Exhume (Dr. Schwartzman Series Book 1)

by Danielle Girard

  “Be hard to stab if you’re high on laughing gas.”

  “Right. The drug wreaks havoc with hand-eye coordination, among other things.”

  Her thoughts returned to the officer. She had to ask. “How is he? The officer?” A catch in her voice. One of their own. “He going to make it?”

  “He’s stable.”

  She imagined him in a hospital room, hooked up to the machines. If he were conscious, the inspector would have more answers. “But you can’t talk to him?”

  “No,” Hal said with a sigh. “He’s heavily sedated. Doctors hope tomorrow.”

  When Harper had met Schwartzman, she’d held her chin up, a show of strength. Nothing in her appearance hinted at what she had been through. The terror of waking in the night to someone she hardly knew. Then to find him bleeding to death. “You ask Anna why she thinks that guy was stabbed?”

  “Schwartzman? She was pretty rattled when I saw her. Only thing she could think of is that they had a dinner together. Wasn’t planned. They just both happened to be at the same restaurant.”

  “That seem likely?” Harper asked.

  “None of it seems likely, but I’ve got no reason to think she would lie,” he said. “At least not about that.”

  Harper tried to wrap her head around the kind of man who would orchestrate all of this because his ex had a random dinner. Surely there was more to the relationship than Anna was saying.

  “I haven’t talked to her since the night the officer was attacked,” Hal said. “I don’t know if she’s heard that the officer—Ken Macy is his name—I don’t know if Schwartzman knows that he’s going to pull through. Hell, she might even think she’s a suspect.”

  “Is she?”

  “Well, until we find someone else, she’s the only suspect.”

  Harper blew out her breath.

  “All I know is she left here and went out there. It’s a suicide mission. There’s a lot she’s not saying. She’s—” He stopped, and Harper waited, pen poised. She needed to know what Anna was. If this MacDonald was after her, then he was also the best suspect for the two murders on her turf.

  “Inspector?”

  “I actually don’t know exactly what she is. Scared, certainly, but oddly determined, too.”

  It was obvious from his voice that Hal Harris cared about Schwartzman. He respected her. He was worried for her. “I get the feeling this isn’t the first time MacDonald has done something like this,” he added.

  Harper sat up. “You mean he’s killed before?”

  “No,” he said. “It might be the first for that, but he’s been harassing Schwartzman for a lot of years. And he’s definitely capable of violence. Some of what I know was shared in confidence, so I can’t be specific . . .”

  “I understand.” It had been an abusive marriage. She had long since stopped being surprised by the strong women who ended up under the thumb of men.

  “These latest events suggest some serious escalation,” Hal continued, “but it’s not really clear what triggered it. Maybe something about Ava Schwartzman’s murder could help make sense of it.”

  “You mention the one murder out here, but you know we’ve had two.”

  “Two?” His voice was tight, strangled.

  He didn’t know. “Yes,” she confirmed. “A woman named Frances Pinckney was murdered first—drugged with chloroform and thrown down her stairs. Broke her neck.”

  “Made to look like an accident?” he asked.

  “Yes. If not for the coroner catching the smell of chloroform and the issue of a dog who was inexplicably silent, it might have worked.”

  “But Captain Brown told me Ava Schwartzman was asphyxiated, correct? Was that set up to look like an accident?”

  “Not at all,” Harper told him. The image of Ava’s rail-thin frame tied to the bed came unbidden, and she tried to force it away. “The murder was rather brutal, actually. She was tied to the bedposts and asphyxiated by someone sitting on her chest and applying pressure over her nose and mouth. Then her body was left tied to the bedposts.”

  “Staged.”

  “In some sense,” Harper agreed. Harper explained their theory that the two women had exchanged house keys, adding that they had never located Ava’s key at Frances Pinckney’s house.

  “He killed her to get access to Ava,” Hal said in a whisper, and Harper felt chills run across her shoulders and back.

  “How was your victim killed?” she asked.

  “Drowned,” he said. “And then staged.”

