Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake)

by Rachel Caine

  She hesitates, then nods once. Her jaw is stiff. She doesn’t like this; I’m coming close to her limits of obedience. She’ll like it even less once we’re at the range, but I intend to train her properly.

  When I pull to a stop at her apartment complex—a cheap place, but clean—she gets out and marches away in her ridiculous floppy slippers without another word. A man outside smoking on the walkway gives her a long, appraising stare. She flips him off, unlocks her door, and slams the door after.

  I don’t like the look on the man’s face, and I sit idling in the parking lot until he discards his butt and heads into one of the apartments. I make a note of his room number.

  I’m a suspicious bitch, but I’ve found it works for me.

  5

  KEZIA

  Dawn’s just breaking when I make it to Sheryl Lansdowne’s hometown. Valerie’s not much, just bumpy streets and clapboard houses; whatever overflow Norton and Stillhouse Lake have from the K-ville commuters, they don’t make it this far out. The place has a depressed look, but that could be just the gloom. The few streetlights struggle against it and lose.

  I know, because I know these towns, that everybody awake is rubbernecking at my car cruising down the street. They’d know everybody in town, and every set of wheels on the road. I see a few lights coming on in houses as I glide past, and then I take two more turns and pull to a stop in front of the address for Sheryl Lansdowne. I don’t see another vehicle in the driveway. Lights are on inside, though, frosting the white curtains. It’s a nicer house than I expected. Bigger than the others.

  I park and take a second to get ready. This is the unknown, whatever happens: either I find a person waiting who’s about to get a horrible shock, or I find something else that makes this whole puzzle clearer, or I find nothing at all. I’m tired, but I get my head clear. I have to.

  The air outside is chilly but doesn’t have that oppressive stench the pond did, and I’m grateful. I take it down in gulps as I head up the path. The lawn’s a little overgrown, needs a good shape-up, but that’s not significant. I go to the front door and look for a bell. There isn’t one, so I knock—forceful, unhesitating knocks. No point being indecisive.

  I hear a dog race toward the front, barking. Sounds like a small one, at least. I make a note in my book and put on evidence gloves before I even consider touching the doorknob. Evidentiary value of the outside doorknob isn’t much, though, so I go ahead and turn it.

  Locked.

  No other lights come on inside the house.

  Just to be on the safe side, I knock again, louder and longer. There’s no response, though I can see lights flashing on in neighboring houses. I’m waking up the whole damn town. Great.

  I head around the side, making my way carefully with the help of my flashlight, and sure enough, there’s a back door. It’s locked too. I see what I can through the curtains; nothing out of place except the clearly unhappy dog, who charges into the kitchen area and sends dry food flying when he kicks the bowl. He’s a little terrier of some kind, I think. Loyal, at least.

  Whatever’s happened to her, Sheryl Lansdowne didn’t leave herself vulnerable here; plenty of rural folks leave windows open, doors unlocked, but she has this place secured. So why did she take her kids out there on the roads so late at night? I don’t know. I didn’t see suitcases, or even so much as a diaper bag, in that car. She couldn’t have been on the way somewhere, or she wouldn’t have left all these lights burning and the dog alone. It’s a fair-size house, and I doubt she had money to waste on an unnecessary electric bill. Nobody out here does.

  I retreat from the back door and take another look around. All the windows are locked down. Nothing to do here. I don’t see anything suspicious at all.

  I go back to my car and I’m starting it up when I see the next-door neighbor’s front door open, and a big, older man in a checked robe steps out to stare at me. I roll down the window and gesture, and he comes over with a deliberate, heavy gait. He stops a couple of feet away, still staring. He’s white, with a well-worn face and a red drinker’s nose, though that could charitably be because of a cold or the chill. “What you want ’round here?” he asks me bluntly. I pull out my shield and show it to him. It saves time. His mood alters a little from suspicious black woman to suspicious black woman with a badge. I know he’s got a handgun in the pocket of that robe; it’s pretty damn obvious.

