CAUSE TO DREAD

by Blake Pierce

  When she was out of the shower and dressed, she put on a pot of coffee. It was 5:05 when she scrambled some eggs and sliced up an avocado for breakfast. While she ate and drank her coffee, she Googled Delores Moon and came up with some pretty impressive results. She’d worked in a clinical supervision role for troubled teens and their families straight out of college before opening her own practice at the age of thirty-five. She’d been doing that for twelve years now, often volunteering her time to lead and manage small-group environments.

  When she returned to the A1, she thought she might tackle some research to look into the fear support group to see if there had been anyone else involved with it recently. She worked a plan out in her mind as she put her dishes away and tidied up the house. She went outside, checked the mail, and swept the sidewalk, simply passing the time before Rose would call and ask to be picked up from the hospital.

  Back inside, she sorted through the last two days’ worth of mail, passing by bills and a flier for a furniture store sale. And behind that flier was letter with only her address. There was no return address. She recognized the handwriting at once.

  Who are you, Avery?

  She tore the envelope open right away. A sheet of notebook paper sat inside, folded perfectly into thirds. She unfolded it and found another of Howard’s brief letters.

  We all dwell on what we fear the most, he had written in an obnoxiously neat handwriting. Whether spiders or losing your family, fear is the same in all its shapes. It is up to us if we let it control us, though. We all dwell on what we fear the most.

  She read it three times, noting right away that the opening line and the last line were the same. He was repeating it on purpose. It was really no different than sitting across that table in a back room in the prison, hoping he could lead her to some profound breakthrough that would crack a case. Despite the last three months, he was somehow still looking over her shoulder.

  At least with the package that had arrived on the day she’d nearly killed herself, she could brush it off as Howard being eccentric.

  Who are you, Avery? It was really a very deep and nonsensical sort of question.

  But this letter was different. It seemed more purposeful. We all dwell on what we fear the most.

  When her cell phone rang, she shook violently. It’s him, she thought. It’s Howard calling…

  But the name and number on her phone’s screen proved this paranoid theory wrong. It was Finley. And he was calling at 5:40 in the morning, which meant one of two things: either there was a break in the case or there was another victim.

  “What have you got, Finley?”

  “Nice to hear your voice, too,” he joked. “Look…we’re pulling at any straws we get here. We got a call twenty minutes ago from a guy named Joe Potter. He said he was worried about a friend of his. Said he got a weird call from his friend’s cell phone. Jumbled noises and the sound of her crying.”

  “Maybe it was a butt dial?” Avery asked.

  “Even if it was…the call came at four thirty in the morning. He tried calling back and it goes straight to voicemail. I’m calling you because of where the guy says he met his friend—a woman he made sure not to call his girlfriend.”

  “Where?” Avery asked.

  “At a support group for phobias.”

  “Holy shit,” Avery said. “Give me his number, would you?”

  “I’ll text it to you when we end this call. You want me to come out and lend a hand on this?”

  “No, I think I’ll keep Kellaway. But thanks all the same.”

  She ended the call and dialed up Kellaway. As she spoke to her new partner, she heard a tone in her ear as Finley’s text came through. She set up plans with Kellaway and then placed another call, this one to Delores Moon.

  She was in such a frenzy and preoccupied with the phone that on the way out of the cabin, she barely had time to pass a second glance at the letter she had received from Howard. Still, that one line remained plastered to the front of her mind as she got into her car and headed back into town.

  We all dwell on what we fear the most…

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Avery’s call to Delores Moon had gone to voicemail. She’d left a message and then followed with a text: Contact me ASAP. Potentially urgent. Without her red strobe siren—an attachment that she’d started to use, the very same emergency light that Ramirez had always referred to as the Red Bubble—she realized she’d draw the attention of any cops in the area. She ran red lights and broke the speed limit all the way back into the city. And once again, she was able to recall how much she had loved the thrill of pursuit once upon a time.

  When she pulled into the parking lot of Kellaway’s apartment building, Avery’s phone rang. She saw Kellaway standing on her stoop, waiting for her, and flashed her headlights at her. Dawn was on its way but had not yet done enough to eliminate the need for headlights.

  Avery answered the phone, recognizing the number she had called less than twenty minutes ago.

  “Detective Black?” Delores Moon asked. “I got your messages.”

  “Yes, and I’m sorry to have called you so early,” she said. She then recounted what Finley had told her about Joe Potter’s phone call. Before she was even done, Moon let out an audible gasp on the other line.

  “The call was most likely from a woman named Heather Ellis. She was one of the dropouts you heard about yesterday. She stopped coming about a month or so ago because she and Joe had gotten somewhat romantic behind the scenes and their romance was distracting the rest of the group.”

  “Did she leave on good terms?” Avery asked.

  “Oh yes. Heather had come a long way. She understood that Joe still needed the help of the group. She stopped coming willingly, though I had recommended her to some other resources.”

  “So she came to the small group with a phobia she was trying to overcome?”

  “Yes indeed. A rather nasty fear of heights.”

