by James Carol
‘What’s this Aunt Lori? I didn’t order anything.’
‘I ordered for you,’ I replied.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘You need to eat, honey,’ Lori put in. ‘You’ve got to keep your strength up.’
‘Whatever.’
Lori bit back whatever she was going to say, flashed me a worried look, then walked away, leaving us to it. I picked up a handful of fries and shoved them into my mouth.
‘How can you eat at a time like this?’
I shrugged. ‘I missed lunch and I need to eat.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Starving yourself won’t help Taylor, and it won’t make you feel any less guilty.’
Hannah went to say something and I put up my hand to stop her.
‘Eating.’
I picked up my burger.
60
I ate and did my best not to think about the case. The idea that this unsub wasn’t a serial killer changed everything. I needed some distance, needed to clear my mind and come at this thing afresh. I stared out the window at nothing in particular and roamed through my memories.
One memory kept coming up, and I kept pushing it back down, but it was restless and didn’t want to be ignored. Hannah hadn’t touched her food. She was staring out of the window as well. Maybe she was lost in a memory, too, and, if she was, I hoped it was a good one. I wasn’t kidding myself, though. More likely she was trapped in a prison built from guilt, whipping herself raw. Or she was back at the refinery, looking down at Taylor’s broken body and wishing it was her lying there instead of him.
The memory tugged again, and this time I surrendered. I was a kid, eight going on nine and I was out in the woods with my father. We’d followed a deer to a clearing and were going in for the kill. Ancient trees stretched up on three sides, making the animal look tiny. We were on our bellies, down with the stink of dirt and dead leaves, hardly daring to breathe.
My father nudged me, then pushed the rifle in my direction. I shook my head. This was one of those rite-of-passage moments and I’d known it was coming. I’d known it was coming from the moment my father suggested this trip. On the surface, the way he’d asked was no different from any other time he suggested we go camping. Except it was different. There was a brightness in his voice I’d never heard before, something in his eyes I’d never seen.
I took the rifle and looked through the sight, slowed my breathing. The forest came alive all around me. Sounds, smells, colours. The leaves were dappled with sunlight. Our bodies had compressed the dirt, squeezing out a damp, loamy smell that rose up all around us. I trained the scope on the deer’s head. Its eyes were wide and brown. And kind. The animal had no idea we were there, that in a few seconds it would be dead. It was grazing peacefully without a care in the world.
Beside me, my father was breathing slowly, all his attention focussed on the deer. Neither of us made a sound because even the slightest noise would spook it. I moved the rifle until I was staring at the large brown mass of her body, aimed for the spot my father had told me to aim for. My hands were still, my breathing steady. My finger tightened on the trigger.
For a fraction of a second time froze, and in that frozen moment I saw the deer fall, and I saw the light in her eyes die. My father was concentrating so hard on the deer I might as well not have been there. It was like he was the one holding the rifle. I shifted my aim ever so slightly and squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked hard against my shoulder and a puff of dirt exploded beneath the deer. She froze, startled, then darted into the trees.
My father looked at me. He didn’t say anything, but he knew. And the fact he knew and wasn’t saying anything got to me more than if he had said something. His silent disappointment hurt me more than any words, and he knew that, too. He held out his hand and I gave him the rifle. It was the same rifle he used when he went hunting on those long moonlit nights.
The next time we went hunting, I killed a deer. After that first time it got easier. Almost too easy. I was a natural. In no time I was matching my father kill for kill.
‘We need to go back to the very beginning and start again.’
That got Hannah’s attention. She looked across the table at me, her eyes filled with more sadness than any one person could bear. I don’t know how long I’d zoned out for, but the burger was gone and I’d eaten most of the fries. Hannah’s toasted sandwich lay untouched on her plate.
‘Assumption number one: this guy’s a serial killer. That’s why I came to Louisiana in the first place. It was the combination of the film clip and the countdown that led me to that conclusion. Take the countdown out of the equation and you’ve got some guy who’s been burned alive. It’s just a murder. Yes, it’s an extreme way to kill someone, and, yes, there are easier, less messy ways, but, when all’s said and done, it’s still just a murder. It was the countdown that turned it into theatre. That’s what convinced me. Some serial killers get off on all that stuff. They want to parade their work. They want people to sit up and take notice.’
I picked up a cold fry and ate it even though I wasn’t hungry any more. I needed something to do with my hands, something to distract me.
‘Assumption number two: this guy’s a cop. That one still stands.’
I didn’t expand any further. The fact that Dan Choat was dead and Taylor was in surgery was all the proof we needed to support that theory. I drank some more coffee and looked out the window. I needed to come at this case cold. If I was presented with these facts for the first time, how would I react? What assumptions would I make?
The first time I did this exercise was in my hotel suite in Charleston. Back then all I had to go on was the film clip and the countdown. Now there was a whole chronology of events that started with Sam Galloway’s abduction and led all the way through to this moment. A lot more information. And somewhere amongst all that information was the key to solving this puzzle.
‘What other assumptions have you made?’ Hannah asked.
