Sense of Evil

by Kay Hooper

  “No, it just rings.”

  “Shit. I thought everybody had voice mail.”

  “Guess not.”

  “Well, keep trying.” Mallory headed back toward her own desk, pausing as she passed Ginny to ask, “Still nothing new on Rose Helton?”

  “I finally got hold of her brother in Columbia, and he says last he heard, Rose was happy on the farm with Tim. No family occasions or visits to other relatives that he knows of. He didn't even know Rose wasn't home. Until he talked to me.”

  Mallory grimaced. “I hate it when that happens. When we're following up leads or looking for them—and shatter somebody's day, possibly their life, with news they really don't want to hear. That is never fun.”

  “I'll say. Oh—and for what it's worth, it doesn't seem to have even occurred to Rose's brother that her husband might have had something to do with her disappearance.”

  “That might be worth a lot. Relatives often know, even if only subconsciously, if there's trouble in a marriage.”

  “He obviously thinks not. In fact, he asked immediately if we thought it was this serial killer, even though Rose isn't really a blonde.”

  “Come again?”

  “Apparently, the last time he saw Rose at Christmas, she was blond. Trying it out, he said.”

  Mallory was frowning. “That isn't in the report.”

  “I know. When Tim Helton gave us a description of his wife, he said brown hair. Just that. The photo he gave us shows a brunette. And none of the people we've talked to in the area described her as blond.”

  “But she was blond last Christmas.”

  “According to her brother.”

  “Shit. Does the chief know?”

  “I was just about to call him. He should be getting to the Helton farm any minute now.”

  “Call him. He needs to know Rose Helton just moved a step closer to the victim profile.”

  The Helton dairy farm seemed as deserted as the main house when Isabel and Hollis parked their car near the gates to the barn area and got out. Standing at the front bumper of the car, Isabel absently checked her service weapon and then returned it to the holster at the small of her back.

  Automatically, Hollis followed suit.

  “Storm's coming,” Isabel said, pushing her sunglasses up to rest atop her head as she looked briefly at the heavy clouds rolling in. The day had started out hot and sunny; now it was just hot and humid.

  “I know.” Hollis shifted uneasily. Storms always made her feel especially edgy. Now, at least. It made her wonder if Bishop had been entirely joking when he'd once told her that some people believed storms were nature's way of opening up the door between this world and the next—like a steam valve relieving pressure.

  “And this place feels very deserted to me,” Isabel added, looking around restlessly.

  “You're not picking up anything at all out here? I mean, it's not just no voices, is it? It's nothing the usual five senses can't get?”

  “Just the usual five. I'm getting nothing, no sense of anything that isn't visible to me. Dammit. I can't even tell if Helton is anywhere near. He could walk up behind me and I wouldn't feel it. And I've been able to feel that since I was seventeen years old.”

  “Don't worry, I'm sure it's temporary.”

  “Are you? Because I'm not.”

  “Isabel, even without the psychic edge, you're a trained investigator. You'll just have to . . . use the usual five senses until the sixth one comes back.”

  Eyeing her partner, Isabel said, “Do I detect a certain satisfaction in your voice?”

  Hollis cleared her throat. “Well, let's just say I don't feel quite so useless as I did before.”

  “Fine pair we are. Two psychics who can't use their abilities. Bishop couldn't have seen this one coming.”

  “Look, we're cops. Federal agents. We'll just be federal agents and use our training to look for Helton,” Hollis said practically. “When Rafe gets here.”

  Isabel looked around her, frowning. “Where is he? Rafe, I mean. And is it just my internal silence, or is this place way too quiet?”

  It really was peculiarly still, the hot, humid air surrounding everything in a heavy, smothering closeness.

  “Pretty quiet for a working dairy farm, I'd say. But it's just a guess on my part.” Hollis studied the cluster of outbuildings and surrounding pastures. “Maybe all the cows are out in the fields. That's the deal, isn't it? They're milked in the morning, then go out and eat grass all day?”

