I’m not so sure I agree with perfect partners. Still, the captain’s quiet resolve beside me is profound. Before we leave to return to the station, I kneel at the side of the headstone of Timothy Ainsley. With gloved hands I brush away the snow that has collected on its sharp ledge. I wipe my fingertips along the deep grooves of the snowy, engraving letters. It’s the cherub I save for last, finally sweeping clean his wings, readying them for flight and the pursuit of peace.
*
The team watches Sambino through the enormous one-way mirror outside the interview room. A wall-mounted camera records all of Sambino’s movements and sounds while he waits. Beside me, at the table, Dr. Eli Weaver helps formulate questions. His enormous length drapes over his chair, his limbs spread out: legs the length of trees veer out beneath the table, capped with brown loafers. His pink button-up shirt shows off the remnants of a holiday tan, while faded jeans keep him somewhat casual. Davis has requested Weaver’s help with the case, based on his expertise with ex-gay ministries and his previous encounter with Sambino at the university. Weaver had been waiting at the station since eight a.m. when I arrived at ten, but he greeted me with a warm hug and one of the biggest smiles I’d seen in days. Weaver’s one of those people you can’t help but to grin back at, someone who’s happy despite the hardships he has faced in life, someone who’s content with what he’s got. I could learn a lot from spending time with Weaver.
I spent the last two hours retracing Ainsley’s investigation into Marci’s soccer coach and the assistant. They now lived together in an old farmhouse outside Chillicothe. The coach, Leslie Hamilton, had debilitating arthritis and couldn’t move through the house without a walker. In her early sixties, she appeared to be much older as she hunched in a La-Z-Boy watching daytime court TV shows. No way would this woman have the strength or speed to kill our victims in the quarry. It was the assistant coach that I was most interested in, though. I wanted to see the woman Marci had been so crushed out on, the woman I’d been so very jealous of. While she was a good fifteen years younger than her partner, time hadn’t been kind to her health either. Melissa had grown into an obese woman who lost her breath escorting me from the front door to a sitting room. Melissa explained as she hobbled along that her knees had gone bad and she was in need of a knee replacement. Clearly she couldn’t have committed the murders either.
Then there was Doug, the final person to see Marci at the mini-mart. The police station still had the video that served as his alibi at the time of the crime. There on the old VHS tape I found final images of Marci as she pushed into the mini-mart and purchased her usual with a big grin on her face. I reached out for the pictures of her, the hologram lost in time, and my fingertips traced her outline against the monitor screen. My Marci. Her cutoffs hiked up over her thighs and I saw what I’d known all along. She was wearing her favorite plaid button-up. Somewhere between the mini-mart and the evidence box, the shirt had gone missing. My heart ached to see her movements so clearly: the way her shoulders lifted as she giggled, the way her long hair swiped along her back as she walked, the assuredness of her stride, and the strength of her steps that had drawn me in so quickly from the first time I saw her. My Marci.
Inside the interrogation room, Ainsley, Davis, Weaver, and I watch as Sambino tips his chair back and forth on two legs. He stares directly at the camera mounted in the top corner of the room and does his best to look confident. He knows the questioning is coming, he just doesn’t know when. Sambino has surprised us all by not yet requesting an attorney. Ainsley said it was Sambino’s attempt to show his willingness to work with us. He’s hoping for a way out. I’m not so sure. Everything about Sambino seems like a dress rehearsal for a play. He isn’t able to be who he really is. I notice, though, that his orange county jumper is ruffled and he looks like he’s gotten next to no sleep. The jail-issued outfit makes him look so much younger than he did in his black vampire garb. His stringy dark hair hangs over his face, now so pale under the overhead lights without any of his thick Goth makeup.
“Ready?” Ainsley asks.
A techie hands Ainsley and me tiny earpieces smaller than the size of a pencil eraser. The techie helps me to insert them into my ear canal so that Davis and Weaver will be able to feed us questions and comments during the interview.
“Assume you’re on the right track unless I cut in,” Davis directs. “Ainsley, no wild rides. Got it?”
