Cold Death

by Mary Stone

  Ellie’s eyebrows rose. “The Blue Room?”

  “Yeah. A fancy name for a crappy little hellhole where the headmistress or headmaster’s wife or whoever she was shoved students she felt needed to spend some time ‘reflecting.’” He air quoted the last word. “After leaving me in there with no food for days, she trotted me out and forced me to stand in her office in a uniform that was several sizes too small. I remember the pants dug into my waist so much, the red marks lasted for days. And the shirt was uncomfortably tight across my chest and so short that I was afraid to lift my hands away from my sides because I knew my stomach would show. I was already self-conscious. Not a big shock, I guess, that students at private schools can be every bit as cruel to bigger kids as anywhere else.”

  His rich, podcast-worthy voice lost its usual inflection, turning monotone and flat. The brittle recitation made Ellie sense that while he’d likely shared this story a number of times, he’d never rid himself of the ghosts roused in the retelling.

  Her cheek itched, but she was afraid to move, worried that the slightest distraction might shut him down. Charli sat in silence too, with her hands clasped in her lap.

  “First, they brought in tray after tray loaded with delicious-smelling foods and feasted right in front of me. I was so hungry that it was hard not to cry, but I tried my best, because I knew they’d only use any show of weakness against me.”

  He trailed off, so Ellie risked a question. “They?”

  Crawford’s mouth tightened. “They, as in Letitia Wiggins and Kingsley. My mind was fuzzy, but I’m pretty certain that was their first official meeting. She recruited him to witness my torture and humiliation.”

  Beside her, Charli rustled in the chair, likely as caught off guard by the revelation as Ellie was. “He ate the food while you watched?”

  “Yes, although ironically, the worst part came when they actually fed me. I’d like to claim that if I’d understood the twisted punishment they’d had in store, I would have refused the food when it was offered, but I’m not sure that’s true. I was so hungry, you see.”

  The hairs on Ellie’s neck lifted in anticipation of the story’s ending. “What happened next?”

  Crawford’s chapped lips cracked open in a smile that had nothing to do with humor. “They made me eat so much that I threw up, and then berated me for being wasteful and made me eat my own vomit too.”

  Ellie’s own stomach turned at the punchline, and it took all her training and self-control not to shudder. She stared into her lap to give herself time to banish any signs of disgust from her expression. That poor man. What a monstrous thing to do to a child. To anyone. “I’m sorry, that’s terrible. That never should have happened to you.”

  “Thanks. I’d like to say I’m over it, but…” He gestured around the room and shrugged. “You’ve probably already reached your own conclusions about that.”

  That, and his unhealthy skinniness. What was that saying, something about the body keeping score?

  Ellie shook her head. “But I still don’t understand. Why wasn’t any of this included in the reports?”

  Crawford tapped ash into the ceramic circle. “That’s the part where the privilege and wealth comes in. Kingsley’s stepdad had both, and he paid heaps of money to keep his stepson out of the scandal. And like most abusers, Letitia Wiggins was also skilled at playing the victim card. Those deaths took place during a stretch of time when nothing at Far Ridge happened without the headmistress and her little pet being involved.”

  “Kingsley being the pet in question,” Ellie guessed, and Crawford nodded. “And Walter Wiggins?”

  “A horrible human being who inflicted more than his fair share of suffering and deserved punishment, but I’m not convinced that he took part in that particular crime. At the very least, Letitia and Kingsley shouldered most of the blame. But Kingsley got off scot-free, and Mrs. Wiggins was sentenced to four years for criminal neglect, served a little over half her sentence, and now lives out her days in a swanky retirement community.”

  While Ellie digested that, Charli nodded. “Statistics show that women are more likely to be child abusers than men. About fifty-three percent of the perpetrators in cases of child abuse are women. I’ll never understand it.”

  Crawford scoffed. “Me either. Man, woman, or alien, statistics don’t mean shit when you have to watch the evil bitch who forced you to eat your own vomit cruise around in a Lexus in front of her expensive house.”

