Delia's Shadow

by Moyer, Jaime Lee

  Dora threaded her arm through mine. “I’m going to ask one more enormous favor of you, but only if you’re willing. I’d like you to act as a buffer between me and the victim’s belongings. There’s no danger, Dee, but I can’t say for certain how uncomfortable this will make you. You’re sensitive enough I can’t predict that with any accuracy.”

  My first night back in San Francisco I’d walked through ghost after ghost in the train station, experienced the death of person after person. I could think of little worse than reliving someone burning alive. Bravery grew a bit easier in the face of that. “I’ve survived living with ghosts most of my life, I can survive this. How do we start?”

  “Ghosts? Now you’re dragging ghosts into this?” Matt scowled and moved away from his desk. He looked between me, Dora, and Gabe, all of us unsmiling and sober, and shook his head. “Never mind. You’ve all lost your minds if you believe that load of hogwash. Get this circus over with. I’d like to talk to Gabe in private.”

  Dora gave Matt her brightest, most guileless smile. “I understand your skepticism, Captain Ryan, but there’s no need to insult Delia and your son. Perhaps I can convince you to apologize. Would you have more faith in my hocus pocus if I told you exactly how this murderer hurt each of these four women? How much pain they suffered at his hands, the bones he broke, or how long it took each of them to die? Or perhaps you’d like a description of what it was like for Sarah Miles as he cut her heart out. I can do that for you.”

  Matt’s jaw tightened and his ruddy complexion turned ashen. “No one other than Thom and I knew about what happened to Sarah Miles. Her father was a fellow police officer. We kept the condition of the body out of the files so he wouldn’t know. Finding her dead was hard enough on her parents.” The conviction in his eyes that Dora was a fake began to crack. “I never told Gabe, either. Is this the kind of thing you did for the department in Atlanta?”

  “This is exactly what I did for them and equally as painful.” Dora’s smile faded and she held my arm tighter. “I came here to help Gabe discover this man’s identity. I’d appreciate you staying quiet so I can get on with it.”

  Dora turned her back on Matt and ignored the muttered conversation he had with Gabe. I had a harder time pretending not to hear. Matt’s tone was distinctly sharp and unhappy, Gabe’s expression tight and controlled. I felt partly responsible.

  “Delia? Did you hear me?”

  I blushed and shook my head. “Sorry. What should I do?”

  “Open your hand and lay your palm flat on top of each item. I’ll put my hand over yours.” She wiped her palm on her skirt. “You’re already attuned to Aileen. We’ll start with the killer’s letters from her file. Maybe we’ll get lucky and not have to go any further.”

  She didn’t believe that nor did I. I sucked in a deep breath and set my palm on the small stack of blue envelopes. Nothing happened. Not until Isadora laid her hand over mine.

  Jumbled images filled my head, boats on the bay and a house near the water, and flashes of the face I’d seen in my dreams, a man with cold blue eyes, dark hair and a chipped front tooth. Each glimpse chilled my blood and brought a stab of pain behind my eyes. Uncomfortable, but bearable. I hoped it wasn’t any worse for Dora.

  We moved from small pile to small pile, each group of letters tied to a different victim. The angle I saw his face from was different, the light sometimes behind or to the side, but I’d no doubt I saw the same man each time. This was the face of Aileen Fitzgerald’s murderer, the same man who’d killed all the people in Matt and Gabe’s files.

  The pale blue envelope on the stack marked with Sarah Miles’s name was marred with rusty brown stains, larger streaks smeared and smudged on the corners. I laid my palm on top as I had with all the rest. All the agony of Sarah Miles’s death was concentrated in that one small square of paper. I jerked my hand away immediately, cradling it to my chest and panting for breath. “Oh, God … oh, God.”

  Gabe frowned and started toward me, but Dora waved him back. She put an arm around my shoulders and whispered in my ear. “I can do this alone if need be, Dee. Just say if the pain is too much.”

  “No. I’m all right.” I scrubbed my palm against my skirt, the gesture a twin of Isadora’s. Breathing was easier with her arm on my shoulders. “I was surprised, that’s all. I’ll finish what I started.”

