by Hayton, Lee
“Four weeks before the Birdman’s penultimate attack, Miranda received a feather bracelet in the mail and brought that into the station. She restated that the attack had happened and that she feared for her life. The bracelet she provided at that time contained fiber samples that matched to nine of the other victims. There were also hairs caught in the elastic that matched to a convicted sexual offender. When Abby Rushton was attacked, the same hairs were found on her clothing.”
Victoria scanned the room again and shifted her weight to her right hip. Her left was throbbing, an old injury. The next sentence she would speak was the one where she and the official investigation parted company. She’d never questioned that her path had been the right one. Never, until today.
“Malcolm Carter was brought in for questioning and was unable to account for his whereabouts on each of the night’s that an attack had taken place.”
It sounded damning until you remembered the attacks had taken place over the course of a decade. No one who was brought in would’ve been able to remember what they’d been doing on any of those thirteen nights. The last murder, maybe. But even the events of a week ago tended to fade into a confused haze when your life was just ticking over, day after day. Unremarkable.
“Further investigation also revealed that Miranda Walsham had been making regular phone calls to the local Samaritan helpline. Recordings of these phone calls revealed that she had been telling them stories about what was happening in her life. She was relating details of events that didn’t happen to her, including experiments with drug-taking, drinking, late-night parties, and an unplanned pregnancy that didn’t exist. The person taking the calls told her his name was David. It was later confirmed that the man she’d been speaking to was Gregory Mancini. The Birdman.”
Victoria raised her eyebrows at Haggerty, and he nodded and came forward.
“It appears now that we may be dealing with a copycat. Although we’re still awaiting the final conclusions from the autopsy, preliminary results would indicate that Miranda Walsham was killed in the same manner as the previous Birdman victims. She was strangled by hand, and a feather bracelet was placed around her wrist. Her body was covered with a blanket and propped in the doorway of a disused shop, where it was not reported for approximately three days.”
He paused and cleared his throat. Victoria tried to fade into the line of officers standing in front of him, but she could feel some of the eyes of the detectives still on her. An item of curiosity, if nothing else. Somebody whose one crowning glory of their career was now in serious doubt.
“Now, much of this staging was extensively reported in the media at the time. Even the bracelet left around the victim’s wrists was brought into the open following the Star Harris murder. Given that so many details are in the public arena, it’ll be hard to narrow down the focus of this investigation. One obvious starting point is with Malcolm Carter, but I don’t want him brought into the station if it’s at all possible to avoid. Stanton, Arbeck. I’d like you to go out and interview him at his home.”
Victoria stared down at the floor. The tips of her sneakers were blackened from her habit of banging the tip against the pavement whenever she was standing, waiting. The heat of the California sun always kept the bitumen fluid and the repetition of the action forced the color deep into the white rubber.
“Collins.”
Victoria started and looked at the Captain. She’d lost track.
“I’d like you to go along with them, Collins. Since you weren’t in on the original interview, it will give us a fresh pair of eyes.”
She nodded, trying to ignore the first dig of irritation. That irritation had been what got her in trouble last time.
“We’ll also need to re-examine the original victims to look for another common point of interest. Since Ms. Walsham made her allegations, she made herself a target, so we’ll need to comb back through the witness statements for all of the cases to ensure there isn’t another target on file. If there’s anybody that looks like they might be in danger, report it to me, and we’ll assign patrol crews to them for the next couple of nights.”
He doled out the ran through the rest of the assignments, then they broke up to pursue their separate agendas. Victoria trailed along behind Stanton and Arbeck, feeling as out of sorts with them as they must be with her. She’d always hated when a third wheel tagged along behind her and her partner during their workday. It felt somewhere between being babysat and babysitting.
“I’ll take the lead,” Stanton announced as he jumped into the driver’s seat. Victoria smiled and nodded and wondered what would happen if the day came that Arbeck wanted to drive or wanted to lead an interrogation. A complete dissolution of their working relationship, probably.
“Did you get the chance to check out the helpline center?” she asked. The tip-off she’d given the day before.
“Not yet, but I logged the suggestion. I’m sure Haggerty will follow up on it.”
Victoria wasn’t, but it also wasn’t her place to say anything. She couldn’t order about a superior officer.
The car carried them further and further down the social scale until they neared their target’s house. Malcolm Carter lived out on Gray Street. His pale green weatherboard home looking out on an abandoned vista of raked sand and gravel. Behind that was a corrugated iron fence vulnerable to being tagged with the signatures of a dozen different crews.
Not a great residence but it was hard to find any place in town that was the correct distance from a local school or park. The taggings spoke for the number of kids who were still around the area. However, given the crowds they ran with those youngsters were probably more than capable of looking out for themselves.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” Arbeck said as they walked up the drive. The property had a chain-link gate padlocked across the driveway. Something they could all easily jump, but it meant leaving the car out on the street.
“Eh?” Stanton said, not even turning to look. He had his eyes peeled, looking at the road, the property, over the boundary fence to the empty neighboring house.
