Past Abandon

by Alice Ayden

  Tired of the study, Maines faced Weever.

  She nodded. “I know. The DNA matches Johnston. Hair matches. Fibers. The knife. And there’s nothing. I mean nothing linking Natalie to the bodies.”

  “There’s no evidence she did anything except what she claims prick Johnston ordered her to which really pisses me off.”

  Weever curled her lip. “She has the scars on her wrists.” She held onto her own wrist as if that would help her concentrate. “And the wounds from what she says were beatings.”

  “Doc said there’s evidence of malnutrition and dehydration so hopefully she suffered.”

  Weever sighed and stared back at Natalie. “The journal is in her handwriting, but...”

  Maines took a bite of apple pastry, winced, and threw the rest away. “Look at her.” He studied Natalie’s pale complexion, wild hair and haunted eyes. “Place that journal into evidence during a trial. Place her in that condition, and no one will think she’s guilty. Given Johnston’s history…”

  Weever started to say something but didn’t. “We don’t have a damn thing, do we?”

  “With all the theories on the news, the jury pool’s tainted. She’s right. They’ll never get a conviction. We have a semi truck filled with evidence on Johnston, but zippo on her.” Maines shook his head.

  “We have Miss Austen’s statement about Natalie’s threats, the journal, the—”

  Maines flashed her the look.

  “I know. Even Miss Austen knows she wouldn’t be reliable given her history of amnesia.” Weever took another sip of coffee.

  Maines noticed Weever’s fidgety hands. “How many cups?”

  Weever shook off the question.

  Vinders got up, walked to the door, and flashed a calming smile back at Natalie. He joined Weever and Maines in the room but didn’t acknowledge them. He frowned as his focus intensified on his patient. Maines and Weever waited for him to speak.

  Maines gave him a few seconds. “Well?”

  The psychiatrist finally reacted to them. “She’s a fascinating study.”

  Weever grimaced.

  “It would take many sessions to officially diagnose her.” The doctor watched Natalie as if he were an overworked Egyptologist who’d just wandered into a tomb to discover Cleopatra playing backgammon with Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony.

  “We need something.” Weever tried to break the spell.

  Vinders finally faced them. “In my opinion, she’s suffering from an extreme case of PTSD. She hears voices and has expressed suicidal thoughts. She doesn’t remember much of her past. It’s as if her life began in the cellar. She has no memory of killing Mr. Johnston Stonston. She has to remind herself she doesn’t really have a daughter, and—”

  “Bottom line this. Is it sociopath or psychopath or what?” Weever asked.

  The doctor looked at her as if she requested the impossible. “You cannot force a label on someone who has suffered like she has.”

  Maines and Weever stared at him and waited.

  “Okay.” The doctor took off his glasses and stroked his close cropped beard while he worked it out. “Miss Wells clearly understands the difference between right and wrong. She has shown remorse and empathy for what has taken place and her part in the actions. She understands the magnitude and the loss.”

  “And she couldn’t be fooling you?” Weever asked, glancing back at Natalie. “Isn’t that the whole deal with sociopathic psychopaths? They learn what is socially acceptable and parrot back the behavior?”

  Vinders studied the detective. “The problem with deriving snippets of definitions from the internet is that it fails to discern the nuances of every disorder and diagnosis.”

  “We don’t need a book, doctor,” Weever’s voice wasn’t exactly respectful of the doctor or his profession. “I don’t care if she gets in touch with her inner child or learns to play well with others.”

  “Spoken by someone who clearly has a lot of anger her own therapy didn’t produce the results expected,” the doctor said.

  Weever stepped uncomfortably close to the doctor. Her glare spoke louder than any words.

  Maines pulled her back. “Why don’t we take a minute and tidy up our own sandboxes.”

  Weever stepped back.

  Maines leaned in. “Did we change places? Am I now the ambitious young detective hoping to make FBI and you’re the handsome but aloof rebel counting the days to retirement?”

  Weever snorted, glared at the doctor, and stomped out of the room.

