“Nobodies,” Porter said. “Absolute nobodies. But, Pelletier’s face popped up on a security camera here, a cell phone camera there, and the first few times that it happened to be in the vicinity of a murder that the bureau was investigating was considered a coincidence. But coincidences are only coincidences for so long.
“First one that we know of was Kevin Baxter. Forty-two-year-old father of three and devoted husband to a wife dying of stage III-A lung cancer. There’s every reason to believe that Pelletier knew this, because he had loaned Baxter some money for unknown reasons—my theory is that Pelletier was trying to break into the loan shark business at that time—but none of Baxter’s wife’s problems or their children mattered much when, if you believe the forensics guys, he lured Baxter to a meeting in a dark parking lot and beat his brains in with a baseball bat, and then took his body out into the middle of a swamp and dumped it.”
“What was the motive?” Leon asked.
Porter didn’t answer. Instead, he moved on to the next victim. “Six months later a nurse named Miriam Downey turned up in the Tennessee River outside of Huntsville, Alabama. She was shot twice in the head. She was last seen in the company of a white male by four witnesses who described a person matching Pelletier’s description. After forensics came up with an approximate time of death, it matched with the time that Pelletier was confirmed to have been Huntsville, stealing cars for a chop shop that Huntsville PD have since busted up.
“There are four other bodies that we can line up with Pelletier’s criminal run through the South. The shit that happened in Baton Rouge was a result of what happened when he was back in CRC, before he was sent to Leavenworth. All signs begin to show that Spencer Pelletier is the most active serial killer in the U.S. A monster that none of us predicted, not even Drew McCulloch, the psychologist at Leavenworth, who we believe was his last victim before Baton Rouge.”
Leon’s eyes widened. “He killed his prison shrink?”
Here, Porter made a face. “I told you that I would tell you when you were hearing things that haven’t been confirmed and shouldn’t be repeated. This is one of them. Dr. Drew McCulloch died in excruciating pain a week and a half after Pelletier escaped prison.”
“He tracked him down after escaping?” Leon asked incredulously.
Porter shook his head. “No. Poisoned him. At least, a lot of us think so. See, amongst the other two thousand inmates at Leavenworth, Pelletier had kind of vanished in a way. He receded into the background, didn’t cause any trouble. He was assigned prison work, did it, and didn’t complain about it. And sometimes he helped out in the kitchen. The day before his escape, a few prisoners had been caught smuggling in some leaves from rhododendron plants.” Leon shook his head, not understanding. Porter explained, “They can be ground into powder, put into a drink or in some food, and they cause excruciating death. You’ve got them all over Georgia here, especially up north. Indians sometimes used the leaves to commit suicide. Anyways, we think Pelletier managed to get some of that into McCulloch’s food or drink somehow when he appeared for their last session. Pelletier knew he was getting out, but made sure he took care of McCulloch first.”
“Why?”
Porter shrugged.
Leon glanced over at the house, saw the medics still huddled calmly around David Emerson. Leon hadn’t spoken with him yet, but the man had looked more pissed off than scared when he first got here. None of David’s injuries were serious, he said he just had a lot of stuff in his eyes. The medics were insisting that he go and get checked out for a serious corneal abrasion, but he was still refusing them.
“Jesus,” Leon said. “This guy’s a fucking maniac.”
“Yes,” said Agent Porter. The word had the ring of a man who was hearing a theory of his, long held in contempt or at least doubted by his peers and/or upper echelons, finally vindicated. “He passed through the system slick enough in his youth, and obeyed and disappeared frequently enough to become forgotten. But he’s a killer. His psych eval in prison and those he underwent in the reformatory point to extreme narcissistic personality disorder, undiagnosed all these years, and coupled with a highly volatile temper. The fights he got into in prison, and the shit that happened with the kid Hoover, were all reportedly over relatively mundane things.
“He tends to build things up in his mind, sees aggression everywhere and in anyone, depending on the weather and the day o’ the week, and reacts violently. One of his old pals in Biloxi that we talked to said that Pelletier once said to him, ‘I like killing. It makes me feel better about myself.’ End quote.”
