by Stacy Green
Cold dread washed over me like a spring ocean wave. The investigator’s eyes met mine, and I recognized the look of the hunt: dilated pupils, nervous pacing, and an unnervingly calm voice as he finished his phone call.
“Are you Lucy Kendall?” His soft tenor didn’t match his height or the way he held himself, coiled and ready to spring.
My heart raced, all thoughts of the silver dollars and Mary Weston draining from my mind. I’d done nothing illegal since moving here. I hadn’t even brought any of my poison or drugs, dumping them all in the toilet back in my apartment in Northern Liberties. If this were about Preacher or some other kill, the Park Police wouldn’t come for me. I’d be staring at the carefully blank face of an FBI Agent.
“Can I help you?” I forced my voice not to shake.
He dropped his phone into the pocket of his dark jeans. “God, I hope so. Investigator Brad King. I need you to come with me.”
Now the fear turned into a jagged rock cascading through my belly. My armpits dampened; my lightweight, sleeveless dress suddenly felt unbearably heavy. I forced my hands not to clench into fists and looked him in the eye. “What for?”
King glanced at Bobby and Dean, who watched with brazen surprise. “It’s a private matter.”
“These gentleman are responsible for my safety, as well as everyone else’s in this building. I’d like them to hear this as well.”
As if it mattered. If this man was about to bring me in, I had little chance of keeping it a secret.
“I suppose you people are used to dealing with horrible stuff,” King said. “But the press needs to be kept out of this. We don’t know what we’re dealing with, and I don’t need a panic.”
My entire body relaxed to the point my knees weakened. This wasn’t about my past. “Of course. What’s going on?”
“A young woman’s body was recovered early this morning on Oxon Hill Farm in Maryland. We’ve identified her as a missing person out of Philadelphia.”
The damp hair on the back of my neck stood up. “I’m sorry to hear that. How can I help?”
King dragged his hand over his buzz cut. “There was a message written on the bathroom mirror. Your name was in it.”
My blood stilled, yet it roared in my ears. “I don’t understand.”
“The victim’s name is Shannon Minor, from Philadelphia. Do you know her?”
This time, my knees truly did give out. I swayed toward the security counter. Bobby caught my arm, and I found my words. “Yes. I was her social worker when I worked for Child Protective Services.”
The criminal investigator watched me with the alertness of a bull eyeing a red cape. “He used her lipstick for the message. ‘For Lucy Kendall, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.’” He held out a small plastic evidence bag. “This was clutched in her hand.”
The room spun like a Tilt-A-Whirl, throwing my equilibrium into fits. But then I saw Lady Liberty’s silhouette above the ‘1986’ on the tarnished silver piece.
2
Shannon was dead. Murdered and left with a silver coin just like the one I’d been mailed. What did the connection mean? Had I still managed to get the girl killed even though I’d moved hundreds of miles away? An overwhelming gloom wrapped around me, trapping me inside a dark cloud of sadness that even the bright, hot summer sun couldn’t penetrate. Despite the warmth streaming in the car window, I shivered.
“So tell me how you knew Shannon.” King wasn’t going to do me the favor of leaving me to my thoughts.
“I was her social worker several years ago. She went to a wonderful foster family.”
King grunted his acknowledgement. “You guys keep in touch?”
The last time I saw Shannon, my ego had nearly gotten her killed. “Occasionally. She had enrolled at Penn State for their paramedic and emergency medicine program.”
Lady Liberty seared into my brain with the force of red-hot fire poker. My coin had been postmarked in D.C. two days ago. The one left with Shannon looked exactly like it–centennial silver dollars, probably special issue. Mary Weston surely couldn’t have found out about Shannon, not from prison.
So who else had a target on my back?
“You doing all right?” King glanced at me out of the corner of his eye as he maneuvered through mid-morning traffic. Shannon’s body had been taken to the forensics lab in D.C., and King didn’t give me the option of taking a cab.
