Cold River Resurrection (32 page)

Washington, D.C.

CHAPTER

2

Meredith sat down across the desk from his boss and waited for the older man to speak, knowing full well that Jonathan Ward would not let signals of impatience hurry him. The Phoenix case was going to be the topic of discussion. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was only the lunch hour in Phoenix, 2:30 p.m. here in D.C., and already there was an exodus of government types out of the city. Most wanted to get a jump on the weekend, and with the Fourth of July on Tuesday, it would be a four-day party.

Meredith looked through the window at the boats on the
Potomac, colorful sails tight with brisk early summer wind. He thought sailing boring, but watching the boats was better than looking at the office. It was the same kind of office given to most bureaucratic upper management types in Washington: plush carpet, solid wood desk, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase behind the desk, and the ubiquitous split-leaf philodendron hiding by the door.

Meredith pulled himself up in his chair and saw in the glass pane a shadow of his face looking back at him. He thought the sailboats more interesting. His curly brown hair was starting to go back at the edges and frown lines on his forehead seemed a little deeper. At age forty-two, he supposed that it could be worse.

Ward put the folder on his desk, and fiddled with an old greasy pipe, another badge of leadership, Meredith thought. Ward had been going over the file again, trying to find something that others had missed. The investigators invariably missed something, or so Ward said, and he usually brought these salient points to their attention.

As the head of the new Federal Violent Crime Investiga
tion Administration, Ward was one of the best bureaucratic actors in town, smooth and respected. Meredith knew that Ward was fair, an unusual quality here. Ward's tailored suits, his oxford shirts and silk ties, his homicide investigation background, and his confident demeanor said to underlings and peers: I am a successful man in my profession— don't mess with me.

“
How many in Phoenix so far?” Ward asked.

“
Five, if you count the Pearson woman. Could be as high as seven. We're not sure about the two in Scottsdale, but the lab may tell us that it's the same man working there.”

“
All the women were taken from the scene of auto accidents. You seen this before?” Ward asked.

“
No. Not as a strict M.O. Maybe as an opportunity, but not as a pre-planned serial abduction. This guy's slick. Crime scenes are neat, and with one exception there was no real evidence left. He gets in an accident with the victims, a female driving alone, and they disappear. No bodies have been found.” Meredith rubbed his knee and waited.

“
This guy in Phoenix they have working on these, he any good?” Ward closed the file and looked up.

“
Detective Sergeant Dennis Patterson. He's the one who found the blood in the second car, after the lab had gone over it. The blood was from the victim of the first abduction.”

Ward picked through the file again, and played with it, seemingly disinterested, like a person bored with his food. It's because he knows every damned word in the thing, Meredith thought.

Five missing women.

None returned home.

No bodies found.

Meredith knew that the Phoenix police and Maricopa County deputies had walked the heels off their boots in the surrounding desert, and worn out a couple of methane probes in the process.

Nothing.

No
trace of bodies.

Zip.

Ward looked at the lab reports and grunted, removing the pipe from his mouth. “I see that young Gardiner is doing our computer work again on this one. I can't believe that I've hired someone who takes his dates to work with him.”

Meredith laughed.
“That's because he's the best. Anyway, he spends his life at the shop; his social life just follows him to work in the evenings. He claims that the girls feel like they've met someone immortal, a person who peeks at death. He says it makes them horny.”

Ward gave the file to Meredith.

“Stop in Phoenix on your way home. Look things over and offer our assistance. Tell Josh 'Hi' for me when you get back,” Ward said as they shook hands. He held the door open for the younger man, sending a wreath of smoke out into the hall.

Meredith nodded and left the office, trying to walk without limping, holding the file as if it were a fragile thing that would shatter if he dropped it. Five missing in less than six months. He knew that they hadn't seen the last of their man—and the guy left blood.

Why was he leaving evidence? Did he want to .get caught? Meredith didn’t think so. The killer's donation of evidence at the abduction sites told Meredith one thing: the killer was taunting them, he was upping the stakes. Meredith would go down and look at the next crime scene himself.

As it turned out, he didn't have to wait at all.

Phoenix

CHAPTER

3

Ellie waited until she was sure Donna had things under control, then returned to her office. She busied herself with the never-ending paperwork, and when she next looked up she saw she had worked through the lunch hour.

