The Darker Side (34 page)

“The dad. She didn’t come downstairs for breakfast, he came up to check on her, found her this way.”

“The father didn’t touch her,” Callie says. “Strange.”

She refers to the fact that Valerie remains posed as she died, something we can tell by the pattern of blood flow from her side.

“I asked him about that,” Alvarez responds. “He said he could tell she was dead. The way her eyes are open, and how white she is.”

“I can see it,” I admit.

There’s no spark of life evident in Valerie. She has the appearance of a cold, soft mannequin.

“Evidence of a point of entry?” Alan asks.

“Two. There’s a door that leads from the backyard into the garage, and there’s a door that leads from the garage into the house. Both show evidence of skilled tampering. If he did it, he opened the gate that leads into the backyard, forced door number one, then door number two and gained access.”

“No alarm system?” I ask.

“No. And no dog. Bad luck.”

“Still, pretty bold,” I say. “Coming in here at night, killing her while the parents were sleeping.”

“That fit with your guy?” Alvarez asks.

“He’s a risk-taker and he warned us he was going to kill a child.”

He indicates the bed and Valerie.

“What about this? Does it seem authentic?”

“I only have two other scenes to compare it to. It presents the same, except for the age of the victim, which is troubling. We held something back regarding his MO.” I tell him about the cross the Preacher inserts into the wounds postmortem. “If it’s not there, this is a copycat.”

“In which case we’ll have to take a hard look at the parents.” Alvarez sighs. “Great. I’m not sure which is better.”

“Can we get this checked out now, honey-love?” Callie asks. “The coroner on-site?”

“He’s out front getting the body wagon ready. I’ll call him in.”

“HOW FAR IN WAS THE
cross placed in the other victims?”

Dr. Weems, the coroner, is a middle-aged man with a precise, fastidious air about him.

“Just under the skin, against the rib cage,” Callie answers. “You should be able to feel it if you palpate.”

“It would be irregular to remove it here,” he muses.

“But not illegal,” I point out, “and if you film it, you’ll have things covered from an evidentiary standpoint. Time isn’t on our side, Doctor.”

To his credit, he doesn’t hesitate for long. “Very well. Detective Alvarez, if you can get the crime scene recorder in here, I’ll examine her and remove the cross if it exists.”

Recording crime scenes and their processing with video cameras has become common practice in many investigations, especially the high-profile ones. It is a double-edged sword; if procedural mistakes are made, they’re caught on camera and become fodder for defense counsel. The reverse is true as well, though; if the camera says it’s so, it’s so.

The man wielding the small camera is introduced as Jeff, a young, brown-haired man who doesn’t look old enough to be here. He’s unfazed, however; he turns the camera on Valerie’s corpse without blinking.

Dr. Weems kneels down to examine the wound in Valerie’s side.

“Appears to be a hole, approximately one-half inch in diameter, not ragged. The instrument used would have been pointed but very sharp. Incision marks extend out from the sides of the initial puncture. These are clean cuts, probably made by a scalpel or similar blade.” He uses his fingers to feel around the wound, gently. “I can feel a hard object underneath the skin.”

Adrenaline rushes through me. I am excited, then ashamed by that excitement. Her death should have affected me for longer. All I can think about now is what she can give me, not what was taken from her.

Dr. Weems looks up and into the camera. “Photographs have already been taken of the wound pattern. I’m going to try and retrieve the item.” He grabs a small satchel I hadn’t noticed before. It’s a black medical bag. It looks like a throwback to the 1950s.

His kit, I think.

I find this self-conscious nod to style via retro accessory a little creepy. Things that deal in the dead should have their aesthetics confined to function.

He opens it up and hunts through it until he finds what amounts to an oversized pair of tweezers.

“If anyone here is squeamish,” he says, bending toward the wound, “please look away or leave. We don’t need vomit contaminating the crime scene.”

No one moves. Jeff films away, unperturbed.

Dr. Weems sticks the tweezers into the hole without hesitation or ceremony.

“I’m contacting a hard object,” he confirms. “I need to rotate it to pull it out without damaging the skin further. Wait a moment…there.” He pulls the tweezers out slowly.

