[Ash Park 01.0] Famished

by Meghan O'Flynn

  “Got an ID?” Petrosky said.

  A dark-haired, darker-skinned tech stood from where he’d been crouching behind the concrete block. “Jacob Campbell. Wallet was in his pants pocket.”

  “He’s not wearing pants, tech.”

  “They were in the corner, Detective.”

  Petrosky glowered at the tech until he crouched behind the cement wall again. “Any sign of a poem? Lettering?”

  Another tech, who was working on something on the floor, shook her head without looking his way.

  Petrosky peered at the ceiling. “Too far away for anyone to hear much. But to know the basement was down here … he knows the area. Gotta be a local.”

  Morrison nodded stiffly.

  All of this was shit they knew already. What they didn’t know was why they had a new victim who didn’t fit the original pattern. Looked like McCallum was wrong about their killer having a type. What else had he been wrong about?

  The medical examiner arrived with a stretcher and acknowledged Petrosky with a twitch of his bristly jaw.

  “Wait a second.” Morrison said it so softly that it took Petrosky a minute to figure out who had spoken. Morrison rifled through his notebook, brows furrowed, until he tapped a sheet with his index finger. “Got it, Boss. His address is the same one I pulled the other day from the domestic violence shelter file.”

  “Why was his address in the files for a women’s shelter?”

  “His wasn’t. It was the girl we talked to there, a” —he ran a finger down the page— “Hannah Montgomery.”

  Shit. Since meeting Hannah at the shelter, Petrosky had been wrenched from sleep night after night, sheets soaked through with sweat. Each nightmare was the same: a trail of blood leading him to a field where he came upon Julie and Hannah, arms around each other, throats slit. Fuck it, he wasn’t going this time—seeing Hannah was the last thing he needed. His brain was already hazy enough from the midnight shot of liquor he’d used to lull him back into a tortured sleep.

  Petrosky slipped out of the room, Morrison scrambling after him.

  “Who’ve we got that can go to Montgomery’s place?” Petrosky said.

  “Boss?”

  “She’s not a suspect, Morrison. We don’t need to do recon on the bereaved.” Their shoes echoed along the cement hall. A breeze blew down from the open ceiling.

  Morrison stopped walking. “But—”

  Petrosky’s footfalls were heavy, angry. “We just need someone to let her know what’s going on, keep an eye on her. I’m going to follow up this afternoon after we check out the apartment building and get a little background on Campbell.”

  On Campbell. And on Hannah Montgomery, the girl who knew two of the victims, one intimately. She had to know something, even if she wasn’t aware of it. Petrosky pushed away an image of Hannah’s wide, frightened eyes. She wasn’t as ignorant as she pretended to be.

  She was in danger. And she knew it.

  The apartment manager was a wiry man who looked to be in his sixties, though time may have just been remarkably unkind. Dark brown khakis and a button-down shirt hung from his gaunt frame. His shiny skull was speckled with patches of brown age spots, some of which looked too dark not to be malignant.

  “Detectives? I’m Samuel Plumber.” His thin lips parted to reveal teeth the same yellow as the whites of his eyes. Liver failure, perhaps, and yet he was still wandering the halls of this shithole.

  Petrosky and Morrison followed him into a tiny office. The room was messy, but in a neglected way, not a busy way. The particle board desk was piled high with folders and crumpled papers, the wastebasket overflowing. No photos, no coat hook, no boots in the corner. Petrosky wondered which unit Plumber lived in, or if he lived there at all.

  On the wall above the desk were two small television screens above three VCRs. The recording equipment looked as old as the desk and the cracked vinyl chair, though a crocheted afghan slung over the back of the chair appeared relatively new.

  Plumber sank into his seat and Petrosky and Morrison crowded in behind him to look at the television screens. “I tried to get them as close as I could to what you were looking for. You’re lucky you called when you did; I reuse these tapes every three days.”

  “We’ll be taking the tapes with us.” Petrosky squinted at the grainy images. One screen showed a stairwell, and the other, the mailroom right outside Plumber’s office.

