The theory of at least one partner working with the killer is not improbable. It also, conveniently, clears up the age issue that knocks Nick (aka Tristan) Sambino out of the running for killing Marci. He very well could be carrying on the murders for someone else. Ainsley had been very outspoken with his work on the Tucker case, giving radio and television interviews, talks at the local schools, and questioning community members at length. If Sambino was involved in that murder, he’d recognize Ainsley and realize that we’re onto the fact that this case spans many years. Still, it’s a real stretch.
“Ainsley, there’s no evidence of more than one killer.”
“Hell, Luce, there’s not much evidence of anything.” His fingers drum on the steering wheel. “It’s all so clean. Whoever committed these murders planned them out well in advance and must have had help. A spontaneous crime doesn’t go down so clean.” He adds as an afterthought, “And this Sambino kid is a real piece of work.”
“Is Sambino a homosexual?”
Ainsley’s thick eyebrows knit together while he contemplates the question, and then he shrugs. “It wouldn’t surprise me. It’s so cool to be gay now.”
Pregnant pause.
“I’m not one for the equal rights of gays,” he says, as if suddenly remembering who’s sitting in the car. “Marriage and all that.”
“I didn’t expect you were, Ainsley.” I bite my bottom lip to not add like most older male cops I know.
“Why do you ask?”
“Emma Parks was apparently friendly with Sambino. What did these two have in common? From what I’ve heard, Sambino is about as different from Parks as you can get. Yet they apparently saw each other in gay clubs. That connection might make her trust him.”
“She probably thought Sambino was a lost soul who needed some understanding.” Ainsley’s words drip with sarcasm. “He’s one of those young people doing everything he can possibly do to make himself different.”
“Unique and independent,” I say. “That’s what they call it now.”
“How’s this for unique? Sambino says he’s a vampire back from the dead. We have a statement from his last employer at Walmart who said they let Sambino go for bringing in what looked like a canister of blood. I guess he let it sit in the work fridge like it was Pepsi or whatever and drank it with his lunch.”
“How Halloween-y of him.”
Ainsley’s rug of a mustache bristles when he giggles. He’s playful now and flutters his eyelashes at me over his shoulder. “I vant to drink your blood.” He peels back his lips and we both laugh. It’s been a long day.
“I swear if my Sophie ever comes home and says she’s a vampire, I’m shipping her off to Transylvania.” The jokes between us are like a release valve for some of my stress and all the tightness that was there at our first meeting.
“When I talked to Kaitlin from the camera store today, she said Sambino had been in there bragging about his holy vampirism. He told Parks he was also risen from the dead.”
“Wait till you see his vampire teeth.” Ainsley taps the brakes for a red light and we skid on the icy black road. The back end fishtails a bit to the right, but nothing he can’t handle.
A comfortable quiet settles between us for a few moments. When the long light turns green, Ainsley asks if I’ve seen Marci’s family since the murder.
I shake my head. The truth is she never would have been there if it wasn’t for me. I’d been late to meet Marci in our secret place inside the quarry, a limestone cave she called Stonehenge, her hiding place from the world. I reach in my left pocket and my fist closes over the chunk of limestone I always carry with me.
Banded limestone. That’s what Marci called the paper-thin, layered rock from the quarry that summer. She placed the stone in the center of my palm and folded my fist inside her warm hands. Not a gratitude rock, she’d said, but a Marci rock. Carry it in your pocket and think of me. With her hands wrapped around mine, it was as though I could feel the beat of her heart through her fingertips against my skin. I imagined my own pulse a match with hers—a constant thrum of us.
My Marci rock. Now I hold that Ohio limestone and trace each layer line along the sides with the edge of my thumbnail as if it contains the answers. I’ve worked hard to bury our past over the years, to keep it entombed so tight that not an ounce of daylight could shine through. Marci always said that people are like limestone: just when you think you can’t stand another minute of pressure and pain, you do. Softness, she said, is the key to limestone formation. It is the acidic layers that permit the elements to shape the rock as it will: a stream of water that peels away the grains that hold it together, the wind that whips patterns into its skin, the ice that drips into the open pores and explodes the rock into scattered chunks only to begin the process all over again. It is the ultrathin layers that keep limestone in a state of constant flux, morphing itself into something completely new, while holding traces of its surroundings and whole histories gathered over time.
