Michelle Tanner’s ex-husband had knocked more than just his jaw out of whack. Too bad it had taken a fist to knock some sense of responsibility into him. And now that Maggie was leaving, it was up to him to take control. He just wished he knew how the hell to do that.
He entered the courthouse and immediately wanted to flee in the other direction. The huge marble lobby echoed with the chatter of reporters. Cords and cables snaked over the floor. Bright lights blinded him and a dozen microphones were shoved into his face while reporters assaulted him with questions.
Darcy McManus—an ex-beauty queen turned TV anchor—barricaded the staircase with her tall, lean body. It was hard to ignore the long legs she showed off in the short skirts she pretended were part of a suit. She offered him a spot beside her in front of Channel Five’s camera. He shoved his way to the staircase but purposely kept his distance. In the past, he would have flirted with her and taken advantage of the attention. Maybe he would have even gotten her phone number. Now he just wanted to get past her and escape to his office.
“Sheriff, do you have any suspects yet?” She looked older than she did on TV. Up close he saw the caked makeup concealing the lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes.
“I have no comment at this time.”
“Is it true Matthew Tanner’s body was decapitated?” a man in an expensive double-breasted suit wanted to know.
“Jesus. Where the hell did you hear that?”
“Then it’s true?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
Others joined in, pressing against Nick. He tried to elbow his way through.
“Sheriff, what about the rumor that you’ve ordered the exhumation of Ronald Jeffreys’ grave? Do you believe Jeffreys wasn’t the one executed?”
“Was the boy sexually assaulted?”
“Have you found the blue pickup yet?”
“Sheriff Morrelli, can you at least tell us whether this boy was murdered in the same manner? Are we dealing with a serial killer?”
“What shape was Matthew’s body in?”
“Stop! Hold it,” Nick yelled, raising his hands to ward off any more questions. The shuffle halted. The shoving came to a standstill, and there was silence as the vultures waited. The sudden quiet disarmed him. He glanced around and backed his way to the first step of the open staircase. A trickle of sweat rolled down his back. He raked his fingers through his hair and noticed his fingers trembling. He was used to being confronted with accolades, not criticism and skepticism.
What the hell was he supposed to tell them? Last time, Maggie had bailed him out. Now, in her absence, he felt exposed and vulnerable, and he hated it. He grabbed the handrail to steady himself and pulled himself up beside McManus. She looked pleased and began smoothing her hair and clothing, preparing for the camera. He ignored her and looked out over the crowd, eyes staring back at him, pens, cameras and recording devices ready. His gut told him to turn around and leave them in silence. He could take the stairs three at a time and be in his office before they could follow. After all, he didn’t owe them an explanation. None of this would help him catch the murderer. Or would it?
“You all know I can’t reveal specific details about the victims’ bodies. But for God’s sake, for Mrs. Tanner’s sake, Matthew’s body was not—I repeat—not decapitated. That’s not to say that this guy isn’t one sick son of a bitch.”
“Is this a serial killing, Sheriff? The people deserve to know if they should lock up their children.”
“Early indications do show that Matthew was killed by the same person who killed Danny Alverez.”
“Any suspects?”
“Is it true you have absolutely no leads?”
Nick backed up another step. He had nothing to satisfy them. The crowd and bright lights made him hot and nauseated. He pulled at his jacket’s zipper and tugged at his tie, loosening its strangling hold.
“We do have a couple of suspects. I’m not at liberty to say who they are. Not yet.” He turned and a flood of questions assaulted his back as he started up the steps.
“When will you be able to tell us?”
“Are they local men?”
“Will your father be heading the investigation now?”
“Have you tracked down a blue pickup?”
Nick spun around, almost losing his balance. “What about my father?”
Everyone stared at the man in the double-breasted suit. Nick noted the man’s shiny, dark hair. It looked professionally manufactured, and his goatee was perfectly trimmed with just a hint of gray. His expensive leather shoes labeled him an outsider—his shoes and the way he cocked his head to one side with the impatience of a man who had better things to do than repeat himself to a small-town sheriff. Nick wanted to grab him by the collar of his monogrammed shirt. Instead, he waited, teetering in snow-caked cowboy boots that were creating puddles and threatening to send him sliding down the smooth, marble steps.
“Why in the world would my father head this investigation?”
“He did catch Ronald Jeffreys,” Darcy McManus said into her channel’s camera, and only then did Nick realize they had been filming this whole fiasco. He avoided looking into the camera and stared at the man, waiting and ignoring his expression of boredom.
“When your father talked to us earlier, he made it sound—”
“He’s here?” Nick blurted, and immediately regretted it. His incompetence was showing once more.
“Yes, and he made it sound as though he had returned to help with the investigation. I believe his exact words were…” The man slowly and deliberately flipped through his notes. “’I’ve done this before. I know what to look for. You can bet this guy’s not getting by this old bloodhound.’ I’m not familiar with bloodhounds, but I did interpret it to mean he was here in a professional capacity.”
