by Donna Ball
He swiveled his chair from the window with its deep-twilight view of the parking lot and turned to face Long across the desk. “So what we've got here is a genuine, no shit, smarter-than-your-average-bear serial killer. Is that what you're telling me?”
“There's no evidence that Kelly Dennison has been killed,” Long was quick to point out. “But”—and he shifted his gaze—”it looks that way, yes.”
Case nodded slowly. “I guess you know we're way out of our league.”
“The state police will have an investigator down here tomorrow.”
“Meanwhile,” said Case, leaning back in his chair, “we've got a killer wolf prowling our shores and a thousand or so sheep just waiting to be taken down.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. His voice dropped. “Jesus, I should have called in the state police when we first found out about Saddler.”
“By that time,” Long said quietly, “Mickie Anderson was probably already dead.”
Case gave a brief shake of his head, as though to throw off unproductive thoughts, and drew a breath. “Okay, do me a favor. I know the state boys will check it out if they haven't already, but just for my information. Call the investigator in charge of the Melissa Conroy case—you know that kid from Georgia State who never came back from spring break in Panama City last year. Somebody said she was here in St. T. right before she disappeared. I just want to make sure that's the only similarity between her and Mickie Anderson.”
Long made a note, nodding. “I'll start seeing what I can find out about the place Tanya Little worked while she was here that summer, too. Could be there's a connection between her and Kelly Dennison.”
“Good thinking. Meantime—” The sheriff's phone rang. He picked it up, listened intently, then said curtly, “Give me the address.”
He wrote it down and hung up the phone. “Come on,” he said to Long, pushing up from his chair. “It's Laura Capstone. Carol Dennison's partner.”
~
Chapter Thirty-four
Carol said, “I had forgotten how dark these country roads can be.” Her voice sounded distant and hollow even to her own ears, as though it were coming from the bottom of a well. “I don't leave the beach much at night anymore.”
Guy was driving, and they hadn't spoken much since they had left Panama City. Neither one of them wanted to say what was really on their minds. But even when they didn't speak it, it was there between them.
He answered, “I remember when you first started selling real estate. I used to make myself crazy worrying about you being out at night, showing houses to maniacs.”
“In Miami, you were probably right to worry.”
“But not here.”
A silence. “No,” she said softly, turning her face to the window. “Not here.”
Guy was silent for a time. Then he said, “I keep thinking about what the prosecutor told me right after Saddler was arrested. That guys like him, habitual offenders and pattern criminals—they rely on the fact that there's so little communication between jurisdictions. That as long as nobody puts it together they can keep getting away with the same crime over and over again. It was just luck that, when I did that story, the broadcast area happened to cover the exact same area he had been operating in. People started coming forward, police departments started putting the pieces together.”
“Still,” Carol said, “he was only convicted on one count.”
“Which, as it turned out, wasn't enough,” Guy agreed.
“God, why didn't they figure out what he was really up to back then?” Carol said with quiet anguish in her voice. “If he was this disturbed, this sick and twisted—why didn't they figure it out?”
Guy's tone was subdued. “It kind of makes you wonder how many other unsolved crimes remain that way because the perpetrator went to jail on some other charge, doesn't it?”
“No,” Carol said tiredly, leaning her head against the frame of the window. “That's not what it makes me wonder.”
She watched her reflection, wan and ghostly, pass across the face of the scrub pines and empty marsh, and listened to the thin whine of tires on the highway. Her throat was tight and achy, and there was a cold emptiness in the pit of her stomach that nothing would ever ease. It was a long time before she spoke again.
“You know what's so strange?” she said, speaking to the closed window. “When we first walked in and saw them—that beaten-up look on their faces, that deadness in their eyes—I thought, from the bottom of my heart I thought, 'Oh, the poor things!' and I really hurt for them. But by the time we left, I realized—we are them, we're the poor things, and that deadness in their eyes, I feel it right here.” She pressed a fist to the area just beneath her left breast, her voice growing tight and shaky as she finished softly, “And I want someone to hurt for us, Guy. I want someone to feel how our lives were shattered and I want someone to hurt for us!”
He reached his hand across the seat and covered her fist, pulling it down on the console between them, holding it hard. “Stop it,” he said. His eyes were fixed on he road, his voice tense and determined. “I don't want to hear you talk like that.”
Carol squeezed her eyes tightly closed. “Don't tell me she's dead, Guy,” she said in a low, harsh whisper. “Please don't tell me our little girl ended up just like their daughter. I know it's probably true, but I can't bear to hear it now!” She could feel herself losing control, but she didn't want to give into sobs because she knew if she did, it would be over—all hope, all control, all possibility of denial. So she held her breath and bit back words and pulled her hand away from Guy's, closing both fists into hard, close knots on her thighs.
Guy said, very quietly, “I don't think it's true.”
Carol opened her eyes and looked at him. She could see the hard tight profile of his jaw, its familiar stubborn line, the set of his mouth which indicated a decision reached and unarguable. So familiar to her, so predictable, so heartbreakingly dear.
She said, with the greatest difficulty. “Kelly wasn't his first victim. We know she wasn't his last. Why would—she be different?”
