Before that July, I’d only been to one funeral, and I wasn’t so sure that even counted. It was for Mrs. Henderson, who lived down the street from my dad and me, the older woman I saw only a few times a year when I needed to sell something to raise money for sports at school. Marci was different—she was the first person who died that I loved.
The day before the funeral, I went back to Stonehenge. With each footfall I whispered a prayer that this was all just a bad dream and that Marci would be waiting inside the small cave for me. I could almost hear her contagious laugh spilling out from the entrance to Stonehenge: My God, you are slow. And you run track at school? What do they call you? Turtle Hansen?
I couldn’t make myself move any faster. It took me three times as long as it usually did that day to navigate through the thick elms and sugar maples pocked within the limestone. When I finally rounded the boulder that led to Stonehenge, yellow crime-scene tape greeted me and the mark of Marci’s blood was darkened almost black against the light-colored stone. I knelt to touch the stain, letting my fingertips graze over what was left of Marci, and a sudden swell of emotion burst somewhere deep inside me—a tidal wave that almost knocked me over. I felt the water swirl above my head, as I drowned in the cocoon of watery silence. Couldn’t I stay here? Why couldn’t I take refuge inside this safety with Marci?
It was the first time I ever thought of suicide as a viable option. I found myself outside of Stonehenge peering over the rocky ledge and into the watery quarry below. If I jumped, would it be high enough to kill me? I learned that summer that nothing is heavier than the invisible cloak of guilt, nothing more tenacious than the slimy coat of shame. I looked over the edge again. If I angled myself just right, I could hit my head on one of the jutting rocks on the way down. That would kill me. Mesmerized by the prospect of my own death, I gazed down into the crack of the earth.
The voice spoke softly at first, a gentle nudge that grew in its persistence. I looked around me. Where did the words come from? No one was there. Get out. Get out of here now! At first I didn’t obey. I walked back into the center of the cave wondering if I’d finally lost my mind. Could it have been Marci? Maybe her ghost? I’d certainly come back here in the hopes that I would find her. It wasn’t completely outlandish to consider that she might speak to me. Was she really so angry as to tell me to go? Then I remembered what my dad always told me: Trust the voice inside you. Follow your gut.
Suddenly my breath came quick and jagged and rushed. I grabbed as many limestone chunks from the entrance to Stonehenge as I could fill my pockets with and raced back through the rocky canopy the way I’d come. Behind me, someone was there—eyes on me, a hot breath not far behind. The heat of its exhalations told me this was real, even when my mind insisted that it wasn’t. I ran faster than I ever have, my feet tumbling over one another until I finally burst out of the limestone quarry and into the safety of my dad’s truck. Locking the doors and starting the engine, I scanned the entire area, but there was no one there. No one at all.
Many police and emergency workers attended Marci’s funeral. The cops stood out so much they might as well have worn their uniforms. I’d been around enough of my dad’s police friends to recognize their wide stance, their watchful gaze that took every movement in like some sort of human recorder.
“Don’t be afraid,” my dad said from the chair beside me. “They’re here to protect us. To watch over everyone and keep us safe.”
It was only then I realized it wasn’t only my dad and me who didn’t know what happened to Marci. The police had no idea who’d done it either. Worse, they thought the killer could be among us, a mourner, a family member, a friend of Marci’s. Doubt consumed me and I took in every adult in the room with the same question: Did you kill Marci? Did the man in the plaid tie smash in my girlfriend’s head and watch her bleed to death? Did the guy with the ponytail see me on his way out of Stonehenge that day and choose not to kill me? I wanted to know. I needed to know why someone decided to let me live and to kill Marci. Why couldn’t it have been the other way around?
After the prayers, we filtered past the coffin to say good-bye. I inched up toward Marci, my sweating palms barely able to hold on to the rocks. The heavy, polished casket was open and lined with a silky powder pink. Marci’s blond hair, freshly shampooed, fanned out over the satin pillow like a whispering spray of corn silk.
