by J. D. Monroe
“Not yet,” Georgia says.
Charity sighs. For a moment, guilt sweeps over her and twists her gut into a tight knot. Their stakeout was a waste of time. What should they have done differently that would have prevented this?
For now, there’s no time for soul-searching. Now is the time for action. She flips down the mirror and examines herself. Lord, she looks like fresh-shoveled shit. She licks one finger and wipes away the dark smudges of eyeliner under her eyes, then freshens her mascara. At least she resembles a human being now.
She lets out a jaw-cracking yawn. “Did you stay manage to stay awake all night?”
“Yeah,” Georgia says. “You want some coffee on the way?”
“If I drink any more caffeine, I’m going to start sweating espresso,” Charity says. “I need a cold shower and sleep.” For more reasons than one. “Are you one hundred percent sure you’re human?”
“Last time I checked.”
Charity shakes her head. The girl is going to crash before much longer. She has to. For now, Georgia’s the one operating the heavy machinery, so Charity rests her head against the cool window. The air conditioning feels divine after a night in the humid, still air of the vacant house. She’s already halfway to dreamland again when the car stops suddenly, parking brake grinding into place.
The crime scene is at an empty elementary school on the opposite side of town from the college. Franklin Elementary is aged and decrepit, bricks crumbling and vines winding their way up its walls like poisoned veins. There’s a single police car here. Beautiful.
Georgia parks a block down the street. They tromp through the overgrown grass, shuffling and rustling in the eerie quiet of dawn. Morning dew clings to her jeans and plasters them to her legs.
Charity glances back at Georgia. “Get your phone ready. Take as many pictures as you can.”
Wild grass gives way to muddy, hard-packed sand behind the abandoned building. The playground is a rusted wonderland of orange oxidized metal and flaking paint. The body lies face up next to a bench by a still merry-go-round. A coffee can nearly full of cigarettes and burnt-out joints sits under a leg of the bench. One cop slowly circles the body, while his partner ties a yellow tape to a lightpost on the edge of the playground.
She flicks her gaze to Georgia. Her green eyes are wide, fixated on the body. His skin is the gray of old cigarette ash in the early morning light. One eye is a dark, empty cave. White bone juts out of his chest like a fairy ring of toadstools, raw, red meat laying out on display. It’s déjà vu.
Acid burns the back of her throat, and Gabe’s face melts into her father’s. She could have described the tableau long before they set foot on the scene. Her chest tightens, and she suddenly can’t get a full breath.
“It’s Gabe,” Georgia murmurs. “Was.” Her face is corpse-white and clammy. She looks like she just crawled out of the grave herself.
Charity touches her arm lightly. “Georgia, stay with me. You get pictures, and I’ll distract the cop.”
Andy Pierson died a long time ago, she reminds herself. It might as well have been yesterday. Most of the time, she doesn’t have to think about the details of how he died. His absence eventually became a valley, a gap in her heart with its rough places smoothed out by time. But this brings everything crashing back, with all its jagged edges. She can hear the ragged sound of his last breath and smell the thick metal scent of blood soaking into the musty old carpet.
This is your chance to make it right, she tells herself. Toughen up, sugar. This isn’t your daddy, so save your tears.
She takes a deep breath and holds it until her chest hurts. When she lets it out in a heavy sigh, the tension in her throat eases, and she walks confidently to the body, stopping inches from Gabe’s foot.
The cop snaps to attention and hurries toward her, putting up his hands to hold her off.
“Excuse me, I’m Christina Dupree with The Tribune,” she barks, trying to get as close as she can to block him from seeing Georgia. She doesn’t even know what the local paper is called. Hopefully the cop is more concerned with preserving his crime scene. “When was the body discovered?”
“Christ, the kid’s not even cold yet,” the cop complains. His face is pallid under close-cropped blond hair. His silver nametag reads Gulley. “Have some fuckin’ respect.”
“I respect the people of Brentwood. They deserve to know if we have a serial killer in town, Officer Gulley,” she says. “Is this murder related to the Crane death?”
