by P. J. Vernon
“That’s incorrect, Joanna. We have heard from someone. We’ve heard from Annie.”
Joanna rolled her eyes. “Barely. The woman leaves nonsensical voicemails and doesn’t show up to meetings she’s arranged. That hardly qualifies as a ransom demand.”
Did she know about the photographs on Gray’s phone? Perhaps Gray had hidden them from her out of shame.
I kept my voice steady. “To the contrary, we believe those instances were botched attempts at delivering a ransom demand. As I said, we only believe Annie to be an accomplice, not the actual kidnapper.”
She cocked her head to one side, eyes narrowed. “Then who the hell’s the kidnapper? And how have you learned all this?”
“We’ve been coordinating with Security Solutions, the private security firm,” I answered. “They’ve been working the case in Washington. The abduction occurred in Elizabeth, but we believe it was planned in D.C.”
This appeared to take Joanna by surprise. “I know who Security Solutions is, but why haven’t I heard any of this? Don’t they work for me?”
“Technically, they don’t work for you,” I said. “They work for Paul’s firm, Cooper and Waters.”
“Well, what have they learned?” Joanna sounded desperate now. Starving for information. So hungry for it, she’d agree to wiretapping for no other reason than to satisfy her own morbid curiosity.
“Paul’s fallen into debt with some very bad people.” I tossed carefully selected bank statements from the Navy Union account across the table. I wanted Joanna to see a lot of red numbers. “We believe the kidnapping is an attempt to extort funds from the family. To get their money back. I know it’s a simple answer, but simple is usually correct.”
She thumbed through the statements, clearly fighting to maintain her composure.
My heart beat faster. “As such, we need to monitor all communications at the house. When Annie calls again, we need to be ready to trace the call.”
Joanna knotted her brow. “Monitor all communications? Like our telephones?”
“Telephones, internet, all of it.”
For a brief moment, the woman sat speechless, fidgeting with the knot of pearls suspended from her neck. “This still doesn’t make any sense. Paul’s been gone for days now without any word. Where would they be keeping him? Do you think he’s been harmed?”
I shook my head. “I can’t say for certain, but I do know the longer these things go on, the slimmer the chances become of recovering the victim. That’s why it’s critical to get the monitors in place now.”
She reached into her purse and retrieved a pack of cigarettes. She made eye contact in lieu of asking permission to smoke inside a police station. She’d never ask me for permission to do anything. I nodded, and her silver lighter sparked a tiny flame at its tip.
Finishing a long drag, she spoke up. “I don’t know how Gray is gonna react to all this. She’s very fragile right now.”
“She can’t know,” I replied before emphasizing, “and neither can Charlotte.”
“Why on Earth not?” She ashed into a cup of coffee she’d brought with her. A wispy blossom of cigarette smoke lingered between us.
The true answer to Joanna’s question was two-fold. Most importantly, Charlotte needed to remain in the dark or the recordings would be useless. She’d already proven to possess impressive acting skills. But also, leaving Joanna with a sense of control—by being the only one at Piper Point with knowledge of the tapped lines—was the key to getting her consent.
“We need Gray and her sister to act naturally if and when the ransom demand comes through. The kidnappers must not suspect they’re being recorded or that we can trace their location.”
Joanna’s cigarette hissed as she dropped it into her coffee cup. “Isn’t it illegal to record people without their knowledge?”
“We only need one party’s consent,” I answered, “and the phones, the internet service—it’s all in your name, anyways. Your house. Your name.”
Recrossing her legs, she appeared to think for a moment. “If Paul’s been kidnapped, it stands to reason Annie will make contact again. She’s obviously not a professional. Perhaps monitoring communications will be the best way to catch her and whoever she works for.” She slipped a second cigarette out from her pack. “Paul has plenty of political enemies, and then of course, there’s the family money. Like you said.”
I breathed a heavy sigh and produced the consent forms from my folder. “I’ve marked each place needing a signature.”
