Murder Comes by Mail (12 page)

She sounded like Michael’s old partner in the city. “Then when you know her name?”

“It doesn’t make that much difference. It’s just another piece of the puzzle that might help us find the name that matters more. Her killer’s name.”

“Good hunting.” Michael turned away.

“Hold on a minute, Deputy.” She waited till Michael looked back around at her. “I don’t guess you could get your editor to squash that story Wednesday. You know, the ‘hero saves a killer’ bit.”

“I’ll talk to him. He’s a decent enough guy, but he likes selling newspapers. And headlines like that sell newspapers even in little towns like ours.”

“Yeah. You’ll be wasting your breath.” She fanned herself with her notebook. The sun was beating down on them there on the sidewalk. “I guess the best we can hope for is no more envelopes in the mail.”

He was in his car ready to get on the interstate when he realized he didn’t want to go back to Hidden Springs. What was he going to do there besides sit around and wait for that next set of pictures? And unless Aaron Whitt was able to pull rabbits out of hats, another set was going to show up in the mail. That terrible certainty settled inside Michael like a heavy stone.

He had to do something to stop it, but what? He hadn’t exactly been invited into the investigation. No, it was go back to your little town and let the big dogs take care of the mess you made by grabbing some psycho back from the edge.

Michael drove past the entrance to the interstate. Instead he made a left turn, then a right, and a few miles later was in the parking garage beside Eagleton General before he really let himself think about what he was doing. What would it hurt if he talked to the doctor again? He could surely think up some reason that might sound halfway official. Maybe he could question the nurses who gave Jackson his medicine or the aides who brought him his food. If he came up with the right questions to ask, he might get a clue as to where to look next.

Michael was still wondering exactly what questions those might be and how he would explain the fact that he was asking them, when he spotted Detectives Whitt and Chekowski striding across the parking structure toward the elevator.

Whitt hadn’t wasted any time taking Michael’s advice, but then in a homicide investigation, the first twenty-four hours were critical. Every day after that increased the odds in the killer’s favor until after a year, the killer was usually sitting free on his pile of bones. Not that the police quit looking for the perpetrator. Homicides were never filed away, but cold cases where the leads had dried up got pushed off the front burner by new crime investigations.

After Whitt and Chekowski disappeared through the hospital entrance, Michael started his car and drove slowly back out to the street. He was not only out of his jurisdiction, he was out of his league. Facts Whitt would be sure to forcefully remind him of if he caught Michael stepping on the trail anywhere.

Still, he needed to do something, talk to somebody. There was always Aunt Lindy. She had a clear-eyed view of most things, but what did she know about psychos? Who knew anything about psychos? Michael thought of the doctor again, but even though he’d like to talk to him, maybe even look over his records of Jackson’s treatment, Michael couldn’t think of any way to make that happen without Whitt’s cooperation. And Whitt wasn’t the type to consult.

Besides, even if he did talk to Dr. Colson, he might not learn anything. Just because the doctor treated mental problems didn’t make him an expert on the criminally insane. That was the kind of person Michael needed to talk to. Someone who might help him predict the killer’s next move. An expert on serial killers.

Alex popped into his mind. While that wasn’t unusual lately, this time as he started to shove her aside to keep from being distracted, he realized she might know a psycho expert. As far as Michael knew, she had never defended a serial killer, but he was confident her firm, which had at least twenty-five names down the side of their letterhead, had experts lined up for every potential contingency. She’d be able to give him a name.

He waited until he was close to the interstate to call. After waiting impatiently through her recorded message, he asked her to meet him at Wayland, West Virginia, a halfway point to Washington and about four hours for each of them. When Alex first started working in DC and was struggling to get her foot in the door of the elevator that went up to the floor with the private offices, she met him at Wayland once a month or so. She needed to talk to someone she could count on always being on her side, even when he didn’t exactly agree with her.

