“You’re going to get this town buzzing,” said Hamill.
“Good.”
The call went straight to voicemail and Dana left a fumbling message. Dana Gates. State police. Urgent matter. You’re not in trouble. Just need to talk. Here’s my number. Have a good night.
She hung up, feeling foolish and frustrated.
“The chief, the DA, even the captain . . . you know how it is,” she grumbled. “They’re going to want to keep everything tight until they give their press release in the morning.” She chewed on her thumb some more, watching as the stores rolled by; the empty parking lots. “I want it out, out tonight, have everybody paying attention. I want to flush out this kid, Perry Brady. I want him running scared, and have him trip and fall and mess up. Then I want to be there standing over him when he tells me where this third girl is.”
CHAPTER TEN / All Creatures Degenerate
Dana pulled into her driveway at two a.m., almost twelve hours after Sonia Taylor had been found in the Clair River.
Hamill was bunking at the substation in New Brighton for the night. Hamill had no kids, no wife, and could stay if need be, crash on one of the small cots in the back of the station and sleep like a log. Dana couldn’t. Not even on a case like this. She had a family.
She killed the engine and sat there, outside her house. She needed to talk herself down. There was nothing she could do at the moment. They’d either find Perry Brady tomorrow and get him to sign off on a search of his house, or get the warrant, if they had to, on the lie. The forensic team would officially “find” the book, and then they’d all cast a wide net for Lange. She was probably dead already, anyway.
She jumped out of the car. It was a little colder here than in Plattsburgh and a light snow was falling. She put her palms against the cold driver-side door, bent her head down. Her stomach clenched, her chest heaved, and the Thai noodles splattered on the ground. She closed her eyes, breathed in slowly through her nose. Then she gathered up her bag and gear and headed around to the back of the house where the entrance led into the basement.
It was an A-frame, built in the 1990s by an eager do-it-yourselfer who’d later succumbed to his own pioneering efforts. A chainsaw had bucked back at him, and his DIY days were over. Because of his gruesome death, Dana and Shawn had got it for a song.
In the years since, they’d tried to keep ahead of the increasing demands of their family. Shawn had refurbished the basement himself, remodeling the camp-style bathroom. There were two bedrooms and a tiny office on the basement floor. Their teenager, Sarah, had her own room. The younger girls, Ria and Kayla, bunked together.
Dana crept into the basement and quietly closed the door. She went into her office. At six-by-nine feet, the space was more like a large closet than an office, though Sarah, a vegan, had self-righteously informed her mother that whole families dwelled in spaces smaller than that.
She dropped her bag and draped her coat over the back of the chair. Her laptop was open on the desk and she hit the Enter key to rouse it out of hibernation. She tiptoed out of the room and headed to the bathroom as the computer booted up. She ran the tap and splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth. She noted the smear of toothpaste on the mirror, and another sizeable dollop of it in the sink. At eight, Kayla was still a complete slob when it came to brushing her teeth.
Shawn rarely came down here. This was the girls’ territory, and Dana had annexed one small part of it. Shawn’s dominion was the rest of the house; the main floor. There was a woodstove in the living room which heated the upstairs. The loft was where Dana and her husband parked their double bed, with little room for much else, except for the two cats.
She thought of the cat Scott Dunham claimed had run away. The empty pet carrier where she’d found Sonia Taylor’s backpack. The drawing in the boy’s room, the macabre image of the creature with a human body and the head of a bull.
She padded back to her office, peeking in on each bedroom as she went. She heard a low burble of voices, which made her heart jump. She crept closer to Ria’s bed, and found that her ten-year-old had fallen asleep with headphones on. Some serial show was streaming on her tablet, kid actors nattering away, ebullient audience too quick to laugh. Dana shut it off.
She typed out some of her notes on the laptop. There was going to be mounds of paperwork on this case, and it was good to get a head start. After half an hour, though, she could barely keep her eyes open. She picked up her phone and scrolled to the picture of Scott’s artwork. She stared at the strange hybrid creature for what felt like a long time.