  A drowning, a woman thrown down the stairs, an asphyxiation. In quick succession but no obvious pattern or purpose for the type of murder in each case. Harper couldn’t make sense of it.

  “The other murder out there—what was her name again?” Hal asked.

  “Frances Pinckney,” Harper repeated. She wondered how long Frances’s name would come with the image of her lying on the base of the stairs, her neck at that unnatural angle. It would fade. The images always faded. But they never went away. She still had the first ones in her head.

  “The method is less personal than the other two?” Hal asked.

  “Much,” Harper agreed, happy to focus away from Pinckney. “Ava Schwartzman was asphyxiated. Your victim drowned.” She considered the two deaths. “Both focus on breath. He stopped them both from breathing.”

  “Well, in the case of the victim out here, someone did it for him.”

  “But you’ve got no idea who?” Harper asked. She had never had a case of two killers working together in some organized fashion. “Some sort of apprentice?”

  “I don’t think MacDonald would risk letting himself be known to another criminal. He’s arrogant but unbelievably careful. And good. He’s too damn good.”

  If he didn’t train someone personally, he might have turned to the Internet for help. Anything and everything was for sale on the Internet.

  “Our one potential suspect is gone. We’ve got a BOLO out, but I’m not holding out a lot of hope on this end. I’ll send an artist’s sketch.”

  “You think the same person assaulted the officer?”

  “I can’t answer that one either.”

  “Please do send the sketch,” Harper said. “I’ll get the image out around here, too, and I’ll be in touch tomorrow, Inspector.”

  “Appreciate it.” There was silence on the line. “Detective?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Is there any chance you could assign a detail to her? To keep an eye on her, I mean.”

  “In case she’s a killer, or in case she’s going to be a victim?”

  “Yes, to both,” Hal answered after a missed beat. She wondered if the pause was because he and Anna were close, if his hesitation was reluctance to say anything that could be damaging to a friend.

  Either way, she respected that about Harris, too. Information left unsaid was often more valuable than what was put out there. He was on Schwartzman’s side. That much she could tell. And it helped her gauge where her allegiances would fall, too.

  “No problem. I’ll get someone out there after we hang up.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No need to thank me, Inspector. I need a break in these murders as bad as anyone.” Harper paused. “You think he’ll hurt her?”

  “I don’t think he’ll kill her,” Hal answered. “From what I can gather, he doesn’t want her dead; he wants her back.”

  “And how the hell does he think he’s going to accomplish that?” she asked.

  “That’s the million-dollar question.”

  After they’d hung up, Harper pressed her finger against the inside of the bowl to pick up the last remainder of the chips. She’d seen plenty of jilted exes over the years. Many got drunk and disorderly, a few got violent. One drove his car through the front window of the house belonging to his girlfriend’s new boyfriend and killed a cat. She’d been a police officer long enough to know people in general were capable of some crazy stuff.

  But if what Harris sai
d was true, this one took it to a whole new level of crazy. She phoned Dispatch to get someone out to Ava’s house ASAP. As the phone rang, she reached for the chips and was disappointed to find the bag was empty.

  MacDonald murdered two women to get Anna Schwartzman back to South Carolina?

  Now what?

  31

  Charleston, South Carolina

  Schwartzman woke to the soft hush of rain outside. A sharp pain throbbed behind her left eye. Even with her eyes closed, she could sense darkness in the room. The smell of paint. Ava’s garage. She studied the silence. Spencer was gone. She was alive. Alone and alive. Was it possible?

  She lay on her left side, the center of her back stiff and sore. Her hands tingled slightly, the blood supply cut off from being pinned. She studied the sensations in her body. Tenderness in her left shoulder and elbow. Her knees, no pain. Her thighs, also nothing. Her breath as she moved upward. She had been unconscious with Spencer. Would he have touched her or . . . worse? She pushed the thought away.

  She tried to draw a full breath, but her hands were tied behind her. Pinned to her sides, her arms prevented her chest from expanding fully. She yanked her hands apart, twisting and pulling until the burn of the rope made her stop. Her left shoulder was pressed into the cement floor, the bone tender from rubbing against the hard surface.

