“Like the Mustang?” Scott asked.
Allie almost choked on a pepperoni.
“Oh, my God! My old Mustang! Has a car ever left anyone high and dry so often in the history of the world?”
“Luckily it’s a small island, and you could walk home from most strandings.”
“I seem to remember you doing the white-knight thing and rescuing me more often than me walking home.”
“Since the statute of limitations has run out –” Scott’s tone descended into mock seriousness, “– I’ll admit that I used to sabotage your car just to save you.”
They both laughed.
“So that’s my story,” Allie said. “Why are you here? I mean I know that you came here to help your dad, but after that, what kept you in Stone Harbor?”
Scott ran his finger across the lip of the pizza box.
“It’s home,” he said. Then he looked up at her. “I moved, but roots don’t leave. It felt good to have my feet back on the island.”
“I’d heard you got married.”
“Momentarily. Her name was Anita. Allie, Anita. I guess I’ve never worked my way out of the As. Well, island life didn’t agree with her. There were too few places to go, too little to do. With the strain of caring for Dad…it was all too much.”
He paused. More words came in a rush.
“We really shouldn’t have married anyway. The more time we spent together, the more obvious our different needs became. Looking back, I can’t tell you why I got married at all. It just seemed like the thing you did after graduation.”
His face flushed. He’d never even said that to himself, let alone someone else.
“Well, there’s a moment better suited for a therapist’s couch,” he said. “Sorry. That’s the wrong whine to serve with pizza.”
Allie touched his arm. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I have my own long list of inexplicable decisions. We’ll go through them when we have a longer night.”
They finished dinner and Scott caught her up on current island life, though a lot of it remained unchanged. Downtown rolled up the sidewalks at 5 p.m. Winter season still made watching paint dry seem exciting. The town still lacked a movie theater, but with satellite TV and Netflix, no one complained about it anymore.
Scott shut the empty pizza box. He relished how warm, how comfortable he felt with Allie. Since his divorce, dating never made his to do list, partially due to the inconvenience of meeting people on the mainland, but mostly from the dread of enduring that awkward, artificial time when both parties tried so hard to be someone they really weren’t. There was none of that here.
Allie rose to leave. “I’d better get home. Thanks for dinner,” she said. “Next time I’ll cook.”
“You cook?”
“It beats starving.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
She thumped him on the chest and smiled. They went to the truck. Scott drove well under the speed limit, in no hurry to end the night.
Chapter Thirteen
The instant his home phone rang at 7 p.m., Scaravelli knew three things: Mrs. Olsen was on the other end, her daughter was dead, and all Oates had said was for real. Scaravelli grinned, then winced at the pain the grin engendered where his tooth was now missing.
“Hello?” The wad of gauze in his tooth socket made him mumble it a bit.
“Chief Scaravelli? This is Colleen Olsen, Natalie’s mom?” Her voice was tight as a harp string, overwhelming panic barely held at bay.
“Colleen, what’s wrong?” Scaravelli’s mock concern bordered on sarcastic.
She didn’t notice. “I know Milo’s on duty, but I had to call you. Natalie didn’t come home. I sent her to the market for rolls.” Her words accelerated as maternal terror took control. “I know she’s only seven, but it was just a few blocks away, and it’s daylight for Christ’s sake. That was over two hours ago, and we looked everywhere. She wouldn’t just wander off. She’s a good girl. You’ve gotta—”
“Slow down, Colleen,” Scaravelli cut in. “Take a deep breath.”
He had found that while making people take a deep breath rarely calmed them down, it at least shut them the hell up.
“Have you checked her friends’ houses?” he continued, working hard to fake a reassuring tone. “She could be there.”
“We’ve called everyone,” Colleen said. “No one has seen her since 5 p.m. when she left the store.”
Scaravelli asked the standard questions about height, weight, and clothing. He pretended to be writing it all down, repeating it back as Mrs. Olsen told him each detail. He checked his watch.
