by Diana Palmer
She hesitated. “A bad experience?”
“Yes. Inappropriate touching, I believe? I’m investigating a case of child rape and murder,” he added indignantly. “Hardly the same sort of thing. I can understand how the incident would affect Grace, but she got off easy compared to the child who was butchered and then thrown away like a used shoe.”
She looked at him as if he were demented, but she didn’t reply for several seconds. “I suppose you had to live here to understand. Don’t worry. Nobody will pair you off with Grace ever again.” She turned back toward the kitchen, her back as rigid as a ruler.
HIS NEXT SHOCK was when he met with the task force. Marquez sat several chairs away from him and didn’t greet him or even look in his direction while they went over their files and threw out suggestions for furthering the murder investigation. Marquez suggested they go public and set up a tip line, asking the public’s help. That sounded like a good idea, and it was approved.
When the meeting was over, Marquez started out the door without a word to Garon.
Garon followed him to the parking lot. “Have you got a problem?” he asked.
Marquez turned. His eyes were black as lightning, cold as ice. “No,” he replied. “I have other investigations pending, in addition to this one. I’ll be in touch if I can add anything to the body of evidence.”
Garon’s eyes narrowed. Of course, Marquez was Barbara’s adopted son. He liked Grace. He must have heard about what happened.
“You don’t understand,” he began.
Marquez walked right up to him. They were almost equal in height, but Marquez was a good eight years younger and less controlled. “After everything Grace has been through in her life, she didn’t deserve being persecuted by you,” he said flatly.
“She was stalking me,” Garon returned hotly.
“Like hell she was,” he fired back angrily. “Grace is the least intrusive person I know. She’s the exact opposite of that city streetwalker you go around with now,” he added, meaning Jaqui. “Grace has had to leave town, did you know that?”
“What?”
“She was so upset that Mama had to drive her home Monday,” he continued in the same controlled tone.
“Shaking all over, sick as a dog. You didn’t have to make your contempt for her public. You could have told her in private without making her the subject of gossip all over again!”
He scowled. “She turned up everywhere I went, after I told her flatly that I didn’t want to take her out again.”
Marquez just glared. “In a town of two thousand people, it isn’t that easy to avoid a neighbor,” he said. “Although I think you’ll find that most people will avoid you in the future. And that goes double for me.”
“You’re in love with her,” Garon accused, thinking out loud.
Marquez actually flushed. “Half my life,” he agreed, nodding. “I’d marry her in a minute if she’d have me. She’s sweet and thoughtful and kind. She has a sort of empathy that makes total strangers cry on her shoulder. She’s always the first one to offer comfort when someone dies, to bring food, to share what little she has…” He stopped, his lips compressing. “Why the hell am I telling you anything? Lucky Grace, to be run out of your life before it was too late. Nothing she’s ever done was bad enough to deserve you!”
He turned and stalked off to his car without another word.
GRACE LIKED HER COUSIN very much. She kept him company and stayed busy baking sweets for him in the kitchen while his housekeeper enjoyed the holiday from the stove. Grace planted flowers for him, read to him and spent lazy days enjoying the diversion from her troubles.
What she knew about the child murders dwelled on her mind. She hadn’t been able to tell Garon what she thought about the similarity of the victims. But she needed to tell somebody in law enforcement. This was information that might save a life. So she phoned Marquez.
He showed up one evening in jeans and a sweatshirt, taut and somber, but pleasant just the same.
“Let’s sit on the porch and talk,” she invited, after they’d had sandwiches and coffee, and her cousin had excused himself to go to bed.
They sat together in the old swing, listening to the sound of crickets and dogs barking in the distance. It was a cool night, but comfortable, and the stars were out in a glorious display.
“I love spring nights,” she mused. “It’s so peaceful here.”
“I’m sorry you can’t enjoy it at home,” he returned.
She glanced at him, feeling his indignation. “Barbara told you.”
“Yes,” he said. “I wanted to deck him.”
“I felt the same, but it wouldn’t accomplish anything,” she said with resignation. “He’s one of those people who doesn’t need anybody. I should have realized it, and not gone gooey over him.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” he said. “He’s not the person I thought he was, either.”
She fingered the cold chain that supported the swing. “I suppose it did look as if I were following him around. I couldn’t make him understand that those were normal activities for me.”
“It’s water under the bridge. Why did you want me to come up?” He grinned. “Have you finally discovered a raging passion for me, and you want to give me a diamond ring?”
She gaped at him and then burst out laughing. “You idiot!”
“It was worth a try. Come on, come on, I’ve got a drug dealer on a back burner and I need to take him off pretty soon. I can’t stay long.”
She smiled, remembering him as a sort of juvenile delinquent who was always in trouble at school. Nothing serious, usually, but he couldn’t manage to be placid.
She sobered then. “It’s about the child who was killed.”
He was still. “Yes?”
“I remembered something,” she said. “I meant to tell Garon, but he thought I went to his house because he hadn’t called me.”
“So I heard.”
She drew in a breath of cool air. “All the children had long blond hair,” she said.
He frowned. “Well…yes, they did!”
“And light eyes.”
He nodded.
