I watched Joe Ray and Loretta Ann Kirkpatrick marched out in handcuffs and pressed into the back of a cop car. Mrs. Kirkpatrick peered at me through the window, her eyes sad and glassy. She was probably in some stage of disbelief at her weird world crumbling. I had no sympathy for her. If I felt pity at all, it was simply for how stupid and greedy they’d been.
“I’m Special Agent Cushman.” A woman with a service holster and a GBI cap and Windbreaker shook my hand and handed me a towel. The drizzle was dripping off the brim of her cap. “I was in the chopper with McMillan, so I’m up to speed. I’d like to get a partial statement from you for the record. Just the basics. We’ll finish up in Atlanta once we figure this out.” We started toward the Kirkpatrick house. “It’s pretty bad out there, huh?”
I threw the towel around my shoulders and raked back wet hair with my fingers. “Bad isn’t a big enough word for what’s out there,” I said.
She led me inside to a big sit-down kitchen and a long farmhouse table, tossed me a dry towel. I saw cookies on a plate and evidence Mrs. Kirkpatrick had entertained Neil and Mrs. Stargell. Cushman put her recorder on the table. “You need anything?”
“I’m fine,” I answered, but I knew I was pale as rice paper. I was still shivering.
“Any idea how many corpses are out there?”
I shook my head. “They’re in pieces.” I felt tears burn my eyes. Tension, sadness, shock, disgust. Understandable, I knew, and probably even healthy, but embarrassing nonetheless.
Cushman had the decency to ignore it. She continued the interview. When we were done, I called Neil and asked him to meet me in the car at the end of the dirt lane. The property entrance had been blocked off to anything but official business, I was told. All sixteen acres were now a crime scene.
I walked along the edge in the GBI Windbreaker as a convoy of law enforcement vehicles passed me. The rain had moved on, as Agent McMillan had promised. The July sun beamed through breaking clouds. Steam rose up off the fields and ground that had been cooked by summer sun. Our southern saunas.
I stopped and looked at the place where we’d watched Joe Ray planting kudzu and suddenly realized it wasn’t kudzu he was planting at all. I made one last call to McMillan, then climbed into the passenger’s seat of my Impala at the end of the drive. Mrs. Stargell waved at me from her porch. I waved back. I could hear Rauser’s ringtone. But I didn’t answer. All I wanted was a shower. An endless, boiling-hot shower.
I sent a text. I’m fine. Heading to hotel now. Need to decompress.
He’d understand. Rauser was maybe the only person in the world who would understand completely. The benefits of dating a cop sometimes outweighed the hazards.
At the hotel I stripped and tossed my wet clothes in the wastebasket, then showered until the Big Knob Resort and Spa ran out of hot water. I thought about those agents in the woods hauling in excavators and backhoes. Trying to guard and protect that huge scene when the sun went down tonight. The media would descend on that place soon, if they hadn’t already, and the GBI would have their hands full. I wasn’t ready to turn on the television.
I twisted my hair up and slipped into one of the hotel robes. I couldn’t face the drive home to Atlanta right now. I didn’t feel like I could face anything. Except maybe a nice cognac swirling round a brandy snifter, sending heat down my throat to my stomach. Yeah, I could face one of those.
Neil ordered room service—cream of broccoli soup and warm bread, a pot of tea. Comfort food. He knew I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Neither of us was counting the dish of sticky rice Mary Kate Stargell set in front of me.
I called my mom to check on things in Decatur. The neighborhood barbeque was under way. They’d scheduled it for late afternoon, when some of the heat had passed. Dad had strung up lights and sprayed everything in sight with chemicals in an effort to defeat the mosquitoes. Miki had been a big help and seemed to be enjoying the distraction, Mother reported. I smiled at that. My parents had been more parents to her than her own had been. I was glad she had that right now. I think maybe Miki had felt terribly alone a lot. Still, I felt a pang of resentment that she had brought her waist-deep crap into our lives.
