Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense: The Rosary Girls, the Skin Gods, Merciless, Badlands

by Richard Montanari

  “Where did they go?”

  “I … I don’t know.”

  Vincent pressed the barrel of his weapon into Kyle’s left eye.

  “Wait! I really don’t know I don’t know I don’t know!”

  Vincent took a deep calming breath. It didn’t seem to help. “When they left, which way did they go?”

  “South,” Kyle managed.

  “What’s down there?”

  “Doug’s. Maybe they went there.”

  “What the fuck is Doug’s?”

  “Duh-diner.”

  Vincent withdrew his weapon. “Thuh-thanks, Kyle.”

  Five minutes later the two detectives drove south. But not before they had searched every square inch of Double K Auto. There were no other signs that Jessica and Nicci had spent time there.

  82

  Roland could wait no longer. He pulled on his gloves, his knit cap. He did not look forward to walking blindly through the woods in a snowstorm, but he had no choice. He glanced at the fuel gauge. The van had been running, heater on, since they had stopped. They were down to less than one-eighth of a tank.

  “Wait here,” Roland said. “I’m going to look for Sean. I won’t be long.”

  Charles studied him with deep fear in his eyes. Roland had seen it many times before. He took his hand.

  “I will be back,” he said. “I promise.”

  Roland stepped out of the van, shut the door. A sheet of snow slid from the top of the vehicle, dusting his shoulders. He brushed himself off, glanced through the window, waved to Charles. Charles waved back.

  Roland made his way down the lane.

  THE TREES SEEMED to close ranks. Roland had been walking for nearly five minutes. He did not find the bridge Sean had spoken of, or much else. He turned around a few times, adrift in the miasma of snow. He’d lost his bearings.

  “Sean?” he said.

  Silence. Just the empty white forest.

  “Sean!”

  There was no reply. The sound was muffled by the falling snow, deadened by the trees, swallowed by the dusk. Roland decided to head back. He was not dressed properly for this, and this was not his world. He would return to the van, and wait there for Sean. He glanced down. The blowing snow had all but obscured his own footprints. He turned, walked as quickly as he could in the direction from which he had come. Or so he believed.

  As he trudged back, the wind suddenly picked up. Roland turned his back to the gust, covered his face with his scarf, waited out the blast. When it ebbed, he looked up and saw through a narrow clearing in the trees. There was a stone farmhouse, and in the distance, perhaps a quarter mile beyond, a large trellis and what looked like a tableau of amusement-park displays.

  My eyes must be playing tricks, he thought.

  Roland turned toward the house and suddenly sensed noise and movement to his left—a snapping sound, soft, unlike branches underfoot, more like fabric rippling in the wind. Roland wheeled around. He saw nothing. Then he heard another sound, this time closer. He shone his light through the trees and caught a dark silhouette shifting side to side in the illumination, something partially obscured by the pines twenty yards ahead. In the falling snow it was impossible to tell what it was.

  Was it an animal? A sign of some sort?

  A person?

  As Roland slowly approached, the object came into focus. It was not a person, or a sign. It was Sean’s coat. Sean’s coat was hanging from a tree, powdered with fresh snow. His scarf and gloves lay at the base.

  Sean was nowhere to be seen.

  “Oh my,” Roland said. “Oh Lord, no.”

  Roland hesitated for a few moments, then picked up Sean’s coat, shook off the snow. At first he thought the coat had been hanging from a broken branch. It had not. Roland looked more closely. The coat was hanging from a small pocketknife stabbed into the bark of the tree. Beneath the coat, there was something carved—something round, about six inches in diameter. Roland trained his flashlight on the carving.

  It was the face of the moon. It was freshly cut.

  Roland began to shiver. And it had nothing to do with the frigid weather.

  “It is so delightfully cold,” a voice whispered, riding on the wind.

  A shadow moved in the near dark, then it was gone, dissolved into the insistent flurry. “Who’s there?” Roland asked.

