by Dan Padavona
“Ms. Ames sustained two spider bites. One above her ribcage, and the second between her breast and shoulder.”
Darcy narrows her eyes and bends over Ames’s body.
“That must have been a helluva spider,” Darcy says, studying the spacing of the bite marks. “Couldn’t have been a black widow.”
“Definitely not a widow,” Tetinger says, nodding. “The spacing of the fangs appears consistent with a medium-sized tarantula, except tarantula venom rarely causes issues in humans.”
“What about a tarantula imported from overseas?”
Tetinger thinks for a moment.
“Bird eater tarantulas enter the United States through the exotic pet trade. Their venom is more potent, but bird eaters are large. The fang spacing would be wider than the bites Ms. Ames sustained, and bird eater tarantula venom isn’t considered deadly.”
“Then what are we looking at?” Ketchum asks.
“I admit I’m stumped,” Tetinger says, folding her arms. “I’d never seen a fatal spider bite until last week, and now I’ve seen two. It doesn’t add up. Few spiders pack enough venom to take down a human, and you won’t find a spider that dangerous in the United States.”
Darcy leans close to the bite wounds and snaps photographs.
“Doctor,” Darcy says, draping the camera strap around her neck. “Is it possible something other than spider venom killed these women? The police discovered both women in the woods. Perhaps they were already dead before the bites occurred.”
“That’s difficult to prove. You see, the human body absorbs venom at different rates. Blue-ringed octopus venom acts within minutes, whereas the venom from some snakes stays in the body for several hours. In the studies I’ve read, the body absorbs highly toxic spider venom in a half-hour or less. I wouldn’t find evidence of the venom, just the allergic reaction of the victim.”
She directs her fingers toward the swollen wounds.
Ketchum glances at Darcy before the door opens. A uniformed police officer enters first, followed by a heavy framed mustached man. Detective Pinder’s whiskers have as much salt as pepper these days, and the hair atop his head appears a shade lighter than Darcy remembers. But she recognizes the man as he crosses the room.
“I should have known you were behind this, Haines,” Pinder says, crowding Darcy. “The FBI has no jurisdiction in Smith Town.”
“Your chief disagrees,” Ketchum says, shifting between Pinder and Darcy.
“Who are you?”
“Special Agent Adan Ketchum, Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Ketchum shows Pinder his identification. The detective moves his eyes between Darcy and Ketchum, then settles his attention on Nadia Ames’s body.
“My partner and I pulled the victim off the cross county trail. We found her bicycle ten feet from the body. No signs of foul play. Before you get any ideas, Haines, this isn’t a serial killer case.”
Darcy straightens her back. She holds Pinder’s eyes until the detective blinks.
“Then perhaps you’ll explain to me how a spider attacked Nadia Ames while she rode her bike.”
Pinder shrugs.
“Turn it into a joke, if it makes you feel better. We never stated the spider bites occurred while Ames rode the trail. Ames didn’t crash her bike. There’s no bruising on her body, no evidence she sustained a fall.”
“So how did the bites occur?”
“Maybe nature called, and our victim set her bike down to relieve herself in the woods. Wouldn’t be the first time a jogger or bicyclist couldn’t make it to the restrooms in time. Although it’s possible the spider dropped out of the trees and fell down the woman’s shirt. That would explain how the spider bit Ames while she rode the trail.”
“Two women killed by spiders in eight days. Doesn’t this sound far-fetched to you?”
“Not as far-fetched as a serial killer who doesn’t leave a mark on his victims’ bodies. Unless you think the murderer has eight legs and fangs.” Pinder’s joke draws a chuckle from the officer. “Doctor Tetinger, what’s your determination? Cause of death is spider bite, correct?”
Tetinger lets out a breath. She examines the body as if desperate to find something she missed. She parts the woman’s hair and examines the head, runs her eyes up and down the body.
“At least tell me you checked into Kealan Hart,” Darcy says.
