Blood Red

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Who would hurt my baby?” her mother sobbed this morning.

  Sully shook her head sorrowfully, not yet willing to disclose that her daughter may have fallen victim to a predator who might very well have been a total stranger.

  “We’re going to find out who did this,” she promised the Sextons after guiding them through the morgue nightmare. “We’ll do everything we can to bring this person to justice. I promise.”

  She knew it was little comfort to grieving parents about to bury their only child, but it was all she had to offer.

  Driving home after work on Tuesday afternoon, Rowan is focused on the prospect of tomorrow’s field trip.

  All the permission slips are in, thank goodness, and her students aren’t the only ones looking forward to getting away from the daily classroom routine. Weary of teaching antsy kids about decimals and photosynthesis, she’s hoping a break will help them get back down to business on Thursday in preparation for Friday’s math and science unit tests.

  On an even brighter note, visiting the historical society at this time of year always gets Rowan into the Christmas spirit. This year, she’s been especially lacking in that department.

  The director and curator, Ora Abrams, plays classical holiday music on a Victrola during her guided tours through rooms decked out to depict Christmas in bygone eras. And she serves cutout cookies and hot chocolate afterward.

  Rowan remembers speculating as a child that it must be made from some secret recipe that’s been handed down for generations, because it tasted so much better than ordinary cocoa. Naturally, Noreen burst her bubble, reporting that it came from a mix. It wasn’t until years later that Rowan realized she was right. But when you’re a child, anything—­even powdered cocoa—­tastes extra-­special on a weekday morning when you’re supposed to be in school.

  As she pulls up in front of the mailbox, she remembers belatedly that she meant to stop in town and pick up a few boxes of Christmas cards . . .

  Oh, and that she forgot to sneak tomorrow’s Secret Santa gift into the library aide’s mail slot in the office before she left school today. She won’t have much time in the morning before wrangling the kids and chaperones onto the buses to the historical society.

  She glances down at her own Secret Santa gift from this morning. She pinned the red snowflake to her gray winter coat, and two teachers stopped her to compliment her on it before she left the building.

  One of them was Louise Flax, the music teacher, one of three ­people whom she suspected might have been the giver. “That’s so unique! Where did you get it?”

  “My Secret Santa.”

  “Well, your Santa has great taste,” Louise said, either cleverly covering her own tracks or ruling herself out.

  As she opens the mailbox, Rowan makes a mental note to leave extra-­early tomorrow morning in order to deliver Marlena’s gift before the field trip.

  The thought is curtailed the moment she spots a package inside the box, sitting on top of the stack of letters.

  Just like last week.

  Again, she tells herself that it must be something she ordered and forgot about.

  Except you haven’t ordered anything lately. And you lied to Jake about Cyber Monday shopping, remember?

  You lied to Jake about a lot of things.

  Her hand trembles as she pulls out the package and sees the plain white label addressed to her. No return address. Manhattan postmark.

  “. . . still watching that blizzard as it makes its way over the central plains,” the television meteorologist is saying in the background over the sound of running tap water as Casey stands at the kitchen sink.

  According to the weather reports, the storm is gathering speed and strength. Interesting how that happens. You’d think it might be the opposite: that the storm would wear itself out, expending so much fury.

  Then again . . .

  It’s the same with me.

  If anything, the storm raging inside Casey is gaining momentum with every passing second. Even now, even after . . .

  With a sigh, Casey washes the last traces of blood down the drain and reaches for the bleach.

  From the Mundy’s Landing Tribune Archives

  Commerce

  November 20, 2004

  Shop Locally This Christmas

  The Mundy’s Landing Merchants’ Association has announced that most stores and restaurants in the newly revitalized business district will offer extended holiday shopping hours beginning on Friday, November 26, and continuing through Christmas.

  Up and down the Common, special events are planned throughout the season to draw shoppers to the area from throughout Dutchess County and beyond. Santa Claus will hand out candy canes and hot cider and pose for photos with local children on the portico of the Dapplebrook Inn on Sunday, November 28. On Wednesday evening, December 1, Mayor John Ransom will host the annual tree-­lighting ceremony on the Common with music provided by the Upbeats, Mundy’s Landing High School’s coed a cappella group. Over the weekend of December 11–12, the Mundy’s Landing Garden Club will sponsor tours of several historic homes in the Heights that have been beautifully decorated for the holidays. And for the fourth consecutive year following its relocation to the Conroy-­Fitch mansion on Prospect Street, the historical society will offer a special exhibit throughout December, with rooms decorated to represent holiday celebrations in various eras during which the mansion was a private residence.

  Several new businesses have opened their doors this fall, including Tru Blu, an upscale clothing boutique at 25 Fulton Avenue, Bell Tower Books at 16 Church Street, and Valley Roasters Bakery Café at 37 Market Street. Even long-­standing institutions have something fresh to offer: The Market on Market has added a line of organic artisanal chocolates, and Vernon’s Apothecary is featuring framed, matted pen and ink prints of local landmarks.

