Afraid to Die

by Lisa Jackson

  “I think we just found Lara Sue Gilfry.”

  “Really?” Alvarez studied the ice-encased woman. “Who would do this?”

  “Don’t know, but I’d think the case is ours, as the church is just outside the city limits.”

  Lips tight, Alvarez stared at the weird sculpture and Pescoli filled her in on the details, how the preacher getting ready for his early-morning regimen had stumbled upon an anomaly in the crèche that he’d personally built and obviously took pride in setting up year after year. Neither he nor his wife, nor, they were certain, any of their children had heard the noise that had to have surrounded the placement of the ice sculpture.

  “Looks like it was dragged here,” Pescoli said, showing the trough in the snow that wound from the church’s lot to the front of the crèche. They were hoping for a footprint that would show the tread of a boot or shoe, or a tire track but so far hadn’t found anything.

  Alvarez shined her own flashlight over the single track that was covered in snow. Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t get it.”

  “Who does?”

  “What does the preacher say?”

  “ ‘Hide that blasphemy! Get it out of here! It’s a slap in the face of the church! The good citizens of Grizzly Falls don’t need to see anything so vile! Not here in God’s house!’ Or something close.”

  “Seems like you were quoting him.”

  “Paraphrasing. But he’s not happy.”

  “Who would be?”

  Pescoli glanced from the weird ice sculpture to Mullins’s worried face and said more calmly, “Yeah, I know, but I think there’s more to it than that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Don’t know. Yet.” Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “But I intend to find out.”

  Together they interviewed Mullins. He was angry, ranting and railing about the audacity of the act, while his wife, Lorraine, appeared shell-shocked as they sat on benches in the vestibule of the church. Though warmer than outside, the foyer of the old church was still chilly. Mullins, calming slightly, said that he’d had trouble sleeping, had decided to work out and tweak his sermon. On the way to his office he’d discovered the body. He’d been pretty clear on the time, four in the morning, give or take a minute or two.

  It was now after seven and, through a tracery window, Pescoli noticed that it was still dark as midnight.

  Neither the preacher nor his wife knew of anyone who would do such a horrid thing; none of the parishioners were disgruntled, that they knew of, nor did the church have any enemies.

  They seemed sincere, and yet, there was something about the way the wife kept her head lowered and had trouble meeting Pescoli’s gaze. Could it be that the preacher beat his wife? Or was that just too obvious?

  “You’ll be taking that poor woman away soon,” Mullins said, and it sounded more like a demand than a request.

  “As soon as we figure out how to do it.” They wanted to move the ice intact so as not to lose any bit of evidence that might have been trapped in the frozen water. Melting was an issue.

  “It’s grotesque,” Lorraine finally said. Seated next to her husband, bundled in jacket, gloves, ski pants and boots, she shuddered. “Who would do such a thing? And why?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out. What can you tell us?” Alvarez asked.

  “I heard nothing. I was in bed all night, and I looked out our bedroom window a little after ten, I think.” She glanced at her husband for confirmation. “Just after we prayed together.”

  “Ten fifteen, maybe ten thirty. I remember turning out the light after reading and seeing the clock at ten fifty.”

  “Okay,” Lorraine agreed. “And I remember looking at the crèche. It’s something we take pride in. Calvin did most of the construction himself. I don’t recall seeing anything out of the ordinary, no extra figure. It was snowing, of course, but the lights were focused on the scene and it was as it should be. Calming. Serene. Something I love.” Her throat caught.

  “And you fell asleep right after you looked out the window?”

  “I have three daughters,” Lorraine said, as if that explained it.

  “And she’s expecting,” her husband chimed in proudly.

  Maybe that explained the dark circles under Lorraine’s eyes, but Pescoli wasn’t completely convinced. Something was off here in this cold church foyer with its dimmed lights and feeling of hidden secrets.

  The preacher offered, “I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.”

