“No, he knows it was us, just like he knows what you done. How do you think that’s going to look, pervert?” Brother Eustice was losing control of his flock at the worse time, but he’d be damned if he was going to go down alone.
“How could he know?” asked Charles Ray.
“I told you how,” Brother Eustice replied. “Because he was sent by Lucifer.”
Robert guided his car down the lonely dirt road, lost in his thoughts. The meeting with Deputy Barber and the church group had gone exactly as he’d planned. He’d waited patiently until he could catch them all together, and they didn’t disappoint. They’d even led him to the likely scene of the crime. Unfortunately, it appeared that they’d done a rather thorough job of cleaning it up. It would be extremely beneficial if he could find some physical evidence to link the girls to Cooter Yates’ property. Robert wondered if the heads were buried there.
As Stallworth pondered his predicament, a strange glint coming from an unknown object off to the side of the road caught his eye. It was as if a divine answer to his prayers had suddenly appeared. He stopped the car and walked over to the nearby ditch. He shifted through the dirt until he found the item. Robert stood up and examined the unusual object before slipping it into his pocket and resuming his journey. It was time to meet Claire at Dr. Hall’s office. He couldn’t wait to show her his latest work of art.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Robert arrived at the medical examiner’s office to find Claire and Dr. Hall already in the adjoining room admiring his handiwork.
“Well, darlin’, it looks like you’ve really outdone yourself this time,” said Claire. “The Bone Puzzle.”
Robert nodded in appreciation, and the three returned their collective gaze to the pile of bones on the floor. Robert and Dr. Hall had painstakingly positioned the skeletal remains, side by side, as they’d collected them. By the time Claire had arrived, they were nearly complete. The result was two identical sets of miniature skeletons without the skulls. As detached as they tried to be, the three struggled to hold their feelings of sadness and disgust in check as they looked down.
“It makes me want to cry,” noted Claire.
“It should,” said Dr. Hall.
“And you haven’t been able to identify them?” she asked.
“No, not that we haven’t tried,” said the doctor. “We know they’re twins, or we are pretty sure, anyway. We know they were girls. We know they were anywhere from eleven or twelve years old to maybe sixteen tops. We know they were murdered and dismembered separately anywhere from four to six months ago—we’re going with late April, early May, for now—by person or persons unknown and unfamiliar with anatomy. We know that no one has reported them missing as far as we can determine. We know they weren’t from around here because of the previous fact, but that the killer or killers were familiar with the area in which they were dumped. So he, she, or they either reside here at the present time, or has resided here in the past. We don’t know how they died, or who killed them.”
“Do we?” Claire asked Robert.
“Do we what?”
“Do we know who killed them?” she asked again. He’d been up to something in the weeks before she’d arrived, other than to construct the macabre exhibit on the floor, and she was curious as to what that was.
“Possibly,” he replied.
“Is that so?” asked Dr. Hall, clearly surprised by the revelation. “Do tell.”
“I’m keeping that to myself for the moment,” said Robert. “It’s only a theory at this juncture. I don’t want us to do this backwards. Let’s let the evidence, or lack thereof, guide our hands for now. If we’re unable to find success once Miss Montgomery does her thing, then I’ll proceed with plan B.”
“Plan B?” asked Dr. Hall.
“Pressure,” replied Robert.
“What kind of pressure?”
“The kind that makes diamonds from lumps of coal, darlin’,” Claire said. She’d tangled enough with Robert over trivial matters, like whose turn it was to walk the dog or who left the top off the toothpaste tube, to question his skills at interrogation. If they couldn’t find out what they wanted to know one way, she had little doubt he’d get it another way.
Robert knew it, too, but he preferred it didn’t come to that. If pushed hard enough, some people confessed to things they had no part in. They could be convicted and executed for crimes they hadn’t committed, leaving the guilty party free to kill again. If exonerated, it left enough reasonable doubt to allow the correct suspect to walk.
“I see,” said Dr. Hall.
No one said anything for a moment, but Claire could sense that there was something on Robert’s mind. She watched him out of the corner of her eye until she noticed him subconsciously fiddle with an unseen object in his jacket pocket.
“What do you have there, darlin’?”
“What? Oh, nothing,” he responded.
“It’s not nothing. It’s something, so what is it?”
“Just something I found in the dirt,” Robert replied, pulling the object out of his pocket and holding it in the palm of his hand for Claire to see.
“That is unusual,” said Claire as she examined the item.
“Where did you find that?” asked Dr. Hall.
“On the side of the road,” said Robert, preferring to keep its exact location to himself for the moment.
“It doesn’t look like it’s from around here,” noted Dr. Hall. “At lease, I’ve never seen anything like it around these parts.”
“My thinking precisely,” Robert agreed.
“It looks familiar,” said Claire.
“Does it?” asked Robert.
Claire racked her brain. She couldn’t remember where she’d seen it before, but was sure that she had. It was frustrating, and she let it go for the moment. “Yeah, but I’m drawing a blank.”
“It’s obviously fake,” said the doctor.
“Yet unusual, all the same,” Robert added. “I know one thing. It didn’t belong where I found it.”
