Thicker than Blood (Zoe Bentley Mystery)

by Mike Omer

  And the main question she had to address, before she could address any other, was who called the shots.

  She was almost certain Glover had planned the first two murders. But this abduction didn’t feel like Glover. It was too random, too dangerous, too far from his comfort zone. Grabbing a woman in the middle of the street?

  He’d have to be desperate to do it.

  Then again, he was dying, his time running out. Maybe he didn’t care anymore. He was on his final crime spree, inflicting as much damage as he could. It was possible.

  It felt wrong.

  “We have the tech report on the tires,” O’Donnell said, sitting down beside her.

  “Anything interesting?”

  “The tires are very worn, different from the previous one, meaning they switched vehicles. But it’s a van. Possibly even the same make.”

  Zoe nodded distractedly.

  “Any thoughts so far?” O’Donnell asked.

  “This wasn’t planned,” Zoe said. “This was an impulsive act.”

  “I agree. This wasn’t a street in which women typically walked around in the middle of the night. According to her parents, Rhea Deleon usually left her job early in the evening. They had no way of knowing she’d be there. Or anyone else for that matter.”

  “They drove by, saw her, and then they grabbed her.”

  “So . . . what? Is Glover becoming more unpredictable?”

  Zoe frowned. “The murder of Henrietta Fishburne was carefully and diligently planned. The car, the location, the time, the gear they brought with them. They moved the body and spent an hour posing it for some reason. Everything followed an agenda. And then just four days later, this happens?” She looked at O’Donnell. “This wasn’t Glover’s doing. This is his accomplice. He’s spiraling out of control. Out of Glover’s control.”

  “He’s cracking?”

  “Exactly.” Zoe thought for a moment. “We should interview some of the male congregation members from Riverside Baptist.”

  O’Donnell raised an eyebrow. “Now? Why?”

  “Glover’s accomplice is going through an intense psychotic episode, which led to this crime,” Zoe explained. “That means that he’d be much easier to spot during an interview.”

  O’Donnell shook her head. “Maybe. But we don’t have the people or the time to do it. As a matter of fact, we still don’t even have a complete list of congregation members. And what if we do it and find nothing?”

  “We can prioritize the list—”

  “Valentine and Bright don’t even believe the accomplice is necessarily from the congregation.”

  “But you do.”

  “I think it’s probable. But that’s not enough. We can’t base our entire investigation on your hunch. Especially not now, when we have new leads. And Rhea’s life might depend on our speed.”

  Zoe’s face flushed. “It’s not a hunch.”

  “It is.” O’Donnell shook her head. “Don’t give me that look—I’m not blowing you off. I’m telling you it can’t be done. There are just too many of them.”

  “What if I narrow it down?” Zoe asked. “Give you a short list of ten names?”

  O’Donnell hesitated. “You think a short interview will do? Fifteen minutes?”

  “Yes.”

  O’Donnell nodded. “Do it.”

  Zoe’s foot jerked repeatedly as she worked through the list that Patrick Carpenter had provided for the police. As O’Donnell had already pointed out, it was incomplete, in more ways than one. It seemed as if Patrick had sat down, with no reference aside from his imperfect memory, and jotted down names. Several names appeared on the list more than once. Some were only the first name, or the last name, and a few congregation member names were written in their short form. These issues also caused some conundrums. For example, both Josh Wilson and Joshua Wilson were listed as congregation members. Were they the same person, simply denoted differently? Or different people?

  Some had a phone number or address, but most didn’t. With enough time and patience, she could probably locate some of them, but she was running short on both.

  She took out her phone and dialed Patrick Carpenter. The phone rang unanswered for twenty seconds, and Zoe hung up. She considered just driving over to meet him. But she couldn’t be sure if he was at home, at the church, or with his wife in the hospital.

  She dialed Albert Lamb instead. He picked up almost immediately.

  “Hello?” He sounded weak, as if he’d been fading away since his daughter’s murder and was now almost gone.

