by Blake Pierce
But a few days ago while driving through this area, he’d just happened to run across Sandra again in Boneau. He’d recognized her immediately, although she clearly didn’t remember him. He’d said nothing to her at the time, but he’d begun to watch her. It hadn’t taken long for him to realize that she was again following those old false ideas about what she wanted to do with her life.
Sister Sandra wasn’t going to keep her promise after all. Over the years, she must have forgotten all about his words of wisdom.
He’d decided right then and there that he had to help her. He would try once more to make her see what she was doing wrong. It hadn’t been hard to find a moment when he could seize her. Those late night walks of hers offered him the perfect opportunity.
He sighed as he eyed the road ahead, looking for an appropriate place to stop. There had been three of them now, two girls and one young woman, and all of them had made the same promise to him in broad daylight. He’d seized them by night when he’d found out their resolve was weakening, then spent hours and hours with them in the dark room trying to persuade them to renew their promises—but to no avail.
Why do they fail so badly?
The choice he offered them seemed so clear. He was simply giving them the opportunity to escape the torments he himself had suffered.
He shuddered as he remembered all the pain his mother had inflicted on him when he was still a child. He still had the scars from where she’d put out cigarettes on his skin, seared the palms of his hands on the electric stove, and made all those tiny cuts with a utility knife.
And of course, there were torments of the heart.
He still suffered those almost constantly. And those were the worst. Those were the torments he’d hoped to save them from.
When he saw a wide shoulder on the road ahead, he pulled his van over and parked there. Looking around at the trees beside the shoulder, he could see that this was a good place. He got out and walked around to the side and slid the van door open.
A warm feeling came over him as he gazed inside. Sandra was lying on the floor just as he had left her, looking perfectly peaceful.
I’ve saved her from terrible anguish, he told himself.
I’ve saved them all.
Each time, he had hoped to accomplish it through other means, but he had succeeded in the end.
“Come on, my dear,” he said in a gentle, comforting voice. “Come and rest. Everything’s going to be all right after all.”
He picked up Sandra’s body in his arms and carried her to her resting place.
In death she’ll keep her promise, he thought contentedly.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Something clattered on the ground in front of Riley. She peered through the swirling snow, trying to make out what it was.
Then she heard Crivaro’s voice call out sharply.
“Riley! Pick up your weapon, damn it!”
Now she could see that her gun was lying there on the concrete pavement where she had dropped it. She knew she should reach forward and pick it up, but for some reason she couldn’t make herself do that.
Suddenly the sound of gunfire broke out all around her, although she couldn’t see where any of it was coming from or where it was hitting.
Riley realized that she was back in the motel parking lot back in upstate New York. It was happening again—the gunfight with Heidi Wright and Orin Rhodes.
Now she could see Crivaro crouched down behind a nearby car.
He shouted at her again, “Pick up your gun!”
But when Riley tried to pick it up, she felt weirdly paralyzed, and she just couldn’t do it.
What’s the matter with me?
Then came a lull in the gunfire and she heard a familiar voice from somewhere behind her.
“Humans aren’t like squirrels. Their bodies don’t disappear when they die. You find them all over the place.”
Riley turned and saw the Magdalene High School groundskeeper, Leroy Stimac. He was pushing a wheelbarrow with young woman’s body in it. Blood was gushing from a gunshot wound to her chest.
“Just found this one,” the groundskeeper said with a shake of his head. “Poor kid, looks like she was shot. Who would do such a thing to an innocent young girl?”
But the figure in the wheelbarrow wasn’t quite dead. Her eyes were wide open, and her mouth worked silently as she gasped her final breaths. Her eyes locked on Riley’s with an expression of terrible sadness, and then she fell completely still.
Heidi Wright! Riley realized with horror.
Leroy Stimac repeated, “Who would do such a thing to an innocent young girl?”
I did, Riley almost blurted aloud. I killed Heidi.
But hadn’t that been days ago?
Yes, but I did it again just now. I shot her and then I dropped my gun.
She wondered—was she going to have to kill Heidi again and again for the rest of her life?
Trying not to burst into tears over what she had just done, Riley again tried to bend over to pick up her weapon. But she was stopped by another familiar mocking voice.
“Good luck.”
She looked up and saw that it was no longer the groundskeeper pushing the wheelbarrow. Instead it was baby-faced Larry Mullins.
“Good luck,” he said again, sneering at Riley smugly.
And she knew where he was going with that wheelbarrow. He was on his way to the courtroom, where he was likely not to be convicted for the murders Riley knew perfectly well he was guilty of.
I should have killed him when I had a chance, Riley thought.
I should have killed Larry Mullins and not Heidi.
Riley knew she couldn’t bring Heidi back to life, but here was something she could do.
She reached down again, and this time she was able to pick up the weapon.
She stood upright and pointed the gun and fired.
Then she fired again.
And again.
Riley awoke to realize that the sharp sounds she’d been hearing weren’t gunshots at all.
