Authors: Mariah Stewart
Tom’s wife, Kitty, a diminutive gamine with short curly dark hair, was already up and had coffee on. The four sat around the worn round table in the kitchen and Sam spelled out what brought Fiona and him to Nebraska. When he finished, Tom sat drop-jawed across the table from him.
Kitty was the first to speak. “You are seriously freaking me out, Sam.”
“I have to admit to being a little freaked out myself,” he replied.
“You think someone is killing all these people to get back at you for something?” Tom said incredulously.
“It looks that way.” Sam nodded. “Actually, with this latest murder, I’m thinking the killer is someone from around here. Someone we know.”
“Here?” Tom’s eyes went wide.
“That’s crazy, Sam.” The coffeemaker beeped and Kitty got up from the table. “I can’t think of one person who would want to harm you.” Her head was shaking side to side emphatically as she grabbed mugs from a cupboard and placed them on the table. “And those other things you said this killer has done … uh-uh. No one around here would do something disgusting like that.”
“Kitty, it’s been my experience that you can never count anyone out. It seems like it’s always the guy you’d least expect. The friend you trusted for years. The next-door neighbor who was always so nice, maybe mowed your lawn when you were away. Someone always says, ‘I can’t believe it’s him. He was always so nice.’ Or, ‘He was such a good boy.’ Believe me when I tell you that you cannot tell the good guys from the bad guys just by looking at them.”
“So what do we do?” Tom still appeared bewildered.
“The first thing we do is figure out how we’re going to keep you and the kids safe until this is over,” Sam said softly.
“I thought you said the killer was after you.” Kitty froze halfway to the table, the coffeepot in one hand and a pitcher of cream in the other.
“I think I’m his ultimate goal,” Sam told her, “but he still has two more ‘acts’ to go. I figure he’s saving the last one for me, but I can’t rule out him trying to get to someone I care about for the sixth victim.”
“We need to call Andrea.” Kitty placed the pot on a trivet on the table and grabbed for the phone. “She and Pete need to be warned.”
“Warned about what?” Tommy, her oldest son, came into the kitchen, all legs and shaggy hair, in baggy shorts and a bright green tank top. “Hey, Uncle Sam.” He shook Sam’s hand, then did some sort of elbow bump thing that Sam would still be trying to figure out an hour later.
Sam introduced Fiona, and Tommy acknowledged her with a nod. “FBI lady. Cool.”
“Mom, are we going to have breakfast? I have football practice at seven thirty and if I wait too long to eat, I’ll be spewing eggs all over the field.”
“Thank you for that visual, Thomas.” Kitty moved away from the phone to the refrigerator. “Of course we’re having breakfast. Sam? Fiona? Bacon and eggs all right with you?”
“Better than all right.” Sam nodded.
“Tell me what I can do to help,” Fiona said.
“Nothing, really. Sit.” Kitty pointed to Fiona’s chair.
“I’ve been sitting for hours. At least let me set the table. Or make toast or something.” Fiona added, “I can make toast.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Kitty pointed to a nearby cupboard. “Plates are in there.”
“So what are we being warned about?” Tommy asked.
“There’s been a murder in Henderson Falls.” Sam chose his words carefully. He’d been hoping that his nephew would have forgotten what he’d heard when he first came into the room.
“No sh …” Tommy caught the look his mother shot from across the room. “No fooling? A
murder?”
“I’m afraid so,” Sam told him.
“Anyone we know, Dad?”
“I didn’t catch the name,” Tom said. “Sam, do you know who the victim is?”
“A man named Perillo. Jerry Perillo.”
“That name familiar to you, Kitty?” Tom asked. “Jerry Perillo?”
“I think there’s a kid named Perillo in school. I think he’s a freshman. Jody would know,” Tommy said thoughtfully.
“Jody’s in high school already?” Sam frowned. “How did that happen?”
“Sam. It’s been more than two years since you’ve been here,” Kitty reminded him.
“I can’t believe it’s been that long.” Sam shook his head.
“Wait till you see how big Gil is now. It won’t be long before he’ll be almost as tall as you,” Tom told him.
