CORE Shadow [1] Shadow of Danger

by Kristine Mason

  “That’s news to me. So you’re going to waste the minimal manpower you have based on psychic intuition?”

  “Back off, John.”

  “That’s right, I’m the hired help.”

  Roy grinned, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “That you are. So I guess you have no choice but to go along with me here.”

  “Suppose not,” he said, and didn’t bother to hide his bitterness. He didn’t like being involved in an investigation without full disclosure, and both Roy and Ian were hiding something from him. What, he had no idea. But when the investigation was finished, he’d find out, or resign. He was nobody’s fucking patsy, not anymore. If he didn’t have Ian’s trust, he no longer wanted to work for him or CORE.

  *

  Garrett Alan Winston sat in the interrogation room shackled to a worn, metal table. The short chain of one handcuff pulled taut as he held a pen over a stack of papers.

  His confession.

  The sheriff leaned toward the two-way mirror. “I don’t get it. He has no record, not even a traffic violation. We’ve got jack shit, except for small amounts of blood spatter, a few hairs and fingerprints which haven’t even been processed, yet he’s signing a confession without an attorney?”

  John nodded and folded his arms across his chest. Not only stunned by Winston’s quick confession, but how eerily he resembled the sketch created based off Celeste’s vision. Comb his hair, trim his beard, give him some Visine, and that sketch could have been a photograph. “I don’t get it, either.”

  The door opened. A trooper ducked his head inside to tell Roy he had a call. While John had come to like the sheriff, despite whatever game he was playing with Ian, he was pleased to have a moment alone. He needed to weigh the options, consider other recourses should Winston find a sharp-tongued attorney willing to take his case.

  Winston, even in his disheveled state, appeared arrogant, confident as he signed the confession that would convict him of killing four women. Once he finished, the paperwork was quickly removed, and he leaned back in his chair. Bound to the steel table, he stared at the mirror, his eyes, wild, alert. Then he sneered.

  The man should be on edge, worried, rather than arrogant. Odd. Why was that? Even though the lab results would take time, John was hopeful the evidence would convict and condemn him. So why the look of triumph? Like he held the winning lottery number?

  Winston continued to stare at the mirror. His feral eyes held a ferocious glint that bore into him through the glass. They said he wasn’t done. Not by a long shot.

  As his skin crawled, his mind raced. He tried to quickly assess the man cuffed in the opposite room, but couldn’t shake the dread lodging deep in his chest enough to concentrate.

  The door bounced against the wall, making him jump. “Jesus, Roy, don’t do that shit to me.”

  “We’ve got to get back to Wissota Falls,” he panted as if he’d just run a hundred yard dash. His face ashen, his eyes filled with horror, he gave Winston a quick glance. “Now.”

  His earlier dread turned to a fear so intense he fought to catch his breath. “Celeste?”

  “No,” Roy said, already moving for the door. “Bev just called, they found another body.”

  “Where?” He hoped Roy would tell him Winston’s dumping grounds. Maybe this was his last victim. Maybe CSU missed the body.

  “Cranberry bogs,” Roy said over his shoulder as he left the room muttering that he’d meet him at the car.

  Cranberry bogs? Then it hit him.

  Little red balls, floating in my nose and mouth...

  Celeste’s trance, her vision. No amount of antacids would cure the burn running through his chest and gut. She’d been right all along, and he’d been too stubborn to believe her.

  He glanced back at Winston who still wore a cocky, mocking sneer. As if he knew.

  Impossible. They were in a sound proof booth, in front of a two-way mirror. Paranoia had him thinking irrationally, because he’d allowed himself to become too close to what appeared to be their only witness. Celeste.

  As he exited the room, a deep wicked laugh rolled through the intercom. Stopping, he turned and stared at the mirror.

  “I know something you don’t know,” Winston sang off key in a scratchy voice. He sprung from the chair, knocking it to the floor. “Do you hear me?” His face turned purple, blue veins stuck out of his wide neck as he screamed and pulled on his bindings.