  “I am Moon,” came the whisper, now behind him.

  “Who?” Roland’s voice sounded thin and scared. It shamed him.

  “And you are the Snow Man.”

  Roland heard the rush of footsteps. It was too late. He began to pray.

  In a blizzard of white, Roland Hannah’s world went black.

  83

  Jessica hugged the wall, her weapon held out in front of her. She was in a short hallway between the kitchen and living room of the farmhouse. Adrenaline raced through her system.

  She had cleared the kitchen in short order. The room had a single wooden table, two chairs. Stained floral wallpaper over white chair rails. The cabinets were empty. There was an old cast-iron stove, probably idle for years. A thick layer of dust covered everything. It was like being in a museum that time had forgotten.

  As she moved down the hall toward the front room, Jessica listened for any indication of another human presence. All she heard was the thud of her own pulse in her ears. She wished she had worn a Kevlar vest, wished she had backup. She had neither. Someone had deliberately trapped her in the basement. She had to assume that Nicci was hurt, or being held against her will.

  Jessica sidled up to the corner, silently counted to three, then peered into the front room.

  The ceiling was more than ten feet, and there was a large stone fireplace against the far wall. The floors were old plank. The walls, long given over to mold, had at one time been painted with a calcimine wash. There was a single medallion-back sofa in the center of the room, a sun-bleached green velvet, Victorian in style. Next to it sat a round tabouret table. On it was a leather book. This room was not dusty. This room was still being used.

  Drawing closer, she saw a slight depression at the right side of the sofa, the end near the table. Whoever came here sat at that end, perhaps reading the book. Jessica glanced up. There were no ceiling fixtures, either electrical or candled.

  Jessica scanned the corners of the space; sweat lacing her back despite the cold. She made her way over to the fireplace, put a hand to the stone. Cold. But in the grate were remnants of a partially burned newspaper. She fished out a corner, looked at it. It was dated three days earlier. Someone had been here recently.

  Off the living room was a small bedroom. She peeked inside. There was a double-bed frame with a mattress, sheets and blanket pulled taut. A small table for a nightstand; on it was an antique man’s comb and a delicate woman’s hairbrush. She looked beneath the bed, then edged over to the closet, took a deep breath, and threw open the door.

  Inside were two items. A man’s dark suit, and a long cream-colored dress, both looking to be from another time. They hung on red velvet hangers.

  Jessica holstered her weapon, stepped back into the living room, tried the front door. Locked. She could see scrapings along the keyhole, bright metal amid the rusted iron. A key was needed. She could also see why she had been unable to see through the windows from the outside. They were covered with old butcher paper. A closer look showed her that the windows were secured with dozens of rusted screws. They had not been opened in years.

  Jessica crossed the plank floor to the couch, her footsteps creaking in the wide-open space. She picked up the book on the end table. Her breath caught.

  The Stories of Hans Christian Andersen.

  Time slowed, stopped.

  It was all related. All of it.

  Annemarie and Charlotte. Walt Brigham. The river killings—Lisette Simon, Kristina Jakos, Tara Grendel. There was one person responsible for it all, and she was in his house.

  Jessica opened the book. Each story had an illustration, and each illustration
was rendered in the same style as the painting found on the victims’ bodies, the moon paintings of semen and blood.

  Throughout the book were news articles, bookmarking various stories. One of the articles was dated a year earlier, the story of two men found dead in a barn in Mohrsville, Pennsylvania. The police said they had been drowned, then tied into burlap bags. The illustration was of a man holding a large boy and a small boy in his outstretched hands.

  The next article was from eight months ago, the account of an elderly woman who had been strangled and found stuffed into an oak barrel on her property in Shoemakersville. The illustration was of a kindly woman holding cakes and pies and cookies. The words Aunt Millie were scrawled across the illustration in an innocent hand.

