Hangman

by Daniel Cole

The house was warm. In the center of the impressive country kitchen, four half-eaten lunches sat cold and forgotten. A thick skin covered the surface of the bright orange soup.

  “Anyone home?” shouted Curtis from another room as Rouche continued to trample about upstairs.

  Baxter looked down at what was left of the golden-crusted rolls beside three of the four bowls and then down at the floor, where occasional flakes and crumbs marked a path back the way she had come. She followed the sporadic trail halfway down the hallway to what looked like a narrow cupboard door.

  “Hello?” she called before cautiously pulling it open to discover a set of steep wooden stairs descending into the dark. “Hello?”

  She took one step down to search the wall for a light switch. The wood creaked beneath her modest weight.

  “Curtis!” she called.

  She took out her mobile phone and switched on the built-in flashlight. The staircase was thrown into stark white light. She took two more tentative steps. Every inch she descended, she claimed a little more of the basement back from the darkness. As she placed her foot to step again, she trod on something unstable and felt her ankle twist beneath her.

  She fell, landing in a heap against a cold stone wall.

  “Baxter?” she heard Curtis call.

  “Down here!” she groaned.

  She lay still on the musty floor, breathing dust and damp, as she mentally assessed the damage one limb at a time. She was bruised, had removed the scabs on her forehead, and could feel her ankle throbbing in her boot, but appeared to have got away with only minor injuries. Her phone sat two steps above the floor, casting a spotlight on the bread roll that had tripped her.

  “Shit,” she winced as she sat herself up.

  Curtis appeared in the doorway: “Baxter?”

  “Hi.” She waved up.

  There were heavy footfalls overhead as Rouche rushed to join them.

  “Are you all right?” Curtis asked. “You should’ve turned the light on.”

  Baxter was about to retort with something cutting when Curtis reached up and pulled a cord by the door, which made a satisfying click.

  “I might’ve found something useful,” started Curtis, but Baxter wasn’t listening.

  She was watching the darkness with wide eyes, not even daring to breathe. The lone dusty bulb that hung from the ceiling slowly started to glow, casting an orange haze.

  “Baxter?”

  Baxter’s pulse doubled in pace as the shape closest to the light took human form and then another beside it. Both were lying face-down on the ground, bloody burlap bags covering their faces. She was already getting up to leave as the bulb reached full intensity, the fight-or-flight instinct taking hold. As she climbed onto her knees, she saw two more bodies beyond the others, identical in positioning, the same bloodstained bags over their heads, but only half the size of the two adults.

  “What is it?” asked Curtis urgently.

  Baxter scrambled up the staircase, debilitated as much by panic as by her twisted ankle. She fell out into the hallway and kicked the door shut behind her as she tried to calm her breathing. She kept one boot pressed firmly against the base of the wood, as if afraid that something might climb out after her.

  Curtis was poised with her phone at the ready, anticipating the need for backup. Rouche kneeled beside Baxter and waited patiently for her to explain. She turned to face him, panting warm breath across his face:

  “I think . . . I found . . . the Banthams.”

  Rouche was sitting on the porch outside, watching the snow fall over the assortment of vehicles that now filled the long driveway. Catching one of the insubstantial flakes, he rubbed it into nonexistence between his fingers.

  A memory returned to him: his daughter playing in the garden when she was younger, four or five, wrapped up against the cold as she tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue. She had stared up in fascination at the white clouds literally disintegrating above her. Without the slightest hint of fear in her voice, she had asked him whether the sky was falling.

  It had stayed with him for some reason, that surreal idea of witnessing the world die, of being helpless to do anything more than watch it happen and catch snowflakes. He realized, as the clouds continued to bleed, that the memory meant something else entirely to him now, having witnessed these incomprehensible acts of violence and cruelty play out beneath a snowglobe sky.

  More was coming, of that he was sure, and there was nothing any of them could do but watch.

