“So, your point is she learned her lesson and became the iceberg she is?”
“I mean that once you learn a little more about a person’s past, you can better understand their present.”
“Do you think he did it?”
“What’s that?”
“The boyfriend. Do you think he killed the woman and her daughter?”
“Most likely,” said Agent Layton, his voice even and measured. “Fortunately, he wasn’t that smart, and the trial made him believe he was untouchable.” He turned to look at Manny again and smirked. “He tried to move eight hundred kilos of cocaine and seven dozen crates of illegal weaponry through St. Louis a year later. Last fall, I got him sent away for thirty-five years after some of his friends rolled on him for reduced sentences. In hindsight, I should really thank Stacey for putting him on my radar. He turned out to be the missing piece in a ring that I was trying to bust.”
The two men had reached the burn pile. Manny followed behind Agent Layton as they circled around the exterior of the yellow police tape. He was waiting for the agent to lift the tape and let the two of them in, but he never did. Layton simply made a circuit around the outside, as if soaking up all the available information with his feet, and ended up in front of two men from the County Coroner’s Office keeping vigil over a gurney with a black body bag on top of it.
“Gentlemen,” Agent Layton greeted the men with a nod, which they returned silently as they moved apart a few paces to allow the agent and Manny room to stand by the body. Agent Layton slowly unzipped the bag to reveal the charred bones of the child. Manny felt himself shake his head sorrowfully as he took in the sight. He knew he must try and keep his emotions in check, but it was difficult while staring into the vacant eyeholes of a skull that hours ago would have stood atop a living, breathing boy with his whole life ahead of him. Someone had taken it upon themselves to gruesomely end that life, just like Jacob Lowes, and that thought filled him with a rage that could have burned a pile of wood ten times the size of the one they were standing by.
Manny turned his head toward the agent. Layton was staring down into the bag as well. He wondered if the older man felt the same as he did at that moment. He wondered, if he did, how he hid it so well. Or had the years he’d invested in this career simply numbed him to a sight like this?
“Let’s load him up,” Layton said quietly, zipping up the bag and glancing at the other two men who looked as though they were soldiers at attention in the presence of their commanding officer. Manny could understand the sentiment. Layton did command that sort of respect.
The men stepped in and began to wheel the gurney up toward the road. Its wheels bumped along the ground so the going was slowed in order to prevent the body from falling off. Manny walked alongside Layton a few steps behind.
“We gotta find this guy,” Manny said as they went. It was a silly and obvious thing to say, but he was uncomfortable walking beside the agent in silence. He felt like a puppy nipping at the heels of its owner and was beginning to believe that Layton saw him in much the same way.
“Guy?” said the agent, turning his head. “What about Ms. Allen? Do you think suddenly that she’s no longer of any interest to us?”
“I, uh, well no, that’s not it,” Manny stammered, taken off guard. He’d forgotten about Maureen for a moment, and now he realized he wasn’t sure at all anymore how she fit into all of this.
“Well, I’m actually thinking we should let her go.”
“Really? Can I ask why?”
“I want to see what she does when she thinks she’s free. I haven’t made up my mind about her yet, but I do feel like this is one move that we can safely make.”
Manny simply nodded and looked up the hill. They were nearly to the road. Manny’s eyes quickly found Maureen where he had left her, still handcuffed and leaning on his truck. She wore a mask of indifference on her face. He couldn’t tell if the experience was shaking her or not but somehow, he had a feeling that this wasn’t the most stressful circumstance she’d faced in her life. At his side, he felt Layton’s pace quicken and he lengthened his own stride to keep up, wondering what the man was going to do now.
They drew even with gurney and body bag as it began to pass in front of Maureen on its way to the coroner’s van. Manny made it a point to not look directly at her and instead kept his eyes toward the road, focusing on nothing in particular. It was for this reason that he didn’t notice Agent Layton stop the gurney in front of the handcuffed woman. Manny stopped and turned just in time to see the agent slowly, almost callously, unzip the body bag about a quarter of the way. Manny looked at Maureen. Her eyes were fixed on the bag’s contents. He saw the golf-ball-sized lump forced back down her throat with a swallow and knew she was suppressing her gag reflex. He could almost taste the sour flavor of vomit in his own throat.
“Not a pretty sight, is it?” Agent Layton asked.
Maureen raised her head and stared at him, but then quickly slumped back into her pose of leaning on the car and reapplied her mask of disinterest and defiance. She didn’t say a word. Manny caught himself before a smile of amusement broke out on his face. As serious and horrifying as the situation was, he felt a morbid sense of satisfaction at the sight of the veteran agent meeting his mental jousting match in the slight young woman. Layton seemed to know it, too.