It is the holes in the limestone that get me thinking, the bubbles of air stuck inside the layers that ultimately leave the rock weak. What exactly do those bubbles of air hold? Sound? A sliver of an hour from that long-ago summer? I used to imagine cracking that rock open like an egg to see what secrets might spill out. Could the rocks in the limestone quarry contain sliced images of what really happened to Marci? Then my rational thinking would set in, followed with fear. Always that bone-rattling fear.
Ainsley clears his throat. “You didn’t kill her, Luce.” He reaches over and squeezes my knee to let me know he’s there, always has been. His dignity strikes me like a blow to the stomach, then melts my heart. His face reminds me of a sweet grandfather with a massive collection of crusty edges. “We all have our pasts. That’s what pulls us to this job. For what it’s worth, I bet Marci would be thankful you’re on this case. She might just lead us somewhere.”
My eyebrows furrow not because I’m mad, but because I’m trying to understand. Is Mr. Conservative with his collection of Republican bumper stickers really talking to me about Marci’s ghost?
“All right, look. I’m not one for all this psychic mumbo jumbo, but I got a relative into this sort of thing.” He points to Sophie’s photo. “Her mama. Anyway, when she describes it, I picture that scene in the first Star Wars movie when that little round robot flashes that greenish image of Princess Leia. You know what I’m talking about?” He puts on his female voice and imitates Princess Leia’s distress call.
“Nice voice,” I tease. “The robot is R2-D2. You mean that hologram?”
“The hologram. My niece always says murder victims have this sort of ability and call out to people to solve their case. She always told me Marci had a hold on me with that same sort of hologram. I bet she’s got one on you, too.”
The floating image of Princess Leia begging for help fills my mind. Her words flicker and fade as though it’s a terrific struggle to get the message for help across. A quick flash of goose bumps rise up my arms. “I never took you for a spiritual type, Ainsley.”
“If by spiritual you mean God-fearing, I most certainly am. But that psychic stuff is about as crazy as calling yourself a vampire.”
Not every cop believes in the power of the dead the way I do. Then again, not every cop has a ghost of a dad who helps her with current cases as if he’s still very much alive. Call me superstitious or blame it on all those ’80s slasher films I watched as a kid. Even now, though, I still wonder if Marci’s spirit is trapped inside that limestone cave, caught between two worlds, and unsure of how to get out. The year following Marci’s death I used to lie awake at night, staring at the ceiling, and wonder if it could be something else. Something much worse. What if Marci haunts Stonehenge and guards it, if her ghost is patiently waiting for the return of the one who should have saved her but didn’t? What if the promise of vengeance against me has kept her grounded to this world? Those were the fears of a sixteen-year-old girl.
When it comes right down to
brass tacks, though, it is the truth that I fear most of all. Just like forensic evidence, our own personal histories, I know, are like those bones and prints not buried deep enough in the layers of rock. Something always surfaces—the poke of a skull through the weathered soil, the point of a femur that the dog uncovers for himself, the droplet of blood wedged away inside a hidden doorjamb. I’m not ready, and maybe never will be, for my secrets from Willow’s Ridge to be revealed. Do I really have the courage to dig and brush away at the makeshift grave until all the answers are unearthed and finally washed clean?
“I guess every cop has a case that gets under his skin and refuses to let go. I was so naïve then. I’d never seen anything like the Tucker case. Hell, none of us had.” Ainsley shakes his head and grunts at the grisly memory.
My eyes burn, sudden and fast. Instantly I remember. It’s the grunt that gives Ainsley away. I look over at his profile against the car window and see an Ainsley twentysomething years ago, his hair a solid black and his body leaner and stronger. Handsome. He gave me a small teddy bear in the police station.