“So what’s he doing here?”
“We don’t know, really. Running from retribution in Baton Rouge? Maybe he’s finally flipped for good? Going on one last final rampage?” Porter shrugged.
“What exactly happened in Baton Rouge, Agent Porter?”
“A hit.”
“A what?”
“A contract killing. The AB put it out on him for what he did to one of their guys in prison.”
“The AB? You mean the Brotherhood?”
Porter nodded.
Leon was about to ask him what exactly their psycho had done to the Aryan Brotherhood when Agents Mortimer and Stone came hustling around the patrol car. “Yo, boss,” Mortimer said. “Forensics found a twisted wad of ethnic hair in the back room with the space heater. They said it looks recently pulled out. All of the vics here have short hair. They say its length and the smell of the shampoo used, probably a girl’s wad of hair.”
“They were here,” Leon said. “God damn it, the girls were here!” They all absorbed that truth for a moment. Leon looked at the El Camino and the Expedition. “What happened, then? The buyers show up and kill the kidnappers?”
“Hard to say,” Porter said, looking around the street. “Seems likely.”
Leon turned to him. “What about this…this Rainbow Room, or whatever? You ever heard o’ these guys?” They hadn’t really had time to discuss it all at the Yeti’s place before they each took off for Townsley Drive in their own vehicles, and the fury that Leon had felt over his car being stolen (and now discovering that it had been Pelletier who’d taken it) had temporarily pushed the Yeti’s words from his mind.
Agent Porter shook his head. “I’ve never heard of the Rainbow Room before, but I’ll be very interested in seeing where this leads. ’Scuse me a sec,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his cell. Someone was sending him a text message, and he sent one straight back. “Well,” he sighed. “Fuck me. Just…fuck me. That’s anticlimactic.”
“What is?” Leon asked.
“Spencer Pelletier.”
“What about him?”
“I think your boys just shot and killed him five blocks up.”
8
The foundation of every society, Spencer had decided long ago, was the same. The Weak had gathered in great numbers in resistance against the Strong. The Strong, formerly in power because of their obvious advantages, were suddenly out in the cold because even a lion can be torn apart by a bunch of mangy dogs. But then, something had happened that had irrevocably changed all societies forever. The Strong-Minded had found ways of ruling the Weak, ruling without real physical strength or power or any willingness to get their hands dirty themselves. This left the Strong even more isolated, and gave the Weak a sense that they were truly protected from the Strong for all time.
But the Strong still lived. In pockets and alleyways, at the edge of a city or deep in its heart, hidden away in a chamber where few ever glanced. Forgotten Places. Dead spaces. In accordance with the laws of evolution, the Strong had adapted a sense besides the basic five. This sense helped them find these Veins, these lanes and arteries that moved through a city built by the Weak and forgotten.
Even though it had been years since Spencer had really driven the streets of Atlanta, she was still a city. Her curves were the same as all the others. Certain amenities could be found in all the same places. The arteries through which the
city’s blood (the people) flowed were the same, some were just small and neglected. He found these easily.
Spencer’s heart was racing, but only from the run, not from any real adrenal dump. He had dropped the shotgun in the middle of the woods and kept running. He was still tittering to himself.
He paused at the edge of the housing development to allow the patrol car to go past. Only its headlights were on when it passed him, but halfway down the street a spotlight switched on and grazed over the very ditch where he was hiding. The ditch was shallow, but Spencer was confident that as long as he didn’t move, he wouldn’t be found. The human eye caught movement before it caught color or pattern; that much he remembered from his days studying wilderness survival.
The patrol car slid on by, and once it had turned down another street Spencer hopped up and jogged across to the other sidewalk. He jogged through the back yard of a house that wasn’t finished yet and had three squatters sitting in the back over a small fire. Spencer nodded to them amiably, and the three homeless waved back, watching him with incurious eyes. He scaled a chain-link fence and ran through a short patch of trees and sages until he emerge in another Forgotten Place.
