The Ophelia Killer

by Valerie Geary

  “What could possibly be more important than finding Cherish’s killer?” Jimmy asks through clenched teeth.

  “Tell me something,” Rausch says, ignoring Jimmy’s question. “You were first on the scene with the Spalding girl, weren’t you? Got there before my guys did, even. That seems pretty convenient, doesn’t it? The way you seem to know what’s going on before anyone else does? I asked around about you, Slim Jim, don’t think I didn’t. You know what everyone told me? That Cherish Spalding isn’t the only time you’ve been one of the first people to show up to a scene. That you seem to have a knack for knowing where dead girls are going to turn up.”

  “I’m just paying attention,” Jimmy says. “Which is more than you seem to be doing.”

  Rausch’s lips pull back in a smile caught somewhere between amusement and distaste. “You know, I heard this story once. About a firefighter who started his own fires. He’d set these fires all over town. Then he’d swoop in with his lights and sirens and save the day. He liked being the hero. The rush of it. He was addicted to the adrenaline, the power of being the one who kept people from being burned alive in the houses he set on fire.”

  “This is ridiculous.” Jimmy flings his hands in the air. “I didn’t kill Cherish or anyone else, and that’s the last time I’m going to say it. If you have proof that says the opposite, arrest me. Otherwise, there’s the door. Kindly show yourself out.”

  Rausch crosses the room.

  When he reaches the door, Jimmy says, “If you don’t throw every single resource you have behind this case over the next few weeks, another girl is going to die.”

  Rausch turns to look over his shoulder. Sweat glints on his broad forehead. “Is that a threat, Mr. Eagan?”

  “No, Detective Rausch.” Jimmy lays emphasis on the man’s title. “It’s the plain and simple truth.”

  Rausch shakes his head and leaves. The door slams shut behind him.

  * * *

  After Rausch’s visit, Jimmy calls Annabeth every day to check on the progress of the investigation, and every day Annabeth says the same thing. “I don’t know anything about anything anymore, Jimmy. They all clam up when I come into the room. They don’t want me talking to you. I’m sorry. I wish I could help.”

  After a week of this, Annabeth answers his call on the verge of tears. “Jimmy, you’ve got to stop calling here, okay? I’m going to get fired.”

  So Jimmy stops calling. Rausch knows what’s at stake; he just doesn’t seem to care. Getting Annabeth in trouble isn’t going to help anything.

  August arrives with a clap of thunder. It rains for almost a week straight, with thunderheads rolling through every night, rattling the windows and setting the neighborhood dogs howling. The hair on Jimmy’s arms refuses to lie flat. He tries to distract himself with work, with other stories, but finds himself going back over his notes on the August girls and waiting for the call to come over the police scanner.

  After the storms pass, the entire valley is weighted down by sweltering heat that won’t break. Even the nights are sticky and warm, the temperatures never dipping below sixty-five. During the day, it’s over a hundred degrees in the shade.

  On those hottest nights, when Jimmy can’t sleep, he goes to the house where Cherish used to live with her two friends. Starting from the end of their driveway, he walks in circles around the block, expanding ever outward, hoping to stumble upon something or someone. A shadow lurking in the corners, a clue that will send him to the right place before it’s too late. A part of him is out here, too, because he is scared for Cherish’s roommates, and all the other girls living in different houses up and down this street. He doesn’t want another one to turn up dead. Though he knows it will happen, that for as long as the man who killed Cherish Spalding is free, he will keep killing. But the nights when Jimmy is out here, his footsteps echoing in the dark, he wants to believe he can protect them.

  He keeps the scanner close beside him, shuffling it between work and home, listening to every crackle and pop, but the only codes called are for domestic violence, burglaries, and suspicious persons.

  As the end of August draws near, Jimmy begins to wonder if the Ophelia Killer left Salem, if maybe there won’t be a dead girl this year after all.

  In one week, it’ll be September, and maybe the heat will finally turn autumn cool. But until then, the air conditioning in the press room is broken, and Jimmy’s suffering through it and trying not to think about what it would mean if the Ophelia Killer isn’t close by anymore.

