Where the Truth Lives

by Mia Sheridan

  “None of this has been released to the media, so I want to make it very clear that you’re not to discuss it outside this room? Capisce?”

  The group nodded in agreement.

  “Feel free to bring anything to us that you might consider helpful,” Reed said. “We’re working as quickly as we can on this so we can figure out how to stop this guy and appreciate anything that might help toward that end.” The other detectives started standing and gathering their things, walking to the door.

  Everyone filed out, leaving Reed, Ransom, Jennifer, Olsen, and Sergeant Valenti in the room.

  Sergeant Valenti stood. “I have a meeting with the chief in half an hour,” he said. “So I’m going to get out of here. Call me if anything comes up.”

  They thanked him, and he too left the room. “Anything else before we get back to reading?” Reed asked.

  “I’d just started looking more deeply into Sabrina McPhee’s history. She was raised by an aunt and uncle after she was removed from her home. I don’t have the details yet,” Jennifer said.

  Reed made a hissing sound through his teeth. “That’s it. The link between Elizabeth Nolan, Milo Ortiz, and Sabrina McPhee.”

  Jennifer nodded. “I have a call in to Job and Family Services for her file. I’ll update as soon as I have it.”

  “Great. Listen, they can be slow. While you’re waiting, will you check and see if her father or uncle, maybe a brother, or her ex-husband, are missing or haven’t been seen in a while? And if so, let’s be proactive and see if we can get dental records.”

  “To match against John Doe with the brand?”

  “Exactly.”

  “On it. I do have something concrete, though,” Jennifer said, picking up a small binder next to her on the table. “I finally got the complete list of residents from the halfway house.”

  “Took them long enough.”

  “Well, in their defense, it is pretty extensive as it goes back five years. And it seems like they’re extremely short-staffed. And they reminded me repeatedly that they could have required us to get a warrant.” She nodded at the binder. “I looked through it but nothing jumped out at me.” She handed it over to Reed. “Maybe it’ll be useful at some point.”

  Reed nodded, taking it from her outstretched hand. “We’ll look through it too. For now, let’s keep reading those comics. Maybe we can get a handle on where this might be leading.” Although they didn’t yet have the final three books. He’d gone online and ordered them—for a king’s ransom nonetheless—from some guy on a comic book forum.

  They returned to their work stations and Ransom sat down, put his feet up on his desk, and started reading the edition of Tribulation Reed had finished with right before the meeting in the incident room. Reed decided he needed a short break from demons and hellfire and instead flipped open the binder he’d tossed on his desk.

  “Man, you want to know something funny? I could almost believe this is true. Maybe comic book dude was right and what we consider reality is nothing more than an idea.”

  Reed glanced at the copy of Tribulation Ransom tapped on, raising one brow. “Uh-oh.”

  Ransom chuckled. “No, seriously. Think about it. For some people, this, right here”—he gestured his finger downward and then circled it around, indicating Earth—“is hell. Consider some of the cases we’ve seen, the lives people lead. You think they’re afraid of lakes of fire and brimstone? Nah, for some that probably sounds like a tropical vacation.”

  Reed ran his teeth over his bottom lip. He thought about the sanitation worker he’d interviewed in his home, Milo Ortiz. He thought about what he’d experienced—offered up as sexual gratification to child predators by his own mother. The flashbacks he must experience . . . the grief he must feel at being betrayed that way . . . the internal battle he must wage. He thought of Liza, of Josie, of a hundred victims he’d interviewed, listening to the trauma they’d survived, sometimes just barely. How could a person be afraid of hell, when hell was all around you?

  For that matter, hell was all around every one of them, wasn’t it? Because, in actuality, it was never more than one phone call, one accident, one tragedy away.

  “And others,” Ransom said, “experience heaven, right here. And I’m not talking about Hollywood celebrities or members of the royal family. I’m talking about the average Joe who was born into a loving family, who has enough food to eat and a safe place to call home. A little Netflix and chill on a Saturday night. I’m talking about—”

  “You and me,” Reed said.

