The Cold Room

by J. T. Ellison

  “Of course not. That’s your business.”

  “I appreciate that. I moved up here from Orlando to get away from it all. I couldn’t take living in the same city as her parents. We’d run into each other at the grocery store. It was awful.”

  “I can imagine. Okay then. It’s our little secret. Now. When the information comes in from the publishing house, I’ll need you to go through that page, run down every single detail you can. Who, what, where, when, why and how, okay? There’s something there that can help us, I feel it in my gut. You know Lincoln Ross?”

  “Sure. He’s a great guy.”

  “Lincoln said you’re handy with the computer. Show me what you’ve got with this, okay?”

  Once she hit I-24, she drove fast, in the left lane, buzzing around slower cars and flashing her lights at the eighteen-wheelers who strayed into the left lane from time to time. She passed the 840 loop, headed into Murfreesboro. Not long now.

  McKenzie kept looking over at her, like he wanted to say something else. She waited for him, watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was staring at her, trying to be subtle about it. She finally got impatient.

  “You’re staring. What is it? Do I have donut on my face?”

  He blushed when he realized she’d been aware that he was looking.

  “Seriously, man, what is it? You’re giving me a complex.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “Your scar. Is it true, the story? About how you got it?”

  Taylor subconsciously ran her right hand across her neck. She rarely thought about the scar anymore, though it was there, in sharp bas-relief across her neck, the souvenir of a crazy, desperate man. Four inches of desecrated flesh. Another millimeter and she wouldn’t be here today.

  “What story? Guy got desperate. Never get in close with a suspect with a knife, McKenzie. You’ll end up getting stuck.”

  “I meant that you killed him.”

  Ah.

  “I’ve only killed when I had no other choice, McKenzie.” She was amazed at the coldness in her voice. Calm, dead, frigid. The air in the car was charged. McKenzie squirmed, realized he’d crossed some invisible line. She was just about to apologize when the car radio buzzed.

  “Detective Jackson? This is Dispatch. Be advised, 10–64, possible 10–89, drowning, code two, Radnor Lake. Please respond.”

  Taylor groaned and muttered a few choice expletives. She nodded at McKenzie, took the last Murfreesboro exit.

  McKenzie keyed the mike. “10–4, Dispatch. We’re on our way. We’re just south of Murfreesboro, it will take a bit for us to get there. Out.”

  Taylor dug her notebook out of her pocket and handed it to McKenzie. “Call the Coffee County Sheriff, his name is Simmons. Tell him we got pulled back to town. Tell him I’m sorry and I’ll get in touch with him later.”

  Taylor was already back on the highway heading north. She put the flasher on and took advantage of the rest of the drivers scurrying out of her path to exceed the speed limit. Another murder. At the lake, the 10–89 was logical, but the code two meant there was something urgent about the call. She had to assume it was a murder. It never failed—they tended to pile up on one another. Though Radnor Lake—they didn’t get called there too often. She wondered what was going on, then contented herself with putting her foot on the gas.

  At least this got them off the topic of her scar. She still wasn’t comfortable enough with McKenzie to talk about the terror she’d felt when she saw her own blood spilling down her chest. That insane moment of clarity between the cut and the pain. She knew she was dead. She should have been dead. She was damn lucky Baldwin had been there. His medical training saved her life. Always handy to be hanging out with a doctor during a chase.

  She forced it from her mind. No sense going there.

  They made it back up to Davidson County in twenty minutes, took the Bell Road exit, blew up Old Hickory to Granny White. Within minutes they’d plowed through the tony neighborhood surrounding the lake and turned right on Otter Creek. The entrance to the park was a half a mile up the road. Leafy green oak trees overhung the street, three red posts halted traffic into the preserve. There was a parking lot to her left. She pulled into it, joining the rest of the responding officers.

  Several police cruisers were in the lot, lights off, which was strange. Tim Davis’s crime-scene van was parked by the entrance to the trailhead.

  Taylor and McKenzie exited their vehicle. Taylor was struck by the verdant beauty of the surroundings, the quiet. All this ten miles from downtown Nashville.