  “You're asking me?”

  “Somebody told me you rode horses, so I just figured—”

  “What, that I'd know cows? Sorry. You get milk from them; that's all I know.” Isabel drummed restless fingers on the hood of the car. “Time to be a federal agent. Okay. We checked the house first and got no answer at the door. At either door. Both doors are locked, and we have no probable cause to enter.”

  “Can we enter the barns without cause?”

  “Being federal agents, we have to walk carefully, at least until Rafe gets here; under the mantle of his local jurisdiction, we can do more.” Isabel eyed the cluster of buildings. “The barns that are open are fair game, I'd say. That big central barn looks closed up, though, at least on this end.”

  Before Hollis could comment on that, they both saw Rafe's Jeep turn in at the end of the long driveway.

  “No luck at the house?” he asked as soon as he got out of the vehicle.

  “No,” Isabel replied. “And haven't heard a sound out here. Is this normal?”

  “Well, I wouldn't call it abnormal. The cows will be out in the pastures, so the barns would be quiet. Helton runs this place on his own except for the crew that comes to pick up the milk, and part-time afternoon help, so he has plenty to do around here most of the day. Have you tried yelling for him?”

  Without a blink, Isabel said, “We thought your bellow would carry farther.”

  Rafe eyed her for a moment, then cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled out Helton's name.

  Silence greeted the summons.

  “Okay,” Rafe said, “let's start looking around, before it gets even hotter out here.”

  “Private property, even if it is a business,” Isabel reminded him.

  “Yeah, but we've got cause with the wife missing and Helton out of touch. Judge'll back me up on that.” He led the way, opening the gate at the end of the drive and allowing it to swing back as they passed through and headed for the cluster of barns and other buildings just a few yards away.

  A slight breeze disturbed the heavy closeness of the humid air, giving them all a sense of relief from the heat—and offering a rather ripe olfactory experience.

  “I love the smell of manure in the morning,” Isabel said. “Smells like . . . shit.”

  Rafe had to laugh, but said, “Looks like he stopped in the middle of unloading a hay shipment.” There was a half-ton truck parked alongside the largest, closed barn and facing in the opposite direction, with its tailgate down and a great deal of loose hay piled all around it. A number of bales of hay remained stacked in the bed of the truck.

  “I'll check out the cab,” Isabel said, and crunched her way through the hay toward the front of the truck.

  Hollis was about to say she'd head in the opposite direction and see if the other side of the barn was open, but something about the way Rafe was looking after Isabel made her pause. Just for something to say, she asked, “Why would he have stopped in the middle of unloading?”

  “Maybe that's when he realized his wife was missing. He might have been too distracted since then to worry about unloading hay.” Rafe frowned as he looked at her, and lowered his voice when he added, “What's wrong with Isabel?”

  “What makes you think something's wrong?” Hollis countered, stalling.

  Rafe's frown deepened. “I don't know, just something . . . off. What is it?”

  Something off. Something turned off. Did you do it?

  But she didn't say any of that, of course.
Already regretting that she had allowed this, Hollis said as casually as possible, “You'll have to ask her. I should check out the other side of the barn, I guess, and see if there's a door open.”

  After a moment, Rafe said, “Okay, fine.”

  Hollis took a step away, then turned back with a genuine question. “Is it just me, or is there a weird smell around this building? Doesn't smell like manure now that the breeze has shifted. Sort of a sweet-and-sour odor.”

  Rafe sniffed the air, and his rugged face instantly changed. “Oh, no,” he said.

  “What?”

  Before either of them could move, the barn doors burst outward, and a thin, dark man in his thirties stood there between them, one shaking hand pointing a big automatic squarely at Rafe.

  “Goddamn you, Sullivan! Bringing feds out here!”

  13

  ALYSSA TAYLOR KNEW damned well there was no good reason for her to hang around near the police station on a Sunday morning. No casual or innocent reason, that is. She couldn't even pretend to sit nonchalantly in the coffee shop near the station, since it wouldn't open until church let out.