“A serial— Don’t write that,” Gulley snaps. “Come on.”
The radio attached to Gulley’s belt chirps. “I got a confirmation on your ID, 378. Gabriel Mullins.” Gulley slaps at the radio to turn the volume down.
“Mullins,” she mutters, jotting the name down. “Can you tell me what happened here?”
He sighs and monotones a well-rehearsed speech. “I cannot give you any information at this time.”
She glances over to Georgia, who’s taking a picture of the body. Her pale hands shake, and her phone hits the sand. Her hand covers her mouth and nose as she kneels to pick it up, bringing her within inches of Gabe’s unseeing eye. Her shoulders hunch as she heaves.
Don’t you puke, she thinks. If I can keep it together, so can you.
Charity leans in closer to Gulley and pushes the recorder up to his lips. His nostrils flare in irritation as she drills him. “Cause of death? What time did you find him? Do you have any suspects?”
Gulley scowls and snatches the recorder out of her hand. “Listen, ma’am, you’re going to have to wait until we set up the scene,” he spits into the microphone. “The cause of death is that someone killed this poor kid. They killed him real ugly. Please. Have some respect.”
“But—”
“Ma’am!”
Georgia holds up the phone and gives her a thumbs-up.
Charity puts up her hands in defense and leans back from Gulley. He relaxes, looking relieved at having apparently won the battle of wills. “You know what, I get it. I’m just trying to make a living, same as you. I know it’s shitty.”
“Eh.” He waves her off and scratches at the light reddish stubble on his jawline. “This is a bad one.”
“Yeah. They always are,” Charity says. “Hey, can I get my recorder back?”
Gulley gives her a stink eye and hands it back. “Now clear my scene.”
“Yes, sir,” she says. She beats a hasty retreat and meets Georgia back at the car.
“Charity—”
“Car.”
They yank the doors shut in unison and both begin babbling at once.
“You first,” Georgia finally says.
“It’s connected,” Charity says. “I’ve seen this before. This is definitely about Harmony’s knife. And the cop confirmed it was Gabriel Mullins.”
“So he came here to smoke with kids from the theater,” Georgia says. “Adam was in the play with him.”
“And Adam had already left when we got there last night.”
“So how do we find Adam?”
“Let’s go to class and see how History of Homicide is going.”
24. LESSONS LEARNED
THE SUN FINALLY CLEARS the horizon as they drive across town to Brentwood University. The east lot is nearly empty, and Georgia finds a prime parking spot near the front. She leaves the air conditioning on and reaches for her phone. “Scanner,” she says as explanation. At first, the broadcast is quiet, just a steady white noise.
Then a female voice speaks. “378, the Crime Scene Unit is headed your way. Over.”
“Copy, dispatch.”
“Hey, see if anything has shown up on the news yet. Please,” Georgia says.
Charity opens the web browser on her phone and searches for Brentwood local news. She comes up with three sites and checks each one in turn. Not a word yet. The most recent story she finds is a weather report posted at four this morning on News Channel Four. “Nothing. Probably won’t be anything until they’ve notified
his family.”
Georgia nods. “You think it was Adam?”
“Had to be,” Charity says. “It’s not much consolation, but Gabe was already long gone by the time we arrived. He’d been dead a few hours at least, I’d bet. We didn’t have a chance of stopping it.”
“I don’t know. What if we’d gotten to Adam earlier? Maybe he would—”
“Stop,” Charity says. “That is a topic for preferably never.”
“But—”
“Did I stutter? We have to move forward,” Charity says. “I’m serious. What if is a dark road that’s claimed better than us.”
The what-if game is paralyzing in this business. She learned as much from Patience; you weigh your information, make a decision, and then you trust that it was the best one you could make at the time. Patience got that from Harmony, who had her own version: It’s real easy to see the clearest path when you’re already sittin’ on top of the mountain.
Honestly, Charity always thought that was a bit of a cop-out. Harmony and Patience both used it as an excuse to get out of being held responsible for anything they did. But the sentiment isn’t a bad one. Once something is done, there’s no undoing it, no returning to factory settings. There’s no point in crying over what can never be fixed. In theory, of course.
