Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel (21 page)

“What was he wearing?”

“One of those hooded sweatshirts like the kids have.”

Ah, the hoodie.

“What color was it?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Jacket, slacks?”

“Sorry. I wasn’t paying much attention. I didn’t know who he was at that point—I hadn’t heard about
the Roadside Cross stuff. All I knew was that he was weird and scary. He was carrying that cross, and he had a dead animal.”

“An animal?”

A nod. “Yeah, a squirrel or groundhog or something. It had its throat cut.” He gestured with his finger at his own neck.

Dance hated any atrocities committed against animals. Still, she kept her voice even as she asked, “Had he just killed it?”

“I don’t think so. There wasn’t much blood.”

“Okay, then what happened?”

“Then he looks up and down the road and when he doesn’t see anybody he opens his backpack and—”

“Oh, he had a backpack?”

“That’s right.”

“What color was it?”

“Uhm, black, I’m pretty sure. And he takes a shovel out, a little one. The sort that you’d use on a camping trip. And he opens it up and digs a hole and then puts the cross in the ground. Then . . . this is really weird. He goes through this ritual. He walks around the cross three times, and it looks like he’s chanting.”

“Chanting?”

“That’s right. Muttering things. I can’t hear what.”

“And then?”

“He picks up the squirrel and walks around the cross again
five
times—I was counting. Three and five . . . Maybe it was a message, a clue, if somebody could figure it out.”

After
The Da Vinci Code,
Dance had observed, a lot of witnesses tended to decrypt their observations rather than just say what they’d seen.

“Anyway, he opened his backpack again and pulled out this stone and a knife. He used the stone to sharpen the blade. Then he held the knife over the squirrel. I thought he was going to cut it up, but he didn’t-. I saw his lips moving again, then he wrapped the body up in some kind of weird yellow paper, like parchment, and put it in the backpack. Then it looked like he said one last thing and went up the road the way he came. Loping, you know. Like an animal.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I left and went on to a few more meetings. I went back to the office. That’s when I went online and saw the news about the boy. I saw his picture. I freaked out. I called nine-one-one right away.”

Dance gestured Michael O’Neil over.

“Michael, this is interesting. Mr. Pfister’s been real helpful.”

O’Neil nodded his thanks.

“Now could you tell Deputy O’Neil here what you saw?”

“Sure.” Pfister explained again about pulling over to make calls. “The boy had a dead animal of some sort. A squirrel, I think. He walked around in a circle three times without the body. Then he plants the cross and walks around it five times. He was talking to himself. It was weird. Like a different language.”

“And then?”

“He wrapped the squirrel up in this parchment paper and held the knife over it. He said something else in that weird language again. Then he left.”

“Interesting,” O’Neil said. “You’re right, Kathryn.”

It was then that Dance pulled off her
pale-pink-framed glasses and polished them. And subtly swapped them for a pair with severe black frames.

O’Neil caught on immediately that she was putting on her predator specs and stepped back. Dance moved closer to Pfister, well into his personal proxemic zone. Immediately, she could see, he felt a sense of threat.

Good.

“Now, Ken, I know you’re lying. And I need you to tell me the truth.”

“Lying?” He blinked in shock.

“That’s right.”

Pfister’d been pretty good at his deception, but certain comments and behaviors had tipped her off. Her suspicions arose initially because of content-based analysis: considering
what
he said rather than
how
he said it. Some of his explanations sounded too incredible to be true. Claiming he didn’t know who the boy was and that he’d never heard about the Roadside Cross attack—when he seemed to go online regularly to get news. Claiming Travis was wearing a hoodie, which several of the posters to
The Chilton Report
had said, but not remembering the color—people tend to remember the hues of clothing far better than the garments themselves.

Pfister had also paused frequently—liars often do this as they try to craft credible deceptive lines. And he’d used at least one “illustrator” gesture—the finger at the throat; people use these subconsciously to reinforce spurious statements.