That had been a few years ago, while he was working in Columbus and she still thought he’d do something that mattered instead of hibernating in Hidden Springs. She was glad when he quit the Columbus job, had actually let out a cheer when he told her he’d given notice. She wanted him to get on with the FBI or go back to school. He could even study law like she had. That would open up all kinds of opportunities, propel him up to the big time. He listened to her dreams for him and had to laugh. Later, he was never sure which had made her angrier—the fact that he had quit the Columbus force to go back to Hidden Springs or the laugh.

He sometimes thought about chasing the big time just so he might have a chance to catch Alex, but he didn’t even like to fish with artificial lures. He liked using crickets, grasshoppers, mealy worms. He couldn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t.

Halfway to Wayland, he called the office.

“Where are you?” Betty Jean demanded.

“Just crossed over into West Virginia,” Michael said.

“I can’t believe this.” Silence hummed on the phone for a minute before she let out a tired sigh. “You picked a fine time to run away from home.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow. Something going on you can’t handle?”

“Everything’s going on I can’t handle.” Betty Jean’s voice went up an octave. “Hank has called me fifteen times to see if you’ve gotten back. What am I supposed to tell him?”

“That I’ve taken the rest of the day off and I’ll talk to him tomorrow. He doesn’t have to have a headline till he goes to press.”

“I wish you’d taken him with you. He’s driving me crazy.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Then what am I supposed to tell Uncle Al? I thought I was going to have to call Dr. Hadley to come with the ambulance when he saw those pictures.”

“You could have not shown him,” Michael said.

“I thought about that, but he is the sheriff. He needed to know, and anyway, I figured Hank would jump him about what was going on since you’d disappeared on the wind. You’re going to have a hard time making up for this.”

“I’ll bring doughnuts in the morning.”

“It’ll take more than doughnuts. Besides, you know I’m on a diet.” Betty Jean was always on a diet.

“Carrot sticks then,” Michael said.

“I don’t think anything can make up for this.”

“I know.”

“Okay. Well, at least you did call.” She blew out another long sigh. “Did they know anything about the pictures up in Eagleton?”

“They found her body.”

“Where?”

“In a church. The Abundant Hope Church.”

“Abundant Hope,” Betty Jean echoed. “That’s almost too much, isn’t it?” When Michael didn’t answer she went on. “I guess you want me to call your aunt for you.”

“You’re an angel.”

“I’m not going all the way out to the lake to feed your dog. Not by myself. Not after those pictures today.”

“I fed him this morning. He’ll be all right until I get home,” Michael said. “Anything else I need to know?”

“That doctor called you again. What was his name?” On the other end of the line, Betty Jean shuffled through some papers.

“Colson?”

“Yeah. He’s the one treating the jumper, isn’t he?”

“Right. The Eagleton police were questioning him this afternoon. When did he call?”

“A half hour or so ago. Left a number, but said you’d have to call him tomorrow, that he was going to be out of his office the rest of the day.”

“I guess I don’t need the number then. Anybody else?” He tried to say it casually, but Betty Jean could read his mind even with a hundred miles between them.

“Yeah, she called. Said there’s no way she can meet you tonight. She said she tried your cell, but you didn’t answer.”

“Guess I was in a dead spot.” That might have been true, but then he couldn’t be sure since he’d turned his phone off. He knew she wouldn’t come if she could talk to him on the phone. So he made sure she couldn’t. “She told me to tell you she’d keep trying to call you. I told her you were probably already on the way.”

“What’d she say to that?”

“Oh, I don’t remember. Some general ‘men do the craziest things’ remarks. Gave you a number to call if you called back in. Her cell phone, I think.” Betty Jean rattled off some numbers.

“Right. I have that already, but thanks, Betty Jean. I promise I’ll be back tomorrow. If another envelope comes, don’t open it before I get there.”

“Another envelope? You’re just trying to scare me, aren’t you, Michael?” Her voice sounded squeaky in his ear.

“There probably won’t be another one, but just in case.”

“Okay. And Michael.”

“Yeah?”

“I hope she shows.”

