Stonehenge, the real monument in England, was built with an inner circle of rocks and an outer circle. I’m a fan of circles, Marci told me, the never-ending symbol. She even had a circular pattern of loops designed for a tattoo to enclose her wrist, which she planned to get when she turned eighteen. This cave reminded her of the sacred site she’d studied in school. She spent her summers exploring all the caves that pocked the walls of the ravine and found this one that was set apart from the others. For Marci, in many ways, her Stonehenge did become sacred—a place of quiet and reflection, a place for us to explore one another. Above all, Stonehenge became Marci’s secret-keeper, so much that it even contained the mystery of her death.
Inside Stonehenge, I feel that same jolt of excitement in my stomach that I felt so many times when meeting Marci. Because I’ve heard so much about the softness of limestone, I expected the space to look different, to have changed with the years of weathering and erosion. The only difference I detect is the feeling that no one’s been inside the hidden back chamber of the cave in quite some time. Cobwebs line the darker corners and I consider something I never did at age sixteen: bats. Thankfully, nothing flies out other than a pocket of warmer air. I’ve forgotten that the cave is a sort of refuge from the winter cold and the summer heat, the rocks equalizing the temperature. I sit down with my legs crossed in the back corner where I always sat with Marci.
I’ve been unsure what might erupt for me inside Stonehenge. This case has me feeling like a cauldron of different emotions that churn inside me. Stepping into this place of Marci, or over the place where I found her body, it’s almost like asking for it. But my heart wouldn’t ease until I went. To my surprise, I only feel a calming comfort and a sense of safety. It’s like I’ve been holding my breath all this time, until this confrontation finally happened. Now I can breathe easy. Marci’s presence beside me becomes palpable, reminiscing with me over the past.
Remember when we kissed for the first time, wads of bubblegum in our mouths that got in the way?
Remember when we would drive in the convertible with the top down, music blaring? I loved those times, singing to the radio at the top of our lungs. What was that song you loved so much? Some old Bon Jovi song?
Remember when we couldn’t wait to get into the hidden safety of Stonehenge, almost on fire to touch each other?
Remember when the pastor pointed out we were getting awfully close and we needed to find opposite-gender folk for our socialization?
Remember how we couldn’t keep our hands off one another, always tapping and tugging and tackling each other into a wrestled softness?
Suddenly, I realize with a start, I’m laughing and talking out loud, carrying on a lively conversation with only myself.
“Marci,” I call out, my voice an echo against the stone. “Marci.” That’s when the tears come—silent rivers that feel like they might never end.
“I’m so sorry.” Then in the next breath, “It should have been me.”
The matter of timing, specifically my own, that hot August day, was something I couldn’t forgive myself for. I’d been late meeting Marci at Stonehenge, as usual. This particular time, though, I was very late, at least forty minutes. I blamed it on the drive from Chesterton and the argument I’d had with my father about taking the car alone to Chesterton. He finally relented as long as I called him as soon as I arrived.
One True Path was to hold a four-hour revival that night, and I had been harassing my dad for permission to attend for days. This wasn’t just my chance to see Marci, which always drove my desire to attend these meetings, but we were also meeting with two other groups from Ohio, all affiliated with the One True Path organization. Everyone would be under the age of twenty-five. I’d learned that while there were some sincerely trying to change in the program, there were many others like Marci and me who were only attending out of a duty to someone else and looking for others who felt the same way. Twisted, yes, but a way nonetheless to meet other young gays and lesbians.
There’d been a traffic jam on Interstate 70 that day, a car that had crossed the median and crashed head-on into a semi at full speed. I’d gotten to the mess at the tail end of the cleanup, the crews sweeping splintered glass and twisted metal from the roadways, and the car scrunched like a closed accordion on the shoulder of the road. Traffic was a slow crawl through the bottleneck, putting me even farther behind to meet Marci at Stonehenge. I’d been so excited that we would have almost two whole hours together before the meeting began.
