Fog of Dead Souls

by Jill Kelly

  “Probably not,” said Ellie. “It’s pretty serious. Lots of facts.” She looked at her watch and saw that it was close to one. She wondered if she should invite her Good Samaritan to lunch, but Janet looked at her watch too and said it was time to go. She handed the sleeping child to Ellie, stood up, and then took her daughter as if she weighed nothing at all. She gave Ellie another happy smile.

  “Enjoy your stay. I hope you find what you are looking for.” And she moved off down the street, her arms full of love.

  Ellie sat a while longer still. She let the tour go on without her. She breathed deeply, more relaxed than she’d been in a long time.

  She walked back toward the B&B. She found a small café and had a bowl of tortilla soup and read the local paper. When the café closed up at two-thirty, she moved on, looking in gallery windows. The stylized browns and golds of the landscapes were not nearly as interesting to her as the real thing she had been driving through. Maybe these were all intended for buyers in the north, expensive souvenirs of a different topography. In one window, a beautiful tuxedo cat that looked like Nellie was cleaning itself between two paintings. These were different kinds of landscapes, green and lush. The paintings were signed in a small, neat hand: Jake Logan. She didn’t know the name but she liked his work.

  The glow of good feeling didn’t last all day. By evening she was restless, haunted again, and she went down to the bar on the corner. But she didn’t respond when men looked her way and she came back early.

  The next day she went back to the museum on the off-chance that she would run into Janet and Lu, but they didn’t come and she realized how foolish that thought had been. She spent another couple of hours wandering the galleries and shops but what she wanted wasn’t for sale in any of them. The anxious, itchy feeling was back in full force by mid-afternoon and she checked out and headed northwest to Farmington.

  56

  It took Hansen some weeks to get back to Pennsylvania. The surgery, the deep fatigue that followed, took a toll. Being with Claire had also added to the strain. Even though he had been grateful for a place to recuperate, all the reasons they weren’t together had come back in a flood. Before the shooting, he’d already figured out that their daughters had connived to get the parents together in Montreal in hopes of reconciliation. It hadn’t worked and he had spent the weeks in her house feeling very much the unwelcome guest. And Claire had screened his calls and parceled out information so that he didn’t find out Ellie was on the road until nearly a month after she had left Greensburg.

  Driving home through Toronto and down in Pennsylvania, he stopped at Ellie’s apartment. It was mid-afternoon and no one responded to his knock. He tried the apartment below. The landlord wasn’t there but his wife was. She said that Ellie had been spooked by something—she didn’t know what—and gone away. The place had been empty for weeks. A woman named Sandy Gerstead had come and given them a check for four months’ rent. They looked in once in a while to be sure the place was okay, but there’d been no word from Ellie.

  Was there mail piling up? he’d asked.

  No, the woman said.

  He found Sandy Gerstead at the college library. She smiled at him when he knocked on her office doorpost. It was a sad smile.

  Hansen saw that she had aged, the skin on her jaw and neck loose, deep lines around her mouth, her hair gray where before it had been streaked with blonde. She’d gone into the neglect that happened with grief and trauma. He’d seen that all too often. He wondered if that had happened to Ellie.

  After an exchange of greetings that meant nothing to either of them, he asked if she had heard from Ellie.

  “Not a word in six weeks.” She sighed. “She emailed me twice after she had left town. Once to tell me that you had been shot and that she felt she had nowhere to go.”

  Hansen nodded though he felt sick inside. “And the second email?”

  “A few days later. Another brief message. She was getting as far away as she could.”

  “Did you keep the emails? Can I read them?”

  She shook her head. “No, sorry, I didn’t see any point.” After a moment she said, “I don’t blame her, you know. For the silence. I think she might blame me.”

  “For what?” he said, but he already knew.

  “For Joel,” she said. “I introduced them. Or Arlen did. How could she not blame me?”

  Hansen kept his opinion to himself.

  Sandy went on. “I assume you haven’t found the guy.”