  Paula Simari was standing by her cruiser with a blond, white-faced park ranger. Max was in the backseat, straining against the window.

  The ranger’s name tag read R. Kilkowski. A pair of oval-shaped brown plastic glasses rested on her impossibly small nose. When Taylor shook her hand, she noticed it was trembling.

  “Simari. Ma’am. What’s happening? Why no flashers?”

  “It disturbs the wildlife,” the ranger said. “We’ve had three bald eagles, two adults and a juvenile, in the park in the last week. We’ve canceled everything in the hopes that they might nest here. Officer Simari was kind enough to agree to try to limit the commotion.”

  Taylor raised an eyebrow but didn’t say a word. She knew how deadly serious the conservation efforts were at Radnor Lake. It was one of the only protected wildlife sanctuaries—a real biological ecosystem—near a major metropolitan city in the country. Radnor Lake consisted of twelve hundred acres of pristine lake, wildlife and walking trails. No biking or picnics were allowed—the fragile ecosystem was dependent on clean, quiet and calm. This was sure to rattle everyone’s, and every thing’s, cages.

  The “Friends” of Radnor Lake were a veritable who’s who of Nashville’s elite, and they threw some serious cash behind the conservation efforts. The lake had started in 1913, as a water-filling depot and hunting area for the L&N Railroad Company and had morphed into a privately held, privately funded nature reserve. Taylor knew that a dead body wouldn’t be high on the board’s wish list.

  Simari shook McKenzie’s hand, tapped Taylor on the shoulder. “Glad you got here so quickly. You’ve got to see this. Thought you might find some similarities to your Love Hill victim. Body is female, black, skinny as hell.”

  Taylor felt the first bits of adrenaline crash through her system. She’d assumed this was a run-of-the-mill homicide. As if there was such a thing.

  “Drowned?”

  “I don’t know. You just need to see it, I don’t want to influence you.” Simari nodded to the ranger. “Lead the way.”

  “Do I have to go back there?” Kilkowski asked, voice tremulous. Her eyes were wet behind the glasses.

  Taylor reassured her. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to look. Just take us down the right path.” The girl nodded, started walking up the hill from the parking lot, stiff as a board. The three of them followed her.

  Simari looked back to Taylor. “It’s damn quiet out here. I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more. No one around at night, the park’s closed.”

  “Video?” McKenzie asked.

  “Yes. They’re making us a copy. But their guards never saw anything suspicious, on the feed or on their foot patrol. We’ll have to go over the tapes minute by minute. There are no cameras pointing at this spot. Either he was smart or lucky.”

  “Or knows the park,” McKenzie said.

  They walked about fifty yards up the hill which Taylor knew led to the dam. They disturbed a murder of crows, who flew noisily into the air, then redistributed themselves among the branches to the side of the trail, cawing their displeasure. They watched as Taylor and her crew walked by. She wasn’t fond of crows; it was almost as if they knew her thoughts and were on guard against her.

  They heard a distinct crashing sound and everyone jumped, then laughed nervously. There was a flash of white; Taylor assumed it was a deer. It took her heartbeat a moment to get back to its nor
mal rhythm. She was on edge, just waiting for something unexpected to leap out at her.

  There was a creek running under the stretch of road they were walking on. It was full, the water moving peacefully. The recent rainfalls had increased the water tables tremendously. Taylor looked down the lip and saw a snake gliding off into the water, its head high. Water moccasin, probably. As they moved through the woods, the crows’ echoing calls were quickly replaced by the pervasive silence. The lake was quiet, the stillness terrifically loud, filled with living creatures’ call signs.

  Taylor remembered this stretch of the path. She’d been a part of the search for Perry March’s wife, Janet, the frantic days looking for her body stretching into weeks, months and eventually years. As a cadet, she’d been a lead on one of the search teams, had been on foot for days on end looking under brush and in the woods.

