Thomas Prescott Superpack (13 page)

Chapter 23

Ashley Andrews was dead, her body destroyed. I closed my eyes and felt the anger burn in my chest. It felt like every red blood cell in my body had stopped in their tracks and went into a dead sprint for my heart. I couldn’t help thinking Ashley was dead because she was in my class, because she was connected to me. In a sense, I killed her.

Luckily, I couldn’t afford the luxury of despair and I struggled for my cell phone, dialing Caitlin. She didn’t answer and I left a detailed message as instructed. Seconds later my cell phone vibrated and I flipped it open. Caitlin blurted, “I’m on my way.”

The light was making its way full circle and Alex hit a large red switch as the horn began its bellow. The light went out, the bellow waned, the motor died. Alex plucked her flashlight from the carnage and brought it to bear on the lens languidly coming to a halt. In the dim light reflecting off the lens I witnessed Alex’s delicate features form into complete aghast. She shouted, “Holy shit.”

Caitlin was still on the phone and yelled, “What?”

Ashley’s eyes were affixed to the revolving lighthouse lens like two fried eggs. The flesh around the eyes bubbled, cracked, and hissed.

It took a second for the abomination to register with Alex. The flashlight in her hand crashed to the ground, engulfing us in gross darkness. I clawed my way to her and led her down the lighthouse stairs. We emerged from the lighthouse and both took in a long awaited heave of the innocent ocean air.

I pulled myself under the railing and slid down the concrete foundation. Alex was in lemming mode and followed me down to the small wooden lighthouse dock. I bent down at the edge of the small ten foot wide dock and pulled the anchor chords from the water. Both ropes had clean edges, their fugitive better halves sailing away into the night.

I sat down on the edge of the dock and absentmindedly draped my legs over the edge. Alex plopped down next to me, sinking her feet into the deathly blue chasm. I caught a wave between my palms and splashed the water onto my face, an attempt to somehow wash the image that had been painted on the lids of my eyes; Ashley’s watchful eyes affixed to their man-made equivalent.

I could feel Alex shake her head next to me. She asked, “Who is,
was
, she?”

“Ashley Andrews, she was one of my students.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

Those were the only words muttered.

Ten minutes later, sirens began to wail in the distance and steadily became more audible. The fog had lifted a bit and if I squinted I could almost make out Alex next to me.

Alex said, “Time to play tour guide.”

I nodded and whipped my legs from the current, kicking my new running shoes into the ocean. Alex was about to do the same and I said, “Don’t bother. You can’t go back in.”

She nodded and shoved her heel back into her shoe. “What do you want me to do? Caitlin will kill you if she sees me.”

Alex was right. Caitlin would frown on Alex’s presence both professionally and personally. I looked around, “Why don’t you go to the west end. There’s a small landing just to the front of lighthouse. In a couple minutes we’ll be inside and you can make a go of it.”

Alex hesitated, came close, gently kissed me on the cheek,
then disappeared from view.

A half minute later, three bouncing balls of light matured into full-fledged streams of
 illuminated fog. I turned into the light, shielding my eyes, and heard Wade Gleason’s distinct drawl, “Nice sweatshirt. I hope Pooh has an alibi?”

And I thought I looked foolish because I was barefoot and my pants were rolled above my knees. I pulled the sweatshirt out from the bottom and said, “His hand was stuck in the honey jar. Plus, I don’t think he can hold an ax.” I twiddled my thumbs in the spotlight. “No opposable thumbs.”

The lights fell off me and crawled up the lighthouse foundation, then continued up the eastern wall. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Alex’s figure duck into the shadows, a movement the other three apparently missed. I pulled myself up to the foundation and the four of us congregated at the edge of the entrance.

Caitlin asked, “Are you positive it’s Ashley?”

No, I wasn’t positive. Plenty of women had black hair and dolphin tattoos weren’t exactly rare. But, I didn’t know any other women that fit the description who had a relationship with yours truly, or more corporeal, who Tristen Grayer would benefit from killing, raping, and puréeing.

“Yep, it’s her.”

“Sorry.”

