Rowan had been deep into her research of Hans Klosenova and his series Crossed. She used her contacts from the art world to find where each photograph had been taken and to locate any connections Klosenova might have had with lesbians or the gay community in general. Information on the artist had been sparse and scattered at best, though she found he had been a photographer for National Graphic magazine. Each of the seven images had been taken at assigned shoot locations. Rowan hadn’t been able to find any record of his death, though given his lack of published work in the past twenty years, most everyone in the art world believed he’d passed. Could Rowan’s sudden disappearance have to do with this research?
I see my father in my mind’s eye. He takes a seat in Ainsley’s empty chair, the gleam of his brass medals from the police force glinting against the overhead lights. “It’s never easy, Lucy-girl.” He gives me a lazy smile that calms me at once.
“Too much to ask, is it?”
My father’s grin lights up his face, the edges of his mouth hidden beneath the thickness of his white mustache.
“God, Dad. If anything happens to her…”
He leans forward, balancing his elbows on his knees. “Your search is too narrow,” he explains. “Remember how Rowan and Kaitlin use their signatures?”
“In the art work? The markings?”
He nods. “Images used to identify themselves in their art. Who says an artist has only one way of identifying himself?”
Rowan always said she loved to sign her name but also liked using the symbol, depending on her mood. Since her return from India, though, it’s always been namaste.
“Like a pen name,” I say. “Writers use different names for different types of work.”
“Sure. A symbol. Even another name. Anything to keep his two worlds separate.”
“His two worlds. The one that fits into societal norms and the other of art and killing.” Another name. I immediately think of the name that Kaitlin and Sambino used: Joseph. Hadn’t I heard Rowan use that name at some point with Klosenova?
I run a few preliminary searches through federal databases on Klosenova with the name James Joseph and it pops up under a national registry. “Dad, you’re a genius.”
He shrugs. “You don’t keep me around for nothing.”
James Joseph filed to have his middle name legally changed to Hans Klosenova for artistic purposes. He’d been using Klosenova for his work but hadn’t been able to cash any of his paychecks. Legally changing his name solved the problem. He never resided in the state of Ohio. He owned a cherry-red 1951 Corvette. His wife, Alada Joseph, had her driver’s license through the state of New York with an address listed in Rochester.
I search the federal criminal database for any sort of record. It’s a long shot, but that’s all I’ve got to go on right now.
I start with James Hans Klosenova Joseph and find nothing. Under the name James Joseph, however, I hit pay dirt when the computer screen loads a mug shot from February 18, 1959. Joseph has a shock of thick white hair protruding from his head in tufts. With squinted eyes, he looks as though he’s holding back tears. With his bulbous lips, the photo reminds me of the famous picture of Einstein with his tongue sticking out of his mouth. Joseph’s charge: first-degree murder of his wife, Alada.
Joseph was arrested on federal land in a national park in Wyoming. At the time of Joseph’s arrest, he’d been in the process of positioning his dead wife’s body in a field of high grasses along the edge of a forest. Photography equipment surrounded him. He was arrested before any pictures had been taken of Alada’s naked and posed body.
The Crossed series was never intended to only have seven photographs. Joseph had stopped the series due to his incarceration. Alada marked a major turn in his work, the place where he moved from live models to a dead one. Joseph most likely had been an evolving serial killer himself. After all, what did we know about the girls who had modeled for the seven photos? Did they all survive the photo shoots to see the next day? They appear alive in the photographs, but they could have been drugged or unconscious. Joseph was arrested twenty-two miles from the spot where Magda Rose Teru’s body was found.
Prison records state that Joseph died on March 12, 1967, in the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins. Reports show that Joseph was beaten to death by two other prisoners while the three cleaned the showers. Two assigned guards stood watch over the convicts but left when an emergency code was called. By the time they returned from the false alarm, Joseph had been battered with the ends of a mop and broom. The wooden handle of the broom had been shoved so hard into his chest, the end snapped off. Joseph died before he could be taken to the infirmary. The only other reference of interest is a note reporting Joseph’s vicious temper.
