Something New

by Cameron Dane

  “Thank you.” Abby reached her hand out in offering. “Thank you for talking to me. You have no idea how much I needed to hear some of the things you said.” Honesty overcame her pride and forced her to say, “You’ve given me a lot to think about too.”

  “Thinking is always good.” Still grasping her hand, Father Kurt stood. “I’ll leave you to it. You’re welcome to stay however long you’d like.”

  As Father Kurt wished her a good day and her fingers slipped from his grasp, from somewhere behind her, Abby heard a woman softly say, “It’ll just be five minutes. I promise.” Then, a gravelly, stripped-raw male voice that Abby had never thought to hear again said, “Let’s make it quick. I have to get back to work.”

  Every molecule of blood in Abby’s body froze. The man then whispered again, and she shuddered violently.

  The devil’s voice.

  Instinct pushed Abby back in time, to when she was eight years old. Such terror swamped her that she wanted to curl up into a ball on the pew and hide from the evil.

  From where she sat, statue still, Abby saw Father Kurt’s lips move. She saw her name in the way his mouth formed the word, but such blood roared in her ears that she could not hear him.

  Get up!

  Abby had to scream at herself in her head to get her limbs to unlock and move. Once they did, she stood, turned, and found the eyes of a killer.

  His face meant nothing to her, but his voice had changed her life. She looked at the man, barely held herself straight, and uttered, “It was you.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  After sifting through paperwork in silence for a good stretch of time, without looking up, Ben asked, “Why do you have multiple files for this case?”

  Pausing in his reread of the old case notes, Braden glanced at Ben. “Because when I started looking into the Gaineses’ murders, it was unofficial. I worked off a copy. I made a copy of that copy for you. My copy is what you’re going over right now. I used it as a reference when I wanted to study the case outside the office. When the captain gave me the okay to investigate, I switched to the original. And”—Braden tapped the thin file on the table between them—“I also created a new one.”

  “Just doesn’t seem efficient to me.” The sound of another sheet of paper being flipped followed Ben’s comment.

  Braden looked down at the table to hide his smile. Ben’s world would collapse without his attention to detail and desire for order. “That’s why I called you in, Evans. Let’s get it streamlined so we know what we have.”

  “Like, what is this?” Ben sounded exasperated. He pulled a folded piece of paper from beneath a paper clip keeping the square attached to the copy file. He opened the paper and flattened it against the tabletop. “A book-club list?” he said, lifting his gaze to Braden.

  Braden’s brow pulled together as he searched backward over the last week. “Oh, right. Okay. Abby’s mother belonged to a book club, and the mother’s best friend was going to track down a list of its members. Damn,” he said, awe in his voice. “The woman didn’t waste any time. Attach that to the front of the file. I need to interview those people ASAP.”

  A moment of companionable silence fell between them. Then Ben softly said, “Huh.”

  The hairs on Braden’s neck tickled a sensation straight down his spine. Ben’s huhs were never simple. “What, huh?”

  Ben settled his big hand on top of the paper. “Have you looked at this list?”

  “Not yet.” Braden’s mouth pulled down at the edges as the pulse point in his neck started to pick up speed. “I didn’t even realize Mrs. Jones had gathered it for Abby. She must have passed it on to Abby, and Abby put it there without mentioning it to me.”

  “Were you aware that your captain was in this book club with Elaine Gaines?” Ben spun the sheet of paper around. Right there in block letters halfway down the list was Tom Zanger, big as life.

  “Son of a bitch.” Braden growled. His lips automatically pulled back to bare his teeth. “Zanger never mentioned being in a book club with the wife. He never said anything about even knowing either of the victims let alone disclosing a connection to one of them.”

  “Your boss knew Elaine Gaines personally, and he never told any of the detectives working the case?” One of Ben’s eyebrows shot up so high it certainly could not have moved up any farther on his forehead. “And he had his hands legitimately in this case—possibly handling evidence—as a uniformed officer eighteen years ago?”

  “Yes,” Braden replied. Then Abby’s throwaway words from the other night roared in Braden’s ears. “Oh my God.” His heart stopped. “The devil’s voice. She said the killer had the devil’s voice.” Another picture from a few days ago flashed in Braden’s head and coalesced with Abby’s memory of her father. “Son of a bitch.” Braden shot to his feet and started running.

