by Leslie Wolfe
“How will you make it up to me, huh? Is the food ready?”
Her panicked eyes shot a quick glance at the stove, then toward the wall clock above the TV set. “In a few minutes, Gavin. I just got home from work.”
For a long moment, her father stayed silent, choosing to stare his wife down with unspeakable contempt.
“Why don’t I pour you some wine while you wait?” Pearl asked in a pretend-cheerful voice that made Katherine shed quiet tears.
“Yeah, do that, before I wipe you off the face of this earth,” he said, raising his hand as if he was going to strike her. She cowered and whimpered, holding her arms raised to shield her face from the blow that was to come.
He laughed and lowered his hand. “You stupid bitch,” he muttered, then took his place back on the sofa, waiting to be served.
Pearl straightened her back and shot Katherine a quick glance, not even trying to hide her tears anymore. “Get me a mug for your dad, one of the white ones, will you, sweetie?” she whispered, holding on tightly to the fridge door handle for balance.
Katherine left the corner where she and Jacob had taken refuge and rushed to the kitchen with skittish steps, keeping as much distance from her father as she could. Thankfully, he’d switched on the TV and was watching some sports game. For a while at least, all his curses and anger would be directed at some strangers who’d chosen to play ball for a living and who weren’t there to take the brunt of his rage in person. But if his favorite team lost, that rage could turn against Pearl and the kids again, at a moment’s notice.
With trembling hands, Katherine opened the cupboard. Standing on the tips of her toes, she reached for a mug and grabbed it. It was heavy, and it slipped between her sweaty, shaking fingers, falling to the floor with a loud, shattering sound.
“You goddamned, worthless piece of shit!” her father shouted, leaping across the living room and rushing into the kitchen like a madman.
But her mother was faster, stepping in and shielding Katherine with her body. “No, Gavin, she didn’t mean to. It was an accident, I swear.”
She couldn’t see her father, concealed as he was by her mother’s body, but heard the telltale sounds of his belt buckle being undone, then the belt was yanked forcefully from his pants.
“Do you think I’m made of money?” he continued to shout, trying to get at Katherine, the heavy belt folded in two and held high in his hand, ready to leave its marks. “Have you ever earned a lousy dollar in your entire life? You spawn of the devil, piece of sorry-ass shit. I’ll end you where you stand!”
With each word, her father grew angrier, and Katherine wished she had the courage to face him, to take the beating so that he’d be done already, satisfied by the blood he’d drawn, drinking his wine and letting them survive another day.
“No, no,” Pearl pleaded. “Please, Gavin, she’s just a little girl.”
“Get out of my way, woman,” Gavin demanded in a low, menacing tone that brought shivers down Katherine’s spine. She grabbed fistfuls of her mother’s skirt and sobbed loudly, no longer caring if her father heard her cries and saw her weakness.
“No, Gavin, please,” her mother pleaded, fear raising the pitch of her voice. “Don’t hurt my baby, I’m begging you.”
Gavin shifted the belt in his left hand, and with the right he struck Pearl across the face hard, throwing her into the side of the cupboard. Then a second blow came, and the woman cried as she fell to the floor, shielding her face behind her bent elbows.
The belt found its way back into his right hand as Katherine fled screaming. He hit Pearl twice with the looped belt, then grunted and grabbed the mug from the floor. He studied it intently, while Katherine held her breath in the opposite corner of the living room.
“It’s still good,” he muttered, seeing that only the handle had broken off.
Then he took a bottle of cheap wine from the fridge and poured, the gurgling sound and acrid smell making the bile rise in Katherine’s throat. He gulped thirstily, then topped off the mug and took his seat back in front of the TV.
“Go, Niners!” he screamed, pounding his heavy fist against the table surface, rattling the remote and the mug. A few droplets of wine found their way out of the cup and onto the stained surface of the table.