So, suspicious, Dance had then used a shorthand technique to test for deception: In determining if somebody’s lying, an interviewer will ask to hear his story several times. One who’s telling the truth may
edit the narrative some and remember things forgotten the first time through, but the chronology of events will always be the same. A liar, though, often forgets the sequence of occurrences within his fictional narrative. This happened with Pfister in retelling the story to O’Neil; he’d mixed up when the boy had planted the cross.

Also, while honest witnesses may recall new facts during the second telling, they’ll rarely contradict the first version. Initially Pfister had said that Travis was whispering and that he couldn’t hear the words. The second version included the detail that he couldn’t
understand
the words, which were “weird,” implying that he
had
heard them.

Dance concluded without a doubt that Pfister was fabricating.

In other circumstances Dance would have handled the interrogation more subtly, tricked the witness into revealing the truth. But this was a man whose liar’s personality—she assessed him as a social deceiver—and slippery personal attitude would mean a long bout of tough interviewing to get to the truth. She didn’t have time. The second cross, containing today’s date, meant that Travis might be planning the next attack right now.

“So, Ken, you’re real close to going to jail.”

“What? No!”

Dance didn’t mind a bit of double teaming. She glanced at O’Neil, who said, “You sure are. And we need the truth.”

“Oh, please. Look . . .” But he offered nothing for their examination. “I didn’t lie! Really. Everything I told you is true.”

This was different from assuring her that he’d actually seen what he said he had. Why did the guilty always think they were so clever? She asked, “Did you
witness
what you told me?”

Under her laser gaze, Pfister looked away. His shoulders slumped. “No. But it’s all true. I
know
it!”

“How can you?” she asked.

“Because I read that somebody saw him doing what I told you. On this blog.
The Chilton Report.
”

Her eyes slipped to O’Neil’s. His expression matched hers. She asked, “Why did you lie?”

He lifted his hands. “I wanted to make people aware of the danger. I thought people should be more careful with this psycho out there. They should take more precautions, especially with their children. We have to be careful with our children, you know.”

Dance noted the hand gesture, heard the slight hitch in his throat. She knew his liar’s mannerisms by now. “Ken? We have no time for this.”

O’Neil unleashed his handcuffs.

“No, no. I . . .” The head dropped in complete surrender. “I made some bad business deals. My loans got called and I can’t pay them. So I . . .” He sighed.

“So you lied to be a hero? Get some publicity?” O’Neil’s face registered disgust as he glanced at the news crews, cordoned off, fifty yards away.

Pfister began to protest. Then his hand drooped. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

O’Neil jotted something in his notebook. “I’ll have to speak to the prosecutor about this.”

“Oh, please . . . I’m sorry.”

“So you didn’t see him at all, but you knew somebody had just left the cross and you knew who it was.”

“Okay, I had an idea. I mean, yes, I knew.”

“Why did you wait hours before telling us?” she snapped.

“I . . . I was afraid. Maybe he was still waiting around here.”

O’Neil asked in a low, ominous voice, “It didn’t occur to you that telling all that crap about ritual sacrifices might’ve sent us in the wrong direction?”

“I thought you knew all those things anyway. The stories were in that blog. They
have
to be true, don’t they?”

Dance said patiently, “Okay, Ken. Let’s start over.”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Were you really in that meeting?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He was so deeply into the last stage of emotional response in interrogation—acceptance and confession—that she nearly laughed. He was now the epitome of cooperation.

“And what happened then?”

“Okay, I was driving along and I pulled off on the side road here.” He pointed emphatically at his feet. “When I made the turn there wasn’t any cross. I made a couple of phone calls, then turned around and drove back to the intersection. I waited for traffic and looked up the road. There it was.” He pointed again. This time at the cross. “I didn’t see him at all. The hoodie and everything? I got that from the blog. All I can say is that I didn’t pass anybody on the shoulder, so he must’ve come out of the woods. And, yeah, I knew what it meant. The cross. And it scared the shit out of me. The killer had just been there, right in front of me!” A sour laugh. “I locked
the doors so fast. . . . I’ve never done anything brave in my life. Not like my father. He was a fireman, volunteer.”

This happened often with Kathryn Dance. The most important aspect of interrogation and interviewing is to be a good listener, nonjudgmental and aware. Because she honed this skill daily, witnesses—and suspects too—tended to look at her as a therapist. Poor Ken Pfister was confessing.