  “I know,” he shouted, spittle oozing down his scruffy beard. “You’ll come back. You hear me? You fuckers need me. You’ll come back.”

  The officer guarding the interrogation room pinned Winston, as two others entered to help. John gaped at the scene. An eerie sense of foreboding consumed him, ate at his gut and sensible mind. All the while, Winston’s disturbing eyes pierced into his through the mirrored glass. They looked at him, into him and he had this niggling feeling Winston might be right.

  *

  “Hey Celeste, sorry again for just poppin’ over last night, but the wife isn’t. She loves your cookies. I swear she devoured half the box before kissin’ me hello.”

  She poured Dan a cup of coffee and smiled. “I told you it wasn’t a big deal. I’m glad to know I’ve got you looking out for me, even if it was a lame excuse to raid my stock of kalachkis.” She winked then turned to Lloyd. “How you doing today?”

  “I’ll be better after I have one of your Western omelets.”

  “You got it. What about you, Dan? The usual or are you going to take a walk on the wild side and try something new?”

  He grinned, his red mustache stretching across his thin lips. “You know me. I’ll stick with the usual.”

  “Okay, I’ll have it for you in a jiffy.”

  “Oh and Celeste?” Lloyd grabbed her arm before she walked away. “Is your brother around? I wanted to talk with him about hanging those kitchen cabinets I ordered.”

  “He’s in the back doing inventory.”

  “You mean avoiding the customers.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, that too. You can head on back and talk with him if you like. You know the way.”

  He shifted his big body off the stool, then nodded to Dan. “I’ll be right back. I want to pin Will down to a date he can come by and help finish this pain-in-the-ass kitchen remodeling.”

  Dan grinned. “I hear that. Hell, you’ve only been working on it for the past six months.”

  She walked away from the counter, then went about her business, taking orders, filling coffee, smiling and making small talk with her customers. Although dead tired, she hoped it didn’t show. It was her fault. No, it was John’s.

  He had been the reason she’d tossed and turned all night. Thank God she hadn’t had any dreams though. Maybe a little loving and a couple glasses of wine had done the trick. Maybe the killer took the night off. Or maybe she’d been just having good old fashioned nightmares after all.

  As she dropped an order off at a table, Lloyd rushed from the back room. She immediately tensed. Wiping her hands on her apron, she followed him, hoping that he and Will weren’t arguing again. Over the last few weeks, they’d been bickering like an old married couple, and she didn’t like it, or how it had been affecting her already brooding brother.

  “Lloyd, are you okay?” she asked, when she caught up with him at the end of the counter where Dan sat.

  His silvery eyes were alert and darting between her and Dan. A sense of foreboding had her knees weakening and her hands gripping the counter for support.

  “Cancel our breakfast.” Lloyd turned to Dan. “We have to leave. Now.”

  Dan nodded as if he understood Lloyd’s cryptic command, scooted off the stool and shot out the door. Lloyd turned back to her, his eyes flat, bleak, his face pale. “I’ve got to go. Hell, I...Celeste.” He leaned over the counter. “Honey, don’t say anything. Bev just called. They found another body.” He gave her upper arm an affectionate squeeze, then left.

  Another body. Her head spun. The room tilted and closed in on
her. She tried to steady herself against the counter then searched the restaurant for a lifeline.

  Will stood in the hallway leading to the back rooms. He darted over to her and clasped her hand in his. “Keep it together,” he whispered. “Just hold on until I can get you away from the crowd.”

  She tried to nod, but violent images blurred her mind. When they reached the stock room, she fell into his arms and sobbed. “Oh God, I hoped I was wrong, that they were bad dreams, that they’d stop.” She hiccupped and wiped at her tears, then looked into her brother’s comforting green eyes, a part of her wishing they were John’s chocolate brown. “But the nightmares are real...they’re so real.”

  “Shhh, you don’t know that. It’s probably the same guy John came here to look for.”

  She froze in his arms. “Lloyd told you?”

  “Hell yeah he did. I go to my sister’s house and see a strange guy there, and you won’t give me an explanation? Why didn’t you tell me about all of this?”

