Nowhere to Hide

by Joan Hall Hovey

  Ignoring Carl Thompson’s attempt to clarify his wife’s statement while at the same time trying to calm her, Mike burst past Officer Gabe Levine and the Thompsons into the house, the small entourage at his heels.

  He stopped at the kitchen door, braced for whatever horror might confront him. After a moment, he turned to look at Myra. "Where?" His voice was hard.

  "I didn’t mean Ellen was here," she said, while valiantly trying to get herself under control. "But—look..."

  She was pointing to the bloody handprint on the door. "It’s not hers," he said, his voice softening a little. "It’s too large to be Ellen’s." He didn’t want to ponder what that might mean.

  He noted the two bags of groceries on the table, her kid gloves on the counter, the small pile of mail on the table, the untouched cup of tea. He stepped into the room, bent and picked up a Polaroid snapshot lying on the floor by the table leg. He already knew what its subject would be. It was the sort of thing those bastards did—part of the buzz.

  But it was himself he was really blaming. He should have told her sooner. He’d had his reasons, of course. Unfortunately, they weren’t working for him right now.

  He gazed down at the girl in the photo, felt sick at heart. No wonder she’d sounded so cool when she phoned him. He knew now it was hurt and anger he’d heard in her voice. She’d trusted him, and he’d betrayed her by not giving her the full truth.

  He prayed it hadn’t cost Ellen her life.

  Handing the photograph to Levine, who slipped it into a clear envelope and sealed it, Mike said to Carl and an equally ashen-faced Myra, "Did you two go anywhere else in the house?"

  "Only to answer your knock," Myra said in a high, tremulous voice. "We came in the back way. The door was open."

  "He must have left just minutes before we all got here," Gabe put in. "It’s a damn cold night out, and the kitchen’s still warm." With that, he headed into the living room, gun drawn, just in case he was wrong and the killer was still in the house.

  Mike glanced down at the manila envelope on the table, at Ellen’s name printed in the same red-inked block lettering as on the note she’d shown him. Noting the lack of a postmark, he took a last quick look around the kitchen, saw what he’d missed on first scan. Two bowls on the floor by the refrigerator, one filled with dog food, the other with water. A leash lay on top of the fridge, blue loop handle hanging down. Something else began to dawn on him then, something that made him silently curse his own stupidity. Motioning to the other officer to remain with the Thompsons, Mike headed into the hallway and up the stairs, his own gun drawn.

  Reaching the top of the stairs, he saw the small pool of blood by the bathroom door—followed its trail with his eyes to what he assumed was Ellen’s bedroom—the door was partly open. Horrible visions flooding his mind, he closed his eyes and gripped the banister.

  "You okay, Lieutenant?" Gabe whispered, coming up soundlessly beside him, touching his shoulder.

  Mike nodded, mentally shook himself. Get a grip on it, Oldfield! You’re a cop, dammit! Do your job! So far he’d been a royal screw-up. Slamming a door on his personal feelings, leaving Gabe to check out the rest of the upstairs, Mike went into the bedroom.

  He saw the contents of her bag spilled onto the bed, noticed the pack of cigarettes. He’d never seen her smoke. The gun was gone. No surprise. There was another bloody handprint on the bedspread on the side of the bed closest to the dresser. The blood-spattered blow dryer was on the floor.

  The trail of blood leading from the puddle in the hallway disappeared under the bed. Mike got down on his hands and knees and peered into the dark, narrow space. Glazed eyes flickered open to look pitifully out at him.

  "Sam?" he said softly.

  The dog lay unmoving, but managed a faint whimper in response.

  By lying flat on the floor on his stomach and inching forward, Mike was able to reach in far enough to get his hands behind the dog and ease him out from under the bed. He could feel the small body growing cooler as the life ebbed from it. The dog’s fur was matted with blood; he was trembling, starting to convulse.

  "He’s in shock," Mike said to Levine, who’d just returned from checking out the closet. Both men had put their guns away. "He’s lost a lot of blood. We’ve got to get him some help."

