by Robin Mahle
“Okay, okay,” Nick conceded. “Burgess, do what you need to do. We need to leave now if we stand any chance at all of tracking him down.”
“Understood.”
“Let’s go. There’s a first aid kit in the chopper. We can at least put a bandage on that gash.” Nick reached for Kate’s arm, but she pulled it away.
“I got this.”
He held her gaze for a moment, but seemed to realize now was not the time to coddle her. Instead, he continued past the others and walked outside to the waiting helicopter.
As Kate moved to keep up with him, Burgess stopped her. “I can’t believe you did that, Agent Reid. I don’t know if you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met or the most reckless.”
“I’m somewhere in between. We’ll keep you posted.” She reached for his arm. “Thank you, Mike.” Kate continued outside where the chopper was ready and waiting for them. It was an odd sight as it sat in the middle of a neighborhood street.
Several residents had emerged from their homes to witness the ambush of the FBI into their rural community. Burgess must have called for backup as well because several patrol cars were roaring down the street, lights flashing and sirens blaring.
“Kate, come on. We need to go.” Nick waved her over, shouting above the noise from the chopper.
She jogged toward them and jumped inside. The last time she’d been in one of these, Marshall’s life had been hanging by a thread, and so had hers.
“Which way was he headed?” Nick reached for the kit and pulled out the bandages. “Lift up your shirt.”
“As far as I could tell, he was heading to the river,” Kate held her shirt above the wound while Nick began to dress it. “What about the houses here? We should get Burgess’ team to canvas them. Make sure he hasn’t slipped inside one of them.”
“Good call,” Dwight began. “I’ll let him know.” He reached for the radio just as the chopper began its vertical ascent.
“I’m not going to bother asking why you went after him, Kate,” Nick pressed the surgical tape against her bare skin. “I think I know you better than that, but you have to know that it wasn’t the right call. You understand that, right?”
She nodded. “I understand, but if we’d waited for the sheriff to respond, he could have easily dumped the truck somewhere and we’d never have known where he was going. I wasn’t intending on approaching him without backup. But when he went inside that house, I couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t hurt whoever was inside.”
A reluctant nod of approval from Nick followed. She’d risked her safety, but only in hopes of saving someone else, despite the fact it hadn’t quite gone to plan and now there was another in a string of deaths that Durham had left behind.
They were over the river now. The chopper’s light cast a menacing glow on the cloudy waters. Green algae blanketed the water’s surface beyond the shorelines, reaching nearly halfway into the river, leaving only a narrow path. These were protected waters, not generally traversed, which meant there were likely few if any designated paths on which a pedestrian could travel. It would be hard for him to hide here, especially as they had an aerial view. “He’s wearing blue jeans and a dark grey t-shirt,” Kate said.
Nick moved to the seat next to the pilot and placed the headgear on for communication with ground units that were arriving from the sheriff’s office.
“You all right?” Dwight glanced at Kate’s freshly dressed wound.
“I’m fine. It’s not bad.”
“That was a crazy stunt you pulled, Reid, but it was a hell of a good thing you did.”
Kate smiled, appreciating the vote of confidence, especially because Nick might reconsider plans for some form of punishment for her rash behavior. She returned her attention to the front. Her vantage point wasn’t the best, but she could see the light moving along the river. So far, they hadn’t seen him. There was no way he could have gotten that far that fast. From the time she last spotted him to now couldn’t have been longer than fifteen minutes. Then again, the chase seemed to make time stand still. All she could see was him. All she could recall was the gun he had pointed at her head and the body of the old woman slumped against the bedroom wall. A woman she failed to protect.
After several more minutes, the pilot turned to Nick and shook his head.
“Keep going. Head downstream another mile, then we’ll turn around and make another pass.” Nick looked back to Dwight and Kate. “We’re going to keep at it.”
They both nodded their agreement.
On the ground, Burgess was fielding calls from the press, his boss, and being approached by the neighbors. This was a manhunt and there was no way to stop the snowball from mounting.
“Where are you?” Burgess radioed one of his deputies.
“I’m a block to the west. Still nothing. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know yet. They’re still searching and about to make another run at it, but I think it might be too late.” He paused to consider his next move. “Go up to the next block north, then head back. I’ve got to let the sheriff know where we’re at. He’ll have to get in front of the media sooner rather than later.” Burgess stepped outside the home as the body was being carted out of the house and into a waiting ambulance. Neighbors with outstretched necks tried to catch a glimpse of the old woman they’d known as Beatrice Gustafson, a sixty-seven-year-old who lived in the house alone. A background check confirmed that she had been the first foster parent that Durham had been assigned to live with. Why he chose this house, this poor woman, Burgess couldn’t fathom. Was it possible he might target another of his foster parents? It didn’t fit his MO, but nothing had fit his MO in the past few hours. Durham was shaping a new path now that had yet to reveal a pattern. Would he go after someone else, or would he just seek to get as far away from here as he could in hopes of escaping justice? Burgess considered the options. He remembered reading the file. It was as though the man had dropped from existence once he turned eighteen and left the System, only to turn up four years later, killing young women and dumping them into the swamp.