  The anger radiating off the podcaster made Ellie cringe, but Charli’s expression and posture remained unchanged. She regarded him with those piercing blue eyes. “I’m sorry you experienced all that, and I’m sorry the system failed you. I’m also sorry that Letitia Wiggins received nothing but a slap on the wrist.”

  Crawford’s hand shook harder now as the anger faded to sadness. The glance he shot at Charli over his cigarette was enough to make even a strong person flinch.

  Not Charli. The detective’s forehead remained smooth, her chin lifted. The only potential sign of the detective’s discomfort was the slender hands twisting together in her lap.

  Had she experienced something similar? Ellie couldn’t help but wonder.

  Since Crawford seemed ready to cry at any moment, Ellie made the executive decision to cut the interview short. She stood. “Well, I need to get back on the road, but thank you so much for your time, Mr. Crawford. You’ve been incredibly helpful. Come on, Detective Cross.”

  Charli stood too and followed Ellie to the door. She paused on the threshold and craned her head toward Crawford, who hadn’t bothered standing to escort them out.

  “Please, don’t hesitate to get in touch if you remember anything else.”

  He nodded at Charlie without sparing her another glance, his gaze trained on the photo wall. “Yeah.”

  Ellie and the other woman left the trailer and headed outside. Shane stood next to the Explorer, his head on a swivel as if he expected a monster to jump out at them at any time.

  The thought made Ellie shiver.

  As she climbed back into Charli’s vehicle, she looked back at the little trailer. The man inside had also known her monster when he was just a boy.

  How many lives had Kingsley destroyed over the years?

  Probably more than she could ever count.

  15

  Ellie let out a low whistle when Charli led her through the front doors of the Savannah Police Department. “Damn, this place is huge compared to the Charleston precinct.”

  A good three times the size and with triple the number of police officers filling that extra space. All those additional bodies made the building much noisier than home base, but Ellie didn’t mind the increased volume. She was too busy plotting as Charli led her past the clusters of desks and cubicles.

  All that manpower and none of them bogged down trying to locate Bethany. If she could recruit some of them to team up with her to help solve cases, no telling how much more efficient they’d be?

  The extra hands on deck weren’t the only potential benefit, either. Ellie never underestimated the value of a fresh pair of eyes on a case.

  Charli’s posture retained its military perfection as she practically sprinted up a set of stairs to the second floor. Her office was small and contained two desks, one of which Ellie assumed was her partner’s. Lucinda sat at the one with nary a paperclip out of place.

  “Damn. Remind me to clean my desk before you ever come to visit, okay?” On any given day, Ellie’s workstation back in the Charleston precinct could be counted on to showcase an array of empty takeout coffee cups, Skittles, and Milky Way wrappers from midafternoon vending machine snack runs, and endless piles of papers and files teetering in precarious stacks near the edge.

  The petite detective shrugged. “I like my things tidy. I don’t care if yours aren’t.”

  Two uniformed male cops sauntered by, whispering and shooting Charli sideways glances as they passed. She ignored them, so Ellie followed her cue. Another time, she mig
ht snoop a little more and attempt to unravel one of the other detective’s many layers of mystery, but not today, when she was on a mission.

  Not when Bethany’s life was on the line.

  Ellie’s chest tightened. Deep in her soul, she sensed time was running short. They had to find the little girl and fast. Before Kingsley had a chance to inflict irreparable damage.

  Or worse.

  Images of Kingsley’s other victims flashed like phantoms behind Ellie’s eyes, and for a moment, her vision blurred. Val. Gabe. The poor, nameless woman Kingsley had murdered because Ellie had told him to.

  She clenched her jaw and gave herself a mental shake. The memories disappeared, but the sense of urgency lingered.

  Charli stood over her laptop and tapped at the keyboard. Ellie winced. If she worked in that position, her back would rebel almost immediately, but the Savannah detective was a good eight inches shorter in height. Charli finished typing, and a nearby printer buzzed to life.

