The Ninth Life

by E. H. Reinhard

  Eve waited in place for her to lead the way.

  Dana did. Eve walked behind her toward the front office, silently removing the knife from her sheath. Eve looked Dana up and down as she followed—sizing her up. Eve figured the woman would be a fairly easy kill. Dana entered the main office and walked across the dingy green carpet toward the far corner of the room.

  “This is what we have here,” Dana said. “Four or five different sized boxes on the rack here, and the different bubble wraps on the shelf there.” She pointed to each. “How big of boxes do you think that you’ll need?” She turned to look at Eve, awaiting an answer.

  Eve reached out with her left hand and grabbed Dana by the top of her short hair.

  Dana screamed and tried yanking away. Eve wouldn’t allow her grip on the woman’s hair to be broken. Dana fumbled for something at her waist. Eve reached back with the blade and plunged the knife into Dana’s stomach. She ripped it out—blood made a straight line across the carpet, coming from the motion of the blade’s removal. Dana stumbled backward with her hands wrapped around something at her waist. She lifted them, holding a black metal cylinder, just as Eve advanced for another strike.

  A red stream flew through the air at Eve’s face. By the time she saw it, it was too late to react. She knew what it was before it even hit her face. The fire ignited in her eyes and, a split second later, her nostrils. Eve tried opening her eyes, but they slammed shut. She tried taking in a breath through her mouth but immediately felt the pepper spray in her airways. Eve dropped to a knee. She’d felt the pain before in her DOC training—all guards were required to be sprayed down with pepper spray and then put through a combat drill. Eve gagged and spit. Her nose began to fill with mucus. Her eyes and face felt as if someone was holding a blowtorch to them. She put her other knee to the carpet and then both hands. She lifted her right arm, with her hand still clutching her knife, and tried to wipe her face on her sleeve—she knew that it would do no good. She tried again to open her eyes, but they wouldn’t obey. Eve wouldn’t be able to see for minutes, while the searing pain would only intensify.

  The DOC trainer’s instructions echoed in her head—take short breaths and remain calm. Don’t freak out.

  Eve coughed, gagged again, and began shaking the mucus hanging from her face. She stuck her left arm out, reaching for Dana. She felt nothing but worn carpet and the edge of a stack of boxes. Through the blinding pain, Eve caught the sound of movement to her left. She swung the knife in that direction but hit nothing. Eve crawled farther toward where she heard the noise and swatted her hand before her. Her fingertips grazed off a pant leg. Eve reached a few inches up, attempting to grab the leg, but took hold of nothing but a handful of air. Spraying liquid hit her in the side of the face, reigniting and further intensifying the unbearable burning. Eve put her head to the carpet and coughed. She blew the snot from her nose and turned her head to face where the spray had come from. Eve cracked her left eyelid open for not a quarter of a second. Between the welled-up tears, and just before that eye closed itself, she caught a blurry image of Dana a couple of feet away on the ground and lying against the front counter.

  Eve squinted as hard as she could. She tried to center herself, to fight the effects of the pepper spray. She lifted her head from the carpet. Eve knew that Dana’s phone was in the service bay. She remembered seeing one attached to the wall in the office but hadn’t heard Dana making any kind of call. If Dana had been capable of escaping, she would have already made an attempt. Eve balled her right hand around the knife handle into a fist. She put her right leg under herself and then her left. Eve got to her feet and turned toward where she had last seen Dana. She felt the spray smack and wet her face again. Eve took two strides toward where the spray had come from, keeping her eyes sealed as tightly as she could and doing her best to not take a single breath. She felt a hand, almost limp, with no power behind it, slap against the side of her leg. Eve reached down, making contact with Dana’s arm. She pawed her hand off Dana’s arm and wrist. Eve bounced her knuckles off the front counter that Dana was leaning against a few times before her fingertips touched a shoulder. Eve balled her fist into the fabric of Dana’s shirt, crouched to get on her level, and swung the knife into her. Eve felt the familiar sensation of penetrating a body reverberate through the knife’s handle into her hand. She yanked the blade out of Dana and stabbed again and again.

