by Osborne, Jon
Krugman glanced to his left and caught the eye of a female agent from Boston who’d graduated with Dana from the Academy in 1997 – a woman in her late-thirties who’d been in town to attend her former classmate’s funeral. He waved her over before performing the introductions. “Agent Meghan Shaughnessy, meet Agent Bruce Blankenship,” he said.
Blankenship and Shaughnessy shook hands. “Pleasure to meet you,” Blankenship said.
Shaughnessy smiled grimly. “Likewise, Agent Blankenship. I’m just sorry it couldn’t have been under more pleasant circumstances than these. My condolences on the loss of your partner. Such a tragic thing to happen. She was a very good friend of mine a long time ago.”
Krugman cleared his throat to cut short the niceties. Blankenship and Shaughnessy could get to know each other on their own time. This wasn’t a matchmaking service. “Agent Shaughnessy will be going over to St. Anthony’s Catholic grade school in Lorain tomorrow morning to interview witnesses in a paintball shooting there last Friday afternoon,” he said. Until the multi-agency task force could be assembled properly, Krugman would direct things from the FBI end of the equation, and they couldn’t afford to lose even a single minute of work time here. Not with Jack Yuntz still out there planning God-only-knows-what next. “A teenager in a trench coat shot three students before fleeing the scene,” Krugman went on. “No lasting damage to the kids – physically, at least – but probably Jack Yuntz warming up for the movie-theater shooting.”
“Makes sense,” Blankenship said.
“Agreed,” Shaughnessy chimed in.
Krugman pursed his lips. “Great. So get the hell out of here and go rest up for tomorrow. You’ve both got big days ahead of yourselves. Let’s get these investigations underway just as soon as we possibly can. I want to hit the ground running when the task forces are put together on these cases, and I’m counting on you two to get things started.”
“Yes, sir,” Blankenship and Shaughnessy said in unison.
When Blankenship and Shaughnessy had finally gone – still talking to each other as they went – Krugman made his way alone to the back of the field office building. Exiting the structure through a little-used rear door, he crossed the parking lot and slid behind the steering wheel of his rented car before cranking the engine into life. Twenty seconds later, he pulled out of the parking lot in the opposite direction of the reporters still stationed out front.
Krugman shivered hard from both the weather and the brain-bending events of the day. Leaning forward in his seat, he turned up the car’s heater in order to start the defrosting process of his frozen old bones and sighed heavily. The media would still be out there tomorrow, he knew. And every day after that until the FBI could put these shocking cases to bed once and for all. Plenty of time to bring them further up to speed later on, even if that marked the least of his concerns at the moment. Besides, he really needed that hot bath right now: a chance to scrub off the dirt of this hopelessly grimy day.
And for all he knew, it might be the last one he’d get for a while.
CHAPTER 20
Sweating profusely from the intensity of his extremely gruesome labors after he’d so efficiently and so ruthlessly extracted the precious ounce of flesh required for the next step in this now-bloody game of hide-and-seek with the FBI – the razor-sharp pruning shears tucked safely back into the front pocket of his filthy coveralls now – Horatio D’Arbinville used the blunt side of his shovel to tamp down the rich cemetery dirt at his feet that he’d just spent an hour and a half plowing through.
Cemetery dirt six feet underneath of which rested a tiny white coffin that – not very long ago – he’d cracked open like an especially foul-smelling can of bad sardines.
D’Arbinville swallowed back the small-but-potent measure of stomach acid that burned a trail all the way up his esophagus before flooding into his mouth. He winced against the sharp, metallic taste that danced across his tongue and sizzled on his taste buds. Even for a man possessed of his usually stout constitution, the shocking act he’d just performed had proved to be somewhat unpalatable at times.
Unsavory, at the very least.
And downright unholy, if nothing else.
D’Arbinville shook his head in order to chase away the silly thought, knowing good and goddamn well that angry times called for angry measures. And the anger that still burned so hotly inside his chest at the unconscionable besmirching of his beloved family name had been the only thing keeping him going while he’d turned over spade-full after spade-full of heavy earth, sometimes gagging against the pungent scent of rotted flesh that had floated up into his nostrils along the way.