“I can't believe you're saying that.”
Carol leaned her head against the headrest, her eyes focused on nothing at all. She said softly, “I've been all alone in this for so long. Holding on, believing where nobody else would believe, feeding hope like you'd tend a campfire in the wind. I'm worn out, Guy. I'm out of fuel, and the odds are just too great. I don't know how much longer I can hold on. I need you to make me believe again, or at least ... believe for me, for a little while, until I'm stronger.”
Guy said, “The other parents never heard from their daughters again.” He took his gaze away from the road long enough to meet her eyes. There was strength there, and conviction; enough to hold on to until she was strong again. He finished, “We did. She called you.”
The argument was flawed and she knew it; perhaps, so did he. But because he said it, she believed. Because he believed, it seemed possible.
She smiled faintly in the dark. “Funny. After all this time, our roles are reversed. You trying to convince me while I'm feeling hopeless.”
Guy drew in a slow breath, but said nothing for a moment. Then he said, “Maybe I tried to prepare myself for the worst because it was easier than thinking about what she might be going through out there, all alone. But I never believed it, never wanted to believe it—mostly because you didn't, Carol. And nothing has changed. We have no proof of anything, just a lot of pieces to a puzzle that doesn't make sense.” He pulled in another breath and glanced at her. “Look,” he said, “the time may come to give up. But it's not yet. Okay?”
Carol swallowed hard. “I'm trying,” she said unsteadily. “But it's not so easy anymore.”
His cell phone rang.
After a moment, Guy fumbled in his pocket and answered it. “Guy Dennison.”
Carol knew by the quality of his silence that the call was not an ordinary one. She looked at him sharply, but could discern nothing of his expression
in the dark. His voice, however, told her more than his words did.
“Yes, she's with me. Why, what happened?” He listened, then asked, “Is she okay?”
Carol gripped his arm.
Guy said, “We're about twenty minutes away. Should we come there?”
Carol demanded, “What? What's wrong?”
Guy said into the phone, “Right.” and disconnected.
He tucked the phone back in his pocket, his expression grim. “That was the sheriff. There's been some kind of incident, they think it was Saddler. He attacked Laura.”
~
Chapter Thirty-five
“I'm okay,” Laura said as soon as they came in. Carol ran to her and embraced her anyway.
She looked a little surprised when, as soon as Carol released her, Guy put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her, too.
“Jesus, Laura, I'm so sorry,” he said.
Laura stepped away, shaking her head as she ran her fingers through her hair. “I was stupid. I can't believe I was so stupid.” She turned back into the room. “I guess you know Deputy Long. He's the one who took me to the emergency room and drove me back here. I'm fine,” she repeated. “He shouldn't have called you. I just can't believe I was so stupid.”
She was wearing a white terry warm-up suit and heavy socks, and even on this mild night she kept hugging her arms as though she was cold. There was a sharp red line on her throat underneath her chin and her voice sounded the slightest bit hoarse, but otherwise she appeared unharmed.
Long said, “They had to be called, Ms. Capstone. It's a matter of safety now.”
Carol put her arm around her friend's waist and walked her to the sofa. “What can I get for you? Do you want me to make tea?”
And Guy said, “Tell us what happened.”
Laura sat on the sofa, holding on to Carol's hand, and told her story. “It was all so quick,” she said, still sounding a little disbelieving of her own ordeal. “I mean, I wasn't in that building ten seconds altogether, even though it seemed like ten hours. I scratched him with my keys and he kind of lost his grip and that's when he said, 'You're not Carol!' “ She looked at Carol. “He was expecting you. He must have had whoever it was make that call, and she wouldn't know the difference in our voices. It was after hours, so I just answered the phone 'Hello' and she—or he—must have thought I was you all the time.”
Guy's and Carol's eyes met soberly, but neither said anything.
Laura went on, “Anyway, I grabbed the cord he had around my neck—it was a strip of leather, actually, I still had it when I got to the car—and I jerked away and he tried to catch me—almost did a couple of times—but I think he was more afraid of coming out of the shack where I might see him, or he might be seen chasing me, than he was of my getting away. Anyway, I got away.” She tried to smile, but a betraying hand wandered to her throat and touched the red mark there. The smile faded.
Carol said, “Did you see him at all?”
Laura shook her head. “Not really. I mean—what I saw was like something out of a horror movie, this awful, distorted face. Then Deputy Long made me realize it was actually a man wearing a stocking over his head. But that was all I saw. Kind of brownish hair, and the side of his neck was bleeding where I scratched him.”
“But that's something,” Carol said, squeezing her hand. “That's a lot.”
Guy said, frowning a little, “This leather strip he used—did it look anything like this?” He pulled from his pocket the bound girl figurine suspended on the leather thong.
Long reached for it. “Where did you get this?”
Guy turned it over to him. “The kid you were interviewing in the Mickie Anderson case said she had given it to him just before she died. He asked me to give it to her parents. I was going to do that, and then I recognized it as the same kind of necklace my daughter used to wear. On a hunch, I showed it to Tanya Little's parents and she had one like it, too. They think she got it here in St. T., at a place she used to work called the Blue Dolphin.”
