by Lisa Gardner
By the time they crossed the clearing, three dozen yellow flags protruded like dandelions in the meadow. Kimberly didn’t like it. The spacing wasn’t right. The flags were too haphazard, too random. Given the size of a shallow grave, there should be clusters of flags where multiple steps or multiple people encountered an object. There wasn’t.
Kimberly could tell from ten feet back that Rachel shared her opinion. The redhead had both hands on her hips and was scowling.
“What do you want to do?” Harold was asking.
“Grid it, of course,” Rachel snapped. “Don’t have a choice really. When in doubt, trowel it out.” She ran a hand through her hair. “We have both too many flags and not enough. Dammit.”
“We could bring up a cadaver dog,” Kimberly suggested. “See if one hits.”
“We could’ve used cadaver dogs?” Sal spoke up.
“Gotta probe it first,” Rachel commented absently, chewing her lower lip. “The probing releases the decomp gases. You allow thirty, forty minutes for everything to ripen and settle, then bring in the cadaver dog. Works like a charm.”
“It took us four hours to get up that trail,” Sal pointed out. “No way we’re gonna get a dog in the next thirty minutes. What about the bloodhounds?”
“The team is a search team, already working a scent. This’ll just confuse them.” Harold spoke up. He was regarding Rachel. “We could split the crew,” he suggested. “Leave half of us here to start working these flags, send the other half with LuLu and Fancy, assuming they catch the scent again. Might as well check out the summit. Least then we’ll have a better idea for where to start tomorrow.”
“Mountain’s only so big,” Kimberly commented. “If it’s not here, it’s close.”
Rachel nodded absently. “Yeah, okay. Find Skeeter, see what he has to say about his dogs. We’ll break the team in half. The tired ones”—her gaze flickered to Kimberly—“will stay here. The maniacs”—her gaze flickered to Harold—“can continue on to the summit, look for a better site.”
Kimberly was not amused to be lumped in with the less fit members of her team. Then again, her belly ached and she was starving. Harold went to find Skeeter. Sal announced to the group in general that now would be a good time to eat.
He followed Kimberly over to where Rainie and Quincy had taken up position on a fallen log. Quincy was munching on granola. Rainie had king-size Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Kimberly sat next to Rainie.
“Peanut butter cup?” Rainie asked.
“Absolutely. Pudding?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Sal had a ham sandwich, which was quickly ruled too boring by the women. They sat in comfortable silence, shedding their raincoats and munching on their snacks until Sal looked over at Kimberly, did a little double take, and went pale.
“Don’t move,” he whispered.
“What?” Kimberly asked in surprise, immediately starting to move.
“DON’T MOVE!”
This time, she stilled, starting to look at Sal in alarm. “What?” she whispered.
“Rainie,” he ordered softly, “you’re closer. There, on her shoulder, do you see it?”
“It’s a spider.” Rainie spoke up, then frowned. “Why are we this excited about a little brown spider?”
“Oh no,” Kimberly looked at Sal with dread. “A brown recluse?”
He nodded.
“I thought they were shy,” she said weakly, very conscious now of the exposed skin on her neck, the scoop collar of her shirt, the salty sweat drying at the base of her throat.
“Maybe they like peanut butter cups.” Sal had put down his sandwich. He stood, took a step closer, eyes on her left shoulder. “I’m going to try to do this quickly.”
“Is it on my shirt?”
“Not quite.”
She closed her eyes. “You have to be committed, Sal. Once you move, just get the damn thing off. If you hesitate … the spider will panic and bite.”
“I know, I know.”
Rainie and Quincy had gotten to their feet, clearly very concerned. Then Rainie glanced over at Quincy, yelled, “Shit,” and slapped his collarbone. He was still looking confused when Rainie went after his shoulder and the top of his thigh.
“One, two, three,” Sal counted quickly, and smacked Kimberly’s shoulder. The minute he did, she leapt from the log, whirling around.
“Holy crap,” Sal cried out and whacked her back three times.
“What is it? What is it?”