  "A little late," Gabe said, staring down at the limp form, wondering why in hell the lieutenant was worried about a damned mutt. Clearly the dog was history. "He’s dying," he said. "He knows it, too. It’s why he dragged himself under the bed."

  "Have someone rush him to a vet, anyway," Mike said sharply, getting to his feet and looking around for something warm to wrap the dog in. "And get on the phone and have them set up roadblocks. Tell them to get some back-up out here."

  Levine wasted no time executing Mike’s orders. "No way of knowing, Captain," he said into the mouthpiece. "The back door was open. He could have chased her out into the woods; maybe she’s out there now, hiding, hurt. Or he could have taken her with him. We don’t know at this point." It was at that moment that Gabe remembered the van he and Olsen had passed on their way out here.

  He would have staked his career on it that Ellen Harris was in the back of that van.

  Thirty-seven

  10:12 p.m.

  Downstairs, while rookie police officer Doug Olsen took off for town with Sam, who had slipped into unconsciousness and might even be dead, Mike further questioned Carl and Myra Thompson. He wasn’t getting anywhere. Myra was too upset to be of much help, and he wasn’t even sure what questions to ask.

  As he slipped the envelope the photograph had come in into a larger one, it occurred to Mike that the FBI would have to be brought in. That they had a serial killer on the loose was no longer in question, if it ever was. Except now they had a clear DNA match from semen taken from three of the victims, which also matched up with blood and skin found under Gail Morgan’s fingernails. He’d gotten the call as he was leaving the house.

  "Maybe you should take your wife home, now," he said quietly to Carl Thompson, who was trying unsuccessfully to comfort his wife, while looking none too stable himself. "There’s nothing more you can do right now. I’ll come by when we’re finished up here." To Myra, he said, "We’ll find her. I promise you. I know it’s hard but try not to worry." His words sounded hollow in his own ears.

  Nodding gratefully, Carl led the sobbing woman away from the scene that spoke louder than any words ever could of the horror that had befallen their friend.

  They had just pulled away when half a dozen squad cars came screaming up to the front of the house, lights whirling, casting the entire area in hellish light.

  Within minutes, flashlights were darting like giant fireflies through the woods. Men shouting to one another—joining Mike’s own anxious voice in calling out Ellen’s name.

  Forty-five minutes later far more subdued and silent men came traipsing back across the field. Though they had found the spot where they figured the van had been parked, evidenced by broken branches, flattened brush, a fresh tire track in a patch of snow the rain hadn’t washed away, they had not found Ellen.

  The fragile thread of hope Mike had clung to was broken. She had not escaped her attacker.

  The train of squad cars long gone, Mike and Gabe were rechecking the house, taking notes, bagging evidence. "Why do you think he took her?" Gabe said, returning from upstairs and coming into the kitchen. "Why didn’t he just rape and strangle her like he did the others?"

  "Because he’s got something special in mind for her," Mike said quietly, looking around almost numbly for that important piece of evidence he’d missed—something that would tell him where he took her. "She publicly challenged him." He sagged into a kitchen chair. "He’ll make her pay for that."

  Gabe cleared his throat. "Well, at least we know she’s not dead. There would be no reason to—" The phone rang. Gabe snapped up the receiver. "Yeah, this is Levine." He listened.

  Mike knew by his expression it was not good news. He wa
s right. No van with an abducted woman inside was found. They were in the process of taking down the roadblocks.

  Mike glanced at his watch. 12:10 a.m.

  After a moment’s pause, Levine said wearily, "We were too late. He had too good a head start."

  Mike thought: they were too late getting an unmarked vehicle out here; I was too late getting out here.

  "There were a few specks of mud on the bottom of the tub, Lieutenant. He was probably standing behind the shower curtain when she came into the bathroom. And I plucked out a cigarette butt floating in the toilet," Levine added, as if this would surely cheer Mike up. "Not her brand."

  "Pall Mall, right?" Mike said dully.

  Levine shrugged, gave him a funny look. "That’d be my bet. He came in through the bedroom window—climbed the tree. There’s a fresh gouge in the wood where he shoved something under the frame to break the lock."

  Mike laughed.