  Dana’s back slid left from the front counter to the carpet. Eve went to her knees and took the knife into an overhand grip. She blindly brought it down into Dana another five times. On the ninth and final blow, she let the knife remain in her body. Eve crawled toward the direction of the front door of the office. When she hit the wall, she attempted to crack her eyes to get a view of the door. Her eyes wouldn’t open. Eve slapped away at the wall, moving to her right until she felt the doorway. She blindly reached up looking for a lock. Her fingertips brushed against it on the third or fourth attempt. Eve flipped the lock and crawled back in the direction of Dana’s body. She stopped when she touched a lifeless arm. Eve shook her head, squinted, and blew mucus from her airways again. She tried to open her eyes repeatedly. Each time they would stay open for a split second longer. She’d need her vision to get Dana to the back, out of sight, and the place closed up before anyone might happen to stop in.

  Chapter 26

  “They have a search warrant for her house,” Hank said. “I just got the call from the sergeant at the Fitchburg PD. They’re going to execute it now.”

  I nodded but said nothing. I’d just walked back into the bookshelf-lined spare bedroom. I’d been next door, looking around Phyllis Boucher’s condo. I stared straight ahead at Rick—he was crouched in front of the deceased woman in the chair. He was getting her fingerprints before her body was removed. Rob stood in front of the built-in desk, near Rick’s kit. He was packaging the prints that Rick was taking.

  Rick looked back over his shoulder at me standing a couple of feet away.

  “Did you figure out the bathroom mystery yet?” he asked.

  “Keeping something cold,” I said. “A body, maybe. I’m going to go ahead and guess that the pink tint to the puddles and water in there is due to blood.”

  “Yeah, I’d think that would probably be a fairly safe bet,” Rick said. “I doubt it was who we’re looking at here though. This female hasn’t been in water or ice. I’m going to test the pink water in the bathroom as soon as I get done in here with her.” Rick pulled a clear plastic strip from one of the woman’s fingers and passed it to Rob. “Here you go.”

  Rob placed the print onto a backing and sealed it up. He tossed it into the tote, closed the lid, and walked toward the door to leave the room, giving me a nod as he passed.

  “What can you tell me about her?” I asked.

  “The prints may give us an ID if she’s in the system, but I’m guessing that you’re fairly certain that you know who we’re looking at here. Aside from that, she was killed like the others. Nine stab wounds. Marks on the face in blood.”

  “Is Rob going back with the prints now?” I asked.

  “Yeah. We had a bunch that weren’t in the system that we pulled from that apartment. Figure that they belonged to the two women that lived there. So we’ll cross-reference the ones we already have with the ones from this woman. Does the woman we think this is have any family that is local? Someone that can make a positive when we get her over by Ed’s?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Donner met with her brother last night. I think he lives in Bradenton.”

  “Might want to get his information to Ed.”

  I looked at Hank.

  “I’ll do that now,” Hank said. He left the room.

  “Aside from the obvious, did you guys find anything else with the search?” Rick asked.

  “We found some cash in the dresser in the master. Just shy of a thousand dollars.”

  “Why would she leave it?” Rick asked.

  “Maybe she planned to return,” I said. “Or
forgot.”

  “What did you see next door at this Phyllis Boucher’s place?” Rick asked. “What was Kevin working on? I sent him over there.”

  “There’s a car in the garage with a trunk full of blood. One of the patrol guys that was in there with me spotted blood on the rear of the car. Kevin got the back open. I expected to find a body in the trunk, but no, just blood. I’m guessing Kleeman used the neighbor’s vehicle, after she killed her, for transporting one of the bodies. The car could have been used to transfer the body over to my condo. Aside from the vehicle, though, we didn’t see anything of interest. When I left, Kevin was printing the car. He said something about having it towed back to the station.”

  “So we’re going to have a full shop back at the lab,” Rick said. “The Acura, the neighbor’s car, and the Audi that we had the BOLO on that’s in the garage downstairs.”

