She followed along the opposite bank of the creek from where she had been, going with the flow, and came to a spot where the underbrush wasn’t quite so thick. She thought she saw the shine of a light through the limbs of the laurel bushes.
No, she thought, not after she had crossed the creek; they couldn’t have found her. She half squatted and moved forward slowly. She clutched her knife and took out the dead flashlight for good measure. A weapon in each hand. She listened for dogs. She heard nothing but the wind. Diane crept through the bushes, watching the point of light. It was still, not as if someone were walking with it. She crept closer, moving through the brushes until she was in an open area. She squinted her eyes, trying to see better.
It was a light in a window.
A window.
A house.
Thank God. Diane almost collapsed with relief. She couldn’t see whether it was the Barres’ house. But it was a house. She stood up with joy, started forward, and stopped suddenly. What if it was the house on Massey Road? What if she had just made a big circle in the woods? People did that. It was hard to go in a straight line in the woods.
Diane stood for several moments, unable to make a decision. Hell, she would just have to risk it. As she walked slowly toward the house, she put the flashlight back in her waistband and took her phone out of her pocket. She still had no service, but she could see the time. It was 12:17. She was surprised it wasn’t a lot later. She felt she’d been walking through the woods all night. It had been a little over five hours. She put her phone back in her pocket.
After a few feet she saw, with heart-stopping relief, that it wasn’t the house on Massey Road. She thought she recognized the tall magnolia tree in the side yard, even in the dark. It was Roy and Ozella Barre’s house.
Diane hurried to the steps that led up to the large porch. They would be in bed, but she was sure they would be happy to rescue her. She climbed the steps and crossed the porch, ready to knock on the door, when she noticed that it was slightly ajar. She knocked anyway and waited. Nothing.
Diane opened the door, walked in, and called out to the Barres.
“Roy, Ozella, it’s Diane Fallon. I’m sorry to wake—”
She stopped. There was an aroma she didn’t like. She slowly walked into the living room and looked over into the dining room.
Sitting in their dining room chairs were Ozella and Roy Barre. She in her nightgown and he in his pajamas. Each of them had a large, gaping gash across their throat. Large bloodred stains obliterated the designs on the front of their nightclothes.
Chapter 4
Diane stood in shock, denying what she was seeing—the Barres sitting completely still, like grotesque mannequins.
“No, dear God, no.” Her voice came out in a tearful whine.
Diane squatted on her haunches and put her head in her hands. On her cheek she felt the cold blade of the knife she held and stood up quickly, looking at it as if it were a snake. Surely not, she thought. But what was he doing out in the thunderstorm taking photographs?
“Get hold of yourself,” she whispered. “Call for help.” Diane felt she had to tell herself out loud what to do to break out of her shock.
“Call nine-one-one. Where is the phone?”
The telephone was near the door on an antique telephone stand. She carefully retraced her steps to the doorway and took a tissue from a box of Kleenex she found near the phone. She wrapped the knife in the tissue and wrapped it again inside of the rain hat and stuck the hat in her waistband for when the sheriff arrived. She took another tissue and lifted the receiver gently from its cradle in a way so as to disturb as little as possible any fingerprints that might be on it. There was no dial tone. She jiggled the plunger on the cradle and listened again. Nothing. She traced the line to the wall. It was plugged in, but dead. She shouldn’t have been surprised. The killer had probably cut the phone line outside.
With a jolt that sent shivers down her spine, Diane realized that the killer could still be inside the house. Start thinking, damn it. She listened to the sounds of the house—raindrops from the wet trees falling on the tin roof, the refrigerator humming, wind, clocks—little else. She didn’t hear walking or floors creaking, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still here. She needed to get to the sheriff. Damn, another long hike—to somewhere. She knew the way to the county seat if she were driving from Rosewood, but she wasn’t sure from here. Jesus, it could be ten or twenty miles away. No, I just have to make it to another house. Surely there was one within walking distance.
