by David Haynes
Well, the tables were turning. Slowly, but they were turning just the same. Tonight, she was going to accidentally run into Jacob while he was on his nightly run through the park. He’d asked her out before she got with Sam and he still stared at her. She’d seen him watching her at tennis practice. Tonight, he was going to get the chance to do more than just watch.
But that wasn’t the end of it. She knew she’d get tired of boys. What she really wanted was a man. A real man, someone who knew how to make a girl happy in all the right ways. She was on the lookout for a man who would fit the bill. She had a couple of candidates she liked the look of, but she would test drive a few before she could really make up her mind.
She hummed a tune as she opened the door to her mom’s salon and stepped inside.
“Morning, Mrs. Brady,” she said to the lady in the first chair.
“Honey, would you put some coffee on before you start, please?”
“Sure, mom,” she replied.
She needed to go out back anyway. She had a burning itch in her panties. It had started up yesterday and today it was worse. She knew what it was. It was because she hadn’t had sex for a few hours. It didn’t matter. She would remedy that tonight. Jacob Straw wouldn’t know what hit him.
23
By Monday morning, the whole town knew that Gary Palmer was locked up in the Silver Lake PD cells. Apart from two visits to the hospital to set his jaw, he hadn’t moved. They couldn’t interview him or talk to him in any way. His jaw was wired shut. Not that talking to him would make a lot of difference at that stage. A team of white-suited CSIs were combing the cabin and the surrounding area for anything and everything.
Working out which body part belonged to which girl wasn’t easy. They were strewn around the cabin as if a pack of wolves had been at them and scattered the bones around their lair. DNA testing would sort that mess out, but it wouldn’t be quick.
Not that it mattered anyway. At least not to most of the people in town. The girls had been found and the murderer had been caught. That was the bottom line and it was all anyone thought about. Most people didn’t want to know the hows or whys, they just wanted to forget it had ever happened.
Most people.
Paul Weaver and Brad Simmons hung around the PD building like a bad smell. They waited on the roadside in Paul’s truck with the windows down, chain-smoking Marlboro cigarettes. They waited there just in case they heard something, found out some juicy tit-bit that nobody else had heard. They’d caught the bastard after all, they deserved to be the first to know what was going to happen to Gary Palmer.
The truth of the matter was that Paul Weaver had always wanted to be a cop. Catching Palmer had only solidified that desire. It made him want it more. After they were sent away from the lake on Saturday morning. they hit the bar and hit it hard. They were both high, not on drugs or beer but on what they’d done. On what they were about to do to Gary Palmer.
Everyone who entered Sandy’s on Saturday heard how they found the cabin, describing in graphic detail and embellishment what they saw inside. Nobody was left under any illusion that together they had tracked and caught Palmer. Brad added a nice little enhancement about how Palmer had tried to make a run for it, how he’d tried to fight, and Paul had no choice but to put him down. They drank beer all day and all night, and not one bottle cost them a cent. They were heroes and Paul wanted more of it.
He had tried to join the PD when he was twenty-three. By then he had a rap sheet as long as his arm. All of it fairly minor but most of it involving violence. He was not deemed suitable for the job. They were wrong. He’d watched thousands of cop shows on TV, saw how those guys operated. He was a perfect fit. All this bullshit about police brutality was just that, a great steaming pile of crap. The country had gone soft, criminals were doing what they wanted, when they wanted. The cops needed a firm hand and they needed free rein to wield it.
A uniformed cop rapped on the truck’s side window. “You guys are going to have to move.”
“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Brad replied.
Paul leaned across. “He said anything yet?”
The cop closed his eyes. “I’m not telling you that, Paul. Just move the truck, please.”
He was going to argue but he stopped himself. He just nodded instead. “Will do.”
Brad looked at him open-mouthed as he twisted the ignition and drove away. He turned the truck in the middle of the road and then drove a little farther away from the PD. They could still watch from here.
“What the hell?” Brad asked. He smelled bad. Like ten day old body odor mixed with fish guts.
“We can watch from here,” he said.
“You going to let him talk to us like that? He was pissing his pants in second grade when we graduated.”
“Graduated?” Paul smiled. “You never graduated shit.”
Brad was quiet.
“Listen,” he began. He felt a little sorry for Brad. The guy didn’t have much, except his son, and now he was dropping out too. “We sit here, the cops won’t see us, they’re more likely to bring him out. If they do, we can follow them, see where they take him.”
“Right,” Brad nodded slowly. He offered his cigarettes to Paul and lit his own.
“Are you two gentlemen law enforcement?”
Paul looked out of the passenger window. An old man stood on a set of steps, looking down at them and smiling. The place had been empty for some time, but he’d heard that some old guy was running a bookshop from it now. He’d never been, he hadn’t read a book since high school and he didn’t intend to start now.
“Maybe,” he replied. He didn’t know why he said it, but it was out before he had chance to reconsider.
Brad frowned at him and silently mouthed What the fuck?
