(2011) The Gift of Death

by Sam Ripley

  ‘Is there anyone home?’

  As she said it, she realised she sounded ridiculous, like a hockey mom who had called round to one of her neighbours with a cherry pie. She reached out and pushed the door forwards a couple of inches. A little more light flooded out into the night, but still there wasn’t quite enough to see inside. She felt her breathing quicken. Her throat felt dry, constricted. She could walk away now. Go back home to the comfort of her downtown apartment and work from there. But would that not risk losing the story altogether? Perhaps this moment would define her future. Maybe stepping inside meant the difference between success and failure. Despite what her mother had said, she wasn’t a loser. Today she would finally prove to her that she was worth something.

  She took a deep breath and then, in one swift action, opened the door, stepping inside. Immediately as she did so she felt nauseous with fear. There was something that smelt bad, like –

  ‘What the –‘ she screamed as a hand grabbed her from behind.

  She reached for the rape alarm in her pocket, but she was too slow. She tried to grapple for the pepper spray, but in that instant her purse was wrenched from her shoulder. Her eyes stretched wide in fear as a gloved hand clamped itself over her mouth. She fought with all her strength, but he was too strong. As she started to scream she felt a rope begin to tighten around her neck. It was then, in the last few moments of consciousness, that she thought about her mother and how much, despite everything, she still loved her.

  54

  ‘Josh – where are you? I’ve been trying to get through to you.’

  ‘Kate – sorry – I can’t talk now.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘I thing we may have a breakthrough. I can’t go into it now, but –‘

  ‘But shit, Josh. I know I’m not on your team, but I want to follow this through.’

  ‘No way. I should never have let you get so involved.’

  ‘But I am involved, or have your forgotten?’

  ‘You’re a victim in this case, remember, not an investigator.’

  ‘Oh come on, Josh. Let me in on this.’

  ‘No.’

  Josh could almost hear the anger in her silence.

  ‘Okay. If that’s the way you want to play it. I’ve got a couple of leads of my own I thought I’d follow through.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Ryan Gleason obviously faked his own death and stole the identity of another man. I’ve got a list of few names I might just check out.’

  Was she bluffing? Had she been sent information regarding Carl Reckard?

  ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘I’m not telling.’

  Jesus, she could be fucking annoying.

  ‘Kate, I’m in no mood for these games.’

  ‘I’m not playing a game. I’m just trying to find out who wants to fuck with my head and possibly try to kill me and me unborn child. I wouldn’t say that was much of a game, would you?’

  ‘Okay. Calm down.’ He knew what she was capable of. That little episode when she had nearly got herself killed by that maniac albino who’d been so obsessed by Gleason he had taken his name. He couldn’t risk her going off by herself. Not now.

  ‘This is what we’ll do,’ he said. ‘Meet me at the Parker in ten. Can you do that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And you can come in the car with me and Curtis. How does that suit?’

  ‘Perfect. And Josh?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  55

  He was doing it again. That shifty I’m-not-going-to-meet-your-eye thing. The last time he’d done that was at the beach house, when he had confessed about his relationship with Jules. What did he have to hide now?

  ‘How are you?’ she asked, as he got out of the car.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, taking his sunglasses off and pretending to clean them. He could tell that she was scrutinising him. Shit. He hated it when she did that.

  ‘So where are we off to?’ she asked.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  Kate had not got a clue about Josh’s lead. She knew nothing about the letter or the identity of the man that Ryan Gleason may have stolen. But she couldn’t lower her guard now.

  He laughed. ‘Get in, you bullshitter.’ He turned to Curtis, who was in the back seat, tapping away furiously into a laptop. ‘You know, Curtis. Curtis, you’ve met Kate Cramer.’

  ‘Hi there – how are you?’ said Curtis.

  ‘Fine, thanks. So I take it you’ve found the name Ryan stole?’

  ‘Yes, we think so,’ said Curtis. ‘I’m just doing some more background searches now.’ She shot a look towards Harper, a tacit request whether she should reveal any more information. He nodded. ‘We have reason to believe that Ryan Gleason, after faking his death in a car accident, assumed the identity of a Carl Reckard, a paranoid schizophrenic. He had lost touch with his family and friends back home in Russell County, Kansas, and had never made any kind of network of friends here in LA. No-one reported him missing, he never registered with any medical practice in the city – my guess is he couldn’t afford it – and he kind of existed under the radar.’

  ‘Sounds like the perfect prey for someone like Gleason,’ said Kate, conscious of the fact that now she was referring to the son rather than his monstrous father.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Curtis.

