The Burning Man (38 page)

"Earl's no dummy. I'm sure he's already thought about seeing if he can tie Mancini into the other killings.

I'll say one thing-whoever committed those murders is one sick son of a bitch. Killing someone is bad enough, but butchering a defenseless woman with a hatchet, like she was some kind of farm animal.

Geary lapsed into silence at the thought of such senseless slaughter. Suddenly, Peter pulled the car over to the side of the road. Geary wasn't wearing a seat belt and he was thrown forward. Fortunately, he caught the dashboard with his hands.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Geary shouted.

Peter wasn't listening. He looked stunned.

"Hale, are you having some sort of yuppie fn? Talk to me.71 Peter turned slowly. He looked pale.

"The hatchet. My God, I didn't even think ... We've got to go to the office and look up something in Mammon's file."

"What are you talking about?"

Instead of answering, Peter hit the accelerator and Geary was thrown back into his seat.

"I'll explain on the way," Peter said, as Geary hurriedly fastened his seat belt.

"Is this where we turn?" Peter asked.

"I'm not certain," Geary answered.

"I thought you lived here most of your life."

"I'm a lawyer, not a goddamn surveyor. Now, shut up and give me a minute."

Geary studied a map of Whitaker and the surrounding area while Peter impatiently drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

"Okay. This is the road that was listed in the police report in Mammon's file."

Peter drove a mile up an unpaved, dirt track. There was a full moon and they soon saw the object of their search. Peter stopped in front of the dilapidated house.

"You're sure this is legal?" Peter asked.

"It's not legal. It's breaking and entering. But we aren't working for the government, so Earl can use any evidence we find at trial while we are serving our sentence for burglary."

"Thanks for clearing that up. I feel much better now," Peter said, as he tried the door. It wasn't locked. Peter had brought along a flashlight, but Geary flipped on a light switch and he didn't need it.

"Looks like the electricity is still paid up," Geary commented.

"God! What's that smell?"

Both men winced as a sour and fetid odor assailed them. It was the essence of the decay that permeated the house. Flies buzzed around rotting pizza crusts and decomposing cheese that hung on the sides of oil-stained pizza boxes. Unwashed clothes lay in clumps on the couch.

"This place is a fucking sty," Peter declared.

"Let's search it fast, so we can get out of here," Geary said.

They split up, Peter taking the bedroom and bathroom and Geary searching the living room and kitchen.

The search did not take long, since the house was so small.

"Anything?" Peter asked.

"Not a thing," Geary answered when they both finished.

"I was so sure."

"Your reasoning is sound. He probably killed the women somewhere else."

"I guess," Peter answered dejectedly.

Peter walked outside. Geary turned out the lights and shut the door. Peter was about to get in the car when he froze.

A "What's that?" he asked.

Geary looked where Peter was pointing. Another house could barely be made out in the moonlight.

"It's worth a look now that we're out here."

The two men turned on their flashlights and walked a dusty quarter mile. It was not until they reached the shack that they could tell it was deserted, but there was a padlock on the door.

"What do we do now?" Peter asked.

Geary raised his foot and kicked the door with all the force his near three hundred pounds could bring to the task. The rotting door splintered and gave. A second kick and it swung inward. An odor, different and more foul than the one they had smelled in the other house, assailed Peter when he crossed the threshold. He clamped his hand over his mouth and moved the flashlight beam around the interior of the shack.

"Holy shit!" he whispered when the beam found the bloodstained mattress pushed up against the far wall.

Geary was speechless. Peter moved his beam around the floor and gagged when he realized that almost every square inch was encrusted with dried blood.

"Peter," Amos called. Peter looked at the corner of the room that Geary's beam was illuminating. He saw piles of women's clothes, a purse and two wallets.

"What do you want to bet that one of those wallets belongs to Sandra Whiley?" Geary asked.

"If you're right, I'm not going to be the one who discovers it. Let's get out of here and call the police."

Kevin Booth was asleep when Earl Ridgely entered his hospital room followed by members of the Major Crime Team. He stirred when the nurse turned on the lights, then sat up.

"What's going on?" Booth asked, rubbing his eyes as he searched for the clock. Then he saw how many people were in his room.

"I have a few questions for you, Kevin," Ridgely said.

"It's three in the morning, for Christ's sake. Can't this wait?"