“That was a long time ago,” I say and reach over to the edge of the cave, where the wall and the floor of limestone meet. Rock fragments scatter the floor and I pick out a stone, a little larger than a quarter, pink around the edges with distinct white striations. I hold the cool rock in my gloved hands at my heart, close my eyes, and offer up a promise.
“With your help, I’ll solve your murder, Marci. You are not forgotten.”
After a few minutes, I tuck the stone inside my pocket, right next to my Marci rock. The weight of the stones is surprisingly light. There’s a distinct shift in the fast-approaching night air, a slight settling, much like a gentle exhale.
*
Davis made it clear that he didn’t believe Ainsley had anything to do with the crimes, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to watch him extra-close. From the backseat, I’m angled so I can see Ainsley’s every move. Davis’s cruiser speeds through town, knocking Ainsley and me from side to side while the heater blasts on high. A bitter cold has set in with the darkness, a bone-crushing blister of wind. While I’d been MIA at Stonehenge, Davis used my interview with the Jamesons to obtain an arrest warrant for Sambino as well as a search warrant for his home and vehicle.
Inside the cruiser, no one speaks, but the excitement is palpable. Everyone gears up before an arrest in their own way. I pull into myself and tap into some sort of strength that’s buried deep within. You can’t predict how a suspect will react to the cuffs. Ainsley shows more anxiety than usual, wiping the lenses of his glasses with a handkerchief over and over while his left knee bounces up and down. Davis talks endlessly about how this arrest will be good for the case, as if he’s trying to convince himself. Finally, we pull into the funeral home lot and block the employee door with the cruiser. Behind us, two more cruisers arrive.
Sambino’s truck is parked in the lot next to the hearse. He would have clocked in for his shift just over an hour ago. Everything is quiet and still in the neighborhood, with only the barking of a lone dog in a nearby yard.
“Ready?” Davis calls out to us, then pushes through the funeral home door. A loud buzz sings our presence. This time, we don’t wait for Chad Eldridge to make his way down the stairs from his living quarters. We snake through the building and descend the back staircase with pistols drawn.
The large work area for embalming and cleaning bodies stretches across the basement. There are the blinding lights against white floor tiles and walls, as well as the glaring shine of silver work tables. Formaldehyde burns the inside of my nostrils and the tip of my tongue the same way it does in the morgue. There, next to the table beside the large basin sink, is Nick Sambino dressed in scrubs and a paper gown that covers him from head to toe. He leans over the head of a body that’s naked and stretched out on the work table. I don’t need to see her face to recognize Emma Parks. It’s the scrawl of the Y incision on her chest that I recognize, the paleness of her young skin. Sambino looks up wearing splashguard glasses that magnify his dark eyes to egg size. He’s hard at work on Emma Parks’s eyes, filling the sinking places around them with tiny shots of embalming fluid while the glue to keep the lids closed dries. Plastic surgery for the dead.
Sambino blinks his buggy eyes at us, a needle in hand. He’s not wearing gloves. He’s bothered to cover his entire body with protective material, but no latex gloves. Odd.
“Nicholas Sambino!” Ainsley’s words belt across the basement, his trigger finger cocked and ready. “It’s my pleasure to place yo
u under arrest.”
Just like that, we have Sambino. He doesn’t argue; he doesn’t protest. In the middle of Davis reading Sambino his rights, Eldridge emerges through the doorway. Although his hair is perfectly combed to the side, his cabled green sweater is too big and the tails of a white button-down hang below the end of the sweater. He rights his glasses and sidesteps Ainsley and me for Davis.
“You’re arresting him?”
“Damn straight,” Ainsley says. Together we push Sambino from behind up the staircase toward the employee exit.
“Do you have to arrest him here?” Eldridge says, his voice lilting up to a whine. “The media! We have services in the morning. The body isn’t ready!” Eldridge’s panic spikes.
“I have a warrant, Chad,” Davis says. He stands on the outside doorstep and talks with Eldridge while their warm breath blows plumes of smoke into the night air.
