Blood Sisters

by Jim O'Shea

Nicholas made fists with both hands. “I saw her, Libby.”

  For a strange moment Libby’s world faded, and nothing existed but an old man with slumped shoulders staring at the floor between his feet. She felt detached from reality—from a world in which pastor and father Nicholas Meeker had always been the one thing she could count on—from a world in which people died and stayed dead. “Dad,” Libby’s voice sounded tiny, even in her own ears. “We buried Melissa. You were there.”

  When her father looked up, the pained expression on his face was hard to look at. “She was dressed in her Navy whites, just like your mom claimed. Libby…” He paused to swallow. “Three hours ago, I swear Melissa was standing in the middle of the kitchen.” He continued after a moment. “I don’t know if I was more shocked or afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “At first, that she was real,” he said slowly. “That I wasn’t imagining it all.”

  “At first?”

  “Then I was afraid she wasn’t real.”

  Libby’s heart fluttered as she tried to draw in more oxygen, but instead could barely breathe. She got up and hurried toward the kitchen again, this time for a glass of water, but stopped halfway down the hall and turned back. When she arrived back in her father’s office, he was standing and staring out the lone window. “If you think someone’s been in the house, Dad, maybe you should get grandpa’s gun out of the garage?”

  He spoke without flinching. “You can’t shoot a ghost, Elizabeth.”

  Libby slumped into the sofa as the odd words echoed in her brain. She spent the rest of the afternoon and into the evening consoling her father, quoting Doctor Lambert, and reassuring him the bizarre experience was nothing but stress piling on top of stress. Perhaps her words helped, but Libby was sure she hadn’t changed his mind.

  It was very difficult to convince someone of something, when one wasn’t quite sure of it either.

  14

  Hunter tilted the rearview mirror down to avoid the glare of headlights, and the eyes staring back at him looked as if they belonged to a much older man. He sighed and cracked the car window open a couple of inches to draw in the cold, pre-dawn air. Outside his unmarked police car, the lights of Salt Lake City had long since given way to a dome of glittering stars. The dark isolation allowed his thoughts to focus.

  He’d already reduced the Ginger Killer to a cliché in his mind—a non-descript man with sunken eyes hiding behind thick, horn-rimmed glasses—an innocent-looking white male in his forties or fifties—perhaps an auditor, food truck driver, or actuary by day.

  But there were holes—all theories had them.

  The truth was the Ginger Killer could be anyone, which also happened to be the key to his anonymity—the ability to walk in plain view without the slightest hint of guilt or suspicion. Virtually transparent, because he appeared to be like everyone around him, except he was insane—a special type of crazy wrapped up in any number of physical disguises.

  Traffic was light, and by the time he arrived at the Meeker residence it was after 7:00 AM. The house was still dark, except for a single light shining from an upstairs window. Hunter parked across the street from the small home, and sat in his car with the engine running to stay warm.

  The tree-lined stretch of concrete reminded him of the one he grew up on, dotted with Craftsman bungalows and surrounded by tall pines that cast the morning in cool blue shadows.

  An elderly couple walked toward him holding hands as a young boy whizzed by on a bike, and two Golden Retrievers rolled in new snow in the yard across from the gray and black bungalow known as 9463 Stansberry Lane.

  When a light finally came on in a downstairs window, Hunter pulled his car into the driveway and climbed out of his department-issued, unmarked white sedan. He navigated the icy walkway up to the house and pressed the doorbell button but didn’t hear anything inside, so he tapped lightly on the glass and waited.

  He opened a fresh pack of cigarettes, lit one, and crumbled up the rest in his fist. After taking a few puffs, he opened the glass storm door and tapped lightly on the heavy wood door.

  15

  Libby had just set her company coffee mug on the blueprint when Norm’s tiny head shot up suddenly. It was tilted toward the office door, stub of a tail frozen in place. “Relax, Norm,” she said, after making sure the mute button on the desk phone was engaged.

  The old dog began curling his body back into nap position on the area rug when, without warning, he stopped abruptly and stared out the door again.