She powered down the phone, the picture blinking off, and headed upstairs.
* * *
The loft was nestled just below the apex of the ceiling, so that the walls of the room sloped at a steep pitch. She ducked as she removed her clothes and then slid into the bed beside Shawn. She heard the soft drop of an unseen cat jumping from the bed.
Shawn mumbled and rolled to face her, though his eyes were still closed when he spoke.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. Everything was not okay, not even close.
“How did it go?” His words were a sleep-drunk mumble.
Did he really want to know? No. She stared up at the ceiling. The last time she’d communicated with him was just before she’d made her way to the first body. She’d told him that someone had been found in the river. “Hear anything?”
“Mmm?”
“About today.”
“Not really,” he said, sounding a little more awake.
“Not really?”
“I mean, no. I didn’t hear anything. I don’t have a sewing circle.”
“You know what I mean. Maybe the girls, after school? Some of their friends? Sarah, on Facebook?”
Shawn frowned in thought. “No. They got home from school, Ria practiced her clarinet, we picked up Sarah from drama, and Kayla was her usual self. I swear that girl eats more food than the other two combined.”
“She’s growing.” A fairly useless thing to say, she thought. She put an arm beneath her head and looked up into the dark. She felt her husband watching her.
“You okay?”
“I don’t know. There was another victim.”
He sat up and propped his head on his own arm. “Really.”
“In Plattsburgh. The girls were students there. We found the first girl’s boyfriend’s house. No one home. We think we saw him earlier, at a bar, where she worked. He may have run from us. Whoever did, led us to the second body.”
“You’re kidding me.” She could smell minty toothpaste on his breath, the faint scent of his body, traces of wood. Shawn was a stay-at-home father, but he had a side business logging and doing carpentry work. It wasn’t always easy, and sometimes he resented it, but overall it worked. She wondered how late he’d waited up for her, if at all. She wondered why she was telling him any of this, when she almost never discussed open cases with him.
“I’ve got two sets of parents to talk to tomorrow. I’ll get time of death on the first girl; the second girl won’t be exact. But then we’ll check alibis.”
“You have suspects?”
“The boyfriend. He’s top of the list. But an adjunct professor is a person of interest. We’re also going to check on a maintenance man. There just wasn’t time tonight.” She thought of the names crossed out in the back of the book.
All creatures degenerate.
“But like I said,” she went on, “we need time of death. We need cause of death, but forensics have found nothing obvious on the bodies, nothing at the scenes, and tox screenings take some time. So, we don’t even know what happened.” She stopped herself saying more.
The libido is rampant in the existential vacuum. The world soul is black in hue.
She was getting worked up again, and it was late; she needed rest.
Maybe they just drowned.
Maybe they committed suicide. Formed a pact.
“You need to sleep,�
�� Shawn said. He laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes.
She looked at him, thinking about the last time they’d had sex. Even before this case she’d been coming in late. Most of the time Shawn stayed asleep when she got into bed. They hadn’t been intimate for exactly six weeks and six days. There was a pall hanging over the marriage. Neither of them knew how to address it. She would broach the subject, but Shawn would give her a look that meant she was out playing hero while he was holding the family together.
She stared up at the vaulted ceiling, into the darkness there.
“It’s all going by so fast,” she said softly.
“What?” He mumbled. “The case?”
“Our lives.”
She thought maybe he opened his eyes, but she didn’t check. Instead, she reached over to him and placed her hand on his chest.
The quiet descended.
She felt like something terrible was going to happen.
DAY TWO
CHAPTER ELEVEN / The FBI
She was more tired than she’d expected. Backing out of the driveway in the Corsica, she saw her reflection in the rear-view mirror. Dark circles burned through the little bit of makeup beneath her eyes. She wasn’t such a young woman anymore. She was forty. She had ten years as a detective. Married and with kids for more than that. It added up, after a while, and four hours of sleep was no longer sufficient.
