One Through the Heart (22 page)

‘There was just enough moonlight. He let himself in, took his father’s pistol from the back of a drawer in the study downstairs and crept upstairs.’

Raveneau listened to Pierce’s voice, wavering, but certain in his conviction.

‘It’s a big house I’m talking about. The master bedroom is on one end and the only thing that went wrong was his father heard footsteps and woke up. Probably that’s because they were going to get up early to make a flight. Bill Lindsley’s body was in the hallway. His mother was reaching for the phone when he shot her through the head. Three bullets in each, and he stepped in his father’s blood as he left the bedroom and tracked that downstairs. He wore gloves for the shooting and showered before he left the house, taking his clothes with him.

‘We never found those but I’m going back next spring. I have some idea of where to look for them. He and Jules Owens claimed they played video games all night and never left the house. Then there was the complication that the bodies laid there for days before they were discovered by him. Lindsley purposefully contaminated the scene when he went home for some clean clothes and allegedly found them. That was a day before they were due to return. He wanted to make certain he’d be the one to find them. He called the police.

‘Now, Inspector, there are roughly fifteen thousand homicides a year in the United States. Maybe seventy-five of those are children killing their parents. I’ve studied this and some are for the reasons I mentioned earlier and some of these kids can’t say later why they did it. Most of the younger ones don’t know why. Some of it is impulse. I’ve become an expert in this and I’m willing to help you, but I think it’s best if you read everything on my website first.’

Raveneau skimmed pages on the website as Pierce kept on.

‘He cried. He feigned grief, but I’m certain he didn’t feel anything. He thought of a way to get free of them and get the money. The money was the motive. He wanted to recreate his life. As soon as that inheritance was his he left the Chicago area. He moved out west with the rest of the kooks and I don’t mean that as an insult.’

‘Did he move straight here?’

‘What?’

‘Did he move from Chicago to here or did he move somewhere else first?’

‘He left the country for awhile. By then he was eighteen. He had freedom and money and could go anywhere he wanted.’

‘Where did he go?’

‘To the French Riviera. He stayed there for six months. The hotel he stayed in is on my website as well as how much he paid.’

‘How do I get to the case records?’

‘What’s been released is there. You’ll see a tab that says case files.’

Raveneau clicked on that and was surprised Pierce had access to an unsolved case and had put up anything in the files, but as he scanned down he saw it was next to nothing. As Pierce continued to talk, Raveneau clicked through the other web pages. On each in the upper right corner was a headshot of Pierce, neatly cut white hair, glasses, blue suit coat, white shirt, red tie. He looked like the Fourth of July. But annoying as he was to talk to, Raveneau could hear how the case changed his life.

Then abruptly Pierce shifted away from Lindsley. ‘What are the conditions?’

‘Where?’

‘Where you are? What’s the situation with the fires and apprehending the individuals?’

It took awhile to get Pierce back to Lindsley. But like a train, once he was back on the tracks he set off again.

‘Lindsley is bright but not brilliant. He thinks he’s brilliant but the only thing he’s brilliant at is disguising who he is. He is imaginative and I don’t know how he did it, but he got himself into college. He did well on the SAT and his score is there on my website. You’ll need to click on his bio tab. He’s manipulative. He won’t try to sell you everything at once. He’s smart that way. He’ll sell you a little and then take a little back and then give you a little more. He’s doing that now with you. I’m getting that from the news reports, though here at the lake I can’t get anything live. But still, I recognize what he’s doing.

‘I don’t really believe in the theories of multiple personality but the boy that I interviewed sometimes seemed inhabited by a different person. It was as if when I left the room for a few minutes . . . Let’s say I was interviewing him and needed to go to the rest room or get a glass of water or the Mountain Dew he liked to drink. He loved Mountain Dew. Sometimes I’d be back in less than five minutes, but the person I had been talking to was gone. A completely different person was sitting there now, but subtle, not night and day at all. Scary and exciting, I’ve never been around anything like it before or since. He’s probably even better at it now. Let me put it this way, it doesn’t surprise me a homicide inspector is calling me about him. I can get you copies of the case files, but you didn’t get them from me. You may want to try the department first. I’ll give you a name.’