“Seems like an awful lot,” she complained as she flipped through the papers. She hesitated and glanced up. Her next question caught me completely off-guard, a jarring reminder that when it came to Joanna King, I’d never be the only one playing games.
“These monitors, will I be able to use them? Even after the investigation?”
32
Annie
The marshes smell like soggy, salty mud. Like shit. I can’t see them on account of it being nearly midnight, but the lapping water sloshes like the words of a drunk. Like Gray when she speaks.
I make my way across the crabgrass, passing through swirling clouds of buzzing gnats. Dew gathers on the ground, and tiny droplets tickle the in-betweens of my toes. A singing cricket grows quieter and quieter as I creep closer to its hidden nook. Then silence.
I turn back towards the house—a sprawling, darkened shadow but for the light in Gray’s room. I was raised not to play with my food, not to toy with it, but I can’t help myself. Besides, I’m not playing. Not at all.
An expected rustling in the courtyard. Training my eyes on the hedges, blackened by the night, I find the movement’s source. A black and white cat deftly moving my way.
I stand perfectly still, let her steal her way close to me. Feline caution gives her pause, but I came prepared. Reaching into my pocket, I grab a handful of dried kibble and scatter it onto the cold bricks before my naked feet.
The aging cat hesitates—a scrupulous old girl—then sniffs and starts to nibble. I stretch my fingers and stroke her back. People aren’t so different from animals. They can be distracted. They can be manipulated.
“That’s a good girl,” I whisper. I run my hand up Hattie’s spine to the nape of her fragile neck.
I reach into my other pocket. The pocket holding my paring knife.
“You wouldn’t let me get so close to you back then, would you, old girl? You could sense something was wrong. Not so smart anymore, are you, Hattie the Cattie?”
I tighten my grip and brace for the struggle.
33
Gray
I sat at the kitchen table with Charlotte and Mamma. Three cups of morning coffee and three unfinished pieces of toast between us. I guess they’d lost their appetites, too.
“AA’s going to be a new start for you,” Charlotte said. “When’s your first meeting?”
“Noon tomorrow,” I answered, tightening the strap on my shoulder sling. A dull pain radiated down my arm.
As great as it sounded, a new start seemed impossible. AA might show me the right direction, but did I have the strength? Just don’t drink, I’d repeated to myself. Drinking is an active behavior: I’ve got to find one and pour one and bring it to my lips. Just don’t do any of those things. But in the wake of Paul’s affair, what the hell else was I supposed to do? In his selfishness, he’d disappeared before I found out so there’d be no way to parse the differences between cheating and vanishing and Annie. All while I was supposed to remain fucking sober? He’s gaslighting me from god-knows-where.
Charlotte scattered my thoughts. “Do you think you’ll stay here for a while longer, then? Maybe I could help you find groups in D.C.—”
“I can’t go home anytime soon.” I shook my head. If I was left alone at our house, I’d drink myself dead. Horrible as it seemed, staying at Piper Point was safer for me. “Besides, Nina wouldn’t let me even if I wanted. Not with everything happening.”
“Speaking of, the police are coming
over for a bit today,” Mamma announced, bringing her porcelain mug to her lips. “Detective Palmer, too.”
“Why are they coming?” Charlotte asked, wide-eyed.
Mamma returned her cup to the table. “They’ve got more questions for the family.”
Charlotte pressed, “What sort of questions? Have they learned anything new?”
“To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure,” Mamma answered. “I only know they have questions. It’s normal.” Her eyes met mine. “All things considered.”
Charlotte might be surprised by the visit, and Mamma disinterested, but I knew exactly what questions Nina wanted answered. “The pictures from my phone,” I said aloud.
“What pictures?” Now Mamma seemed surprised by me.
“Gray, don’t.” Charlotte grabbed my hand on the table.
I’d shown them to Nina and Charlotte, but not Mamma. They were too mortifying. When Paul returned—if Paul returned—I’d wanted to maintain his dignity. Especially in Mamma’s eyes. But there was no sense keeping them secret now. She’d learn about them as soon as the police arrived, anyways. Besides, what did I care about Paul’s dignity? He hadn’t given two shits about mine when he let Annie do … those things to him. While he’d mocked me and made fun of me and told Annie all about how Mamma called me Hummingbird.