Burgess looked ahead; his eyes were clear and his mind sharp. An idea had ignited, one that Kate initially kindled, but only in passing. Now that Durham’s former foster parent had been murdered, perhaps she had been on the right track after all. He raised the radio to his mouth. “Agent Scarborough, it’s Deputy Burgess, come in.” The radio crackled.
“Scarborough here. Burgess, you got something?” His voice seemed to raise slightly as though anticipating a positive reply.
“He might go back to the place where it all started for him. Back to the home he burned down. Agent Reid mentioned it in passing earlier and now that he’s killed again, I think she may have been onto something.”
“Is there anything there?” The static fractured Nick’s response.
“The land’s been cleared, but I haven’t been there in a long time. The family lived on three acres. He might’ve built something makeshift.” Burgess paused. “You said there were three other victims at his place near Fayetteville.”
“That’s right.”
“What if there’s more? What if he’s coming home to collect his final treasures?”
Nick looked over his shoulder at Kate. “Burgess says you thought Durham might go back to his family’s property.”
“I said it was a possibility, but I don’t have anything to base that on.”
“What about now? He thinks maybe there are more victims buried there. What do you think? Does he have something?”
“We’ve lost him, Nick. We’ve been up and down this river for the past hour,” Dwight began. “We got nothing else to go on.”
Kate nodded. “He’s right.”
Nick took in a deep breath and turned back. “Get your people down there and we’ll go there now. Scarborough out.”
NINETEEN
The deep thud of helicopter blades faded into the distance and Durham emerged from beneath the cover of a large tupelo tree t
hat had shielded him from view. His biggest concern had been the gators, but so far he hadn’t seen any, although they were master concealers. Going back to his truck wasn’t an option any longer. The place was teeming with law enforcement.
Durham cringed and placed his hand over his chest, gripping it as though he was experiencing a heart attack. But it was the beast that controlled him and it was demanding he kill again. A pounding head and a thirst that demanded equal attention, he was beginning to feel as though he might split in two, but one thing was certain—he had to leave this place now.
The boots on his feet were soaked through as he trudged along the river’s edge. All sense of time eluded him, and the moon offered just enough light by which to see. He knew he was heading east. The shoulder that had been grazed by the agent’s bullet throbbed and continued to ooze blood. Recalling the words she spoke, Durham’s anger swelled. She hadn’t been afraid of him. She’d been ready to die. In fact, she’d almost encouraged him to kill her because she knew that would mean his certain demise. He couldn’t control her the way he could the others.
Inside his head, an image began to burn. The boy he used to be had all power taken from him. She’d done unspeakable things to him, just as their father had done to her. He squeezed his eyes shut to rid himself of the painful memory. Everything changed for little Zachariah after the fire. The fire no one discovered had been intentionally set by him, and was an all too easy task. His father had been a welder and Zach, as he was called, watched him work, learning how the soldering iron worked—and the gases it used.
It had been deemed an accident and only Zach Durham survived. He’d been forced to live in several foster homes, running away from most of them until he finally left the System at the age of eighteen. But the compulsions started much earlier than that. Even before his family died, thoughts of killing and maiming prevailed in his mind—a consequence of his extreme abuse. He practiced on animals first and the excitement he derived from that grew.
There had been a part of him, after the first human kill—the girl who lived only miles from his old home—that knew it was wrong and wanted him to confess. That small piece of him still struggled to survive as it now existed only in a cage beneath the power of the beast that had taken over. The little boy had grown to become a killer and at times, that small part managed fleeting control and did what needed to be done to ensure the madness would be stopped. The beast couldn’t find out what he’d done, though. It couldn’t know that he had moved his projects, his victims, to the spot where his sister abused him for the first time. He forced that knowledge to the back of his mind where the task could remain buried.
Durham continued east as the river widened. He had to be approaching the end where it would divert into another stream. He needed to get back onto the road and find a car. Several minutes ticked by and he made it to a single-lane road, but did not know where he was, only that he needed to get the hell out of here.
Walking along the shoulder, a few cars passed by and although he’d tried to hitch a ride, no one stopped. It wasn’t until Durham turned to face the direction of the cars that one finally began to slow. His shoulder, still dripping blood, seemed to get the attention of the driver.
The car rolled to a stop and the passenger window lowered. A man who looked to be in his late forties peered out. “Are you okay? Do you need a doctor?”
“Yes.” Durham sounded out of breath. “Please, I’ve been car jacked and was shot in the shoulder.” He knew his face had been all over the news and hoped this man hadn’t seen it.
He hesitated for a moment and Durham thought that he’d been recognized. But he leaned over and pushed open the passenger door. Durham slipped inside. “Thank you. I’ve been out here walking for more than an hour and no one has stopped.”
“Haven’t you heard?” the man said. “There’s some serial killer on the loose. I’m not surprised no one stopped.” He looked at Durham. “There’s a hospital about twenty miles away. I’ll have you there as quickly as possible.”
