At the Stroke of Madness

by Alex Kava

  This morning they had served half a dozen out-of-town reporters while watching Good Morning America on their new portable TV. Maybe it was only a matter of time before Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson showed up at their little coffee counter. In fact, Lillian was certain she recognized the reporter ordering a double espresso. She had seen him on Fox News, but she just couldn’t remember his name.

  She sorted through the books, keeping one eye on the front store window. Rosie had suggested they do a table display with murder mysteries, maybe even a serial killer novel or two. It certainly fit the current atmosphere, although a bit macabre, perhaps. Rosie considered it a business opportunity. Lillian worried that someone might find it offensive, until she realized that she would be able to showcase some of her favorite suspense-thriller authors.

  For Lillian, so much of what she saw in real life reminded her of something she had read in a book. This mess at the quarry was no different. Besides that, it truly sounded like it had been concocted by the imagination of Jeffery Deaver or Patricia Cornwell. Fiction Lillian could grasp, like a puzzle with pieces waiting to be fit together or simply sorted through, usually leading to an exciting climax and a neat and tidy conclusion. Or if not neat and tidy, then, at least, one that made sense. Real life, however, wasn’t as easy to figure out and oftentimes made no sense at all. Wouldn’t it be nice if real-life situations could be summed up in a two-to three-page epilogue?

  She stopped arranging the paperbacks and thumbed through the top one. She knew all the characters in this series by heart. Knew the major plots and the killers’ MOs. She could even quote some of her favorite lines. But these murders out at the quarry were strange. Lillian shook her head. Truth really was stranger than fiction. She realized she was treating these brutal findings much as she did a new mystery novel—especially by a new and unfamiliar author. She found herself reading, looking for and gathering as many clues as possible and putting the pieces of the puzzle together. She had even started to create a profile of the killer, using images and details, personality traits and deviations she had learned from the masters. Yes, the masters, meaning Cornwell, Deaver, Patterson. Anyone else might think it silly, which is why she hadn’t shared her findings with even Rosie. Instead, she casually pumped Rosie for information, any tidbits her husband, Henry, may have mentioned.

  Lillian stacked the paperbacks, making a creative pyramid, then chose a half dozen to stand up, using some of the innovative new plastic stands she had convinced Rosie they needed. She sandwiched the stark white and ice blue of Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River between the black and red of Jan Burke’s Bones and the black-and-white, hard-to-find copy of The Prettiest Feathers by John Philpin and Patricia Sierra. This would be an excellent opportunity for her to prove to Rosie that her compulsive buys were wise financial moves, after all.

  The store’s front door chimed and she looked over her shoulder. Her brother, Wally, gave a one-finger wave. Lillian returned the wave, then stiffened when she saw Calvin Vargus following behind. Immediately, Calvin seemed to fill the store with his wide shoulders, thick neck and booming laugh. He patted Wally on the back, more of a slap with a hand that looked like a racket. Lillian returned to her display. She didn’t want or need to know what the private joke was between the two of them. There was always something. And she hated watching her brother take Calvin’s abuse. Of course, Wally would never call it abuse.

  Her brother and his business partner had a strange relationship. Calvin had grown up to be a bigger and meaner version of the bully he was when the three of them knew one another in junior high school. Wally, the eternal nerd, seemed content, almost pleased to have the bully now on his side, despite the ramifications or the cost. Lillian gave her glasses a quick, nervous nudge and shook her head. She wasn’t the only one who noticed the men’s strange arrangement. Why else would they have been anointed with the nickname Calvin and Hobbs after the comic strip of an imaginative and sometimes strange little boy and his pet tiger? A tiger that came to life only in Calvin’s presence.

  Lillian Hobbs watched the regular performance of the bully and his willing patsy. Only today it wasn’t just with distaste. Today she watched with embarrassment. Embarrassed that her brother was weak. Embarrassed that he didn’t seem to mind. No, it almost appeared as if he enjoyed the attention, attention at whatever the cost. Why else would he put up with it? Or had it been all those years of training? All those years of growing up with a mother who bullied and praised, often in the same sentence.