The sheriff. Damn it. That was another problem. Leland Conrad was the sheriff of the county, and he wouldn’t call in the GBI for help with the crime scene. Though he might ask them to do some of the forensic analysis. He certainly would not call in her crew from the Rosewood Crime Lab. Not that the way another county ran its government was any of her business, but she felt a responsibility to the Barres. Sheriff Conrad liked to say that he did things the old-fashioned way—the right way—and anytime he needed outsiders to do his job was the time he needed to hang it up.
The problem with the way he executed his investigative philosophy was that all strangers were suspicious, because he knew everyone in the county and what they were capable of. If Diane were being kind, she would say he used more psychology than forensics to solve crimes. Truthfully, she didn’t think he knew his neighbors as well as he thought he did.
Still, Diane had no choice but to contact him. There were two things about that prospect that nagged at her. The sheriff would not do a good job of working the crime scene, and when she told him about the stranger in the woods, he would jump on that as a solution. If the mysterious stranger was the murderer, fine, but if not, the real killer would still be out there, and the man, whoever he was, would be in deep trouble.
How long had they been dead? Diane traced her steps back to where she had stood looking into the dining room. Ozella Barre was facing her, sitting at the end of the table. Her hands were secured with duct tape to the wooden arms of the upholstered host chair. Her head was against the back of the chair. Her eyes were open and covered with a milky film. So—she had been dead over three hours, at least. Not before seven thirty, because that was when they were standing on their steps waving good-bye to her.
Diane did the math. They were killed between seven thirty and nine p.m. Small window for a terrible murder like that. If he’d gotten there right after I left, it would only be less than an hour and a half. She had been walking around in the woods for a little over five and a half hours. It seemed much longer. When, during that time, had she seen the stranger? How long had she been walking before she encountered him, and how long was it after they parted that she found the house? Shit. She didn’t know. Why hadn’t she been keeping track of time? She may not have had service, but the phone displayed the time. Then again, why should she have? Her primary concern had been survival, not punching a clock.
There was the other stranger—the one who was chasing her. He could have come here looking for her and killed the Barres. But why? What reason would he have? Then, what reason did he have to keep a skeleton in a tree?
The Barres were nice people. Who would come in the night and kill them in such a horrible way?
Diane turned her attention to Roy Barre. He sat at a right angle to his wife. She couldn’t see his eyes. She didn’t dare move around more than she had already. Even if Sheriff Conrad didn’t do much in the way of crime scene investigation, she would still leave him a virtually untouched scene. Roy’s head leaned sideways toward his wife. Blood pooled in front of them both on the dark Victorian table. Diane noticed that both their hair was roughed up on top of their heads. Possibly the killer held their hair to pull their heads back in order to cut their throats.
Diane had barely noticed the condition of the rooms when she had entered. She let her gaze drift around the room. The Barres had a comfortable home. The living room was furnished with stuffed chairs, a sofa, and throw pillows with floral designs in subtl
e shades of blue and green. The chairs and sofa were positioned near the fireplace with the sofa facing it. There was a large blue-and-white rag rug on the floor under a dark-wood coffee table. Several hutches lined the walls with Mrs. Barre’s collections of porcelain figurines. Mr. Barre’s collection of things he’d found on his land—rocks, antique padlocks, old horseshoes, and some of the smaller antique tools—sat on a series of shelves on one wall. The arrangement told her they liked looking at the things they had collected. Two of the hutches’ doors were ajar. Nothing else looked amiss.
Diane turned her attention to the dining room. The dining room furniture was Victorian, like much of the furniture in the house. A mahogany breakfront hutch holding ornate dishes stood against one wall. Here too, the doors were ajar, but the hutch was not ransacked. Diane would like to have seen the rest of the house.
She took out her cell phone and began taking pictures of the crime scene and of the environment 360 degrees around where she stood. When she finished she put her phone back in its case on her belt. That was as much as she could do.
