by N. M. Brown
Doug scratched his head and was struck by a moment of inspiration. He grabbed the large container by the handle and pulled it. It took a fair degree of effort, but eventually the large castors, which had not moved for eighteen months, began to turn. As Doug pulled, the large trash can slowly shifted toward him. Eventually he’d managed to drag the container several feet away from its original location. The momentum made it difficult to stop, but eventually it did. Doug wandered over to where the container had once sat; it was here that he found the previously concealed manhole cover.
Crouching above the large metal disc, Doug confirmed that the stench was rich and undeniably present. Whatever was decaying beneath the manhole cover was unlikely to be a pile of rotten hamburgers.
He stood up and pulled his cell phone from his trousers. He punched in the numbers and held the phone to his ear.
‘Hi, yeah, sheriff’s department please – I think I’ve discovered some human remains.’
Chapter Forty-Seven
Leighton scrambled into the mouth of the mine and allowed his eyes to adjust to the infinite gloom of the deep tunnel. Taking a small pen-sized torch from his pocket, he switched it on and pointed it downwards where it illuminated the path ahead with a narrow cone of light.
The rough passage was the colour of rust and stretched deep into the hillside. It appeared to Leighton as if the tunnel had once carried mine carts. The dark, twin lines of the steel rails remained in place, but the intermittent wooden sleepers had long since crumbled to dust.
Stepping tentatively deeper into the darkness of the mineshaft, Leighton instinctively removed his pistol from the holster on his belt. He gripped it one hand, whilst in the other he held the thin Maglite torch like a magician’s wand. He was surprised to find the temperature inside warmer than he’d expected. Perhaps a fugitive could survive down here for a long time, if they were prepared, and it seemed Stanton had been.
As he moved deeper into the dripping darkness, Leighton’s attention was caught by something glinting on the ground. Directing the torchlight toward it, Leighton found the source of the reflection to be a torn foil wrapper from a snap light. This confirmed that his instincts had been correct – Stanton had definitely passed through here. That fact both reassured and unsettled Leighton in equal measure.
Leighton crept further along the narrow tunnel, unaware that, back in his abandoned car, his cell phone was vibrating angrily on the dashboard. It buzzed and trembled and eventually slipped off, landing on the carpeted floor.
As he moved through the airless darkness of the chamber, the sound of his steps seemed loud. He tried stepping lightly, but the uneven surface demanded that he make solid steps to stay upright. He walked on through the darkness for ten more minutes, before the narrow tunnel widened into a more open area. As he shone the beam around, Leighton discovered the space was roughly twenty feet across and circular. One side feature a curved, scarred wall of orange coloured stone and on the opposite side was a lip of rock, which Leighton almost stepped over. Luckily, he’d shone his torch on it and discovered that the rock fell away on the other side, dangerously tumbling into darkness. It was clear he would have to be careful if he wanted to get out of the place alive.
Turning around, he directed the torchlight back the way he had come. It was then that a sudden blow crashed down upon his right shoulder. The gun and torch both tumbled out of his hands, as the same object smashed sideways into his face. In the chaos of the violence Leighton fell to the ground, where fragments of rock stuck in his hands and knees.
Leighton felt the presence of the man before he saw him; Stanton was hidden in the shadows of the cavern, pointing a pistol directly at him.
‘Well, what a regular boy scout you are,’ Stanton said from the darkness.
‘It’s over,’ Leighton said breathlessly, ‘I’m taking you back.’ He grunted as he got unsteadily to his feet.
‘Don’t be so clichéd. I love your arrogance by the way,’ he said. ‘You creep in here, like some part-time private investigator, with your pistol and your toy torch, and you honestly think you can take me in.’
‘If I found you, others will too.’
‘Do you really think you found me by chance? A washed-up meter maid like you?’ Stanton laughed.
‘I still found you, didn’t I?’ Leighton asked in a dry whisper.
‘Oh, come on, I led you here, Officer. That’s why I left a big fucking map right there in my bag. I practically left a sign saying “look in here”. Admittedly, I wasn’t sure how long it would take, but, thankfully, you’re an eager beaver, and I’ll get back to my comfy bed soon enough.’