Over the next ten minutes, the other two children—fourteen-year-old Jody and ten-year-old Gil—joined them in the kitchen. There was a lot of chatter amidst the passing of platters of eggs and bacon and toast, one spilled glass of juice and several refills of the coffeepot before Tommy stood and announced that he had to leave.
“I’m not ready,” Jody complained.
“Me, either,” Gil said.
“Then get ready if you want a ride with me,” he told them. “Else wait for the bus.”
“I can’t wait for the bus,” Jody whined as she dashed out of the room. “I have cheerleading and besides the bus is always late …”
Her voice trailed behind her as she raced up the steps.
Gil shoveled one more forkful of eggs into his mouth before following his siblings from the room.
“Tommy.” Sam followed him into the front hall. “What we talked about before … let’s keep it between us for now. I’m not sure it’s out there yet.”
“Okay. Sure.” The boy nodded.
“In case the family … you know.”
“Gotcha. I won’t say anything to anyone. Not even Jody.” Tommy grinned. “Especially Jody.”
“Thanks.” Sam slapped him lightly on the back before heading into the kitchen.
“Hey, Uncle Sammy,” Tommy called to him. “We have an open practice this afternoon. That’s where people can come and watch us practice. We’re going to be good this year. Coach thinks we could even win our division.”
“That’s great, Tommy. Good luck.”
“They moved me to wide receiver, just like you played.” Tommy went uncharacteristically shy for a moment. “Maybe you could come and watch this afternoon.”
“I’d love to do that. I’ll try to be there, Tommy.”
Sam’s nephew nodded as if he had low expectations of what adults usually meant when they said they’d try to do something.
“What time?” Sam asked.
“We’re generally on the field by three.”
“I’ll do what I can to be there. Thanks for the invitation.”
“Yeah.” Tommy nodded. “I hope you make it.”
Sam went back into the kitchen in time to take the phone from Kitty to explain to his older sister Andrea why he was there, what was going on, and why she needed to keep her family close.
“Sam, do you think we should all go into town and stay at Andi and Pete’s?” Kitty asked.
“Go stay in town?” Tom shook his head. “I have crops to tend to, Kit.”
“You have children who could become the target of a serial killer,” she shot back.
“They’ll be safe at school,” he countered.
“And you’ll be safe where, Tom?” his wife asked.
Tom looked to his brother for assurance.
“That’s my point, Tom,” Sam told him. “Of all of you, I think you’re the biggest target.”
“The fields aren’t going to dry up overnight,” Kitty reminded him. “Let it go for a day. We’ll go to Andi’s, the kids will go there after school, and we’ll see what happens from there.”
Knowing he was defeated, Tom nodded. “Just for today, since I can see you’re so rattled. But just today.”
“We’ll see,” she told him. “We’ll see …”
His brother and sister safely under one roof, Sam left for Henderson Falls with Fiona. Sam hadn’t stopped the kids from attending school, but before they left Blackstone, he had a talk with the chief of police. They agreed a cruiser should be posted at the elementary school, and another would make regular runs
past Andrea’s house. Sam made a similar request of the Dutton police chief, the result of which was an officer being stationed at the high school.
Fiona asked for copies of any reports that would be forthcoming from the investigating officers, once they had time to write them up.
“I understand that there won’t be anything for a few more days,” she told Dean Worth, the chief in Henderson Falls. “But I would appreciate copies emailed to me.” She handed him one of her cards.
“Tell me again why the FBI and the … what was the name of your organization again?” he asked Sam.
“The Mercy Street Foundation,” Sam told him.
“Why are you all interested in this?” the chief asked, and for the second time that morning, Sam explained, starting with the murder of Ross Walker and ending with their trip to Nebraska.
“Well, sure sounds like someone has it in for you.” Worth scratched his chin. “But why would someone target you? I mean, someone you brought in sometime, I could see that. But I don’t remember you saying you ever arrested someone from around here.”
“I never did. We’re not sure what the connection is,” he admitted.
“But we do feel it’s someone local,” Fiona told him. “It just seems as if these killings are bringing Sam closer and closer to home. This latest killing here—in the same hospital where Sam’s sister died—that makes it seem more likely to us that Sam is somehow at the heart of it all.”