  Janet’s body had never been found, but Perry March, after several years in Mexico claiming his innocence, had been extradited and stood trial. He’d been convicted after his father gave a confession that he helped get rid of Janet’s body. Taylor hoped he would rot in jail—he’d been the cause of heartache for half of Nashville for years. She’d always known he’d done it, too; his smug arrogance in thinking he’d gotten away with it was his downfall. It usually was for men like that.

  The sun slipped behind a passel of clouds. A storm was brewing. Taylor started worrying about preserving evidence. They rounded a curve in the trail and the lake spilled out in front of them, rippling in the soft breeze. It was a stunning sight, beauty and horror commingled. Twenty feet to her right, Taylor could see Tim Davis picking his way down the opposite side of the path, a camera in his hand.

  “The body isn’t in the lake?”

  The ranger’s voice quivered. “No. She’s in Otter Creek itself.”

  Taylor looked into the flowing creek. She could clearly see the object of Tim’s attentions—a body floated in the shallow water. A few people stood around watching, taking notes.

  Ranger Kilkowski made a small mewling noise, handed them off to a handsome man with silver hair, a great tan, and crinkly blue eyes.

  He scrambled up the bank, hand outstretched. Where Kilkowski was shy, this guy was a bundle of energy.

  “Hey, I’m Dick Harkins. Park manager. Glad to meet you, though I’m sorry about the circumstances.” He waved to the scene below them.

  Taylor did the introductions. “You found her?”

  “I did. I was taking a walk around, just checking on things. Saw something out of place, a flash of color. I thought it might have been a piece of cloth, something someone discarded. Instead…”

  A weeping willow hung over the water, and a fallen branch was sticking up out of the rocky shoal. The combination created a tunnel of shade. Taylor could see easily despite the shadows. She sucked in her breath, started down the bank.

  A small woman bobbed gently, moving with the creek’s slight ebb and flow. She was on her back, mouth and eyes open, arms stretched out by her side. In her right hand, she clutched a bouquet of flowers, some red, some blue, some yellow. Her neck was ringed with purple flowers, violets, by the look of them. She was dressed in a long, flowing gown which stuck to her legs, outlining them in white cotton. The skirt had gotten snagged on the dead branch. That must be how she ended up here. Taylor instinctively felt the girl was supposed to be adrift.

  “Tim, tell me you’ve documented the hell out of this.”

  Tim carefully joined her. “I have.”

  “I need to get Baldwin out here. Immediately.”

  “What’s up with this? It looks so staged.”

  “It is staged. Completely. This time I know what he’s trying to say. This has to be the same killer.”

  Nineteen

  Baldwin was in the lobby of the Loews Vanderbilt, finishing a call with Quantico and waiting for Memphis to get himself situated, when his other line rang. He saw it was Taylor but sent the call to voice mail—he needed to finish this meeting. He wrapped it up in five minutes and saw the message light blinking. He checked his voice mail, played the message. Felt the disbelief and excitement rise in his chest.

  II Macellaio had struck again.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said. Highsmythe, who’d appeared wearing jeans and a well-cut brown blazer, looked at him strangely.

  “Sorry, not you,” Baldwin said.

  “Bad news?” Highsmythe asked.

  “In a way. In a way, good news. It looks like our boy has left us another victim. Hang on while I get the details. Have a seat, get a drink. I’ll be right with you.”

  Highsmythe nodded and walked over to the restaurant, where he took a chair at the table and busied himself with his briefcase. Baldwin dialed Taylor’s number; she answered on the first ring.

  “I’m at Radnor Lake. I’ve got another body,” she said. He could hear the exhilaration in her voice, knew something major had happened. “You need to get out here. Bring the Brit, he may be a help. I think I know what he’s doing this time, but I want you to see it. Tell me what you think.”

  “Same guy?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Okay. We’ll be right there.”

  He ended the call and put the BlackBerry back in his pocket. He ran his fingers through his hair, scrubbing it to make his mind work better. Why had II Macellaio come to the United States? Why had his victims suddenly switched races? To throw them off the trail? Maybe he thought that no one in Nashville, Tennessee, would be bright enough to piece his earlier killings together with the new one. Well, he had another think coming. Baldwin was onto him.