Both Gregory and Gleason nodded their sympathies. The three of them followed me up the lighthouse stairs with a settled excitement. A homicide detective walking up the stairs to a crime scene is similar to a little kid walking downstairs on Christmas, only the presents aren’t wrapped. I’d snooped, I knew the present, and I was feeling more of a settled unsettlement.

We came forth from the spiral staircase and three flashlights closed in on the defilement. It was more horrific than at first glance. A terse minute passed, each of us soaking up the scene. Caitlin broke the silence, “What’s this?”

She was standing near the lighthouse lens pointing at two condensation pockets on the glass. I couldn’t believe it. Ashley’s eyes were gone.

I walked to where Caitlin was standing. Condensation had built up behind the glass where the eyes had been. Other than that, there was no evidence twenty minutes ago Ashley’s eyes had been scrambled to the lens sunny-side up. I looked for some sort of explanation. Could the eyes have fallen off? Even if they had, there was nowhere for them to go. Maybe the motor had
started and the rotating lens had taken the eyes outside with it. No, Alex and I would have seen the light go on, and the lens would have had to come to a stop in the exact same position.

I gaped at the three people staring at me and I wouldn’t doubt if they thought I had Parkinson’s. I flexed my temples to make my head cease shaking and said, “Her eyes. Ashley’s eyes were stuck to that lens like two fried eggs.”

Gleason didn’t look like he bought it, “If that’s the case it looks like someone came and picked them clean with a spatula.”

His words echoed in the lighthouse chamber, “Picked them clean with a spatula.” I’d said it myself,
He wasn’t back, he’d never left. He’d always been waiting in the shadows, lurking.

The shadow I’d seen was not that of Alex, but of Tristen Grayer.

I took the spiral staircase like a fire pole and had it not been for the railing
across from the door I would have been doing a frightful rendition of YMCA on
the ocean stage. I flung myself under the railing and hit the granite, seven feet
below, midstride. How long had it been since I’d seen the figure? Three minutes?
Five minutes?

The fog had lifted, but it was still pitch dark. It was impossible to see where
each granite boulder ended and the next began. They hadn’t constructed a lighthouse
here for shits and giggles. I didn’t see any lights bobbling and weaving in
the blackness. If Tristen was making the pilgrimage, he was doing it without the
aid of a flashlight.

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket. Should I call Alex? No, Alex could
very well be dead. I tried Conner, but he didn’t answer. I could only think of one
other person and dialed.

The other end picked up on the first ring. I was about forty feet from the
lighthouse and navigating the stones with the phone to my ear was not a simple
task. I could hear him breathing on the line and said, “Kevin? Are you there?”

He finally sputtered out, “Uh, yeah. What’s going on? We heard all the sirens
and saw the two police cars drive up. Is someone dead?”

“Where are you?”

“At the memorial stone. Is someone dead?”

The memorial stone was maybe an eighth of the way up the breakwater. I told
him the truth, “Yes, someone is dead. The killer is coming your way right now.
Start walking to shore. Go now.”

He didn’t respond and I think he might have shit his pants.

Kevin came on, “I
think I shit my pants.” There you go.

I could hear him walking and asked, “Do you see the car I pulled up in?”

“Yes.”

“The code on the side is 2321. Repeat that back to me.”

“2321.”

“Right. There’s a spare key in the ashtray.” It wasn’t like I was throwing these
kids into a shark feeding frenzy. They’d be safer in the Range Rover than where
they were now. It was more like throwing plankton in the path of a humpback.
“When you get in, lock the doors. Then I want you to drive to the edge of the
water and turn the car lights on.” I gave him instructions.

He repeated, “2321. Spare in ashtray. Drive to water. When I see a figure shine
the brights on him.”

“Perfect.”

I was making decent time and I estimate I was three quarters of the way to shore when the Range Rover’s lights flipped on, illuminating the better part of the homestretch. About a hundred feet up the breakwater, stopped like a deer in headlights, was Tristen Grayer. He was clad in all black and had a tan ski mask pulled down over his face. I took a step forward and a hand clasp around my arm. It was Alex.

Our eyes met and we both took off. I felt my right foot pound into the memorial stone as Tristen took the final granite boulder. Then a strange thing occurred, the lights from the Range Rover began to move. The SUV reversed up the beach, stopped, spit sand, then zoomed toward the deft figure. Kevin was going to run Tristen Grayer over with the Range Rover. Priceless.

