Noah had discovered that PI Hugh Robard disappeared
without a trace ten years ago, about the same time the reports ended.
And
somewhere, Pierce still has Eve
.
Every muscle clenched, Noah sat on the edge of
Abbott’s desk. Abbott’s eyes were sharp. “You will not engage this witness,”
Abbott said. “You aren’t here, understood?”
Abbott had sent him home, but Noah had thrown any
pride he had left to the wind and begged to stay. There would be nothing at
home to do but pace, and worry. And drink. “I understand,” Noah said. “Please,
just hurry.”
Abbott hit the speaker button. “This is Captain
Abbott. Who is this?”
“Lieutenant John Tyndale, Fargo PD. I have John Black
here with me. I need to tell you up front, John’s a good man. I’ve known him
for more than twenty years.”
“We appreciate his help. What can you tell us about
the man in the photo we sent?”
“His name is not Carleton Pierce.” It was John Black
who spoke. “It’s Edward Black. He’s my younger brother. We haven’t spoken in
twenty-seven years, since our mother died.”
“Your mother was Irene Black?” Abbott asked.
“Yes. Ed made it look like she killed herself, but I
always knew he did it. He hated her.” Black sighed. “He had good cause. We both
did.”
“What was his good cause? And why did you think it was
no accident?”
“My mother was a drunk,” Black said baldly, “and a
gambler. The only time she was ever sober was when she had cards in her hand.
Sometimes she’d take him to games with her. He was small and cute and nobody
knew she was using him to cheat.”
“Was there abuse?”
“She never sold us, if that’s what you’re asking, but
we were dirt poor. Lived in a filthy, rusted-out trailer. Rats ate at our toes
in the night. She traded food stamps for booze, so yeah, I guess you could say
she abused us.”
“Did your brother hate all women, or just your mom?”
“I’d say all women. Eddie had a hard time getting
dates. He always blamed it on being short, but most of the girls in town were
afraid of him. Eddie took a knife to school, threatened a kid with it. Kid was
a bully, but Eddie ended up in juvie for a year.”
“You said he made it look like your mother committed
suicide? How?”
“I found her hanging from a tree outside, but she
never could have managed it.”
“Let me guess,” Abbott said quietly, “whatever she
stood on was too short to reach.”
“How did you know?” Black asked suspiciously.
“He’s done the same thing here. Six times. So was
there no investigation?”
Black said nothing for a long moment. “I cut her down.
Nobody knew it was fishy.”
Abbott waited as Noah’s impatience grew. None of this
was helping.
“Why?” Abbott finally asked.
“Because she deserved it,” he said harshly. “She never
sold us, but she brought home any man who’d buy her next bottle. Sometimes
they’d sneak from her bed in the night. I was big and could fight them, but
Eddie was little. As I got older, I’d stay with friends to get away, but Eddie
didn’t have many friends. He was stuck. I know some of those guys hurt him. One
boyfriend in particular.
“I’d come home sometimes and see Eddie, cowering in
the corner like an animal. Once I saw his eyes, and I knew. I should have told.
I should have told,” he said again. “But that boyfriend was big and mean and I
was barely fourteen myself. So I cleared out, moved in with a friend whose mom
didn’t drink. There was food on the table and clean sheets on the bed. In other
words, I saved my own hide. When I found her hanging, I cut her down and told
the cops what they wanted to hear to make it all go away. I thought I was doing
the right thing. I had no idea what he’d become.”
“Why that day?” Abbott asked. “Why do you think he
picked that day to hang her?”
There was another silence. “Eddie was almost eighteen,
he’d just gotten out of juvie. That day he’d taken a girl from town on a date,
played up the bad-boy image. I guess she wanted a thrill. But I guess Eddie
couldn’t… perform. I heard she was laughing at him, that she was telling
everyone she’d laughed at him while he tried and couldn’t.