“That’s an inside job if I ever heard of one,” my dad says. “Explains why Rowan couldn’t find anything on him.”
“I wonder who wanted him dead. Were the two inmates part of some prison gang or was it someone from the outside?”
Dad only shrugs. Whether the two prisoners carried out a job for someone else or not, Joseph didn’t stand a chance of survival that day in those prison showers.
Rowan had said Klosenova—Joseph—made his money on assignment, shooting nature shots, something I imagine a serious art photographer might consider selling out. The lack of recognition had to have taken a toll on Klosenova’s self-esteem as an artist. Did he take his frustration out on his wife?
I find only a handful of references to Klosenova and only two that discuss and contain images from the Crossed series. It is the last hit that interests me most, though—a blog that discusses Klosenova’s final works and includes two shots that aren’t part of the published series. Unless this is an art historian or family member, how did this blogger get these unpublished shots? Both photographs feature the now-familiar flat grassland in black and white.
Fotofan. There is something about the shape of the face, the spread of the cheekbones away from the nose in the blogger’s thumbnail picture. The blogger is unmistakably Nick Sambino.
*
Davis balances on his favorite spot, the corner of his desk, swinging his right foot out and back. His clothes have grown loose on his already thin frame over the last few days. A colleague of mine in the BCI calls this rapid weight loss during a case the murder diet. The stress, late hours, and a churning stomach melt the fat away. “This explains the location of the Teru murder, but not why he’s chosen Willow’s Ridge for the others.”
“There has to be a strong familial connection here.”
Davis looks down at me in the office chair. He’d interviewed Sambino only an hour before and blown Kaitlin’s cover in order to find information about Rowan. Sambino refused to talk, only saying that he’d wanted to impress Kaitlin with his threats and had no knowledge of any actual harm intended toward me or Rowan.
He smiles in that sad way that tells me something’s wrong. “I heard from the deputy out in Dublin. He located your dog sitter. No word from Rowan.”
I do the only thing I know to do: continue on with the case. “Take a look at this.” I enlarge the thumbnail picture of Sambino.
Davis looks down over my shoulder at the computer screen. “Well, look who it is,” he whispers. “Our little vampire buddy.” Davis shakes his head. “We need more. Sambino’s lawyer will only say he has an interest in photography and Klosenova’s a hero of his.” He absentmindedly picks at his pinkie nail. “Keep searching. If he’s blogging, he’s probably commenting on other sites.” He dry-washes his face with his hands. “Meanwhile, just got word that Kaitlin got out on bail. I have an officer looking into who paid the bond.”
As I reach for the doorknob of his office, Davis calls me back.
“God, Davis.” My jaw aches from my worried clench. My fingers knead the drum-tight muscles in my temples. “Where is she?”
“Well, I know where she’s not.” He waits for me to look up at him. “A city park employee called in an abandoned SUV and arranged for a
tow in Stow, not far from here. We ran the plates.”
“Any signs of struggle?”
Davis shakes his head. “Nothing there to suggest any problems. We have three uniforms searching the park and surrounding area. Her bags are all in the car untouched.”
“What about her phone?”
“In the cup holder between the driver’s and passenger’s seats. Only the keys are missing.”
“And Rowan.” The words come out much louder and shriller than I mean them to, and my hands tremble. I bite down hard to keep my teeth from chattering.
Davis slips into comfort mode, giving my shoulders a squeeze. “We’ll find her, Luce. I promise you.” We stand this way together, facing one another, for a few breaths before he adds, “Colby Sanders is on the way.”
I throw my hands up and turn away from him.
“I’ll do everything I can to keep you on the case. Okay? Luce?”
My back’s to Davis and I’ve fallen into that nervous habit again of untying and retying my ponytail.
“We’ll find Rowan. You have my word.”
