by Jeff Carson
“Yes.” She glared at him.
“Sergeant Burton,” Wolf’s father said, “could you go get us another cup of coffee? Maybe a bottle of water for Katherine?”
There was a long pause. “Yeah, sure thing.”
The door squeaked open and clicked shut.
“Please, Katherine. When you went back inside, after seeing the clothing, then what happened?”
“I went inside and he was still going crazy. He took Kimber and locked her in the room, and then started yelling at me. Telling me I was raising a slut, and how she was going to turn out being a hooker, and … he just lost it.”
“You say, the room. Can you please tell me what you mean by that?” Wolf’s father asked.
Katherine took a sip of coffee again.
A tell, Wolf thought. What exactly it was telling about her, he didn’t know yet.
She set it back down and smoothed her shirt. “For the last few years, my husband has been exhibiting symptoms.”
“Symptoms?”
“Yeah. First he was hearing things. He’d come up to me and ask, ‘Did you hear that?’ and I’d have no clue what he was talking about. One day I listened to him when he was in an empty room, answering questions that nobody asked. I put two and two together, and figured out he was hearing voices.
“Then I could tell he was seeing things. Horrific things, I think, because he would go rigid. Sometimes he would sit there frozen and stare at the wall as if he was looking at a tarantula or something. Only nothing would be there.”
Katherine took another sip of coffee, then closed her eyes. Her lip quivered and she took a shaky inhalation.
“What is it?” Wolf’s father asked.
She opened her eyes. “We have rodent traps around the house. Have to for the garden we plant every year. One day I saw a dead squirrel out the back of our house. But it was,” she brushed her hair behind her ear, “decapitated. The body was sitting next to the head, and it was slit from top to bottom on the underside.”
Katherine took another sip of coffee.
“I knew that Parker had done it. And then later I saw his fishing knife, down in the shed by the lake. It was covered in blood, but not fish blood. There was fur on it.”
Another sip.
“Did you speak to your husband about it?” Wolf’s father asked.
She nodded. “I did.”
“And what did he say?”
“First, he said he was cleaning it for meat, and forgot about it, which spooked me to hell, to say the least. After a while I pressed him and he admitted that’s not what happened. Turns out he had just killed it, and did what he did to it, because he had to. He said that. He had to. Which spooked me even more.
“But then he came out with it all, telling me everything about the voices, the hallucinations, the way he was becoming paranoid, afraid of social situations. He said it had been going on for years. And I started thinking about our situation, and of course it all made sense to me at that point. We’d moved from Tennessee to the lake, from a commune with over two thousand people up to a lake in the middle of nowhere, Colorado. The new life had always been his idea. It was my husband’s idea to homeschool Kimber. And when I disagreed, he insisted. It was his idea to live this life. He was secluding us, cutting us off from society, because he desperately needed to deal with his own sickness.”
She stared into nothing.
“And after he told you about everything? About his sickness? What happened?”
She nodded. “When he killed the squirrel, I’d never been so scared in my life. I’d never felt something like that before. The fear was so paralyzing. So I put the twenty-two pistol we have in my pants and went and talked to him. Told him how scared I was. Told him that I wanted him to get help. He was good about it. He went to a doctor, and got some medicine, and started taking it.”
“And did the medicine help?”
“Yes. Yes, it did. I never caught him hearing voices again. Never saw him looking at things, and I didn’t find anything else, you know, dead.”
“Do you know who his doctor was? The name? Where?” Wolf’s father asked.
“I know he went to Grand Junction. The first time. For a psychiatrist. But he didn’t tell me who when I asked. And that’s what was strange. The paranoia seemed to still be there … it was better, he was better, he acted so nice and normal after that, but the paranoia was still there. And it was like that, the way he evaded the question of exactly who the doctor was in Grand Junction. Little things that really didn’t matter to me. But he wouldn’t tell.”
Katherine Grey picked up her coffee cup and tilted it all the way back. It was empty.
