by P J Parrish
Louis’s gaze went back to the neck. He wasn’t sure, but it looked like there were old, healing bruises beneath the new ones, as if she had been strangled before. Which suggested a sexual ritual, maybe erotic asphyxiation. There were other older bruises on her body, and her left wrist was distorted as if it had once been broken and never reset.
“This girl had a rough life,” Louis said.
“Yup.”
Louis picked up the clipboard hanging from the table. The preliminary report listed only her name, presumed cause of death as strangulation, and estimated time of death as between eleven p.m. and three a.m. two days ago.
“Her name is Tuyen Lang,” Louis said.
Cam pressed his lips together and looked up toward the fluorescent lights. “Angel,” he said. “Tuyen, that’s Vietnamese for Angel.”
Louis was about to ask him how he knew but then remembered that Cam had been not just a Marine, but also a member of the Marine Security Guard. They were the men who had been in Saigon when it fell in 1975.
“Cam,” Louis said, “we need to get going.”
Cam nodded. He turned quickly and headed out to the hallway. Louis took a moment to check out with Acero in the lobby and by the time he got outside, Cam was standing by the Explorer, pulling his pack of Kools from his jacket. Cam’s hand shook slightly as he lit the cigarette.
“How about letting me drive for a while,” Louis said.
Cam tossed Louis the keys. Louis caught them against his chest and got in the Explorer. Cam slid into the passenger seat.
Louis started the engine, pulled out of the lot, and started south out of town. Soon they were back on I-96, heading west toward Grand Rapids.
Cam said nothing, just sat there, his cigarette dangling between his fingers. Louis was about to tell him to watch his ash when Cam took a final long drag and flicked the butt out the cracked window.
“I don’t think this one’s related to my others,” he said.
My others. It was there in Cam’s voice, that same possessiveness Louis felt toward the boys in the box.
“What makes you think that?” he asked.
Cam rubbed his face. “The four women back in 1988, they were all found around Detroit, left in Dumpsters. They were strangled with rough ropes and there was piquerism.”
Louis nodded. Piquerism was a signature of sexual attacks where the body has “pick” marks—usually on the breasts, groin, or buttocks—from being repeatedly stabbed. The girl in Ionia had only bad bruising.
“Plus, eleven years is a long time between victims,” Louis said.
Cam nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I know that. I was hoping . . .”
His voice trailed off and he turned away, looking out the window.
Louis thought about telling Cam about his conversation with Steele in the loft about the boys in the box but decided the fewer people who knew about his own dead case detours the better off he was.
“Why did they have to be hookers?” Cam muttered.
“Well, you know what they say,” Louis said. “We don’t get to pick our victims.”
“But in this instance, we did pick our victims,” Cam said. “I should’ve known better.”
Louis watched the road. He was curious about Cam’s obsession with four dead women he had never met and his long-shot hope to tie Tuyen Lang to his other victims. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to dig any deeper. The Explorer already felt stuffy with a swell of personal shit itching to get free, and Louis did not want to lift the lid on Cam’s box of demons.
Cam did it for him.
“My mother was a prostitute,” he said.
Louis stared straight ahead. The red taillights of the car ahead of him blurred a little as he tried to think of something to say.
“She was murdered by a John,” Cam added. “He died in jail.”
Still, Louis said nothing.
“She was a good mom,” Cam said quietly. “I was sick a lot with this blood thing and we had a lot of bills, which is why she did what she did, I guess. I didn’t find out about her work or exactly how she died until I overheard some talk at the funeral.”
“How old were you?” Louis asked.
“Ten.”
“Tough break.”
Cam shifted in his seat and lit up another cigarette. “That’s probably more than you wanted to know but I had to tell someone. I wanted you to know why my case is important to me.”
“I understand. Does Steele?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Why would he know something like that? Why would he care?”
It was a good question. It made sense that Steele needed to know the basics of their private lives, like not having any family ties. But beyond that? Why did Steele need to know what had been buried so deep inside each member of his team?
He was about to bring it up to Cam but then decided to keep it to himself, at least for now. He’d have to find out more about the other team members to make sure this wasn’t some weird coincidence. And he’d have to do it on the quiet. The last thing he needed was to give Steele any reason to take away his badge.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
East Grand Rapids, the town where Jonas Prince had lived, seemed like one of those places travel photographers sought out to capture the lost dream of Main Street America. Rows of white brick colonials, ivory-globed lampposts, colonnades of robust maple trees set along pothole-free streets. The town’s anchor was Wealthy Street, a three-block strip of boutiques, sidewalk cafes, and beauty salons. A short walk away was the civic center, a streamlined brick building that sat on the shores of Reeds Lake. It was there they found the East Grand Rapids Police Department.
The clean, tiled lobby was empty except for the stern face of the current chief, Peter J. Gallagher, looking down at Louis from his portrait on the wall. A woman appeared at the reception window. She had a pole-vaulter’s build, and wore a crisp blue uniform adorned with a chest full of service ribbons. She gave Louis an easy smile when he showed his badge.
“Nice to meet you, detectives. I’m Lieutenant Lou Ann Spence. I have your witness secured in room one. Follow me, please.”