  Ransom paused. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I’m talking about you and me.”

  “We’re not blind though,” Ransom went on. “We see hell. We see how close it really is. We see suffering. It’s why we do what we do. But there are people who don’t fucking see. They turn the other way or use those weaker than them for profit. Man, think of the evil motherfuckers we’ve come across.”

  Reed could think of several right off the top of his head. He scratched his jaw. “Yeah, so it’s a good concept. And any good concept has an element of truth to it. Relatability. But anything good can be twisted.”

  “You’re right.” Ransom tilted his head. “You know, speaking of twisted, I’ve been thinking about that whole liminal space deal.” He paused for a moment. “You know the way the descriptions of those places make us feel universally?”

  Reed nodded, listening, almost transfixed. Ransom used one hand to indicate his midsection. “That squeezing beneath your ribs. The full-body chills. You know what all those sensations come down to? Being alone. Being left behind somewhere we don’t recognize. The feeling of that.” He leaned forward slightly. “We’re meant to be connected to other people. And anything else feels foreign—alien—like we’ve been forgotten in a place where we don’t belong.”

  Five angels mistakenly sent to hell.

  Was that how their killer felt? Was that what this whole exercise was about? A desperate escape from whatever form of hell he’d found himself in—lost and alone? Forgotten? “Damn, Carlyle. You can spew some deep shit when your mouth’s not full of food.”

  Ransom grinned. “Don’t I know it.” Then he raised the comic and went back to his reading.

  Reed watched him for a few seconds, and then picked up the binder again, beginning on the first page.

  The halfway house had been generous enough to list the names in alphabetical order and include any information they had on the habitant—former address, phone number if any, and dates of residence.

  The list of names started five years prior and continued up through the current date. Reed read through them semi-quickly, flipping through the pages in the hopes that one of the names would stick out to him, but not expecting any to. As he got close to the end, he paused, moving his finger back up to the name he’d almost missed as his mind was only half on the task.

  “Everett Draper?” he murmured.

  “Huh?” Ransom asked, looking up from the comic.

  “Draper,” he said, frowning. Reed sat up straight, pushing the binder back farther from where he’d had it leaned on the edge of his desk. “Gordon Draper’s grandson. The former director of Lakeside Hospital.”

  “The dude who called about the comic?”

  Reed nodded, thinking. He hadn’t mentioned anything about his grandson living at the halfway house, but why would he have? Gordon Draper hadn’t known the place was part of their investigation. And his grandson was dead. He’d committed suicide. Reed hadn’t asked how or why, it hadn’t been his business. The old man was obviously still torn up about it. It made sense, though, because if his grandson suffered from some form of mental illness, he would have lived in a halfway house or somewhere similar at some point.

  Ransom’s mind was clearly going in similar directions, because he said, “All right. So the kid who lived at the halfway house had a grandfather who worked at the hospital where one of the victims was found.”

  “Yeah,” Reed said distractedly. “But he’s dead.” />
  “By suicide.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it my imagination or do we have a lot of suicides on our hands in this case? I know we can rule out the falling deaths as murders, not suicides now. But we still have Sophia Miller, the girl who brought charges against Sadowski . . . Draper’s grandson . . .”

  Reed glanced at Ransom. “I don’t know that that’s unexpected. The suicidality rate is high among the mentally ill.”

  Ransom shrugged. “True.”

  Reed chewed on the inside of his cheek, thinking. “Speaking of Sophia Miller, her mother said she dated someone at that halfway house, right?”

  “That’s right. She did.”

  “Think it’s possible it was Everett Draper?”

  “Possible. And that would be another connection.”

  “Yes,” Reed murmured, though what that might mean was still elusive. “I think we need to talk to Draper again.” Reed picked up his phone, going through his received calls from the day before and calling Draper’s number. He picked up on the fourth ring.