“Nadia’s boyfriend?” Pinder waves his hand through the air. “It’s standard procedure to suspect the spouse or boyfriend. I interviewed Hart. He was sick at home when we found Nadia’s body in the woods. There wasn’t a scratch on his body, and no bug bites, either.”
Ketchum clears his throat and cuts into the debate.
“Kealan Hart’s father is Curtis Hart, Mayor of Smith Town. Is that correct, Detective Pinder?”
Darcy raises an impressed eyebrow. Ketchum must have dug into the case while she drove to North Carolina.
“Are you suggesting I gave Hart a pass because his father is the mayor?” Pinder throws up his hands and turns to Tetinger. “Come on, Doc. You determined spider bite days ago. Don’t allow a pair of government agents to override your decision. The family deserves closure.”
“In my professional opinion, this woman died from two spider bites. But my record also states no deadly spiders exist in this area of the country. Without evidence to the contrary, I have to assume…”
The medical examiner stops mid-sentence and narrows her eyes at Nadia’s neck and shoulders. Then she reaches up and flicks on a high-intensity light, angling the beam over the victim’s head.
“What did you find?” Ketchum asks, moving beside Tetinger.
Without replying, she snatches a magnifying glass off the tray and examines the victim’s neck.
“This has gone too far,” Pinder says. “If a serial killer or kidnapper attacked these women, we’d find signs of a struggle, bruising on the body, head contusions—”
Tetinger shushes the detective.
“There’s something on her neck. It almost looks like a pinprick.”
When Pinder tries to see, Darcy cuts in front of him. She spots the mark, too small to notice without Tetinger to point it out. Darcy draws a breath.
“He’s injecting the women and taking them by surprise. That’s why there are no rope burns or ligature marks.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Wednesday, September 16th
8:35 p.m.
Darcy closes the bedroom door and shuts out the voices on the television. She hasn’t ventured inside the serial killer fan forum since the Widow Maker case. Booting up her laptop, she flips the lock on the door and draws the shades. Full dark broods outside the house. Night sounds travel through an open window.
The familiar forum makes Darcy’s flesh crawl. Paging through the messages, she discovers old posts from FM-Kill-Her, the screen name Phillip O’Grady hid behind before he attempted to murder Julian in Veil Lake, Michigan. New threads hint at potential serial killer activity in the central plains—two rapes in Northern Kansas, and a man who died from gunshot wounds. These cases might be unrelated, but the forum members see evil in every shadow. They cheer for death.
“Where are you?” Darcy whispers, scrolling through messages.
When she can’t locate serial killer rumors in North Carolina, she utilizes the search function and types spider into the box. No results. Searching for injection leads her to another dead end. Whoever the killer is, he’s careful and flies beneath the radar. The forum members aren’t aware of his activity, so it’s unsurprising the police haven’t caught on.
She minimizes the web browser and stares at the ocean screen background while tapping her nails against the desk.
An idea occurs to her. Clicking the browser again, she ventures to the welcome screen for the serial killer website. This is the educational portion of the site, but Darcy sees through the facade. Though the website lists every U.S. serial killer over the last eighty years and provides extensive biographies, this is a celebration
. The writers faun over the murderers’ exploits under the guise of education. Darcy wonders if the site administrators knew a real killer walked in their midst when Phillip O’Grady frequented the forum.
She scans the list of names until her eye stops on Suzanne Grayson. Why didn’t Darcy think of Grayson until now? Between 1975 and 1981, Suzanne Grayson murdered nine men in San Francisco. An inch over five feet and weighing one hundred pounds, Grayson wasn’t strong enough to subdue the men she invited into her home. She used two methods to overcome her victims—she served poisoned food, and she took the men by surprise, injecting them with a needle to the neck. Unlike more famous serial killers, Grayson didn’t bury her victims in her backyard. She couldn’t, living in a downtown penthouse. Instead, she walked her groggy, dazed boyfriends to their vehicles, slid them into the passenger seat with a promise to rush them to the hospital, and buried them alive in the Muir Woods amid the majestic redwoods.