He didn’t seem to care. He sat on the edge of the sofa leaning forward, his eyes riveted on the ball, throwing cusses and cheers in a constant barrage of drunken shouting that pierced Katherine’s ears.
Rushing to care for her mother, she left Jacob whimpering, scared out of his mind, still hiding in the far corner behind the armchair.
She found a clean towel and drenched it in cold water, then squeezed the excess water out of it and applied it gently to her mother’s face, where the swelling had already closed her left eye. She’d done it before… too many times than she cared to recall.
As she hurried by the sofa to bring her mother an Advil, her father grabbed her wrist and she cried in fear.
“Come, sit with me,” he said. “Let’s watch the game together.”
Twelve
Jeep
“What was that all about?” Elliot asked, approaching the trash can and studying the shattered object of Kay’s rage.
She shrugged, shaking off the unwanted memories she wanted thrown into the garbage along with the ceramic shards. “Nothing,” she replied, painfully aware of how pathetic her lying was. “I just hate that Jacob holds on to all this trash,” she managed to improvise. “Broken furniture, cracked dishes, torn carpets, and that stupid mug. I can’t change his furniture, but at least I got rid of that.”
She finally dared to lift her gaze from the remnants of the mug and met his, briefly enough to see in those blue irises she hadn’t convinced him one single bit. The shadow of a frown furrowed his brow while he was studying her without trying to hide it. But what she saw in those eyes was concern, not the excitement of a cop who’d picked up a scent and was ready for the chase.
“Why don’t we drop the subject of my brother’s housewares and focus on Kendra?” she said, injecting an enthusiasm she didn’t have to fake into her voice, and inviting Elliot with a gesture to pour himself some coffee. Catching Kendra’s killer was by far more important than obsessing over things that were ancient history. Especially if her worst fears were to be proven correct, and the unsub had grabbed another woman before or right after he’d killed Kendra.
Elliot held the door for her, and they went outside to the front porch, where she found herself standing with the coffee pot in one hand and the bottle of milk in the other, at a loss in the absence of a table where to set them down. The old wrought-iron table she remembered was still there, rusted and dirty, in no condition to serve its purpose. Out of options, she set everything down on the porch handrail, hoping the rotted wood would hold.
The same went for chairs; there was her mother’s old rocking Adirondack, with the yellow paint all peeled and weathered, and covered in dust so thick it looked like mud. The other seat was the last of the wrought-iron set that had included the table, its legs so rusted it posed a risk to whoever dared to sit.
“How about the backyard?” Elliot asked.
“No,” she replied, a little too quickly. “That’s even worse, I guess,” she added. “I haven’t been back there since I arrived. A girl can only clean so much in a day.”
“Can’t say that I blame you,” he replied, then helped her pour the coffee into the two cups. “We could always sit out here Texas style,” he added with a quick smile. Demonstrating, he took a seat on the top step of the wooden stairs that led to the porch. “Care to join me?”
At least the rain had washed those steps clean of dust and grime once in a while, and they seemed like the best choice under the circumstances. She sat and leaned back against the balusters, but Elliot grabbed her elbow and helped her regain her balance when one of the balusters gave with a snap.
“Bad idea,” Elliot said, and she thanked him with a nod, finding herself appreciative
of how he didn’t judge, not raising an eyebrow at her living conditions. He posed questions, and she couldn’t hold that against a good cop, to ask questions when things made little or no sense at all.
Pulling out her cell phone, she ran an internet search for the law firm Paul and Maddie had mentioned.
“Found them,” she announced, “Kendra’s employer. We should map every step Kendra took since she left New York until she disappeared.”
“Do you think the killer saw her in New York? Maybe followed her here?”
She thought for a moment before replying. Any good profiler takes statistics into account when formulating theories, especially when few victims are identified, and victimology cannot be determined with any level of certainty.