“Spiders. There are … spiders. Everywhere.”
The four fell back from the log. And now Kimberly could just make them out, thin, delicate brown bodies running across the crumbling bark, looking desperately for a place to hide.
Rainie was dancing around, trying to check her front, her back, her sides, while Quincy ordered her to stay still so he could help out. Then Sal was spinning in little circles, checking his shoes and socks, the bare skin of his calves.
Kimberly watched them all, looking from the people to the spider-covered log to the people again. Crawford-Hale had told them that brown recluses were shy. She had said it would be uncommon to encounter them, and yet here was an entire infestation.
At the end of a trail that had been hiked by Dinchara and his captive. In a clearing that would be perfect for disposing bodies, except none of the flags made sense.
And in that moment, it came to her. What she had been told in the beginning. What she should have remembered from the start.
Kimberly stepped closer to the log.
And looked up.
THIRTY-NINE
My first few weeks of freedom, I didn’t know what to do. I moved into a Best Western hotel, flush with cash, eager to live the high life. I bought my first video game, and spent ninety-six hours staring at the screen until my eyes grew bloodshot and I passed out from the force of my headache.
I walked the five miles back to the store to buy a new game, and while I was there, fell in love with a Huffy bike. So I bought that, too, and new clothes and clean underwear. And that made me feel so good, I bought Henrietta her very own glass terrarium with colored pebbles and a shallow drinking bowl. I set her up on top of the TV, where she could watch me play video games all night long, my hands jittery from lack of sleep, my skin growing more and more pasty white.
Couldn’t rest, couldn’t relax, couldn’t stop staring at the door. Waiting for the knock to come. Waiting for the door to swing open and reveal the Burgerman, looming in the hallway with his bloody, caved-in skull.
“Boy,” he shouted in my dreams. “Did you really think you could kill a monster like me?” And then he’d laugh and laugh and laugh until I woke up drenched in cold sweat, screaming, absurdly, for my mother.
I played a lot of video games those first few weeks.
By week three, the manager was watching me every time I appeared for free breakfast bagels. One morning, he asked me if he could see ID. I panicked, stuttering like an idiot, then pulled it together long enough to tell him I had to get it from my room.
I ran all the way to the store for three heavy-duty duffel bags. Back in the hotel room, I packed up everything, including Henrietta. Minute it was dark, we were outta there. Fuckin’ manager.
I found a youth hostel, figured I’d be less conspicuous surrounded by other lone teens. The place wasn’t much. Spartan room, no community TV. First night, someone stole my bike. Second night, someone stole my video console.
Henrietta and I took off again. Running from place to place, little sleep, little food, little time to rest. Have to keep moving. Burgerman is coming.
I’d wanted a better life. Thought I’d live in a clean apartment in a nice section of town. I’d thought, having finally slayed the dragon, that I could be normal again.
I ended up right back on the same streets Burgerman had used as his hunting grounds, smoking crack cocaine and doing my best never to come back down to earth.
Then the money ran out. I crashed. Woke up in a pool of v
omit, everything stolen but the bag Henrietta lived in.
And it occurred to me for the first time that the Burgerman really was gone. No more running back to a seedy apartment. No more demanding ten bucks because I’d earned it. No more Hostess Twinkies magically appearing in the cupboards.
The Burgerman was dead and I was alone.
I cried like an idiot for hours. Blubbered inconsolably, curled up next to a Dumpster, terrified of my aloneness, hating the uselessness of my tears. I took Henrietta out of the duffel bag and placed her on my bare collarbone. Begged her to bite me, to put me out of my misery. Begged her to do her worst.
She just sat there, stroking my neck with one hairy leg, until finally I calmed, shuddered, and fell asleep. When I woke again, Henrietta was sitting three inches from me, devouring a cockroach. I watched her for a bit, admiring her dainty precision as she ripped off the roach’s head, sucked out the juicy insides, started mashing the entire carcass into a buggy pulp.
