Death Notice (28 page)

He rang the bell again, keeping his finger pressed against it until he heard movement just beyond the door. When Deana opened it, her surprise was obvious.

“Henry?” she said, sleep making her voice husky. “What are you doing here?”

Henry didn’t respond. He was too tired to speak, too exhausted from his ordeal in the grave. He couldn’t articulate why he was there. The reason for his visit was too complex for mere words.

He stepped through the door silently. Deana gasped when she saw his soiled clothes and dirt-caked face.

“What happened to you? Are you hurt?”

Henry shook his head weakly.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Taking his hand, Deana led him through a tidy living room full of bookshelves and houseplants. They headed upstairs to her bedroom, which was a soft oasis of lilac-colored walls and white furniture. Adjoining it was a small bathroom—their final stop. Henry stood by the door while Deana turned on the water in the shower.

Placing a towel next to the sink, she said, “Take as long as you need.”

Once Deana left the bathroom, Henry began to undress. The dried dirt on his clothes made them stiff and difficult to remove. He tried to do it without causing a mess, but specks of grime flaked onto the floor and stuck to his bare feet.

In the shower, the steam softened his dirt-roughened skin and soothed his scarred lungs. He inhaled deeply, letting the steam heat the back of his throat. The water quickly washed
away most of the dirt. Rivulets of brown liquid ran off his body and formed a muddy swirl around the drain.

Henry grabbed a bar of soap and began the task of scrubbing away the more stubborn spots of dirt. Lathering up, he felt a brief draft as the shower door opened. Wordlessly, Deana stepped inside.

Her pert nipples pressed against his back as she embraced him from behind. Kissing the nape of his neck, she ran her hands over his chest, soaping him up. Her fingers moved down his stomach, following the trail of hair that led to his crotch. Using the lather as a lubricant, she began to stroke him and he responded, growing hard in her hands.

“Deana—” he began to say, but she shushed him.

Henry swiveled to face her. She looked stunning naked, her breasts firm and full, her skin turning rosy from the steam. When they kissed, the force of it surprised him. It was hungry and lustful, their lips smashing into each other, their tongues probing.

Deana wrapped her arms around his neck and he lifted her easily. Soon he was inside her, thrusting with unquenchable fury as she moaned. He moaned, too, the sound of their passion getting louder as their lovemaking grew more intense. They climaxed together, Henry pulling Deana down onto him and holding her there as their bodies shook with spasms of pleasure.

When it was over, Deana shyly edged out of the shower, vanishing in a swirl of steam. Henry followed soon after, turning off the water and moving into the darkened bedroom.

He found Deana curled up in bed, warm beneath a heavy white comforter. He slid in beside her and wrapped his arms around her still-naked body.

Entwined with Deana, the feel of her bare flesh warming his own, he finally spoke.

“I was married once,” he said quietly. “She died five years ago.”

Deana rolled over to face him, pressing an index finger against his lips.

“You don’t need to tell me anything.”

“You deserve to know,” Henry said. “You were right the other night when you said I needed to start letting go. I do.”

Deana laid her head on his chest and draped an arm across his stomach. Sleep was settling over her, expressing itself in a tiny, catlike yawn and a fluttering of eyelids.

“Silly Henry,” she said. “You already have let go.”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Nick blinked against the hot, angry breath blasting onto his face. It was the next morning. Six
A.M.
And Kat Campbell was ripping him a new one right in the middle of the police station’s parking lot.

“Answer me, Nick,” she demanded, getting into his face even more.

Nick expected some flak for disobeying her. But he had hoped to explain his reasons for doing so rationally, without shouting. He had even brought a cup of extra-strength coffee to get back into Kat’s good graces. It was now splattered in the parking lot after she swatted it out of his hands.

“I was doing what I get paid to do,” he said as the discarded coffee pooled around his shoes. “Catching bad guys.”

“Even though I told you to wait?”

“You can’t tell me to do anything. You don’t have authority over the state police.”

Nick felt lucky that looks couldn’t kill. If they had that power, Kat’s angry glare would have cut him down in a second.

“But I do have authority over this town,” she said. “And the people who live here, which includes Henry Goll. I’m trying to protect him, not shove him further into harm’s way. What if he had died down there?”

Nick sniffed. “He didn’t.”

“Sounds to me like he was pretty damn close.”

“Henry wanted to help,” Nick retorted. “He knew Lucas Hatcher was up to something, and he wanted to find out what.”

“I did, too.”

Kat backed away, looking spent. Her anger couldn’t mask her sheer exhaustion. Nick doubted she had slept a wink, which probably accounted for her pissed-off mood. Well, Nick hadn’t slept much, either, and he was also pissed off. Pissed off and taking names.

“Not enough, apparently,” he said.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Nick’s anger was coming to a boil. According to an anger management class that Gloria Ambrose had forced on him, this was a deciding moment. He could stop himself, back off, and cool down before continuing. Or he could let the anger take control, making him say things he knew he’d regret.

Nick chose to let his anger loose.

“There’s a difference between wanting to catch a killer and actually doing it,” he said. “You talk about how concerned you are, how much you want to stop what’s going on in this town. But when it came time to actually do something, you backed off. Jesus, Kat, you’re just like them.”