  The doctor flinched as the door slammed and vibrated the two way mirror.

  Maines quickly looked at Natalie and swore he noticed the slightest grin emerge then disappear.

  “Your partner clearly has issues with—”

  Maines raised his hand. “About that.” He pointed to Natalie.

  The doctor understood Maines’ point. “Like I said, I’d need many more sessions, but she is clearly traumatized.”

  “Is she sane?”

  “Clinically, yes.” The doctor paused. “Look, I’ve been doing this for a long time.” The doctor stopped to study Natalie again. “I can only diagnose what she presents to me, I know there’s more to her than that. If she’s what you think she is…” He stammered and sighed. “She’s the best I’ve ever seen. She’s not just good. She’s something else entirely. I couldn’t find a hint of hesitation, yet none of her answers seemed rehearsed or predictable. She has traits of a broad spectrum of disorders. She’s highly functioning and extremely intelligent. I’d put her well beyond genius level.”

  Tears streamed down Natalie’s face as she helplessly looked around the room as if trying to come to grips with events.

  “I hate that she’s named Natalie.” The doctor grimaced looking at Maines. “My granddaughter’s name. Sweetest child in the world.”

  In the twenty-five years of being a cop, Maines had never flinched from a suspect. “A danger to herself?” He reached, but he needed Natalie in custody to give him time to find something.

  The doctor nodded. “We won’t need a TDO. She’s already volunteered for admission.”

  This stopped Maines cold. “Why?”

  The doctor shrugged. “I’ve made the arrangements for transport. I’ll know more after she’s situated.” Vinders concentrated on Maines. “What are you looking at? How many cases do you think are connected?”

  “We have feelers out to all local offices and feds, but my gut tells me at least a dozen in four states.”

  “Aim higher, detective. Someone this high functioning whose never been caught, arrested, or even talked to the police? I’d be comfortable guessing three or four times that amount. Study the journal.”

  Maines stepped back a bit. “But why allow herself to be captured?”

  The question hit the doctor as well. “I have no doubt she has much more in mind. People in my profession will spend their entire careers studying what she is. Her pathology bears no weaknesses. She lacks a signature. She lacks routines. If she was responsible for the recent victims, then she is able to discipline herself to take only those who fit the motives she has chosen.” The doctor’s interest increased as he described Natalie. “She’s one of the rarest finds for someone like me.” Vinders handed Maines a piece of paper he’d written on. “My Latin’s not the best, but these were the only words I used to describe her.”

  Maines looked at the scribblings. “Ingenium. Infectum. Purus. Incorruptus. Contagio. Malum. Not a great translator, doc.”

  The doctor shrugged. “Malum. Like I said, I’m not a Latin scholar, and I don’t conjugate. In my own rough, barely legible, half-Latin translation? Pure evil.”

  Chapter 43: Gravity

  Cora spent the next few days and weeks existing. She ate. She drank. She functioned.

  Evan kept the media occupied and the more ghoul focused tourists busy. The police exhumed more remains buried in the cellar. At least six different bodies so far. All had advanced decomposition. None had been there when the police f
irst investigated. Natalie was right, there was nothing Cora could have done to save Marie. She’d been dead for months. It was all part of her game.

  The police tirelessly worked to connect the dots, but the lawyers warned they wouldn’t have enough for a conviction. Reporters swarmed and investigators dug. Robed, toothless, never in a possession of a comb onlookers spoke to the media - as they often do - mentioning how when they were five they had a friend who knew a bee who allegedly stung someone who may have seen a tinted reflection of a mail carrier who might have delivered a letter to this girl related to a first grade teacher who may have substituted in the lunch room the day someone close to the investigation choked on a moldy cashew.

  Cora opened the blank journal Mrs. Kiness had given her.

  “It’s appropriate for the soul’s soul to get things out on paper,” Mrs. Kiness had said. “Best not to keep those evil things inside lest they take root.”