Other reporters nodded in agreement. Nick looked from one to another while his insides churned. His collar strangled him, the jacket made him sweat. Another trickle slid down his back. They waited. Every word would be weighed, every gesture measured. He imagined tonight someone would rewind their videotaped version of the news just to see him run down the steps backward. He didn’t care. He turned and ran up the staircase, taking two and three steps at a time, silently praying he didn’t trip and end up back at the bottom.
He crashed through the sheriff’s department doors, smacking the glass against a metal trash can and a wall. A spider crack raced through the bottom of one of the doors, but no one seemed to notice. Instead, all eyes stared at Nick, their heads turned, their attention diverted from the tall gray-haired man in the center of them.
The same group Nick couldn’t get to check a lead without a groan or a question was gathered around the distinguished-looking gentleman, an aging prophet with the beginning of a paunch over his belt and the bushy eyebrows that were now raised in indignation.
“Slow down, son. You just damaged government property,” Antonio Morrelli said, pointing to the crack in the glass.
Despite the rage and frustration, Nick shoved his hands into his pockets, felt his shoulders slump as his eyes found his boots. Suddenly, he found himself wondering how much it would cost to replace the glass.
CHAPTER 50
Maggie sipped her Scotch and watched from a corner table as she tried to determine which of the airport-lounge customers were business travelers and which were vacationers. The storm had delayed flights, hers included, and had packed the small, poorly lit lounge, which consisted of an L-shaped bar, several small tables and chairs, dozens of model airplanes suspended from the ceiling and an old jukebox filled with songs like “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and “Outbound Plane.”
Her green and black John Deere jacket was stretched across the chair opposite her to prevent any unwanted company. She had already checked her luggage, everything except her laptop computer, which was secure underneath the John Deere green. She thought about calling St. Margaret’s again. She was beginning to think something dreadful may have happened.
Otherwise, why would Father Francis have stood her up at the hospital? And why was there no one at the church rectory to answer the phone?
She wanted to call Nick, had in fact dialed the number but then hung up. He had enough things to handle without checking on her hunches. Besides, she was running out of change for the pay phone and had spent her last ten-dollar bill on this and the two previous Scotches. Not much of a dinner, but after spending the afternoon slicing Matthew Tanner’s small body, weighing pieces of him and poking through his tiny organs, she had decided she deserved a dinner of Scotch.
The mark on Matthew’s inside thigh had indeed been human bite marks. Poor George Tillie had tried to come up with several other theories before giving in to the realization that the killer had bitten Matthew over and over again in the same spot, making it impossible to register a set of dental prints. What made matters worse and more bizarre—the bites had occurred hours after Matthew was dead.
The killer didn’t return to the scene of the crime only to watch the police. He continued his absurd fascination with the victim’s body. He was slipping from his carefully planned ritual. Something was causing him to degenerate, to lose control. In his recklessness, he could soon leave incriminating evidence.
Maggie had told George they should look for smudges of semen; that the killer may have masturbated this time, while biting the dead boy, and may have smeared some on the victim. The old coroner’s face had turned scarlet as he mumbled something about doing his job in private.
She didn’t blame George. It had been obvious her presence made him uncomfortable. His manner and method resembled the reverence of a priest, with his careful and deliberate touches and his hushed speech. It was almost as though he hadn’t wanted to disturb the boy’s soul.
Maggie, on the other hand, had cut with clinical precision and had spoken loud and clear for her voice-activated recorder. It was a dead body, void of life and warmth. Whatever had resided within the bone-and-flesh cavity had escaped hours ago. Yet, she had to admit there was something wrong, something almost sacrilegious about slicing apart a child’s body. The soft, smooth and hairless skin hadn’t seen nearly enough scrapes and bruises, nor the bones enough chips and breaks to have really lived. It seemed such a waste, such an injustice. But that was what the Scotch was for—to make sense of it all or, at least, to take her to a place where she wouldn’t care, even if only temporarily.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” The young bartender stood over her table. “The gentleman at the end of the bar bought you another Scotch.” He set the glass in front of her. “And he asked me to give you this.”
Maggie recognized the envelope and the boxy handwriting before he handed it to her. Her stomach lurched, her pulse quickened. She stood up so abruptly, her chair teetered on two legs.
“Which man?” She stretched to see over the crowd. The bartender did the same, then shrugged his shoulders.
“He must have left.”
“What did he look like?” She patted her side through her blazer, reassured by the feel of the butt on her gun pressing against her just under her breast.
“I don’t know…tall, dark hair, maybe twenty-eight, maybe thirty. Look, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention. Is there a problem with—”
She shoved past him and pushed through the crowd, racing out into the bright airport walkway. Frantically, she searched and scanned the passengers coming and going. Her heart pounded against her chest. Her head throbbed, and her vision was a bit blurred from the Scotch.
The long walkway stretched straight in both directions. There was a family with three children, several businessmen carrying laptops and briefcases, an airport employee pushing a handcart, two gray-haired women and a group of black men and women in colorful robes and headdresses. But there was no tall, dark-haired man without luggage.
