BURN IN BELL

by Jeremy Waldron

  King stood and quickly got to work. His arms fanned out from his sides as his hands swiped from left to right, reorganizing the thoughts shuffling inside of his mind and spread out in front of him.

  “My father trained Officer Smith to be the cop he is today.”

  “And you assigned Smith to be Avery’s training officer?” The pieces started to click.

  King gave a somber nod and went on to mention the personalized messages he was receiving on twenty-dollar bills—clues left for him at both crime scenes. The included details about his father that not many knew. “Avery just got caught up in whatever this asshole is trying to prove to me.”

  My thoughts immediately jumped to Orville Boyd—the mysterious Pillow Strangler who we thought might be responsible for her death. He was still missing. When I asked King, he told me how Boyd’s house had been under constant surveillance since last night.

  “You were right.” King looked me in the eye. “I should have called Avery the moment she was late to dinner.”

  “No. Don’t do that to yourself,” I said.

  He was still blaming himself for what happened. I did my best to keep him on track, hoping he could provide clarity to how Avery’s murder was made to look like the case laid out in the article I wrote four years ago—the same headline I saw on Walker’s corkboard attached to an older, unrelated case.

  “Why was Alvarez so concerned about your high school championship last night?” I asked.

  King picked up a photograph and flicked the corner with his finger. “Because that game has everything to do with why Avery’s killer chose to murder her there.”

  I leaned in and took a closer look at the youth championship baseball team King was part of. At the end of his seventeenth year, I could just make out the man he was becoming.

  He said, “My dad missed the game that night.”

  “And that’s how this is all connected?” I pinched the skin of my neck, trying to keep up.

  “It was the best night of my childhood and Dad missed it.” King stared at the image, a memory of mixed emotions still as raw as they were nearly twenty years ago. King picked up his head and looked me in the eye. “Irony is, it was also the best night of his life, too.”

  I asked what he meant, and he told me about a horrific killer his father had been chasing by the name of Frank Lowe. I didn’t recognize the name, but the case details were vaguely familiar—though I couldn’t put a finger on how I knew it.

  “Dad made the arrest that night and, because of it, was recognized by the mayor for his efforts.”

  Complete irony, I thought as my mind traveled back to the boxes of his father’s awards we’d rifled through the other morning. “Was he given an award?”

  King nodded. “The Merit Award for Excellent Arrest. It solidified my father’s legacy as being one of the best DPD detectives to ever work for the city of Denver.”

  Suddenly, it was beginning to make sense to me. This was the reason King lived in his father’s shadow, working tirelessly to live up to the reputation Marshall carved out for his son.

  “So, what are you suggesting?” I asked. “We should be looking for Frank Lowe instead of Orville Boyd?”

  King shook his head. “Frank Lowe is still in prison.”

  My thoughts were scrambling, trying to read between the blurry lines.

  Since that note on Erin’s door, I’d known someone was coming after King, but now it seemed we had the evidence to prove it. But who was it? It had to be someone who knew the specifics to King’s past and there was only one person who came to mind—

  Angelina Hill.

  That didn’t explain why Angelina’s mother was a victim. Or how each victim was made to reflect a crime from King’s past. I had another person’s name for that. I had to ask myself if Angelina and Walker knew each other.

  There was a light knock on the front door before John Alvarez stepped inside.

  King didn’t give any indication he heard, so I quietly stepped away from the table and traveled across the room to speak with John in private.

  He greeted me with a hug. It was a clear reminder that a cop had been killed and nothing could be taken for granted.

  Alvarez asked, “How’s he holding up?”

  I glanced back to King who was still working the table like a puzzle. He was so deep inside his head he barely noticed we were there. Turning back to Alvarez, I whispered in his ear, “He might be onto something.”

  Alvarez quirked an eyebrow.

  “This is personal. Someone wants to kill him softly.”

  Alvarez inhaled a deep breath and sighed.

  After what King revealed, I was more determined than ever to help him find the suspect he sought. “Keep an eye on him, will you?”

  Alvarez closed his hand on my arm and squeezed. “You know I will.”

  Staring at King, I murmured, “I can’t lose him like I lost Gavin.”

  Then I was out the door to see if my suspicions were right.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Allison was thinking about giving Marty a quick education in technology when the knife slipped off the apple and sliced her finger.

  “Yeow,” she growled through the sharp pain.

  Plunging her finger into her mouth, she sucked on the tip to help stop the bleeding and stopped to stare at her breakfast with mild disdain. With the tip of her finger throbbing in her mouth, Allison knew this was the breakfast that would keep her healthy, but what she really wanted was a plate of pancakes, bacon, and eggs to sustain her throughout the long day ahead.

  Allison winced as she turned to the faucet and rinsed her finger beneath the cold water. The cut wasn’t as deep as she initially suspected, but stung like high heaven. Wrapping it in a paper towel, she turned off the water, grabbed her bowl of food, and sat on the stool at the island counter, trying to remember what she was thinking before she nearly amputated her finger.

  Her eyes peered down into her food. “Maybe after the marathon tomorrow I’ll trade you in for something heartier.”