  As they drove towards Chatsworth, Josh told her about the contents of Paul Taylor’s letter. But still he wouldn’t meet her eye. What was he keeping from her? If Curtis – beautiful, smart, efficient Curtis – had not been sitting in the back seat she would have been able to ask him straight out. And she knew that he knew. The clever bastard.

  ‘But what makes you think that this is for real?’ Kate asked. ‘You know the kind of psychos out there who get off on claiming guilt for crimes they never committed?’

  ‘Like Gideon Walsh? You don’t need to remind me what a fuck-up that was.’

  ‘I wasn’t referring to Walsh, but well – yes.’

  Kate felt her face stinging. It was, after all, her pathetic attempt at amateur detective work that had led Harper to Walsh. That had turned out to be nothing but a false lead, and a time-consuming one at that. Now it was obvious to everyone involved in the investigation that he had had nothing to do with the crimes. And it seemed as though his fantasy world – his worship at the altar of Gleason – had finally taken its toll. A future in a secure psychiatric ward, rather than a prison, looked increasingly likely for him. A vision of Walsh’s ghostly face flashed through her mind. If it hadn’t have been for Josh she was sure that, even though he wasn’t the particular psycho they were looking for, he would have killed her anyway.

  Curtis’ cell rang, interrupting her thoughts.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ she heard her say. ‘Do you want to relay that?’ Curtis pressed a button on her phone. ‘Harper, it’s Lansing.’ She spoke into her cell again. ‘Right. Go ahead.’

  ‘Any news?’ asked Josh.

  ‘I’ve just finished talking to the father of Carl Reckard.’ The voice of Lansing echoed through the car.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s had no contact with his son since he left home at 1988. He described Carl as difficult almost from birth – what were his words? ‘Colicky as a baby, cruel as a child and plain evil as a teenager’. Said he never liked him and had no desire to seek him out when he ran away. But this is the interesting thing. Three years ago, he had a robbery at his farm. The thief or thieves took a weird mix of things – some farm tools, a bit of spare cash, a few mementoes, and a stash of documents from the family bureau. He hadn’t a clue about what was in the papers. Hadn’t looked at them for years. But when I asked if he could lay his hands on his son’s birth certificate, he said he would go and have a look. I rang him back and said he couldn’t find it. Figured that it must have gone with the rest of the papers from that bureau. And with the birth certificate – together with hi
s social security number –‘

  ‘Ryan Gleason could easily take over his identity,’ said Harper. ‘And could Reckard senior remember the date of the robbery?’

  ‘He had made a note of it,’ said Lansing. ‘It was – 26 March 2004.’

  ‘The week before the car crash in which Ryan was supposed to have died.’

  ‘Too much of a coincidence,’ said Kate.

  ‘Great. We’ll be at Carl Reckard’s house in – what? – ten minutes,’ said Harper. ‘Do you want to meet us there?’

  ‘Will do.’

  Curtis cut the connection.

  ‘So it sounds like Carl Reckard was a perfect victim,’ said Kate. ‘No ties. No friends or family. And a paranoid schizophrenic. He made so little difference to the world that nobody noticed after he’d gone.’

  They continued to travel in silence along the 405 north towards Chatsworth. As she watched the traffic pass her by Kate imagined what it must have been like for Cassie to make the same journey in the taxi. At what point had she realised that she wasn’t on the way to Beverly Hills for a nice dinner? That the guy at the wheel was not a taxi driver, but the son of the man who had tried to snuff out her life. Even though Cassie’s physical injuries would heal in a matter of weeks, Kate wondered about the effect on her character. She hoped that Cassie would be strong enough to survive this second attack.

  But then would she? How would she cope coming face to face with the monster who had killed that child and delivered it to her as a present. A man who had murdered a young woman just so he could cut off her fingertips and send them to Cassie. A man who had ripped out a tongue and gouged out the eyes and …. She touched her stomach and felt her baby move. What else was he capable of?

  ‘Right, it should be just round the next corner,’ said Curtis, looking at the GPS system on her laptop.

  ‘Okay, are we all within range?’ asked Harper, talking into his cell that linked him with the other officers. ‘I want both houses searched at the same time. The officers over at Ironside Avenue should act with the same caution as the team working with me. We all know what to do. Proceed calmly. But remember. This guy is dangerous. We don’t know quite how dangerous. He may surprises in store for us – be mindful of explosive devices or hidden wires. Before doing anything – and I mean anything – think. And we want him alive. If possible.’