  Ben caught up, snagged Braden’s arm, and whirled him around. “What are you talking about?”

  “Grab those for me.” Braden pointed back at the files on the picnic table while yanking free of Ben’s hold. “I need to check something before I say.”

  Braden raced inside the station as fast as his legs would carry him. Skidding past his desk and a stunned Derek and April, he kicked in the captain’s office door, knowing the man was out and that he always kept it locked. Running past the wall of official accolades, Braden raced to Zanger’s many fishing trophy photos, searching until his gaze homed in on the one featuring a sandy-haired Zanger in his younger years.

  I knew it.

  Braden ripped the framed photo off the shelf just as Ben rushed into the office, files in hand.

  “Motherfucking murderer,” Braden murmured.

  “What the hell, man?” Ben reached Braden’s side.

  Braden clutched the wood frame in his hands to the point that it dug into skin. I’m gonna tear this fucking bastard apart.

  “Look at this.” He thrust the photo at Ben. “Remember how I told you Abby remembered her father having sex with a muscle-bound guy with trim blond hair?”

  Ben glanced down at the photo of a young Thomas Zanger proudly holding up his marlin catch. Shirtless and tan, Zanger had the same muscular body he had today, but back then his short blond hair blew in the breeze.

  “There are a lot of blond guys in the world,” Ben said, his voice reasonable as he handed the picture back to Braden. “That’s a reach.”

  “Abby’s father was an avid fisherman too. The neighbor said he took lots of trips, and Abby even mentioned that he had some of his big catches mounted on the walls in their house.” The wheels were spinning inside Braden. On a roll now, he would not be deterred. “The devil voice too.” He spoke aloud, working it out with Ben. “Abby remembers the person who killed her parents having an awful devil voice. To an eight-year-old, Zanger’s voice probably sounds like what you would think the devil’s does. I always thought it was from a lifetime of smoking, but maybe he’s always had something wrong with his vocal cords. And”—the final block slid into place and completed the puzzle—“Elaine Gaines called her murderer baby before he killed her.”

  “But you started out showing me a picture of Zanger and connecting it to the husband,” Ben reasoned. “So, what? You think Zanger was having affairs with both of them?”

  Braden nodded. “Either that or they were all in it consensually. The husband’s fucking a blond guy, and Zanger is blond. They both loved to fish, so in a town as small as Coleman was back then, they easily could have met through that interest. The wife calls her murderer baby, and we know from Abby’s recollection that the man sounded like the devil. You could easily classify Zanger’s tone as a devil voice.” Braden ticked the evidence off on his fingers. “It’s an awfully big coincidence if the two men aren’t one and the same. Motherfucker.” Braden snarled and punched at the wall. “That’s why Zanger wanted to shut down the case so fast.”

  Ben snapped his fingers and pumped his hand at Zanger’s desk, looking for the world like he was on board now. “You told
him about the husband with the blond man as a way to go after the priest, but he knew it was him. You were getting details that could eventually point to him. Maybe he feared the priest knew something and would turn on him when you put the priest in the hot seat and implied he was the one getting it on with the husband. Zanger probably panicked and used the politics as a way to shut you down.”

  “Maybe he was about to be exposed back then too,” Braden said.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time someone killed to hide a secret.”

  “I have to find him.” Braden spun to leave the office to find Derek and April standing at the door, looking sick, clearly having heard every word. Braden couldn’t worry about who had overheard his theory or explain it further right now. As he pushed past the pair, he asked, “Watson, where’s the boss?”

  “Not sure,” Derek answered, following Braden to his desk. “The wife came in.”

  April added, “When she said hello, she mentioned something about dropping her car at the place down the street for an oil change. They have the boss’s vehicle.”

  “Find it.” Braden leaned in and kept his voice low. “Find him and let me know where he is immediately.”

  Derek and April grabbed their phones. “On it,” Derek said.

  Braden started speed walking to the front of the station. “Call me on my cell when you have an address.” He lifted his hand, the device clasped in his fingers.

