Page 73 of Girl, Empty
Nothing.It must have been buried deep, dismissed so thoroughly that it never made it into the true crime canon.Just another middle-aged executive with a bad heart, and maybe that was the actual truth.
Only Calvin Roth apparently didn’t see it that way, and so had become something the world had never seen before: a serial killer who could apparently walk through walls.
The GPS chirped: Continue on I-74 East for sixty miles.
Ninety minutes to Calvin Roth’s door.
***
The city disappeared after an hour of driving, and its concrete tendrils gave way to a flat, icy landscape that offered the eye nothing to hold onto.The GPS had then led Ella down a series of neglected highways and county roads until she reached Ashforth Lane; a long stretch of road that measured the distance between houses in acres, not feet.There must have been half a mile between each property.
And here she was, parked out front of 346.The house sat back from the road, and the place had surrendered to neglect many years ago.Weeds had overtaken the driveway and the front lawn, and the canopy above door sagged so much that it reminded Ella of a dislocated arm.A child's bicycle lay on its side, and the mere sight of it pierced her stomach.Calvin would have been 29 now.If that was his bike, it had been waiting for him to come home for fifteen years.
She checked her phone before getting out.No signal.Not surprising this far into rural Indiana.If Calvin Roth was here, if this went sideways, backup would take forever to arrive, but it was a risk she had to take.
Time to head inside.
She stepped out of the car and approached the front door, then listened.With walls this thin, she’d be surprised if she couldn’t hear the floorboards creaking from outside.She knocked the door and waited.
Nobody answered.
Had she drove 80 miles for nothing?
No.She couldn’t come all this way without inspecting everything.If this househadbeen abandoned, which she fully expected, then she wouldn’t be invading anyone’s private space.She could even report it once she’d finished here so the town could reclaim ownership.She tried the front door handle and found it locked, but she guessed it wouldn’t take too much effort to get inside.
A path in the overgrowth led around the side of the house.She pushed past the brittle arms of a dead rose and found herself in a garden that was in worse state than the front.A wooden deck was green with mold, and there at the top of steps was a back door – hanging ajar.
Nobody left a door open in this weather, which further confirmed that nobody lived here anymore.Either that, or the concept of inside versus outside stopped mattering to the occupant a long time ago.Ella rested her hand on her Glock as she approached the door.
‘FBI.Anyone home?’
Only the wind answered, and so Ella used her foot to pry the door open further.The smell of damp assaulted her, and then she embraced it as she entered a kitchen.Dishes sat in the sink, with a few drink glasses next to them that had gone cloudy.There was a calendar on the wall that showed March 2015, with the sixth circled in blue pen.
Nearly ten years ago.
Through the archway, Ella stumbled upon a living room.Brown everywhere; furniture, display cases, shelves, lamps.If this place had been alive ten years ago, the décor certainly didn’t reflect that fact.Whoever lived here checked out long before 2015, as did their taste in upholstery.Dust lined the surface of the usual suspects, but there were patches of dustless areas on the floor and sofa too.Someone had been here in the past ten years, and Ella prayed that it was her savant serial killer.If he’d come back here once, there was a chance he’d come back here again.
Ella’s next stop was into a drab hallway and then upstairs.Each step creaked to the point she thought they might give way, but she made it to the top in one piece.Up here was a short landing area boasting four closed doors.It was here where the intimacy of invasion gnawed at her conscience, because downstairs was for show, upstairs was for privacy.
With a gentle push she entered the first room, half expecting to find someone waiting for her.
But there were no living souls in this master bedroom.Just a rumpled bed of faded white bedsheets, chests of drawers and an oval mirror.Ella left the place as she found it and moved to door number two.Here was a spare room dominated by collapsing cardboard boxes.What was in them, Ella didn’t have the heart to look.
She moved to the third door, and could already smell that this was the bathroom from the landing.Inside, it was tiled pink, and rust had collected on the sink, toilet and bath screen.Some hotel shampoo bottles lined the shelf, and they were the kind they gave out at care facilities.Perhaps Susan had been cared for at home prior to moving to a care facility full-time.
The door at the end of the hall drew Ella forward.Even before she pushed it open, she knew this would be different.The knob turned easily enough, and beyond the threshold, she found herself in a teenage boy's bedroom.
Walls were a dark blue.The bed was made perfectly.A beige computer tower sat next to three dusty monitors.There was a small entertainment unit sporting a small TV, PlayStation 4, and some handheld consoles.In one compartment sat piles of textbooks and magazines.
And on the far wall, above the bed, Ella saw a row of framed trophies.
Newspaper clippings.
LOCAL WHIZ KID, 10, SWEEPS STATE CODING COMPETITION.
CALVIN ROTH, 11, BUILDS WORKING PC FROM SCRAP PARTS.
THE NEXT BILL GATES?GRAYSTONE’S OWN PRODIGY SHINES.
