by Jeff Carson
“I … sir, I’m not getting it.”
A page marked from Carbon County Sheriff’s Office spit out the slot.
Letting the machine do its work, he turned back around. “I was out with Kimber Grey last night. I don’t want to talk about it, but she ended up staying at my house. I took that doorknob from my bathroom, which I watched her touch.”
Patterson lowered her voice and spoke slow again. “But, sir, the doorknob prints at your house did not match Kimber Grey’s.”
The fax machine finished and Wolf turned and picked up the pages from Carbon County. He was surprised to find a hefty stack of paper already in the incoming fax tray.
With mounting curiosity, he picked up the entire stack. The heading on one of the pages read Boise County Sheriff’s Department.
As he flipped through the sheets one by one, he held his breath. With a toothless grin, he pulled out the third sheet and held it in front of their faces.
Chapter 52
Patterson stared at a picture of two teenaged girls standing side by side, arm in arm on the shore of a lake. The black-and-white photo was poor quality—a copy of an original that had been faxed—but she could see that the two girls were of identical height, with identical haircuts, wearing identical sweatshirts.
With a sinking stomach she looked up. “They’re identical twins.”
Eyes glassing over, Wolf nodded and twisted his lip in a satisfied snarl. “Identical twins who are sadistic killers. That’s who was out murdering Nick Pollard at the same time she was at the lake watching fireworks. That’s why her father left that night. Because it was Kimber’s sister in trouble. She had a dead body to dispose of.”
Wilson frowned. “What the hell … let me see that.” He stared at the paper. “But if she killed Nick … why would she call her father about it?”
Wolf walked slowly past them toward his office, staring at the fax from the Boise Sheriff’s Department.
Patterson and Wilson followed.
“It’s all here,” Wolf said, flipping to another page. “The family disappeared from Idaho twenty-five years ago, right after a similar killing happened. Near decapitation. Mutilation. Took place in McCall, Idaho. A neighbor of the Kiplings. A teenaged boy found murdered in the woods near his boat shed. Stabbed nineteen times, head almost severed clean off, a slice from the pubic bone to the ribs.”
Wolf dropped a page with four photographs of the gruesome killing printed on it and turned to the next sheet. “Here are their real names: Parker Grey was actually named Dustin Kipling. The twins are Hannah and Rachel. The mother is the same name: Katherine.”
“That’s why the Greys’ past never checked out with the Tennessee commune,” Wilson said.
Wolf paced in a circle, reading farther down the page. “Dustin Kipling used to own a chain of boat dealerships in Idaho. Kipling Boats was the largest statewide seller and buyer of watercraft and fishing boats, with four dealerships. Says here he sold every dealership in the span of a single day for pennies on the dollar to a casino owner in Wendover, Nevada, named Gabriel Sithro. In the middle of the night of that same date, their house in McCall, Idaho, burnt to the ground, and the family went missing. Suspected arson. No bodies were found in the fire, and the family cars were in the garage … and then the family was never heard from again.”
Patterson leaned against the wall with wide eyes. “So they were fleeing … trying to disappear, because of their murdered neighbor?”
Wolf held up another sheet and read.
Patterson’s curiosity boiled over. “What?”
“Looks like a family friend, a psychiatrist, came into the Boise station after the Kiplings disappeared. He had recently prescribed anti-psychotics for Dustin, or Parker, as we know him. Learning about that, Idaho law enforcement has assumed all along that Dustin murdered the neighbor, but the Kiplings’ whereabouts stumped them.”
Patterson frowned. “That was the same story Kimber and her mother told about Parker Grey. He was psychotic and needed meds.”
Wolf perused the next page. “Here’s a statement from a school psychologist taken a few months after the Kiplings disappeared. She reported two incidents involving Hannah Kipling at Duck Mountain Middle School. First, Hannah received minor injuries while fighting a boy. Hannah said she was just sticking up for her sister, Rachel. A few months later …”
“What?” Patterson asked.
