The Edge of Normal

by Carla Norton

  “You do?” She frowns at the house. “How?”

  “I have connections.”

  He steps up to the yolk-colored door, runs his fingertips across the upper edge of the door frame, and plucks off a key. “Voila!” he says, holding it up to show her. He fumbles with the lock for a second, and when the door swings open, she can’t resist.

  As they enter through the kitchen, Poe flicks a light switch back and forth. “Shit,” he mutters, “no power.” Even in the dimness, the house has a grimy, battered look. “For a guy who made his living as a janitor, Vanderholt wasn’t much of a housekeeper, was he?” Poe remarks.

  She trails him from the kitchen into the living room. Gray light filters through blinds that hang askew. All the furniture has been removed, leaving indentations in the mottled carpet. She walks around, opens a bedroom door, glances into the bathroom. This isn’t what she came for, but can she really trust Otis Poe?

  He’s facing away from her, his big shoulders slumped. “Not much to see here, really. I don’t know why I keep looking,” he says, his voice soft with despair.

  “Where’s the basement?”

  He turns toward her, cocking an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “It’s pretty creepy, even with the lights on.”

  “You think I can’t handle darkness? Where is it?”

  He leads her down the hallway and out a door into the garage. “Jesus, it’s dark,” he mutters. “Watch your step.”

  She closes her eyes a moment, letting her eyes adjust, then looks around. Thin lines of dusty light seep in around the garage door. The place seems bare.

  “Where’s the door?”

  “It’s a trap door. Over here.” Poe squats down and fumbles with hasps on the floor. Grunting, he lifts it open. Hinges squeak as he swings it wide and drops it heavily to the concrete floor. He stands to face her, dusting off his hands. “It’s down these stairs, but you can’t see anything.”

  “Move over.”

  “Hey, seriously. With the power out? It’s pitch-black down there.”

  She drops down into a crouch, puts her palms on the edge, and starts lowering herself down the stairs.

  “Are you nuts?”

  “I’ll just be a minute.”

  The wooden stairs creak beneath her feet. With her head at the level of his feet, she pauses. “Do you smell that?”

  “Smell what?”

  Without answering, she continues down. When her boots hit the floor, she takes half a step away from the stairs and squints into the darkness. Seeing nothing, she waves a hand in front of her face. Still nothing.

  The distinct odor of bleach hangs in the bone-chilling air. She squats and drags her fingertips across the floor, recognizing the familiar texture of painted concrete. The floor is very clean.

  With the stairs behind her, Reeve puts one boot in front of the other, heel to toe, and moves cautiously across the floor, her arms outstretched in front of her, counting the steps to the wall. Also painted concrete. Cold and hard and bare.

  Yes, Tilly, this is a dungeon.

  “You okay down there?” Poe calls.

  “Wait.”

  She takes a deep breath, walks her fingers out in both directions and brushes her hands across the surface. No cracks or seams. She turns right and in six steps reaches the next wall. More featureless concrete. Questions flicker through her mind while she circumnavigates the rectangular room.

  “Hurry up!” Poe urges. “I’m freezing.”

  “So chill,” she shouts upward.

  The concrete basement measures roughly twenty-four boot lengths long and fourteen boot lengths wide. Even on tiptoe, she cannot reach the ceiling to explore for beams with screws or hooks. There is no cot, no bedpan, not a trace of what went on in this dark pit. But she knows.

  “Reeve? Hello? Could you please hurry?”

  She shuffles across the floor, gropes for the stairs, and ascends, saying, “Okay, let’s go.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Nothing. It’s scrubbed clean.” She gulps in the cold air, still smelling bleach.

  “Really? Well, they did that quick.”

  “When were you here last?” she asks, following him into the house.

  “Saturday, I think. Yeah, Saturday.”

  “Was the power on?”

  “Yep, and it was a mess. I was here with the real estate agent, Paul Walters. He said he was going to get it cleaned out, and he sure meant it, ’cause he didn’t waste any time.”

  “When were the dogs here? Last weekend, right? And when did the police wrap up their investigation?”

  “The police wrapped up the day after Vanderholt was killed, I think. Or, that would be last Wednesday.”

  Reeve grows silent while Poe locks up the house and returns the key to its hiding place above the door.

  “Okay,” he says, wiping his palms on his jeans, “we were never here, right?”

  “Right,” she says, heading back through the side gate to the front of the house.

  He follows her over to her Jeep. “Hey, do I see wheels turning? What are you thinking?”

  Careful of her promise to Tilly, she asks, “What do you know about Vanderholt’s killer?”

  “Word is, he’s an expert marksman.”

  “Some kind of trained sniper?”

  “Yeah, military maybe.”

  “Military, right.” Keeping her eyes on Poe, she says slowly, “Or maybe a cop?”

  He winces. “Wouldn’t that suck?”

  She lets this sink in, then asks, “What’s your theory about the missing girls?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s driving me nuts. I mean, the odds are that Vanderholt killed them, right? But there’s no evidence. They’ve just vanished.”

  “So, you think he had an accomplice?”

  “Yeah, maybe. Either that, or there’s a copycat situation.”