‘I assumed that the unsub’s kill room was at the old refinery, and that one played out fine.’
‘Anything else?’
I shook my head, about to say ‘no’, but stopped myself at the last second with the word lodged in my throat.
‘What is it, Winter?’
‘Maybe something, maybe nothing.’
I stood up and headed straight for the door.
61
Five minutes later we were driving along Main Street. Storefronts gleamed and windows shone in the afternoon sunlight, and everything was as perfect as Disneyland on a hot summer’s day. Hannah’s questions had gone unanswered, and had dried up completely by the time we turned out of Morrow Street. That’s how far down she was. The old Hannah would have kept going at me until she got her answers. Nothing would have stopped her.
The person sitting in the passenger seat looked like Hannah, and sounded like her, but something fundamental had been stripped away. She was gazing blankly through the windshield, seeing without really seeing, Taylor never far from her thoughts.
We reached the town square and I could feel Randall Morgan glaring down at me from his plinth. Glaring and laughing his ass off. A century further down the line and another black man had just been lynched in his town. Things move on, but some things just stay the same. The big difference was that the white guy who did this would be held accountable. He was going to pay for what he did.
I parked in front of the police department’s HQ and got out. Hannah was buckled into her seat, not moving, just staring out the windshield. I leant back into the cool of the car and she turned to meet my eye.
‘Are you coming?’ I asked her.
‘Not until you tell me what we’re doing here.’
‘Suit yourself.’
The car door closed with a bang and I hopped up onto the sidewalk. Five seconds later a car door opened and closed, and five seconds after that Hannah was at my side. The building next to the police department building was the mayor’
s office. The walls were whiter than white. Even with my sunglasses on they were dazzlingly bright. The big double doors were made from a heavy dark wood.
Inside it was gloomy, the temperature comfortable. The smell of beeswax seemed to be everywhere. Our footsteps ricocheted around us, bouncing from floor to wall to ceiling and creating a confusion of echoes.
The woman behind the reception desk was in her mid-thirties. Brunette, hazel eyes, hair scraped back from her forehead into a tight, efficient ponytail. She was conservatively dressed and had mastered the receptionist’s smile. Warm, pleasant, bland. She looked at us, taking in Hannah’s piercings and T-shirt, taking in my white hair and blue medical top and the smudges of Taylor’s blood, and her smile didn’t falter, not even for a second.
‘I’m here to see Mayor Morgan.’
‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘No, we don’t have an appointment.’ I nodded to a corridor that led deeper into the building. ‘I take it his office is down this way?’
The receptionist followed my gaze and the smile faltered. That was as good as a yes. I started walking, the smell of beeswax getting stronger with every step. It was a smell that reminded me of museums and art galleries. Hannah was following a couple of steps behind.
‘Sir,’ the receptionist called after me. ‘You can’t go down there.’
‘I can and I am,’ I called back.
‘Mr Morgan isn’t in today.’
‘Sure he isn’t.’
‘He phoned in sick this morning.’
Something about the way she said this stopped me in my tracks. I turned and walked back to the reception desk.
‘Is he often ill?’
‘Sorry, who are you?’ She was doing nothing to hide the fact that she was staring now. She was looking at me like I might be a murderer or a madman. I didn’t blame her. Given my appearance I could have passed for either.
‘My name is Jefferson Winter and I’m investigating Sam Galloway’s murder, and I really don’t have time for this. So I’d appreciate it if you could please just answer the question.’
The receptionist shook her head, flustered. Her perfume smelled expensive, and it crossed my mind that it might have been a present from Jasper. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe I was being too suspicious for my own good. That was the problem with this job. Spend long enough looking for the worst in people and there was a danger that that was all you’d end up seeing.
‘He’s never ill,’ she said eventually.
‘What? Not even a cold?’
‘He’s had colds, but he comes in anyway. That’s the sort of person he is. He just soldiers on.’
‘So, when you spoke to him he sounded like he was at death’s door, right?’
The receptionist shook her head.
‘How did he sound?’
‘A bit quiet and subdued.’
Subdued was not a word I would use to describe Jasper Morgan. He was the town’s alpha male, and had been for years. What’s more, he knew it. Quiet and subdued, not a chance.
‘He’s not normally quiet, is he? Usually he’s barking out orders and marching around like he owns the place, which, if you think about it, he probably does.’ I smiled. ‘That must have got you worried. The fact he was so quiet.’
The receptionist almost returned my smile. She nodded. ‘I guess so.’
‘So, he didn’t have a cold or a sore throat? Nothing like that?’
Another shake of the head.
‘Tell me what he said as best you can remember. Try and use his exact words.’
The receptionist thought this over for a second. ‘He said he was feeling a little under the weather and wouldn’t be in today. He asked me to cancel all his appointments.’
‘That’s what he said? That he was a little under the weather?’
The receptionist nodded. She was smiling like she’d just been told to go to the top of the class.
‘Did he say when he was going to be back in the office?’
Another shake of the head.
‘Did he say anything else?’