  She gathered her courage to open her eyes, squinting against the pain in her head, a piercing jab behind her eyes. A single light shone from a bare bulb overhead. Her fingers found the bottom edge of her hoodie, the waist of her athletic pants. She was dressed. She closed her eyes, blinked away the stains of the yellow light.

  Behind her back, she wiggled her fingers and discovered something soft and flannel beneath her. An old blanket. A metal ridge dug into her right shin. She shifted and saw the zipper. A sleeping bag. She smelled smoke and something that stung in her nose. It made her think of rubbing alcohol. Spencer had pressed a cloth to her face, acrid with the smell of chloroform.

  Eyes adjusting to the light, she searched the corners of the room slowly. She hadn’t been moved. She craned her neck to search for Spencer. Waited for his shadow to emerge from the corner. He would relish her renewed terror. But nothing appeared. It took several minutes to be convinced that she was truly alone.

  Her cheek itched, and she tried to scratch it against her shoulder but couldn’t reach. She screamed and thrashed, struggling to pull her hands apart until she was breathless and the skin on her wrists torn and bleeding.

  “Help me,” she called out. “Please, God. Help me.” She started to sob in huge, hiccupping breaths.

  She stopped, imagined him watching. How much pleasure he would gain from her struggle. She refused to give him that pleasure.

  Be calm. Think it through. She had to maneuver the rope so it was in front of her. There she could untie the knot with her teeth.

  She edged the rope down her back and tried to reach her hands around her bottom. She got maybe halfway when something pulled taut against her belly. The rope was tied to her waist. Ava had been tied to her bedposts. Schwartzman cried out. Then clamped her mouth shut, expecting to hear his laugh. She was helpless. Trapped. Again.

  Their entire marriage, she’d felt under his thumb. He’d wanted to know where she was going, who she would see. But now he had truly captured her, drugged her, bound her.

  Worse, she had made it easy for him. She’d played right into his hands.

  She pulled her knees up, formed a tight ball. He wasn’t done. It was too easy. All those years, he had waited . . . only to leave her there alone? This was not the end of it, not by a long shot. But she wasn’t done either. She rocked up onto her knees to get a better view of the room.

  Lying on the concrete floor, maybe five feet away, was her cell phone. Placed perfectly out of reach. He knew the phone was there. He had left it for her.

  She imagined plunging her hands into icy water, fought to ignore the burning in her wrists. She shuffled forward on her knees. The pain was sharp when she moved. She smothered her frustration. Took three breaths and imagined ice water again. The pain subsided slightly. The throb in her head dulled the slightest bit. She shuffled forward, closing the distance to the phone.

  He told her he wouldn’t let her go. He told her the cancer would kill her like he controlled the disease and would let it loose on her if she didn’t stay with him. The notion made it clear how delusional he was. He was normally so calculating. How she wished he didn’t know about the cancer. Worse that he was the only one who did. Move forward, she told herself. Take the next step. Be strong.

  She filled her lungs and focused on the center of her body. She could fill her lungs, move. She scooted until she was within reach of the phone. Turned slowly around and leaned backward to grab it in both hands. She worked her hands to the left side of her back, craned her neck to see the screen at her waist. It worked. She could do it. Before she called the police, she wanted to see the recording. She took deep breaths and entered her passcode. She had recorded him. The screen came up. She saw her background picture of the ocean overlook from her favorite hiking trail. She swiped the screen with her thumb, found the camera icon. The video would be there. It had to be there.

  But it wasn’t. The last picture in her photo stream was the drawing the police artist had done of Terri Stein. She scrolled back, then forward again, her shoulder aching from the contorted position. The phone slipped from her hands and clattered on the cement floor. A sob caught in her throat, and she swallowed it down, wincing at the pain as she leaned back to pick up the phone again. She checked the camera images one more time, willing the video to appear. There was no video at all.