  Surrounded by their peers, and lit with bulbs from this millennium, the basement had taken on the appearance of any other crime scene, albeit one populated with professionals in tears and frequent requests to “step out for a moment.” The forensic field team claimed the lower level to preserve the scene, while their colleagues worked in the kitchen, where the family had been gathered before their deaths. Two photographers were going from room to room documenting everything, and the Canine Unit had already been through the property.

  Baxter and Curtis were upstairs. They had not said a word to each other in almost an hour as they searched for anything that might assist their investigation.

  There were no obvious signs of a struggle. Curiously, the murdered doctor had been branded with “Puppet” rather than “Bait,” while no markings featured on any of the other bodies. The family had been restrained and then executed in turn with a single bullet to the back of the head. The estimated time frame: eighteen to twenty-four hours since death.

  There was always a heightened atmosphere at crime scenes involving children. Baxter felt it as much as anyone despite not having any of her own, not ever planning to, and avoiding them wherever possible. People worked in a state of anger-fueled professionalism, prepared to go without sleep, without food, without seeing their own families in dedication to the task at hand, which was probably why Baxter snapped when she spotted Rouche sat outside, doing nothing.

  She stormed downstairs, ignoring the throbbing in her ankle, marched out through the open front door, and shoved him backward off his seat.

  “Ow!” he moaned, rolling onto his front.

  “What the hell, Rouche?!” she yelled. “Everyone else is in there trying to help while you’re sat out here on your arse!”

  The ESU Canine Unit walking the perimeter stopped in the distance, the officer shouting at the German shepherd when it started barking aggressively in their direction.

  “I don’t do dead kids,” Rouche said simply as he got up, watching the dog lose interest and continue walking.

  “Who does? Do you think any of us want to be in there? But it’s our job!”

  Rouche didn’t say anything. He started brushing off the snow.

  “You know I worked the Cremation Killer case, right?” continued Baxter. “Me and Wolf . . .” She hesitated. She actively avoided bringing up her infamous ex-partner’s name. “Me and Wolf had to deal with twenty-seven dead girls in as many days.”

  “Look, I had a bad experience . . . on a job, and since then I just don’t do dead kids . . . ever,” Rouche explained. “It’s kind of a thing. I’m taking care of stuff out here. OK?”

  “No, not bloody OK, actually,” said Baxter.

  She grabbed a handful of snow and ice off the ground on her way back inside. Rouche winced as he shook out his top. Moments later, a solid snowball connected viciously with the side of his head.

  It was dark by the time they closed up the crime scene for the night. The predicted heavy snowfall had arrived as promised, sparkling against the black sky in the floodlit front garden. Baxter and Curtis walked outside to find Rouche huddled up in the same spot as before.

  “I’ll give you two a moment,” said Curtis, excusing herself.

  Baxter pulled her woolly hat over her head and sat down beside him to look out over the tranquil garden. From the corner of her eye, she could see the nasty cut on his forehead.

  “Sorry about the head,” she said into a cloud of mist formed by her warm breath. She watched t
he neighbors’ Christmas lights flashing alongside those of the police vehicles.

  “No need to apologize.” Rouche smiled. “You didn’t know it was going to hurt.”

  Baxter looked guilty: “I put a rock in it.”

  Rouche cracked a smile and then they both laughed.

  “What did I miss out here?” she asked.

  “Well, it’s snowing.”

  “Thanks. I got that.”

  “I don’t get it. They’re killing their own now? How does that fit the pattern?” Rouche sighed. “I’ve told the teams that the priority is to identify and locate the other counselors, and I’ve requested Bantham’s complete client list from the Gramercy Practice. I’ve also ordered full blood workups for all of the Puppets.”

  Rouche realized that they still had not told Baxter about the illicit drugs found in Glenn Arnolds’s system. He planned to confront Curtis about it later that evening.

