by Linda Ladd
Rowland’s house was a fifties ranch, tan brick, large picture window beside a burnt-orange front door, very neat and well-kept. The window was draped. No lights on except for an outdoor coach light at the end of his front walk. The garage door was open, and the blue Mustang we’d last seen outside the Classon crime scene was parked inside.
“Stay here, McKay. We’ll check this out.”
“Okay, but he’s already dead. Inside some kind of trunk or chest of some sort. The killer’s gone.”
Bud said, “You sure?”
I said, “Let’s go. Bud, take the back. I’ll go through the garage. McKay, yell if anybody comes out the front door.”
I unzipped my parka and pulled out my Glock and settled it in my hand as Bud melted into the night around one end of the house. I moved to the front of the Mustang and put my palm on the hood. It was cold. I snapped on my Maglite and checked around the car so I wouldn’t get jumped. All was in place, no spiders, no snakes, no sicko serial killers.
I pressed my back against the wall by the door and tried the knob. It turned easily. I nudged it open and felt for a light switch. I found it and light flared. I darted a quick look. The kitchen was empty so I stepped inside, leading with my gun. No sound. White cabinets, red-tiled floor, gleaming stainless-steel appliances. Nothing out of place, no sign of a struggle. I caught motion out of the corner of my eye and swiveled my weapon. It was Bud at the undraped slider, gesturing for me to let him in. I backed my way there, pushed up the lock with my flashlight.
“See anything?”
“Not yet.”
Bud took one side of the kitchen. I took the other. A swinging door led somewhere, and I motioned Bud to go through first. He took it low and I covered him, then hit the light switch. One lamp in the corner came on and illuminated the living room, decorated Christmas tree and all. The tree lights weren’t plugged in and some ornaments lay broken on the floor. Nothing else was disturbed. We checked out the three bedrooms and two baths. I sheathed my weapon and looked around. Then I saw it, a flat-topped antique red steamer trunk that Rowland used as a coffee table. A Christmas gift tag was stuck on the top.
“There it is, Bud.”
Bud said, “What’s that tag say?”
I looked at it, then at him. “It says, ‘Don’t open until Christmas.’ ”
“Goddamn. Something’s moving around in there. Listen.”
Soft, scratching sounds were coming from inside.
“You hear it?”
“Yeah, something’s in there, all right. Cover me, Bud, I’m going to open it.”
A graphic vision of Simon Classon’s body flashed across my mind, and I knew Stuart Rowland was in there, just like McKay had predicted. I braced myself for something horrible. Bud trained his gun down at the trunk, and I pulled the padlock free and jerked up the lid. I shined my flashlight inside.
“Oh my God, what are those black things?”
Bud’s face looked revolted.
“Scorpions,” he said in a low voice. “Jesus, look at all of ’em.”
And Stuart Rowland was in there with them. He had on blue sweats. His wrists were taped together, his face covered by an Indonesian red devil’s mask like the ones the director liked to display on the wall behind his desk. Dozens of small black scorpions, tails up and poised, were teeming all over his body.
I shivered uncontrollably, then nearly jumped out of my skin when somebody pounded on the front door. Bud and I both turned and set our weapons on the door. A male voice yelled, “Police, open up!”
Bud sheathed his gun and opened the door, and a man wearing an Osage Beach police uniform trained his weapon on Bud’s chest.
“Get your hands up now. Now!”
“Whoa, man. I’m Canton County Sheriff’s.” He held up the badge hanging around his neck. “Thanks for backing us up so fast.”
“What backup? I just got off duty when the owner of this place flagged me down. Said somebody’s breaking into his house.”
“No way. The owner’s dead.”
That’s when Stuart Rowland stepped into sight. He said, “What the hell are you talking about? I’m not dead. And what are you doing in my house?”
Bud and I stared at him a moment, then I said, “Keep him outside, officer.”
Warily, we moved back to the trunk. Five or six scorpions had scuttled out of the trunk and were crawling around on the floor, but most of them were still crawling all over the body. I smashed the ones on the floor under my boot, then used my fingertips to lift off the mask. I gasped and backed away in aversion. Bud stepped closer and stared down at Christie Foxworthy’s bulging eyes and taped mouth with complete and utter horror.