  “Mr. Draper? This is Detective Davies calling.”

  “Hello, Detective. This is a surprise. What can I help you with?”

  “I looked up the comic you told me about. It was extremely helpful. Thank you.” He didn’t want to let on exactly how helpful the old man’s tip had been, not yet. It was something the media did not have, and something the killer didn’t know they had either. They needed to keep it very close to the vest at this point.

  “Ah. So you’ve read it. Interesting stuff, isn’t it? If not a bit macabre. That appealed to my grandson, though.”

  “Yes, ah, I’m actually calling about Everett. His name appeared on a list of residents who lived at a halfway house that’s come up in our investigation.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Did you know your grandson lived at a halfway house right before his death?”

  “Yes. Everett had issues, Detective. I made it clear he always had a home here but unfortunately, he preferred not to live by my rules, as reasonable as I believed them to be.” He paused. “I had hoped that house would be good for him. Living among his peers, gaining some independence. Finding a cocktail of medication that allowed him to function at a higher level.”

  “Mr. Draper, do you know if Everett dated anyone who lived at that house?”

  “Dated? No. I’m sorry, I don’t. Everett didn’t share that sort of thing with me.”

  “Okay. Well, if you do remember anything else that might be important regarding Everett, will you give me a call?”

  “Of course.” He paused. “This case you’re working on, it’s a puzzle, isn’t it? I’m sorry I can’t help more. But I have faith in you, son.”

  “Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.”

  Reed hung up the phone and sat staring at his blank computer screen for a few minutes.

  Even though they had something specific to work with in the discovery of the comic, things seemed more complicated than ever, and Reed worried he wouldn’t put the pieces together in time. He thought of Zach, and how he must have felt the same way all those years ago as he’d worked to bring justice to Josie and the other women Charles Hartsman had victimized. And he’d been too late.

  Reed felt it—time was ticking down toward some uncertain but inevitable end.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The ringing of his cell phone woke Reed and he rolled over in bed, careful not to jostle Liza as he reached to silence it. Ransom. He got out of bed as quickly and quietly as possible, looking over his shoulder as Liza mumbled something in her sleep and turned over. He smiled as he closed the door to his bedroom behind him and connected the call.

  “What’s up?”

  “Sorry to wake you, but we’ve got something.”

  It was already light outside, but there was no window in his kitchen, so Reed flicked on the light. The time on the stove display read eight fourteen. “Do you need me to come in?”

  “Nah, it’s your off day, but I knew you’d want to be in the loop on this one.”

  “What you got?”

  “I drove to Sophia Miller’s mom’s house like we talked about yesterday, you know, to show her the picture of Everett Draper.”

  “She recognized him as the man who’d been dating her daughter,” Reed guessed.

  “Yup. Your hunch was correct, my friend. Everett Draper, the grandson of the former Lakeside Hospital director dated the girl who made the complaint against Sadowski for being a peeping Tom.”

  “Then she dropped the charges and later OD’d.” Reed paced from one side of his small kitchen to the other, catching sight of himself in the reflection of the microwave, bedhead sticking in all directions, only wearing a pair of boxers. “But what does that mean?” he asked Ransom. “Everett Draper and Sophia Miller are both dead, by their own hand.” He and Ransom had read the reports as part of the case, and there was nothing suspicious about either of their deaths, nothing to suggest anything other than exactly what it appeared to be: two troubled people had decided they didn’t want to do life anymore and had put an end to it.

  Sophia had been right down the hall from her mother when she’d overdosed. Everett had been in an upstairs room at the halfway house. Reed couldn’t imagine a way someone could make death by hanging appear to be a suicide if it was in fact not.

  Was it possible that, like Liza had said, it was simply a small community, and the connections were only a coincidence and meant nothing to their case?

  Possible.

  But unlikely?

  Yes, Reed had a sense that it was. He just didn’t know why.