  Levine looked startled.

  "Sorry, Gabe. You did a great job. We’ve got more solid clues here than you’d need to get through three mystery weekends. And we’ve got nothing."

  Gabe took a step toward him, hawk-eyes studying him from beneath bushy eyebrows. "Hey, Lieutenant, if you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t look too good. You can tell me to mind my own business, but this wouldn’t by any chance be something more than just a case for you, would it?"

  Mike nodded. "Yes, Gabe," he said, his voice carrying all the weight he was feeling. "I guess you could say that. She set herself up as bait to draw him out," he went on quietly, staring down at his hands. "We should have given her better protection. If she’d been a cop, we would have stuck to her like Velcro."

  "Jeez, I’m real sorry, Lieutenant. You know, you’re right about that. But we’ll find her. We will," he said, repeating Mike’s own promise to Myra. A promise that sounded just as hollow as when Mike had made it.

  Both men fell into an uneasy silence.

  Thirty-eight

  "Do either of you recall seeing a strange van in the area, lately?" Mike asked. He was sitting at the Thompson’s kitchen table, sipping tea Carl had made. Myra sat across from him beside Carl, clutching her cup with both hands. She had calmed down considerably. Now she just looked numb.

  "No," she said in a small voice. "Carl drives a company van when he’s working, but other than that... why, do you think he took her away in a van?"

  "We’re pretty certain of it. This is a dead end road, and one of our officers remembered passing a van headed into town on their way out there—passed it right where the main road begins."

  "And he didn’t get a license number?" Carl asked incredulously.

  "Unfortunately, no. There was no reason to. We weren’t on the lookout for a van, then. We didn’t know Ellen had been taken." He turned his attention to Myra.

  "What about the note, Mrs. Thompson? Was there anything about the note that rang any bells for you—the printing, the choice of words?" He was grasping at straws, but he never knew when something would click—something that could break a case wide open. Glancing at the colorful drawings pinned with magnetic daisies to the front of the fridge door, Mike found himself wondering what sort of pictures a child who would grow up to be a psychopathic killer would draw.

  "What note?" He turned to see Myra looking blankly at him.

  "The one that maniac slipped under her windshield wiper."

  "Ellen didn’t tell me about any note. Oh, my God..." She lowered her head into her hands. Carl smoothed her hair, his face anxious.

  It seemed odd to Mike that Ellen hadn’t confided something like that to her friend. Wouldn’t it be natural to expect—?

  "My wife hasn’t been feeling too well, lately," Carl said, picking up on Mike’s thoughts. "Ellen probably didn’t tell her about the note because she didn’t want to upset her further."

  "Oh, Carl," Myra said, looking up at him almost sympathetically. "That might be part of the reason, but the truth is, though Ellen was a wonderful friend to me, she never really let me in. Well—maybe she was starting to. It was like she couldn’t trust the whole way. Other than Ed, the only other person she was really close to was her sister, Gail."

  Ed was her late husband. He had bought her the gun, Mike thought, taught her how to use it. It was gone from her bag. Somehow, Mike didn’t think it was in Ellen’s possession. What Myra said fit in with the little he really knew about Ellen. He wanted more than anything the chance to know her better. And he would. He damned well would! He held to the belief, which was really a prayer.

  "I’m not going to keep you folks much longer," he said. "I know how hard this is—how exhausted you both are. Just a couple of more questions."

  "Ask as many as you need to," Myra said, "if it will help you to find her."

  "Thanks." Mike smiled wearily. "Right now we’re going at this from several angles. Trying to trace the van is one. We’re following up on every phone lead. We’re also attempting to establish a link between the victims, and, subsequently, their killer. Clearly, time is not on our side." Repressing a sigh, Mike glanced down at his notes. "I don’t suppose either of you were acquainted with Cindy Miller?"

  Carl looked surprised at the question. He glanced at Myra. To Mike he said, "No, I did meet her, though. I told Myra about it. I was installing a couple of phones in Anderson’s Insurance over at the McLeod Building. She showed me where they wanted them, and then she seemed anxious to get back to the guy who was in there selling paintings. If I’m not mistaken, I think she bought one."