“When I heard that, I knew he’d killed our mother. He
blamed her. I would have, too. If I’d told the truth, he would have gone to
jail as an adult and I knew what would happen to him there. I figured he’d
already done his time and maybe I felt guilty for never helping him. I wish I’d
told the truth. I wish I’d known.”
Me, too
,
Noah thought woodenly.
I wish you’d told the truth, too
.
“What happened to your brother after that?” Abbott
asked.
“I picked up, landed here in Fargo, made a life. I
never heard from Eddie again.”
“He made a life here, as a psychologist,” Abbott said.
Again, Black went quiet. “So he pulled it off after
all. He was supposed to be in juvie till he was eighteen, but he got out early.
The school and the local cops fought hard to keep him in, but there was a
shrink working with him, said he’d rehabilitated. I guess Eddie had him pretty
fooled. I remember going to family court for the hearing. The shrink wore fancy
clothes, used big words, and dazzled the judge. He made the cops look like
rubes. Eddie told me
that’s
where the power was. That if you took a
cop’s gun, that he was just a bully. I think Eddie’d had his share of bullies
in juvie. He said he’d go to college, be one of those smart guys. I told him it
would never happen.”
“Why?”
“Because colleges didn’t let in people like him. Poor,
with a record. I guess he listened to me more than I thought. I guess he became
somebody else.”
None of this was finding Eve
. “Hurry up,” Noah mouthed and Abbott glared at him.
“We need to find him,” Abbott said. “He’s abducted at
least two more women.”
“I know. Lieutenant Tyndale told me. I want to help
you, but I can’t. I don’t know where he’d hide. Like I said, I haven’t spoken
to him in nearly thirty years.”
“Well, thanks for talking to me,” Abbott said wearily.
“And you should watch your back, Mr. Black. He’s got reports on you and your
wife and kids. I guess he worried you were the one person who could identify
him.”
Noah stared blindly at Abbott’s phone after he’d hung
up. “That was useless.”
“Faye’s doing a property search on Irene and we’ve got
roadblocks set up on every artery in and out of the Cities.” Abbott’s eyes were
kind. “Go get us some coffee, Noah.”
What he really needed was a drink.
Just one. Just
to even my nerves
. He knew it was a lie. Knew one would never be enough.
And if they didn’t find her in time…
Noah gave Abbott a shaky nod and walked to the coffee
pot in the bullpen, stood there for long minutes as he stared, fighting the
urge to smash the glass pot. Smash everything in the damn place, then go hunt
for something stronger to wet his lips. To give him courage. Or maybe just to
forget how damn scared he was.
In his mind he saw the victims hanging… Pierce had
been hanging his mother, each time.
And now he has Eve. My Eve
. He
couldn’t think like a cop anymore.
I can’t
.
“Noah.” Noah looked up. Brock was coming down the
hall, still in uniform. “I came as soon as I heard. Any news?”
“No,” Noah said. “Nothing.”
Brock put his arm around Noah’s shoulders. “I’ll buy
you a coffee in the cafeteria.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you.”
“Noah.” Brock’s voice was gently chiding. “Eve’s smart
and brave. She’ll hold on.”
He looked straight ahead, seeing nothing. “If I don’t
find her? How will I hold on?”
Brock sighed. “Sometimes you have to take one minute
at a time.”
As the elevator doors slid open, Noah’s cell phone
buzzed in his pocket. His pulse shot up when he saw the caller ID. “Olivia,
what is it?”
“I just got off the phone with Abbott.” She hesitated.
“He ordered me not to tell you. I hope I’m doing the right thing.”
Noah pursed his lips in desperation. “Goddammit,
Olivia, tell me.”
“Faye just took a call from Martha Brisbane’s vet,
about her cat.”
Noah hissed out a breath. “Who gives a fuck about that
damn cat?”
“Listen,” Olivia snapped. “The vet called to say
Martha’s cat had been dropped off outside the gate of the Green Gables Kennel
in New Germany yesterday. The security camera outside picked up a woman and a
black BMW, registered to Pierce’s wife.”