Still, it wasn’t Marci. It was her body, yes, so small inside the pillowed bed with her hands clasped over her chest clutching a dark, heavy crucifix. Both Irish and Catholic, her family followed many of the traditions. She wore a frilly white dress that reminded me more of a wedding gown with lace crawling up her pale neck and slipping down her arms and wrists. This wasn’t my Marci. I felt only the endless pull to touch her, to lean my head down against her fragile shoulder and tell her for the millionth time how I wished it had been me and not her.
I emptied my pockets and dropped each stone along the inside of the casket—these are Luce stones. I imagined that those rocks sent Marci—wherever she was—memories of us, of Stonehenge. Maybe those bubbles of rock really did hold our images, snippets of our laughter and words inside that rocky canopy, the way her skin felt under my fingertips, the way her breath felt against my neck.
When they lowered Marci into the earth, I stood as still and rigid as I possibly could. If I moved even one centimeter I feared that I would shatter apart like glass and the anguished scream stuck inside me would pour out of the cracks. That scream would never end. I held my breath, closed my eyes, and imagined the moist, cool earth covering me beside my Marci, smothering us whole.
*
Inside the funeral home’s conference room, shuttered away from the viewing and funeral rooms, I take a seat at the table, across from Ainsley and Davis. A fireplace crackles and pops with burning wood and I fight off the sleepiness that inches up around me. With the heat and dimmed spotlights that surround the room, I’m ready to call it a night. Everything in the room has a soft edge to it, a shadowed ambience. A large-screen television is turned off and only reflects our faces and movements against its shadowy black screen. This is not the time for an attack of drowsiness. These are the moments when you have to take everything in as an investigator; you never know what will become important.
“I wish I could say I’m surprised to see you, Frank.” Eldridge looks at the captain. “I knew I would see you again soon.”
Eldridge looks away from the captain a moment, somewhere out over our heads. His dark eyes weaken into a look of sadness behind the lenses of his glasses, as if he cannot deny the truth any longer. “I always chalked up his looks and crazy notions to his art, you know?” His gaze then comes back to focus on Davis. “It’s been really tense around here.”
Davis clears his throat. “We’re looking at every possible angle we can get here, Chad. I have to ask, I mean, I’d hate to think…donations for the services and burials of the victims?”
“Donations?”
“Anyone who has given a substantial chunk of money to help the families with costs, whether they gave anonymously or not,” Davis says. “Guilt for his actions can drive a killer to donate, or sometimes it’s a sort of pride at what he’s done.”
Eldridge’s manscaped eyebrows knit together as he filters through his memory. “I’ll check the records, but I don’t remember any significant donations. We collected money at the Jones funeral for a scholarship fund in her name.”
“How long has Sambino worked for you?” I ask. I imagine Chad Eldridge is an exceptional record keeper, probably with a rigid personal schedule that would earn him the title of Mr. Organization.
“Going on nine years now. He’s the best embalmer and makeup artist we’ve ever had.”
“Has he discussed anything with you about the murders or the questions from our last visit?” Davis asks.
“No, but I only see him for a few minutes when he comes in for his shift. We’re the proverbial ships that pass in the night. I’m leaving at that
point, so I give him directions about what needs to be accomplished that night and head upstairs to my family.”
Eldridge’s response doesn’t ring true. The cops question his employee about three or four homicides and he doesn’t even ask Sambino about it?
“Do you ever come back down during the night?” Ainsley’s fingertips sweep over his moustache.
“Rarely. If I need to go somewhere, we have a private entrance, separate from the funeral parlor.” Eldridge crosses his arms over his chest. “Sometimes we get calls in the middle of the night to pick up more than one body, and then I’m needed. But most nights are very quiet and Nick takes care of anything that might come up.”
My mind settles on Eldridge’s last statement. Sambino works alone. I don’t remember seeing this information in the notes from the last interview. “So it is possible that Nick could be gone during his shift and you wouldn’t know it?”