She led them down a hallway and stopped in front of a window. Inside the interview room, their witness, Victor Weems, sat at a table. He had the catcher’s-mitt face of a man who made his living outdoors so it was hard to tell how old he was—maybe forty, Louis guessed. Dressed in old jeans and a faded, plaid flannel shirt, Weems sat ramrod straight, his eyes pin-balling across the fluorescents and walls and up to the window.
“Here’s his statement,” Spence said, handing Louis a paper. “Your captain asked us not to press him on specifics until you got here.”
“What’s his background?” Louis asked.
“He’s on parole, convicted of assault on a police officer three years ago.”
Weems’s statement was handwritten. He saw a man peeping in the windows of the reverend’s house about seven a.m. Wednesday. White guy, dark hair. When the man saw Weems looking at him, he ran off.
“Did you ask him why he didn’t contact the police that day?” Louis asked.
“Yes,” Spence said. “He said he just doesn’t like talking to cops, but when he saw the newspaper article he thought maybe he could help.”
Cam looked at Weems through the glass. “I got this,” he said.
When they went in, Weems’s eyes shot up, ricocheting between them. Weems scooted his chair back when Cam sat down at the table.
“No one’s going to hurt you, man,” Cam said. “We don’t give a shit what you did before. We only care about what you saw.”
Weems looked up at Louis, who was standing near the door, then back at Cam. “I put everything I saw down in my statement,” he said. “I don’t remember anything else. I swear I don’t.”
“Let me see your hands,” Cam said.
“Why?”
“Please, just show me your hands.”
Weems did, slowly.
When Cam gently took ahold of Weems’s wrists, he tried to
pull away but Cam didn’t release him.
“Relax,” Cam said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to do what I call a sensory recall interview. I want you to close your eyes.”
Louis wondered where the hell Cam was going with this but decided to stay quiet.
“I don’t remember stuff too good,” Weems said, still trying to pull free of Cam’s grip.
“Listen to me,” Cam said. “Think of your brain as a very powerful tape recorder. The human brain consists of about a billion neurons. Each neuron forms connections to other neurons, adding up to more than a trillion connections. You have a gazillion memories in that head because the brain never throws anything away. We just need to dig it up.”
Weems seemed to relax a little. “All right, I don’t get it. But I’ll try.”
“Close your eyes.”
Weems did.
Cam’s voice was lullaby-soft. “Now, I want you to put yourself back at the reverend’s house at the moment just before you saw the stranger.”
“Okay.”
“Think back to that moment. Where are you standing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look down at your feet.”
Weems lowered his head, his eyes still closed. “I’m on the driveway of the house we’re building next door. Maybe sixty feet from the rev’s house.”
“Who else is there?”
“No one. I’m the first to get to the site.”
“Look around the street, do you see any other vehicles?”
Weems’s brow furrowed and, for twenty or so seconds, the room was silent.
“A white pickup down the block,” Weems said quietly. “It’s parked in the street, not in a driveway. I think it belongs to a guy who works with us but . . .”
“You said you were the first to get there.”
“Yeah, right. So I guess it didn’t.”
“Had you seen this truck before?” Cam asked.
“No. I never saw it on site before.”
“Is the truck old or new?”
“Old. Beat to shit. Full of rust.”
“Is there anything in the bed of the truck?”
Weems thought for a moment. “Yeah . . . yeah, there is. A tree stump.”
“Can you see a license plate?” Cam asked.
Weems squeezed his eyes together. “No, no plate. But I can see some letters on the tailgate . . . like, you know, how they put F-O-R-D there?”
“So, it’s a Ford?”
“No, no man, it’s one of those foreign things . . . wait, I can get it . . . soo-sow or suzoo.”
“Isuzu?” Cam asked.
“Yeah, that’s it. Isuzu.”
“Good,” Cam said. “Okay, move up in time a few minutes. What are you doing now?”
“I’m putting up the scaffolding for the stucco guys. That’s my job. I always get there early and set up the equipment.”
“What else is happening? What makes you look toward the reverend’s house?”
“I hear a dog barking.”
“Could you see the dog?”
Weems sat up straighter but kept his eyes closed. “No, it’s coming from the house on the other side of the rev’s place and the dog sounds all upset. When I look over at the rev’s house, all I see are these big evergreens that run along the side of the house. But I can see that they’re moving, and I think that’s weird since there isn’t a lick of wind. Then I see a man. He’s in the evergreens, looking in the rev’s side windows, cupping his hands against the glass.”
“What is the man wearing?”
“I can’t see any colors.”
“Why not?”
“He kinda blends in with the evergreens.”
“So he’s wearing . . . ?”
“Green jacket, maybe a hunting jacket or camo?” Weems said.
“How old is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Watch him for a moment, watch how he moves his body. What’s your gut impression of his age?”
“Forty something? He’s being careful, creeping around the house, but he doesn’t seem jittery.”
“How does he seem?”
“Curious,” Weems said.
