All the Beautiful Brides

by Rita Herron

  “Cal!” Mona cried.

  “Hang on!” He grabbed his gun from inside his jacket, aimed, and fired at the maniac. One, two, three shots.

  Tires screeched, the van revved its engine and backed away, then it swung around and flew down the mountain.

  Cal fired at him again, hoping to at least hit a tire, but the van was too fast.

  Mona was shaking all over as the van roared away. She pushed at the air bag, her chest sore from the impact, and Cal took his pocketknife and sliced through it. “Who was that?”

  “I don’t know, the windows were tinted,” Cal said. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, although she was trembling so badly her teeth were chattering. Wind swirled through the shattered glass, and shards had pelted Cal’s face and arms.

  “You’re bleeding.” She reached up to pluck a small glass fragment, wincing at the drops of blood splattered across his cheek.

  “I’m fine.” He brushed off her concern, then leaned down to retrieve his phone.

  Wheeland was still on the line.

  “We got ambushed by a van,” Cal said. “Have Peyton search for anyone who owns a white cargo van around Graveyard Falls.” A pause. “No, I didn’t get the license. It was an older model, tinted windows. Also have her issue an alert to all body shops and garages in the area. Look for a dented front fender. If anyone tries to get a van repaired, I want to know about it.” He angled his head toward Mona. “Call the deputy and tell him to send a tow truck up here, and to bring an extra car.”

  Mona touched his cheek with a tissue to dab at the blood. “You need to go to an ER, Cal.”

  He shook his head. “No way. For all we know, the unsub has another girl right now and her life is in jeopardy.”

  Fifteen minutes later when the tow truck and Deputy Kimball pulled up, Cal was royally pissed. While the mechanics loaded the SUV onto the tow truck, Cal coaxed Mona to sit inside the Jeep the mechanic had brought for him to drive, then he talked to the deputy. Kimball filled him in on what he’d learned about the families of the Thorn Ripper’s victims.

  “Do you think the driver of the van was the unsub?” Deputy Kimball asked.

  Cal swiped his hair back from his forehead. “No. It doesn’t fit his MO. But earlier Mona had a break-in, so whoever did this may be after her.”

  The deputy blew on his hands to warm them. “I checked. Whit Combs is still locked up.”

  So that ruled him out. “Then we’ll concentrate on finding the van. First I need you to notify the second victim’s sister of her death.” Cal skimmed the text Peyton had sent. “The victim’s name is Constance Gilroy. She was twenty-three. Studied early-childhood development and worked part-time babysitting her sister’s two kids. The sister’s name is Tanya Gilroy, she’s a—”

  “Nail tech,” Deputy Kimball muttered.

  “You know her?”

  Deputy Kimball’s eyes darkened. “Yeah. Tanya and I had a couple of dates. She’s going to be devastated. She raised her little sister after their folks died.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “She was a good girl, Coulter.”

  “I’m sorry.” Cal didn’t know her, but no young woman deserved to have her life snuffed out before she’d had a chance to live it. “I would offer to break the news myself, but I have two possible suspects I intend to question.”

  Deputy Kimball wiped a hand over his eyes. “Then get to it. I’ll talk to Tanya and find out everything I can about Constance, if she was seeing anyone, had any male friends, if she met someone online.”

  “Also find out if she knew Gwyneth,” Cal said. “If we find a connection between the two victims, it might tell us where or how the unsub is choosing them.”

  The deputy nodded and jogged to his car. Cal gave the mechanic his card and told him to call with an estimate for the repairs, then slid into the driver’s seat of the Jeep.

  “You okay?” he asked Mona.

  She nodded but she looked pale, and he squeezed her hand. How could she be okay when someone had just tried to kill them?

  Carol knew she’d messed up big-time. The look in this man’s eyes was eerie. Like a gator appearing to snooze lazily in the swamp, his body buried just beneath the surface while he lurked for prey.

  “What do you know about that dead girl?” Will asked.