  “This one will be the hardest for both of us. More of Sarah Miles’s presence remains and she didn’t go easily.” Dora smiled, but that did nothing to lessen the strain and fatigue in her face. “Together, then.”

  Our hands came to rest on the envelope simultaneously. Pain overwhelmed all else, at least at first. Images were sharper when they came and focused on the killer’s face. Sarah Miles memorized everything about the man murdering her, every scar and imperfection in his features. She held tight to the anger of being helpless and not being able to fight free. She carried that rage into the grave.

  Anger grew in me as well. I understood why Gabe and Jack spoke of this man as a butcher. He’d taken his time with Sarah Miles.

  What the dreams and glimpses of Aileen’s memories hadn’t shown was how big he was, tall and broad-shouldered. Muscles in his arms told of days at hard labor. Her killer was very young, not much past boyhood. His pale blue eyes were even colder and spoke of nothing but death, his face unsmiling and marked by deep, fresh scratches. Sarah had hurt him. I took grim satisfaction in that.

  And Sarah Miles’s memories were strong even after thirty years, as if her blood splashed on cheap paper held the essence of all she’d struggled to remember, all the rage she’d nursed. I suddenly knew who the murderer was with a certainty that startled me. Ethan Brennan had killed all these women. Ethan Brennan was still murdering people.

  Sarah’s father was a policeman. She’d known him, too.

  Isadora pulled my hand away with hers. The room spun in dizzying circles and I held the table edge to keep from falling. I couldn’t rid myself of the pain, the feel of his knife cutting through Sarah’s skin and her terror. Sucking in air as quickly as I could unsettled my stomach more. I stumbled along the length of the table, out the door, and behind the carriage house to be sick in the weeds.

  Gabe followed. He wrapped an arm around my middle, holding me up until I’d stopped heaving. I was embarrassed, shaking and sicker than I could remember being since childhood. Spitting to clear the bitter taste from my mouth was even more humiliating, but it was that or vomit again.

  He helped me into the patch of shade stretching out from the carriage house. With the wall at my back and his hand on my arm I could stand, but only barely. Sliding down rough clapboard siding to the ground was a real danger.

  Gabe wiped my face and mouth with a handkerchief, his professional mask and any semblance of calm shattered. “Are you all right? Talk to me, Dee. You’re scaring the hell out of me.”

  How naïve I’d been hit home. There were worse things in the world, much worse, than the brush with death contained in a ghost’s touch. “No, I’m not all right. I may never be all right again. Sarah was in so much pain and … and he kept hurting her. But she fought him until she didn’t have any strength.” I burst into tears, drowning in Sarah Miles’s memories. “Ethan Brennan killed her. He murdered all those people. That’s why Thom Brennan left town. He knew, Gabe, and he lied to your father. He knew.”

  Gabe stared, reaction held in check, searching my face for the core of truth that would let him believe. I was a sniffling, tear-stained mess, but I didn’t flinch or look away. I was asking for a great deal of trust.

  “Are you certain?” Gabe didn’t ask how I knew or for proof, but his job demanded he hear the answer. People’s lives, including my own, hung on finding this man.

  And both of us knew what this would do to his father. Neither of us relished hurting him, Gabe least of all.

  “Yes. Sarah Miles knew him.” I swiped the heel of my hand across my eyes. “Ethan is the man you’re looking for. Dark hair, pale blue eyes, and a
chipped front tooth. Ask your father.”

  Gabe pulled me into his arms. He petted my hair and let me cry on his shoulder, but didn’t offer false assurances or try to pretend the revulsion crawling over my skin wasn’t real. But he’d seen enough of the killer’s handiwork to build nightmares of his own. He wouldn’t dismiss mine.

  Gabe

  Gabe couldn’t decide which scared him most, how shaken and ill Delia was, or the prospect of telling his father Thom Brennan had lied.

  He couldn’t have talked Delia out of helping Isadora and wouldn’t have tried. She’d been determined not to let Dora tackle the files alone. But he’d never wanted this case, his job, to touch her this deeply. Holding her was the only way Gabe knew how to help, other than giving her time. Time might be the only cure, letting the impact of what she’d experienced soften. Living through the days after the quake had been like that for him. He never forgot, but remembering got easier.