Picture after picture reappeared in my mind. Here I sat, struggling with a decision that only had one answer: If Paul ever turned up, I’d divorce him. I was done making excuses for him.
Mamma creased her brow, eyes dancing between the two of us. “What pictures? Do you know what she’s on about, Charlotte?”
I spoke matter-of-factly. “Annie sent me pictures. Graphic pictures of Paul. They’d been sleeping together like we suspected, and she wanted me to see them.”
Mamma’s eyes grew wide as her mouth dropped open. Cora slid by the table, garbage bag in tow, and out back through the conservatory.
Mamma lowered her voice. “Like nude photographs or something?”
Before I could answer Mamma, a sharp scream shot through the house like a pistol. It came from outside.
34
Nina
By the time I parked in front of Piper Point, two other squad cars had already arrived, lights strobing blue and red across the home’s white pillared front. A mansion that looked to be moving in slow motion. The effect was unsettling.
My plan had been to visit the King home today anyways. I’d intended to gather Charlotte and Gray in the salon for questioning while Sammie accompanied our technician—with Joanna’s guidance—as he installed the appropriate hardware. But this new development would create even more of a distraction. It also represented a startling escalation in violence, not against Paul, who’d likely been victimized already, but directed at Gray.
As a horrified Cora led me through the foyer, tingling fear inched up my spine. Everyone who lived at Piper Point was in danger. I ground my molars. Everyone who slept under the same roof as Charlotte Barfield.
A uniformed officer greeted me and guided me down the long hall towards the kitchen. “It’s right back here. In the courtyard.”
Walking by the salon, I spotted Charlotte on one of the couches. A twin boy under each of her arms. Needles pricked the back of my neck at the sight of her young children. Was her hatred contained to Paul and Gray? Or was she capable of harming her boys, too?
I nodded at Gray as I passed her seated in the breakfast nook. She appeared shaken, her face wet from crying. Splotchy and dazed.
“And what exactly happened?” I asked my escort as we stepped into the conservatory. Iron scaffolding—begging for a fresh coat of white paint—framed the glass walls in intricate swirls, evoking a Victorian feel.
“From what I understand, the family kept a yard cat. Name was Hattie, I believe,” he replied.
As we stepped between rows of heavy planters, the officer continued, “The housekeeper, Cora, went to take out the trash after breakfast and found it.” He waved me onto the courtyard. My ribs contracted, pressing on my lungs. Stealing my air.
The black and white carcass hung suspended by its matted legs from a stone angel. Crimson blood splashed and spattered in all directions, running down cracks and grooves. Flaring across the fountain’s stone. Staining the basin water red.
“Throat’s been slit,” the officer reported. “The cat was hung and exsanguinated. Not unlike a hunter might do.”
“Jesus. Hell of a lot of blood,” I said, surveying the clotted puddles.
The officer shrugged. He didn’t seem the least bit perturbed, or if he was, he concealed it well. Perhaps he hunted himself. “We’re checking the property for any possible weapons.”
“It’s Annie,” a tepid voice called from behind. “I know it’s her. I know she’s in Elizabeth.” Gray walked up beside me, her face stark white. The woman looked three-days dead. “I was going to bring Hattie home with us when Paul … when we found him—”
I turned to her. “Why don’t you go inside for now until we get this bagged up and cleaned?”
“Annie killed my husband. There’s no doubt in my mind.” Her bottom lip quaked as she spoke.
An interesting leap on Gray’s part, though it wasn’t uncommon for loved ones to jump to the worst conclusions. Still, at this stage in the investigation, I was inclined to agree with her about Paul’s fate. Whoever Annie was.
“Come on in the house, Hummingbird,” Joanna called from the conservatory. “Let the police do their work.” That woman appeared eerily unshaken by the incident.