Diane listened again to the sounds of the house. Virtually quiet except for normal house sounds. She retraced her steps out the door and walked down the long steps that led to the road she’d left by not six hours earlier. It was dark except for the moon, and she had to be careful where she placed her feet going down the steep stairs. The road was muddy from the rain. She started off in the opposite direction from where she had gone earlier, walking on the shoulder, trying to keep out of the mud as much as possible. Surely the Barres had another neighbor nearby who wasn’t homicidal or, at the very least, didn’t keep skeletons.
She rounded a bend just as a pair of headlights came over the hill in her direction. Her heart pounded in her chest. She was out in the open with no place to hide. She would have to make a run for it again. Please don’t let it be the stranger from Massey Road—or the killer.
Chapter 5
Diane eased backward, putting distance between her and the road—and the approaching car. A ditch brimming with rainwater flowed between her and the muddy road. A car would most assuredly get stuck if it tried to cross toward her. As it drew closer, Diane saw that it was a rugged-looking Jeep Wrangler. So much for getting stuck in the ditch. She unconsciously stepped farther back. The vehicle slowed and stopped.
Diane’s heart beat rapidly. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t very well run from everyone she met. She was weak and getting shaky. She’d have to take a chance and trust someone.
The Jeep door opened and a man got out, shielding his eyes from the brightness of his dome light, looking in Diane’s direction. From what little Diane could see, he looked young, perhaps in his twenties. She could also see that he was wearing a uniform, and there was a blue light mounted on the dashboard of his Jeep. He was a policeman.
“Miss Fallon? You the lady lost in the woods? I got this anonymous call—well, it was pretty strange, really. I’m Deputy Travis Conrad, ma’am. Well, are you lost?”
Diane almost collapsed with relief. She ran stumbling to the vehicle, sloshing in the soggy weeds and leaping over the ditch and into the mud.
“Yes. Yes, Deputy Conrad. I’m Diane Fallon,” she said, resisting the urge to hug him.
“Well, I’ll be damned. I told Jason I’d take the call. I was curious. We get all kinds of crazy calls, but this was a new one. I thought the guy was drunk, but Jason said he didn’t sound drunk.”
The deputy looked intently at her in the light from his open door, an expression of deep concern on his face.
“Excuse me for saying so, ma’am, but you look somewhat worse for the wear. How long have you been out like this?”
Diane hadn’t given a thought to her appearance. She pushed back a strand of hair from her face with shaking fingers. “Five and a half . . . maybe six hours . . . I don’t know exactly.”
“Are you injured? Do I need to get medical help for you?”
“No, no, I’m not hurt. Just exhausted and dehydrated. I haven’t had any water.”
Travis Conrad looked at her pleasantly and slapped the hood of the Jeep. “Why don’t you get in the ol’ Wrangler here and get off your feet? I believe I’ve got a bottle of water.”
The deputy put a supportive arm around her and walked her around to the passenger side. He opened the door for her and took her arm to help her in.
“My shoes . . .” Diane began, indicating the muddy globs encasing her footwear.
“Does this look like a vehicle that’s finicky about a little mud?” He grinned. “Get in.”
She climbed in the blessedly dry vehicle and Deputy Conrad went around to the other side and got in. He reached behind the front seats and came up with three bottles of water held together by plastic rings.
“Try a little of this,” he said.
Diane reached to take a bottle from him. Her hand was shaking uncontrollably. “Thank you,” she said. “I guess I’m more tired than I thought.” She twisted open the bottle cap and took a long drink of water.
“Let me see here,” Deputy Conrad said. He reached into the glove compartment, felt around for a moment, and pulled out a candy bar. “Never know when I might get low blood sugar. Chocolate okay?”
“Absolutely perfect,” Diane said. She fumbled with the wrapper before finally tearing it open, and took three bites in rapid succession. She realized that her head was spinning. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the seat.
