One Kill Away

by Alex MacLean

  When had she first noticed those changes in Daphne—staying in her room all the time, appearing sad and withdrawn, even jumpy? Had it been four weeks? Six? Longer?

  Tired as she was, Audra couldn’t narrow it down. She shook her head and clenched her teeth, angry with herself. She should’ve been more vigilant, more active in her daughter’s life. It killed her inside knowing she might’ve had a chance to prevent this whole disaster from happening.

  Blindly, she grabbed for the soap, lathered herself up. After she finished showering, she threw on a robe. Her walk down the hall to Daphne’s bedroom was hesitant. When she reached the doorway, she just stood there, looking in, seeing flashes of yesterday: Daphne hanging in her closet; Audra frantically performing CPR; the ambulance racing off to the hospital.

  There were clothes and hangers on the floor of the closet. The bed sheets were rumpled, the comforter kicked to the side. The piece of electrical cord lay against the far wall by the dresser. Audra didn’t see a note or letter anywhere.

  She stepped inside the room and began to tidy up. She made the bed. She brushed off the fallen clothes and hung them back in the closet, spread out the hangers on the bar so everything looked neat. A shiver rippled through her body when she picked up the cord. She wrapped it into a tight coil and placed it on the bed to toss in the garbage.

  Audra sat down at the desk, fanned through the pages of a Suzanne Collins novel, a dictionary, a math book from school. Torn up paper filled the wastebasket. The pieces had writing on one side, made by black marker. Audra looked some over, but couldn’t make out any words.

  Daphne’s laptop was closed. Audra and Daniel had given it to her as a Christmas gift last year and it came with a set of rules: don’t participate in any chatrooms; don’t protect it with a password. They had wanted access to go in at anytime and monitor what she did online.

  Audra opened the laptop, turned it on. She went on the Internet first, checking the browser history. Nothing there but a long list of Youtube links. Audra clicked on one and it brought up a video of a pretty girl named Riley, using note cards to tell her story of bullying. As Audra watched it, she became heavyhearted, full of pity. She found it hard to see a young girl of just fifteen in such distress. The pain she exuded in the video was palpable. For Audra, it conjured up the disturbing image of a twelve-year-old girl crying alone in bed and she quickly banished it from her mind.

  She clicked on another link. Different girl this time, similar tragic story. Same with the third video and the fourth. She couldn’t bring herself to click on a fifth one.

  Already, a terrible understanding began to take shape in Audra’s brain. Shutting her eyes, she sat back in the chair and leaned her head over top of the seat. She had considered it. She had feared it. Daphne was being bullied at school. It made Audra angry, heartbroken, and sick to her stomach.

  She wondered what the kids had done to her daughter, what names they had called her. When had it all started?

  Again, Audra tried to remember the first time she’d noticed changes in her daughter, cursed herself for not being able to.

  She stared at the shredded paper in the wastebasket, then at the built-in webcam above the laptop monitor. Had Daphne made her own video? Audra couldn’t believe her daughter—as shy as she was—would upload a video of herself to Youtube for a world of strangers to see. But she had to be sure.

  She went to the website, typed Daphne in the search bar. It brought up a bunch of songs, Scooby Doo videos. Audra tried Daphne Price bullying video. Nothing there but a long list of other bullying videos.

  Audra knew Daphne had a Facebook account. Much to her chagrin, Audra had allowed her to have one provided Daphne never listed any personal information or used her own picture for the profile. There were simply too many pervs and weirdoes out there preying on children.

  Audra and Daniel never bothered with any social networking; they couldn’t see any purpose in it. Pick up the phone if you want to talk to someone, write a letter or an email. The Internet made the world a smaller place, drew people closer together, but it also came with risks.

  Audra logged into Daphne’s Facebook account. A box at the top of the page welcomed her back. So Daphne had gotten rid of her Facebook account. When? Why? Were kids tormenting her online too?

  There were no messages. Audra noticed Daphne’s list of friends had diminished to only three. Tabitha Landes, her best friend since fifth grade, was gone.

