by Meg Gardiner
March 21, 1995. Barbara Gertz. Stabbed, dumped in a car wash.
April 12, 1996. Helen and Barry Kim, the first couple murdered. Bludgeoned, dumped in a landfill. Post-mortem, their bodies were mauled by dogs.
April 26, 1997. Justine and Colin Spencer. Their bodies tumbled from the back of a dump truck delivering rocks to a construction site. The symbol was sewn into their skin with fishing wire.
That gruesome detail had been withheld from the public. It would have kept Caitlin awake for weeks, lying cold in her bed as the wind knocked the trees against the roof. She’d slept poorly for most of her childhood. She still did.
March 20, 1998. Lisa Chu. The teenager was dropped into a water treatment pond chained to a concrete parking bumper. A message was scrawled on her forearm in indelible ink.
As Caitlin stood before the photo, a faded memory grew vivid: of sitting cross-legged in front of the television, playing Barbies, when a news report broke in. A Serious News Lady talking, before a drawing of a stick man with devil horns. “The Prophet has struck again, and left a chilling new message, written on the victim’s own skin: ‘Infinite wrath and infinite despair.’”
Then her dad’s voice, booming. “Jesus Christ, Sandy—you left the news on?”
He rushed in and turned it off. “Goddammit.” He chucked the remote at the wall and stomped to the kitchen and Caitlin didn’t move, because his yelling made her stomach cramp. She heard him pick up the phone and when she dared peek over her shoulder, he was stalking around the kitchen. “You see it? Saunders, somebody fucking leaked it to those jackals.”
Now she shook off the visceral memory of anger that had suffused the house.
April 18, 1998. Tammy and Tim Moulitsas. Calvary Cemetery.
She stared at the young couple’s photos. Guthrie swept past. “Hendrix. Saddle up.”
* * *
Caitlin brought up the new evidence boxes on a dolly and joined the team as they assembled in the war room. The lights were harsh, the energy jagged.
Tomas Martinez wore a bowling shirt and a trilby cocked back on his shaved head. He had the easygoing bearing of a beach bartender, but his eyes, stony with dread, betrayed the decade he’d spent working Homicide. Caitlin thought the snapshots he kept on his desk, of his wife and four daughters, had something to do with that.
When she walked up he raised his chin in greeting. “Kid.”
She held back Gramps. He was forty-three. And his voice was warm. “Detective.”
Mary Shanklin set a stack of files on a table, neatened them, and gave Caitlin an assessing glance. Shanklin had come in from sheriff’s office headquarters in Oakland. In her late thirties, she was known as a disciplined investigator. Her brown hair was cinched into a tight ponytail. Her lipstick was the red of a stop sign. She carried herself like a regimented Brownie leader Caitlin recalled from childhood. And like a dominatrix she’d once arrested.
“Morning, Detective,” Caitlin said.
Shanklin nodded briskly. “Hendrix.”
Guthrie strode in and pinned two new photos on the wall. Blowups of the cornfield victims’ driver’s license photos. Seeing them alive tightened Caitlin’s chest.
Guthrie tapped the woman’s photo. “Melody James. Age twenty-six. Disappeared from Union City Tuesday night. Finished her shift waiting tables at Olive Garden at eleven P.M. Never made it home.”
He took out his phone. “Her husband got a call Thursday night at eleven fifteen. Voice mail picked up and recorded the conversation.”
He thumbed his phone and pressed PLAY.
Over the outgoing message, a man’s breathless voice stumbled onto the line. He sounded wide-awake and panicked. Caitlin could virtually see him clutching the phone.
“Melody?” he said.
A man replied. “No, Mr. James. But I know where she is.”
Everyone on the team straightened.
“Where? Who is this?” James said.
“I saw your missing person flyer.”
That voice. It rasped, coarse and grating. Shanklin gave Martinez a stony glance. He gave it back, then shook his bald head, muttering under his breath. Caitlin’s skin shrank.
Was it him? Twenty years back, the Prophet had sent recordings to the police and television stations. This sounded lower, rougher than she recalled. It was horrid.