  “Mr. Lamb, this is Zoe Bentley.”

  He sighed. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need to go over the congregation members list with you.”

  “Mrs. Bentley, I’m tired. It’s been a long . . .” His sentence stretched as if he tried to pinpoint the time frame. Long day? Long week?

  “I understand. But a woman has been abducted. We have very good reason to believe the man who killed Catherine is responsible. He’s from your congregation, Mr. Lamb—there’s no doubt. And the woman’s time is short.”

  A pause. “I’m at home, Bentley. Can you come over here?”

  She stood up and grabbed her bag. “I’m on my way.”

  CHAPTER 50

  “I don’t know who half of these people are,” Albert said, studying the list with bloodshot, puffy eyes.

  He looked even worse than last time, but it was the smell that was really getting to Zoe. He smelled of sickness, and stale vomit, and anguish. She was almost sure he still wore the same clothes from a few days earlier. His dog watched them with big wet eyes from the corner of the room.

  “This is a list we got from Patrick,” she said. “They’re members of your congregation.”

  “I know . . . I mean, the names are familiar. But I’m having a hard time connecting them to people. Catherine was the one who remembered everyone. If she were alive, she would give you a detailed list of each and every one of them, including their profession, their hobbies, and their favorite food. She was like that. I don’t know how the church will function without her.”

  If they could talk to Catherine, she could just tell them who’d killed her, who Glover’s accomplice was, and get it over with. The thought came unbidden, accompanied with a flash of impatience and followed by guilt. Albert was trying to help, and it wasn’t his fault that every moment made him think of his dead daughter.

  “What if you saw pictures?” Zoe suddenly asked. “Of the people? Would you be able to connect them to names?”

  He nodded hesitantly. “I’m good with faces.”

  She took out her laptop and turned it on. She opened the most recent folder, double-clicking the topmost picture. The image popped up on the screen, and to Zoe’s relief, Catherine wasn’t in it. It was a picture in church, five members of the congregation sitting on a pew, smiling at the camera. Glover wasn’t there, either, but there was one familiar man who Zoe had a hard time placing.

  Albert made a hiccupping sound, and for a second, Zoe thought he was about to burst into tears. But he actually smiled, just slightly. “The woman on the left is Harriette. Next to her is John, her husband, and then—”

  “John what?”

  “Hobbs.”

  Zoe wrote the image number in her notebook and the name. Then she added Caucasian, average height, married. “Do you know what he does for a living?”

  “Uh . . . road maintenance, I think. I remember he was once hurt in his job by one of the tools they use and couldn’t work for almost two months.”

  Road maintenance. “Anything else you can think of?”

  “They have two kids.”

  Two kids. “Okay. Next one?”

  “That’s Allen Swenson.”

  That was who he was. The guy she’d seen in the church. She jotted him down in the notebook. “Job?”

  “Accountant.”

  “Married? Kids?”

  “He was married. Divorced now.”

  “Anything el
se?”

  “Not that I can think of.”

  “Next?”

  “I don’t remember their first names, but their last name is Wilson.”

  They didn’t matter. The Wilson couple were African American. The witness who had seen the men take Rhea had said both men were Caucasian. “Okay. Next.” She clicked for the next picture, taken in the church’s entrance. Catherine was talking to a tall man.

  Albert reached out as if to touch the screen. Then he drew back and said, “This is Leon. Last name, uh . . . Farrell.”

  Zoe tried not to look at the time. This was painstakingly slow, but she was getting somewhere. “Married?”

  “No. He moved here from Nevada two years ago.”

  They developed a rhythm. As the images went by, Albert seemed to become more focused, perhaps reliving a happier time. Zoe listed the members, cross-matched them with Patrick’s list. Did her best not to rush Albert. And hoped Rhea was still alive.

  CHAPTER 51

  They had only one bathroom in the house.

  It hadn’t occurred to him before, but keeping the woman in the bathroom posed some difficulties. Daniel didn’t seem to care. If anything, he used the bathroom more now that the girl was in it.