“Son of a bitch,” Alan breathes.

A silver cross. It has the same approximate dimensions as the others.

Weems deposits the cross into an evidence bag after photographs and video have been taken.

“So it is your guy,” Alvarez says.

“It appears that way,” I agree. “The question now is: Why her? He goes for people with big secrets. What kind of a secret could a ten-year-old girl have?”

“I had a fair number by the time I was ten,” Callie says. “But then, I was always ahead of my time.”

My cell phone chimes.

“Barrett.”

“It’s James. Three things. We’re moving well on questioning the families. So far, it’s a hundred percent on the victims as practicing Catholics.”

Another adrenaline rush.

“That’s excellent, James. What else?”

“We need to consider pulling surveillance from the Bester home. I checked into his whereabouts during the Lisa Reid murder. He was on a business trip in San Francisco.”

I frown. “We need more than that…”

“More ties into the third thing.”

“Go on.”

“Someone from Computer Crimes has been coordinating with the user-tube staff every half-hour or so to check for attempted new postings by the Preacher.”

“And?”

“They caught one. Concerning Valerie Cavanaugh.”

“Damn it!” I rub my temples.

“Back to Bester: this new clip wasn’t posted from his IP. Surveillance says he was at home and in bed when Valerie Cavanaugh was killed. It’s not him, Smoky.”

I sigh. “Agreed. Pull the detail.” I lean forward a little, feeling something inside me narrow to a focus. “Now, tell me about this new clip.”

He pauses. A little too long, I feel. “It’s different. He didn’t film her just before killing her.”

I’m perplexed. “I don’t understand.”

“I e-mailed you the clip. Watch it. It’s bad, very bad. It’s going to devastate this family.”

The usual acerbity is absent from James’s demeanor. He sounds quiet, troubled. This, more than anything else, replaces that rush with a slight chill.

“How bad?”

That too-long pause again.

“It’s a nightmare.”

THE CAVANAUGHS HAVE A WIRELESS
Internet connection and Callie has her laptop, so we find ourselves in the living room, checking my e-mail and downloading the clip James had sent me.

I am sitting next to Callie on the couch. Alan is next to her, Alvarez stands behind us all.

“Ready?” she asks.

I nod. “Go ahead.”

She clicks to begin and the familiar black screen and white lettering goes by. We arrive at the hands and the rosary, the stark light and the spare wooden table.

“I realize this is, now, most likely going straight to law enforcement officials,” he begins. “A temporary problem, let me assure you. There are too many ways to get the truth out. Having said that, let us discuss the relationship of truth and time, as it is apropos here. Truth is not concerned with age. A child is a child, yes, but a soul is a soul is a soul, and truth applies to all. The devil can come in many guises, and whether you are ten or eighty, confession and contrition will always be your one and only salvation. And that is the purpose of this particular part of my opus, to demonstrate two things: truth is ageless, but that truth without contrition is a lie all its own.” He rubs the rosary with a thumb. “Valerie Cavanaugh comes from a good family. She has God-fearing parents. They demand much from her, and by all appearances, she has provided. Valerie has always been a straight-A student. She practices her piano lesson one hour a day, every day. She is on a swim team, and has brought home trophies. She has been active with her parents in volunteer activities, helping those less fortunate.”

“All true,” Alvarez notes.

“Appearances can be deceiving,” the Preacher continues. “And confession to the greatest crimes without remorse makes a lie of confession itself.”

THE SINS
of
VALERIE CAVANAUGH

33

“LOOK AT ME, KITTY,” VALERIE SAYS.

The cat turns toward her voice, meows once. The cat has beautiful green eyes and Valerie smiles.

“Good kitty,” she says, and pets the cat behind the ears.

It’s a pretty nice day. The sun is out but the heat isn’t oppressive. Daddy calls it a “California fall.” There’s a slight breeze. Valerie closes her eyes and turns her face up to the sky, letting the breeze cool her skin and ruffle her hair with its wind-fingers. She continues to rub the cat behind the ears.

Valerie is in the backyard of her house. Mommy and Daddy are out for the day, and Emma, the babysitter, is snoozing on the couch. It’s one of the few times Valerie finds herself alone, and she cherishes the moment.