Someone was knocking on her motel room door, and she knew who it must be.
Agent Crivaro.
“I’ll be right there,” she called out in a voice hoarse from sleep.
But getting out of bed wasn’t easy. She’d apparently thrashed around in her nightmares, and she was sweating and so tangled up in the sheets that she could barely more. She managed to pull herself loose, climbed out of bed, and went over to the door.
She opened it and saw Crivaro standing there in the early morning light, holding a food tray.
In a surprisingly apologetic voice, he said, “It’s kind of early, but …”
His voice faded and he shuffled his feet.
Then he said, “First, I want to apologize for being an asshole yesterday.”
Riley was startled, and she was still too sleepy to know just how to reply. She wondered whether she should apologize in turn. But she wasn’t sure what for.
“Uh, okay,” she said.
“I brought you a peace offering—coffee and pastries,” Crivaro said. “That is, if you don’t want to slam the door in my face. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”
Riley smiled tiredly and said, “Come on in.”
As Crivaro came on into the room, she glanced at the clock. It wasn’t extremely early. It was actually just about time for her to get up. Crivaro had obviously been out early. As he began to spread the breakfast snacks on the table, Riley said, “You go ahead and start eating. I’ll go get dressed and get more awake.”
She took a bundle of fresh clothes to the bathroom and began to get herself ready to face the day. As she did, she remembered the dream she’d just had. She still felt a lingering horror at thinking she’d killed Heidi all over again—and worse, that she might have to do it again and again for the rest of her life.
Thank God it was only a dream.
But then she remembered how Larry Mullins had appeared in her dream, and how easy it had been to p
ick up her gun and shoot him again and again and again …
She shuddered at the memory. It reminded her of something Frankie had said to her the day before yesterday.
“If you’d been able to kill Larry Mullins, maybe you’d find it easy to use deadly force in the future—way too easy.”
That was exactly the way it had felt in her dream—much too easy.
Riley paused from brushing her teeth to examine her face in the mirror.
She wondered—was it the face of someone who might someday find killing much too easy, even if it was in the line of duty?
Someday, perhaps soon, she knew she would have to use deadly force again.
What if the person she had to kill wasn’t a fresh-faced teenager like Heidi Wright?
What if it was an evil monster like Larry Mullins?
How might that change her as a human being?
Maybe I should talk to Crivaro about it, she thought.
But just yesterday Crivaro had told her, “I can’t be your therapist and your partner at the same time. In fact, I’ve got no business being your therapist at all.”
She knew that he was surely right. If she could just get through this case without falling apart, a visit to a therapist would definitely be in order. Meanwhile, she had to keep her anxieties to herself and get this job done.
She finished brushing her teeth and got dressed. When she went back into the room, Crivaro was already eating so she sat down at the table with him.
“So what’s going on?” she asked.
“Well, you go first,” he said. “Did you get any insights at Magdalene High School last night?”
Riley hesitated before replying. But then she told him about her encounter with the groundskeeper, and her sense of connection with the killer while looking into the van. He looked especially interested when she described the van.
Then Crivaro said, “So you really believe Sister Sandra was abducted?”
Riley nodded said, “Actually, I’m afraid the worst has already happened.”
“Yeah, well, you might be right,” Crivaro said.
Riley was surprised to hear him agree with her.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” Crivaro said. “I kept thinking about what we must be missing. I got afraid I let the fact that Sister Sandra was a teacher and not a student throw me. I realized late last night, I should have listened to you better.”
He took another bite of pastry and said, “Anyway, I got up super early and headed for the police station. The folks on the night shift were really surprised to see me there at that hour. And I just started going through random records.”
He squinted hard and said, “And I thought, if Sister Sandra is one of the victims, they’re all linked by one thing—high schools. And I figured that was what I needed to check into.”
He sipped his coffee and said, “Well, I went over the work Sheriff Quayle had done here in Dalhart, the interviews and so forth, and he’d been as thorough as hell, just like Sheriff Cole had been in Brattledale. There seemed to be zero chance the killer was a student or teacher or janitor or anything else like that.”
Riley felt like she was following his train of thought pretty well.
She said, “You needed to find somebody else—somebody connected to all the schools.”
“Right, and I had trouble at first,” Crivaro said. “But then I started skimming through local newspapers, and I ran into an article about how old the public buildings are in this whole area—including the school buildings.”
Riley nodded. She remembered the picturesque old facade of the main building at Magdalene High School.
Crivaro continued, “And the article said that asbestos is a problem with a lot of those old buildings.”
“Asbestos?” Riley asked.
The word rang a bell in her head.
Crivaro said, “Yeah, it used to be used all the time for construction—insulation and ceilings and such. But during the 1970s, asbestos was found to be a dangerous material. It caused cancer. So its use in newer buildings was banned.”
Riley said, “But there must have been lots of asbestos left in old buildings.”
“Right,” Crivaro said. “And getting rid of it can be a problem.”