13

He tried the cell phone number, but when it went straight to her messages, he didn’t bother leaving a message. Instead he held down the off button on his phone again. Back out on the interstate, he told himself he was crazy to pass up the next exit and drive on east as though he actually expected to find Alex waiting for him at the old Cherry Blossom Inn. In fact, he couldn’t even be sure he’d find the Cherry Blossom Inn. They’d last met there over two years ago. Plenty of time for it to give way to a Motel 6.

Michael had never thought of himself as impulsive. He thought things out, did the sensible thing, and didn’t expect miracles.

“Why not?” Alex used to ask him. “You’re practically a walking miracle yourself. Think about it. You were in a coma for weeks and everybody but your Aunt Lindy gave you up for dead and here you are walking around practically in your right mind.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t believe in miracles. I said I didn’t expect them,” he told her.

Now here he was driving away from the afternoon sun as if he did expect a miracle to happen. Aunt Lindy liked to call him an optimistic realist. Maybe she was right. He never shied away from the facts. He liked being sure of the facts and had been, ever since he came back into the knowing world after the wreck that left dark spaces littering his memory. With Aunt Lindy’s help, he managed to fill in some of the blanks over the years, but not all of them. While it might not matter all that much who his best friend had been in fifth grade, the fact he didn’t know, that he couldn’t remember, made him feel something like a stranger to himself.

Once when Michael told Alex how those lost memories bothered him, she laughed and told him she could fill in the blank on that fifth grade best friend. She was his best friend when he was in the fifth grade. She had always been his best friend and she would always be his best friend.

That was what he was counting on as he turned in to the Cherry Blossom Inn. He was relieved to see the building looked the same. He parked his Hidden Springs sheriff’s car near the road where she couldn’t miss it and looked at his watch. He’d wait an hour, then turn his phone back on. He wasn’t ready to hear the messages proving how foolish he was to be sitting there waiting for her. He wanted to believe she would come. The waiting wasn’t hard. He was used to waiting. Even in Hidden Springs, a police officer spent a lot of hours waiting and watching.

Across the street, cars threaded through a fast-food restaurant’s drive-thru window the way the events of the last week ran through his mind. Funny how something that seemed good could turn bad so quickly. Michael hadn’t been caught up in the hero bit. Heroes ran into burning buildings or jumped into shark-infested waters to pull people to safety. Catching the jumper teetering and yanking him back from the edge hadn’t been heroic. Lucky, maybe. Or perhaps, as things turned out, not so lucky.

Still, in spite of the way the man’s words had echoed ominously inside Michael’s head all weekend, Michael had felt good about giving somebody’s son or father a second chance. As it turned out, the second chance he’d given him had been to kill.

Two girls, maybe thirteen or fourteen, came out of the restaurant across the street carrying ice cream cones and laughing. Wet ponytails feathered out over the towels draped around their necks, and wet spots darkened the blue knit shorts they’d pulled on over their almost identical neon orange swimsuits. The taller girl had a trace of that white stuff across the bridge of her nose to protect it from the sun. As they walked away down the street, Michael had the urge to pull out and trail along behind them to make sure they reached their destination safely.

He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles went white as the before and after photos of Hope flashed in his mind. She should be walking down a street somewhere, licking ice cream and going home to a mother who would yell at her for throwing her wet suit on the floor. But instead Hope had ventured out into the world and met a monster.

Michael shut his eyes and rubbed his forehead hard with the tips of his fingers. If only he could shut out Hope’s image and do like Chekowski said. Change her into nothing more than a number on somebody’s case list. It would be easier not to think about her begging the monster to let her live, but her last panicked screams echoed in his imagination. And the monster had enjoyed the sound. A monster who would be dead but for him.

Michael blew out a long breath and looked at his watch. Fifty-three minutes had slipped away with the sun that was disappearing in the west, and his stomach was letting him know he’d skipped lunch. He picked up his phone and stared at it. If he turned it on, it would tell him where Alex was. After a couple of minutes, he slipped the phone into his shirt pocket and kept waiting.

Out on the street, people driving by spotted his bubble lights and braked to match the speed limit. Some of them stepped on the gas again when they read the logo on his car.