Another shake of the head. ‘No, that was all. It was a short conversation.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, and headed for the front doors.
Outside, I lit a cigarette and put my sunglasses back on. The sun was brighter and hotter than ever, searing through the thin material of the blue medical top, cooking me alive. Hannah held out her hand and I passed her my cigarettes and Zippo.
‘Don’t you have your own?’
‘I’m trying to quit.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since Taylor.’
‘You’re not doing a very good job.’
‘If he pulls through, then I’m going to quit. This time I promise.’
Hannah lit a cigarette. There was a slight tremble in her hand when she passed back the pack and the bashed-up Zippo.
‘Are you going to tell me what Jasper Morgan’s got to do with all this?’
‘Maybe something, maybe nothing.’
‘That’s what you said back at the diner.’
‘Except now I’m veering more towards something rather than nothing. The conversation Jasper had with his secretary was all wrong. If you’re ill you’ll say you’ve got flu or a cold or you’re sick. Something along those lines. You don’t say you’re feeling a little under the weather, not unless you’re in an old black and white film from the forties. Also, you always give some indication of when you’re going to be back. You say you’ll be in tomorrow, or in a couple of days, or a couple of months. You don’t leave it open-ended like that. Nobody does. People need to factor the inconvenience of a colleague’s illness into their own lives, and they can only do that if they have a time frame to work within, even if that time frame is fictional. And if you’re the most important person in Eagle Creek, and you’ve never had a day off, you’re definitely going to let people know when you’ll be back.’
Hannah smoked her cigarette, thinking. ‘So we need to go and speak to Jasper Morgan.’
‘That’s exactly what we need to do.’
62
Jasper Morgan’s house was shielded from the rest of the world by its own private forest, a massive swathe of woodland that could be measured in square miles rather than acres. The land had probably been bought up during Dayton’s oil rush at the start of the last century. Randall Morgan had no doubt paid a fraction of what it was worth, and hadn’t lost a wink of sleep in the process.
The driveway wound between the trees, following the undulations and geography of the land, a long thin road that was as well maintained as Main Street. We came over a rise and dropped down into a wide open valley.
The house was at the bottom end of a large teardrop-shaped lake, butted right up against the water. It was large enough to make the Galloways’ McMansion look like a shack, a massive structure made from wood and stone. The wood had been painted a cool grey and the blockwork was as white as the municipal buildings in the town square.
Overall, the house had the look and feel of a New England hotel, but change the angle slightly and you’d see a turret or roofline straight from a French chateau. From another angle you’d see something more severe that wouldn’t have looked out of place in medieval Germany. The huge fountain at the front of the house was the sort of thing you saw in the piazzas of Rome. Two large stallions were erupting from the water, naked women riding them bareback. The difference was that this fountain would have looked right in Rome. Here it just looked tacky. This house was a good argument in favour of the maxim that money didn’t necessarily buy good taste.
I pulled up as close to the front door as possible. Before the engine had a chance to rumble to a stop, two security guards came out and started walking down the wide staircase. They’d probably been watching us since we turned into the driveway.
This place was like a fortress. There would be cameras hidden in the trees and motion sensors embedded in the road. The driveway was a mile long, the only way in and out. It wa
s so long that you wouldn’t need security gates. By the time anyone reached the house the whole world would know they were coming. Approaching through the trees wasn’t impossible, but it would be hard work, and there were probably cameras and sensors hidden there, too.
Both guards had Glocks strapped to their waists, and they looked like they knew how to use them. They were wearing black shirts, black trousers, polished black boots. Uniforms that were almost identical to the casual clothes Taylor had been wearing yesterday.
We got out of the car and the guards met us at the bottom of the stairs. They were both larger than me, but smaller than Taylor. Six-two, six-three, somewhere in that region. The younger one was in his late thirties, his buddy maybe ten years older.
Ex-military, without a doubt. They moved like they were marching. Backs straight, shoulders straighter. Their eyes were constantly on the move, looking for danger, hands hovering near enough to their guns to draw them in a heartbeat. Special Forces was my guess. When you could afford a Gulfstream, a house like this, and you had a billion in the bank, you didn’t skimp on personal security.
In my experience, money has the capacity to buy as much grief as happiness. I’d worked a number of high-ransom child kidnappings during my FBI days. I’d witnessed the moment when the news broke that the kid wasn’t coming home. On a couple of occasions I’d delivered that news myself.
There aren’t enough words to describe that moment when a mother realises her baby is dead. It’s heartbreaking. It rips you apart. And the thing is, this isn’t even your kid. You didn’t know them, you’d never played with them, never laughed with them. You knew them as a face in a photograph, and a few second-hand guilt-soaked remembrances, and that was all. And it still got to you.
The older guard stepped into my personal space. An alpha male defining his territory. This was the point where I was supposed to step back. I didn’t. Instead, I stood my ground and fought the temptation to look up. The guard’s chin was at eye level. It was a strong chin. A GI Joe chin. If this guy wanted, he could pick me up and snap me in two, and he wouldn’t even break a sweat.