  Mike stroked his jaw, for a moment saying nothing, just staring off into space. "No," he said finally. "You’re not mistaken. She bought the painting for her mother’s birthday. Mrs. Miller never got it. In fact, no one’s seen it since the night Cindy went missing. You didn’t happen to notice a scratch on this guy’s face?"

  "Sure. You couldn’t miss it. It was real nasty—looked infected. Said a cat scratched him."

  Maybe not a cat, Mike thought, maybe not a cat at all. "Did you happen to see the police composite on TV? Or in the paper, Mr. Thompson?"

  "It’s Carl, Lieutenant. Sure I saw it. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the same guy, though. Why? Did anyone at Anderson’s Insurance think it was?"

  "No. No, they didn’t, actually." Odd, Mike thought. Very odd. His brow furrowed in concentration as a new path began to present itself to him. Vaguely at first, then with definite clarity. He would see where it led. "I don’t suppose," he said, looking from one to the other, "you hung onto that particular newspaper?"

  A few minutes later, Myra was moving cups and teapot to one side and spreading the paper out on the kitchen table. All three stared down at the artist’s sketch of the man A.J. Booker had identified as the one who was in the Shelton Room just a couple of hours before Ellen’s sister was murdered.

  Mike was watching Carl intently.

  "Doesn’t look anymore like him than it did the first time I saw it," Carl said flatly.

  "Take your time, Carl. Look closer." Mike’s voice was quiet, weighted with urgency, hope. "What if he didn’t have the dark glasses on? And what if he had shorter hair, thinning?" Mike asked, recalling Gabe’s written description. "Not curly."

  Thirty-nine

  3:05 a.m.

  "C’mon to bed, honey," Carl said, laying a hand on Myra’s shoulder. "Try to get a little rest. They’ll call if they can find out anything."

  "I can’t. You go ahead if you want to. I’ll just sit here on the sofa—I’ll lie down if I get sleepy." She knew she wouldn’t. She couldn’t close her eyes without seeing that bloody handprint sliding down the cupboard door, without imagining...

  Even now she could hear Ellen’s voice on the phone telling her about the skin and blood they found under Gail’s fingernails. And now the same monster that murdered Gail had Ellen. Oh, please, God, help her! Maybe it was too late. Maybe she was already dead.

  Her thoughts raced.

  Why didn’t she ever see Jeannie Perry again? Why had she not once th
ought of her in all this time until she spelled out her name on the Scrabble board? It didn’t make any sense. She offered to be her friend. God knows, she could have used one back then. She was so pretty. She got her to stop crying. She was grateful to her. She clearly remembered feeling grateful. And why in hell was she mixing up thoughts of Ellen with Jeannie Perry, as though they were somehow connected?

  What could they possibly have to do with one another?

  A "Suffer the Little Children" picture slid up on the screen of her mind. A lamb in the picture. Silence of the Lambs was playing at the paramount. She and Ellen feeding the pigeons, laughing. A brown van circling the square. A man looking out at them.

  Did I really see that? Or did Lieutenant Oldfield plant the suggestion in my head. What did it all mean? Nothing, Myra. Absolutely nothing. Except that maybe you’re finally losing what’s left of your little mind.

  She stared at the mute phone.

  Please, please be alive, Ellen.

  Forty

  I’m in the hospital, she thought. I got hit by a car. My schoolbooks flew everywhere. She had to tell someone to get them for her. Someone said they tried to get her mother to ride in the ambulance, but they couldn’t wake her up because she was too drunk, and no one could find Daddy.

  "Do you know your name, dear?" the woman said. "No, don’t move, honey. Just lie still."

  "I’m Ellen Sarah Morgan," she heard herself say. "And I’m eight years old. I didn’t cross against the light, honest."

  "It’s not your fault, Ellen. Now don’t try to talk anymore."

  Why was it so cold? Why didn’t Mommy come? I hurt, Mommy. I hurt so bad.

  And then the hurt faded as the darkness slipped over her again.

  Forty-one

  3:20 a.m.