  Ellie cocked her head as Charli strode over and gathered the pages the printer spat out. “Don’t you have tablets here?”

  “We do, but I prefer hard copies.”

  Report printed, Charli dragged an empty chair behind her desk for Ellie before plopping into her own. She handed Ellie a stack of pages before burying her nose into an equally thick pile.

  Side by side, they thumbed through Letitia Wiggins’s case file. Several other officers and a detective passed by Charli’s office door while they read, but no one stopped to share details on cases or even smile or say a quick hi. The one time Ellie glanced up, two officers averted their eyes and kept walking.

  Charli never gave the slightest impression that she noticed or cared one way or another, but Ellie wasn’t so sure. Cops could be real assholes sometimes, and the vibe reminded Ellie a little too much of her early days in the Charleston precinct. Back when she’d first started on the job, all the other officers were convinced that her family’s money had bought her that place in the department and stolen a spot from a more deserving candidate.

  Despite being surrounded by a room full of coworkers, those first few months as a patrol officer were some of the loneliest in Ellie’s life. The old saying about how you often felt the most alone when you were in a crowd had proven true, at least in Ellie’s case. Sucked if Charli was experiencing a version of the same thing.

  “Must be nice, working without many interruptions.”

  Ellie offered the overture up as a joke. Either Charli would accept the invitation to talk about her tense workplace, or she wouldn’t.

  Charli raised her head from the file, her gaze resting on the two officers who’d just walked past without an acknowledgment. “My presence makes people uncomfortable.” She shrugged, like their comfort or rudeness was of no significance to her.

  Sympathy stirred in Ellie’s chest. “I can relate. I dealt with something similar in Charleston when I first started working there.”

  Charli’s spine stiffened almost imperceptibly. “Actually, I doubt very much that you did.”

  Ellie blinked at the abrupt shutdown. Oh boy, she’d put her foot in her mouth now. Charli did a good job of hiding it, but the standoffish treatment of her peers was obviously a sore point.

  She opened her mouth to apologize, but Charli cut her off. “Here, take a look at these.”

  Paper rustled as the detective set new pages on top of the file. Ellie leaned in to get a closer look. “Transcripts?”

  “From the Letitia Wiggins trial. If you turn to page ten, you’ll see testimony from a psychologist called as an expert witness for the defense.”

  Ellie flipped to the page in question and scanned the excerpt. Partway through, she began reading out loud. “After spending time with the defendant, my clinical observations have led me to conclude that Mrs. Wiggins exhibits symptoms consistent with battered woman syndrome.”

  She glanced up from the transcript. “I wonder when they changed the name to Intimate Partner Violence?”

  Ellie had intended the question to be rhetorical, but she should have known better. In the very brief time Ellie had known the detective, she’d learned that Charli could pluck that information off the top of her head. “The WHO mass distributed a pamphlet in 2002 that utilized the term, and IPV became more commonplace after that. Intimate Partner Violence works better because even though men are more likely to kill their partners, women are also common perpetrators of partner abuse.”

  Charli’s attention never wavered from the finger that moved down the page as she read, so she missed Ellie’s wide-eyed appraisal. Was there anything law-related that this pixie-ish dynamo didn’t have tucked away in that giant brain of hers? If so, Ellie would require proof to believe it.

  The detective’s finger halted partway down the page. She wrinkled her pert nose. “This next part basically claims that due to fears for her own safety, Letitia Wiggins had no choice but to take part in the abuse. Especially near the end, when she discovered she was pregnant.”

  Bitterness burned Ellie’s gut. “That psychologist and defense attorney really pulled out all the stops to play on that jury’s sympathies, didn’t they? Yet another skeezy psychologist twisting everything into a sob story and helping a guilty person walk free. Yay, justice.”

  When she shook her head in abject disgust, she gasped as the motion sent the room spinning out of control. Mind swimming, she squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled through her nose.

  “When’s the last time you ate or slept?”