  “Area residents welcome the opportunity to shop closer to home, especially now that the Dutchess Mall is closed and Ames and Caldor are long gone,” Merchants’ Association president Stanley Vernon told the Tribune. “Why waste time and gasoline when everything you could ever need or want is right here at your fingertips?”

  Chapter 12

  Exhausted from a sleepless night and a stress-­packed day at the office, Noreen is forced to take the long way home on Tuesday afternoon, detouring to pick up all three of her daughters at their schools and drop them all at various activities. If she didn’t have to make the rounds to gather them all up again shortly, she’d crawl into bed right now and sleep till morning. Oh well. At least she can sit in peaceful solitude for half an hour, check her e-­mail, maybe make a cup of tea . . .

  But as she slows to turn onto the cul-­de-­sac, she spots Kevin’s Lexus coming from the opposite direction. She has her right turn signal on; Kevin is flashing the left.

  Faceoff. She has the right of way. Her first instinct is to complete her own turn and let him sit there and wait to make his left, which could take a while in rush hour traffic. Instead, she finds herself motioning him to go ahead. He waves his gratitude as he turns in front of her.

  Apparently, her act of civility has resulted in a truce. As they step out of their respective cars in the garage, he actually stops to wait for her.

  “How was your day?” He almost sounds like his old self.

  He doesn’t look like his old self, though. He’s wearing his hair a little longer these days, brushing the collar of his recently purchased Italian leather coat. Plus he’s lost the ten pounds that crept on over the past decade, and then some.

  “My day was fine. How was yours?”

  “Fine. Where are the girls?”

  “It’s Tuesday.” Which means nothing to him. “It’s Shannon’s volunteer day at the animal shelter, and Sabrina has tennis, and Samantha has dance.”

  “Until when?”

  “Five-­thirty.”

/>   “All three?”

  “Yes. You can pick up Shannon and Sabrina. I’ll get Sam and take her to a drive-­through because she has CCD at six-­fifteen.”

  Silence from Kevin as the electronic door lowers itself.

  That he doesn’t protest carpool duty is a good sign. That he doesn’t agree . . . not so much.

  They step into the house. Goliath trots into the kitchen, wagging his tail at his long-­lost master, who gives him a cursory pat. Noreen opens the patio door to let the dog out into the fenced yard, wishing she could kick Kevin out after him. She really wasn’t in the mood for him right now.

  “As long as no one’s home for a change, I think we should sit down and talk.”

  “No one is ever home,” she points out as he trails her to the hall closet. “Including you.”

  “I’ve been at the hospital non-­stop.”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “What? I have.”

  “I didn’t say you haven’t. I said mmm hmm.”

  They take turns hanging their coats and return to the kitchen. “What do you want to talk about?” she asks, resigned.

  “Logistics.”

  “Are you planning military maneuvers? Invading a small country?”

  “You’re quite the comedienne.”

  “And you’re quite the wordsmith.”

  He opens the fridge, removes a bottle of coconut water, and closes it without asking her if she wants anything.

  She opens it, pointedly takes another bottle of coconut water, and closes it.

  They sit facing each other at the table. She waits for him to speak, since he started this. All of it.

  He clears his throat. “We need to figure out when we’re going to tell the kids.”

  “I thought we already decided to wait until Sean gets home.”

  “Right, but when?”

  “Do you want to make an appointment? Is that it?” she asks. “Calendar too crowded? Maybe you can squeeze us in between tennis and your massage.”

  “I haven’t had a massage in weeks.”

  “Sorry, my mistake.” Seeing Goliath at the patio door, she gets up to let him back into the house.

  “His paws are muddy,” Kevin observes, even as she reaches for the towel she keeps in a basket beside the door to wipe the dog’s paws.

  After a pause, he goes back to the matter at hand: deciding when they should break the bad news to their kids.

  “I just think the sooner, the better. That’s all I’m saying.”

  That isn’t all he’s saying, unfortunately. He goes on talking, and it’s clear that he can’t wait to get this separation out in the open so that he can move on.

  As if he hasn’t already.

  Noreen’s phone buzzes with an incoming text. She pulls it out of her pocket. It’s from her sister.

  Ignoring it for now, she asks Kevin, “What are you suggesting? Do you want to meet Sean’s plane on the runway when it touches down and shout the news through a bullhorn, or . . . ?”

  “Why are you so sarcastic all the time?”

  Why are you such a jackass?

  Her phone buzzes again. She checks. Rowan, desperately needing to talk.

  Why does everyone suddenly need to talk now, when all she wants is to be left alone?

  “When do you think we should tell them?” Kevin is asking.

  “After Christmas. Let’s let them have that, at least.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a little extreme? Pretending everything is okay and then dropping a bombshell on them the morning after?”

  “I think it’s better than ruining Christmas.”

  “It’s not like they’re five years old and we’re going to tell them that there’s no Santa Claus.”

  “You know what? It is like that,” she says evenly, as her phone buzzes with yet another text. “It’s exactly like that.”

  Sully and Stockton stare intently at the whiteboard where they’ve been scrawling details of the related crimes.

