Authors: Terri Reid
The streetlights were shining when Ray finally made it back
to the garage. He kept the entrance way open, shining enough light into the
space without attracting too much attention.
He popped the trunk of the car and lifted the girl into his
arms. She was a lightweight compared to Nick. Although her body was still
lethargic, it was pliable, so she wasn’t dead yet.
That’s okay
, he
decided.
It will just prove that he
drugged her before he killed himself.
Sets up the scenario even better.
Kicking the door closed behind him, he carried the child
through the house, trying to decide where it would be best to leave the
body.
He couldn’t hide it too well, he
did want the police to find her once they came looking for Nick. But, he
reasoned, Nick was not a stupid man.
He
wouldn’t have kept his victims in a place where they might have been
discovered.
He paused with the girl in the front staircase. Nick’s body
was swinging from the stairwell, the end of the rope looped over one of the top
banisters.
His eyes now stared
sightlessly at Ray, his face purple from lack of blood. It hadn’t been easy to
convince Nick to jump, even with the drugs swimming through his system.
He finally had to toss him over the railing
himself.
Ray looked down to see tops of
Nick’s shoes just skimming over the wood floor. “Good thing you’re short,” he
muttered.
Moving past the dead man, he carried the girl up the stairs
and peered into each of the rooms on the second floor.
The first one was a normal bedroom, the
second had been turned into an office, but the third room was little more than
a closet.
Ray stepped out of the room
and looked around the hallway.
That didn’t make sense.
The house went on for quite for several yards
more.
Why would there be only a closet
in that space?
He laid the child on the carpet in the hall and went back
into the third room. The room was shaped in a short rectangle with a window off
center on the outside wall. Rather than a curtain, as in the other rooms, this
window had privacy shutters on it. A collection of boxes and plastic tubs sat of
the floor, against the back wall.
Ray flicked on the light switch and a corner floor lamp
turned on.
Odd
, he thought, the
rest of the rooms had ceiling lights.
Kicking one of the boxes, he was surprised to discover it
was empty.
He kicked another, they were
all empty.
Pushing them out of the way,
he examined the wall they were covering.
Kneeling down, he looked at the floor. The carpeting was pushed down in
front of the wall, like something heavy had rolled over it.
He stood, placed his hands on the wall and
pushed against it.
Something clicked
against the pressure and the wall sprung forward.
Moving to the edge, he pushed his fingers
beneath the small crack and pulled.
Like
a giant door, the wall pulled away, exposing a hidden room.
Waiting until his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Ray looked
around for another light switch and finally found one on the wall adjacent to
the door.
When he clicked it on, a burst
of laughter escaped his lips. “Well, you little pervert,” he said. “You just
helped me create the perfect crime.”
The walls of the room were covered in pornography.
Some ripped from magazines and some,
obviously, taken with his own camera.
One small section dedicated exclusively to child porn, with subjects as
young as toddlers.
The room also housed a desk with a computer and a
four-poster brass bed, complete with handcuffs hanging from each corner. “You
are one sick creep,” Ray muttered. “At least I was trying to teach them
something.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the suicide note he
had insisted Nick draft and placed it on the desk next to the keyboard.
Then he hurried back to the hall, picked up
the little girl and brought her back into the room.
Laying her on the bed, he rubbed the
handcuffs on her wrists and ankles to add some of her DNA to the restraints.
Stepping back, he looked at the girl’s body sprawled across
the bed and the disgusting photos in the background. “Yeah, paints a pretty
damning picture,” he said. “Now all I have to do is take care of that Alden
kid.”
Mary groaned when the cell phone went off in the early hours
of the morning. Her eyes still closed, she lifted her hand to slap the alarm
clock off, but it just didn’t seem to be working. Chuckling, Bradley gave her a
quick kiss on the cheek and rolled out of bed. “Mary, it’s my phone,” he said.
“Go back to sleep.”
Mumbling something incoherent, she snuggled back into her
pillow and tried to resume her dream.
“When did they find him?” Bradley’s voice was tense and
directed.
“And the girl?
How is she?”
Mary rolled over and sat up in bed. She exhaled with relief
when she saw Bradley’s slight smile. “Good,” he said. “Is she at Freeport
Hospital or did they airlift her to Madison?”
He nodded again, cradling the phone between his shoulder and
his chin, while he pulled clothes out of his drawer. “Yeah, I can be there in
twenty minutes,” he said. “Thanks for the good news.”
He clicked off the phone and turned to Mary. “They just
found Nick Sears’s body in a small house near Henderson Avenue,” he said.
“Nick Sears is dead?” Mary asked, astonished.
“Hung
himself
. Left a note
confessing to everything,” Bradley replied, hurrying toward the bathroom.
