Rollins insisted on seeing his sister's body so Radhauser arranged with Heron to have him come by the ME's office at four-thirty to view the body and make an identification.
Radhauser went back to his office, reread Jackson's profile several times, trying hard not to let his thoughts drift to Cooper. But the mind is a little like the heart—it goes where it wants to go. There were many things in the profile that fit. Cooper had grown up without a father. He'd been lonely and isolated. And his mother had abused him. Had he killed Parsons and Baker as a way of seeking revenge against his mother? He'd been so protective of her, unwilling to file charges or take out a restraining order.
No matter how hard Radhauser tried to get the thought that Cooper could be the killer out of his head, it wouldn’t go away. Though he didn’t want to believe the young man he’d grown attached to capable of this kind of violence, Radhauser had to make sure. He couldn’t allow his family to be in danger. He had to find a way to get the truth out of Cooper Drake.
Around three p.m., he phoned Heron, who estimated that Julia Drake had died between three and four a.m. He confirmed that the hands had been removed postmortem. And while he’d have to wait for toxicology reports, he was pretty certain she’d died from a chloroform overdose the same way Bradford Baker did.
Before going home, Radhauser decided to return to the crime scene and see if he could find anything that might point him in the right direction. What did Julia Drake have in common with Brad Baker and Marsha Parsons? And why hadn’t the killer done the line drawing on the back of her hands?
He went over every inch of the scene but found nothing that would lead him to suspect Cooper. On the drive home, Radhauser got an idea. He so hoped he was wrong that he decided not to let Murphy or McBride in on his plan. At least not yet.
Gracie had taken Jonathan to visit her mother. And Cooper had provided Lizzie a ride to and from her baseball game that was scheduled for three p.m. That meant they'd be home by four-thirty.
As Cooper had grown more confident around the horses, Gracie now allowed him to bring them in from the pasture. Cooper was a creature of habit and Radhauser knew he’d start rounding up the horses as soon as he returned.
Radhauser opened the windows in the living room and kitchen—windows that faced the east pasture where the horses were grazing.
At about four-thirty, Cooper walked Lizzie up to the house. “She got a great hit.” He smiled as if he didn’t have a worry in the world. “She kept her elbow back and stepped into the pitch. You’d have been proud.”
“Thanks for driving her home.”
“My pleasure. I’ll bring the horses in and feed them now.”
Radhauser watched from the window. As soon as Cooper headed for the pasture, Radhauser hit the button on his tape recorder, then turned to Lizzie. “I have a great idea. Since Mommy and Jonathan aren’t home, let’s play the screaming game you love so much.”
She grinned. “You be the monster and chase me around the house—yell really loud and try to scare me, okay?”
“Sounds good,” Radhauser said. “But you know it's only pretending? I would never really scare you or hurt you. You know that, right?"
She stared at the tape recorder. It wasn’t part of their regular game. “Why are you taping it, Daddy?”
“So we can play it for mommy when she gets home. I bet it will make her laugh.”
She smiled. “I can scream louder than last time. Especially if you wear that scary mask you got for Halloween.”
“Okay. It’s a deal.” He took the mask from the top shelf in the hall closet. “And I’m going to say mean things, but remember, it’s only pretending. I want you to scream as loud as you possibly can. And I know that’s really loud. But this time scream so loud that Mommy can hear you all the way to Nana’s house. Do you think you can do that?”
She got that twinkle in her dark eyes. A smile whispered across her face and indented the dimples on either side of her mouth. “Oh yeah, Daddy, I can do that. I’m a great screamer.”
"I'm going to pretend to hit you with the belt. And I want you to beg me to stop, okay? But remember it is just pretending."
“Why?”
“Because this silly monster uses his belt and his mean voice to scare people.” Radhauser slipped on the mask and took the belt from the loops in his jeans.
He chased her around the house making pounding sounds, then slapping the belt against the floor. "I'm gonna beat the living daylights out of you, Lizzie Radhauser." She screamed at the top of her lungs over and over again. "Don't hit me, Daddy. Please don't hit me." She let out several blood-curdling yells that Radhauser knew would carry across the pasture.