My head spins with details of the last place that I saw Rowan and all possible dangerous scenarios. I’d dropped her off at the front door of the hotel. “The security recordings.”
I push past him on my way out of the office door.
“We checked the hotel. They only show Rowan’s return from our morning meeting and then at checkout.”
“I need to see them.” My coat’s on, keys in hand, and I’m headed toward the exit with or without Davis.
“Hold up, Agent,” he says. “I’m coming with you.”
*
Hope. It’s funny how such a small little word can whittle its way into the most concealed crevice, drip its lightness into the most congested tunnel. It’s that tiny zing that slips into our darkest hour and relentlessly teases with the prospect of resolution, renewal, and forgiveness. During my first three One True Path meetings, hope was the thing that showed up at the eleventh hour just as silent as a nuclear holocaust.
It happened with those glances Marci gave me, those looks that connected us. I’d secreted them away inside a tiny corner of my heart. While the pastor droned on about the consequences of our sins, I thought about the way that butterfly of hope had landed so gracefully on my shoulder. The thinnest of wings still thrummed from flight and whispered into my ear: Hold on, Lucinda. Hold on.
Marci didn’t do anything, really, other than be present at those group meetings. I studied closely every move she made, every rise of her chest with breath, even how long it took her still-damp hair to dry. Marci equaled hope in mere presence. Why else would God have put this girl so near if not to send me a message? I only knew the teachings of the few church services my father had taken me to, the promises of fire and brimstone for any misstep in life. Perhaps Marci was God’s way of testing me. If so, I failed miserably. But deep in my gut I knew this wasn’t so.
I always called my intuition my God-speak, and my dad always nurtured it. If I could only quiet myself enough, I reasoned, if I could only be patient enough, the voice was there—it had always been there. I found that God’s voice sounded quiet and sweet, nothing like the loud brash and clatter of out-of-tune musical instruments in the pastor’s lectures and preaching. No matter what I called the voice, I realized in those early days of that summer, it didn’t always talk. Sometimes it simply pointed out images to me, like the golden hue of sunsets or the flutter of a nearby blue jay, and hope settled on me.
Now, on the way to the hotel, I wait for a feeling of what to do next, for the ghost of my father to appear and guide me, for the voice to help. I drive Davis to the Ridgeway Inn while his scanner crackles dispatch and locations of officers all over the county. Although he says all the right words, it’s clear that Rowan’s disappearance has rattled Davis. He’s talking so fast, his words slur together.
I do my best to tune out Davis and to quiet myself. It feels like my heart might burst out of my chest and I cannot stop my feet and legs from jumping. Still, I do my best to listen for a message that tells me all will be okay.
The voice never comes. Neither does my father.
Chapter Twenty-four
Alison, the Ridgeway Inn’s owner, lives on the premises in an attached apartment. Davis and I wait as she corrals her overgrown, burly German shepherd into a back bedroom. We follow Alison’s thick blond ponytail to the kitchen. She grabs us bottles of water from the refrigerator, her soft, fleshy body hidden within layers of sweatpants and a hoodie. The kitchen sink drips, drips, drips to avoid the slow freeze of the water lines.
Alison joins us at the table with her laptop. Her pleasant, moon-round face looks over at me. “I’m not sure what you’re hoping to find, Agent. The other officers went through these recordings only a few hours ago.”
“Do the cameras record twenty-four-seven?” Davis asks.
“They do in the summer and fall,” Alison says, “when the tourists are all here to see the changing leaves and to go hiking or camping. We get very few visitors this time of year. This whole deal is a fluke.” She points out her kitchen window to the media vans parked everywhere. “I hate what’s happening in this town, but the business has been great.” She opens a web page and turns the screen so I can watch it load.
“We use a company that stores the recordings online,” she says. “Keeps the insurance company happy. We can access them through their website. You’ll have to forgive me, I’m slow at this. We’ve never needed to get to any of the recordings before today.”