  “Looks like it,” I said. “Did you photograph everything downstairs? The kitchen and stairwell?”

  “Yeah. Photos are done. I may want to get some more as I process each room.” He let out a big breath, stood up straight, and stretched his back. “This is going to take me all day. Let’s actually head down. I’ll walk you through what we have on the lower levels and then come back up to go over the bathroom and everything else.”

  I followed Rick from the room, down the stairs to the second floor. Rick stopped right where the living room met the kitchen, a few feet from the big blood pool that had seeped into the grout joints of the tile and spread a couple of feet in each direction.

  “We’ll get to the pooled blood in a second,” Rick said. “We have kind of a back-and-forth thing going on here. But I’m thinking whatever happened started between this point at the cooler and the stairwell.” He pointed at the cooler on the ground—its lid off and a couple of feet away. “I’m thinking that this was dropped, accounting for the mess we have with the busted beer cans and water on the floor, which was probably ice at the time this all went down. Whatever fluid that was all over our woman, I think it’s pretty safe to assume it came from the pitcher at the bottom of the stairs.” Rick walked to the top of the stairwell and pointed down. “The woman we found at your condo, the neighbor, took a spill down these steps.”

  “Pushed or fell?” Hank asked. He clicked off from his phone call and met Rick and me.

  “Pushed more than likely,” Rick said. “Just from what we believe happened here and some things standing out at the stairs. You see how the red liquid doesn’t start on the walls or steps until about two thirds of the way down?” Rick motioned to the wall and stairs. He took a couple of steps down. “I’d think that would be around here, if she just tripped and fell from the top step.” Rick tapped on the wall to indicate the point. “I’d also think that the sandals would be closer to the top steps if she didn’t have some momentum bringing her down. A few other things point to that as well. The pitcher coming to rest at the bottom of the steps as opposed to somewhere on them. The blood at the landing. The woman’s broken arm, which I believe happened from her trying to catch herself.”

  “Ed said that she had a broken neck as well,” Hank said.

  “So she had to have been carried back upstairs if we believe the blood pool in the kitchen was from her. That was the back-and-forth I was talking about. So carried back up, and set down in the kitchen.” Rick climbed the stairs back to Hank and me and walked to the kitchen. “Stabbed where all of our blood is would be my guess,” Rick said. “There’s a couple of dark hairs in the blood pool. I’d imagine that we’ll match them up to the neighbor woman.”

  My cell phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket and saw that it was Jones calling. I clicked Talk.

  “Yeah, Jones,” I said.

  “Just checking in. What did you get from the woman out at the condo complex?”

  “You haven’t talked to anyone?” I asked.

  “No. I tried calling both you and Sergeant Rawlings after I left the hotel to head to the mall. I didn’t get an answer from either of you. Figured you were still interviewing the woman, and I’d try back after. Which is what I’m doing now. Did you guys get something?”

  I gave Jones the story. What she told us and what we’d found.

  “Do you need me out there?” he asked.

  “We’re probably going to wrap up within the hour or so. Did you get anything from anyone?” I asked.

  “A little. I talked to the girls that Billie Webber went out with on Monday night,” Jones said. “This was at the time that Kleeman was after Erica Osweiler. Her coworkers said nothing seemed off. They did give me a last name and a bit about the boyfriend. It seems he left her for another woman that lived in California, thus the deleted number. Why she hung on to his clothes, they didn’t know. So I have a last name that I have to follow up on. Don’t know what, if anything, I’ll get there.”

  “Erica Osweiler?” I asked.

  “She worked until nine the night she was killed. She left and went across the street there to the Irish pub and grill with two other women that Donner had got me the stills for. Well, I show the stills to the woman that I met with, and she identifies one of the other women as an employee at the clothing store where I was. A girl by the name of Lela Trent, who happened to be working at the time that I was there. So I meet with Ms. Trent, and she tells me who the other woman in the picture was, a Jamie Trelum. Jamie Trelum worked at a cell phone kiosk inside of the mall. She was also at work while I was there. I met with both women and got the same story. They went, grabbed a bite to eat after the mall closed, and parted ways. Both girls said that Erica Osweiler mentioned stopping off to get groceries on the way home. I guess they all headed out just before the pub closed at eleven.”