  The car pulled up at the curb. ‘Right, let’s go,’ he said. He waited for Curtis to get out of the car, before turning to Kate. ‘I’d like you to stay here. In the car.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’ said Kate, her ice blue eyes flashing with anger.

  ‘No, I’m not. You’re not trained for this kind of thing. It’s way out of your field. And if anything –‘

  ‘But I want to see the bastard who is behind all of this.’

  ‘Kate, I understand your need to confront this guy. But you can have your chance later. Once we’ve secured him.’

  His eyes moved from side to side, as he was physically incapable of meeting hers.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve been like it all day. On edge. Unable to look at me. What is it? Josh, I can take whatever it is you want to say to me. I’ve been there before, remember?’

  He sighed. Curtis, Lansing, and a back-up team were waiting for him. ‘I’ve got to go. But we’ll talk later. And stay in the car. It’s too dangerous. Okay?’

  She didn’t answer. She watched as he climbed out of the car and spoke to his team. Within a matter of seconds the officers had split up, Curtis and a uniformed cop running to the back of the single storey house in order to secure the building, while Josh, Lansing and another cop, who looked vaguely familiar, moved stealthily towards a red-painted door to the right of the carport. She heard a muffled explosion as the cop blew open the lock on the door. Josh was the first to go in.

  56

  He stepped into a dark, narrow corridor at the end of which were two doors. One, he guessed, led into the carport, the other into the house. He moved towards the one that opened into the garage, gesturing for Lansing to take the other one. Peterson held back in case he had to come to the assistance of either one of them.

  The door to the carport opened easily with one kick. He looked around the room, quickly moving his gun as if it were an extension of himself. He scanned every inch of the space in just a few seconds.

  There was no-one. Fuck. Fuck again. How many times could this happen to him? But he had a feeling that the place was significant. He was on the trail of Ryan Gleason, the man who had been fucking him around.

  What lay before him was a scene of chaos and disarray. Amidst the mass of distorted car parts, bottles of oil, tyres, hammers, spanners, he spotted a vice. As he walked towards it Lansing and Peterson entered the back of the room. The entire internal space of the house had been converted into a gigantic carport.

  ‘Who is this guy?’ whispered Peterson. ‘Some kind of mechanic?’

  Harper ignored him. ‘What’s that smell? Anyone else smell that?’

  He had smelt it many times before. It was the aroma that haunted his dreams. The stench of death.

  ‘I don’t have to remind you not to touch anything,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a feeling we’ll be needing forensics.’

  He walked over towards the vice clamped to a table in the centre of the room. Around the table lay a number of tools, a pair of pliers and a serrated knife, its blade a sienna brown. Under the table, on the bare cement floor, was a stain, something as dark as oil. Quite recently something had pooled under here. Harper bent down and examined the sticky mass. It was blood. Old blood.

  Cassie had lost a little blood during the course of her attack, mostly from surface wounds sustained to her fingers. Could it have come from her? It seemed certain that her description of the place where she had been held matched this godawful place. But there seemed to be too much blood here to make it hers. Far too much.

  And that smell – where was that coming from? He stood up and walked around the room. In the left hand corner, the one nearest the street, was a single, iron-frame bed, covered with an old sheet and a couple of cheap blankets. On the bedside table was a pile of car magazines, an overflowing ashtray and a half-empty beer bottle. It wasn’t a salutary sight by any means, but the origin of the smell was not here. It was more – more towards the back of the space, nearer the side of the house that bordered the yard.

  He moved slowly towards a bank of cupboards at the back of the house. Through a low window, fitted with frosted glass, he could see the feet of Curtis and the other cop stationed outside. He took out his cell and dialled Curtis.

  ‘Whoever was here has gone,’ he said. ‘Anything interesting at the back?’

  ‘No, just some junk and a few slashed tyres,’ she said.

  ‘There’s no point you coming in here. It would be stupid to contaminate the scene any more. But if you could call Reeves and get him over here, I’ve a feeling we’re going to need him.’

  Josh stared at the cupboard, which once had been white; now, its surface was soiled by grime and what looked like old streaks of blood. The rank smell was emanating from behind its doors, he was sure. He reached out, his hand moving towards the handle. He watched his fingers tremble.

  He dragged the sleeve of his sweater down to cover his right hand. He stretched his arm out, took hold of the knob and turned it. With each minute movement of the handle the smell seemed to intensify, almost as if the gesture was speeding up the process of putrefaction. As he pulled the door open he started to gag. He swallowed hard and tried to clamp his nostrils shut, a response he had tried to perfect over the years.