Deep as the Dead

by Kylie Brant

  “You’re…I saw you across the lake.” A tall, slender woman with black hair clubbed back in a short ponytail approached her. “Is that a body over there?”

  Alexa gave a mental sigh. She was going to be facing as many questions as she asked. “I’m sorry to say there’s been a homicide.”

  The woman’s mouth made an “O” but the interest in her eyes was avid. “Do you know who it is? Who did it?”

  “The victim’s name won’t be released until next of kin have been notified.” Alexa didn’t attempt to answer the second question. There was no way she wanted to get into that conversation. “We’re talking to everyone who lives in the vicinity. Did you see or hear anything unusual last night?”

  “We don’t live here. Just renting for a week.” A man with thinning blond hair lowered the binoculars he had in his hands and turned to face Alexa. “Came for the peace and quiet. This is the most exciting thing that’s happened since we arrived.” Their names were Doug and Cindy Heathcliff, they told her. And after redirecting their focus time and again from details of the murder to her questions, Alexa was finally convinced they knew nothing.

  The next house was more of the same. And the one after it. Although a few people were out on the lake, most were apparently going to spend the better part of their day watching the forensic ident team work.

  The exception was the cabin midway down the row of houses. Nyle was already next door. After a desultory knock at the door, Alexa headed to the back. But there she found a mother in the water with her three young children, splashing and playing on inner tubes. It took some discretion for Alexa to state her reason for being there while being aware of the children in proximity.

  “Well, thanks for not shouting your questions in front of the children,” the woman, who introduced herself as Sam Quinton, said after Alexa stated her purpose. Quinton wore a no-nonsense black one-piece and toweled her short dark hair vigorously as she kept a watchful eye on the kids. “I have a pretty good indication what’s going on across the lake, and I don’t want the children to get wind of it. God, a murder! Here!” She shook her head, a few stray droplets spraying out from the gesture. “You can’t get away from it anywhere, can you? This dissolution of the social fabric. It’s endemic.”

  “Were you out at all late yesterday evening?”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “Like on the town, you mean? Fat chance, with these three. Biggest social event in our lives is taking them to the dentist.”

  Alexa smiled politely. “Maybe you saw a light or some activity from your window or patio door…?”

  Quinton should her shook her head. “I sleep like the dead. And so, unfortunately, does my husband. Because he never knows just how late Grayson stays out at night.” She broke off for a moment to shout, “Bradley, absolutely not! You do not hold your sister’s head under water!” She turned back to Alexa. “Twenty-three years old, sleeps all day and doesn’t lift a finger. Forget about paying rent. My step-son, not my husband.”

  A flicker of hope ignited in Alexa. “So your stepson was out late last night?”

  “If he weren’t, it’d be the first night all summer. He’s inside. Still sleeping, as I said.”

  “I knocked earlier.” Alexa looked back toward the rental. “There was no answer.”

  A grim smile tilted her lips. “Oh, I can fix that.” She walked a few steps toward the dock and leaned to pick up her cell phone, keyed in a number. After several moments, she said, “Oh, Grayson, it’s Sam. I’m so very sorry to wake you.” Her expression was positively gleeful. “But there’s someone out here with RCMP who would like to speak to you. What? Oh, I’m sorry, I’m not certain exactly what she wants. But we’re out back when you care to join us.” She cut off the call and gave a satisfied smile. “I don’t think he’ll be long.”

  Not quite sure what to say in the face of those family dynamics, Alexa waited silently. As the woman had indicated, it was only a few minutes before a tall, thin young man, clad only in athletic shorts, stumbled out the back door of the house, pulling a T-shirt over his head. Alexa went to meet him. “Grayson Quinton?”

  “Uh, yeah.” He looked like he could still be in high school, with a scraggly goatee and patchy facial hair. “I don’t know what Shorty Roder told you, but I already promised to pay for the damages.”

  Surveying him, Alexa was half glad she didn’t have to get to the bottom of that story. “I understand you were out last night. What time did you get home?”

