by M. Z. Kelly
“Don’t know ‘bout you two,” Max said, “but I think there’s a lot more to the story than we got. Even if Cornelius’s wife knows Suzanne Angelo from college, why the hell would her husband be secretly meeting with her? It doesn’t add up.”
“You think they’re having an affair?” I asked her.
Amy answered for Max. “You can bet on it. Like we said before, it’s gotta be a tough gig having a wife who’s got an MD in vagina.”
“I’d like to have a conversation with Suzanne and see if their stories match,” I said.
“Maybe we need to follow her again,” Max said. She looked at me. “By the way, you up for going by and talking to Maria Ramirez’s mama in the morning?”
“Providing you do the talking. Given my issues with the department, I’ve got to stay in the background on everything. I’ve also got a meeting with an FBI agent in the afternoon. He’s coming by to talk about my mother and the Phantom.”
“Does he know anything about your mom’s case?” Amy asked, finishing off her drink and pouring another from the blender.
“It’s in their open, unsolved caseload. It’s probably one of hundreds that haven’t been worked in years.” I took some time, mentioning that the agent was handsome and seemed surprisingly eager to meet with me.
“So, maybe there are some sparks starting to fly for Madison,” Max said, looking at Amy and raising a brow. “Let’s just hope she doesn’t have to wait six months for something to happen, like you and the jolly plumber.”
Amy sighed. “Don’t remind me. I don’t think I can stay on the sidelines for six months, even if Jake is trying to give me space and be romantic.”
I yawned and stood. “I’ll see you both in the morning.” I glanced at the freezers on the wall. “Maybe I’ll sleep like the dead.”
Despite my hopes that I could get a good night’s sleep, I found myself tossing and turning for several hours. I went over the facts of both our investigations as we knew them.
While I was happy that the girls had been freed, I shuddered when I thought about Maria Ramirez being with the man they called the Professor. I had no idea what horrors he had planned for the girl and felt powerless to do anything to help her.
My thoughts then turned to our search for Billy Cornelius. No matter how I tried to make the pieces of the puzzle fit that his brother had laid out, they didn’t come together. And the more I thought about his secret meetings with Suzanne Angelo, ostensibly to find his brother, the more that piece stood out amongst all the others. I decided that Dr. Cornelius probably had some deep, dark secrets in his closet, and uncovering those secrets might be the key to finding his brother.
Just before sleep finally came to me, a deep depression settled over me. I was divorced, pushing thirty years old, and living in a graveyard with a bank of freezers filled with dead bodies. My mother had been missing for years, and, for all I knew, she’d been murdered by the madman known as the Phantom. And the closest I’d gotten to being with a man in a couple years was my perverted cousin Mojo nearly raping me. I drifted away, the darkness of sleep mercifully closing in around me as I wondered how my sorry life had come to this.
FORTY-TWO
Maria Ramirez’s eyes fluttered open. There was a metallic taste in her mouth. It reminded her of the time she’d fallen as a little girl and cut her lip. She tried to bring a hand up to face, but her limbs seemed frozen in place. Somewhere in the distance, she heard the voices of children drifting down to her. A choir. It was a children’s choir. They were singing Silent Night.
She tried to move her arms and legs, but realized she was tied down to a table. Then she became aware of something else: she was naked. Where were her clothes? Then, all at once, her thoughts coalesced. She remembered the vile, disgusting man, the one who had bought her. He had used a stun gun on her. Where were Christina and the other girls?
She lifted her head slightly, looking around the room. It was dark here. There were shelves lining one wall. Some blankets were on a chair. Then she saw the small table next to the chair. There was a hammer there, and a knife. What was going to happen to her?
She listened for a long time as the children continued to sing several other Christmas carols. It made Maria think about her mother, and how much she missed her. Tears sprang from her eyes as she wondered if she would ever see her again.
Later, a long time later, the voices stopped, and she heard footsteps. The floorboards above the room where she was held creaked. A couple minutes later, she saw the dark figure moving down the stairway. It was the man, the one who had bought her. He was bald, with a shiny face, and a sickening grin that seemed frozen on his face.
The man stood in front of her, reached out, and brushed the hair off her forehead. “How are you feeling?” Maria turned away, but he grabbed her, forcing her to look at him. “Answer me!” he screamed.
Maria tried to answer, but her voice became choked with emotion.
The man’s voice changed, growing deeper and more insistent. He pulled her hair and bent down until he was inches from her face. “When I ask you a question, I expect an answer.”
She wanted to scream, but managed to say, “I’m...I’m okay.”
“Okay? Really?” He laughed. “I’d say you’re far from okay.” The Professor moved closer, until Maria could smell his sour breath. “Did you enjoy the music?”
Maria nodded, but otherwise didn’t respond.
“Wonderful,” he said. “Isn’t it amazing how children can sing the praises of God, while a few feet below them someone is…” The sickening smile played on his lips again. “…in your situation?”
