Once Shadows Fall (13 page)

“A bright ambitious girl like yourself should be able to figure that out . . . an old satchel left at a museum. Do let me know what you find.”

“But—”

“Good day, Elizabeth. I’ve enjoyed our chat.”

Beth was about to press him for an answer when Dr. Raymond chose that exact moment to enter the room again.

“I have that information you requested, Ms. Sturgis,” he said, holding up a blue file folder.

Idiot
. It was a good thing she didn’t have her gun. Pell leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

“I’ve grown quite fatigued by all these questions. Please take me back now.”

Raymond gave her a sympathetic look and said, “Perhaps it would be best to keep this session short.”

“I’m not finished,” Beth told him.

“Do come and visit me again,” Pell said. “I’m afraid that poor woman doesn’t have much time left.”

I
t was obvious Pell hated Jack Kale. Only natural since Jack was the one who caught him. Driving through the last remnants of the storm, Beth reviewed her conversation with the killer. Why had he said Jack had framed him for his partner’s murder? He didn’t deny any of the other murders or that he had performed that gruesome surgery on her. It was probably the product of a sick mind and another attempt to manipulate her. Not a very subtle one at that. He obviously knew they were working together. She’d said as much herself. What better way to undermine her confidence in a partner than to create doubt?

Pell was convinced he was smarter than everyone else. Maybe he was, but look where it got him. Jack was right not to come. Howard Pell was a perverted individual, playing mental games, as Raymond said, and exerting what little control he could still exercise by dropping obsequious hints here and there. The only consideration now was finding that missing woman. And the clock was ticking. Of that she had no doubt. It might have been the one true thing Pell had said.

By the time Beth reached Atlanta, the sun was creating oil-slick rainbows in sidewalk puddles. Her cell phone beeped with a message from Jack asking that she join him at the crime lab.

She found him hunched over a microscope peering at something. Ben Furman was at the opposite end of the room adjusting the dials on an odd-looking device.

Jack informed her, “The fiber you found is asbestos. We’ve also broken down the soil sample and have some interesting results.”

“Like what?”

“First, that soil definitely comes from someplace other than the Historical Society grounds.”

“Where?”

“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Jack said. “Ben is about to burn a sample in the gas chromatograph spectrometer. We’re getting close.”

Furman muttered under his breath, which caused them both to look at him.

“The damn thing must be out of whack,” he said. “The nitrogen content in the soil is off the chart.”

“Run it again,” Jack said.

They waited while the tech cleared out and reset the machine.

“Same results,” he said.

“Okay,” Jack said. “Anything distinctive about the brick chips?”

“Other than being old and crumbling, they’re probably handmade as opposed to machine made.”

“And the mortar?” Jack asked.

“It contains a very high lime content, which indicates age.”

“Why?” Beth asked.

“More lime was incorporated into mortar used in the older buildings because it’s breathable and moves as the structure settles. You don’t see that much with modern stuff.”

Beth informed them, “Pell said the satchel and the Historical Society were the key.”

“He’s partially right,” Jack said. “Let’s take a ride.”

“To where?”

“The Historical Society. I need an old map of the city.”

Within minutes they were traveling down Peachtree Road. Eventually, they turned off at West Paces Ferry. Jack used his cell phone to call ahead and spoke with the director of the museum.

“What are you looking for?” Beth asked as they entered the building.

“I’m not sure. Possibly a company that manufactured fertilizer,” Jack said.

“Here in Atlanta?”

“Obviously not for many years. If they existed at all, it was a long time ago. Everything points to it—a carpetbag, brick and mortar from an ancient building, the Historical Society itself. They all indicate age. All we have to do is find out where they intersect.”

“There are a lot of old buildings in Atlanta,” Beth said.

“Not that many, thanks to General Sherman. Much of the city was burned toward the end of the Civil War.”