  They reaffirmed that they’d heard nothing all night long. “I even, uh, went to the bathroom,” Lorraine admitted. “I don’t know what time it was, but I didn’t hear anything or look out the window. I, um, I kind of don’t even really wake up.” Lines creased her smooth forehead. “Who is the woman—the victim?”

  “No positive ID yet,” Pescoli said. “But we think she may have been one of three women who’ve disappeared lately. Possibly a woman named Lara Sue Gilfry. Did you know her?”

  “Gilfry? No.” Lorraine was shaking her head slowly, as was her husband.

  “No,” he said certainly as he grabbed his wife’s gloved hand and laced his fingers through hers. “Never.”

  “She worked over at the Bull and Bear. It’s a bed-and-breakfast in town.”

  “Never heard of it,” Lorraine said as she stared at the floor, watching a spider as it scurried quickly beneath the bench.

  “No. I’m ... I’m sure I never met her.” The preacher removed his stocking cap with his free hand, his dishwater blond hair spiking up. Without thinking, almost frantically, he smoothed it.

  “So she wasn’t a member of your church?” Alvarez asked.

  Mullins and his wife shook their heads. “No.”

  “We haven’t informed Gilfry’s next of kin yet, so this isn’t for public knowledge,” Pescoli warned. “We’re just looking for information.”

  “Okay ...” Lorraine said, then, “You know ... Brenda Sutherland, she’s a member.” Lorraine blinked hard as she lifted her head. Her lips folded in on themselves, and the cords of her neck were visible, as if she was straining hard not to break down completely. “Could this ...” Waggling a hand to indicate everything happening, she cleared her throat. “Could this have happened to her?”

  “Oh, honey, that’s really getting the cart before the horse,” her husband cut in, his grip on her hand visibly tightening. “We don’t know what happened to Brenda. She may be fine.”

  “No ... no, she’s not!” Lorraine was blinking hard, her neck arching as she lifted her head defiantly. “She would never have left her boys willingly.” Turning her head, she faced her husband. “You know it. I know it.”

  The preacher nodded slightly. The hand holding his wife’s relaxed. “That’s true,” he admitted. “Brenda Sutherland is a devoted mother.”

  “Very devoted.” Lorraine, pale as a ghost, met Pescoli’s gaze with her own. “You have to find her. You have to!”

  “And the madman who did this,” Mullins asserted. “I’m telling you, this is Satan’s doing. Whoever froze that woman and carved the ice around her is working for Lucifer himself!”

  It was a good morning.

  The sun was up, sparkling on the new-fallen snow, and a bit of a breeze was kicking up the freshly fallen powder. He trudged to the box to retrieve the paper and, walking back to the house, opened up the thin pages. There was nothing about his art inside, of course. The paper would have been to press far before his sculpture was discovered. And he’d been there, too. In the crowd held back by police wire. So he knew his picture had probably been taken by the police and there was a chance he would show up on a news camera’s footage, though he doubted it. But no one would question his reasons for being in the neighborhood if he were to be asked.

  He’d avoided any contact with the police as he’d stood in a group, staring at the crèche, where the police had tried to figure out a way to take out the perfect ice statue. He could have told them. A simple winch and a pickup or van,
but, oh, how they’d fussed, uniformed officers, detectives, crime technicians ...

  Idiots!

  It had been wonderful watching them so befuddled. Now, as he had much earlier at the church, he hummed the refrain that ran through his head. We three kings of Orient are ...

  Christmas was definitely his favorite time of year, though it hadn’t always been so. Some of the memories from Christmases past weren’t kind ones and they had the tendency to spread through his brain like corrosive acid, eating away at the gray matter, reminding him that pain and pleasure were lovers, one was not as intense without the other. He’d watched the police from the shadows. They’d flailed and stewed, talking and frowning while the stupid preacher looked on and wrung his oh-so-pious hands. Fortunately, that holy moron had done his best to destroy the crime scene, hypocrite that he was. The uniforms, crime scene investigators and detectives had invaded the crèche. The disturbing thing was that he’d witnessed one of the detectives, the dark-haired one with the intense brown eyes, searching for him in the crowd, trying to identify him. Seriously, she’d eyed the bystanders, hoping that she would catch him.

