by Alex Kava
“We need to talk in private.”
Both O’Dell and Ganza looked up at him. Yet neither stopped what they were doing. O’Dell screwed the spray top onto the bottle she had filled. Tully expected her to see his anger. He expected her to be concerned or at least somewhat apologetic.
“Once we have the luminol mixed, we need to use it immediately,” she explained, and began filling another bottle.
“I realize that,” Tully said through clenched teeth.
“I have written permission,” she continued. “The luminol is odorless, and it leaves little residue. Nothing more than a sprinkle of white power when it dries. Hardly noticeable.”
“I know that, too,” Tully snapped at her. This time O’Dell and Ganza stopped and stared at him. How had he suddenly become the hysterical one, the irrational one?
“Then what seems to be the problem, Agent Tully?”
Even the expression on Ganza’s lined and haggard face was one of impatience. They continued to stare at him, waiting as though he was holding up the process unreasonably.
“I thought we decided last night that there was nothing here.”
“No, we decided there was nothing more we could do last night. Although it would have been much better to do this last night. Hopefully, it’ll be dark enough. We lucked out with it being so cloudy.”
Ganza nodded. They both waited. Suddenly all of Tully’s objections—which seemed completely logical minutes ago—now sounded immature and arrogant. There was nothing here. It was a ridiculous waste of time and effort. But rather than telling O’Dell that, perhaps it was better for her to see for herself. Maybe only then would she be satisfied.
“Let’s get this over with,” he finally said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Close the door and stay there next to the light switch.” Ganza motioned to him while he picked up the video camera. “I’ll let you know when to flip it off and on again. Maggie, you spritz. I’ll be right beside you filming.”
Tully got into position, no longer bothering to hide his reluctance. However, he could see that anything he did would be wasted on O’Dell and Ganza. They were so involved in their task, they barely noticed him except as a utility.
He watched O’Dell load both her hands with spray bottles, holding them like revolvers, her fingers ready on the triggers.
“Let’s start at the wall closest to the door and move toward the bathroom,” Ganza instructed in his monotone. “We’ll stop at the bathroom door. You’ll probably need to reload with luminol by then.”
“Gotcha.”
Tully just then realized that O’Dell and Ganza had done this as a team before. They seemed comfortable with each other, knowing each other’s roles. And O’Dell had managed to get Ganza here at the break of dawn, despite the man’s overloaded schedule.
“We’re ready, Agent Tully. Go ahead and hit the lights,” Ganza told him.
Tully flipped the switch and immediately felt swallowed by the pitch black. Not a hint of light squeezed in past the film on the windows. In fact, Tully could no longer tell where the windows were.
“This is excellent,” he heard Ganza say.
Then Tully heard a faint electronic whine and the tiny red dot of a video camera appeared.
“Ready when you are, Maggie,” Ganza said as the dot bobbed up.
Tully heard the spritz of liquid, steady and insistent. It sounded as if she was dousing the entire wall. Tully wondered how many jugs of luminol it would take for her to realize that there was nothing here. Suddenly the wall began to glow. Tully stood up straight, and so did the hairs on the back of his neck and arms.
“Jesus Christ,” he gasped, staring in disbelief at the streaks, smudges and handprints that smeared the entire wall and now glowed like fluorescent paint.
39
MAGGIE stepped back. It was worse than she expected. The smears stretched, reached, clawed and swiped with the undeniable motion of someone desperate and terrified. The handprints were small, almost child-size. She remembered Jessica Beckwith’s delicate hands holding out the pizza box for her.
“Jesus, I can’t believe this.”
She heard Tully’s voice come out of the black. There was no victory in proving him wrong. Instead, she found herself light-headed and nauseated. What was the matter with her? She hadn’t been sick at crime scenes since the early days. Now for a second time in less than a week, her stomach attempted to revolt.
“Keith, what are the chances of this being cleaning solution? The house is for sale. It smells like someone has given it a recent scrubbing.”