The voice said, “She’s out at this place on Highway 88. Fields, east of Guadalupe Road.”
James spoke in a rush. “And she’s okay? Did you speak to her?”
“I’m looking right at her. I think a reward—”
“She’s alive. Oh, my God. Can you put her on?” James’s voice sagged with relief.
Even now, even when it was too late, Caitlin wanted to grab him and knock his hand away from the phone. Don’t express relief. Don’t express hope. Don’t be happy. That’s what sets you up for the blow he’s about to deliver.
“People said she couldn’t be, but I knew it.” Tears welled in James’s voice. “Tell her—please, come home. I don’t care why she left, or with who . . .”
“You mean the guy she ran off with?”
James paused again—shocked, or getting hold of himself. “No questions asked. Keep her there—I’m on my way.”
“No rush. She’s not leaving.”
An audio recording clicked on. “No. Don’t hurt me . . .”
It was a woman, sobbing.
“Stay back. Oh, God, put that down . . .”
She screamed. And screamed.
The voice returned. “She’s going nowhere. I punished her.” He paused. “You’re welcome.”
James gasped and began yelling. His wife’s screams filled the room. The call went dead.
Guthrie ended the playback.
“Son of a bleeding bitch,” Martinez said. “That was cold.”
Shanklin stared at Melody James’s photo. Against the red lipstick, Shanklin’s face was white with apparent rage. “Sadistic.”
Guthrie said, “The call came in from a 650 number. A prepaid cell, a burner. And our audio specialists suspect that the number was a cut-through, a call forwarded from another cell. They’re on it, but we doubt we’ll trace it.”
Caitlin stared dazedly at Melody James’s photo. An apple seemed to lodge in her throat. The driver’s license photo blurred into Melody’s face, tear-streaked and dirty and dead on the ground.
The killer’s voice. Almost lighthearted, the stinger lurking at its edges. Male, tenor, maybe deliberately coarsened in an attempt to disguise it. The words. The taunting. Giving hope, dangling the lure.
If it wasn’t him, it was somebody with the Prophet’s perverse desire to inflict drawn-out pain.
She said, “Voiceprint comparison?”
Guthrie eyed her, and the boxes stacked on her desk. “The old tapes are in there somewhere. Dig them out.” His gaze was pointed. “Dig everything out. Look for patterns in the evidence. Echoes between the old and new cases.”
She nodded.
He moved on, to the male victim’s photo. “Richard Sanchez. Age twenty-seven. Checker at a supermarket in Alameda. No wants, no warrants. Possibly connected to Melody James.”
A man at the back of the room said, “Voice on the recording mentioned ‘The guy she ran off with.’”
It was the boss. Lieutenant Ray Kogara, who commanded the station’s Investigations Unit.
Kogara was intense and imposing. Fiftyish, Japanese American, when he entered a room, people stepped back an inch and straightened their shoulders. His charcoal suit hung perfectly on his battering-ram frame. He strolled toward the wall, pointing at the photos of the victims.
“Did she?” he said. “Run off with him?”
Guthrie said, “No, but she may have been cheating with him. Her coworkers at Olive Garden say Sanchez was a regular customer, that Melody flirted open
ly with him—and that he once picked her up after her shift. I’ve interviewed Melody’s husband. He knew of the rumors. He insists all he cares about is catching the guy who killed his wife.”
“Tough on him,” Kogara said.
“The night Melody disappeared, Richard Sanchez picked up takeout from the Olive Garden. We suspect that the killer was nearby, watching. Then he followed Sanchez home. Sanchez never made it inside his house. His car was parked in his garage, with the door down. Remote missing. We think the killer accessed the garage and attacked him there.”
Guthrie opened a folder. “We have preliminary autopsy reports. Both victims died of strangulation. The ligature marks on their necks match the bullwhip.”
He handed Kogara autopsy photos. “Abrasions on their wrists, ankles, and faces indicate they were bound and gagged with tape. Blood spatter from each victim was found on the other victim’s clothing. They were whipped in close proximity.”