“And red…ribbons.”
He was suddenly very quiet.
She stared down at her hands in her lap. “Rick, you were away when it happened,” she said. “But someone, Barbara maybe, must have told you something about it.”
“Very little,” he replied. “Except that you were traumatized by a sexual predator.” He hesitated. “I didn’t feel comfortable asking you about it.”
She looked up at him and smiled gently. “Thanks.”
He shrugged. “I’m a private person myself. I understand.”
She curled her fingers around the swing chain. “Only a few people ever knew the truth. There was a cover-up,” she said. “My grandmother was beside herself. Mama had heard about it from Granny, and that very night, she committed suicide.”
“Your mother?” he exclaimed. “But why?”
“Who knows? Granny said Mama felt responsible, because she’d thrown me out of her life and left me at the mercy of a bitter old woman who drank alcohol to excess almost every night.”
“I didn’t realize that old Mrs. Collier ever had a sip of anything alcoholic,” he admitted, surprised.
“She sobered up when she had to come and see me in the hospital. I was…I was a mess,” she bit off. She shifted in the swing. “If you saw the body of the latest murdered child, maybe you can imagine what I looked like.”
“Dear God!” he burst out.
“I was lucky,” she continued. It felt good to talk about it, after so many years of stoic silence. “He panicked. He couldn’t quite figure out how to strangle me to death. He was clumsy with the red ribbon, and then the police sirens started wailing. He stabbed me with just a pocketknife, over and over again. I was in terrible pain, but even at the age of twelve, I knew that if I didn’t play dead, I’d be dead. I held my breath and prayed and prayed. And he ran
. Someone had tipped off the police when they saw him carrying me across a field in the moonlight. I never knew who, but it saved my life.” She looked at him, aware of his tense, smoldering anger. “Apparently it isn’t that easy to choke someone to death, even a child.”
“No, it isn’t,” he confirmed tautly. “It takes several minutes of concentrated pressure. A noose with a stick twisting it is easier than using your hands, but it still takes more than a minute or two to kill a person.”
“I remember his hands most of all,” she said uncomfortably. “They were bony and pale, weak-looking. I got a glimpse of them, under my blindfold. I think one had deep cuts on it. They were nothing like my grandpa’s, who was a deputy sheriff and worked with horses. He had lean, strong, tanned hands. Good hands.”
“They took you to a doctor,” he prompted, because she’d gone silent.
She drew in a steadying breath. “Dr. Coltrain had just gotten his license. I was one of his first patients,” she added with a smile. “I learned some new bad words listening to him when he examined me. He was eloquent.”
“He still is,” Marquez said.
“Anyway, it took some minor surgery and a lot of stitches. I lost an ovary and my spleen and even my appendix,” she added. “They said it would take a miracle for me to ever have a child. As if I’d want to get married and give a man power over me, after that,” she said sadly, and tried not to remember how comforting Garon’s strong arms had been in the darkness. He’d walked away from her so quickly when he knew she couldn’t have a child. It was just as well, though, that she was barren, after the way he’d treated her.
“A reporter heard something on his police scanner. Not enough to tell him the truth, but enough to make him curious. He came over here snooping around. My grandmother called Chet Blake. Chet told him I was attacked by a crazed man and that I had amnesia, that I couldn’t remember anything about it. That seemed to satisfy the reporter, because he left and nobody saw him again. But after he left, Granny was afraid the man who abducted me might come back and finish the job if the true story got out. Even though I was blindfolded the whole time, he might think I could still identify him. So our police chief, Chet Blake, hid the file, and talked to the local media. He said I had been slightly injured by a mental patient, that I had amnesia and couldn’t even remember how I got hurt. Everybody around me swore it was the truth. The paper ran a story saying a juvenile had been injured by an escaped mental patient and I couldn’t remember anything that happened. The mental patient, they said, was taken back to the institution he came from, and I was fine. It was too small a story to make the big city papers, so that was the end of it. If the man was checking about what I told the police, and he read our local paper, he’d have felt safe.” She glanced at him. “I was so afraid that he’d do it again, to some other little child. And he is, isn’t he, Rick? He’s still out there, but now he’s killing children. I didn’t want to be protected at the cost of someone else’s life, but nobody would listen to me. I was just a kid myself. I’ve had to live with that ever since.”
“Damn!”
She sighed heavily. The memories were stifling, frightening. Her hands gripped each other. “I feel guilty because I didn’t come forward and tell the truth.”
“You were a child, Grace. You had no say in what was done.”
“But I’m not a child now,” she said earnestly. “I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup, Rick, but I’d remember his voice. At least you could look at the file and see what evidence they saved. I know they had swabs, and they took my underclothes,” she choked, swallowing hard. She didn’t want to remember the rest. “There might be something else that would help with the investigation.”
“Yes, but, Grace, if Chet hid the file, how will we find it?”
“You can find out. I know you can. I want you to go to El Paso and talk to Chief Blake. I want you to tell him that we have to give that information to the task force. I’ll try very hard to remember what he talked about, anything that might help identify him. I was in that place for three days.”
