by Bush, Nancy
“Possibly . . .” September murmured.
“You’re scared shitless someone in your family sent it to you.”
This was a new wrinkle. To date, Gretchen had left the Raffertys out of it. “No,” she denied.
“Oh, c’mon,” Gretchen said, but September turned away from her. She wasn’t about to trash her family to her partner even though she had entertained some of those very same thoughts.
It had now been two weeks since she’d received the message at the station. Two weeks since it had arrived addressed to her and wrapped inside a birthday card that read, “Way to go 3-year-old,” where someone had handwritten in a zero beside the 3, making it 30. Two weeks since September had begun delving through the notes, files, and photos associated with the Do Unto Others killer and dealing with the fact that he’d sent this disturbing message specifically to her.
“They know my age,” September had said when the missive first appeared, brought to her at her desk by Candy from administration.
“Jesus, Nine,” Gretchen, had responded on an intake of breath. “It really does have to do with you!”
She’d meant the Do Unto Others investigation because over the last several months, almost from the moment September had started as a detective with the Laurelton Police Department, this killer, or killers, had begun their rampage, leaving two of the victims’ bodies in fields around the city of Laurelton and Winslow County and one inside her own apartment. The bodies were discovered in varying states of undress, but each of them had marks across their torso, maybe the beginnings of words, maybe something else, but Emmy Decatur’s torso contained the full DO UNTO OTHERS AS SHE DID TO ME message that had later been sent to the station on September’s artwork.
Two weeks ago . . .
At the time, September’s thirtieth birthday had still been looming, so the card’s timing was clear. But who knew the date of her birthday apart from her family? Not many people. And who knew it was her thirtieth? Even fewer. The thought that one of the Rafferty clan had sent it made for a very subdued birthday, and though her sister, July, had made noise about getting together when she called to offer best wishes, September had fobbed her off. She’d fielded calls from her father and her brother, too, though they’d merely said happy birthday and left it at that. Not exactly warm and welcoming were the Raffertys. Not since Kathryn, September’s mother, had died, and then a few years later, her sister, May.
Now she looked up from the artwork and across the room to the board that still held Do Unto Others’s suspected three victims’ pictures. Tripp was the only one found inside her apartment. The prevailing theory was the killer had followed her home and attacked her, but had been scared away before he could fully carve his message into her skin. Since Dempsey and Decatur had been moved to fields, it was assumed he’d been thwarted in getting the body to its eventual “final resting place.” Dempsey and Tripp’s torsos had been carved with markings, but Decatur was the only one with the killer’s Do Unto Others message.
So far . . .
After receiving her own warning, September had gone over every scrap of evidence and report on the case with renewed vigor, but still nothing stood out. They’d gotten back the lab evidence on Tripp, the last victim, but it hadn’t given them anything new, either. There was no trace of DNA at the crime scenes; it was believed the killer had used condoms. He’d raped his victims and strangled them with a thin cord of some kind, but he was careful to take the cord away and it hadn’t left any fibers. So far, they’d been unable to connect the victims apart from the fact that they all had darker hair and similar builds; he was probably going after a type—September’s type, as her own hair was dark auburn and she had a lean, dancer’s build. The killer had been quiet the last few weeks, which, though a good thing, didn’t mean he’d stopped. Maybe he’d set his sights on September as the next victim? Maybe he just wanted to scare her, or play with her?
Whatever the case, she thought, bring it on. This waiting was making her edgy and snappish. And D’Annibal, though he was allowing her to stay on for now, was watching. She didn’t want the feds involved until she knew more about how someone had gotten her artwork, but it wasn’t her call, and the clock was ticking. She was lucky that Lieutenant D’Annibal loathed interference from outside agencies, so for the moment, the investigation rested with the Laurelton PD. She hoped to solve this thing before it became a joint task force investigation with the feds, but she was of the firm belief that the killer was one man and all three women were his victims.
How had he gotten her artwork from the second grade? Was it from her family home? She didn’t want to think about what that meant. Just couldn’t do it. Though she had more than a few issues with her family, she did not believe any of them capable of terrorizing her, let alone the terrible things he’d done to the three victims.
She glanced at the clock. Five P.M. She decided that tomorrow she would take it from the top again, start with reinterviewing the friends and families of the victims, see if there was anything else that connected them that they’d overlooked. She headed down the hall from the squad room to her locker to retrieve her purse and she realized Gretchen was hurrying after her. September stopped and half-turned, wondering what was up.
“I’m thinking about stopping by Xavier’s for a drink. Wanna join?”
“Umm . . . I don’t know,” September said. She got along with Sandler okay at work, but the idea of socializing with her was a path she wasn’t sure she wanted to take.
Still, returning to her empty apartment was even less appealing. And going to visit her father at the family home to dig into her own past and see if there was anything there—what she’d told Auggie she was going to do, what she should do, what she’d put off for two weeks—was the least appealing choice of the three.
“Well, it is Thursday, almost the weekend . . .” she finally said.
“Meet you there,” Gretchen answered.