  “Ben—” Braden turned in a circle, having lost his backup.

  “Right behind you.” Right there all the time, Ben nudged Braden out the door. “Let’s go.”

  I’m coming for you, you son of a bitch. Years of betrayal and lies on top of these gruesome murders choked in Braden’s throat. Your freedom is over.

  * * *

  On the echoes of Abby uttering, “It was you,” the man whipped a gun out from under his jacket and pointed it at Abby.

  “Elaine?” The man choked out Abby’s mother’s name, his voice like rocks going through a wood chipper. He took one hand off his weapon long enough to cross himself. “How?”

  Abby’s mind acknowledged there was a weapon pointed at her, but she couldn’t process its power. She couldn’t stop looking at this individual who looked like a man while everything in her screamed that he couldn’t be human. She didn’t know how to reconcile the demonic image her childhood had conjured and this person who was just…a person.

  Who murdered two people.

  She found her voice, and new fire ate away any tremor in her tone. “I’m not Elaine. I’m her daughter, Abby.”

  The murderer’s eyes took over his face, and it seemed the breath rushed out of his body. “The girl.”

  “Yes.” The one word snapped out of Abby and cracked around the church walls.

  The woman next to the man backed away and stumbled into one of the pews. She put one hand over her mouth and the other over her heart. “Thomas, what are you doing?”

  Thomas. Its very normalcy nearly buckled Abby to her knees. You have a name.

  With his hands raised in surrender, Father Kurt inched to the middle of the aisle between Abby and the killer. “Sir, look at your wife.” He continued to shuffle toward the woman as he spoke. “Listen to her fear. You don’t want to scare her anymore. You don’t want to hurt anybody here today.”

  Rodrigo moved in carefully from Abby’s left. “Abby.” He stretched out his arm and eased in front of her, his big frame casting her in shadow. “Stay behind me. Father”—Rodrigo reached out but missed grabbing on to the priest’s shirt—“get out of the way of that weapon.”

  “No, Rodrigo,” Abby whispered, her tone lethal. Rodrigo’s desire to protect Abby gunned her own instincts to protect her dead parents. “I want him to look at me. He needs to see me and remember what he did.” She ducked around Rodrigo and pointed her finger as if she were throwing a dagger. “You killed two people eighteen years ago. On that day”—she jabbed again—“you wanted to kill me too.”

  “No.” His face deepening in color, Thomas swept his head back and forth with near violence. “That’s not true.”

  “It is true.” Abby battled against Rodrigo’s arm and shoulder, pushing against his attempt to keep her safe. “I’ve started having nightmares about that day again, and I remember your voice. You killed my parents in cold blood.” She felt wetness hit her cheeks, but her voice did not waver. “And then you started looking for me.”

  The woman Father Kurt had now reached slumped against his side. “Thomas,” she said in a hushed tone. “What is this girl saying?”

  Thomas shook his head almost as if he were trying to get an irritating mosquito away from him. “Nothing, Karen. Don’t listen.”

  “You will listen to me!” Abby thundered as she struggled against Rodrigo, who had his hands wrapped around her upper arms, holding her back from charging this man-made monster. “You will listen to me tell you how terrified I was while I hid in the attic, shaking to the point of exhaustion and trying not to scream as you shouted little girl. You searched every room and closet in my house trying to find me, and you know it.” Every sentence punctuated Thomas’s silence, creating bullet holes in the fragile facade. “You will listen to me tell you that if it weren’t for my neighbor’s phone call interrupting your search, you would have kept looking and eventually found me. You will listen to me tell you that you were wearing a long-sleeved blue shirt, jeans, and boots, and that you cursed as you ran out the front door.”

  The red that had infused Thomas’s face only moments ago drained away in a flood. “Dear God.”

  “Dear God is right.” Venom laced Abby’s every word. “I remember now. It’s not just fuzzy stuff left over from a traumatic childhood. I remember everything. You know because you were there, and so was I. If you hadn’t had to leave so quickly, you would’ve kept looking for me. You would’ve found me eventually”—a rush of fear from that day choked her—“and you would’ve killed me.”

