Dead Even (6 page)

Mrs. Duffy reappeared with the second plate, which she set in front of Will. “Your coffee will be right over. We’re making a new pot. Enjoy.”

“Hmmmm. It is pretty good,” he agreed after sampling.

“Pretty good. Ha.” She sighed happily. “So go on. You were saying . . .”

“I think I’d rather wait until I know for certain you’re paying attention and not lost in some gustatory orgasmic experience.”

“You’re just jealous,” she whispered, “because it’s not as good for you as it is for me.”

He laughed out loud.

“Back to what you were saying. Don’t mind me.”

“Miranda . . .”

“Your coffee, sir.” A pretty young waitress poured for him and left the pot on the table.

“Go on, Will.”

“We were talking about whether or not you’d made an impression on Channing.”

“We’re past that.”

“Okay, then, we were talking about the fact that there is a long period of time when we don’t know where Channing was or what he was doing.”

“Well, I think maybe we’ve already established what he was doing.”

“You mean the reports that came back from CODIS.”

“Well, sure. We now know that all that time, he was merely honing his skills. He didn’t wake up one morning and just decide to be a serial killer. That was working on him for a long time. By the time he met up with Giordano and Lowell, he’d become quite accomplished.”

“You think they knew what he was? Giordano and Lowell?”

Miranda paused, considering the question. “Tough call. Giordano was a killer himself, maybe he recognized it in Channing. Lowell, on the other hand, is pretty much oblivious to most things, don’t you think?”

“I’d say that’s a fair assessment, judging by what I’ve read.”

“Well, I’ll bet if we look real hard, we’ll find there are more unsolved murders that could be traced back to Channing, some that maybe aren’t even showing up in the database.”

“Because he didn’t leave DNA behind.”

“Right.” She nodded. “Since he was still in the southern Ohio area when our paths crossed, maybe he’d stayed in that area for a while. Maybe there’s more buried there—no pun intended—than has already shown up. If we could trace his footsteps by following where he’d been, maybe we can find some others who’d crossed his path back then.”

“People who might have pissed off Channing enough for him to have remembered. Enough to have made a lasting impression. Enough to have put them on his hit list.”

“Right.” She nodded.

“I’ll see if I can come up with a time line when I get back to Virginia. Maybe something will stand out when we put it all together.”

“Think we’ll find a pattern?” Miranda asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t really know enough about Channing to venture a guess. I’ll have a better feel when I start looking over the data.”

“We could still come up empty, though, as far as finding three potential victims is concerned.”

“True. But suppose we do come up with a few names that could be on the hit list. What if we find these people? What do we do with them, once we have their names?”

“Don’t you think we should warn them?” Miranda asked.

“Warn them about what? That there may or may not be someone coming around someday who might want to kill them? I don’t know how responsible that is.”

“You have a better idea?”

“Maybe it’s moot. Didn’t we just agree that Archer isn’t likely to go after anyone?” Will reminded her.

“We agreed that he isn’t likely to go after them now, when he has no job and no means of transportation.”

“I checked with the DMV. Lowell doesn’t even have a valid driver’s license.”

“Yes, but do we want to take the chance that his circumstances will never change, that he’ll never have a change of heart?” Miranda sipped at her coffee. “As I see it, if we can identify a few likely targets and at least give them a heads-up, I think we are obligated to do that.”

“You mean, show up at some poor sucker’s door and say, ‘Hi, I’m just here to let you know that your name may or may not be on a hit list because at some point in the past, you may have pissed off a guy named Curtis Alan Channing. . . .”

“I think we could clean that up a bit, at least find out if there was some argument or bad feelings between that person and Channing. Will, keep in mind that anyone we could definitely finger as a potential victim, at this late date and with no clues from Channing, well, if it’s that obvious to us, he or she just might be the right one.”

“I guess it’s worth the time to take a look, see if there is anyone out there who might be a target.”

“You just put those legendary investigative skills to work. If anyone can dig out potential victims from a twenty-year-old slush pile, it would be you.” She paused and looked at his plate, where a small amount of chocolate remained. “In the meantime, are you going to finish that?”