The word shot out of Nick’s mouth before he could stop
it. Kat picked up on it. He could tell from the way she stepped away, narrowing her eyes in confusion.

“
Them?
”

Standing in the parking lot, feeling the spilled coffee seep into his shoes, Nick Donnelly realized the anger management class was right. His rage had taken control. And he regretted it. Now he would have to explain everything.

“The police,” he muttered. “In Newton, Ohio. And other towns. About other cases. That’s who I mean.”

Kat’s mood softened considerably. She tilted her head while contemplating Nick, no doubt wondering what went on in that crime-obsessed mind of his.

“You’re not talking about the Grim Reaper, are you?”

He wasn’t. Having no choice, Nick confessed he was talking about his sister. Pretty Sarah Donnelly. One day when he was ten, the sweet-faced fifteen-year-old had gone to work at Alexander’s Drugstore on Hamilton Street.

She never came back.

“For months, my family lived in agony,” he said. “There was no sign of her. No clue what had happened. Nothing.”

Since Nick and his family didn’t know if Sarah was dead or alive, they didn’t know how to act. They couldn’t grieve and begin to move on. They couldn’t hold out hope, either. So they did nothing. His family barely spoke, barely moved. They only waited.

“They found her in March.”

Nick paused. This was rough. After thirty years, just talking about it still ripped him to shreds. But he needed to go on. He needed Kat to understand why he behaved the way he did.

“They found her in a forest twenty miles out of town,” he said.

Kat was a smart cookie. She remembered one of their earlier conversations and put it all together.

“Floyd Beem.”

“No one could ever link him to it,” Nick said. “The police promised to do their best. The FBI, too. But I didn’t believe them. The Drugstore Killer was in jail. He confessed to five murders. They didn’t care that one was still unsolved. That one family from a small town in Ohio would never know who killed their daughter.”

“Is Floyd still alive?” Kat asked. “Could you talk to him?”

Nick shook his head. Floyd Beem had been dead for twenty-five years. There was no way to ever find out if he killed Sarah. His parents had gone to the grave not knowing. As would Nick.

“That’s why I went to the cemetery,” he said. “That’s why I will do anything to stop this bastard.”

Kat’s anger was gone by that point. All the red had drained from her face, Nick noticed, except for her bloodshot eyes, which welled with tears.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

The apology was sincere, but Nick didn’t need condolences. He needed to catch the Grim Reaper. He needed to make sure those who loved George Winnick and Troy Gunzelman didn’t go through what his family had endured. And the first step would be interrogating Lucas Hatcher and finding out everything he knew.

Five minutes later, Kat pulled Lucas Hatcher from his holding cell and led him to the police station’s break room. Its stainless steel table and folding chairs made it the only place suitable for an interrogation. Pushing him into the chair, Kat cuffed one of his ankles to a table leg. Next, she cuffed his wrists and had him place them on the table.

“Don’t try anything stupid, Lucas,” she said. “You’re in enough trouble as it is.”

After hearing his sad story in the parking lot, Kat told Nick he could do the bulk of the questioning. That was fine by Nick, who had planned to do it anyway.

When he entered the break room, he moved to the two vending machines buzzing against the wall. Without a word, he purchased a Coke, an orange juice, and a coffee. He then placed all three on the table in front of Lucas, just beyond the reach of his cuffed hands.

“Thirsty?” he asked.

Lucas responded with a sullen nod. “Parched.”

“Carl didn’t give you anything to drink last night?”

This time Lucas shook his head.

“Man,” Nick said, taking a seat at the other end of the table, “your mouth must be as dry as Death Valley.”

“Sure as hell is.”

Nick framed the beverages on the table with his hands. “You’ve got plenty of choices here. Pick your poison.”

“Coffee.”

“Good old java.” Nick looked to Kat, who leaned against the wall. “How do you drink your coffee, Chief?”

“Strong,” she said.

Using an index finger, Nick slid the coffee cup an inch forward. Lucas grabbed for it but was still too far away to reach.

“Push it closer,” he urged.

“I will,” Nick said. “Once you tell me why you killed George Winnick and Troy Gunzelman.”

Lucas scrunched his face, making him look more idiotic than he normally did. “Killed who?”

“You know their names. You used them in their obituaries.”

“I didn’t kill no one.”

Nick feigned deafness. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard you.”

“I told you, I didn’t kill those people.”

With a flick of his fingers, Nick knocked over the coffee.
The cup’s contents spilled onto the table and rushed in Lucas’s direction, forcing him to scoot backward in his chair. When the cuff around his ankle halted his retreat, the table jerked forward, pushing the coffee off the surface in a steaming trickle.

Lucas watched with despair as the coffee spilled onto the floor. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“What’s your second pick?” Nick asked brightly. “Soda or juice?”

Lucas hesitated before pointing to the can of orange juice. Opening it, Nick nudged it forward, but again not close enough.

“Just give me a sip,” Lucas said. “I’m dying of thirst here.”

“You can have it once you start telling the truth.”

“I am.”

“But you just told me you have no idea who George and Troy are. I find that hard to believe. If I took two people, sent their obituaries to the newspaper, abducted them, and then killed them, I’d remember their names.”