“Oh, that’s wonderful! You do a terrific job. Much maligned, I realize, but where would we be without you? In a terrible mess, that’s where.” The old man paused, narrowing his eyes. “Say, I don’t suppose you’re working the missing girls case, are you? I do hope you find them soon.”
Paul glanced at Brad and then back up at the old guy. “You haven’t heard?”
“Heard? Heard what?”
Paul licked his lips, looking back up toward the PD. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard.”
“I’m afraid to say I don’t get out very much…I don’t mingle.”
“Well,” Paul started. He was enjoying this. The old fool thought they were cops. It wasn’t too hard to imagine he was one, but Brad? Really? “I’m not supposed to say anything,” he tapped his nose, “but…”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble,” the old man cut in.
“They found them up in the woods by the lake.” Paul shook his head, grimacing. “Not a pretty sight.”
He enjoyed how the old man’s expression changed, a look of shock on his face. “Those poor girls,” he said.
“The guy who did it, we’ve got him locked up.” He looked at Brad again. “Me and my partner caught him.”
The old man’s eyes widened. “You did? Well, that calls for something special!” He paused, looked at his shoes and then lifted his head. “I don’t suppose you two officers would like to step inside, would you? I’ve got a bottle of ten year old whiskey I’ve been saving for just such an occasion. As my way of saying thank you for all the hard work you’ve done.”
Paul smiled. What harm could it do?
“I’d really like to hear how you caught that bastard,” the old man said. “I’ve got something else you’ll like too. Something just for you. Everyone who comes through that door gets a little something extra, for free, on the house. And maybe you’d be kind enough to share a few details?”
Paul had told just about anyone who wanted to listen, and some who didn’t, about how they caught Palmer. He’d enjoy sharing the story again.
He stepped out of the truck and walked around to the sidewalk. Brad was still hauling himself out when he took the steps up to the door.
“Detective Weaver,” he introduced himself. “And this is my colleague, Detective Simmons.”
The old man nodded at them both. “A pleasure,” he said. “Now come inside and let me give you your gift. It’s especially for you.”
24
Detective Ronayne scratched the stubble on his chin, holding the telephone to his ear.
“Yes, sir,” he said for the tenth time in the call.
He replaced the handset. He had four hours in which to charge Palmer or release him. It seemed simple enough. He had everything he needed to put the guy away for life, yet something didn’t seem right about it. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it but it felt wrong.
The DNA would take a while to come back from the lab. No doubt it would confirm what they suspected. The remains found at the cabin were a hellish mishmash of Melody Adams, Samantha Riley and Nicole Stewart. Palmer had taken the girls up there and done God knew what before slicing them up into pieces. It was going to be near-impossible to discover if the murders were sexually motivated, since there wasn’t enough left of them to work that out, but instinct told him it was.
Anyone who knew Palmer knew he had a cabin up in the woods. Anyone who knew him also knew where he kept the key. It was the kind of town where nobody would rip him off, or try to steal anything that didn’t belong to them. That gave almost the whole town access to that cabin. It was a question that would have to be answered at some point.
They’d swabbed every single inch of the man. If he had even the slightest piece of either girl on him, they would find it. There’s no way someone could cut them up into so many pieces and not leave a trace. No way.
There hadn’t been any mention of a book with this one but there had with the other two. The boy, doped up to his eyeballs in the hospital, mumbling and muttering about his book through the haze of his sedative-induced dreams. The book with absolutely nothing in it except for bloody fingerprints. And the woman, Linda Phelps, she claimed to have been reading her book just before she killed her brother. The same kind of book, slightly different sizes but the same blank leather cover. The same blank interior. That was the only commonality between those two.
Phelps was still in the cells, awaiting transport over to Rainworth. It was hard to imagine such a docile woman doing what she’d done. But he’d seen all sorts in his time and this was just one more murder.
Ronayne rummaged in his desk, one seconded from the local PD, and brought out the two evidence bags with the books in. They weren’t considered significant, at least not as significant as the weapons, but Ronayne held onto them. He wasn’t sure why yet, but he had a nagging feeling he’d need them before he was done in Silver Lake.
He still hadn’t found out where they came from. The teacher didn’t know and the bookshop on Main Street always seemed to be closed when he went by. He was no expert, but it didn’t seem an effective way of staying in business for very long.
He typed onto the statement he’d been writing for the last two hours. It wasn’t a difficult statement to write, he just kept getting disturbed. He was detailing the circumstances of the arrest of Palmer and how he’d found him being detained by a couple of the more community-spirited inhabitants of Silver Lake.
That was a joke. Those two buffoons would have killed Palmer if he hadn’t showed up when he did. He’d seen men like that before, full of self-righteous loathing for just about anyone. They were always the first to start jumping up and down, shouting about how the cops were only interested in handing out speeding tickets and not catching killers. They were the ones who always had a grudge against the police. They were the men who had always been framed, were always innocent and had never put a foot wrong themselves. Assholes.