Wolf’s father cleared his throat. “I’m sure Sergeant Burton will be back soon with more coffee.”
Burton came in on cue and set another cup down. He picked up the empty cup and left the room.
“Look at these two work,” Rachette whispered. “It’s like a … a—”
“A good time to still be quiet,” Patterson said.
“We were talking about the room,” Wolf’s father said.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. The room. Like I said, the medicine worked, but it was patchy. I mean, it worked most of the time, but he would still have psychotic episodes. And they seemed to get worse and worse with time. One of these episodes happened a couple of years ago after my daughter had gone out with the car. She wasn’t sixteen years old yet, and she was just taking a joy ride, you know? Like teens do. Especially extremely lonely teens like her.
“Anyway, Parker and I went into town in his truck, and as soon as we left she took my truck and drove it around the lake to the marina. She knew a girl who worked at the marina, and wanted to go see her.
“Parker had to turn around because he forgot his wallet, and we ended up going back home and we caught her. Saw she was gone and so was my truck. So Parker flipped out. We sat there and waited until she got back.
“The whole thing triggered this long episode in him. We had an extra bedroom in the house, so he fixed the mattress up with Kimber’s sheets, put rebar over the window outside, painted it to match her room, and put a lock on the door. Then he put her inside it and”—she twisted her wrist—“locked her away for the entire night and the next day.”
Katherine Grey looked down at her hands and a tear rolled down her cheek.
“That day the fear came back for me. And ever since that day, I’ve been trying to work up the courage to carry out a plan to escape with Kimber. But I’ve just been too scared. Despite all the psychotic crazy symptoms that make my husband weak, Parker is still one of the smartest, most resourceful men I’ve ever known. I always knew he would catch us if we left him. And he’s told me before, if we leave he’d come find us, and ‘do just like the squirrel’ is what he said once.”
“Excuse me.” Wolf’s father’s face appeared in front of the camera, as if he was checking that the record light was on, and then disappeared.
The unexpected sighting of his father in real life, his eyebrows furrowing, his light-brown eyes squinting, his mouth twisting, sent another jolt through Wolf’s body. He ignored Patterson and Rachette glancing his way and steadied his breath.
“Sorry about that. The night of the Fourth of July, into the morning of the fifth, your husband locked your daughter in the room he’d built for her.”
“Yes.”
“And that night, what was he saying?”
“He was yelling at her, telling her she was a whore, and she needed to learn how to respect her father, and all sorts of other stuff.”
“Did he ever mention Nick Pollard specifically?”
“No. He didn’t. But he was saying that Kimber was a whore, going out with boys in town. But no, he never did mention his name.”
A pause. “So now we get to the question of what brought you here now.” Wolf’s father shuffled a paper. “It’s now the sixth of July. Where is your husband, Parker Grey?”
“He’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“I don’t know. He took his truck and left.”
“And why are you here now?”
“Because as soon as I saw he was gone, I didn’t want to wait around for him to come back. Now was our chance. Because when you guys came to the door yesterday, I knew that my husband had killed that boy. I saw the clothes. And he knew I knew.”
Chapter 15
“Do you still have that clothing?” Wolf’s father’s voice came out of the computer speakers.
On screen, Katherine Grey shook her head. “He took it. Parker took the bag.”
“We’d like to come up and check the house. Gather forensic evidence.”
Katherine nodded. “Of course.”
The video went black and Patterson’s speakers went silent.
“Whoa, whoa,” Rachette said.
“What’s going on?” Wolf asked.
“I don’t know.” Patterson clicked the play button again. The video started from the beginning. She clicked the scrubber on the bottom and pulled it to the right and released it. It snapped back to the beginning.
“What the hell?” Rachette stood up.
Patterson ejected the CD and looked at the bottom of it. “Ah crap.”
It was cracked like a dried-up lakebed, chunks of the reflective surface completely missing.