The Range Rover just missed clipping him before smashing into the cliff wall. Tristen ran towards the car, jumped on the hood, and catapulted himself over the cliff and into the woods.

A minute later Alex and I reached the Range Rover. I wrenched open the passenger side door, emitting a cloud of smoke. The kids were somewhere between a state of shock, hysterics, and pot. The girl in the passenger seat looked at me and giggled hysterically, “Look guys it’s Weenie the Pooh.”

Chapter 24

I woke up on Alex’s couch. The night had ended dismally. None of the kids lost any more brain cells in the car crash than they had hot-boxing the Range Rover with their joint. They fled to their respective houses while Alex and I drove the frontage road for close to three hours before calling it quits. I couldn’t put Tristen’s time table together. It didn’t fit with my logic. Not that I’m logical.

I mean, if he left in the boat, how had he returned, and moreover, why had he returned? I needed some Lucky Charms. I didn’t find any Lucky Charms, grabbing a peach Yoplait instead, and looked at the clock over the oven, 7:45 A.M. I wonder if Alex subscribed to the
Waterville Tribune
. Of course she did.

I took the yogurt and walked to the front door. There were three other papers, but no
Tribune
. I tossed the three papers onto Alex’s stoop and surveyed the damage to the Range Rover. One headlight was smashed beyond belief and the other one was in decent condition, only it was not attached to the car, per se. I added the headlight to the trunk, slash, car-part sarcophagus, and slid into the driver’s seat.

I found a Dunkin Donuts in downtown Waterville and walked inside. The slots for the
Bangor Daily News
and the
Portland Press-Herald
were both full, however the slot for the
Waterville Tribune
was vacant. I ordered a large coffee and two glazed donuts, then asked the clerk if he had a Tribune hidden back there anywhere. I gave him a ten dollar bill and he handed me a disheveled
Waterville Tribune
.

Walking out of Dunkin’s, I shuffled through about ten different sections until I found the front page. I spit a mouthful of coffee, splattering the paper. The coffee streaked headline read:

Heartbreak at Surry Breakwater

Story by Alex Tooms

I read the article and ripped the paper into about ten pieces before tossing it into the gusting wind. A couple of people threw me dirty looks, littering was more than taboo in Maine, it was barbaric. Speaking of barbaric, I was going to scalp Alex Tooms. How could she do this? Both literally and figuratively. Most papers went to press at ten or eleven at night. Alex and I hadn’t even reached her house until close to two, plus she would still have had to write the article. Alex hadn’t mentioned the eye’s disappearing, not to mention the chase. All this was missing in the article. It wasn’t like Alex to withhold information from her reader. Why had she held back?

I was stumped. I was still going to kill her, but I was stumped.

I rolled into the Federal Building parking lot at eight-thirty. There wasn’t much for hoopla, which would not be the case in an hour. Every other media outlet in the state was getting their Tristen Grayer report over coffee and donuts, much like I had.

I pushed the conference doors open and all conversation stopped midsyllable. Caitlin, Todd, Wade, and Conner, each had a copy of the Tribune sprawled out on the large mahogany. Why was it that every time I was in this room I felt like my fly was down? I checked, no fly—buttons. I was checking my wallet for my Kenneth Cole receipt when Todd interrupted my scavenger hunt. He flapped the paper open in case I’d somehow neglected to notice the table looked like the floor of a hamster cage.

Todd spat, “Would you like to tell us how Alex Tooms wrote this story?”

“No.” I wanted to find my Kenneth Cole receipt.

I had all my receipts on the table now. The Kenneth Cole receipt had to be in there somewhere. It was yellow, definitely yellow.

Caitlin thought she’d take a stab at it. “Did you tell Alex Tooms about Ashley Andrews?”

“Yes.” What a relief. I put the yellow Kenneth Cole receipt in my back pocket and looked up.

Caitlin looked confused, “Yes, you told Alex about Ashley Andrews? Or, yes, you found the stupid fricking receipt you’re looking for?”

Good question. “Uh, the second one.”

I gathered my receipts, poured myself a cup of coffee from the carafe, and pulled up a chair across from the four of them. I made eye contact with Conner and said, “And where exactly were you last night?”

