The Last Victim

by Karen Robards

  But Charlie did wake up knowing what Holly had meant.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  By early afternoon of the next day, Charlie was back in her own house in Big Stone Gap. Situated a little way down the mountain from the prison on the top of the ridge, Big Stone Gap was a coal mining town of about five thousand residents that had been devastated by a rash of recent layoffs from the coal company that, along with the prison, was the area’s primary employer. Despite the hard times, Big Stone Gap was as friendly as the prison was forbidding, and she loved it. Her house, which she rented from her next-door neighbors, was a classic two-story white clapboard farmhouse with an old-fashioned front porch and lots of gingerbread trim. It sat on a quiet street near the edge of town, with the wooded mountainside sloping up behind it and an acre backyard complete with a sunflower patch that was a constant draw for the aforesaid neighbor’s chickens. Not that Charlie minded, really. She had spent many an early morning before heading in to work sipping coffee at her kitchen table at the back of the house and watching through the window as the birds scratched around in her flowers for seeds and bugs. Watching them was both calming and amusing.

  “Tell me this hasn’t been a total waste of time.” Kaminsky gave Charlie a disgusted look as Charlie sorted through the items she had laid out on the kitchen table one more time. At Kaminsky’s suggestion—Charlie was so focused on the need to find whatever it was that Holly had been referring to that she wouldn’t have thought of it—Charlie was wearing rubber gloves, so as not to taint the items just in case one of them should prove to be important. Dressed in her usual black pants and sleeveless blouse—today’s was a soft mint green—Charlie was at least comfortable. While Kaminsky in her power suit—today’s was black—and sky-high heels looked hot, cross, and way too sophisticated for the country-style kitchen. On Tony’s directive, Kaminsky had accompanied her on the short flight back to Big Stone Gap to recover whatever item significant to the investigation might be found in “the bag.” Feeling her time could be better spent in other ways, Kaminsky wasn’t too happy about it.

  “No more so than following any other lead,” Charlie replied, frowning as she touched each item in turn. She had been sure that “the bag” Holly had been referring to could only have been the sealed plastic bag full of Charlie’s belongings that had been returned to her by the hospital, where she had stayed after Holly’s murder. But in going through it, Charlie was coming up empty-handed. A brown fluffy teddy bear the hospital had given her; a manila envelope stuffed with get-well cards, all of which she had looked over and none of which seemed to contain a clue; a never-opened dental care kit containing a new toothbrush and travel-sized toothpaste wrapped in plastic; a tube of chapstick; a bottle of pale pink nail polish; a hairbrush; and a scrunchie offered not the slightest insight into the murders, as far as she could tell. Some of her clothes were there, too. Just looking at the yellow T-shirt and the jeans and sandals, the pretty flowered bra and pink bikini panties, made her skin crawl.

  They were the clothes she had been wearing the night the Palmers had been murdered. Although the hospital had given her the bag about ten days later, she had never once opened it. She had not looked at those clothes from that day to this.

  Instead of getting sick every time she looked at them, she forced herself to ask, What am I missing here?

  Something had to be of significance, but she had no idea what it was. However, since this was the only bag she possessed that had any connection at all to the murders, this almost certainly had to be the bag Holly had been talking about—assuming that Garland had correctly reported what Holly had said. Having had no permanent home in the last fifteen years, Charlie had carted the bag around with her, stuffed into a blue steamer trunk with a few other longtime possessions that she didn’t know what to do with but couldn’t quite bear to dispose of.

  She would have thrown the bag out long ago, except she’d always felt it was kind of a last connection with Holly. A way of not letting her friend go.

  Apparently Holly had known.

  “The only thing to do is pack these things up and take them back with us. Maybe there’s microscopic blood splatter on the clothes or something,” Kaminsky said impatiently. “Turn the stuff over to the lab, and let them sort it out.”

  Since Charlie couldn’t think of a better idea, she shrugged and started to put everything back into the bag. The only saving grace was, she didn’t have to actually touch them. The gloves were useful for more than avoiding fingerprints.

