The Angel Maker

by Ridley Pearson

  “Here goes,” she said.

  The screen went blank.

  Boldt felt a sickening depression overtake him. He was exhausted, hungry, and now he was stuck in a dead end.

  “Don’t get all stinky, lover,” she said to Boldt. “This thing can be slow.”

  The screen filled with a long list of Schmidts, starting with Alfred.

  “Next page,” LaMoia instructed.

  “I know.”

  Screen after screen of Schmidts. Dozens of names.

  “There!” LaMoia said. He pointed to: Schmidt, Priscilla. “That could be her.”

  Loraine’s painted nail ran across a line to a box that was a jumble of dozens of capital letters and numbers. “Legal description of the property,” she said. “John, read it off for me, will you?”

  She jumped out of her chair. Boldt followed her over to the row of bound maps. She selected the one for King County—North. “Read slow now, lover,” she said.

  LaMoia read the first coordinates. Loraine found the corresponding latitude number on the edge of the map. She turned to page forty-two. She located the same number here.

  “Next,” she said.

  LaMoia read off the next number.

  Spreading her fingers like the points of a drafting compass, Loraine found this number as well. Her fingers closed in on each other, each representing a grid coordinate. There were dozens, hundreds, of boxes representing land parcels, each with a name inside. Most read Hollybrook—one of the largest timber/paper companies in the Northwest.

  Boldt heard himself say, “Come on. Come on,” as he watched her fingers come together. She moved her finger out of the way, and there was the name: Schmidt.

  “Skykomish River quadrangle,” she announced. “Snoqualmie National Forest, Tolt Reservior. Bingo!”

  “We’re there?” LaMoia asked incredulously. “We’re there?” he repeated excitedly.

  She answered, “I’ll make you a photocopy, lover. I’ll put you in her backyard.”

  9 P.M.

  50

  Pamela Chase drove as if she were on her way to a fire. She reached the unpaved county road that accessed Tegg’s farm, lost the back end of the car in a skid, and nearly put the car in the trees. He had tried to drug her! She couldn’t get over that! She had swallowed one of the Valiums, but had managed to snag the other in her teeth. It was in his front yard now. She was driving fast, not only to reach the farm quickly, but to beat the Valium. It was already taking effect: Her anxiety level had lessened noticeably in the last few minutes—her fingers were no longer welded to the steering wheel; she was no longer grinding her teeth. The more relaxed she felt, the more terrified she became. He had said that he would call her in the morning, but what for? He acted like he owned her, as if she were one of his trained dogs. She felt dirty. She felt foolish. How had she allowed herself to be carried along by him for so long? What kind of person was she?

  Not the kind of person to condone a heart harvest, she answered herself. She intended to put an end to that, but quick!

  She pulled in to the farm and shut off her car. From the Quonset hut came the ferocious barking of the dogs. Sight of the small turn-of-the-century cabin and its accompanying sheet-metal Quonset hut gave her a renewed sense of the extreme seclusion of this place. She was glad for his dinner party: She wouldn’t want him to catch her out here.

  She left the car and approached the cabin slowly, despite the urgency she felt. Her feet floated along. The Valium, subtle in its approach, was difficult to resist. Confusion reigned, for she still wanted to believe in him. That belief had given her several years of happiness. By coming here, she hoped as much to disprove her suspicions as prove them. She couldn’t get him out of her mind—it was as if he were right here with her, disapproving of each step she took toward betrayal. She could hear his arguments. He could be so convincing. She glanced over her shoulder nervously. The clouds were breaking up; there was a moon out tonight. A black-and-white patch-quilt played over the meadow. She caught herself staring; she was feeling impossibly good.

