What Burns Within

by Sandra Ruttan

  “Matt McPherson,” the man said, offering his hand. Matt had a firm grip.

  “Constable Craig Nolan.”

  He followed Matt down the hallway, into a bright, open kitchen and dining area. A woman sat at the table, her hands wrapped around a mug, a thick sweater pulled around her body. She looked up.

  Her blue eyes were overshadowed by dark circles, her cheeks gaunt. Even though she was sitting down, Craig could see that her clothing hung limply on her frame, as if she’d lost a lot of weight recently, and not weight she’d needed to lose.

  “Constable Craig Nolan. I believe we spoke earlier on the phone.”

  She nodded as Craig pulled out a chair and sat down across from her.

  “I realize this must be very difficult for you, Mrs. McPherson. I’m not here to pressure you or to make things worse.”

  “I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t…” She swallowed. For a moment he saw nothing but her auburn hair tumbling over her head, and then she looked up as she hastily brushed her tears away before offering a short, hollow laugh. “There’s nothing you can do that would make this worse.”

  Craig wished that were true, but he knew it wasn’t. It was amazing the comfort people could find in a lie.

  Matt came to the table and sat down, a cup of coffee in his hands. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t even think to ask. Can I get you a cup?”

  “That’s okay. Really.” He paused.

  The woman across the table from him looked up. “You want to know what happened?”

  “To start, when did this happen? You said you haven’t been eating or sleeping, so I gather it’s been days.”

  “Try weeks,” Matt said. “She wouldn’t even tell me.”

  “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here, Matthew.”

  “You aren’t here, are you, Sara? It’s like you’re hiding behind this wall and you won’t talk to anybody. Not your sister or your mother or our minister. Sure as hell not me.”

  There was silence at the table for a moment, and then Sara turned to Craig, something resembling a spark of anger flickering in her eyes. “And what do you have to say about that?”

  Craig took a deep breath. “I can give you the number for victim’s ser vices. You can talk to someone who’s been through what you’ve been through, if that makes it easier for you.”

  “So you think I should just bare my soul to the world too?”

  “No. I think you should do what ever you need to do to start to heal from this.”

  “It happened Sunday, July eighth,” Matt said.

  July 8? Shit. Craig made a note.

  Sara hit the table with her hand. “Do you want me to talk or not, Matt? I don’t need you filling in the blanks.”

  Her voice was shrill, the rising note of hysteria not just creeping by but setting up camp. Craig cleared his throat. “Mrs. McPherson—”

  “Sara.”

  “Sara, I’m going to need to speak to Matt too. I have to know everything both of you remember about that day, even the week before. If you want to talk to me one at a time, that’s fine. Or we can all talk together.”

  She looked down at the table, covering her mouth with her hand, her elbow propped against the placemat.

  After a moment Matt got up. “I’ll be in the TV room when you need me.”

  Once they heard a door click shut from somewhere down the hall, Sara McPherson looked up at Craig.

  “You must think I’m a pretty cold bitch.”

  “No, I don’t.” Craig returned her gaze for a moment until she looked away.

  “He’s trying to help, be supportive, and I’m pushing him away.”

  “Everyone deals with grief differently, Sara. It’s not my job to tell you how to feel about this. My job is to try to catch the person who did this. I’ll do what ever I can to help you and your husband—”

  She held up her hand. “Save the spiel. We have more people offering their help than we need. I just want to do this and get it over with.”

  Craig nodded. “Then I need you to tell me what happened.” He picked up his pen, staring across the table at her until she blinked. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  The door creaked open, and Taylor scurried into the shadows, away from the thin stream of light.

  “I brought you some food,” a voice said. She could see the shadow of the man, stepping into the center of the room, kneeling down and placing a cup, like a princess’s cup from a fairy tale, down. He set a bowl on the floor beside the cup.

  Her stomach gurgled as the scent of fresh bread wafted through the air to her nose. She liked to bake bread with Grandma on the weekends, and she knew that smell.

  The shadowy figure stood and stepped toward her. She pressed her back against the wall, pulling her knees towards her stomach and hugging them with her bare arms.

  He stopped moving.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve brought you here to take care of you.”

  She said nothing, rubbing her arms with her hands, trying to make the goose bumps go away.

  “You’re cold. And you must be tired. Here.” He turned, moving into the shadows in the far corner. She heard a latch unclick and a door creak open.

  Taylor jumped to her feet and ran toward the light. She was through the open door when she stopped, staring at the girl before her.