  She pulled away and rested her hand on a shelf. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “Is that all? Or are you lumping me in with Eden?”

  Sending him a wry smile, she shrugged. “Since Mom died, you’ve made it clear you didn’t want to hear about—”

  “No, since mom died you’ve been coddling me. Making sure I’m okay, Dad’s okay, and running yourself ragged over the diner. You’ve been keeping yourself too busy, worrying about everyone else, you’ve forgotten about you.”

  “Not true, and this isn’t—”

  “Celeste, I’m not like Eden or Dad. I’ve always believed in you and your gift. Dad believed in Mom’s, too, but didn’t want you to have it.” He shrugged. “For whatever reason. You could have come to me about this. I would have stayed at the house, looked after you. The fact I had to hear about your visions from Lloyd pisses me off. I thought we were closer than that.”

  “We are, but you don’t understand. I don’t understand.” She shook her head. “God, I wish Mom was around to help guide me on this.”

  He touched her shoulder. “I do, too. But she’s not. Lloyd filled me in on everything, and it sounds like it’s the same guy who killed those other women. Don’t jump to conclusions. And quit shutting me out,” he finished, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

  Wishing they’d had this conversation before, because he was dead right, she hugged him, then nodded into his shoulder. “I won’t.” She held onto her brother for a few more moments, then pulled away. “Thanks for believing in me.”

  “I always have, just like you’ve been there for me. Now let’s get you cleaned up. We’ve got a full house out there. I’ll even throw on an apron and pour coffee.”

  She rolled her eyes. “My hero.”

  His smile wavered. “No matter what happens, I’ll be here for you.”

  She nodded and squeezed his hand. “Thanks, I needed to hear that.” Wiping her eyes she started for the door, then stopped. “Did Lloyd mention where they’d found the body?”

  Will was already tying an apron around his waist when he turned to her. “Yeah, Bev said Stu and Glen found the body when they were harvesting their cranberry bog.”

  Air whooshed from her lungs, and her knees gave way.

  Little red balls floating in her nose and mouth...she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t...

  “Celeste?” Will grabbed her before she hit the floor. “What is it?”

  She couldn’t see her brother’s face, her vision distorted by tiny, red orbs of light.

  Chapter 10

  As John climbed out of the sheriff’s cruiser a warm breeze drifted over him, carrying the tainted smell of death. Drawing deep breaths in through his mouth, which didn’t lessen the odor, he glanced at Roy. The sheriff wore a frown, and winced when the wind blew again, likely from not only the putrid odor, but the knowledge that he’d soon face its source.

  The girl in the bog.

  Plunking his state-issued hat on his head, Roy met him at the front of the cruiser. “That’s Glen and Stu over there.” He nodded to two men sitting in the grass approximately fifty feet from a gentle slope that John assumed led to the bog.

  One of the men stared off into the clear sky, the sun reflecting off his bald head ringed with gray hair. His lips moved, but John doubted anything coherent was uttered as he wrung his hands and rocked with the mild breeze. The other man, stocky, maybe a few years younger, held a faded red bandana to his forehead, while keeping a hand on the older man’s shoulder.

  Looking away from the two men, John focused on the landscape. He could only view the opposite shore, lined thickly with trees, pines mostly. A gentle ripple, caused by the westerly wind, moved along the water, but no cranberries were visible. “Where are the berries?” he asked.

  “They’re along the edge here,” Roy said, and pointed. “You just can’t see them from where we’re standing.”

  “I assumed the entire bog would be filled with them.”

  “No, this lake runs into a few other smaller ones and they all connect to the Chippewa River. The cranberry vines grow along the shore. When it’s time to harvest them, Glen and Stu flood the area with the lake water using an irrigation system.”

  “How deep?”

  “That’s a question for Glen and Stu.”

  John pushed off the cruiser. “Along with a few others. How well do you know these two?” he asked, as they walked toward the cranberry farmers.