“Possible,” Eldridge concedes with a shrug. “But he always gets everything done and that would be difficult on many nights if he was somewhere else. He’s meticulous in his work and takes hours to get the makeup a perfect color, the clothes a match against the coffin fabric.” Eldridge touches the tips of his thumb and forefinger in the air to indicate the precision of Sambino’s job. “Besides”—he flips his hand through the air as though he’s pushing away the thought—“I can see his truck through the upstairs window. I’ve never seen him leave or noticed the truck gone.”
Davis asks, “Was Sambino working last night?”
“Yes,” Eldridge says. “I had no reason to come downstairs.” Eldridge leans forward and whispers conspiratorially. “Look, Frank, I know Nick’s got his problems. I just can’t wrap my head around the idea he could’ve done any of this.”
“He might not have.” Davis gives Eldridge’s shoulder a quick, reassuring squeeze, a touch that reminds me of the way Ainsley squeezed my knee in the car not so long ago.
Eldridge turns for a heavy wood door that leads downstairs to the preparation areas. I stop him before he escapes down the staircase.
“You said that you’ve never noticed his truck gone during his shift. He doesn’t pick up bodies in the truck, does he?”
“No, a hearse.”
“Where’s that hearse generally parked?”
A few seconds pass and most of the color drains from Chad Eldridge’s face. “The garage.” His words come out strangled.
The garage, I learn, is out of view from the Eldridge’s bedroom, kitchen, and family room. “Does Nick have access to those keys at all times?”
“He’s been issued a key to the hearse and one to our business entrance.” Eldridge drops his head into the heels of his hands. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ve never thought to check the mileage. I’ve never had a reason not to trust Nick.”
*
Nick Sambino steps into the conference room, his flabby body filling the frame until he decides to kick the door closed with a thick-soled boot, most likely steel-toed. The slam of the door carries in the quiet home. “Detectives”—he pulls out a chair closest to him—“to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
Holy hell. This pudgy, greasy postadolescent cannot be who everyone has gotten so excited about. Sambino is nothing like I expected. His pouch of a belly tells me he’s spent most of his days and nights smoking pot and gorging afterward. A black hoodie has a few nights’ worth of dinner dribbled down the front and his dark jeans are much too tight. Nick Sambino is definitely no Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt from Interview with a Vampire. And he’s certainly no Edward Cullen.
Sambino’s gaze settles on me and he pulls his lips back into a sneer of a grin meant only to reveal his pointy white incisors. He’s clearly pleased with himself and these gigantic teeth. I swallow a laugh. Ainsley has filled me in on the latest fashion craze of the wannabe vampire world, fangs made from acrylic. These veneers are permanently attached to the incisors by a dentist for quite a hefty fee. In order to attach this new fashion statement, the dentist has to drill away all the enamel from the incisors, leaving behind only stumps that contain the tooth’s nerve. The acrylic fang then fits over the root and is buried into the gum for a more natural look. Sambino’s fangs, though, are a blinding Hollywood white next to the cigarette-brown teeth that surround them.
“We have a few more questions,” Davis says. “This is Special Agent Luce Hansen. And Detective Ainsley.”
Sambino shifts his gaze to Ainsley. Black eyeliner runs at the corner of his left eye into a white powder so thick on his face it looks like paste. He leans forward, his elbows spread wide on the table. “I figured you’d be back.” He glares at Davis. “For the record, it wasn’t me.”
A muscle in Sambino’s left cheek twitches near his mouth, an intermittent pull at the corner of his lip. A nervous tic. He sees me watching the movement and licks his black-painted lips over and over again in an attempt to hide it. He only draws my attention to the tiny cuts that line his bottom lip where the fangs naturally fall, a sign that Mr. Sambino is not the seasoned vampire he claims to be. In fact, he is still learning to use those fangs.
“How well did you know Emma Parks?” I ask.