  When the items were packed up again and thus safely out of sight, Charlie felt better. Even though she hadn’t touched anything, after she stripped off the rubber gloves she washed her hands in the kitchen sink. And that made her feel better, too.

  “Nice house, Doc.”

  Charlie didn’t even jump as Garland strolled into her kitchen. Since replying was out of the question, she flicked him a look and kept on with what she was doing, finishing up by drying her hands on the nearby paper towels. She hadn’t realized he was with them, hadn’t set eyes on him since she’d woken up to find him in the living room and he’d informed her that his Holly-watching had been a waste of time. He’d been terse and unsmiling, but she’d been in such a hurry to get downstairs to inform Tony that she needed to make a quick trip back home, she had barely noticed. She didn’t know why she was surprised to see him now, but she was. She was also, she was slightly chagrined to discover, glad.

  “Is there anything else you want to bring? I’ll go grab it.” Kaminsky had made no secret of the fact that she was chomping at the bit to get back to the investigation. Imagining the other woman’s reaction if she had any inkling that the hot blond naked guy she’d been chasing the other night was right there in the kitchen with them, albeit fully clothed, Charlie smiled. Trying not to watch as Garland took in the view out the wide kitchen window, Charlie said, “I already put everything else I need in a carry-on in the hall.”

  “Everything else” being a few extra clothes and some toiletries.

  “So are we ready?”

  “Let me do a quick walk-through, and then yes.”

  Kaminsky stayed in the kitchen as Charlie checked her spotless living and dining rooms, then went upstairs to her bedroom to look rather wistfully around. I miss this place. Like the rest of the house, her bedroom was very simply decorated, with polished wood floors and a lot of neutral colors, which she found peaceful. The centerpiece of the room was a big brass bed dressed in layers of white. A lot of light poured through two tall windows that looked out onto the backyard and the mountain. A fireplace with a painting of a waterfall in a woody glen hanging above it was positioned between the windows. The adjoining bathroom was made special by the big, claw-footed tub that took pride of place. Charlie was normally a shower person, but she loved taking a bath in that tub.

  The truth was, she loved the house. She’d selected the furniture and decorated it herself, and it was the closest thing to a real home she’d ever had.

  If I accept Tony’s offer, I’ll have to leave it.

  Silly to let that hold weight with her, she thought. It was only a temporary home, after all. Just for as long as her work at the Ridge lasted, which once she got back shouldn’t be much more than another eighteen months or so. Then she would be moving on again, in the same way that she’d been moving on for her entire life.

  “So this is home, hmm?” Garland looked up from what seemed to be a concentrated study of her bed as she walked out of the bathroom, to find him standing in her bedroom doorway. “I always used to try to imagine what kind of place you lived in.”

  “Apparently you used to imagine a whole lot of things.” Her reply, no less tart for being said under her breath, emerged before she could stop it.

  No surprise: he grinned. “I did.”

  She shot him a glance as she crossed to her dresser to retrieve a watch she’d left on it. “Have you been with us the entire time?”

  He shook his head. “I figured you were safe enoug
h on the plane. Then I heard the sound of running water, and here I am.”

  Strapping the watch onto her wrist, she frowned at him. “Running water?”

  “I’ve discovered that it yanks my rubber band, at least when you’re around it. Combine you with an open faucet, and if I’m off exploring, I get pulled back to wherever you are real quick.”

  “You go exploring?”

  He nodded. “Spookville’s an interesting place.” She got the impression from the look on his face he didn’t much want to talk about it. That impression intensified when he changed the subject by asking, “Find what you came here after?”

  She shrugged. “I found the bag I think Holly was talking about. So far, though, I’m not seeing its connection to the case.”

  He was looking at a photograph of her and her mother on a small chest beside the door. “You got family, friends, here in town?”

  Deciding to shelve the “exploring” conversation she was dying to have for another day, when they had more time, Charlie walked toward him. “Some friends. That picture you’re looking at is of me with my mother. She’s my only real family. She lives in Wilmington with her third husband. Would you mind moving? I need to get back downstairs.”

