by Jim O'Shea
“I understand, but we have reason to believe this might be more than just a missing persons case.”
A voice crackled on what sounded like a walkie-talkie over the phone connection, followed by Brasier telling someone to hold his horses. “It’s a small two-bedroom ranch that I would say is sixty to seventy years old,” Brasier said. “The house has a detached carport and a basement with stone walls and a dirt floor. Every door was unlocked when we arrived.”
Two words jumped out at Hunter. “Dirt floor?”
“Very common in these parts.”
A gut feeling washed over Hunter like a tsunami and, for a moment, there was neither the striped, asphalt parking lot outside the windows of the car, nor the glass through which to see it. Everything around him faded, replaced by a vision of an anonymous grave followed by dirt covering up two non-descript coffins. He dry-swallowed a huge lump in his throat while his gut twitched violently.
“Detective Hunter?”
“I need you to spray the basement floor.”
Brasier hesitated for a few seconds.
“What do you know that I don’t, Detective?”
“Let’s just say I have a hunch…a strong one.”
A sharp beep sounded, and Hunter heard Brasier asking someone over the walkie-talkie if they had Luminol. A distant voice replied ‘yes’ after a second beep.
“OK, Detective, we’ll spray the basement. However, as I’m sure you know, Luminol can be destructive so I’ll have my team search for other trace evidence like hair, fibers, or semen until you get here.”
“Understood.’
“What do you hope to find?”
Hunter paused. “I’m hoping we find nothing.” He pressed END on his cell phone, shifted the car into drive, and pushed down hard on the accelerator. He was northbound on Interstate 15 within minutes, and it didn’t take long before the Tarman development faded and the odd confrontation with Libby outside the museum played on his mind.
He clicked on the radio, selected his favorite country western station, and got immersed in the crooning about loves lost so much he almost missed his exit. He began to lose cell service not long after turning west off the interstate, so he pulled off to the side of the county road when the phone’s cellular reception icon got down to one bar. From there, he placed crackly calls to the surveillance team, the forensics lab, a Tooele Police officer, and the linguistics expert.
The surveillance team had followed Libby back to a house in Stockton and confirmed it was her parents’ home. An African American woman, whom they identified as Aisha Barry from her license plate, showed up less than an hour later. They had both been inside the house since.
The call to the linguistics expert went right to voice mail so he left a second message. The one to the lab for the DNA results was a few hours premature according to the technician, and the last call to the Tooele Police officer looking into the video from the bank and apartment complex was the same.
Hunter plugged his phone into the car charger and twenty minutes later, pulled up to a small, non-descript house situated about halfway between Interstate 15 and the Curlew National Grassland in southern Idaho. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it definitely wasn’t a tidy house or the smell of cut hay this late in the season. The idea of a crime scene conjured up images of neglect and despair—this was anything but.
A large man with a silver badge met him at the side door. “Detective Hunter?”
“Brasier?”
The man nodded.
“Pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant.”
Randall Brasier ignored Hunter’s outstretched hand and turned toward the living room. Hunter followed, taking note of several numbered evidence bags in the kitchen and living room. A large bag, number seventeen, sat empty atop a partially-assembled jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table. Although barely half completed, it was already obvious the puzzle image was a sunset landscape over the Grand Canyon. The pieces were made of cardboard and the puzzle itself was much larger than the one in Libby’s home. Nothing about it looked familiar or suspicious, except for the simple fact that it was an incomplete jigsaw puzzle.
Next to the puzzle sat an open box of crayons, which Hunter noted as highly unusual in a home without kids. The box looked almost new, with three rows of brightly colored wax including every shade from the rainbow. The only ones used were the browns and blacks. They neatly lined the back row of the box and each one was worn down to a nub.
Brasier passed the basement stairs and continued down a short hallway. He pointed out a large bedroom to the right and identified it as the Tarmans’, before proceeding to a smaller bedroom at the back of the house. The only furniture in the room was a dirty mattress in one corner, patched in numerous places with duct tape.
“It looks to me like this window was boarded up at some point.” Brasier pointed to a series of small holes all around the window frame and then to a stack of boards on the ground outside the window.
Hunter examined the window frame closer before agreeing with Brasier’s assessment. “Any theories?”
Brasier shook his head. “There’s no evidence of anyone other than the Tarmans’ ever living in this house, so perhaps it was simply the wife’s retreat when the husband snored. Or vice-versa.”
Hunter shrugged, knowing the theory didn’t explain the boards.
Brasier returned down the narrow hallway and pointed at the kitchen table from the top of the basement stairs. “A few items have been tagged and bagged, but we haven’t found anything suspicious so far. We did discover the house is leased, and the Tarmans’ were behind on the rent as well as four or five credit cards. I’m thinking they simply decided to skip town and leave it all behind.”
“Uh-huh.” Hunter acted as if he was writing in his notebook, but the page remained blank.
“I think we’re wasting our time with the Luminol.”
“Humor me, Lieutenant.”