Wolf shook the sheets of paper. “Hannah retaliated against that same boy, beating him with a baseball bat until he was unconscious. The kid was hospitalized with a fractured skull, broken ribs, and a broken arm, and she was expelled from school.”
“Wow,” Wilson said.
“She had extremely violent tendencies according to the class psychologist,” Wolf said. “It was the girls. It’s always been them, not their father. They killed that teenager in Idaho, and that’s why the family left. It makes sense now why we found Parker shot in the head. A girl called from the payphone that night. It was one of Parker Grey’s girls, sorry, Dustin Kipling’s girls, who killed Nick. She’d killed him and had his blood all over her hands, and called her father to help clean it up. There must have been a family meltdown after that. Think about it—they leave Idaho because of their psychotic, violent daughters. They literally burned their old life to the ground, and now the girls are starting up again.”
Patterson nodded.
“After my father and Burton went up to the lake and talked to them on the fifth, maybe Parker had had enough. Maybe he threatened to hospitalize them. Turn them in. Who knows exactly? But the family all knew what had happened to Nick Pollard that night. And in the end, Parker Grey was a threat to the girls. So they shot him and dumped him out in the lake, right next to Nick.”
“And Katherine Grey?” Patterson gasped with realization. “She would have known about her husband’s death. And she came in and did that interview knowing he was dead, killed by the hands of her own daughters. But she stood there and lied to your father.”
“She looked like she was hiding something in that interview. She had a tell,” said Wolf, “and now she’s at the bottom of the lake in front of Olin Heeter’s place.”
“What?” Patterson asked.
“I think Katherine’s daughters killed her that night after the interviews with my father at the station. Maybe they were skittish about whether or not Katherine would crack under the pressure. Whatever the reason, they killed her and dumped her body out in the lake, but in a different place the following night, and Olin Heeter had a front-row seat to watch it, complete with a spotlight, thanks to clear skies and the moon’s reflection.” Wolf stared out the window.
“So Katherine leaving to go back to Tennessee was all a big—”
“Shit-shit-shit.” Wilson blurted.
Patterson and Wolf looked at him.
“Rachette took a call from the Boise Sheriff’s Office earlier, and they said they were sending a fax. He told me to keep an eye out for it. He was talking with Kimber Grey at his desk at the time, and took the call at Patterson’s desk. At your desk.”
“Okay,” Patterson said. “And?”
“And Rachette hung up and left with her, said he was going up to the lake with her and would be back in a while.”
“So she knows we know.” Wolf darted past them toward the door.
Chapter 53
Rachette scanned the woods on either side of the dirt road as they crept down the slope towards Kimber’s cabin.
The wipers squeaked across the windshield and Rachette turned them off. The rain had finally abated, but the clouds were still low and thick. Though it was only late afternoon it looked like dusk outside.
He leaned back in his seat, wondering where someone lurking in the woods would have taken shelter in a storm like this. A cave? A tent? Heeter’s place? They needed to get back up here with the cavalry. Tomorrow.
Kimber eyed him from the passenger seat. “What is it?”
He shook his head and tried to look calm. “
Nothing. Just thinking.”
“Slow down here. Your back bumper will scrape.”
“I know. I’ve been here a few times myself the last couple of days.”
The SUV rocked back and dropped down as Rachette eased into the giant pothole between the two over-sized rocks.
Rachette stopped at Olin Heeter’s turn-off and looked up the road. The dirt was undisturbed, or, if it had been agitated, the earlier deluge of rain had smoothed it over.
He let off the brake and wondered whether the rescue divers had made any progress out on the lake today. Then he decided since he’d not heard anything, that they hadn’t.
The dashboard clock said 5:12—a few minutes past a normal workingman’s clock-out time. With such a full day of gut-wrenching trauma that had transpired, he could have used a beer. He decided he was going to take Kimber Grey up on buying him some suds on the way back.
