“Where was it in the journal?” Penfield asked.
“What do you mean?” Angela asked.
“The quote Marcus told you. What is the context of it in the journal?” Penfield asked.
“It’s the last entry. Father David Lombardi is on a boat to America. He’s fled Rome after allegedly murdering several people. He thinks he’s finally free of the voice that has haunted him. Then the voice returns when he’s in the middle of the ocean crossing. It tells David Lombardi that it will be with him always and his descendants after that.”
“It was done with Marcus and now it’s ready to move on to his son,” Atwater said.
Angela stood.
“This is all a waste of time. Marcus is dead, killed by whoever was his accomplice,” she said.
She turned to Penfield.
“I’m sorry, Alex, but I came out here to convince Marcus to tell us where Jenna was. I failed. There’s nothing more I can do. I need you to take me back to the hotel. I’m going to be on the first flight out of here.”
“As you wish,” Penfield said.
He turned back to Atwater.
“Thank you for your help.”
Atwater nodded.
“There is something else I would like to tell you,” the old man said to Penfield.
Angela must have realized that Atwater wanted to talk to Penfield in private, for she turned to Penfield and said, “I’ll be outside by the car.”
She then left the room and exited the house. After hearing the front door open and close, Atwater turned back to Penfield.
“You can’t defeat this thing. It’s a mistake for you to try. Concentrate on what you can accomplish. Find Jenna McMahon, if it’s not too late.”
“And Angela’s son? Is nothing to be done for him?”
“It will have the boy. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Do you really believe that?” Penfield asked.
“It brought Angela here for a reason. Everything that has been done, all the lives that have been taken, it was all done to lead it to her son.”
32
Goodbye
Penfield drove Angela back to their hotel. They talked about her desire to see her son during the short drive, but Penfield hoped she’d change her mind about leaving after she’d had some time alone in her room. They rode the elevator together to the third floor. After they got out, Penfield turned to her.
“Let me know if you decide to get something to eat.”
“I’ll probably just eat in my room, if I eat anything at all,” she said.
Angela looked like she was about to say something else, but then she nodded and turned away from him. He watched her for a few moments as she walked down the hallway. Then he turned and headed for his room.
After getting inside, he stripped his clothing and placed it in a plastic bag. He’d gotten some of Marcus’ blood on both his shirt and pants. Penfield then walked into the restroom and took a long shower. His years-old injury to his abdomen had started to ache again after the shooting in the field. He didn’t know if it was from the physical exertion or the anxiety of seeing a man that he’d once called a friend bleed out as he’d carried him.
Penfield climbed out of the shower and had just put on fresh clothes when his phone vibrated on the nightstand. He thought it was Angela and that she’d changed her mind about dinner. Food always seemed to be a strange luxury during the height of an investigation, and Penfield couldn’t remember how many times he’d forced a quick meal into his stomach just to maintain his energy levels.
Penfield looked at the phone display and saw it was McMahon, not Angela.
“Hello, Doug.”
“I’m out, but I guess you already figured that.”
The truth was that Penfield was surprised McMahon had lasted with the investigation as long as he had. But he didn’t say that, nor did he attempt to spin the bad news that everyone had known was coming.
“I’m still in Richmond. Do you want me to come to you?” Penfield asked.
“No, I’m on my way home now. I need to check in on Cameron.”
Penfield thought a moment about his conversation with Henry Atwater and the revelation that McMahon’s wife had gone to see him. There was no way he was revealing that piece of information, though.
“Is it safe to say you’re not backing off?” Penfield asked.
“Do you really have to ask that question? There’s no way I’m going to let them bench me.”
Penfield didn’t respond.
“Thanks again for everything you did to bring Angela here,” McMahon continued.
“She’s probably leaving tomorrow.”
“I don’t blame her, especially after everything she’s been through. Anyway, I need to get going. I’m pulling into my driveway now.”
“Don’t hesitate to call if there’s anything I can do,” Penfield said, and he ended the call.
He walked across the room and opened his bag. He thought he’d tossed some snacks into it before the return flight from Santa Fe. His phone vibrated again as he pulled a granola bar out. He walked back to the bed and saw the name Renee Rankin on the display.
“Hello.”
“I just got off the phone with the airline. They have a seat on a plane leaving for Dallas tonight. From there I’ll catch my connection into Santa Fe. It’s a long layover, but I should be home by noon tomorrow.”
“When do you leave for the airport?” Penfield asked.
“In the next twenty minutes. I’ve already called a taxi.”
“I could have taken you.”
“I know, but I didn’t want to ask. I’ll be down in the lobby in a little while. I’d like to say goodbye in person.”
“Of course. I’ll see you shortly.”
Penfield ended the call. He looked down at the granola bar in his other hand. He suddenly wasn’t hungry, and he tossed it on the bed.
After several minutes, Penfield left his room and rode the elevator back down to the lobby. He saw Angela seated in a chair by the front window. Her take-on luggage was placed beside her.
