A Thorn Among the Lilies

by Michael Hiebert

  “Well, at least there’s a tiny bit of justice left in the world.”

  The mayor was still looking away. He lifted his hand and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. “I’m sorry. Talkin’ ’bout this still gets to me. I thought I was over it.”

  “That’s okay. I totally understand. You know I lost my husband in an automobile accident. I don’t reckon you ever get over it.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. I forgot. So you do understand. Was his a drinkin’ and drivin’ thing, too?”

  “No, I imagine yours is worse, because you can actually blame someone. I can’t. The only one at fault was him.”

  “And you’re okay with it now? How do you get past the anger?”

  “I’m starting to accept it now. It took eleven years and the influence of my son to get me to this point. I dunno if I’ll ever fully accept it. And for me it was less anger and more me having to forgive him. For years I was unable to forgive him for leaving me alone to raise two children. How nuts is that? Like he meant to have that car accident?”

  “My daughter and son helped me, too. We all deal with death different ways. The main thing is that we get through it, whatever it takes. You see the other picture?”

  Leah wondered why the sudden shift of topic, but looked at the mantel. There were two pictures that looked like the same woman, only younger. She was standing with another woman. They looked very similar. “Is this your wife, too?”

  “Yeah, but that’s from before I met her.”

  “Who’s the other woman, if I may ask?”

  “Her sister.”

  “They look alike.” And something about the one on the right looked somewhat familiar, but Leah couldn’t place her. Both women had dark hair down to their shoulders, blue eyes, and the same smile.

  “Everyone says that.” He was still looking away from Leah. Now she heard him sniffling as he rubbed tears out of his eyes. Finally, he turned his face to her, his eyes swollen and red. “So tell me, Leah, what brings you here today? I think I’ve had enough conversation ’bout my dead wife.”

  “So, you’re quite the outdoorsman, I take it,” Leah said. There was a picture of a cabin out in the woods on his wall, too.

  “Yeah, I like my huntin’. Fishin’ too.”

  “Is that your cabin?”

  “Certainly is. My little home away from home. Built it about eighty miles north of here. I like to just go there when I want to relax. You know, take my mind off things. I’m actually in the process of renovating.”

  “Making it bigger?”

  “Adding what I like to call ‘an annex.’ Give me a place to hang meat while I’m waiting for it to cure. Right now it’s just an open room with two walls waiting to be built and badly in need of a floor. Last I was up there, it was all just sawdust and mud.”

  Taking note of all the sawdust and mud that would be created from such a procedure as adding onto a cabin, Leah admired some of the heads in his room. “You got some nice bucks. If you’re into that sort of thing. My pa was. That’s the only reason I know. I’m not. Not really.”

  Once they were both sitting, she told him about the case, leaving out the part about the psychic.

  “What should we do?”

  “Well, there’s been a major development.”

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “A third person has gone missing.”

  “Another one? Where? Who?”

  “Her name is Scarlett Graham. This means the killer has really accelerated his rate. It’s bad.”

  “You’ve got to stop him.”

  “That’s what we’re all trying to do, Mr. Mayor.”

  “Shouldn’t the FBI be called in at this point?”

  “Police Chief Montgomery wants us to hang on to this one as long as possible. Bringin’ the Feds in just makes a mess of it for everyone. But you’re right—if it goes much further, it will have to become a federal issue sooner or later.”

  “Well, what information do you have on your killer? Surely you’ve profiled him.”

  “He’s very predictable and organized. He chooses certain women over others. They all look similar, and are of similar ages. They are all loners who like to drink. We think he picks loners to buy himself some time; in most cases, people won’t realize they’ve disappeared until long after he’s taken them. Then he keeps them confined for up to a week before killing them and getting rid of the body. But he’s meticulous ’bout not leaving any evidence behind.” She didn’t tell him about the eyes or the crosses in the pocket, or even the writing across the chest.

  “How do you know these two women were all taken and murdered by the same person?”

  “The MO—the modus operandi—was the same. I don’t know how gory you want me to get, but you’ve seen the images in the paper.”

  “You mean with the eyes and the sewing?” he asked.

  Leah nodded. “Those are done with the victims still alive.”

  “Oh my God,” the mayor said.

  “He keeps them alive six or seven days like that before finally killing them with a shot to the temple. He uses the same gun every time. A very old Beretta. We figure it must have sentimental value or something to him.”

  “You can tell all that from a body you just found?”

  “So far, both bodies have not been buried. One washed up on the shores of Willet Lake, the other was found a hundred miles away just outside of Birmingham in a town called Graysville. It was in an abandoned mine.” Something shot off in the back of Leah’s mind. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it was something she’d have to think about later.

  I see a body in darkness . . .

  Welcome to Graysville . . .

  Writing on the body . . .

  “Is there anythin’ I can do, or anythin’ we can rally the town into doin’, that will help you with your job?”

  Leah thought a moment. “I don’t think so. If you think of anything, you can call me. Here, let me get you—”

  She was about to pull out a business card, when the mayor produced a pen and paper. He held the pen in his left hand.