An hour later September was twisting a bottle of beer on the tan-and-black zebrawood bar at Xavier’s, watching water condensation slide around beneath the bottom of it. The top of the bar was polished to such a high gloss it reflected like glass and the beaded water shone like diamonds under the lights. Lifting the bottle to her lips, September tried to shut her mind down, but if there was a way to stop the buzz in her head, she had yet to master the trick of it.
Sandler was making chitchat with one of the bartenders who was liking the idea that she was a cop. Idly, September wondered if Gretchen was thinking about going home with him. That would be fine with her. She really just wanted to crawl in bed and pull the covers over her head for a while.
She said as much to her, but Gretchen was zeroed in on the guy—Dominic, call him Dom—and didn’t seem to hear her. Deciding it was time to vamoose, September headed outside into a sultry evening with a hot wind blowing the first leaves around, sending them skittering over her boots as she walked back to her silver Honda Pilot. She really shouldn’t have come to the Laurelton steak house and bar wearing utilitarian black slacks and the button-up, short-sleeve shirt she’d worn to work. Even though it was popular with commuters Xavier’s screamed for plunging necklines and chandelier earrings and CFM shoes with four-inch-heels.
Like that was ever going to happen.
She should go to her father’s like she’d said she would and root through the attic and basement and garage and outbuildings in search of all the old flotsam and jetsam of her days at Sunset Elementary School. But like Auggie she didn’t like going “home.” Ever. She hadn’t been comfortable there after her mother’s car accident when September was in the fifth grade, and the thought of dealing with her autocratic father, who’d basically disowned her and Auggie when they went into law enforcement, wasn’t a pleasant one, either. And then to have to explain about a killer who was targeting her . . . Braden Rafferty would have an apoplectic fit and the “I told you sos” would come raining down in a torrent.
And don’t even get her started on Rosamund
, the latest stepmother, whose age was closer to September’s than her father’s. The stepmom before Rosamund, Verna, lay somewhere in between; Braden’s taste had apparently grown younger as he grew older.
Peachy.
Switching on the ignition and the Bluetooth, September dug out her cell and hit Auggie’s number. That stuff she’d told him she wanted to talk about when he called on her birthday was bothering her and now she didn’t want to wait until she’d found her grade school papers and such to discuss it. The phone rang three times before he answered, “Hey, there, Nine.”
“Hey, yourself. I’m thinking of heading to Dad’s now, finally, and looking around for my grade-school memorabilia,” she said, negotiating into traffic.
“Took a while to work up the courage, huh. I feel your pain.”
“I just wanted to talk about . . . growing up Rafferty, a bit.”
He groaned. “Do we have to?”
“No one would have thrown our stuff out, would they? Dad? Verna, or Rosamund? I can’t think they’d bother. I’m guessing my stuff—all of our stuff—just got shoved into the attic or basement and forgotten.”
“Probably,” he allowed.
“If Dad’s there, I’ll ask him.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?” Auggie asked.
“He called me on my birthday, at a more civilized hour than you did.”
“When before that?” he challenged.
“We talked on the phone on March’s birthday,” September told him. “And, of course, I saw him at July’s birthday party at The Willows,” she added, referring to her father’s winery.
“Pretty good. Now tell me how long, every time, it took him before he suggested you seek other employment?”
“He’s been better lately about keeping it to himself.”
Auggie sniffed his disbelief. “Maybe going to the house will be okay, then,” he said, but his voice said something else.
“The killer got my artwork from somewhere. Dad’s house is the most likely place.”
“If it even was the killer who sent it to you.”
“Of course it was the killer,” she stated.
“Not necessarily. Pauline Kirby let the world know. Could be somebody trying to shake you up.”
Kirby was Channel Seven’s best-known reporter and she was fast becoming the nemesis of everyone in the police department, September included. She’d blindsided September in a recent television interview.
“One of our family members?” she asked him. “That’s what you’re suggesting, right?”
“Maybe. I’m just saying the message could be from someone other than the killer.”
“You just don’t want to think he’s targeted me. I get it. But yeah, it is a warning. And though I’ve got issues with some of our family members, I don’t think any of them could be involved in any way with this killer. Maybe . . . the message was from someone who knows who the killer is and knows I’m on the case, but it’s not our family. That I won’t believe.” Something in her own words tickled her brain, but when she tried to place what it was, it escaped her.
“You gotta keep your mind open, Nine.”
“Well, whoever sent it to me got it from somewhere. That’s all I’m saying. And the most likely place is the house.”
“If you see dear old Dad when you’re there, don’t mention my name.”
“Yeah, like he won’t ask about you. ‘How’s your twin, September? Have you seen August lately?’ That’s pretty standard.”
“He disowned us,” Auggie said. “Not the other way around.”
“You’re preaching to the choir. But I gotta go see him.”
She negotiated around a tight corner and back to her apartment complex with its matching sets of upper and lower units that gave it a faux townhouse look, each set separated from the others by different facades, colors, and design elements. September and her lower neighbor’s unit sported tan shingles with black shutters. “I’m not crazy about going out there tonight, but I need to do something.”