Noah went still. “New Germany? That’s where Irene’s PO
box is being forwarded.”
“I know, Kane told me.”
“Why would Pierce’s wife drop off the cat? And how do
they know it’s Martha’s?”
“Don’t know why the wife did it, but Martha had the
cat chipped. Vet scanned it and Martha’s name came up. He ’d read about her
murder, called it in. I’m going out there.”
“Thank you,” he said fervently, then hung up and
stepped into the elevator Brock had been holding open. “I’m going to New
Germany.”
“I figured that out myself,” Brock said wryly. “Gonna
tell me why?”
“Depends. You gonna turn me in?”
Brock studied him as the elevator descended. “I call
shotgun.”
Noah nodded hard. “Thanks.”
Thursday, February 25, 3:00 p.m.
He sat in his kitchen, looking out the window at the
woods, clean again after showering off Eve’s filth. The swaying trees always
calmed him, but today, they did not.
Irene Black
.
How had Eve known? Who had she told?
How can this hurt me?
Irene Black was a common enough name and the PO box
he’d set up in her name was out of state. Highly unlikely they’d find it. This
was the Hat Squad after all. Not the world’s greatest intellects.
They would never have gotten this far without Eve. He
tightened his fist against his kitchen table. She needed to pay. Next time he
went down he’d tape her mouth and glue her eyes open. He wanted to hear her beg
for her life, and she would, once he’d worn her down. Once he’d worn her down,
he’d take off the tape and her pleas for mercy would be music to his ears.
For now, he couldn’t let her get in his head. She knew
too much. For now, he’d make her show him the fear. He’d glue her eyes open and
make her show him her fear.
He hadn’t glued her eyes, he realized. It was always
the first thing he did, so that he could see their terror as soon as the
ketamine wore off. When the ket wore off, they thrashed like wild animals,
making it impossible to get the glue on their eyes.
Why had he not with Eve?
Because I want her
unfettered fear.
He wanted her to look up at him with glassy-eyed terror
because she could do nothing else.
She was a worthy opponent, but
he
held all the
power. She’d tell him how she found Irene Black. Eventually. Until then, he was
safe. There was nothing to link him to Irene. Nothing linking Irene to this
place.
His only loose end was his wife’s disappearance, and
he’d handled that, too, sending a text to Ann’s boss from her cell saying she’d
had a family emergency. He’d sent the text while sitting at a rest stop off the
interstate, an hour away. In a few days, he’d send a registered letter to her
boss, giving her notice, that she was needed back home. He’d met her boss, a
cold, efficient man. Another lab tech would be hired and Ann would soon be
forgotten. Meanwhile, her body would be decomposed in his pit.
Movement on the television caught his eye.
Ah. The
press conference.
He grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. This was
what he’d been waiting for. The press was about to crucify the police.
Six
dead women, no suspects. Red Dress Killer on the loose. Cops have no clue
.
He couldn’t wait for the accusations to fly.
Abbott climbed to the podium, looking positively grim.
This
was entertainment.
“Thank you,” Abbott said. “As you know, a sadistic
killer has been preying on the women of the Twin Cities for the last three
weeks.”
Sadistic killer
.
It was good for a start. In tomorrow morning’s meeting he’d give Abbott a few
more psychological terms to use for his next press conference.
“This morning, we discovered a sixth victim,” Abbott
went on. “Her name was Virginia Fox. Last night we asked you to post warnings
to women participating in a Marshall University study involving the Shadowland
computer game. Today we know this killer’s victims are not constrained to the
game.”
“Gotcha,” he crowed. “All bets are off and nobody
feels safe.”
One of the reporters rose. “Can you comment on the
arrest warrant you issued?”
He leaned forward with a frown. Donner was dead. Lyons
was missing and Girard had been cleared. Who was Abbott planning to arrest?
“Yes,” Abbott said. The screen split, showing Abbott
on one side and on the other…