“I can’t thank you enough, sir.”
“Please, call me Hank.”
Durham looked at the road ahead and his lips curled with a wicked smile. “Thank you, Hank.”
» » »
The grounds below offered a clearing with enough room to land the helicopter. Burgess and his team waited, having arrived only minutes before the FBI. With four patrol cars lined up along the gravel drive in front of the structural remains of the Durham family home, Burgess and his team began to approach the emerging federal agents.
The late hour and insufficient light would only hamper the search, and the general consensus among the sheriff’s department staff seemed to be that this was a shot in the dark anyway.
Nick was the first to step out of the chopper. He pulled open the rear door and Kate and Dwight followed. The three moved to Burgess.
“So this is it?” Nick asked.
“Yes. This was the Durham home that burned down.” Burgess looked over his shoulder. “We haven’t started our search yet.”
“Then let’s get started,” Nick replied.
“I’ll take Agent Reid and one of your men,” Dwight said. “We’ll head to the north end of the property and start from there.”
“Burgess, why don’t we pair up and go south and the rest of your men can start on the east and west ends,” Nick said. “We’ve got three acres to cover. I sure as hell hope we find something.” He started off south and Burgess jogged to catch up with him.
Meanwhile, Kate and Dwight approached one of the deputies.
“Better get started,” Dwight said to the man, and the three began to travel to the north end of the property. “Looks like it might have been cleared recently.”
“It’s been in probate court since the incident and so the State has retained possession of the property. Since the only remaining heir hasn’t claimed it, the State’s preparing for its sale.”
“Have they ever tried to locate Durham?” Kate asked as the lights from the patrol cars faded from view and the skies grew even darker.
“I assume so,” the deputy replied, “but he’s been going by a different name for how long, I don’t know, but that would make it pretty hard to find him. Anyway, we’re coming up on the spot where the workshop was situated.” The deputy shined his flashlight over the area.
The only remaining indication that a building had stood in that spot was the foundation. This whole situation was bringing back some disconcerting memories for Kate and she was glad no other evidence of the fire remained.
Nick, along with Burgess and another of his team continued south toward the front entrance of the property. “I’m not feeling very confident this psycho’s going to come back here. At least, not tonight. Almost the entire southern part of the country is looking for him.”
“I wasn’t initially inclined to go along with Agent Reid’s hunch until I got to thinking more about it,” Burgess started. “But she was the one to discover his identity so even if she wasn’t entirely sure he’d come back here, I think that woman’s got some sort of sixth sense and I’m not going to dismiss her hunches.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Nick shone his light a few feet to the left of where they’d been walking. “What do you suppose that is?” What appeared to be a slight knoll in the ground caught his attention. “This piece of land is pretty damn flat and you got this little mound tucked between these trees back here. I don’t know if it’s anything, but I’d like to find out.”
Burgess pressed the button on the radio receiver attached to the top of his uniform. “Higgins, we need a shovel. We’re about two hundred yards due south of the main structure.”
“On my way.”
Moments later, the deputy arrived with two shovels in hand. “Sorry for the delay. We were already pretty far west on the property.”
“Thanks.” Burgess grabbed both shovels and handed one to Nick. “Let’s get to it and hope that you have the same sixth sense as your Agent Reid.�
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The deputy held his flashlight over the mound where the other two began stripping away the pile. At least four feet wide and eight feet long, it would take some time to make a dent, but the two pressed on with as much speed as they could muster.
“Wait.” Nick raised a hand. “I hit something.” He lowered the shovel back into the ground, only inches deep, and began to push the soft, moist soil around with its pointed tip. “I can’t see a goddam thing.” He looked at the deputy. “Shine that light closer, would you?” He continued to slowly pull the dirt back until bones appeared. “Son of a bitch. We got something here.” Nick knelt down and wiped the material from the bones. “Whatever this is, it’s been here a while. Nothing but bone left.” He began to use both hands to scrape away from the outline of what was beginning to look like an arm. “We got fingers here.” He glanced to Burgess. “This has to be one of the three other victims.”
“We’ll need to get forensics out here,” Burgess replied.
“Guess you were right about his treasures. Now let’s see if he comes back to collect them.” Nick pushed off the ground and got back on his feet. “If this place gets lit up with cops, we won’t stand a chance of Durham returning here at all.” He retrieved his cell phone from his pocket. “Let me reach out to Jameson and Reid—see if they’ve turned up anything yet.” He turned away for a moment to make the call. “We just found another victim down here and we need to decide whether or not to lay low a while longer and hope Durham shows up. But, I need to know if you two have found anything.”
“What’s that? Hang on Nick, I don’t have shit for a signal.” Dwight walked several more feet. “You said something about finding a victim?”
“Yeah. You guys find anything?”
“No. We’ve almost reached the property’s northern boundary and, apart from a foundation of an old workshop, we haven’t seen anything unusual or anything that would indicate he’d been here recently.”