The sun flared from behind the bare trees as she wound her way out of Hazleton. She needed to drive to Desiree first, to the state police headquarters, where a briefing had been called with the captain and lieutenant. In a short time, Holly Arbruster’s parents would be arriving at the morgue to ID their daughter. The Taylors had identified their own daughter two hours ago, according to Hamill. She’d spoken with him briefly by phone before rushing out of the house.
She’d left them all sleeping. The three girls and her husband, nestled in bed, the smokestack pealing out a long white trail. There had been a time when she’d gotten up and left for work with conviction. She was going off to save the day and her young family was warm and secure at home. The girls knew that their lives were untraditional, but the world had changed. Mothers worked. Sometimes mothers had all-consuming careers. They would be waiting for her when she got back, and they would be happy to see her, and they would understand.
But a gnawing guilt had never gone away, and she knew she was missing her daughters’ lives. They were growing up too fast. She worried she didn’t know them. That her husband was becoming a stranger, a roommate she used to date a long time ago.
She’d let herself believe she was going to make up the time at some point. Somehow. That a moment would come, and she’d be able to magically get back the days. The years.
She swung by the substation first and picked up Hamill, who didn’t look any better than he’d sounded on the phone. The two of them rode in silence, each gripping their coffees. Hamill lit a smoke and cracked the window.
“Do you have to?”
“Doctor’s orders,” said Hamill and exhaled.
They took a winding mountain pass through the Cascade Lakes. The sky was clear and blue, the water silver. They drove past the Olympic ski jumps in Lake Placid, and out the back way, alongside a cemetery.
“You still go to church?” Hamill watched the gravestones blur past.
“No. You?”
“Yeah, work and church, you know my motto.”
In ten minutes they were at the barracks. They found the group of state police gathering in the central conference room. Captain Bouchard looked crisp and alert, if a bit stuffed into a suit that was one size too small. Lieutenant Mandrake was a tall man, with long hands and fingers that looked like some alien creature Dana had seen in a movie. There were around a dozen state troopers present.
Standing against the wall, behind the captain and lieutenant, were two men Dana didn’t recognize. She figured them for FBI by their suits and demeanor. Less than twenty-four hours, and the Feds were looming. She’d been expecting them.
Bouchard explained that the forensic pathologist had worked through the night. Poehler had turned in preliminary autopsy reports on the two decedents, but any post-mortem toxicology was going through confirmatory testing from forensic chemists. They had high hopes for timely results, but it was thirty days, at an absolute minimum.
“The preliminary report doesn’t give us much,” he said.
“Were they raped?” asked Hamill.
“Not that the pathologist has been able to determine. PERK tests are negative. No internal injuries in the prelim, but the tissue and fluid samples could tell a different story, along with the blood. External injuries are minor; superficial wounds, scrapes and abrasions, incidental to post-mortem time in the water.”
Dana spoke up. “Are we sure they drowned?”
“Poehler confirms water in the lungs, yes. Drowning appears probable.”
The cops in the room fidgeted and murmured. Dana looked at her partner. Drowning, without signs of struggle, strongly suggested they’d been drugged, phenobarbital, something. It could also just mean drunk-and-passed-out, but Dana had never thought that was likely. The captain waved his hands in the air to quiet the chatter.
“But we see such similarities in the characteristics of the decedents; age, race, gender, and the fact that they both went to the same school. These things are keeping us on our toes.”
Dana could think only of Maggie Lange. Time could be running out for her. Or she was another girl already dead and floating somewhere.
Bouchard was clocking Dana. “Local cops found Perry Brady early this morning. He was on foot, headed for a dormitory. He was accompanied by an unidentified female. Cops did not approach him, but have sat watch on the dorms. He’s still there. Detectives, you can head straight there from here.”