From her office in the back corner she could see most of the store and out into the concourse. Donna was talking to Frank Allman, another ASU student who worked for Ellie as a part-time clerk. Donna was re
-telling the story of the drunk, waving her arms and laughing. They both looked in the direction of Ellie's office and Frank laughed with her.

Karen's, Inc., belonged to Ellie. At thirty, she was the owner and manager of two shops at
Sky Harbor international Airport in Phoenix. The shops contained most of the usual necessities for travelers: magazines, paperbacks, souvenirs, candy, toilet articles. Since taking over the first shop three years ago, she had expanded her merchandise to a casual sportswear and swimsuit line, and was displaying original Southwest jewelry and pottery.

The store was starting to fill with shoppers, and both Donna and Frank were busy ringing up sales, their bright red ASU sweatshirts making them visible through the crowd. Ellie herself was an ASU alumna, and in fact had worked in the store as an undergraduate.

She fiddled with her pencil, watching the clerks. When she had worked here as a student, the business had been called Sky Harbor Gift Shop, and was owned by Julio “Herbie” Jararnillo. After graduation with a degree in business, she stayed on, looking for a corporate job or a small business to buy. During the years at ASU Ellie had developed a close relationship with Herbie, much closer than the other employees. Herbie and his wife had had Ellie over for dinner many times during those years, something that meant a lot to a girl from Pasadena, California, new to the state of Arizona.

After graduation, Ellie came to realize that she didn't want just any small business—she wanted to own Sky Harbor Gift Shop. Herbie knew of her love for the store, and eventually sold the store to Ellie with a deal she couldn't refuse. The gift shop was merely a cubicle then. But the airport was expanding
constantly, a hub for the Southwest, with a large percentage of flights to Mexico connecting there. With the dollar gaining against the peso, the airport bustled, stretched, and expanded some more.

Ellie, whose full name was Karen
Elizabeth Hartley, had changed the name of the shop to Karen's and expanded along with the airport. Last year she had opened a second shop at the opposite end of the airport, along a newly-constructed concourse.

She dropped her pencil and put the papers into the top desk drawer, papers for yet another expansion project to put Karen's, Inc., into the big time
, a franchise business for regional shopping malls.

Ellie picked up her jacket and looked out over her store from the doorway. Frank gave her a wave and a smile as she walked out into the concourse.

She walked to the main counter area of the airport, moving with the flow of travelers, airline crews, and airport workers. She nodded occasionally at people she knew, but was preoccupied and in a hurry.

It was easy for the man to follow her in a crowd.

She had promised Stacey that she would come home early today, and nothing was going to get in the way of that promise. She carried a burden of guilt for the number of occasions that she'd had to call her four-year-old to tell her that she would be late because of the demands of running a business. She had no one with whom to share business responsibilities or child-rearing problems. She had no husband and Stacey had no father. Not a father that Stacey had ever known, or one that counted for much. Ellie slipped sunglasses from her purse as she stepped outside into the bright heat.

She didn't see the man follow her from the terminal.

She opened the door to her Camaro and began the familiar ritual: start the car, roll the windows down part way, turn the air conditioner on max, and step outside to wait for the interior to cool.

The next part of the ritual was something she had learned from Herbie Jaramillo. He had stood beside her car on a summer night, and had stopped her with a hand on the door.

“Watch the planes take off, Ellie,” he said (it always came out “Eelie”). “Watch the planes take off and land from the white runways, and feel the life of the airport, and at the same time get the work from your head. That little girl of yours, she don't know work, all she knows is Mommy.” He had put his arm around her, and looked directly into her eyes, this gentle Mexican man not much taller than Ellie, and said quietly, “I know what you are trying to do here, gal, and you will do it, Jaramillo knows. But don' forget, watch the planes take off, and think about Stacey.” Then he had given her a hug and walked to his car.

Ellie smiled at the memory and put her folded suit jacket on the passenger seat. She backed out, thinking that she should stop and pick up another dozen fruity Popsicles. Stacey had probably invited every kid in the neighborhood to a swimming party while her mom was at work.