“Oh, it’s been scrubbed all right. Someone was trying to get rid of this.”
“But luminol can be sensitive to bleach,” she continued. “Maybe a cleaning company scrubbed down everything including the walls.” After a sleepless night of anticipating what they’d discover, why did she find herself wanting to believe that it was simply an overzealous maid?
“In the linen closet there’s a bunch of cleaning supplies. Mop, bucket, sponges and liquid cleaners. Smells like the same stuff that was used. None of it contains bleach,” Ganza countered. “I checked. Besides, no one cleans and leaves handprints like that.”
She forced herself to stare at the prints before they faded. She closed her eyes against the images her mind was trained to concoct. With little coaxing, she knew she could see it all in slow motion as if visualizing a scene from a horror movie.
“Ready, Maggie?” Keith’s voice made her jump. He was right beside her again as the room started to return to darkness. “Let’s get the floor from here to the bathroom.”
Maggie began spritzing, keeping the mist away from her feet as she walked sideways. She hadn’t reached the bathroom door when the floor began lighting up like a runway, long skid marks following her.
“Oh, my God!” She heard Tully mutter from his dark perch, and wanted to tell him to shut up. His shock unnerved her and, worse, reminded her of her own.
Ganza pointed the red dot to the floor, following the trail that had once been bloody feet dragged across the parquet floor. The girl would have lost a lot of blood putting up a fight like the one smeared on the wall. Maggie wondered if she was conscious when Stucky lifted her into the whirlpool bath. When he told her all the horrible things he would do to her. Was she dead or alive when he started cutting?
“Let’s take a break here,” Keith said. “Agent Tully, go ahead and switch the lights back on.”
Maggie blinked against the burst of light, relieved at the interruption of her descent into hell. If she tried, she would be able to hear Jessica’s screams for help. She looked around to see Keith busy in the corner, and only now did she notice that he had taken the bottles from her hands and was filling them.
“Agent O’Dell, I owe you an apology,” Agent Tully was saying. He unbuttoned his collar and twisted the knot of his tie loose. “I really thought there was nothing here. I feel like such an asshole.”
Maggie stared at him and tried to remember the last time anyone, especially in law enforcement, had apologized to her. Was this guy for real? Instead of looking embarrassed, he genuinely looked sorry.
“I have to admit, Agent Tully, I was simply acting on gut instinct.”
“Maggie, we should remember to pull the drain from the whirlpool bath,” Ganza interrupted without looking up. “I’m betting that’s where he cut her open. We may find some leftovers.”
Tully’s face grew paler, and she saw him wince.
“One thing we didn’t check last night, Agent Tully, was the garbage cans outside,” she told him, offering to save him. “Since the house is empty, the garbage collectors may have skipped it.”
He seemed grateful for the chance to escape. “I’ll check.”
As he left, Maggie realized he could possibly find something equally shocking in the garbage. Perhaps she wasn’t saving him at all. She pulled out a fresh pair of latex gloves from her forensic kit and tossed out the ones she had contaminated with luminol. Keit
h unpacked a wrench, screwdriver and several evidence bags.
“You’re being awfully nice to the new guy,” he said.
“I can be nice. It’s not an impossibility.”
“Didn’t say that it was.” He dug out Q-Tips, several brushes, forceps and small brown bottles, lining everything up as if taking inventory. “Don’t worry, Maggie, I won’t tell anyone. Wouldn’t want to ruin your reputation.”
“Keith, what do you know about Agent Tully?”
“I’ve heard nothing but good things.”
“What things have you heard?”
“He’s here from Cleveland at Cunningham’s request, so the guy has to be good, right? Someone said he’s able to look at crime scene photos alone and come up with a profile that nine times out of ten is on target.”
“Crime scene photos. That explains why he’s so squeamish with the real thing.”
“I don’t think he’s been with the Bureau long—five, six years. Probably slipped in right at the age limit.”