“I got there right after you left. You drove right past me.”

I didn’t remember driving past his Camaro, but I had other fish to fry. I didn’t like that Glease had yet to speak. He was leaning back in his swivel chair with what looked to be fermenting annoyance. Not a good sign. I put the shenanigans behind the bar with the good scotch, and said, “Remember when Todd asked what we would accomplish by asking my neighbors if they’d seen a boat and I’d said,
because my house backs up to a huge body of water called the Atlantic Ocean. Do you find it infeasible for someone to dock their boat on the beach and drag a woman into my house? Do you find that fucking infeasible
?”

They all nodded. Except Todd. Todd did not nod.

I kept my rhythm, “Well, it turns out there was a boat floating near the shore the night of Jennifer’s murder. My source called me last night at ten-thirty to notify me the same boat was docked at the Surry Breakwater Lighthouse. I’d been at Alex Tooms’ house at the time, chastising her for the callous article she’d written when the call came in. Alex overheard the conversation and the next thing I knew she pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and said she was coming with me to the lighthouse. Who was I to dispute her? I mean she had a sawed-off shotgun.”

Caitlin, Conner, and Wade rolled their eyes. Todd’s parents hadn’t opted for the eye-roll software upgrade and he remained motionless.

I recounted the rest of the story in relative accuracy. I didn’t have to give false testimony about how Alex had written the story because I didn’t have the slightest fancy. I also had no idea how Tristen Grayer left in a boat and managed to swipe Ashley’s eyes.

Wade brought his chair back to its full upright position and rested his elbows on the table. He said, “Well you hadn’t been lying about the eyes. I talked with forensics earlier, they found
traces of eye tissue on the lighthouse lens. Also, Ashley’s prints were on file and checked out. It’s her. We contacted her parents in Tuscany after the match was verified. They want to have the funeral here.”

When you’re accepted into the criminology department you are fingerprinted and entered into a national database. I’d expected them to run her prints and the absoluteness of her death put a huge knot in my throat. There was a big difference between being ninety-nine percent sure of something and one hundred percent certain. Hearing the words, “It’s her,” sent that one percent up in smoke. Now I was pissed. I think
best when I’m pissed. I said, “Here’s how I see it. We have two dead so far. Tristen’s hitting on the hot dates, killing these women on the exact date and time we found them last year.”

Wade said coolly, “He’s changed his pattern. No R in Andrews. He’s not spelling out P-R-E-S-C-O-T-T. What do you think he’s up to now?”

“He’s obviously going after women in my life. It doesn’t matter the name. And he’s striking on the same hot dates as a year ago.”

Gleason remarked, “We have
the who and the when, that’s two of the three W’s. Where, is the only mystery.”

Conner added an insightful tidbit, “If we protect
the who, we don’t need to know the where.”

Wade nodded to himself and walked to a dry-erase board at the far end of the room. He erased my irrelevant dribble from Monday and picked up a red marker. “Thomas, we need a list of every woman you’ve come into contact with in the last five years.”

I spent the next hour thinking of every female whose life was in danger. I thought this was a bit overkill, that was, until Tristen Grayer killed a woman not on this list. Then it would be six-feet-under-kill.

Half an hour passed and her name still wasn’t on the board. I sure as hell wasn’t going to say it and she didn’t seem too keen to offer it. Conner finally said, “Caitlin.”

Caitlin and I locked eyes and I felt like the disciple Peter. I didn’t hear a rooster crow and thought I might have been in the clear when Conner snapped his fingers and said, “Alex. Put Alex Tooms on the list.”

Caitlin threw him a look that would have withered a man twice his size. I held back a grin, better to be Peter than Judas.

Alex’s name was the last addition to the list. When it was all said and done, I’d come up with twenty-seven different women who I thought might be on Tristen Grayer’s hit list. Or make that twenty-seven names my colleagues on the task force felt might be on Tristen Grayer’s hit list.

I skimmed the list; Tristen Grayer wasn’t going after August the flight attendant or Margery the bookstore owner. Ashley’s murder ached more than Jennifer’s. Tristen had to up the ante each time. Each kill would be more critical than the last.

I looked at the list and put myself in his shoes. Who would I kill next? Who was in jeopardy? I came up with six names.