Kogara took in the photos. Though he said nothing, his expression tightened.
Martinez shook his head. “Nasty.”
Caitlin’s stomach felt hollow.
Guthrie said, “Tool marks on the victims’ skin indicate the nails were fired into their chests with a nail gun. We’re working to identify the make and model.”
“The nails?” Kogara said.
“They’re four-inch common steel framing nails. Large shank, flat head, diamond point. Used for construction and framing, plus amateur carpentry. They’re ubiquitous. No way to trace origin or point of sale.”
“What about the whip?”
“It’s old. Maybe a hundred years. We’re checking online vendors, but it could have been in the killer’s attic for the last century.”
Kogara scanned the wall of photos. “The trail of mercury?”
Shanklin stood at parade rest, hands clasped behind her back. “I sent samples to the lab for chemical analysis. In its pure form, mercury’s a silverish metal that’s liquid at room temperature. What’s in thermometers, electrical switches, fluorescent lamps. But in nature, it’s found in compounds and inorganic salts. Purifying it isn’t a home DIY project. And its sale is regulated. It’s not available at Target.”
“Where could he get it?”
“He could buy it online. Claim it’s for a chemistry class. As long as he fakes a commercial address, he’s good,” she said. “Or he could have stolen it.”
Kogara crossed his arms. “Can they trace a batch or lot number? Is mercury tagged?”
Caitlin straightened. “No. Only explosives are required to contain chemical taggants. Not a base metal like mercury.” She eyed Shanklin. “The lab’s looking for contaminants and trace?”
Shanklin’s expression pinched. “No, trans fats and artificial sweeteners. Of course they are.” She walked past Caitlin to the conference table at the front of the room. “Two other things about mercury. One, it’s toxic. And two, if it’s not sealed off, it slowly vaporizes.”
Kogara turned toward Shanklin. “You mean our evidence could evaporate. Literally.”
“Yes.”
Caitlin felt singed. Guthrie eyed her dourly.
He turned to the others. “One more thing. Melody James and Richard Sanchez were killed someplace where the killer had room to maneuver.”
He nodded at the photos on the wall. “That bullwhip is seven feet long. From the spatter and the damage it inflicted, it struck the victims at high velocity. The killer needed space to wield it. Someplace where neighbors wouldn’t hear. And to use a nail gun, he almost certainly needed an electrical outlet. This guy has a house. Or he has access to a shop floor where he can go after hours. He didn’t commit these murders in an apartment with thin walls.”
Kogara perused the autopsy photos with what looked like a subdued ache.
“If he repeats his last cycle, we only have four weeks before he kills again. He’s out there, getting ready. Every minute counts.” Guthrie looked at the team one by one. “Let’s get to work.”
As Caitlin headed for her desk, Guthrie called her aside. He looked like he had a burr in his shoe.
“Detective. Mary Shanklin has ten years in Homicide. You have one day.”
“I was out of line. I know—keep my head down. And my mouth shut.”
“Starting now. We don’t have a second to waste.” He nodded again at the boxes. “Dig, and deep. Go.”
6
The water stain ran along the side of the cardboard storage box like a muddy tide. When Caitlin lifted the lid, a spider nest billowed out. She rubbed the back of her sleeve across her face. On her clipboard, she started a fresh page for her inventory. BOX 13.
The evidence she had organized from the original files covered a conference table. She’d been at it for five hours. She was summoning ghosts.
Some of this material she had seen before—on the worktable in the garage at her childhood home. Where Mack said, “Quiet. Close the door.” Then let her stay.
The responding officers’ reports. The detectives’ reports. Statements by witnesses who found the victims. By the teenage girl who managed to slip from the killer’s grasp and escape.
Photos of tire tracks. Of a footprint, size nine. A map of the first crime scene, drawn freehand by the killer.
That one gave her a chill.
Crumpled and water stained, it was drawn with an engineer’s precision. A compass rose indicated north. Streets were sketched with smooth curves and sharp intersections. There were hills and trees—maybe to indicate places for concealment?—and the park where the victim died. A creek. A storm drain, with its length indicated as 125 ft. Picnic area marked with tiny tables. Playground with swings and a slide.