"Actually, no." Ridgely pulled a chair next to Booth's bed. "But I promise not to take up too much of your time. First, though, I'm going to give you your Miranda rights."

Ridgely took a laminated card out of his wallet and read Booth his rights. Booth looked at Ridgely as if the D.A. was insane.

"What is this?" Booth asked when Ridgely was through.

"Can you explain why Sandra Whiley's wallet and the clothing of Emily Curran and Diane Fetter were found in a shack less than a quarter mile from your house and by the floor of the shack was covered with blood?"

w "What ... what are you talking about? What shack?"

"Kevin, at this very moment, fingerprint technicians are going over every inch of the shack and forensic experts are combing it for hair, fibers and other trace evidence."

"Well, you won't find anything belonging to me in some fucking blood-covered shack. I don't know what you think you've got, but you ain't got shit connecting me to no murders."

"Actually," Ridgely said, "we've got quite a lot. For instance, Curran and Fetter both had a lot of cocaine in their system when they died. Background checks on both women showed that they used cocaine frequently.

I think you supplied both women with cocaine and lured them to your house with promises of free drugs. I think you got them high, then raped and killed them."

"You can think all you want."

also think you made one monumental error. Peter Hale explained it to me. It's so obvious that I feel really stupid for missing it."

Ridgely waited for Booth to say something. When' he didn't, Ridgely continued.

"You were terrified when you were arrested with Rafael Vargas. Not only were you facing serious federal time, but Vargas threatened to kill you, the feds refused to bargain with you and Steve Mancini wouldn't represent you. That's when you decided to trade testimony against Gary Harmon for a deal that would keep you out of prison. You gained Gary's confidence and tricked him into telling you all of the details of the murder of Sandra Whiley that he told the police. Since you killed Whiley, you were able to add some extra information that made the confession sound real, but that wasn't enough for Becky O'Shay.

She knew that no jury would ever buy your story without corroboration, so she told you that you wouldn't get a deal unless you could provide proof that Gary confessed.

"You were in a panic, going through withdrawal and not really thinking straight. O'Shay was about to walk out on you and O'Shay was your last chance, so you told her something that only the killer would know. You told her where to find the hatchet you used to murder Curran, Fetter and Whiley. The hatchet you threw in the storm drain because you were afraid that Steve Mancini might have seen you running from the murder scene.

"Gary Harmon couldn't have told you where the murder weapon was hidden. It was impossible for him to have killed Whiley. He was at the Ponderosa when the murder occurred. If Gary didn't tell you it was in a storm drain near the Whitaker campus, how did you know?"

Booth stared wide-eyed at Ridgely, then scanned the stone-hard faces of the men who ringed his bed.

"I want a lawyer," he said finally. "I want a lawyer."

Ridgely nodded. "I figured that's what you'd want, Mr. Booth, and I think you're wise to ask for one, because if anyone needs a lawyer right now, you do."

EPILOGUE

The scoreboard on top of Stallion Stadium showed that there were fifty-eight seconds remaining in the game between the Whitaker Stallions and Boise State, with Whitaker leading by a touchdown and driving for another. Peter figured that fifty-eight seconds was about as long as he could take the frozen rain that had turned the last game of the season into a mud-wrestling contest.

Donna huddled against him, just as miserable as he was.

Only Gary seemed oblivious to the ghastly weather conditions. He was on his feet screaming with each play, transported by the very real possibility that the undefeated Whitaker Stallions might actually go all the way.

Many things had happened in the three months since the dramatic termination of the charges against Gary Harmon. Kevin Booth had not been able to hold out for long. Connections between Booth and the three murdered women were easily established once the police started concentrating on Booth as the prime suspect. In order to escape the death penalty, Booth cut a deal that would keep him in prison for the rest of his life without the possibility of parole. Booth had shocked the prosecutors by confessing not only to murdering Sandra Whiley, Emily Curran and Diane Fetter, but to the murder of his mother, whom he had pushed down the stairs.

Booth told Earl Ridgely that he had watched from his pickup truck as Whiley and Mancini argued. Then, he followed them as they drove aimlessly through Whitaker. Whiley had haunted Booth's sexual fantasies since she began buying cocaine from him, but he had been afraid to touch a woman whom he believed belonged to Christopher Mammon. Booth suspected Whiley of betraying him as soon as he was arrested at Whitaker State and he longed to make her suffer. His humiliation at Mammon's hands had driven Booth into a rage. He was terrified of Mammon, but he thought of Whiley as prey.