“You just relax. You’ve had a time of it,” Conrad said. “That ought to make you feel better in just a few minutes.” He put the Jeep in gear and started out. The tires spun and the Jeep slipped sideways in the mud for a few feet before he straightened it on the road.
“We gotta do something about these roads,” he said. “Where were you headed to, anyway?”
“Looking for a phone,” Diane said.
“You know, Roy and Ozella Barre live right up the road here. You must have passed their place. I’m sure they wouldn’t have minded you getting them up,” he said.
“That’s why I was looking for a phone,” Diane said.
“What’s why you were looking for a phone? You know, you’re not making a lot of sense. You just relax until you feel better.”
“No, you don’t understand,” said Diane. “I left the Barres’ house earlier this evening, about seven thirty. I had the altercation with the man at the house on Massey Road, and managed to get back to the Barres’ after more than five hours of trudging through the woods on foot.”
“In all this storm? That must have been quite a hike,” he said.
“But listen, about the Barres.” Diane stopped, a lump forming in her throat.
“Afraid to wake them up?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the muddy road.
“No. It’s much more serious. Look. This is hard,” she said. “The Barres are dead. When I got back here, I found them murdered in their house. Someone has killed them.”
Deputy Conrad slammed on the brakes. The Jeep fishtailed in the road before coming to a stop. Diane pressed against the seat belt and held on to the dash.
“What do you mean, killed?” he asked, as if he didn’t know what the word meant.
“Someone cut their throats. They are sitting at their dining table,” said Diane. “They’re both dead. I found them not more than thirty minutes ago. Their phone is dead too.”
“Is this for real? This is not some joke, because if it is . . .”
“I wish it were,” said Diane.
“I just saw them yesterday at the Waffle House,” he said. “He was all happy about someone from the museum in Rosewood coming to look at his arrowheads.” He looked over at Diane. “I guess that’d be you.”
“Yes,” she said. “That was me.”
Deputy Conrad rubbed his hands over his face. “Aw, God.” He looked over at Diane. “You know, you’ve had a hard night. Maybe you’re delirious, maybe you—”
“Imagined it?” said Diane. “I wish I had. I hope when we
get to their house you find them safe in bed and you can yell at me for scaring you.”
He took his foot off the brake and pressed the accelerator. The tires spun and the Jeep slid sideways toward the ditch before it found traction. Diane heard the mud spattering on the sides and under the vehicle. She sat back in the seat, wet, cold, tired, and depressed.
“I hope so too,” he said.
They drove up to the house. It took less than three minutes from where he had picked her up on the road. The water and chocolate were doing some good. Diane was feeling better.
“I went in as far as the dining room door,” she said. “Short, straight path. I didn’t deviate from the path on my way back out after I found them. I tried the phone near the door. It was dead.”
He nodded his head. They got out of the Jeep and walked up the steep steps.
“I didn’t hear anyone in the house,” said Diane, “but I didn’t search it either.”
“You did right,” he said.
Deputy Conrad took his gun out of his holster and approached the door. He eased it open with one hand while holding his gun in the other. He slowly walked into the house.
Diane sat on the porch steps to wait. She clenched her teeth and listened. Just a few steps to the dining room.
“Oh, Jesus. Roy? Oh, God. Ozella? No.”
Diane hadn’t imagined it. It was true. They were sitting at the table, heads resting at odd angles, long gashes in their throats. Dead. Diane started to rub her eyes with the tips of her fingers, but stopped and looked at her hands in the dim light. She heard the floor creak and guessed that Deputy Conrad was searching the house.
She looked out into the night and watched the lightning bugs blink. Mosquitoes were biting and she put her arms under the poncho. She felt the knife. It weighed heavily on her conscience. But not enough to hand it over just yet. The sheriff might not have it examined for blood. It would be clear to him that a stranger out on a rainy night with a knife must be the killer.
The Night Killer Page 3
