Girl Eight: A Mercy Harbor Thriller

by Melinda Woodhall

  “Okay everyone, get back!”

  Twitch and Vanzinger closed the doors and soon the helicopter was hovering and swinging out into the gusty night. The flashing lights soon faded into the dark, and Jankowski turned back to Barker.

  “Where’s Nessa?” he asked.

  Barker looked at him in surprise.

  “What do you mean? She wasn’t on the chopper?’

  Jankowski’s heart jumped into his throat. He looked at the ground next to the stable wall where he’d laid the Remington. The shotgun was gone.

  “She’s in there with Kramer, and he may be armed!”

  Jankowski started to run toward the stable, but Barker held out a hand to restrain him.

  “You can’t go charging in there if he’s got a gun. You won’t be any help to Nessa if you get shot.”

  Jankowksi felt for his holster. His Glock was with Vanzinger, flying away in the dark.

  “Are you carrying, Barker?”

  Barker’s eyes widened as he saw Jankowski’s empty holster.

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

  Jankowski slowly shook his head.

  Before Barker could respond, they heard Nessa’s distressed voice coming from the stable, followed by Kramer’s deeper tones.

  “I’m going in,” Jankowksi whispered to Barker, frustration at his helplessness turning to rage. “I’ll kill him with my bare hands if I have to.”

  Barker grabbed for his arm, but Jankowksi shook him off and stormed toward the stable, determined to save Nessa even if it meant risking his own life. After all she had kids and a husband, while he had nothing to lose.

  The lantern on the stable wall flickered, throwing eerie shadows over the stalls. Jankowski crouched and then jumped into the room, determined to put up a fight for the shotgun. Kramer was injured and weak, and Jankowksi was confident if he took the older man by surprise, he would be able to overpower him.

  Nessa gaped at Jankowksi as he skidded to a stop next to Kramer. She held her Glock in her right hand and Jankowski’s Remington in her left. Both guns were trained on Kramer. The police chief was bound and cuffed, his face red with indignation as he watched Jankowski take in the scene.

  “Jankowski, you better talk some sense into your partner before you both do something you’ll regret.”

  A flush of anger stirred in Jankowski’s guts at Kramer’s cold words. The old man actually thought they were stupid enough to be intimidated by his threats.

  “No, Kramer,” Barker said, walking in behind Jankowski. “You’re the one that’s gonna be doing the regretting. We know everything, and Leo has already informed the feds. They’ll be waiting for you back in town I’m sure. Or at least they will be there once the storm passes through.”

  Nessa looked up into the cloudy sky.

  “The rain’s stopped,” she said, almost to herself. “And the wind’s dying down. I think we’ve been spared the worst of it.”

  “No, Nessa, the worst of it is right there in front of you.”

  Jankowksi glared down at Kramer, resisting the urge to kick the big man that had caused so much heartache.

  “Is this where you buried them?” Barker asked, walking to stand over Kramer. “Is this where you put the other girls? Is that what the numbers mean?”

  Jankowski looked at the stalls, noting the numbers on the wall above each one. He turned to Barker and frowned, trying to understand what the retired detective was saying.

  Barker picked up a shovel and moved to stand in stall seven.

  “If I dig here, what will I find, Kramer? Who will I find?”

  Kramer glowered up at Barker, his eyes shining with hate.

  “You always were weak, Barker. You never had the stomach for the job. It’s no wonder you had to quit.”

  Nessa raised the Glock and aimed it between Kramer’s eyes.

  “Don’t make me mad, Chief. Barker’s the best detective Willow Bay ever had. Better than ten of you and your buddy Reinhardt.”

  “It’s too bad Reinhardt didn’t finish you off, Nessa. I warned him you would cause trouble,” Kramer hissed. “Women always do.”

  Jankowski picked up the shovel and waved it over Kramer’s head.

  “Enough talk, old man. Are you going to admit what you’ve done, or should I start digging?”

  Kramer smiled up at Jankowski, but his eyes were bleak.

  “I’m not saying anything else without my lawyer.”