  She cocks her head at him. “Okay, thanks for nothing.”

  “What?”

  “The tour that never happened, right?” She gives him a wry grin and opens the Jeep’s door.

  Poe grins back. “Right! Sure. See ya.” He starts walking toward his blue Prius, then stops and turns around. “Hey, Reeve,” he calls out, “do you think Dr. Lerner would give me an interview?”

  She waves as she drives away.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  The rolling leather office chair in the surveillance room at Jefferson Police Headquarters is not properly set for Officer Kim Benioff’s small stature, but instead of messing with the height adjustment, she sits up tall, studying the data on the computer screen. She doesn’t often use this console or this set of skills, except on days like today, when her coworkers are out of the office.

  There are several types of electronic equipment that she doesn’t recognize. Framed certificates and diplomas are displayed on the walls, but the room seems sterile, with no family photos or goofy knickknacks to soften or personalize it. It’s clean and dust free, yet she can’t quite get comfortable. There’s something about this spot that reeks of testosterone.

  She tucks her dark curls behind her ears and puts that out of her mind, focusing on the task at hand, pursuing a lead spawned just this morning by her father.

  The two often meet for breakfast, and, like a lot of people of his generation, Benioff’s father loves to bring a copy of the local newspaper to the table so that he can berate the editors and debate the issues. It is also his habit to read the obituary column, scanning for the names of anyone stored in his elephantine memory: classmates, teachers, colleagues, Rotarians, golf club members, or any of the thousands of Jefferson County residents that he has ever chanced to meet.

  It creeps her out, but her father insists that it makes him appreciate each day and reminds him that he’s lucky to be alive.

  “Isn’t that a shame?” her father had declared this morning, setting his coffee aside and tapping on a headline.

  Kim Benioff had barely blinked, h
aving become somewhat hardened to hearing about the deaths of her father’s wide-ranging acquaintances.

  So, he leaned in and stressed the point: “Buster Ewing’s daughter died,” he repeated. “It’s tragic.”

  “Well, clearly, she wasn’t shot, strangled, or stabbed. Otherwise, I would have heard about it,” Kim quipped, cutting a slice of ham.

  Her father jabbed a finger at the article. “It’s the end of a dynasty, you need to realize. The end of another local business. Remember Buster? He was a character, bigger than life. Got us a good deal on our house, and on your grandmother’s, too. He died about, oh, six or eight years back, I guess it was. And now his only daughter is gone. Emily Kay Ewing. Only forty-one, no kids. Isn’t that a shame?”

  Kim Benioff recalled nothing about Buster Ewing, but the daughter’s name sparked an interest. She set down her fork, pulled the newspaper toward her and studied the article.

  Later, while driving to work, Kim Benioff had kept thinking about the real estate agent who had tipped investigators to their first solid lead. Emily Ewing’s call had been put through to the Joint Special Operations Task Force, and Benioff had been the one to interview her. She had then alerted Lieutenant Stephens, and within minutes she and four other members of JSOTF were on site, securing and searching the house on Redrock Road, with that weird, newly constructed wall that was meant to hide access to the basement stairs.

  They had descended into a grim, cramped space. Benioff recalled dim light and a dank odor and holes in the low ceiling, where something had been unbolted.

  Less than three hours later, she learned that a tactical team had tracked the renter, Randy Vanderholt, to his job at the mall. He didn’t put up a fight. He led them back to his house on Tevis Ranch Road, and Tilly Cavanaugh was found imprisoned there, in a different basement, less cramped but just as grim.

  Alive. Naked and traumatized, but alive.

  They’d found no sign of the other girls, but if Vanderholt hadn’t taken them, who had? Everyone was frustrated that the trail was going cold. By now, it was arctic.

  Benioff had intended to do some research just as soon as she checked her messages and e-mail, but her day had gone sideways. Only now, late in the afternoon, has she had a moment to flip on the lights in the computer czar’s office and sit in his oversized chair, following up on an idea.

  She knows it’s not much. Investigators had cross-referenced registered sex offenders with homes with basements long ago, but since Vanderholt hadn’t been netted in that particular search, she wants to go back and dig deeper.

  Ordinarily, she would ask another officer to do this kind of search. But their head geek, Drew Eubank, is off on another gambling trip to Vegas—or is it Reno? And Tom Montoya is also taking his allotted vacation, off hunting with some buddies. It seems to her that Montoya and Eubank always seem to screw up and schedule their vacations at about the same time—men!—so once again, Benioff is on her own.

  She’s not a forensic computer analyst, but she’s no slacker, and after ten minutes of keying and scrolling, she’s certain that this search has already been done. Still, she has never seen a report. She allows herself ten more minutes, hyperaware that her regular workload plus that of her absent team members is stacked on her desk.

  Forty minutes later, she’s still at it.

  Her eyes are starting to blur. She senses another dead end and groans, aggravated by the idea that she’s merely retracing steps. Finally, she sends a few pages to the printer. She rolls her shoulders to ease her cramped muscles, remembering that she still has to work on an unfinished report from yesterday afternoon. Stiff from sitting, she gets up to fetch the pages, finds a yellow highlighter, and spreads them out on the desk.