  A girl with long black hair and dark eyes was wearing a long white gown, kneeling on the floor eating bread and drinking from another fancy princess cup.

  Taylor felt arms around her, pulling her back into the room.

  “No no no no no no no. You aren’t ready yet. You have to stay here. Now be good and maybe you’ll get a pretty gown too.”

  Taylor felt herself being propelled into the darkness, and then she bounced against something soft. She heard a creak, like when she jumped on her bed at home. Then a little light came on, right above her, shining down directly on the spot where she sat blinking.

  She turned around. Backing away from the small circle of light, she could see she’d been sitting on a small bed in the corner of the room. There was a window ledge behind her and the cup and bowl had been moved there from the center of the floor.

  Then the light went out, just as the door clanged shut, and she was alone in the darkness again.

  SUNDAY

  Ashlyn wondered why she’d never noticed her desk was so smooth and cool before. The metal always seemed cold and foreboding, but after a night like the one she’d had it felt wonderful to put her head down against it. She closed her eyes, thinking how nice it would be to just drift off for a few minutes.

  She jumped in her chair and jerked her head up as something slammed against the desk beside her, the sound of the thud echoing in her ear.

  “Cruel, heartless bastard,” she said.

  “You should thank me. Daly’s here, and he wants to see us now.”

  Ashlyn groaned. She forced herself to her feet and followed Tain down the hall.

  “Have a seat,” Daly said as they entered, passing out drinks and food. “Sorry, Tain. I don’t really know what you like for breakfast.”

  “Anything he doesn’t have to cook,” Ashlyn said.

  Tain unwrapped the breakfast sandwich. “Sir, I’d like to file a sexual harassment complaint.”

  “You wish.”

  Daly glared at them. “I know you’re both tired, but don’t make me regret partnering you two on this. What have you got?”

  “Not much for our efforts, I’m afraid,” Tain responded. “Distraught parents, a domestic incident waiting to happen with the Brennens and absolutely nothing useful.”

  “What about the autopsy? Anything helpful there?”

  They had endured the entirepro cess as Burke, the coroner, worked. The one bit of good news was that he had found nothing that indicated abuse prior to Isabella’s abduction, which eased some of Ashlyn’s concerns about the family.

  “No.”

  “No?” Daly arched an eyebrow as he watched Ashlyn reach for her drink.


  “She wasn’t sexually assaulted. Other than the marks, there were no traces of anything out of the ordinary on her body. No pollen, no dirt, leaves. Nothing that might pinpoint where she was being held. Isabella was wearing the same clothes she went missing in, hadn’t lost weight noticeably, and her stomach contained remnants of bread and water. Not even something we can readily trace.”

  “How did she die?”

  Ashlyn and Tain exchanged a glance.

  “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  Tain cleared his throat. “Well, sir, it’s at least interesting. She drowned.”

  “She drowned?”

  “As best as Burke can tell, in a bathtub,” Ashlyn said. “It wasn’t salt water, and it wasn’t chlorinated pool water. Just regular, generic tap water. But her clothes were dry.”

  “He’s sure? With the time between death and discovery and the heat of the fire…?”

  Ashlyn shook her head. “Absolutely no damp patches anywhere. No wrinkles or stiff fabric, like you get when someone stays in wet clothing.”

  Daly rubbed his forehead.

  “Time of death is within a few hours of her body being found. That’s why Carl thought she was still alive. Rigor hadn’t set in,” Ashlyn said.

  “I think we might want to consider having a profile done. Without sexual assault to consider, we’re really stretched to find a motive for these abductions,” Tain said.

  “Julie Darrens wasn’t sexually assaulted either, was she?” Ashlyn asked.

  “No, but she could have been an object. He could have been building his confidence. The fact that he’s killed a second time in the same way without escalating—”

  “As far as we know,” Daly said.

  “I agree with Tain on this. How are we supposed to catch this guy without a clue about why he’s doing it? Pulling the names of registered sex offenders won’t even help us much.” Ashlyn nodded at the food still sitting on the desk. “Aren’t you eating?”

  “It’s not for me,” Daly said. “So you agree with the idea of doing a psychological profile?”

  “I’m willing to try anything to give us a lead. Right now, we’re assuming the same guy abducted two girls,” Ashlyn said. “They’re dead. Odds are he’s got Taylor Brennen. I want to make sure we get her home safe and sound instead of scraping her into a body bag.”

  Daly sighed. “We all want that, Ashlyn. I’ll see what we can do then. What’s next?”

  “We’re going to review all the statements from last night,” Ashlyn said.