  “Find out where she was headed?” I asked. “For the groceries.”

  “Neither knew. I’m still in the mall parking lot now. I was just about to start pulling up on a map the places that were in between the Irish bar, across the street from here, and her apartment. I figured that probably would only give me a couple of spots that were still open at the time. I planned to stop in at each and see if I could have a look at any video.”

  “Okay. Continue with that and let me know. We’re going to head back to the station after this.”

  “Sounds good,” Jones said. He clicked off.

  “Jones?” Hank asked.

  “Yeah. He talked to a couple of people. From what he heard, Erica Osweiler planned to make a stop for groceries on her way home. He’s going to pop into a couple of places and see what he can find.”

  “Could have been what was in the trunk beneath her,” Rick said.

  I looked at him, kneeling next to the blood pool and taking a photograph of a bloody hair in the blood.

  Rick snapped another picture and let his camera hang from his neck. “Bags of groceries beneath her could have been what caused the odd blood pattern in the trunk of the car,” he said.

  “No receipt on her or in her vehicle, though,” I said.

  “Probably got tossed into one of the bags,” Hank said.

  A thought crept through my head. I walked to the refrigerator and opened the door—not overly stocked but certainly not bare. I saw some fresh hamburger that sat on a shelf, a package of chicken beside it. Both items had labels from Quigley’s supermarket on them. I knew that there wasn’t one in the immediate area. On the top shelf sat a jug of milk and a carton of coffee creamer that were almost full—again, from Quigley’s. A head of lettuce, nice and bright green, sat next to a couple of other assorted and packaged vegetables. I turned and looked across the counter at a coffee maker with two bags of coffee, one still sealed, different brands. I walked to the sink and opened the cabinets below, where I found a spray bottle of cleaner and a couple of miscellaneous items. No garbage can, which was what I was looking for. I walked to a door, next to the oven, and opened it—a pantry. The garbage can that I sought stood by itself on the floor. With my foot, I pressed down the lever at the bottom to open the lid. I leaned and looked inside
.

  “We got bags in here,” I said. I turned back toward Rick and Hank. “Bloody bags,” I added.

  Chapter 27

  Hank came to my side next to the refrigerator in the kitchen. We watched Rick lean over the garbage can and remove the final blood-covered plastic bag. The bags had no writing on them to show where they’d come from. Rick took a step and set the bag down next to the others on a five-foot-square plastic sheet that he’d placed on the kitchen floor.

  “Seven total,” Rick said. “And I’m betting with a little Luminol, I’ll find blood on the groceries in the house as well.”

  I pointed at a bag in the center. Through the gray plastic, I could see the white of a piece of paper—the receipt we were looking for, I imagined.

  Rick removed his gloves, which had blood on them, and set them beside the bags on the plastic—we waited as he put on a fresh pair. Rick crouched beside the bag in question and slipped his hand inside. He pulled the paper out and held it at his eye level. “Quigley’s,” he said. “Eleven thirty-three at night. The right date. It’s the location on East Fletcher.”

  “What is that, a mile from where she worked at the university mall?” I asked. I looked at Hank.

  “If that,” he said. “So what, Kleeman took Erica Osweiler’s groceries? After she killed her on top of them? Who the hell does that?” Hank asked.

  “Who the hell kills people and draws little nines on their faces in blood?”

  “Point taken,” Hank said.

  I took my phone from my pocket. “Eleven thirty-three, Rick?” I asked to confirm.

  “Yeah,” Rick said.

  I dialed up Jones. He picked up after two rings.

  “Lieutenant,” he said.

  “We have a location and a time for you.”

  “What? How?” he asked.

  “We found the bags from the groceries in Kleeman’s condo. Receipt in the bag. Quigley’s on Fletcher. Eleven thirty-three checkout time.”

  “So she killed her and stole her groceries?” Jones asked.