He looked out the front window.
Cooper had put the halter on Ameer and was trying to lead him toward the barn. But Lizzie’s screams had frightened the stallion and caused him to rear. When Ameer settled, Cooper headed to the barn, holding the lead rope close to the halter the way Gracie had taught him. He stopped, looked toward the house as if to listen for a moment, then continued on with the stallion.
Radhauser knew Cooper would put Ameer in his stall, remove the halter, then return to the pasture for another horse. Repeating the procedure until he had all six of them in the barn for the night.
Ten minutes later, the horses were all gone from the pasture. Lizzie had tired of the screaming game. Radhauser stopped the recorder, picked her up and hugged her against his chest. “Do you know how much I love you, Lizzie girl?”
“To the moon and back ten zillion times.”
“That’s the absolute right answer. Okay, kiddo. What do you want for dinner?”
“Hot dogs and mac and cheese.”
Cooper didn't come up to the house that evening as was his custom. Radhauser was glad. It meant he'd heard the fiasco with Lizzie and wanted to stay out of it. Radhauser said a silent prayer. Oh, how he wanted to be wrong.
* * *
Late Sunday morning, Radhauser jogged down to the barn. If Cooper had killed Parsons, Baker, and his mother because of what they’d done to their children, hiking up to Red Hatchet Falls would be the perfect opportunity for him to get rid of Radhauser, the abusive father.
Cooper had already fed the horses, haltered them and led them into the pasture. He was cleaning the stalls when Radhauser stepped through the double doors.
"How would you feel about hiking up to Red Hatchet Falls with me this afternoon? I need to talk to you about a couple of things."
Cooper smiled. “Nothing I’d rather do than show you my special place.”
“Perfect. I have a few things I need to do first, but we can leave here around five. It would be great to see the sunset turn the water red.” Radhauser told him he’d drive, then jogged back up to the house, and checked in with Murphy and Heron.
Around four-thirty he packed his backpack with some sandwiches Gracie had made before she took the kids to the park. He added a few bottles of water, then dropped in the recording he’d made with Lizzie, and his gun, just in case he needed either of them.
He’d wanted to tell Gracie his plans, but didn’t want her to think badly of Cooper until Radhauser’s suspicions were confirmed. And he didn’t want her to worry needlessly in case he was wrong. God, how he hoped he was wrong.
Cooper was quiet on the drive and seemed to be lost in his thoughts.
Radhauser debated whether or not to tell him about his mother or wait and see how he reacted to Radhauser’s trap. Ultimately, he decided to wait.
Following Cooper’s directions, Radhauser parked on a dirt road near the barely noticeable trail that led through the woods. After strapping on his backpack, he followed Cooper down the narrow dirt path. The path was overhung with branches, thick with leaves. They followed the trail to where it stopped at the creek’s edge.
About two miles in, Cooper put an index finger to his lips. On the opposite bank, a doe stood with her speckled fawn. She flicked her ears and raised her nose to the air as if to catch their scent, then
leaped into the woods, the fawn following close behind her. Two wild dogwoods, their branches clustered with white blossoms, stretched across the creek forming a canopy of flowers.
With a sinking feeling in his stomach Radhauser questioned himself. How could he suspect Cooper, a young man who cared enough to approach the woods quietly so not to disturb the wild creatures that had come to drink from the creek? Someone who coached a Little League team with a gentleness rarely seen?
Somewhere above them, water rushed over rocks, but the falls was not yet visible. Wild azaleas were in full bloom and hundreds of spruce and fir trees stood like majestic giants.
They stopped for dinner and sat on a huge gray rock that had been warmed by the sun. Radhauser handed Cooper one of the ham sandwiches and a bottle of water. “I feel guilty about something and I need to talk.”
Cooper turned toward him. He took a bite of his sandwich and nodded. “You can talk to me about anything. I heard you with Lizzie last night when I was bringing in the horses.”