Raveneau wrote down a name and phone number.

‘I’m going to summarize our conversation on my website, Inspector.’

‘Don’t do that. Keep this one between you and me.’

‘I’ll leave your name out if you want.’

‘Don’t put anything up yet. You’ll compromise us.’

‘All right, I’ll wait until you give me the go.’

‘That might be a while.’

A very long while Raveneau thought and Pierce said, ‘That’s OK, I’ll wait, and I’m going to warn you again, he’s capable of anything. You haven’t come out and said it, but you’re telling me he might be involved in another killing, aren’t you?’

‘We don’t know what’s what yet.’

‘Give me your email and I’ll send you some things I haven’t posted to the site yet.’

Raveneau gave him an email and half an hour later Pierce called to asked if he’d read the documents yet.

He hadn’t. He scanned them now and saw they were Pierce’s analysis of Lindsley’s personality. He thanked Pierce again, said he would read them as he could.

Half an hour later Pierce called back. ‘Have you read what I sent?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I’ll wait for your call.’

‘If you don’t reach me, leave me a message and I’ll get back to you when I can.’

Raveneau broke the connection, laid the phone down, and stared at a photo of Lindsley that Pierce had just sent him. He was young in the photo and with his parents. He looked like he was about ten years old and it took Raveneau a little while to figure out that the hotels behind them were French. Then he put it together that this was somewhere on the French Riviera and they made a family trip there and Lindsley returned after his parents were dead and he had left Chicago. In this photo he looked very happy and leaned against his mother. What did it mean that he returned and stayed six months after they were gone?

R
aveneau put a call in to the Missouri sheriff. She was a little bit of relief in all this and when she picked up the phone it was good to hear her voice.

‘Is this the same mountain where your victim’s body was found?’

‘It is and that area burned early. The fires were set along two roads – one that comes up from the coast road, the highway, on up to the ridge of the mountain, and down the other side. Her body was on the ocean side of the ridge. Listen, Jennie, you’re going to get a call from a Mark Coe at the FBI. He may send you a photo of the man who died while setting the incendiary devices.’

‘This is the fire bomber we’ve all been hearing about?’

‘It is, and he’s a John Doe but so badly burned I don’t know if a photo will do it. We’ve also got testimony that Alan Siles has knowledge about how the skulls made their way into the bomb shelter.’

At noon Raveneau drove out to talk with the contractor Ferranti. He parked and stood looking at the smoke out over the bay. It was whiter and that was a good sign. The garden shed slab was gone, the bomb shelter pumped full of a sand slurry. A backhoe operator dug away the earth to a depth of roughly six feet around the access tube and the operator was using the hoe to bang into the access tube until the rebar was exposed. Raveneau watched him cut through the exposed steel with a blow torch and then knock the tube down. He cut the last rebar, hooked a chain around the tube and lifted it away. Raveneau felt a pang of worry that he missed something that he could now never get, but he also felt an almost superstitious sense that they were entombing a place of evil.

He climbed the stone steps back up to the house. New windows and doors were getting installed and he watched three guys lift in a big window and then found Ferranti. They sat down at a plywood table in what had been Lash’s study and was for the moment a construction office. Ferranti looked happy to finally get the bomb shelter out of his way. He smiled but acted nervous and Raveneau guessed he wanted something. He was going to ask for something and didn’t seem comfortable about it.

‘Should I pull my complaint against Hugh Neilley?’

‘I can’t give you advice on that.’

‘I’d like some anyway because what he did was dishonest and I’m not sure what to do.’

‘You’ll have to make that decision on your own.’

‘He forged those dump tags and the question is do you want me to bury it because he’s a cop and your friend? I mean, you have helped me here. Do I owe you?’

‘You have to do what you think is right.’

‘He’s your friend.’

