Heart of Ice

by Gregg Olsen

  Years later, he pushed the memory aside. Only temporarily, of course. He pulled a paper towel from the bathroom rod and patted his face. The mask was on. He looked good. He looked in control.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Dixon

  It was strange how quickly they started coming and leaving things on the steps leading up to the big Tudor that was Beta Zeta House at Dixon University. A bouquet of carnations with the cellophane from the Dixon Kroger on West Cannonball Street was the first item. It had probably been dropped off there within two hours of the discovery of Sheraton’s bloody body. From the settee in the front window, Jenna Kenyon and Midori Cassidy watched the other students come from across campus. They were carrying flowers, cards, candles—and even a beer bong.

  “Sheraton would have liked that,” Midori said.

  Jenna looked at the girl, unsure how to respond.

  “I mean, she would have thought that was funny,” Midori quickly added. “You know?”

  “I get it.”

  A plainclothes detective entered the living room and smiled at the young women. Her name was Kellie Jasper. She wore round-framed glasses that were far too large for her face. Her hair was curly and clipped short—a symptom of a woman too busy to care, or one who’d just given up.

  “I know this has been a horrendous morning,” she said from across the room.

  The words brought Midori to tears again and Jenna patted her on the shoulder.

  “Midori and Sheraton were very close.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry, darlin’,” the detective said, taking a seat next to them so she’d no longer tower over the grieving girls. She turned to face Midori—a crumple of a human being, her long black hair limp and askew.

  “We all have to work together, now. Sheraton is gone, but we will make sure that whoever did this to her is caught.”

  Midori looked like she was going to cry again and Jenna squeezed her hand.

  “I’m going to take you in my car to the justice center, and another officer will bring you back.”

  “That’s fine. I understand procedure,” Jenna said, realizing that she sounded like some lame junior detective or a TV watcher who stayed glued to police procedurals.

  “I understand that your mama’s in law enforcement.”

  Jenna nodded. “She’s a sheriff back in Washington.”

  Detective Jasper led them out the front door and down the steps.

  “Yes, I remember reading about her, and, of course, reading about you.”

  Midori, who’d stopped crying, looked over at Jenna. She was clearly puzzled.

  “Long story,” she said, not wanting to go into it, but seeing that Midori could use a diversion. “OK. Basically, my mom and I were captured by a serial killer. He’s dead now.”

  Inside her cruiser, the detective turned the ignition. “Not just any serial killer. Dylan Walker.”

  “Yeah, him,” Jenna said, fastening her belt and wishing that she’d sat in the backseat instead of Midori.

  “I’ve read about him,” Midori said.

  The statement surprised Jenna. She hadn’t thought Midori read anything.

  “I’ll tell you about it sometime,” Jenna said, knowing that she never would. She didn’t like to revisit those days any more than her mother did. They never talked about it. They were glad that the media ignored the five-year anniversary of the handsome serial killer’s death in that bunker on the Washington coast. They celebrated the fact that true-crime TV movies and books had fallen on hard times, and that none had been written or produced about the man and his crimes—and their role in his death.

  “Yes, that was quite a story,” the detective said, clearly angling for more information.

  But Jenna wasn’t going to bite. She’d said all she had to say. She turned away from Midori and faced the passenger window as the BZ house and the makeshift memorial faded from view. She played some images of those days of terror from five years ago in her mind, but she didn’t let any of those images seize her. How could she? It seemed like so much nothing compared with the murder of her sorority sister, Sheraton Wilkes.

  The offices of the Dixon Police Department were about on par with Cherrystone’s, where Jenna had spent most of her teenage years popping in to drop something off, get some money, or just say hello. She recognized the conference room where the officers gathered at the beginning of their shift to catch up on what was happening. The weekend cops—some reserves, she guessed—had left a greasy box of apple fritters.

  Those wouldn’t have lasted back home, she thought.