  “No, we’re still looking,” he paused. “Are you safe here?”

  “I guess. A colleague from the library has moved into my place. I feel better with him there.”

  “That’s good.” He paused again. “I’m going to find her, Sandy.”

  “I hope you do. Tell her I miss her.”

  The campus was deserted. It was late afternoon on a Thursday. Unfamiliar with the layout, Hansen had parked a ways down the hill so he walked back to his car, the heat dripping off his face and the humidity heavy as fog around him.

  He sat in his car and let the air conditioner run. He felt unsure of his next move. He should go back to Gettysburg. He was due to start work on Monday and the department needed him. The weeks of his medical leave had left them short-handed, and he knew the chief was getting pressure to retire him and replace him. He could stop that from happening by getting on the turnpike and heading east. But he hated unsolved cases. They made him feel like a failure. He also hated unresolved relationships. He wanted things clean and square between him and those he cared about. Ellie represented both to him, and that made him very unhappy.

  He knew what he had to do. He started the car and got on the turnpike.

  57

  Ellie woke early. The light was soft, day just coming on, and the pale gold walls glowed with the dawn. The air through the open windows was still desert-cool. She was lying on her side, and for a moment she watched the breeze dance the curtains to and fro. Faint sounds of a guitar wafted in as well—one of the rancheros perhaps.

  She could feel the sheets against her skin all the length of her body, and for an instant, panic rose up within her. Then she remembered the night and Al’s gentleness and her breathing slowed again. She turned over and reached out to touch him but he was gone. She knew he was always up before it was light, a habit he said he didn’t think he could change. It was all right. She was glad to be alone, to have time to think and feel her way into all that happened between them.

  They had sat talking late into the night. Beemus had settled in between them, his head resting on Al’s thigh.

  At first Al said there wasn’t much left to the story, but with Ellie’s coaxing, he told her the rest. How he and Annie had talked of getting back together, but she wouldn’t move to the ranch and he wouldn’t move to town.

  “I can’t believe she even thought I’d move. She knew me better than that.” He scratched the dog’s ears. “That went on for two years. I began to grow weary of the whole thing. And as I said, I didn’t want a reluctant wife. I wanted a partner, somebody to love and to love me.”

  At the same time, he heard rumors that Annie was seeing other men in town—their insurance guy, their dentist. He didn’t know if this was true. Annie denied it, but the men wouldn’t look him in the eye when they ran into each other.

  “In a way, it wasn’t any of my business. We were divorced. She was free to do what she wanted. But Farmington is a small town. Everybody knows your business, and I didn’t like knowing people were talking about her, about us and our personal lives.” He looked out into the night, then back at Ellie, and he smiled sadly.

  “Then Annie got cancer. At first, it didn’t seem too bad, her chances looked good. But when they did the surgery to take her breasts, they found it had spread.” He sighed. “She refused chemo. Somewhere in there, during her illness, she found religion. There was a crackpot preacher in a little church in a storefront near the barrio. He was saving people from hell. And she fell for it all. She
said this was God’s punishment for her breaking her marriage vows, for being an adulteress. Can you imagine? In this day and age?”

  Ellie reached out and took his hand in both of hers. She wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Gracie and I fought about all this. She felt it was up to me to convince Annie to take the chemo, to stay alive. Wanted me to marry Annie again. She felt I was abandoning her sister. But there didn’t seem anything I could do. I talked to Annie, several times. Did one of those intervention things with Gracie and some of her friends, but she wouldn’t listen. She moved in with Gracie as it got bad. I went most days to see her, but after a while, I just stayed outside and Gracie would come out and give me the news.”

  He got up then and moved to the edge of the porch. He stood looking out, but his body was turned toward Ellie, including her somehow. “It took another month. She didn’t want me there. I would have been there. I would have done that for her. But Gracie asked me to respect Annie’s wishes and I agreed. Afterward, I realized I should have insisted. We were together a lot of years, Annie and me. We shared a whole life. I should have been there at the end.”