  Jankowksi sighed, then joined Barker in stall seven. As he began to dig, Nessa’s cell phone buzzed in her pocket.

  “Cell towers must be back up,” she said pulling out her phone.

  Her voice quivered as she spoke. Jankowski smiled as he listened to Nessa’s side of the conversation.

  "Hi Jerry. Yes, I'm okay. The boys? Yes. I love you, too, honey, more than anything in the world. Okay. I’ll be home soon. Bye.”

  Jankowksi looked at Nessa and smiled at the new stream of tears on her cheeks, glad that Jerry and the boys would be waiting for her. But as he shoveled up another mound of dirt, uncovering a patch of tarp and a tangle of long red hair, he feared it would be a while before Nessa would have the chance to go home.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  The softball thwacked against Cooper’s bat and skittered down the line toward first base. The player at first dove for the ball but misjudged its speed, turning to watch as a tiny outfielder trotted over to pick it up and fling it toward home. By the time the ball was back in the pitcher’s hand, Cooper was proudly standing on second base.

  “Yeah, Cooper! Good job, buddy!”

  Nessa shrieked and jumped next to Jerry, unable to contain her excitement at her youngest son’s first double. It felt so good to laugh. And it was the first time in over two weeks that she’d been able to forget the horror and carnage Kramer had left behind.

  “I’m going to take the boys to get pizza with the team,” Jerry said, pulling her against him for a hug. “You go and see how Barker’s doing. I know you must have a lot to talk about.”

  “You sure? I can go with ya’ll if you want.”

  Jerry shook his head, a flush of color rising in his cheeks.

  “No, we’ll be fine,” he said, taking her hand. “And I’m sorry.”

  Nessa raised her eyebrows.

  “Sorry for what?”

  “For not giving you the space you need, and, well...for not trusting you the way I should. I know I acted like an idiot, thinking you and Jankowski…”

  “No, you weren’t being an idiot, Jerry. You were being human. But I want you to know I would never do anything to hurt you or the boys. I would never betray you. Not with Jankowski or anyone else.”

  Jerry swallowed hard and nodded, looking out over the crowd.

  “I better go find the boys. We’ll see you at home later.”

  Nessa watched him walk away, waiting until his tall figure disappeared into the crowd before she walked back to her car.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  A big, dusty pick-up truck sat next to Barker’s little Prius when Nessa arrived. She parked her Charger along the curb and walked over Barker’s well-manicured lawn to the front door.

  “It’s open,” Barker yelled out after she’d knocked.

  Loud male voices led her to Barker’s dining room, which doubled as his office. The table had been recently polished and cleaned, and Barker sat with Jankowski on one side of him and Tucker Vanzinger on the other.

  “You want some tea?” Barker asked, and Nessa saw that he had what looked like a cup of herbal tea in front of him, while the other men were holding bottles of Bud Light.

  “Come on, Nessa. Have a beer with us,” Jankowski teased, rolling his eyes at Barker’s tea cup.

  “I’m fine, thanks. I’ve got my water with me.”

  Nessa held up her refillable bottle of water. She’d been pretty good about keeping it with her lately. She’d decided to focus on her health and her family. Those were the most important things, and she planned to hold on to them for dear l
ife while she still had them.

  “Tucker was about to tell us why he just up and quit the force all those years ago, weren’t you, man?”

  Jankowksi grinned over at Vanzinger, who looked less than pleased to be the center of attention. Nessa saw that he was a redhead, like her, although his coppery hair was already streaked with a few strands of white. She ran a hand through her red curls.

  With my job, I don’t imagine it’ll take long for my hair to turn white.

  She watched Vanzinger’s eyes darken as he began talking about his first year as a detective partnered with Detective Kirk Reinhardt.

  “At first I was in awe of Reinhardt. It seemed like he knew everyone in town and seemed to have all the answers. Anytime we’d get assigned to a case he’d decide what had happened and who to blame within the first few hours.”

  Vanzinger took a swig from his bottle and scratched at his ear.