Avenging Angels
One night about a year after Uriel arrived at his grandma’s house, Gabriel picked up Uriel and they went riding around on his motorcycle He liked to drive the fifteen miles to a town where railroad tracks ran under an Interstate bridge. Hoboes liked to congregate and drink whiskey there.
Gabriel and Uriel hid in the bushes and listened to them talking together about how they’d been in prison and gotten beat up, and stuff like that. Gabriel said they were evil, sinful men, and should probably be sent on off to heaven, but there were too many to deal with, so they just watched and listened. Sometimes they’d wait until the tramps passed out and then sneak to the fire and steal their duffel bags and booze.
Tonight they stole a bottle of vodka. Gabriel wiped off the top of it and took a big swig. He handed it to Uriel, and Uriel took a drink, too, then coughed and choked because it tasted horrible and burned his throat.
“You big sissy,” Gabriel said. “You gotta learn to drink like a man. I started drinking beer when I was just nine. C’mon now, drink some more, it’ll put hair on your chest. That’s what those old farts under the bridge say, I heard ’em.”
Uriel didn’t like it and didn’t want to, but he did, just a sip at first, so Gabriel wouldn’t get mad. Then they took turns passing the bottle, and Gabriel took out a pack of Camels.
“Well, you might as well start smoking, too. It makes you feel good, once you get used to it. Daddy’d skin my hide if he found out I was doing this stuff, but hell, he smokes a pipe, and that’s okay. He’s a hypocrite, ain’t he?”
Uriel nodded as Gabriel lit up and passed the cigarette to him. He puffed it and choked some more, but he thought it looked cool, and he wanted to be like Gabriel, just exactly like him, in every way.
They sat there awhile, drinking and smoking. Sometimes Uriel only pretended to take a drag on the cigarette. The smoke was caustic and burned his mouth, and he didn’t like it. And the vodka was making him feel dizzy.
“Let’s go, Uriel, we better hightail it home. Got school tomorrow.”
Gabriel let him off at the edge of the woods like always, and Uriel ran down the dark path through the woods that he knew so well by now. A full moon was shining, guiding his way but he skidded to a stop when he saw his grandma was awake and waiting on the back steps.
She stood up and held onto the banister. “Where have you been, young man?” Her voice was harsh. Angry. He’d never heard her use that tone before. She grabbed his arm, her gnarled fingers biting into his skin. “What’s that stink on you? Is it cigarettes? Lord help us, child, what have you been up to?”
In the distance, far out on the highway, the buzz of Gabriel’s motor scooter echoed in the quiet darkness. His grandma squeezed his arm tighter. “Was that the preacher’s son you went sneaking off with? Was it?”
“No, ma’am, I just couldn’t go to sleep so I went out for a walk ’cause the moon’s so bright.”
“You little liar, you sinner, you are not to be with that boy anymore, you hear me? I forbid it! Freddy’s brother thinks he had something to do with that poor child’s death, and now I wonder if it’s true. You get in the house, and don’t you dare ever step foot out at night again. And don’t you be hanging around with that boy anymore, either.”
Scared, Uriel ran into the house and s
lammed his bedroom door. He pushed a chair up under the doorknob so she couldn’t get to him. She did come and rattled the door and said a bunch of bad things about Gabriel. He covered his ears and didn’t listen, and then he got angry that she was telling him what to do. He’d already sent people to heaven, hadn’t he? He was an avenging angel, wasn’t he? He wasn’t going to stop being Gabriel’s friend, no matter what she said. Gabriel was his best friend, his secret friend who loved him and took good care of him.
The next day at school, Uriel told Gabriel what happened, and Gabriel said they couldn’t let Uriel’s grandma tell Gabriel’s dad about the smoking and drinking. He said that maybe it was time for her to go to heaven and be with the rest of Uriel’s family. Uriel didn’t know what to think about that. It didn’t seem right, because she had taken him in and made him chocolate chip cookies and pineapple upside-down cake. She was okay most of the time.