  His father came around the corner, Dora leaning hard on his arm. She was shaky and pale, but on her feet. Her full attention was on Matt Ryan, speaking to him in low, urgent tones that kept Gabe from hearing what she said.

  He’d pushed thoughts of Dora into the background, too consumed with Delia’s collapse to worry about both of them at once. Concern hit him full force now. If Delia was shaken this badly, by rights Isadora should be shattered. Likely she was, but she’d had a lifetime of practice hiding pain. What he saw on the surface wasn’t the entire story. His respect for her resilience rose another notch.

  Frazzled was the only word that fit his father’s appearance and demeanor. The haunted, lost look filling Matt Ryan’s eyes was one he’d seen each time they went through files or talked about old cases, but a hundred times worse. Gabe didn’t need to be told that Dora had broken the news about who the killer was and that, somehow, she’d convinced his father to believe. The anguished expression on his father’s face was enough.

  That his father had stopped scoffing long enough to listen was nothing short of miraculous.

  “I owe you and Delia both an apology, son.” His father wouldn’t meet his eyes, staring resolutely at some point near Gabe’s shoes instead. “I’ve already told Isadora how sorry I am for what I said to her. Your mother’s always said that I dig my feet in like a Missouri mule about all the wrong things. I should have pushed Thom harder for an explanation, but I trusted him. He was my partner.”

  Thom Brennan had been more than his father’s partner. The two men had been best friends both on and off the job for fifteen years. He couldn’t imagine how he’d feel if Jack betrayed him. “You did what you thought was right at the time, Dad. No one can blame you for that.”

  “I can blame myself.” His father wiped a hand over his face and sighed. “I could have stopped Ethan all those years ago. People died because of me, Gabriel. Probably more than the ones we know about. I was so damn blind with hating Parker I shut out everything he said. If I’d been half the cop I thought I was, I’d have listened.”

  Dora patted his father’s arm. “You can’t change the past, Matthew. Gabe knows who to look for now and that makes all the difference. Let’s get Delia back to the house so she can lie down.”

  Delia stepped away from him, shaky and sniffling, but able to stand. “No need to fuss, I just need a few minutes. I’ll be fine.”

  “Nonsense. Never turn down a chance to be pampered.” Isadora swayed and the small flush of color remaining in her face bleached away. Gabe’s father caught her before she fell, wrapping an arm around Dora’s waist and holding her up. She shut her eyes and licked her lips, swallowing hard. “If Dee is going to decline the offer, perhaps I should lie down instead. I’m sure Moira won’t mind.”

  His father clucked over Dora, sounding like one of the brood hens in the yard. “No, Moira won’t mind. Let’s get you inside the house. Slow and careful now.”

  Gabe pulled Delia deeper into the shade and back into his arms. He held her quietly for a moment, cringing at the small catch in her breath and half-swallowed sobs. “I can’t imagine what you and Dora go through, or what experiencing someone else’s suffering is like. Seeing the aftermath is bad enough. Promise me something, Delia. Don’t shut me out. Let me know when the pain is too much for you.”

  “I’d rather not make dealing with death and suffering a lifelong habit. Not that I’ve been given a choice so far.” Her voice was hoarse and still thick with tears. “But I’m not a hothouse flower. I don’t want to be treated as such.”

  “I don’t intend to treat you like one.” He brushed fine strands of hair off her face. “All I’m asking is that you don’t hide how much it hurts. Let me help sometimes.”

  Delia stepped out of his arms. She dabbed at her eyes with his soggy handkerchief. “That works both ways, Lieutenant Ryan. I’ll promise if you will.”

  “You have my word on it. We’ll help each other.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and smiled. “Mom will start to worry soon. We should go back to the house.”

  “That might be wise.” She put a hand to her stomach and grimaced. “Perhaps I do need to lie down. I could rest up a bit before sleeping on you all the way home.”

  “Tell me if I go too fast.” That she was making jokes was a relief. Gabe shortened his steps and let her set the pace. Delia didn’t lean on him much, but she let him help when necessary.

  It was a start. He wouldn’t ask for more.