When Mancini dropped off Whiley at Wishing Well Park, Booth had taken his hatchet from the pickup and followed her with the idea of taking her to his shack where he could torture and rape her, but Whiley had fought Booth and had paid with her life.

As soon as Steve Mancini was certain that he would not be prosecuted for killing Whiley, he confessed his attempts to cover up his involvement with Whiley on the night of the murder. His motive in sabotaging Gary's case was simple cowardice. Mancini was terrified that a competent lawyer and a competent investigator would uncover his meeting with Whiley. He feared an arrest for her murder and he could not afford a scandal involving his use of cocaine with the Mountain View project on the verge of destruction.

"As soon as this game ends, we're heading for my place and a gallon of hot toddies," Peter managed to chatter.

"Two gallons, but we'll have to figure a way to get Gary out of the stadium. He's going to want to run down on the field when the game ends and shake hands with the players."

"Oh, shit. I forgot."

This was Gary's postgame ritual and he always went through it.

"I'll make it up to you," Donna smiled.

"When? It's going to take us a year to thaw out."

The whistle blew and Gary's face lit up.

"All the way, all the way," he shrieked, as his fists pummeled the air. He grabbed Donna and dragged her to her feet, then hugged her so tight she had to tell Gary to stop.

"Pete, Pete," Gary screamed, "'all the way, all the way.l Then Gary was scrambling down the icy grandstand and streaking onto the field.

"It looks like the only good thing that asshole bus'band of yours did was to get Gary these season tickets," Peter joked as he and Donna cautiously made their way out of the stands.

"Soon-to-be ex-husband. judge Kuffel is hearing the divorce next week. At least Steve had the grace not to contest it."

"He's got a lot more on his mind than the divorce.

Ridgely has agreed to dismiss the criminal charges if he resigns from the bar. And Mountain View bankrupted him. I hear he's going to leave town."

"How could he stay here? Everyone in Whitaker knows what he's done."

"I saw Earl at the courthouse yesterday. O'Shay won't plead. She's also fighting disbarment."

"I hope she ends up in prison for what she did to Gary."

Donna and Peter found shelter near the concession stand where they always waited for Gary after a game.

Peter bought two cups of hot coffee. They drank in silence for a few minutes, savoring the warmth provided by the steaming hot liquid. After a bit, Peter decided it was time to talk about something he had been meaning to say all day, but had not had the courage to bring up.

"Dad called last night.

"Oh?"

"He asked me to come back to Hale, Greaves. I guess all is forgiven."

"What did you tell him?" Donna asked cautiously.

"I said I couldn't give him an answer right away. I told him my answer depended on the answer to another question."

"What question?"

"Well, uh, my practice is going pretty good. I've picked up a lot of business because of Gary's case.

Enough so Amos and I are going to hire an associate to help him handle the indigent criminal cases so I can concentrate on personal injury and retained criminal stuff. So, that's a reason to stick around. But there would be a bigger reason if you'd marry me when your divorce is final."

Donna blinked, then her eyes filled with tears and she threw her arms around Peter. Her half-filled cup of coffee went sailing through the air.

"Does that mean yes?" Peter asked as he broke out laughing.

Before Donna could respond, Gary burst up the concrete ramp and ran toward them. He was holding a jersey that was so covered with mud that the numbers were almost illegible.

"Look, look," he shouted, holding up his prize. "The coach said I could keep it. He said I'm lucky. He said the Stallions couldn't win without me."

"That's great, Gary," Donna managed.

"We did it, Pete. We went all the way and the coach said I helped."

Donna and Peter broke out laughing as they watched Gary bounce up and down with joy. Donna hugged Peter, then she hugged her brother.

"Let's get you home," Donna said to Gary, as they started toward the parking lot. She had to shout to be heard over the blaring horns and raucous shouts from the jubilant Stallion rooters who seemed oblivious to the cold and rain ... "Hey," Peter shouted, "what about my proposal?"

"We're going all the way," Gary shouted at a group of boisterous students.

"My sentiments exactly," Donna told Peter Hale.