  Maybe it wasn’t embarrassment she felt. Perhaps it was regret, regret that as the older sibling she should have also been her brother’s protector. But how could she? It wasn’t as though their mother had spared her from the same ritual. Lillian, however, had found solitude in books. She had learned how to escape to her own world of imaginary friends and fantastic places. But Wally. Well, he hadn’t been so lucky. Funny how a murder could dig up such things. Dig up! Oh, dear, what a pun. But it made Lillian smile.

  Calvin was bragging about how he had found the first body, bragging and telling. How many times had it been? And in only a matter of twenty-four hours. Yet, each time the story became more elaborate with new details added, ones he seemed to have forgotten in the original telling.

  “I knew right away that she was dead,” Calvin boomed to a new audience, waiting for every gruesome detail. “I could see that her fucking skull had been bashed in. There was blood all over. Still spilling out of the barrel. Buckets of it. Good thing ole Wally wasn’t with me. He’s such a wuss, he would have upchucked a week’s worth of breakfasts. Ain’t that right, Wally?” Calvin tousled Wally’s hair with that huge hand that made Wally look even more like a child.

  Lillian rolled her eyes just as she noticed her brother watching her. Despite his partner’s abuse, Wally remained perched at his side by the coffee counter, with a stupid, lopsided grin.

  “Our own coffee house entertainment,” Rosie said, coming up beside Lillian and pulling out a couple of paperbacks from the shelf behind them.

  “Should we ask them to leave?” Lillian asked, then felt her stomach flip when she realized Rosie might ask her to do it.

  “Nah, don’t bother. People are hungry for details. Look at them.” She pointed to the growing crowd around Calvin and Wally. “Not such a bad thing for our little bookstore to be the place to come to for the latest gruesome details. It doesn’t bother you, does it?”

  “No, of course not. But won’t Henry mind?”

  “It’s not Henry’s store,” Rosie said abruptly, and Lillian knew she shouldn’t have said it. “Besides, maybe if they have someplace to go for information, they’ll stop hounding Henry.”

  Lillian decided not to mention that it might be false or fabricated information from Calvin Vargus. She saw Rosie’s face suddenly soften into a smile. The concern of the last twenty-four hours had already started to show in new lines around her friend’s mouth and in her forehead. Whenever Lillian studied her partner’s face, she was immediately reminded of how beautiful the woman had been. She could see the remnants of the high school prom queen. Rosie was still an attractive woman—even the lines made her face interesting, not marred.

  Then Lillian realized what had softened her partner’s expression. Her big, strapping, good-looking John Wayne of a husband had walked in the door. All the attention shifted to Henry as he fielded questions while trying to make his way to the coffee bar.

  “I better go rescue him,” Rosie said with a smile.

  As she watched Rosie greet her husband, Lillian noticed her brother, Wally, sneaking out the bookstore’s back entrance. And he hadn’t even had his daily bear claw and glass of milk.

  CHAPTER 17

  Henry shoved his way past the cameras and yelling re porters. The pretty, little one with the thick glasses had been following him everywhere. Earlier she had been at the bookstore, waiting for him as if she knew that he stopped by there every morning. Except now she had a camera guy with her and the camera was rolling. He c
ould tell, because her thick, Coke-bottle glasses came off as soon as the camera went on. He wondered how the hell she had gotten into broadcast journalism with those things.

  “Sheriff Watermeier, is it true there may be more than a hundred bodies buried in the quarry?”

  “A hundred bodies?” He laughed. Not an appropriate response, but this was ridiculous. “Let’s hope not.”

  “What about the rumors that some of the victims have been cannibalized? Can you elaborate on that, Sheriff?”

  This time Henry avoided rolling his eyes. “We’ll try to answer some of your questions later today when we know more.”

