None Shall Sleep

by Ellie Marney

  “Yes. Yes, I’ve seen him again.”

  “Was anything I suggested helpful? Because he can be very difficult. And I’ve thought of some more things. They’re just little bits and pieces, but I wrote them down on a scrap of paper, here.…” Kristin lifts her hand and there’s a little satin pouch attached to her wrist by a string. She opens it, feels inside, then steps forward and simply upends it on the desk. “I’m afraid they searched it when I came in, and I… Oh, here it is.…”

  Among the weirdest collection of handbag items Bell has ever seen—an acorn, a handkerchief, three red leaves, a cork from a bottle, dried rose petals, a stub of pencil—is a loosely folded piece of notepaper. Kristin fishes it out and smooths it open. Over her shoulder, Bell catches Emma’s glance, her quickly glared What the hell? He can only reply with a helpless shrug, which Kristin doesn’t see while her eyes are down.

  “You’ve written out more tips about Simon?” Emma says. “That’s, um—”

  “Because you might have to see him again.” Kristin looks up. “If his insights are about the Berryville case, you might need to. Because solving that case is really important.”

  “It is important,” Bell agrees.

  “Then you need my help. Or rather, I need to be able to help.” Color in her cheeks now. “It makes me feel better, to help.”

  The idea of Kristin Gutmunsson assuaging her conscience like this rasps on him. But the Christian in him—or maybe it’s his mother’s voice—is saying let her have her atonement.

  Emma is more merciful.

  “I understand,” she says gently. “And anything you can give us would be great.”

  Kristin flattens out the paper. “Look, here are the notes.”

  Bell sees the case file nearby on the desk. Emma has stuffed all the pages together and closed the folder. A couple of the victim identification photos are peeking out, but Kristin is focused on her list—it is a list, he can see.

  “Simon likes… good-quality red wine?” Emma reads down, following her finger. “And I shouldn’t talk about your parents?”

  “You could bribe him with the wine. Even one glass! He must miss that so much.”

  “Your brother enjoys refined amusements.” Emma’s tone is very borderline.

  “Yes, he’s a bit of a snob like that.” Kristin smiles. “I can’t criticize really! It’s the way we were raised. Our parents had the best of intentions, I’m sure, but I’m afraid they never did much follow-through.”

  During Simon Gutmunsson’s trial, Bell discovered this part of the twins’ history: how their parents absconded for Europe to avoid litigation around Simon’s victims. How the Gutmunssons Senior had never been very parental to begin with, except in the old-money way of nannies and detached nurseries and expensive boarding schools.

  Emma arrows in. “You think Simon’s upbringing is a vulnerability in him. A chink in his armor.”

  Kristin piles objects back into her pouch. “Well, he’s always been an outsider. Our circumstances, our education, plus how clever he is, and of course his own particular tendencies…” She sighs heavily. “The difficulty with Simon is that he always drew strength from that, from being different. I wanted to be normal, but Simon… Simon wanted to be special. It was that or hate himself. Do you see how impossible things were?”

  “And your parents?”

  Kristin’s gaze draws inward. “It was always a matter of what they thought of him. Of us both. There were certain expectations—and understandings about how well we lived up to those expectations. It gives you strange ideas of success, you know. And of what being lovable looks like. Does that make sense? That’s why I said please don’t mention our parents. He’ll get angry, and you won’t get anything out of him then.”

  Bell’s pretty sure it’s a self-soothing habit, the way Kristin plays with strands of her hair as she talks. She has a peculiar fragility, this girl, but she’s been through a lot. He knows that Kristin was a suspected accomplice of her brother for some time, that the question was raised in court. That her legal team reminded everyone how Kristin had stabbed Simon in defense of a lawman. It was one of the things that resulted in her exoneration.

  Bell knows, too, that she was socially connected with a number of her brother’s victims. He knows a lot of things about Kristin Gutmunsson that he would rather not know.

  Emma is still examining the list, the looping writing. “Kristin, this information could actually be really useful.”