Genna Snow found her way through the darkened cabin, counting bed frames until she reached her own narrow bed at the end of the last row. She lowered herself quietly to the edge of the mattress and sat, leaning forward to untie her shoes. It was cool in the cabin, so her wool socks were still on her feet when she slid under the blanket and huddled herself to keep warm on the cold sheets. It was snowing again, and the leather shoes she’d worn when she entered the compound hadn’t been made for snow. She wondered what she’d been thinking when she’d taken them out of her closet the day she’d left for Wyoming.

Of course, she reminded herself, it hadn’t been snowing in Virginia when she left four weeks ago, and hadn’t been snowing here, for that matter, but winter was moving across the mountains more quickly than had been forecast.

She lay in the dark, her hazel eyes staring at the ceiling. She missed her husband. Missed her bed. Missed the cat they’d gotten from the animal shelter last Christmas. She hadn’t expected to be here, in the Valley of the Angels, for this long. It was now more than a month since she’d first shown up at the gates of Reverend Prescott’s compound and asked to be admitted. She’d made nice with all the gentle folks she met those first few weeks, proved to one and all that she was gentle folk herself. That she’d come into this camp with no weapon, well, that had been an act of faith on her part, one that had made John absolutely crazy when she told him she couldn’t take even a small handgun into the compound. If it was found on her, they’d know she wasn’t who she was pretending to be.

And so Special Agent Genna Snow transformed herself into teacher Ruth Carey, and had sought a place in the compound. As Ruth, the résumé she’d brought with her had attracted the attention of Reverend Prescott himself, as she’d known it would. Ruth Carey had been terminated from her last teaching position for overzealously disciplining her charges.

“It’s important, you see,” Ruth had explained to the reverend, “that young girls—adolescent girls—understand that they must tame their emotions. Discipline, partnered with the proper reward, of course, is what children need if they’re to understand their place in society, their function in this world.”

“And that function is, Ms. Carey?” Reverend Prescott had asked.

“Why, to submit to the will of their elders. To understand that, as young women, they lack the judgment to know what is best for them. They must accept whatever lot is chosen for them, because they simply aren’t capable of choosing for themselves.”

“And who chose for you, Ms. Carey?” His eyes had narrowed.

“My father, of course.” She had met his stare headon. “He met you several years ago, at a lecture you gave in Pennsylvania. He was already ill at the time, but he never forgot your lessons. He bought all of your books, all of your tapes. He did live a very spiritual life, Reverend Prescott. He tried to live up to your example, and encouraged me to do so as well.”

“You speak of him in the past? Has he . . . ?”

“I am sorry to say, I lost him last summer. After I was asked to . . . to leave my job, I was at a loss. Then, when my father passed away, it occurred to me that perhaps there might be a place for me here. I’ve heard about the wonderful work you do with runaways, Reverend. How you seek out those poor lost young souls and bring them here to help them discover their true spiritual nature. I’ve been wanting to offer my services to you, and to the young girls whom you’ve taken in, but while my father was alive, I believed that my place was there.”

“And it was, of course it was.” Reverend Prescott had leaned across his desk and taken her hands between his own. It was all she could do to not pull away in disgust. Not because he was coming on to her, but because she’d been touched by the hands of a pedophile before, and her skin had never forgotten what it felt like.

She forced a smile.

“Thank you for understanding, Reverend Prescott.” She looked away modestly. “Do you think there could be a place for me here?”

“I think perhaps we could fit you into our staff.”

“Even though I was . . . dismissed . . . from my last teaching position?”

“I’ve read the reports, Ms. Carey. How shortsighted those fools were to have let go a woman of your moral caliber and obvious spiritual nature.” He shook his head slowly, side to side. “The world out there is awash in misguided theories and adrift on a sea of ignorance. Anyone can see that today’s children need a well-marked course in life. They need guidance—and yes, discipline—to help them chart that course. To help them understand what is expected of them.”