He couldn’t possibly have gotten beyond the walkway. She ran toward the escalator at the far end, bumping into passengers and almost tripping over a deserted luggage gurney. The escalator went up and down. She chose up and twisted over the handrail to see down. Again, the array of passengers didn’t include a tall, dark-haired man. He was gone. He had slipped by her again.
She made her way back to the lounge, only now realizing she had left her jacket and laptop along with the envelope. Though the lounge was packed, no one had attempted to take over her small table. Even the envelope leaned against the fresh drink where the bartender had left it.
She eased into the hard chair and stared at the small envelope. She gulped the remainder of Scotch in her glass and set it aside. She started on the fresh drink despite the swirling inside her head. She wanted to be numb.
She took the envelope carefully by a corner. The seal broke easily, and she slipped the index card out onto the table without touching it. Even the Scotch couldn’t prevent the nausea and the stab of terror the words inflicted.
In the same boxy lettering, the note said:
SORRY TO SEE YOU LEAVE SO SOON. PERHAPS I CAN STOP BY YOUR CONDO THE NEXT TIME I’M IN THE CREST RIDGE AREA. SAY HI TO GREG FOR ME.
CHAPTER 51
From down on the sidewalk, he could see Maggie O’Dell inside, scrambling up the escalator. He did have to admit she moved quite nicely—definitely a runner. He imagined those strong, athletic legs looked good in a pair of tight shorts, though the image didn’t much interest him.
He pushed the handcart aside and removed the cap and jacket he had borrowed from the sleeping airport employee. He rolled them into a ball and shoved them into a trash can.
He had left the Lexus with the radio blaring in the loading zone. With the radio and the jets overhead, no one would ever hear Timmy, should he wake up sooner than expected. Besides, the trunk was tight, almost soundproof, meaning there was also very little air.
He got into the car just as a security guard with a pad of tickets started in his direction. He squealed away from the curb and zipped around the unloading vehicles. It would be pitch-black by the time he got Timmy settled in, but the detour had been worth seeing the look on Special Agent O’Dell’s face.
The wind had picked up, creating swirls of snow and promising drifts by morning. The kerosene heater, lantern and sleeping bag in the backseat, originally packed for the camping trip, would come in handy, after all. Perhaps he would drive through McDonald’s on the way. Timmy loved Big Macs, and he found himself getting hungry.
He eased into traffic, waving a thank-you to the red-haired lady in the Mazda who let him in front of her. The day had not been a waste. He gunned the engine, ignoring the slip and slide of the tires on icy pavement. He was in control again.
CHAPTER 52
“This guy’s making a fuckin’ spectacle out of you,” Antonio Morrelli lectured Nick while looking quite comfortable behind Nick’s desk, twirling back and forth in the leather chair that was once his. It was the only piece of the elaborate furnishings Nick had kept when replacing his father as sheriff.
“You need to spend some time with those TV people,” his father continued, “reassure them you know what you’re doing. Last night Peter Jennings made you sound like some country hick who couldn’t find his own ass with a flashlight. Goddamn it, Nick, Peter fucking Jennings!”
Nick stared out the window, past the snow-covered streets and toward the dark horizon beyond the streetlights. A hint of an orange moon peeked from behind a veil of clouds.
“Did Mom come with you?” he asked from his window perch without looking at his father, ignoring his insults. It was the same old game they played. His father hurled insults and instructions, and Nick kept quiet and pretended to listen. Most of the time he followed the instructions. It was easier. It had come to be expected.
“She stayed with your aunt Minnie and the RV down in Houston,” his father answered, but his look told Nick he wouldn’t be sidetracked from the real subject. “You need to start hauling in suspects off the street. You know, the usual scumbags. Bring ’em in for questioning. Make it look like you’re on top of things.”
“I do have a couple of suspects,” Nick said suddenly, remembering that he did, indeed.
“Great, let’s haul them in. Judge Murphy could probably get a search warrant by morning. Who are your suspects?”
Nick wondered whether it had been that easy with Jeffreys: a late-night search warrant used only after the evidence had been carefully planted.
“Who are your suspects, son?” he repeated.
Perhaps he just wanted to shock his father. Common sense should have kept his mouth shut. Instead, he turned from the window and said, “One of them is Father Michael Keller.”
He watched his father stop rocking in the chair. The older man’s face registered surprise, then he shook his head and frustration creased the leather-like forehead.
“What the fuck are you trying to pull, Nick? A fucking priest—the media will crucify you. Is this your idea, or that pretty, little FBI agent the guys told me about?”
The guys. His guys. His department. Nick could imagine them laughing and making jokes about Maggie and him.
“Father Keller fits Agent O’Dell’s profile.”
“Nick, how many times do I have to tell you. You can’t go letting your Mr. Johnson make your decisions for you.”
“I’m not.” Nick’s face grew hot. He turned back toward the window, pretending to stare down at the streets, but his vision was blurred by his anger.
“O’Dell makes a good point. And I’m sure she makes a good omelet for breakfast after a night of fucking. Doesn’t mean you should listen to her.”
Dark and Twisted Reads: All the Pretty GirlsA Perfect EvilBone Cold (A Taylor Jackson Novel) Page 55