  Audra logged out. Next, she checked Daphne’s emails. A new one came in from Facebook; again, welcoming her back. Audra saw a second one there from Facebook and it read: You have deactivated your Facebook account. The email was dated June 8th. Last Tuesday, she realized. The same day the school had called her about Daphne playing hooky.

  Audra dug deeper into Daphne’s computer. She looked through her folders and that’s when she found it—a video file titled, My Story.

  Audra inhaled, felt herself tense. Part of her didn’t want to watch it, afraid of what she might see, what she might learn.

  Still she clicked on it.

  A black screen popped up, then the webcam turned on. Daphne appeared, sitting back from the laptop and staring straight into the camera. She wore her favorite pink sweatshirt and her eyes looked sad and puffy like she’d been crying.

  Riveted, Audra watched her pick up a sheet of paper from the desk.

  “Hi,” it read. “I’m Daphne.” She gave a small wave. “I’m 14 and I’m in the 8th grade.”

  She set the paper aside and picked up another sheet. Like the girls in the Youtube videos, she used them to tell her story.

  “I used to love school. I never had a lot of friends, but the few I had were close to me. Everything was fine until April. That’s when it all began to fall apart. Kids started spreading rumors about me, calling me names in the hallways, before school, and after. Gross. Stinky skank. Smelly pig.” Daphne licked her lips, held up another sheet of paper. “It shocked me at first. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Why were they doing this all of a sudden? I never did anything to anyone.

  “Then it got even worse. It became non-stop. More kids joined in. It seemed like everyone hated me. They called me a bitch. Ugly. Dork. Fucktard. They shoved notes into my locker…”

  Audra felt herself choke up. She clenched her jaw until her muscles hurt, balled her hands into fists, so hard her nails dug into her palms.

  “Girls who used to talk to me, stopped. My best friend won’t have anything to do with me anymore. I know she’s afraid this will happen to her, so she stays away.

  “A couple of weeks ago, kids started getting physical. They pushed me into lockers, bumped into me on purpose, knocked my books out of my hands. They even started posting stuff on Facebook. Stupid, immature stuff. Other people I don’t even know joined in by writing bad comments about me.”

  Daphne paused. Her eyes began blinking rapidly and her chin began quivering. Watching, Audra’s own eyes misted and her chest tightened. It ripped her apart inside to see her daughter in so much anguish.

  Daphne held up more paper. “I never want to show my face at school again. I wish I could go back to when I was happy. I cry myself to sleep. That’s when I can fall asleep. Most nights, I can’t.

  “I’ve even begun to hate myself. I’m an embarrassment to my parents. Both of them are so successful. I wish I could be more like my mother. She’s so strong and brave. I love her so much. And Dad too.” Daphne wiped at an eye. “Thanks for taking the time to watch my video. I just wanted to get this off my chest.”

  Daphne reached toward the laptop and the video ended.

  Audra could feel her heart pounding. She sat there, staring at the black screen, unable to hold back the grief any longer and it flooded out of her in gushes.

  “Oh, God, honey,” she said, sobbing. “Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you tell me about all this?”

  She dropped her head into her hands. The tears rolling off her face came not only from the mother, heartbrok
en over her daughter, they also came from the twelve-year-old girl who had suffered through a similar hell.

  30

  Halifax, June 13

  5:01 p.m.

  Allan frowned when he walked into his office and saw the folded newspaper atop his desk with a yellow sticky note slapped on it. He peeled the note off, recognizing the handwriting as Captain Thorne’s: Thought you’d like to read this.

  Allan crumpled the note into a ball and tossed it in the wastebasket. He took out Audra’s files from the briefcase and stacked them on his desk before finally having a look at the newspaper. It was Saturday’s edition of the Acresville Gazette. Slowly, he read over the front-page story.

  More Trouble On The Farm

  The dairy farm belonging to serial killer, Herbert Peter Matteau, is the focus of another investigation. Police are on the scene today with earthmovers, dump trucks, and ground penetrating radar amid concerns it might hide the remains of Matteau’s long-estranged father, Herbert George Matteau Sr.