  She took her first bite and looked at her food again with a spurned look on her face. Her breakfast was missing something and she knew exactly what that something was.

  “You’d be a lot better with maple syrup,” she said to her bowl when suddenly the phone rang.

  Her eyes sprang open and she lunged toward her spinning mobile hoping to silence the vibrations before waking her cousin, who she assumed was fast asleep in the back of the house. In the process, she accidentally knocked over a full glass of orange juice with her elbow, sending it crashing to the floor. Allison cringed and answered the call from Susan.

  “And I thought my day was starting bad,” Susan Young said into the phone after hearing Allison’s clipped tone. “What’s tightening your bra?”

  Allison stared at the orange pool spreading across the floor, then flicked her gaze to her unappetizing bowl of oatmeal. “Breakfast,” she grumbled, planting her behind back onto the stool. “And you?”

  Susan didn’t waste any time launching into a full-scale moment of panic. Allison bent her elbow and propped her head up as she prepared to settle into whatever was bunching up Susan’s shorts.

  “The marathon is tomorrow,” Susan was saying, “and I wake up to find an email stating how the course is being forced to reroute.”

  Allison arched a single brow and put off cleaning up her mess. “I guess our lunch date is off?”

  “Are you even listening to me?”

  Allison pushed her bowl to the side and reached for a towel, still thinking about the eggs and bacon she craved. Beginning to wipe down the kitchen counter, she said, “I’m listening. An email about the course being forced to reroute.”

  Susan’s tension could be felt through the line. “Then maybe you can tell me what I’m going to do now that the marathon can’t go through the park.”

  Allison stopped everything and felt her expression pinch. “The park?”

  “Yes. Haven’t you looked at the course ma
p? You are still running, aren’t you?”

  Allison hadn’t looked at the race map but Susan didn’t need to know that. “Walking, actually.”

  “Whatever. You aren’t listening.” Sounding annoyed, Susan reminded Allison of the marathon route and the impossible task of having to look for an alternative route with less than twenty-four hours to go. “I don’t know who Hazel Beck thinks I am, but I’ll tell you what I’m not: a miracle worker.”

  “Isn’t that your job description?”

  “Trust me, I’m praying for a miracle to happen but I’m not sure this can be done. Hazel is asking me to do the impossible. I don’t know how we’re expected to zone off an entire mile that hasn’t gone through the security checks.”

  Allison was still standing and staring speechlessly as she was afraid to confirm what park Susan was referring to. Casting her gaze to the floor, she stared at the chipped glass and asked, “Why is this happening now?”

  “You haven’t heard?” Susan didn’t give Allison time to answer before launching into a long-winded frantic explanation. “A woman was found in Commons Park last night.” The name of the park made the blood in Allison’s face drain. “Apparently it was a bad sexual assault and the woman who was attacked was left for dead. Now the park is closed until the police wrap up their investigation.”

  Allison wiped up her spill and bunched up the juice-soaked towel inside her hand, feeling a distant gaze fall over her eyes. Marty said he was going to play basketball at the park. Even without saying the name, Allison had known which park he’d meant. Commons Park. The one he used to play at as a kid. It didn’t take long for her mind to come up with a dozen questions she didn’t have the courage to ask. “Assaulted?” Left for dead?

  “Yeah. But I’m just going off of what the news is saying. I haven’t spoken with Samantha and am still waiting to hear back from the chief of police about having to secure a new route. Either way, the park is closed until further notice and tomorrow’s race is jeopardized if I can’t solve this problem today.”

  Allison glanced over her shoulder and stared into the back of her house, thinking about Marty. He couldn’t possibly be responsible, could he?

  “I’d never known that park to be dangerous,” Allison said in all seriousness.

  “I guess it just proves you never can be too sure.” Susan sighed. “Anyway, I just called to say I won’t be making it to lunch.”

  Lunch was the furthest thing from Allison’s mind. She wished her friend good luck, offered to help in any way she could, and got off the phone. Then Allison tiptoed her way toward the guestroom, wondering if Marty was even home.

  She never heard him come in last night and, with her pulse ticking, Allison tossed the juice-soaked towel into the hamper along the way when something else caught her eye.

  Paused, Allison looked to Marty’s closed door, then dipped into the laundry room where she found Marty’s shirt inside a clothes hamper. She plucked the dirty, sweat-stained shirt out of the bin and held it up in front of her face when suddenly she gasped and dropped it to the floor.

  Hovering over the wrinkled cloth, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The small dark spots she noticed weren’t dirt, but dribbles of blood.

  Sounds coming from Marty’s room sent Allison down the hall where she pressed an ear to his door. She wasn’t sure what it was she was hoping to find, but hoped that her cousin had nothing to do with what Susan said happened last night.

  Holding her breath, Allison strained her ear and listened.

  “Marty, no. Please tell me this wasn’t you,” she whispered out a prayer.

  But there was blood on his shirt and, with it, questions that needed to be asked.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  It felt like everything was moving in slow motion as I sat staring at King’s front door from behind the steering wheel of my car. I hated leaving him when he appeared to be so vulnerable. But he had work to do and so did I.