“You’re too big for this, I know,” Ainsley said to me. “But there are times we’re never too big for a teddy bear.”
I still have that bear. Even then, I heard his voice as a granddaughter would. Ainsley and I share a bloody history.
“How old are you now? Midthirties?” He waits for my nod. “You’ll understand this better when you get on in years, I suspect. There are sections of our lives, chapters, I guess, that need closure in order for you to move on. I can’t let go, Luce. I made a promise to her parents. Hell, I made a promise to you, and to Marci, that we’d find who committed that murder and bring him to justice. I can’t turn my back now.”
I take a deep breath. I blink back tears, bite my bottom lip. This is not the place for a crying jag. Ainsley ignores my emotions bubbling beside him and drives. He gives me the space I need. Finally, I say, “All I’m asking is that you don’t work so hard to make all the pieces fit. Deal?”
“Anything else?”
I nod. “And that you keep your temper under control. No hothead outbursts.”
Ainsley considers me beside him for a few seconds and then grunts his agreement. “You’re a hard sell, Hansen. Just like your father.”
Once we turn into the Eldridge Funeral Home driveway, I realize with a quick flush of panic that I’ve been here before.
Marci.
I hadn’t even considered that we’ve been driving to the same funeral home where Marci’s services had been held. My breath catches in my throat and my heart rockets into high speed. I half hope for Marci’s hologram to appear on the dash telling me all will be okay.
Breathe, I remind myself. Just breathe.
The Eldridge Funeral Home is a mammoth house from the turn of the century. Over the years, the owners have reconstructed its back lawn into a parking area. The building is well lit with only three cars in the lot—no funeral tonight. Davis beat us here and he is parked near the green awning that covers the front entrance, blanched by hot days of sun and worn by wet, windy weather. Headlights turned off, his car rumbles in the cold, spitting out clouds of white exhaust.
Although Davis and another detective questioned Sambino at the funeral home twice in the last few days, we now have enough to bring him in for formal questioning at the station. Kaitlin placed Sambino with Emma Parks near the time of her attack. He may very well be the last person to have seen her alive. Ainsley wanted to have Sambino brought into the station for questioning from the start, have uniforms pick him up, but I argued that I needed to see Sambino in his natural surroundings. From what we’ve learned, Sambino worked mostly nights, which makes his place of employment a sort of second home to him. He will see our presence as an intrusion in his space. A trip to the station would only give him extra time to plan a statement and to steel himself against our questions. And we don’t want to arrest him before we have enough for the DA to charge him. We need more than vampire makeup and being the last one to see her.
“Well,” Ainsley grunts while the car tires beneath us crash through the lot, rutted and pitted with snow and ice, “here goes nothing.”
Chapter Six
While we wait in the funeral home foyer, a phone rings behind closed doors in a nearby office. The caller doesn’t hang up. Davis, Ainsley, and I act as though we don’t notice its shrill cry in the stillness. I try not to think about what could very well be Mrs. or Mr. Parks calling to set up funeral services for Emma. I’ve never been comfortable with funerals, something you’d think I would’ve warmed up to by now given my choice of occupation.
Most people don’t understand what I mean when I try to explain that there is a difference between death and funerals. Death, in all its nakedness, has a peace that comes with it that allows me to look directly into its raw, bloodless face. Funeral homes cover death with bright eye shadow, too pink blush and lipstick sprinkled with Bible verses, and scratchy, frilly clothes. Maybe it’s the calming music that plays a little too loud or the much-too-kind way the staff speaks. Why is it that every funeral home I’ve been in has those fake fountains with the falling water that’s meant to calm everyone’s nerves but never does?
“Generations of Eldridges have lived here since what seems like the beginning of Willow’s Ridge,” Davis says. “Just give him a moment. He’ll be down.”