I picked at my food. My appetite was on a rare furlough. I talked to Neil about what those agents were digging up out there. All the charges they’d slap on the Kirkpatricks would be multiplied by the number of bodies they could identify. Joe Ray and his bossy mama might end up with a thousand counts against them. I wondered aloud when a respected family had made that first critical decision to cheat and if it had escalated slowly, step-by-step, until they were so deep it didn’t matter anymore. Perhaps it was thought out, but I didn’t think so, I told Neil. I thought something went wrong with the crematory along the way and someone couldn’t stand to turn the business away. How easily this could have evolved to selling the dead rather than just tossing them away. How easily they could have convinced themselves they were actually contributing something valuable, filling a need for organs and tissue.
“It’s totally sick,” Neil said.
“At least one of them felt guilty. I think that’s what the photographs are about.”
Neil brought his napkin from his lap, touched his mouth. “What do you say we forget about this for a while? I mean, we’re here for the night. It’s early. Let’s do the town.”
I shook my head. “Take the car. Have fun. I’m beat.”
He didn’t push it. He touched my shoulder as he passed by and picked up the car keys. “Call if you need me.”
I sat at the window after Neil left, hotel robe wrapped around me, no lights on inside my room. Hand-holding couples crossed the fairway below and families with children and blankets had gathered on the hilly green. The long dock at the shore was lined with onlookers gazing out at the dark lake.
I thought about Rauser, about his voice, about how nice his wide shoulders would feel against my cheek right now. I wanted to call him. But I didn’t. What would I say? That I’d spent the day in greed so dark and soulless that I’d been literally ankle deep in human debris?
I heard the first high-pitched whine of fireworks darting into the night, the hiss and crackle of one lit fuse after another, and the sky exploded in thunderous booms of bright gold and red and blue to the delighted cheers of the crowd outside the hotel.
I pulled the robe closer around me and felt as utterly alone as I ever had. My phone rang. I wanted to ignore it. It rang again and I retrieved it from the table where it sat next to my uneaten room-service dinner. I saw my cousin’s name on the display. But Miki’s phone was lost, wasn’t it? Rauser had tracked the last location to the Whole Foods in Midtown. Had they found it?
I answered and heard voices. Lots of them. Chattering. Music in the background. And then I heard my mother’s voice. She was talking cheerfully to someone.
“Miki, are you there? Mom, can you hear me?”
No answer. Just the same chatter. I went from zero to eighty-five in one second flat. I hit the end-call button and pressed my mother’s mobile number. Four long rings. “Mom, thank God! Did y’all get Miki’s phone back?”
“You have to speak up, honey. Half the neighborhood is here. We just had the most beautiful fireworks show.” I heard the sangria she loved to make for parties in her voice.
“Mom, did you get Miki’s phone back?”
“Why, no. We’re going by the Verizon store after my audition to pick up a new one.”
“Do you see Miki?” I started getting dressed, tossing cosmetics into my bag.
“I’m looking at her right now. Keye, honey, what’s wrong?”
“Mother, listen to me. Find Dad and y’all take Miki and get inside the house. Keep your cool, but do it now.” I didn’t know if the call had been intentional. I knew my number must have been on Miki’s call log. Maybe it had been accidentally pressed. But not by Miki. And that was the problem. I burst into Neil’s room, started gathering up his things too.
“Keye, what in the world—?”
/> “I just got a call from Miki’s phone. The one she thought she lost. He’s there, Mom, and he’s close. I could hear your voice.”
23
“Miki, sweetheart,” I heard my mother saying, so nonchalantly she might have been about to discuss the weather, “I need you to help me with something inside for a minute. I’m so sorry to interrupt, honey. Will you excuse us?”
“Perfect, Mom. You’re doing great.”
“I have Miki, and I’m trying to find your father,” my mother said in my ear. “Howard.” I could hear the rising tension in her voice. “There you are, Howard! Would you help us bring out some more trays, please? Now.”
“Well done, Mom. I’m calling Rauser. Stay inside until you hear from him.”
“But Keye, the party—”
“Lock yourselves in,” I snapped. “Tell Dad to get his gun and check the house. I love you. The cops will be there soon.”