“Well, Miranda stuck out like a sore thumb the first time around because she wasn’t like any of the other victims. Seems like in the years since she found the same track they were all going down.”
If her old partner Hank had said anything like that, Victoria would’ve given him an earful of vitriol. With Arbeck, she settled for an aggressive glare at the back of him. Unsatisfying in the extreme.
“It’s almost like she knew that eventually, she’d head down that path and—”
“Shut up, Arbeck,” Stanton growled, “and keep an eye on the car.”
He stepped to the side of the door and put his hands up to either side of his face as he peered through the side window. There were net curtains, but when Victoria followed suit on the other side, she could just make out the shadowed hallway. Inside, nothing moved.
Stanton pressed the bell and stood back. He’d flicked the button on the top of his holster off but left his arms hanging at his sides. It was a casual interview, after all.
There were footsteps inside, then a long pause. Victoria bent forward to look through the glass again, crouching low this time so she wouldn’t be in the line of sight for anybody inside.
A man stood in the hallway, facing the door. She gestured to Stanton, come on, and he rang the doorbell again. The man continued to stand in place. When Stanton rang for the third time, pressing his finger down on the buzzer and not letting up, the man raised his hands to his ears and backed up a step, then another.
“Try the door,” Victoria whispered. “Is it open?”
She angled her body away so she wouldn’t be in view while keeping her face close to the glass. The door squeaked against the frame, paint scraped down to the wood where the weight of the door was angled wrong, then opened, pouring light into the hallway.
“No, no, no, no, no,” the man said, his voice growing more aggressive with each word. “No. No. No!”
“Hey man, we’re just here to ask a few questions. Nothing heavy,” Stanton said, his arms out in front, palms up in a gesture of placation. “We just need to know where you were a few nights ago, then we’ll be on our way.”
“No.” The man withdrew another step. One more and he’d be flat against the far wall.
“Look, our Captain told us not to even bother bringing you in. That’s how little we think you’re involved in anything,” Stanton said.
He’d stopped moving forward now and continued to hold his arms up. “All we need to know is where you were last Thursday and Friday nights. Nothing heavy. Tell us, and we’ll be on our way.”
“I didn’t do anything,” the man cried out in despair. He dropped his hands down from his ears and leaned back against the wall, his knees sagging. “I don’t even leave the house anymore but to get the paper from the driveway. It wasn’t me.”
Arbeck pulled at Victoria’s shoulder, and she stood up, turned. There were a couple of kids approaching the car, walking slowly, scoping out the street. She nodded, and he ran smoothly down the driveway. Jumping the gate and sending the kids scattering in fright across the road.
If Stanton had heard his partner, he didn’t show it. He stood in the same position. Victoria could smell the stale air of the house wafting past him, lending weight to the man’s statement. He was dressed in a worn terry-cloth robe with stray fibers hanging past the knee-length hem. He had a pair of gray sweatpants and a wife-beater top that may once have been cream. A man dressed as though he’d given up on the world, or the world have given up on him.
“If you were here, that’s cool. That’s all we need to know,” Stanton said, advancing a few steps. “Is there anyone who can corroborate that for us, big guy? A neighbor? A delivery man?”
The man shook his head at each suggestion. His knees sagged further, and his back slid an inch down the wall. “There’s nobody,” he whispered. “I have nobody.”
Stanton was now just a yard away. “Are you sure about that? You must get your food from somewhere. Maybe a pizza boy came by?”
There was a bellow of anger, then the man grabbed hold of Stanton and twisted his arm behind his back. He marched him out of the hallway into a side room.
Victoria felt for her weapon, but there was nothing there. She’d been brought back as a consultant—no weapon, no shield. She shouted for Arbeck and ran down the hallway, squeezing her back flush against the wall as she came to the doorway the man had disappeared through.
She closed her eyes for a second, listening. She could hear Arbeck running back toward the house. She could hear the heavy pant coming from the man inside. She could hear the whistle of Stanton’s breath as he started to wheeze. A door being kicked open.
“Here,” the man shouted and Victoria ducked her head around the corner, checked the room was clear, and trotted across to the back door, keeping below the line of windows in the kitchen. “Here’s your proof.”
His voice cracked on the last word and dissolved into fearful sobbing. Victoria stuck her head around the corner of the back door and saw Stanton on his knees in the dirt, gasping for breath. Saw the man, his chest heaving with sobs, his face covered with his grimy hands.
She moved to Stanton’s side and helped him to his feet, then turned. The pale green weather-boards on this side of the house were colored with crimson paint. PEDOPHILE. Each letter a foot high. Arbeck ran around the side of the house, then skidded to a stop.
“You find the kids who decided to paint my house up on Thursday night. Then you’ll find your corroborating statement.” Malcolm furiously shouted the last two angry words in Stanton’s reddening face.
As the three of them walked back down the driveway, Arbeck looked back over his shoulder. He ensured Malcolm Carter was out of earshot before asking, confused, “Did he have an alibi for Friday night, though?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I was going to a party.