Brasier shrugged and turned down the stairs. Hunter followed him to the bottom, and joined Brasier and a forensics technician on a ten-by-ten foot piece of plastic at the foot of the stairs. The crime scene unit had already covered the basement’s three small windows with cardboard and bagged multiple hair and fabric samples, which now sat on top of a washer-dryer set under the stairs.
Brasier nodded, and a technician began spraying a pale, yellow liquid across the dirt floor, working from the far corner toward the stairs.
Hunter followed Brasier to the kitchen, where police photographers were preparing their long-exposure cameras to capture what the Luminol might reveal—the blue chemiluminescent appearance of blood. Brasier offered Hunter some coffee but a cigarette sounded much better, so he returned to his car and opened another pack. He lit a single cigarette, crushed the remaining nineteen, then allowed his thoughts to return to Libby as he trudged down the dirt road. Her dyed hair, and unexpected trip to Wyoming, the bizarre interaction at the museum…the envelope.
He flicked the cigarette into the grass as he ran back to the car, slipped on a latex glove, and tore off the end the envelope. When he tipped it over, another jigsaw puzzle piece slid into the palm of his gloved hand. It was made of wood and consistent with the others from a size and shape standpoint, but the coloration was notably different than the rest. Instead of muted greens, pinks, and whites, it looked more like a black storm cloud.
Hunter slipped the piece in his coat pocket, returned to the Tarman home, and sat down at the dining room table. He retrieved the piece from his coat pocket and was examining the solid black line across its back when his cop eye noticed something else. It was nothing a normal person would consider unusual or out-of-place.
A coffee cup was resting on the dining room’s buffet table.
But something about it was unusual.
With his gloved hand, Hunter ran his fingers along spirals of raised white dots on the side of the cup, which were surrounded by metal bands on the top and bottom. He’d had coffee from this cup before, or one just like it, an
d he instantly remembered where.
Libby’s house. The first time they’d met.
He was struggling with the potential implications when he noticed something else on the side of the delicate china. Just below the cup’s grip was a distinct coffee-colored pattern of loops, arches, and whorls—a fingerprint.
Hunter suddenly felt woozy, until something new made him stop and shiver. A piece of paper had been used to protect the table’s surface from the cup, and just above the brown circular stain the cup left behind were the words, ‘King James Bible’.
The visual combination triggered something inside him, and vivid memories from the first Ginger Killer murder surfaced. The single, undamaged coffee cup in the entry foyer and, if he remembered right, it too had been resting on a piece of paper.
He pulled up the file of photos on his phone, swiped until he found a subfolder labeled ‘Schrupp’, and paged through a dozen photos until he found the one he was looking for.
The undamaged cup.
A closer inspection revealed the same spiral pattern of dots, and when he zoomed in even closer, the printing on the top edge of the paper beneath it was legible enough to read. Or one word was. King. Hunter was mentally wrestling with the sudden influx of new facts when Lieutenant Brasier shouted up from the basement.
They were ready.
He was in the process of taking photos of the cup and the paper underneath it when Brasier emerged at the top of the stairs.
“While I’m young,” he said, breathing heavily. “This stuff doesn’t last forever.”
Hunter grabbed him by the arm. “I need a favor, Randall.”
When Brasier turned around Hunter held out the coffee cup from the museum, now enclosed in a plastic, unnumbered evidence bag.
“What’s that?” Brasier asked.
“Potential evidence. Do you have the AFIS software on-site?”
Brasier looked at the cup and then at Hunter. “I’m sure we have it on one of the laptops in the crime scene van, but I believe we have bigger fish to fry right now.” He turned back toward the stairs.
Hunter grabbed him again, this time more forcefully. “It would take too long to explain, but a killer’s prints might be on this cup. I need it ASAP. Can you have a tech work on it while we do this?”
Brasier glared at him, but after a few seconds, his face softened. He stuck his arm out and curled his finger at an officer standing in the kitchen. “Officer Lawrence.” A tall, bearded young man hurried over, and Brasier gestured toward the bagged mug. “Billy, I want this analyzed right now.”
Hunter pointed out the fingerprint through the clear plastic and the young officer hurried away with it. A few seconds later, Hunter stood halfway down the basement stairs next to Brasier and the lead forensics technician as the photographer made his final adjustments to cameras set up on both sides of the basement.
When Brasier signaled, the lights went out and the basement became pitch black, but not for long. In less than thirty seconds, the entire west side of the basement lit up with a bright blue glow.
“I’m not sure how you knew, but you’re right, Detective.” Brasier turned toward Hunter, his face reflecting the eerie light. “There was a bloodbath down here.”
32
The dark shadow moving slowly across yellowed curtains was followed by a knock on the front door. Libby peeked out between the curtain and window frame. The visitor wasn’t visible from that angle, but the driveway and street in front of her parents’ house was. They were completely empty, except for what appeared to be a white service van parked two houses down.
She spun around and bumped into Aisha.
Her friend had left her nail polish on the coffee table and stood behind Libby with nine red toenails. “Well?”
Libby shrugged her shoulders and approached the front door cautiously. Her parents never had a peephole installed in their front door, which said a lot about the Stockton community, but that warm fuzzy wasn’t helping her now. She yelled at the solid wood door. “Who is it?”