  Memphis was just about to go looking for the FBI agent when he spotted him on the way back to the table with a worried frown.

  “Highsmythe, we have a conundrum. II Macellaio may have struck again. Why does this killer move from Italy to England and on to the United States? And why does he switch races when he crosses the pond?”

  “Good questions, all.”

  The waiter appeared, apologizing for the wait.

  “Coffee, tea, water, soda, gents. What’s your poison?”

  “I’m sorry, but we have to leave.” Baldwin tossed a five on the table.

  “Certainly, sir,” the waiter said, pocketing the money.

  Memphis stood and yawned widely, felt his ears crack. That was better. He hated to fly. He followed Baldwin’s swift steps out of the restaurant. “We’re going to the crime scene?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, but Taylor felt we both needed to see this.”

  “It’s not a problem.”

  They walked through the lobby and retrieved the Suburban from the valet. Memphis didn’t know where they were headed. West, it seemed. He flipped the Suburban’s sun visor down and glanced in the mirror. Despite having a couple of hours of sleep and a chance to clean up, he was still looking rough. His blue eyes were bloodshot, his blond hair mussed, his cheeks and jaw covered in two days of golden stubble. He looked hard-ridden and put away wet. International travel did it to him every time. He slapped the visor back into place.

  “Tired?” Baldwin asked.

  “A bit. This case, you know. Been keeping me up all hours for weeks. Your bit of skirt is quite the woman, isn’t she?” Memphis asked.

  Baldwin looked up in surprise, then smiled.

  “Oh, Taylor? Yes, my fiancée, not my bit of skirt.”

  “Must be awfully hard to work so far away. Woman like that, I’d want to keep my eye on. So tell me, is she a wine-and-roses kind of a girl, or is she a bit of a tigress between the sheets?”

  “I live in Nashville full-time,” Baldwin said flatly. “And my personal life is none of your business.”

  “Oh. Just so. My wife was the wine-and-roses type.” He took the hint. Mr. FBI didn’t like to talk about his private life. That was fine.

  “Back to the case. Let’s talk about this development,” Baldwin was saying.

  “Why do you live in Nashville and work in Virginia?” Memphis asked. He was needling, he knew it, but he
couldn’t help himself. He’d known plenty of men like this. Reserved to the point of being standoffish, but Memphis could pry them open like an oyster with a few well-placed questions. The woman was off topic, but he’d yet to meet a man who didn’t like to talk about himself.

  Baldwin looked over at him. “Why do you care?”

  Hmm. That was a good question. Why was he fishing for information? Because you want to hear more about his woman, you fool. Get yourself together, get back in the case.

  “Just getting to know you,” Memphis said. “Tell me about the developments.”

  “I’m putting the finishing touches on the profile, but if this murder is connected we need to rethink a few things. The victim’s race has changed, which is an anomaly. And I didn’t expect him to strike again so soon.”

  “Anomaly. Excellent. Something like that will help us run him to ground, right?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Memphis thought about it for a few minutes. “You said his new victims are Afro-Caribbean. Why would he change midstream?”

  “That’s the question. A stressor, an event that’s driven him over the edge. Maybe a girlfriend broke up with him and now he’s transferring, which isn’t something he’s done in the past. I don’t know. He’s altered his methods as well, the murders in the States are much more like Florence. Showy. Planned. London feels more opportunistic. Couple that with the fact that he’s been killing black girls in the States for possibly four years, and we’ve found two kills that match his M.O. so far…there’s more to be understood. Remember, my profile won’t tell you who he is. It is just a guide for the type of person you need to be looking for.”

  Ah, that was the way to get in with Dr. Baldwin. Shoptalk. He didn’t feel comfortable with the man. Not enough to share that he’d been offered a position with the FBI. Pen was going to kill him when she found out. And Memphis got the distinct impression that news wouldn’t go over so well here, either. He stuck to the case at hand.

  “Maybe he’s a bit of both,” he said.

  Baldwin’s forehead creased. “A bit of both. You mean organized and disorganized?”