I called Rauser. I told him about Miki’s lost phone calling my number. He disconnected without saying good-bye. I didn’t know what he’d do, but I knew he’d do it fast. The Decatur cops could be there in minutes. I fired off a text to Neil. We have to leave. Emergency.
Neil blew through our connecting door fifteen minutes later as I was making a last sweep of the room for personal items. He was carrying the suitcase I’d packed for him, a shaving kit, and a belt. We raced through the lobby and to the car. I told Neil about the phone call. I was on edge, waiting for my phone to ring again, waiting to hear they’d found him, this stranger who wanted to harm Miki in ways I wasn’t sure I understood, this killer who might be at this very moment milling around with my parents.
Neil put his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. He smelled like beer and cigarettes. “You know, it’s out of our hands now,” he said. “Rauser’s there by now. The Decatur cops were probably there in five minutes. And I’d like to get there in one piece too.”
I glanced at the speedometer. “Sorry.”
I heard Rauser’s ringtone. “Everyone’s safe,” he reported. “We found Miki’s phone on one of the tables outside, bagged it, locked the place down.”
I sucked in air. “He wanted us to know he was there. Jesus, he was so close to Mother I could hear her voice.”
“Hopefully she remembers seeing somebody she didn’t know. Look, we got Miki out of there, and we did it in the wide open. If he was anywhere close, he knows she’s not at your parents’ house anymore. Bevins and Angotti drove around for a while, but they never picked up a tail. She’s at my place for now. Wherever we end up putting her, she’ll have a detail twenty-four-seven.”
“Thanks for that. Where are my parents?”
“Emily and Howard are in the house with a group of their friends. Balaki’s taking statements. Someone had to have noticed him. Unless he’s one of them, somebody that grew up in the hood with you guys. Maybe had a thing for Miki.”
It was worth thinking about. I told him I would.
“Street,” Rauser’s voice sharpened, “he knows who you are. He picked your number to call. Christ, there’s a lot of people here. We broke them up into four groups of twenty. Williams, Thomas, and one of Decatur’s plainclothes are helping get statements outside. That’s gonna take awhile. Decatur City is on the street too. By the way, the caterers checked out clean. Everyone that delivered food to Kelly’s party came and went together. Pretty clean bunch.”
“Shit.” I sighed. “Right now he’s just toying with Miki. Again, he had an opportunity to harm her and he didn’t.”
“Maybe he wants it to be just right,” Rauser suggested.
“Maybe. We need to understand it, Rauser, before she gets hurt.”
“We won’t let her get hurt.”
“Can you get me access to the evidence? All of it, I mean. The crime scene analysis, the victimologies, whatever your detectives have pulled into the files so far, interviews, anything the labs have with regard to the Delgado and Kelly cases.”
“I could if you were, say, a psychological consultant.”
“I want in.”
“I thought you’d never ask, Dr. Street.”
A couple of hours later, Rauser parked on the street. I pulled in behind him. There was a Crown Victoria in his driveway, a much later model than the one Rauser drove. And much cleaner. It shone under the outside flood. He used his phone to call inside from the sidewalk as we walked toward his always-in-some-stage-of-renovation two-bedroom in the Virginia Highlands section of Atlanta. He’d knocked down walls and put in windows and built a deck off the master bedroom and screened in half of it. He was planning to convert the unfinished attic to a master loft overlooking the living room when he had time. Rauser would have been a carpenter, he’d once told me, if he hadn’t gone into law enforcement. He loved working with his hands. He was a project guy. I liked that about him. Watching him banging nails in a wife beater with a tool belt hanging off his waist wasn’t bad either.
Detective Angotti opened the door for us, his shirt bunched under a double shoulder holster, his S&W forty tucked up near his rib cage, right side. Angotti was a lefty. The snap was open.
I saw playing cards on Rauser’s coffee table. The TV was on, but the volume was low. Angotti was doing things to keep them both busy—games, TV—while making sure he could hear outside noises.