She didn’t answer. He went over to the table, and returned a few moments later. She saw that he had a rectangular box in his hand, with some kind of dial on the front.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked. Maria shook her head. He turned some dials on the side of the box. “It’s called a metronome. Musicians use it to keep a regular beat as they play music.” He moved closer to her again. “I use it for another purpose.”
He pushed a button, and a rhythmic ticking sound began to play as he walked away. It was a few minutes later before he returned to her, this time carrying more objects, which he placed, one by one, on her bare chest.
“I’ve brought us some toys,” he said, laughing. “A knife, a small hammer, some nails, and, of course, something you’ve already experienced.”
Maria recognized the last object was the stun gun he’d used on her before. She knew he was going to use it on her again, along with the other things. She had to do something to save herself.
“The children,” Maria said. “Their music is so beautiful.”
The sickening grin she’d seen before was gone. “They’re too young. I’ve sampled their wares before and they’re...let’s just say they aren’t satisfying.” His dark eyes swept over her body. “You, on the other hand, are ‘just right’, as Goldilocks would say.” He laughed.
Maria forced herself to ask the question she dreaded. “What...what are you going to do to me?”
He studied her for what seemed like an eternity. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer than before. “Jim. You can call me Jim.”
She took a breath, forcing herself to remain calm. “Okay, Jim...what’s...what’s going to happen?”
His pensive expression was still there as he studied her. “Do you know what a threshold is?”
Maria considered his question, then said, “Do you mean, like a doorway when you enter a building?”
His smiled returned. “You’re quite correct, but there’s another kind of threshold, one that is quite exquisite. It marks the doorway from our everyday mundane existence to another realm, one that I plan to explore with you.”
Maria’s eyes grew wide with terror as he picked up the small hammer. “What...what are you going to do?” she managed to say.
He brought the hammer up. “I’m going to cross the threshold, my dear. You might want to hold on tight. What’s about to
happen will be like nothing you’ve ever experienced.”
Maria’s naked body shook as he held the hammer above her. “Please…” she begged. “Don’t hurt me.”
The man who said his name was Jim laughed again. This time it was deeper, more urgent. “It’s really just a matter of timing, my dear, like the musical notes in a symphony.”
As the metronome continued its steady beat, the Professor brought the hammer down, striking Maria’s head. “Let’s make some music,” he said, laughing.
FORTY-THREE
Max and I had the next day off and made arrangements to go with Amy to meet with Joanna Ramirez in the morning. While we knew that we would be disciplined, possibly even fired, if the department got wind of us continuing to search for her daughter, there were some things more important than department polices. Finding a kidnapped child was one of those things. We did our best to stay in the background as Amy questioned Ramirez.
“Has anyone from the police department been by to talk to you about Maria recently?” Amy asked, after some preliminaries.
Ramirez shook her head. She looked like she’d aged ten years since Max and I had first met her in the park. “No. Have you found her?”
“No, I’m sorry, but there were some other girls found that may have seen your daughter. She could be with a man they call the Professor.”
Her dark eyes drew up. “I don’t understand.”
“Does that name—the Professor—ring a bell? Maybe someone from Maria’s school?”
We got a headshake and some tears. She hugged her sides, tried to compose herself. “This makes no sense to me.”
Amy glanced at us, obviously frustrated. She looked back at Ramirez. “Please think. This man, it’s possible that Maria knew him before she was taken…” She drew in a breath. “…or it could also be that they crossed paths at some point very recently.”
After giving her a moment, Ramirez shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“What about Amy’s friends?” Max said, unable to keep quiet. “Is there someone Maria is close to who might be able to help us?”
After another lengthy hesitation we got, “Linda is Maria’s good friend. Maybe she could help.”
We got an address for Linda Meza and a promise from Joanna Ramirez that, if asked, she wouldn’t say anything to the authorities about our visit.
After a short drive, we located Maria’s best friend in the same neighborhood. We introduced ourselves to Linda and her mother on their doorstep, Amy explaining the reason for our visit. We were then led into a cramped apartment, where Rosa Meza brought us glasses of water.
Linda Meza had a doe-eyed, innocent expression, typical of a fourteen-year-old girl, especially when confronted by those who she probably considered authority figures. She was a pretty girl, with long black hair, dark eyes, and thick lashes. We again let Amy take the lead in asking questions.
After some chit-chat, Amy asked Linda, “When was the last time you saw Maria?”
The girl’s gaze drifted off. She looked back at us and softly answered, “I think it was a couple of days before…”
When she didn’t go on, Amy said, “Before she disappeared.”
A nod. “Yes. It was at school.”
“Did Maria ever mention anyone bothering her, maybe following her?”
“No. She was shy and didn’t even have a boyfriend.”
“Did she ever mention someone called the Professor?”
Her dark brows inched closer. “I don’t think so.”
“It might have been someone from your school, or maybe even another school, where she came into contact with this person—the Professor.”
Linda’s gaze moved off, and she brushed the dark hair from her eyes. “I just remember our guide talking about professors last summer. That’s all.”
“What kind of guide?”
“Maria and I went with some other students to tour colleges, places we might someday want to attend. They talked about there being professors there.” She giggled. “It made us kind of nervous.”