  She had toyed with the idea of going to church, but Ally found she couldn't be quite that hypocritical.

  She also half-seriously feared being struck by lightning if she crossed the threshold.

  “You're lurking, too, huh?” Paige Gilbert, who Ally knew was a local reporter for the town's most popular radio station, leaned against the other side of the old-fashioned, wrought-iron light post, as seemingly casual as Ally.

  “I bet we look like a couple of hookers,” Ally said.

  Paige eyed Ally's very short skirt and filmy top, then glanced down at her own jeans and T-shirt, and said, “Well . . .”

  “Catch more flies with honey,” Ally said.

  “I'll just watch them flit past, thanks.”

  Ally chuckled. “Travis likes my legs. And it's such a little thing to make him happy.”

  “A very little thing,” Paige murmured. “How's the pillow talk?”

  “I don't kiss and tell.”

  “Except on the air?”

  “Well, we all have our boundaries, don't we?”

  Paige half laughed and inclined her head slightly in a sort of salute. “You're good, I'll give you that much.”

  “I usually get what I go after.”

  “Didn't Cheryl Bayne say something like that?”

  “She wasn't careful. Obviously. I am.”

  “Speculation seems to be she stuck her nose in where it didn't belong.”

  “Occupational hazard.”

  “For us too.”

  Ally shrugged. “My philosophy is, no sense being in the game unless you're willing to play all-out. I am. Like I said, I usually get what I go after.”

  “You get any news on the body they found yesterday?”

  Ally's internal debate was swift and silent. “Not a blonde and not a victim of our serial killer. The theory is, she died by accident.”

  “And hung her own body in that old gas station?”

  “No, our resident ghoul probably did that. A nice toy for him, already dead and everything.”

  “Yuck.”

  “Well, we knew he was sick and twisted. Now we know he's an opportunist too.”

  Paige frowned. “If she wasn't one of his victims, how did he get his hands on her?”

  “The mystery of the thing. I'm going to go out on a limb and say she had a connection to either him or one of the victims.”

  “What kind of connection?”

  “Dunno. Friend, family, a lover in common—something. She died by accident, he saw or knew and took advantage of the situation.”

  Paige was still frowning. “There's got to be more to it. How, exactly, did she die?”

  “That I don't know. Yet.”

  “Is it true she'd been dead a couple of months?”

  “About that.”

  “Then she died before the first victim did. Maybe he liked playing with a dead body so much he decided to make a few of his very own?”

  “Maybe.”

  They stood on either side of the lamppost, leaning against it, and gazed across the street at the town hall. The downtown area was practically deserted. It was very quiet.

  “I sort of wish I'd gone to church,” Paige said finally.

  “Yeah,” Ally said. “Me too.”

  Rafe wore his weapon in a hip holster, with the flap fastened; there was no way he could get to it; Hollis, like Isabel, wore her holster at the small of her back, also out of reach. Both she and Rafe stood frozen, their hands a little above waist height with the palms out, by training and instinct showing this dangerously unstable opponent the least threatening posture possible as his gun wavered between them.

  “Tim, settle down,” Rafe advised calmly.

  “Rose said she'd had enough,” Helton said, his voice as shaky as his gun hand. “That's it, that's why you're here. She told you. She come and told you, and now you've brought the feds out here.”

  From her angle, Hollis caught only a glimpse of what she knew Rafe could see more clearly: Isabel, at the rear bumper of the hay truck. Like the other two, she had frozen the moment the doors had burst open, but unlike them, she wasn't visible to Tim Helton.

  Unfortunately, he wasn't visible to her either, since the heavy barn door shielded him from her view.

  Worse, she was standing knee-deep in brittle, noisy hay; any movement at all would draw his attention and take away whatever hope she had of surprising him.

  Standing still, Isabel silently drew her weapon and held it in a practiced, two-handed grip, thumbing off the safety.

  Then she looked toward Rafe and Hollis, brows lifting in a silent question.