Stuck in the car with yet another unfamiliar police officer, I wished for the Prius and tried to decide how much to share about my coins. My right arm heated up from the invading sun, and I crossed it over my chest. “Don’t worry about me. What exactly happened to Shannon?”
I didn’t want to know, but I couldn’t do Shannon that injustice. I would take in every detail, both verbal and physical, and commit it to memory. Every part of her life deserved to be remembered and appreciated, even her horrific last moments. And I couldn’t help find her killer if I didn’t know everything.
Is that what I planned to do? Obviously her murder had something to do with me. The police had questions. I could answer them to the best of my ability and walk back to my new life. But how could I shortchange Shannon’s memory like that?
“She was taken from a Penn State parking lot after a night class two weeks ago,” King said. “No witnesses. Beaten and emaciated; severely dehydrated. That’s all preliminary. The autopsy’s later today.”
“Sexually assaulted?”
“No,” King said. “Unless the pathologist finds something else during the autopsy. There were no signs of sexual assault.”
I looked sharply at him. “He kept her for two weeks and didn’t assault her?”
He nodded. “Why are you assuming it’s a man? Shannon’s abductor could have a partner, and God knows women do some awful things. The lack of sexual assault means we have to consider both male and female suspects seriously. Shannon might have known her and gone with her. The Philadelphia detective handling her case has considered that an option from the beginning.”
Suddenly the sun wasn’t the only thing making me feel overheated. This man could have heard the rumors about me from the Philadelphia detective. His voice sounded placid, just a dutiful officer of the law seeking justice for an innocent person. But something more brewed behind his eyes. My imagination had to be playing tricks.
My phone buzzed in my hand. I glanced down at the text and felt the tension further knot in my shoulders. Chris. We’d only spoken a handful of times since I left Philadelphia, and we were no closer to an understanding. His texts were always the same: “Just checking in. Miss you. We need to fix this.”
Except I was pretty sure “this” couldn’t be repaired.
“You’re right,” I said. “There are plenty of women in this world who do terrible things. And you could be right about the partnership. But what happened to Shannon sounds very feral, and it’s hard for me to imagine a woman working that way. We’re much more subtle.” Even Mary Weston, one of the worst female serial killers in history, had her subtleties. She didn’t survive decades on the run by leaving messages at her crime scenes.
King seemed pacified. “I won’t disagree with you. And as bad as this sounds, the lack of sexual assault makes this whole thing a lot scarier to me.” He swerved into the inside lane. “Her foster mother said you were her social worker.”
“That’s right, several years ago.” I thought about the last time I’d spoken with Shannon’s foster mother. She’d forgiven me for the injuries I’d caused Shannon. Would she find the strength to forgive me for this?
I sure as hell wouldn’t.
“Did she know you moved to this area?”
“Not that I know of.” Our last communication had been before Christmas, with Shannon excited about her grades. I’d been too embroiled in chasing down sex traffickers to respond. Another notch on my list of regrets.
“But whoever did this obviously knew you’d come out here,” King said. “Of course, in this day and age, it’s
not all that hard to track someone down.
“I suppose.” I couldn’t stop the image of Shannon in that garage, bleeding and waiting for me to help her. I’d barely arrived in time. “A couple of years ago, Shannon asked for my help with a girl she was mentoring. The girl turned out to be mentally disturbed. That information was all over the news. But Shannon may have talked about me too. If the person had staked her out or inserted himself into her life …”
“Right,” King said. “He kept her long enough to force her to tell him all sorts of things. Starvation will break even the strongest person’s will.”
“You’re certain she was starved?”
King’s mouth twitched. “Her foster mother said Shannon was about 140 pounds, very healthy and fit. Her body weighed 115. The pathologist also found residue around her eyes. She’s sent it for testing, but it may be duct tape. If he kept her blind and starved, how long do you think it would take to break her will?”
