Page 16 of A Song for the Dead

NINETEEN

The thrill of knowing Wendy is inside the house sends shivers through me. I prefer to wait until the house is empty and then slip inside to familiarize myself with the layout. By coincidence I was close by and noticed her collecting her mail as I drove past. It was almost one and she’d be getting ready for work. I’d overheard her asking Susie, the manager at Aunt Betty’s, if she could come in early today and leave before nightfall because she’d been spooked the previous evening. I smiled to myself. So, she’d seen me. A shudder of excitement sparks through me. I so love to frighten them. It makes my need to kill peak and my hands tremble with anticipation. I turn my truck around and park outside her neighbor’s house. No Halloween decorations fill the yard and the place looks cold and deserted. It’s an advertisement for anyone wanting to burgle the home. Some people just make criminals’ lives easy. A simple thing like having a timer to turn on the TV, radio, or the lights would deter most criminals. Very few people bothered with security systems. The monitoring systems were expensive and an ordinary alarm could be easily disarmed by just smashing it from the wall or short-circuiting it.

Moving casually alongside the neighbor’s house, I watch and listen. Wendy never closes her blinds and I can clearly see her moving from room to room. I’ve often sat outside in the dark and watched her for hours. I know what she does before work, before bed, what snacks she enjoys, and how many cups of coffee she needs before leaving for work. My mouth curls into a smile as I see her heading for her bedroom. The sunlight burnishes her hair as she walks past the window and pulls her sweater over her head. She’ll take a shower before dressing and leaving for work. She spends time in the bathroom, making herself look good. I’ve timed her and she is a creature of habit. These people are the best targets. Those who stick to a routine like walking the dog before the news each night, buying a pizza or going to the gym the same time every week. Someone like me can take advantage of a person who has a schedule. I love schedules.

As she disappears from sight, I slip from my ride and leap over the fence. In a few strides I’m at the back door slipping on examination gloves. I have the door open in seconds and pushed wide. I’m not wearing a disguise and just pulled my hat down low over my face. I’m careful and chose to wear a generic denim jacket and Levi’s. I could be one of a hundred guys around town. Inhaling, I step inside, catching her perfume as I walk through the kitchen and run my fingers along the countertops. I pick up her coffee cup. It’s still warm and I run my tongue around the rim wanting to inhale her breath. I will soon and it will be her last. I need to frighten her some more and collect the dirty dishes and slide them into the dishwasher. Smiling, I close the door and switch it on. A little jolt of pleasure goes through me as I imagine her face when she finds it running. She’ll know I’ve been here.

I walk with care to the bedroom and, finding the door slightly ajar, peek inside. My heart pounds as I open the door and see her work uniform laid out on the bed. I spend a little time to rearrange it and then look around. She is just beyond the bathroom door, so close I can almost taste her. I drag my eyes away and lift one pillow to my face to inhale her scent. I know that fragrance so well. I want to be here when she discovers someone has been in her house but that treat must wait. For now, she can have the trick. I look at my reflection in her mirror and smile, knowing she’d never suspect me. Nice guys never kill people, or do they? The sound of running water fills the room and steam leaks from the partially open bathroom door. Wendy isn’t one for closing doors and I like that about her. It will make my time with her so much easier. I peer inside the steamy bathroom and make out her shape in the shower. She’s humming a tune and I watch her for a time before going to the mirror and writing in the condensation:Soon.

I move through the house, slowly rearranging items, but constantly checking my watch. I don’t want her to find me here. If she did, I’d kill her and that would be no fun. The sound of the shower stops and I hurry for the back door. I’ve enjoyed spooking her, but my reward would come soon. The kill would be the icing on the cake. It’s a long buildup of exciting tension, growing into unbearable pleasure. The look of horror, the plunge of the knife, and the blood. Oh, the smell of the blood is like the nectar from ripe fruit.

TWENTY

Exhausted, Jenna leaned back in the seat as Kane drove back to town. They’d exhumed three more bodies at the other site, and although Norrell couldn’t guarantee her timing was correct without further analysis, she believed the bodies were all buried within a year of each other. This would make perfect sense if the Halloween Slasher killed three each Halloween. The thing worrying her was, what had he been doing before killing in Black Rock Falls and Louan and where did he go in the interim between the last murder and Freya Richardson’s obvious murder? She looked at Kane. “Do you agree we need to assume Freya is dead and the Halloween Slasher has buried her somewhere?”

“Yeah, I do. I called Jo when we stopped for lunch and her office is hunting down all the information they can find on his cases.” Kane drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Blackhawk walked Duke along the fire road after giving him Freya’s scent from the clothes in the evidence bag I brought with us. He didn’t react, so if the killer used the fire road to get to Bear Peak, he carried her wrapped up as we found the others or Duke would have smelled her.”

Jenna frowned. “I hope Jo does better than Rio and Rowley.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “They had no luck finding either of our suspects. Both were conveniently missing when they went to interview them. They hung around for an hour or so at each location and then changed tack and hunted down Elliot Cummings but he was a no-show for work. The manager told them Cummings called in to do a later shift because he wasn’t feeling well, but he wasn’t at home either. Next, they drove all over Twisted Limbs Trail looking for Hank Maxwell’s cabin without luck. When I spoke to them, they were hunting down where he works. That’s if he has a job. He might be off the grid.”

“Why don’t you call Jo and see if she has profiled our killer?” Kane headed along Stanton. “She has all the crime scene images and I sent her a copy of the recording we had of the cold case murder.”

Jenna made the call and gave Jo as much new information as she had. “All the cold case victims had phones buried with them. Wolfe will download any files he can find and send them to Kalo. All the victims have the same basic injuries as far as Norrell can tell. The MO and disposal of each victim are the same. Three sets of three, and then there’s the other grave half dug and abandoned. There’s no sign of Freya Richardson’s body. She’s out there somewhere butwhereis the question.”