  “Pretty well. They’re good men. Both happily married with kids. About eight or nine years ago, the owner of this cranberry farm…” He motioned to the bog. “David Leland passed on. Glen and Stu had been working for him for years. They pooled their money together and bought it off Leland’s widow and have been running it since.”

  When they were a few feet from the men, the one with the bandana rose, then moved toward them. “Roy, I...” He covered his mouth with the bandana, then looked away, a tear trickling down his tanned cheek.

  The sheriff laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Glen, this is John Kain. He’s here to help us sort this out.”

  Tucking the bandana in his back pocket, he offered his hand. “Glen Anderson, and this is Stu Clemens,” he said, and jerked his head toward the man still sitting on the grass.

  John shook his hand. “Tell me how you found the body?”

  “Well, I was running Denise—”

  “Denise?”

  “Sounds dumb, but that’s what we call our harvester. Anyway, as Denise churned through the bog, I caught something...you know, in my peripheral vision, and that’s when I saw the girl. I radioed Stu, and he called Bev.” He blew out a deep breath, withdrew the bandana from his back pocket and wiped it across his face again. “I never saw anything like this in all my years.” Tears welled in his eyes. “And I hope to God I never do again.”

  Car doors slammed behind them. John turned as Dan and the Viking approached from their vehicles. Two other cruisers pulled in, skidding to a halt on the gravel. Jesse stepped out of one and Ed out of the other.

  CSU would be arriving any minute, and while they’d done a decent job at the last dump site, he worried about the investigation aspect. Roy’s deputies weren’t homicide detectives, and as each man neared, all pale, all wearing an acute sense of dread on their faces, he wondered if he shouldn’t call Ian for help.

  Roy turned to him. “If it’s okay with you, I’m going to have one of my men take their official statements, and let the others wait for CSU.”

  John nodded. Maybe Roy was psychic, too, because he’d been about to suggest the same thing. That thought trigged another. “Do you get much traffic along this road here?” he asked Glen, pointing to the narrow two lane road. “Big rigs in particular”.

  “No big rigs,” Glen said. “We use our own flatbed trucks to deliver our product. Besides, this road doesn’t lead to much. Mostly, we get kids heading out to the lake for some necking or whatever they do these days.”

  Stu remained silent. He continued to sit on the g
rass, his focus on the woods surrounding the clearing that led to the bog.

  John looked to the woods then, and couldn’t help but think of Celeste’s trance. How she’d spoken of the trees, a clearing, hitting something metal before the killer had ended the life of the woman she’d become during the trance. He swiveled and leveled his gaze on Denise. Could the harvester have been what she’d referred to?

  “The sheriff would know better,” Glen continued, nodding in Roy’s direction. “He sends his men out here to make sure no one is gettin’ into trouble.”

  “This is usually Jesse and Lloyd’s territory, sometimes Dan, or even Gary who I don’t think you’ve met,” Roy said. “Kids like to come down here. Drink a six pack or two, smoke weed, have sex.”

  John removed his sunglasses, and tucked them in his pocket, then looked toward the water. From this angle, red berries coated the surface along the shore. “Glen, how deep do you flood the area?”

  “Twenty inches, give or take. Which made it easy to spot...” Glen cleared his throat. “To spot the woman. But the lake itself is about fifteen to twenty feet at its deepest point, depending on rainfall.”

  The deputies who’d been dragging their feet finally approached. Roy ordered Dan to take the cranberry farmers back toward the cruisers to make their official statements, then told the others to hang tight until CSU arrived. He didn’t miss the relief on the men’s faces before pulling two pairs of shoe covers out of his back pocket. He handed Roy one pair, then used the other to cover his shoes.

  “Is there another highway close enough where Winston could have parked his rig, then walked over here?” John asked, while waiting for the sheriff to cover his boots.

  “The next main highway’s miles from here. Plus, he’d have to have walked through those woods.” He pointed west. “And that wouldn’t have been easy. That’s a rough patch, no trails. If he works during the night, it would have taken him hours to make it here, then back to his rig.”

  “Maybe Winston isn’t our guy,” he said, as they approached the shore.