“The owner lives upstairs?” The remnants of snow melt from my boots on the welcome mat and the heat from the wood fireplace begins to penetrate my layers of clothing.
“Chad, his wife, and two young girls. I suspect they’re teenagers by now. The Eldridges are known as a family-oriented business, and so many people around these parts love that.”
Davis, Ainsley, and I are surrounded by a lavish home in high sheen: antique sofas and large arrangements of colorful flowers line the doorway. A polished oak staircase winds up to a second level. On the edge of each alternating step, a basket of red and gold poinsettias leftover from the holiday season are still in full bloom. A solid wood grandfather clock ticks nearby and startles us all when it chimes the half hour.
“The Parks girl will have her funeral here,” Ainsley says. “They told Doc Mitchell when the body was released.”
Davis runs his fingertips over his short hair. “The Jones funeral had lines out the door. I suspect this one will, too.”
I picture the swarm of people who must have come to pay their respects to the local girls. There had been more visitors at Marci’s funeral than the funeral home could hold as well. Davis, Ainsley, and I, and other plainclothes law enforcement officers, will have to filter through the crowds during the service and at the burial. It is such a violation for the killer to attend the funeral of his victim, but so many of them do in one way or another. It is like he’s killing her all over again.
“Disgusts me no end to think that Sambino prepared those girls’ bodies for burial,” Davis says.
“It’s not enough that son of a bitch took their lives, but he had to gloat and relive it all in their deaths.” Ainsley hisses, “You know that fucknut was jacking off the whole time!”
“Ainsley.” Davis hushes and gives his head a hard shake.
Chad Eldridge opens the upstairs door and descends the stairs adjusting his tie. He’s so thin that his collarbone and shoulders hold his button-up white shirt like a hanger. “Frank! I wasn’t expecting you. Everything okay?” He holds out his hand to Davis.
“Sorry to bother you at this hour, Chad. I hate to disturb you and the kids, but this can’t wait until morning.” Davis turns to me. “This is Special Agent Luce Hansen from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and you remember Detective Cole Ainsley.”
He nods hello to Ainsley and shakes my hand. Chad Eldridge’s nails are all filed perfectly with a clear polish and he wears a thick gold pinkie ring. It’s not just his nails; Eldridge is impeccably groomed. It’s not hard for me to imagine him at a mirror combing his blond hair over and over until all the comb grooves a
re in line. His suit pants look tailored to fit him perfectly while his cuffed shirt has been recently ironed. I look down at my frumpy self. I’m so layered up, I look about ten pounds heavier than I actually am. My black pants and boots are worn, nothing like the polished, tasseled leather loafers Eldridge wears.
“Chad and I run half-marathons together,” Davis tells me. “Correction—most days, I run far behind him.”
Eldridge gives an easy laugh. “Don’t let this man fool you. He’s as quick as the Road Runner, I tell you.”
I watch as Davis shifts from small talk to business. He has a gentle way of dealing with people. I have yet to see anyone not warm up to him in seconds. “We have some follow-up questions for Nick Sambino. Is he working tonight?”
“Downstairs. We got the girl’s body this evening.”
Ainsley says, without preamble, “We have a few questions to ask you, too.”
Davis adds, “Again, we’re sorry to intrude,” to soften Ainsley’s words.
Eldridge holds up his hands to halt Davis. “I understand. I want these crimes solved, too. Funerals are my livelihood, but I don’t want the business because of a murderer.”
I follow the others down a wide, long hallway toward a conference room. Davis walks in front of me and I picture his arrow-like shoulders cutting through the air as he runs.
On my left is a coffin and urn salesroom. Colorful track lighting shows off the mahogany and oak caskets that glisten along the wall. Different satin linings are displayed for a build-your-own casket. Other large viewing rooms follow.
It’s impossible for me to place which room had been Marci’s for her funeral. I stop for a moment outside of one with my hand stuffed deep in my pocket clutching my Marci rock. A tightness settles deep inside my chest and a shiver rolls along the skin of my entire body.
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