“What did he do before? Please don’t tell me he’s a lawyer.”
“Something wrong with lawyers?” Tully interrupted from the door.
Maggie checked his eyes to see if he was angry. Keith went back to his task, leaving Maggie feeling as though she was the one who needed to explain.
“I was just curious,” she said without apology.
“You could just ask me.”
Yes, he was angry, but she saw him pretending not to be. Did he always make certain his emotions were so carefully kept in check?
“Okay. So what did you do before you joined the Bureau?”
He held up a black garbage bag in one hand. “I was an insurance fraud investigator.” In his other latex-gloved hand he held up a wad of what looked like candy-bar wrappers. “And I’d say our boy has a serious sweet tooth.”
40
MAGGIE gripped the revolver and aimed at the dark figure in front of her. Her right hand shook. She could feel her jaw clench and her muscles tense.
“Goddamn it!” she yelled, though no one could hear her in the empty target alley. She had come in just as the firearms instructor had ended his class. This late on a Friday, she would have the place to herself.
She pushed her goggles up on top of her head and leaned against the half-wall of her galley. After she and Tully had left the house on Archer Drive she had called Detective Ford in Kansas City. She had listened to him describe the details of Rita’s murder, of her blood-soaked apartment, the semen-stained sheets and the remnants of skin and tissue the KC forensic team had found in Rita’s bathtub. It wasn’t that different from what they had found in the bath at Archer Drive. Only, Stucky didn’t bother to clean up after himself in Rita’s apartment. Why did he clean up after killing Jessica? Was it because he needed to use the house again? Did he lure Tess McGowan there and take her for later? And if he did take her, where was he keeping her?
Maggie closed her eyes and wished the tightness in her chest would let up. She needed to relax. It was too easy to conjure up the images. It was what she had been trained to do, but this time she wished she could shove them away. Her mind wouldn’t listen. She could see Jessica Beckwith’s small hands passing her the pizza box. Then she could see those same hands clawing at the walls of the bedroom. Why hadn’t anyone heard her screams?
She set the gun aside and rubbed her eyes with both hands. It didn’t help. She could remember Rita’s face, the waitress’s fatigued but friendly smile as she had served the three of them Sunday evening in the smoke-filled bar. And then, without warning, came the images of Rita’s garbage-riddled body, her slashed throat and the glob that once was her kidney lying on a dinner plate. Both women were dead because they had had the misfortune of meeting her. And now two more women had been taken for the same reason: they had met her.
Ever since Tully found that handful of candy wrappers, Maggie kept wondering about Rachel Endicott. Was she was simply jumping to conclusions, trying too hard to connect Rachel’s disappearance with Tess’s?
There had been mud on the steps in Rachel’s house. Mud with some odd metallic substance. Tully had said that a sparkling dirt had been found on Jessica’s car accelerator. Could it be the same? There was something else that Tully had told her. She couldn’t remember what it was. It nagged at Maggie, but she couldn’t remember. Maybe something in the police report?
Lately she felt as if her mind was unraveling, pieces peeling away. Her nerves felt raw, her muscles exhausted from constantly being on alert. And the most infuriating part was that she seemed to have absolutely no control over any of it.
Albert Stucky had her right where he wanted her, clinging to some imaginary ledge. He had made her an accomplice to his evil, letting her choose who his next victim would be. He wanted her to share the responsibility. He wanted her to understand the power of evil. By doing so, did he also expect to unleash some evil beast from inside her?
She picked up the Smith & Wesson, wrapping her fingers around the handle with care, almost reverence. She ignored the earplugs dangling around her neck and left the goggles perched on top of her head. She raised her right arm, keeping the elbow bent, just a little. Her left hand crisscrossed her right, adding strength and reinforcement. Then without further hesitation, she squeezed the trigger, firing in rapid succession until all six bullets were spent and the scent of the discharge filled her nostrils.
