Time of Death (37 page)

“What?” Mary Beth’s eyes widened. She must have spotted the person behind PJ, and was backing away.

April ducked low and fired beneath PJ’s outstretched arm. Mary Beth was hit in the chest. Blood appeared on her shirt and widened impossibly fast. Another bullet struck her forehead, and she collapsed.

PJ brought her arm down hard, but April wasn’t there anymore. She was out of reach, still on the porch.

“Get inside,” April said.

Her breath coming fast and shallow, PJ moved into the hallway.

And lunged for the security system panel, where there was a glowing red button that said
Emergency.
Her situation certainly qualified as one.

Her hand inches from the button, PJ felt a blow on her head, and sank to the floor alongside Mary Beth.

S
CHULTZ WATCHED AS THE
team finally went in, to do what they called “serving a high-risk warrant,” and what he called “Get ’em before they get you.” He was across the street, closer than he was supposed to be, behind a car. The house, a Dutch home with a gambrel roof, was shrouded in snow. Even though the snow was easing off, wind was whipping around what had already fallen. The house looked no different from the rest of them lining the quiet street. Inside the other homes, family life went on with its ups and downs. Inside this one was a killing machine, the antithesis of life.

He wasn’t feeling the jangling inside that he normally felt when the link connecting him to a killer had sprung into being, and he was this close. Adrenaline was creating a rush of sensation in him strong enough to drown out any of that awareness.

He heard the shotgun blasting the hinges off the front door. As the door fell aside, a flash-bang was tossed in. The loud burst of noise was muted a little by the snow. In seconds there were shouts of “Police!” and “On the floor!” and “Hands over your head!”

Schultz was in the house seconds after the SWAT team called clear, hand wrapped tightly around the warrant. He was there to preserve evidence and keep the SWAT intrusion to a minimum. They knew they were supposed to do considerable evidentiary processing, but it wasn’t always the first thing on their minds.

They had an unarmed woman in custody, lying on the floor on her side, her hands cuffed behind her back. He shooed most of the team out of the house, leaving only a couple to handle the suspect. Coming over for a closer examination, he studied the woman. She was terribly frightened, crying, not at all defiant like he would have expected. That’s when he noticed her hair.

April was Sparkle Farkle, red-haired from birth. This woman had noticeable black roots. Her red hair was a dye job.

Fuck. Another look-alike.

She’d be arrested and tested, but Shultz was willing to bet his left testicle that her mitochondrial DNA wouldn’t indicate that she was the third sister. April was one giant step ahead, and that added fuel to the cold fire already ignited inside him about these murders.

With the familiar motion and patter of the crime scene techs around him, Schultz made his way systematically from room to room. Nothing seemed unusual until he got to the spare bedroom. It was disquieting, even for him, to walk in and find a body strung up with a hangman’s noose. The body was pierced with enough knives that it could fairly be described as a pincushion.

There should be a large pool of blood underneath the body, but there was only shag carpet, brown flecked with gold, and dry. Looking closer, he saw that it was a familiar manikin, a Resusci Anne used for CPR training. He’d had a refresher course just a few months ago. There was a rope and winch setup suspending the body from a ceiling hook, looking eerily similar to the scenario PJ had come up with in the barn.

Without the beams twenty feet overhead. Without the flies, and without other things.

He spun the manikin around with his flashlight, and got another shock. Instead of the manikin’s bland face with perpetually open mouth he was expecting, a photograph of May Simmons’s face was glued in place and anchored by a knife through the forehead. The anger expended on the manikin made April’s intent clear. He didn’t even need a shrink to tell him what that intention was.

Schultz dialed the number at the Simmons house. The phone rang several times, but May finally picked up. He told her briefly that the police had just missed snagging the prime suspect, and that she should stay in her house with the security system on.

“It so happens I’m not going anywhere. My evening of bridge was cancelled because of the snow.”

“What about your children?” He heard a TV playing loudly in the background.

“Nanny took off as soon as she heard I’d be home this evening. She’s visiting a relative in the hospital. The kids are watching a video.”

