“When did she start hanging out with Albert?”
Liam frowned. “Gosh, I still can’t believe he killed those girls. It’s unreal the amount of hate people have pent up inside.”
“Stay focused, Dad.”
“Right, right. I’d say they’ve known each other their whole life. During the time the honor students girls were going missing, she slept with Albert. Or that was the rumor. When we searched for our classmates, we separated into pairs. Jennifer and Albert stayed together. I had no clue how much danger she was in until now. It’s scary to think about that. Knowing that the killer is right next to you.”
Rachel glanced about the bowling alley, expecting to see Albert’s Orphan as one of the many faces. He’d left her alone. For how long though? “Is there anything she did that was ever suspicious?”
“I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“She is a suspect in Parkman’s death.”
Liam’s eyes went wide. “That’s horrible. I… I didn’t know her very well, frankly. You can try asking her cousin if he’s still around.”
Rachel got out her pencil and sketch pad. “What’s his name?”
At 6 a.m., Rachel and Peak set out to the small house near the bottom of the mountain. It was an uninviting building with peeling paint and a gravel driveway. The stream running in the backyard was the property’s only redeeming quality. The rest of the surroundings was spotted with skinny trees, drying bushes, and lumpy earth.
Peter Gatt walked out of the front door at their approach and leaned against the post on his porch. The fifty-eight-year-old man had a buzz cut, widow's peak, rough complexion, and shark-like eyes. He sprang from the seams of his grey sweater. Paint stains splattered his jeans and sneakers.
Rachel and Peak flashed their badges. The man approached them in the front yard, stuffing chewing tobacco into his lip. “Detectives.”
“You Peter Gatt?” Rachel asked. She relied on her Sense to warn her of any danger.
The man spat a wet glob of chewing tobacco into an empty Coca-Cola bottle. Several such bottles were filled of black dip spit and propped up on the front porch. “Yes ma’am.”
“We have questions about your cousin, Jennifer.”
“I can’t help you.” Little tobacco leaves stuck to his yellow teeth.
“You don’t know what we’re asking,” Peak said.
“I ain’t seen Jennifer since she moved out of Highlands in ‘78.”
“What was she like before that?”
Gatt stared at the detectives. “A girl.”
“Give us more than that,” Rachel said coldly. “What was her home life like?”
“With her real dad or her stepdad?”
“Real dad.”
“He was a drunkard and wife beater. Beat up Jennifer too. She was pretty, so he mostly bruised her belly.” Gatt spit into the bottle. “Stepdad did the same.”
Rachel felt sick imagining it. “Did he take Jennifer hunting?”
Gatt grunted in a way that Rachel thought was his laugh. “No. The man had trouble aiming his pecker in a toilet bowl.”
“What did her father do for a living?”
“Carpentry. Why’s this matter?”
“Is there anyone in your family that makes dolls?” asked Peak.
“Not anymore,” Gatt said suspiciously. “There was our grandfather.”
Rachel and Peak exchanged looks.
“What was his name?”
“Martin Blankenship.”
M.B.
8
THE GIRL
“The doll connection. McConnell may not buy it,” Rachel said as she ducked into Peak’s vehicle. “I don’t know if I’d buy it.”
Peak clicked on the seatbelt. “The town is going to need justice sooner than later. Whoever they can get behind bars first will be the killer they’ll want to keep.”
Peak’s phone rang as they cruised away from Gatt’s home. He answered, his face getting serious. After a vague five-minute phone call, he hung up. “It’s Clove.”
“What happened?” Rachel asked with genuine concern.
“She fell off the trampoline and broke her arm.”
“Oh, Peak. I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing either one of us can do about it,” Peak said soberly.
Rachel thought about the lead Peter Gatt gave them. “Go and see her. I’ll check out Jennifer’s grandfather’s home.”
“You’re comfortable going there alone?” Peak asked.
“Yeah. Your daughter needs you.”
After a moment of silence, Peak conceded. “Fine, but keep in contact.”