Written on the map was the word PUNISHMENT.
The handwriting was harsh, pressed deep into the paper. Ballpoint pen, the corners of each letter acute, sloping downward. The map came from a twilight time when the thing had started its slow roll toward horror, before anyone knew a serial killer was at work.
These boxes were an attempt to categorize unremitting hell. But hell couldn’t be contained. And Guthrie was right. It was the ultimate cold case.
She needed only to skim the original inventory sheets to see how much evidence had disappeared over the last twenty-five years. Sent to storage . . . somewhere. Destroyed when the evidence room flooded. Pilfered by cops, forensic techs, and even FBI agents. Everyone wanted a piece of the legend.
But when she excavated Box 13, she hit pay dirt: two cassette tapes labeled Prophet phone call.
Except she couldn’t listen to them. Because the station no longer had a cassette player.
She packed up the cassettes and took them to the criminalistics lab. It was a thirty-minute drive, to a complex surrounded by eucalyptus trees in the hills off 580 in Oakland. When Caitlin signed over the cassettes, the forensic examiner, Eugene Chao, took them with efficient disinterest. Then he saw the label on the evidence bag.
“No shit?”
“None at all.”
He whistled.
“I need it—”
“Last week. You’ll get it. For real, for once.”
“Thanks, Eugene.”
Driving back to the station, she felt antsy. Investigation required diligence. Dogged, patient, grinding diligence. But a sound like a metronome beat in her head. Seconds, ticking off.
She called up voice search on her phone. “What is the date and time that Mercury next rises in the morning sky?”
“Interesting question, Caitlin.”
The phone didn’t know. She frowned and slowed for a traffic light. The car ahead was a red Camry.
She stared at it. “Damn.”
The phone said, “There’s no need for that.”
Caitlin swung into the next lane and pulled alongside the Camry as it stopped at the light. The driver was hunched forward, tightly gr
ipping the wheel. Caitlin honked. When the driver looked over, Caitlin pulled off her sunglasses. She pointed at a parking lot in the next block.
She whipped into the lot behind the Camry and jumped out. The driver climbed from the vehicle, gave Caitlin a punishing stare, and strode toward her. Red hair flame-hazed by the afternoon sunlight. Paisley blouse an onrushing psychedelic scream. Heels of her boots tattooing the asphalt. Typhoon Sandy.
“Are you stalking me?” Caitlin said.
“I can drive by the station anytime I want. Especially since you’ve lost your mind.”
“Great to see you too, Mom.”
“Don’t do this. It destroyed your father.”
Caitlin spread her hands. “That’s always your reason for stopping me. ‘Don’t run with scissors; it destroyed your father.’ ‘Don’t feed the squirrels; it destroyed your father.’” She patted her mother’s shoulder. “I’m not Dad.”
Sandy Hendrix gave Caitlin a barbed look, and softly took her wrist. Sandy’s touch sent a wave of heat coursing through Caitlin’s veins. Sensory memory. Pain, warmth, shame. She inhaled and forced it to pass.
Sandy lowered her voice. “This case hurt you. And you were only on its fringes. If you take it on as an investigator, you’re throwing yourself into the volcano.”
Once Sandy sank her teeth into something, she didn’t let go. This relentlessness had gotten her through college with a husband on patrol and a toddler at home. It almost got her to save her marriage. It gave her the strength to pull Caitlin to shore that long dark summer when she was fifteen.
Sandy held on a second longer, then let her hand drop. Her eyes never left Caitlin’s.
Caitlin said, “I can’t walk away. People are dying.” She heard the catch in her voice and hated it. “We have to end this.”
Sandy clutched her in a hug. “Baby, don’t. You’re the only daughter I have.”
“I love you,” Caitlin said. “But I have to do my job.”
Sandy smiled, an injured, frightened smile, and backed away. When she neared her car, she swiped away tears, flinging them from her fingertips like they were poisonous.
* * *