  But the man in control couldn’t do it, not with the woman there. Even though she looked away, he just couldn’t. For now, he peed in a jar inside his room, constantly eyeing the door. But he’d have to find a better solution soon.

  The whole situation got to him. The tension between them was unbearable. And he worried about the girl; the gash in her forehead was inflamed. He suspected she needed to see a doctor, and that was out of the question, of course. But she couldn’t die, not yet. He still needed her.

  He prowled in the apartment, going to the kitchen, the bathroom to look at the woman, and back to his bedroom. Daniel kept his own door shut most of the day, probably asleep.

  The man in control had drunk the girl’s blood again, just a drop, from a small cut that he’d sliced into her right arm. He had to make sure he didn’t drink too much of her. He’d tried to research how much he could drink earlier but had found nothing.

  Oh, but he’d asked that guy on the vampire forum, hadn’t he?

  It frightened him, how hazy the past few hours had been, as if he was losing his hold on reality. He usually left home every day to live his other life. The life that now seemed remote and far away. He needed that life; it was what anchored him. Here, at home, with the woman, and Daniel, and the blood, he was floating away, like in a dream.

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would go out again.

  He sat down to check the forum. The admin, Abchanchu, was much nicer than he’d been last time they’d chatted. Now he saw Abchanchu had sent him a file. He wrote that the amount of blood could be found on those charts.

  Clicking the file, he downloaded it to his own computer but didn’t open it. He could hardly focus on reading the chat, not to mention understanding a complex chart.

  He answered Abchanchu, trying his best to sound casual. Can you give me a tldr version of this? Charts make my brain hurt LOL.

  Abchanchu answered after a few seconds. Haha. It’s a really simple chart. It’s best if you have a look at it, to make sure you aren’t taking too much.

  He gritted his teeth. Like, what would be a safe amount for the weight and height I told you earlier?

  The chat window showed that Abchanchu had received the message, but he took his time answering. I wouldn’t take too much. But if you really want to play it safe, check the chart. I don’t want to be responsible for giving you the wrong info.

  He sighed. He’d have to focus and read the chart.

  A sudden sound drew his attention. At first he thought it was some sort of strange vermin. But it wasn’t—it was the woman’s muffled screams.

  CHAPTER 52

  “He must have opened it,” Tatum said again, staring at the screen.

  “He didn’t open it,” Barb answered, exasperated. “We would have seen an indication.”

  “Maybe you messed up the Trojan horse?”

  “I didn’t mess it up,” Barb said between clenched teeth. “Tell him to open it.”

  “I can’t tell him to open it, because Peter wouldn’t have told him to open it. Peter wouldn’t have known he didn’t open it.” He wanted to smash the laptop to pieces. “Damn it! We must have spooked him somehow.”

  “How?” Barb asked incredulously. “We hardly said anything.”

  “I told you, he’s extremely paranoid right now—anything could set him off.”

  “But he’s still online.” Barb pointed at the screen. “Wouldn’t he have logged off?”

  Tatum had no idea. As far as he knew, the unsub could have curled into a fetal position, crying, in the corner of the room. Or fled out to the street. Or maybe the concept of opening a PDF file freaked him out so much that he decided to kill Rhea and himself. There was no way to tell.

  “I’ll prompt him. Maybe he’s just confused,” Tatum finally said.

  It took him a while to formulate the sentence, avoiding anything that would make it sound like Abchanchu really cared one way or the other.

  The chart is really simple. Do you see the column on the left, where it says “weight”?

  That could make the unsub decide to open the damn file. Tatum had quit smoking a few years before, but he suddenly craved a cigarette. He watched the screen, hardly daring to blink, praying for the indication that the file had been opened.

  CHAPTER 53

  He rushed to the bathroom, turned the doorknob, the woman’s screams dying away. The door didn’t budge. He blinked, confused, for a second thinking the woman had somehow managed to free herself and lock herself inside.