Another cockroach went scampering by. I grabbed its fat body between my forefinger and thumb and popped it into my mouth. First bite, a terrible warm, salty liquid gushed over my tongue. I spit the bug out, gagging, swiping at my lips with the back of my hand. I’d leave roaches to Henrietta. I wanted a Twinkie.
Except I didn’t have any money, a street address, or valid photo ID. I’d gone from being the Burgerman’s plaything to a homeless punk. So I did the logical thing. I propositioned the next six men that happened by. Soon enough I had room money for the night.
Was this all there was for me? Endless days of dropping my pants for fat, hairy men who could only get it up by screwing kids? Maybe on a good day getting a free joint or acid hit to make it all less real, more manageable?
Henrietta was the one who lived in the cage, yet I was the one who couldn’t get free.
And then I remembered—I still had Burgerman’s movies, tucked safely and securely beneath Henrietta’s watchful eyes in that last duffel bag. Hours and hours of videotape. These men loved that kind of shit.
I sold the first tape for fifty bucks. Guy liked it so much, he was back in four hours, offering me a thousand dollars for the whole lot, his eyes overbright, the saliva pooling over his lower lip. In that moment, I knew I was onto something. I sold him one more tape for five hundred, then marched down to the nearest electronic store to invest in my newfound business.
Store manager was very helpful, especially once he realized they were “home movies.” Suddenly, he had a back room he needed to show me. Except this time, he was the one on his knees and I was the one with the power. I liked it. I really, really liked it.
Bob taught me things. How to edit, slice and dice, and scramble three hours of video into eight different home videos, all available to resell. He bought me my first computer. He introduced me in the right chat rooms, where online users identified as Fuckemdead and Justwantpussy educated me in the finer points of setting up my new home-based business—kiddie porn.
I learned how to tap the larger international market, where commercial websites such as mine could store valuable images on a variety of servers, making it difficult to trace. Or, as law enforcement officials grew smarter, how to break a single image into component parts, with each fragment hidden in a different corner of the world. The digital age, making life easier all the time.
Child porn is a spectrum. The low-end “cheap users” will settle for a sexed-up photo of a young child fully clothed, but perhaps provocatively posed. Then there’s the hard-core addicts. The serious buyers. They want the kids under the age of twelve, female, and screaming.
Like all businesses, porn follows the money. There are over ten thousand websites out there. And ninety-one percent of them feature prepubescent kids, screaming.
Bob, it turned out, liked that. And when he found out nothing could shock me, Bob was a very happy guy. Happy enough that he started to really piss me off.
So one day, I went to his apartment and beat him to death with a Louisville Slugger. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe because it was spring, and everywhere I went I could smell freshly turned earth. Or maybe because it had rained the night before and that made me want to kill someone.
I took his computer and recording equipment, plus the fake ID he’d graciously supplied. Henrietta and I once more hit the road.
We wandered. I was older now, less conspicuous. I bought a car, found a cheap apartment, one where the neighbors never noticed anything. I spent my days on the Internet, surfing chat rooms, YouTube, MySpace. I learned there are a lot of lonely kids out there who think I honestly want to be their friend. And I learned there are a lot of parents out there even more naive than my own.
I slept an hour or two at a time during the day, then prowled the Internet at night. I made a lot of money and used it to stock up on tequila, so when the bad spells hit, and the darkness descended for days at a time, and all I could hear was kids screaming, or the Burgerman grunting, or the scrape of a shovel carving out hard-packed earth, I could pour tequila down my throat a bottle at a time. I offered the worms to Henrietta, but she wouldn’t eat them.
One night, half a bottle into it, trying to explain to Henrietta how much I needed to sleep, I was hit by a great idea. Henrietta had been there. Henrietta had helped kill the Burgerman. And Henrietta slept all the time. Why? Because she had eight eyes, she could see in all directions.
So I marched down to the nearest tattoo parlor, Henrietta sitting on my shoulder, playing with my hair. I told the guy exactly what I wanted. And when he blanched and tried to talk me out of it, I plopped down five thousand dollars in cash and took a seat, bottle of tequila still in hand. I screamed for the next five hours, till he got the job done. It hurt like a son of a bitch for another month, my forehead swollen and hot to the touch.