  CHAPTER 16

  Gabe

  Gabe studied the street map on his office wall. Map pins, black for his father’s cases and white for his, marked the locations where each of Ethan Brennan’s victims had been found. The rounded tops reminded him of tombstones, worn down by wind, rain, and time. Appropriate given the circumstances. He kept hoping that if he stared long enough, the widely spaced pins would resolve into a pattern.

  All he’d managed so far was to give himself a headache. Ethan had left victims in every part of the city, from the shipping docks and alleys near the bay, to Chinatown and every well-to-do neighborhood in San Francisco. There was no pattern Gabe could find, no cluster of victims left in one district or obvious hunting grounds. Ethan flitted around the city, a dragonfly that never settled among the cattails.

  A cursory knock was all the warning Gabe had before his partner charged in and swung the door shut again. Jack brandished a sheaf of telegrams in his hand. “We finally heard back from the sheriff in Glenrock.”

  “Why do you bother to knock, Jack?” He counted black and white pins again. Fifteen bodies for his father, eight for him, and twice that many letters claiming victims they hadn’t found. “It only slows you down.”

  “Decorum, why else?” He dropped the stack of paper on Gabe’s desk. “Come take a look at these.”

  One more quick survey convinced him the map wasn’t going to yield its secrets easily. He sank into his creaky desk chair, feeling far older than thirty. “Did they find anything at the ranch?”

  Jack dragged the visitor’s chair over and made himself comfortable. He flipped through the telegrams, plucking some from the pile and handing them to Gabe. “Six graves so far, all within a mile or less of the house. No one from town’s gone missing, so the sheriff is pretty convinced the bodies belong to drifters or people passing through no one would miss. Thom Brennan’s ranch is over forty-five hundred acres. Leeds is afraid his men will find dozens of graves.”

  “They will. Ethan moved his hunting ground, but he never stopped killing.” The Glenrock sheriff’s description of the graves and the bodies was detailed and extremely thorough. All male from the clothing and effects found in the graves, and all older murders with bodies in advanced stages of decomposition. Likely they were men looking for work or travelers who met the wrong person on the road. The sheriff’s theory seemed valid. “Have they started tearing up the floor of the house yet?”

  Jack held out another telegram. “They didn’t have to. Leeds ordered a search of all the buildings on the property first. One of his deputies fell through t
he floorboards of an old barn on the south end of the ranch. Sheriff Leeds says the barn was used to store winter feed for the cattle. They found a room dug out under the floor just like the one in Delia’s dream.”

  Gabe slumped back in his chair and rubbed his throbbing temples. A room just like the one where he killed Jack’s mother, Sarah Miles, and who knew how many others. Neither of them wanted to say it, but they both knew. Hidden away somewhere in the city, Ethan had a new room. “I don’t suppose his deputies found any photographs of Ethan. Knowing what he looks like now would make finding him a hell of a lot easier.”

  “All the photos from the house are on a train and on their way to San Francisco. The box should arrive in a couple of days.” Jack neatened the stack of paper, fiddling to align the corners just right. “Sheriff Leeds can’t tell us if any of the pictures are of Ethan or not. He never met either of the Brennans.”

  “Dad will know. I’ll send a car to bring him into the city tomorrow. He can stay with me for a day or two. Helping might make him feel better.” Gabe rummaged through the paper tray on the corner of his desk until he found the duty roster for the week. “Send Lawrence, Schaffner, and Polk. Tell them to draw straws for who stays with my mother. I don’t want her on the farm alone. Dad refused protection, but he can’t argue about officers looking after Mom.”

  “I’ll tell them to help her with the chores, too. Feeding chickens and collecting eggs won’t hurt them.” Jack continued to arrange the telegrams, making minute adjustments. “If I thought Esther could survive the trip, I’d move her, Annie, and Sadie out to your parent’s house until this is over. Delia and Isadora, too, for that matter. At least then he’d have a harder time getting to them.”

  He’d had the same idea and talked it over with Delia. Turning his father’s isolated farm into a fortress was safer than his men having to treat every tradesman or stranger out for a stroll as a threat. Delia had agreed that they’d all be better off outside the city, but Esther’s fragility was a stumbling block none of them could overcome. “Ethan won’t get anywhere near Sadie or Delia, or Isadora for that matter. We’ll make sure they stay safe.”