Sickness swarmed over me. I searched for the button to open the window, desperate for fresh air. King obliged, and I sucked in the smell of sunshine and traffic fumes.
When I was sure the nausea had passed, I sat back against the seat and pulled the box out of my purse, anxious to get rid of the coins. “The thing is, I received these two coins this morning. I’m no expert, but they look like the same ones left with Shannon.”
King’s round face paled as he glanced at the open box. “Don’t touch them.”
“I haven’t.”
He said nothing more as he navigated city traffic. Downtown D.C. never slowed down. Tourists walked in droves toward the various hotspots in the National Mall. A group stood in front of the FBI building, snapping away on their cellphones. Every block seemed to have a souvenir stand offering Washington, D.C paraphernalia and greasy hot dogs. A school bus blocked Fourth Street, forcing King to take the long way around to the forensics lab. He drove for several minutes trying to find a space before finally squeezing his sedan into a parking spot.
He dug in his center console, retrieving a pair of gloves, and then carefully lifted the coins from the box. “1986 Silver Dollar, same as the one found with Shannon. US Mint Special Issue for the Centennial. We’re looking into the issue number on her coin, but there were a lot of these. I doubt we have a chance of tracking this creep down with just the silver dollars. I’ll need to keep these.” His eyes drifted to meet mine, narrowed as if he’d spotted prey. “So the real question is, who have you pissed off?”
I swallowed hard and shrugged my shoulders.
The list was too long to discuss.
The Washington, D.C. Consolidated Forensics Laboratory on the corner of Fourth and E Streets in downtown looked like any other of the office buildings surrounding it. Per District of Columbia law, no building could be higher than the Washington Monument. Because the National Mall was just a ten-minute walk away, I could easily see the monument against the early morning eastern sun, to the west, the top of the Capital. When I first moved to the area, I’d done the obligatory tourist thing, spending an entire day on a self-guided walking tour of the National Mall. My legs hurt for two days afterward, but I’d thoroughly enjoyed the day. Although I considered myself a history buff, I’d never fully grasped what our nation stood for and just how many people have fought for and died for our country. Despite the crowd of tourists and the constant barrage of vendors selling all sorts of cheap wares, the power and the beauty of the monuments tour overpowered everything else. I often felt like I was the only person making the trek.
A tour of the forensics laboratory hadn’t been on my list. I felt small in the large lobby, where an ominous metal sculpture seemed to act as some kind of modern-day statue of Anubis, protecting the dead waiting to enter their next lives. “Why are we here when her body is on a farm in Alexandria?”
“Oxon Hill Farm isn’t a farm–it’s a National Park. That’s why it’s my case. And because of our budget, we don’t have our own medical examiner. The Metro PD was gracious enough to allow us to use the Forensics Laboratory.” King gestured toward the woman in a lab coat hurrying toward us. “Even cops have to have a personal escort in this building.”
King nodded at the lab assistant. “Thanks for getting us in so quickly.” A rush of homesickness swept over me. Her elfin features and sparkling eyes reminded me of Kelly.
“You’re welcome.” She glanced at me as if she were assessing my ability to handle what I was about to see. I pretended I could and hoped she bought it. “You’ll both need to sign in with reception.”
We did as ordered. Dread made my legs feel wooden and awkward. Dead bodies weren’t exactly a new thing for me. But this was different. This was the body of someone I’d known and cared for. Someone I believed had a wonderful chance in the world.
Someone dead because of me.
You just can’t escape it.
Mary Weston’s warning caught me by surprise, her deceptively soft voice floating over me like a ghost, silky and sweet and sinister all at once.
I fell behind King and the lab assistant, barely aware of their muted conversation. Mary couldn’t have done this. Or could she? Was this her twisted way of reminding me she was right about me? How could she have done this from behind bars? She’d spent her life manipulating men into doing her cruel deeds. She wasn’t in solitary confinement. Could she have charmed a guard? Or maybe a sick, obsessed fan who’d communicated via mail?