  He grunts and cinches the frayed belt a little tighter. “Well, you ain’t local,” he observes. No, I’m not. Few black people in this little town; it’s the legacy of the sundown laws officially in place until the sixties, where people like me had a curfew to be out of town every night. Still unofficially enforced.

  “I’m Detective Kezia Claremont from Norton PD,” I tell him. “You know your neighbor there?”

  “Sheryl? Sure. She’s got two little girls. Cutest you ever saw.” His body language alters again. Worried. “She all right?”

  “She isn’t home,” I tell him. “Does she live alone?”

  “Since that no-good bastard of hers left she does. Been more than a year since he took off.”

  “Name?” I ask, and write down Tommy Jarrett when he gives it up. “You know where Mr. Jarrett moved off to?”

  “Somewhere up around Norton, I expect. He’s got family up in there.”

  Interesting. I don’t know of any Jarretts. “And you are, sir?” I’ve let him get comfortable with it. I keep my tone polite.

  He relaxes. “Hiram Trask. Me and my wife, Evie, live right there.” He points to the house he exited—smaller than the Lansdowne house, and in poorer condition. “Last I saw Sheryl, she was off driving the girls. She does that, time to time, when they get cranky. Says the car noise puts them to sleep. She get into an accident or something?”

  “I’ll check into it,” I tell him, and dutifully take down the make and model of Sheryl’s car when he tells me, though I already know. I don’t want to give him any reason to complain. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Trask. Y’all have a good day, now.”

  He nods and steps back, and I back out and head for Norton. He watches me all the way to the turn, to make sure I’m gone. I expect nothing else.

  It’s a short drive back to Norton, but one thing I’m already certain of: I have a lead. Tommy Jarrett, if he was the babies’ daddy, might well want Sheryl dead, and the children, too, especially if child support was involved. Worth looking into, at least. Always start with the closest person to the victim and spiral out.

  Before I can make it to the station to start running checks on Sheryl Lansdowne and Tommy Jarrett, I get another call. This one from the morgue.

  “Hey, it’s Winston,” the coroner says. “I got your girls ready. You comin’ in?”

  “Yes,” I say, before I can convince myself otherwise. “I’ll be there in a few.”

  The county coroner’s office doubles as the Norton Funeral Home; I ring the old bell and wait until I hear the grate of the lock. Winston stiff-arms the door open for me and I duck in before it slams.

  The place stinks of cleaning products, with a low undertone of something else. Old meat, like a butcher shop. Same as always. I take a deep breath, then another, trying to flood myself with the stench so it just becomes background. Normal.

  It never really works.

  Winston is not a big talker. He just heads down the wood-paneled hall and off to the left, where the county coroner’s small work area is located. It’s not terrible, and he keeps it well up to anyone’s standards. Gleaming metal, shining porcelain. Perfect, neat lines of blades and saws and needles, everything just so. Winston’s conscientious, even though they pay him shit—two-thirds what the county coroner over in Everman makes, though he’s got the same training and experience. We don’t talk about it.

  He nods over to the right, where a small set of paper bags is already filled and sealed. “Clothes over there,” he says. “I left the car seats as they were. Cut the straps close as I could to the sides, in case there was any f
oreign DNA left on the catches.” The two seats are still wet, but he’s set them out on sterile towels to catch anything that might drip off. I leave it for now, and turn toward the single autopsy table.

  It’s still empty.

  “I thought you said you were ready. Where are they?” I feel an oily sickness bubble up in my stomach. I can handle shit, but I hate anticipating it.

  “Ran into a problem after I called. I need to find a different scale,” he says quietly. “I’ve got to weigh the bodies before I get started. The built-in scale on the table won’t register them. I was going to call the hospital and get a baby scale, but who knows how long that’ll take. They’re giving me the runaround, saying it’s not protocol—”

  I can’t. I can’t let those babies get colder; I know Winston’s kept them in the bags, in the dark, and everything in me rebels against the inhumanity of that. Not one more hour. Not one more minute.

  I tell him, quietly, “There’s a way to do it. I’ll help.”

