“What about the other people in the search and rescue unit?” Monica asked.
Sylvia nodded slowly. “I guess of everyone here, he’s closest to them. Chris Santoli would probably be your best bet, he’s a day trader, too. They have a beer together and watch baseball games sometimes when I’m in the city with the girls….”
Her voice trailed off. Kelly recognized the look in her eyes, the sudden recognition that the rug had been yanked away and it turned out she was standing over a gaping chasm.
“Why don’t you go on inside now, honey. We’ll track down Chris Santoli,” Monica said soothingly.
“Yes, I’d better see to the girls.” Sylvia raised a hand to her forehead as if wiping away a memory, then slowly lowered it. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said faintly before mounting the ladder.
“She didn’t know,” Monica said, watching her go.
“No, she didn’t,” Kelly agreed, kneeling to examine the ridged floor canted toward a drain in the center of the room. “It’s a killing room, that’s for sure. I’m willing to bet that if he was careful enough to keep his wife from suspecting anything for almost a decade, we won’t find much in the way of trace evidence down here.”
“Probably not,” Monica said. She started to set the jar back on the shelf behind her, then frowned. She rattled it slightly. Something shifted from side to side. “Hear that? Doesn’t sound like beans.”
They exchanged glances. “All these cans and no can opener,” Kelly said thoughtfully. “Why don’t we have one of the crime-scene guys run to the house, see if Mrs. Morgan wouldn’t mind lending us one.”
A few minutes later, a cop passed a can opener through the hatch. “She wants to come back down, find out what you’re doing,” he said in a low voice.
“Tell her we’ve sealed the scene. We can’t let her back in until it’s been processed,” Kelly ordered.
He nodded and his head disappeared. Kelly and Monica looked at each other. “You want to do the honors?” Monica asked. Her voice was a little shaky.
“Honestly? No. But it’s probably better if we know what we’re dealing with.” Kelly clamped the opener down and started to twist the handle. She steeled herself. Serial killers took all sorts of odd “trophies” from their victims, items that helped them relive the murder. Ed Gein, the real-life serial killer that the character of “Buffalo Bill” was based on, made lamps and a bodysuit out of human skin. Cannibal Stanley Baker carried the knucklebones of one victim in a special pouch on his belt. Sadist Lawrence Bittaker recorded his victims’ screams as he tortured them. Chances were the can contained something horrible. It turned slowly, the metal top peeling back. When it was all the way open, Kelly peered inside. A smaller glass jar was nested within, the kind used for pickles and jams. She reached a gloved hand inside, careful to avoid the sharp edges, and lifted it out, holding it up to the light.
“Jesus,” Monica breathed, falling back a step.
Kelly didn’t say anything. Bobbing in a cloudy yellow solution were dozens of eyeballs, the roots still attached to most of them. As she stared at the jar, one with a blue iris rotated around to meet her gaze. She set the jar back down on a shelf. “Let’s go back up,” Kelly said abruptly.
They mounted the ladder in silence. Kelly gestured for the head of the crime-scene unit to come over. “I want photos and prints. Probably won’t have much luck with trace evidence or blood spatter, but check anyway. And collect all the cans on the shelves, have the contents sent to the lab for DNA processing.”
“DNA processing?” he asked, puzzled.
“You’ll understand when you get down there,” she said in a low voice. Sylvia Morgan was hovering just outside the garage, arms crossed over her chest. She had pulled on her cardigan despite the heat of the evening.
“Agent Jones? What’s going on down there?” she called out.
Kelly ignored her. They watched as three crime-scene technicians slowly descended the ladder, hands reaching up to collect the equipment being passed down. The garage doors yawed open. Sylvia’s car had been cleared out, and motorcycle parts were strewn across the floor like abandoned appendages. A cool night breeze filtered through.
“Agent Jones?”
“Go be with your daughters, Mrs. Morgan,” Kelly said over her shoulder without turning to face the woman. “I’ll be in touch if we find your husband.”
Kelly felt the woman’s rage hot on her back, then heard the crunch of gravel as she spun and marched back to her house.
“Jesus,” Monica said again as the sound of her steps dissipated. “If I live to be a hundred, I don’t think I’ll be able to get that image out of my head.”
“Me either,” Kelly said, adding it to the grim catalogue of terrible things in her memory. She rubbed her eyes with a thumb and forefinger. Already, her dinner with Jake felt like it had happened months ago. And a long night still stretched before her.