Radhauser stared at his dusty boots, trying to find the right words. "I'm having a hard time with her. She does the least little thing and I can't seem to control my temper around her. I lost it last night. And I’m sorry you had to hear it. I hit her with a belt. I'm afraid I'm going to hurt her. I hate myself afterward, but…" He trailed off, already feeling guilty for the lie and questioning himself for suspecting Cooper of something so horrendous. Cooper, who’d been nothing but kind to Radhauser and his family.
Could it have been exhaustion and frustration over not solving the murders more quickly that had dragged Radhauser’s thoughts to a place he should never have ventured? A wiser detective would go home and get some uninterrupted sleep. Come back to work refreshed and start over, reexamine the evidence and find his killer.
“Was last night the first time you hit her?”
“I’m ashamed to admit that it wasn’t.”
“Does Gracie know?”
“It always happens when she’s not around. But I don’t know what Lizzie has told her.”
“Kids don’t talk about it.” Cooper stared into the water. “Maybe you should get some counseling.”
“I’ve tried that. And I do better for a little while, but it always happens again.”
They finished their sandwiches in silence.
Radhauser laid back on the warm rock and looked up at the pillow-like clouds. He'd reviewed Jackson's profile so many times he knew it by heart. And he did not doubt that Cooper had been mistreated as a kid. But loads of abused kids grew up to be decent human beings, not hatchet murderers.
Was he out of his mind to suspect Cooper?
In one of the fir trees above them, two squirrels chattered.
Cooper laughed. “They want us to leave. Are you ready?”
They walked for a while in silence. The trail narrowed and rose steeply.
Radhauser allowed his mind to become oblivious to anything except the climb, the beauty all around them, and the rushing sound of the water.
They turned a corner and there it was. A roiling cascade of water powered down the red rocks like a world-class skier at the Olympics. It fell from a distance of at least fifty feet, rumbling and roaring as it dropped. A torrent in shades of blue and gray turned to white as it bubbled over the shallow, rock-laden pool at the bottom. The air smelled like wet earth and pine needles.
Cooper sucked in a deep breath and pointed out the hatchet-like rock formations at the top of the falls. A moment later, he turned to Radhauser. “I have to take a leak. I’ll be right back.” He disappeared into the woods.
Radhauser took out another bottle of water and was drinking it when a rock fell on the ground behind him. When he turned around, Cooper clamped a handkerchief soaked with chloroform over Radhauser’s mouth. The water bottle dropped to the ground. The last sound he heard was tape being ripped from a roll. In just a matter of seconds, the handkerchief was secured over his mouth with duct tape.
Everything went black and Radhauser fell to the ground.
Chapter Thirty-Three
From the position of the sun, Radhauser figured he must have been out cold for more than an hour. When he awakened, he was securely tied to the thick trunk of a fir tree, his ankles and wrists bound together. But the handkerchief and tape had been removed from his mouth.
Cooper sat on the ground in front of Radhauser. He calmly removed an ancient-looking, red-handled hatchet from his backpack. He stared at it in his hands for a moment, then looked up at Radhauser. “My mother used to stand by the piano with it posed to strike. She said I didn’t deserve the hands God gave me and that if I didn’t live up to my gift, she’d chop them off. I believed her. I used to have nightmares about it. I was so scared.”
“I’m scared, too.” Radhauser met Cooper’s gaze. “I don’t want my kids to grow up without a father.” A horrific sense of helplessness assailed Radhauser as he struggled to break free. His heart hammered against his ribs.
In an attempt to save himself, Radhauser decided to tell Cooper the truth. “I never abused Lizzie. I couldn’t hurt her. It’s a game we play sometimes. The daddy monster putting on his Halloween mask and chasing the little girl. We call it the screaming game. I made a tape recording of what I told her before we played last night. It’s in my backpack.”
Cooper’s features softened and he had a faraway look on his face as if remembering something from the distant past. "Monsters don’t dress like monsters—they dress like humans. And what's even weirder is they're rarely aware that they are monsters."
“I’m sorry your mother hurt you.”