D’Arbinville paused for a moment in his difficult work, leaning his weight against his shovel and mopping at his glistening brow with the back of his left forearm. Then he shook his head again, this time in disappointment with himself. He’d been surprised – if not downright dumbfounded – by his uncharacteristic reaction to the requirements of his job. Odd. He’d always thought that he’d possessed a much stronger stomach than that. Dangerous timing to come to this sudden realization of his suddenly delicate nature, too. Because if he had lost control of himself and thrown up at the cemetery, no doubt the DNA strands contained in his vomit would have been waiting for the feds like a stadium full of microscopic witnesses just dying to rat him out.
D’Arbinville reached into his pocket and lit up a fresh cigarette, inhaling deeply and relishing the fresh infusion of nicotine into his overworked system. Thankfully for him, though, the only dying required here tonight had already taken place. So in the end he supposed that he didn’t need to worry very seriously about any tiny, mute fingers doing their best to point out his identity to the authorities. After all, the only tiny, mute fingers that would come into play in this game from this point forward would be working for him, not against. And after he’d completed the next particularly brutal step in his upcoming sequence of moves, nothing would smell like rotted flesh to him anymore. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. Instead, everything would smell like money: a scent that to him had always smelled sweeter than a dozen roses.
D’Arbinville managed a small smile at the comforting thought, which just about chased away the remaining nausea swirling around in his gut. All he needed to do now was to make sure that he didn’t prick any of his own fingers on the jagged thorns protruding from the base of the money tree that he and his small team would be shaking until the appropriate amount had finally fallen out.
Extinguishing his cigarette after smoking it halfway down, D’Arbinville tucked the crushed butt into the pocket of his coveralls so as to not leave behind any evidence. Resuming his labors in earnest, he finally finished up with his difficult task and gathered his tools into his arms before making his way slowly across the deserted cemetery again, sighing contentedly as he headed toward the van that was waiting for him out in the parking lot like a blind and mute accomplice.
Clicking shut the heavy front gate behind him a moment later; he at last departed the thoroughly depressing cemetery once and for all.
Slightly worse for the wear than how he’d initially found it, of course.
PART VI
“Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshipped. And he said: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The LORD gave; and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD.’ In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.” – Book of Job: Chapter 1, verses 20-22
CHAPTER 21
Tuesday; 10 a.m.; St. Anthony’s Elementary School; Lorain, Ohio
After driving around completely lost for nearly an hour and a half due to her thoroughly aggravating lack of familiarity with the northeast Ohio section of the map, Special Agent Meghan Shaughnessy heaved a grateful sigh of relief when she finally pulled into an empty space in the parking lot of the grade school in Lorain, facing her rental car in the direction of the choppy waters of Lake Erie that were boiling awa
y beyond a dented silver guardrail and maybe a hundred feet down from the sheer face of a jagged cliff.
Shaughnessy lifted up her eyebrows on her forehead while she took in the picture-perfect postcard view in front of her, duly impressed. Nice place to go to school, to say the least. She didn’t think she would’ve minded going there herself as a kid. At least, it probably had been a nice place to go to school before that murdering little punk Jack Yuntz had burst into the building last Friday afternoon with his paintball rifle and had stolen the innocence of God-only-knows-how-many children in the process with his sickening actions.
Shaughnessy grimaced and felt a bone-rattling chill pass right through her despite the cranked-up heater in the car. She just thanked her lucky stars above that it had been a paintball rifle in that instance, and not a real one. The more-than-forty poor souls who’d perished in the movie-theater shooting over in Rocky River hadn’t proved anywhere near as fortunate, however.
