The Blue Ridge Project: A Dark Suspense Novel (The Project Book 1) (10 page)

Olman Road Cemetery was empty, except for the dead and the birds in the trees that bordered the area. A heavy-looking gray sky promised rain, but so far none had fallen. Frank wore a long brown coat with the collar popped up against the cold breeze.

He stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down at a grave with an elaborate and tasteful headstone. The name etched on the stone was Philomena Mortimer.

“Hey, Grandma,” he said after a few minutes of silence. “How’s life?” He laughed unrepentantly. His grandmother had been possessed of a dark sense of humor, right up until her death. It had been one of his favorite qualities about her.

“So Uncle Frank and my parents have colluded to put me out of sight somewhere. Some facility that they run, or at least, their money runs it. Makes me think of when you used to tell me that the money didn’t mean anything, as long as you had it.”

Birds flew overhead, chattering to each other in rough voices, searching shelter from the oncoming rain.

“I just wanted to stop by and see you. You know, just in case it’s one of those places where they don’t let you out. See you one last time, and head out to the cabin.”

Frank rocked on his heels, his hands still in the pockets of his big coat, and thought back to when his grandmother had died. He remembered the reading of the will, and his surprise when he discovered that the old cabin his grandfather had built had been left to him.

Less pleasant memories came. His uncle's hand closing over his shoulder in a painful grip as the will had been read. It had called up echoes of the terrible nights of his youth. He imagined tearing off the skin covering those parts of his body that had been subjected to his uncle's loathsome touch, and the equally awful touch of the strangers that had sometimes been in the room. In a cold, practical way he realized that there would be very little skin left if he did.

“You always were her favorite,” the elder Frank had whispered to the back of his head.

Frank forced a smile and tried to hide away the dark things buried in his own mental graveyard. “I never got to thank you for that, Grandma,” he said to the cold grave. “So thank you. Thank you for everything.” He kissed his hand and touched the top of the tombstone.

The first drops of rain started to fall, making hard sounds as they hit his jacket and the gravel of the walkway between graves. Frank pulled his jacket around him and stalked out of the cemetery.

*****

The woods around the cabin were dense and dark, the ground a thick carpet of dead leaves and wood, like a reflection of the future to the living trees that towered above it. The logs that made the structure of the cabin and the accompanying outhouse were from the same trees. Usually, the place smelled of pine and tree sap, and sometimes with the slightly sweet smell of rotting leaves.

When Frank stepped out of his car, however, the overwhelming smell was that of decay and decomposition. It got stronger the closer he got to the outhouse door, and rushed out to meet him when he opened it.

The dog he had hung from a hook in the ceiling was covered in flies that burst into a black cloud when the air entered the outhouse. Frank put one hand to cover his mouth and nose as he searched for his gloves. He took down the mutt and brought it thirty feet into the trees then went back for a shovel.

When he had finished burying it, he went back to the outhouse and picked up the leather collar that he had taken from the dog before hanging it. The name Pluto was scratched onto a small metal disc that hung from the center. The engraving looked like it had been done by a child. He held it for a moment, letting the light play off the surface of the disc, before he tossed it into a rusted barrel in the corner of the room. It made a small clinking sound as it landed on top of a couple of other trophies.

As Frank took the hook from the ceiling and brought it outside to clean, he thought back to ten days earlier, when he had grabbed the animal. Then he thought back to when he had first seen its master.

Frank had watched from afar, sitting on a bench in the park where the woman was walking the dog. He had snatched glances at her, being very careful not be to caught looking. Stretching out his arms, crossing and uncrossing his legs over the space of a few minutes, all carefully orchestrated movements.

The woman had interested him greatly. She looked to be in her forties, and was in good shape. Her dark hair had been tied up in a neat ponytail, and there were loud colors in geometrically confusing patterns on her clothes. Those kinds of clothes always reminded him of continental tourists, unable to tell the difference between ski-wear and regular items.

He had come to the park twice a week for a month on the same days, coinciding with her schedule. Sometimes he sat on the benches, sometimes he ran around the park on the slim, paved trails, always keeping his distance but close enough to keep her in sight.

In the last few days of observation, he had left the park just after her, and had managed to make it to his car without being spotted. If she was a suspicious or fearful woman, she didn’t show it, as she never checked behind her as she walked. She drove a minivan, a small gray one with a bumper sticker in the rear window that depicted a stick figure family. He drove behind her, always a car or two between them.

Her house was humble enough by Frank’s standards. Looked like a three-bedroom from the outside, and Frank saw a glimpse of the back garden as he drove by a few times on the days he wasn’t at the park. Toys sometimes littered the front garden, and automatic sprinklers would make rainbows in the sunlight. The house was in a decent area, quiet, with plenty of space between the neighbors. The surroundings were lush with life, with birds chirping in the treetops and small eyes at the bases of the trees, eyes that reflected the lights of his car.

