UNSUB

by Meg Gardiner

  Radio pumping, anticipation turning his mouth dry, Stuart Ackerman pulled into Silver Creek Park right around nine P.M. Night had fallen. The darkness felt both dangerous and protective.

  The road into the park was narrow and winding. He put his phone away. He was wearing the things Starshine69 had specified. He hoped he was. The message had come through just a couple of hours ago. For a panicked second, he thought she was canceling on him. Instead, she wrote, Be sharp. Things are going to get rough.

  A leather vest. That worked, didn’t it? And gloves. Leather in general. Biker boots that he’d bought in college, still polished from the box. But he wouldn’t have them on for long. He hoped. His nerves were sparking. The live oaks leaned overhead as his headlights swept a bend and he drove toward a darkened glen.

  A sharp thwack rattled the car.

  “What . . .”

  He slowed. Had he hit something? The steering wheel yawed left. The yellow tire pressure light pinged on. He stopped. Puzzled, he got out.

  He stepped away from the door to examine the car. He saw it and stopped, baffled. That couldn’t be right. His front tire had been shot, with . . .

  “Are you kidding . . . ?”

  From the trees, a man appeared.

  One moment he wasn’t there. Then he was. His face, his entire head, seemed absent. It took Ackerman a disorienting second to understand that he was seeing a man wearing a black ski mask. Calmly, the man raised . . .

  Dear God.

  Stuart Ackerman bolted. He spun and sprinted for the tree line. Stiff biker boots kicking up gravel, head back, panting. Unreal, unreal, unreal, God, no . . .

  A whistle cut the air. The shot slammed Ackerman to the ground.

  Oh, Jesus.

  For a weird second it just felt like a hard blow. Then the pain hit, sharp and deep and wrong. He tried to rise and couldn’t. He realized his mistake. He shouldn’t have run for the woods. It was too far and would leave him unarmed and vulnerable, with only his feet as a means of escape. He should have gone the other way. For cover. For an engine.

  He didn’t hear the man, but he sensed him. Sensed him nearer than he had been.

  Move. This is serious. The pain spread, crazy bad. Something warm ran along his ribs inside his leather vest, pooled and dripped to the ground.

  The car. Wounded, he turned and crawled for it. “Help.”

  The man glided toward him. “Help isn’t coming.”

  He loomed, a wraith. His footsteps seemed silent. Ackerman crawled.

  The man came to within five yards and stopped, feet braced in some kind of stance. He aimed. “Bloodthirst brings a reckoning. You made the date. You pay.”

  He fired another shot. Ackerman screamed. From the trees, crows burst into the night sky.

  7

  Just after seven A.M., Steve Ramseur eased off the two-lane highway and headed through the gate at Six Pines Ranch. The morning was blustery, clouds shredding in a red sunrise. The hills were a rich green. He hadn’t seen anybody on the road. Hadn’t expected to.

  The cargo bed of his Ford F-250 was loaded with bales of alfalfa hay. The truck rattled over the cattle guard and up a hill through the oaks and past the pines that gave the place its name. He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other holding the travel coffee mug that rested on his belly. He wore a Stetson and a Burberry padded jacket and had the radio tuned to a Bay Area drive-time show, Chaz and T-Bone.

  “. . . Seven-oh-seven on a sunny day and we’re gonna help you make it,” one of them said, as brightly as if he’d stuck his face into a bowl of speed and started gobbling. The other deejay snickered. “Doesn’t matter if you want to get over or get off. You can do it with us.” Their minions in the broadcasting booth laughed like donkeys.

  Ramseur could never remember which guy was Chaz and which was T-Bone. It didn’t matter. He listened because it reminded him of the twenty years he’d spent stuck in morning traffic on the Bay Bridge, listening to shock jocks while commuting to his office in the San Francisco Financial District. It reminded him that when he’d quit to take over the family ranch, he’d chosen wisely. Here he was, a mere thirty-five miles from the city, driving through a landscape that was virtually unchanged from the 1700s. This ranch had been in his family for centuries, since a land grant from the Spanish Crown. This was his inheritance, and his responsibility, and he loved it. He listened to Chaz and T-Bone to hear the sound of his freedom.

