Angel of Death

by Ferguson, Alane

  Moving quickly, Cameryn began at the desk. Opening it once more, she hastily went through all the papers, not only the ones on the desktop but those inside the drawers, trying to disturb them as little as possible. Nothing. Next, she went to the kitchen, opening the cupboards, which were almost bare, aware that anything could be hidden anywhere and the safest thing to do was methodically check it all, inch by inch, room by room. The refrigerator, as Kyle had mentioned, was empty, save for the pizza box and a dozen eggs. She opened cabinets, checked beneath the sink, then returned to the living room and the hall closet. Inside were two coats and some heavy boots, a hat, and a box on a shelf. When she pulled down the box, it contained only gloves and some knit caps.

  Faster now, she went up the stairs to Kyle’s room. It was sparsely furnished, with a bed made smooth and tucked with hospital corners and a plain wooden desk with a Dell computer. Scouting manuals, schoolbooks, binders, wood carvings, a football trophy—things any normal kid would have. Relieved, she realized there was nothing.

  Adrenaline surging, she went to the second room, Kyle’s father’s. A long, heavy flashlight, the kind that policemen carried, lay on the nightstand. A reading lamp had been left on, and there was a circle of light beneath it, like a halo. More careful now, she pulled open the drawer. Inside was a manila envelope, sent from the California Department of Health and Human Services. With trembling fingers, she opened it. Inside was a white sheet of paper, bordered in blue. The California state seal had been stamped in the bottom right-hand corner, and before she read it she knew what it was. A death certificate. A death certificate with the name Sherrie O’Neil. Cause of death: gunshot wound to the head. Manner of death: suicide.

  Stunned, she put the death certificate back into the drawer, her mind reeling. No wonder Kyle had lied to her. Nothing could be worse than death by suicide. Hannah had left Cameryn, that was true, but death—that was a permanent separation. What kind of secrets had been buried in this home? Could Donny O’Neil have killed his wife and covered it up? Could he have been killing all along?

  She saw a photograph of Donny and Sherrie on the nightstand, their hands entwined. As she lifted the picture frame, guilt once again washed through her. What was she thinking? It must be the pressure of Hannah’s arrival that was making Cameryn’s thoughts so tangled. Her irrationality had allowed her to rifle through her boyfriend’s house, and she was suddenly ashamed—the O’Neil family had gone through enough tragedy without her weaving theories out of wisps of fact. Cameryn knew she needed to pull her thoughts together, to focus on Hannah.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered to the picture before setting it down. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I must be losing my mind.”

  Donny stared back, silent, accusing. She was about to return to the couch and wait patiently for her mother when she looked again at the flashlight. Almost against her will, her mind began whirring once again. . . .

  Just stay away from the chickens in that back coop. Those were his dad’s orders, Kyle said. It was odd, really.

  Why would Donny demand that? Biting her lip, she picked up the flashlight. Crazy, irrational, the accusations against herself pelted her mind, but one overriding thought was loudest of all. She knew if she didn’t check that chicken coop, if she didn’t answer this last question, she’d always wonder.

  The flashlight was heavy, at least five pounds, but the shaft of light it made was twice as bright as any she had used before. Like a lighthouse beam, it cut through the darkness as she made her way to the one place he’d told her not to go.

  Circling past a pen with two goats, she crossed to the wooden structure. Large for a coop, it looked more like an outbuilding, with the same green metal roof as the house. It had a fence around it, and feathers scattered against a crust of snow. She saw the stump of a felled tree, and on the stump, in a pool of dark blood, was an ax, its blade still embedded in the trunk. White feathers had made a mound at the base of the stump, blown by the wind like a miniature snowdrift. The gate squeaked as she opened it, and for a moment she thought the sound of it might scare the birds.

  Then she realized a strange thing. There was no sound. Just the wind sighing overhead, whispering softly through the pine, lifting her hair and wrapping dark strands across her face. She pulled them away impatiently and put her hand on the metal knob. Pushing it open, she stepped inside.

  It was dark, but with the flashlight she located a light switch and turned it on.

  Planks had been nailed across one wall, dividing it like the score sheet of a tic-tac-toe board, but the coops were empty. Again, it didn’t make sense. The dirt floors had been churned, and at the end of the building was a dog kennel and a workbench crammed with tools, tin cans, kerosene, saw blades. There was a smell in here that was hard to identify, making Cameryn raise her hand to her nose as she moved toward the workbench.

  Since it was darker there, she kept the flashlight on. The beam danced across a myriad of tools, sharp and bright.

  She saw a glass tube, a foot high. Next to that, a miniature rosebush whose petals had turned to dust. And the last items, set carefully along the workbench like curled fingers. They were ribs. Ribs that had been cleaned and dried and set carefully in place.