She stood as he approached her.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said.
“I keep feeling like I should apologize. I dragged you into something and it was all for nothing,” Penfield said.
“No, not nothing. I never got a chance to see Marcus after what he did to me. For the longest time I didn’t think I wanted to. But I did. His death has given me a closure of sorts. I know that sounds horrible.”
“No, it doesn’t, and I think I understand. And don’t worry about me saying anything. As far as I’m concerned, I never met a Renee Rankin from Santa Fe. I’m sure Doug will say the same thing.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry for not staying and helping Doug.”
Penfield thought there was something else, but she was too polite to say it. She was convinced Jenna was dead.
Penfield looked past Angela as he saw her taxi pull under the overhang in front of the hotel.
“Your ride is here,” he said.
“I better get going then.”
“Goodbye and thank you for everything.”
Angela hugged him.
“Goodbye. You were always one of the best.”
Penfield watched as Angela exited the hotel and climbed into the back of the taxi. She waved at him through the window as the vehicle drove off.
He walked back to the elevator and returned to his room. He sat on the edge of the bed and thought about everything that had happened that day. Marcus was dead. Angela was gone. McMahon had been permanently tossed from the investigation. Penfield, himself, was at a dead end.
Penfield had handled hundreds of cases, many of which he’d long forgotten. He decided to do what he normally did when he had nowhere else to turn. He went back to the beginning. Penfield replayed his first phone conversation with McMahon in his head.
At that time, there had been a couple of confirmed victims and several unconfirmed ones. They were all cl
ose to the interstate, which offered the killer an easy means of escape should things go wrong.
Virginia seemed to be in the center of it all – both for the geographical locations of the bodies that had been found, as well as the location of Central State where Marcus had been incarcerated.
The FBI believed that Luis Vargas had been the go-between for Marcus and the new killer. However, they’d been unable to find communications of any kind between Vargas and Marcus. There were also the illegal drugs and guns found at Vargas’ home that could have accounted for his newly found wealth.
Penfield opened his laptop and found the medical files that McMahon had emailed him. He reread all of Dr. Bachman’s notes from his sessions with Marcus. He also re-watched the last meeting Bachman had with Marcus in which the doctor had been attacked and disfigured by his patient.
The video certainly supported the medical staff’s assertion that Marcus had suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder. Of course, Henry Atwater had a very different opinion on Marcus’ condition. It was a classic example of old world versus new with Penfield feeling like he was caught somewhere in between.
Penfield closed the folder with the medical files and opened another one he’d created from his one and only interaction with Dr. Bachman. He reread his notes on the meeting, as well as the follow-up phone call he’d received from Bachman’s son, Timothy.
“There’s another reason I called, the main reason, actually,” Timothy Bachman had said.
He’d then told Penfield that he’d promised his father that he would deliver a message to Penfield, although he felt ridiculous for saying it.
“He told me to tell you not to go see Marcus Carter. He said the darkness will still be there and once it knows your face, it will never let you go,” Timothy had said.
Penfield minimized those notes on his computer and pulled up the files on his various trips to Central State. He watched the video recording of his first session with Marcus, but he didn’t see what he had expected to. He viewed the second video and saw it near the end of his meeting.
“Oh, Alex, why do you always deny what you know in your gut to be true?” Marcus asked on the video.
“No theatrics this time? You’ve decided to use your own voice?” Penfield asked.
“It’s not here now, but it may come back. I suggest we not waste any time.”
“Who’s not here?”
“What did Dr. Bachman tell you?”
“Dr. Bachman?”
“Come now. I told you not to waste time. I don’t know how long I have. I know what kind of detective you are. You would have insisted on talking to the man who diagnosed me before you came here the first time. What did Bachman say to you? I know he saw it.”
“Stop talking in riddles. What do you think Dr. Bachman saw?” Penfield asked on the video.
“The darkness. It took me. It took me the day I found my grandfather dead at his home. It was waiting for me, standing in the darkness like a shadow on the wall.”
Penfield stopped the video recording.
He cursed himself for missing it. Both Dr. Bachman and Marcus had called it the same thing: The Darkness. It wasn’t the most specific name, but Penfield didn’t think it was a term that both had used coincidentally.
Penfield went through the medical files a second time. He couldn’t find any reference to the darkness in any of Dr. Bachman’s notes, nor in the last video session. Bachman hadn’t called it that until ten years later. Furthermore, he hadn’t specifically been the one to do it. His son had. Of course, his son had indicated that the name was from his father.
More questions raced through Penfield’s mind. Why had Marcus asked him if he’d seen Dr. Bachman in the first place? Furthermore, what difference did it make if Bachman corroborated Marcus’ beliefs in a supernatural explanation for the killings?
“It’s not here now, but it may come back. I suggest we not waste any time,” Marcus had said.