  “Do you think so?” Kristin claps her hands together. “Oh, that’s so good to hear! And I’m sorry to just turn up in person—I was going to mail it, then I thought I wasn’t sure if you would get it. And I did so want to visit. But it’s very… How do you work in here? It’s not very cheery, is it?”

  Emma snorts. “Yeah, welcome to the bunker.”

  “But it is like a bunker! Goodness. I suppose it’s appropriate, given what you’re investigating, but still.” Kristin scans the room, the chairs and files and the desk. Before either of them can react, she’s plucked one of the victim ID photos from the file. “Who’s this? He’s handsome, isn’t he? Don’t tell me he’s a suspect!”

  “Not a suspect.” Bell takes the photo from her carefully.

  “Oh my god, is he a victim? He is, isn’t he? Oh, that’s awful. He’s so young.”

  Emma nods. “Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

  “That’s appalling. And look at him—are they all like that? How on earth do you manage?”

  “Are they all like what?” Emma’s attention changes. Bell can see it in her body language, that suspension of breath, the slight narrowing of her eyes.

  “Like… I don’t know, let me see again.”

  He’s shocked when Emma takes the photo out of his hand and gives it to Kristin. Even more shocked when she starts pulling other victim photos out of the file. She spreads them out on the desk. When he opens his mouth to object, she gives him a quelling look.

  “Oh my gosh, they are,” Kristin breathes. “Look at them!”

  “We’ve been looking.” There’s an intensity, an urgency, in Emma’s face. “They’re all different. Different genders, different races…”

  “But they’re all beautiful. Can you see? Their eyes, their skin… Look at this one, the lovely cheekbones. And this one! Oh, they’re all glowing!”

  Emma lifts her gaze his way, and they don’t need words—it’s all unspoken. This is it, this is the connection. And now that it’s been pointed out to him, it’s like a lamp suddenly flicking on.

  The victims are all beautiful. Some of them unconventionally, but all of them have a luminous quality. It’s in their clear cheeks, their glossy hair, white teeth. They smile out of the photos, young and fresh and radiant, bursting with good health, the vigor of adolescence spilling off them like sunshine. Smooth foreheads and wide eyes and clean jawlines—the bone structure of the newly dead.

  “Oh, that’s so sad,” Kristin says, her eyes welling up. “Their families must be devastated.”

  “It is sad,” Emma agrees. “Kristin, can I show you some other photos? They’re upsetting, but I’d really like to hear your opinion.”

  She doesn’t need to catch Bell’s eye this time, the communication between them so entirely unified that he doesn’t even blink when she opens the file and starts spreading out the Berryville crime scene photos.

  He watches Kristin. What they’re doing, this is not allowed. The crime scene pictures are confidential, not intended to be shared, nothing released to the media or the public. But he can feel the buzz from Emma, and he wants to know, too. What does Kristin Gutmunsson see? This girl, who lived alongside a killer all those years… How did that alter her perception? And what does she perceive now?

  “Oh my god.” Kristin gasps, claps a hand over her mouth, closes her eyes—but only for a moment. Something in the photos is as compelling for her as the answer is for Bell.

  Emma leans closer. “What is it, Kristin?”

  “They’re… Oh goodness. Oh
, that makes me feel ill.” Kristin reaches out tentatively to poke with one finger. Her voice is a bare whisper. “Does he hang them all upside down like that?”

  “Yes. He’s strong.”

  “And he cuts them like that.… Oh my god.”

  “He follows the same pattern. We don’t know why. We don’t know why he bleeds them, we don’t know why he cuts their hair.”

  “It’s like he’s field dressing them.…” Kristin’s horror is being replaced by a strange, detached curiosity. “But you said he only takes their blood?”

  “Yes.” Bell finds he’s caught some of Emma’s intensity. “You mean he hangs them like game?”

  “She’s right,” Emma says immediately. “That’s what I thought when I first saw the scene. Like meat in a freezer.” She turns back to Kristin. “But he doesn’t gut them.”

  “How strange…” Kristin tilts her head. “And how high up he’s suspended them! Is this photo from eye level? Ooh, yes. Here’s one that shows you.”