“If we find out that our Jane Doe is also from New York, I’d be willing to consider this theory,” she replied. “Otherwise, based on what we’ve learned about the place and the manner in which he disposed of their bodies, I’d maintain he’s local. Everything we’ve learned about him so far points to that. The knowledge of his surroundings, the Native American influence, the way he blends into the environment, managing to remain unnoticed by everyone here, in such a small community.”
“Then why Kendra?” Elliot asked. “I can’t wrap my mind around that. If she’d been here so little time, when and where did she manage to get his attention?”
“Unfortunately, seventeen percent of all serial killer victims are chosen at random, which makes catching the killers much more difficult. If the victims are random, you can’t establish the commonalities that qualify the victims, and in missing that, an important piece of the profile is also missing. We’ll have to compensate for that,” she added, dialing the number she’d located for Kendra’s employer.
A receptionist took the call immediately, and located a senior partner for them, Mr. Abrams himself, the first billed in the company name. When hearing what the call was about, he was quick to refer them to Kendra’s boss, a junior partner by the name of Mitchell Gallagher.
“Mr. Gallagher,” Kay said as soon as he picked up, “I’m Dr. Kay Sharp, and I have Detective Elliott Young here with me, from Franklin County Sheriff’s Office.”
“Yes,” he said, “this is about Kendra, right?”
“That is correct,” Kay replied. “We have a few questions for you. Is this a good time?”
She always tread carefully whenever lawyers were involved. With them, she never knew where she stood, and Kendra’s law firm was an important lead in the investigation. But the last thing she wanted to do was waste precious time flying to New York and fighting the system to pry the information out of them.
“Yes, please go ahead.”
“We’re learning that Kendra had been missing since the twenty-ninth, yet you didn’t report her missing. How could that happen?”
“She took two weeks’ vacation,” Gallagher replied. “She wasn’t due back until Monday the eighteenth, and you called and notified us about Kendra on the fourteenth.”
That was convenient, or maybe true, in its undeniable simplicity. Occam’s razor was supporting Gallagher’s explanation, but she still had to check. Kay was a big fan of the problem-solving principle, one that had at least as many definitions as spellings of its name, but in essence it conveyed one simple meaning. All things considered equal, the simplest, most straightforward solution tended to be the correct one, and the problem solver should choose the option that involved the fewest number of assumptions.
“And you have paperwork to support that?” Elliot jumped in.
“Sure, we do. We have more than that. Our executive assistant booked her travel with the return flight on the sixteenth,” he replied calmly. “Like I said, we had no reason to worry about Kendra.”
“Tell us about her family,” Kay asked, although she knew the answer. “Was she married? Any kids?”
“Not as far as we knew,” Gallagher replied. “There was no one in her life, not since she broke up with her boyfriend last year. She was studying to become a lawyer, working, and preparing for her bar exam. When you do that, there is no personal life.”
“But she decided to spend two weeks of her time in the middle of nowhere?” Elliot pressed on.
“No,” Gallagher replied. “She was going to meet with the client, then travel the entire California Coast, from San Francisco to LA and back. She was very excited about it, and this business trip gave her the opportunity to do what she’d always wanted to do but couldn’t afford. We were covering the air travel, her car rental, and a few nights of hotel stay.”
“What car rental company do you use?” Kay asked.
“We have a VIP account with Enterprise,” Gallagher replied. He covered the microphone of his phone, and all they heard for a moment was some muffled conversation and papers being shuffled. “I have her itinerary in front of me,” Gallagher added when he came back. “She caught a redeye into San Francisco, and arrived there on the twenty-ninth, right before noon. My assistant checked; Kendra picked up her car on schedule. Her plan was to drive to Mount Chester, spend the night, discuss with the client, then drive along the West Coast.”
“And you were okay footing her vacation bills like that?” Kay asked, frowning. Her employer’s generosity seemed unusual, especially for a law firm.
“We have weekly rates with Enterprise; it wasn’t a big expense. And Kendra was one of our best. She put in sixty, seventy hours every week, and we don’t pay overtime. At least that much we could do for her, like we do for all our associates. Call it an unofficial perk for an employee who will be missed.”