  She saw the bulletin board that was affixed with at least two hundred police and sheriffs’ patches from across the south. Back home, Sheriff Kiplinger had started one of those, too. She remembered how happy he was when she brought in a patch from an Oregon county that he hadn’t ever seen. She’d won it on eBay for three dollars plus shipping, and she’d never seen a happier man.

  Detective Jasper sat Jenna and Midori on folding metal chairs in a room that overlooked the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store and Restaurant. She set out a pad and a pen. She offered them coffee or sodas, but neither Jenna nor Midori felt like drinking anything.

  Midori just wanted to cry.

  “All right,” the detective said, “I want to talk to you two, for a couple of reasons.” She fixed her gaze on Midori and pushed a box of tissues toward her. “Midori, you are her best friend. We need to know everything you can tell us about Sheraton. Who were her friends? She have any enemies? Any run-ins with anyone? That kind of thing. OK?”

  Midori dried her eyes. “OK.”

  “And you,” she said, now looking at Jenna, “you were with Midori and Sheraton last night at dinner.”

  “Right. But I barely knew the girl. I’ll be as helpful as I can be, though.”

  “Understood. Midori, tell me about Sheraton.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Boyfriend troubles?”

  “She was dating Matt Harper, but it was going all right.”

  “We know about Matt, and another detective is talking to him now. Any others? She was pretty. She probably broke a few hearts on campus.”

  Midori pulled the zipper on her hot pink Juicy tracksuit top. “She was a big flirt, but it was all in fun. Everyone liked her. If anyone’s told you otherwise, they’re lying.”

  “Everyone liked her but the killer.”

  Of course, the detective was right about that.

  They discussed dinner the night before, how Sheraton had wanted to go out and party at one of the fraternity houses when they got back. Jenna stayed behind in the BZ house and Midori said she was out only until about twelve-thirty.

  “I just wasn’t into it. Sheraton was. She told me to go home and she’d be right behind me.”

  “What was she doing?”

  “We were at the Tri Gamma house. She was on a couch talking to some guys and some other girls. There was nothing special about it. She was just talking, having a good time.”

  They talked for a little while longer. The detective took copious notes, though Jenna couldn’t see what she was writing down.

  There really wasn’t that much to say. No one saw anything. This had to be some kind of random happening. There was no stalker. There was no person bent on revenge for some silly transgression. Whoever had slashed the life out of Sheraton Wilkes had done so out of a sickness for which she had only one word: Evil.

  “So, Jenna,” the detective asked, as the two young women stood to leave, “is there any reason anyone would want to kill you? You were supposed to be sleeping in that room, correct?”

  Jenna slung her purse over her shoulder and gathered her coat.

  “No,” she said.

  Midori’s eyes widened and she stared at Jenna, then the detective.

  Detective Jasper followed the pair as they started to leave. “No one harassing you? Bothering you? Threatening you?”

  “No. No one at all. And thanks, Detective,
I really needed you to say that. Nice.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Tustin, California

  The dog’s name was Maggie. Michael Barton called her Maggot.

  She was a ten-year-old liver-and-white Springer spaniel mix that, by most observers’ accounts, had to be the love of Mrs. Hansen’s life. There was even proof of it. The wall next to the TV had been outfitted with shelves that gave clear and incontrovertible testament to the dog’s place in the family—there were a dozen pictures of Maggie in silver and gold frames. There were none of any of the children who lived there with “Mama and Papa,” as they were instructed to call the Hansens. Not a single one, not even a Polaroid. But there was Maggie on the beach in the surf, barking lazily at the sky. A shot of Maggie sprawled out on the sofa. Maggie with a Frisbee in her mouth, looking brightly at the camera.

  How Michael grew to hate that canine. Certainly jealousy was a factor, and later in life, he’d figure that out. The dog was more important than any of the kids in the house.

  One time when he didn’t eat the rancid lentil soup that Mrs. Hansen had made and left on the stove for four days, she ladled some of it over the dog’s kibble and made him eat it there, on all fours like he was nothing more than an animal. When he cried and screamed and finally succumbed to her demands, she laughed and turned to her dog.