  With a sidelong glance at his stepmother, he said, “Uh, right around midnight, I think.”

  “It’s important to be accurate with any information you share with the RCMP, Grayson,” Sam said virtuously.

  “Uh, yeah, you know it might’ve been later than that. I sort of lost track of time.”

  Reaching for her rapidly fraying patience, Alexa said, “How much later?”

  Shifting from one bare foot to the other, he said, “Maybe…it could have been three or three-thirty.”

  “Did you see anyone as you got closer to the lake? Cars or people that stood out?”

  “Not really, I guess. I was pretty…” With a quick look at his stepmother, he seemed to amend his words. “…tired. Didn’t notice much of anything. Oh. Except I stopped on the way to take a piss.”

  “Grayson, honestly! Your language!” Quinton scolded.

  He lifted a narrow shoulder. “Couldn’t wait ’til I got home, so I pulled off onto one of the logging roads on the west side of the lake. Got out for a couple of minutes and then headed here.”

  Alexa was fast coming to share Sam Quinton’s opinion of the stepson. “Did you see anyone?”

  He swung his head slowly from one side to the other. “There was hardly any other traffic most of the way home. But when I stopped to pee, there was a vehicle of some sort parked on that road, deeper into the trees. I figured it belonged to Andersen’s logging company. I didn’t notice anyone around it, though.”

  Nyle must have finished next door and was now rounding the house to join Alexa. “What sort of vehicle?” she asked.

  “Um…I didn’t get a great look at it.” Grayson folded his arms across his bony chest.

  “I mean, was it equipment the company might use? A car? What?”

  “Oh. No, it wasn’t logging machinery. But it wasn’t a car either. Too big. Like a van or something, I guess. Not a minivan like Sam drives, though.” There was disdain in his tone. “A bigger one like businesses use.”

  Alexa could tell by the falter in Nyle’s step that he was close enough to hear what the young man had said. “Did you notice a color?” she persisted.

  “White maybe or some other light shade. Oh, hey!” He finally seemed aware of his surroundings and gazed at the scene across the water. “What’s going on over there?”

  Chapter Eleven

  The path the killer had taken was easy to follow.

  After updating Ethan about Grayson Quinton’s observations from the night before, they had the young man show them to the spot where he’d stopped last night on the way home. Leaving him in the back seat of the vehicle, Alexa and Nyle followed the twisted, rutted logging road through the woods. It was little more than a wide, leaf-lined path through the trees, following a meandering trail toward the lake.

  “Look.” Alexa stopped and pointed to another area where the grooves from dual tire tracks were clear for several yards.

  Nyle took out his phone and crouched down to take pictures of them. They’d found several other areas where the twin depressions were visible, as well as a clear set of tire treads from the vehicle parked there last night. “The forensic ident unit will have to head over here once they finish up at the dumpsite,” he said, rising. “They can make casts of these tracks.”

  “Which won’t lead us to him.”

  “Well, no.” They continued on their way again. “But once we catch him with the van and a dolly in his possession with tires that match these prints, it’s one more irrefutable piece of evidence against hi
m.” He looked at her then, a glint of concern in his gaze. “How are you doing, Alexa? Being contacted by a killer is enough to shake anyone up a bit.”

  “It’s also a remarkable opportunity to learn more about the UNSUB. To glean details about him that he doesn’t even realize he’s giving.” She stepped over an area still muddy from the rains a couple of days ago. “It’s a profiler’s dream. The more I understand him, the better I can help you catch him.”

  Slanted sunlight pierced the canopy of trees overhead. The quiet buzz of insects and occasional bird calls added to the tranquility of the spot, a marked contrast to the scene ahead. As they walked, Alexa tried to imagine the area only hours earlier, when it would have been shrouded in darkness. Bats swooping low in the shadows. The occasional gleam from the eyes of night animals. The screech of predators meeting prey.

  And the ultimate predator wheeling Lawler’s body down this same path.