  The spare key was missing. Why would he remove it? Unless … She found a rock and smashed it through the window. She had to hurry. The Valium was taking hold. “Things work out for the best,” a voice inside her called. “Relax.” She tried her best to ignore it. The glass shattered into the kitchen. She reached through the hole, knowing where to find the release, but nicked her forearm in the process. It hurt, but it didn’t bother her. The door swung open. To a stranger, the cabin might appear abandoned, the spare amount of leftover furniture from another era. A former hunting cabin, perhaps. Tegg had kept it looking this way intentionally, to discourage trespassers from breaking in. He was paranoid about trespassers discovering the basement lab—the ad hoc surgical suite—though she didn’t know why. She had never seen another soul anywhere around here.

  Although the recovery room they used was in the cellar next to the surgical suite, he could be keeping this woman in any of the bedrooms. She decided to search the cabin top to bottom.

  Unless he had fixed them, the upstairs lights didn’t work. She tried them. He hadn’t fixed them. He kept a flashlight at the top of the cellar stairs. She banged her way through the kitchen and found it, switched it on. She moved quickly through the rooms on the first floor. Nothing. No one.

  She climbed the stairs, feeling strangely light and disconnected from her body. Happy. On the top landing, she faced two small bedrooms and a tiny bathroom, the floor of which was an old, chipped linoleum, burgundy red with black fleur-de-lis prints. The sink and toilet were discolored and mineral-stained. The flashlight’s yellow beam wandered the walls. The cold faucet dripped into a patinated teardrop. She twisted the handle and it stopped dripping. Something stirred within her—she could feel the danger here. Like an animal lifting its head in the forest, she sniffed the air. It smelled metallic, tangy. Worse, she knew that smell: blood. She felt lightheaded as she stepped toward the wicker hamper—the source of that smell. She had never known him to use the hamper, and this added to her confusion and anxiety. Typically, she brought the surgical laundry back to the clinic from here. It then went out with the regular service. Standing alongside the hamper now, towering over it, she stopped herself; she didn’t want to know what was inside. It frightened her to imagine what she might find. She reached out tentatively, took hold of the hamper’s lid, hesitated, and then yanked it open suddenly. She aimed the flashlight inside. At the sight of its contents, she shrieked at the top of her lungs and jumped back. There, in a heap, covered in an unbelievable amount of dried blood, lay his surgical smock. She felt instinctively that this was human blood—Sharon’s blood. He had already done the heart. Something had gone horribly wrong with the procedure.

  The hamper lid thumped shut. Pamela felt half-crazy, the panic and terror rising from inside her attempting to supersede the ever-increasing medicated bliss of the Valium. As she raced downstairs to confirm her suspicions, she wondered: Was he the only one to blame? Couldn’t he blame her, as well, for refusing to assist? Her head swam.

  She hurried down the narrow steps that led to the cellar. When she reached the bottom, she aimed the flashlight at the wall switch as she reached to turn on the lights. Dried blood.

  The operating room was unlocked! Impossible! Suddenly the various evidence she was collecting added up to something else entirely: the bloody clothes left in the hamper, the unlocked door. Not like Elden. Someone else must have broken in here and vandalized the place.

  She was afraid to look any farther. What was on the other side of the operating room door? Tentatively, using the toe of her shoe, she encouraged it to open slowly, prepared for a quick retreat.

  Light poured into the room from the bare bulb over her head. A mess! A nightmare. A bloody terror! It looked like a city hospital emergency room after a gang war. She switched on the lights.

  The instruments had not been cleaned up. The sternal retractor, the scalpels, the hemostats, the table, the floor, all cover
ed in an unbelievable amount of dried blood. The policewoman had used the term victim. Pamela had resented it, had misunderstood it at the time, but now it rang true.

  Panic stormed her system, contained in part by the drug coursing through her veins. She felt pulled in two directions by everything around her. On one level she loved Elden Tegg, but now she feared him; she felt a loyalty to him, but knew she would betray him; she wanted to blame him, but in part she blamed herself; she felt frightened and terrified, she felt impossibly at peace.

  A massacre. A murder?

  A shock collar.

  It was resting alongside the hemostats.