  He obligingly stepped out of the doorway. “Your dad alive?”

  Charlie snorted and shrugged as she walked past him into the hall. “Last I heard. I haven’t seen him since I was seven.”

  “Brothers? Sisters?” He followed her.

  “A couple of half siblings from my father, possibly. It’s only a rumor, and if they exist I’ve never met them.” She stopped on the upstairs landing to give him a quelling look. “Is there a reason you want to know?”

  “I’m interested.”

  Down below, Kaminsky stepped into the entry hall, catching Charlie’s eye, but thankfully not yet looking up herself.

  “Would you go away? I can’t talk to you now,” she hissed at Garland. Then Kaminsky turned and spotted her on the landing and Charlie headed down the stairs.

  Kaminsky frowned. “Were you talking to somebody up there?”

  “Myself,” Charlie replied as she reached the downstairs hall, relieved to discover that Garland had apparently acceded to her request and vanished. For an instant she wondered if Kaminsky, like Tony, knew about her “psychic abilities,” but she didn’t think so. Tony struck her as the type to keep what he had learned as the result of a background investigation private—and anyway, she was pretty sure Kaminsky wouldn’t be able to restrain herself if she had access to a gold mine of potential digs like that. “It’s a bad habit. Are you ready to go?”

  “One hundred percent,” Kaminsky replied with feeling. Moments later, Kaminsky was heading down the short flight of wooden steps at the front of the house. Behind her, wheeling the carry-on, holding the plastic bag she’d come all this way to fetch, Charlie was just stepping through the front door when Kaminsky appeared to miss a step and went sprawling into the grass.

  “Are you hurt?” Charlie rushed to her side. Kaminsky was already sitting up by the time Charlie reached her. Fortunately, she’d missed the paving stones that led from the steps to the gravel driveway, which was where the car that had been waiting for them at Lonesome Pine Airport when they arrived two hours ago was currently parked.

  “Damn it, I broke my heel.” Apparently otherwise unharmed, Kaminsky pulled the damaged black stiletto, which hung precariously from her toes, the rest of the way off. Its narrow four-inch heel was, indeed, broken off at the sole. She glared first at the ruined shoe, then at Charlie. “Your stupid steps have a crack in the middle of them.”

  As each of the steps was made from two boards nailed to a trio of two-by-fours and painted, they did indeed have, by design, an inch or so space running down the middle.

  “They’re supposed to. If you didn’t wear such ridiculously high heels, the ‘stupid steps’ wouldn’t have tripped you,” Charlie retorted as she helped Kaminsky to her feet.

  “If you were five foot two, you’d wear ridiculously high heels, too. You know how hard it is to be taken seriously in a job like mine when you’re short and curvy?” Kaminsky snapped at her.

  Suddenly the other woman’s shoes made sense. Looking at the ruined shoe dangling from Kaminsky’s hand, Charlie could relate. She’d spent most of her working life in a male-dominated world, too.

  “Really hard, I imagine.” Charlie’s reply held an undertone of fellow-feeling. “I always wear long pants and sensible shoes for the same reason.”

  “Yeah, I noticed the black pants and low-heeled pumps. It’s your uniform, isn’t it? Just like my suits and heels.” Kaminsky’s eyes had a rueful cast as they met Charlie’s. “Sucks, doesn’t it? You think Bartoli or Crane—or any guy, for that matter—ever has to worry about what they need to wear in order to be taken seriously?”

  Charlie had to smile at the very idea of it even as she shook her head. “No. Listen, I have some shoes you can borrow.”

  “I wear a size five.” Kaminsky was looking skeptically at Charlie’s feet, which were long, narrow size eights.

  “Flip-flops,” Charlie specified. Kaminsky grimaced, but nodded. Charlie went in to fetch them and returned to find Kaminsky sitting on the steps, both shoes off and her bare toes wriggling in the grass. “Here.” She handed over the shoes, then as Kaminsky slipped them on turned back to lock the door.