  Daly moved a few files and picked up a slip of paper, passing it to Tain. “Sims went through all the video we had and managed to get a plate number for the car that Nicky Brennen got out of. Registered to Alex Wilson. His address is there.”

  “Did he do a background check?”

  Daly shook his head. “I told him you’d handle it.”

  “Then we’ll have a chat with Alex Wilson,” Tain said.

  “We also need to go over Isabella’s case step by step, review all the witness statements.”

  “Don’t forget you need to keep on top of the arson investigation, Ashlyn.”

  “I know, Steve.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Ashlyn…”

  “That’s more like it, sir. I can’t have you being too nice to me.” She stood up and tossed her wrappers into a bin. “Anything else?”

  Daly covered his face with his hands. “I knew I shouldn’t have signed your transfer papers.”

  He jerked on the box again and yanked it forcibly from the car, then drew a few rapid breaths, pushing his hair out of his face, letting the heat in his cheeks dissolve.

  Just calm down, look again.

  Under the seats, on the seats, behind the seats, in the standard compartment, in the special compartment. He crawled in as far as he could and stretched out with his hands until he felt the body of the car curling upward. There was nowhere left to check.

  He clenched his fists and swore as he sat up sharply, cracking his head against the ceiling. Goddammit.

  Then he whimpered. Bless me, Father. I repent, he repeated, over and over again, drawing deep breaths, rocking back and forth until he felt the tension in his body slip away.

  They aren’t here. I lost them. I lost the packet. Where could it be?

  He thought of every place he’d been, between the fair grounds, the abandoned building and the place he called home.

  There was nowhere else it could be.

  He closed his eyes. I’ll have to order more.

  Craig walked into Daly’s office and collapsed into a chair. “You’re here early,” Craig said.

  “And you never left. I thought you were ready to pack it in when I was leaving last night.” He nodded at the bag on his desk. “I brought you some food.”

  Craig reached for the bag. “I thought it might be a good idea to work one of these rapes while it was still fresh.”

  Daly nodded. “Did you come up with anything useful?”

  “Well, I…”

  The door flung open behind Craig, and he forced himself not to turn around. The shock turning fast to annoyance on Daly’s face was enough to ensure him that Daly would deal with whoever had just stepped out of line, although he was pretty sure he knew who it was.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Craig? Interviewing a rape victim without even bothering to call me?”

  The sandwich went from tasting like moderately edible fast food to spongy paste in his mouth. That woman had a shrill voice, and her tone shifted easily between nagging and lecturing.

  “You interviewed a rape victim last night? After I left?” Daly’s annoyance was temporarily overshadowed with confusion.

  “Another rape was reported last night. I went to take a statement.”

  “Without calling me,” Lori said.

  Craig didn’t need to move a muscle to have a clear mental image of Lori standing behind him, hands on her hips, glowering at him.

  When he finally did glance up, the only thing he hadn’t factored in was the fiery red cheeks and flared nostrils. He turned to look at Daly, although his words were for Lori.

  “It didn’t seem important to you to stay and work on a fresh rape case, so why would I think you’d be interested in a report that came in about one from early July?”

  “Are you just going to let him—”

  “Ahem,” Daly said as Lori sat down in a chair, uninvited. She stood up again. Craig noticed some of the color in her cheeks had dissipated.

  “Until you hold the rank of staff sergeant or inspector or what ever it is you’ve set your sights on, you don’t walk through that door without my permission.” Daly pointed a finger at her. “Second, Craig has a point. You left last night of your own free will. I watched you. Craig’s job is to follow any leads in the case until it’s solved or shelved, not to second guess what you do and do not find pertinent.

  “My officers don’t prove themselves to me by having a head full of attitude and an axe to grind with everyone they work with. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Quite.”

  “You’re dismissed, Constable Price.”

  Craig reached for his orange juice as the door slammed shut, the closest picture on the wall shifting sideways. Daly’s mouth hung open, and Craig held up his hands. “Like you said, she’s tough.”

  Daly snorted. “I didn’t realize she was impossible.”

  “Your reprimand might have done some good. Maybe she’ll start to behave.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  Craig shook his head. “Not for a second.”

  Lori was waiting at Craig’s desk, one hand propped against the cold metal surface, fingers drumming the table incessantly, the other hand on her hip. As soon as she spotted him her eyes narrowed and she straightened up.

  “Don’t you ever do that to me again,” she said as she folded her arms across her chest.

  “Do what?” Craig lifted the cup to his lips, moving around her and si
tting in his chair.

  “You went running to Daddy Daly and tattled on me.”