On the last day, he had followed her home as usual, but this time he had a black bag on the back seat. There were some rubber gloves, rope, a small claw hammer and some duct tape. There was also a balaclava and two sets of clothes for him to change into, and a bottle of lighter fluid with some matches in the front pocket. On top of the bag was a pair of binoculars.

He had parked down the road from the house on a narrow lane off the road and waited for night to fall. When it was dark, and he saw the lights had gone off in the house through the binoculars, he crept down the road with a fresh set of clothes and his face covered. The bag was slung over his shoulder.

Standing in the bushes next to the house, he had trembled for the longest time. Sweat appeared on his neck and forehead, yet his skin was cool. He had seen only her car out front, and was sure the husband was away somewhere for the night. He crept up to the window at the side, and peered in through a gap in the curtains.

A pale hand and a length of black hair on a pink sheet was all he could see from his vantage point. His breath came hot and fast, fog appearing on the glass in front of him. He started shaking violently, his teeth chattering in his head.

“Do it, do it,” he whispered to himself repeatedly.

After a few more seconds of shaking, tears had started to roll down his face. He lowered his head and wiped them away, forcing himself to look in the window again. The hand twitched and then relaxed again, the hair now in a different position on the bed.

Frank shook his head violently, and punched himself in the temple three times, hard. His vision went fuzzy for a second, then it cleared up.

“Weak!” he whispered, over and over again.

After a minute or two, the tears started to dry up, and he took a couple of deep breaths. He stepped down from the concrete near the window and looked around at the kennel nearby.

He stepped down and crouched near to the entrance. The dog inched its way out of the kennel, looking up at the strange man with the hot smell. Frank scratched under its chin, and he could hear the low sound of the dog’s tail thumping the walls of the kennel as it wagged.

The dog didn’t even whimper as Frank brought the hammer down on its head.

As he washed himself in the cabin, he gritted his teeth at the memory and the resurrected feeling of failure. He stood naked in front of the mirror in the small bathroom for a few minutes, then reached for the razor blade on the shelf. His hand shook as he made the lines of the first letter under his left nipple, the cut small and inconspicuous, a crooked 'W' hidden behind the spilling blood. By the time he reached 'K' his hand had steadied.

The coroner’s office was a cluttered surgery underneath Mercy Hospital, with a small bare box of a room to the side for admin. Most of the paperwork was done on the same tables that people were operated on postmortem. When the body count was especially high, the bodies themselves were sometimes used as impromptu desks. Like the coroner Otto Phillips would say, “The best light’s there, and besides, ain’t none of them complained yet.”

Andrea and Hynes stood at the foot of Lorraine DeSaint’s table. Her body was mostly covered by a slim green blanket, while her feet jutted out just over the edge of the trolley. Otto arrived beside the body, now dressed in his surgical clothes.

“Okay, so there were some things I saw here that I thought you might like to hear in person,” he said to both detectives.

“What did you find, Doc?” Hynes asked.

“Well, it’s more of what I didn’t find. Now, we already know that her eyes were missing, but it also appears that most of her tongue has been removed as well. Her mouth was also cleaned.”

Hynes and Andrea looked at each other and then back at Otto.

“Cleaned? What, like someone brushed her teeth or something?” Andrea asked.

“No, I mean completely cleaned. Like the tongue was cut, and then the mouth was bleached and scrubbed inside. The cuts look ragged, too, so I’m guessing whoever did it held out the tongue—” Otto pulled on an imaginary tongue in front of his face “—and then cut it off in sawing motions,” he said as he ran his imaginary blade back and forth.

“Is that what she died from?” Hynes asked, looking at Lorraine’s chart like he knew what was written there.

“It looks like it, more asphyxiating than blood loss. It’s harder to tell without the eyes,” Otto said with a hint of disappointment. “There’s also some discoloration around the neck, might be bruising. Also, no obvious signs of sexual contact recently, but I haven’t done a full examination.”

“Why not? There's a fucking psychopath out there plucking out people's eyes, for fuck's sake!” Andrea asked, her voice turning sharp.

Otto held up two hands defensively. “Hey, Detective, take it easy! I like you guys, but there’s an order things are done here. I’ve got other bodies in the queue, and I told you I could only do a preliminary now. If not, I’m gonna have less pleasant members of your squad harassing me down here. You wouldn’t want that, Detective, would you?”

Hynes put a hand on Andrea’s shoulder. She brushed it off with a calm gesture. “It’s all right, I’m all right.” Her arms folded, she looked down at the still, ruined face of the dead girl.