Victoria sat straight up in bed, a frightened hand pressed to her chest. Her heart raced, the beat so quick her lungs couldn’t keep up. Each breath craved more oxygen, a physical pull. Around her swirled an array of colors she’d never seen before. Hyper-illuminated.
It’s just a dream. Just the same damn terrifying dream.
The nightmares had started during the years she hunted the Birdman. Victoria once thought they’d stop when she finally caught him. To her dismay, she’d been wrong. The faces may have changed, but the accusing guilt stayed the same. Pulling like a bloodied thread through the whole narrative.
Your fault. You let me die.
A familiar ache stretched its tentacles along Victoria’s temples. It was too early to hit the aspirin. She’d need her full allocation for later in the day. As her heart slowed into a steady beat, her lungs ceased their desperate pull for air.
She rubbed her hands over her face, wiping the dream away. This was the reason she’d moved out of state, tried to start anew. It hadn’t worked. It had been years since an alarm startled her awake in the morning.
Victoria swung her legs over the edge of the bed and put her feet on the cool floor. Resting them there, not standing. Not quite ready to commit to the day just yet.
What is the time?
She leaned over to turn the clock radio around so it’s number glowed red in her face. Turning the face to the wall was an old insomniac trick she’d learned. If she kept a clock where she could see it, she kept herself awake at night checking the time.
Now, instead of sleeping, she’d lie awake wondering what the time was.
Two twenty-seven. In the morning. Even with the familiar pull of exhaustion, Victoria knew there’d be no more sleep for her tonight.
Back on the depressing hamster wheel.
Victoria padded through into the kitchen. A glass of water in hand, she stood at the kitchen sink and stared out the window.
So many streetlights and building signs were layered around, there were few stars to see in the night sky. The strong constellations: Orion’s Belt, Canis Major, Canis Minor. Venus if the timing was right. The multitude of stars Victoria had memorized as a child, hid their inferior glow in the fog of light pollution.
She closed her eyes and thought of the day in front of her—the day behind her. After visiting Malcolm Carter, Haggerty placed her on file duty. Reading through the old case files. An attempt to identify any other witnesses who might be in critical danger.
The task had made sleep seem like an inevitability. At her desk, Victoria had nodded off half a dozen times. The drowsiness persisted up until the moment she got into bed.
Victoria shook her head to clear it and refilled her glass. Taking a sip, she closed her eyes and tried to think of something else. Star Harris’s blood spilled in crimson gushes while Victoria tried to stem the bleeding.
She flicked her eyes open again.
Victoria tipped the last of her water down the sink. The pipes creaked a thank you, bending and expanding. She should get them checked out soon, along with the hot water heater. The water on this side of town tended to be heavy. The awful white stains caking her shower walls were a testimony to the lime content.
She turned the radio on. Keeping the volume low in the stillness of the night. Arnaud must have tuned it, smooth jazz flowed from the speakers. Victoria fiddled impatiently with the station knob. Jazz was what you listened to when you didn’t want to listen to music.
The next station was talk-back, another had advertisements, another hip-hop. Victoria spun the dial as far as it would go, then worked her way back. In her new-old car, she just pressed a button, and the radio would jump to the next station. All radios should be equipped like that.
The dial skipped past a station, an eager burble of static announcing something was broadcasting. Victoria turned it back—slowly, slowly. Just as the sounds coalesced into sense, she spun it too far. Into a frightful blare of white noise.
She put her ear closer to the speaker, not wanting to turn up the volume in the sleeping house. Th
e station no longer mattered, just the opportunity to prove that she could tune it in if she wanted to. She had the skills.
There were the soft vocal tones of a young woman’s voice. Victoria turned the dial minutely. The street lamp shining outside the kitchen window increased in brightness, making her blink against the glare.
“I was going to a party.”
A chill ran down Victoria’s spine as the words poured out of the speaker. She dropped the radio as though it were transformed into a snake. It struck the bench and slid, turning and falling into the sink. Face down.
The tinny speakers burst into static, then the voice again. Clear. Angry. Disapproving. “I was going to a party.”
The street light outside the window glowed bright, brighter, then burst. A cloud of plastic shards spinning into the pitch-black night.
“I don’t know what happened. I don’t know where I am.”
The radio shorted out with a high-pitched squeal. A spark fired out the back. The battery compartment began to smolder.
Victoria jerked the taps on and ran water over the unit until the smoke dissipated. While her stomach coiled into a knot of anxiety, she used a fork to hook the handle and dump the radio in the trash.
After a moment’s thought, she pulled the bag from the kitchen bin and walked it out the back of the house. As she tossed it in the dumpster, beside the garage, the despairing voice was already starting to fade in her memory, become shaky.
Victoria needed to get a good night’s sleep. She was hallucinating.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Coby Thorpe tottered on her heels and fell against the rough bricks of the shop window she was passing. Stupid shoes. She’d happily handed over most her wages to pick them up earlier today. Back when she thought the thin straps and tiny buckles would somehow bring her relationship with Dylan back on course. And what had her extravagance gained her? Nothing.