A Gift for Dying

by M. J. Arlidge

  The Baines residence was an impressive family home. There was money here for sure. You could see that both in the immaculately painted exterior and in the opulent interior. Madelaine and her husband, Paul, were clearly very proud of it – the house featured in numerous Facebook posts, ostensibly publicizing yard sales and charity bakes, while actually underscoring both the exclusivity of their neighbourhood and the splendour of their home. It hadn’t taken long for Kassie to divine the neighbourhood, then the street, and the silver mailbox, sitting proudly on top of a crisply painted post with the family name embossed on it, was the final giveaway.

  Checking that she wasn’t being watched, Kassie hurried across the road to the house. Pressing her face up against the window, she took in the huge plasma TV, the leather sofas, the artwork in the well-appointed living room. All was quiet inside and the blinds were not drawn, which suddenly gave Kassie hope. Perhaps she wasn’t too late after all.

  Abandoning the window, she pressed the doorbell down, then waited. There was no sign of movement within, so she rang again, but there was still no answer. Frustrated, she resorted to hammering on the door.

  Still nothing. Kassie took a few steps back, raising her eyes to the upper floors, searching for something, anything. Finding little of interest, she looked up and down the street, but there were no neighbours visible and the road was quiet. Kassie suddenly wondered whether the killer – or killers – deliberately targeted these quiet suburban homes. It would be much harder to pull off these crimes in the raucous chaos of South Shore.

  This thought brought what lay in store for Madelaine crashing back into focus. Stepping away from the house, Kassie cupped her hands round her mouth and hollered:

  ‘Madelaine, are you in there?’

  No response, just Kassie’s voice dying away in the street. So, raising the volume, she tried one more time:

  ‘Madelaine … can you hear me?’

  95

  Madelaine Baines turned her head, looking groggily in the direction of the cries, but her captor remained stock still. He peered through a tiny chink in the curtains at the figure below, struggling to take in what he was seeing. Who was this girl? And what did she want?

  He chanced another look outside. Was she a friend of Madelaine? He knew her far less well than he knew Rochelle and Jacob, so it was hard to say, but he didn’t think this girl belonged in her world. She looked like a charity case with her badly cut hair and Motörhead hoodie. So what was her connection to Madelaine? And why did she want to get hold of her so urgently?

  Sweating, he looked at his watch. There was no way he could leave the house while she was there – even if he could get Madelaine into the garage and into the car without being spotted, he would surely be intercepted as he departed. Even if the girl couldn’t stop the vehicle, she would see him. He could wear the ski mask of course, but that would only arouse her suspicions, prompting her to call the cops. Meanwhile, Madelaine was due at the softball shortly. When she didn’t turn up, questions would be asked, the alarm raised. Her husband would then race home, perhaps the twins would get a lift home too. What would he do in that scenario? Slit her throat and escape out the back? No, no, no, that was not how it was supposed to be at all.

  The girl had stopped calling and was hammering on the door. Now she was stepping back, scrutinizing the upper floors. Such was her level of interest that for a moment he thought he’d been spotted, but eventually her gaze moved on, sweeping the other side of the house.

  Breathing heavily, he turned to look at his victim, wondering if she could enlighten him? He would love to ask her, but removing her gag was not an option.

  No, the best thing to do for now was to wait. Wait and see what the girl’s next move was. Would she eventually tire and depart? Or would she try to gain access to the property? Suddenly he was desperate to know.

  His fate, and Madelaine’s, depended upon it.

  96

  ‘This is bullshit. Total bullshit …’

  Miller was pacing back and forth in Gabrielle’s office. She was angry, aggrieved, protesting her innocence. But Gabrielle noted that her deputy had not looked at her once.

  ‘I’m just asking the question, as I’m duty-bound to do.’

  ‘Sure, but if someone’s pointing the finger, then it’s because they’ve got an agenda. A score to settle. God knows, maybe they want my job …’

  ‘It’s not about that.’

  ‘Really?’

  Her scepticism was strongly expressed, but felt forced to Gabrielle.

  ‘What else could it be?’ Miller continued. ‘I have been very loyal to you, to this team, working night and day –’

  ‘I know your work means a lot to you –’

  ‘Damn right it does.’

  ‘But I also know that at times you can be impetuous, that you are tempted to take short cuts. We’ve talked about it before.’

  Miller said nothing, but finally ceased her pacing.

  ‘We’ve all been under a lot of pressure. This is an extremely challenging, high-profile investigation. And I can see why, if we had the prime suspect in custody, but not enough evidence to make things stick, it might be tempting for an officer to help things along …’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Miller retorted, shaking her head vigorously.

  ‘Jane, when we were at Redmond’s trailer that first night, you offered to break in, to scope the place. What’s the betting if you and I went down there right now, we’d find one of those windows had been forced?’

  Suddenly Miller ceased her protestations. Her gaze ranged across the floor, as if seeking a missing penny. Still she wouldn’t look at her boss.

  ‘Now, I’ve been to the Jones residence this morning. The cufflinks that were clearly in situ in the crime scene photos aren’t there any more. Someone’s moved them.’

  Miller continued to stare at the floor.