  Kellaway reached the car and stepped inside. When she saw Avery on the phone she stayed quiet. Avery put the call on speakerphone and set it on the console.

  “Had she overcome that fear while in the group?” Avery asked.

  “She’d gotten a bit better. But the fear of heights is so common that it is rarely taken seriously.”

  “And what about Joe Potter? What is his fear?”

  “He’s actually one of the men that was present when you came to the meeting—the gentleman that was afraid of the very idea of death. I think he and Heather had hoped that their relationship might help in getting over their fears.”

  “And has Joe ever shown any reason for you to maybe find him violent or in any way suspicious?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I do have one more question for you,” Avery said. “How long, exactly, have you been leading the group we attended yesterday?”

  “Seven months,” she answered. “Though I’ve led countless other small groups just like it over the last five years or so.”

  “And was there a preexisting position for it when you started with this group, or was it one of your own making?”

  “There was a counselor who had been operating it for about a year or so before me, I believe. A nice albeit cocky gentleman named Barry Kechner. He was more in favor of a tough love approach than I am.”

  “Do you know why he left?”

  “I never spoke with him about it,” Moon said. “In fact, out paths only ever crossed once during the transition process. A few of the group members that were around when he was there claim that he was often short on patience.”

  “Do you know where he might be now?” Avery asked.

  “No idea. Actually, I can’t recall the last time I heard his name. If I remember correctly, he had worked as a counselor at a rehabilitation facility somewhere in the city for a few years. He may have gone back to that.”

  “Thanks for the information,” Avery said. “Please…would you mind another call should I need more information?”
<
br />   “Of course…whatever I can do to help.”

  Avery ended the call and looked over at Kellaway. “Sorry for the early start to the day, but things suddenly just got a lot more interesting.”

  “I gathered that. Where to now?”

  It was a good question. While the initial call about Heather Ellis had come from Joe Potter, Avery didn’t think paying him an immediate visit would be worthwhile—especially not if there was a chance that Heather was in trouble and might still be out there, alive somewhere.

  Maybe being tortured via her fear, Avery thought.

  Avery picked her phone back up, calling up Finley. He answered right away with a tone of sleepiness but his usual good cheer. “What can I do for you, Avery?”

  “I need you to get a team ready for me. A few, maybe. I need someone to pull anything and everything we might have on file for a man named Barry Kechner. I need that done right away. I also need you to send me the address for Heather Ellis; that’s apparently Joe Potter’s girlfriend.”

  “The potential butt-dial?” Finley said.

  “It’s looking that way. If the call did come from Heather’s cell and she’s the killer’s next potential victim, I think a visit to her place might be worth more than trying to talk to Joe Potter. That being said, I think someone should go visit with him just to make sure he isn’t sitting on some information.”

  “Got it. And this Kechner guy…who is he?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Avery said. “Maybe our killer. But keep that quiet until you know if he’s even in the system. Thanks, Finley. Just get me an address for Heather Ellis as soon as you can.”

  “You’ll have it within five minutes.”

  When Avery ended the call, the silence in the car seemed to have a weight to it. To break it, Avery filled Kellaway in on the bits she had missed.

  “So you think this Barry Kechner might be the guy?” Kellaway asked.

  “I don’t know,” Avery said. “Based on the things Moon told me, it feels right. If that makes sense.”

  “Good old police intuition?” Kellaway asked.

  “Something like that.”

  As it turned out, Avery didn’t even have to wait five minutes. Her phone rang again before three minutes had passed. This time, she was surprised to see that it was a line coming from the A1 rather than Finley’s cell.

  “Finley?”

  “No, this is Connelly. I just happened to be passing by Finley’s office when he got this information on Barry Kechner for you. Avery…I think this might be it. There’s a record here that’s not very long but hints at some bad stuff. There’s a cruelty to animals charge from way back twenty years ago. And there’s a restraining order against him, placed by an old coworker from when he worked at Center Field Rehab Center.”

  “Got an address? Kellaway and I can head over there right now.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got it. And I think me and Finley will meet you over there, too. If this is our guy and he might have the next victim, there’s no sense in taking chances.”

  While she hated the idea of Connelly out on the scene, she knew it was pointless to argue it. She couldn’t help but wonder if this was his way of making sure she was still operating at full capacity. Maybe he wanted to see for himself if the last few months had made her rusty.

  He gave her the address and Kellaway put it into her phone. “We can be there in about ten minutes,” Avery said.

  “You’ll beat us by a few,” Connelly said. “Don’t do anything until we get there.”

  She hung up before responding. It was just a habit that she apparently had not grown out of. And so what if it pissed him off? What was he going to do…fire her?

  With an address and a potential suspect ten minutes away, the sun finally started to paint the first rays of gold across the horizon. The city was just now starting to wake up as Avery sped ahead of morning traffic.