  “At least now my feet are comfortable,” Kaminsky said as they headed for the car. Charlie laughed, and Kaminsky looked over her shoulder at her. “So are you going to accept Bartoli’s offer?”

  Charlie glanced at Kaminsky in surprise as they got into the car. With Kaminsky behind the wheel, they reversed out of the driveway and headed through the relatively affluent residential area toward the single, two-lane road that led down the mountain.

  “He told you about that?” Charlie asked.

  “He got Crane’s and my opinion. We’re a team. Things like this, we’ll discuss. For the record, I was opposed.”

  “Thanks.” Charlie’s voice was dry. “Care to tell me why?”

  Already they were in the central business district, which consisted of maybe a dozen shabby brick buildings, which included a bank, a courthouse, a hardware store, and a couple of restaurants. Towering above them on the top of the ridge, the prison looked like a gray stone fortress. More mountains stretched away into the distance, as far as the eye could see, some so tall they were obscured by the gray rain-clouds that were currently starting to blow in from the east. It had been raining a little when they’d left Kill Devil Hills that morning, and it looked like the weather was following them, although it hadn’t quite caught up yet.

  “That whole Tony and Charlie thing you two have going on? It’s divisive on a team like ours.”

  “Wait a minute. First of all, there’s absolutely nothing except for professional respect between Tony”—Charlie refused to signify guilt by reverting to calling him Bartoli simply because Kaminsky was making her feel self-conscious—“and me. And second, what about you and Crane?”

  “There’s nothing between Crane and me. Nothing.”

  Charlie was just opening her mouth to point out the various reasons nobody with half a brain could ever be expected to believe that when something unexpected caught her eye.

  The First Baptist Church was a small, white-painted brick building with one highly prized stained-glass window and a steeple. It was so old the masonry around the bricks was crumbling, and the steeple listed just a little to the left. Charlie was familiar with it, because her next-door neighbor attended that church and had brought her along to a couple of potlucks. A small graveyard off to the side served as a final resting place for a number of the town’s citizens. An even smaller section of that graveyard had been reserved for Wallens Ridge inmates who had no family to claim them and, in death, nowhere to go.

  The church was situated on a corner of the intersection where Kaminsky had just slowed to turn left.

  “Stop the car.” Charlie was alrea
dy fumbling at the door handle. Kaminsky, with a startled glance at her, hit the brakes.

  Charlie was out of the car before it had stopped shuddering. Heart in her throat, she hurried over to a single, freshly dug grave in the inmate section.

  A simple white wooden cross had been stuck in the ground at its head.

  M. A. Garland had been painted on it in crude black letters, along with RIP and the date.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  A coal truck rattled up behind the car. Its determined honking forced Kaminsky to drive on through the intersection.

  “I’ll circle the block,” she yelled out the window, but Charlie barely heard her.

  The grave was mounded dirt, ugly and raw. No attempt had been made to smooth it out or cover it with sod or improve its appearance in any way. There was not a flower in sight.

  Charlie’s heart lurched. Her stomach knotted. Her chest felt so tight she could hardly catch her breath.

  Garland’s human remains lay six feet down, almost certainly in the cheapest pine coffin the local undertaker could provide.

  And no one cared.

  Had there been a funeral service? A religious ceremony? Had he been buried in the bloody prison jumpsuit? Probably, because if he was buried here, in this pariah’s grave, no one would have cared enough to provide him with something as dignified as a suit.

  Charlie felt as if she were suffocating.

  A hedge of six-foot-tall viburnum bushes edged the far side of the little cemetery. Charlie walked jerkily toward them, and began breaking cluster after cluster of the rhododendron-like white flowers from their woody stalks. The sweet smell of the plant hung like perfume in the humid air. When her arms were full, she turned back toward the grave.

  Garland was standing there, looking down at his own grave.

  Charlie’s step faltered. Her heart turned over. Her throat ached so that she didn’t think she could speak.