“I’ll get right on it, Colleen,” he said. “I’m sure that I’ll bring your daughter home to you tonight.” He realized only he got that hilarious joke.
Scaravelli hung up, strapped on his pistol belt, and headed out to his cruiser. He’d changed into a clean uniform, better to complete this show in costume. He unholstered the 9mm Beretta and chambered the round with Krieger’s name on it. He double-checked that the safety was still on.
No point in blowing my goddamn foot off tonight, he thought.
He got in the car and headed out through the empty streets. After five, the town closed except for the Rusty Nail off Main Street. He headed up the hill and out of town along Canale Road.
Scaravelli’s pulse climbed as he thought about the next thirty minutes. He pounded a little beat out on the steering wheel. He’d become a lot more comfortable with his role as executioner. Oates had made him a regular 007 with a license to kill. He’d off this scumbag Krieger, and completely get away with it. Even better, he’d be rewarded for doing it. Sweet deal.
He’d talked to other cops who’d wasted a perp in the line of duty. They either didn’t want to talk about it, or wanted to talk about it way too much. Like he was some TV shrink, and they had to share their burden of guilt. Bunch of wimps. He didn’t know how, or why, those guys stayed cops.
He imagined how he’d handle it. It would be nothing but a thing. Draw down, pop Krieger, and get on with life. Just like swatting a mosquito. The bug had it coming, living off the blood of others.
With Scaravelli’s initial reluctance gone, Colleen’s call had banished his second thoughts about Oates. Everything the man had said was coming true. He psyched himself up for the exercise of ultimate power, burning down Krieger. He flipped on the high beams and punched the cruiser up another ten miles per hour.
Chapter Fourteen
Drying sweat cooled Carl Krieger’s skin and left a saline, oily sheen. The forest’s darkness enveloped the van, a black, comforting curtain between his world and everyone else. He’d finished with Natalie and sat sideways in the driver’s seat, his back against the window and his feet across the console. He exhaled deep, steady breaths. He felt good. He felt whole.
He’d parked a thousand yards into the woods, down a rutted dirt road scarcely wider than the van. Three hundred years ago, men had cleared this acreage for pasture by sheer physical strength and force of will. Sheep had grazed near the hilltop. Through neglect, their accomplishment disappeared as the relentless forest reclaimed the hard-won acres. Only the twin tracks of dirt and stone resisted nature’s repossession.
He twisted the headlight switch. The van’s dim interior lights tinged the rear compartment a pale yellow. He’d pulled all the seats out that afternoon to make room for his date. She lay white and still atop a dirty wool blanket, arms and legs tied spread-eagle to the stripped-out van walls. Her lifeless eyes stared at the ceiling. The fringe of her panties stuck out of her mouth between bulging cheeks.
This second time had been so much better. Right after doing the Dickey girl, he felt a huge emotional release, followed by overwhelming guilt. For days he struggled with the idea of turning himself in. But the impulse for absolution faded more each day, and by the second week, it disappeared.
Just now, after killing Natalie, he got that same wonderful feeling, a long mental orgasm to complement the short physical one. But this time, he harbored no guilt, not even a hint of remorse. He’d read in chat rooms about how society programmed the guilt about his sexual needs into him, how everyone wanted to repress him.
Guilt was for losers. If only he could get his dates to last longer. With more practice…next time….
Natalie’s Brownie uniform shirt lay in his lap, this evening’s souvenir, soon to join the Dickey girl’s necklace in his apartment. He put the shirt up to his nose. He inhaled deeply, his mouth slightly open the way a lion checks the wind for prey. He smelled something soft and girlish, like baby powder, but tainted with the strong scent of fear. He treasured that fragrance. It smelled like love. He began to get aroused again. He reached down into his open pants.
The clock in the dash warned he was out of time. Oates’ instructions were to stay here until 8 p.m., and then Oates would come help him get rid of the body. Carl turned off the interior light and rested back against the van door. All he had to do was wait.