Grayson might have killed for decades, except she made the mistake of making her last grave too shallow. Kyle Henrickson awakened as Grayson shoveled dirt atop his body, fought through the drug-induced stupor, and snatched the shovel away from his attacker. Defending himself, he crushed Grayson’s head with the shovel and stumbled through the forest. He collapsed outside a ranger station. When the police arrived, they arrested Henrickson for Grayson’s murder. Upon discovering nine shallow graves within a hundred yards of Grayson’s corpse, the police labeled Henrickson a mass murderer. Fortunately, Henrickson came from money and procured the city’s top defense attorney, and the truth about Suzanne Grayson came out.
That’s perfect, Darcy thinks, scrolling through the grainy photographs of Grayson. If the killer attacked Ames from behind and jabbed the needle into her neck, he wouldn’t have needed to overpower the woman or fight her. Hence, the lack of bruising.
Now she wonders about Brit Ryan. No chance they’ll exhume the body, but Darcy won’t be surprised if there’s a tiny injection mark on the woman’s neck. But what about the spider bites? She can’t make the connection.
Her phone rings. Darcy reads Gail Shipley’s name on the screen and lets the call go to voice mail. Darcy recalls her conversation with Leigh Ames. Nadia’s sister found Darcy’s information on a Genoa Cove town forum. A quick search query locates the forum. Darcy can’t read the messages unless she creates an account. Using an old Yahoo email address, she creates a screen name: Concerned Citizen. After verifying her email, she clicks back to the forum. The messages open up to her. Scrolling through the topics, she spots nothing that requires investigating. But entering her name into the search box fills the screen with results.
The first topic contains a post from HGibbons1. However he came upon Darcy’s phone number, he lists it for anyone in Genoa Cove to see. She’s surprised more people haven’t called. Just Gail Shipley. Is this the source of her mystery hangups? Maybe she jumped to conclusions. If she’s right and a killer stalks Smith Town, there’s no reason to believe he’s calling Darcy. Except her instinct warns her to remain watchful.
She opens another topic and reads the text. A fight ensues when Gibbons blames Darcy for the Darkwater Cove murders. She’s pleased most of the forum members argue on her behalf. Why won’t Gibbons leave her family alone?
The next message stops Darcy’s heart. The topic dates back a year and contains a familiar name: POGrady. Last year, Phillip O’Grady joined the Genoa Cove message forum and posted evidence, implicating Hunter as Amy Yang’s murderer. In a cruel twist of irony, Harold Gibbons took advice from the Full Moon Killer’s biggest fan, never realizing O’Grady was a murderer in the making. Though most of the members steered clear of this discussion, Gibbons lauded O’Grady’s investigative work and became boastful. It was time the village acknowledged the truth. Darcy Gellar’s family ruined Genoa Cove, and nobody was safe as long as the Gellar family lived here. He labeled Jennifer a drug user and claimed Darcy’s daughter trafficked drugs at Genoa Cove High School.
Darcy’s hands curls into fists. Gibbons sits in his white suburban home, half a block from Darcy’s house. What’s stopping her from pounding on his door and slamming a fist into his gut? A knock on the bedroom door forces her to close the laptop.
“It’s Julian. Can we talk?”
Darcy sets the laptop inside the case and unlocks the door. He questions her with his eyes.
“Sorry I locked the door. I needed to finish a project for work and didn’t want interruptions.”
“I wanted to walk on the beach. The stars are bright tonight. But if you’re busy again—”
“No, I’d love to walk the cove with you. Let me change into shorts.”
Julian kisses her on the cheek, a quick, emotionless peck. He’s upset with her. After promising work wouldn’t impede family time, she spends more time researching cases and working overtime than she does with Julian and Jennifer. Darcy changes clothes and snatches her keys off the desk. This isn’t the life she wants for her family.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Thursday, September 17th
9:15 a.m.
A glowering sky hangs low over Smith Town while Darcy sits inside her Prius along the curb. The rental house at the end of the driveway watches her with soulless eyes for windows. Everything about the house seems dreary, from the grime-stained siding to the dead and wilting flowers bordering the front yard. A crack runs across the picture frame window, the panes choked with pollen and dust.