  She stands while scanning the printouts, looking for—what? The pen’s felt tip hovers like a gull over an ocean of data.

  Nothing … nothing … more nothing … and then something.

  She scowls and studies. The felt tip dives to the page. Again. Three times.

  Suddenly too warm, she takes off her jacket and sits back down at the computer, where she keys in a new search.

  Zip.

  She tries another approach, and what appears puzzles her. She narrows the focus, backtracks, starts again, and stiffens, studying the information on the screen.

  Has this already been investigated and discredited, or has it been overlooked?

  Benioff scrutinizes what she has found, a chill prickling her skin.

  Meanwhile, the electronic surveillance expert who privately calls himself Duke is seated in his control room, following her every keystroke.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  The stupidity of it all sets Duke’s teeth on edge. After all his efforts, that meddling twat and that idiot Orr-ca are ruining everything. And the worst part is, he let himself believe that he’d already skated past this particular juncture.

  After getting away with Vanderholt’s killing, he’d begun to imagine he was safe. But then came last night’s panicked phone call from J.J. Orr.

  Duke had answered the phone with ice in his voice. “I told you never to call me. When I want to speak to you, I will be the one to place the call.”

  “But this is an emergency, man,” Orr whined. “Someone was just here, snooping around.”

  “Who?”

  “Some girl with weird hair.”

  “In a Jeep?”

  “Yeah, how did you know?”

  “What did she do?”

  “She drove up to the front and just sat there, you know, looking at everything.”

  “What did she see?”

  “Nothing, don’t worry.”

  “Did she walk around the house?”

  “No, she just sat in the Jeep, staring. But don’t worry, I scared her off.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I scared her off.”

  “You scared her off how?”

  “Well, don’t get mad, because—”

  “Not with a gun.”

  “Well, uh, now—”

  “Idiot.”

  “Yeah, I know, but—”

  “What kind of gun?”

  A sigh. “Just a little rifle. A .22.”

  “That’s very stupid of you, Orr-ca.”

  “Yeah, I know, I’m sorry, okay?”

  It was unforgiveable.

  A lesser man might have smashed his fist through a wall in frustration, but Duke had stifled his anger and set to work, assessing the situation.

  It had taken him years to perfect and implement his plans—vetting and training his keepers, researching and masterminding the elegant snares with which to trap his girls—was it possible that it was all now teetering on the verge of collapse?

  He had been so careful. He had remotely fed the proper data into the computers at work, which of course went as planned. He had covered his tracks. But he hadn’t expected Kim-bo to be quite so persistent. Or so inventive.

  He stifles a nicotine craving, checks the time, and stays glued to his chair in the control room. With a new sense of urgency, he taps into his most informative devices and begins a series of tasks, checking them off his list, one by one. He also attends to the history of Edgy Reggie’s GPS signal, tracking her to the sheriff’s department—not good—but now she’s parked outside the Cavanaughs’.

  Careful monitoring reveals that he still has the upper hand. Still, it’s clear that Orr-ca must to be dealt with, and having an exit strategy already in place doesn’t make it any easier. Such a waste.

  He places the call, and Orr answers on the first ring.

  “Orr-ca, how many guns do you have?”

  “Uh, I don’t, uh … just the one.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “Honest, just the one rifle is all. I know better than to lie to you.”

  “All right. Listen carefully and I’ll tell you what I want you to do.”

  A pause. “Okay.”

  “Are you listening?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

 
; “All right. I want you to take that rifle out back and bury it under the woodpile.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “You know that having a gun is a violation of your parole.”

  Silence.

  “You know that, don’t you?”

  A soft groan. “Yeah, I’m aware.”

  “So, I want you to bury it. Do you understand?”

  “Under the woodpile? How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Don’t make me lose my temper.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll, uh, move the wood pile, I guess, bury the gun, and then move the wood pile back, right?”

  “That’s correct. And when are you going to do that?”

  “Um, pretty soon, I guess.”

  “What did you say?”

  “No, I mean, I could start right away, but, you know, these short winter days, it’s getting dark kinda early.”

  Duke says nothing. He waits.

  “But that’s no big deal,” Orr says quickly. “I’ll get started right away, okay?”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because you’ll be checking up on me.”

  “That’s correct. And when do you think that might be?”

  He sighs. “It could be any time.”

  “So get to work.”

  Duke doesn’t really care about J.J. Orr’s parole—not anymore—but he doesn’t want the moron armed, either. Besides, it will serve his purpose if Orr-ca is tired and sore and moving slowly when he arrives.

  He rises, locks the control room door behind him, and strides through his house to the kitchen. He will need protein in order to accomplish what he must during the next few hours. What he really wants is a nice, thick prime rib, slathered with horseradish, but there’s no time. He grabs three protein bars and a Red Bull and sets them on the counter. Then he steps into the room where he keeps all his guns and ammunition and puts on a pair of latex gloves before loading his Glock.

  FIFTY-SIX

  “Reeve, would you like some more stew?” Mrs. Cavanaugh offers.