  “Is that him?” Petrosky asked as a dark-haired man sprinted down the stairs.

  Plumber nodded. On the other screen, the man emerged from the stairwell into the mailroom and disappeared from view in the direction of the front entrance.

  “He’s in quite the rush,” Morrison said.

  Plumber stayed silent. He pushed a button and the clip froze on the empty mailroom.

  “What about the outside of the building?” Petrosky asked.

  Plumber shook his head. “I just keep an eye on things in here. I expect the cops to take care of things out there.” He picked up another tape. “I did find some with his girlfriend, though.” But he made no move to insert the tape into the VCR.

  “Problem?”

  Plumber looked up at Petrosky’s question. “It’s just that she seems like such a good girl, and—”

  “Mr. Plumber, Ms. Montgomery is not a suspect at this time. We just need to put together a chain of events for the evening. This was the last place Mr. Campbell was seen alive.”

  Plumber pursed his lips. “I must admit, he was trouble. I got calls about him yelling and carrying on all the time. Even yelled at other tenants in the hallway.”

  “He yell at his girlfriend?”

  “Yeah. One time, someone heard glass breaking or something and I went up there. She said she dropped a bowl. But ain’t no reason to cry over a bowl.” Plumber sniffed and turned back to the screens. “That boy didn’t do anything good for anybody, from what I could see.”

  If Campbell was a shit-head, that could be the beginning of a motive. But the girls? It didn’t feel right. The set of Plumber’s mouth was off as well, stubborn, almost defiant, not a trace of regret. Petrosky’s back stiffened. “Mr. Plumber, are you implying that Mr. Campbell deserved to die?”

  Plumber looked up at him, his eyes earnest. “No, sir. It’s just that I don’t know of anyone who would be worse off at having lost him.”

  The tapes showed Hannah rifling through the mail, then fleeing up the same stairwell that Campbell had run down several minutes later. She had cried on the metal stairs for what seemed like an eternity before going back inside her apartment.

  Petrosky was not sure what to make of her actions, but seeing her broken up like that tugged at a tender place in his stomach where this morning’s coffee was still trying to settle. He vowed to think about it later. Or never. For now, recon.

  He and Morrison started at the top floor and worked their way down to the residents on the ground level. Many of the apartments were empty this time of day, and Morrison used his notepad to track who would need follow-up calls.

  The few residents who were home were of little assistance. In one unit, a young woman in a white tank top and dirty jeans stared blankly at them until they thanked her for her time and left. In another apartment, an older woman with a set of reading glasses on her head and another set of glasses on a chain around her neck asked them four times who they were before shuffling off to her living room. Petrosky closed the front door for her.

  “What do you think, Boss?”

  “All it takes is one neighbor to hear something. This last floor won’t take too long to finish up and then we’ll head out.”

  “You think Campbell was killed by the same guy who killed our female victims?”

  “Looks like it. But with the press leak on something like this you never know if you’re dealing with a copycat. It’s not likely—but it’s possible. It happened once about twenty years back, some tweaker beating the shit out of dealers with a flathead shovel. Press got wind of some of the details, but
not all, and a week later we had a crack dealer beaten to death with a spade. Small differences, but enough to find the second guy and clear him of the first few crimes.”

  “What about the first guy? The serial?”

  “It’s probably still in the cold case file.”

  Morrison pulled open the door to the ground level hallway. “It’s disconcerting that no one knew either Campbell or his girlfriend.”

  “If he was roughing her up, that isn’t a surprise.”

  “I got that. Sickening.”

  “Life’s not all rainbows and surfboards, California.”

  Morrison’s mouth tightened. Instead of responding, he rapped hard on a door.

  The knob turned, the door opened. “What the hell do you want now?”

  Petrosky balked and recovered.

  Janice LaPorte wore a pink and yellow flowered housedress that undulated around her thin frame like a pair of parachute pants. Her thin mouth was done up in a horrible shade of maroon.

  “Ms. LaPorte.”

  She frowned.

  “We have a few more questions.”