  “Anyway, it didn’t take too long for me to see that all those people that knew him, were actually a little afraid of him. He liked to intimidate people, I think. He intimidated me, for sure.”

  The room was quiet as Vanzinger thought about what to say next. He looked down at his hands and sighed.

  “I’d already figured out he wasn’t a good guy by the time we were assigned to the Helena Steele homicide. I’d seen enough by then to realize he was involved in something, although I didn’t know details.”

  Vanzinger abruptly stood and stalked over to the window.

  “Evidence would disappear when Reinhardt suddenly decided a perp was innocent, or new evidence might be handed in anonymously when he wanted someone to go down. I wasn’t sure if he was getting paid to fix cases, or if he just got off on having the power to screw with people’s lives.”

  “I vote that he got paid,” Barker volunteered, “and that the power trip was just a bonus.”

  Nessa nodded, but didn’t interrupt. She could tell the story was difficult for Vanzinger to tell, and that he was stalling, delaying the part about what had happened to make him leave town.

  “The Helena Steele homicide was my first murder scene, and it was a bad one. I’d never even seen a dead body, except in the morgue.” Vanzinger looked queasy at the memory. “So, seeing the way Helena Steele had been sliced open…”

  Sweat was beginning to bead on Vanzinger’s forehead. He cleared his throat and took another long sip from his bottle.

  “Anyway, I wanted to do right by the victim, and her husband seemed so torn up. I couldn’t believe he’d done it. It just didn’t seem to fit. And when the knife didn’t have his prints on it and the time of death was estimated to be hours before he’d gotten to the house…well, I spoke up. I told Reinhardt I didn’t buy the husband as the perp.”

  “Let me guess,” Barker said, “Reinhardt shut you down, so you went to Kramer. Am I right?”

  “Yeah, I told Reinhardt I was convinced Ken Steele wasn’t our perp. He told me to keep my opinion to myself. For the first time I felt threatened by him. I mean, I knew he was crooked, but I was still too naive to think he would go after another detective. So, I went to Kramer. Spilled my guts.”

  “What did Kramer say?” Jankowski asked, earning a glare from Nessa.

  “He told me that reporting a fellow officer was against the code. He said he didn’t need troublemakers like me on the force, and that he wanted my shield and my weapon. Just like that. I was stunned. Of course, I said I wouldn’t do it, and Kramer laughed.”

  Vanzinger looked over at Nessa with bitter eyes.

  “He said if I didn’t leave town he’d make sure I ended up in jail or worse, He said he had evidence against me that would put me away for years. When I asked what it was, he just said, he didn’t know but he’d think of something. By the time I left his office, I didn’t want to be on the force anymore, anyway.”

  He sat down again and leaned back in his chair.

  “I kept my mouth shut, but I also kept tabs on the trial. When Ken Steele went down I felt sick. I wanted to come forward…I thought about it…”

  “But you didn’t,” Barker said, his eyes hard.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Vanzinger raised his chin but wouldn’t meet Barker’s eyes.

  “I thought nobody would believe me. Then when Ken Steele committed suicide in prison, I knew it was too late.”

  “If you’d come forward back then, maybe we could have stopped what happened after that.” Nessa’s voice was soft, but Vanzinger flinched as if she’d slapped him. “Maybe all those women wouldn’t have had to die.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Vanzinger’s eyes blazed as he looked at the detectives around the table. “It kills me to know that by keeping quiet I’ve caused so many other people to get hurt.”

  Jankowski reached out to put his hand on Vanzinger’s shoulder.

  “Lots of cops have made the mistake of following the code, whatever that is. And you couldn’t know the extent of Reinhardt and Kramer’s crimes. At least you came forward once you did. You made it right in the end.”

  Vanzinger shook his head and sighed.

  “My cowardice has cost people their lives, and I’ve got to find some way to live with that.”

  Nessa sipped at the water in her big bottle, trying to drown the resentment and anger she felt at hearing Vanzinger’s story. It was hard to accept that he’d done nothing to stop an innocent man from going to jail. But if she was honest with herself, she knew she couldn’t blame Vanzinger for what Reinhardt and Kramer had gone on to do. The men would have surely followed through on their threats if he had tried to expose them.