“Be careful, Nine.”
“Oh, don’t start that whole big brother crap with me.”
“As soon as I can, I’m going to help you catch this bastard,” he said for about the fiftieth time.
“D’Annibal took me off Zuma, and put me on Do Unto Others even before I got the message from the killer or whoever. Give Sandler and me a chance, for God’s sake. We’re capable. Okay? Capable.”
“If it was the killer who sent you that artwork, then he’s zeroed in on you.”
“You’re deaf, I swear. Let me do this! If you—” September stopped herself from saying something she would regret. She knew the main reason he was acting this way was because he was afraid for her.
“If I . . . ?” he prompted.
“Just don’t do anything yet. I’ll go to Dad’s and see if I can find anything at the house. Gretchen and I are digging into the backgrounds of all the vics. Revisiting stuff we’ve already visited. Doing the work. Trust me, there’s nothing for you to do, so just . . . wait.”
After a long pause he finally said, “Okay.”
“Go be with Liv and forget about me for a while. I can take care of myself. Even with Dad. I’m going to ask him about the kitchen wall where Mom hung up our elementary school stuff. He might remember something about it. Mom put the artwork that was sent to me at the station on the wall, the falling leaves. I remember that. She had it up for a long time.”
“Your memory’s faulty. She had mine up there, not yours,” Auggie said.
“Uh-uh.” September pulled into her designated spot in the carport, cut the engine, but stayed in the car.
“It was mine,” Auggie insisted.
“She had your leaf artwork up there, too?”
“I don’t know about yours, but mine was there. We both did a bunch of the same projects all through elementary school. I didn’t remember it was from second grade, but if you say so I’ll believe it. Mom was always tagging up some stupid thing we’d done and declaring it art.”
“Mrs. Walsh was my second grade teacher. The artwork that came to the station was from when I was in her homeroom.”
“Well, there you go. But I know it was my artwork on the kitchen wall. Maybe yours was there, too.”
“What teacher did you have?”
“Mrs. McBride.”
“Ugh. She was no fun,” September remembered. “And the third homeroom teacher was Ms. Osborne. She was younger.”
“Uh huh.” He sounded like he was losing interest in the conversation.
“You’re sure it was your artwork?” September squinted, thinking hard as she got out of the car.
“I know it was.”
“God, Auggie, maybe you’re right. I left a lot of my stuff at school, I remember. You were always better about bringing everything home. It used to piss me off.”
“Ah, yes. I was an approval-seeker in those days.”
“So, what does that mean? That my project never made it home, and then . . . it fell into the hands of the killer . . . or whoever?”
“All I know is somebody sent you a message meant to scare you. If you find more elementary schoolwork at the house, it doesn’t necessarily mean anybody at the house sent it to you. Maybe that project was found by someone else, someone with a twisted purpose.”
“Someone who knew it was my second grade work and that I’m a cop, so they could send it to the station?”
“You were just on the news, weren’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“I gotta go, Nine. Take it easy with dear old Dad. Don’t let him get to you. And call me later and let me know if you find some more artwork. We made so many beautiful pieces back then.”
“I’ve always wondered if maybe we should have chosen a fine arts school instead of the police academy.”
His snort of laughter was his sign-off, and she was smiling as she walked past the door to the unit below hers. She headed up the private flight of steps that led to ea
ch upper unit, then pulled out her keys, unlocked her door, and quickly let herself inside, closing the door behind her and throwing the deadbolt. She wasn’t nearly as cavalier as she would like Auggie to believe.
She looked around the small space: U-shaped kitchen, living room with television and DVR. Along the back of the overstuffed couch was the quilt her maternal grandmother had given her. September had called her grandmother Meemaw when she was learning to talk and it stuck. Meemaw had died the same year her daughter Kathryn, September’s mother, had been killed in an automobile accident. Meemaw had had health issues, or so her father had told her, but to this day September believed Meemaw’s death was from a broken heart at the loss of her only child.
Before she could change her mind, September traded her work clothes for jeans, a black tank, and sandals, and headed to the Rafferty estate on the southern edge of Laurelton. The Raffertys, already wealthy, had been made wealthier by September’s father, a businessman. After Kathryn’s death, Braden had become even more single-sighted and hard driving, and he’d added to the Rafferty fortune, often on the backs of others, which had earned him more than a few enemies along the way . . . and lost him relationships with his youngest children, September and Auggie.
Braden Rafferty was known for his money, his influence, his business acumen, and his winery, The Willows, but he was not known for being a family man despite having five children. He was also not known for his fidelity and stick-to-itiveness. Though September still ached for the loss of her mother, and though she knew her father had loved Kathryn as much as he was capable of, she also knew Braden had made her mother’s life a living hell. She liked to think Kathryn Rafferty had found peace in the hereafter. It made the “here” so much more bearable.
Now, driving through the pillared gates, September drew a fortifying breath. She pulled up to the sprawling Rafferty home and parked on the wide concrete apron, edged in travertine, that Braden had put in for his guests, which really, when you thought about it, was all September was to him anymore.