“I dunno, Gabriel. Who’d take care of me then? Who’d I live with?”
Gabriel frowned. “Yeah, you’re right, we don’t want you goin’ into some kind of foster home. I guess we don’t have to send her up to heaven, but we got to fix her where she won’t tell my daddy or keep you from hangin’ around with me. Tell you what, I know this older guy, a real weirdo, who gets me drugs sometimes. I’ll get some that makes her sleep all the time. Old folks sleep a lot anyways. Nobody’d ever know. You can tell people she ain’t feeling well, and I can say I’ll be glad to go over and check on her every day and we’ll say we’ll go to the grocery store for her, run all her errands, and all that. And that’ll make us look good, too.”
“Yeah, Gabriel, I like that idea a lot better. She ain’t that bad, to send on to heaven, I mean. That’s the first time she ever yelled at me, or got on to me, or nothin’.”
So that night Uriel ground up a bunch of the small white pills Gabriel gave him and stirred them into his grandma’s cup of green tea when they were watching the Cardinals play baseball on television. It didn’t take long for her to fall asleep in her chair, either. She was so still that Uriel poked her with his finger to wake her up. She didn’t stir, and he put his hand over her mouth to see if she was breathing. She was.
Gabriel said the pills would knock her out all night and probably most of the next day, too. He was right. He was always right. Uriel left her sitting in her rocker, her head lolling onto her frail chest, and ran through the woods to the old lodge. They were going to try smoking pot tonight, down in the cave where nobody would ever know. Uriel couldn’t wait, was really looking forward to it. Gabriel said it would make him feel like a real live angel, soaring high in the sky, maybe all the way up to heaven.
FOURTEEN
At first I felt only disbelief as I stared down at Christie Foxworthy’s contorted face. I was so sure it had been Stuart Rowland locked in that trunk. Unable to speak, Bud turned from the trunk and staggered a few steps away.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay, Bud. Let’s get a grip now.”
I slammed the lid, afraid more scorpions would scuttle out. Bud was leaning against the wall now, staring at me. His face was white; he looked sick.
“Okay,” I repeated, more than a little shook up myself. I walked to the front door where the police officer was standing. I said, “This is now officially a homicide crime scene. Let’s mark it off with tape and if you can, keep anybody else out there the hell away from the house. Bud, you call Buckeye and animal control and tell them to get out here ASAP.”
Bud stared at me, ashen and silent.
“C’mon, Bud, snap out of it. You all right?”
He nodded, but didn’t look so hot. He said, “Man, she was just so young to die. Not like this. Who could’ve done that to somebody like her? What kind of person?”
I shook away my own sense of horror. “The kind that did it to Classon, I guess. And we’ve got to get him. Black and McKay both told me he’d probably kill again. We can’t let that happen.”
Bud needed something to do, something else to think about. I said, “Make those calls, Bud. And get hold of Charlie, too. Tell him who she was and how she died. See if he wants to come out here and take a look at the scene.”
I tried to ramrod my thoughts into order. But all I could think about were the clicking and scratching still going on inside the trunk.
Bud said, “I want her out of that trunk. Now.”
“Me too, but we can’t, and you know it. Come on, man, do your job. We need Buckeye here before we remove the body. He needs to do the scene because the killer left clues this time, count on it.”
“What do you think Christie was doing here? At Rowland’s place?”
“Let’s go find out.”
Bud followed me outside. I sucked in some fresh air, but what I saw in that trunk wasn’t going to leave me for a long, long time. Unlike Classon, I knew this victim personally, had talked to her. That made it different, more personal. Stuart Rowland had a lot of questions to answer.
We ignored Joe McKay. He hadn’t gotten the victim right but he’d led us straight to the crime scene. He sure as hell wasn’t off the hook yet. His information was pretty damn dead-on, even for a psychic. I’d seen a couple of those shows on TV. The psychics came up with random numbers and sketchy details, something like the victim was left in a cornfield near a red silo. They sure as hell didn’t get the address down pat. McKay well could’ve done it himself so he could magically describe it to us. But the main question was why? And why Christie Foxworthy? How did she fit in to all of this?