Rachette snorted. “Frickin’ CDs.”
Wolf stood up and stretched. “Can you fix it? Somehow salvage the data?”
Patterson looked up. “I don’t know. I think if it’s flaked off, it’s gone. I’ll check into it.”
Her phone vibrated on her desk and she picked it up. “It’s Lorber,” she said, hitting the answer button.
“Okay.” She looked up at Wolf and then at her watch. “Okay. Okay.”
Wolf looked at his own wrist and saw that it was just after three in the afternoon. Patterson tapped the screen on her phone and looked up.
“What?” Rachette asked.
“Lorber still hasn’t identified any of the other seven bodies yet. Wants us to come in to see what he has and pick up the files.”
Wolf nodded.
“I … uh.” Patterson shifted uncomfortably and looked again at her watch. “I would go, of course, if you need me to, but I kind of had plans tonight.”
“She’s meeting Scott’s parents.” Rachette walked around to the front of her desk and sat on the edge. “Oh man. Good luck with that.”
Wolf raised an eyebrow. “Is that right?”
Patterson’s facial color was answer enough.
“Yep,” Rachette answered for her, “gettin’ serious.” He picked up a pen from Patterson’s desk, twirled it, and it clattered out of his hand and underneath her keyboard.
“All right,” Wolf said. “Rachette, you and I go to Lorber.”
“Let’s do it,” Rachette said.
“And let’s take separate vehicles,” Wolf said.
“Why? Oh, I get it, you’re going on a date, too. Big Saturday night with Sarah?” Rachette studied his fingernails.
“Aww, poor guy,” Patterson sang, fishing out the pen and putting it in a drawer. “You’re gonna find someone. One of these days one of these waitresses is gonna crack under your misty gaze.”
Rachette leaned forward and his face shook with exertion.
“What are you doing? Are you trying to fart?” Patterson stood up and walked to Wilson’s desk.
Rachette relaxed. “Do or do not. There is no try.”
Wolf held his breath and headed past Rachette. “See you there. Have a good night with Scott’s parents. And not that my love life is either of your business but, no, I’m not going on a date. I’m going to head up to the lake afterward to talk to Kimber Grey. Her mother’s gone, her father’s gone, and now her interview is gone. We need to talk to her.”
Rachette frowned. “I figured we’d tag team it like Burton and your dad. What am I gonna do?”
“You’re going to come back here with Lorber’s files and start looking through the missing-persons databases.”
Rachette smacked his lips and nodded. “Ah. That should be pleasant. Seven decayed heads, fifty states’ worth of mispers, twenty-two years’ worth of them.”
“So you’re not going on a date,” Patterson said to Wolf, “but you admit there is a love life.” She appraised Wolf with a nod. “I suspected so. You and Sarah are so obvious. That’s what happens when you’re in love.”
Wolf turned and walked away.
“Wait a minute,” Rachette said quickly.
He stopped reluctantly and turned.
“You know, I need to tell you guys. I dated this girl once.”
Patterson scrunched her face. “What? Kimber Grey?”
“Yeah.”
“Really,” Wolf said.
“Really,” Rachette said.
Silence took over.
“I’m serious. I did.”
“Okay.” Wolf nodded. “So … did you discuss the case with her?”
“Well, we didn’t really ever talk. I mean, I guess we didn’t really date. Per se.”
“Oh.” Patterson pointed at him. “Okay. I get it.”
“If I may continue? Anyway. I kind of, you know, made out with her one night. And she’s crazy.” He picked up another pen from Patterson’s desk.
“Sorry, how is that different from any other girl, according to you, that you ever dated?” Patterson asked.
Rachette looked to Wolf for back-up and received none. “I’m just saying. I thought she was acting crazy back then, and now that I know her father was crazy, well, her behavior is now explained.”
“And what behavior was that?” Wolf asked.