“All right,” he said, zipping up the body bag and nodding to the men to take it away. “I’m ordering your release, Ms. Allen. Detective Benitez will be taking you home, or wherever you want to go—within the city limits, of course. Get comfortable. You’re not going anywhere for a while.”
Layton nodded to him as a signal to take her away, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he walked toward his car. Manny stood next to Maureen and watched the agent go. As he opened the sedan’s door, he turned and stared at them for a moment before disappearing into the front seat.
TWELVE
“So how does it work?” Manny asked as he leaned over to the passenger’s side and unlocked the handcuffs on Maureen’s wrists.
“How does what work?” Maureen replied as she rubbed her wrists, glancing sourly at him.
“This magic power of yours. Obviously, I got it wrong back there when I thought you could read the omens in the air, or whatever. So help me understand what happens.”
He cast one eye over to her as he began to drive off when he heard a sharp rapping on his window. Manny hit the brake and turned to see Captain Wellner standing alongside his truck, motioning that he wanted a word. Manny rolled down his window.
“Wanted to catch you before you sped away, Benitez,” the captain said. It sounded to Manny as if he was just catching his breath. Most likely he’d run over to catch him.
“What can I do for you, sir?” he replied, eager to get on his way. Whatever he wanted, Manny was sure that it could wait.
“I saw you down by the crime scene talking to the agents. I just wanted to make sure you were being professional. You know, not getting in the way or anything.”
“I was invited,” Manny said curtly.
“Ah.” Wellner nodded his head before leaning into the truck to look closer at Maureen, who was staring out the window, apparently pretending not to be listening. “Isn’t she the one you brought into the station yesterday for breaking into the Lowes’ house?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” The captain seemed thrown by his short answer, seeming to wrestle with what to say next. After a beat, he leaned in close to Manny. “What’s she doing here in your truck without any handcuffs?”
“Agent Layton ordered her release.” Manny knew invoking the authority of the FBI would get this over with quickly. “I’m taking her home.”
Wellner paused for a moment and began to back away from the car, nodding his head slowly. “Go ahead and head home yourself afterward. We’ll make sure to call you when we get an ID on the body.”<
br />
Manny nodded briskly and put his foot on the accelerator. When they were on their way again, he turned his attention back to Maureen. “So, you were saying?”
“I was saying what?”
“You were going to tell me how this power of yours works.”
“Don’t think I was.”
Manny shook his head. In spite of all that was going on around her, she was sitting there and acting like nothing much had happened. A small part of him admired her fortitude. “All right, we can talk about something else. You haven’t been here long, obviously. How did you end up working at Anderson’s?” Manny tried to sound cheerfully casual in the hopes that she would let her guard down and talk about her power later.
“Bartending is easy money when you’re a chick,” she said, still staring out of the window. “I needed cash to fix my car.”
Interesting. “So, I take it you weren’t planning on staying in town long?” he asked.
“Ding, ding, ding,” she replied flatly. “Do I look like someone who would stick around a place like this?”
“It’s not so bad.”
“Why do you even care how long I was going to stay?” she shot back quickly.
“I don’t,” Manny smiled. He could feel he was starting to get to her. She seemed to respond more honestly when he annoyed her. “Just seems to me that you don’t have any roots, which is atypical for a woman your age. You’re not that young anymore.”
“How the hell old do you think I am?!” Her indignity broke through her calm facade. Sometimes it was just as simple as finding a pressure point.
“Don’t get me wrong, you look good for your age,” Manny said, confident that he was getting under her skin and that she would let slip something he might find useful. “I don’t usually go in for older women, but in another life, I may have asked you to a movie.”
“If you wanna screw me, Detective,” she spat, “just say so. You never know, I might let you.”
Manny felt his jaw twitch. She’d won that round. He tried to say something clever in return but found no words.
“Yeah that’s what I thought,” Maureen said, shooting him a cruel smirk. “Shut the fuck up.”
“That’s no way to speak to an officer of the law.”
Maureen didn’t say anything. She simply rolled her eyes at him and turned back to the window.
“All right,” he said after a moment, keeping up his casual demeanor the best he could. “I’m sorry for teasing. I’m just curious about you, that’s all. You can’t blame me. This is a pretty quiet small town, most everyone knows each other. Not a lot of people moving in and out around here, you know? Most people are boring. You’re not.”
“Yeah, well, thanks, Detective.”
“You can call me Manny.”
“Can, but won’t.”
“Avoiding attachments?”
“Something like that.”
“Seems to me like that’s been your life philosophy,” Manny said, glancing over at her.