‘That place on Thorn Road will be crawling with cops by now.’
‘Oh, I doubt that very much,’ Stanton said.
‘I found the box of teeth in your house. I called it in.’
As Leighton’s eyes adjusted he could see the figure more clearly.
‘Lucky you. But you should know that those teeth do not belong to any of those poor women.’
‘You mean, the women you murdered. Where’s Rochelle?’
‘Who? Oh, you mean one of ladies? I don’t ask their names.’
Leighton let out a raging guttural sob.
‘You sound like you’re becoming a little unhinged, Officer.’
‘Maybe I am,’ Leighton said, shaking his head. ‘But at least I know who I am, unlike you … Dale.’
There was a hesitation before, eventually, the voice spoke again.
‘My name is Michael Stanton.’
‘I know you’d like to believe that,’ Leighton said quietly. ‘I understand how it must have been for you losing Veronica – the first girl you ever loved. You must have wanted Stanton to get a death sentence for that. And yet he got less than two decades. All those years you spent in town, waiting for a chance to take revenge, and then he showed up.’
‘That’s not true – I’m Stanton.’ This time his voice sounded rattled.
‘Michael Stanton could only drive automatics, and he only ever drove one car – his father’s duster. But that car you drove here is a stick shift – few people can drive them. But it’s the same as the car used to abduct Sarah Kline from the Beach House Café. The same as all three cars ever registered to Dale Sanderson.’
‘Only a sad little traffic cop would care about something like that.’
‘Did it seem like fate when the parole board contacted your clinic asking if you would provide work for somebody who had served their time – repaid their debt? Nobody in Lakehead would touch him, but you had a plan, didn’t you? What set you off?’’
Something shifted in the younger man’s expression. He looked like a different person, and then he spoke. ‘He never repaid his debt, not after he took her life.’
‘Like you took his?’
‘He fucking deserved it,’ Sanderson growled, his voice suddenly sounding less controlled.
‘So, what about the others, the ones who came after him, did they deserve it too?’
‘Maybe. They were all hookers. They looked like Veronica. I couldn’t stand to think of her out there letting all those men touch her. Nobody will shed tears for them.’
‘Look, Dale, the judge will consider your trauma, how your loss triggered this madness. It could help your case.’
‘You think Stanton was the first?’ Sanderson laughed obnoxiously. ‘I pity you, sincerely; he just gave me a reason, gave me the confidence to step up.’
‘Then who was the first? Come on, unburden yourself.’
‘Smudge, the family cat. My mother adored the creature more than me. So, when I was eleven years old, I threw it in the chest freezer that we kept in the garage. Then I sat on the lid, listening. There was meowing and all sorts of crazy scratching for a while … then nothing. Later on, I took it out. It had pissed all over the food, but by then it was yellow ice.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I put it in my backpack. I told my weeping mother I was going out to look for Smudge. Sh
e even gave me a hug because she thought I was upset. Stupid bitch. I forgot about that incident until this afternoon when I encountered your friend, Detective Slater.’
‘I don’t know who you mean,’ Leighton said, but he hesitated too long to sound convincing.
‘No? He seemed to know all about you. I’d even say he seemed to have some kind of problem with you. Called you a looney. That’s why I thought it would be so clever to kill you with his gun. In fact, when I get back, I’m going to plant it on him – alongside his suicide note confessing to your murder. Might even dump him in your home to make it more convincing.’
The possibility of Dale Sanderson finding Leighton’s home – and possibly Annie – horrified him.
‘You don’t know where I live,’ he said, hoping that was true.
‘Not yet, but a good lawman like you is almost certainly going to have a driving licence on him.’
‘I don’t,’ Leighton lied.
‘Hmm.’ Dale sounded intrigued. ‘You got something at home you don’t want me to find? A wife maybe?’
‘My wife died years ago,’ Leighton said, his voice tinged with genuine sadness.
‘Well, it should be fine to leave Slater in your house.’