  “The police aren’t talking,” she said. “I’m not sure they have a clue. Did you know her?”

  He folded his hand on the table, an odd look on his face. “No, never met her.”

  His fingers closed around a pin in his hand. A drop of blood dripped from his palm.

  Her eyes were glued to the blood. Like a cutter, he needed to punish himself. To rid himself of the pain.

  Then his eyes became sinister, darting across her face. “What are you looking at?”

  “Nothing.” She jerked her gaze back to the wall of animal heads and shivered again at the eyes staring back at her. “Are you a hunter, Will?”

  The wary look turned to one of . . . pride?

  “Yeah. Matter of fact, I am.”

  “You shot some of these?”

  “A couple. But I preserved all of them.”

  “You’re a taxidermist?”

  A smile twitched at his mouth, drawing her gaze to the small jagged scar at the corner of his lip. “Yeah. You want to see my studio?”

  He made it sound like a joke, but a bad premonition took root in her gut.

  “Maybe some other time. I . . . have to go now.” Hands trembling for reasons she didn’t even know, except that her instincts warned her this guy was dangerous, she removed her wallet, tossed some cash on the table, then grabbed her keys. “It was nice meeting you.”

  “You too,” he murmured, although his voice sounded odd, and he closed his hand around the pin again. Another drop of blood fell to the table, making her stomach churn.

  She gave him a fake smile and headed to the door. Her keys were braced between her fingers the way she’d learned in self-defense classes, and she hit the Unlock button for her car a few feet away, jogging toward it as the wind whistled shrilly through the night.

  The parking lot was nearly vacant, but gravel and snow crunched behind her, and she whirled around, her keys ready.

  But he pounced, shoved something over her face, then pressed a stun gun to her neck.

  She tried to scream but felt herself jerking and spinning, then sinking as if the murky water of the bayou was sucking her underneath.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Virgil William Mulhaney’s chicken farm was nothing more than two chicken houses situated on a hill on several acres in the mountains.

  His house, a small, older wooden structure, tilted sideways as if the land below it was sinking. A mangy-looking, three-legged dog loped toward the Jeep as Cal parked.

  Could Virgil be the man who’d posed as Bill Williams on Facebook and lured Gwyneth to that bar? The one who called himself Will on the phone with Mona?

  Cal held a hand up to warn Mona not to get out yet. “Let me see if that dog is dangerous.”

  Mona still looked shaken from the accident, but a smile softened her face. “He looks too old and feeble to be dangerous.”

  “You never know.” If Mulhaney was their killer, he might have beaten or abused the animal. Hell, the animal could have lost that leg because of his owner.

  Cal laid his hand on his gun just in case he needed it as he slid from the Jeep. “Hey, boy,” he murmured in a low voice. “You gonna be friendly or bite my head off?”

  The dog looked up at him with the saddest pair of eyes Cal had ever seen. He also reminded him of a stray he and Brent had taken in at their foster parents’ house.

  He’d cried like a baby when his foster father used to hit the animal. The night the old man had shot it, Cal had lost it and attacked the man.

  He was only seven and still ha
d the scars from the beating.

  Slowly he extended his hand, and the dog limped toward him, sniffed his fingers, then wagged his tail. Mona must have seen it; she climbed from the Jeep, tugging her coat tighter around her. The wind was rolling off the mountains, beating the trees into a frenzy and sending snow swirling like a fresh storm.

  Just as they approached the house, a man wearing bloodstained overalls loped down the hill, carrying two chickens in his right hand, both with their heads cut off.

  A prosthetic served as his left hand.

  Cal motioned for Mona to stay behind him. When the man noticed them, he threw his shoulders back, but Cal couldn’t see his eyes for the hat pulled low over his forehead.

  He estimated his age to be mid- to late twenties—the right age for their unsub.

  Mulhaney spit chewing tobacco on the ground, the black spittle streaking the white snow at their feet. “What you doing on my property?”