She drove through the aisle of palms that lined the airport road and caught Interstate 10, and then took the on-ramp to Interstate 17. Ellie put the white Camaro into the far left lane and kicked the speedometer up to seventy, heading north.

She didn't see the blue van follow her from the airport and slip into the fast lane behind her.

CHAPTER

4

Ellie had decided on two dozen Popsicles, thinking that her daughter's ability to make friends quickly might bring more kids over to the pool than they had planned. She'd picked up a bottle of California Chardonnay for the grown
ups, and carried the bag through the heat to her car.

She drove through the shopping center parking lot, the air conditioner sending out cool air that left a taste like old plastic in her mouth. She stopped at the McDonald
’s drive-through and got a large Diet Coke. The girl at the window thrust the Coke, the straw, and the change at her all at once.

She left the shopping center and turned onto
Rampart Street. She was less than a half mile from her home, where she and Stacey lived with Maria, their friend, housekeeper, and nanny.

The light blue van followed her.

She sipped on the Coke as she braked for the four-way stop on Castle Rock. Just a few more blocks and she would be in her bathing suit and in the pool, almost before the Camaro came to a stop. Maria and Stacey always laughed at her entry; she would throw her clothes across her room in her haste to get them off and get into her suit and into the pool. It had been Stacey's idea to time her, and Ellie knew that they would be waiting with a stopwatch when she entered the house.

She looked both ways, mechanically.

No one coming.

She started into the intersection.

Ellie never did see the van approach. It slammed into the rear of her car, and the jolt jerked her head back into the headrest. The large Diet Coke splattered onto her chest, cold and sticky on her blouse.

The Cam
aro bounced through the intersection, and she instinctively jammed her foot on the brake pedal and brought the car to a stop just across the road. She looked up into the rearview mirror and saw the grille of some kind of truck.

Dammit! Ellie beat her hands on the steering wheel, flinging Coke and ice into the windshield. She picked up the empty Coke container and flung it onto the floor in front of the passenger seat. The cup and ice landed on the grocery sack. She couldn't smell wine, so the bottle probably wasn't broken. She jammed her finger on the power window button and thrust her head out against the heat. She glared at the other vehicle behind her. She couldn't see inside.

Ellie pushed the door open, shaking, the last of the soda and ice sloshing in her lap, and she came as close to losing control as she ever had.

She had worked too hard for her car to have it bashed in by someone who couldn't even stop for a damn sign! She jerked the parking brake up and kicked the door all the way open and got out, anger hard in her face, and walked back to look at the damage. The momentum had pushed her car a few feet away from what she now saw was a large van. The damage wasn't as bad as she'd thought, but it still looked terrible on her new car—bumper banged in and a crumpled left rear fender.

“Hey, sorry, lady,” a voice called from within the van. A man's voice with rough edges. Ellie looked back and saw the driver leaning out the window by the large side mirror. She walked up to the door of the van and looked again at her car. There was some black paint from the bumper of the van on the white fender of her Camaro.

“
Look, I'm sorry, it's . . . uh . . . my fault,” the driver said quickly, “but let's pull off the road further and I'll give my insurance information to you. It was definitely my fault.”

“
You . . . why can't you watch for signs? And look at my suit!” she yelled. The heat from the pavement slammed into her, making her already queasy stomach roll in on itself. She was vaguely conscious of other cars going by. She looked down and pulled her sticky blouse away from her, and saw that the material was now transparent, clinging to her breasts. She abruptly spun around and walked quickly to her car, even more upset because she had yelled. She clutched her stomach in an attempt to keep the churning in control.

Her car was still running. Ellie popped it into gear and chirped the tires as she pulled off the road. She got out and walked back to the van as it was pulling up behind her. The heat from the pavement came up again, mixing sweat with the Diet Coke on her blouse. The glare from the sand on both sides of the road made it hard to see into the van.

Her anger had dissipated somewhat, and she was now more hot and irritated than mad. She was almost willing to be civil, but not before telling the idiot what she thought of his driving.

Another car went by, the driver looking over briefly. The passers-by had established a pattern now. When they decided that no one was hurt, they accelerated away. The Coke had probably rendered her blouse and bra invisible, but at this point, all she wanted to do was go home, put on her swimsuit, pour a large—huge actually—glass of cold wine, and watch Stacey with her friends.