  He kept walking, not looking back, despite the questions that continued and despite the clicks of shutters and the hum of video cameras. He knew he would need to address the media, and soon. Earlier he had gotten a call from Randal Graham, the assistant to the governor, and good ole Randal advised him that he needed to somehow calm things down a notch. According to Randal, the governor was tremendously concerned about the national media calling these the worst serial killings in Connecticut’s history. Henry wanted to tell that weasel Graham that those reports were probably accurate, and if he wanted things toned down a notch maybe he should get his ass down here and tone them down himself. But, instead, he told the governor’s assistant that he had things under control. So, in other words, he had lied.

  The tall grass was slick with dew, glittering in the morning sun. Once he got into the mouth of the quarry he couldn’t hear the reporters. The rocks and trees insulated the area. Henry took in the surroundings. The leftover, rusted conveyor system that hovered over Vargus and Hobbs’s shiny yellow earthmover looked out of place in this sanctuary. It really was beautiful, giant stepping stones all the way up the mountain, sheltered by thick evergreens alongside yellow-and-orange-leafed oak and walnut trees. It only now occurred to him that the killer had chosen wisely when he made this his graveyard.

  He stayed back from the commotion and watched Bonzado with his students unloading equipment from the shell of his El Camino. The three students—one woman and two men—looked like typical nerds with none of the flamboyance of their professor, who today wore a pink-and-blue Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts and brown hiking boots. Henry managed a smile. He actually liked Bonzado. He trusted the kid, which was more than he could say about some of his own men. Most of these guys hadn’t seen a bloodied body outside of a car accident. He knew he could depend on the police lab techs, but his own deputies were another story. As if on cue he saw Truman screaming at a reporter. Shit! Henry recognized the guy from NBC News. Wonderful! That would look great tonight on the Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.

  This really was a fucking mess. Even Rosie couldn’t put a positive spin on this one. What he needed was someone he could blame if things went south. Some expert that no one would second-guess. That certainly wouldn’t be Dr. Stolz. He watched the medical examiner making his way through the reporters. He was dressed as if for court again in his suit and tie and expensive leather shoes. Shoes that would send him—yup, sure enough, Stolz slipped on the wet grass, almost losing his balance and ending up on his skinny little ass. Henry wiped at his smile, almost breaking out into a laugh when he noticed Bonzado doing the same.

  His cell phone vibrated in his shirt pocket, and he grabbed it. Beverly had instructions to forward only the important calls. He hoped this wasn’t Graham again. He should have put him on the nonimportant list.

  “Watermeier,” he barked into the phone.

  “Sheriff Watermeier, this is Special Agent Maggie O’Dell with the FBI.”

  “I don’t remember calling the FBI for help, Agent O’Dell.”

  “Actually, I think we might be able to help each other, Sheriff Watermeier.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “I’m a criminal profiler and it sounds like you might have a serial killer on your hands.”

  Henry stopped himself from automatically shrugging off this unexpected offer, another in a long list of know-it-alls wanting a piece of the action. Maybe this was exactly what he needed. The local yokels would have a tough time arguing with him about bringing in federal assistance, no matter how uptight they were about outsiders. He did need some help. And this Agent O’Dell might come in handy if he needed a scapegoat.

  “You said we could help each other. What is it you want from me, Agent O’Dell?”

  “I’m looking for a missing person.”

  “I don’t have a whole lot of time for wild-goose chases right now. I’ve got my plate full, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, you don’t understand, Sheriff Watermeier. I’m hoping I’m wrong, but I think you may have already found her.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Maggie slowed the rental car, wishing she had noticed the squeaky brakes before she left Bradley International Airport. She should have insisted on something other than the freshly washed white Ford Escort. She hated rental cars. They always looked good from the outside, but the insides couldn’t conceal the last occupants. The Escort’s last driver was a smoker with sweaty hands. Easy enough to fix by rolling the windows down, swiping a couple of wet napkins around and introducing some aromatic McDonald’s French fries. But squeaky brakes were a whole other matter, especially since it looked like she would need them.