  Jimmy’s shirt is drenched in sweat. The small fan clipped to the corner of his desk does nothing but blow hot air across his already flaming skin. He rises from his chair, thinking he’ll go to the convenience store down the street and buy the rest of the crew popsicles. Before he even takes a step, the phone on his desk rings.

  It’s Annabeth. She’s sniffling, breathless. “They’re not putting it out on the radio. Mike doesn’t want a circus showing up, but Jimmy, you have to go, you have to—” Her voice cracks around a sob. “They found another one, Jimmy. Out near Valentine Creek. They found another girl like Cherish.”

  Chapter 8

  Jimmy parks behind a line of green and white sheriff’s cars. After a quick scan of the road and the officers waiting in the nearby field, he can see no one from Salem PD or Rausch’s team has arrived yet.

  According to Annabeth, or at least from what Jimmy could piece together through her sporadic sobbing, the body was found outside the city limits, and the county sheriff responded first. When the deputies realized what they were dealing with, they made a discreet call to the Salem PD and asked for Detective Michael Rausch. Everyone locally knows he’s the one in charge of dead girls now. No one else wants to touch this.

  Jimmy didn’t speed to get here. He didn’t take any shortcuts because there are no shortcuts. The only way to get to Valentine Creek is to head east on Highway 22 toward Silver Creek Falls, take the Fern Ridge Road exit, and drive through rolling empty farmland for a few miles. He heard the news from Annabeth after Rausch got the sheriff’s call, and yet somehow, he still beat the detective here.

  After last month’s disaster of a conversation at his apartment, Jimmy knows how showing up first is going to look. Showing up at all is probably a bad idea, but neither can he stay away. He stares over the field where the sheriff’s deputies are waiting in a loose circle near a clump of fir and ash trees.

  It’s nearly identical to the place where they found Cherish Spalding. An expanse of tilled earth edged with trees. Dust devils spin across the barren field. Inside the green shadows of the woods, Jimmy knows there’ll be a trickle of water, a creek if it’s wide enough. That’s where the girl will be, too, tucked inside those thirsty limbs, sheltered from the baking sun and prying eyes.

  Knuckles rap on the driver’s side window. Jimmy startles and whips his head around. A young woman in a tan uniform, with a forest green windbreaker pulled over her shoulders, peers into his car. A sheriff’s star is embroidered onto the jacket’s left breast pocket, but there’s no name badge visible.

  Jimmy swings his eyes up to her face, suddenly embarrassed that he was looking at her chest, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Her brown hair is pulled back into a low, tight bun, revealing sharply angled cheekbones and a prominent forehead. She squints at him through the glass. Her hand hovers close to the service weapon strapped to her hips.

  “You lost?” she shouts through the window.

  Jimmy fumbles in his seat for his press badge and holds it up with what he hopes is a disarming smile.

  The woman’s glare hardens. She straightens and takes a step back, swinging her head around like she’s looking for someone else to pass him off to. Jimmy takes the opportunity to crack open the car door and get out.

  “I’m Jimmy,” he says, but she ignores him.

  In the six years working the crime beat for the Statesmen Journal, she’s the first woman he’s seen in uniform. He knows women w
ho work with the force, civilians like Annabeth, but he’s never met a woman wearing a badge.

  “You’re new, right? I’ve shown up to a lot of these, and I’ve never seen you before.” He laughs lightly, talking to her the way he talks to everyone else, easy, friendly.

  But she’s not everyone else. She swings her gaze to him. Her eyes are a dark blue, swirling with shreds of gray fog.

  “This is an active crime scene.” Her voice is tense enough to shatter. “Stay out of the way.”

  She spins away from him and marches back to her post in front of the perimeter tape strung along a barbed-wire fence delineating the field from the gravel berm. She’s been assigned crowd control. There’s no crowd now, but there will be. News like this spreads faster than a rash. Soon enough, the road will be crowded with TV news vans and other reporters like Jimmy.