  “So today we’re talking about these murders the other night,” said Chaz, or T-Bone. “The police are playing coy, but everybody thinks they were committed by the Prophet. The one and only.”

  “Un-freakin’-believable, man.”

  “Do you think it’s him? After all this time?”

  “Him or his ghost, or his reincarnation. Spawn of Satan.”

  “We’ll open up the phones after the break. What do you think? Is the Prophet back?”

  Cali-forn-i-crazy.

  Two miles in, he slowed the truck for the crossing over the creek. The water splashed his rims, a welcome sound. He crested the next hill and smiled at the broad green sweep of the valley.

  He slowed. “What in hell?”

  The horses were out.

  The Arabians were in the turnout pasture, running in a tight circle inside the white fence. They should have still been stabled in the show barn. Especially this time of year, in this cold. But—dammit. They were out, all ten of them, it looked like. Stamping, turning, skittish.

  He accelerated down the hill to the barn. Who had let this happen? Had his daughter been out yesterday evening and forgotten to close the barn door securely? He slid out his cell phone and brought up her number.

  But that made no sense. He and his wife were the last ones out here last night. The horses were secure in their stalls when they left. He had checked and double-checked. The Arabians were prized and glorious creatures, and there were wild animals in the hills. He would never . . . dammit.

  He pulled up in the gravel outside the barn. He got out, left the motor running and Chaz and T-Bone blathering. “The guy was a monster but a mastermind. He made tough cops wet themselves, the stuff he did.” The barn door was shut. He went through the pasture gate and tramped toward the horses. First things first: Make sure they were all right. Something was spooking them.

  The chill wind grabbed the brim of his Stetson and tried to blow it away. He pulled it down as he marched across the dewy grass. The horses were turning, pacing, tails up, eyes flared. And they were drenched in sweat. Steam smoked from their backs and blew from their nostrils.

  Dammit, how long had they been out here? All night?

  At the far end of the pasture was a water trough. The horses were turning their backs on it. One spun and burst toward the barn, snorting and shaking its head. What the hell?

  Gingerly he approached one of the fillies. “Easy, girl.” He didn’t want to get kicked. Or stampeded and trampled, not with them in this state. “Easy.”

  Gently he lay a hand against her neck. She flinched. He held it there, and stroked. She was hot. No signs of injury. No signs on any of them, as far as he could see.

  The wind shifted, coming down the hill from the water trough. The horses whinnied. The sound was shrill, an alarm. They turned downwind like magnets pulled to a compass heading, and bolted past him, hooves thundering.

  “Hell is . . .”

  Ramseur stood alone in the field. The wind felt immensely colder than it had a minute earlier. Slowly he turned and looked at the water trough.

  He stood for a long minute. Then he returned to the Ford and took the shotgun from the gun rack.

  He gazed again at the water trough. Saw no movement. But he hesitated. He didn’t want to cross the field and see what was there, not even with a Remington in his hand. He racked two shells into the magazine and walked slowly across the field.

 
; The trough was eight feet long, a three-hundred-gallon galvanized-steel stock tank. The water lapped at its rim, rippling in the wind. Something black and bloated bobbed on the surface. Ramseur raised the shotgun, feeling wobbly. Jesus God. What the hell was sticking out of it?

  Step by step he approached, pausing to wipe his eyes clear. Twenty yards from the trough he stopped.

  A body floated facedown. The water was deep red with blood. Good hell—when the wind shifted, the horses had smelled it.

  He held the Remington on the trough and looked at the shaking pines, the thick chaparral, at the high ridges and the tree line. He backed up, turned, and ran toward the truck, toward wind-twisted peals of laughter coming from the drive-time radio jocks.

  The man in the trough, wearing a leather vest and biker boots, floated in his own blood. His body was riddled with arrows.