  “I can put a call in to Everett’s grandfather again,” he said. “See if he can tell us anything else about Sophia Miller?” Reed had a picture of her. He could email it to the old guy. There really was no need to visit in person just to show him a photograph. They already had confirmation from Sophia’s mother that Everett was the man her daughter had been dating. That was enough. But any more potential information couldn’t hurt. Mr. Draper had said Everett didn’t confide in him about that sort of thing, but maybe Sophia’s name alone would jog something the older man had forgotten . . . some offhand comment that could be helpful . . .

  “I can call him,” Ransom said. “You deserve a day off—”

  But they both knew that there was no such thing as a day off when there was a breakthrough in a case. “I’ll make the call from here and only come in if I need to. I have somewhat of a rapport with Mr. Draper at this point.”

  “Okay. Let me know if he has anything important to add.”

  “Will do.”

  Reed hung up. As much as he was tempted to slide back into bed with Liza, there was a killer on the loose, and he was not going to sit on anything, be it a lead or a follow-up. He went to the bathroom where he brushed his teeth and took a quick shower and then grabbed a pair of track pants and a T-shirt from his dryer. He’d put the load of laundry in there a week ago and forgotten about it, but at least he’d put it in the dryer and not left it in the washer. It was clean, if not a little wrinkled.

  He brought his cell to the living room and scrolled down through his recent calls, locating the one he recognized as belonging to Gordon Draper. He paused before hitting send, staring out the window unseeing, thinking about the ways in which the man’s grandson was connected to the victims. Connections were forming everywhere but still no clear picture, like having the entire edge of a puzzle done, but not being able to identify the subject.

  Everett Draper had dated or had some form of romantic relationship with the girl who’d made a complaint against one of the murder victims, Sadowski, the victim who took over for his grandfather when he retired from Lakeside. He’d lived at the halfway house where several residents had been victimized by Toby Resnick, another murder victim, and Clifford Schlomer, a murder victim as well.

  He seemed to be at the center of so much relating to the crimes.

  But Everett was dead.

  Ree
d let out a sigh of frustration and hit the send button, listening as the phone rang. The old man picked up after a few rings.

  “Hello, Mr. Draper, sorry to bother you so early. It’s Detective Davies again.”

  “Oh, no bother, Detective. This isn’t early for an old man like me whose creaky body begins waking him up at the crack of dawn. What can I do for you?”

  “I just have a quick follow-up question actually. You said your grandson Everett hadn’t mentioned dating a woman at the halfway house where he lived. But we have reason to believe he was seeing a woman named Sophia Miller. I wondered if that rang any bells?”

  There was a very brief pause. “I’m sorry, that doesn’t sound familiar to me. Can I ask why you haven’t asked her to confirm her relationship with my grandson?”

  “Unfortunately, she’s deceased.”

  “Deceased? How?”

  “I’m sorry to say she overdosed.” He tried to remember the date she’d died, but without his case file in front of him, he couldn’t remember exactly. He believed it would’ve been a few months before Everett. He wondered if it had anything to do with the man’s own suicide.

  “Oh. Oh dear. Well,” Mr. Draper sighed. “That’s terrible news. Pity for her family. No one understands the lasting effect of such a situation better than I do.”

  Reed frowned, regretting that he’d picked at the old man’s scab. “I’m sorry, Mr. Draper.”

  “No need to apologize.” He paused again. “I’m sorry I can’t offer more. But now, that would hardly be fair.” He let out a soft chuckle and Reed smiled at the odd joke. “This killer of yours, though, there has to be an endgame, right?”

  “An endgame?”

  “Yes. Something that wraps this all up nicely for him. Maybe there’s even a bow.” He swore he heard the old man’s mouth move into a smile on the other end of the line.

  “Actually, that’s not generally the case. These types of murderers will usually keep killing until they’re stopped.”

  “Hmm. Interesting. Even him? His whole MO seems very specific. Almost as though he’s leading up to something. No, there’s an endgame, son. What is it, I wonder? Have you read the conclusion to those comics?”