  “Give it a rest, Norm.” Libby rolled her eyes. “This guard dog routine has been getting old lately.”

  No reaction.

  “Why don’t we rent a romantic comedy tonight to take the edge off?”

  Norm’s gaze and ears refused to flinch.

  “Oh, right, you’re not a fan. How about an action flick?”

  He stole a quick glance at Libby and then returned his attention to the open door. After a few seconds, he curled back into a gray ball.

  “Party pooper.”

  Libby lifted the mug off the blueprint on her desk and sighed at the brown stain it left behind. The job she used to love had become more of a necessity, and not just to pay the bills. Her design work, creating unique works of art forged in steel and concrete, had become more of an antidote than anything else—the only way she had to ward off all the destruction in her life. The problem was, it wasn’t working very well lately.

  Norm shot up suddenly, grabbing Libby’s attention once again. Interrupting his perpetual nap was rare unless he had to go outside or was hungry, and neither appeared to be the case. With his legs stiffened and back bent, he growled deeper than she had heard in years, causing the tiny hairs on the back of her neck to stand up.

  Libby disconnected from the company conference call. It was a rare, early Sunday morning project update on the convention center disaster and she’d been dismissed after the first five minutes, but stayed on to listen in without her bosses’ knowledge.

  Her revisions had been reviewed yesterday, approved before the conference call, and would be submitted to the City Monday morning. Libby was told it would be several days before any official feedback would be available, which meant several days before she could even think about relaxing.

  She cinched her thick, terrycloth robe tight around her waist, grabbed her mug of coffee, and stepped into the hallway. Nothing obvious at first glance, but something felt wrong. With her father’s bizarre experience still playing in the back of her mind, unease rippled through her as she went from room to room and then downstairs to the main floor. When she clicked on the kitchen light, she noticed the door to the basement was slightly ajar.

  More sleepwalking?

  Libby had only made it three steps back up the stairs when a light tapping sounded from the front door.

  Norm bolted toward it and then shrank back toward her growling. When she didn’t move, he returned to the door barking loudly.

  She followed, approaching the living room window carefully.

  Between the curtains, a white car sat in the driveway with what looked like government-issued Utah plates, partially covered with dirty snow. More interesting was the man on the porch wearing a white shirt, tie, and overcoat—shuffling his feet back and forth in the cold while expelling his breath in large plumes.

  The handsome man appeared to be in his late thirties, with a puckered brow, strong jaw, and a blunt nose that looked as if it had been rearranged a time or two in his life. Even through the foggy glass, his soul appeared more battered than his face.

  Libby leaned into the thick wood door. “Who is it?”

  “Detective Troy Hunter.” The man’s voice was loud and forceful. “Salt Lake City Police.” He shoved a hand into his coat pocket and produced a wallet, flipped it open, and held a gold shield and picture ID up to the outer storm door’s glass panel. “May I have a moment of your time, Ms. Meeker?”

  Salt Lake City?

  Libby examined both items
as best she could through the narrow lens. They looked as legit as the expression on the man’s face.

  “Give me a minute.” She left her mug on a small table in the entry foyer and rushed up the stairs. After replacing pajamas and robe with jeans, t-shirt, and a cardigan sweater, she hurried back down the stairs, stopping at the large oval mirror mounted underneath the staircase to do a quick check. Bags under her eyes again, unkempt hair, no makeup. Sigh. Libby ran fingers through her hair as she hurried toward the door, pulled it open a couple of inches, and spoke through the glass door with the chain still fastened. “How can I help you, Officer?”

  “Detective.” His breath pushed a white cloud into the cold, dry air. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about the break-in reported a few days ago, Ms. Meeker, if you don’t mind. I won’t take much of your time.”

  “May I see your ID again?”

  The man pulled open the storm door, removed his photo ID from the wallet’s plastic sleeve, and shoved it through the crack in the door.

  Troy Douglas Hunter

  Detective - Homicide Division

  Salt Lake City Police Department.