  After reading Natalie’s journal, Cora fought her reluctance to write in anything resembling one, but her pen released what her lips couldn’t say:

  I’m in a constant state of not. I’m the not of everything. I’m not hungry. Not thirsty. Not wanting to read or watch TV or walk or ride or visit or be visited. I’m a slab - a blob of nondescript goo in a forgotten Petri dish. My heart is broken. I wander through the days in a fog like some hollowed out piece of tree waiting for something.

  Cora stopped as tears blurred the page. Several drops puddled the ink, but Cora didn’t wipe them away. “I have to feel it. No matter how painful. It’s the only way out.” Cora didn’t want to hide in the darkness again. Lillia had done a dissertation’s level of research on dissociative amnesia. Cora’s determination to face what normally would have spiraled her into an abyss motivated her.

  I stare out the window during the day and cry myself to sleep at night. I wake up hoping the next day will be different, but it repeats like a grief loop. Did I try everything to save them? If I had only remembered. I would have given my life for them.

  Cora scratched out the last sentence.

  I should have given my life for them. I wonder how their families miss each one of their daughters. The air is still. Their perfume does not linger. Their boots do not knock quickly across the hardwoods. Theirs voice cannot be heard. Their laughter doesn’t make everyone turn desperate to understand the joke. Silence remains like a fog that doesn’t lift.

  The tours have started again, but how do we continue? How do we smile or laugh or exist? How can any of us just go on? A huge chunk of our heart and soul is missing. I still don’t know. I don’t know if I will ever be able to answer the question as to how much I remembered. I was in the cellar on Christmas Eve. Marie reached for me. Rachel was there. Could I have saved her? Could I have done more?

  Cora stopped when she reread the last paragraph. She knew the answer. She could have done more. She could have remembered sooner.

  “How will I live with this? Should I be allowed to live with this?” Cora stopped as thoughts raced. “I wish I was more courageous. I’d kill myself.” The enormity of those thoughts fell. “No, I deserve to live with it. Death would be too easy for me. I should live knowing every day that I could have saved them but didn’t.”

  “Please remember us.”

  Cora heard those words spoken by Marie in the cellar.

  Cora closed her eyes. “I will never forget you. I promise.”

  I am a one-bladed fan with all the effort and no results. I exist. I breathe. My heart beats. My eyes blink. My lungs fill with air. My mouth is fixed in a permanent position that makes it difficult to say anything other than a one word answer. I couldn’t imagine having the energy or will to smile. My eyes don’t focus. I’d have to be more conscious to be catatonic.

  She looked back over what she wrote and closed the journal. This time, she wouldn’t write out the truth and then destroy it only to write more calming thoughts for her family. She didn’t care if they read the words. That is why she wrote in a journal and not a computer that could easily be deleted. She needed to face the truth. The reality. She needed to remember everything. She refused to hide again.

  Thoughts haunted Cora. The what ifs would destroy her if she allowed them to wallow in her festering brain. She lied in bed but didn’t sleep. She held books she didn’t read. Cora knew time passed only because it would be light then dark then light again. Her sluggish brain wanted nothing. She didn’t know if she deserved anything. Tears formed. They fell. They formed again. Simple, brutal gravity.

  Chapter 44: Obedient Soldiers

  Sawing and pounding rattled the precinct. Most of the windows, and many of the detective desks, were tarped which darkened the room. Some detectives shared computers while others used the break room as their temporary quarters.

  Maines, whose desk wasn’t affected, glared in the direction of the noise. “Thought they were supposed to be done by now?”

  Two detectives, squished into a shared desk, shrugged.

  “Just another thing to PISS ME OFF!” Maines had to yell over the sawing; he realized it would only make himself feel better. He waited. Did it stop the noise? No.

  He glanced around the station. “Doesn’t that piss anyone else off?” His gaze made its way past the coffee machine and the shared printer to the captain’s office. Torres kept his door closed, but the blinds were open. In his office: Mags and a few minions.

  Maines stopped a uniform walking by. “How the hell did that succubus get past me?”

  Eager to answer but unsure of the question, the uniform fidgeted. “The what? The who?”