  Cal identified the two of them, although Mulhaney made no indication that he recognized Mona’s name. Then he angled his phone to show the man Gwyneth’s photo. “Do you know this woman?”

  Mulhaney shook his head. “Never seen her.”

  “How about this one?” Peyton had just sent him a photo of Constance Gilroy.

  Mulhaney spit again, then wiped his mouth with the back of a sleeve. Blood trickled from his hand, dripping onto the snow. “Don’t know her either. What’s this about?”

  “Both women were murdered,” Cal said. “I’m sure you heard about it on the news.”

  Mulhaney veered into a shed and laid the chickens on a steel table. “Yeah. What’s that got to do with me?”

  “We thought you might tell us that,” Cal said. “Where’s your wife?”

  Mulhaney gestured toward his prosthesis. “She ran off and left me. What does that have to do with those murders?”

  “The police report said she lost control and ran off the road,” Cal pressed.

  “That’s what they told me.”

  “You think something else happened?” Cal asked.

  “No. She was drinking before she left, then she was driving too fast ’cause she was in a hurry to get away from me. Said she couldn’t stand me touching her with this.”

  “You must have felt rejected,” Mona said. “Bitter.”

  “Maybe you wanted to replace her,” Cal suggested.

  Mulhaney made a sound of disbelief. “Listen, I ain’t got a girlfriend or wife and don’t want one. I seen what women can do to a man. My daddy killed himself when my mama run out. And then when I lost my hand, my wife left me. I’m done with the sorry lot.”

  Cal gestured toward the chicken houses. “How do you kill your chickens?”

  “Is that what this is really about?” The man squinted, looking confused. “I follow American Veterinary Medical Association standards. Use cervical dislocation,” Mulhaney said. “Then I asphyxiate them with carbon dioxide.”

  The pieces didn’t fit. The killer had used his hands and a garter. Mulhaney’s handicap would make it difficult for him to attack and strangle a woman.

  And he didn’t appear strong enough to carry a body through the woods to the falls.

  He could have used a sled or something similar to transport her, but they hadn’t found evidence of tracks in the snow.

  “Mind if we look around?” Cal asked.

  Mulhaney frowned. “You got a warrant?”

  “You got something to hide?”

  “I didn’t kill those women,” Mulhaney said.

  “Then let us look around,” Cal said with a challenging look. “And if you really want to prove it, let me take a DNA sample.”

  Mulhaney hissed. “All right. Look your fill, then take your damn sample and get off my property.”

  Mona didn’t like the way Virgil Mulhaney looked at her, as if she were to blame for all the wrongs women had inflicted on men in the past.

  Which didn’t fit the profile of the killer. The guy they were looking for was lonely and desperately wanted a companion.

  Only his delusions held certain expectations, and when the woman didn’t meet those expectations, something inside him snapped.

  That did fit Virgil. He obviously was disillusioned by the opposite sex.

  Cal took a DNA swab from the man’s mouth, bagged it, and stowed it in the crime kit he’d transferred from his SUV to the Jeep.

  Mulhaney laid the bloody rag he’d used to wipe his hands on the worktable beside the dead chickens. “All right, now look around. You won’t find any dead women here.”

  He gave Mona a lecherous grin that revealed a missing front tooth.

  She forced herself not to feed his sinister side by reacting—he seemed to enjoy taunting her. Scaring her.

  Although he definitely wasn’t charming enough to lure a woman into going with him. But the stun gun she saw on the workbench would do the trick.

  She leaned close to Cal and whispered, “Cal, were there stun gun marks on the victims?”

  “Yes.”

  Mona considered this as Cal gestured for the man to lead the way, and she and Cal followed Mulhaney into his house.

  The furnishings were old and faded, dust mounting on the tables and books scattered around. Mona quickly scanned his collection—books on the poultry business, hunting and fishing, and best hiking trails in the Smokies.