  * * *

  A deputy responded to his 911 call, a sturdy young man driving a Chevy SUV with SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY SHERIFF in gold along the side. Within an hour, two more SUVs and the detectives’ beige sedan lined the road along the pasture fence. Ramseur corralled the horses in an adjacent pasture and leaned against the front bumper of his pickup. At the water trough, forensic people in white coveralls took photos and laid out a yellow tarp on the ground. They pointed and gestured, debating how to remove the body.

  Just get him out, Ramseur thought. Get him gone, so I can haul the trough to the dump. Then he would burn the pasture and get a priest out here to exorcise it. Hell, the pope. And he was Presbyterian.

  The white suits hefted the body clear of the tank and onto the tarp. One of the detectives danced back as water sloshed on his shoes. A deputy covered his mouth with the back of his hand. Then everyone stood as still as the pines. All of them, staring. Except Steve Ramseur, who found himself walking toward the others.

  The dead man lay on his side on the yellow tarp. He was young. When the bloody water ran off his face, his skin was blue gray. The first deputy saw Ramseur coming, put up a hand, and strode in his direction, gesturing for him to stop. Ramseur kept walking. Some force compelled him. This was his land. He had to bear witness.

  “Sir. Mr. Ramseur. Please,” the deputy said.

  Ramseur stopped. But he saw. The symbol, that astrological sign. Devil’s horns were carved in the dead man’s forehead.

  And on his chest, where his vest was torn open, a single word. ANSWER.

  8

  Later, when the fear and alarm subsided, the authorities confirmed that the video file had arrived on the server at KDPX News at 1741 PDT. Five forty-one P.M. On the bridges, traffic was a slow-motion accordion. Over the bay, flights descended the glide path toward the runway. Along the San Francisco waterfront, the lights were coming on.

  At the Cold Creek Café in the Berkeley marina, the crowd was watching the Golden State Warriors game. Caitlin walked through the door just after six, from a breezy evening tinged blue and gold, to a dazzling duel of big-screen TVs. The place was busy, but not as packed as usual. She spotted Sean on the patio. She shouldered her way past the bar and out the patio doors.

  He was sitting at a picnic table with his daughter, Sadie. He shared custody, and this was a regular outing. The little girl was bundled up against the chill in a jacket with a panda bear hood. Sean had on a blue Cal hoodie. He was earnestly watching Sadie play with two My Little Ponies.

  Scratch that. He was playing My Little Pony.

  “Which one’s that?” Caitlin said. “Glitter?”

  He smiled. Sadie lit up like a Fourth of July sparkler.

  “Cat!” She stood on the bench and raised one pony high over her head. “This is Pinkie Pie. Come play.”

  That smile, those rosy cheeks, Sadie’s guileless affection—Caitlin’s cares lifted. She sat down and said, “Pinkie Pie is very pretty. Does she fly?”

  Sadie nodded vigorously. Her panda hood fell off and her dark hair lifted in the breeze like corn silk.

  Sean handed Caitlin an electric-blue pony with a rainbow mane and enormous violet eyes. If she saw eyes like that on the street, she would have probable cause to search for LSD.

  Sadie said, “They’re thirsty. They have to drink water from the lake.”

  They tipped their ponies’ faces down to the tabletop to drink. For a bad second, an image lit up Caitlin’s head—the Arabian horses at the backcountry ranch, shying from the water trough where Stuart Ackerman floated, dead.

  Then the wind blew Sadie’s hair across her face. Caitlin reached out with her index finger, cleared it away, and pulled Sadie’s panda hood back up.

  “There,” she said.

  Sadie hopped off the bench and galloped the ponies across the patio.

  “You want to get a table inside?” Caitlin said to Sean.

  “The fresh air’s good.”

  “Sadie wanted to fix your hair, didn’t she?”

  “There are some things a federal agent shouldn’t do in a sit-down restaurant.” He leaned over to kiss her. “You’re chilly.”

  “Cold case is cold.”

  “Hot case?”

  “Is chilling.”

  He signaled the waiter. “Diet Coke?”

  She laid her hands flat on the picnic table. “Please.”

  “You hesitated. Things that heavy?”

  She’d grown up in a house where drinking during the week meant the case was going badly. She reminded herself: Job stays at the station. She might have added, I will be worshipped as a goddess, since she was working on stretch goals.