  “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll wash the bowl after he’s finished so you won’t have to get any of his germs.”

  The dog seemed to smile.

  But there was another reason to hate Maggie. The dog was a cheerful witness to Michael’s repeated humiliations at the hands of Mr. Hansen.

  Sometimes when Mr. Hansen had his pants unzipped and his pelvis pressed into Michael’s face, Maggie would sit in the corner, panting like she was enjoying what the smelly man was doing.

  Maybe the dog was happy that she didn’t have to lick her master there?

  Michael tried to talk to Maggie by sending messages from his brain, to hers.

  Bite him! Make him stop! Bark! Do something! Stupid dog!

  But Maggie sat there, almost smiling at what was happening.

  Please help me, he thought.

  Instead, she wagged her stub of a tail.

  Michael was sure the dog understood just what he was saying, just what Mr. Hansen was doing to him. The dog, he reasoned, was evil.

  The first time that Michael hurt Maggie was entirely by accident. He was coming down from his bunk bed and didn’t see the dog curled up on a sleeping bag that held the newest arrival, Kenny.

  Maggie yelped when Michael planted his foot on her hindquarter. Instead of dropping down to see if the dog was all right, Michael felt an odd surge of something that he couldn’t quite peg at first. Something about hurting that animal, though accidental, felt good.

  He did it again. This time, he put some effort into it.

  Maggie growled and the noise only served to excite Michael. He wanted to jump up and down on the dog, busting its ribs into shards, cutting through the dog’s organs, the lungs, the heart…and stopping her from that stupid dog smile.

  “Hey, you’re hurting her!” Kenny said, sitting up, wide-eyed with fear.

  Michael pulled himself together, the vision of Maggie flattened into a bloody mess passed. “She’s in the way!”

  The new boy cradled Maggie. “Leave her alone.”

  Michael grinned. He didn’t know it then, of course, but he’d just found something that gave him both pleasure and control. The smile that he gave Kenny had nothing to do with genuine joy. It was an involuntary, natural response to another person’s fear.

  In time, Michael started kicking the dog when no one was around. A while later, he graduated to other animals in the neighborhood. The first one that he killed was a neighbor’s tortoise that had free rein of their backyard, eating bugs, vegetation, and enjoying the California sun that filtered through the eucalyptus and sycamore trees. Michael stole a screwdriver from Mr. Hansen’s workbench and drove it through the reptile’s shell. He sat there and watched the life drain away.

  Two days later, he cut off the head of a cat that he’d beaten with a plastic baseball bat. It was easy to do, and it felt good, too. The tabby hadn’t even put up a fight. It just looked up from the garbage can and he landed a blow, stunning it. He’d stolen a box cutter that he’d intended to use on Mr. Hansen’s penis one time, but never found the nerve for it. But the cat was different. The cat couldn’t get him in trouble.

  Michael was surprised how easy it was to cut through the tabby’s matted fur. It was nothing to slice through the skin, the tendons, and the vertebrae. Then, like a plucked orange from the mini citrus grove two doors down, the head fell off. So easy and so very final. He crouched behind the house next to the corral Mr. Hansen had built for the garbage receptacles and watched, coolly absorbed in the sight of a pool of maroon fluid as it slowly filled the spaces between the crushed white rocks that Mexican workers had hauled in the week before.

  “That’s so pretty,” Mrs. Hansen had said. “Like a fairytale beach.”

  Not anymore, he thought. He felt nothing for the cat he’d decapitated. It had been a nuisance, anyway. It shouldn’t have been in the trash in the first place.

  When Mrs. Hansen saw the blood on his shirt later that afternoon, she said nothing. She didn’t bend down to see if he was hurt. There was no running to the bathroom for a bandage and antiseptic as his mother might have done. No offers to kiss him and make him better.

  She didn’t chide him for making a mess of himself. She didn’t do a damn thing.

  He was sure he knew why.