  When the wave of dizziness passed, Ellie dared to check the clock on the far wall. Yikes. “A while.”

  Charli crossed her arms and lowered her eyebrows. “There’s a direct correlation between hunger and focus, or lack thereof, to be more specific. You should eat something and try to get some sleep.”

  With the other detective’s black pixie cut, bright blue eyes, and delicate features, it was a little like being scolded by a fairy.

  Not that Ellie would ever dare to voice that opinion aloud. “I’d love to rest, but there’s a little girl out there who’s been kidnapped by a killer, and her life could come down to how much time I dedicate to sleeping instead of trying to find her.”

  Ellie’s statement thrummed between them, striking a forgotten chord in her heart. This couldn’t be…but it was…oh, God.

  She dug her nails into her thighs and tried not to succumb to the shame that coiled inside her chest in tight, suffocating loops. She’d been so hellbent on making Kingsley pay for his crimes that this was the first time she could remember putting Bethany’s safety above her quest for revenge.

  Charli didn’t argue or mouth some worthless platitude about how Ellie could only do so much. She simply nodded, as if she accepted Ellie’s analysis of the time constraints as logical. “What’s your next step?”

  Ellie filled her lungs with air and came to a decision. “I want to visit Letitia Wiggins. We read what the psychologist had to say. Now, I need to speak with the accused in person and form my own opinion.”

  “I anticipated that you might say that.” No surprise there. “The Lake Walters Retirement Community where she resides now is almost four and a half hours away. In light of this new information, I suggest that you revisit your previous conclusion and consider getting some rest first.”

  Ellie’s body sagged. Four and a half hours? Even Shane would be exhausted by now, and that was too far to drive powered on fumes, coffee, and determination. Not if she didn’t want to risk ending up as another one of Charli’s statistics. Fatal car accidents caused by overtired drivers.

  “Fine, you win. I’ll book a hotel room and sleep for a few hours before heading out.”

  Charli responded in her even tone. “I wasn’t aware we were playing a game.” She paused a beat before granting Ellie a mischievous smile. “But for the record, I do enjoy winning.”

  16

  A weird looking animal sprawled on the kitchen floor, its snakelike tail twitching every few seconds.

  The bad
man held the shiny silver knife out to Bethany. “All you have to do is pick up the knife and start cutting, wherever you like. Each cut will earn you a snack of your choice.”

  She backed away, shaking her head. “What is it?”

  He laughed. “It’s an opossum, my dear. One of the stupidest animals on the planet. You’ll be doing it a favor and saving it from becoming roadkill.”

  She took another step back. “No.”

  “Don’t be silly. I gave the marsupial medicine, so he won’t feel a thing. Each cut will earn you a small snack. Aren’t you hungry?”

  The promise of food made Bethany’s heart beat faster, and she glanced up at the bad man’s face. His smile was weird tonight. Softer than normal, and his voice was nicer too. Like he wanted to be friends.

  He moved, and she flinched, but he was only squatting down over the animal. “Here, I’ll show you that it won’t hurt, okay?”

  Before Bethany had time to protest, the knife flashed and sliced into the opossum’s fur near his tail. She covered her eyes, but when it didn’t make a sound, she peeked between her fingers. He laid in the same position, his eyes closed and chest gently rising and falling. The only change was the blood welling up where the knife had cut.

  “See? He’s perfectly fine, aren’t you, boy.” Doctor Rotten patted the furry head before rising. “Now, it’s your turn.”

  When he pushed the knife toward her, a red streak glinted on the silver. The opossum’s blood. “No.”

  “No?”

  His voice changed in that one word, wrenching Bethany’s gaze up to his face. She yelped at the angry line of eyebrows and tried to jump away, but she was too late. His free hand snaked out and grabbed her wrist, dragging her closer to the sleeping animal.

  “How about this? I’ll give you an entire meal in exchange for three cuts deep enough to draw blood. Deal? Your mother would tell you to accept, you know. She wouldn’t want you to starve over some dumpster diving pest.”