There was a slight pause before muffled words emerged from the other side of the door. “It’s Ryan,” said a nervous voice. “Ryan Florich.”
Libby could feel Aisha’s gaze trained on the back of her head, so she turned to see what might have passed for a nervous smile tweaking the corners of her best friend’s mouth. She unlatched the deadbolt and opened the door a few inches with the chain still fastened. Her manager stood on the porch slightly slumped over, with what looked like a single blueprint rolled up in one hand and a brightly colored gift bag in the other. Before she could ask him what he was doing at her parent’s house, he started explaining through the narrow opening.
“Sorry to come over unannounced,” Florich said, “but I wanted to surprise you.” He stuck the blueprint through the narrow opening in the door and smiled. “The City approved the new design.”
Libby let the words hang in the air for a moment before exhaling loudly. She unfastened the chain and swung the door open with trembling fingers, took the drawing from his extended hand, and invited him in.
Sweat dotted the big man’s forehead, and his eyes appeared slightly fogged.
“Ryan, I think you’ve met Aisha Barry.”
Aisha extended her hand. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Florich.”
Florich leered at Aisha as he took her hand in his. “Same here.” He bent over to kiss her hand, but she pulled it back before he could.
Libby stepped between them.
“Great news, Ryan. What’s this?” She began rolling the rubber band off the blueprint.
“The partners wanted you to know they appreciate all the hard work you did to get the whole thing right. They each wrote a nice note on a copy of the top elevation drawing and signed their names.”
“How sweet.”
Libby unrolled the drawing, held it open with both hands, and read the warm platitudes out loud.
Aisha hugged her.
When she looked back at Florich, the hand holding the gift bag was extended toward her.
“This was on your desk,” he said. “I assumed it was from someone in the office congratulating you on the deal, so I added a little something to it.”
Libby peered inside the bag. It contained a small wrapped box and two pieces of cardboard held together with a paperclip, which she pulled out of the bag. She immediately identified them as tickets, and when she flipped them over to the front, her heart clenched like a fist. Two tickets to a Broadway show in New York and, although musical theatre was her favorite, Florich’s intent was clear and troublesome.
“That is so generous of you, Ryan.” She turned toward Aisha, held the tickets up in front of her face, and winked. “Your dream come true, Azzi!”
Aisha didn’t hesitate, and almost as if they’d rehearsed the entire scene in advance, screamed as she wrapped her arms around Florich’s neck and kissed him on the cheek. “I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Florich. I’ve always wanted to see Broadway.”
“But…” Florich gulped before feigning a grin. “You’re…welcome.”
Before he could say another word, Libby pulled the door open and stuck her head out, craning it left and right. “Where’s your car, Ryan?”
“GPS took me to the wrong house,” he said after a brief pause. “When I got out and realized it, I decided to just walk the rest of the way. My car’s only a few blocks east of here.”
“Well, I can’t thank you enough for the wonderful gift,” Libby said, smiling. “And for coming out all this way to hand deliver it.” She stepped aside, still holding the door open.
Florich looked left and right before inching toward the door. “I guess I should be getting back.”
“If you hurry,” Aisha said, “you can get back before it gets too dark. It was really nice to meet you.”
Libby and Aisha exchanged awkward hugs with Florich and then watched him stumble down the sidewalk. He turned left when he got to the end of the street, and was headed due west when he disappear
ed from view. Libby shut the door and high-fived her grinning friend. “You deserve an Oscar for that one, Azzi.”
“Great minds,” Aisha said, as she slumped back onto the sofa. “Did he actually think he’d get you to go to New York with him? You two haven’t been on a single date.” She pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and index finger. “Did you smell the alcohol?”
Libby nodded and settled down on the sofa next to Aisha.
“I always wondered about that man,” Aisha said, as she returned her focus to the bottle of bright red nail polish and the remaining unpainted toe nail. “I used to think he might be good for you, but that was so…so…”
“Creepy?”
Aisha pointed her index finger at Libby and winked.
Libby grabbed the gift bag from the coffee table, pulled out the small wrapped box, and shook it lightly. It made a tiny ticking noise. “It’s small, whatever it is.”
“Maybe it’s an engagement ring?” Aisha said without looking up from her now half-painted toe. “You’ve already got the honeymoon invitation. Now all you need is the ring, a chapel, and an Elvis impersonator.” She looked up and grinned. “You know, Elizabeth Florich has a very nice ring to it.”
“Did I ever tell you how funny you were?” Libby asked as she started ripping the wrapping paper. The box underneath did look like a ring box.
“Nope, but it’s high time.”
“Don’t hold your breath.” Libby turned the box over. “If I were you, I’d—” The lid fell off, and a familiar object fell from the box onto the table.
Aisha gasped and then shoved the tiny brush back in the bottle. “Is that what I think it is?”
Libby flicked an upside-down puzzle piece across the coffee table toward Aisha with her index finger.
“No way.” Aisha stared at the piece for a few seconds before flicking it back across the table to Libby.
Libby examined it carefully. It was a familiar size, shape, and material, and featured a tiny nose and mouth. Melissa’s.
“Florich said the bag was left on your desk,” Aisha said.