by Todd Ritter
“Lucas, what the hell is going on?”
“The safety was on,” the man said. “I swear to Christ, it was. Or at least I thought it was.”
A hollow ring in his voice instantly told Nick that he was lying. From the amused way he looked at the shotgun, Nick surmised the man had fired it just to see what would happen. The result was a hole in the porch roof the size of a dinner plate. Chunks of plaster surrounded the man’s feet, and his entire top half was dusted with disintegrated drywall.
Kat brushed some of it off the man’s shoulder before saying, “I see they let you out of jail.”
“I served my time.” He gave her a crooked, leering smile. “Now I’m a free man.”
Nick focused not on the shotgun but on the man holding it. Massive in both height and girth, he had the ferocious look of a pit bull. Shaved head. Neanderthal brow. A bump in his nose signified it had been broken at least once.
His appearance was so distinctive it initially masked the birthmark on his face. When Nick eventually did notice it, he found it hard to look away. As large and unruly as the man himself, it covered most of the right side of his face, its pigmentation twice as dark as the rest of his skin. It looked like a handprint, as if someone had slapped his face so hard it left a permanent mark.
Nick would have dismissed the man as a typical thug if it hadn’t been for his dancing eyes and shit-eating grin. He may have been a thug, but he was a highly intelligent one.
“Who is that?” Nick whispered to Kat once she returned from the porch.
“Lucas Hatcher,” she said. “Our local bad egg. This could take a while.”
Nick understood. He was only in charge of the murder investigation. Dealing with public menaces wasn’t part of his job. So he wished Kat well and called it a night. Walking away, he heard the chief ask, “Why the hell are you out here with a gun, Lucas?”
“Protection,” the human pit bull said, again unconvincingly. “I’m not going to let what happened to George Winnick happen to me.”
The only lodging Nick had been able to find in town was a bed-and-breakfast annoyingly called the Sleepy Hollow Inn. It was a nice place, if you liked floral prints and lace doilies. Nick did not. But it was better than some of the other hotels he had seen in recent days, so he didn’t mind. Besides, he was too exhausted to be bothered by the décor.
Or so he thought.
Lying in bed, crushed beneath the weight of a rose-dotted comforter, he couldn’t sleep. His mind refused to wind down for the night, and that evening’s caffeine still made his limbs restless. When he closed his eyes, he still pictured George Winnick’s corpse glowing beneath the autopsy room’s lights. When he opened them, all he saw was a too-cute Norman Rockwell print hanging on the wall.
After fifteen minutes of alternating between those two views, Nick crawled out of bed and moved to his suitcase. It took a moment of rooting, but he found what he was looking for—a leather-bound photo album.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he opened the album to a picture of a girl with brown hair and a welcoming smile. Sarah’s school portrait, taken when she was fifteen. Nick had studied the photo so many times it was permanently seared into his memory, yet he got choked up every time he saw it. That night was no different. Looking at the decades-old image of his big sister, that familiar sense of grief rushed into Nick’s heart.
“I haven’t forgotten you,” he told the photograph. “You know I haven’t, right?”
He flipped through the rest of the album, reading newspaper headlines he knew by heart.
NEWTON TEEN MISSING. That one—dated January 7, 1980—was illustrated with the same photo from the front of the album.
NO CLUES IN DISAPPEARANCE. January 8, the same year.
POLICE STILL SEARCH FOR GIRL. The day after.
Nick skipped to the back page. It contained a headline from March 1980. Thirty years earlier. Thirty to the day.
CORPSE BELIEVED TO BE MISSING TEEN.
Nick read the headline a second time. Then a third. And a fourth. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he slammed the album shut and tossed it into the suitcase. He then lay down on the bed, hugged himself tightly, and waited for sleep to come.
TWELVE
“Christ, Henry, look out!”