Raveneau reached over and touched Ferranti’s abdomen. ‘You’re the guy wearing the wire, so that means you can listen to this conversation over and over again. I just gave you my best advice. Replay when you have time and let your lawyer listen too. See what he thinks. As for me, I think you’re as fucked up as Hugh. See you later.’

He called la Rosa as he left Ferranti and she knew this tone of voice in Raveneau. He was driving. She could hear the car engine, the wind blowing through the window. She thought Raveneau was of another time, maybe a better one, but one that had almost gone by. She realized in that instant she was never really going to know him. The difference was generational and she felt an acute sadness well up as he talked.

‘I just left the contractor, Ferranti. He was wearing a wire and wanted to draw me into saying he should back off Hugh. There’s something there that we need to learn about.’

‘How do you know he was wearing a wire?’

‘I saw it when he moved and reached over and touched it. I’m wondering what he’s heard about Hugh. I hate to say, we’ve got to know.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘On the Golden Gate on my way to Marion Coryell’s.’

‘Does she know you’re coming?’

‘She does, and an old friend of hers will be there also.’

‘What is it, an intervention?’

‘She’s got something she wants to tell me. Her friend is helping her find the words.’

‘I’m surprised she’s even in her house with the fires. Is it something she should have told us a long time ago?’

‘I really don’t know, and on getting back into the house, she told me they were allowed to go back in last night. I’ll call you when I leave Marion’s house.’

‘OK.’

Except it wasn’t OK, because now what he said nagged at her. Raveneau wouldn’t have called unless he was seeing something. She continued working for another hour then scratched around on her desk until she found the number Raveneau got from pot-bellied Hugh Neilley, Southern Precinct lieutenant turned crooked demolition contractor. She swore as she dialed the number, but then quietly asked for a Lieutenant Sanger.

‘This is Sanger.’

‘It’s Liz. I want to talk to you about Hugh Neilley, but let’s do it away from the Hall.’

‘I’ve always got time for you.’

She knew that but would just have to deal with him today. If there was anything, Sanger would probably know.

‘How about in an hour?’ she asked. ‘I’ll meet you outside.’

‘An hour from now is tough, but for you I’ll do it. I thought you’d never ask.’

So did I, she thought. ‘Good. See you then.’

W
hen Raveneau sat down in the kitchen with Marion Coryell and her friend, sunlight was bright on both of their faces. It also revealed age, weathered lines at the mouth and the eyes, a slight yellowing of her friend’s eyes, and all the worry and sadness Marion had carried and now wore. But her voice was firm. What she had to say was not what Raveneau anticipated.

‘Alan, I mean Brandon, brought me flowers and a copy of the book. That’s when I first met him. He said he had a number of copies and was going to give it away so she wasn’t forgotten. He wanted a photo of Ann and I gave him one. I could have told you this last time we talked, but I didn’t know you had questions about the book.’

‘Did he say anything about who published it?’

‘Not that I remember, but I think it says so on the book. I had the impression it was a friend of his.’

‘That friend might have been Professor Lash.’

‘Please don’t say something like that.’

‘They were good friends, Marion.’

‘No, they weren’t. They couldn’t have been.’

‘Why not? He lied about his name and about his relationship with Lash. Do you think that’s where the lies stopped?’

‘I may be wrong again but you have to understand how often we talked about Professor Lash. Brandon and I agreed about Professor Lash. We both hate him. Excuse me a minute, I’m going to get something to show you.’

She got up and left and Raveneau looked to her friend but got nothing there. Then Marion was back and carrying a photo album that in her arms looked heavy, though she had no difficulty setting it on to the table. She turned to her friend. ‘You’ll remember this.’

She showed Raveneau a photo of Ann as a graduate student standing on upper Bancroft with the campus behind her.

‘I had two of the same and I gave him one.’

‘Gave Brandon Lindsley one?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he say why he wanted it?’

‘He admired Ann.’

Raveneau studied the photo and asked, ‘Can I take this and get a copy made?’

‘I don’t want to lose it.’

‘I’ll get it back to you.’ Raveneau turned to the friend. ‘Are you married?’

She smiled at that and said, ‘George and I have been married forty-six years.’