Dana felt elation mixed with concern. She searched the captain’s face, hunting for any sign that he knew Dana and Hamill had entered Brady’s house the night before. But Bouchard seemed to have other things on his mind, like the two suits standing behind him. “First, ladies and gentleman, this is Special Agent Jodi Yarrow, with the FBI, and U.S. Attorney Petra Welliver. They’re going to be observing things today, and offering their assistance where appropriate.”
Yarrow leaned forward and said something to the captain that Dana couldn’t hear. The captain listened and then returned his attention to the group. “Agent Yarrow would like a word.” He stepped aside and Yarrow came forward. The slender, urbane man took the podium where the captain had been standing, spread his hands out and gripped its edges.
“I just wanted to quickly introduce myself personally and put any concerns to rest. My name is Jodi Yarrow, special agent with the FBI.” He had a Southern drawl. “For the record, okay, and to allay any concerns I can already see etched into your faces, state and local law enforcement are not subordinate to the FBI. We don’t supervise or take over investigations.” He looked right at Dana for a moment. “And no actions so far on your part have hastened our arrival. You all have been doing a great job. Rather, our investigative resources are at your disposal. We’re here to work with you, give you whatever you need. Many task forces composed of FBI agents and state and local officers have been formed to locate fugitives and to address serious threats like serial murder. So, good luck out there; we’re here if you need us.” He smiled and stepped away from the podium.
Dana thought it was a nice gesture, but unfortunately the presence of a U.S. Attorney contradicted everything Yarrow had just said. The FBI was primarily responsible for investigating possible violations of federal law as well as assisting in a broad spectrum of cases, like this one. But the FBI did not decide if an individual would be prosecuted. They didn’t even offer an opinion. The responsibility for this lay with federal prosecutors or the U.S. Attorney’s Office. And there was a U.S. Attorney standing right there, wearing a charcoal gray suit, red hair pulled back in a tight bun, looking thirty-years-mean and ready to hold court.
“Do we have a firm time of death for Sonia Taylor?” Dana was anxious to get out of the room, back to the campus, kick down the dorm room doors. But she had to be careful.
Bouchard returned to the podium and checked his notes there. “Noon yesterday,” he said.
“And Arbruster?”
“On the sixth. Midday also, Poehler thinks.”
“A week ago. Midday. Also Friday. Okay.”
Bouchard’s hard stare lingered on Dana.
“Well, it confirms Arbruster was missing for three days before anyone reported her,” she said. “I think that’s noteworthy. College being what it is, okay, kids are in their own world. But, three days could be significant.”
Bouchard said blankly, “Point noted. You two are going to see the parents?”
“Yes, sir,” said Hamill. “Right after we visit with Perry Brady.”
“You be nice as hell to those parents,” Captain Bouchard said. “And be brief. Thorough, but brief.”
Dana nodded. “Got it.” She wasn’t thinking about the parents. Her hands curled into fists thinking about Perry Brady.
CHAPTER TWELVE / The Dorms
At just past ten on Saturday morning, the dorms were quiet. Dana went first through the glass doors, feeling a rush of blood.
She kept her firearm holstered, her fingers twitching in the air as she bounded up the four steps onto the first level. She turned down the hallway and strode to the door marked 116, her partner close on her heels.
Dana squared her shoulders, held a deep breath, and knocked.
“Dana Gates, state police. Open up, please.”
She heard a muffled noise, a thump, and then the sound of someone approaching. Her fingertips brushed the strap on her holster. In her mind she saw the lake in vivid detail, a body in a red shirt floating out beyond reach.
The door swung open.
“Maggie Lange?”
“Yeah?”
Maggie looked alarmed. Her eyebrows were plucked to sharp points, her hair dyed bright blonde and shaved on the sides. She wore multiple earrings and a nose ring. She clutched a bed sheet around her, her hands trembling.
DARK KILLS a gripping detective thriller full of suspense Page 7