That doesn’t mean she hasn’t had her share of self-doubt. She’s spent many a night lying awake, replaying the night of her father’s death. What if she woke up earlier? What if she stayed up late with Dad and saw Harmony coming? What if she just shot Harmony in the leg to put her down? It was a never-ending rabbit hole. The first few months after it happened, she’d wake up Christina a couple of nights a week for reassurance, and she always said the same thing. What’s done is done. All you can control is right now.
Georgia sighs heavily and switches off the scanner. “I guess. Calloway’s class is at nine, so we’ve got an hour and a half to kill.”
“Bad choice of words,” Charity says. “Coffee, then library.”
“Admitting defeat?”
“One of us requires sleep,” Charity says. “And I’m running low.”
As they trudge across campus to the library, they pass a trickle of students headed to class. Some are bleary-eyed and look like they just rolled out of bed. She feels a sense of solidarity with them. Why anyone would want to be in class this early is beyond her. A pair of girls jogs past them, chatting brightly as they run. Nothing is chasing them, sunrise is barely a memory, and they’re even smiling about it.
There’s already a line backed up at the coffee cart in front of the library. It’s going to be another long day, so she goes for another cup of coffee to stave off the impending crash. After they pay, they sit on a wrought iron bench near the fountain. The rush of water is soothing after the gruesome scenery of their morning. “Let’s see the pictures.”
Georgia blanches. “Do we have to?”
“Nothing starts off your morning quite like a good crime scene photo,” Charity says. “Yes, we have to.”
Georgia takes her phone out and opens her album to the pictures she snapped of Gabe. The sight of it makes Charity’s stomach turn. Gabe’s face blurs into her uncle John, and then into her father. God, she can’t wait to nail Adam Keller to a wall.
“This is exactly what Harmony did,” Charity says quietly. “Hundred bucks says he stabbed Gabe right here first.” She presses her hand to her solar plexus, feeling for the pliable muscle under her sternum.
“So Adam’s a copycat?” Georgia says.
“Can’t be,” Charity says hesitantly. “All those details were left out of the papers. And the autopsy reports aren’t public record; only next of kin can authorize a copy to be released. And we never did.”
“So how did he know?”
“It’s the knife,” Charity says. “I can’t explain it, but it has to be. Adam stole it, and it somehow compelled him to kill.” Like it did to Harmony. Shit.
Her memory is so clouded by what Harmony did, what she savagely destroyed, that Charity can barely remember the days before it. Did Harmony act strange? She must have given a clue. Patience knew about the shadow, but she thought it was a run-of-the-mill spirit. Maybe they could have saved her before it went so bad. Instead, Charity adopted the shoot first, ask questions later philosophy. She had to, but what if—
Enough, she tells herself. The bullets have already flown.
“So do we call the police? Adam’s got to be our guy,” Georgia says.
“And tell them what? We think a cursed knife made him murder two of his friends?”
“We could tell them he’s the most likely suspect.”
“We need to talk to him and be sure,” Charity says. “And find out where the knife is. If they take him in, it’s just going to get picked up again like it did with Harmony. I want it, and I want to destroy it.”
Georgia nods, then zooms in on the picture of Gabe. She cringes and holds it out to Charity. “What’s with the eye?”
“I don’t know,” Charity says. “But Tommy’s spirit at the theater was missing an eye, too.”
“Souvenirs?”
“Maybe,” Charity muses. “Never seen that before. Harmony didn’t do that part.”
Then again, maybe that had been next on her to-do list, right after killing Patience.
Georgia checks her watch. “It’s getting close to time. So we just walk in and grab Adam?”
Charity shakes her head. “Patrick had the hots for you,” she says.
“Really?”
“Get a clue. You could have tapped that six ways to Sunday if you were so inclined.”
“Which I’m not.”
“I gathered as much,” Charity says. “Anyway, you sit in the class and try to talk to him. I’ll wait outside and watch for Adam to come out, then I’ll follow him.”