  It might have been the first time she’d felt truly alive since she’d watched Ramirez’s casket lowered into the ground.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  Avery and Kellaway did indeed arrive at Barry Kechner’s residence before Connelly and Finley. She didn’t get there much sooner, though; she could already see the glare of headlights coming around the corner behind them, likely a single car occupied by Connelly and Finley. The house itself was located in the cul de sac of a side street off to the edge of an upper-class neighborhood. The porch light was on and the garage was closed, making it impossible to tell if anyone was home.

  “You ready?” Avery asked.

  Kellaway nodded, looking to the house. “You don’t know much about me,” Kellaway said. “So now might be a good time to let you know that when I was in New York, I had to fire my weapon for the very first time in a situation like this.”

  “Self-defense?”

  “Yeah. My shot went low, though. I was going for the shoulder and somehow ended up clipping him at the top of the lung. He survived, but it was bad.”

  “You getting the jitters?” Avery asked.

  “No, just some bad memories. I’ll be fine.”

  The headlights that had been approaching from behind settled to a stop behind them. The doors to the car opened right away as Connelly and Finley stepped out. Avery and Kellaway joined them and for a moment, they stood in front of the house. The first true light of dawn etched their shadows along Kechner’s sidewalk, as if pushing them forward.

  They hurried to the front door quietly. Connelly took the lead, ringing the doorbell. When there was no answer after ten seconds, he rang again and followed it with a hefty knock on the door. His response was more silence.

  “You think there’s enough probable cause for us to storm in anyway?” Avery asked. If it were up to her, she’d break in without question. But with Connelly here, things were different. It was one of the reasons she hadn’t wanted him to come along.

  “I honestly don’t know,” Connelly said. “But given that we have a fourth probable victim and this guy seems to be our one solid lead, I’ll allow it.”

  As he said this, Connelly stepped forward again. He pulled a snap gun out of his pocket, something Avery would have never expected. It was shaped like a small gun, a device used to open just about any pin tumbler lock. She’d used them many times before but had assumed it would be too controversial for Connelly. She watched as Connelly inserted the thin steel rod into the lock and then engaged it against all of the pins within the lock. There was a very loud click noise as the lock was disengaged.

  Avery quickly drew her Glock, pushed the door open, and swung around inside the doorframe. As the other three fell in behind her, she took in her surroundings. It was a very nice house, the front door leading into a large foyer. From the foyer, there was a split to the house; left to head into what looked like a den and right, which led to a study and a hallway beyond. The study was dimly lit with a desk lamp, providing a slight glow for them to see by.

  Without saying a word, protocol kicked in. Avery and Kellaway went into the study while Connelly and Finley checked the den area and the darkened spaces beyond. When Avery spotted the closed laptop on the desk, she went to it right away. She opened it up and found it locked at a password screen.

  She barely had time to feel frustration at this before she saw the thin stack of papers to the right of the laptop. One was a sketch of what looked like a rough map. On one edge of it was a wobbly circle. The letters JP were in the center of it.

  Beneath this sketch was a torn sheet of paper with a few words scrawled on it. Every single one sent a chill directly into her heart. “You see this?” Avery asked over her shoulder to Kellaway.

  “Yeah…”

  The words on the paper read: tarantula? Black widow? Funnel web (atrax robustus)? There were a few other spiders written down but they were all crossed out. There were also several company names and three websites written down. One of the websites was one that she had visited while doing her digging on Stefon Scott.

  Beneath this list there was
a stapled grouping of papers. They all looked to be printouts and receipts. She scanned them quickly and saw the word clown or doll pop up quite frequently.

  She then looked back to the rough map. She looked at the circle labeled JP and saw several little Xs marked around the edge of it. JP, she thought. Jamaica Pond. And I bet each of those Xs is a potential dumping point…

  “It’s him,” Avery said. “I don’t see anything that might pinpoint Heather Ellis, but the other three…it’s clearly him. We have to—”

  She was interrupted by Connelly’s voice, a loud mutter that crept through the house. “What the actual FUCK?”

  Avery ran to the den, following the direction of Connelly’s voice. Kellaway trailed behind her, having drawn her weapon. The den emptied off into a large hallway that seemed to wrap around to meet the hallway off of the study. Before that turn, though, there were several rooms. Two of these doors were open. Sounds of disgust could be heard coming from one of them as Finley came slowly stepping out. His back was turned to Avery as he continued to face inside the room. “Get out,” he said, apparently to Connelly. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “What is it?” Avery asked.

  Finley looked like he had seen a ghost when he turned around to face Avery. “I don’t even know. It looks like Kechner was doing some research and it got away from him.”

  Avery hurried to the door and was not at all prepared for what she saw. She had to pause in the doorway for a moment to give herself time to adjust.

  Connelly was standing just a few feet away from her. He, too, looked frozen. He was looking into the far corner where a glass case sat on the floor—a glass case very similar to the one she had seen in Stefon Scott’s apartment. Most of the glass had been covered by the thin filaments of spider webs. But the webs had not been contained to the case. They were on the walls as well, thin strands that led to wider and intricately woven webs in the corners up near the ceiling.