  She thinks Mr. Hansen hurt me. She’s a stupid fat cow.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Cherrystone

  Donna Rayburn, the lawyer who’d filled in for Cary McConnell at the Crawford lineup, stood at the gas pump in $300 jeans, stiletto-heeled boots, and a creamy white leather coat that looked so soft it had to have been spread on her. Cherrystone, Washington, didn’t see people like her too often.

  Emily Kenyon doubted her Ethan Allen leather sofa cost as much as Donna’s coat.

  “Nice coat,” the sheriff called to Donna from her gas pump, a row away—too close to pretend she didn’t see her. She wanted to say something about how the coat’s coloring was a near ringer for Donna’s BMW, but thought better of it. “You look like you’re headed off somewhere.”

  Donna nodded in Emily’s direction. “Cary and I are going to his cabin. You know how he loves the great outdoors.”

  It was the first acknowledgment between the two women that they’d both dated Cary. Emily was relieved that her liaison with Cherrystone’s most narcissistic lawyer was long since past. At the same time, she almost felt sorry for Donna. She was sleeping with the devil and didn’t even know it.

  “Oh yes, the cabin,” Emily said. “I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time.”

  Donna turned off the pump and waited for her receipt.

  “Only going for one night,” she said. “Cary is such a workaholic.” Donna slid into her car, waved at Emily, and drove off.

  Emily finished filling the Crown Vic, wondering how on earth the department could justify the gas-hog that barely got fifteen miles to the gallon. She also wondered who approved such a hideous kelly green livery for the small fleet of department cars. Mostly she pondered how long it would take Donna to wise up about Cary.

  She’d been up to the cabin a couple of times in the beginning of her relationship with Cary. It was a few miles from the Schweitzer Mountain Resort, in northern Idaho. The whole place was a shrine to Cary and his quest to be the most formidable at all the things he did. Everything was the best. His snowmobiles, fishing gear, and ski equipment. Weekends at the cabin were exhausting, and not for the reasons most being romanced would hope.

  Poor stupid, BMW-owning Donna. She’ll just have to figure out things on her own.

  Chapter Forty

  Stanton, California

  Michael Barton was never quite sure
how it came to be that he and Sarah were taken from the Hansens’ foster home to the Ogilvy Home for Children in Stanton, California. Was it something he did? The dead animals? The little fire he set? Maybe it was that he was no longer wanted once a younger boy named Jeremy came to stay.

  Maybe he was really worth nothing after all?

  Years later, he’d tell Olivia about it, in terms that suggested a kind of rescue, but he really felt more regret than anything.

  “The Hansens were despicable,” he said one time when he let her inside a sliver of his dark past, “but it felt like home. Sick. But home. Ogilvy always felt like a concentration camp for the lost.”

  “It couldn’t have been that bad,” Olivia said. “It was state approved, wasn’t it?”

  Michael allowed a wide smile across his face. Inside, he wanted to scream at the woman to whom he sought to make himself whole, normal.

  “Of course. But Ms. McCutcheon did things her way.”

  Marilyn McCutcheon was the floor director of the “intensive” unit of the Ogilvy Home. The building that housed the home for the wayward and the disposable had once been part of Stanton High School. It had a cafeteria, gymnasium, and forty-four classrooms which were converted in 1961 into dormitory rooms and offices for a staff of eighty, full-and part-time. Most who worked there, caring for the 220 children on the way station to either reform school or a foster home, were there because they couldn’t get a better-paying job elsewhere. If they were half decent in their appearance, skill, and work ethic, they’d be there no longer than six months.

  But not Marilyn McCutcheon. The fiftyish, prematurely gray-haired, giantess of a woman with big hands and a lumbering gait was there because she loved it. She loved it because for eight hours every day at Ogilvy, she was in charge of her floor. She ran it the way she wanted. No one told her what to do or when to do it.

  It wasn’t that way at home. When McCutcheon got home, her mother and father, both in their late seventies, yelled and screamed at her for being the lousy person they said she’d always been.