  A cousin of the family living in La Guadaloupe, Quebec, reported to authorities that she hadn’t heard from Matteau Sr. since late October 1991, shortly after his wife, Marilyn, passed away.

  So where has he been for over nineteen years? Herb Matteau Jr. told family members his father’s drinking worsened after his mother’s death and one day he just up and left. No prior notice. Nothing.

  The cousin, who wishes to remain anonymous, said the family believed the story because Matteau Sr. had a temperamental personality, drank heavily, and talked about leaving the struggling dairy business behind. Now, after hearing of the murders committed by Herb Matteau Jr., the few surviving family members left are questioning the story.

  In a brief interview, Acresville Police Chief David Brantford said, “We explored the most obvious avenues first: a social security number trace and financial records. Mr. Matteau’s bank account hasn’t been touched nor has he filed a tax return since 1991.

  “We’ve been poring over unidentified bodies cases throughout Canada with no luck yet.”

  When asked if he believes the farm could hide the remains of Matteau Sr., Brantford stated, “That would be speculation. At this point, we’re simply exploring all avenues as to his whereabouts. There’s no evidence that a crime was even committed. Though the circumstances are suspicious.”

  Investigators reported weeks ago that some parts of the Matteau farmhouse were almost museum-like, not having been toughed in years.

  Born in 1938, Herbert George Matteau would be seventy-two now.

  Allan folded up the newspaper and put it down, not knowing what to make of the story. Nineteen years was a long time to have dropped off the face of the earth. But there is a smattering of people who voluntarily walk away from their lives all the time for one reason or another, and become lost among the population. Their disappearances are never reported, never missed.

  On the flip side of that, Allan believed there must’ve been a confluence of social, psychological, and biological factors in Herb Matteau’s past fueling the bloodshed he unleashed. In a way, killing his father made sense. It hinted at abuse in his life, at an unstable environment that could plant the seeds for his antisocial and violent behavior in later years.

  Against his will, Allan pictured Matteau standing on the back steps of his farmhouse, the revolver gripped tight in his hand and that eerie resignation about him. The image had invaded Allan’s dreams since the shooting happened. Only in his dreams, the chain of events differed, became weird.

  Matteau’s revolver is loaded and he brings it up in front of him with lightning speed. Allan raises his own gun in response, but the trigger isn’t there. His index finger taps frantically at empty air as the madman in front of him opens fire. Allan hears the loud pops, sees the muzzle flashes, so bright they sear his eyes. He feels the fiery heat of the bullets rip through his flesh, shredding his organs to pieces. The blood sprays out of the wounds like a water pipe springing a leak and gathers around his feet in an expanding pool.

  The dreams always end with Herb Matteau glaring at him through ribbons of smoke curling up from the end of his revolver.

  Allan wondered if the nightmares were the result of post-shooting trauma. Guilt might be eating away at his subconscious, even though on the surface he felt what he’d done was necessary and justified. After all, he’d thought the revolver was loaded and Matteau had murdered four innocent people. Indirectly caused the death of Cathy Ambré. Had her sister, Trixy, not disappeared, Allan was convinced Cathy wouldn’t have taken her life. Trixy had been the pillar of support Cathy needed to lean on.

  Strangely, Allan realized, he had no nightmares while in Toronto. He wondered if they would come back now that he was back in Halifax, back in this tiring job.

  Allan sat down and rolled up his shirtsleeves, scooted his chair close to the desk. He started to review Audra’s files, searching for some loose piece of information that would help point him in the path of a killer.

  Audra and other officers had interviewed over one hundred people during the initial canvass and recanvass of the area. Only one had seen a suspicious man in the neighborhood during the time of the murder. The same man as on the surveillance video.

  Even if the murder had occurred in broad daylight with witnesses, Allan knew most of them wouldn’t say a word. Dory was a known member of the Black Scorpions, and they had a reputation around Halifax for violence. Two of their members—Jarret Shapiro and Sullivan McAda—were sent to prison last fall for the murder of Ruben Gamble, a poor bystander cut down in a blotched drive-by shooting of a rival gang member. The Black Scorpions were also suspects in several unsolved home invasions, break-ins, and assaults throughout the city over the past few years.