“I’m not the type of person that anyone would want to have around for a long time.”
“Because you’ve done things?” he said, believing he knew where she was going with this. She was damaged goods, and most people carrying baggage would respond like this, hyperbolizing actions that were most likely the result of simple human nature and turning them into sensational deeds that damned them to a life of punishment. Of course, most of these people weren’t actual murder suspects.
“You have no idea. I’ve done what I needed to do to survive. But I’ve never killed anyone.” She spoke these last words with a firmness that took Manny aback.
Maybe she really didn’t have anything to do with the actual killings. But whatever was going on, she was going to prove key to solving the crimes. Good God, am I actually buying into this whole psychic thing?
“So, I’m guessing you’ve got some warrants or something out there?” he prodded.
“You could say that.”
“Been in jail?”
“Yep.”
“More than once?”
“Sure.”
“I’ve gotta ask, though,” he said, “what makes a life on the road so appealing anyway? You running from something besides the law?”
“No,” she said far too quickly, turning to look at him.
“That wasn’t very convincing.” Manny met her gaze. He could see her walls finally breaking down. Maybe she was tired of being the only one who knew her secret.
“You really don’t want to know,” she sighed.
“I really do.”
“Your funeral,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. In his peripheral, Manny could see her shifting herself so that her back was leaning against the window and she was facing him. She stared at him out of the tops of her eyes. “I keep moving to stay ahead of the nightmares, but they always find me. They found me here. How’s that for honesty?”
“How long?” Whether or not her psychic visions were real, she genuinely believed them to be, and that fact seemed to inform her entire personality.
“Been on my own since I was seventeen. After running off from a reform school.”
“How do you make your money? Just by bartending?”
“I don’t sell myself, if that’s what you’re asking. Yeah, it’s mostly bartending and waitressing. You don’t need any education to do it, and most small businesses don’t ask too many questions. And, yeah, sometimes I need to get creative to make rent or get a car or something. I sold some of the medications I was on when I was a teenager to other kids at school. I’ve obviously done other things that I’m sure your Fed buddies are going to dig up sooner or later. But that’s life. That’s survival.”
“And you started having these dreams at that school?”
“Hell no! I was there because of them,” she laughed bitterly and tapped her temple with her fingers. “Got a demon up here, they said. All the kids there had something like that. Some were thought to be possessed, some were addicted to sex at fourteen, some were gay. And one girl saw with the eyes of pure evil.”
“And that’s you, I’m guessing?”
“Yeah, well, at least that’s what my mother always said. Some kind of old-country superstition. But she believed it, and so did the zealots running that place.”
“So how did they handle that sort of stuff?” Manny asked. He turned again to Maureen to try and gauge the look on her face. It had turned hard and cold.
“Take a wild guess,” she growled.
“I don’t know,” he replied uncomfortably. “Prayer?”
“Yeah,” she scoffed, her voice soaked with angry sarcasm. “Prayer.”
“So, if the dreams started before you went to that school, when exactly was it?”
“Eight, maybe earlier, but the first time I remember was when I was eight.”
“Jesus!”
“I don’t think he has much to do with it.”
“I can’t imagine how I’d handle something like that.”
“Pain killers and whiskey seem to work.”
The clustered homes and buildings of Sycamore Hills began to surround them. Main Street was still several blocks away, but the first traffic lights on the road into town were just ahead. Manny stopped his truck at the first red light, unsure of what to say next. Maureen’s story, or rather the parts of it she was actually telling, sounded harrowing and seemed to explain a lot about her distrust and evasiveness. Yet, he still felt that somehow, he was going to need her in some way to bring the case to a conclusion. The light turned green.
“Where’s your apartment?” he asked as he drove on.
Maureen glanced around quickly with the look of someone who could only figure out their location by using landmarks. Or at least she was trying to. “Actually, I’m just up here on the right,” she insisted, pointing at the row
of homes. “You can just let me off here.”
“No,” he said decisively, showing her that he had called her bluff. He returned her glare with an exaggerated grin.
“Four blocks south of Main,” she sighed. “I got a studio in one of the old industrial buildings. I don’t remember the name of the street.”
“Branch Street,” said Manny.
“Yeah, that’s it. Should have known. All the street names around here have something to do with trees.”
“Most of them, yeah.”
“I think it’s stupid.”
“So do I.”
Within minutes, Manny was heading south down Branch. Maureen, who’d been quiet, poked his arm with her hand and gestured ahead.
“Third one on the left,” she said.
Manny pulled his truck over to the curb and put it in park before turning to her.
Unholy Shepherd Page 10