  “You’re a lefty,” Leah said.

  “Yes, the bane of my existence. So, what’s your number?”

  CHAPTER 40

  “Here, let me just give you one of my cards.” Leah passed it to the mayor and again, he took it with his left hand.

  “This guy sounds like a real bad character,” he said.

  Leah thought for a second. “Tell me something, Mayor Robertson,” she said, “what was your life like growin’ up?”

  “Does this have any bearing on the case?”

  “No, it has bearing on how I raise my boy. You have showed me today that you can be strong and still show weakness. I want to imbue him with these qualities.”

  The mayor sat back in his chair. “Well, I dunno. I guess I owe my upbringing to my pa on account of my ma dyin’ when I was five.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  He looked out the window. “Lots of death. You learn to cope, but you never learn to get over it.”

  “I understand that,” Leah said. “Or at least I’m startin’ to.”

  “My pa made sure I went to school every day, even though he had to miss mornings at work sometimes and even some afternoons.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He was a tailor and a shoemaker. A craftsman. Back then, everyone was a craftsman.”

  A maniac tailor . . .

  “He didn’t make a lot of money, but what he did make he made sure got spent on the right things. He didn’t drink, didn’t smoke. We’d go to church every Wednesday and Sunday come hell or high water.”

  Leah blushed. Her church schedule was more erratic than consistent.

  “But mainly he taught me ’bout morality. How to keep your word. How to stand up for yourself and earn the respect of others. He would always say, ‘Hubert, you’re only as good as your word. If your word ain’t worth nothin’, then you ain’t worth nothin’.” He stopped
talking and looked out the window again. “I’d say that’s the most important thing he ever taught me.”

  “All right. I appreciate the advice. Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me,” the mayor said, “thank my pa. It’s just too bad you can’t. I think the two of you would’ve got along famously. He always respected authority.”

  “I see.” She looked up at all the deer heads hanging on the wall, then down at the bearskin rug. “Where did the huntin’ gene come from?”

  “My grandfather. I guess that one skipped a generation.” He smiled.

  “Where do you usually hunt?”

  “All over the place. Usually nearby. Places like Le Moyne, Prichard, Semmes, Bay Minette, you know. Anywhere there’s good huntin’. And of course I do all my fishing in Mobile Bay.”

  “That where you caught the amberjack?” It hung over his stone fireplace and must’ve weighed in at sixty pounds at least.

  He looked up at it, smiling. “Yeah, ain’t she a beaut. Almost snapped the line on that one. But to answer your question, my pa wasn’t no hunter, my granddaddy sure was. I reckon my passion for it came from him. He was also a very intelligent man. Made a lot of good investments.”

  “Maybe he’d be smart enough to help catch our serial killer,” Leah said.

  “It was certainly sad to see him go,” the mayor said. He paused and looked away the same as he had done so many times since they met. “So much death in my life. You start to wonder if it’s all worth it.”

  “Now don’t go thinkin’ stuff like that,” Leah said. “Those kind of thoughts are contagious, and I just pulled through something like that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What ’bout your wife’s parents, they still alive?”

  “Yeah, they are. Her pa’s got dementia, though. Lives in a special place where they take care of him. It’s nice there. I actually reckon for him, the dementia is almost a blessing.”

  “That’s good. And your ma?”

  “Well, her ma is. I lost mine a long time ago. But hers is still here and in great shape. She still beats me at cards twice a week,” he said, and smiled again.

  “Well, I just thought I’d give you an update on where we were on the case. If you read the paper, you’ll just get more and more confused.” She gave him a false grin.

  “I rightly appreciate that. And I hope you solve it quickly.”

  Leah stood. The mayor followed. “I should get out of your hair,” Leah said.

  “You mean what’s left of it,” the mayor laughed.

  They shook hands at the top of the stairs leading down to the door. “Don’t be a stranger,” the mayor said. “And if there is any more advice I can give you, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “Oh, by the way,” Leah said, “a word of warning. The Ladies’ Auxiliary wanted to thank us for a wonderful Christmas parade this year and award us with some sort of plaque. I told them it was all your doin’, so I just wanted to give you a heads-up that you’ll probably be the center of their attention for a while.” She smiled. It wasn’t a lie. The Ladies’ Auxiliary did have a plaque for him.

  He laughed. “That’s great. That’s what makes the people of this town so wonderful and it’s the people who make a town. So without the goodness of the common folk, our town would be just like any other. But you know what? I think Alvin’s somewhere special. And I ain’t just sayin’ that cuz I’m the mayor. I’d say that if I were cleanin’ up garbage in the streets for a livin’. Don’t you agree?”

  God, she hated politicians. They believed their own bull crap.

  “Yeah,” Leah said, “I guess I do. We do have some pretty great folk livin’ round here. Thank goodness the odd one turns out to be a homicidal maniac or a drug pusher or I’d be out of a job.”

  He laughed, but it wasn’t a real laugh. “Mostly we have good folk, though, that’s all I’m sayin’. I just hope you catch whoever is responsible for these deaths.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, we will.”