“And do what?”
Charity smiles. “Convince him to talk.”
“What if he attacks you?”
“Oh, I certainly hope so,” Charity says. Georgia gapes. “If he does, we know it’s him, and we’ve got solid evidence to take to the police. I’ll take a hit or two if I can nail his skinny ass to the wall.”
The lobby of the Crenshaw building is mostly deserted except a cluster of students on one of the big blue couches. They’re crammed around one girl shuffling through a deck of flash cards, chiming words in Spanish. Charity recognizes grande and verde from her frequent stops at hole-in-the-wall Mexican joints. The rest might as well be Chinese.
“See you soon,” Georgia says. She heads upstairs to the second floor lecture hall, leaving Charity alone in the lobby. There’s a small, glass-enclosed study lounge in one corner of the first floor. The glass walls give a perfect view of both entrances to the building. She walks in and spreads the contents of her bag across the table to discourage anyone from coming to join her.
Starting at five minutes till nine, a thin trickle of students turns into a flood through the lobby. Among the crowd is Adam Keller, who looks like he hasn’t slept in a year. His jaw is scruffy with dark stubble, and his eyes are ringed in shadow. Her heart thrums, and her hand instinctively goes to her back for the hunting knife. Adam is engrossed in reading something on his phone and doesn’t notice her watching him.
She considers grabbing him now. Drag him to the bathroom, smash his creepy face against the wall, and put her knife down his pants. With eight inches of tempered steel to his dick, he’ll tell her anything she wants to know. Money-back guarantee.
Then again, if she gets spotted, or Adam screams for mercy—and he will—she’s screwed. Better to wait until she can corner him alone. She settles back in her seat and props up her feet.
A few minutes later, Georgia texts her.
Georgia: I’m in. Patrick is here. Just saw Adam walk in. Not sitting together.
Charity: Ask Patrick if he heard anything.
Georgia: Working on it. Not sure how to be cool about asking if his best friend is a serial killer.
Charity’s ey
elids flutter, and she jolts upright. If she sits too long, she’s going to crash. She stands and checks her phone, pulling up News Channel Four’s website again. As of 8:32, they’re reporting an “unidentified body found at Franklin Elementary School.” It’s barely more than a blurb and says that the identity of the victim is being withheld until authorities notify the family. Her throat clenches as she remembers the horrific state of Gabe’s body. No one should have to see a loved one like Adam left him, and certainly no one should suffer the way Gabe surely did. Judging by his hands, clawed deep into bloody sand, he was fighting for his life even as Adam ripped him to pieces.
Her hand goes to her father’s necklace. I’m sorry we didn’t save you, she finally admits. Maybe if they’d been more aggressive with Adam, or followed him straight out of the sandwich shop yesterday, they’d have kept Gabe alive. She sighs and shakes her head. Hypocrite.
Class has been in session for almost an hour when Georgia texts her again.
Georgia: Patrick says Adam has been acting weird. He kept talking about Harmony. Supposed to meet last night to work on their project but Adam never showed.
Charity: OK. Let me know if he leaves.
Georgia: K
Thirty minutes later, Georgia texts her again.
Georgia: Class over. Adam is calling someone. Might want to watch yourself.
“Showtime,” Charity mutters. She grabs her necklace again and looks up at the smooth-painted ceiling. “Please help me stop him. No more bodies on this one, please.”
She repacks her bag and hovers at the door. As classes let out all over the building, the lobby fills with students. Her heart races as she watches for Adam. He should stand out; his height puts him a good few inches above the crowd. A beanie bobbing above the sea of people catches her eye, and she starts to follow it like a tour guide’s umbrella. Then the beanie turns to reveal a Hispanic guy in thick glasses. Shit.
The early rush trickles out. Did she miss him? Surely not. She was watching like a hawk.
Another cluster of students emerges from the far stairwell, and Adam is at the back. He shuffles slowly, staring in horror at his phone. Yeah, you got caught, shithead.
