Authors: M.Z. Kelly
THE GIFT
Later, a long time later, when the sun had risen and Corinne Williams’ mother had arrived and been assured that her daughter was safe, the little girl surprised me by asking if she could go for a walk with me. Her mother seemed a little confused by the request, but agreed after I assured her that we would just walk up the street.
There was a small park about a mile from the Macy home, where we sat on a bench. We had tried to explain everything that had happened to the girl earlier when her mother was present. Corinne had told us that she understood Quinton Macy was gone, but also told us about meeting his sister in what she called “the secret room”. I’d dismissed what she’d said as the overactive imagination of a child at work, but, as we talked, I realized she had something else that she needed to tell me.
“There’s a park, kind of like this one, where Mama and me live,” Corinne said. “I like to go there and feel the sun on my face.”
I looked around at the little park. It was overgrown with weeds and looked like it hadn’t been taken care of in months. “It’s nice to get away and be outside,” I said, trying to be positive.
“I remember once when I was little, and Mama and Daddy got divorced, Daddy took me to the park on Christmas.” Her eyes grew wider and she smiled. “He brought me a present.”
I was exhausted but found her enthusiasm infectious. “Really? What did he give you?”
She held her hand out. I saw there was a silver ring with a red stone on her little finger. “It’s called a ruby. Daddy said that even when he’s not with me, I can touch the ruby and know that he’s thinking about me.”
“That’s nice. Does your daddy live near your house?”
She shook her head. “He’s gone now, just like Corinne.”
I had no idea her father was dead and felt like a fool. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay…” Her gaze wandered off and she tilted her head toward the sunlight. “It’s a funny thing about losing someone. Sometimes, even when they go away, they leave a gift behind for you.” Her eyes found me again.
I looked at her, trying to find words to express what I was feeling. My father, or, at least someone or something that I thought might be my father, had come to me in those moments when I’d been broken down by life’s tragedies. He’d said something very similar to me. I knew that the girl had claimed she had talked to Corinne Macy. Was she talking about my father? Had she somehow met him?
“Corinne, can you tell me…”
She interrupted me, saying, “It’s also a funny thing about gifts. Sometimes we don’t even realize they’re being given to us.”
“What…tell me what you mean, Corinne.”
“It’s just like when you become real.”
“Real?”
She laughed. “It’s something from a story that I read about a rabbit.” She took a moment, angling her head toward the sun again. “Becoming real doesn’t happen when you are angry or hurt or unhappy. It happens when you are quiet and you listen.” She looked at me. “You become real when you trust the world to bring you the gift that you’ve waited a very long time to receive.”
I was so amazed, but at the same time confused, by what she’d said that I blurted out what had been on my mind. “Corinne, are you talking about my father? Have you seen my father?”
She smiled. “I think I’d like to go see my mama now. I’ve said everything that was necessary.”
We spent most of the day processing Quinton Macy’s secret room and the surrounding area. The locals were working with Phoenix PD to bring in their crime scene techies to set up a grid pattern in the cornfield and begin searching for bodies. Our working hypothesis was that Macy’s father and sister were buried on the property, somewhere near the underground chamber where Corinne Williams had been held.
While the other investigators were certain that the girl had been under extreme stress and had made up the story about talking to the deceased child, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. And, if what she had said was true, it meant that Macy’s sister had been murdered by her father before Quinton Macy had used his father’s own weapon on him. Whatever the truth was, we knew that his father was no less a monster than the boy that he’d raised.
I was walking back up the street from the cornfield when my phone rang. It was Molly Wingate.
“I heard things are winding down there,” Molly said. “I’m glad everything ended well.”
“Yes, just a few hours work left here and we should be back in Hollywood.”
“I just thought I’d mention something that I came across. I don’t know what, if anything, it means, but I was closing out the files from the hospital on Quinton Macy. Back when he was first incarcerated, they had paper, rather than digital visitation records, that weren’t initially sent to us. I just received them and Macy had a visitor named Amelia Walsh. She visited him twice in 2008, just after his hospital commitment, and then never returned.”
“Does the record show any relationship between her and Macy?”
“It just lists her as being a student from a local university. Nothing else.”
After thanking Molly and ending the call, I found Joe in the street near the Macy home. I told him about Molly’s call, then said, “Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but Rose Castillo mentioned that she had a niece named Amelia when we met in her office the other day.”
“What did you say the visitor’s last name was?”
“Walsh.”
His gaze moved off and he massaged his wide forehead.
“What is it?”
“I remember thumbing through one of Rosie’s early books she’d written when we took a break in her office the other day. She had a co-author. I’m almost sure it was Amelia Walsh.”