Mary slid out of bed and followed him. “But Henderson is
nowhere near the park,” she said. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Bradley stepped under the flowing water of the shower.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “But they also found the kidnapped girl in the house
with him.”
“Is she going to be okay?” Mary asked.
“She’s been given some pretty heavy duty drugs, but they think
she’ll be fine,” he said. “They’ve airlifted her up to Madison so she can be
seen by specialists.”
Leaning back against the sink, Mary shook her head.
“I just can’t believe we were that far off,”
she said. “And I have to admit, it all seems too neatly wrapped up.”
Stepping out of the shower, Bradley stood next to her and
applied shaving cream. “Yeah, I’m right there with you,” he said. “And Doctor
Sears didn’t seem like the suicide type.
He thought much too much of himself.”
“Well, if it was Sears, then the children of Freeport can
rest easy,” she said. “But I’m not going to say anything to Celia until you
call, okay?”
He stopped shaving for a moment and met her eyes through the
shower. “I’m sorry I have to rush away again,” he said. “I really wanted to
spend some more time with you this morning.”
Smiling back at him, she shrugged, “I understand, it’s the
job.”
“Yeah, well, I’m hoping the job will slow down a little so I
can enjoy being a married man,” he replied, shaving under his chin.
“I enjoyed you being a married man last night,” she teased.
He grinned at her. “I just might have to quit my job and
stay home full time,” he said.
He wiped the remaining shaving cream from his face and
turned to her. “So, what’s your plan for today?” he asked.
“I suppose it depends on Clarissa,” she replied. “If she’s
willing, I thought I’d take her shopping for shoes and spring clothes.
If not, I might see if Rosie and Stanley
would be willing to come by and keep an eye on her so I can do some grocery
shopping.”
“I could always shop,” he said.
She leaned up and kissed him. “Yes, you could,” she said.
“But chips, chili and cookies are not a balanced diet. Now, you finish getting
dressed and I’ll get you some breakfast.”
“Thanks.”
She grabbed her robe, walked down the hall and peeked in on
Clarissa. She was sound asleep. Mary smiled as she looked at her face, so
innocent in her sleep. “Don’t be fooled,” Mike whispered, appearing behind her.
“She’s only smiling in her sleep because she’s planning your demise.”
Mary softly closed the door and shook her head. “Don’t be
silly,” she said. “She’s just confused.”
“Yeah, they said that about Lizzy Borden too,” he grumbled.
She stopped at the top of the stairs. “Come on, Mike,” she
said, “You are her guardian angel; you’re supposed to be on her side.”
“Okay, you’re right,” he said. “But I don’t know what
happened to the cute little kid we all liked a few weeks ago.”
Mary started down the stairs. “You know, you’re right,” she
said. “I wonder if Katie or Maggie can tell us if anything happened while she
was staying with them.”
“That makes sense,” Mike agreed. “Maybe someone said
something.”
“I’ll call Rosie and Stanley once I get Bradley on his way,”
she decided, “Then we can go over and talk to Katie and Maggie to see if they
can shed any light on the situation.”
Mike seemed to hesitate for a moment. “Mary, there’s
something I need to tell you.”
“Mike, what’s wrong?” Mary asked.
“There are rules with guardian angels,” he said. “I’m not
great with them; I’ll be the first to admit that. But the one big rule is that
we can’t interfere when someone is making bad choices on purpose. I can’t
interfere with Clarissa’s free agency; I can’t stop her from doing something
she already knows in her heart is wrong.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Mary argued. “She’s just a little
girl.”
“Mary, she’s eight years old, almost nine,” he said. “And
she knows the difference between right and wrong. If angels were allowed to
interfere and change the consequences of someone’s choice, it wouldn’t be
fair.”
“Can you tell her?” she asked. “Can you at least warn her
before she makes the choice that she’ll be on her own?”
“Yeah, I can do that,” he agreed. “I don’t know if it’s part
of the rules, but, yeah, I’ll be sure she knows.”
“Well, let’s just pray it never comes to that,” Mary said.
The crime scene was abuzz with local law enforcement, news
reporters and FBI agents.
Bradley shook
his head as he pulled his cruiser up to the curb.
This is a three-ring circus
.
Stepping out of the vehicle, he was immediately assailed by
reporters. “Chief Alden, did you suspect Dr. Sears of kidnapping?”
Actually I only
suspected him of being an ass
, he thought. “No comment,” he said, pushing
through the crowd toward the house.
“Chief Alden, where do you think the other bodies are
buried?”
“No comment,” he repeated, still moving forward.
“Chief Alden, do you have the address for the parents of the
kidnapped child?”