The slow, low crunch of rubber tires on rocks sounded outside the van. Carl looked in the big side view mirror. A car was pulling up from behind, headlights off.
Must be Oates, he thought, lights out to avoid attention. Smooth.
The van interior exploded in a rhythm of blue flashes.
“What the hell?” Carl said.
He sat bolt upright and looked back between the seats. A patrol car’s light bar blazed through the van’s tiny back windows. Fresh sweat stippled his upper lip. The cruiser’s front door opened.
He cast a terrified look down at Natalie’s corpse, bound and spread in full display. With each strobe of the blue lights over her profile, shadows advanced and retreated across her cheekbones. Each flash seemed to paint an intermittent vengeful smile on her face. Carl spun around in the driver’s seat and zipped up his pants.
There’s two damn cops on the whole island, he thought, and one of them is here now? How the hell can that happen?
He grabbed the brittle old dashboard so tightly his fingernails punctured it. The curtain that separated his little fantasy world from reality pulled wide open. Some cop’s flashlight was about to hit the cargo area, and the result of Carl’s acts wouldn’t look like the beautiful symbol of his passion he knew it was. Instead, it would look like the back of a sleazy van with a raped and tortured little girl on the floor, a sick crime scene. Others wouldn’t understand. A flood of fear washed over him.
He popped open the driver’s door. If he could intercept the cop, stall him until Oates arrived, then Oates would save him. This whole thing was Oates’ idea anyway.
Carl got out of the van and tried to smooth his hair into place. He squinted with each blinding blue flash from the dark. He managed a fake, welcoming smile, and took a tentative step forward.
“Hello?” He shielded his eyes with his hand.
Carl shuffled forward to the van’s rear bumper. A bulky shadow rose from the cruiser.
Scaravelli, he thought. Goddamn it. Why couldn’t I get the stupider cop?
“Hey there, Chief? What’s with all the light show?”
Scaravelli stood behind the shield of the open cruiser door, one hand on the door, the other down at his side, his pistol side.
“Stay right there, Carl,” Scaravelli ordered. “I want your hands on top of your head.”
Dread filled Carl like oil sludge. His hands began to shake.
Scaravelli got tipped off. No other way he’d be back in the woods this time of night. Except that no one knows where I am.
Except Oates.
Denial flashed through his mind for a split second, but with no staying power.
There is the matter of a small debt, he heard Oates say in his head.
“The bastard tricked me,” Carl said under his breath. Then, louder, “H-hey Chief, let me explain—”
Scaravelli raised his 9mm from behind the car door. The barrel flickered blue then black in the revolving lights.
“No, no, no. Chief! Wait! This ain’t my fault!”
The Beretta flashed in the night. The bullet exploded Carl’s brain before he heard the gun’s report. His debt to Oates was paid in full.
Chapter Fifteen
The acrid smoke of spent gunpowder drifted past Scaravelli like unholy incense. He had to suppress a laugh as he gazed down at the shocked look on Krieger’s fresh corpse. What did the child-molesting shit bag expect?
Scaravelli nearly bubbled with a new sense of power. He’d been judge, jury, and executioner, all rolled into one. The last role had been the best. He’d waited just long enough to see that pathetic look of terror cross Krieger’s face, to hear him plead for his useless life. How sweet to end his existence with one pull of the trigger.
Much as he wanted to savor every nuance of the end of Carl Krieger, he had to finish the show.
He slid his weapon back in its holster. He pulled the .38 pistol Oates had given him from his pocket. He walked over to Krieger and, straddling his chest, faced the cruiser. He leveled the .38 at the car.
No point in messing up my side of the windshield, he thought.
He aimed left and fired. A bullet smacked into the passenger side of the glass and left a hole encircled by a spiderweb of cracks.
Then he knelt down and grabbed Krieger’s right hand. He put the .38 in it and wrapped Carl’s finger through the trigger guard. He pointed the pistol in the air and squeezed Carl’s finger against the trigger. The pistol popped again.