  “It’s hard either way,” said Ellie. She felt her heart soften in her chest toward this man.

  Al looked over at her and nodded. “We scattered her ashes here, on the land, Gracie and me. I refused to let that preacher anywhere near her. Over the next year, Gracie and I buried the hatchet. And then we started spending time together. I was lonely. I think she was too. But it wasn’t serious for me. One Larroquette sister was enough. But I think Gracie had plans. And now I’ve spoiled those for her. I think she’s pretty angry with me. Not much I can do about that.”

  He came back over and sat down. He put his arms around Ellie and pulled her close. “That’s it. That’s the whole sordid story. Now you know all my secrets.”

  She leaned into her husband then and relaxed. Another wave of sympathy, of compassion washed over her. She felt a tenderness for him that hadn’t been there since he’d told her about the boy. Here was a man who had suffered, had doubted himself, had struggled. A man who was willing to share his past. Could she do that, too?

  Al moved back a little and looked into her eyes. She wished she were younger, not so she would look better, but so that she could see him more clearly. But she smiled and he kissed her and she kissed him back. And they got up and went into the bedroom, Beemus tottering behind.

  The tenderness stayed with them into the night. It was there as Al lit the candles, as he undressed his wife and she undressed him, as they lay on the bed together. The kisses were gentle, the touching from each of them soft and encouraging. He let her lead the way, let her take her time, and she was grateful. The fear came once, then again, the ghosts murmuring at the edges of the room, but she turned away from them all and back to Al.

  And when they had released each other and Al had pulled the green velour blanket up over them to ward off the desert chill, she told him of Joel and of Gettysburg and of the gold cords and of running away. But she kept Hansen to herself.

  58

  Doug Hansen, back from the dead!” From across the tavern, Capriano looked wider than the last time Hansen had seen him. It wasn’t a criticism. In fact, he was a little jealous. The other man at least wasn’t wasting away the way he was. Two surgeries and recuperation had cost him much of his muscle tone. He was just now starting to get his appetite and his strength back.

  Capriano grinned and shook his hand before settling into the booth. “Didn’t know if you were back on the job yet or not. Heard it was pretty bad.”

  Hansen shrugged but said nothing. He was tired of the details, tired of conversations about a hole in his lungs and spleen repair. He hadn’t even known he had a spleen before he got shot. “I’m okay now,” he said, but only because Capriano was waiting for a reply. “I’ll be back on active duty next week.”

  “Well, I’m glad you called. Saved me the trouble. There’s been a development.” He set several files on the table. “A Texas case from some weeks back has cross-referenced with ours. A rape-suicide.”

  “Enough like ours to come to your attention.”

  “More than enough. It just took a while for their test results to come in and then come through the system. A couple, man in his late fifties, woman in her forties. She was tortured and raped, man dead of pentobarbital. She survived but barely. She was strangled repeatedly and has brain damage from lack of oxygen. She hasn’t been able to tell them anything. But here’s the kicker that led them to us. Joel Richardson’s DNA was found at the scene.”

  “You’re kidding me. How is that possible?”

  “My thoughts exactly. How is that possible?”

  “What kind of DNA?”

  “Sperm. Richardson’s sperm.”

  “In the woman?” None of this made any sense to Hansen.

  “No, the perp wore a condom. The sperm was smeared on the sheets.”

  “So this guy is carrying Richardson’s jism around with him?”

  “Yup. Turns out you can keep it in your freezer. It probably won’t get anybody pregnant but it’ll keep.”

  He paused to let Hansen think about this. Finally, he said, “Are you ready for the next piece?”

  Hansen nodded, though he was afraid to hear it.

  “The male vic was one Danny Lewis, a freelance writer of some sort in Houston. The woman was his girlfriend, Melissa Vasquez, a computer programmer. No record on either one of them but it turns out that Lewis was Ellie McKay’s live-in back in the late ’90s.” He paused. “And that’s not all. McKay’s prints were all over the apartment.”