Gray followed her mother’s voice inside. Every one of them was behaving in a manner that left me uneasy. Understandable, I figured, given the circumstances. Still, I found myself wishing to be anywhere else but here. At Piper Point. The conservatory door swung back open.
“Jesus,” Sammie exclaimed, taking in the scene. He must’ve pulled up minutes after me. The disgust in his voice said he wasn’t the hunting type.
“You have everything ready?” I asked, refocusing on the task at hand.
He placed his hands on his waist, scowling at the sight. “Technician’s out front. Just waiting for the go-ahead. We’ve got standard taps for the landline, and the internet provider’s given us access to the Wi-Fi.”
“No problems with the consent forms, then,” I said, relieved. “And cell phones?”
“Tech bragged about that all the way here. An IMSI-Catcher. They call it the Stingray. Overnighted from our counterparts in Columbia.”
“An IMSI-Catcher?”
“Don’t know what it stands for, but from what I understand, it imitates a cellular base station. Any cell used within a few hundred feet will communicate with it. Double-checked with County, and we don’t even need probable cause on account of it not being a traditional line tap.”
I nodded. As morning evaporated, sweat beaded on my brow. “Good. Charlotte might be blocking her number, but I doubt she’s driving out of town to make the calls.”
Behind Sammie, a police photographer arrived and began to snap pictures of the cat, its fur matted in a sickening, glossy wet. “What’s our next move?” Sammie asked, rubbing his stubbled chin.
Another officer joined the photographer, a black lawn bag in his gloved hands. “Auntie gave me the name of the family doctor. The one who saw Gray after her parents uncovered the abuse. If we find evidence, or if this doctor can verify that there were other victims, we might be able to get something hard on Matthew.”
Sammie shrugged. “Joanna seems to have been oddly cooperative so far.”
“No way she’ll even corroborate the doctor’s visit,” I replied. “She covered up a crime against her own daughter. If she makes a connection, there’ll be no more assistance from her. I wouldn’t put more obstruction past that woman.”
“Agreed,” Sammie said.
Standing on the fountain’s cement pedestal, an officer unsheathed a long knife.
With a snap, the cat was cut loose. It struck the ground with a muffled thud,
and its limp head rolled my way. Hattie’s dead eyes met mine.
35
Nina
The tapped lines were in place just a couple days before two divers discovered the body of Paul Godfrey. What remained of Paul Godfrey. They dredged the cadaver from the marsh bed in a tidal basin some fifteen miles south of the blood we’d found. After weeks of bad weather, the Beaufort oceanographer had underestimated how aggressive the currents had grown—a low-pressure system pushing and pulling the roiling seas in all sorts of unnatural directions.
A swollen leather wallet had been found on Paul’s person alongside a set of rental car keys. Aside from the fact the body was in no state to be IDed, the lab quickly matched the DNA to the samples I’d collected, so the family wasn’t needed for a positive identification. We’d dispatched uniforms to Piper Point to officially notify the Kings. They were no doubt on their way.
Nevertheless, I insisted on seeing the body myself, and the assigned medical examiner obliged. Fluorescent bulbs strobed overhead as I followed him to the autopsy rooms of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. The corridor was illuminated by brutal lighting and surrounded by nothing but cream-colored cinderblocks and stainless steel.
“We’ll hang a right at the next hallway,” The ME announced as we turned down a second bleak corridor. “Autopsy’s not been done, so I can’t offer any official answers, but I’m happy to give you a look anyways. Let you draw your own conclusions.”
“That obvious, then?” I prepared myself for the worst.
He shook his head. “The sooner you see what happened to Mr. Godfrey, the better. As far as your investigation is concerned.”
Swinging open a windowless door designated EXAMINATION ROOM ONE, we entered an antechamber filled with racks and racks of personal protective equipment.
“P.P.E. requirements are double booties, gown, double gloves, cap, and mask.” The ME pointed to each chrome-wire shelf, respectively.
I was already tugging a second pair of disposable booties on over my sneakers. “I’ve been through this before.”