  “Tim, we haven't heard from Rose,” Rafe was saying, still calm. He kept his gaze fixed on Helton, though he could see Isabel from the corner of his eye. “That's why we're here, to look for her.”

  “Liar. I heard them talking out here a while ago—they're feds. Both of 'em. You bring feds out here and think I don't know why? What am I, stupid? Where's the other one? You tell her to come out, Sullivan, and I mean quick. You know I ain't afraid to use this gun.”

  “Tim, listen,” Rafe said. “Aspice super caput suum.”

  Helton blinked in confusion. “Huh? What'd you—”

  The crack of Isabel's pistol was loud, but before Helton could do more than twitch in surprise, the hay bale that had been hanging several feet above his head crashed down, knocking him to the ground—and out cold.

  Rafe immediately moved forward to get the unconscious man's pistol, calling out, “Got him, Isabel. Nice shot.”

  She came around the barn door even as he finished speaking, crunching through the hay, pistol lowered but ready, and said, “Dead-eye Jane, that's me.”

  Hollis was staring up at the loft door and the winch designed to lift heavy bales of hay inside the building. “I'll be damned. With the barn painted that wheat color, I didn't even notice that up there.”

  “Neither did I,” Isabel said. “Good thing Rafe did. I gather all this was about moonshine, of all the ridiculous things?”

  Rafe nodded. “He's got a still in there. You can smell the stuff. Or, at least, Hollis could. I didn't notice when we got here, unfortunately.”

  “Easy to smell now. On him. He reeks.”

  “Yeah, he's drunk. Probably since he noticed his wife was missing, and possibly what drove her to leave him. I don't know how long he's been selling bootleg whiskey, but it's obvious he's been drinking and otherwise using it for years.”

  “Mallory's tractor story,” Isabel said, realizing. “He blew up his own tractor using moonshine instead of fuel.”

  “Right. I really should have remembered that before bringing two feds out here. With that level of paranoia and the amount of raw alcohol in him, he could have shot all three of us and not felt a twinge of regret about it until he sobered up.”

  “I'm confused,” Hollis said. “What did you say to hi
m?”

  “Not to him. I told Isabel to look above his head. I knew the only clear shot she had was the winch or rope.”

  “Nice you trusted me to hit either one,” Isabel said, then frowned at him. “But how in hell did you know I'd understand classical Latin? I didn't tell you that.”

  “No, Hollis did, sort of in passing. I remembered because it so happens that I took it in college as well.” He sent a sidelong glance at Hollis. “A fairly nerdy thing to do, I admit, but it has been useful here and there.”

  “Especially here,” Isabel said. “Another few seconds, and this lunatic would have shot one of you. Probably killed you.”

  Hollis uttered a shaken laugh and, when the other two looked at her inquiringly, said, “Okay, now I'm a believer.”

  It was nearly five that afternoon when Rafe came into the conference room and found Isabel, for the first time that day, alone. He closed the door behind him.

  Sitting on the table studying autopsy photos of the woman found hanging in the old gas station, she said, “Please tell me we finally have an I.D. on her.”

  “Word just came in from Quantico. They think her name is Hope Tessneer. Age thirty-five, divorced, no children. The dental records are a close, but not exact, match. The record we gave them for comparison is at least ten years old.”

  “So there's a good chance it's her.”

  “A very good chance. Mallory's talking to the sheriff's department in Pearson now. That's another small town about thirty miles from here. We'll know more when they give us all the information they have, and when they talk to her family and friends. We do know that Hope Tessneer worked as a real-estate agent.”

  Isabel looked at him, frowning. “A possible connection with Jamie. How they met, maybe.”

  “Could be. She's been missing almost exactly eight weeks, according to her boss. He wasn't all that worried, because she had taken off without warning or explanation at least twice in recent years. Said she wouldn't have come home to a job either time except that she was the best sales associate he had.”

  “Then she knew how to please people, how to give them what they wanted. That fits.”

  “For a submissive, you mean.”