  “And Ellie herself?” he asked.

  Capriano shrugged and shook his head. “Nada. None of the neighbors remember seeing her, none of the local merchants could ID her picture. Nothing.”

  There was no real relief in that information for Hansen. He spoke his next thought. “Our perp is tracking her.”

  “Hell, yes, he is,” said Capriano, frowning. “What I think is that she went to visit Lewis. After the cords showed up in her apartment, she was pretty spooked. Did Skopowlski tell you she’d gone to Gettysburg looking for you?”

  Hansen nodded.

  Capriano went on. “My guess is that when she got to Houston, there was the other girlfriend and so maybe she only stayed a little while … hours even.” He shuffled through one of the files looking for some detail.

  “Four days,” said Hansen.

  “Four days what?”

  “Four days is how long she was there.”

  “What do you know I don’t know?”

  “There’s a four-day gap in her credit card use between Dallas and San Antonio. I didn’t know what it was before, but now I’d say she stayed with this guy. What was his name?”

  “Lewis.”

  “She stayed with Lewis.”

  “How long have you been working on this, Doug?” Capriano smiled and shook his head.

  “Well, recuperation is pretty boring.” He grinned. “And a guy I used to work with moved to the FBI in DC. They have some program that lets them track people’s credit cards without a warrant. He gave me a little grief since we don’t have a suspect, but he owed me a favor and was willing to check out what he could.”

  Capriano frowned. “I don’t much like going around the system like that.”

  “Usually I don’t either, but I need to help her.”

  Capriano sighed. “How do you think the killer is tracking her? And don’t tell me he has a friend in the FBI.”

  “I don’t know. But he seems pretty resourceful. Maybe there are ways to hack into her accounts. One of the credit cards is with her bank. Its activity would show up on her online banking stuff.”

  “Do you know where Ellie is now?”

  Hansen shook his head. “The credit card use stopped in Santa Fe. That was four weeks ago. She also closed her bank accounts then.”

  Capriano frowned. “What happened in Santa Fe?”

  “I don’t know. Not
hing according to local police. They have no record of her staying there after one night. She just vanishes.”

  He thought a moment. “When exactly were the Houston murders?”

  “Before that.” Capriano checked the file. “About five week ago.” He paused. “He killed Lewis and the girlfriend right after she left Houston.”

  Hansen nodded. “Do you think he has her?” He tried hard to sound like a detective.

  “You mean ‘had’? I don’t think he would keep her long. Not this long. But her body hasn’t shown up as far as we know. And he’s not into burying them. My guess is he’s still looking—or he’s biding his time. Waiting for some phase of the moon or some whim.”

  “What are the odds he’ll give up?” Hansen knew this was a stupid question and Capriano’s answer confirmed it.

  “A psychopath like this guy? No way.”

  59

  Hansen checked into the Holiday Inn in Santa Fe a little more than six weeks after Ellie had done so. He had driven what he could figure out of her route, following her nightly charges to the credit cards. None of the hotel clerks remembered her. None of the bartenders remembered her either. Each time he had shown them her picture, but as one girl said, “She looks like anybody.”

  In Houston, he’d connected with the police first thing. He’d cajoled Capriano into calling ahead and introducing him as a consultant to the Pittsburgh PD. They both knew that would have more clout than his Gettysburg badge. Besides, his chief was none too happy with his request for additional medical leave.

  But the Houston police had little to tell him. A detective named Frank Spears had been assigned to the case. A big man in his late fifties, Spears looked as heavy and slow as his Louisiana accent.

  “We got nothing,” he said when Hansen explained what he was there for. “It’s pretty clear the killer wore gloves and a condom when he raped the woman. To be honest, none of the setup made any sense to us until we connected it with your case. The woman tied to the bed, the white coat on the dead guy, the needle in his arm. He wasn’t a medical person, nor was she. At first we thought they were playing some kind of game that went south, but her friends swore that couldn’t be it and she was so full of drugs …”