Henry saw the truck, jackknifed across the road ahead of him. It emerged suddenly, bursting through the curtain of rain that draped itself over his windshield. The truck driver was there, too, running into the road, arms waving for him to stop. The glow of the car’s headlights caused his shadow to loom large on the truck behind him.
He braked, feeling the tires lock as the car skidded. It seemed to pick up speed, sliding closer, closer, closer to the truck driver, who couldn’t get out of the way.
Upon impact, the trucker flipped onto the hood, his face smacking against the windshield. His eyes bulged in terror while his nose formed a pale, flat triangle against the glass. Then he vanished, bouncing up over the car, a single smear of blood on the windshield the only sign he had been there at all.
While this was happening, Henry tried to steer away from the impending accident. He yanked on the steering wheel that refused to budge as the car barreled toward the truck, smoothly, swiftly, inexorably . . .
Henry screamed, the sound of it yanking him out of his nightmare. Lifting his head, he saw he was on the sofa in his living room. A book lay spread open on his stomach, and he examined the spine for its title. The Man in the Iron Mask. Definitely a sign he had been in a self-pitying mood.
His left arm dangled off the sofa, hand brushing the floor. When his fingernails knocked against glass, Henry glanced down and saw a wine bottle. Empty, of course. He must have started hitting the bottle as soon as he got back from the funeral home. Frankly, he couldn’t remember.
When he stood, his back and shoulders cracked loose after so much time spent crammed onto the sofa. He waddled down the hall to the bathroom and took a gratifying long piss. At the sink, he paused at the mirror long enough to stare at his reflection.
“Mio viso,” he said. “Mio viso è ripugnante.”
After that, he lurched into his bedroom and flopped onto his bed, exhausted. Yet his eyes stayed open, fixed on his digital clock, which stared right back. Ten past five. Too early to get up. Too late to go back to sleep. The nightmare seemed to be aware of this.
It usually occurred once a week and was always the same, right down to the terrified scream that always started it off.
“Christ, Henry, look out!”
Despite its frequency, the nightmare’s intensity never dulled from repetition. That night’s appearance was so forceful that Henry was still shaken five minutes after waking. So instead of futilely trying to get more sleep, he opted to roll out of bed and start his day.
The hangover started to fade once he lurched into the shower. The nightmare, however, lingered. Deep down, he harbored hope it might one day go away. Not that he thought it would. Henry suspected the nightmare—that persistent replay of his past—would stay with him for the rest of his life.
Fifteen minutes in the shower left him feeling awake enough to function normally. And that meant returning to his morning routine. He toweled himself dry before swiping a circle of reflection in the steam-covered bathroom mirror. He then shaved, being careful to get the stubborn whiskers that sprouted along his scar.
He dressed quickly and went to the kitchen to down his usual breakfast of two eggs, one banana, and a glass of orange juice. After the last bite and a final swallow, Henry made and packed his lunch.
And that was that. His routine was over. It was time to go to work.
Opening the front door to his apartment, he saw the Perry Hollow Gazette lying at his feet. The top headline stared at him in big, black letters.
FARMER FOUND DEAD.
He didn’t want to read the accompanying article. He knew the way newspapers worked. They loved stories that elicited the three emotions guaranteed to boost circulation—sadness, thankfulness, and fear. Re
aders were sad it happened in the first place, thankful it didn’t happen to them, and fearful it eventually could.
The Winnick murder had all three, and Henry assumed the Gazette exploited them to their full potential. Martin Swan’s article no doubt had the typical quotes of shock from residents, the various no comments from police, maybe even some editorializing about the sad state of humanity.
What it didn’t have—and Henry had made sure of this—was any mention of the death notice faxed to him before the murder occurred. He had promised Chief Campbell to keep it under wraps. And he always kept his promises.
Henry was about to kick the newspaper into the apartment when something nearby caught his eye. It was a cardboard box, unmarked, and sitting about two feet away from his door. His was one of two apartments on that floor. Since the other was located on the opposite side of the hallway, Henry could only assume that the box was intended for him.
