The Devil's Closet (20 page)

“Where are you going with this, CeeCee?”

I wasn’t sure. What initially came to mind didn’t make sense, but then again, nothing in this case did.

“Michael, I think
I
might be Daniel.”

“Now, how do you figure that?”

“Jim Carlson has predicted every step we’ve taken in this case. He’s done homework on me and knew I would eventually find him. Knowing I wouldn’t have enough for a search warrant, he predicted I would go in his house anyway. What he hadn’t anticipated was me taking his doll. Regardless, I had become unethical and broken the law, therefore deserving some type of punishment. Plus, this being a game to him, I had broken the rules. Jim Carlson considers himself king and would not be outwitted.”

“That’s really stretching it, Cee.”

“Agreed, which is why I think I might be right. It’s too simple to believe. Again, the question we need answered most is what the hell, or where the hell, is the lions’ den?”

“Wait, back up. You think Carlson considers himself the king, accusing
you
of a crime or breaking the rules of his game, for which he will punish you by throwing you into a den of lions. Nope, I don’t buy it, sorry. It has absolutely nothing to do with these murdered children.”

Now I was feeling angry. Michael simply did not understand what I was trying to get across. “It has everything to do with these children, Michael! I think he chose me, and Richland County, ahead of time. He wanted to see just how smart he really was. And who should he test that theory against but the high-profile, newsworthy CeeCee Gallagher? Except he knew I would cheat, hence the Bible passage, and I did; I didn’t play fair. Now, he’s not either, but I need a penalty for my foul—catch me? This is one big fucking game of cat and mouse, and his only goal is to see if I’m smarter. Period.”

Michael sat quietly, mulling over everything I had said, but I knew he wasn’t convinced. I wasn’t so sure I was either, but it sounded good. Yet the more I thought about it, the more I thought I might just be right after all.

“CeeCee, do you know why he uses the dolls?”

“I have a fairly good idea.”

“No, I don’t mean just for sex. He knows he’s sick, and I think he has remorse. I’ll bet years ago he got the doll idea to suppress his urges so he wouldn’t hurt a child. When those weren’t good enough anymore and he started with real little girls, painting them up like the dolls made them seem a lot less human to him. Therefore, easing his guilt. You might be right. He wants to get caught.”

“CeeCee!” Naomi yelled into the phone, making me jump right out of my skin. She was sobbing.

“Naomi? What the hell’s the matter?”

“Pl-Please, Jeff broke up with me again and I…” She was unable to compose herself. “I can’t take it again. I don’t know what I might do.”

“What do you mean you don’t know what you might do? Naomi, where are you?”

“I-I’m at a pay phone by the Falls. I’m going to the Falls, CeeCee. I really need help.”

“I’m on my way. Don’t do anything! Do you hear me?”

She sobbed again into the phone, and then it went dead. I was staggered as I ran into Coop’s office to see if he was there. He was going to get a piece of my mind later, no doubt about it, but first he was going to help me with Naomi. He wasn’t there, so I tried his cell—no answer. I left quite a nasty message saying that I was going to get Naomi at the Falls as she was “quite a mess,” thanks to him, even threatening to harm herself.

I couldn’t believe what was happening. And now I couldn’t find Michael either. Where the hell did he go to get coffee? I left a quick note telling him I was going to the Falls, why I was going, and that I would be back shortly.

The Falls was a hiking trail in the Mohican State Forest in the southern part of the county. The trail ran along the bottom of the Clearfork Gorge, which was a thousand feet across and three hundred feet down.

I don’t know if classifying it as a waterfall quite works, since every time I’ve been there the water trickling from the top has been as wide as a faucet, with no water at the bottom. At its highest point, it was about a hundred feet. Whatever. It was very dangerous no matter what.

I wasn’t thrilled about the drive down. The state forest was made up of the Appalachian foothills and reminded me entirely too much of West Virginia and what happened at Murder Mountain. Eric and I had built a home in the hills several years before, but sold it last year and moved back to the city. I couldn’t live in the woods anymore.

On the way, I tried calling Michael but was surrounded by small mountains and couldn’t get a signal. Why was Naomi down here? The obvious answer was that she was going to jump off the falls, which I prayed wasn’t the case. What a horrible way to die.

However, if she was as upset as she sounded, she may very well want to die horribly. I was furious at Coop, who got her hopes up and then stepped all over them. Again. I knew Naomi must really love him, but I never took her for being suicidal, no matter the circumstances.

After entering the state forest, I forgot how to get to the beginning of the trail. It took twenty minutes of turning around and getting lost before I finally found a ranger and flagged him down for directions.