  But then, as her muffled voice completely stopped, he realized what was going on. Daniel had locked the door and was now taking care of the woman.

  “Daniel!” he screamed. “Open the door.”

  Nothing. He shook the doorknob. “Daniel! Don’t do it!”

  One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Three. No, not when he finally had a woman with truly pure blood. He’d never find someone like her again. He screamed and slammed into the door. Something cracked, and it flew open.

  Daniel knelt by the woman, a noose tight around her throat. The woman’s face was purple, eyes bulging as she struggled frantically against the zip ties that held her to the sink’s pipe.

  He pulled Daniel away, slammed him against the wall, screaming obscenities at him. Then he crouched by the woman, his fingers trembling as he tried to loosen the noose. It was too tight; he couldn’t get a grip. The woman’s eyes rolled back in their sockets. He let out a frustrated shout, dashed to his room, got one of his scalpels, ran back, and cut, slicing deeply through her skin. Blood ran freely down her neck to her shirt, soaking it. Her eyelashes fluttered as he tore the gag from her mouth, clearing the way for air.

  She coughed and spat, her gaze focusing on the bloody scalpel.

  “Don’t scream,” he said, waving the scalpel threateningly.

  She let out a hoarse, fearful sob. Then she inhaled, wheezing, shutting her eyes.

  He got up, whirled to face Daniel, who’d gone to the kitchen and was soaking a towel in the sink.

  “You asshole!” he screamed at Daniel.

  “Lower your voice,” Daniel said in a measured tone. He applied the wet towel to the back of his head. “You nearly broke my skull.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t.” His eyes were tearing up. Betrayal. He’d felt it before, but he never thought Daniel would do that to him. “After everything I did for you? This is how you—”

  “What you did for me?” Daniel snarled. “What about what I did for you? Who set you free? Who helped you to drink real, fresh blood for the first time? And now you place me in danger? I can’t leave this place. My face is plastered on every TV screen and newspaper in this city. I’m stuck here, with you and that damn bitch, waiting for the moment she’d manage to scream for help or free herself.”


  “She won’t. She can’t!” He shook his head. “Why would you even want to leave?”

  “We had a deal, remember?” Daniel asked. “I help you heal, and you do the same for me. I’m sick! I’m dying. You know what I need to get better.”

  “But you don’t have to do it like that. Try her blood. It’s so pure—it’ll cure you, I know it! Just try one sip—”

  “Her blood won’t cure my damn brain cancer!” Daniel trembled in rage now.

  “Yes it will,” the man in control whispered.

  Daniel took a few long breaths. Then, he let a small reassuring smile show. “Listen, you know why I did that? I was trying to protect you too. Her blood is tainted. She told me.”

  “What? No, it isn’t.”

  “She told me. She somehow managed to push the gag out. I went to the bathroom, and she was laughing. She said her blood is corrosive. She has HIV.”

  “No. You’re lying!”

  Daniel’s eyes widened, filled with hurt, and the man in control felt a stab of guilt.

  “Would I lie to you?” Daniel asked, his voice barely a whisper.

  No, of course he wouldn’t. Daniel had never lied to him. “I’m sorry.”

  “You can’t drink her blood. It will kill you.”

  His world was coming apart. No! It couldn’t be. He’d tasted her; she was so pure. “I need to make sure she doesn’t scream again,” he said weakly.

  He went back to the bathroom, knelt by the wheezing woman. The blood still trickled from her neck, though not in copious amounts. He was about to place the gag in her mouth, when she croaked, her words impossible to understand.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t tell him that,” she rasped. “I don’t have HIV.”

  Well, of course she would say that. She wanted him to get sick. But then . . . he’d tasted her. He’d know if . . .

  It was the tumor. It was Rod Glover.

  The tumor would have no problem lying to him. It wanted him dead as well. For a second he glanced back, scared he’d see the tumor behind him, a viscous blob of corrupted brain cells, slithering on the floor.