  Homicide? Libby peered out again at the policeman on the porch and compared him to the ID. It was the same man, but happier eyes looked back at Libby from the yellowed photo. She turned the deadbolt, pulled the front door open, and stepped back. “Come in, Detective.”

  “Hunter,” he said, as he stepped over the threshold and paused.

  “Excuse me?”

  “People call me Hunter.”

  “Whatever.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “I’m freezing here with the door open.”

  Salt Lake City Homicide Detective Troy D. Hunter nodded and stepped past Libby into the entry foyer.

  Norm sniffed his shoes as he passed and then lifted his head as if he heard something. He scurried toward the back of the house.

  Libby also got a good whiff of the detective—clean but musky—imbued with coffee, tobacco, and what she imagined to be traces of spent gunpowder. Beneath it all, she picked up his personal scent—the one beneath everything else—layered on thick by his world.

  “Please.” She gestured toward a sectional sofa in the living room.

  “Thank you,” Hunter said. He took off his overcoat as he entered the small space and laid it across the arm of the sofa. He didn’t have the typical desk job physique, but instead had muscular arms and a chest pushing the limits of his starched white shirt. When the man smiled, it looked genuine.

  “I was about to freshen my coffee,” she said. “Would you like some?”

  “Yes. Thank you. Black is fine.”

  Libby grabbed her mug off the foyer table and hurried to the kitchen where she topped it off and poured the detective a fresh cup using her fine china. When she returned, he was still standing.

  “People call me Libby.”

  “My records indicate your first name is Elizabeth,” he said, after glancing down at his notebook. “Shouldn’t your nickname be Lizzy?”

  Libby smiled, as warm memories rushed over her. “My sister had a bit of lisp when she was little. My parents called me Lizzy but when Melissa first learned to talk, she couldn’t pronounce it correctly and Lizzy came out sounding like Libby. Mom and Dad thought it was cute, so they began to call me Libby too, and it eventually stuck.”

  “Cute story. Then Libby, it is.”

  Hunter waited until she sat down before sinking into the middle of the sofa directly across from her. His gaze carefully surveyed her before settling on her face, meeting her eyes in a hard stare. She pulled bare feet underneath her legs.

  “I’m sure you haven’t come this far to discuss my practical joker, Detective.”

  “I’m not sure we can safely categorize this as a practical joke, Ms…Libby. I’ve been reviewing—” He stopped. “What is your dog barking at?”

  Norm’s barking had been so incessant in recent weeks that Libby hadn’t even noticed it until the man pointed it out. “Everything,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

  He didn’t look convinced. “Did you happen to catch the local news this morning?”

  Libby shivered when her brain, against her will, conjured up an imaginary image of Melissa’s face plastered on the local TV news affiliate. In the background, a talking head proclaimed, ‘Navy Veteran Presumed Dead RETURNS!’ She shook her head as the bizarre imagery faded from her mind’s eye. “I’ve been on a conference call with work.”

  “On Sunday?”

  Libby nodded.

  He didn’t look convinced as he reached into his coat’s other pocket. He pulled out the thick weekend newspaper rolled into a tube wrapped in clear plastic. “Brought this in for you.” His tone was ominous. “It was in your driveway.”

  “I cut off the subscription a month ago,” Libby said, as she set the Tooele City Gazette on the coffee table, “but they keep bringing them. It’s as if the delivery guys are trying to meet a quota.”

  Hunter set his notepad in his lap.

  “There was a murder in Tooele last night.”

  Libby had to catch herself from spitting coffee on the carpeting. There were, at the very most, two degrees of separation in Tooele City, which meant Libby either knew the murder victim or someone who did. Death seemed to engulf her once again, and this time she could do nothing to hide the horror.

  “A Mrs. Hannah Flannery,” Hunter said slowly. “Twenty-nine. She is—”

  “I know who she is.” Libby pulled the Gazette from its plastic sleeve and unrolled it on the coffee table. A familiar face smiled from a large photo just below the headline in large, bold font.