“The trail’s closed, ma’am.”

“Why?”

“They’re going to start digging out all the ruts and rocks. Every day someone was breaking an ankle, and emergency personnel couldn’t get to them quickly enough, so the state finally decided to get it cleaned up.”

I told him I wanted to get to the covered bridge instead, which was right by the trail to the falls, and he gave me directions. I was glad I’d dressed casually, and I was hoping Naomi would be out by the entrance. If not, the forty-five-minute hike on the trail was a treacherous one. I had almost broken my own ankle hiking it several times over the years.

As I neared the covered bridge, I saw Naomi’s SUV parked on the other side, near the entrance to the falls. I parked next to her and started yelling her name as I got out, hearing nothing back but the echo of my own voice. There was no one around.

It took a few minutes to find the sturdiest walking stick I could; I would need it. The trail sometimes leaned at an angle and if you didn’t hold on well enough or secure your footing, you were apt to tumble down through a hundred feet of rock and trees into the river.

Twice the walking stick broke and I lost valuable time finding another. At one point, I thought I twisted my ankle hard enough so that I wouldn’t be able to continue, but after a short rest, it was fine.

It was when I had to go to the bathroom and couldn’t hold it any longer that I stopped. Something bit my leg and caused me to cry out in pain. I hoped it wasn’t a spider bite. I didn’t need to get sick over halfway down the trail and not be able to make it back. I stopped to see if any poison would kick in and silently admonished myself for being such a city girl.

The entire time I was walking, no matter what minor “catastrophe” took place, I continued calling Naomi’s name. I was almost near the falls when I thought I heard something behind me. I looked about and there didn’t seem to be anything, so I wrote it off as a deer.

Yelling as loud as I was, Naomi should have heard me. If she was still alive, that is. But I refused to let myself think the worst. It was impossible to believe that Naomi would truly harm herself. Maybe it was all a ploy to get Coop’s attention. That sounded like Naomi, but I didn’t think she would put her job in jeopardy by faking a stunt that would end up with her on the psychiatric ward of the hospital.

I was almost at the point where the trail turned into pure sand, leading back to the falls. I saw signs that pointed in the direction of the cliffs and to the smaller falls farther down the trail.

I stopped in my tracks, and my blood went cold. I looked at the signs again, my mind reeling as the magnitude of what I was looking at finally hit me. I had forgotten that, being locals, we all referred to the falls as just that, the Falls.

Only when I saw the sign did I remember the Falls’ true name:
Lyon’s Falls.

I had known about Lyon’s Falls my entire life and never gave a thought to them during this entire investigation. But here I was, standing before the sign, knowing now that Naomi wasn’t suicidal. Jim Carlson had her, and she would be extremely lucky to still be alive.

I was about to run the trail back to my car and call for help, but it was too late. Just then, I heard a small child screaming. The cries came from the falls area. Jim Carlson was waiting for me.

I continued down the sandy path, around the bend into the opening of the falls. Their majestic presence stood high in the forest with the deep cavern below.

The falls themselves were almost in the shape of a horseshoe. I walked into the middle, stopped at the mass of rocks before me, and looked up.

The screams had diminished to low sobs but were echoing throughout the cavern, so it was hard to pinpoint their origin.

“It’s nice to see you, Cecelia!” A voice rang out from the top of the falls. “You were not smart enough to figure it out on your own, so I enlisted the aid of Naomi, your friend and captain.”

I kept looking around and hoping the forest ranger I had spoken to had seen our cars and assumed I went on the trail anyway. With luck, he would see that I wasn’t on the covered bridge and was heading my way to arrest me for trespassing.

“No one’s coming, Cecelia. Now, take off your gun and throw it into the rocks, or the child dies.”

Normally, we’re taught never to give up our gun no matter the circumstances. However, this time I had no choice. I took my.45-caliber handgun and threw it as hard as I could into the cluster of rocks, hearing it bang around before stopping.

“I want to see Naomi!” I yelled out, looking above me.

“Here she comes!” he yelled back.

Naomi Kincaid came sailing over the side of the falls to my right. I began screaming until, instead of falling into the rocks below, she stopped halfway down. Her hands were tied with a long rope that went up to the top and over the edge. He must’ve secured it to one of the trees lining the edge.

Regardless, the fall she took surely would’ve pulled both arms out of their sockets. I don’t know if she even noticed since she was covered in blood, beaten beyond recognition.

I was pretty sure at that point she was dead. I began to cry at the sight of her, hanging there with her hands above her head, swaying back and forth. I fell to my knees.