Ainsley grunts his approval, but he’s already revved up. The anxious energy wafts off him in long, hot waves. He’s determined to bring Sambino down.
The interview room’s not much bigger than a closet, and I sit across the table from Sambino. Detective Ainsley stands, his large frame leaning against the wall, steps from Sambino’s back, a hand on his hip near the badge clipped to his belt, the other near his pistol. Our physicality will continue to close in on Sambino throughout the interview, more of our not-so-pleasant police pressure cooker.
“I trust that the jail accommodations suited you last night, Mr. Sambino.” I place the file folder on the table between us. Sambino drops all four chair legs down and he examines me through strands of greasy hair. There is something different about his eyes, though, a hint of uncertainty around the edges. Perhaps the night in lockup has done him some good. “Before we begin, Detective Ainsley has some small business matters to take care of.”
Ainsley steps in and leans over Sambino without actually touching him. He holds out a pen to point where Sambino should sign to waive his right to an attorney before we begin.
Sambino takes the pen but doesn’t sign. “Why should I talk to you?”
I shrug. “To clear your name.”
“I don’t know anything about these murders.”
“Sign it,” Ainsley says and nudges Sambino’s shoulder a bit too hard with his hip. “Then we talk.”
At first it looks like Sambino’s going to hold his mug. A moment passes before he glares up at Ainsley, takes in his size, then turns away. He scribbles his name on the line. As soon as Sambino finishes, Ainsley takes the pen and paper from him and steps back toward the wall, clearly to grant me the lead. Maybe some of Davis’s orders have finally sunk in. Ainsley is Ainsley, though. The fire to solve this case lies just below his controlled movements.
“We have an awful lot of circumstantial evidence against you.”
Sambino shakes his head. “Just because I knew Emma doesn’t mean I killed her or anybody else.”
“You might be right about that. How about you explain these to me?” I open the case file and spread out four pictures that show Sambino with the female corpses. “Did you kill these women, Nick?”
“No! They were brought into the funeral home dead. I took their blood, but it would have come out and washed down our hazards drain anyway. It’s not even like stealing.”
“And you needed this blood for…?”
Sambino spreads his lips apart wide and points to his veneer fangs. “I’m a vampire, remember?”
The showing of the fangs breaks Ainsley’s resolve. His eyes spark and his tongue unleashes. “Let me get this straight. You expect us to believe that you needed this blood? Because you’re a vampire? Vampires are supposed to drink the blood from a live vein, dumb-ass.” Ainsley hisses the word dumb-ass with a low growl.
“Not all vampires attack their victims that way.” Sambino rolls his eyes as though Ainsley and I are the dumbest humans on earth. “What do you think I did with it? I mixed it with vodka every night.”
“Ahh,” I say to Ainsley. “It was only a nightcap.”
Ainsley plays along. “A morning cap, Detective. A bloody vodka after the night shift. Why didn’t I ever think of that when I was working traffic?”
“Blood is blood,” Sambino says. “I’m not worried about freshness.” With his arms crossed over his pudgy chest it’s clear that Ainsley’s questioning of vampire authenticity has perturbed Sambino.
“Where did you store the blood, anyway?” Ainsley says.
Sa
mbino doesn’t answer.
I fan out the eleven photographs like playing cards, and place one on the table at a time, careful to keep photo number twelve to myself. I want to save the one that has caught the ghostly glimpse of Picasso. With each new photo Sambino sinks farther into his seat. Unable to look at the dead women, he picks at the chipped black polish on his thumbnails.
“Eleven women,” I say. “That’s an enormous amount of blood.”
Sambino grins and licks his lips as if he can still taste the blood on his tongue. Suddenly the switch flips inside Ainsley and he’s all fists and yells and spittle in some sort of Hail Mary move destined to fail. It’s not that he accuses Sambino of the crimes so much as the threats of what will come to him—rape and beatings as other inmates become vampires against Sambino.