The director of the Historical Society was waiting for them in the lobby. Ellen Amblin was in her early sixties, stylishly dressed, and confined to a wheelchair. She possessed an intelligent face and gray hair that was swept back from her head and held in place by a clip.

“It’s good to see you again, Jack,” she said.

“Ma’am?”

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Well, I really can’t blame you. It’s been quite a few years. Your mother used to bring you to my parent’s store. They owned a little antique shop in the Peachtree Battle Center.”

“My goodness,” Jack said, shaking her hand. “It’s good to see you as well. Forgive me for not remembering. This is Detective Sturgis.”

The women shook hands. Beth seemed delighted.

She said, “I’d love to hear what Jack was like as a little boy.”

“Oh, he was quite precocious. Always touching things and getting into mischief. His mother had an awful time keeping up with him. In fact, I remember—”

“Miss Ellen, as I mentioned on the phone, we’re in a bit of a hurry. This is police business.”

“Yes, of course. I’ve pulled out several maps from our library that show Atlanta’s early development all the way back to when it was called Marthasville.”

“I thought it was always called Atlanta,” Beth said as they started down a long hallway. She glanced at Jack with an amused smile playing at the corners of her mouth. He continued to look straight ahead.

“Officially, we’ve had three names,” Ellen Amblin informed them. “Terminus was the other. Atlanta came last.”

Jack asked, “Are you familiar with any companies that manufactured fertilizer, say from the Civil War period to around the turn of the century?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“What about stockyards or places where animals were kept? This was a major stopping point for the railroad in the South,” Jack said.

“
The
major stopping point,” the director agreed. “At one time, sheep and cattle were herded through the middle of downtown, but I’m afraid whatever was here is long gone now.”

They arrived in the library where three maps were hanging on easels. The stockyards shown on the first map, dated 1840, were gone by the time the second map was published in 1885. A third map, produced in
1901, showed three feed and fertilizer companies. Two were well north of the city. The third was now the site of Lenox Mall.

“It has to be here,” Jack said, staring at the maps. All of Pell’s murders were subterranean. He believed the killer was following that pattern.

“I’m sorry. So much of the city has been rebuilt in the last hundred years. Very little of the old town is left.”

“Obviously it has something to do with the Civil War,” Beth said. “Otherwise, why leave the carpetbag?”

The director said, “Except for a church at Peachtree and North Avenue, I’m not familiar with any brick buildings that old. After the war, when Reconstruction began, everything was more or less plowed under.”

Jack’s head came up. “What did you say?”

“You mean about Reconstruction?”

“No, after that. Plowed under—everything was plowed under,” he repeated. He turned to Beth. “The killer used a tunnel to move one victim, buried another, and locked a third in a vault under the dam.”

They held each other’s eyes for a moment, the same thought occurring to both simultaneously.

Jack moved to the oldest map and pointed to an area across from the present courthouse.

“There,” he said.

“Underground Atlanta,” Beth said. “It’s part of an entertainment complex now.”

“Not all of it,” Ellen Amblin said. “Only the first section was rebuilt. The back is sealed off. At one time, it was part of Atlanta’s downtown. They had streets and shops, and—”

“The Beckworth Munitions Company,” Jack said, stabbing the map with his finger. “I should have made the nitrogen connection sooner. That’s where he’s got her.”

B
eth called dispatch and asked them to alert the SWAT team as they sped through the streets. Jack was driving.

“They’ll be onsite in five minutes,” Beth said. “I told them to get all civilians out of the area.”

Jack nodded, slowed at an intersection slightly, then ran the red light.

“How did you know about the arms company?” Beth asked.

“I didn’t,” Jack said. “The part about nitrogen threw me off. It kept going around in my head. Then I saw the name and remembered nitrogen is a principal component in the manufacture of explosives—you know, like nitroglycerin.”

“You just know this stuff?”

Jack shrugged and kept driving. “I read a lot.”