Her thick fingers maneuver the keyboard through passwords and different screens until she’s finally in. “The other officers found that the parking-lot camera didn’t record, but we have the hall.”
“What’s wrong with the lot camera?” I ask.
“Not sure. We had no idea there was a problem with it.”
Davis and I exchange glances over the convenience of the camera outage. Given that Rowan presumably got to her car and loaded her belongings, the parking lot was most likely the point of attack. Rowan left in the middle of the day, though, and I’ve only witnessed the lot when it’s been teeming with news media and bored reporters. Someone must have seen something.
I fast-forward through hours of recording until I locate exactly when Rowan and I left for the police station, her laptop tucked underneath her arm. The recording shows Rowan returning from the station alone, and I’m able to zoom in on her as she fumbles with the keycard and nearly drops her bag in the process. At 9:04 a.m., Rowan disappears into the hotel room. At 1:52 p.m. Rowan emerges with her two bags and easel. She sets her duffel in the hall while she pulls the room door closed behind her.
Rowan freezes on the screen facing the closed door. It’s not as though she’s forgotten anything, she simply isn’t moving. The camera zooms in as far as the program will allow, but Rowan’s face is too grainy to make out her expression. Then, almost as suddenly as she stopped, she bends over for her things and walks down the hall. It’s easy to see why the officers missed it. To someone who doesn’t know Rowan, her movements might seem like only a glitch in the film, a pause for a deep breath, nothing more. But I know her too well. The fumbling, the pausing—that’s not like Rowan. It’s something more.
Rowan’s intuition rivals mine when it comes to her awareness of people around her and their intentions. So it begs the question: If Rowan had sensed some sort of danger, what caused her to go ahead with her plans to leave? If she had been concerned, why didn’t she contact me?
“There’s nothing here,” I say to Davis, fast-forwarding through the remainder of the recording. There is no other movement at my hotel room until 3 p.m. when the cleaning crew enters. Nothing more happens until 11:57 p.m., when I return to the room.
I have no valid reason to check my room again. After all, I slept there last night and noticed nothing unusual. It is out of desperation and an effort to quiet my worry that I leave Davis to look once more for anything Rowan might have left behind. The
recording nags; it won’t let me go. I’ve missed something.
Inside my hotel room, the curtains are pulled tight and the sunless room still feels heavy with sleep. I check all the drawers in the dresser. I search the desk and under the bed and in the bathroom. Only the heater answers as it clicks on, blowing air against the armchair in the corner of the room.
Rowan left her black hoodie balled on the seat of that armchair. When I grab the sweatshirt to check the pockets, her laptop greets me from the seat. The lid of the laptop is closed, the computer in sleep mode. Its black lid meshes perfectly with the dark fabric of the chair. Hidden under the sweatshirt, the laptop would have been easy enough to miss.
The computer powers on to the page Rowan last viewed, the very last image of the Crossed series, number seven. The screen holds the Klosenova image, zoomed in to only the model’s pale bare shoulders and face. Her eyes are closed with her chin resting on her right shoulder. The model looks as though she is perched on some sort of overhang. A cliff, maybe. Winter has stripped the foliage from the branches that surround the woman, and the sky looks gray, thick, and brimming with snow. It could possibly be a photograph taken at night. I scroll back up to the model’s face and pull out of the close-up view. The full photograph depicts the naked model lying across the top of a boulder. The layers of the rock are visible and the photograph is taken from an angle that shows the model is on a pedestal of rock as some sort of an offering. Her arms are spread wide with her legs together, and the long mess of her curly hair covers her naked breasts, much like Botticelli’s Venus.
The wild mass of curls. The slim build. The fine bone structure. If I didn’t know every expression of Rowan’s face from my life with her, every indention and smile line, I could be convinced this model is Rowan. I click back to the previous image, photograph number six. This particular model has short dark hair along with pale skin and is positioned amongst winter foliage.
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