  The ribs of a human.

  Chapter Sixteen

  HARDLY DARING TO breathe, Cameryn picked up the bones and held them high, examining them closely. They were curved and smooth to the touch, like ivory. At first she’d thought they were human, but on closer examination, she wasn’t so sure. Pulling out her phone from her back pocket, she hit speed dial. A moment later, Dr. Moore’s gruff voice answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Dr. Moore. It’s me, Cameryn Mahoney.”

  “Are you aware what time it is?” he asked tartly. “It’s long past business hours.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry to bother you,” she said. “But this may be important.”

  “Your voice is shaking, Miss Mahoney. All you all right?”

  “I don’t know. I found some bones and I—I don’t know what to think. I want to know if they’re human. I’d like to send a picture over my phone to your computer. Could you please tell me what I’m looking at?”

  There was a pause. “What kind of bones?”

  “Ribs. They’re just lying here, on a countertop, and I can’t tell what kind they are.”

  “If you think they might be human, then I suggest you call the police.”

  “No!” she cried. And then, softer, “I can’t do that. I don’t want to start anything, not until I know.”

  Dr. Moore exhaled noisily. “Miss Mahoney, I’m going to have dinner with my wife. I’m already running late—”

  “Please, Dr. Moore! Just a quick look,” she begged. “I can send the picture right now. Please! ”

  She heard what sounded like the squeak of a chair. Then a deep sigh. “All right, send it now and I’ll take a very quick look to appease you, and then we’re done. You should be aware that I’ve got a life outside this office.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Moore!”

  He gave his e-mail address, and Cameryn, with trembling hands, set down the bones and turned her phone to snap a picture. As soon as she sent it she asked, “Did you get it, Dr. Moore?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “For Pete’s sake, give it a moment. Young people are so impatient and they think everything’s accomplished in an instant—oh, here it is. Now let me see. . . .”

  As she waited for the answer, Cameryn felt her pulse thudding in her ears like a metronome set on high. Finally she blurted, “Can you tell anything?”

  “Yes.” Dr. Moore’s tone was deep. “This is extremely serious.”

  “What? Are they human?”

  “No. The truth is, Miss Mahoney, somebody had a barbeque and didn’t invite you. These bones belong to a pig.”

  “A pig? ”

  “Yes. As in ribs for eating. As in the-secret’s-in-the-sauce kind of barbecue ribs. You can tell because human ribs are thinner and have mor
e of a curve, the articular facets are different, and they’re not as tasty with a salt rub. As in you’ve just wasted my time and I’m late.”

  “Just one more thing,” she begged humbly. “There’s a plant here, a potted rose, I think, and its leaves have turned to dust.”

  “So now you think I’m a horticulturist?”

  “I’m taking one more picture and sending it right now. I’m wondering if you’ve ever seen anything like it. There were a bunch of flowers next to Mr. Oakes’s nightstand that withered just this same way.”

  “Mmm, here it is. I’m looking at flower dust. I’m not an expert, but I have to say a great big ‘so what?’ Flowers wilt and crumble. Where are you, anyway?”

  Relief flooded through her like a warm wave. These were pig bones, not human. Dr. Moore thought nothing of the flowers. She had been stupid and suspicious for no reason. Kyle would be here soon, her mother would come, and the pieces of her life would fall together smoothly. She’d almost blown it all because she’d let her imagination run wild.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said happily. “I was just having a ‘senior moment’. As in senior-in-high-school moment.” She felt light, giddy. “Everything’s all right now. Go to your dinner. I really appreciate your help, and—”

  “Wait.”

  It was the way he said that one word that made her breath stop again.

  Dr. Moore barked, “Don’t go just yet. I’m looking at the screen and—are you still near that flowerpot?”

  "What? ”

  “Pay attention! Go back to the place where you took the picture of the flower petals.”

  “But you said flowers wilt and—”

  “I’m not talking about the petals, Miss Mahoney. There’s something in the background I want to get a better look at. That glass-and-metal tube. Do you see it? It’s off camera a bit, behind the ribs and to the left. Take a full picture of it and send it to me.”

  “But why? I thought you said—”

  “Just do it. There’s a word on the bottom of the tube, a label—I can only get a partial read. Right now I see an ‘i’ and an ‘a’ and an ‘n’. Turn it so I can get the whole word.”

  Cameryn looked down on the bench and saw blue letters, silk-screened on the black metal part of the tube. “Yes,” she said. “I have it.”

  “Photograph it, then send it to me. I want the entire name to be in the picture.”