  “No, damn it, no,” Thomas swore. “You were just a child.”

  “But I was a witness!” Abby swiped at the wetness blurring her vision. “You called me by my name, you devil bastard. You tried to lure me out with ice cream.” The tears flew freely, and her voice was stripped raw, but the pain only helped push her more. “If my mom hadn’t looked at me as she lay there dying, urging me to be silent, I might have come out of hiding. You might have slashed my throat too and gotten away with three murders.”

  Thomas shook his head. No words, no defense, no explanation, no confession, and no apologies. Just a shake of his head, and his lack of a response stabbed Abby in the heart all over again.

  “Do you know how long I sat with those bodies because nobody came?” She screeched at him, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t stop. “You ran to save yourself, but nobody ever came. It was just me in a bloody room with my mom and dad. I couldn’t get them to talk, and they wouldn’t blink their eyes, but I couldn’t accept why.” Her voice cracked on the flood of released emotions. “It went on for hours and hours without end.”

  “I know.” His voice broke too.

  “You know”—Abby hit her head with her fingers—“but you don’t understand.” She dug her fist into her breast, but the pain didn’t amount to a pinprick of the rage and fear and loneliness she’d lived with every single day after her parents died. “You can never understand. You changed my life in a way that can never be undone. I’ll never be someone who didn’t have her parents murdered and stolen from her life when she was eight years old. I’ll never be a person who didn’t bounce through the foster-care system until it kicked her out on the day she turned eighteen. I’ll always be the person who stopped believing in God on the day you stole my parents from me.” Her chest heaved, heavy with old hurts, weighing her down. “Do you still want to point your gun at me and pretend you didn’t do it?”

  “It’s not what you think,” Thomas said, his gun not lowering an inch.

  “It’s over, Zanger.” Braden’s voice suddenly filled th
e room.

  Zanger? Braden’s boss? Abby jerked her gaze to the left and saw Braden coming up the outer aisle, his gun drawn and aimed at Thomas. Another man took up point on the right side, his weapon drawn on Thomas too. Abby had been so intent on her parents’ murderer that she hadn’t heard or noticed either one of them enter the church.

  “She recognizes your voice,” Braden said, his focus trained on the killer. “We know from the tattoos that Cormack didn’t do it. We can put you in a book club with Elaine Gaines. Once I talk to those people, I’d bet a few of them will remember the two of you were friendly.” Braden kept Zanger’s attention on him and his own steps to a minimum, but he and the man he’d entered with did slowly get closer to Thomas. “We have Abby’s memory of the blond man in the den with her father. I’ve seen pictures of you in your office from that time period. You fish. So did Richard. I bet if I search hard enough, I can find at least one person who remembers you two together. I know it was you.” For a split second, Braden’s attention shifted to the woman with Father Kurt. “If you want to maintain that position with your weapon, we can keep discussing it here. I’d think you might want to do it down at the station and spare your wife any more details.”

  “They didn’t know about each other,” Thomas said, his severely textured voice somehow rising in pitch. “They were married, but they were really just companions. It wasn’t like they were really cheating. They were never supposed to know what was going on.”

  Braden’s mouth slashed to a thin line. “It’s easy to say you don’t care until you find out there’s another real flesh-and-blood person in your spouse’s bed.”

  “Richard called me and said he wanted to end it. He wanted to come clean to Elaine, to get counseling, and try to make a go of the marriage. I knew it wouldn’t work; that wasn’t who he was.” All of a sudden, Thomas became the Niagara Falls of information. “I loved him. I loved Elaine too. I didn’t want it to be over with either of them. I knew Elaine had a charity thing, so I drove out to the house and tried to talk Richard out of it. We… Something happened between us, and I thought we came to an understanding. But afterward, he still said he couldn’t see me anymore. It was the last time we could…do what we did. I left, but I knew Richard, and I knew Elaine too. If they confessed to each other what they’d done, they would need to purge their souls of everything, and they would tell.” Anger entered Thomas’s voice, and the blotches of red returned to his face. “The secret would come out. Someone would overhear something. You tell one person a secret like this, even a priest, and before you know it, two people know, then three people, until the whole town is in on it.”