  Bearing gifts, we traverse afar ...

  Catch him? She didn’t have a prayer. Of course he would come out the victor in this game. She just didn’t know it yet. But she would. And soon.

  He felt a niggle of anticipation at that, a drip of adrenaline at the thought, and he reached into his pocket and played with his hidden treasure. Oh, she’d know all right. This was about to get personal for Detective Selena Alvarez. . .

  Of course, not to throw suspicion on himself, he’d left the church early while more curious neighbors and drivers stopped and stared. He’d returned home, though he’d longed to stay and witness the cops’ frustration, the preacher’s distress.

  Later, he reminded himself now as he walked around to the back of his house, stepping carefully in the tracks he’d already made through the pristine snow, and on the back porch, he slowly removed his boots, then walked into the mudroom of the old farmhouse in his stocking feet. Through the cold kitchen, past the woodstove, where his great grandmother had made her incredible biscuits, to the front of the house and the den he’d created from the old parlor.

  He was certain that the “big” news story in Grizzly Falls was generating interest all over this part of the country, possibly beyond. Fortunately, he’d had the wherewithal to record every local station because he knew he would want to play the recordings over and over again. Then there was his computer; he was already reading the first bits of news as they’d started streaming on the Web. Too wired to sleep, he intended to keep watching the reports as they rolled in.

  There was a thud overhead as his wife’s feet hit the floor as she climbed out of bed. Mentally, he counted her footsteps, just six. Always just six. Less than a minute later the toilet flushed. Three footsteps and the plumbing creaked again as she turned on the water over the bathroom basin. Then, within three minutes of waking, she was on the stairs, her slippers quietly gliding on the old wooden steps. He waited, already irritated, ’til she poked her head into his office. “Busy?”

  As if there were any question.

  “Hmm.” He barely looked up. God, she was beginning to get under his skin. He thought of what he would do to her ... when the time was right. For her, there would be blood. Like the first one.

  “I’ll get coffee going. You were already out?”

  “Yes.” He had his pat answer. “Research. New article I’m writing.”

  “Of course.” She yawned and stretched and he noted she wasn’t interested in anything he did anymore. Not really. Hadn’t even asked about his work. Just didn’t damned care. It was as if he were invisible, as he had been all his life. Half listening, he heard her shuffle toward the back of the house, the bitch who held the purse strings, who wouldn’t so much as sign on a loan he’d wanted a year ago.

  She’d probably forgotten all about that.

  He hadn’t.

  Yes, it would feel spectacular to actually place a blade to her throat, probably her favorite little paring knife, and watch her blood spurt into the ice water. For her, things would be different. Special.

  While she was bustling in the kitchen making breakfast, unaware of his ultimate plans for her, and the aroma of coffee was seeping through the house, he watched every bit of information he could find online. He kept the volume low, of course.

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “Did you see this?”

  “What?” He tried to sound bored.

  “On the news! Some woman found dead in a block of ice! At the church! Our church!”

  “Oh, yes.” Calmly, he got up from his desk and found her standing, empty coffeepot in hand, water running into the drain as she stared at the small screen of the TV she’d placed on an old microwave stand in the corner near the table. “I was there,” he said, turning off the water and hearing the old pipes creak as he turned his attention to the small screen, where a reporter stood in front of the church and explained that the frozen body of an unidentified woman had been found in the nativity scene at the Presbyterian church just outside of town.

  She was young and beautiful, holding her microphone to her glossy lips, wide eyes staring into the camera.

  “You ... you were there?” his wife said.

  “Driving by. Stopped to see what the commotion was all about. No one knew anything, of course.”

  “I’m surprised you stopped.”

  “Well, there was a roadblock, I was detoured so I thought I’d check it out.” Now she was interested in what he did. Of course.