  The winding roads that took her up made her as nervous as on the plunges down. And there seemed to be an abundance of them. A small detail both Watermeier and Tully had forgotten to mention when giving her directions. Although Tully’s directions had sounded more like a lecture. She remembered thinking at the time that he really must miss his daughter, Emma, because he was treating her like a teenager on her first outing alone, certain that she would get lost without his step-by-step road assistance. She had stopped him once, saying she could pick up a map from the AAA. His scowl told her it would be wise to not interrupt him again.

  Who would have guessed that, when it came to road-trip instructions, the same R. J. Tully who used scraps of paper—receipts, napkins, the back of a dry cleaning ticket—would become Mr. Anal Retentive? Actually, it made her smile. After two years of working together, he was finally feeling comfortable enough to take off the kid gloves and treat her like a true partner. She liked that.

  She glanced at Tully’s homemade map stretched out on the passenger side of the Escort and tried to find the spot according to Watermeier’s instructions. Before she could find it on the map, however, she saw the water around the next turn. A sign identified it as McKenzie Reservoir, and immediately she saw the road, Whippoorwill Drive, that would take her over the water. It took two more climbs and one more plunge before she saw the commotion alongside the two-lane road. One of the lanes was clogged with black and whites, media vans, a mobile crime unit and several unmarked sedans.

  A uniformed officer waved for her to continue on, and even as she pulled up and stopped beside him, he continued shaking his head.

  “Keep moving, lady. Nothing to see and I’m not answering any of your questions.”

  “I’m with the FBI, Special Agent Maggie O’Dell.” She handed her badge out the car window, but he stood with his hands on his gun belt, looking not the least impressed. She tried again. “I just talked to Sheriff Henry Watermeier a few minutes ago.”

  The officer pulled a walkie-talkie from his shoulder and took her badge, holding it up to the light as if making sure it was authentic. “Yeah, this is Trotter. I’ve got a woman in a rental, says she’s FBI and that Sheriff Watermeier just talked to her.” He spit out the words, as if he didn’t quite believe them.

  Through the static came a garbled question. Maggie couldn’t make a word out of it, but Officer Trotter seemed to have no problem interpreting static. Without hesitation, he held up the badge again and answered, “A Margaret O’Dell.”

  There was a crackled response, and this time Maggie saw the transformation in Officer Trotter’s face. He handed her badge back through the car window and politely showed her where she could park the car. “You
’ll need to walk to the scene,” he told her, pointing to an overgrown dirt road she may not have noticed otherwise. “Sheriff Watermeier will be waiting for you at the perimeter.” Then he was off to wave on the next passersby, tourists in a black Jeep Cherokee with Rhode Island license plates, checking out Connecticut’s latest wonder.

  She would have recognized Watermeier even without the uniform. He reminded her of John Wayne—the trimmer version from his earlier movies—with a sheriff’s hat in place of the ten-gallon cowboy hat. No dusty kerchief at his neck. Instead, his collar was open and his necktie gone. His brown shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his hat was pulled low on his brow. When he saw her, he waited patiently, raising the crime-scene tape for her to crawl under. There was no smile, no introduction, no raised eyebrow at her appearance. He simply started in as though the two of them had been working together forever.

  “We’re still scouring the scene, so we haven’t started opening any more barrels yet. We’ll need to move some rocks to get to some of them. I don’t want us jumping in and destroying evidence.”

  “Sounds like a good idea.”

  “This missing person—” he shot her a look of suspicion “—she’s not someone that’s gonna cause all hell to break loose, is she?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “I checked you out, O’Dell.” He waited as if expecting her to protest. When she didn’t, he continued, “My office isn’t exactly in the Stone Age. We can do that pretty quickly.”