The backyard is large. They have a patio and a pool and a lot of green green grass. Mommy spent a lot of time designing the landscaping herself and supervising the workers. (Do things halfway and you’ll end up a halfway person, Mommy always says.) Valerie is sitting behind a line of hedges that forms a barrier between the rest of the yard and one of the tall, painted cinder-block walls that divides them from the world outside.

“Good kitty,” she murmurs again.

The cat meows. It’s not a happy meow, and Valerie can’t really blame the poor kitty. She’s all wrapped up in a towel, after all.

“Sorry, kitty,” she says, “but I can’t have you scratching me all up.”

Valerie wants to wait longer, to enjoy the solitude for a few moments more, but she knows she can’t count on Emma sleeping forever. She sighs.

“Better get to it, kitty. Do things halfway and you’ll be a halfway person.”

She places the towel-wrapped cat on its back in her lap and puts her hands around the cat’s neck. She begins to squeeze.

She doesn’t squeeze too hard or too fast—she doesn’t want the kitty to die too quick, after all. Part of the fun is savoring the moment.

Valerie keeps her eyes on the cat’s eyes the entire time. She’s not sure what it is she’s looking for. Maybe that exact moment of death, when the spark of life goes out. Who knows? But it’s an endless source of fascination.
Something
happens in there, that’s for sure!

She can feel the cat struggling against her, trying to escape the towel.

Sorry, kitty, but I know what I’m doing. You’ll never get free.

She giggles, once.

Valerie is aware of her heart beating fast in her chest. There’s a somewhat undefinable sensation running through her. A kind of excitement she can’t classify. She doesn’t try all that hard to figure it out. The doing of the thing and the feeling it gives her is enough.

The cat’s struggles become frantic. Valerie’s heart beats and that excitement keeps pace. Another moment passes, and the cat expires. Valerie continues to squeeze, unaware that her eyes are wide and that her tongue is protruding from between her lips.

The moment passes. The cat is seeing nothing. Valerie relaxes her grip. She’d been holding her breath; she exhales.

“Good kitty,” she says again, and scratches the dead cat behind the ears.

She likes that there is no meow in response now. She likes that a lot.

Valerie gives herself a minute to relax, to luxuriate in this brief moment of being her true self.

It’s hard acting like a normal girl all the time, she reflects. This is when I feel the most free.

But Valerie knows, even at ten, that she has to keep her real face hidden. She’s been very careful, since she started killing the cats. She’s paced herself, and she’s made sure to bury the bodies here, behind the hedge. It’s been difficult, true, but she can wait. She’s seen the future. She’ll get older, and someday she’ll have a lot more freedom. Someday, she thinks, she’ll even be able to drive.

Who knows what she’ll be able to start killing then?

She’s unaware that these thoughts have brought a grin to her face. Those white teeth flash in the sun and her blonde hair flutters in the breeze, and she pets the dead cat in her lap as she dreams.

“JESUS CHRIST,” ALAN MUTTERS.

I’m silent, as is Callie.

It was obvious that Valerie was unaware she was being videotaped. The video itself was black-and-white and high quality. The angle it had been shot at gives me an idea. I stand up and march to the sliding glass door leading into the backyard.

Once outside, I stand and look. I see the pool, clean and blue. The grass is green and cut and perfect. I see the row of hedges on the right and left. They form an unbroken line going from the front of the yard to the back on either side. There’s about a one foot space between the hedges and the cinder-block walls that act as a fence.

Not much space, but enough for a ten-year-old.

I choose the line on the right and walk over. Short as I am, I have trouble seeing past the hedge tops, so I lean forward, placing my hands against the wall and stand on my tiptoes.

The grass ends at the hedges, which come all the way down to the ground. Beyond the hedge line is plain dirt. I can see little patches of turned earth that had been patted flat.

Eight or ten, I think. Probably all dead cats.

Valerie Cavanaugh, sweet blonde Valerie of the perfect hair and teeth, had been a little psychopath.

I close my eyes and recall the video, that angle. I open them again and turn to the right. I march along the hedge line to the end and lean forward. I see what I was looking for.