  “Preacher Mullins and Lorraine? The girls? They’re okay.”

  “You heard what she said. The body they found was unidentified.”

  “It’s awful,” she whispered and reached for the faucet again, then filled the glass pot. Carefully, not spilling a drop, she poured the cold water into the coffeemaker’s reservoir. “I don’t know why this keeps happening here. It’s as if Grizzly Falls is jinxed or something. Like there’s some curse cast over the town.”

  “Why what keeps happening?”

  “Murders! Someone killed this poor woman! And just last Christmas and the one before ... you remember. Horrible!”

  “This seems a little different to me,” he said, tamping down his anger. “More planned out.”

  “Because the body was left at the church?” She shuddered. “That’s worse. The church should be a place of comfort and solace, a haven. Whoever did this made a mockery of everything I hold sacred.”

  His blood began to race in his veins and he knew arguing further would serve no purpose and she, a woman with an IQ so much lower than his, might suspect something. “That might not have been the intention,” he said as the screen flickered to an advertisement. He reminded her, “Breakfast?”

  Turning, she looked up at him and some of her indignation fled as their gazes met. He saw that tiny widening of her pupil, an indication of fear. Good. She knew her place but sometimes needed to be reminded. He placed a loving hand on her shoulder, feeling her flesh through the thin bathrobe and lacy nightgown beneath. Then he squeezed. Not too hard. Just enough to gain her attention.

  She wanted to yelp. He felt her muscle tense. But she didn’t cry out. “Of course,” she whispered, lowering her gaze. Good girl. She knew better than to draw away.

  “Perfect.” He rained a smile upon her and patted her shoulder, then playfully wagged a finger under her nose. “Don’t dally.”

  “No, no ... of course not.” Blinking rapidly, she turned back to the cupboard, where she pulled down another tin of coffee. Her fingers shook a bit, but she didn’t spill so much as one bit of grounds as she measured out the scoops.

  His world righted again, he returned to the den and checked several news Web sites as the aroma of brewing coffee mingled with the smell of wood smoke. Minutes later the sizzle of pancake batter hitting the griddle. The cakes themselves would be perfect four-inch discs, all smooth and golden. The syrup would be
warming, homemade, in a jar his grandmother had used for just that purpose. The woodstove would still be burning, warming the old kitchen and smelling of a nostalgic past ... his youth, with his grandmother and her mother, perfect ... unmarred by the other one, the bitch who had borne him.

  He wouldn’t think of her now, pushed her far away, to a corner of his mind reserved for the darkness and the pain. Once again, he forced his attention to the streaming newscast.

  His stomach rumbled, but he kept his eyes on the computer screen. The clock built into his computer reminded him that he still had two minutes until breakfast, so he ignored the hunger pangs as he watched yet another short clip.

  He wasn’t completely satisfied with the coverage of his work. Most disappointing was that, so far, there was no footage of the sculpture itself. None! All his painstaking work, his meticulous attention to detail, his perfection ... and not a glimpse.

  So far ...

  But he knew how to deal with that.

  He would have to be careful.

  At the precise time, he walked into the kitchen, where the aroma of maple syrup mingled with the coffee and wood smoke.

  And his pancakes, waiting on a warmed platter, were perfect and golden. Three. Just three. No more. No less. The syrup was warming, too.

  Yes, his wife had done well this morning.

  He would have to reward her.

  Everything was as it should be ... then he heard the music; the radio turned to a station other than that which played Christmas tunes twenty-four-seven, and he felt his old rage resurface.

  She knew that during this time, only Christmas music was allowed; it was all part of the season. Anger flooded through his veins to pulse in his ears, thundering in his brain at her defiance.

  He walked, stocking-footed, to the living room, where the Christmas tree sparkled, adorned to his precise specifications, and the mantel was graced with the same spun glass as it had been for nearly a century, the tiny cardboard town with its perfect little lights stretched out over the old oak plank his great-grandfather had hand-planed.