  She felt a bubble of nervous laughter escape her. A shock collar. It could mean only one thing: a dog. Not a human, not murder. No human victim. A dog! Part of his research?

  She had mistrusted him. She had doubted his intentions. She had allowed the police to sway her, just as he had warned. How could she have made such assumptions? How could she have lost her faith in him so quickly? She hated herself for it.

  Excited by her discovery, thrilled to prove her earlier suspicions incorrect, she hurried into the recovery room. Its walls and ceilings were also encased in plastic. The flashlight caught the narrow cot pushed up against the wall and then the window to the outside. Even at this distance the barking of the dogs from the kennel sounded unnaturally loud. She had never noticed this before. Perhaps it was the Valium hearing that barking. Perhaps she had never listened.

  Why wasn’t Sharon here, as she half expected? The flashlight illuminated the painted window again, and she had her answer.

  Then the barking of the dogs registered fully: There were no windows in the kennel, no chance at escape.

  Out the cellar door. Up the steps. Across the field toward the Quonset hut. She clung to the hope that the presence of the shock collar meant something—a dog, not a human. Not Sharon. One less dog in the kennel would prove it. And she, for one, would not feel too sad about that. These pit bulls of his were terrors—many of them trained that way well before he had “saved” them from death. His surgical experiments on them did nothing to improve their disposition.

  Having forgotten the key to the kennel, she had to run back to the operating room to get it. In the process she grew more elated at her discovery of the shock collar. She no longer attributed her bliss to the drug she had taken; she had forgotten all about it. Losing her awareness of the fact, she crossed a threshold. The Valium owned her for now.

  Elden had done no wrong. Everything was going to be fine.

  In fact, the way she felt, things were really looking up.

  51

  The Isuzu rode high in the traffic, making it an easy target for Daphne to follow. Wherever possible, Daphne kept at least one car between herself and Tegg, though by his hurried, nearly reckless driving, she doubted he was paying much attention to what was behind him. He seemed hell-bent on getting to where he was going.

  He took I-5 north but stayed on it only briefly, heading east on 90. He stayed on the Interstate through Bellevue, continuing on toward the 901. She had followed him out of the city limits, had driven right out of her legal authority as a policewoman. She was a Seattle cop; out here police authority was divided between King County Police and the police departments of the incorporated townships. She was technically a civilian now.

  He drove seventy wherever possible. The farther away from the city, the more isolated she felt. If he would only stop for gas—if he would only give her a minute or so to make a phone call, to call in some backup. But he barreled along into the night, and she followed a hundred yards back.

  At Preston he left the Interstate and took the 203 north toward Fall City.

  The farther they went, the more nervous she became. She was in over her head and she knew it. What if he did lead her to Sharon? What then? The gun? A confrontation? In the last six years she had negotiated eleven hostage situations for the department and had a perfect record. But those had been team efforts, team pressures, team resources. The only hostage situation she had failed at—one that wasn’t counted on the department records—had been her own. Boldt had solved that one with his weapon, but only after the abductor had drawn his knife across her throat.

  Was she capable of using the gun as it was made to be used? Cardboard silhouettes were one thing, a human life another thing entirely.

  Only minutes later she followed Tegg into the small town of Fall City, and shortly thereafter he turned south on 202. She was alone with him now, and she worried he would spot her. She fell well behind, but with the increased distance she risked losing him.

  They passed Spring Glen, crossed over the dark and sullen Tokul River and turned left toward Snoqualmie Falls. They drove through town, crossed the railroad tracks, and headed south, following the tracks.

  Less than a mile later, his blinker signaled a left turn and the Trooper disappeared from sight. Had he taken this turn with the sole intention of losing her? Of trapping her? Was he waiting to see whether she followed? Or was he oblivious to her presence?

  There were glimpses of moonlight tonight, the sky a grid of broken clouds. She couldn’t continue to follow him as she had been; they were too far off the beaten track for that. What to do? They had passed a tavern on the outskirts of town. Should she go back and telephone for help? Risk losing him?