  “Just in case,” he added when Baxter looked intrigued. “But the main thing I’ve been up to is gathering evidence.” He pointed to where a miniature tent had been erected in the pristine white garden. “Our killer’s footprints.”

  “We can’t know that for certain.”

  “Actually, we can.”

  Rouche took out his phone and flicked through to a photograph he had taken earlier that afternoon. He handed it to Baxter: a light speckling of snow decorated the sky, the idyllic house, which was now destined to haunt her, sitting dark and still below. Their FBI vehicle was parked in front of the garages, neat tire tracks carved into the ice behind it. Now scrubbed clean by the snow, a deep set of footprints had taken the shortest route possible by cutting across the garden.

  “It could have been a neighbor or a paperboy,” said Baxter.

  “It wasn’t. Look again.”

  She focused on the screen and zoomed in on the picture.

  “There are no footprints leading to the house!”

  “Exactly,” said Rouche, “and it didn’t snow here last night. I checked. I went round before the cavalry turned up. I eliminated yours, mine, Curtis’s, and the nosy neighbor’s; this was the only other set.”

  “Which means . . . the killer must have been here yesterday! They were in there while we were stood on the doorstep!” gasped Baxter. “Shit! We could’ve had them!”

  She handed the phone back to him.

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  “Think whoever killed these people is the one holding the strings? Your Azazel?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Christ, Rouche. What the hell’s going on?”

  He smiled sadly, extended his hand beyond the shelter of the porch and into the building blizzard.

  “. . . The sky is falling.”

  Chapter 16

  Sunday, 13 December 2015

  6:13 P.M.

  The snowstorm had hit earlier than predicted, drowning New York State under inches of fresh powder from above as the freezing wind raged unchecked below. Before the car’s heater had even warmed up, they had been diverted off the New England Thruway and, judging by the wreckage half a mile ahead, away from the blizzard’s first victims of the night. Curtis had followed the flashing orange instructions bestowed by a hastily erected information sign and joined the procession of slow-moving vehicles before eventually picking up Route 1.

  Baxter could feel herself dozing off in the back of the car. Outside the window, the world was nothing but static on a screen. Inside, the heater was billowing leather-scented hot air from the sleepily lit dashboard. The sound of the tires cutting a path through the snow was as relaxing as listening to a gentle stream, while the police scanner chatted away idly, the assorted voices discussing car accidents, barroom brawls, and burglaries.

  The day had taken its toll on her; it had on everybody involved. At the scene, she had allowed professional bravado to take over, the same world-weary attitude that had seen her through some of the toughest jobs of her career. But now, sat in the back of the dark car, all she could see was that basement, the bodies slumped forward: bound and blind, surrendered, an entire family massacred.

  Although she knew it was completely unreasonable, she felt bitter toward Thomas, toward Tia, toward the handful of friends with whom she still occasionally kept in contact. What depths of surreal horror had their days plunged to? Did they get rained on heading into work? Perhaps the wrong kind of milk in their Starbucks coffee? Had a colleague made a snide remark?

  None of them understood what it was like to be a homicide detective. Not one of them could even comprehend the things that she was expected to see, to remember.

  None of them was strong enough.

  It was not uncommon to feel resentment toward people with simpler, more mundane lives. Without doubt it was the reason that so many of her colleagues were in relationships with other people on the force. There were excuses, of course—the shifts, working in such close proximity, the preordained common interests—but Baxter suspected that it went deeper than that. As unpleasant as it was to admit, in the end everyone and everything outside of the job just started to feel a little . . . trivial.

  “OK with you, Baxter?” Rouche turned around to look at her.

  She hadn’t even realized anyone had spoken: “Huh?”

  “Weather’s getting worse,” Rouche repeated. “We were saying we might stop off somewhere and get a bite to eat.”

  Baxter shrugged.

  “Whatevs,” he vocalized for Curtis’s sake.