“Go check on them, will you?”

With an exasperated sigh, May put the phone down and was gone for several minutes. “They’re fine. The alarm system’s on.”

“Has it been on all the time up until now?”

“I suppose. Nanny’s good about resetting it when she goes out.”

“All right, you just stay there. I’m going to get officers outside.”

He went through the same type of conversation with June, requested outdoor surveillance at both houses, and dialed Riverview Elder Care. Rhonda answered, and informed him that Jasmine was working in her office and didn’t want to be disturbed.

“Use that buzzer intercom on her. I want to talk to her.”

“If you insist,” Rhonda said. After a minute she came back to the phone and said, “She’s not answering. I told you she didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“Get in there now and tell her I have to talk to her. If the office door is locked, get somebody to open it. Break it down if you have to.”

Schultz heard the phone being set down hard on Rhonda’s desk. She was doing everything she could to express her irritation with him, while still trying to cooperate with the law. Schultz was used to that kind of behavior, so she wasn’t getting under his skin.

Several minutes passed. Schultz was still in the lynching room. He let his eyes wander while he was waiting. They fastened on a bulletin board with items haphazardly pinned up. He walked over to it. There were recent clippings about the Metro Mangler with parts underlined and comments written to the side, none of them flattering to the St. Louis Police Department. There were pictures of all members of the CHIP team, including some taken at their homes with a telephoto. Schultz winced when he saw several pictures of PJ and him kissing at the front door, in the car, sneaking a kiss outside Millie’s, and one photo that showed his hand planted on PJ’s ass. He knew he had to deal with their boss-worker-lover situation in the department, and soon. He was sure all members of the team knew about their relationship. Lieutenant Wall was probably waiting for them to work things out on their own, but wouldn’t wait too long. What was on the bulletin board was going to force their hands.

There were also surveillance pictures of murder victims.

Schultz heard screaming through the phone, and his heart sank. He hadn’t liked Jasmine, but he wouldn’t sic April on anyone. The phone was knocked onto the floor and picked up.

“She’s dead! Oh my God, she’s dead!” Rhonda sounded like she was on the edge of hysteria. Had she and Jasmine been close? Closer?

“Rhonda,” he said, using a voice that assumed control. She sniffled and stopped yelling. “Is there a second phone line?”

“Yes. Oh my God!”

Schultz imagined that what she’d seen in Jasmine’s office involved a lot of slicing and blood.

“Call 911 on the other line, Rhonda. Don’t hang up on me. Come back to me as soon as you’re finished.”

She was back in a couple of minutes, her voice shaky but better controlled.

“Now I want you to make an announcement over the public address system and tell everyone to return to their rooms and stay there.”

“We have a code for ‘Intruder in the Building.’ All the residents and guards know it. I’ll use that.”

When she came back, he told her to sit down on the floor behind her reception counter and wait for the cops. He stayed on the phone with her until he heard the police arriving. Anxious to go to them, Rhonda hung up on him.

Only then did he realize he’d left PJ standing in the snow at her car. He dialed her cellphone, but the call rolled over to voice mail. A little annoyed that she wasn’t accessible, he sent an officer out to locate her.

P
J AWOKE LYING ON
the floor in a dark room. The floor was hard to the touch, and rough, probably tile. Sitting up, she felt dizzy. There was a painful spot on her head, and she could tell that blood had flowed down her forehead and all the way to her neckline. Her hands were tied behind her back. Waves of pain were chasing each other up her leg from her left ankle.

There was a line of light coming in under a door. Her head spun, and she saw double strips of light. She wasn’t ready to move, but wasn’t ready to wait in a confined shooting gallery for April to return.

April! How long have I been out?

Everyone could be dead. May, June, Jasmine. And any collateral damage, like Mary Beth. April wouldn’t hesitate to wipe out anyone who stood between her and the women who’d stolen her life.
A bloodthirsty Cinderella.

There were children in the house.