Ainsley opens the back door of a cruiser and smacks Sambino’s head against the hood of the car. “Oops, watch your head.” Two patrol officers snicker until it’s time for them to take Sambino back for booking. Davis, Ainsley, and I will join the other detectives and the crime-scene team to search Sambino’s home. A tow will arrive at the funeral home within the hour to take Sambino’s personal vehicle.
“Don’t worry, Sambino. I’ll mail you a skirt!” Ainsley calls out, the swirling emergency lights of the car flooding his amused face in blue, his white mustache an edge to a toothy smirk.
*
Somehow the department managed to keep Sambino’s impending arrest quiet, a rarity with so many members of the media swarming throughout this small town. We’ve managed to get to his apartment before the camera crews have arrived, with only a few collected gawkers from the complex. Soon the crowd will grow, with media bringing the bright lights of cameras and reporters calling out for comments. All law enforcement officers have been advised to answer no comment to all questions. The details of the victims’ manner of death and sexuality are the stuff of sensational tabloid sales.
The apartment complex is older and quite small, only thirty units or so. The double-storied buildings look untended with a broken lamppost outside the main entrance and a lot of peeling paint. Sambino’s building holds eight apartments, four upstairs and four down. Through the car window, I scan the location for anyone who looks out of place.
“Do you have someone to take photographs of the crowd?” I lean up between Davis and Ainsley from the backseat. In front, Ainsley is keyed up from the arrest and the excitement of the search. His face is flushed and he’s leaning forward with his breath shallow and fast. Despite my plea to hold off on the arrest of Sambino, I’m ramped up as well.
A criminal will sometimes return to the scene, posing as media or even just an interested onlooker. It’s a sick game psychopaths like to play, insinuating themselves into the investigation.
“I have two plainclothes officers en route who will pose as a reporter and photographer from the Columbus Dispatch,” Davis says.
A low murmur surrounds us as more officers arrive on the scene. Crime-scene tape ropes off the building and an officer stations himself to check IDs. Davis flips on the overhead car light and scribbles out the time log.
Davis mumbles while he writes. “Sambino should kiss our feet for locking him up. Once word of his arrest gets out, folks just might lynch him.”
“It would save us the time and money,” Ainsley adds.
Through the frosted window, I watch an older woman in a robe use her dog as a reason to walk past Sambino’s building. She joins a group of apartment dwellers gathering on the corner to gossip about all they do not know about Nick Sambino. I rub my eyes. It’s been a long day and it’s about to get even longer.
Ainsley tips his head back to needle me. His moody energy fills the car. “You still convinced it’s not Sambino?”
“Sambino is just a showman and narcissist,” I respond. “He’s a Johnny Depp wannabe. If there’s any conflict in him, Detective, it’s how to wear his hair each day.”
“He’s our man.”
“He knows something, Ainsley. I’ll give you that.”
“Enough,” Davis says, tossing the metal clipboard on the car’s dash. He reaches for the door. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter Fifteen
Picture this: A Hollywood vampire lair complete with realistic-looking plastic skulls used as cereal bowls and ashtrays, a long black cape thrown over the edge of the bathroom door like a robe, and the walls covered with posters of some of pop culture’s best-known vampires: Angel, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise’s characters from Interview with the Vampire, Dracula, and yes, even Edward Cullen. Instead of a bed, a large, plush coffin sits in the middle of the bedroom. Remnants of black hair dye stain the kitchen sink and counters. A half-eaten box of Count Chocula cereal spills its contents across the counter. To top it off, all the lights have been replaced with black lights, bathing Sambino’s apartment in an eerie purplish glow. I feel like I’m on the movie set of some sort of B slasher movie on a shoestring budget.
“Vampire stereotyping at its finest,” I say and stick my head into the tiny bathroom. Big surprise—he’s hung a black shower curtain. A damp heap of dark towels lies in the corner near the toilet.