Outside, I found Stuart Rowland sitting in the passenger seat of a red Ford Taurus. A woman sat in the driver’s seat.
“Who’s the lady?” I asked the officer.
“Mr. Rowland said she was his estranged wife. That’s his word, estranged. Name’s Nancy.”
Bud was still briefing Charlie on his cell phone, having to repeat himself before Charlie would believe him, I guess, so I walked over and rapped a knuckle on Rowland’s window. It slid down, and he said, “What in God’s name is going on? Nobody’s telling me anything.”
“Come with me, Mr. Rowland, and we’ll have that talk.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“Okay.”
“My partner will need to talk to your wife.”
“Why? She just gave me a lift home. She doesn’t know anything about this.”
“It’s procedure.”
“I don’t know anything,” the woman said, leaning over to peer out at me. She was a faded kind of pretty, blond turning to gray, early forties, maybe, a little bit heavy, stylish red rectangular glasses, perfectly groomed. She looked more than a little concerned.
“Yes, ma’am. Detective Davis will explain everything to you. Mr. Rowland, please step out of the vehicle.”
Rowland followed me to my SUV, and I let him in the passenger’s side. I climbed in behind the wheel, twisted the ignition key, and waited for the heater to warm up. He was breathing heavily. I could see his breath pluming in the cold air.
He said, “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Tell you what? Good God, give me a break here! Who broke into my house and what did they take?”
I stared at him, considering. I decided to be forthright. “We found a dead woman in your house, Mr. Rowland.”
“What?” Drawn out, long, breathy, shocked. Genuinely, it looked like. “No, no, that can’t be, that’s impossible.”
“It’s possible, trust me. And she hasn’t been dead very long. My guess is maybe two or three hours. Where have you been the last few hours?”
“Me? Why, why, I’ve been with Nancy. We’ve been separated for a couple of months, so I took her out tonight and tried to patch things up. You know, we had dinner at the Five Cedars restaurant out at Cedar Bend Lodge, and I surprised her with champagne and roses and all that. But you gotta tell me. Who got killed? Why was she in my house? Nobody should’ve been there.”
“Go
od questions, Mr. Rowland. Anybody have a key besides you?”
“My wife does, of course. . . .”
“How about Christie Foxworthy? Does she?”
Rowland’s face lost all color. I could almost see it draining away inch by inch. He stared at me, apparently stunned into silence. Then he said in a stricken voice, “Christie’s not dead. She can’t be.”
“I’m afraid she can be.”
“I don’t believe you. I just talked to her this morning on the telephone.”
“Well, she’s dead now. Did you kill her, Stuart?”
Stuart startled me by bursting into tears. He wept unabashedly for several minutes, his face cupped in his open palms. He kept saying, “No, no, no, she’s not, she can’t be, I don’t believe it.”
I would’ve offered him a tissue if I had one. If he was faking those tears, he was a regular Sir Anthony Hopkins.
“I take it you had a close relationship with the victim.”
Rowland tried to stop crying but couldn’t. His words were muttered hoarsely, between broken sobs. “Oh, God, God, I loved her, I did. I tried not to, tried to break it off. That’s what happened with my wife. She found out about Christie and me.”
“Do you know why Christie was at your place?”
“No. She knew I was trying to get back with Nancy. She knew. I told her again today. I told her I was going to be gone tonight. Why would she come over here?”
“We’ll find out. Do you know anybody who might want to do her harm? Anybody making threats against her?”
“No, of course not. The women at school didn’t like her much. She was so young, so beautiful. . . .” He raised a teary face. “You sure it’s her? Maybe you’re wrong? You could be wrong, couldn’t you?”
“No, sir. It’s definitely her. I interviewed her myself the day Classon died.”
Charlie’s blue Jeep Cherokee skidded to a stop across the street, and I watched him get out, slam the door, and stalk angrily toward the house. He ducked under the crime-scene tape and spoke animatedly to the off-duty Osage Beach police officer, who listened for a few seconds, then pointed in my direction. When Charlie looked at me, I raised my hand in acknowledgment, then turned back to Rowland.