My imagination had to be stopped. Her mail would be closely monitored. A prison psychologist was studying Mary, not to mention the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Team.
She couldn’t have done this.
Uncertain if I really believed the pep talk, I hurried to catch up with King.
The technician led us down the hall toward an elevator and then punched the number four. It seemed odd. Wasn’t there some unofficial rule that said all morgues had to be in the basement? While the technician focused on her electronic tablet, King made conversation. “This place is new with state-of-the-art everything: fingerprint analysis, materials analysis, and even better, DNA analysis. I’m usually stuck going through the FBI Lab, which takes forever and a damned day, but these guys can do everything on site, which expedites things. I don’t always get to send my cases here, but given the nature of this, I’ve been accommodated.”
I made a noncommittal sound that I hoped resembled interest. I just wanted to see Shannon.
Penance. The word slipped to the tip of my tongue. I swallowed it back but couldn’t stop the thought.
Was her death my penance? Or was I completely full of myself?
I didn’t want to go to the morgue. No matter how hard I fought it, I’d end up there one day. If not this morgue then another one. How would I die? Would I just die of old age, forgotten among the mothballs? Or would my cruelty catch up to me in the worst kind of way?
I don’t want to die. I don’t want to end up in a place like this, waiting to be put into the ground.
Like poor Shannon.
I swallowed back the gorge of nerves and followed King off the elevator into a cool, well-lit hallway, where a sign announced we’d reached the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. I realized with a shake that I’d never been inside a morgue. I didn’t like the coldness of it, much less the idea of a body being cut open, weighed, and measured like it was nothing more than a vessel. The tech and King bypassed the main entrance and led me down the hall.
“How was Shannon killed?” I couldn’t avoid the question any longer. I’d allowed King to bypass the details on the ride from Alexandria, but I needed them now. I needed some way to prepare for what I was about to encounter.
King studied me for a moment, evidently trying to figure out if I was the hysterical type. “Like I said, the autopsy’s scheduled for today, but the preliminary cause of death is slashed wrists.”
I locked my knees in an effort to keep from swaying. “Wait. Suicide?”
He stopped and looked at me and then looked at the technician, who’d finally
brought her nose out of her tablet. “You want to take this one?”
The woman nodded, her black ponytail swishing with the movement. “The deceased was cut vertically on each wrist. She bled out in minutes. From the angles of the cuts, our forensic investigators believe they weren’t self-inflicted.”
I wanted to grab the pristine lapels of her lab coat and shake the woman. Tell her the deceased had a name. Instead I reminded myself the only way these people could do their jobs was to dehumanize the person on the steel gurney. “Did she suffer?”
“It depends on whether or not she was conscious at the time. We won’t know that until the autopsy is complete.”
I could dehumanize too. I’d done it many times before; it was how I managed to kill the scum who preyed on children. I turned to King. “That’s definitely part of the message.”
He nodded. “Absolutely. We just need to decode it.”
Shivering from more than the cool air, I wrapped my arms around my waist. “What are the Philadelphia police saying? Do they have any real leads?”
“At this point, no,” King said. “But the connection to you changes everything. I’m waiting to hear back from the lead investigator over there. He’s tied up in court.”
The technician had stopped in front of a locked door marked ‘viewing’. She inserted a key as King motioned for me to follow her. “You’re not going to have to actually see the body. We’ve got a digital image ready to go.”
I stopped short. “Then why did you bring me all the way down here?”
“You think I’m going to email a picture of a poor dead woman to you?” He sounded disgusted. “Have some respect.”
He was right, of course. And being at the morgue for Shannon was the right thing to do. But I instinctively knew he also wanted to see my reaction for himself, pump me for information.
King held the door for me, and we entered a small room. Painted a soft tan with very few accents, the room’s decor was clearly meant for function. A desk with a computer, as well as comfortable chairs and a box of Kleenex made up the entirety of its contents.