Miki came from the kitchen, saw me, and ran into my arms. I hugged her tight. We went to Rauser’s couch. She gripped my hand. Rauser sent Angotti on his way, then checked the doors and windows, made coffee while Miki and I talked, put mugs and cream and sugar on the antique coffee table, then took a chair facing us.
Miki poured cream into a mug. I took a cup black. “You need anything?” Rauser asked. “Want some food or something?”
Miki shook her head. “Aunt Emily stuffed everyone within reach all night. Oh God, she must hate me. She worked so hard to make everything perfect.”
“She’s fine,” Rauser said. “She was serving drinks and snacks and shit while we were getting statements.”
“That’s Mom,” I said. “She really knows how to throw an interrogation.”
“Anybody at the party look suspicious to you?” he asked Miki. “Someone who didn’t fit in? Somebody alone, not interacting? Someone you didn’t recognize. Someone you recognized but couldn’t place.”
“That pretty much describes the whole experience. I mean, it’s a different neighborhood now. I only go back for holidays. I didn’t know most people there. Or they looked vaguely familiar. Jesus, we’ve all gotten so fucking old!” my thirty-four-year-old cousin told Rauser.
“How about you just tell us everything you remember from the first folks arriving,” Rauser suggested.
Miki took us through the party. She was holding together just fine. No frazzles. Miki had fought her way through life. For the first time, I was beginning to see the survivor in her, the one who had to have emerged these last couple of years, the one who had kept her out of the hospital. She was completely sober as I looked into her eyes, clear and turquoise, even though I knew Rauser’s bottle of bourbon was on the kitchen counter and that booze had been flowing freely at the party. For these get-togethers, Mother fills punch bowls full of white sangria with orange and lime slices that have absorbed liquor for days.
“Well, I guess the good news is it’s not Cash.” Miki sighed. “Cash can’t go anywhere without being recognized. And I would have spotted him. I’d know that walk and that voice anywhere.”
“Two of my guys paid him a visit today,” Rauser told us. “He cooperated fully. He had a house full of celebs for most of last weekend. The twenty-four hours after Kelly was killed, he was home. Lot of witnesses to that.” Rauser didn’t mention that I’d been to visit Cash Tilison. I was glad. I wasn’t ready for that discussion. “He had a big bash planned on the lake.”
“I was with him and his friends last Fourth of July.” Miki smiled at some private memory, looked down into her cup. “I appreciate you offering me protection. But I can’t stay
locked up here. Aunt Emily’s audition is in the morning at the TV station. I promised I’d be there.”
“I’m sure Emily would understand,” Rauser said.
“I’m keeping my commitment to Aunt Emily.” Miki said it like she wanted a pat on the back. “And after that, I’m flying out. I have an assignment.”
“I can’t hold you here,” Rauser told her. “But we can’t protect you once you get on a plane. We’ll move you to a nice hotel, if that’s what you want. You don’t have to stay here. I have a uniform coming at seven in the morning. I’d like you to stay here with us tonight.”
We were quiet for a minute. Then Miki nodded and said, “There’s severe weather cutting through Texas. They’re predicting a super-outbreak. Tornadoes. I’m meeting a storm chaser in Birmingham, then we’re driving to meet the storms. I fucking cannot wait to get out of here. Besides, this asshole never follows me.”
“She has a point, Rauser. I don’t think he has the resources to follow her. You can’t fly around the world unless it’s your job or you’re loaded. Remember, that volunteer noticed his clothes aren’t expensive. Think your unsub has trouble holding a job. Plus, he’s probably not the most charming guy in the world, probably has a lot of trouble getting along with coworkers, thinks he’s always right, argumentative, egocentric, and we know he’s violent. We’re probably looking at a borderline personality. I bet there’s a lot of anger and panic when she’s away. The loss of control would set him off.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk about me as if I weren’t here,” Miki said. “But I had to change my number last year. Hang-ups, text messages. You can’t hide. You can’t run. Shit like that. I thought it was Cash. Then, one day when both Cash and I were in L.A., we met for lunch. I was planning to tell him I was going to get a restraining order if he didn’t stop harassing me. One of those messages came in while we were together. Went on and on about me disappearing.”
Stranger in the Room Page 19