  He gets what I’m saying immediately, and turns to stare at me with wide eyes. Says, “You sure?”

  I just nod because I don’t know if I can say it again. I feel cold and heavy with dread, but there’s a terrible, warm tenderness boiling up in me too. These lost babies need to be held. To know, even this late, that someone cares for them.

  Winston helps me up on the autopsy table. The surface is cold and smells of bleach, strong enough to make my eyes water. I let him record my weight, and then I hear him unzip the first body bag. I take a deep breath and close my eyes and hold out my arms.

  The cold, limp weight settles in against my chest, and I instinctively hold her close. I don’t care about the fact that she’s dead and gone. I just care about her. My mouth goes dry, my throat tight, and I feel tears clumping thick at the edges of my lids. “It’s okay,” I whisper to her. “You’re not alone. It’s okay.” But I’m talking to both this lost child and the barely begun one hidden deep inside me. A promise I’m going to try to keep forever.

  I hear Winston quietly recording the combined weight, subtracting mine, and then he takes her away. For a split second I want to fight to hang on to that poor baby, to hold her until she’s warm again, but then I let go.

  The second body lies heavy and cool against me, and this time I can’t stop the tears. I brush my now-numb fingers across the little girl’s drying hair.

  God help the one who did this. God help him because I’m going to find him.

  6

  SAM

  My eight-thirty client is a rich older man who doesn’t mind paying my rates and—luckily—takes his responsibility as an aspiring pilot seriously. He comes early, and he comes prepared, and the hour and a half I’ve allotted for him goes by fast. Ten in the morning, a beautiful, clear day. When I taxi the Cessna back to the hangar, we finish up and shake hands, and he’s on his way with a spring in his step.

  My mood has improved too. Flying is an irresistible joy for me, a kind of therapy that brings me real peace. Doesn’t last once I’m on the ground, but it does help.

  I’m doing a check on paperwork before quitting—I don’t have any more clients scheduled—and it catches me by surprise when someone says from behind me, “Hi. Are you Sam Cade? The flight instructor?”

  I turn. “Yeah,” I say. “What’s this about?” I’m a little sharp because I don’t like strangers walking up on me. Then I revise it a little—he doesn’t exactly look shifty. He’s casually but expensively dressed in khaki pants and a polo shirt, a bomber jacket he probably thinks makes him look aeronautical, along with the Top Gun–style Ray-Ban Aviators. White, young, maybe thirty. Short-cropped dark hair that barely shows under a Florida Gators ball cap.

  “I was wondering if you had any openings for me,” he says. “To learn how to fly, I mean. I’m Tyler Pharos.”

  “Sorry, but this isn’t a good time,” I tell him. “But we can set an appointment to go up and do a discovery flight with me as pilot, and I can explain the process. We’d also need to get you enrolled in ground training. It isn’t particularly cheap, and it takes about six weeks to complete it for most people, in addition to the flight instruction.” I reel it off fast because I know it by heart; I do get a lot of callers who think learning to fly is easy and fast. Walk-ins are kind of rare at this airport, but I’m not really surprised by it either.

  “Oh,” he says. “Sorry. I guess I should have called before I came.” He’s got a medium kind of voice, with a regional American accent I can’t immediately identify. He offers his hand, and we shake. We’re just about of a height, but I can’t read his eyes behind the sunglasses.

  “Interesting name, Pharos,” I say. “Where’s it from? Greece?”

  He doesn’t seem bothered by the guess. “Huh. Most people don’t know that it comes from there.”

  I shrug. “I’ve done a lot of traveling.” That’s one way to talk about being in the military, anyway. See the world, kill people. “I can give you the paperwork to fill out for ground school, if you’re interested—how’s that?”

  “Would you be the one to teach it, too?”

  “I can, sure. Usually best if the same instructor does the ground school and flight training, because then we can be sure it’s all consistent.”