“Jennifer is the primary suspect. Anything happens to me, and she’s done for. Attacking the lead investigator is suicide.
“Never underestimate the stupidity of mankind.”
Rachel smiled. “Thankfully we’re dealing with a woman.”
Peak dropped Rachel off at the station, where she picked up her 2005 Impala. Cloudy skies and a cool summer breeze stayed with Rachel as she drove down one mountain and up another. Natural waterfalls and tall trees lined her trek. Apart from a few fat bugs splattering on her windshield, it was a smooth drive.
Light rain fell from a curtain of iron clouds and turned the world grey. Rachel put on a ball cap and stepped onto the dirt road that had become a soup of swirling mud. She waded through waist-high grass and barbed bushes. Her hands wrapped around the cold grip of her Glock 22. Rain cascaded down the weapon’s black barrel. Gatt told Rachel the place was dead, but Rachel didn’t anticipate the roofless ruin jutting from the earth before her. Thorns and bushes crawled up the charred walls and sprouted on the other side of its broken windows. The home was a single story, with two bedrooms and one bathroom most likely constructed in the 1930s.
Rachel stepped over the shrub guarding the door-less entrance and stepped inside. Nature consumed the interior and ate away at the wooden floor. Animal burrows occupied dirt where the wood floor had failed. The home lacked furnishings. What few items remained were broken apart and rotting from exposure to the elements.
Rachel felt a sudden tugging feeling at the corner of her shirt. She raised her gun. Orphan or danger? She didn’t know. Her pulse quickened. Light rain spattered her jacket and dripped down the bill of her cap. She froze, aiming at the man hunched over the overgrown fireplace. His bare body was charred black, with horrid ruby red cracks across the skin of his back. The rain didn’t touch his body. In a jerky motion, he craned his head back to Rachel. His eyes were burned from his head and the tip of his nose had been seared away. Rachel averted her gaze.
In a blink, the burnt man was standing an inch from her. She could smell his fried flesh like it was still cooking and felt his eyeless gaze upon her. With two nostril holes at the center of his face, he sniffed her. Rachel stayed still, her eyes averted. After a moment, the burned man returned to the fireplace. He gazed down at the brush within. Rachel turned to him. Is this Jennifer’s grandfather? The Roper and John Parkman were more than enough Orphans to take on at the moment. Anxiety strained her heart as she chose to put the case first.
“Hey,” Rachel called out to the burnt man.
The burnt man didn’t reply. He didn’t move. Rachel approached him, feeling the Sense pull at her stronger. She studied him from the side. “How did this happen to you?”
The burnt man faced her. She felt his Mark upon her. A hollow rattle escaped his mouth and he vanished. Rachel twisted about the burned property. The burnt man stood in the kitchen. Stomping her way through wet greenery, she knelt before the Orphan and pulled a blackened ashtray from the dirt. Her fingers brushed across the melted glass. A gas stove crumbled in a pile of warped metal nearby.
“Gas leak and cigarette?” Rachel asked.
The eyeless man let out a crackling groan.
Rachel took that as affirmation. Orphans only lingered when their deaths weren’t resolved. “Did your granddaughter do this to you?”
The burned man’s exposed
teeth chattered together. Rachel studied the charred house from where she stood. Whatever evidence of a non-accidental gas explosion couldn’t be recovered with the amount of years that had passed.
“Why would she hurt you?” Rachel asked.
The burnt man staggered forward, wailing shamefully. He reached out to Rachel’s chest. She took a few steps back. “That’s far enough,” she growled. “I believe I understand.”
Rachel dialed Peter Gatt. “You never told me your grandfather was killed in a gas leak explosion.”
“You never asked,” the man replied.
“Did you ever suspect Jennifer of causing the leak?”
“Jennifer would’ve been fourteen when that happened. How could a kid do that? It was a freak accident.”
“You seem pretty convinced.”
“The old man lived in an old house with an old habit and an old stove. That’s simple mathematics. I picked up chewing ‘bacco for that very reason.”
“Did you ever suspect your grandfather of molesting Jennifer?”