  “What does it show?”

  “They’re a bit more than six feet above the ground, aren’t they?” Kristin points. “This lady in the background with the gloves, she gives you a sense of scale. Why on earth would he put them up so high?”

  “That’s a good point.” Bell squints at Emma. “He hangs them to bleed them, but he doesn’t have to pull them up six feet to do that. I don’t know much anatomy, but I know gravity.”

  “Why so high?” Emma looks away, thinking. “Everything he does serves a purpose. So what’s the purpose of…” She looks back, scrabbles through the photos. “How would he be standing, in relation to the victims?”

  Bell finds the pictures she needs. “There. They found plantar prints on the floor beneath the victims. He took off his shoes.”

  “I don’t think that’s all he took off,” Emma says grimly.

  “Ooh,” Kristin says. “Yes! He would be underneath, wouldn’t he? To get the spray.”

  Bell frowns. “The what?”

  “The spray. There’d be a big gush, wouldn’t there? That’s what happens when you bleed a deer, at any rate. Have you never been hunting?”

  “Turkeys and coyotes, yeah.”

  Emma looks at him, her face pale. “Bell, he cut them from high up, while he was underneath.”

  “Maintain blood pressure in the head.” Oh my god. He presses a hand against the desk. “The neck, the carotid artery—”

  “Yes, so it would spray out like a shower.” Kristin’s fingers splay open with the gesture. “I imagine that’s why he cut their hair.”

  “Explain that for me,” Emma says immediately.

  “He wouldn’t want hair or arms in the way.… Their arms are tied up, see?” Kristin lifts a photo, angles it. “I mean, he probably, I don’t know, dances around underneath or something. You can’t dance around and enjoy it when there’s arms and hair in the way, can you?”

  She looks up, her eyebrows raised, as if the answer is obvious. And it is obvious, so obvious to someone who has the capacity to imagine it. Bell just didn’t have the ability before, to plumb those depths.

  But he can see it now. The killer naked—would he be naked? Emma seems to think so—capering beneath the writhing bodies, knife in hand… the waterfall of red, a hot shower, slippery underfoot… that first gush of vitality pouring over your skin, thick and refreshing, so addictive that you’d want to do it again and again: one victim, two at a time, three at a time, and oh Jesus—

  Bell rears back, needing air.

  “Kristin, thank you,” Emma says, somewhere beyond the ringing in his ears. “I know these pictures are disturbing, but you’ve given us something very important.”

  “Really? That makes me so…” Kristin casts around for the right word. “Relieved, I suppose you’d say. I want to help, more than anything.”

  “And you have.” Emma catches sight of him, and whatever she sees makes her take control. She packs up the photos, closes the file. “Everything you’ve given us today is going to add to this investigation. Which I guess is a way for me to segue into goodbye—we need to take this information and present it to our supervisor. So I might have to ask you to excuse us now.”

  “Oh, of course!” Kristin is all cooperation. “I’m so glad that something I said will be useful! That is quite amazing.”

  Bell sways toward the door. “I need a drink of water.”

  He thought he knew all this; he thought he was educated, jaded. But Kristin Gutmunsson has torn the veil from his eyes. He wants it back, but he’s a better investigator without it. There are no limits, he sees now. There are no monsters. Only people.

  He glances over his shoulder. Kristin is smiling at Emma. “I’ll have to follow the reports even more closely, now that I’m connected to it. So next time I read an article in the newspaper, or see you on the television—”

  “You saw us on the television?” Emma blanches.

  When Bell opens the door, Cooper has his hand raised, preparing to knock. Bell takes one look at his face and knows they’re in trouble.

  “I was just…” Cooper peers around him, sees Kristin. “What’s going on?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Bell says. “What is it?”

  Cooper’s eyes are dull with tiredness, grave with inevitability. “Somebody told.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Remember,” Cooper says. He looks at Bell and Emma in turn. “Don’t go off script.”