  Torres stood with hands clasped behind him, listened, and mostly nodded. Just then, he and Mags looked directly at Maines.

  Something churned in Maines’ lower bowels. He returned to his paperwork and spread out maps and spreadsheets as he glanced at pictures of those still missing. Loud heels interrupted his search. He glanced up to see Mags, her minions, and their grins slither past.

  Torres motioned for Maines to get his ass in his office. Captain Jackson Torres was a people person. When he needed someone in his office, he’d forcefully point at the person he wanted then even more forcefully point towards the direction he wanted them.

  Maines sighed. “Good times.” He took a few minutes to fold the charts and close the files. He slowly stood up and sauntered.

  The veins in Torres’ throat almost popped. “No, take your time. It’s not like I have anything planned.”

  Once in Torres’ office, Maines didn’t close the door. He and Torres weren’t BFFs, and Maines prided himself on his enviable power to annoy his boss.

  Torres sighed, stomped to the door, and slammed it shut. He sat down at his desk and stared at Maines.

  Maines used the opportunity to adjust his tie and peer around the office.

  Torres hesitated. “I don’t know how to. Samuel, it’s just...”

  Maines flinched. Torres’ nickname at the academy was Rabid. First to the door. First to take a bullet. First to use his weapon. Torres didn’t hesitate; he didn’t reflect. He just did.

  Watching his captain struggle - about as uncomfortable for Maines as watching someone puke into a plate of his mother’s prized lasagna. “I’m out, aren’t I?”

  Torres shifted in his chair and nodded. “I got you full retirement. I managed to pull a few strings I could get hold of.”

  “And Mags holds the rest of the strings?” Maines asked, but he already knew.

  Torres nodded as if he’d just been through a bloody firefight as sole survivor. “Family’s got juice.”

  “Maeve warned me—”

  “Maeve?” Torres studied his wedding ring. “Maeve.” Torres found one of the many pictures of himself on the walls and smiled at his own reflection. “How is she? I haven’t seen her in how long?”

  Hell, Maines thought. He wanted to believe Torres knew Maeve by name only. Years later, when he remembered the moment, he’d make sure Maeve’s name went unmentioned. He couldn’t think about Maev
e and Rabid. No. His mind wouldn’t go there. He wouldn’t sully his memories of Maeve. He used the opportunity to peer at Torres’ stereotypical, muted, haphazard office. Maines figured Torres learned how to decorate from reruns of Barney Miller.

  Torres allowed his gaze to settle into space as a smile took hold.

  Maines cleared his throat and hoped his stomach would contain his lunch.

  “Mags has connections.” Torres shook his head. “I don’t even know how far they reach.”

  “And the case? The victims? The missing?”

  Torres opened the file on his desk and read it. “Officially Johnston Morgan Stonston killed Jessica Suthers, Alison Anne Quins, Rachel Mevlin and Maria Quintailla. He kidnapped Natalie Wells and attempted to kill both Miss Wells and Miss Austen. We have the remains of unidentified bodies at Ausmor’s cellar plus two more found in the woods. It’ll take months to sort things out.”

  Maines jumped up from the chair. “So officially, you’re in the vice grip, and the case goes to hell.” He didn’t wince when he said it. He was out. He knew it. Nothing to lose.

  Torres stood up slowly. Even though they were the same height, Torres added a boxer’s build and an assassin’s confidence. Maines had the world renowned stare, but Torres added menace behind his. “Sit down.”

  “Why? I’m out. I don’t have to kiss your—”

  “Think very carefully how you want to finish that, detective.”

  Maines hated that Torres could still intimidate, but Maines figured he’d keep some of his spite for a toast later on.

  “Look.” Torres softened and dialed down his glare. “All the forensic evidence hasn’t even come back yet. We’ll add whatever we find to the Stonston file and get some kind of closure to the families.”

  “That’s it?” Maines stomped to the door. “Don’t you think the families deserve better? Don’t you think the victims deserve better? Don’t you think—”