“What the hell you talking about, woman?”
“Just answer the question.”
“No. Hell no. He was an upstanding man.”
Rachel glared at the burnt man. “I’m sure he was. How about his dolls? Did they survive?”
“They must’ve. Jennifer’s mother and father got their hands on them. Don’t know how though.”
The direction of the wind changed. Rain spattered Rachel’s face. She turned her back on the sprinkling and let her mind wander. If the house exploded, how did any of the dolls survive? Jennifer or her grandfather would’ve had to have stored them away somewhere, otherwise, there was no way Jennifer could’ve left dolls at all the crime scenes.
Rachel marched through the house, happening upon a room with a twisted metal stool. The cushion was long gone, but it seemed like the type of seating a doll maker would use. With her foot, Rachel brushed aside grass and rocks. A little hand poked out of the mud. Rachel yanked out the unpainted doll leg. She searched it for any initials. None. She let it fall to the earth.
Rachel exited the house. She scanned the surroundings in pursuit of more places to explore.
On the western side of the abandoned property, a blanket of tall grass stretched across the uneven earth and eventually ended at the forest that hiked farther up the mountain.
The southern side had a dirty road with an island of grass down its center and trees flanking both sides. Their low-hanging branches had dragged across the roof of Rachel’s car when she arrived.
The northern side was the house in which she stood. Beyond that, in the backyard, the entrance to the woods connected with the forest on the eastern side.
Finally, the eastern flank sloped down the hill further. There were a few tree stumps and more woods. Part of the tall grass folded over a dirt trail. Whether it was a deer path or manmade, it seemed like the most logical place for a cabin and any other building that may have accompanied the home.
The burnt man followed Rachel as she walked the trail. He constantly vanished and reappeared a few feet ahead of her or beside her as she went. Though the rain was light, the wet grass soaked her shoes and dampened her socks. Grass and wild wheat heads stuck to the bottom of her water-heavy jeans. The hike down the incline strained her ankles. Once, she skidded a few feet on the wet mud before catching herself on a tree. The trail zig-zagged dozens of yards down the mountainside. A man-made pond marked the trail’s end. Ten feet across, the circular body of water most likely quenched a cow’s thirst at one point in time. Sometime over the past few decades, the weather ate away a two-foot chunk on the pond’s lowest point. In consequence, much of the water had been spilled out and made a muddy ditch farther down the mountainside. A large tree sprouted not too far from the ditch. A treehouse with a flat roof and little window was built high on its trunks. Large branches created an almost natural camouflage for it.
Rachel arrived at the base of the tree within minutes and craned her head up to the damp, rotting planks nailed up the stem and stopping at a wooden hatch beneath the treehouse. Regretting her decision-making skills, Rachel grabbed ahold of the first plank and started climbing it like a ladder. About halfway up, a plank loosened under her step. Rachel quickly pulled herself up to the next plank as the last one snapped away and plopped in the grass.
Rachel pressed her palm against the hatch and pushed with all her might. It didn’t budge. She pushed again, and the rotted wood around the little lock cracked and the trapdoor opened into the treehouse. Rachel lifted her head inside where the air was musty and damp. Beetles, roaches, and other critters scurried away at the sight of her.
Putting her palms on either side of the opening, she lifted herself into the room and stood to her feet. She was forced to hunch under the low roof. The room was built around the trunk. There was a window on her side. Not far from it was a discolored bra and panties alongside men’s underwear and an old soccer jersey lying on a towel. A crude heart was carved in the wall above the clothes with the letters “A + J” enclosed within. Rachel lifted the jersey. A four-inch centipede scurried out of the shirt’s neck and onto the floor. Rachel studied the number on the back. It was a number six. Rachel recognized it from the Highlands High yearbook photo of the 1976 honor society. This belonged to Albert Jacobson. The rumors of Albert and Jennifer sleeping together are true after all. It wasn’t a huge revelation, but whatever detail that connected Albert with Jennifer would work in Rachel’s favor.