Sambino lets a lock of dyed-black hair spill over his pale face, covering one eye completely. He stares down at the table and pops his knuckles one at a time. His hands are completely disproportionate to the rest of his chunky frame. Wide with long, green-bean fingers, his hands aren’t the bear paws I expect. They’re also paws that aren’t scraped or bruised in any way. The other piece that doesn’t fit is Sambino’s high level of agitation. Our killer, from what I know of him, is very secure and certain in his movements and thought processes.
“Sambino,” Ainsley demands in his guttural voice. “Talk.”
“I already told you. I don’t know nothing.” Suddenly Sambino pushes back hard in his chair, scrapes the screaming legs over the wood floor. He kicks one worn steel-toed boot at a time up on the table and settles his glare on me.
“Feet down, son,” Ainsley growls.
“I’m not your son.” There is the slightest nervous tremor of his lips.
“I’m warning you. Don’t push me. Feet on the ground now.”
This is it: Sambino’s last stand. It’s his last attempt to show some sort of control in a situation where he has none. So when he doesn’t move, Ainsley smacks his ankles with a fisted hand until Sambino winces and drops his feet to the floor.
Even though Sambino doesn’t make a move to defy him, Ainsley is worked up. “You’ll need a new dye job before we send you to prison,” he says, pointing to Sambino’s light brown roots. “Those boys will be lined up to take a turn with you.” Ainsley works hard for a rise out of Sambino. “All that makeup. God, they’ll love a good bang with you!”
Davis puts a hand on Ainsley’s arm, directing him to say no more. “That is, unless you talk to us tonight.”
Sambino drums his painted black nails on the table. The motion is too quick, though, not lackadaisical, the way he wants us to see him.
“Mr. Sambino, or is it Tristan?” Davis says. “Your silence tells me you know Emma Parks.”
A suspect’s body tells the truth so much more than any words out of his mouth. We all watch for any movement that signals a weakness. If we can catch Sambino in a significant lie tonight, it will be enough for the judge to sign a search warrant for his property.
“Am I under arrest?” Sambino finally says.
“That depends,” Davis says.
“On what?”
“You,” I say. “Answer the question.”
Sambino sighs dramatically. “Emma liked tattoos. She wanted to see my latest one.”
“Let’s see it.”
He glances at me. “The tat?”
I nod.
He places his pale wrist on the table for me, palm up. About two inches in length, the black symbol is so new that redness puffs his skin out around the edges. “What does it mean?”
He eyes me, gauging my sincerity
. Finally, he says, “Oh, so you’re the good cop. It’s a symbol.”
“Of?” I ask.
“The ankh.”
I shrug and turn to Davis. “It looks a hell of a lot like a cross to me.”
“An ugly cross,” Ainsley says.
“It is a cross.” Sambino pulls his wrist away and covers the looping cross with the edge of his sleeve. “Egyptian, to be specific. It gives protection and eternal life.”
“Hmm,” I say, “I thought it was vampirism that did that.”
Sambino smirks at me.
“What did Emma think of the tat?”
“She liked it.”
“She liked it so much she agreed to get into your vehicle and go back to your place?”
Sambino shakes his head.
“Let me help your memory.” Davis lays out a photograph from Emma’s senior year in high school. Eventually Sambino pulls at the photo’s edge and slides it in front of him.
“Where were you last night around eight?” Davis asks.
“Not sure.” Sambino continues to tap his fingernails against the table. “It’s been a long twenty-four hours.” He yawns for impact, then chuckles. “The First 48. You guys ever watch that show?”
“Who else was in your apartment last night besides Emma?”
When Sambino says nothing, Davis relies on the gory crime-scene photograph of Emma, bloodied and frostbitten, for shock value.
It’s the ever so slight pull-back from Sambino that tells me he’s never seen Parks like this before, a muted version of surprise when he sees her genitals splayed open. The horror before him has weakened his resolve; he’ll talk with some gentle prodding. Before I have time to formulate my plan in action, Ainsley slams his open palm on the wooden table. The noise ricochets throughout the room like a gunshot and Sambino jumps.
Ainsley is up and uses his size to push much too hard into Sambino’s right shoulder. “I’m tired of playing with you. Hear me? Where were you?”
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