PJ tried to stand and found that she couldn’t. Her leg was twisted under her, with sharp jabs from her ankle. She rolled onto her stomach. Her injured left ankle smacked into the floor as she did so, sending bolts of searing pain up to her hip. She lay still, trying to bring her breathing and heart rate down. Then she began to inch her way across the floor. With her good foot, she could get leverage on the rough tiles. Scraping along slowly, she made it to the door and stopped to rest. Then, grimacing, she braced her back against the door and slowly worked her good foot back toward her. Her leg and arm muscles trembled with the effort, and her left foot dragged painfully. Her fingers spread, she walked up the door a fraction of an inch at a time. Once she got her rear several inches off the floor, it got a little easier.

Standing up with all her weight on her right foot, leaning against the door, she again stopped to rest. PJ was very aware that every minute that went by increased the chances of multiple deaths in the house, if it wasn’t too late already. And of April coming back to finish her off.

Twisting the knob, she found it turned freely, but there had to be a lock somewhere else, because the door wouldn’t budge. She used her shoulder to feel around on the wall in the spot where there would normally be a light switch, right inside the door. She flicked it on with her tongue, wondering if she was going to get shocked, like sticking her tongue in a wall socket.

No shock, just lots of light. Blinded, she pinched her eyes shut, then opened her eyelids just a little, getting a view of the room through narrow slits. What she saw startled her enough that her eyes flew open.

Blinking hard against the light, she realized she was in a storage room for sex toys. There were shelves lined with dildos of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Strap-on dildos were hung on hooks. There was a rack of clothing with all kinds of sexy lingerie, skimpy little nurse and maid costumes, and men’s thong underwear, pouches covered with sequins or feathers, even a leather thong with spikes on the pouch. Hanging on the wall were two life-sized inflatable dolls, one open-mouthed female and one amply endowed male.

May was so indignant when she found out about June’s foreplay album. Hell, this is an entire foreplay warehouse.

Checking her leg, PJ saw bone fragments barely poking through the skin at her ankle. It was a compound fracture and no way was it going to bear her weight. Yet she had to move.

PJ studied the room carefully. Relief washed over her when she saw what she was looking for: tools. There was an old, rusty toolbox, unlocked, tucked under one of the shelves.

Hoping that box wasn’t empty, she reversed the procedure she’d used to stand, sliding the last several inches and landing hard, jolting her body enough to take her breath away. Inchworming on her back across the floor, she came to the box. Sitting up, her back to the box, she tugged on the handle and worked the lid of the box open. Grappling around blindly, she found the narrow, toothed blade of a hacksaw. Exultant, she pulled the saw out and looked around for a place to anchor it. A shelf at the right height had separated from its support board, pulling the nails apart. Scooting around on her butt, she got to the right spot and inserted the blade. It took her several tries, but finally it seemed firmly anchored.

She pulled the rope—clothesline?—that bound her wrists back and forth over the hacksaw. A number of times she slipped and the teeth bit into the skin of her wrist.

I wonder when my last tetanus booster was.

A few more strokes and her hands were free. The first thing she did was check her pockets for her cellphone. Not there. She remembered tossing it into the back seat of her car.

It was easier to move across the floor with the full use of her hands. She went to the toolbox, and what she wanted was right on top: a hammer and screwdriver, probably used in building the storage shelves and left to grow rusty.
Left to save my life.

Leaning against the wall by the door, she removed the door’s hinges by tapping up each pin. The door was held, probably by a hook and eye on the outer side, but she would be able to rotate the door to get out. There was a stab of pain from her ankle, enough to sicken her stomach and cause her to vomit. She’d hit her foot against the doorframe and felt bones grinding inside. The pain lessened enough to focus again.

Now for a weapon.
She tucked the hammer and screwdriver into her waistband and considered the hacksaw blade. Was it worth going back for?

A noise came from upstairs, a soft crying.
No. Go now!

She was about to leave when she noticed the broom standing in one corner. Leaning against the wall, she worked her way around to it, grasped the broom head, and twisted it off. She had a cane. Better mobility meant she could get to the kids faster.