  She stepped aside. “Fine.” Her voice was as stiff as her shoulders.

  Petrosky and Morrison followed her into a sparse, but clean, living room with flowered furniture in shades of green and orange, still covered with heavy duty plastic furniture covers. The wooden coffee table was old but polished to a mirrored sheen. She waved them to the couch and the plastic squealed in protest under their butts. Morrison pulled out his notepad.

  She sat across from them in a wingback armchair with a lacy crocheted blanket draped over the headrest like a doily. LaPorte saw Petrosky looking at it and fingered a corner. “Made it myself.”

  “It’s nice,” Morrison said.

  Petrosky glared at him until he turned his eyes to the notebook. LaPorte watched the exchange with narrowed eyes.

  “So did you meet Ms. Montgomery here?” Petrosky asked her. “Pretty coincidental that you both live in the same building.”

  LaPorte’s jaw stiffened. “No. We didn’t meet here.”

  “What about—”

  “Is this about that poor girl again? I haven’t seen anything since we last spoke.”

  “Ma’am, this is about another resident of the building. A Jacob Campbell.”

  “Hannah’s Jake.” LaPorte’s eyes hardened. Her voice was cold.

  “He was found dead this morning,” Petrosky said.

  Her left eye twitched, and Petrosky’s hackles rose.

  “I … I had no idea.”

  “Anything you can tell us about the night before last? Anything out of the ordinary with either Mr. Campbell or Ms. Montgomery?”

  LaPorte shook her head. “Not that I recall.”

  “How were they as a couple?”

  She hesitated. Petrosky saw a flash of agitation in her eyes before she looked away. She’s a killer. Don’t forget what you’re dealing with.

  “She doesn’t open up much.” Her face was a blank slate.

  “Did she ever mention Mr. Campbell?”

  Morrison’s pen scratched. LaPorte stared.

  “Ma’am?”

  LaPorte shook her head again. “When she did, it was in passing. I remember thinking she might have been afraid of him.”

  “Fights?” Petrosky asked.

  LaPorte looked away from him, toward the window. The hairs on the back of his neck danced, though Jacob Campbell hitting his girlfriend was hardly a revelation. And why was Campbell dead? If their killer was picking off abusers, he’d have taken Meredith Lawrence’s boyfriend down instead of Lawrence herself.

  “She never fought with him,” LaPorte said. “He yelled at her sometimes though. Just him. I never once heard her yell.” She sighed. “Poor dear.” Her voice was soft, but tight. Irritated.

  Morrison’s pen froze.

  Poor dear? What do you know, Ms. LaPorte? Was LaPorte in danger here? Was Hannah? Were the other girls at the shelter? Petrosky shifted his weight and lowered his voice. “Poor dear, as in Mr. Campbell, the man who was brutally killed?”

  “If you ask me, officers, anything that happened to him he brought on himself.”

  I blinked sandpaper from my eyes and shut the desk drawer for the fourth time. I should have brought my cell phone to work. I probably would have if I’d thought I was strong enough to ignore Jake’s calls. If he ever called. So far, he hadn’t even come by to pick up his things.

  What’s the difference between boyfriends and condoms? Condoms have changed. They’re no longer thick and insensitive.

  The office phone rang. I jumped.

  It’s him!

  It’s not him.

  It rang a second time. I grabbed the receiver.

  “Ms. Montgomery?” The voice was deep and gravelly—familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  My back tensed. “Yes, this is.”

  “Detective Petrosky. Ash Park PD. I would like to speak with you as soon as possible regarding Jacob Campbell.”

  “Jake—”

  Oh God. Someone must have called the police about the other night after all the yelling … or maybe about my eye. I stared accusingly in the direction of Noelle’s cubicle but only saw the empty cork board, which wavered as my vision blurred.

  Shit. He’s going to be furious.

  “Ms. Montgomery?”

  “Yes. I … can I just drop the charges over the phone?” I gripped the receiver harder.

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Ma’am?”

  My hand cramped. I tried to loosen my grip. “I mean, everything is fine, I just … I mean, I’m fine. I don’t want to press charges.”