‘Nobody will believe that he killed me.’
‘Well, when I add your blood to the soles of his shoes it will add a degree of credibility.’
‘They will find you,’ Leighton said. ‘You do realise that?’
Sanderson laughed, his teeth glinting in the darkness. ‘Who exactly is going to find me? This is America: people like me do what we want and rarely get caught.’
‘Most get caught.’
‘That’s what you want to believe. Whores, runaways, hitchhikers, they all vanish every day, and the public believes there are only a handful of us out there. Nice fantasy! Whilst the public crawl around in their little lives, of fast food, retail therapy and cable TV, real people like me do what we want. I won’t be caught and your body will never be found.’
‘Hikers come up here all the time,’ Leighton said defiantly.
‘Maybe, but the place is being blocked off soon, it’s too toxic. So, I doubt your body will ever be discovered; even if it is, Slater will be blamed. You see, that’s why I need you to fill a container with some of your blood for me.’
‘But, I want to know something, about the teeth; about the girls.’
‘’What about them?’
‘Why them?’
‘You really want to know? You’re not just stalling for time?’
‘I really want to know, sincerely,’ Leighton said.
‘Once Stanton was released, I gave him the job and I killed him. It was easy, he was just a shell of a man – I guess the guilt did that to him. Anyway, I did it one night whilst he was mopping the clinic. Made an awful mess, so I wrapped him in shrink-wrap and dropped him into a manhole in the parking lot. After he was down there, I burst open his locker. I had to get rid of his stuff to make it seem like he’d moved on. Would you believe he’d actually kept the ring he’d bought for Veronica, and her little tooth – kept them all those years. I found them in his locker along with his wallet. Fucking loser! Anyway, he was gone, but I still kept thinking about Ronny and how it should have been me, if anyone, who took her life. But after I’d got rid of him, I had his glasses and his wallet, and the keys to his house.’
‘So, you stole Stanton’s identity and went looking for girls who looked like her. You stole their lives,’ Leighton said.
‘That’s how you view it, Detective. But to be honest, there wasn’t much life to steal. I saved them. Anyway, it was Stanton’s fault.’
‘But, Dale, these aren’t Stanton’s crimes, they’re are yours.’
‘Only if I’m caught.’
‘Where are the girl’s teeth?’
Stanton grinned in the shadows and directed his torch beam to his mouth. ‘They’re right here,’ he said, and he ran his tongue across the pink dental plate in his lower jaw. ‘I had to pull out my own to make room for them. Made this little plate myself. I’d been making them for years in the clinic, so when I found Veronica’s tooth, I knew what to do with it. I even filed down one of my own and gave it to Ronny’s mother; she thinks she has part of her daughter back, she even wears it in a locket around her neck, stupid old bitch! But my way is better: Ronny lives in me, they all live in me. I can taste them forever. Got four little teeth in here so far. I was hoping for more, but you interrupted my work. Still, when I move on to my next city, I’m going to collect an upper set too. What do you think?’
‘I think you need help,’ Leighton said, trying to mask his horror with a tone of sympathy.
‘Maybe, but now that you know how dangerous I am, I’d like the blood I spoke about earlier.’ Sanderson reached into his jacket and produced a clear plastic jar, which he threw at Leighton. He directed his torch beam to where the container had landed at Leighton’s feet.
‘Fill it up,’ Sanderson screamed.
‘From where?’ Leighton asked in a dry whisper.
‘Here,’ Sanderson said, and fired the pistol. A bright flash illuminated the cave, and the bullet hit Leighton in his left arm. The force of the gunshot threw him backwards against the coarse cave wall. He stumbled against the crumbling surface but somehow managed to stay upright. The momentary numbness of his injury was quickly replaced by a scorching pain that ripped along his bleeding bicep.
The deafening noise echoed through the vast, rock chamber, causing a high-pitched ringing in Leighton’s ears. However, the noise gave Leighton a momentary advantage, and he used it.