*

The only sound Donna could hear was her own breathing. The linen cloth covering her mouth and face was just woven loosely enough to breathe and see through. But even the little light filtering through the alcove opening disappeared as the last brick was set into place. She had been so close to getting away. Making her way through the crumbling building, she could see people walking on an odd street between openings in a fence. She had no idea where she was, and the street only confused her further. It was like something out of an old-time movie, paved with cobblestones and unusually dark like it was night. She never heard the Soul Eater coming until it was too late. Now she was surrounded by the ominous blackness again.

Her jaw still ached from where he’d hit her. When she awoke, she’d found herself completely bound in the wrapping and back in the alcove. As the last brick went into place, everything became muffled. She tried shouting for help, but there was no one to hear her cries. Eventually, she gave up. It was becoming harder and harder to think. Some part of her brain realized the air inside the little room was slowly disappearing. Panic tried to take control of her mind.
You have to do something!

The choices were simple. Use up more air calling for help or lay here and die for lack of oxygen. Her eyes were growing steadily heavier. False images began to float in front of her—colors generated by her brain. Is this how it feels?

Maybe if she slept for a bit, just a few minutes to gather herself. More shapes swam before her along with those little stars you see when you stand up too quickly. Shooting stars. She remembered pasting them on the ceiling of her boys’ room when they were little. Shooting stars that continued to glow after the lights were out. Slowly, inexorably, the stars began to recede in the distance, growing fainter and fainter. Donna Camp closed her eyes and went to sleep.

*

A uniform officer responding to the emergency call was already at the parking lot keeping more people from entering the Underground Atlanta complex. Jack recognized Corey Harrison immediately.

“Nice to see you again, Harrison,” he said.

“I was on my way to court when your alert went out. What’s up?”

“We think our killer has the woman somewhere in there,” Jack said, pointing.

“Really?”

“It’s a reasonable guess. That evidence you brought in was crucial. Are you familiar with the layout here?”

“A little,” Harrison said. “My girlfriend and I visited after the renovations were complete. Basically, it’s just a couple of streets with restaurants and souvenir shops.”

Beth said, “There’s supposed to be a closed section they haven’t started on yet.”

“It’s probably at the north end of Old Alabama Street,” Harrison said. “I remember seeing some broken-down old buildings there but never paid much attention to them.”

Beth nodded and went to the trunk of her car and removed two body armor vests and handed one to Jack. They both put them on. She
explained to Harrison, “Tactical should be here any minute. Let them know we’re on scene.”

She then turned to Jack. “Are you armed?”

“Uh . . . no, I didn’t think I’d need to carry a gun.”

“Jack, you can’t go into a dangerous situation without a weapon.”

“He can have my backup,” Harrison said. He knelt down, removed a compact revolver from his ankle holster, and handed it to him.

Jack looked at the gun and frowned. It was a five-shot .22-caliber Smith & Wesson the cops referred to as pop guns.

“Better than using harsh language,” Harrison said.

Jack managed a smile and thanked him.

“How about I come with you guys?” Harrison said. “I can have radio advise tactical we’re in.”

Beth looked at Jack and then back to Harrison and nodded.

“Let’s go.”

As soon as they cleared the entrance, the three found themselves in the midst of Underground Atlanta. Beth wasn’t sure what was above them, but she could hear the rumble of traffic. Around her old-fashioned lampposts spilled light onto the cobblestones.

The street they were on ended at a sidewalk restaurant flanked by a gift shop and a store called Ye Olde Printing Company—Stationers. Perhaps a hundred yards away, at the opposite end, was a gray, wooden fence blocking off further access. Beyond it she could see three or four brick buildings, or rather what was left of them. Their front and sides were blackened and none looked particularly safe. Portions of one had already collapsed. The roof and top floor of the building across from it were completely gone.