He didn’t speak for several seconds. “Grace, what purpose would it serve to open the file twelve years after the fact?” he argued. “We’ve got DNA evidence from the latest victim. We’ve got leads. If they open that file, someone’s going to let the cat out of the bag. Any gossip about the case would put you in danger. He might come back and kill you, to silence you.”
“I know that,” she replied. “But he’s killed a lot of little girls,” she said sadly. “Maybe I could have saved some of them if…”
“Stop right there,” he said firmly, catching her cold fingers in his own. “Child predators are everywhere. You couldn’t prevent a kidnapping if you were living in the same town as the perpetrator right now! There’s been plenty of press coverage about this predator. Parents know to watch out for their children, but this guy is very smart. Warning people won’t stop him.”
She shifted. “Maybe not. I do think I might have been his first victim,” she continued. “He was nervous the last day he kept me. He used a pocketknife, but I’d gained a lot of weight that year. I had a fat stomach and it saved my life. He left me for dead, panicked and ran. I managed to scream. Someone heard me and I was found in time.” She stared into the darkness. “He took me right out of my own bed, in the middle of the night, with my grandmother sleeping in the room beside mine. If she hadn’t been drinking, she might have heard him. She hated me for the rest of her life, because everybody knew she’d been too drunk to lock up properly. She pretended to be such a moral pillar of society. Then I got abducted and she was exposed.”
“She should have been charged with criminal negligence,” he snapped.
“She’s dead. Everybody’s dead but me, Rick,” she said sadly. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Catching this lunatic does. You have to make Chief Blake tell you where that file is. There may be something in it that will give you a clue leading to the killer, especially if I really was his first victim. He might have made one mistake that he’s too savvy to make now. And that one mistake might help you catch him.”
He smiled gently. “You’re quite a lady.”
She leaned against his shoulder. It was the first time she’d ever touched him voluntarily. He was a sweet man. “I wish I could be what you want me to be, Rick,” she said honestly. “You’re the nicest man I know.”
His heart ached. Having her curled up beside him so trusting, made him feel humble. He wanted to wrap her up against him and kiss her until she moaned, and make her love him. But it was never going to happen. He loved. She didn’t. She was only his friend. But even that was better than nothing.
His arm slid around her hesitantly, resting there when she didn’t protest. His heart hammered at his ribs, but he drew her close in a comforting, platonic way. “You’re the nicest woman I know,” he replied.
He heard her soft sigh as she relaxed against his shoulder. It was sweeter than honey, this interlude. At least she liked him. She trusted him. Who could say that one day she wouldn’t realize what a good catch he was. He just had to be patient and not rush his fences.
He rocked the swing back into motion. Around them, the night was peaceful and quiet.
IN THE DAYS that followed, Garon went to work trying not to think about Grace. He turned out with everyone else to respond to a new bank robbery. It was the same crew, with automatic weapons. This time they wounded a guard and a customer. He gave his squad a pep talk and had four of them staking out banks. In the meantime, he coordinated with the serial killer task force, organized his cases and doled assignments out to his squad, escorted visiting dignitaries around town, caught up some of his paperwork. But his conscience still hurt about Grace. He could have been less cruel. She was like a child, in so many ways. She wasn’t used to people deliberately hurting her. Maybe it was like Marquez said, it was a coincidence that she’d been at the same places he was.
Two weeks after she left town, his brother Cash called him one afternoon and in
vited him over to the police station.
“Why here and not at home?” he asked his brother with a smile when he walked into the office.
Cash didn’t smile back. He was somber. He closed his office door and sat down behind his desk.
“Marquez flew to El Paso and talked to our cousin Chet Blake,” Cash said. He had his hands folded over a manila file folder. “There was an attempted child murder here in Jacobsville twelve years ago. It’s identical to the case you and Marquez are working. The file was sealed and hidden, because Chet was afraid the man would come back and finish off the child if he knew she survived.”
Garon frowned. “The child lived? There’s a witness?”
“Yes,” Cash replied. “It’s a tragic case. She was abducted out of her own bed and carried to an abandoned cabin just outside town. She was held there for three days,” he said with tight lips. “Nobody knows what he did to her. She never spoke of it to anyone. Her injuries were life-threatening. She spent weeks in the hospital. There was a search for the perpetrator, but they never found him. He just vanished.”
“The child was a girl?” he asked.
“Yes. She was twelve at the time. Like your other victims, she had long blond hair and light colored eyes.”
“Why in God’s name didn’t they share that information with the Bureau?” Garon demanded hotly. “It might have saved lives! Especially with a living witness who could identify him!”
“She was blindfolded,” Cash said. “The whole time. She heard his voice. That’s all.”
“But to cover it up…!”
“Jacobsville is a small town, and her people were powerful,” he said. “You know Chet. He doesn’t like confrontations. He was told what to do, and he did it. Against his better judgment, I might add.”
Garon let out a rough sigh. “Well, what’s in the file? Is there anything about a red ribbon?”
“Yes.” Cash slid the file folder across the desk. He was watching Garon with an odd expression.
Garon couldn’t decide why until he opened the file folder and saw the first of the photographs that were taken at the scene of the crime, and of the child at the time of her rescue.