“Otto,” Hynes said, “you’ll bump this one up the list if you can, won’t you?”

Otto saluted him. “Sure thing, Detective. I’ll have it to you as soon as humanly possible. Promise.”

Andrea nodded, and allowed Hynes to lead her out of the room. She stole glances over her shoulder at the dwindling form of Lorraine DeSaint as she left.

*****

“So,” Michaels said over her shoulder as she typed up a report back at the station, “I hear you’ve got a puzzler.”

“Yeah, it’s a real bona fide mystery. Why you’re circling around me like some scavenger, stinking up my desk, it's an enigma,” she said, without pausing in her typing.

“Hey, no need to get so uptight. It’s not my fault you lack the stability and experience to know how to solve an actual case, even with Hynes holding your hand. You know, even that weird country boy they saddled me with has some smarts.”

Andrea sighed and spun a lazy half revolution in her chair. “Michaels, you soggy loaf of shit, if you don’t take your underdeveloped ego and that overdeveloped sack of meat you call a stomach out of my face—”

“All right, that’s enough!” Hynes called from the top of the room as he entered. He stalked down to where Andrea and Michaels were still facing each other. He pushed Michaels back with one hand on his shoulder.

“What’s your problem with her?”

“Nothin’. Maybe I just don’t like people getting fast-tracked just ’cause they look good. Or fuck good.” He leered at Andrea over Hynes’ hairy arm.

She stood up fast and pushed hard with outstretched fingers into Michael’s midsection. He staggered two steps back and wheezed loudly, putting one hand to his chest. His face began to turn red as he coughed and struggled to catch his breath. There was no laughter but Andrea saw one or two smiles out of the corner of her eye.

Hynes stepped between them. “Okay, that’s it. Done. Michaels, cut your shit. Nox, calm the fuck down.”

“Fine by me,” she said.

Michaels waved a hand at her, still struggling to get a regular breathing pattern back.

“Fucking bitch,” he wheezed.

“All right,” Hynes said. “Nox, I want you to take a look at similar deaths or attacks in the area, or anything nationwide.”

“Okay. You think that this isn’t his first?”

“Can’t hurt to look. I’m going to get in contact with the family, see what might turn up there.”

She nodded, and turned back to her computer as soon as Hynes left. Michaels also left the room after a couple of minutes of grumbling and occasionally rubbing just below his sternum.

A presence behind her shoulder jerked Andrea out of her concentrated typing. She swung around in her chair to see a young-looking man in a dark brown suit standing behind her.

“Detective Nox?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m Richie Lyons. I’m here with the RPTI.” He extended his hand.

Andrea hesitated for a few seconds, trying to understand what the hell those letters were all about, when she remembered.

“Right, the Initiative.” She shook his hand with a firm grip. “Nice to meet you. Who are you with?”

“Detective Michaels. He’s... an interesting guy.” Lyons grinned at her, and she smiled back even though she could see the practiced charm that was behind it. She thought him handsome enough, the curling scar on his cheek more intriguing than ugly, and he seemed to be in good shape.

She brushed away that line of thinking. “Yeah, interesting is one word. I’ve a few more for him that you wouldn’t say at the dinner table.”

“I can imagine.” He chuckled, and Andrea smiled along with him.

“So what can I do for you, Lyons?”

“Well, Michaels isn’t exactly the most hands-on teacher. I get left behind in the squad car or picking up extra paperwork for him. I was wondering, do you need any help with your case?”

Andrea frowned. “Why would you ask me? I haven’t been here that much longer than you.”

“I don’t know,” Lyons replied, shrugging his shoulders. “I guess that’s part of the reason. You know, the old-timers and the ones who have other cops tagging along all forget what it’s like to be a new detective. I was hoping that you might still remember and help me out. In return, I can help you out. Lighten the load, so to speak.”

Biting her bottom lip, Andrea tapped a pen on the desk and pushed herself back and forth in an arc on her chair. Then she sat forward.

“Okay, I’ll do it, as long as Hynes is cool with it. I’m sure he can’t see any downside in having extra eyes on the case.” She put one hand to her chin as another idea came to her. “Will Michaels be okay with you doing this?”

Lyons shook his head. “I doubt it.”

Andrea clapped him on the shoulder. “Even better.”

Lyons grinned again, his eyes squinted up in mirth. He then grabbed a chair from Michaels’ desk and pulled it over to Andrea’s workstation.

“So, what are you working on?”

“Murder. Young girl, seems like she was tortured before she was killed.”

Lyons opened the file she handed him and stared at the crime scene photos, slowly flipping back and forth between them, his fingers tracing the edges.