  The body would have to be well secured to the dolly, Alexa mused. And he’d have needed light of some sort. Not a flashlight; his hands wouldn’t be free. So perhaps a miner’s hat with the spotlight affixed to it, affording him a narrow beam to split the darkness.

  Jeanette rests in a place familiar to you.

  The recollection of his words was like an icy finger against her nape. Yesterday’s press conference had been late in the afternoon, just hours before he tracked and killed Jeanette Lawler. But in the intervening time, he’d managed to do at least some cursory research on Alexa. Enough, at least, to track down the last place she’d lived in Nova Scotia.

  But he hadn’t learned much about her. At least, not yet. She’d never been here before. She had rarely been outside the town when they’d lived here. There’d been no family vacations or outings. No picnics by nearby lakes.

  But now that his mission in the province was accomplished, he’d have time to do a more thorough job looking into her past. They’d speculated that the UNSUB stalked his victims online. That he used the Internet and possibly the dark web to learn their vices and extort them. Despite her response to Nyle earlier, Alexa wasn’t certain she was ready for what the offender was sure to dredge up.

  The trail tapered to an end. They continued walking straight. After another fifty feet, they stepped out of the tree line into a grassy area. To their right, they could see Ethan and the white-suited evidence team two hundred feet ahead at the water’s edge. More people had arrived and circled the body. The ME and assistants.

  They skirted the police tape that had been strung as a perimeter as they made their way to Ethan. He had his cell pressed to his ear as they approached. Alexa wondered if it felt like a permanent attachment these days. He disconnected the call moments later and stepped away from his position near the body to approach them.

  “We’ve got the kid in the car,” Nyle began without preamble. “Took him a couple of tries, but he led us to the logging road where he saw the van parked last night. It’s the right place, too. The forensic ident unit will be able to get casts from the tire treads we found. Plus, there are visible dolly tire marks for several feet in spots leading through the woods toward the lake where.”

  A glint of excitement in his eyes, Ethan said, “Good job. I’ll dispatch some officers to cordon off the road until the team finishes and can get up there.” He led them farther away. Lowering his voice, he said, “With this latest verification of the vehicle link to the case, I’ve been in contact with Captain Campbell and lobbied for a province-wide stop-and-search of every Econoline van older than 2014. He agreed and received the go-ahead from Gagnon. The order’s gone out on the province-wide law enforcement system.”

  A thrum of adrenaline began in Alexa’s veins. That was an extensive security net to stop vehicles similar to the offender’s. If he were seen by a patrol cop anywhere, they’d have him.

  “He’s struck twice in Halifax. Maybe his base of operations is there.”

  Ethan nodded grimly. “Unsurprisingly, the two local officers working on the manifests found no one named Anis Tera entering the province. The name doesn’t appear on the ferry passenger list either.”

  “And the ferries don’t have much usable information anyway,” Nyle said, “since they don’t keep copies of the photo ID passengers have to show or include models of vehicles.”

  Ethan nodded. “Which is why it’s his most likely method of entry into the province. We suspected that Anis Tera is an alias. The UNSUB is probably using a different name now. We still need to comb through the toll-road camera images that have come in, just in case. We released the image the sketch artist did with Fornier to the media. The tip line hasn’t elicited anything of value yet.”

  Alexa wasn’t surprised. The drawing had shown a person with no discernible features. He’d been an everyman…outstanding only in his ordinariness. Often releasing the work of forensic artists brought forth a flood of worthless calls about exes’ boyfriends, annoying neighbors, and deadbeat relatives. But each of the tips had to be checked out, which required a lot of man-hours. “A matching vehicle photo from a toll road camera might get us the plate and driver image.”

  “A plate number would lead to a driver license photo, which will be a helluva better likeness than the forensic sketch appears to be,” Ethan agreed. “We’ll need an updated profile for the briefing this evening.” Alexa nodded. “The two of you can work out of the RCMP Colchester County detachment. I’ll catch a ride back when we wrap things up here. Alexa knows where the car is parked.”