I took a moment, trying to sift through the puzzle pieces. Then, all at once, I knew. “Remember when Christine Javier told us that she thought someone, maybe Macy or Brown, was trying to manipulate her husband into helping them with their escape plan?”
“You’re not thinking…”
I nodded, cutting him off. “What if it was Rose Castillo?”
“I don’t want to believe that.”
“Neither do I, Joe, but we can’t rule it out.” He took a moment, then nodded. I went on, “What if Amelia Walsh was working for her aunt, doing some research?”
Joe exhaled, now reluctantly also trying to make the same puzzle pieces fit. “You’re thinking she was murdered by Brown, acting at Macy’s behest.”
“One of the Interstate Killer’s victims who was never found.”
“And her aunt, who was an expert on forensic homicide, knew that Macy and Brown were working together and had murdered her.”
“She would have known the only way she would ever find justice for her niece was to find a way to give Macy his freedom.”
“So that we could track him down and kill him.”
I pulled out my phone and got Molly back on the line. I asked her to pull together everything she could find on Amelia Walsh, then call me back.
Ten minutes later, we heard back from her. “Amelia Ann Walsh went missing in 2008. She was last seen in Glendale, where her car broke down on the freeway. She was never seen again.”
“What about her parents? Do the records show anything about them?”
“Nothing on her father. Mom is…oh, my God.” She took a moment before going on. “Her mother is listed as Rosalind Castillo. Do you think…”
“Thanks, Molly. I’ll be in touch.”
I ended the call and told Joe what I’d learned. “As it turns out, Amelia Walsh was Rose Castillo’s daughter, not her niece.”
He pulled out the keys to his car and said, “Let’s go have a chat with Rosie.”
***
Joe got permission for us to follow up on what we learned, leaving the other taskforce members in Blackwater to finish processing the scene. After landing in Van Nuys, Joe and I drove to Rose Castillo’s house in Westwood, and speculated on what had happened.
“Maybe Amelia Walsh was a student back in 2008,” I suggested. “She was trying to follow in her mother’s footsteps and interviewed Quinton Macy, possibly as part of a research paper or for one of her mother’s books.”
“You saw the girl’s picture in Rosie’s office.” His pale eyes found me. “Does she…
I nodded. “She was the same physical type—long dark hair and blue eyes.”
“Damn. Macy must have told Brown about her. It could be that Brown ran her off the road and then took her like all the other victims.”
We were quiet for a moment as we continued to mentally sift through what we now knew. I finally said, “I don’t want to believe Rose Castillo is involved, but it all fits.”
He looked at me and nodded. “If it was my child, all I know is that I would make it my life’s mission to see to it that her killers no longer walked on this earth.”
A few minutes later, we pulled over down the street from an older sprawling ranch style home. I said, “Let’s go see what she has to say.”
We tried the doorbell a couple of times without getting a response. It was dark now and there were no lights on in the house. I was about to ask Joe what we should do when I saw that he had his gun out. He used it to break the glass in a window pane at the side of the door. A couple of minutes later, he had the door unlocked.
We went inside, where we called out a couple of times, announcing ourselves, but getting no response.
“Let’s stay alert,” Joe whispered. “Rosie’s an expert marksman. I don’t want to believe she’d shoot me, but stranger things have happened.”
We spent a few minutes, going through the living room, kitchen, and an adjacent family room, not finding anyone. We then went down a hallway that we realized opened up to a separate wing of the house. Joe then found a light switch, illuminating a large study area. It took us only a few seconds after we saw the photographs and newspaper headlines covering the office walls to know that we’d gotten everything wrong.
“She was working with Macy and Brown all along,” Joe said, the shock and dismay registering in his voice.
“And more…” I pushed down the bile rising in my throat, not wanting to believe what I was seeing. “The shelves. They’re covered with trophies she’s taken from victims.”
I went over to the display case, seeing there were body parts in glass jars, strands of hair, along with photographs of dozens of victims as they’d been in life.
“She had to be the dominant…manipulating Macy and…”
A shot rang out. We scrambled for cover, at the same time hearing Rose Castillo calling out to us from somewhere in the adjacent room beyond the study. “You finally figured it out.”
“Give it up, Rosie,” Joe called out through an open door. “It’s over.”
She laughed. “You’re wrong, Joe. It’s never going to be over. As long as there are men and women willing to kill, I’ll be there pulling the strings behind the scenes.”
“What about Amelia?” I said, at the same time I motioned to Joe to begin moving away from me, hoping we would get through the open door and get a better angle on her. “Macy and Brown killed your only daughter.”
There was more laughter. “My daughter was a whore who got what she had coming to her.”
“Tell us what happened,” I said, disgusted by what she’d said, but at the same time trying to buy us some time.
“She found out about my hobby. She went to Joshua and then Quinton, and threatened to expose everything. Amelia eventually became one of their victims. She got exactly what she deserved.”