  When Travis was fourteen, his sister Lena got into trouble at school for busting the lip of a boy who’d called her a derogatory name. He remembers retreating from the house to the swing chair on the front porch while his mother called the school principal to give the man a piece of her mind. Her voice grew strident on the phone, until it was audible outside. His mother always used a lot of Spanish cuss words when her temper was high.

  As the tirade continued, Travis’s father came out on the porch to join him. “You taking cover?”

  “Yep.” Travis glanced through the front window. “She’s going off again.”

  “She certainly is. Your momma is a sight to behold when she’s in full blow.”

  It was a good opportunity, so Travis asked the question he’d had on his mind for some time. “How do you handle that?”

  His father eased back, elbows on the porch rail, one boot on the boards.

  “Well, you don’t ‘handle’ your momma. That’s how she is—that’s why I married her. I mean, look at her. The sparks coming off her.” He gazed through the glass, his face full of pride. “You don’t try to tame the lightning, son. You just give it the respect it deserves.”

  Bell didn’t realize he still had that memory of his dad in the bank, but he thinks about it while watching Emma Lewis square up outside Donald Raymond’s office. Cooper’s already given them both instructions on how to behave in this meeting: to speak little, let him handle it, nod and agree, and hopefully they’ll all get out of it unscathed. But Bell can see how Emma wants to bare her teeth, and how Cooper doesn’t know what to do with that.

  “Miss Lewis,” Cooper says quietly. “Keep it on a leash.”

  Her eyes flash at him. Cooper retreats a step.

  “Jesus. Take it easy.” He glances over at Travis. “A little help here? Miss Lewis wants to burn down the world.”

  It surprises Bell that he understands Emma because of that old conversation with his father. Until now, he just assumed it was because he’s a reasonable judge of character.

  He modulates his voice to a lower register, touches her arm lightly. “Emma. Let’s keep our eyes on the prize.”

  It works. She doesn’t relax her hair-trigger watchfulness, but she stops bristling and settles. Cooper gives him a curious look, but Travis doesn’t have time for that bullshit now.

  “Come,” Raymond calls from his office.

  Raymond has a walnut desk so huge it throws the room proportions out of balance. It confirms Bell’s understanding that the boss is a power man. Raymond regards them fro
m his position of advantage, leaning forward in his chair on the other side of the desk. The bunching of his shoulders sends another signal: Raymond is the kind of guy who likes to scrap.

  Bell feels himself making a number of fast calculations. He’s very aware of the hot charge of Emma’s body to his right. On her other side, Cooper stands firm.

  “So, here we are.” Raymond’s brow furrows. “Now, you two young people were brought on board to do some research into offenders the bureau has already taken care of, is that right?”

  “That’s correct,” Cooper says. “Their perspective has been helpful with—”

  Raymond’s glance is a swift cut. “I’d like them to answer the question.”

  Bell makes sure to echo Cooper’s language. “Yessir, that’s correct.”

  Emma says nothing.

  Raymond doesn’t seem to care to hear her response anyway as he plows on. “And these cases you’re looking at are all old cases—prosecuted and put away.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bell says. “We just—”

  “Your brief was to steer clear of active investigations.” Raymond toys with his pen. “In fact, I had words with Special Agent Cooper about this, and we were both in agreement that active cases are not your area. Does my memory serve me correctly on this, Agent Cooper?”

  When Raymond looks his way, Cooper is ready to play his part. “Yes, it does, sir.”

  “Yes, it does.” Raymond waits a full four seconds of pause. “So can you please explain to me, in language I can understand, how I happened to turn on the television at oh six hundred hours this morning to see you, Mr. Bell, and you, Miss Lewis, in the background of television footage of officers attending a crime scene in Berryville, which I’m sure you’re aware is the latest development in a very active homicide investigation.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bell says. “We heard about that, sir—”

  “Heard about it? You were goddamn there.” Raymond puts one fist on the desk. “Do you know what I like to see in officers of this organization, son? Fidelity, bravery, integrity. Those things I like to see. The ability to accept and follow instructions—that I like to see. You know what it pains me to see? It pains me to see officers of the FBI, and support staff associated with those officers, on national television without my express permission.”