  Leah walked down the stairs to the door and was about to open it to leave when the mayor stopped her with one last thing.

  “Oh, and, Leah,” he said, “next time, remember to bring a bathing suit.”

  She just shook her head and left. Politicians really did believe in their own bull crap.

  CHAPTER 41

  Leah may as well been flying when she got to the station. She went straight to the coffee machine. Chris watched her with dismay as she quickly filled up her mug, came to her desk, sat down, pushed some papers to the side, turned on her computer, and then swung her legs around so she was facing him.

  “I need you to work some of your magic for me today,” she said.

  “Sure. What do you need?”

  “I want a list of everyone who signed up for the fishin’ derby and the huntin’ contest at the last Harvest Fair. Not just the people who participated, but everyone who signed up. If you can get me the year before last as well, that would be even better.”

  Chris wrote both these items down. He sat, watching, pen poised, ready for the next task. “What else?”

  “That’s it,” Leah said.

  “That’s it?”

  “You sound let down.”

  “I thought you was gonna give me somethin’ hard to do.”

  “Oh, there actually is one more thing. Can you call Luanne Cooper back in for questionin’? I wanna make sure I didn’t miss anythin’ the first time around.”

  “She was the one who called in the Willet Lake murder, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Will do.”

  One addition to the Alvin Police Station in the last six months was a small interview room behind Leah’s desk. They still had the doors that led to the lockups behind Chris’s desk, but now they had a nice little room to take witnesses and suspects to talk to them. It also acted sometimes as an action room when the team wanted to get together and go over some specific thing. Chief Montgomery’s office was getting a little small even for just the three of them.

  The room had the obligatory one-way mirror, although the one in Alvin wasn’t very large. Inside was a table with three chairs—two on one side and one on the other. The rest of the room was the same mustard color stonework as the cells.

  Leah sat in the interview room on one side of the table, Luanne Cooper sat on the other side.

  “Why am I here?” Luanne asked, after she’d been escorted in and given a cup of coffee. “I told your other officer out there everythin’ I knew that day at the lake.”

  “Well, I just wanna be sure,” Leah said. “What time did you come across the body?”

  “I already told you this.”

  “Humor me.”

  “Must’ve been going on seven o’clock. Sun was just coming up. Park was beautiful that time of morning.”

  “Were there any other witnesses?”

  “Not at that time, no,” Luanne said. “The park was still too cold. Too cold for most people, anyway. Why am I being asked all this again?”

  “We just want to be thorough. Now, I found your boot tracks down by the body. . . .”

  “Right. I told you I went down for a closer look. I’m sorry. Look, I ain’t never seen a dead body before.”

  Be happy about that, girl....

  “Okay, Luanne, we’re almost done. But I ask myself,” Leah said, “someone with the skills you got for photography probably has a good eye for detail. See, we’re comin’ up with very little to go on for this case, and I need any details I can find.”

  Luanne just shrugged. “I’ve told y’all everythin’.”

  “Can I ask you somethin’, Luanne? I promise you won’t get in any trouble no matter how you answer it.”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you take any pictures of that body that mornin’?”

  Her eyes looked to the table for just a minute. Just enough for Leah to know the woman was about to lie. “Of course not. You told me to stay away from the scene and make sure others did,
too.”

  “Right. Which you did a very good job at, by the way, thank you very much. But what ’bout before you called me? Did you take any pictures then?”

  Luanne shook her head. “No, none. I ran to the nearest pay phone and called the police as soon as I saw the body. It was quite disturbin’, to be honest.”

  “I bet it was. You okay now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t seem too shook up ’bout it anymore.”

  “No, I’m fine. I’ve had some time to get over it.”

  Leah looked up at the mirror where she knew Chris was watching. The interview was also being taped and recorded, just in case Luanne said anything worthwhile. So far, she hadn’t, but taping and recording interviews was simply just standard practice.

  “Can I go now?” Luanne asked, setting her empty coffee mug down on the table.

  “I don’t see why not. You answered my big question. Just remember, if you think of anything else, you call me, okay?”

  “I will. I already told you I will.”

  Leah escorted the woman out of the room and she and Chris watched as Luanne and her spiky red hair walked outside and turned down the sidewalk.

  “How do you think that went?” Chris asked.

  “Hard to tell. I think she’s holding somethin’ back.”

  “Somethin’ like what?”

  “I dunno. Just somethin’.”

  There was a bang on the outside window and Leah looked up to see Abe and Dewey leaning their bikes against the glass.

  Oh, Jesus, she thought, why are they here? Her boy and Dewey coming to the station to see her was rarely a good thing. In fact, thinking back, she couldn’t recall one time when it was.

  “What’s goin’ on?” Leah asked, not getting up from her desk as they walked in, Abe leading the way and Dewey trailing behind. Chief Montgomery was locked away in his office doing what he referred to as “official police business.” It involved watching his television. Even through the closed door, Leah could hear some sort of sporting event. She thought it sounded like hockey.