“Especially the young girls, Reverend.” She’d looked up at him piously. “There are so many dangers to young girls in the world. It’s a challenge to prepare them properly to take their place in the world.”

“I can assure you, Ms. Carey, when a young girl leaves the Valley of the Angels, she is well prepared for her role.”

He rose from his chair and extended a hand to her to assist her in rising.

“I look forward to seeing what you might contribute to our girls’ education, Ms. Carey. You’ll be addressed as Miss Ruth here.” He walked her to the door and opened it. “Now, I’m going to hand you over to Miss Eleanor. She’ll get you settled in as a cabin mother with some of the older girls, and on Monday, you’ll start your new life as a teacher here in the Valley of the Angels.”

“Reverend Prescott, I can’t thank you enough for taking me in. For giving me a chance to be part of the wonderful work you do here.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll become an integral part of that work, Miss Ruth.”

A woman in her mid-fifties waited outside the door.

“Miss Eleanor, please take Miss Ruth to cabin twelve. She’ll be the new cabin mother. Please help her get settled, introduce her to the girls . . .”

Miss Eleanor nodded and gestured to Genna to follow her. Genna wondered if perhaps her companion had taken a vow of silence until they reached the outer doors of the building and stepped outside.

“Do you have a suitcase? We’re not supposed to have but two changes of clothing, so you’ll have to go through your things and decide what it is you want to keep. The rest will go into the communal closet.” Eleanor had continued to chat all the way to cabin twelve, explaining the rules and regulations set up by Reverend Prescott to simplify life at the compound.

Over the weekend, Genna—as Miss Ruth—had acclimated herself to life behind the compound walls and laid the groundwork for her true purpose in being there. In addition to gathering evidence that would shut down the child-prostitution ring that masqueraded as a shelter for the homeless and runaway girls whom Reverend Prescott lured to the Valley of the Angels with the promise of a home off the streets, she searched the face of every girl she met for Julianne Douglas. Late on Saturday afternoon, she found her. Genna was certain that the pretty young blonde girl known as Rebecca was Mara Douglas’s daughter, who’d been kidnapped by Mara’s ex-husband the day after their divorce had become final.

Before leaving for Wyoming, Genna had studied computer-enhanced photographs created using software that could age faces in photographs. It had been used with a photo of the five-year-old Julianne to show how she might look now, at age twelve. Rebecca was the very image of the sketch Genna had memorized, but even without it, she’d have recognized the girl who bore such a strong resemblance to her aunt. Looking at Rebecca was like looking into the past and seeing Anne Marie McCall at that age.

Over the next several weeks, Genna had had to earn the confidence not only of Rebecca, but also of Reverend Prescott as well. She was almost there, she knew. Almost at a place where she could leave the compound with Rebecca—Julianne—and disappear with her. Tomorrow would test whether or not her scheme would work.

Genna turned over, restless. If she failed in convincing Reverend Prescott to permit her to spend an afternoon in town with one of the girls as a reward for lessons well learned, she’d have to come up with an alternative plan, and fast. She was running out of time. Soon the worst of the winter snows would begin to hit, and she’d be stuck here until such time as spring decided to arrive. How many months might that be?

Too many. She shook her head in the dark. She’d already spent too many nights away from John. And in the time she was there, three girls had disappeared from the compound.

In her mind, she rehearsed what she’d say to Reverend Prescott in the morning.

“It’s occurred to me that perhaps a bit of competition among the girls might inspire them to even better work,” she would say.

When pressed, she’d explain, “I’d like to have the girls write weekly essays. On appropriate topics, of course. As a reward, I will accompany the writer of the best essay into Linden for an afternoon. We can ride in with whoever goes in for supplies. As part of her reward, the girl will pick out a small treat—a journal, perhaps, or some colored pencils for her artwork, whatever she fancies—then we’ll have lunch there at the diner.”

She practiced this over and over, thinking how she might reword this part or that, until she fell asleep.

And the next morning, it had gone just as she’d suspected it might.

“What on earth would be the purpose of that?” Reverend Prescott’s eyes had darkened with suspicion.