  Sobbing, she curled forward and lowered her head to the cement floor, squeezed her eyes closed against the onslaught of tears. Hold it together. She took a deep breath and sat up again. On her knees, she aimed her phone’s flashlight from her waist, illuminating the space in front of her and scanning the room in more detail. She searched the walls and across the floor. She expected a message, but there was nothing. The time read 8:57. She peered at the garage door, checking for light beneath. It was night. When had she come down to the garage? How long was she out?

  Spencer had held her in a sleeper hold, his arm encircling her neck, then grabbing hold of his own bicep with the other arm. She could tell by how easy it was to tighten the hold. But a simple sleeper hold should not have caused her to lose consciousness for so long. He must have used more chloroform or something else.

  She thought about calling the police or Harper.

  She didn’t want to be found like this. She wanted to free herself before she called the police.

  Get out. She had to get the rope undone. That meant finding a tool to cut it. There would be something here. Surely. Okay. Time to stand up. She tucked her toes under and tried to roll herself back onto her feet. She got partway but didn’t make it. Unable to catch herself, she fell hard on her left side. She bit back a cry and set her forehead on the edge of the sleeping bag, just within reach. Then she leaned forward and worked her feet beneath her to try again to stand. This time she pushed harder and made it onto her feet.

  Guided by the flashlight, she made her way to the workbench. Somewhere there had to be a tool she could use to cut the rope. She would not give Spencer the satisfaction of her being found like this, like a helpless victim. She was not helpless.

  What she found in the garage was a random collection of old extension and phone cords, nails, a tire iron. She turned her back to the bench and blindly pulled open the top drawer in awkward jerking motions, the ancient wood fighting her efforts. The drawer was full of twine, glue, paintbrushes, an ancient-looking drill, and a stack of old hangers from a local dry cleaner.

  The second drawer was too low to reach without getting back on her knees, so she worked her toe under the handle and pulled. Paint rollers and brushes and stir sticks. A single hammer, several screwdrivers, every one of them a Phillips-head. She moved around the room, kicking
things aside, scanning for anything that would work on the ropes.

  Mounted on the edge of one cabinet was a large clamp. She tried to cut through the rope’s fibers with the rough metal edge. She moved in a steady rhythm, pressing the rope into the metal until she was breathless. Then she pulled her arms to one side and looked at her progress. The rope showed no signs of wear.

  She continued her search, moving along the garage surfaces. Nothing sharp. No hedge trimmers, no scissors, not even the most basic blade. Then, she remembered. Ava’s broken lamp. Thank God. Gripping the flashlight, she crossed the garage, scanning the floor for the shards.

  After two passes, she located the spot where the lamp had broken. The lighting components, attached to a long gold cord, lay on the concrete floor just inches from the pool of drying paint. Only a foot away was a handheld broom and a dustpan.

  But the shards from the broken porcelain lamp were gone.

  She had no choice but to call for help.

  32

  Charleston, South Carolina

  Harper fought to swallow the gasp that lodged in her throat when she saw Anna Schwartzman. Seated cross-legged on a sleeping bag in the center of the garage, she might have been imprisoned for days or weeks rather than hours. Her hands were behind her back, her head down. If she hadn’t looked up, Harper might not have recognized her at all.

  The strong, straight spine was now hunched, broken. A patrol officer shined a flashlight directly at her. Anna kept her head down, the dark hair hiding her face.

  “Christ,” Harper shouted back at the officer. “Don’t shine the light in her eyes.”

  The beam of light shifted to the far wall.

  Had she been raped? She ran to Anna and dropped to her knees. “It’s me,” she said. “Harper. The detective from earlier. Okay?”

  As Anna lifted her chin, Harper saw angry red marks across her neck as though the seams of a shirt or jacket had scratched violently across the skin.

  “The police are here with me,” Harper said. “You’re okay now. You’re safe.” Harper saw ropes bound Anna’s wrists and circled around her waist. Dried blood marked the lacerations on her wrists. “Was it him? Spencer MacDonald?”