“Do you think the other…parts…do you think he saved those, too?” Monica’s voice was unsteady.
Kelly considered the question. “We’ll know tomorrow when all the cans have been opened. Tonight, we need to focus on finding Sam Morgan.”
Monica cleared her throat. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll have a deputy get Chris Santoli’s address. You want to call ahead?”
Kelly shook her head. “No, and I want a trained infiltration unit to go in first. If Sam Morgan is there, he might have hostages. I can’t chance anyone else getting hurt. I’ll arrange for a warrant.”
“Okay. Can we get out of here now?” Monica glanced back at the open hatch and shuddered.
Kelly examined her. The fluorescent lights exposed the dark circles under Monica’s eyes, aging her a decade.
“Why don’t you head home?” Kelly said abruptly.
“What, now?” Monica said puzzled.
Kelly nodded. “You look like you could use some sleep. I’ll have the tactical unit and Jake with me. If Sam isn’t at the Santoli house, we’ll just go down the list of other SAR unit members. It could take all night.”
“And here I thought you needed me,” Monica joked, but there was a touch of hurt in her voice.
“You kidding? I’d be nowhere on this case without you,” Kelly said, awkwardly patting Monica’s arm. “But Jake can watch my back. Hell, he’ll probably insist on it. And something tells me Sam Morgan’s too smart to stick around here, anyway. He’s probably halfway to Canada by now.”
“It’s always the nice ones, isn’t it?” Monica said, shaking her head. “And to think I was considering breaking up his marriage.”
“Even if it turns out he’s not involved, I wouldn’t want to go up against Sylvia,” Kelly remarked.
“No, you’re probably right—those Junior League types are always scrappier than they look.” Monica laughed, but it sounded forced. “I think I’ll just stop home and check on Zach, then I’ll catch up with you.”
“Great,” Kelly smiled at her, then glanced at her watch.
“Keep your phone on, I’m blocking all radio chatter because there’s a chance one or both of them might be monitoring it.”
“What about the other guy, the one who took Doyle?”
“I sent a sketch artist over to the hospital, and they dusted his squad car for prints. Maybe our guy is in the system and we’ll get a hit. Otherwise it might take a few days to get an ID.”
“Almost a good thing it happened to Doyle. Want to bet the lab takes half the time getting us the results?”
Kelly smiled wryly. “With any luck. I’ll call you if we find anything. Now I better go get Jake, make sure he isn’t trying to make off with that TV.”
Dwight rubbed his eyes. He was tapped out, hadn’t slept for more than a few hours in days now. It was true, you did start seeing things; just a few minutes ago he’d caught himself swatting at his windshield. Clear as day he’d watched an enormous purple dragonfly land on his dashboard, foot-wide wings pulsing slowly up and down as it regarded him with amber eyes. He blinked and it hovered for a moment before disappearing. Man, he had to hold it together. Unconsciously he tapped out the tune for today’s song, Europe’s “The Final Countdown,” on the steering wheel.
He was running out of places to check. He’d been to all of their training sites, at least the ones they’d used during the short time he’d been with the unit. He’d gone through a few abandoned shacks in the woods that were pretty well-known. Nothing there but holes punched in graffiti-ed walls, bare mattresses covered with rat piss where horny kids got laid for the first time. The Captain was smart, even Dwight had to grudgingly acknowledge that. He wouldn’t choose somewhere too obvious, and it would have to be somewhere he could visit undetected. Hell, he could have dug a hole in the ground and just dumped her in there. Dwight gritted his teeth at the thought and strained his mind, trying to figure out where the hell the sick bastard could be. He wasn’t at his house. Dwight had a police-band radio, and had heard enough to learn that before the airwaves suddenly went quiet. So, they’d found the cop. At least now they’d be looking for the Captain, too.
There was one more place he needed to check and he was almost there. Then he’d have to find somewhere to lay low and catch a few winks. He turned into a long concrete entranceway, killing the engine and headlights as the car glided to a stop.