A horn announces Ketchum’s SUV. He pulls behind her along the curb and steps from the vehicle.
“Leigh Ames running late?” he asks when she lowers her window.
“She promised she’d be here by now. Let’s give her another five minutes.”
“We’ll unlock the gates of hell when Pinder finds out we snooped around Nadia Ames’s house.”
As Darcy frets, a green Forrester swings around the corner and stops in the driveway. The woman who climbs out of the vehicle wears her brunette hair in a bun. One strand hangs loose over her eyes, and Leigh Ames swipes it off her face as she buttons a gray jacket.
“Leigh?” Darcy asks, leading Ketchum up the driveway. She offers her hand. “I’m Agent Haines, and this is Agent Ketchum.”
“Sorry I’m late. I got halfway here and realized I forgot the keys.”
“Nadia gave you a key to her apartment?”
“She wasn’t supposed to. The landlord didn’t want Nadia passing copied keys around. But I’m over here so often. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Leigh reaches into her coat pocket, pauses with wide eyes, then stuffs her hand inside the other pocket. She exhales. “For a second, I thought I lost the key. I haven’t been able to think straight since the murder.”
“You don’t need to apologize. Shall we go inside?”
Darcy and Ketchum follow Leigh to the stoop where she inserts the key, battles with the lock for several seconds, and swings the door open. Despite the drab exterior, the inside of the house appears bright and organized, no stray bills or papers cluttering the counter. An old cover drapes over the couch, and the recliner has seen better days.
As Leigh brings them through the downstairs, Darcy studies the rooms, searching for signs someone broke inside.
“This is the kitchen,” Leigh says. “The house came with appliances, but we didn’t trust the oven. We needed to light the gas burners with matches. So I bought Nadia a convection oven.”
“As we go through the house,” Ketchum says. “Keep an eye out for anything missing.”
“Did the killer break in and steal something from Nadia? Like a trophy?”
Ketchum raises an eyebrow at Darcy. She forgot to tell Ketchum about Leigh’s amateur sleuthing obsession.
A tour of the single-story house reveals nothing out of place. Darcy opens the bathroom cabinets and paws around. She closes her hand over a bottle of Cimetidine and holds it up for Leigh.
“Did Nadia have stomach issues or an ulcer?”
The woman shakes her head.
�
�Ever since the breakup with Kealan, she’d been nervous. Her stomach got upset. She was supposed to see a specialist if it didn’t clear up.”
Darcy sets the pills inside the cabinet. Was Nadia upset because she still loved Kealan, or because he frightened her? They step inside Nadia’s bedroom—half the size of Darcy’s, but clean. The covers lie bunched at the foot of the bed. Leigh’s eyes hover over the blankets. Darcy moves beside Leigh.
“Something wrong?”
“Nadia is…was a neat freak. That was one of the few differences between us. She made the bed every morning when we shared a bedroom as kids.”
“Leigh, do you think someone was here?”
“No. She hadn’t been herself since the breakup, and the library kept switching her hours. If I had to guess, Nadia was running late for work. The thing is, she would have made the bed after she came home. That’s the way she is.”
“And you’re certain the library scheduled Nadia to work Monday morning?”
“She bitched to me over the phone. They scheduled Nadia on day shifts Saturday through Wednesday, but they switched her to an evening shift Sunday after another librarian called in sick. Nadia had to lock the doors at nine, work another hour, then wake up at six the next morning so she could open the doors at eight. She could have slept eight hours, but the schedule changes threw Nadia off and messed up her sleep patterns.”
Darcy makes a mental note to visit the library and speak with Nadia’s coworkers. As she gazes around the bedroom, Leigh stops and stares at the dresser.
“What’s wrong?”
“The necklace. Kealan gave Nadia a heart necklace on their first-year anniversary. Nadia wore it all the time until she broke off the relationship. She put it on the dresser beside Kealan’s picture, but I don’t see it here.”