“And they form a triangle? Could the triangle be inside a circle?”Jo’s fingers flew over the keyboard, making a slight tapping sound.“Triangles are everywhere and mean many things to many people, but if he is enclosing them in a circle, it could be a cleansing ritual for him. In other words, taking Halloween to the point of obsession. In his mind, the victims made him kill them or they deserved to die, and it’s his way of setting things straight. You know they like to blame the victims.” She stood and Jenna could hear footsteps on tile and the clink of a cup.“I’ve been working on the files all day and have a couple of conclusions. The recording is harrowing but exceptionally useful. At the end he says, ‘Happy Halloween.’ This is significant. Inside his mind, sending three souls across the opening between life and death at All Hallows’ might hold a significant meaning to him. Maybe his initial trigger happened at Halloween. Maybe one of his psychoses is obsessive-compulsive disorder, and because he killed three that night he must murder three every year.”She poured coffee and Jenna could hear her adding the fixings.“The time between means nothing. They can stop killing for a time because something else more important took their attention, the scene for the fantasy wasn’t right, sickness, jail, marriage, lack of opportunity… or he was killing elsewhere. It’s nothing we can nail down right now. It will take time. The evidence from the local law enforcement is practically nonexistent. Finding this guy before he strikes again is going to be difficult. There is one thing. Did you hear the heavy breathing and the pause before the victim reacted? I figure he likes to scare them. He could well be wearing a mask. The voice at the end is very muffled and yet the victim is clear enough. We’ll keep working on it and keep you posted.”

Glancing at Kane as they stopped outside the office, she raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay, Jo, thanks for your help. We’ll call if we have any more info.” She disconnected and turned to Kane. “That gives us an idea of who we’re dealing with, someone obsessed with Halloween who has OCD.” She sighed. “Oh, this is going to be a nightmare.”

“We’ll catch him.” Kane smiled at her. “They always make a mistake. The first one was coming back to Black Rock Falls.”

Jenna climbed from the Beast and collected her things. Kane had unclipped Duke and was carrying the box of Thermos flasks to the office. When Duke barked, Jenna turned to look down Main, scanning the sidewalk. Nothing seemed out of place, but when Duke barked again, Kane came back through the glass doors to the office and stood on the sidewalk until she joined him. “What’s up with Duke?”

“Dunno.” Kane rubbed the dog’s ears. “Maybe he smells something. Duke, seek.”

The dog headed down Main and stopped at the first alleyway, sitting and barking. Jenna hurried alongside Kane. “He’s found something.”

Searching her pockets for a spare pair of examination gloves, she pulled them on as Kane moved in front of her, weapon drawn.

He cleared the alleyway and turned to look at her. “Clear.” He holstered his weapon and walked to Duke. “What is it, boy? What do you smell? Seek.”

Duke moved to the first dumpster just inside the alleyway and sat down, his soft brown eyes alert and his tail wagging.

“I don’t smell a corpse and after so long Freya would be well into decomposition.” Kane pulled on gloves and pushed open the lid to the dumpster. “I see something.” He turned around and picked up a crate left beside the dumpster and then dropped it. He stepped onto the crate and reached inside coming out with a blood-stained pillowcase.

When Duke barked and did his happy dance, Jenna patted him. “Good boy.” She looked at Kane. “Would Duke still be able to recognize Freya Richardson’s scent?”

“I have no idea, but he could track you or me by using our names, so I guess the answer is in the affirmative.” He held the pillowcase between thumb and finger keeping it well away from his body. “There’s an evidence bag inside my jacket pocket.” Kane stepped down from the crate. “Grab it for me, will you?”

Sliding her hand inside Kane’s jacket, Jenna found the evidence bag and opened it, holding it wide for Kane to push the pillowcase inside. “Anything else in there?”

“Nope and it was on the top. There’s only the smell of garbage not a dead body and most of it is cardboard. It’s a recycling bin.” Kane lifted the evidence bag and examined the contents. “The bin is emptied in the morning. Does the killer know this? And why dump it here, why didn’t he bury it with the body like the others? The bloodstains are dry and have been dry for a time. If he’d screwed the pillowcase up and thrown it inside the dumpster while wet, the blood pattern would be different, like a tie-dyed piece of material. The blood marks are all down one end, which would indicate a cut throat.”

A cold wind whistled through the alleyway, raising goosebumps on Jenna’s flesh and making the skeletons hanging from the streetlights dance. There could be only one other conclusion. Swallowing hard, she shuddered. “Unless he hasn’t buried her yet.”

TWENTY-ONE

Wendy stepped from the shower and went to wipe the mirror and froze, gaping in horror at the words written in the condensation:I’m coming for you. Each letter dripped tears, running down the glass as it melted away. With no weapon, nothing around her for protection, she snatched up the deodorant and held it out before her. Trembling with fear, she peeked around the bathroom door and into her bedroom. The closet door hung open and she could plainly see there was nobody inside. The bed was too low for anyone to crawl under. The door to her room was slightly ajar and the smell of freshly brewed coffee crept up the hallway. Her legs went to Jell-O and she couldn’t breathe. Someone had turned on the coffee machine.

Naked and vulnerable, she needed to act now. Staring through the open crack in the door, she waited. Nothing moved in the hallway. Too scared to move, she waited a few more seconds and watched intently. She had one option to save herself and acted on instinct. Taking a deep breath, she dashed across the room, shut and locked the door as silently as possible. Breathing heavily, she leaned against it listening. All she could hear was the pulse pounding in her ears and the wind whistling through the trees outside her window.

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