Long scowled at him. “You realize this is evidence in a murder case?”
Guy said deliberately, “Two murder cases.”
Carol loved him then, because he didn't say “three.”
Laura said, puzzled, “I know the Blue Dolphin—or at least what used to be the Blue Dolphin. They were only in business for a couple of years. They sold nautical knick-knacks—porcelain whales and glass dolphins and mahogany manatees, you know the kind of thing. I used to get a lot of housewarming gifts there, remember, Carol?” She explained to Long, “Whenever we sell a house, particularly an expensive one, we like to give the new owners a personally selected housewarming gift. I never knew the Blue Dolphin to sell jewelry, though. Could I look at that?”
After a moment, Long handed it to her.
She cringed a little as she took it, and glanced at Guy. “It is like the leather cord,” she said. “Just exactly like it.” Then she turned the figurine over in her hand, examining it. “How odd.”
She glanced up. “You know what this is, don't you? That Tarot card—I think it's called the Bound Girl. It means indecision, standing at the crossroads of life, not knowing which way to go, something like that. On the card I think she's on a rock surrounded by water. Pretty gruesome to look at, though.”
Long said suspiciously, “How do you know that?
She replied without blinking, “I dated a warlock once.”
At Long's expression, Carol quickly explained, “She means Jimmy, the waiter from the Sunrise Terrace in Port St. Joe. He wasn't a warlock, just weird.”
“Also ten years younger than me with buns of steel,” replied Laura blandly. “I was going through a rebellious stage.”
Guy's lips formed a wry smile. “Now I believe you're okay. I was getting worried there for a minute.”
“Then my ordeal was worth it.”
Carol said, squeezing Laura's arm, “I'm making you some tea.”
When Carol was gone, Laura looked back down at the necklace, frowning. “The Tower. That was one of the cards, too. I remember it was an awful-looking thing, with lightning and people falling out of it. Did I tell you about the tower?”
Long replied, “Yes ma'am, you did.”
Guy gave him a look that was cautious and questioning, as though he half suspected Laura might be rambling nonsensically.
Long explained, “Apparently, the caller cried out something about a tower just before the connection with Ms. Capstone was broken. We thought it might be a clue as to the location of the caller.”
Guy felt the color slowly drain from his face, even as his heart began to pound hard and fast, with a slow unfolding certainty. He had to stand up and walk a few paces away, forcing a slow deep breath. “The princess in the tower,” he said, very quietly, as steadily as he could manage. “That's what I used to call her.”
Laura looked at him sharply, and Long said, “Are you suggesting that—”
“It was Kelly,” Guy said, and released the breath he was holding. The certainty was quiet and sure and as strong as anything he had ever known. “I'm sure of it.”
He could feel both pairs of eyes on him, but whether they held doubt or relief he didn't know and did not care. In a moment, Long said, “I dispatched officers to check the water tower and the airport tower just in case, and we're in the process of examining all the observation towers and platforms on the island. So far, all are negative.”
Guy nodded, and turned back to them. Kelly was alive. That was all that mattered.
Laura returned the necklace to the deputy. Her face was strained and her tone reluctant. She said, “If three girls wore this necklace and two of them are dead, and if the man who attacked me used the same kind of necklace, or at least the leather from one—”
Guy said sharply, “It's too soon to jump to conclusions.” To Long he said, “You should interview the Littles. Here's their address and phone number.”
He produced a slip of paper which Long took with a nod. �
�I already talked to the sheriff's department over there today. I was going to interview the parents.”
“Make it a priority,” Guy suggested, and ignored the challenging look Long gave him.
Laura said, “Then I guess we're supposed to think that the man who attacked me tonight was the same one who's been kidnapping and— killing these young girls? And that he's the one who's making these phone calls and threatening Guy? The rapist who just got out of prison?”
Long glanced at her almost apologetically. “It looks that way, ma'am.”
Laura frowned a little. “I don't understand why he would have someone pretend to be Kelly, then this Tanya Little person.”
“Possibly because he wanted us to find out Tanya Little was dead. Another terrorist tactic.”
“But he never used the name Mickie Anderson,” Laura pointed out. “If he wanted to make a point, or scare someone, that would be the name to use—everyone knows it today.”
“But they didn't know it when all this began,” Long pointed out. “And how could he be sure her body would be found so soon—if he meant for it to be found at all?”
“I suppose,” Laura said wearily. “It just—well, it just doesn't make sense.”
“Criminal behavior rarely does,” Long said.
“But he knew Carol,” Laura insisted. “The way he said her name—it was as though he knew her.”
“He's been stalking her for weeks,” Long explained. “He was in her house, who knows for how long, or if that was even the first time. It's not unusual for a stalker to form a personal relationship with his victim, to feel as though he knows her.”
Laura rubbed the mark on her neck gingerly. “I thought it was Guy he was after.”
Long said, “I don't think there's any reason for you to worry, Ms. Capstone. Your involvement was purely accidental, and the fact that he let you get away tonight proves he's not interested in hurting you.”