Shaughnessy swallowed away the acrid bile that she tasted in the back of her throat courtesy of the infuriating thought. Yuntz – the murdering psychopath who probably didn’t even shave yet – had directly caused the deaths of nearly fifty people so far in his brief career as a killer, and he’d indirectly caused the death of Dana Whitestone, a wonderful woman with whom Shaughnessy had dormed in their days back at the Academy fifteen years earlier, sharing notes on classroom lectures just as easily as they’d shared notes on the cutest prospective male agents in their group. Shaughnessy would avenge Dana, though; she knew that. She owed it to her. And she’d avenge all those other people, too. Especially the children. She’d been cut from a rough enough patch of cloth to pull it off. Skinned knees and blackened eyes were nothing new to her, after all. Growing up as the only girl among seven brothers tended to toughen up a gal a bit. Just as payback was a bitch, so could Shaughnessy be when she thought she needed to be, thanks to her roughhousing brothers.
And right now was most definitely one of those times.
Bitch mode: activated.
Shaughnessy glanced up into the rearview mirror and used her pinkie finger to dab at the corner of her mouth where a dot of her soft pink lipstick had smudged. Though she’d been stationed in Boston for the entirety of her career – the same place she’d grown up as a kid – she didn’t at all mind sticking around in Ohio to help Bill Krugman hunt down Jack Yuntz. Hell, it was the least she could do for the Director after everything he’d done for her over the course of her career. Despite Krugman’s reputation as sometimes being a difficult man for whom to work, Shaughnessy hadn’t found that to be the case personally. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. Krugman was a straight shooter with her, always had been ever since the very beginning, ever since the days when she’d been a still-wet-behind-the-ears rookie who hadn’t known the difference between the mid-point in her arm and her gluteus maximus – which she hoped wasn’t too maximus these days. Krugman’s gruff nature might have rubbed some people the wrong way, but even in his seventies now Shaughnessy didn’t think the Director could have rubbed her the wrong way if he tried.
No two ways about it: he was kind of sexy for an old guy.
Shaughnessy smiled at herself at the supremely weird thought and exited her rental car before locking it up with the keychain-control. The vehicle honked once at her as though it were saying goodbye. Taking a deep breath through her nostrils, she stretched her neck and felt the frigid air chill her lungs. Time to get down to business.
The biting wind whipping in hard off the lake swirled her mid-length, strawberry-blonde hair wildly around her head as she walked quickly across the parking lot and toward the school, cutting like a million tiny razor blades through the sheer beige stockings covering her legs. Shaughnessy had passed forty a few years prior, but she’d always kept at least half an eye on how she looked. So if she kept up her jogging and watching what she ate, not only could she continue keeping her maximus to the very minumus possible, she figured that she could also probably get away with wearing skirts to work for the next five years or so. If nothing else, a hell of a lot more than a lot of women her age could’ve said.
Finally coming to the entrance to the school a few moments later, Shaughnessy pulled open a glass door and stepped inside the scuffed-brick structure before making her way up the cement staircase on the northwest side of the building and stopping outside an office door that had an engraved plaque on it reading, Sister Rose Alice, Principal.
Shaughnessy fluffed her hair momentarily, then lifted a hand to knock on the door. A female voice sounded from inside at once. “Come in.”
Shaughnessy turned the handle and stepped into the office. A pair of uncomfortable-looking chairs lined the back wall to her left, no doubt reserved for naughty school kids who’d been caught passing notes in class. Ten feet away from the chairs and seated behind a huge desk covered with an absolute tornado of scattered papers, an elderly woman who looked to be somewhere in her seventies herself smiled up at her. “Good morning, ma’am,” the woman said. “I’m Joanne Churchill, the school secretary. How may I help you?”
Shaughnessy slipped her ID from the inside pocket of her blazer and flipped it open. “I’m Meghan Shaughnessy, ma’am,” she said. “I believe I spoke with you on the phone earlier this morning?”
Churchill widened the smile on her delicately pretty face and stood up. Dull yellow teeth colored in by age peeked out from between thin lips painted bright red. “Yes, of course,” the woman said. “It’s so nice to meet you in person, Agent Shaughnessy.”