A few minutes later, Rachette parked in front of the cabin and stomped his foot on the parking brake. “Here we are. You want me to wait here for you?”
She smiled. “No. Why don’t you come in? I’ll make us some coffee before we head back.”
Rachette felt lightness in his chest as his heart fluttered. Was she hitting on him?
He twisted the keys and got out. A drop of moisture slapped him in the face from his roof and the soggy dirt gave way beneath his boot. The air was thick and moist, and he zipped up his jacket all the way against the chill.
The lake was a magnificent sight to see, so calm, lead color from the reflection of the clouds above. A crow sailed by and over the edge of the cliff that severed the land to the rear of her house.
“Geez, you aren’t afraid of heights I take it.”
She chuckled. “No. In fact I climb that face most days. Got a top-rope set up. You should try it.”
“No, thank you. I’d have a chain-link fence along the top of that thing if I lived here. I couldn’t ever trust myself after a six pack. Probably fall trying to take a leak off it.”
She scrunched her face and walked up the stairs.
Shaking his head at his own last comment, he followed her. When he got to the top, his boot slipped on the wet wood and he almost went down. Regaining his balance without slamming into her, he stood up straight and felt his face reddening, but Kimber’s soft smile disarmed him and he smiled back. “I’m a klutz. What can I say?”
For a second she leaned towards him, like she was going to kiss him or something. Then she stopped, looked down at the deck, and dug in her jeans pocket. She produced a key and opened the door. Stepping inside, she turned and beckoned him in with a bashful look.
Rachette swallowed at the sight of her beautiful eyes and took a deep breath to calm his thumping chest.
“Let me take your coat.” She took off her own jacket, revealing her slender body, and turned to him.
He unzipped his jacket and sloughed off one sleeve, nice and slow, then the other.
Like she’d been kicked from behind by an invisible foot, she lurched forward and bumped into him, sending him off balance.
“Whoa, easy …”
He let the words die on his lips when he found himself staring down the barrel of a pistol. His stomach dropped an inch when he realized it was his own Glock 17, pulled from his holster.
He quickly regained his composure. There was no doubt in his mind that he was going to duck and grab for the weapon, but before he could make his move she stepped back with lightning speed and fired a deafening round into the ceiling.
“Ah!” Rachette’s hearing became a thousand ringing bells. “What the hell.”
“Don’t think about it.” Kimber’s lips were raised like a rabid dog’s, her beautiful face twisted into pure rage.
“Yeah, you got it,” he said with raised arms.
He stared at her through crumbs of drywall falling from the ceiling, knowing instantly this woman had murdered and decapitated seven men with a knife. How had he been so duped? How had they all? Strangely, he felt detached from the moment, like he was watching a scene in a horror flick.
Kimber took forced breaths through her nose and looked at the floor beneath her. Keeping the pistol aimed steadily at his chest, she stomped her foot down on the wood, and a boom echoed through the house. “Get up here!”
He frowned. “Who are you talking to?”
Closing one eye, she brought her other hand up to the pistol and aimed. “Keep quiet. Or I will shoot you in the head.”
There was a creaking sound below the floor, and then a door shutting.
Listening intently, he stood stock-still and heard nothing more. A few seconds later, footsteps creaked on the wood outside, and Rachette eyed the closed front door.
Kimber waved the gun. “Step over here.”
He stepped forward into the living room as she stepped back.
“Back there. Lean against the wall.”
He did as he was told, keeping his hands motionless above his shoulders.
Kimber stepped to the door and opened it. “Stay out there. We’re coming out,” she said, and then she turned to Rachette.
“What’s going on?” a female voice called from outside.
The sound of the voice was familiar.
“Out.” Kimber came back into the family room and waved him toward the open front door.
He obeyed. The air flowing in the door penetrated his uniform shirt, making him shiver as he stepped onto the porch. At the top of the stairs he froze and widened his eyes. “What the hell?” With a quick jerk of his head he looked over his shoulder, making sure he was seeing correctly.
