that kind of help we’re after.”

  “Then what?”

  He dragged in a breath and let it out. Here it was, the moment when he had to make Patterson’s crazy plan look like something reasonable.

  BETH WATCHED HIM shift his weight from one foot to the other. He wanted something from her, and he was uncomfortable about it. Good.

  Well, maybe good. Because the look in his eyes suggested that he knew she wasn’t going to like what he had to say, either.

  She struggled to keep her own expression neutral, struggled not to let him discover that her throat was suddenly dry and aching.

  Since he’d come here three days ago, she’d lain in bed making up fantasies about this man, sure that she was never going to see him again. Here he was, back in her house looking and sounding just as appealing as he’d been before his dark eyes had turned hard and the soft southern drawl had turned scornful.

  She’d blocked out those parts in her fantasies. Now the remembered look of contempt hurt just as much as when he’d turned that laser gaze on her.

  “Can we go in the other room and sit down?” he asked.

  She nodded, glad he was giving both of them a little more time before he asked anything of her. When he turned, she filled her lungs with oxygen, held it for a moment, then followed him down the hall. Granger trailed behind her.

  As she stepped through the door to the parlor, Cal was looking around the room as if he were just seeing it for the first time.

  Keeping her eyes averted, she perched on the sofa; he settled his large frame into her father’s easy chair.

  Granger hesitated as if his loyalties were torn. Traitorous dog, she thought. When she gave him a stern look, he trotted toward her and settled at her feet. Reaching to pet his head, she hoped the slight tremor of her fingers didn’t show.

  Cal took a notebook out of his pocket, flipped it open and stared down at a page of black script. “After I interviewed you, I started looking for similar cases. In the middle of the search, I got a hunch and started making some interesting connections.”

  She continued to stroke her dog’s head, refraining from asking him if the hunch had been some sort of psychic intuition.

  “I discovered that five other members of your high-school class have disappeared. Three men and two women. They all vanished for no apparent reason. I mean, they weren’t suicidal or in any kind of financial trouble. They weren’t embroiled in any domestic disputes. They’re all presumed murdered.”

  “No!” came her automatic response.

  “Lisa Stapler was the first. She’s the only body we’ve found. The other class members are Will Huttonson, Donna Misk, Andy Preston, Jim Vogel.”

  She felt a wave of cold sweep over her. “No,” she said again. She knew all those names. Will had been a star running back on the Glenelg winning football team. Lisa had been a cheerleader. All of the others were prominent class members that anyone from the same year would recognize.

  “That’s too many to be a coincidence,” Cal said.

  When she nodded tightly, he went on.

  “The conclusion is obvious. Somebody has a grudge against the members of the class. Most likely a former student.”

  That wasn’t a conclusion she wanted to draw, so she simply sat there staring at him.

  “We have to catch the guy before he does it again. I’ve also learned from my supervisor that the class is gearing up for a tenth reunion. That there’s a planning meeting of class members coming up. We want to see who comes to that meeting and why—get a handle on the class members. But we can’t just pretend that someone who didn’t even go to the school is suddenly a member of the class.”

  “And?”

  “We figure the best way is to have a spouse of a class member join her at that meeting. Get on the committee.”

  “What does all this have to do with me?”

  “My supervisor suggested that you’re our most logical candidate.”

  “What?” She heard her voice go high and thin. “I’m supposed to be married?”

  His gaze was steady as it remained focused on her, but she saw his fingers had tightened around the notebook.

  “The last time you came here, you were acting like I was the one who had abducted Hallie,” she managed to say. “Now you’re asking for my he
lp?”

  “I didn’t say you’d abducted her.”

  “You were thinking it.”

  He gave a small shrug. “I have to think of every eventuality. I stopped considering you as a suspect when I figured out that we’re after a serial killer.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence—I think.”

  He ignored her sarcastic interjection and continued. “What we’ve got here is a killer operating within a confined population.”

  “Then why don’t you just interview everybody in the class?”

  “Right, we can narrow it down to over four hundred individuals. Besides, it might not be someone in the class. It could be a former cafeteria worker who’d developed a grudge against the class members. It could be a former teacher. A maintenance worker. Someone who lives near the school.”

  “So why do you want to infiltrate the reunion committee?”

  “Because that’s our best shot. The killer might be arrogant enough to come to the meeting. Or he might be lurking around outside, taking down names. Or someone who comes to the meeting may already be targeted for stalking.”

  She shuddered.

  The detective plowed ahead. “If he’s there, we want to know. But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to work on the other angles.”

  Folding her arms across her middle, Beth answered, “I can’t help you.”

  “There’s been a pattern established. There will be other murders. You want them on your conscience?”

  She considered that, then answered in a small voice, “No.”

  “Then don’t turn me down before you hear what I’ve got to say. We’d have to do a lot of research to find someone as suitable as you to help us. You haven’t had much contact with your former classmates, yet you live right here in the county.”

  “That’s right. I haven’t had much contact with them because they barely knew I was alive in high school. So why should I suddenly decide to join the reunion committee?” she asked, being as blunt as she could.