Bradley froze and stared at the young reporter who posed the
question. “If I find out that you, any of you, have intruded on their privacy
while their child hangs between life and death, I will arrest you for
interfering with an ongoing criminal case,” he said. “Do you understand me?”
The young reporter swallowed and nodded. “Good,” he said.
“Listen, I know you want information and I am happy to share it with you.
But let me take a look at what’s going on
inside, then I’ll hold a press conference and give you all the details I can.”
Not waiting for a response, he hurried to the house and
closed the door behind him.
He looked
around quickly, noting that although the hedges around the windows were high,
an enterprising reporter might be able to get a shot of the deceased. “Deutsch
and Killoran,” he called to two of his officers. “Would you make sure we have officers
stationed around the circumference of the building to make sure no reporters
cross the crime scene tape border? We don’t want this interior of this house
showing up on the six o’clock news.”
Walking over to the coroner who was examining the body, Bradley
waited as the man jotted down a few final notes and placed a covering over the
body laid out on the hallway floor. “So, what do you think?” he asked.
Bradley liked the new coroner, Chris Malik, a retired
country doctor, who shot straight from the hip and didn’t worry about being
politically correct. Chris scratched his head for a moment and then looked at
Bradley. “Well, he’s dead,” he replied, and then he paused and popped a piece
of chewing gum in his mouth.
“Seems to me he could’ve found himself
at least half a dozen easier ways to end his life.”
Bradley looked up to the top of the staircase and nodded.
“Yeah, I agree. He nearly didn’t get the rope high enough.”
“Yeah, would have been an awful mess if he just broke his
ankle and then had to fall over to strangle
himself
.
You’d think a doctor would have been smarter about that.”
Obviously Chris had
met the superintendent,
Bradley decided.
Chris leaned back on his heels and rocked back and forth for
a moment. “There’s another thing that’s strange,” he said. “I took a look at
the suicide note he left.”
Bradley nodded. “It was read to me over the phone,” he said.
“Seemed pretty straightforward.
He confessed to raping
and killing all of the girls over the past ten years.”
“Straightforward if you got the equipment,” he replied.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I can pretty much guarantee that the fellow who wrote that
suicide note is not the fellow laying on the floor in front of us,” he stated
positively.
“How do you know?”
“Chief Alden, when a coroner comes to the scene of a sexual
crime, he has to take samples from various parts of the body,” he explained
simply. “Those aren’t the usual parts we pay attention to, parts I’d rather not
see, quite frankly. But, we’ve got to swab ’
em
down
for DNA and semen samples.”
“Oh, okay, I understand what you’re saying,” he said. “You
didn’t find any evidence of sexual assault.”
“No, I’m saying I didn’t find any evidence of anything,” he
said.
“What?”
“Nick Sears wasn’t just shooting blanks, he wasn’t shooting
at all. Didn’t have a gun, if you know what I mean.”
“He doesn’t have a…”
“Clean gone,” the doctor said. “Some kind of freak accident
I suppose. But judging by the scar tissue it happened when he was a youngster.”
“So there’s no way…”
“He raped anyone, not in this world,” the doctor
interrupted, “Of course, he could have assaulted them, but that’s not what the
suicide note says and you’d think he be pretty clear in his suicide note.”
Bradley shook his head. “With his condition, he probably was
more comfortable watching and not participating.”
“Probably why he got his kicks with his camera,” Chris
surmised.
“Well Chris, you just turned my suicide into a homicide,”
Bradley said with a sigh.
“Don’t mention it, youngster,” Chris said, patting Bradley’s
shoulder. “Don’t mention it at all.”
“Speaking of don’t mention it,” Bradley said, lowering his
voice. “How long can you keep this information on ice? I’ve still got a killer
out there who thinks he’s pulled a fast one.”
“I can keep it quiet for a couple of days,” he said. “But it’s
not me you’ve got to worry about. Once this hits the press, his good wife is
going to probably talk about his lack of family jewels to clear his good name.”
“Crap, you’re right,” Bradley replied. “Well, we’ve got to
move fast. Thanks Chris.”
He looked around and saw that Ashley Deutsch was in the
house. “Hey, Ashley, find his cell phone,” he said. “We need to find out who he
talked to last night.”
“We’ve been looking for his phone, Chief,” she replied. “And
we can’t find it.”
Bradley thought for a moment. “Call Julie Quinn from the
school district, ask her about the carrier the school district uses and what
Sears’s phone number was.
Then call the
carrier and get a print out.”
“On it,” Ashley responded.
“Killoran,” Bradley called, when the officer entered the
house. “I need you to get a female officer, drive out to Sears’s house and stay
with his wife.
I don’t want the press to
get anywhere near her. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and he turned and hurried from the
house.
“Now all we can do is
wait
for a
break,” Bradley muttered under his breath.