  Tooele Mother of Two Found Dead

  Below the headline was a smaller photo of a modest apartment complex on the outskirts of Tooele that Libby also recognized, surrounded by police cars. “She was a year behind me in high school.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  A pulse pounded behind her eyes.

  The Salt Lake City detective replaced the cap on his pen, removed reading glasses, and cleaned them with his shirtsleeve. “Does Ms. Flannery remind you of anyone?”

  Libby looked at the photo again. Hannah Flannery was one of five or six girls who had red hair in her high school, and hadn’t changed much since then. “A lot of people used to say we looked alike, but that’s pretty common with redheads.”

  His gaze remained fixed.

  “You’re here because I look like Hannah?”

  “Partially.”

  A tense silence settled in the room. Libby wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the entire reason the law enforcement professional was in her living room on a cold Sunday morning, but he didn’t seem to care what she wanted.

  “There’ve been three recent murders in northern Utah, Ms. Meeker. In Farmington two weeks ago, Magna less than a week later, and now a third just north of Tooele last night. All three women were approximately thirty years old, with red hair like Mrs. Flannery. Like you, Ms. Meeker.”

  “My goodness.” Libby arms and legs went slack. “This is the first I’ve heard of any of it.”

  “The mayoral scandal is grabbing most of the headlines in Salt Lake City right now, and there are also the e-coli deaths in Provo. This situation has garnered less press than it would have ordinarily.”

  Libby closed her eyes. Everything was moving too fast. “Can I freshen your coffee?”

  “I’d like that.” The detective accompanied Libby into the kitchen uninvited and sat at the table.

  Libby topped off both coffees and sat down across from him.

  Hunter thanked her before taking a long sip. He seemed to be surveying the kitchen. When Libby set her mug down, he slid glasses down to the tip of his nose and pointed at her with a pencil. “There are many women around your age with red hair in northern Utah, Ms. Meeker, and even a few here in Tooele City. The real reason I’m here is the break-in you reported a few days ago.”

  Libby’s plastered-on casual façade suddenly felt brittle. “I’m not sure
I’d call it a break-in, per se. Somebody gave me a jigsaw puzzle as a birthday gift, and must have tried to put it together the night of my party here at the house. I think whoever it was got sidetracked or interrupted.”

  “That friend then broke into your house and added some pieces a few days later?”

  Libby nodded sheepishly. “It’s most likely a lot to do about nothing. It was my dad who reported it to the police. He can be a little over-protective at times.”

  Hunter looked at his notepad. “Pastor Nicholas Meeker?”

  Libby nodded. The man was thorough.

  “I plan to attend his Sunday service after I leave here.”

  Libby flushed with a sudden tinge of guilt. Except for her mother’s funeral service, she hadn’t attended The Crossing since Melissa’s death. And now a complete stranger from another city would be more current on Pastor Nicholas Meeker’s sermon series than his own daughter—except he wouldn’t. “He’s not giving the service today, Detective.”

  He stopped writing in his notebook.

  “He wasn’t feeling well yesterday, so his deacon will be filling in.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Libby looked at the tile floor between her feet and then back up into steel-blue eyes. It felt as if they were staring directly into the synapses firing inside her brain.

  “I’d like to share a few details from the Salt Lake City cases with you if I may. It will explain why I’m here today.”

  Libby nodded silently, despite the fact that more details were the last thing she wanted to hear.

  “Will you agree to keep this confidential?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you. As I said, we’ve managed to fly largely under the press radar so far.”

  She did not meet his gaze, but felt his boring in on her.

  “The Flannery scene is still being processed, but it appears all three murder victims were killed with the same weapon and in the same fashion. They were also about your age, female, and red-haired.”

  Libby’s head snapped up.

  “It appears a serial murderer may be working his way south through central Utah.” Hunter pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and unfolded it on the kitchen table. A crude red line that looked as if it had been made by a marker ran from Farmington to Magna on the black and white photocopy of a map. He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and extended the straight-line south from Magna until he stopped at Tooele. “Another reason why I’m here.”