  She turned the base of the glass tube and snapped another photo, this one including the word “Virian.” After she forwarded it to Dr. Moore she asked, “What are you looking for?”

  “Let me be . . . sure. It may be nothing. Did I ever tell you I was in the army? Vietnam . . . Working in military research and . . . Ah, here it is, it just arrived. Now give me a moment. . . .”

  The tube, as Cameryn looked at it, didn’t seem like much. Just a thin glass dome with wires inside, the end screwed into a metal base with leads coming out the side. Then she saw something else: next to the tube were three black squares connected with cables. They were some sort of power supply. As she fingered the cables, she heard Dr. Moore’s voice bark in her ear.

  “Cameryn! ”

  The way he said her name made her jump. “What?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in a chicken coop—”

  Dr. Moore’s voice had ratcheted up. “I want you to get out of there. Right now! Drop whatever it is you’re doing and go. What you’ve got there is a klystron tube—”

  It took a moment for Cameryn to register this. “A what?”

  “A klystron tube!” he shouted. “Don’t question me, just do what I say! ”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “I saw klystrons when I was in the army. Those things emit enough radiation to microwave a human being in less than three minutes! It would cook a man in his own bed! ”

  Cameryn’s hand recoiled from the thin, clear glass. “This thing is a microwave? ” She thought of the seared flesh, the cooked muscles, the eyes that would explode when the long waves hit the liquid in their orbs. “Oh my God!” she cried. “This is what killed Mr. Oakes!”

  “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it at the autopsy. That tube is a ten-thousand-watt microwave! A microwave that can go straight through a wall and cook someone in their bed. It fits the nature of his death precisely and I—where are you?” He was shouting now. “Listen to me—wherever you are, get out of there immediately and—”

  “I’ll take that,” a voice said. Quick as lightning, a hand, Kyle’s hand, reached in front of her and snatched the phone from her, snapping it shut with a small click.

  Whirling around, she saw irises scattered in a blanket of purple, their green stalks strewn like Pick-Up Sticks across the floor. Kyle was staring at her, his handsome face distorted with an expression she’d never seen before.

  “Kyle! What are you—what are you doing here?” she stammered. Her mind, which had been frenetically spinning, froze.

  “I was just about to ask you the same thing.” He looked at her, his face realigning itself so that he looked like himself again. But his voice was distant, cold. “I can’t believe you disobeyed me, Cameryn. I said you could go anywhere in my house except for one place. I asked you to stay out of my chicken coop. What part of that didn’t you understand?”

  “Your chicken coop? Then . . . it’s not your father’s?”

  “I told you that, didn’t I? No, this place is mine.”

  She had been so desperate to believe that Donny was the killer. Not Kyle. Never Kyle! But hope began to die as she looked into his eyes. The golden flecks had turned to ice.

  Waving his hand expansively, he said, “This is my own special place. It’s off-limits—even my dad doesn’t come in. The coop is where I do my . . . experiments. And here I find you inside, snooping.” A beat, and then, “Who were you talking to?”

  Trying to keep her voice even, she said, “Come on, Kyle, give me my phone. This isn’t funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be. I have to say I’m disappointed in you, Cameryn. When I realized you worked with the dead, well, I thought you were different. More like me.” He sighed. “But I guess you’re just like everyone else.” Stuffing the cell phone into his back pocket, he stepped closer. “People always let me down. My mom. My dad. Mr. Oakes.” Suddenly, he became quiet. He stared at her, blinking. “And now you.”

  There were too many thoughts to make sense of any of them. Kyle had burst into her life and she’d let herself go, but none of it had been real. Or was it? Who was the person standing before her? There was the mouth that had kissed her, the hands that had held her, but that person had been nothing more than shadow. How could she have been so wrong? She wanted to give in to her fear, but she knew she couldn’t. Right now, she had to survive.

  “Okay,” she said, forcing a smile. “You got me. I shouldn’t have come in here, but I thought I heard something and I came to check, and—I need to go, Kyle. I have to go home now.”

  “But I don’t want you to leave,” he told her. His voice shifted ever so slightly. It became darker, his tone deepening as though he possessed some otherworldly authority. “You have to stay. Besides, I don’t know why you think you’re going anywhere.”

  “Kyle—”

  “Don’t blame me. You did this to yourself.”

  He took a step closer, his finger lightly caressing her cheek, but Cameryn recoiled from his touch. It was as if she could see inside him, and as she did she realized what Kyle was—not a man, not an animal, but something in between. The mask had slipped and she could see inside. He had used the klystron tube to kill their teacher. Worse, he knew she knew. Her heart began to beat wildly as fear enfolded her. She was alone on a mountain with a murderer. Not the father but the son.