“I can imagine,” Riley said. “Getting rid of it means handling it. Who wants to do that when you can get cancer from it?”
Crivaro nodded and said, “Pretty much nobody. Which was why it made the newspapers when a local company was willing to take on the task for this whole area—including the towns of Dalhart, Boneau, and Brattledale.”
Riley’s eyes widened with interest.
“We’ve got to find out if that company worked at the three schools.”
Crivaro chuckled and said, “No need to check. It said so right there in the newspaper article. The citizens in all three towns were anxious to get their schools cleaned up ahead of anything else. So they found an outfit that would get it done—Mitch’s Solutions, about an hour’s drive from here.”
Riley mulled over what she was hearing.
She said, “So you think an employee with that company … ?”
“Is maybe our killer,” Crivaro said. “Those jobs would have given somebody an opportunity to get to know Kimberly, Natalie, and Sister Sandra, then target them for murder.”
Riley couldn’t help feeling uncertain. She didn’t want to aggravate Crivaro when he was in such an unusually good mood. Still, there were two or three questions she just couldn’t overlook.
She said, “Why didn’t the local cops notice this connection already?”
Crivaro shrugged, “Well, they’re good at their jobs, but they’re not FBI agents. And once we showed up, they left most of the thinking to us. The asbestos removal work got done over a long period—a year or more. The local cops wouldn’t have known what to look for, especially since they had no reason to give Magdalene High School any thought. I almost missed it myself.”
She said, “Even so, somebody would probably have noticed the connection eventually. Wouldn’t the killer have been taking an enormous risk?”
Crivaro grunted, “Yeah, but there are two possibilities. One is maybe our killer isn’t exactly a mental giant. The other is that he’s smart—and extremely arrogant.”
“The kind of killer who likes to taunt law enforcement,” Riley said.
“Exactly,” said Crivaro. “And now you’ve got this notion that the killer used some kind of utility van. That supports my theory. You can bet they’ve got one of those at Mitch’s Solutions.”
Crivaro rapped his knuckles on the table.
“So if we’re finished with our snack, let’s head right over to Mitch’s Solutions and see what we can find out.”
As she followed Crivaro out the door to their borrowed car, Riley remembered again her vivid dream—and the sheer delight she had felt when she’d shot Larry Mullins again and again.
It was only a dream, she told herself.
Still, she remembered something else Frankie had said.
“At least we’ve been able to keep our humanity, our vulnerability, everything that’s best about us.”
Riley felt a pang of worry.
Just how fragile, how breakable, were her humanity and vulnerability?
Was she somehow eventually doomed to lose what was best about her as a person?
Keep your mind on the case, she told herself.
If Crivaro was right, they might be on the verge of solving it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
During the hour-long drive to Mitch’s Solutions, Riley could feel her expectations rising.
Maybe this is it, she thought. Maybe this will be the break we need.
Although Crivaro remained silent as he drove, Riley was sure that he was hoping for that too. Based on his recent mood, Riley guessed that Crivaro needed a boost of success right now even more than she did.
Finally a large sign came into view:
MITCH’S SOLUTIONS
HAZARDOUS WASTE R
EMOVAL SERVICE
Crivaro drove through the opening under the sign and onto the company grounds. There wasn’t much to look at. In fact, Riley wondered for a moment whether the place was out of business.
It was mostly a big paved lot surrounded by high chain-link fencing, with a double-wide mobile home planted in the middle. Various building materials were stacked carelessly around the lot, all of them blanketed by a thin layer of recent snowfall. But then something caught Riley’s eye.
Several vehicles were parked here and there. Among the cars and tow trucks and pickups, Riley noticed a white, battered-up utility van. It looked much like the one she’d seen at Magdalene High School last night.
She pointed and said, “Agent Crivaro, look.”
“I see it,” Crivaro said. “This might be it, Riley. Keep your fingers crossed.”
They parked right next to the utility van in front of the double-trailer, which they assumed to house the company office. As they walked toward its door, Riley couldn’t stop looking at that van.
Are all our answers in there? she wondered.
She wanted to walk right over to it and try the door for a look inside. Instead, she followed Crivaro to the trailer’s front door, where a hanging sign announced COME ON IN. OPEN FOR BUSINESS.
When they opened the door to walk inside, Riley was startled by the sight that met her eye. What appeared to be some weird, white, bipedal creature stood facing her from across the room. It looked almost like a polar bear wearing enormous black gloves and some kind of space helmet.
She heard a chuckle from nearby.
A man’s voice said, “I see you’ve noticed Chuckles, our mascot.”
Riley turned and saw a well-dressed, gray-haired man standing up at his desk. He was grinning at Riley and Crivaro, obviously relishing their surprise.
Riley turned toward the figure again. Now she could see that it was an empty protective suit of some sort hanging against the wall.
The man came around his desk and said, “When you’re in the business of hazardous waste disposal, you’ve got to be properly and fashionably dressed. We’ve got a bunch more suits like Chuckles hanging in the closet, ready to go.”