There was a moment of silence, while Gallagher waited patiently for more questions. Kay and Elliot exchanged a quick glance, then Kay asked, “Does your assistant happen to know what kind of car she picked up from Enterprise?”
“I’ll ask her to find out for you,” he offered, and the muffled conversation returned for a few seconds. “Until then, is there anything else I can help clarify?”
“How about her hotel? Where was she going to stay while in Mount Chester?” Kay asked.
“Um, she was going to stay at the Best Western, right there in town.”
It made sense; it was the only decent hotel in the area. Kay wondered if Kendra had checked in before disappearing, but that was easy to find out.
“Do you know of anyone who might’ve wanted to harm Kendra?” Elliot asked.
“N—no,” Gallagher answered, his hesitation brief, yet natural for an attorney who was probably considering all the implications of a statement before making it. “She worked the back office, and rarely engaged with the clients we are defending in criminal cases. And we always win,” he added proudly. “Our clients have no reason to hold grudges or hurt our people.”
“Thank you, Mr. Gallagher,” Kay said. “If you can think of anything else, please don’t hesitate to call us.”
“Consider it done,” he replied. “Before you go, I have the information you asked for. Kendra was driving a red Jeep Grand Cherokee.”
Kay thanked him and ended the call, then looked at the distant edge of the forest, where the treetops were moving slightly in the afternoon breeze. Then she turned to Elliot and asked, “Now, where the hell is that Jeep?”
Thirteen
Another
This gal sure knows her way about the world, Elliot admitted to himself, yet feeling frustrated with how Kay had taken the lead on the investigation while he resigned himself to be the third wheel, the silent partner, or whatever other name for deadweight he wanted to give himself. She was supposed to consult, and even that unofficially. Instead, she was ahead of him all the time, thinking of things that didn’t cross his mind, and one step ahead at what he thought was his game.
Darn serial killers and who brought them onto this earth, he swore in his mind, while holding on to the door handle on the passenger side, another first in many years. Kay wanted to drive, promising she’d deliver the fastest trip to San Francisco International Airport, and so she had. Of course
, she had. She’d driven like a racetrack driver, weaving her way through traffic and beating his best time by a long shot, showing absolutely no respect for the double yellow line marked on the asphalt or any road sign for that matter.
Yet he sat in the passenger seat looking at her and barely containing a smile, more taken with her than he cared to admit, even to himself, even in the confines of his own thoughts. Kay had spunk, and could stare into the abyss of the darkest, most diseased minds without feeling the slightest bit of fear or revulsion, only a deep desire to rope her killers and bring them to justice, like any good cop should feel. Maybe she was a bit too fascinated with the inner workings of serial killers’ minds for his taste, and maybe she enjoyed her job a little too much. But watching her work was well worth driving in the passenger seat, even figuratively when it came to his own investigation.
Even so, there was something about Kay Sharp he didn’t understand. Sometimes he felt as if he was getting close to uncovering something about her, something important that she guarded carefully, that she didn’t want to share. It was in her cautious demeanor, in the way she veered her eyes away from his when he asked certain questions, in her unusually jittery reactions to certain words he said. He was sure that she had a secret, something that made Kay Sharp who she was or maybe risked destroying her. Not his secret to know, most likely, but his nature drove him to leave no stone unturned until the entire truth was exposed. Because there’s one thing about the truth: it always comes out into the light, and when it does, some of the shadows it casts can throw some people into darkness forever.
“What are you frowning about?” Kay asked, shooting him a quick glance as she turned onto the ramp leading to San Francisco International Airport.
“Just thinking this is the only road sign you actually obeyed,” he replied, glad he was safe from her scrutinizing gaze. If she didn’t have to focus on driving on the ramp at the same speed she’d been driving on the highway, she’d probably see right through him. And he wasn’t ready to have that conversation.