“Detective!” I try to stop Ainsley. “I got it.” Our radio earpieces are blowing up with demands that Ainsley step down. For a moment Ainsley and I have our own standoff until I finally hear the crackle of Davis in both our ears telling Ainsley to get the hell out of the room.
Once the door slams behind Ainsley, Sambino takes in a deep breath. “I knew you were the good cop.”
“You can repay me by explaining this one.” I position the final photograph, photo twelve. “Who is this in the photo with you?”
Sambino closes his eyes. His knee bounces up and down so violently it shakes his whole body.
After a minute, I continue. “The glasses on the corner of the table. Whose are they?” When he doesn’t answer, I say, “He was there with you every time you took blood from the bodies, wasn’t he?”
Sambino says softly, “No one was there but me.”
“Whoever this is seems to be enjoying himself inside each dead woman’s crotch.”
“I told you. No one was there but me.”
“You and your amazing four arms, huh?” I pound my finger against his blurred image on the photograph, but Sambino isn’t budging. I lean back in the chair and rub my eyes. “We’re circling back to photography, Nick. That’s where we began, talking about Wilson’s Photography shop and Emma.” Sambino doesn’t say anything. For now, anyway, he’s shut down and confirmed all my suspicions that he must be terrified of Picasso and what Picasso could do to him.
“Let him steep a bit.” Davis’s voice crackles through my earpiece. I wait a moment after the instruction, looking hard at Sambino who can’t bring his eyes up to mine. I then slowly collect all the photos except for the last and let it lie in the center of the table.
An hour later, Sambino still sits in the same chair as Weaver enters the interview room alone with a quick duck of his head. His size spills into the tiny interrogation room filling so much more than Ainsley and I did together.
“I’m sorry to meet again under such circumstances,” Weaver says, always so cordial. He shakes Sambino’s hand. “I’ve brought some reading material for you.”
Sambino takes the Bible from him and turns the plain paperback book over inside his hands. He lets his fingertips trace over the gold lettering.
“I wanted to bring you an ankh replica, but the jail won’t allow it.”
Sambino puts the book down next to the photograph. “Why are you here?”
Weaver spreads his long, matchstick legs out beside the table. His loafers look like a size twenty-five at the ends of his skinny legs. “The detectives found out about our meeting at the university and thought I might be able to help.”
“You’re a professor, not a cop.”
Weaver nods. “That’s exactly what I told them. But you’re in a tight spot. I want to be of help to you, Nick.” Weaver holds his voice only a level or two above a whisper. Sambino has leaned into the table in order to hear, and we all are taken with the liquid calm of his tone. “Tell me about the One True Path meetings.”
I can’t get close enough to the monitors. Weaver’s off the grid of questions we worked on for him.
“What the fuck?” Ainsley smacks the table.
I shush him.
“What are you talking about?”
Weaver sighs. “Unfortunately we both know far too much about those meetings.”
Sambino drops his gaze back toward the table. He doesn’t deny it. Weaver has gotten to the heart of something that Ainsley wouldn’t let me get to in two days.
“You researched me before our talk at the university, Nick, or you never would have known I wrote my dissertation on the different types of crosses.” Weaver’s voice has a gentle drawl to it, as though he grew up in the South and it’s a lingering accent that hasn’t let go. “You also knew that my area of expertise is ex-gay ministries, though you never really asked me much about it during your visit. Talk of the ankh and other crosses was a ruse—I’m sure of it now. What did you really want to talk to me about that day, Nick? Did something happen to you in those meetings?”
“It wasn’t a ruse,” Sambino whispers.
Weaver sits in silence with Sambino, allowing space and time for words to follow. When Sambino doesn’t use it, Weaver finally does. “I know a whole lot about these types of groups, Nick. Not just from my studies, but I got pulled into it years ago. Just like you.”
“You told me, remember? About how you met your man.”
Weaver nods. “I did meet him through those meetings, Nick. We also went through hell and back in order to accept ourselves.”
Sambino swallows hard and his Adam’s apple slightly quivers.
“Four years, Nick. Four years before I finally found the courage to leave.”