In the chaos following the gunshot, Leighton’s functioning hand found his steel baton on the rear of his belt. He used the tip of his thumb to pop the press stud on the webbing holder. Leighton gripped the rubber coating and slid the rod from his trouser belt. With a practised move, he flicked his wrist and the metal rod extended – its slick click was lost in the whining noise. In the gloom, Sanderson, thinking that Leighton was looking for a weapon, decided it would be easier to take a step closer, shoot him directly in the face, and collect the blood himself.
As he approached him, Leighton swung his baton upwards and knocked the torch from Sanderson’s hand. It flashed like a strobe as it whirled through the air then landed on the ground, casting a bright triangle of light on the cave floor. In a moment of rage, Sanderson fired his gun desperately into the darkness. Both bullets missed Leighton, who had leapt to one side. Instead of killing the detective, Sanderson’s wasted gunshots betrayed his location. Leighton’s steel baton swung down, smashing Sanderson’s wrist and sending his gun into the blackness of the cave. Sanderson screamed but was unable to see his weapon on the ground. In desperation, he leapt for the torch.
Leighton knew if Sanderson reached the torch and found the gun, he would have no chance of surviving. He threw himself toward toward Sanderson, who turned and grabbed Leighton, his thumb digging into the hot, wet wound in Leighton’s arm. The searing pain almost caused him to pass out, but his need to survive was strong.
‘Help!’ Leighton shouted.
‘Nobody’s coming for you,’ Sanderson sneered. ‘You’re just as disposable as all those stupid bitches.’
But at that moment, the distant banshee wail of a police siren echoed through the dark chamber. Leighton couldn’t see Sanderson’s face, but he sensed that his expression was one of fear.
Leighton seized the moment: he broke his arm free and brought his clenched fist, gripping the fat end of the steel baton, down in a hammer blow on Sanderson’s contorted face. There was an audible crack as his nose broke; Leighton felt a flood of hot liquid drench his chest. His grip lessened but Sanderson still held fast. Leighton smashed his fist again. The second blow to his face caused something to burst from Sanderson’s broken jaw, and he stumbled backwards. Leighton brought the baton forward in a low, wide arc. The force with which he hit Sanderson’s lower leg was great enough to send him staggering off to one side. As his fractured
leg crumpled beneath him, Sanderson tripped and fell into darkness.
Leighton groaned in agony as he scrambled over the coarse ground to where the abandoned torch lay. Grasping it with his good hand, he limped to the rocky edge and looked down to where Dale Sanderson was thrashing around in a pool of orange liquid. His frantic motions were more than those of someone trapped in deep water. Sanderson’s blood streaked mouth was slowly opening and closing, like that of a dying fish. Leighton realised that the concentration of arsenic in the water must have been strong enough to poison the man. Sanderson made a desperate flapping attempt to reach the edge of the pool, before calling out in a croaky retching groan. As the torchlight circled around him like a circus spotlight, he eventually rolled over, before settling face-first in the pool of toxic liquid. Although he was unable to appreciate the irony of his situation, Sanderson’s final moments, left suspended in liquid, were much like those of Jenna Dodds.
Leighton rolled onto his back, and tried to concentrate on breathing.
Chapter Forty-Eight
The setting sun cast an orange glow over Black Mountain as Leighton Jones stumbled unsteadily out of the mine entrance – the blood from the bullet wound in his arm had soaked his shirt to the point that the entire sleeve appeared black. As he moved unsteadily down the dusty path to his car he found himself surrounded by a crowd of reporters who were jostling uneasily with the arriving police. It was clear to Leighton, from the number of reporters and their proximity, that they had arrived at the dusty location first, and were dominating the territory.
Leighton smiled grimly as he held up his functioning hand to shield his eyes: not from the descending sun, but from the bright spotlights that were fastened to the numerous shoulder-mounted cameras. The media had shown up in record time and reporters were already gathering at the edge of the flimsy police cordon. Leighton was initially surprised to see that there was only one cruiser, with two officers trying to maintain the tenuous boundary, but the sound of sirens was swelling over the city, suggesting that it wouldn’t be long before the place was crawling with cops – possibly SWAT teams too.