The driver of the van hopped out, awkwardly holding his right arm up across his chest. He grimaced and gave Ellie a small wave as she approached.

Oh shit. Just what  I need,
she thought.
The guy is hurt, and now I
don't even have someone I can be mad at.
By the time she got to him, she just wanted to get it over with. He was a large man, maybe 6'3", 220 lbs., with a full head of dark hair, perhaps thirty to thirty-five, with a rugged-looking but nice-appearing face. He was wearing a white dress shirt, blue jeans, and boots.

He winced and pointed to his arm.
“Banged it on the steering wheel. You okay?”

Ellie nodded.

“Look, I'm terribly sorry 1 hit your car.” He glanced at her blouse and skirt, shaking his head ruefully. “I'll buy a new suit for you, and uh, pay for any inconvenience.” He stood there, smiling,

“
I'll get my registration and a pen,” she said finally, and walked back to her car. A few cars passed them, the drivers intent on their destinations and getting out of the unseasonably early heat.

They paid no attention to the fender bender. Most of the drivers who were later contacted did not remember the cars at the intersection, and those who did thought that there was maybe a truck, or motorcycle, or a sedan inv
olved One witness was adamant. “It was a red '88 Corvette. I'm sure of it, and I'll swear to it.”

When Ellie returned, she saw that the other driver—
what did he say his name was?—was on the passenger side of his van, away from the road, trying to open the glove compartment with his arm held tight against his chest.

“
Can I help?” Ellie asked, although she didn't feel that charitable.

The man stepped back and out of the way of the door frame and smiled at her.

“Sure can, and look, I'm awfully sorry.”

Ellie stepped in the area between the open door and the van. She couldn't reach the glove box from where she was standing, her five foot three inches not quite enough, so she stepped up into the van, and began looking for the registration.

“I’m really sorry about this,” he repeated.

“
Oh, no problem, I just want to get home.” The driver quickly moved into the opening behind her, and Ellie was suddenly aware of her vulnerability, the quickened breathing behind her. She put the thought that something was wrong out of her mind. There were cars going by, weren't there? It was daylight. What could happen? She'd be out and home in a minute.

She punched the button on the glove box, determined to find his registration and get the hell away from here. The box fell open, the contents shouting up at her face. A grisly, mutated horror was only inches away.

Ellie brought her hand up and gagged.

Her knees started to give way, and the driver caught her and suddenly slammed her forward, her head striking the side of the seat. Her stomach churned, and, absurdly, she thought how nice it was that his arm wasn't broken after all.

She screamed, a mixture of surprise and fear, and the driver stepped up into the van and pushed his way in on top of her. He grabbed Ellie's hair, pulled her head back, and slammed her face down onto the engine cover. She felt her nose crunch, and the blood sprayed out on the seat. Her eyes watered and her breath was jerked away. She was too shocked to scream.

Not that it would have done any good.

The man was reaching for something under the seat. A knife?

She beat feebly at the arm that was around her neck, and the driver brought a smelly rag up to her face. Ellie struggled harder. She pulled her face down into the arm and sank her teeth into the muscle. She started to gag again, the thought of what she was doing nauseating her. She kicked backward, find
ing nothing to hit. This couldn't be happening! There must be cars passing. Why wouldn't someone help her?

The dark windows and the position of the van blocked the view from the road.

              This . . . can't . . . be . . . hap . . .
The smelly rag closed around her nose and upper lip, her teeth still working on the arm, something warm on her lips. Blood?

She gagged and kicked and kicked, and—
Don 't breathe, Ellie!
Don't breathe! Can't br---! Can't!

Her mouth was slipping, sliding on the man's arm now, and still he said nothing, just held her in his strong grasp, knowing he would
win. She ripped with her teeth and lost her grip on his arm, blood now running down her chin to mix with the Coke stain on her blouse. She kicked something on the floor of the van, and it skittered out and fell to the pavement with a clatter.

             
The popsicles! The popsicles will melt!

The man pushed his heavy weight on her, and Ellie took a breath.

There was an odor in the van . . . a smell of . . . and for an instant she was a little girl again, when her father was her world.

             
Oh . . . Daddy . . . help me.