  “I think that would be okay,” he says. We walk over to the small office I share with a few other people, and I get out the paperwork and price sheets. He goes through them slowly and intently. I’m feeling less bothered, but not a whole lot less, which is odd. I’m usually better with people, but I can’t seem to get a feel for this guy. He’s a blank slate, emotionally. Neutral.

  I’m not disposed to doubting him, but one thing about teaching lessons: you have to evaluate people from the jump. I don’t care whether he’s rich or poor, as long as he can pay for the lesson, but it goes beyond that . . . I need to see his temperament, his level of tension or relaxation. In the back of my mind, too, is the ever-present urgency of finding out why they want to fly. I don’t want to train a suicidal person or, worse still, a terrorist.

  He doesn’t hit either of those alerts yet, but I’m picking up something.

  “Sorry, Mr. Pharos, but that’s all the time I have right now,” I finally tell him. “I have another place to be. You can fill out the paperwork and send it back to me, if you decide to proceed.”

  “Okay,” he says. “I understand.” We shake hands again, but he doesn’t go. He just stands there, looking at me. I can’t read his expression.

  Then he says, “I know who you are.”

  Oh man. I brace myself and try to keep my voice light when I say, “A licensed pilot? You’d better hope so if you want me to teach you to fly.”

  “You live with the serial killer’s wife.”

  I was going to blow it off, minimize where he was going, but suddenly I feel my hackles go up, sharp as nails. “Gwen Proctor is my partner, yes. Not his wife.”

  “Ex-wife, I meant,” he says. “Sorry.” I want to snap off something else, but I don’t. I just wait. I still don’t get any particular emotion from him, even now, when most people would show something . . . discomfort, at least. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “I can see that,” I say, and miracle of miracles, my voice sounds pretty even. “So yeah. That’s me. And I’d rather leave my personal life out of this, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course,” he says. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. I’ve not had anyone recognize me before out of the immediate context of being with Gwen or the kids, and it stings unpleasantly; I’m starting to understand, in a very minor way, how Gwen feels all the time. “Sorry. I really do need to go. And I think you should find another flight instructor. Nothing personal, I just . . . like to keep it separate.”

  For the first time, I see a little flicker of something like feeling in him. “I understand. It’s just . . .” He shakes his head and turns away. “Never mind. I’m sorry I bothered you. I just thought you might be
able to help.”

  I know I shouldn’t do it, but there’s something about the subdued tone that gets to me. I say, “Help with what?”

  “I—” He takes in a breath and lets it trickle out slowly before he manages the rest. “My sister was murdered too.”

  I feel that go through me like a bullet, and for a second I can’t breathe. A jumble of things floods through my head—crime scene photos, my sister’s horrifically mutilated body, Gwen’s face, Melvin Royal’s mug shot—and I realize I’ve let the silence go on too long. “By Melvin Royal?” I thought I knew all the victim family members, and he doesn’t seem familiar.

  “No,” he says. “Just—by someone. They never caught him.”

  That’s a nightmare that I’ve never lived . . . not knowing who killed my sister. Not seeing him brought to justice. For a second or two I can’t even attempt a reply, but then I say, “I’m sorry. That must be really hard.” It hits me, then. “You . . . didn’t come here for the flying lessons, did you?”

  “No,” he says. It’s almost a whisper. “I . . . somebody told me about you, and I thought you might understand. Might be somebody to talk to about it. Because I can’t talk to anybody else about her.”

  I’ve been reading him wrong, I think. He isn’t emotionless. He’s locked up, wearing an emotional straitjacket. Afraid to express any emotion because once he cracks that door, he might not control what comes out.

  And I feel that because I know that place. It’s where I lived for a while, before I moved on to darker places that I don’t like to remember.

  “Have you tried seeing a professional? Doing therapy?” I ask. I know a lot of men are resistant to it. Particularly if they blame themselves. It took a lot to get me moving in the right direction. “Because if you need somebody, I have some good contacts—”

  Tyler’s already shaking his head. “No, no, it’s okay. I just—I thought maybe you’d understand. That we could talk a little bit. But I understand if you’re busy.”