  “You okay, Nessa?”

  Barker was staring at her with his concerned, puppy dog eyes, and Nessa felt a rush of affection for the older man. He’d been through a lot as well, and yet he always worried about her. Always tried to make sure she was okay.

  “It’s been rough. I’ve been having trouble sleeping.”

  Nessa felt awkward admitting it in front of Vanzinger, but he was part of everything that had happened, and in a way, she felt he had a right to be sitting there listening.

  “The crime scene out at the stable…”

  She had to stop to gulp down more water.

  “It’s always there, you know? I can still see the remains…no matter how hard I try to block it out.”

  She closed her eyes against the images of the pitiful bones and hair entangled with decaying fabric. The remains of seven girls had been pull from the earth, and Iris and her team were still in the process of identifying them so their families could be notified.

  “I know what you mean, Nessa,” Barker said. “I’ve been waking up in cold sweats, thinking about that room over the garage. I still can’t believe anyone could do that, much less a man I’ve known for over twenty years.”

  “He’s not a man, he’s a monster,” Nessa muttered, clenching her fists on the table. “And I’ll never forgive him for what he did to those girls.”

  As the men around the table nodded and finished their drinks, Nessa felt fear rise and mingle with her anger. Somehow she knew she would never be the same, and that the girls in the stable would continue to haunt her dreams for many years to come.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Barker had insisted on driving his Prius up to Raiford so that Nessa could relax on the three-hour drive north. They’d impulsively decided to go to the Florida State Prison to meet with Vinny Lorenzo in person. Nessa wanted to ask him to identify Adrian Bellows as the man he’d seen leaving the Old Canal Motel on the night his mother had been killed. Barker wanted to tell Vinny that they’d identified his father through DNA testing. Barker even had a printout of the DNA test results with him.

  “You sure you want to go through with this?” Nessa asked, studying him with her pale blue eyes. “You know how upset you got last time you saw him.”

  “That was twelve years ago, and this is different,” Barker said, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. “This time I have something I need to tell h
im, and maybe I’ll be able to get some closure at the same time.”

  Nessa turned her head to look out at the green fields whizzing by, keeping her voice casual.

  “So, any more news on Taylor?”

  Barker had shared his fright at seeing the picture of the girl who had looked so much like Taylor in the room over Reinhardt’s garage. He’d also expressed his determination to track down his daughter and bring her home.

  “No, I haven’t had any luck yet. I thought Google could help you find anything, but so far…nothing.”

  “Seriously? You’re trying to find your daughter using Google?”

  Nessa raised an eyebrow as she turned to stare at Barker. He kept his face expressionless for another beat, then smiled.

  “Well, I can’t say I didn’t try it, but I also have a few friends at the DMV and the credit bureau who’ve let me dig into their databases. Unfortunately, that got me about as far as Google. Nothing yet.”

  Barker’s smile faded as he wondered how Taylor was managing to stay off the radar of the credit bureaus and the Department of Motor Vehicles. Could she really navigate the world without a credit card or driver’s license? The worry that had been stewing in his stomach started again, and the burning pain soon followed. He’d have to get that checked out.

  Maybe I’m finally getting that ulcer I kept telling Taylor she was going to give me.

  His smile returned as he remembered the rare occasions he’d been home in time to have dinner with Taylor and Caroline. They’d all enjoyed swapping sarcastic remarks and lighthearted insults. He would nag Taylor about coming home late and keeping her room a mess. She’d complain that he smoked like a chimney and ate all the cookie dough Hagen-Dazs ice cream before anyone else in the house got the chance. Under all the teasing and complaining though, she’d been a daddy’s girl. Or at least, he had thought she was.

  “What are you smiling about?” Nessa asked, her eyes eager for happy news in the wake of so much sorrow.

  “Just thinking about Taylor as a little girl,” Barker admitted, his smile turning into a laugh. “She was always such a smartass.”