  “All within a day’s drive of here,” she observes.

  “So he travels as part of his job.” Stockton circles the word they’ve already underlined several times. “Which rules out the barber theory.”

  “Unless he’s a traveling barber. Or maybe he’s being careful not to hunt too close to home.”

  “Home being . . .”

  “Who the hell knows.”

  Sully studies the diagram showing New York in the center, with arrows fanning out in three different directions to depict locations west, south, and east of Manhattan. Pennsylvania, Virginia, Rhode Island.

  “I’ve never been to any of these places,” she tells Barnes. “Have you?”

  “You’ve never been to Pennsylvania?”

  “Philly. Not Erie.”

  “Yeah, that’s different.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Philly, Hershey, Pittsburgh . . . Pennsylvania’s a big state. It’s not, you know, Rhode Island.”

  “Ever been there?”

  “Nah. Was supposed to go to Newport last July for the regatta, but—­”

  “Wait, you sail?”

  “Hell no. But I was seeing this woman who does.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “I never tell you a lot of things. Anyway, there was that freak hurricane, and—­”

  “What was her name?”

  “It didn’t have a name, so maybe it wasn’t exactly a hurricane, but it almost—­”

  “Not the storm! I meant the woman you were seeing. But I guess it doesn’t matter.”

  “Believe me, it doesn’t. Anyway, this storm knocked out the power and they closed the bridges and . . . wait, why am I telling you this again?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Okay. I’ll stop.”

  They both fall silent, staring at the whiteboard again as Sully pictures Stockton on a sailboat with a leggy, outdoorsy New Englander.

  “So is he still nearby,” Stockton wonders aloud after a moment, “or has he already moved on?”

  She jerks her focus back to the case, asking, “And why these places? What do they have in common, besides proximity to New York?”

  “That might be easier to tell if we could just figure out the trigger.” Stockton rubs a few days’ worth of razor stubble on his chin. “What’s setting him off?”

  “Hell if I know, but we’d better figure it out pretty fast.”

  If she’s learned anything over two decades as a police detective, it’s that sooner or later, whatever incident triggers a perp’s homicidal rage is going to happen again. When it does, some other innocent person will pay with her life.

  Sully stares at the diagrams on the whiteboard until the words are swimming before her eyes. Stifling a yawn, she reaches for the mug on her desk, tilts it, and finds it empty. Again. “I feel like I’ve been shot with a tranquilizer dart. I need more tea.”

  “You need something stronger than tea.”

  “You’re right. I need dark chocolate. And tea. And the ladies’ room. I have to piss like a racehorse.”

  “Nice. Oh, and do remember to extend that pinky finger when you’re drinking your tea, Lady Leary,” he adds in his fake British accent.

  She often responds in a brogue that rivals her grandmother’s, but today she can’t muster the energy. She stands, picks up her mug, and tells him she’ll be right back.

  “You always are, aren’t you.”

  “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

  “You know I love you.”

  “And I love you. Solve this thing while I’m gone, will you?”

  “No probs.”

  She swings by her desk to grab the loose leaf tea and strainer she keeps in her drawer, then heads to the kitchenette.

  T
here, she notices that the Bunn coffee brewer on the countertop is giving off a burnt smell. The carafe is grimy and the filter basket is caked in crud. As usual, someone has left behind maybe a quarter of an inch of black liquid and put it back on the burner without bothering to make a fresh pot, leaving that task to whoever comes along and is desperate enough to drink the last of the bitter brew.

  In a few hours, the scenario will play itself out yet again, and again . . .

  Forever and ever, amen, she thinks as she fills her mug with hot water.

  And Stockton wonders why she sticks with tea.

  Leaving her mug in the microwave to heat, she heads into the bathroom.

  Her mind is on the case and all the weighty implications—­and responsibilities—­that come with it.

  If a predator isn’t stopped in its tracks, he—­she, it, any predator—­will be compelled to kill again. It will happen over and over . . .

  Forever and ever, amen.

  The ladies’ room door opens as she stands at the sink washing her hands.

  “Hey, Sully.”

  “Hey, Brick.” The female detective who just joined her in the ladies’ room is never called by her real name: Flora. She’s far more suited to her nickname, which she earned growing up in the South Bronx long before she joined the NYPD. She’s over six feet tall, tattooed, and is rumored to have killed a man—­or two—­without benefit of her weapon. Nobody messes with Brick. If she likes you, you’re golden. If she doesn’t . . .

  Luckily, she likes Sully, and it’s mutual.

  “I hear you and Barnes are calling in the Feds,” she says from behind the door of a stall.

  “Bad news travels fast. Yeah. Barnes came across a case in Erie, Pennsylvania, that matches the MO and then we found a ­couple of others.”

  “Erie. I was there once, visiting my cousin who lives there. The weather’s shitty. It snowed like hell.”

  “Yeah, well, winter’s a bitch. Especially on the Great Lakes . . .”

  “It was June.”

  “Mother Nature—­also a bitch.”

  “No kidding. I guess it wasn’t as bad as what happened there last spring. Remember the ice storm?”