  The next pages were articles about missing people—men, women, children—each accompanied by a delicate drawing, each depicting the stories of Hans Christian Andersen. “Little Claus and Big Claus.” “Auntie Toothache.” “The Flying Trunk.” “The Snow Queen.”

  At the back of the book was a Daily News article about the murder of Detective Walter Brigham. Next to it was an illustration of a tin soldier.

  Jessica felt the nausea rise. She held a death book, an anthology of murder.

  Also inserted in the book’s pages was a faded color brochure that showed a pair of happy-looking children in a small, brightly colored boat. The pamphlet looked to be from the 1940s. In front of the children was a large display set into a hillside. It was a twenty-foot tall book. In the center of the display was a young woman dressed as the Little Mermaid. At the top of the page, in cheerful red letters, it read:

  Welcome to StoryBook River: A World of Enchantment!

  At the very end of the book, Jessica found a short news article. It was dated fourteen years earlier.

  ODENSE, Pennsylvania (AP)—After nearly six decades, a small theme park in southeast Pennsylvania will close for good when its summer season ends. The family that owns StoryBook River says it does not plan to redevelop the property. Proprietor Elise Damgaard says her husband Frederik, who immigrated to the United States from Denmark as a young man, opened StoryBook River as a park for children. The park itself was patterned after the Danish city of Odense, birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, whose stories and fables were the basis for many of the attractions.

  Beneath the article was the clipped headline from an obituary:

  ELISE M. DAMGAARD, RAN AMUSEMENT PARK.

  Jessica looked around for something with which she could break the windows. She picked up the end table. It had a marble top, some heft. Before she could cross the room she heard paper rustling. No. Something softer. She felt a breeze, making the cold air even colder for a second. Then she saw it: the small brown bird landed on the couch next to her. She had no doubt in her mind. It was a nightingale.

  “You are my Ice Maiden.”

  It was a man’s voice, a voice she knew, but could not immediately place. Before Jessica could turn and draw her weapon, the man yanked the table from her grasp. He swung it at her head, slamming it into her temple with a force that brought with it a universe of stars.

  The next thing Jessica knew she was on the living room’s wet, cold floor. She felt icy water against her face. It was melting snow. A man’s hiking boots stood inches from her face. She rolled onto her side, the light fading. Her attacker grabbed her by the feet and pulled her across the floor.

  Seconds later, before she fell unconscious, the man began to sing.

  “Here are maidens, young and fair …”

  84

  The snow was unremitting. At times Byrne and Vincent had to pull over to let a squall pass. What lights they saw—the occasional house, the occasional commercial enterprise—seemed to come and go in the fog of white.

  Vincent’s Cutlass was built for the open road, not the snow-covered country lane. At times they drove five miles an hour, wipers on high, headlights illuminating no more than ten feet ahead of them.

  They passed through small town after small town. At six o’clock they realized it might be hopeless. Vincent angled to the side of the road, pulled out his cell phone. He tried Jessica again. He got her voice mail.

  He glanced at Byrne, Byrne at him.

  “What do we do?” Vincent asked.

  Byrne pointed out the driver’s side window. Vincent turned, looked.

  The sign seemed to appear out of nowhere.

  DOUG’S DEN.

  THERE WERE ONLY two couples in the restaurant, along with a pair of middle-aged waitresses. The interior was standard home-style small-town décor—red and white checked tablecloths, vinyl-covered chairs, a ceiling spiderwebbed with white Christmas minilights. A fire burned in a stone fireplace. Vincent showed his ID to one of the waitresses.

  “We’re looking for two women,” Vincent said. “Police officers. They may have stopped here today.”

  The waitress looked at the two detectives with well-worn country skepticism.

  “Can I see that ID again?”

  Vincent took a deep breath, handed the wallet to her. She scrutinized it for what seemed like thirty seconds, handed it back.

  “Yes. They were here,” she said.

  Byrne noticed that Vincent had that look. The impatient look. The Double K Auto look. Byrne hoped Vincent wasn’t about to start body-slamming sixty-year-old waitresses.