  ‘So I’m going to ask you again, Jane. Did you plant Jones’s cufflinks in the trailer?’

  Miller hesitated a second too long before opening her mouth, and in that moment Gabrielle knew. For a second, it looked as if her deputy might continue to protest her innocence, but the words wouldn’t form and suddenly she broke down in tears, her body shaking with distress.

  Gabrielle stared at her. She wanted to berate her, to scream in her face, to vent all her anger on her, but when she finally opened her mouth to speak, it was with sadness that she gasped:

  ‘What the hell have you done, Jane?’

  97

  ‘Are you going to tell me what this is all about?’

  Paul Baines was surprised that the nervy teenage girl in front of him had made it past security. He was even more surprised that she was asking him questions about his wife.

  ‘I just want to know if you’ve been in contact with your wife recently.’

  ‘Right … Are you a friend of hers?’

  ‘I met her at the vigil,’ Kassie lied. ‘I was supposed to meet her today, but there was no reply when I went to your house.’

  Baines scrutinized her, clearly sceptical of her story.

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Just after two p.m.’

  Paul digested this, confused, even a little suspicious now.

  ‘She really arranged to meet you then? She was due at a school softball match shortly after that –’

  ‘It was only going to be a quick meet …’

  The girl looked shifty, avoiding eye contact as she spoke.

  ‘Could you call her?’ she said suddenly. ‘To check that she’s ok.’

  ‘She should be on her way home with the girls now. Why don’t I get her to call you –’

  ‘Please …’

  ‘What is this? What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s nothing to worry about. Please … Just call her. If she’s ok, I swear I’ll get out of your hair. It’s really important.’

  And something in her simple, concerned manner cut through. Snatching up his cell phone, he speed-dialled his wife.

/>   ‘Hi, this is Madelaine. Leave a message …’

  ‘It’s me,’ Paul said, when the automated voice had completed its greeting. ‘Call me when you get this.’

  He rang off and tried again, but getting voicemail once more cut the call.

  ‘She might have made it home already,’ he said, as much to himself as to his visitor.

  He called their home number, but the phone rang and rang, before clicking on to the answering service, a recording of his wife’s friendly voice greeting him. He tried her cell again, but it was still going to voicemail, so he rang off, turning to face the curious girl once more.

  ‘No sign of her, I’m afraid.’

  From her reaction, he could tell that she was worried by this news. And, suddenly, so was he.

  98

  A thousand questions raced through Madelaine’s mind, each more alarming than the last. Where was she? Who was the man that had attacked her? And what did he intend to do with her?

  He had fallen upon her in the loft – she’d been too stunned to react and came to a little while later on the floor of her bedroom. Her memory of what had happened then was confused and hazy – there seemed to have been some kind of commotion outside the house – and not long after she was being bundled into the trunk of her own car. She was bound, gagged and blindfolded and the hour or so that followed, as she rolled backwards and forwards in rhythm with the car’s stop-start progress, was the most terrifying of her life.

  The darkness was all-consuming, the heat rising every minute, the air stale and unpleasant. Initially, she was convinced that she would die in there and that that was what her attacker had intended all along. But as the minutes passed, as the traffic noise outside lessened, another possibility presented itself to her. Was she being taken somewhere remote? If so, to what end? To be held hostage? Attacked? Killed?

  Madelaine tried to keep her thoughts positive, to play out the best possible scenarios that might come from this horrific situation, but before she could settle on one which was palatable, the car juddered to a halt. Moments later, the trunk popped and she was hauled out into the open air. She was then dragged over rough ground, her ankles jarring nastily on what felt like small rocks, then suddenly she was inside again. Seconds later, she was forced down on to something hard – a seat of some kind – which her arms were secured to.

  And then … she’d been left alone. She could hear the man moving about, but he wasn’t touching her, so she tried to gather her thoughts, to get a sense of her surroundings. She could smell paraffin, but also something else. Wood. Damp, rotting wood. She could hear things too. The man ranging around, the creak of the boards, but also the faint sound of laughter.

  She sat helpless on the chair, her heart beating out the rhythm of her terror. She longed to know why she was here, what she had done to provoke this attack. She moved her head, desperate to free herself from her bonds, desperate to see or hear something that would give her a clue as to her likely fate. And as she shook and wriggled, she noticed something. Her blindfold had shifted slightly as she’d been manhandled into the shed and the material over her left eye was thinner and more gauze-like than the fabric which covered her right. Perhaps it was the border of the material, perhaps it had been torn – either way, if she closed her right eye, but kept her left open, she could just about make out the scene in front of her through the thin material.

  She was in an outbuilding of some kind. The walls were a dark, brownish colour, but the floor was much lighter, almost white. Confused, Madelaine ran her feet over the area just in front of her to discover that it moved and crinkled. It was cold to the touch and felt like … plastic. Confused, terrified, Madelaine turned her attention to her attacker, who was busying himself nearby. He was average height and slightly overweight, the stomach area of his blue boiler suit bulging slightly. He still wore a ski mask, which terrified her, as she could only imagine what kind of monster lurked beneath it.