Shaughnessy smiled back. “Likewise, Mrs Churchill. Is Sister Rose Alice around? I believe I was supposed to meet with her.”
Churchill shook her head and stepped out from behind her massive desk. As she did so, Shaughnessy pegged the other woman’s height at about five-three, if not even shorter than that. At five-nine herself, Shaughnessy felt like an absolute giant in Churchill’s presence. Weird way for her to feel in a school office, that much was for sure. Not too many years ago, she’d have been one of the naughty school kids sitting in one of the uncomfortable-looking chairs lining the back wall. “I’m afraid Sister fell ill not more than hour ago,” Churchill said, glancing down at the delicate silver watch strapped around her frail left wrist. “Stomach virus, I think. Anyway, she left me with very specific instructions to help you out in whatever I can.”
Shaughnessy slipped her ID back into her blazer pocket and extracted a folded-up sheet of paper nestled there. Unfolding it, she read the name she’d written down the previous night before looking back up at Churchill again. “Wonderful. In that case, I’d like to talk to Katie Morgenstern, if that would be OK with you. Could you please take me to her? Also, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to use an empty room, if you’ve got one available at the moment. Won’t take more than ten minutes, I promise.”
Churchill clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Poor Katie,” she said, pressing her lips together grimly. “Only a first-grader, and to think of the horrible thing that horrible monster did to her. Simply awful. But you wouldn’t know it just by looking at her. Not even close. Brave throughout the entire thing, bless her little heart. Brave beyond her years. Anyway, I can take you to her, Agent Shaughnessy, but I’m afraid that we don’t have a single room open at the moment. Being a private school, we don’t have that many classrooms available in the first place, and they’re all filled up today. The gym and the cafeteria, too. Play rehearsals and physical-education class.”
Shaughnessy frowned. Talking to the little girl out in the hallway wouldn’t work: way too many impressionable ears within hearing distance at any given moment.
Churchill took in the look on her face and read her mind at once. “Could you maybe talk to Katie outside?” she offered. “I know it’s a little bit nippy out there today, but if you go down the steps outside this office I’ll be able to watch you guys.” Churchill gestured to the large window ten feet to her right, which overlooked the parking lot. “And if you won’t be very long,
I’ll just tell Katie to grab her coat. The children still go outside for recess, even in this weather. Ohio kids are a pretty tough bunch. We won’t keep them inside for recess until at least the middle of November.”
Shaughnessy shrugged. It didn’t mark the most ideal setup in the world, but what the hell? Besides, she was a guest here today, and if her host made a suggestion it would probably be considered pretty rude of her to simply ignore it altogether. And coming from the cold-weather climate of Boston herself, she’d braved a winter’s day or two during her school years. Forty degrees was pretty cold, but it wasn’t going to bring on death by hypothermia. “That sounds just fine, Mrs Churchill,” Shaughnessy said. “So, I’ll just wait for Katie outside then. How long do you think she’ll be?”
Churchill checked her watch again. “Give me five minutes and I’ll have her teacher deliver her right to you. Sound fair?”
Shaughnessy nodded. “More than fair, Mrs Churchill. Thank you so much for your help. I really appreciate this.”
Churchill waved a tiny hand in the air to chase away the gratitude. “Think nothing of it, my dear. I just hope you can catch that monster before he hurts anybody else. Especially any more kids.”
Shaughnessy tightened her lips. She and the secretary shared that particular hope. “I will, ma’am,” she said, meaning it. “That much I promise you.”
Churchill smiled again. “Great. I’m so happy to hear that.”
Shaughnessy nodded again and turned to leave the office. Before she could exit, though, Churchill stopped her. “Agent Shaughnessy?”
Shaughnessy turned around to face the other woman. “Yes, ma’am?”
Churchill widened her smile even more, cracking the bright red lipstick at the corners of her mouth in the process. “God bless you, honey. You’re a wonderful person to do the things you do, to put your own life in danger like this to help others. Very Christ-like. Anyway, I hope you know how much I and many others like me appreciate it.”