Kneeling, he studied it a moment. The box contained no address or postage, meaning it couldn’t have been mailed. This had been delivered by hand.
The top was sealed only by a wide swath of masking tape, which peeled off easily. When it was all gone, Henry counted to three, opened the box, then looked inside.
What he found there was strangely unexpected but not completely surprising. He should have known finding the Winnick death notice wouldn’t be his only involvement in the crime. Now there was this sudden gift to contend with. The meaning behind both items was a mystery, but their purpose was clear.
Henry was being pulled deeper into a twisted game thought up by an even more twisted mind.
“The cat’s neck was snapped. Probably the day before George Winnick was killed.”
The way Rudy Taylor gave his update—back ramrod straight, notes held tight in front of his face—reminded Kat of a nervous schoolboy giving a book report in front of the class. But despite his looks, Rudy was no schoolboy. And a book report would have been more detailed. So far, Kat had heard nothing but bad news. No prints. No transfer. No DNA. No suspect.
“It was gutted,” Rudy continued. “Then filled with sawdust and put back in the barn, where Mr. Winnick most likely saw it right before he was abducted.”
“Is that your theory?” Nick Donnelly asked. “That the dead cat was intended to catch him off guard?”
He had been forced to lean against Kat’s desk, her office having only enough seating space for three. The other chairs were taken up by Kat herself, Rudy, and Cassie Lieberfarb. It was a tight fit, even with Rudy’s small stature.
“That’s my best guess,” Rudy said. “If it had some special meaning, it probably would have been left with the body.”
“What about the thread?”
“The thread found on both the cat and George Winnick was a cotton-polyester blend. It’s manufactured by Coats and Clark in Charlotte, North Carolina.”
“Is it rare?”
“No. I’m sure you can buy it in six stores in Perry Hollow alone,” Kat said. “I probably have some in my sewing kit at home.”
Nick frowned at the answer. “So I guess it can’t be traced.”
“But we did find another thread,” Rudy said. “On Mr. Winnick’s collar. It’s white. One hundred percent cotton.”
“Do you think it was transferred from the killer?”
“It had to be,” Rudy said. “Unless Mr. Winnick normally wore something dipped in chloroform.”
“Chloroform?”
“That’s correct. The lab is positive of that one.”
The dour expression on Nick’s face transformed into something resembling a smile.
“A handkerchief,” he said. “Doused in chloroform. Anyone else think that’s how the killer was able to overtake George without a struggle?”
“It fits the profile,” Cassie added. “The cut on George’s neck was clean, suggesting practice and premeditation. This killer is methodical and knows what he’s doing. The stitchwork was a little rough, suggesting a male—most likely between the ages of twenty-five and fifty.”
Kat, for one, was impressed. “You got all that from one wound?”
“Not quite. I use statistics and data from past cases to help me. For instance, I know that the killer drives a pickup truck.”
“How?”
“Statistics show most violent criminals in rural areas prefer them. We don’t know why. But there’s also the fact that he needed something to transport a body with a coffin in it.”
Kat thought about Perry Hollow and its cluster of citizens. Quite a few were men in their thirties and forties. Most of them drove pickups.
“Cassie, you’ve just made half the town a suspect.”
“About the town,” Nick said, “we need to figure out how much of this information gets out. What should we tell the press?”
That morning’s edition of the Perry Hollow Gazette sat on Kat’s desk. The newspaper had devoted its entire front page to the Winnick murder, mentioning every detail she had released. The official line was that George had bled to death, which was true. No one needed to know about the rest—dead cat, embalming, and faxed death notice included.
Because the truck driver had seen the coffin on the road, that aspect of the case was released to the public. Martin Swan, of course, played it up in his main article. The paper even included a photo of the spot where the coffin had been found.