But he’d have to lie down on somebody else’s couch. It wasn’t her job to explore his demons.

O’Neil was looking into the trees. Based on what Pfister had originally told them the officers were searching the shoulder. “We better check out the woods.” An ominous glance at Pfister. “At least
that
might be helpful.” He called several deputies after him and they headed across the road to search in the forest.

“The traffic you waited for?” she asked Pfister. “Could the driver have seen anything?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, if Travis was still there. They’d have a better view than me.”

“You get a license number, make?”

“No, it was dark, a van or truck. But I remember it was official.”

“Official?”

“Yeah, it said ‘state’ on the back.”

“Which organization?”

“I didn’t see. Honest.”

That could be helpful. They’d contact all the California agencies that might’ve had vehicles in the area. “Good.”

He seemed ecstatic at the faint praise.

“All right. You’re free to go now, Ken. But remember there’s still an open complaint against you.”

“Yes, sure, absolutely. Look, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean anything bad.” He scurried off.

As she crossed the road to join O’Neil and the team searching the woods, she watched the pathetic businessman climb into his dinged car.

The stories were in that blog. They
have
to be true, don’t they?

SHE WANTED TO
die.

Kelley Morgan was silently asking that her prayers be answered. The fumes were choking her. Her vision was going. Her lungs stung, eyes and nose were inflamed.

The pain . . .

But more horrifying than that was the thought of what was happening to her, the terrible changes to her skin and face from the chemicals.

Her thoughts were fuzzy. She had no memory of Travis dragging her down the stairs. She’d come back to consciousness here, in her father’s darkened wine cellar in the basement, chained to a pipe. Her mouth taped, her neck aching from where he’d half strangled her.

And choking fiercely from whatever he’d poured onto the floor, the chemical now burning her eyes, her nose, her throat.

Choking, choking . . .

Kelley tried to scream. It was pointless, with the tape covering her face. Besides, there was nobody to hear. Her family was out, wouldn’t be back till much later.

The pain . . .

Raging, she’d tried to kick the copper pipe away from the wall. But the metal wouldn’t give.

Kill me!

Kelley understood what Travis Brigham was doing. He could’ve strangled her to death—just kept going another few minutes. Or shot her. But that wasn’t good enough for him. No, the luser and perv was getting even by destroying her looks.

The fumes would eat away her eyelashes and brows, destroy her smooth skin, probably even make her hair fall out. He didn’t want her to die; no, he wanted to turn her into a monster.

The geeky kid, face all broken out, the luser, the perv . . . He wanted to turn her into what he was.

Kill me, Travis. Why didn’t you just kill me?

She thought of the mask. That’s why he’d left it. It was a message about what she’d look like when the chemicals were done.

Her head drooped, her arms. She slumped against the wall.

I want to die.

She began to inhale deeply, through her stinging nose. Everything began to fade. The pain was going, her thoughts, the choking, the stinging in her eyes, the tears.

Drifting away. Light going dark.

Deeper, breathe deeper.

Breathe the poison in.

And, yeah, it was working!

Thank you.

The pain was growing less, the worry less.

Warm relief replaced vanishing consciousness,
and her last thought before the darkness grew complete was that at last she was going to be safe from her fears forever.

AS SHE STOOD
beside the roadside cross, staring down at the flowers, Dance was startled by her trilling phone—no cartoon music now; she’d put the ringer back on default. A glance at Caller ID.

“TJ.”

“Boss. Another cross? I just heard.”

“Yeah, today’s date too.”

“Oh, man.
Today?
”

“Yep. What’d you find?”

“I’m at Bagel Express. Weird, but nobody here really knows anything about Travis. They said he showed up for work, but kept to himself. Didn’t socialize, didn’t say much, just left. He talked to one kid here about online games some. But that’s it. And nobody’s got any idea where he might go. Oh, and his boss said that he was going to fire Travis anyway. Ever since the blog postings he’s been getting threats himself. Business is down. Customers’re afraid to come in.”