There was a park bench to indicate this place had once been inhabited, and an UNDER DEVELOPMENT sign to show that it no longer was. Little more than mounds of dirt and flat grassless earth covered this area. There were three large stacks of two-by-fours that looked like they’d been left here since time immemorial. Spencer decided to rest a spell. He pulled up a truncated piece of wood and took a seat in between two of these stacks. He pulled out his cell and pulled up directions on Google Maps.
His stomach groaned. He hadn’t eaten since he’d had the burger at Dodson’s Store. Cursed with a high metabolism, Spencer was already growing hungry.
Thunder rolled someplace off in the distance, a reminder from a monster in retreat. A few specks of rain fell on him. Spencer checked the time on his cell. 2:32.
Somewhere far off, a gunshot rang out. Then several more in return. He thought, Somebody else is havin’ a bad night.
The house was a great deal more furnished than the one they’d left. But it had creaking wooden floors with a dark-brown finish had scrapes and chips that lent more than just character...some of them, at least one long, wavering scrape, looked like a drag mark. Paintings of no particular design, impressionistic one might say, hung from the walls, most of them canted to one side or another. A large, widescreen HDTV was on in the living room, through which they passed. A fat, shirtless man was sitting on the ratty couch, acknowledging them only by showing his annoyance when they marched in front of his view of some sci-fi series. It looked like Battlestar Galactica. One of Kaley’s friends at school, Paula, really liked that series. It was weird watching it now under these circumstances.
There was tattoo across the fat man’s voluminous belly: Мир ненавидит нас.
“Prastite,” Oni muttered to the fat man on the couch. The fat man waved a dismissive hand, and when he did Kaley spotted the same red, roaring bear tattoo on his arm as Oni had.
Down a hallway with black-and-white pictures hanging a bit straighter on the walls, they encountered a younger-looking kid, this one blonde-haired and blue-eyed, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old. He looked at Oni and asked, “Chto ty delayesh?” Oni laughed and hollered something at the kid, then reached out and messed up his hair. Kaley wanted to ask the teenager for help, but had the strangest feeling that everyone inside this house was okay with kidnapping children. It’s a family business.
The teenage boy then regarded her, very briefly, with hungry eyes. It was so brief it could scarcely be said to have happened at all, and then he moved on down the hall, out of sight.
They passed through a kitchen, where yet three more men waited, playing cards and smoking cigars. One of them spotted Oni and said, “Dmitry! Kak tvaya mama?”
“Takzhe,” said Oni.
Dmitry, Kaley thought. Oni’s real name is Dmitry. What she would do with this information was quite beyond her, but it was something to cling to. She knew something else about her abductors. It gave hope.
Just outside of the kitchen was a door. Olga was moving to open it. Kaley knew what was on the other side without having to see it. She could almost feel the dark shadows creeping up the narrow stairwell. She could almost see them moving under the door.
The men backed off a little and Olga turned to face all three children. She bent over to look the smaller ones in the eye. “Skolka vam let?” Olga asked, with cloying sweetness. Then, she laughed. “Sorry, I forget myself. They don’t teach Russian in your schools here, do they? A pity. They should.” Kaley said nothing. Shannon said nothing. The nameless girl looked down at the ground sucking her thumb and holding the cross about her neck. “I’m Olga. What are your names? Let’s start with you.” She snapped her fingers, and just like that knives were in the hands of her captors. Kaley was tugged at the back of her head. Then, all at once, the pressure was off her face. Her jaw popped as the tape was ripped from her face and the sock fell from her mouth. “Your name, sweetie.”
Olga made it sound like a command, not a polite request. She’s done this before. It’s old habit for her. Kaley still couldn’t believe she was here, now, experiencing this with her sister. How many times? How often do they do this kind of thing? Then, her eyes drifted to the dark chasm beyond the door. What’s down there?
Olga moved her head so that she blocked Kaley’s view of the stairs. “Now there’s nothing to be scared of, my girls,” she said. “You’re safe now. You’re in my home. Now, I’ve told you my name. What’s yours?”