The coffin was the part that made the death so fascinating. It was strange, creepy, intriguing. The news stations out of Philadelphia led with it during the morning broadcast. An hour later, it had made its way onto CNN’s Web site. By noon, Kat suspected it would be spread across the country. Just the kind of publicity Perry Hollow didn’t need.
“We shouldn’t release any of it,” she said. “All it will do is stir up the media wolves. And this town doesn’t need more of that.”
With that, the meeting was over. Rudy and Cassie left, giving Kat’s office some much-needed breathing room. Then Tony Vasquez arrived, taking up the recently vacated space. Held in his capable arms was a stack of paper that he dropped onto her desk with a resounding thud.
“What’s all this?” Kat asked.
“Enrollment records from mortuary schools. Four of them. The closest is in Halliesburg. Thirty minutes away. All four were nice enough to fax a list of their students for the past twenty years.”
The stack was large—at least two reams of paper. When Kat flipped through it, dozens of names, addresses, and phone numbers passed before her eyes.
“This would be helpful,” she said, “if we had a name. Or something to suggest the killer was enrolled at any of them.”
“We have a name,” Tony said. “We were able to trace the fax number.”
“This is good news, right? We should be happy.”
“Do I look happy?” Tony asked.
Scanning the trooper’s dark eyes and downturned mouth, Kat decided he wasn’t.
“What’s wrong with the name?”
It was Nick, who idly flipped through the stack of pages that Kat had just abandoned.
“It’s a fake. At least, that’s what it seems like.”
Tony told them that the fax number had been activated two days before George Winnick’s murder. It was registered to someone named Meg Parrier. According to company records, the number was used only once—to send a fax to the Perry Hollow Gazette’s obituary department.
“That’s dead end number one,” Tony said.
The number was paid for with a money order, also in Miss Parrier’s name. The transaction for the money order took place at a Mexican convenience store in a bad part of Philadelphia. The nervous owner, most likely suspecting trouble with the INS, told the state police he couldn’t remember anything about the transaction.
“Dead end numero dos.”
The bill for the number was sent to a post office box, also in a bad part of Philadelphia and again under the name Meg Parrier. A search of the name itself came up with two hits in Pennsylvania. One Meg Parrier was an octogenarian
in Erie. The other was a kindergarten student in Wilkes-Barre.
“And there we have dead end number three,” Tony concluded. “So no smiles today.”
“I’d still like to find this Meg Parrier—whoever she is,” Nick said. “We now know the killer had help, whether it was willing or not. What about formaldehyde?”
“Because Bob McNeil said one way to get your hands on a large amount would be to steal it, I issued an APB across the state about funeral home breakins.”
“Any hits?”
“One. In a town called Shamokin.”
“I guess all their formaldehyde is intact.”
“Bingo,” Tony said. “Only cash was taken.”
Kat thought back to their funeral home visit the night before and how Bob McNeil had said there was a black market for everything. His suggestion had been to search the Internet.
“What if,” she said, “the formaldehyde was bought through normal methods.”
“Like the kind of licensed dealer Bob mentioned?” Nick asked. “Don’t you have to be a registered funeral home to get it?”
“Yes, if you’re getting large amounts. Maybe it’s easier to buy it in small ones.”
“And the killer then stockpiled it,” Tony said, catching on.
Kat turned to her computer. “Let’s check our old friend Google.”
Nick and Tony watched over her shoulder as she typed “formaldehyde suppliers” into the online search engine. One click later, dozens of results appeared, boasting names such as Blain Chemical Co. and M. L. International. Their locations were literally all over the map. Some were as close as Delaware; others as far away as Iceland.
Tony let out a low whistle. “Who knew the world needed this much formaldehyde? We chose the wrong career.”
Kat clicked on one of the listings—a company called Science Lab Supplies Inc. Its homepage, which looked professional and legitimate, announced that the company specialized in supplies used for educational dissections in classrooms. For a reasonable price, Kat could buy a petri dish, dissection tools, and even bullfrogs preserved and ready to be sliced open.