“Get up!” yelled the voice. “You have exactly one hour and ten minutes to go back to your car and get my doll—I know you have it! If you are one minute late, you’ll find little Brooklyn lying down below in the rocks! If you try to call for help, and believe me I’ll know if you do, she dies!”

“The hike is forty-five minutes one way!” I was screaming hysterically by this point.

“The clock has already started, Cecelia. Bye-bye!”

I turned and started running down the trail as fast as I could go. It was hard to run and cry at the same time, so it was vital to get myself together. Tearing down the trail, I twisted my ankle more times than I could count. I also fell more times than I could count, one time hitting my face on a large tree root smack in the middle of the trail.

Even as blood ran down the side of my face, I felt no pain. I kept running until I thought my lungs would explode. If this did not make me stop smoking, nothing would. That is, if I survived.

At last the end of the trail was in sight, and I ran full speed toward my car, fumbling for the keys in my pocket. Sweat and blood poured into my eyes, but all I could think about was getting back in enough time to save Brooklyn.

I didn’t bother closing the trunk after I grabbed the doll. My watch said I had only thirty-five minutes to get back. There was no way I was going to make it. Out of breath, tired, and cramping, I kept dropping the doll because my hands were so sweaty. I finally looped my hand through the belt around its waist to keep ahold.

Getting closer to the falls again, I felt myself near the brink of full-blown hysterics. I had to get the thought of Naomi out of my head or I would fall apart and not be able to continue.

When I ran back into the middle of the falls I looked at my watch and saw I was five minutes late. Heaving and trying to catch my breath, I dropped the doll on the ground and looked around the rocks for Brooklyn’s body.

I didn’t see it, but now I began to vomit from my run, falling back down on my knees and arms. I was dizzy and couldn’t catch my breath no matter what.

“Very good, Cecelia!” the voice yelled while I was still throwing up. “Did I say an hour and ten minutes? I’m sorry, I meant an hour and a half!” His unsettling laughter started again loudly.

I began taking deep breaths and tried to focus on something, anything except the situation at hand. My chest felt like someone had driven a pickax right through it, and God only knew the ass-kicking my heart had taken.

Still on my knees, I leaned back and looked up, crossing my arms above my head while taking deep breaths.

“Not in good shape for a police officer, are you, Cecelia! I’ll let you rest. We’ve got all day and night!”

How I prayed Coop got my message in time. Every time I looked up and saw Naomi hanging there, I thought I might be sick. I couldn’t believe she might be dead. I started to sob again, thinking how young she was and how we had just patched things up. Coop would be devastated. My thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of Brooklyn Phillips crying.

“Jim! Let me see Brooklyn, please!” I yelled.

I waited for almost ten minutes and listened to the child’s racking cries before I caught just the glimpse of her head peering down at me from the top of the falls where Naomi was hanging. I looked up at her and yelled.

“Brooklyn! I’m going to help you, okay? Can you be a big girl for me? Please!”

She just cried harder; that was one of my less brilliant moves. She knew I couldn’t help her. She saw me dirty, bloody, and crying on the ground below. She also knew what was waiting for me on the top. I sat there waiting for my next instructions.

Brooklyn’s sobs dissipated, and Naomi still hung from the cliff. I tried hard to see if there was anything that indicated she was still alive, but she was too high. She had been thrown from the highest ridge of the falls, well over one hundred feet up. That was where Jim Carlson and Brooklyn Phillips were located.

At that point, I couldn’t believe Coop hadn’t gotten his message yet. I knew once he did he would, hopefully, figure it out. He would know he and Naomi hadn’t broken up and that she wasn’t suicidal. He would have to know it was all a setup involving Carlson and he’d tell Michael. I imagined them charging down the trail any minute. But that still had not happened. And I was afraid it never would.

It was quiet. I heard crickets, birds, and the slight trickle of water running over the falls. Usually, these were some of the most soothing sounds of the forest. They weren’t soothing now. The quiet was terrifying. My biggest fear was that Jim Carlson had a gun and had me in his sights, ready to shoot any minute. I had no idea where he was, but he knew exactly where I was. The doll lay next to me about three feet away. Carlson eventually broke the silence.

“Okay, CeeCee,” he called down. “I think I’ve given you enough time to catch your breath. Now, grab Elsa and climb the ridge to your left. When you get to the top, wait.”

I looked at the ridge to my left. It would be a hell of a climb, and I didn’t know if I was in the shape to do it, especially lugging the doll named Elsa. Making it more problematic was my paralyzing fear of heights. I suffered from severe vertigo when I got more than ten feet above the ground. Plus, the ridge itself wasn’t more than a couple feet wide on that side, and I could easily fall off under the best of circumstances.