“She was all over me one night. Groping me, kissing my neck at the bar. I was pretty excited, you know? Older woman?” He bounced his eyebrows. “She said let’s go outside, so we went out to the car, and then she just shut down. Completely stopped kissing me, got out of the car, and wouldn’t talk to me. Just walked right back into the bar as if I was a ghost.” He held up a finger. “And then, three days later, I saw her, and she pretended she didn’t even know me. And then, shut up Patterson, and then, a few days later, she came up to me on the street and started talking to me, like we were long-lost friends again.” Rachette shrugged.
Wolf turned around and walked to the vehicle-pool garage door.
“Thanks for making me dumber with that story,” Patterson said.
“Yeah, shut up.”
“You sure you don’t need my help?” Patterson asked.
Rachette jogged up behind Wolf and past him out the door.
“No. Go ahead. I’ll see what Kimber says tonight, and we’ll reconvene tomorrow. Good luck with the parents.”
Chapter 16
Wolf and Rachette walked into the examination room, where seven heads were laid out on two gurneys, lit hard with the bright lights above—all with different colored wisps of hair of varying thickness, all slight variations on the shade of pale-bluish death, all misshapen by varying degrees. Near them were eight more gurneys parked in two lines of four, each with a body laid out on its back, each body in a differing state of deformity and corrosion, each stirring equal amounts revulsion within Wolf.
“God damn,” Rachette said, “Lorber, you’re crazy to have this job. Sick. And crazy.”
Lorber loped to a counter and put on some latex gloves. “Deputy Rachette. Great to see you as always. Patterson couldn’t make it?”
“Meeting the parents,” Rachette said, oblivious to Lorber’s disapproving glance.
Lorber pushed his glasses up his beak nose and narrowed his eyes. “Aha. Well, that’s a shame.”
Rachette gave him a suspicious look.
“As you can see, gentlemen, seven heads, seven decapitated bodies. One complete corpse. I’ve got each head and body numbered in order of how they match.”
“Patterson said you ID'd Nick Pollard and no one else,” Wolf said.
“Correct. Nick Pollard is numbered one. The rest are going to take some t
ime.”
“What have you found out?” Wolf asked.
Lorber set down his clipboard and took off his glasses. He walked to the heads and swept his arm wide, as if he was Vanna White.
“You can see the waxy look of all the faces. That’s saponification, as Patterson mentioned earlier. It’s preserved the flesh, but completely screwed up time of death. It’s basically impossible for me to discern. Even with Nick Pollard’s body. It’s impossible to tell if he died at the same time he disappeared.”
“Can’t you assume Nick Pollard died that night, the Fourth of July, and use it as a sort of baseline?” Rachette asked. “And then determine if the other bodies were older or more recent than that?”
Lorber looked at him with surprise. “Astute question. But no. There are simply too many variables to account for. Some of the bodies had torn plastic. Other wrappings were completely intact. The different materials the victims were wearing, natural versus synthetic, would have changed the rate of decay and saponification.” He walked in between the two rows of four gurneys. “Each of the bodies had stab wounds on the torsos. Five of them, as you can see here, were slit from just above the genitals to the ribs. The exposure of the intestines to varying degrees would have changed the rate of decomp, and the extreme cold at those depths, in that lake, slowed the rate of autolysis and putrefaction.”
“All right. So you have no time of death,” Wolf said. “What else? Fingerprints?”
“No usable fingerprints. Completely decayed.”
“Wallets? What about the clothing? Labels tell you anything? Receipts?”
Lorber made two fists and opened his hands. “Nothing. Not a thing. No wallets. Receipts. No tell-tale signs of anything. I was just in the process of looking up the design models of the shoes of each of the victims. I’ve taken DNA samples. The process will take my assistants a while, at least a week, and then we’ll check them with CODIS.”
Wolf walked to the heads. Each head was frozen in an unnatural expression, looking waxy and flattened to one side or the other, slightly elongated or puffed.
“These seem like clean cuts,” Wolf said, pointing to the necks.