  This time the pause was longer. Dread thickened in the pit of my stomach. Maybe I was the one in trouble. Maybe it was all my fault. Maybe the cops already knew that.

  “Is he there with you already?” I asked. “If it’s about his stuff, he can come get it. I wasn’t trying to, like … steal it. It’s all by the front door.”

  “Ma’am, Mr. Campbell is dead. I’m sorry, I thought someone had already been by to tell you.”

  The room expanded around me, then vanished as if it had been an apparition. The suddenly thin air didn’t want to fill my lungs. The phone clattered against the desk and dropped to the carpet, but the sound was muffled, as if I were underwater.

  A hand on my back. “Hannah?” Noelle.

  A small, tinny voice buzzed from the receiver. I reeled it in and put it back to my ear. Everything vibrated: my chest, my legs, my hands.

  “Ms. Montgomery? Hello? Are you there?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. Noelle squeezed my shoulder.

  “I know this is difficult, but we need to speak with you. Can you make it to the station, or would you like us to meet you at your home?”

  “Um … I don’t … the station.” Where all the cops are. Where it’s safer.

  “Can you come now?”

  I nodded.

  “Ma’am?”

  Oh, right. “Yes. Yes, I can come.”

  “Do you have someone who can look after you?” His voice was softer now—kind, even.

  I met Noelle’s eyes. “Yes.”

  “Good.” The line clicked.

  I dropped the receiver and fled the office.

  “Hannah!” Noelle’s voice faded halfway down the hall. I threw myself into the bathroom, locked a stall door and sat on the toilet seat. The stall pulsed around me in time with the knifing beats of my heart. My breath wheezed out of me, dissipating, disappearing into the air, and I was jealous, so jealous of this ability to … vanish.

  I’m safe right now.

  You can’t stay in the bathroom stall forever.

  I pushed my hair from my face with shaking hands.

  You have nowhere to go.

  The room went black at the edges.

  He’s found me.

  Petrosky considered Hannah—Ms. Montgomery—through the two-way mirror in the interrogation room. She seemed fragile, dwarfed as she
was by the large metal table.

  She looked just as innocuous on paper: Hannah Montgomery. Born in Vermont. Parents: divorced. One sister. Employment history began five years ago at an Ash Park convenience store, then at Harwick Technical. No arrests, no warrants. Not even a speeding ticket.

  Beside him, Morrison toed the linoleum, face drawn up with just the right amount of sympathetic concern. Petrosky crushed his empty coffee cup, wishing he had something stronger to drink, and reread the notes off the file in his hand. It had taken two hours for her to arrive, which had given the medical examiner extra time to get his shit together.

  There were significant differences between this crime and the others. This one had used metal cuffs instead of leather restraints, and nails instead of silver clasps to hold the skin back. There was no note. They had also found a pair of tread marks in the room, though those could have been left behind at another time.

  The two hours had also given Morrison time to go poking into Montgomery’s whereabouts over the last week. What he had told Petrosky was interesting to say the least.

  “You think she’s got something to do with it? That whole double dating thing is pretty coincidental,” Morrison said.

  Petrosky stared at the notes in his hand, written in the flowing script you’d expect from an English major. “We’ll see. You did good, California.”

  “Thanks, Boss.”

  In the interrogation room, Montgomery folded her hands in her lap.

  She’s just a grief-stricken girlfriend.

  She was on a date hours after he died. The facts won’t go away just because you don’t want them to be true.

  “I’m going in. Watch. Take notes. You’re good at that.”

  “Right on, Boss.”

  Petrosky tossed the cup into the garbage and entered the interrogation room. Montgomery straightened, her dark hair falling over her shoulders. He had tried to braid Julie’s hair into pigtails once and she had ended up looking like Medusa. Fucking hell, Petrosky.

  He cleared his throat. “Thank you for coming, Ms. Montgomery. Do you know why you’re here?”

  “Because Jake—” She shivered, closed her eyes, then opened them again. “You said you wanted to talk to me.”