  She slowed, a headache beating unmercifully at her temples.

  She switched off her headlights and turned down the darkened lane, following his taillights just barely visible a half-mile in front of her. It was a macadam road, tar mixed with crushed stone. When the moon passed behind the clouds it forced her to slow to a crawl. When it reappeared, she drove quickly, closing the distance between them. Cat and mouse, she caught him and lost him, caught him and lost him. Her headache drove spikes down into her neck. Her calf muscle cramped from carrying the tension there as well.

  The road turned to mud. Twice she drove past side roads where his taillights and his tracks said he’d gone. She backed up, worried he might spot the backup lights, made the turn, and followed. It was a spiderweb of dirt roads out here; mud sprayed loudly onto the undercarriage. The front-wheel drive held the car close to the road. A left. A right. She would never find her way out of here. If this was a spider-web, she thought, then he was the spider and she was the prey. Perhaps he had her exactly where he wanted her. Perhaps he had known she was back here all along.

  52

  Pamela Chase fumbled awkwardly—nervously—with the oversized brass padlock, finally inserting and turning the key. The dogs were going crazy in there. The lock came open with a loud pop. She leapt away as a dog’s nose and teeth jammed through the crack in the door, surprising her. Biting at her. She placed her hand out for the dog to smell. It whined. It tried for her again, and she recognized that nose.

  “Felix?” she said. “Did you get out of your cage, boy?” She eased the door open, her hand—her scent—leading her. Felix approached and nuzzled her. A few of the other dogs stopped barking. She closed the door behind her.

  It smelled horrible in here. He hadn’t been keeping it clean. It smelled wrong. Not exactly like dogs. It was dark, and she could not see clearly.

  She switched on the lights. The very first pen she looked at was unoccupied, and her mind jumped to the immediate conclusion that this dog had been the one to receive the surgery. Finding an empty pen was exactly what she had hoped for—it exonerated Elden; another warm wave of tranquility passed through her at the sight of it.

  Behind her and farther into the structure, she heard a collar sound its warning beep, and one of the dogs smash into the cage wall. She turned to see who was being so rambunctious.

  A woman!

  Her hair tangled and matted, one eye bandaged, her mouth gagged, lips worn raw, a shock collar locked around her neck.

  Pamela screamed. The woman screamed soundlessly. The dogs began barking ferociously again.

  A bandage covering a kidney scar. Badly infected, by the color.

>   “Sharon?” Pamela asked tentatively.

  The woman’s one good eye cocked toward her suspiciously. Untrusting.

  Pamela felt weak, unable to move, without strength. This roller coaster between euphoria and horror was nearly intolerable. Only a moment before …

  The kidney bandage cried out to her. How could she have done such a thing? Was she to be party to a murder? And what did that mean about Elden? Had he ever told her the truth about anything? She felt sick to her stomach—the smell, the pleading expression on this poor woman’s face. And then another wave of calm swept through her, and she felt much less upset. She could handle this; everything was okay.

  And then it struck her again that she was at least partly responsible. Where did her own involvement stop and Tegg’s begin?

  The woman in the cage—Sharon—laced her fingers through the wire cage and shook, deliberately ignoring the punishment of the shock collar that beeped its warning.

  No apparent pain.

  The dogs were wild with excitement, but Pamela was used to the dogs, she hardly heard them; it was this woman’s exceptional behavior that impressed her and held her interest. Pamela took several steps closer. How could she inflict that kind of punishment on herself and endure it?

  “I’m coming,” she announced, wondering why she was walking, not running. Wondering how she could feel this comfortable.

  Pamela seized hold of the lock attempting to communicate to Sharon that she intended to get her out of here.

  Sharon pointed and nodded violently.

  “The key?” Pamela asked. “Is there a key in this building?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “I’m going to get you out,” Pamela said confidently, unsure where such confidence came from.

  The captive nodded enthusiastically.