  Baxter glanced back out the window. An ice-glossed sign declared that they were now entering Mamaroneck, wherever that was, while snow fell more heavily than she had ever seen. Barely able to make out the buildings lining the main street, Rouche and Curtis squinted through the storm as they searched for somewhere to stop.

  “Could you chuck me my jacket, please?” asked Rouche, apparently optimistic that they were going to find somewhere.

  Baxter grabbed the coat from the seat next to her. As Rouche thanked her and pulled it through the gap between the two front seats, she saw something drop out of one of the pockets and land by her feet. She reached around in the footwell until she found the scrunched-up sheet of paper. She was about to hand it back to him when she noticed Glenn Arnolds’s name printed at the top of it.

  With her dark eyes watching the back of Rouche’s head, she carefully unfolded it.

  “What’s that on the left?” asked Curtis, pointing to where several vehicles had pulled off the main road.

  “‘Diner and Pizza’!” said Rouche excitedly. “That all right with everyone?”

  “Sounds good,” answered Baxter distractedly as she attempted to read the crumpled sheet by the intermittent light of passing buildings, shards of orange fleetingly highlighting sections of the page.

  She was able to ascertain that it was a forensic blood report. Although the list of medications and chemicals meant nothing, the pathologist had clearly circled certain items that must be significant in some way.

  Why would Rouche have kept this from her? She was considering whether to call him out on it there and then when he turned around to smile at her:

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a beer.”

  She smiled back, screwing the paper into a ball on her lap as Curtis followed the vehicle in front into the overflowing car park. After some convincing by Rouche, she reluctantly abandoned the car on a verge. Baxter donned her woolly hat and gloves. Rouche left his ID badge in the windscreen, which he considered more than ample explanation for mowing over whatever flower bed or lawn lay concealed beneath the snow.

  They stepped out onto the churned-up surface of the car park, bracing themselves against the cold as they approached the diner. A queue of at least two dozen people snaked out from the main doors, sheltering beside the glass windows that teased them with warmth, conversation, and hot food, only hardening their resolve to eventually get inside. While Rouche and Curtis went to claim their spot at the back of the queue, Baxter excu
sed herself to make a phone call.

  She walked out of earshot, to the main street, where a tiny church posed like a picture from a Christmas card, only ruined by the Dunkin’ Donuts opposite. She called Edmunds’s number. After a few rings it went to voicemail.

  “Need to talk. Call me,” was her abrupt message.

  Rather than join her colleagues, who had not moved an inch since she’d left them, she took a seat on a wall and waited, hoping that he might call back at any moment.

  She really needed to speak to him.

  A family at the front of the line were invited inside, allowing Curtis and Rouche to take two satisfying paces closer to the entrance. They watched Baxter’s silhouette across the street, the glow from the screen of her phone lighting up her face.

  “I really thought we were getting somewhere,” said Curtis sadly. “And now this: another dead end.”

  Rouche could tell that she was thinking about Glenn Arnolds, about the innocent man she had been forced to kill. In truth, he was amazed that she was still operational considering how devastated she had been just twenty-four hours earlier. Their late-night conversation following the prison riot had given him an insight into her powerful political family. Ever since, Lennox’s favoritism, protectiveness, and willingness to make exceptions for Curtis had seemed downright blatant.

  It struck him as odd that Curtis could not see that her determination to succeed in her chosen career, her track record for high-profile cases, and her swift promotion up the ranks that she flaunted to spite her family was actually because of them and who she was. Anyone else would have been taken off the case and subjected to weeks of evaluations and assessments, but because Curtis wanted to redeem herself, here she was.

  “We are getting somewhere,” said Rouche with a reassuring smile. “We weren’t supposed to find the Banthams, not yet. All the other bodies have been paraded in front of us, but these . . . no theater, no audience. These were hidden away. And that means we’re on the right track. A dead Puppet; maybe Bantham was being coerced into murder . . . maybe he resisted.”

  Curtis nodded before they shuffled a few feet farther along in the queue: