Nowhere to Hide (30 page)

"Why is that?"
Please let him
be
right.

"He wouldn’t have phoned your house. He wants your attention, Lieutenant. He wants you to know he exists, that he’s a force to be reckoned with. My guess is that you’ll be hearing from him again, and soon. Interesting, isn’t it, that he perceives her as a witch? With the others, it was important to show them up as fools, which is obviously why he painted them to look like clowns."

"He didn’t with all of them," Gabe said, with a trace of belligerence. He was leaning against the wall beside the door, lighting up a cigar. The acrid smell permeated the air in the small room. He blew out smoke, looking defiantly at the FBI agent.
"Mind?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do." He grinned.
"Makes me crave one.
I’ve been trying to kick the habit. You make a good point, though, Gabe," he said easily, defusing the momentary tension with an ease that sent him up a couple of notches in Mike’s estimation. "It’s
true,
he didn’t paint all of his victims.
Probably just those who most closely resembled the object of his hatred."

"His mother," Mike said, thinking of Ellen’s sketched profile.

"It usually is, but not always.
Maybe just some girl who turned him down at a crucial point in his life—at a moment when the whole world seemed against him.
Maybe he failed a class in school, got fired from a job. Stuff we can all relate to at one time or another. The trouble with killers is that they have to blame someone else for their problems. The hatred builds. After awhile it needs to find release. So they become human predators. Sometimes they don’t even hate anymore. They just do it because it’s fun."

"Welcome aboard, Frank," Mike said, putting out his hand. "We can use another good man on this case." He meant the welcome genuinely, but he also thought it was important to set the tone. Bruised egos had no place in this investigation. This was Ellen’s life they were dealing with.

"Thanks, Lieutenant. I appreciate the vote of confidence. Look, you’re the one familiar with this case. You know the woman. Why do you think he perceives her as a witch?"

Mike shrugged.
"Because he’s a maniac.
I don’t know, maybe because in the beginning Ellen was the one doing the stalking. She went
a little nuts
after her sister was murdered. Maybe she scared him."

Frank Burgess nodded. "Where are you with the van situation?"

Mike told him, not that there was anything new to tell. "We’re also running the new composite on the five o’clock news."

"Sounds to me like you’ve got everything pretty well in hand."

"Not everything. Look, if you can come up with any—"

"Got something for you, Lieutenant," Artie said, poking his head around the door. His shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows, a thatch of fair hair fallen over one of his lenses. "One of the victims we turned up in California was a native of Evansdale.
Name of Tracy Betts.
She worked at a club in L.A. called the Phoenix as an exotic dancer. The murder happened nearly ten years ago."

"Family still living here?"
Mike asked.

"Scattered.
Father took off when she was just a kid. According to the club’s manager, there was a brother who’s probably in jail someplace, had a few run-ins with the law. He also remembered that Tracy had a mother back here—said she was in a nursing home. But don’t bother to question her."

"Why not?"

"Alzheimer’s.
She could also be dead by now."

"Christ."

"There must be friends who remember her," Frank Burgess interjected.
"Old schoolmates, teachers, neighbors.
Lieutenant, instead of trying to tie in all the victims, maybe it would be a good idea to focus on just a couple of them—two that he painted—this dancer—what was her name?"

"Tracy," Artie frowned, raking his hair out of his eyes. "Tracy Betts."

"Okay. Zero in on Tracy Betts and Gail Morgan. Look for the link between those two. Go back to when they were kids. Find out who taught them in kindergarten, where they went to summer camp, if they did. That stuff’s not too hard to dig up."

"What about Gail Morgan?" Gabe said.
"Pretty damn hard to ask family about her when her only living kin is the one we’re looking for."

"That’s okay, Gabe," Mike said quickly. "I’ll take care of that part of things. You and Olsen concentrate on the Betts girl.
Any problem with that?"

"No problem," Gabe said just a trifle sulkily, mashing out his cigar stub in the battered brass ashtray Mike kept on his desk just for him.

"Good man. Then let’s do it."

When Gabe and Doug Olsen were gone, Frank Burgess said, "Hope you don’t mind my stepping on your toes, Lieutenant. Sometimes when we’re too close to an issue, we get to feeling a little like that
fellow
who jumped on his horse and rode off in all directions."

Mike didn’t miss the wry, perceptive smile behind the horn-rimmed glasses. It was not devoid of sympathy.

Forty-six

Matilda Bishop’s dining room served mainly as her office during the time she ruled over the Evansdale Home for Girls. Everything remained exactly as it had been for all those years. Tall, wooden cabinets, now laden with dust, housed files on every girl who had ever been incarcerated there, which included snapshots Matilda took herself of each new arrival. The photographs were for police identification in the event of a runaway, which was rare. Matilda kept a tight rein.

Alvin had already been through the files on numerous occasions. Ellen Harris had never been an inmate.
Just her younger sister.

Twelve of the files had "inactive" printed in red block letters on the front covers.
Alvin’s own way if keeping track, as well as providing him with an amusing private joke.

Clippings of stories on some of his victims over the years were now spread across the dining room table, some now yellowing. Sliding a brief write-up on Cindy Miller aside, he picked up the article that had first drawn his attention to Gail Morgan. Actually, it was her picture he had noticed.
So different from the snapshot in the folder, yet vaguely familiar.

He turned the article over and reread yet one more time about the planned demolition of the home, which was scheduled for nine in the morning. When he first read it, it was as though someone had slammed a boulder into the pit of his stomach. After awhile, he got used to the idea. It was time to move on, anyway. Things were getting a little too warm for his liking. He’d find a new "secret" place.

Last night he had been worried the storm might postpone things—an awkward turn of events—but he needn’t have sweated. On this morning’s news they said the burning of the Evansdale Home for Girls would go ahead as scheduled.

Ellen Harris would burn with it.

Soon you’ll be together
, he told the girl in the picture.

~ * ~

Out in the kitchen, Alvin took a match from the metal container hanging on the wall, struck it on the top of the stove, then held the flame to the ends of the hair he’d cut from Ellen’s head.

The sickening
smell of burning hair rose in the air, making Alvin reflect
how in the old days, long before he was born, they burned witches at the stake. The tradition held a certain appeal for him. Of course, a public burning would have been far more exciting, but since that was impossible...

In the meantime, Alvin thought, shaking out the match, slipping the hair into an envelope, then going into the pantry and taking down a tin of tomato soup from the shelf, it was important to keep her alive.

Later, driving down the narrow, winding road past the gray building that would by this time tomorrow be nothing more than a pile of ash and debris, he told himself that she would be all right for a little while. She wouldn’t be in any shape to try to escape.

He’d made sure of that.

Forty-seven

No more than a half hour could have passed between the time he left taking a hank of her hair with him, and when he returned with the soup, which was neither "nice", nor "hot". It also had a funny taste, but Ellen was famished and ate it to the last spoonful. She even munched soundlessly on the crackers that were so stale she couldn’t hold back an image of tiny black inhabitants scurrying through the box they’d come in.

Why had he taken her hair?
Surely not for ransom.
Though she’d like to think there were a couple of people out there who valued her, no one she knew had any more money than she did.

After she’d finished eating, he attended to her more "delicate" needs,
then
covered her with more blankets. He had not spoken a word during the entire process, and instinct warned her to follow suit.

Within minutes of his leaving, her lids began to grow heavy, her limbs lethargic, and she knew she’d been drugged. No doubt something else his aunt no longer had any use for.

She fought hard to stay awake, but she was helpless against the swirling blackness that kept rushing over her, pulling her down and down. Myra’s voice followed her... "Last night I dreamed I was back in the home and Miss Baddie had me tied to a chair... chopping off all my hair... great chunks falling on the green tile... so awful... just so damned real, Ellen... so real..."

Forty-eight

"I’m going out for a walk, Carl," Myra said, pulling on her boots. "I need to think."

"I’ll go with you," he said, immediately putting down the newspaper and reaching for his coat on the door hook.

"No, please," she said, more sharply than she’d intended. "I need to be by myself for a little while. It’s still light out. I won’t be long."

Her boots made no sound on the newly fallen snow. Though it was not yet dark, there was already a sprinkling of stars in the sky. As she walked along the road, she could see her breath in the frosty air. A light wind stirred the trees on either side of her. In the distance, a train whistle sounded.

There seemed to be a stillness in the air—a waiting.

Burying her hands in her jacket pockets, Myra trudged the mile to Ellen’s house, her steps slowing as she approached. She went a little ways into the driveway, touching Ellen’s car as she passed it, as though in some way the gesture might transfer into touching Ellen.

She stopped and gazed up at the house. The yellow police tape was across the door. It had always been to her such a warm, welcoming house. But now, no light glowed in any window. No outside light was on.

Soon, the house would be swallowed up in darkness.

For how long?

It had been dark in the cellar too, though there was enough light to see. Remember? One of the girls sent you down to fill up the basket with potatoes. She said it was your turn. You didn’t want to go. You were afraid, but the tall girl’s hands were at your back, pushing you toward the door. You had no choice. She was one of Miss Baddie’s spies.

Something happened then. What was it? You went down the stairs. Remember? You were carrying the basket. You had just stepped onto the bottom step. What did you see, Myra? What did you hear? Hear it now! See it again! She squeezed her eyes shut, hunched her shoulders forward.

"Myra?"

She whirled around, her hand leaping to her breast. "Christ, Lieutenant! You scared the hell out of me."

"Sorry." He flung the passenger door open. "Hop in. I’ll give you a lift back. I wanted to talk to you, anyway."

He didn’t sound sorry. "About what?" she said stiffly, settling into the seat beside him, still shaken from the fright he’d given her.

"Ellen. I need to talk to you about Ellen. What do you know about her childhood, Myra? She must have talked to you about it."

"I told you, she didn’t let me in." That wasn’t entirely true, she realized now. Ellen had confided in her.
Just not easily.
And she’d be damned if she was going to betray her confidence, especially when she couldn’t see how it could possibly help them find her, or the sick creep who took her.