Zach blinked and sat up straight. It was dark again, and silent. He didn’t know what had happened, whether he’d fallen asleep or passed out. At the memory of what he’d witnessed his hands automatically reached for his ears, but he was still tied up and they snapped back down with a clatter. God, that was awful. He’d never imagined anything so horrible in his entire life. He’d grown up on slasher films and loved every one them, prided himself on the fact that when his other friends had to look away from the screen, he could still watch. Could eat popcorn, even. But what that asshole had done to that poor woman…Zach started shaking uncontrollably. He wondered if she was still in here with him—if she was still alive. His face was wet; he tasted a drop and let out a little gasp of relief. It was tears, not blood. Just tears, and he didn’t even care that he was crying like a baby. Fuck, no one would see him anyway. He was probably going to die down here. The thought grew in his mind, taking on enormous dimensions as the realization settled in. Earlier, he’d been so disturbed by what was happening to the old lady that he hadn’t considered his own fate. The guy said he wasn’t going to “punish” him, but shit, he was clearly crazy. Zach’s teeth started chattering, partly because it was cold, but also because he suddenly knew, deep in his core, that he was going to die, and it was going to be a slow and terrible death. He’d never see Gina again, or his mom. At the thought of his mother a sob escaped his lips and he began crying in earnest.
Kelly nodded, and the ram swung forward and crashed through the front door. She stayed to the side, waiting as the tactical unit swept into the house in front of her, weapons held at eye level, flashlight beams penetrating the gloom of the hallway. She was about to enter when Jake stepped in front of her protectively and proceeded down the hall. She repressed a twinge of annoyance.
“Do that again and I just might shoot you,” she muttered so only he could hear. She knew him well enough that even from the back she could tell he was grinning. A chorus of “Clears!” chimed in from other sections of the house.
“Oh sure, and if I don’t go in front of you I’ll get an earful about how chivalry is dead,” he responded in a low voice. “There’s the man of the house now.”
Kelly peered around him. They were at the doorway to the living room. On the far wall, a TV set that dwarfed the one in Sam Morgan’s house was tuned to a Red Sox game. In front of a La-Z-Boy stood a man in a white T-shirt and boxers, mouth open, the bottle of beer in his hands tilted forward so that its contents dribbled down on the floor.
“Chris Santoli?” Kelly asked.
He nodded dumbly, mouth still agape. He was in his early forties, with a weak chin and a shiny forehead chasing away sparse blond hair. A significant gut hung over his waistband.
“Is anyone else here with you, Chris?” she asked, shoving aside Jake with irritation as she stepped past him.
“N-no,” he stammered, eyes sweeping the room, taking in the bulletproof vests and semiautomatics. The captain of the tactical unit issued a sharp nod. “House is clear,” he confirmed.
“All right. Do a quick sweep of the grounds, make sure to check the garage in particular,” Kelly ordered. “Mr. Santoli, why don’t you have a seat?”
“Did you break down my door?” he said incredulously, still standing. “Jesus, what is this, fucking Baghdad?”
“You can file a claim with the Berkshire State Police Department, I’m sure they’d be happy to compensate you,” Kelly said. “Now please, Mr. Santoli, sit. I need to ask you some questions.”
Thirty-Three
“Zach? God, what happened in here? It looks like a bomb went off!” Monica called out with annoyance, hands on her hips as she perused the wreckage of her living room. He’d probably been wrestling with one of his buddies again. That happened at least once or twice a month—they’d start brawling over everything from video games to who was going to which college. Honestly, sometimes she wished she’d had a girl.
Sighing, she bent to pick up a chair tilted on its side, then caught herself. “Zach, get down here and clean up this mess!”
Monica cocked her head to the side at the lack of a response. “I mean it, Zach!” she said with less certainty. A minute later she stormed up the stairs and threw open the door to his bedroom. At the sight of the unmade bed and clutter, her eyes narrowed. She noted the time. “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she muttered. “Of all the nights for him to break curfew, he had to choose this one.”
Sighing, she snapped open her cell phone and started dialing.
Zach had finally stopped crying and now sat quietly, his back against the wall. He’d never been religious; his mom hadn’t raised him that way. Now he kind of wished she had. It seemed like now would be the time to start praying, but all he knew were a few lines from a handful of prayers, and to just wing it felt wrong somehow. His mom had to be looking for him by now. She was going to be crushed—she’d never been good on her own. He’d already started worrying about what she’d do when he started college—he planned on applying to schools nearby so he could come home regularly. He figured that was why she’d hooked up with the nerd, because she spotted loneliness on the horizon. Zach had caught her crying last night, so she’d probably been dumped again. Even though he’d never liked the guy he still felt a little badly—maybe if he’d been nicer it would have worked out. Not that any of that mattered now.