The man’s attitude toward him had alternated between concern for the victims – both from ten years earlier, as well as the present – and a hostility that Penfield would expect from an incarcerated murderer.
Penfield thought back to the original case. He’d worked many of the crime scenes side by side with Marcus and Angela. Either Marcus had been the world’s greatest actor, or he’d truly not known what a part of him had been doing. Penfield opened a browser on his laptop and searched for articles on Dissociative Identity Disorder. After reading for about an hour, he learned that it was possible for one personality to keep information from the other.
Marcus was one of the best detectives Penfield had ever worked with. Penfield wondered if it was possible the man’s original personality, the one he’d known as Marcus Carter, had been working the new case in his mind and had attempted to give Penfield important information.
Marcus had also alternated between wanting to help and hurt Angela. He’d specifically warned her to protect their child in the last moments of his life. But how had he even known of the boy’s existence?
“I know what kind of detective you are. You would have insisted on talking to the man who diagnosed me before you came here the first time. What did Bachman say to you?” Marcus had asked.
Penfield stood. He needed to see Dr. Bachman again.
33
The Mirror
It was nine o’clock in the evening by the time Penfield arrived outside of Dr. Bachman’s house. He drove up to the security gate and parked beside the intercom box. Penfield leaned out of the window and pressed the talk button.
“Good evening, Dr. Bachman. This is Alex Penfield. Please forgive my late timing, but it’s urgent that I speak with you.”
Penfield waited over a minute but didn’t get a response, either from Dr. Bachman or his son, Timothy. He pressed the button again.
“Dr. Bachman, again my apologies, but I must speak with you.”
There was still no response.
There were two possibilities. The first was that neither man had heard his voice over the intercom. The second, which his gut told him was the correct option, was that neither man was home.
Penfield remembered what Timothy Bachman had said during his visit. He’d told Penfield that his father had refused to leave the house and he’d been there since he’d checked out of the hospital after the attack by Marcus Carter.
Well Dr. Bachman, what made you decide to leave now? Penfield asked himself.
Penfield looked down the street in both directions. Dr. Bachman lived on an isolated road, but it would be too obvious to leave his empty car parked in front of the security gate. He put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway.
He drove around the corner and found an even more remote area. Penfield drove his car onto the lawn and parked it behind a tree. He doubted many police patrols would make their way down the road, but he guessed he only needed ten minutes at best to confirm his suspicions.
He turned off his ignition and reached into his glove compartment to remove his small lock-picking kit. He climbed out of the car and then stepped on to the rear of his vehicle, which offered him an easy leap to a nearby tree branch. From there, he was able to swing his legs up and over the top of the brick wall. The wall was wide enough for him to sit on it for a second to readjust his body position. He then hopped down to the grass on the other side.
Penfield ran through the yard. He bypassed the front of the house and continued to the backyard. He found a large brick patio with a firepit at the center. At the back of the patio was a glass door. There were no shades on the door and Penfield could see that it led into the kitchen. He approached the door and took a better look inside. The kitchen was massive with a large marble island at the center. The light above the stove was the only illumination in the room.
He removed his lock-picking kit and inserted two metal devices into the lock. It took him a few minutes since he was out of practice, but he was finally able to unlock the door. He opened it slowly and listened for an alar
m. He didn’t hear one. Penfield opened the door the rest of the way and entered the house.
He walked through the kitchen and headed for the door on the opposite end of the room. He assumed it might lead to the garage and he wasn’t wrong. There were no vehicles in the three-car garage, which gave him further proof that the Bachmans had left.
He retraced his steps in the kitchen and moved into the living room. There was a large brown leather sofa with two matching chairs facing a television mounted on the wall. The room was neat and tidy as if it had been staged for a photo spread in an architecture magazine.
There was a sunroom on the other side of the living room that was almost as big. It had attractive white wicker furniture and two rocking chairs. It was too dark outside for Penfield to see out the floor-to-ceiling glass walls.
Penfield walked to the front of the house and entered the foyer. There were two rooms, one to each side of the foyer. He spent just a few seconds in the room to his right, which was the dining room. The table had chairs for twelve people.
He turned around and walked through the foyer to the room opposite the dining room. Unlike last time, the door to Bachman’s study was open. Penfield entered and flipped the switch on the wall. Three lamps, two near the doorway and a third behind Bachman’s desk, illuminated.
Penfield realized he was pressing his luck, but he spent the next several minutes going through Bachman’s desk at the far end of the room. He found copies of the doctor’s medical files on Marcus Carter, but there were no files for any other patients. He checked the drawers for a burner phone but found none.
He logged onto Dr. Bachman’s desktop computer. Penfield checked the internet history for the last month. There were multiple visits to common news sites. There were also several online shopping websites Bachman had been to, which made sense given his stated refusal to leave the house. Penfield didn’t find any internet searches for the MAI killer or anything else that he thought might have related to the investigation.
Nature of Darkness Page 25