First day the swelling went down, I slept for four consecutive hours. I told Henrietta she was brilliant. And I knew at that moment, I was going to survive. I was going to win. Henrietta had saved me.
Then one day I saw him. He was playing basketball in the park. Undersized, but wiry. The scrawny little kid who’s learned to compensate for his lack of height by moving fast. He went for a layup, and I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye. For a moment, I had a sense of déjà vu so strong I couldn’t breathe.
The boy looked exactly like me. Twenty years ago. When I had had a name. When I had had a family. When I had had a future.
And I knew what I must do.
You think you’re safe. You think you’re middle-class, suburban, the right car, the nice home. You think bad things happen to other people—maybe the poor schmucks in trailer parks where the ratio of kids to registered sex offenders can be as low as four to one.
But not to you, never to you. You’re too good for this.
Do you own a computer? Because if you do, I am in your child’s bedroom.
Do you have an online personal profile? Because if you do, I know your child’s name, pet, and favorite hobbies.
Do you have a webcam? Because if you do, I’m right now convincing your child to take off his or her shirt in return for fifty bucks. Just a shirt. What can it hurt? Come on, it’s fifty bucks.
Listen to me. I am the Burgerman.
And I’m coming for you.
FORTY
“The Portia spider is a real cannibal. It creeps into another spider’s web and tugs on the silk. The web owner crawls toward the intruder, thinking it has trapped an insect. Then the Portia spider attacks, kills and eats the surprised web spider.”
FROM Freaky Facts About Spiders,
BY CHRISTINE MORLEY, 2007
Kimberly didn’t see anything at first. Then the wind blew and she caught the shape, swaying gently fifteen feet above her head, almost like a pinecone, except the size was much too large.
“Rachel! Harold!” she cried out excitedly. “Everyone, look up! The bodies are in the trees! They’re hanging from the tree limbs.”
She was vaguely aware of other people, leaping to their fee
t with startled exclamations, and stumbling back to regard the branches overhead. Mostly she kept her eyes on a long, oblong shape swathed in a mottled green and brown fabric. Now she could make out the narrow tip of bound feet, moving up to the wider expanse of shoulders, the rounded shape of a head. It looked like an Egyptian mummy, wrapped in cloth and rope, then suspended for all eternity.
The wind blew again, the long, narrow form rocking with an eerie quiet that prickled the skin of her forearms.
“What the hell,” Sal whispered beside her. Behind them came another shout, then another, as others started to spot the macabre forms dangling above their heads.
“He thinks he’s a spider, remember?” Kimberly murmured. “So he’s wrapped them in a cocoon, suspended them from his web. My God, no wonder no one ever found them. Whoever thinks to look up?”
“Silk,” Quincy supplied behind them. “Old Army parachutes, that would be my guess. Silk because it’s fitting, Army camouflage because it blends better with the trees.”
“Nylon,” Kimberly stated. “Aaron told me. It’s a practical concern—silk is fragile, yielding to total decay in under thirty-five months. Same with wool. Cotton does slightly better, making it to forty-eight months, while nylon shows no sign of deterioration even after four years. It’s the toughest fabric around.”
Her father was regarding her with a small smile. “I stand corrected. Nice work, Agent.”
“Well, don’t get all mushy on me yet. I still have no idea how we’re going to get the corpses down.”
Harold had returned to the center of the clearing. Rachel, too. Kimberly and Sal went to meet them, huddling for a powwow, while the deputies and ERT members continued to search the branches overhead.
“We’re up to ten bodies and counting,” Harold exclaimed. “I’m sticking a yellow flag at the base of every tree, on the side where the body is hung.”
“We’ll need the Total Station,” Rachel declared, chewing her lower lip as she worked through the logistics of their next moves. “Only way to graph a crime scene that’s literally in midair. I’ll call down, have Jorge and Louise bring it up. We’ll need a survey marker, however, as our reference point. Harold?”