After some probing, we learned they’d gone on a school outing sponsored by their high school. The students had visited four colleges, but we got nothing back that gave us anything specific about the Professor. After several minutes of hitting the issue from several angles, we all looked at one another, knowing that we’d reached a dead end.
We were on our way to the door, when Max asked Linda, “Did Maria have an interest in mind, something she thought she might want to study when she goes to college?”
We got a nod and a wide smile. “Maria loves music.’
“Was she in a choir or singing group?” Amy asked.
“Yes. She wants to be a music teacher someday.”
FORTY-FOUR
Before leaving Linda Meza and her mother, we got the names of the colleges the girls had visited, and information about the school choir. I had already committed to meet with Sam Crawford that afternoon, but Amy and Max made plans to talk to Maria’s teacher, who went with the girls on the college tour, and the school’s choir director. We all knew it was a long shot that the Professor was linked to the colleges or the school choir, but a long shot was our only play.
After grabbing a bite to eat, showering, and changing clothes, I went upstairs to Balfour Cathedral. As I strolled around the cathedral, I realized that I was nervous about seeing the handsome FBI agent again. I did some deep breathing, trying to push down my anxiety, and telling myself that I was acting like a nervous schoolgirl.
“Nice little place you’ve got here,” a man’s voice called to me from the entry to the cathedral.
I walked up the stone steps to meet the FBI agent. “It’s a bit of a fixer, but with a little work, my friends and I think it will be a nice place—at least for the dead.”
He chuckled and held out a hand. “Nice to see you again.”
I giggled, again feeling my anxiety surfacing as we shook hands. “Would you like the grand tour?”
“Of course.”
We spent the next twenty minutes strolling around the massive cathedral, with me telling Sam, as he wanted me to call him, what little I knew about the history of the place. “Supposedly, Balfour was built in the late 1800s. It’s modelled after a similar cathedral somewhere in Europe, according to Thorndike.”
“Who?”
“He’s the mortician here. An odd little guy who prepares the bodies and oversees the funerals.” I glanced down the hallway to his chamber. “I don’t think your tour would be complete without you meeting him.”
We moved down the darkened hallway to Thorndike’s embalming chambers and living area. I knocked on the door several times, but there was no answer.
“I don’t think he would mind if we take a look,” I said, pushing the door open.
Thorndike’s body preparation area wasn’t as bad as the last time I’d visited, but it was bad. There were three bodies in various states of preparation for funerals. One of the bodies looked like lots of putty had been used to cover some facial injuries.
“This place looks like an accident scene,” Sam said, turning up his nose, after walking around the chamber. “You sure this Thorndike guy is on the up and up?”
“Not really. I don’t even know his first name. He claims he studied at Cromwell University, somewhere in Europe. When we locate him, it might be worth getting some more information about his background and running some record checks.” I glanced up into his blue eyes that, even in the dim morgue, seemed iridescent. I took a breath, my gaze moving off. “And, as I mentioned, he’s an odd one.”
After leaving Thorndike’s morgue, I gave Sam a brief tour of the caretaker quarters I shared with my friends, including showing him the bank of freezers with the bodies.
He smiled after glancing over at the rows of refrigerated compartments. “It looks like you’ve got about a dozen roommates.”
“It’s a little creepy. The only good thing is they don’t talk back.”
After some more chit-cha
t we walked back through the cathedral, then out to the cemetery grounds. The afternoon had turned warmer, and, if you didn’t know you were in a cemetery, the rolling grounds looked like we could be in a park.
We took a stroll along the perimeter of the grounds, where Sam commented on our surroundings. “It looks like a lot of the headstones are crumbling, and there’s been some vandalism.” He pointed to one of the larger grave markers, which was covered with graffiti.
“There’s a lot of deferred maintenance,” I agreed. “Not to mention what goes on here at night.” His brows went up. “My friend Max and I caught Thorndike digging around out here one night. We asked him what was going on, and he said he was just testing the frozen ground for the possible location of some new gravesites. It seemed a little strange to us.”
“All the more reason to get some background on the guy.”
After finishing our walk, we took seats on a covered patio area, where Sam asked me about my mother’s life. “Were you two close before…at the time she left?”
I blinked several times, surprised by the emotion his question had evoked. “Yes. I…I think that’s what made it so hard for me to accept her being gone all these years. She left me at a time…” I took a breath. “Twelve is a difficult age for anyone.”
He gave me some time, then asked, “Did you have any indication that she was involved in drugs at that time?”
I shook my head. “Mom worked as a waitress, so she was gone a lot at night. She was usually still asleep when I got up most mornings. Maybe it was because of drugs, but I can’t really say. I was a pretty naive kid.”
“And your father?”
“Never in the picture.”
He nodded, and we were quiet for a minute. In the distance some birds chirped as they flittered from one headstone to another.
Sam opened his briefcase. “I was able to look into things a little deeper around the time your mom went missing.” He removed a file, then handed over some photographs. “These were in one of the files the original investigator had.”