“I wanna go home,” Kaley said. It sounded like the most logical request in the world, yet in these circumstances it also sounded like the dumbest. There was no way it could go that way. No way at all.
Olga, predictably, took on a hurtful frown. “Now, why would you want to go home? Your mother isn’t very kind to you, now is she? No. She’s very neglectful, isn’t that right?” Olga turned her frown upside-down. “Here, you’ll be very prized. Very valued.”
Kaley’s nostrils flared automatically. “How do you know our mother?”
“We know. We pick little boys and girls up all the time who we see having problems at home. We know, sweetheart. We know your pain. We know you—”
A wad of spit smacked Olga in the face. It took Kaley a moment to realize it had been hers. She’d done it before even planning it. “Fuck you!” she said, just as involuntarily. “You fucking cunt! You’ve been watching us? How long?”
“Olga,” said one of the men beside her.
“How long?!” Kaley demanded, tears welling up.
Olga didn’t blink. She had never blinked, not once since Kaley had been watching her. She reached up and pushed the spittle away with her sleeve and said, “Very well, you little bitch. Let’s cut this shit. I know your names already. You are Kaley Alexandria Dupré. And this is your sister, Shannon Alexis. The girl on your right is Bonetta LeShanda Harper. You were brought here unharmed out of the kindness of my two brothers’ hearts. That’s Mikhael and Dmitry there. You will all get to know them very well.” She reached out and touched Shannon on her head. “Ti takaya privlekatelnaya—”
“Don’t touch her!” Kaley shouted and lunged. But Oni, or rather Dmitry, was there to snatch her by her hair, just as he’d done before, and yanked her back. She fell to her knees and he twisted her head back so that he could scream straight down into her face. Kaley didn’t understand a word he said, but she took the meaning. Dmitry finished by spitting in her face, then tossing her down onto the white, cracked linoleum.
Olga sighed and whispered something to Mikhael, the driver of the SUV, who nodded and turned to give the jaundiced man an order. Dmitry and the jaundiced man then led the girls downstairs. It was dark. Oily shadows caressed and drew her forward.
They moved slowly with Kaley in front, the men blocking their only exit. They all had their guns out. It was strange, seeing such
men afraid of what little girls might do. Shannon showed them that we might fight. They’re prepared now. And they’ve trapped us all by threatening not to kill the escapee, but the one who remains behind.
Even before the lights were switched on, Kaley’s charm had already informed her. She saw the brightly-colored walls, the purple and pink unicorn cutouts that were taped up, the pink bearskin rug and the colorful teddy bears. She saw it all a full two seconds before the lights came on and showed her exactly all that.
The low-ceilinged basement had many rooms. There were doors all around them, but all of them were closed. There was a sandbox, and an area where a small playground had been erected—a playground designed for children no older than three or four. There was glitter on the ceiling, along with stars and moons and galaxies. But, dominating most of the ceiling was a wide, holographic rainbow. Kaley stared up at it. It was something she would find incredibly pretty if she weren’t in this predicament. From this point forward, rainbows would be objects of dreadful portent.
The lighting in the room was quite spectacular, and came from every direction. Special spotlights covered every little “scene,” including a section that was as big as Kaley’s room and Shannon’s room put together, and it was filled with dollhouses.
If Kaley didn’t know instinctively that this was a place where children were raped and murdered, she would’ve thought it a lovely place to spend her afternoon playing with Little Sister. Knowing it caused every slide, every doll, and every rainbow to assume grotesque depths and dimensions.
Everything smelled fresh. Nothing like upstairs, which had the smell of old men. No, down here everything was sanitized and made perfect. Lysol disinfectant cans sat on a table close by, as did a vacuum cleaner and a broom. There was a mop…slightly tinted red. Beside the table was an array of video cameras, including a Canon Rebel T3i on a tripod (which she recognized because her friend Shala’s dad had had one briefly), and a bunch of microphones situated on long, metal poles. There was a rack of children’s clothes nearby, everything from schoolgirl uniforms to bunny rabbit costumes, from a pink tutu to a Team Jacob shirt.
Psycho Save Us Page 20