  “He kicked it into another gear. It’s unprecedented. Three victims. Nails, arrows, carvings—that word, Answer,” she said. “I thought I knew what was coming. I was wrong.”

  She kept her voice low, though it would have been nearly impossible for anyone to hear her while the Warriors scrapped with the Thunder on the TV. An OKC forward drove the lane for a layup as the halftime buzzer sounded.

  Sean eyed her coolly.

  Live the legal pad dream, Caitlin. Put the job away. “How was your day?”

  On the television, BREAKING NEWS interrupted the halftime show. A female anchor appeared, glaring.

  “Bombshell news tonight. In the last hour, the Prophet has delivered to KDPX News a message claiming credit for the murder of Pleasanton teacher Stuart Ackerman.”

  Despite the cacophony in the restaurant, a few people turned toward the television, including Caitlin and Sean.

  “Ackerman’s body was found this morning at a ranch in rural San Joaquin County. While authorities have not released the cause of death, they confirm a key claim in the killer’s message—that Ackerman was shot multiple times with a bow and arrow.”

  More heads turned. A man muttered, “You shitting me?” A woman said, “God, this sicko.” Someone asked the waiter to turn it up.

  “What you are about to see is the entire video message received by KDPX.”

  A hush spread across the restaurant. An image, bright and crisp, filled the TV screens.

  Sean was on his feet and already halfway across the patio to pick Sadie up and get her away from the television.

  The video showed a poster taped to a blank wall. Someone unseen held the camera. Harsh overhead lighting. No shadows. No audio. A message was printed on the poster.

  Arrows pierced him when he ran. For violence sought violence. So he was

  hunted into a river of blood.

  Alameda sheriffs knew this was coming. I told them.

  Yet they stumble and fall, fools old and young, into the pit

  without a prayer.

  Expect no help. Punishment will rain on you

  here, now, neverending.

  People gasped. “Unbelievable.” “God, the cops.”

  Caitlin tossed cash on the table and hurried after Sean and Sadie to the door.

  * * *

  I
n the morning, Stuart Ackerman’s photo filled the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle. Ackerman looked winsome and geeky. A teacher the kids in trigonometry class could approach with questions. In her kitchen, Caitlin flipped through local TV stations. It was wall-to-wall coverage of the murder. Outside Sequoia High School, kids were crying. Parents choked up about Ackerman’s devotion to teaching. The principal brought in grief counselors.

  The headlines screamed, THE PROPHET IS BACK and COPS “STUMBLE.” SATANIC KILLER WARNED THEM.

  Fear and anger were fermenting. Caitlin could smell it. An old, rancid, nauseating smell. They stumble and fall, fools old and young, into the pit.

  That line was no accident. Did the Prophet know she was on the investigative team? The thought set a nerve crawling beneath her skin.

  When she walked into the war room, the other detectives were staring into screens or talking on the phone. The atmosphere seemed freighted. A morning newspaper lay on the conference table. The East Bay Herald. At the bottom of page one, following the lead story, a headline read:

  Detective’s Failures Haunt Case—and His Daughter

  By Bart Fletcher

  As the Prophet wreaks fresh havoc in the Bay Area, Detective Caitlin Hendrix is working to solve the case that drove her father to attempt suicide.

  Her stomach dropped. She skimmed the story. The murders. The increasing horror. The public taunting, the missteps and frustrations suffered by the authorities.

  Bart Fletcher. She knew the name. A sidebar described him as a pit bull crime reporter who had covered the original case. His photo was now grayed and severe. She recognized him. He was the reporter who had turned up at the cornfield, the one trying to get past the deputies and barge into the scene.

  She read on, and acid rose in her throat. The main story detailed Mack’s dedication to the case—and the day everything went disastrously wrong.

  The Prophet’s reign of terror reached its climax the evening of April 18, 1998. A 911 call from Calvary Cemetery reported a suspicious vehicle. A camper had parked outside a mausoleum. Its driver was spotted carrying some kind of handheld container inside.