A little gunpowder residue in case someone did do an investigation. Scumbag the Child Molester fires twice; valiant cop returns fire and kills him. Tragically, just minutes too late to save the girl. A simple, unshakable story.
He peeked inside the van’s back window. The blue lights lit Natalie’s pale little nude body. No need to check that for a pulse. Oates had told him she’d be dead. So far, he’d been right about everything.
Scaravelli returned to his car. He picked up the radio mic.
“Milo,” he said. “Come in.”
“This is Milo in Unit 2, Chief, down at the harbor.” Scaravelli shook his head. Why did Milo always tell him he was in Unit 2? Where the hell else would he be?
“Milo, head to the office and get every roll of crime scene tape we have. Then meet me on the dirt road that runs north off Canale. Oh, and call the clinic. I need an ambulance to the same location. Two DOAs.”
“Really?” Milo said.
“Yes, really,” Scaravelli snapped. “Now get off the radio and do what I told you to do.”
“Right, Chief,” Milo answered.
Scaravelli fell into the front seat of his cruiser. He flipped off the blue lights.
The darkness was near-absolute, save a few stars in the hazy sky. He realized he was in the company of two corpses. No big deal, he’d done that before. But he owned these corpses, one by his own hand, the younger one by his inaction. He’d known Krieger’s plan and done nothing to stop him.
The thought gave him a chill. He pulled the door shut and waited for Milo and the ambulance.
* * *
Milo was sitting across town in Stone Harbor’s other police cruiser, his racing pulse making his hand shake. He could barely get the mic back into its dashboard clip. The advent of real police work gave him a rush. Not parking tickets or stray dogs or loud music this time. Murder.
Frustration rolled in over Milo’s initial excitement. His shift had started hours ago. Real, big-city crime happened, and Chief Scaravelli handled it alone. His heart sank under the weight of insecurity.
Every day on the job had been an emotional roller coaster since Chief Anderson retired and Scaravelli took charge. From day one, Scaravelli had treated Milo with contempt, at best concealed. He never had duties of any significance. The chief neve
r put him in charge of even the temporary summer cops. Milo’s cruiser was a used taxi and didn’t even have a cage between the front and back seats.
Milo understood why. Any NYPD veteran would resent having a kind of green nineteen-year-old cop. As the only full-time officer on the force, and the only Stone Harbor native, Scaravelli couldn’t just outright sack him off the bat, but Milo felt he was always one mistake away from a final paycheck.
He’d wanted to be a cop since he was four years old, and he wanted to do it in his hometown. His peers itched to escape after graduation, but for him, the cozy confines of the island were the picket fence of home, not prison walls. Others had ridiculed his dream, asking how a kid built like a matchstick would keep from being snapped in half by the first crook he cornered. But his father, who managed the Fisherman’s Bank in town, had encouraged him all the way. Chief Anderson wouldn’t have hired him at 18 if he hadn’t shown so much ‘promise and aptitude’ as the old chief had said. He was sure that Chief Anderson’s friendship with his father wasn’t a factor in the decision, no matter what the town gossip reported. No, he hadn’t been to the police academy in person, but he had taken all the online courses, and gotten A grades.
So Milo sucked up the all-night shift, even in the summer when the part-timers could have covered it, and Milo could have moved to days with the chief. Milo knew why the chief kept him there. At best, the chief wanted to avoid him. At worst, he was trying to make him quit.
Milo wasn’t going to let the chief push him out of this job. Once he’d proven himself, Scaravelli would have to admit he made the grade, even if he continued to dislike him. A murder, no, a double murder, was just the chance he needed.
Guilt smacked him between the eyes. He hadn’t even asked who was dead. On an island this size, it had to be someone he knew. He remembered reading about a police officer’s need for professional detachment. He took a deep breath and pushed the worry to the back of his mind.
The Portal Page 7