“Do you think it has anything to do with the murdered girls?” asked Claire.
“It’s hard to say, but I have a hunch.” Robert was almost certain that it did, but he had no idea how, or in what manner.
“It looks like a ruby,” said Claire. “Costume jewelry, for certain. Given its size and uncommon shape, I can’t think of a piece of jewelry that it would adorn. What are you calling it?”
“Calling it?” asked Robert.
“Yeah, what are you calling it?” she answered. Claire glanced at the pile of bones meticulously placed on the tarp in the middle of the floor. “We have The Bone Puzzle here. What creative moniker are you going to subscribe to your phony ruby?”
Robert smiled. Claire knew him too well. He had a habit of giving things names, some sarcastic, some exaggerated, some comical, and, most of them, inappropriate. He already had one picked out for this one, but had yet to admit it.
“I call it The Holy Relic.”
“The Holy Relic?” asked Dr. Hall. “Why The Holy Relic?”
“It’s a sign from God.”
PART FOUR:
REVELATION
But the beast was captured, and with him,
the false prophet who had performed
the signs on his behalf.
Revelation 19:20
CHAPTER FIFTY
Claire got right to work. She pored over the files that Watts had summarized as well as the reports that she’d gotten through her own channels, and soon determined that nothing was going to come easy. Cases of missing twins should’ve been an easy thing to track down, but since it hadn’t turned out that way, something told Claire that there would be an unexpected reason that wasn’t going to be pleasant. All the same, she needed an angle to pursue, and she found it.
As a private investigator, Claire had a collection of favors people owed her, and she wasted no time in cashing them in. Before long, her desk was covered in birth announcements. She wa
s going to trace every report of multiple births in the Southeastern United States within the proposed age range of the missing girls and go through them one by one, paying particular attention to any that might’ve involved orphanages, adoptions, or foster homes. On the third day, she found something that had red flags waving all over it.
The Tennessee Children’s Home Society was still occasionally in the news, even though the place had been shut down for years. She remembered hearing the sad and startling reports when the woman who had run the place had been arrested. Claire remembered thinking at the time how difficult it would be to clean that mess up. Since then, her misgivings had been proven correct. Inaccurate records, when there were records, had created a situation that resulted in hundreds, if not thousands, of children disappearing into the homes of strangers without a trace. Miss Georgia Tann, the proprietor of the disgraced Society, passed away in custody. Her name was forever tainted. She was the face of human trafficking.
The details of the crimes were horrendous. Children were taken from parents by a variety of means, only to be sold to anyone who had the cash. Minimal background checks were done on the new parents, false histories made for the children, and no little to no records kept after the adoptions. Even after the scam was exposed and shut down, no investigation was held to determine the fate of the children, and consequently, none were ever returned to their rightful parents.
Something told Claire that her answers would be found at the Home, and she quickly packed for the trip to Memphis. With or without the despicable Miss Tann, someone knew something they hadn’t shared with investigators, and Claire was determined to find out what that something was.
The next morning, Claire talked her way into the abandoned orphanage. Rows upon rows of cots still lined the walls of several wards, a silent testament to the unlimited cruelty that evil people could inflict on the innocent while preying on the desperate. Each empty bed held a story of a lonely child, now, no doubt, grown into a damaged adult. Some told stories of mothers who had their babies snatched from their arms, never to be seen again. Others told of children who would know only victimization and exploitation in an uncaring world. Claire held back tears as she wandered through the maze of sadness, consoling herself with the realization that some must’ve found homes in the arms of loving parents.
“I know what you’re thinking, ma’am,” said Birdie, “and, believe me, it’ll break your heart if you let it.”
Birdie Andrews had worked in the orphanage for a brief spell over a decade before its closing. She’d left in disgust when her husband had a stroke and her two sons died in the war—long before anyone suspected the terrible abuses that had transpired there. In her grief, Birdie had tried to put the unpleasant memories behind her, but often found herself unable to forget about the children that she’d seen traded off as if they were nothing but commodities.
“How could it have gone on for so long?” asked Claire.
“I don’t know, ma’am, but it did.”
“And nobody ever asked you about it, even after the true nature of this place was discovered?”
“You’re the first. Why would anyone want to talk with an old black woman like me? I was just a cleaning lady. They didn’t pay me no mind when I worked here, and they ain’t paid me no mind since. I ain’t never forgot, though—‘specially them babies.”
Birdie led Claire to a section at the end of one of the wards where a few empty bassinets stood, frozen in time.
“This is where they kept the little ones ‘till they found them homes. Or at least, that’s how they said it. In truth, they sold them.” Birdie shook her head with dismay.
“Only three? I was expecting more,” said Claire in surprise.
“The babies rarely stayed long. Most people want to adopt them when they small. Heck, most of the babies had homes before the Miss acquired them. It’s a damn shame how she did that. Even I was shocked when I heard them stories. I knew that woman wasn’t right in the head, but I’d of never thought she could of done what she done.”
“I know what you mean, but she wasn’t alone,” Claire remarked. “What scares me is how many others were involved, and nobody said a thing.”