  Ethan stopped, sent a glance back to where the body laid. “As soon as next of kin have been notified, we’ll release her photo to the media with a note that anyone who saw her last night or early this morning needs to call the tip line.”

  “You think we have a chance of discovering where he snatched her from.” Alexa’s words weren’t a question.

  “We know the general vicinity she was in. Just need a witness or two to pinpoint it for us.” And if a witness came forward who’d seen something of value, that could turn out to be the break they were seeking.

  “Sergeant.”

  He turned away then as someone from the medical examiner’s office called to him, and Alexa and Nyle headed back toward the woods. “Think Quinton got tired of waiting for us and walked home?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Something tells me he’s not that ambitious.”

  After they dropped Grayson Quinton off, they headed toward Truro. “You know,” Nyle said, “I can’t remember the last time we ate. Sleep I can go without, but food? Not so much.”

  “I’d trade sleep for food any day, but in this case, I’d be willing to…” The vehicle rolled by a cemetery dotted with drooping willows and massive oaks, and her heart twinged.

  “…be willing to…?”

  Alexa’s attention returned to Nyle. “I could eat,” she admitted. “But first, would you drop me off somewhere? I can walk to the headquarters and meet you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Where do you want to go?”

  “Heavenly Angels cemetery. It’s just outside of town on the east side. I can direct you.” She didn’t meet his searching look. But he was surprisingly circumspect when he said, “You get me there, and I’ll give you a few minutes while I pick up sandwiches or something. Then I swing back and pick you up. Will that be enough time?”

  She shot him a grateful look. “Yes. Plenty of time.”

  Alexa walked through the cast-iron gates of the cemetery. She’d been unable to recall when or what she’d eaten yesterday, but had had no problem helping Nyle get here. The dusty details had survived in long-term memory, unused until now, but easy to pluck at the exact moment they were needed.

  As a teen, she’d been here several times when a member of their church had died. Alexa didn’t know the exact area where she’d find the marker she was looking for, but she headed for the newest section of the cemetery, where the burials she’d been to had taken place. Then she walked up and down the rows quickly, peering at the names on the markers as she w
ent by. It took only ten minutes to find the object of her search. A simple flat marker that read:

  Rebecca Ann Reisman

  Dutiful wife to Thomas Reisman

  1956-2001

  Alexa stared at the stone, her eyes burning. Of course, there was no mention of Rebecca’s daughter. Her husband had seen to that. The flare of resentment in her chest ignited anew. Even in death, Rebecca’s existence was framed only by her service to him.

  She wouldn’t even have known about her mother’s death if not for Willa Satler, the elderly neighbor that had lived next door. The woman had eventually found the number Alexa had left with her and contacted her, a month after the fact, once Willa had returned from an extended stay with her daughter in Amherst. Rebecca had died of breast cancer, the woman had confided, with a pitying tone. No one had even known she had it until she died. There hadn’t taken treatments.

  Which certainly had been Reisman’s doing. Alexa couldn’t recall a single time she’d received medical care after he’d entered their lives. A weak body was a sign of a weak spirit. No need for science when they could pray the sickness away.

  Alexa crouched down, fingers reaching out to trace her mother’s name. When she’d needed her mother most, Rebecca hadn’t been there for her. But Alexa had long since forgiven the woman for that. She understood now how abusers worked. Isolating their victims. Cutting them off from support systems. Denying them a life outside their control. Alexa’s biggest sorrow was that she hadn’t been able to convince her mom to take even a tiny step away from Reisman’s watchful eye. His power over the woman had been absolute.

  She wondered now if that’s what had frightened her the most about the passion that had flared to life between her and Ethan. It had started instantly. Burned fiercely. It had blinded them both to consequences and caution. The pull had been so strong, so powerful, that leaving him had taken more strength than she’d known she possessed. And the regrets of that action would linger, despite knowing she’d made the right choice.