  The female deputy stands with her back to the trees and the half-dozen men in matching tan shirts waiting in the field for someone to tell them what to do. She stares into the distance, her face as stony and unmoved as the pebbles beneath her heavy boots. She keeps her arms folded over her chest, her back straight and bristling. There’s no softness in her except the curve of her hips.

  An unmarked car parks on the road behind Jimmy’s car. He tears his eyes away from the woman and walks to meet Detective Rausch, who unfolds himself from the driver’s seat and cracks his neck. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  He doesn’t sound angry, just bored. He moves his gaze away from Jimmy to the female deputy standing by the perimeter tape. His tongue darts across his lips. “Who’s that?”

  He doesn’t wait for Jimmy’s answer.

  With Jimmy close on his heels, Rausch strides over to the deputy and leans in too close. “It’s a crime to look that good in a deputy’s uniform, you know. Shame. I might have to arrest you.”

  She steps back. Rausch steps forward, devouring the gap. “You need my name, right? How about I give you my phone number, too. But don’t call too late on weeknights. My wife wouldn’t like it very much.”

  The deputy grits her teeth and reaches to lift the yellow tape. “Go ahead, Detective Rausch.” She says his name in a way that sounds like ‘roach,’ and the hard flint of her eyes tells Jimmy she’s deliberately mispronouncing it. “They’re all waiting for you down there.”

  She gestures to where the other deputies are standing near the trees.

  Rausch glares at her for half a second, then huffs a loud breath and ducks under the perimeter. Jimmy starts to follow him, but Rausch presses a hand to his chest, keeping him back. He laughs. “Yeah, I don’t think so, Slim Jim. The last thing I need is you underfoot, mucking up my crime scene. You can wait here with the missus. Depending on what I find down there, I might want to talk to you anyway, so don’t stray too far.”

  Detective Rausch walks down the sloped berm toward the trees with long strides and a swagger in his step.

  “What a creep.” The deputy mutters it under her breath.

  Jimmy flattens the smile tugging on his lips and pretends he didn’t hear her. “Did you say something?”

  She flashes him a glance and shifts slightly away from him.

  Jimmy lets a few seconds of silence pass before he says, “So. A woman deputy. You don’t see that every day.”

  She says nothing, but her nostrils flare.

  “What made you join up? Let me guess. Your father was a cop?”

  Her gaze slides over to him. There’s nothing nice swimming in her eyes.

  “Is this an interview?” Her voice is clipped, still pissed off about Rausch. Understandably.

  “Not if you don’t want it to be.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and digs a toe into the ground. “I’m just curious about how someone like you ends up in a den full of wolves. It can’t be easy dealing with assholes like Rausch all day long.”

  She grimaces and turns her gaze back to the field across the road. “Thank God they’re not all like Rausch.”

  Another silent minute passes. Without turning her eyes from the trees, the deputy says, “I know who you are. I’ve read your articles.”

  “Oh good,” Jimmy says. “Then you’re well aware that I’m full of crap.”

  The laugh surprises him. It’s a horse snort. Loud and immodest. He feels his heart flutter in a way he hasn’t ever felt it flutter before, and for the briefest of moments, he worries he’s having a heart attack. Then the feeling passes. He slides a bashful grin in her direction. “How long have you been a deputy for?”

  “About a year.” There’s a hint of pride in her voice. “I was a correction’s officer before this. But I was getting tired of being stuck inside all day.”

  Her whole body tenses, her focus shifting again to the opposite field, to a small clump of trees twisted with shadows and blackberry vines. “Did you see that?”

  Jimmy squints but sees nothing unusual.

  “I think there’s someone over there.” Her hand reaches for her gun, and then she’s bounding away from him, taking off in a streak of tan polyester. The gravel crunches under her boots as she darts across the road and disappears into the trees.

  Jimmy can hear her shouting at someone to stop. “Police! Get down on the ground!”

  He glances in the direction of Detective Rausch, but the man is tucked out of sight in the trees near the creek, and none of the other deputies are close enough for Jimmy to wave over for assistance. Another shout echoes in the distance, and it sounds like someone might be hurt. Jimmy darts across the road, shoving through the bushes where the deputy disappeared only a few moments before.