  “About what time?” Byrne asked.

  “Maybe one o’clock or so. They spoke to the owner. Mr. Prentiss.”

  “Is Mr. Prentiss here now?”

  “No,” the waitress said. “I’m afraid he stepped out for a bit.”

  Vincent checked his watch. “Do you know where these two women went from here?” he asked.

  “Well, I know where they said they were heading,” she said. “There’s a small art-supply store at the end of this street. It’s closed now, though.”

  Byrne looked at Vincent. Vincent’s eyes said: No it isn’t.

  And then he was out the door, once again a blur.

  85

  Jessica was cold and damp. Her head felt as if it were full of broken glass. Her temple throbbed.

  At first it felt as if she might be in a boxing ring. She’d been knocked down a few times in sparring, and the first sensation had always been one of falling. Not to the canvas—through space. Then the pain.

  She was not in the ring. It was too cold.

  She opened her eyes, felt the ground around her. Wet earth, pine needles, leaves. She sat up, a little too quickly. The world spun out of balance. She lowered herself onto an elbow. After a minute or so, she looked around.

  She was in the forest. There was even an inch or so of snow that had accumulated upon her.

  How long have I been out here? How did I get here?

  She looked around. There were no footprints. The heavy snow had blanketed everything. Jessica gave herself a quick once over. Nothing broken, nothing seemed fractured.

  The temperature was dropping; the snow was falling harder.

  Jessica stood up, steadied herself against a tree, did a quick accounting.

  No cell phone. No weapon. No partner.

  Nicci.

  AT SIX-THIRTY IT stopped snowing. But it had gotten fully dark, and Jessica had no way of knowing direction. She was far from an outdoor expert to begin with, but what little she knew she could not use.

  The forest was dense. Every so often she clicked on her dying Maglite, hoping to gain some sort of bearing. She didn’t want to use up what little battery life she had. She didn’t know how long she would be out here.

  She lost her footing a few times on icy rocks hidden beneath the snow, repeatedly tumbling to the ground. She decided to walk from barren tree to barren tree, holding on to low branches. It made her progress slower, but she did not need to twist an ankle or worse.

  After something like thirty minutes, Jessica stopped. She thought she heard … a stream? Yes, it was the sound of water trickling. But where was it coming from? She determined that it was coming from over a
slight rise to her right. She slowly negotiated the incline, saw it. A narrow brook snaked its way through the woods. She was no expert on waterways, but the fact that it was moving meant something. Didn’t it?

  She would follow it. She didn’t know if it was leading her deeper into the forest, or closer to civilization. Either way, she was certain of one thing. She had to move. If she stayed in one place, dressed as she was, she would not survive the night. She flashed on the image of Kristina Jakos’s frozen skin.

  She pulled her coat close to her body, and followed the stream.

  86

  The gallery was called the Art Ark. There were no lights on in the store, but there was a light in the window on the second floor. Vincent pounded hard on the door. After a while a woman’s voice, coming from behind the drawn curtain on the door, said, “We’re closed.”

  “We’re the police,” Vincent said. “We need to talk to you.”

  The curtain pulled to the side a few inches. “You don’t work for Sheriff Toomey,” the woman said. “I’m going to call him.”

  “We’re with the Philadelphia PD, ma’am,” Byrne said, stepping between Vincent and the door. They were about a second or two away from Vincent knocking the door down, along with what sounded like an elderly woman behind it. Byrne held up his badge. A flashlight shone through the glass. A few seconds later, lights came on inside the store.

  “THEY WERE HERE this afternoon,” Nadine Palmer said. In her sixties, she wore a red terry cloth robe and Birkenstocks. She had offered them both coffee, which they declined. The TV was on in the corner of the store, another showing of It’s a Wonderful Life.

  “They had a picture of a farmhouse,” Nadine said. “Said they were looking for it. My nephew Ben took them up there.”