  She had tried to remain positive in the midst of her ordeal, but now she instinctively knew that her abduction was linked to her recent actions on behalf of the community. She’d pushed this thought away, but now it returned, nagging and insistent. Suddenly she knew exactly why she’d been taken and what fate awaited her, a suspicion confirmed now as the man turned towards her, a large cleaver in his hand.

  Her first instinct was to scream, but somehow she kept a rein on her terror. She was in grave peril now, but she had one tiny lifeline. Unless she was mistaken, her attacker didn’t know that she could see him. So, in spite of her hammering heart, Madelaine kept still. He was standing right in front of her – and Madelaine braced herself for the kiss of his blade – but instead he lowered himself to her level. They were almost nose to nose now, her captor taking great delight in studying her, hoping perhaps to see her quivering with fear.

  Without warning, Madelaine launched herself forward. She was not thinking now, she was acting on instinct, crunching her forehead into her captor’s face. Howling in pain, the man fell backwards, hitting the floor hard. Madelaine didn’t hesitate, tipping herself forward, until her feet hit the floor and she could stand. Immediately, she overbalanced, the chair that she was now secured to almost dragging her back down. But wobbling, tottering, she regained her balance and scuttled forward as best she could.

  Her attacker was still on the ground, moaning, so Madelaine made for the door. It didn’t appear to be locked and if she could open it, perhaps she could get away, call for help.

  Her progress was stumbling, but miracle of miracles she had made it to the door. It was ajar, so, turning sideways, she wriggled the toes of her right foot into the crack and pushed with all her might. The door opened and she saw the muddy shoreline outside, the water beyond it. She scuttled forward … but suddenly found herself falling backwards. For a moment, she was bewildered, confused, but, craning round, she saw that her captor had hold of her chair and was dragging her back.

  It was a fight to the death now and Madelaine struggled violently, screaming out her anger and fear all the while. But the momentum had shifted and she was pulled inexorably back into her prison. Moments later, she was back on the plastic sheet, exhausted and despairing. A savage blow rocked her back in her seat and when she’d managed to gather her senses again, she saw her captor standing in front of her, breathless, with flashing, angry eyes and that awful blade clutched in his hands.

  She wanted to sob, to beg, but was suddenly unable to produce a sound, terror robbing her of her voice. And as her captor approached her, his blade raised to strike, all she could hear was that hideous, ringing laughter.

  99

  She felt their eyes upon her. All around the incident room, officers of every rank had paused in their work to take in the spectacle. With each passing second her shame increased, as indignity piled upon indignity.

  She had had to wait for thirty minutes in Gabrielle’s office, while a team from Internal Affairs was summoned. They were the longest thirty minutes of her life. In the past, she and Gabrielle had often been closeted away in that office together, bitching about the station coffee, while dissecting new leads in an investigation. To her, it had always felt like a special, even slightly magical place which they shared. Their little oasis away from the chaos and darkness. But today it seemed like a prison, as if Gabrielle – the woman she admired too much – was holding her hostage. Her boss had said nothing throughout, perhaps, Jane suspected, because she could not trust herself to speak.

  Eventually, the IA officers arrived – a sour-faced, pinched woman and a malodorous bear of a man – and now here she was, standing by her desk, as the contents of her drawers and files were picked over, labelled and bagged. Her phone had been taken, her laptop too, but they saved the best for last.

  ‘Your purse, please,’ the male officer said, without looking up.

  She obliged, handing over her battered bag to him. Slowly, deliberately he began to remove the contents – a scrunched-up Kleenex, her CTA pass, her tampons, even the cigarett
es which she’d told everyone she’d given up. None of this was about the investigation of her misconduct – its sole purpose was to humiliate her and chasten those watching.

  Jane kept her eyes glued to the floor. She would make bail, of course, but what then? Her pay would be suspended pending an inquiry and she had no savings to speak of. What was she going to do? She had a couple of friends locally, but no one whom she could possibly take into her confidence. Would she have to return to her parents in Detroit? Upstanding Mary and Eric Miller who loved their handsome, successful, eldest son to the exclusion of all others? How disappointed they would be, though not surprised. The thought of seeing their sullen faces made her want to cry, but she swallowed down her distress. She was not going to give them that.

  ‘Ready to go?’

  The weariness in the officer’s voice was crushing. This was regular, workaday stuff to him, whereas for her it was a personal catastrophe. She nodded curtly.

  ‘Let’s get moving then,’ he continued, gesturing her towards the exit.

  For the length of her ordeal, she had wanted to be out of this place, but now she hesitated. The room had gone quiet, there was not even the pretence that her colleagues were working any more. They were all glued to the drama, shocked and horrified in equal measure. She wanted them all to … just disappear, for this whole, awful nightmare to be over, but there was no easy way out for this sinner.

  So, turning away from her desk, away from the woman she had cherished, she began her long, slow walk of shame.

  100

  Kassie dragged her feet across the tired linoleum. Eyes flicked up at her as she passed, but she barely noticed them, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on the frail form silhouetted on the terrace ahead. Why she’d come here she couldn’t say – what could it possibly achieve? – yet there was no question of her going anywhere else. When life reduced her hopes to ashes, she always retreated to the only person who had ever shown her real love.