“Now, I don’t want you thinking I had anything to do with this,” Birdie explained.
“No, of course not. I was referring to the doctors and prospective parents, and everybody else along the line.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Those poor, poor children.”
Claire couldn’t agree more. “Miss Birdie, do you ever remember there being twin girls around the time you worked here?”
Birdie paused, as if she’d been slapped in the face. She looked at the empty bassinets and slowly nodded before replying, a tear in her eye, “I remember something.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
After her preemptive investigation in Memphis, Claire drove around the suburbs of Chattanooga until she found the small cottage she was looking for. The neighborhood was middle class at best, but Claire could see that it was on the verge of decline. The only people living there now who would still be living there a decade later would be those unable to afford to move.
Claire adjusted her ill-fitting jacket and donned a pair of fake eyeglasses before marching up and knocking on the front door in her best ‘serious business’ imitation. After a couple of minutes, she saw someone peer through the curtains in the window to her right. Claire gripped the briefcase in her left hand and knocked again.
The door opened only a few inches and a disembodied voice asked, “Can, can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Mr. or Mrs. Ray Valence,” replied Claire curtly.
“Who’s asking?” the wary voice returned.
“Mrs. Ruth Valence, otherwise known as Ruth Henderson? Is that you?”
A pause told Claire that she was at the right address.
“Who are you, and what do you want?”
Claire sidestepped the introduction and said in an authoritative voice, “I’m here about the improprieties at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. I’m sure you’re familiar with it, so let’s not play games, Mrs. Valence. Are you going to let me in, or do we have to do this in a more public and humiliating way?”
Another pause, and the door swung open. A haggard, disheveled woman smoking a filter-less cigarette waved Claire in and closed the door behind her. Claire followed the woman to a small kitchen in the back and sat down at a worn dinette table. Ruth smashed her Lucky Strike out in an ashtray overflowing with the remains of at least half a carton of spent cigarette butts and lit another one. She offered Claire a drink, which Claire turned down. She stood up, retrieved a glass of what looked like water, but which Claire knew was vodka, then sat back down.
“I ain’t got nothin’ to say about what went on there,” Ruth said. “I ain’t seen my girls, Lacey and Laura, in years. If you want to know anything, you’d have to ask my good for nothing ex-husband, Dick. He took the kids from me and never looked back. The bastard.”
“And where can I find your ex-husband?”
“Look under a rock or follow a swarm of flies. He’s a real piece of shit.”
Ruth took a swig of her elixir and another puff of her cigarette, clearly disgusted by how her life had turned out.
“I appreciate the sentiment, but that’s not very helpful,” said Claire.
“He’s a bum,” Ruth said, her voice sharp with bitterness. “Always was a bum; always will be a bum. Ray, my husband now, got Dick a job once, even helped us adopt two beautiful baby girls, and my ex shows his appreciation by quitting the job and running off to be in show business. Dick always had his head in the clouds. What a pathetic loser.”
“Once again, not very helpful,” countered Claire. “I’ve looked up Richard Henderson and came up blank. We have no current address. We looked up Lacey and Laura Henderson and got the same results. No school records. No records of any kind. Surely you know something that can help us.”
Ruth laughed. Cackled was a more a
ppropriate term for the offending sound, thought Claire.
“You ain’t going to find out nothing that way,” said Ruth. “He changed his name. He’s in show business.” Another burst of sarcastic laughing erupted. Ruth took another swig of her vodka and added, “The loser was going to use the girls in his act. Probably changed their names, too.”
“I see,” said Claire. She was getting nowhere. Her hopes were being diminished by the minute, but she had no choice except to pursue her line of questioning. The more she heard, the more her intuition told her that the Henderson girls were the ones she’d been searching for. “Tell me, Mrs. Valence, are the girls twins?”
“Identical. Ain’t no way to tell them apart. Shit, even I couldn’t tell. That’s why Dick was so interested in them in the first place.”
“I don’t understand.”
“For his stupid act,” Ruth replied, as if that explained it all.
“His act?”
“He’s a magician. Can you believe that? A grown man trying to make a living doing card tricks and such. I told you he’s a loser.”
The hair on the back of Claire’s neck stood up. She thanked the bitter, drunken woman and quickly left.
When Claire had heard about the Children’s Society, she remembered the news reports and connected the dots. It hadn’t been too hard. The crime was well publicized; the reports went nationwide. When she heard the word ‘magician’, it was déjà vu. She recalled the grisly reports of the magic show gone awry in Memphis. The irony of a magician cut in half and the sick jokes it had spurred. She remembered it vividly because she remembered the magician.
Claire had been single for a number of years after she and Robert had broken things off. Although she’d never let go of her feelings for him, she occasionally accepted the offer of a night on the town from an available suitor. One such man, Frederick Mansfield, a successful business man who owned a string of feed stores, had taken her out for a night she couldn’t forget. They’d eaten at a wonderful, out-of-the-way restaurant on the outskirts of Nashville, then he’d surprised her with tickets to the hottest show in town, the spectacular performance of The Amazing and Magnificent Villanova. It had been one of the greatest shows she had ever witnessed.
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