  The refrigerator held milk, packaged meat in butcher paper, several whole chickens, eggs, condiments, and bread.

  She followed them to the bedroom, which was dusty, the metal bed covered in an ancient quilt that needed mending. The closets revealed work boots and overalls.

  No signs of a wedding dress. No garters in the drawers or closets. No sewing supplies.

  Mona huddled inside her coat but opted to stay in the car while Cal went to search the chicken houses. If he found a dead body in there, she didn’t want to see it tonight.

  Constance’s face was already going to torment her in her sleep.

  Cal drove down the mountain, his expression grim. Mulhaney was a jerk, but he hadn’t found any evidence suggesting he was the unsub.

  Apparently his wife’s desertion wasn’t Mulhaney’s only problem. His business had virtually died. He had a few chickens in one house but not enough to support himself and was drawing disability.

  There had been no evidence he’d had a woman to the house, much less one he’d murdered. And no rosebushes, although with winter lingering, the killer had to have picked up a rose from a florist, grocery store, or road stand.

  He cranked up the defroster and heater, hoping to warm Mona, who’d been shivering ever since he’d returned to the Jeep. “What do you think?”

  “He’s strange. A loner. Was probably bullied as a kid. But I don’t think he’s the killer.”

  “Neither do I,” Cal admitted. “I think we would have found something. A sewing machine, a wedding gown, the jewelry he took from the victims, something.” He paused. “That is unless he has another place where he holds the victims.”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  “Although it would be extremely difficult to strangle the victims with one hand. That prosthetic would have also left definitive marks, which we didn’t find on the victims.”

  She nodded. “Where to now?”

  “There’s one more name on the list. Doyle William Yonkers. He runs a pet cemetery.”

  Mona hugged her arms around herself, then lapsed into silence, the sky painting a gloomy atmosphere across the sharp ridges as they drove.

  “Yonkers? I saw him at the memorial service,” Mona said when they finally pulled down a winding drive in the midst of a forest of hemlocks and snow-covered pines.

  “Yes, he’s Candy Yonkers’s brother. Deputy Kimball said Doyle’s parents separated after his sister’s murder.”

  “How old is h
e?”

  “Forty. He was younger than Candy. He also recently spent time in a mental hospital and was released into his mother’s custody.”

  “Pike’s upcoming parole hearing could have been a trigger for him.” Mona shivered. “Why was he hospitalized?”

  “According to his medical report, he suffered from depression and bipolar disorder.”

  “He fits the profile,” Mona agreed. “And he has a motive.”

  Cal scanned the property as he parked. A log cabin sat by a nicer brick building and a graveyard named Pet Heaven. The stone markers shimmered with new-fallen snow, and instead of vases of flowers, concrete food bowls held ceramic bones and chew toys along with statues and figurines of cats and dogs.

  But through the window, he saw roses in vases, blood-red just like the ones the killer left with his victims.

  Mona spotted a battered van parked in the drive. Not white, though, like the one that had hit them.

  Another small outbuilding sat beside the cabin, probably a storage building.

  Stone bird feeders flanked the entrance to Pet Heaven, with a walkway that wove through the graveyard. Concrete benches were scattered throughout for those who might want to sit and visit.

  The wind whistled off the mountain, stirring snow and dead leaves around Mona’s feet, and sending an uneasy feeling through her as Cal led the way to the cabin. He knocked and she waited, but no one answered.

  Cal gestured that he was going to check out the brick building. Mona followed, noting a gold-embossed nameplate on the side of the building—CREMATORIUM.

  Cal rapped his knuckles on the door and footsteps shuffled inside, then a young man greeted them. His round face was slightly covered in beard stubble, his hair clipped short, his hands scarred with what Mona assumed to be animal bites.

  “Hello,” the man said with his thick eyebrows raised. “Welcome to Pet Heaven.”

  “You’re Doyle Yonkers?” Cal asked.

  “Yes. I’m with a customer now. You can hang out in the waiting room.”