Her ears were ringing when she allowed her arm to drop to her side. She punched the button on the wall, flinching at the screech of the pulley as it wheeled the target toward her. The dark figure, the silhouette of her pretend assailant, stopped in front of her with a rustle of paper and a clank of metal. Maggie saw that her aim had been right on target. She sighed. She should have been relieved at her precision. Instead, she felt that ledge crumbling beneath her. Because the six bullets had expertly been placed right between the eyes of her target.
41
TESS skidded to a stop. Her bare feet were caked with mud. She didn’t remember ripping her blouse, yet both elbows showed through, the flesh scraped and bloody. The rain had stopped without her noticing, but she knew it would be temporary because the clouds had darkened and the fog became thicker.
She leaned against a tree, trying to catch her breath. She had followed the only path she could find in the dense woods, hoping it would lead to freedom. The terror raced inside her, completely beyond her control. She expected him to step out and grab her at any second.
In less than an hour darkness would enshroud these endless woods. The thought brought fresh panic. She could hardly see through the fog. Twice she had slid down a ridge, almost tumbling into the body of water that had seemed like a gray mist when seen from above. The dark would make further movement impossible.
Her breathing became labored again as the fear crawled through her insides. Calm. Stay calm. Despite the instinct to continue running, it was more important that she find someplace to wait out the night. Now she wondered if she should have stayed in the shack. Had she really accomplished anything by leaving it? At least it had been dry, and that lumpy cot now sounded wonderful. Instead, she had no idea where she was. It didn’t feel as if she had gotten any closer to escaping this endless wooded prison, though she must have covered several miles.
She crouched down, her back pressed against the rough bark. Her legs begged to sit, but she needed to stay alert and ready to run. The crows were settling in the treetops. Hundreds of them flapped overhead, coming from all directions, their rude caws a warning as they claimed their evening roost.
Suddenly it occurred to Tess that these birds wouldn’t settle here if they didn’t perceive it to be safe. And if there was danger during the night, they would react better than an alarm system.
Her eyes began searching for a safe resting place. There were plenty of fallen leaves and pine needles. However, everything was damp. She shivered just thinking about lying on the cold ground.
The crows’ squawks continued. She looked up and began
examining branches. She hadn’t climbed a tree since she was a kid. Her aching muscles reminded her how foolish the thought of climbing anything was right now. Foolish or not, it would be the safest place to be. He’d never look for her up above, not to mention other nightly predators. Dear God, she hadn’t even thought of other animals.
Then she heard it.
At first it sounded like a wounded animal, a muffled cry, a high-pitched hum. Tess turned slowly, her eyes squinting into the dark. A sudden breeze created night shadows. Swaying branches became waving arms. Rustling leaves sounded like footsteps. The muffled cry transformed into words.
“Help me. Please, help me.”
The words, drifting with the breeze, were crisp and clear. Tess froze. Maybe she was hearing things. Maybe it was simply exhaustion playing tricks on her.
Her arms ached. Her fingers felt numb. If she was going to make it up into the tree, she needed to use this last surge of energy.
The words came again, floating over her as if a part of the fog.
“Please, someone help me.”
It was a woman’s voice, and it was close by.
Tess could see only a foot or two into the thickening darkness. She walked slowly, silently counting her steps with arms stretched out in front of her. Twigs grabbed at her hair and unseen branches reached for her. She moved in the direction of the voice, afraid to call, to give away her presence. She stepped carefully, continuing her count so she could turn around and hopefully find her tree sanctuary.
Twenty-two, twenty-three. Then suddenly the ground opened beneath her. Tess fell and the earth swallowed her.
42
TESS lay at the bottom of the pit. Her breathing came in gasps as the terror swept through her veins. Mud oozed up around her, sucking at her arms and legs like quicksand. Her right ankle twisted under her. Even without attempting to move it, she knew she would have trouble doing so.