Without speaking, they spread out. Beth took one side of the street, Jack the other, and Harrison moved to the middle. As they drew closer, she could see the area beyond the fence had once been used to house construction materials. Large mounds of sand and concrete blocks still remained. Atlanta’s city fathers had hoped to turn Underground Atlanta into a tourist attraction, similar to Boston’s Faneuil Hall or New York’s South Street Seaport. The fact that Beth had never visited there or knew anyone who did said something about how the public had received it. Harrison finished speaking with radio dispatch and stopped in front of the gate.

“Looks like the lock’s been snapped off,” he said, drawing his gun. “Someone probably used a crowbar on it.”

Jack and Beth joined him as he pushed the right half of the door open. It was large enough to drive a truck through. The door swung back on its hinges to reveal a narrow street.

The buildings were no more than piles of rubble. Whatever was left was now sealed in by the road overhead and a wall at the very end that cast them into perpetual night.

“SWAT’s here,” Harrison said, listening over his earpiece. “They’re clearing out the last civilians now.”

“Where do you think he has her?” Beth asked.

“If he’s consistent, it’ll probably be in a basement. That’s where Pell’s last victim was found,” Jack said, coming to a halt at a ruined brick structure.

Boards and debris were blocking the building’s entrance. They searched for another way in and found nothing.

“Commander Sheeley’s on his way,” Harrison said. “He says to stay put until he’s secured the area.”

“We don’t have time to stay put,” Beth said, “and neither does that woman.”

“I’m just telling you what he . . .”

Harrison’s words went to Jack and Beth’s backs. They were already in the process of negotiating their way over the rubble. Harrison cursed under his breath and followed.

All that was left of the Beckworth Munitions Company was a faded sign that hung above an interior courtyard. Its four sides were surrounded by the building’s shell. Above them, only the framework of the roof remained. Portions of two walls had collapsed as had a wooden balcony that ran along the inside of the second floor. Sections were still intact, but the majority now lay in the courtyard, its timbers charred by fire.

Low light glinted off broken windows high up in the remaining brick walls. It was a desolate, abandoned place that had once been filled with activity. No one had been here for years. The echo of wagons moving and men shouting, laughing, and cursing long ago reverberated within these walls. Now the only sound was wind passing through the shattered beams.

“This ain’t smart,” a voice behind them said.

All three turned to see the SWAT team commander making his way across the entrance.

“We think there’s a woman somewhere in this building,” Beth said.

“I know, but you don’t go stumbling into an unsecured situation unless you’re tired of living.”

Sheeley was dressed completely in black body armor with the word SWAT and a gold badge emblazoned over his right breast.

“She may be dying as we speak,” Beth said. “Let us help and—”

“Just give me a few minutes to make sure there are no surprises waiting for us. It won’t take long.”

“But—”

“We’ll move as quickly as we can. I promise. In the meantime, I want you to fall back outside.”

Beth opened her mouth to protest and stopped. Sheeley was right. Barging into an uncontrolled area without making sure it was safe was foolish and against department policy. Conscious the clock was ticking, she told him to have his men look for a basement.

Six of Sheeley’s squad, dressed as he was, entered the courtyard and began to check different portions of the structure, splitting into two-man teams. Within minutes each team called in advising the area was clear. The last to report was team two.

“Myers here, boss. We found the basement, but it’s empty.”

“You sure?”

“There’s an inch of dust on the steps going down. It’s the same with the floor. I promise you, no one’s been on them for years. This is a dead end.”

“She has to be here,” Jack said. “Everything fits.”

“Fine. Tell us where to look,” Sheeley said.

Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. All indications are—”

“Why are those arches sealed?” Beth asked.

The men turned to see what she was looking at. Across the courtyard, a small group of arches under a section of the balcony had been bricked over. The arches on either side were open.

Beth asked Jack, “Didn’t you say you found old mortar mixed in with the brick chips—lime or something?”

“Absolutely,” Jack said, staring at the arches.

Sheeley understood immediately. He snatched the hand mic off his shoulder and snapped, “Antonelli, Johnson, grab the battering ram and meet us here on the double.”