Frighteningly, finding myself once more with no option, I grabbed the doll and began to climb.

On the other side, where Jim and Brooklyn were located, there were crude steps cut into the rock that made it easier to climb. On this side, it was nothing but rock and tree roots. I had taken the doll’s shoelaces and tied the doll to the back of my belt so I could use both my hands. Elsa was now bouncing back and forth behind me, a grisly reminder of what was ahead.

I started climbing, grabbing each root and rock along the way for support. If I looked down, I was done for. Though my clothing was comfortable, the chunky heels on my boots were making it difficult to get my footing, and I was certain I would plummet to my death on the rocks below. When I got to the last root and began to pull myself up, I couldn’t believe I’d actually made it.

I faced the rock and the woods, with my back toward the ridge. If I turned around I would instantly get dizzy and start to lose my balance. As it was, my legs were already shaky from the run and the climb.

“Turn around, CeeCee!”

I couldn’t do it. Just thinking about it made the vertigo creep in, and I remained as I was.

“I said, turn around!” Carlson yelled. I heard Brooklyn cry out in pain.

I managed to turn and saw Jim Carlson and Brooklyn Phillips across the falls. In a small clearing next to a large rock, Brooklyn was on her knees. She was still wearing the white T-shirt she’d had on when she disappeared, and she had not stopped crying. Carlson had the back of her hair and was pulling it to make her scream. The rope holding Naomi was tied to a large pine directly behind the rock. Jim started to pull Brooklyn toward the edge of the falls.

“No! Okay! I’m turned around!” I screamed.

He stopped. My mistake was to look down. The only thing that prevented me from falling over the side was dropping to my knees and grabbing the ground. My vision seemed to turn upside down, along with my stomach. I closed my eyes.

“Stand up and look at me, goddamn it! Do it or she dies!”

I bit into my lip so hard I tasted blood. This was enough to allow me to stand back up, but not enough to take the dizziness away. I leaned back against the rock, focusing across the falls at him and Brooklyn instead of looking down.

“Now, walk around the edge of the ridge to me.”

He could have easily had me climb up on his side, but no, he wanted to play games. Every obscenity in the English language went through my head right then. I swore if I got the chance, I would make Jim Carlson suffer the most painful death imaginable.

Looking across, I could see a smirk on his face. He knew this was difficult for me, but how in the world did he know I was scared of heights? I tried to remember any interviews I’d given about the Murder Mountain case, but couldn’t recall the subject of heights ever coming up. But he knew just the same.

I started to sidestep, slowly, along the ridge. The doll kept dragging and bouncing behind me. With each step, I took a deep breath and continued to look at Jim Carlson, my anger forcing me along one step at a time.

I was halfway around when my foot slipped. A loose rock had given way, causing me to skid forward to the edge of the falls. At the last moment, I grabbed a tree root that kept me from plunging over completely. My legs and the doll dangling over the side, I hoisted myself back up. I curled up into a ball and held on to the root with everything I had, near total panic. I heard Jim Carlson laughing.

“Whoops! Almost gotcha, didn’t it? Get moving!”

I stood again, trying to regain my balance and composure before moving once more. Now he upped the ante. He had a bucket in front of him. He pulled something out of it and threw it at me.

It took a couple of more throws before I realized he was throwing mice. Jim Carlson had uncovered my fear of all fears. Mice weren’t rats, but they damn sure were close enough. Jim Carlson knew all about the rats. It was not hard to do since it was in every single article written about the happenings on Murder Mountain. I remember articles where I was quoted saying I could never look at a rat or a mouse again without becoming hysterical.

But I was managing quite nicely, considering the circumstances, even able to use my foot to push the mice off the ledge, whenever one landed on it.

But it was the one that hit me on top of the head, before climbing down to my back and getting caught in my hair, that almost made me lose my life. The familiar squirm and squeal of a rodent flying about my head did it. I bit my lip again, tears uncontrollably running down my face, and slowly reached behind my head to grab the mouse. I used every ounce of will to keep from going into total, blind panic. When I was able to grab the mouse, it began biting me while I pulled it from my hair. I opened my hand and let it fall to its death.

I stood still, beginning to cry again while more mice pelted me. If one more got stuck in my hair, I honestly didn’t think I would have the strength to keep myself from becoming totally unglued. I wanted Michael desperately. If he saw what Jim Carlson was doing to me, Naomi, and Brooklyn right now, he would kill him with his bare hands.

“Keep going!”

How many mice are in that bucket?
I thought. He had thrown at least thirty so far. As if someone from above were graciously looking down on me, the mice quit coming. I breathed a loud sigh of relief, but I couldn’t imagine what he had for me next.