“County Memorial Hospital is the only hospital out here for miles,” the chief noted. “A lot of people
have died there over the years—including my wife and both my parents—so I’m not real impressed by that bit. But when you take it all together, yeah, there’s something fishy there.” He turned to Sam. “You being from around here, and all that with the dates. Yeah, there could be something there.”
“We’d like to talk to the detective who’s handling the case,” Sam said.
“Well, right now that would be me,” Worth told him. “My detective is recovering from a heart attack, so I picked this one up myself.” He stood. “Let’s take a ride out to the scene and you can tell me if it looks like those others of yours.”
Sam had to park the car on the street, the entrance to the three-story garage being roped off. They met Chief Worth out front, then followed him inside, walking up the ramp to the third level, where the body of Jerry Perillo had been found.
“The poor guy was found propped up against the driver’s side of his own car,” Worth told them as they approached the spot. “There was blood everywhere—pooled but, oddly, not spattered.”
“Because he was already dead when he was stabbed,” Fiona told him.
“Well, now, I don’t know that that’s been established.” The chief kept on walking without breaking stride.
“It will be. This killer has been strangling his victims, then stabbing them repeatedly in the chest. The blood isn’t spattering because the heart isn’t pumping.”
Worth glanced back over his shoulder at her.
“Someone spent a lot of energy slicing the bejesus out of this man. Why would anyone do that to someone who’s already dead?”
“He killed him to hold my attention,” Sam replied. “The stabbing is just a means for him to blow off steam.”
“You’re telling me the guy did all that just ’cause he was pissed?”
Sam nodded. “That pretty much sums it up, yes.”
The chief turned and continued on to the crime scene, muttering something about profilers and the FBI and off-the-wall theories.
Up ahead a crowd of technicians were still working the crime scene.
“State sent them in,” Worth told them. “We don’t have anyone who can process a scene like this one.”
He walked closer, Sam and Fiona still in his wake.
“There’s where the body was found.” He nodded to the crime scene techs as he walked by. “We used to use chalk to outline the body. No need for that here. The blood outlined it for us.”
Worth’s phone began to ring and he excused himself as he stepped off to one side to answer it. Fiona stopped one of the techs to ask him about getting copies of all the photographs.
Sam stood in the garage remembering the last time he’d been there, waiting for the release of his little sister’s broken body.
“That was the ME. He’s finished the autopsy.” Chief Worth walked toward Sam. “I’m guessing you’re not going to be surprised at the cause of death.”
“Manual strangulation.”
“All that blood, and the guy’d been strangled first, just like you said …” Worth shook his head. “What kind of a crazy bastard does something like that?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Sam replied.
“So I’m guessing this looks pretty much like the others?” The chief pointed to the stains on the concrete floor.
“Right down to the blood stains on the wall.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Sam parked in the lot behind the high school but left the motor running, just in case this time—the third time he’d asked—Fiona decided she did in fact mind that they were taking time off to watch a high school football practice.
“Sam, I don’t mind. Turn off the car and let’s get over to the bleachers so we can get seats.” She looked around at the full lot. “Unless the team has several hundred players, I’d say there are a lot of other people here to watch, too.”
“I’m not surprised. Football is big in Nebraska.” He shut off the engine.
“I thought that was Texas.” She got out and stretched.
“There, too.” He locked the car and held a hand out to her without thinking. She took it, and they walked down a hill to the field. As expected, the bleachers were half full on both sides of the field.
“If this many people show up for practices, how many come for the games?” she wondered aloud.
“They only have one or two what they call open practices at the beginning of the season. The rest of the time, only a few die-hard parents show up. This is sort of like an exhibition, except they’re not playing
another team.” He tugged on her hand to follow him up the side of the bleachers. “There are seats about eight rows up. Come on.”
The seats were not the best for viewing the field, especially when most of the crowd appeared to prefer standing.
“Where’s your nephew?” Fiona shielded her eyes from the afternoon sun.
“I don’t know.” Sam scanned the field. “He should be wearing a number in the eighties.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a wide receiver, and that’s where their numbers are.”
“Why?”
“You sound just like Andrea’s three-year-old.” He draped an arm over her shoulder.