“What’s done is done, but I’m glad you couldn’t hurt Lizzie.” He let out a small, humorless laugh. “You were pretty convincing, but I figured you were on to me when you didn’t tell me my mother was dead. Uncle Rollins called last night about funeral arrangements. Of course, I already knew, but I expected to hear it from you once the hands were discovered. I even planned my grief-stricken reaction.”
“I’m sorry, Cooper. Sometimes I hate my job.”
“Don’t be. I needed at least one person I could believe in. And you were that person for me.”
Radhauser swallowed hard. “We can get you some help. I have a really good friend in the Public Defender’s Office. Kendra is the best attorney I know, and if I ask her, she’ll take your case, I know she will. Given the circumstances, we might be able to get the charges reduced. Or a judge might let you spend the time in a psychiatric facility.”
Cooper stared at him for a moment, his green eyes growing glassy. "I killed three people. I deserve to die. But I need to buy a little more time. I'm going to loosen the restraints on your hands so you can work yourself free to untie your ankles.”
“There’s nowhere for you to run, Cooper.”
He loosened the ropes a little, then gently placed his hand on Radhauser’s shoulder. “I have no intention of running. I planned to come here tonight, even before you suggested it.”
“Would you tell me why you did it?” Radhauser was pretty sure he knew why, but for some reason, he wanted to hear it from Cooper.
"I saw that woman slap her son in the park so hard his face bled and I lost it. I followed her home and I don't know, I went a little crazy, I guess. I thought about it for days. Planned how I’d do it without leaving any DNA or terrifying the kids. Watching her hit that kid in the park made me feel like I was a kid again myself, terrified of my mother's threats. Same thing for that jerk Brad Baker. He was horrible to his little boy. And to some of the other kids on his team, too, like that little Muslim boy. People like that don't deserve to have kids." Though his words were harsh, his voice was soft and conciliatory. "I'm not sorry for what I did to them. But I am sorry I let you down. As for my mother…"
It was as if the floodgates had opened and all the pain, humiliation and sorrow of Cooper’s life came streaming out of him. Radhauser listened as he vacillated between fury and grief, swearing he was glad he’d killed his mother one instant then s
obbing the next. It was as though his whole terrible childhood had blasted itself into focus and finally, painfully, he allowed himself to see it.
Again, Radhauser thought about Jackson’s profile. He’d been dead-on. If only Radhauser had seen the signs earlier, he might have been able to help Cooper find another way to fight back.
Cooper was seeking revenge on people who reminded him of his mother. He was a missionary killer—one with a mission to eliminate child abusers. Even knowing that, it was hard for Radhauser to think of Cooper as a cold and sadistic killer.
Devastation marred Cooper’s face. He rubbed both hands through his hair and inhaled, deep and loud. “I wish I’d had a father like you. Maybe I would have grown up to be a good man,” he whispered, then walked away toward the falls.
It was a turning point in a man’s life when he looked himself straight in the eyes and realized who he was and who he'd become was made up of a combination of factors, some of which, like his parents, was not within his control.
Radhauser twisted his hands until he’d freed them, then turned the rope on his ankles around until the knots were visible. He was still picking at them when he spotted Cooper climbing to the top of the falls. Did he want one more look at the place he loved? Or was he searching for the metal box where he’d hid his poems and songs?
The sun was setting behind him. He stood for a moment, as straight as a soldier, and looked at Radhauser, hard enough to bruise his heart. Without a word, Cooper T. Drake bent at the waist and dove fifty feet into the rocky, blood-red water.
The sound of bones snapping moved Radhauser so profoundly he had to blink back tears. His heart seemed to stop and explode inside his chest.
When he finally released himself from the ropes, he stood for a moment, trying to let it all sink in. His knees buckled and he fell back on the ground. His chest heaved and his shoulders trembled. He let out an inhuman wail that echoed off the rocks. And, for a moment, he felt as if he might physically break in half. He needed to pull himself together. A big part of him wanted to curl into a ball and sob, but he couldn’t do that. He was a detective and had an investigation to close.
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