The black lights make the search difficult, painting shadows everywhere. Two officers work in the kitchen, removing all the contents from the cupboards and refrigerator. Another officer works in the family room, ripping the back off the worn sofa.
“Anything yet?” Davis asks.
“Nothing but a lot of stale food and dirty laundry,” an officer says. “This guy’s a slob.”
“Take apart everything in the bedroom, bath, and that coffin,” I direct. “He will keep mementos, souvenirs of some kind from the victims. He’ll cherish these keepsakes and keep them in a location where he feel safe enough to relive the crimes.”
The apartment stinks. The concoction of curdled milk and rotten bananas reeks. Fruit flies have gathered in the kitchen around the bananas. I pull the collar of my thick sweater up over my nose and mouth and walk through the kitchen to the bedroom. The makeshift filter doesn’t help much and I’m back to trusty open-mouth breathing. When I pass through the door frame once again, an officer flips on the wall switch and the bedroom in engulfed in the now-familiar thick purple glow. On the far wall, scrawled letters gleam a yellow-green.
The brilliant mass of neon letters is indecipherable; it’s a language I’m not familiar with. Latin, maybe? While a detective runs searches on his laptop to translate the message, I help Davis and Ainsley dismantle the inside of the coffin, peeling away the red velvety lining from the dark and oiled wood.
“Nice coffin,” Davis says. “Expensive. Can you imagine sleeping in this thing? With the lid shut?”
“Or having sex?” Ainsley quips.
“Eww!” He gets a rise out of all of us with that one.
“He must have gotten a discount on the coffin for being such a good employee at the funeral home.” As Ainsley rips a large section away, a book falls out. He holds it up. “Just what we need, guys, The Vampire’s Complete Handbook.” He reads from the well-worn cover. “How to psychically tap into energy fields for ultimate feeding.” From inside the back flap, two unused condoms tumble to the floor. “At least we know our guy is practicing safe sex.”
“I like a woman who bites.” A slur of sex jokes follow the investigator’s comment. I can’t help but to laugh with them. This is by far the oddest crime scene I’ve ever investigated.
Another item falls loose from the lining. A small statuette, no more than five inches in height, fills the palm of my hand. Beneath a demon-like figure, I recognize one word. “Incubus,” I say and trace the carved letters with my fingertips. “Hey, Ainsley, look up incubus in that book, would you? I’ve heard that name before.”
“Got it,” Ainsley calls out after a few minutes. “A being that seduces young women while they sleep and drinks their blood. Attached to vampire lore and sometimes co
nsidered to be the lord of the night.”
“Huh.” The face of the incubus looks up at me from my fist. “He sees himself as some sort of lord.”
“I’ve got a few of those phrases from the wall in here, translated.” Ainsley holds the book out for all of us to see. “They come from a section on what pure blood will do for vampires. Blood promises longevity and vitality.”
“Longevity in jail,” a detective calls out. A few of the guys chuckle.
“Pure blood,” I say. “How is that defined?”
“Virgin blood’s pure, apparently.”
My thoughts turn to Marci. She’d been a virgin—at least with men. I’m willing to put money down that Vivian, Chandler, and Emma were also gold-star lesbians. Could this be the tie to the young lesbian community we’ve been looking for?
I join Davis, who has been working in the small space of the bathroom.
“It’s hard to tell what anything is with this damn lighting,” Davis says. He slides a gloved hand along the baseboard and around the toilet. A pile of makeup cases cover the area around the sink. I pick up a container with dark purple eye shadow in a gloved hand and hold it under the flashlight. Most of the shadow has been used.
“Find any women’s clothing? High heels?” I ask.
“No,” a detective says from the bedroom closet. “Just makeup and a curling iron.”
I shine the high-beam flashlight along the base of the tub. The yellowed caulking doesn’t look new. Davis lifts the lid off the toilet tank.
“Anything?” Ainsley says, sticking his head into the bathroom and stepping inside.
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