“Good. That’s good,” Cam said. He glanced up at Louis again and Louis gave him a nod to keep going. Louis wondered where Cam had learned this technique. It made Louis think again about the odd skills of the five people Steele had gathered for his team.
“What happens next?” Cam asked Weems.
“I accidently drop a connector joint on the concrete and he looks over at me,” Weems said, eyes still shut.
“Can you see his face?”
Weems was quiet for a long time.
“Can you see his face?” Cam asked again.
“Yeah, now I can . . . he’s a white guy . . . brown hair, ragged to the collar. He kinda freezes then disappears around the back of the house, toward the lakeside. Oh, and I think maybe there was something was wrong with his leg . . . he moved funny.”
“Very good,” Cam said. “What do you do next?”
“I finish putting up the scaffolding.”
“How long did this take?”
“About a half-hour.”
“In your mind, look down the street. Is the white pickup still there?”
Weems opened his eyes. He looked different now, relaxed and beaming with pride. “No, it was gone.”
Cam released Weem’s wrists and sat back. He looked up at Louis. “Anything you want to ask?”
“Do you think you could provide a sketch of the man?” Louis asked Weems.
“Yes, sir. I think I can. Might not be too good but I can give you something.”
“Thank you, Mr. Weems,” Louis said.
“You need to catch this guy,” Weems said as Cam stood up.
“Why do you say that?” Louis asked.
Weems shrugged. “I’m not a religious man, but us guys, we all liked the rev. He would come out and visit with us, sometimes bringing us water and wanting us to take his prayer cards and come to his church. He seemed like a real decent guy.”
“We’ll do our best to catch him,” Louis said. “Thanks for your cooperation. Sit tight for a few minutes.”
Lieutenant Spence was standing out in the hall when they went out. She had been watching the interview through the window. “I can have an artist here in thirty minutes,” she said.
“We’ll wait,” Cam said. “Can we get some coffee or something?”
“Sure.”
She started to walk away but Louis called her back. “How far is the reverend’s house from here?”
“Five, ten minute walk. Why?”
“I’d like to see it.”
“Your own state guys already processed the house,” she said.
Louis had seen the report from the troopers Steele had sent the same morning Prince’s body had been found at the church. They had found nothing disturbed in the house, nothing out of the ordinary. But they hadn’t known then about the man lurking outside staring into the windows.
“Prince’s house keys are back in Lansing,” Cam said. “Steele had all his personal stuff found at the church sent back to evidence.”
“I can get you a key,” Spence said. “Reverend Prince was part of our House Watch program. Residents register their homes and give us a key. I’ll go get it.”
Spence left and Louis turned to Cam. “You mind staying here for the artist?”
“Hell no, you go do your thing.”
Louis looked back through the glass at Weems. He was sitting there, picking at his dirty fingernails. “That was good work in there,” he said.
Cam smiled. “Yeah, I seem to have a way with felons.”
“Do you really believe what you told him, that the brain never discards a memory?”
Cam shrugged. “I believe our brains store a whole lot of shit we’d just as soon forget. I think some memories scab over, like a kind of protection, especially if it’s from when we were kids. Unless something happens t
o tear the scab off, it just sits there. But who really knows, right?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Jonas Prince had lived in his house on Reeds Lake for twenty years. The city of East Grand Rapids had grown “fancified” as Lieutenant Spence told Louis when she handed over the keys, but the reverend hadn’t changed much about his little house. Tooki had said that after Anthony and Violet moved to their new house, Jonas lived alone except for the twice-weekly ministrations of a housekeeper.
The walk to Jonas Prince’s house took Louis through a neighborhood of old-growth trees guarding homes with porch swings, picket fences, and swing sets in the side yards. An old guy walking a golden retriever eyed him as he passed, and Louis suspected that when the guy got home he’d be on the horn to the East Grand Rapids Police Department to report a strange black man casing his next break-in.
The homes got newer and larger the closer Louis got to the lake. When he made his final turn onto Frederick Drive, the first house he saw was a white monstrosity with a three-car garage tucked behind an iron gate, not much different than the mini-mansions in Anthony’s neighborhood. The other new houses on the street all seemed far too grand for their modest-sized lots.
Near the end of the short street, Louis stopped in front of the Prince home. It was set far back from the street, a small, white Cape Cod cottage—its narrow driveway bordered by a rose garden, the bushes bare and the white trellises in need of painting.
Louis glanced left to the half-finished, Roman-columned monstrosity next door, the house where Weems had been working. He looked toward the west side of the Prince cottage. It was just as Weems had said—if anyone had been lurking in the evergreens, Weems would have had a decent look at him.
Louis went to the west side of the cottage. There were two windows about chest high, almost hidden by the evergreens. Louis got as close as he could without walking on the dirt right below the windows. If there was a boot print to be gotten by a forensics team here, he didn’t want to foul things up. There was also a good chance Steele’s techs might be able to raise a print from the glass or sill.
Louis retraced his steps to the front porch, unlocked the door and went in.
He paused in the foyer. He could pick a mix of scents—furniture polish, the normal mustiness of an old house, and an odd earthy, cedar smell, the same smell that had clung to Jonas’s sweater in the dressing room back at the church.