  He ducks beneath a low-hanging branch and pushes through thorny vines, chasing the sounds of crashing brush ahead of him. Noises echo all around, loud in every direction. He quickly becomes turned around in the tangled vegetation. He pushes forward anyway, trying to get closer to the panting sound of someone running, the swift thump of footsteps against the hard earth. He breaks into a small clearing and stops for a second to catch his breath and get his bearings again.

  The clearing is small enough he could spread his arms wide and touch every leaf. He spins in a circle, listening for sounds, trying to decide which direction to go in. There hasn’t been any more shouting since he entered the thicket. He doesn’t know if the deputy’s hurt or if she’s given up the chase and gone back to the road.

  Behind him, branches crack. He turns toward the sound, bracing himself for whatever beast is barreling through the trees straight for him.

  The crash knocks the wind out of him. He ends up on his back on the ground with a long-haired, wild man on top of him, pummeling fists, grunting and snorting like a mad raccoon. Spittle drips onto Jimmy’s face. Jimmy bucks and squirms and tries to get his hands free to protect himself, but the man pins his arms with his knees. He’s got at least thirty pounds on Jimmy, too, and a fear in eyes that borders on rage. Whatever this man is running from, he’s desperate not to be caught, and Jimmy understands quite clearly that he will not hesitate to kill.

  Jimmy goes limp, hoping that by playing dead, the man will get bored and decide to leave on his own, but it doesn’t work. The man’s fists keep raining down on Jimmy’s face, blow after blow until his head is ringing and he sees stars. The whole world lights up with the bright explosions coming from inside his skull.

  Suddenly, the man is wrenched back. From where Jimmy lays sprawled in the dirt, it looks as if the man is flying away from him, pulled back by some supernatural force. Jimmy stays on the ground, feeling his fingers over his body, checking to see that he’s still in one piece.

  Nearby, there’s a crashing sound and a loud grunt, then the hissing of breath through teeth and a woman saying, “Hold still, you piece of shit.” A clatter and clank of metal. Then more rustling of leaves and brambles. “Goddamn it. Sit there and don’t fucking move.” A breath puffed out in victory, then she’s standing over Jimmy with her hands on her hips. A dark silhouette against the gray sky, a goddam
n superhero.

  She reaches one hand toward him. “Are you all right?”

  Jimmy lets her help him to his feet. He groans. The world seems to be spinning too fast. There’s a copper taste in his mouth, the bitter salt of his own blood.

  “Easy does it,” she says and wraps her arms around his waist to keep him steady. “You took quite the hit.”

  “I got the shit kicked out of me.”

  That laugh again, but softer now, edged in concern. “Can you stand on your own?”

  He tests his weight, finds he’s more stable than he thought he was. There’s a sharp pain in his ribcage. The rest of him feels like he was hit by a truck. But he can breathe, he can stand, he can take a small step. The stars in his skull have fizzled to nothing. The ringing in his ears is still there, but not as loud as before. He flicks his gaze to where the man now sits against the trunk of a tree, breathing heavily, his eyes still wild, but he sits. He stays. His hands are cuffed behind his back. He bares his teeth at Jimmy and lets out a growl.

  “Who is he?” Jimmy asks.

  The deputy goes over to the man and kicks the side of his leg.

  The man yelps.

  “Who are you?” she asks. “What are you doing out here?”

  The man glares at her but says nothing.

  She bends close to his face. “There’s a dead girl barely a hundred yards from where I found you.”

  The man’s eyes widen as he tries to pull away from her. He wrestles against his cuffs, sputtering, “I didn’t—I didn’t—”

  “Now. Are you going to tell me who the hell you are and what you’re doing lurking around these woods, or am I just going to assume you’re the one who killed that girl?” The deputy throws her arm in the direction of the road.

  The man slumps his head against his chest. He whispers something.

  “Where did you leave them?” the deputy asks, making no attempt to hide the disgust in her voice.

  The man tips his chin to a section of the thicket where, if Jimmy squints, he can see a faint footpath. “Follow that to the creek.”