  Once my vision cleared, I turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb.

  I was reminded of the day my husband died. I hated that I kept getting sucked deeper into thinking I was one day closer to losing King, too. The thought was crippling, but I couldn’t deny the truth he seemed to be uncovering. King was the common denominator in both the murders and that made him the next likely target in my book.

  I drove in silence, reminding myself what I had seen spread on King’s kitchen table.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Walker, or how Marshall King missed out on the best night of Alex’s youth. I could see the pain in King’s eyes when telling me the story—reliving the memory of celebrating the victory without him. It was the first flaw I’d ever heard anyone speak of Marshall, and that was telling. But so was the name Frank Lowe. Who was he? Did his story have anything to do with what was happening now? King made me believe it did.

  My tires bumped along as I drove instinctively while allowing my thoughts to continue to ramble.

  Soon I was back inside the cold case files Walker first presented to Erin and me. I tried to place them with Peggy Hill and Avery; tried to understand who else might know as much about King’s past as Angelina must. I thought about visiting Carol King but didn’t want to be the one to tell her about Avery. That was King’s responsibility and, besides, she’d learn of it once my article went to print and triggered a tsunami across media outlets.

  Before I knew it, I was parking behind Erin’s red Bronco and I entered her house without knocking. The windows were open and there as a garden-fresh smell to the air that uplifted my spirit.

  I heard her clunking around her office and, when I stuck my head inside, I found her surrounded by a castle of unopened boxes that were stacked five feet high.

  “What’s all this?” I asked.

  Erin grinned, posted her hands into her sides, and let her gaze fall to the boxes. “New equipment.”

  Surprised at her investment, I thought about the inheritance she received after her father had died. I would have normally assumed that was all this was until I looked once more to the boxes’ labels and found a card on top. I took it without asking and opened it up. After reading it, I flicked my gaze up to Erin.

  She sheepishly shrugged.

  “Really?” I held up the card from Walker. “You can’t accept this gift.”

  “Why not? You read the card. There is more waiting for us at his office. Aren’t you at least a little curious to know what else he has for us?”

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my face inside my hands.

  Why hadn’t she told me about this on the phone? Didn’t she remember anything I said last night? We couldn’t have been further apart in our assessment of Walker. By accepting a gift of this magnitude, we’d be forever tethered to the man I wasn’t sure I could fully trust.

  “Sam, I didn’t ask for this.”

  No, I knew she didn’t. I didn’t know if changing the subject was the smartest move, but that was exactly what I did when I told her I was coming from King’s.

  Her brow creased and I knew what she was thinking. “Is Walker a suspect?”

  “He’s on my list of suspects,” I said, but Erin already knew as much. “But we didn’t get that far in our conversation.”

  When she asked what I talked about with King, I told her. Murders made to look like cold cases from King’s career, the locations of those lookalike murders to be a link to King’s past—not to forget the headline on Walker’s corkboard.

  “Whoa,” Erin raised both her eyebrows, “that’s heavy.”

  Visions of King’s dark eyes flashed behind my eyelids. “I’m worried about him.”

  “What about Orville Boyd? Is he dead in the water now, or should we keep looking?”

  Erin was anxious to pick up where we had left off yesterday. But first, I needed to do a quick internet search on Frank Lowe to see if he would get me closer to confirming my suspicions of Walker. Or Angelina.

  I skirted around the boxes and got behind Erin’s c
omputer, pecking away at the keys. Erin asked who Frank Lowe was and if he had anything to do with Walker. I told her I didn’t know, then we both got sucked into what I pulled up.

  It was all how King said it was. Marshall King’s investigation into Frank Lowe was a long and arduous process that stretched into months of grueling work that seemed to go nowhere.

  The murders Lowe was accused of committing were both intense and horrendous, resulting in a city-wide manhunt. Denver was on edge throughout it all. By the end, Marshall King emerged as a savior who ended the reign of terror.

  “Did you know King’s dad was a hero?” Erin asked.

  “I’m just learning of it now,” I said. Then I clicked on the next article detailing the murders Lowe had committed. Neither of us could believe what we were seeing.

  “You recognize that?” I asked.

  Erin tucked her chin and said, “I wished I didn’t.”

  Scrolling, I knew I had recognized Frank Lowe’s name but never expected it to come back full circle like this. We both stared at the screen, pointing out specifics, and I wasn’t surprised to see it was a case also of interest to Walker. Except this one was different than all the others. Erin noticed it, too. It wasn’t a cold case. This one was solved. And not by King.

  Erin asked, “But if King’s father caught the killer, then why would Walker have it on his corkboard?”

  I was asking myself the same question. Did Walker consider this to be a cold case? Why was he interested in Frank Lowe? Or was this exactly what I feared and it wasn’t about Frank Lowe at all, but rather Alex King? The tips of my fingers went cold as more evidence was pointing toward Walker being our killer. It certainly was a possibility. But then the call from Allison changed everything.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The Shadow Stalker paced in tiny figure eights as his socked feet trampled the carpet with each step. A muted twenty-inch flat screen TV flickered and cast dark shadows across the eggshell white walls, lighting up the room.