Not that he blamed Melody’s mom for cutting lose on Palmer. He might have done the same, and worse, if it had been his little girl in that cabin.
Ronayne had seen some things in his time but he’d never seen anything like that. The smell on its own was enough to bring tears to his eyes, but the way the girls had been butchered…no, that wasn’t right. They had been pulled apart, pulled apart like…like a roast chicken. He swallowed hard and carried on typing. His forehead was hot, sweaty and clammy.
Now the captain was on his back, pushing him to get the prisoners over to Rainworth for their hearings. And where was Burton anyway? He looked around the office. He was probably down in the canteen with that pretty little local cop he had his eye on, while Ronayne was up here trying to hold it all together. Trying to hold himself together.
Four homicides. Four goddamn homicides inside a month. And if you counted the poor old hobo who died in the cells, that was five deaths. It was enough for any town, let alone a no-mark place like Silver Lake. So why the hell did he keep thinking there was going to be more? Weren’t five deaths enough?
What had started out as a fairly routine murder investigation, if such a thing existed, had become an unholy mess. What was supposed to keep him away from his wife and daughter for only a few days had now kept him here for weeks, possibly a few more too. God, he missed them. His life away from the PD was a magical thing. No murders, violence, report writing, deadlines or head-scratching mindfucks like this. Just pure joy, and each time he came back from a few days off he felt more and more at odds with his chosen profession.
He could feel the old anger rising. If he sat here for much longer, he was going to pull his Glock and put a round through the computer screen. What he needed was some fresh air, time to clear his head, and then he could come back to it and hit it hard to make the deadline.
Ronayne grabbed the exhibits. He’d considered getting a warrant for the bookstore. He’d discussed it with the captain, even started putting the paperwork together. Every hypothesis he put forward, that he tested in his mind, was drug related. How else could it be explained? A small town with no history of violence, tensions or anything beyond petty squabbles had become the murder capital of the state almost overnight. He knew of only one thing that could alter a town so radically – an influx of drugs, something new, strong and irresistible. That was the only explanation his logical mind could accept, anyway.
Yet the blood results from Alex Potts showed no sign of any narcotic. The librarian was clean too, and Ronayne had no doubts that Gary Palmer’s results would show nothing out of order. His drug theory went to shit, and with it any backing for his warrant.
Burton laughed at him when he suggested the bookstore was at the center of it all. The captain had just sighed and told him to wrap things up; he wanted it all tied up with a neat ribbon. And maybe they were right to dismiss him. Books? It was ridiculous to think books could be responsible for the atrocities in Silver Lake. Ridiculous. It was nothing more than small town hysteria, old wrongs being put right, kids going postal. It was happening all over the country, and Silver Lake was just another example of what was wrong with the world.
Ronayne stood up and took a deep breath. He still wanted to take a look inside that place, just for his own peace of mind.
“Going out?” Burton walked across the room toward him. His tie was askew, his hair ruffled at the back. His cologne proceeded him.
“Just for some fresh air,” he replied, taking the exhibits with him.
“Want me to come?”
Ronayne shook his head. That was the last thing he wanted. “No,” he said. “Can you take a look through Linda’s interview notes again? Highlight anything she says about the books.”
He’d already been over the notes several times, highlighted everything he considered important, but it wouldn’t hurt to have someone else check them over again.
Burton shrugged. “Sure, no problem.”
Ronayne walked quickly down the first set of stairs, nodding at the cops who passed him. When he reached the hallway, he stopped. Glazed double doors opened up onto the street, and on his left farther down the hallway was a canteen of sorts. It didn’t contain a kitchen, just a few half-filled vending machines. On his other side was a reception des
k, manned by a grossly overweight cop in an ill-fitting uniform. Farther along that side, another set of stairs led down to the old-style cells, lifted straight from the set of a John Wayne movie.
The street looked gray and uninviting, the sidewalks empty. Across the street was the diner where he ate all his meals, sometimes with Burton and sometimes, more often than not, alone. It was Monday. The house special was their gourmet macaroni and cheese. Gourmet because it contained peas and bacon. The predictable rotation was as depressing as the quality of food.
He turned away, walking toward the next set of stairs. “Just going to check on our guests,” he said, passing the cop without looking up.
There wasn’t usually an officer stationed in the holding area because there was simply no need. There was now. A dedicated cop whose purpose was to serve the prisoners their meals, take care of their every whim and desire, lest it interfere with their human rights.
“You can take a break for a few minutes,” he said to the cop, “get some coffee.”
The officer nodded and sloped off, paperback in hand.
“You’ve brought my book!” Linda shouted. “You found it!”
He walked over to her cell. There were no such things as men’s and women’s wings in the Silver Lake PD custody area.
“Can I have it back?” she asked.
The cells were a throwback to a time gone by. They wouldn’t get away with having just simple bars anywhere else. Now the prisoners had to have privacy doors, their own bathroom facilities and a television. He liked this approach better.
“This book?” He held it up to her.