Sambino’s fingertips graze the cover of the Bible. Although he’s sunk far into his seat, you can tell he’s listening close to Weaver’s words.
“I never would have found the courage to leave without Dave. He’s the one, really, who insisted we end the charade. I was scared out of my mind.”
Ever so slightly, Sambino nods.
“I was so afraid that I failed God, that all these teachings from the organization were true and that I’d be cast away from God forever. I struggled with this terror that I wouldn’t be able to survive without the group. In a way they’d become closer to me than my own family. We were all in that mess together. I loved them all, even the leaders in a very bizarre way. You understand?”
“Yeah.”
“Love can give us the strength of Samson,” Weaver says. “Who did you find the courage to leave with, Nick?”
On the other side of the one-way mirror, Davis and I lean forward in our chairs, anxious to see where this exchange will go. Weaver’s taken the personal angle with Sambino and I would have chastised myself for not doing more of it if I weren’t so enthralled with the questioning. Beside me, Ainsley has settled back in his chair, his bearlike frame quiet and stone still.
“What other possible reason could there be to leave the family, other than true love?” Weaver asks. “It’s common, you know. So many of us find our partners there.”
“It wasn’t love.”
“No?”
“At least not on his part.”
Weaver nods his understanding. I can’t help but think as I watch him that he’d make a great therapist, someone I’d like to talk to. “Ahh. I see. Unrequited love. You fell hard for a man conflicted over his sexuality. I’ve been there.”
Sambino chuckles. “Not like this.”
Weaver hedges his bets. “Is he the other person in the photograph?” When Sambino doesn’t answer, Weaver presses him. “Did you get yourself into something you couldn’t get out of? Like I said, love gives us the strength of Samson, but it can also be a debilitating fear. No one wants to lose love, Nick.”
Sambino chuckles. “I’ve already lost him.”
“Tell me how that happened.”
Sambino goes on lockdown, with not so much as a peep or a look up from his new Bible. Weaver sits in silence with him, prodding him at times, but Sambino won’t budge. Everything about his body language tells me Sambino’s answer is yes.
“He’s been threatened,” I tell Da
vis. “Picasso’s got him scared silent.”
After some time, Davis hooks his chin at the clock. “We’ve held Sambino in the tank since midnight. We can’t keep him much longer. Defense lawyers will claim he’s been coerced and deprived if we don’t get him some food and water. We’ll hold him on the new charges and resume questioning tonight.”
“We got nothing!” Ainsley storms. In his rage of frustration, he can’t see what Weaver’s gotten for us—the verification that Sambino met Picasso through the meetings and that One True Path is the heart of this whole investigation. Weaver’s taken a blurry photograph and completely pulled everything into focus.
“I should have known,” Ainsley grumbles. He knocks a metal clipboard to the ground. “The fucking queer’s a wussy.”
Ainsley’s words take a sharp stab at my gut, but I choose to ignore it. If this morning’s outing with Davis proved anything else to me other than Ainsley’s innocence, it’s that we all have our hang-ups about sexuality.
*
The afternoon hours crawl by as I follow up on the tip line. All dead ends. The frustration eats at me. Everything moves in slow motion. Time stands still. This is the part of investigative work I hate most—the waiting. My thoughts continually turn back to Rowan. She hasn’t answered any of my texts since she left yesterday morning. Fear wraps around my gut and squeezes when I think about my attempts to tell her how I found Marci. My Berlin Wall came down only a fraction, just enough to let Rowan inside for a few seconds. Then those tenacious bricks piled right back up. Although Rowan never said it aloud, her frustration when she left Willow’s Ridge had been palpable. I don’t know how much longer she will wait for me. Is it fair for me to even ask that of her? I want Rowan to be happy and, at some point, we will both have to admit that it might not be with me.
“Heads up, Hansen,” Davis calls out of his open office door. Because of the friction between Ainsley and me, Davis reassigned me to an empty patrol desk outside his office. Concentrating in this large room full of working officers and ringing phones is next to impossible.
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