I was horrified, realizing that she’d arranged the murder of her own child. I then saw Joe motioning to me that he was going to move through the door into the next room.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, trying to distract her as Joe moved through the door.
“I’ve already told you.”
I then heard Joe calling out to her. “Last chance, Rosie. Give it up.”
Several shots rang out. I wasn’t sure if they were coming from Joe or Castillo. I then scrambled through the opening into the next room and saw there was blood everywhere. Joe hit a light switch and I saw that Rosalind Castillo was lying on the floor, bleeding from a chest wound.
Joe went over and kicked the gun out of her hand. He then bent down to her, a single word escaping his lips. “Why?”
Blood trickled from her mouth as she managed to say, “It’s my art…I am…one of a kind...the real artist.” She drew in a ragged breath. “No one will ever…match my skills or my passion.”
Joe shook his head. “You’re wrong, Rosie. You’re nothing but a stone cold killer. Rot in hell.”
“Looking back now, it stands to reason that Castillo was the one pressuring Martin Javier behind the scenes, trying to get him to help Macy escape from Berkshire,” Joe said as we left Westwood for Hollywood later that night. “And when he didn’t cave into her demands, she and Brown probably strung him up.”
“I checked with the hospital,” I said. “She apparently had a lot of influence with Dr. Marlow because of her forensic work. He was a big fan of hers and she had access to the hospital without going through the usual visitation channels. She suggested to Marlow that Dr. Ellen Moore would make a good replacement for Dr. Javier.”
“I heard the other guard that was supposed to go with Brown to take Macy to Halgen ended up dead.”
I confirmed what he’d said. “His body was found in a field near his home. He’d been shot in the head.”
We were both quiet for a moment before Joe went on. “I guess we now know why Rosie was such a good profiler. She had all the inside information.”
I agreed with him, adding, “I don’t think I’ll ever understand the things people do.”
“Take it from an expert, Buttercup. The human race is nuts. Some of us just hide it better than others.”
I smiled, my thoughts then drifting to Corinne Williams and what she’d said about becoming real. “I can’t believe that.”
Now he smiled. “You’re an eternal optimist, Buttercup.”
As we got on the freeway, I told Joe about my talk with Corinne Williams. He knew all about my earlier conversations that I believed I’d had with my deceased father.
“I know it probably sounds crazy,” I said, after filling him in on everything. “But it was like what she had to say was coming directly from my father.”
Joe shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. I remember having a long talk with my mother after she died.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “She said I was a big idiot who would never amount to much.”
I laughed. “I think she was at least half right.”
He agreed with me, then said, “What do you think it means—the message?”
“I think it had something to do with me needing to be patient and understanding, and to wait until the universe is ready for me to receive the gift behind my father’s death. I also think, through her actions, Corinne showed us that love can prevail in the darkest of circumstances.”
“There’s that optimism again.” He glanced at me. “That’s what I like about you.”
I smiled and met his pale eyes. “I think maybe we even one another out pretty well.”
He agreed with me, then changed the subject. “You given any more thought to talking to your lieutenant about the photograph you found in Winslow’s house?”
I considered his question for a long moment. I’d put off talking to Oz, maybe because, in some ways, I was afraid of what he might say. I knew it was time for me to face those fears. “I think it’s time to clear the air. And, I think I’m in a better place to do that now than I was before.”
“What about your partner?”
I sighed, knowing that Leo was both hurt by what I’d said and he was doubting whether he’d done the right thing by keeping things from me. “We’ll have a chat, move past what happened. He’s a good person.”
We chatted about my partner for a couple of minutes longer before my sister came to mind. “I’ve given a lot of thought to what you said about Lindsay possibly going underground to work against the Swarm. I think you could be right about your suspicions.”
He regarded me for a long moment. “Good, because there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about before I take it up the chain to Greer.”
“Go ahead.”
“That guy that I mentioned, the one who’s started to talk about the Swarm. I’ve been thinking about using him to try to infiltrate the group.”
“Do you think he would do it?”
He shrugged. “Not sure…and the other thing is…” He took a breath. “You know that with any CI, there’s only so far they can be trusted. There would be a certain amount of risk to your sister.”
I lowered my eyes, taking in the gravity of the situation. If my sister was cooperative, there was a chance we could use what she knew to take down the killing machine known as the Swarm. There was also a chance that the confidential informant could turn on Lindsay, resulting in her certain death.
Joe must have seen my indecision. “You don’t have to decide tonight. It’s just that…”
I cut him off. “There’s no one that I trust more than you, Joe. If you think the odds are in our favor and we can take down the Swarm, I’m all in.”
He fixed his eyes on mine for a long moment. “I’ll call Greer in the morning.”