Kimber stood behind him, thrusting the barrel into his face with renewed vigor. “Keep walking.”
He turned around and walked, almost falling down the stairs as his mind whirled with the reality of the situation. “There’s two of you?”
“I said shut up or I’ll shoot you in the head and throw you off that cliff.”
He quickened his pace down the stairs, noting the specificity of this woman’s threats.
The other Kimber stood out of the way at the bottom of the stairs, wearing a jacket that matched her doppelganger sister’s.
“Over there. Against your car.”
Rachette leaned up against the ticking front end of his SUV, grateful to feel the warmth streaming out from under the hood. He turned to look at both women, who now stood next to each other. In every way they looked alike, from the amber eyes to the smooth lips, to the wavy thick brown hair that was too much to tame.
“Wow. You guys are so much alike.”
Kimber whipped her glare toward him and marched with the muzzle raised. “I said shut up!”
He lowered his gaze submissively and waited for ten long seconds for something to happen—hoping that something involved him not getting shot.
“Why are you with him?” Her sister broke the silence.
Kimber backed up and lowered the gun. “They know, Rachel. Or at least they’re gonna know. Boise sheriff called them this afternoon.”
Rachel, Rachette thought, trying to pick out a feature on the women to tell them apart. Back in Nebraska, he’d gone to elementary school with twin brothers, and he remembered they were easy to distinguish. But not these two.
“Oh, my God.” Rachel gripped her thick head of hair and began breathing hard. She paced with crunching footsteps and looked at the ground, her lips moving without sound. She crouched into a ball and sat on the first step of the stairs.
Rachette’s pulse was escalating with each breath. He was thinking about the dead bodies in the morgue, and how they generally matched Rachette’s description.
It had been one of them in the woods last night, he realized. Wolf had encountered one of them, too.
With immense effort he took a breath through his nose, trying to calm himself.
“What’s our plan here?” Rachel raised her head.
Kimber shrugged. “We get in that cop car and drive.”
“And then what? Don’t they have GPS
trackers on those things?”
Rachette nodded, but neither of them noticed.
“They’d find us in minutes. And then what?”
Kimber refocused on Rachette. “We bring him.”
“And then what, Hannah?”
Hannah.
“Then we what? Ransom this cop for a helicopter ride somewhere? Yeah, that’s going to work.”
“I don’t know!” Hannah paced a few steps, rubbing her nose. “Then we’ll just go into the woods.”
“And then what?”
Hannah looked into the forest behind Rachette. “We don’t have a choice.”
Rachette heard the rolling hiss and pop of tires somewhere in the distance. He flicked his eyes left and immediately caught movement—a white SUV with roof lights flitting in and out of the trees along the lake’s edge.
Hannah looked and raised her pistol at him. “Shit. Go see.”
Rachel stood up from the stairs and jogged down toward the cliff. She skidded to a stop and looked left, then shook her head and walked back fast. “It’s the frickin’ cops. What are we going to do?”
Rachette cleared his throat and lowered his hands a fraction. Whatever was going on was apparently all explained in the fax message that the Boise Sheriff’s Department had sent. Rachette blinked, pausing to clench his eyes with a prayer that whatever it was, Wolf and Patterson had figured it out, had found the fax message, and were coming to his rescue. He prayed that Wilson had done as he’d been asked and had kept an eye on the fax machine.
Amen.
When he opened his eyes, Hannah was sneering at him, walking slowly in his direction, the pistol rising with each step.
“Please don’t do it, Hannah,” Rachel said.
He swallowed, unnerved by Rachel’s tone. It was like she was pleading, but knew her sister too well, and it was no use trying to stop her. She’d seen it all before, and she was going to see it again. Because it was starting to make sense to Rachette. It was like Hannah was the uncontrollable one who killed. Who murdered her father. And Rachel? She was the one who sat back and watched in horror.