Hunched, she worked her way around the trunk. The thin floorboard groaned beneath her. This place wasn’t built to last. Rachel stopped before a small shelf. It housed a halfway depleted box of shotgun pellets and a few old polaroid photos that had faded into sepia squares. Rachel thought she recognized a dead buck in one of the photos, but she could only see the faintest of outlines.
A stack of shoeboxes decayed in a pile. Rachel removed the lid of one and stared at the single, faded woman’s moccasin within. She opened the next box. A slip-on. The following five boxes housed a running shoe, two loafers from the same foot, a Converse sneaker, and a leather boot. They were all for the left foot.
Rachel mumbled a curse. Inside of Albert’s chapel, she discovered exact matches to each of these shoes, but only for the right foot. They were worn by the Roper’s victims of 1976 and 1977. If Jennifer had these… There was one more shoe. Maxine Gunther.
Rachel noticed an old porcelain doll propped against the wall. It wasn’t as finely crafted as the ones discovered at the crime scenes. Nonetheless, Rachel removed the shoe and discovered the initials MB.
She felt a strong force pulling at her and causing her hairs to rise. She twisted back to see Albert Jacobson.
“You found my dirty little secret,” he said.
“Be happy. Jennifer won’t just be condemned for your death, but for the girls of Highlands High you murdered.” Rachel took out her cellphone. “I’ll make the call right now.”
“No, you won’t.” Rachel imagined him smiling behind his mask. “That’s not enough.”
“She’ll go to jail. She might even get the death penalty,” Rachel argued. “What else do you want?”
Albert grabbed Rachel by the throat. “Don’t raise your voice at me. Ever.”
Rachel attempted to push against him, but her hands fell through his body. Albert squeezed harder and forced her to the window. Rachel kicked and punched back, but she was useless in this fight. Albert pulled her across the floor. The backs of her heels thumped against the floor. Her desperate hands groped at the tree, but Albert’s strength carried her forward. “I don’t want Jennifer in jail. I want her dead.”
Black specks flickered in Rachel’s vision. No breath escaped her. It’s not real. He can’t actually hurt you. But the pain only worsened and the suffocation intensified. Her mouth dried out. Albert slammed Rachel’s spine against the window. Pressing against her, Albert held her upper body out the window. “Plea--” Her words turned hollow. She looked at the fi
fteen-feet drop below. Rain punched her face and watering eyes.
“I want you to kill Jennifer. No police. Only you, Rachel Harroway. Do we have an understanding?”
Rachel’s fingers pried at the window’s frame. They slipped away and she was at the Roper’s mercy. Rachel nodded.
Albert pulled her back inside and released his death grip. Rachel hunched over and grabbed her sore neck. She coughed.
“You have twenty-four hours,” Albert said.
Breathing heavily, Rachel glared at him with her red eyes and soaked face.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Albert swung his fist at her.
Rachel dashed backwards to dodge the blow and smashed through the thin wall. She smacked the ground hard and gasped as the wind left her body.
Albert stood at the new hole on the treehouse’s wall. “Don’t feel very good now, does it?”
Rachel rolled to her side, still gasping. Her body didn’t want to move anymore. Rachel closed her eyes as tight as she could, hoping that it was all a nightmare. Her curled-up body soaked in the mud and rain.
Minutes drifted by like hours. Rachel rolled over to her front and pushed herself up. Her palms sank into dirt and her elbows wobbled at the action, but she found her strength through her force of will to stand. Limping, she hiked up the trail. She turned back to the treehouse that would condemn the Porcelain Killer.
The burnt man watched her as she shambled to her car. Rachel slumped in the front seat. She checked her cracked cellphone screen. One missed call. Rachel re-dialed.
“Hey, Peak,” she said weakly and shut her eyes.
“You sound strange. Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” Rachel masked the pain in her voice. “How’s Clove?”
“The painkillers have her talking funny.”
Rachel cracked a smile.
“Learn anything from the grandfather’s house?”
Rachel bit her tongue.
The Haunting of Rachel Harroway- Book 2 Page 8