  Dory’s murder came as no surprise to Allan. Those were the risks associated with that culture of violence and danger. What came as a surprise was the sheer brutality of the killing. One could assume it had been a gang-initiated murder, or done by a rival drug gang vying for territory. But why spend so much time with Dory? Why use an axe?

  While uncommon, axes have certainly been used by gangs in the past. So were hammers, cleavers, and chains. They used almost anything they could get their hands on. But it was rare in Halifax. More often than not, gangs in the city used guns they stole from homes around the province. Sometimes black-market ones if they had those connections.

  Allan read Audra’s list of criminals associated with Dory outside of those in his gang. There were nine of them and Allan recognized each name. Four were back in jail. Two had moved away. One had died in a car accident. The remaining two had alibis.

  Allan propped his elbows on top of the desk, lowered his face into his hands, and rubbed his temples. He felt exhausted, weighed down by the day. He needed a jolt of caffeine to keep him awake. There was still so much more work to do.

  Rising from his chair, he left the office and went down to the lunchroom to grab a coffee.

  31

  Halifax, June 13

  5:49 p.m.

  Tabitha Landes lived on Oakland Road in a taupe-colored Cape Cod with a front portico supported by white columns.

  Audra parked in the driveway behind the family car. She got out and walked a flagstone pathway to the front door. The early evening was turning dark and somber, the air heavy and moist.

  Audra rang the bell. Form inside came the clink and clatter of dishes, then a woman yelling that she’d get it.

  Joanna Landes, Tabitha’s mother, opened the door. She was a tiny woman, barely breaking five feet. She had dark hair, cut short and shaggy, and a sharp, little nose and chin. Seeing Audra, her face lit up with surprise.

  “Mrs. Price. What can I do for you?”

  Audra got right to the point. “Tabitha. Is she home?”

  “She’s up in her room,” Joanna said, tossing a glance over her shoulder. “We just finished our supper.”

  “Can I see her, please?”

  “Sure.” Joanna stepped aside. “C’mon in.”


  Audra walked into the foyer. The place smelled of roasted onions and peppers and it triggered a growl in Audra’s stomach. She saw an office to her left, tucked behind French doors. To her right, a staircase, with oak treads and white balusters, rose to the second floor. Straight ahead, an archway opened into a sprawling living room.

  “Is everything all right?” Joanna asked her. “You seem on edge.”

  Audra looked at her. “Did Tabitha ever tell you what was going on at school with Daphne?”

  Joanna frowned, shook her head. “No. Why? Is something going on?”

  “Lots.”

  “Like what?”

  Audra dropped her gaze to the floor, not wanting to get into the details.

  Joanna said, “We asked Tabby why Daphne never comes around anymore. We thought they got into a fight.”

  Audra looked up at her. “What’d she tell you?”

  “Just that Daphne stopped speaking to her.”

  Audra clenched her jaw, feeling anger spring to life inside her. She shut her eyes, opened them again. Keep calm, she told herself. Keep calm. You’re overtired. You’re emotional. No need to upset the applecart.

  “What happened there?” Joanna asked. “Do you know?”

  “Yeah, I know. I know exactly what happened. Can I see her, please?”

  Joanna hesitated. “Sure.”

  She walked over to the staircase and put a hand on the railing.

  “Tabby,” she hollered. “Can you come down here for a sec?”

  She stepped back, crossing her arms. Audra heard thumping feet upstairs, then Tabitha came down the stairs, wearing jeans and a raglan top. When she saw Audra, her mouth dropped open and she stopped on the landing, not making a move to go any farther, looking like she might bolt back upstairs at any second.

  Audra stared at her, remembering the girl, who for years, had come over to the house for sleepovers with Daphne, watching movies or singing karaoke in their living room. A girl who had tagged along with the family to Boston during their vacation last summer, so Daphne could have a friend to chum around with.