Loonies (19 page)

When this was all over, he swore to himself he would quit smoking for good again. But till then, he would need this. And the way things were going, he doubted it would be over very soon. Something dark was at work in Smokey Hollow, and maybe Mrs. Picklesmeir got the wrong message earlier today. They were not safe.

Brian certainly did not feel safe. This was close. He had come close to death. Not his own, but who knows. What if he had gotten to the train station earlier? What if he had walked in on the commission of the murderous act? And most importantly, what information did he have that the killer might know or even think he knows? He had crossed the line from being a reporter on this story to becoming part of it. He no longer cared that all the authorities were on the other side of the road, processing the crime scene. That’s where Brian would normally want to be. But he didn’t feel like a reporter just now. He was more than that. He was a witness. He was part of the story.

Police Chief Treece walked across the street toward him, carrying a thermos of coffee. He flashed his typical grin, as if this were no more than a night out catching a hunter jacking deer.

“Thought you might need this,” Noah said, holding up the thermos.

Brian tried to crack even the slightest hint of a grin, but his mouth felt like it barely moved, as if his face had grown stiff. “Sure could,” he muttered. His own thermos was long empty. Even though the night was still hot and his lungs burned from the cigarette fumes and his mouth was dry and pasty, he felt another cup of hot coffee would do him good.

Noah poured some into the thermos cap and handed it to him. Brian took a sip, noticed it was only a notch above lukewarm, and gulped down a swallow.

“You okay?” Noah asked with genuine concern.

“I’m fine,” Brian lied. “Just a bit unnerved.”

“Can’t say I blame you.” Noah turned to look back at the station.

“I’ve seen plenty of dead people before in my profession,” Brian said, as if in protest. “Just that this was a little different. Usually I’m not all by myself in such a dark place.”

“I understand. No need to explain.”

But Brian needed to. But more importantly, he needed to explain why he didn’t tell Noah about the phone call from Ruth Snethen. He wanted—no, expected the chief to ask him about it, but Noah didn’t say anything. Brian was sure he felt betrayed, that he wasn’t being open with him, and he wasn’t. Noah had a job to do, but so did Brian. And contact from a potential source was an issue of confidentiality.

That was how Brian tried to justify it to himself, and he hoped Noah saw it that way. But what Brian couldn’t justify to himself was the fact that if he had told Noah or Steem about the phone call, Ruth Snethen might still be alive. Sure, she’d be pissed at him for turning her in. But at least she’d have the ability to feel angry. Now she couldn’t feel anything.

“It’s definitely her?” Brian asked, almost hoping that maybe this was all a mistake and that someone else lay dead inside the depot and he couldn’t be held responsible.

“It’s her,” Noah said, still looking toward the station. “Medical examiner’s looking her over now. There are marks on her neck, so early guess is strangulation.” He turned to face Brian. “Of course, that is strictly off the record.” He wasn’t smiling now. “You didn’t get that from me.”

Brian had never heard Noah phrase anything like that. He was always forthcoming with information. More forthcoming than he himself had been, and apparently that hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“Of course,” Brian said, making it sound like an apology. He hoped that was the way it was taken.

“Steem wants to talk some more with you when they wrap up in there.”

“No doubt.” Brian took another swallow of the coffee. “I’m not going anywhere.”

After the body was zipped into a black plastic bag and wheeled out of the station house on a stretcher, Noah fetched Brian from across the street. He sat in the back seat of the State Police vehicle. Steem and Wickwire got in the front, the younger detective in the driver’s seat.

It was dark inside the car, and both men appeared as large, shadowy figures. Steem’s bald head looked as large as a big black block of granite. The head turned to look at him in the back seat.

“Are you purposely trying to thwart this investigation at every step?” the captain asked.

Brian knew it wasn’t a question the man expected him to answer.

“I try to keep our lines of communication open with you, and once again, you withhold information.”

“I understand how you see—“

“Someone’s life was at stake!” Steem bellowed. “A woman is dead! Someone who most likely had valuable information on this case.”

Brian glanced out the window. He didn’t want to look into the intimidating face of Capt. Steem. He felt like he was back in school, in the principal’s office for pulling some prank that had gone wrong.

“She didn’t want to talk to the police,” he said, defending his actions. “She wanted to meet privately, and I chose to respect that. She was a source I was willing to protect. I have that right.”

“Not if it impedes a criminal investigation!” Steem was still shouting, and it reverberated inside the close confines of the vehicle. “That is more important than anything. I could bring you up on charges.”

Brian looked at Steem and, even in the darkness, could tell the man’s face was flushed with anger. He doubted Steem’s threat but did not want to push the issue. He thought maybe he should divert the conversation away from his actions.

“You know what this death means, don’t you? Three murders, all following the same pattern.”

A pointed finger jutted out from the front seat. In the dark, he didn’t even have to see the expression on Capt. Steem’s face. In the rearview mirror, he could not so much see but feel Wickwire’s eyes on him. “If you print anything in the paper with the term you’re thinking of—”

Steem didn’t finish his sentence, nor did he have to. And neither did he have to mention the phrase. He knew what they were all thinking: serial killer.

When Brian got home, sometime after midnight, Darcie put her arms around him and hugged him tighter then she had in a long time. He could feel the baby bump pressed against his abdomen. She had been worried about his mental wellbeing after such a traumatizing event. He worried that she’d detect the cigarette smoke on his breath, even though he had gobbled down several breath mints before coming home.

“I’ll be all right,” he told her, and he believed that.

“It’s just that something like this must be so unsettling,” she said.

He rubbed her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment’s pause.

She pulled away and looked up at him. “What are you sorry for?”

“It’s just that I know I haven’t been very sympathetic about the effect finding that trunk in the attic had on you, and the emotional toll it’s taken. Now, with this happening tonight, I have more of an understanding of how you feel.”

She pressed her head against his shoulder. “Events have put both of us through a lot of stress. And I need to be more understanding of the job you have to do, no matter how unpleasant it is sometimes.”

Sleep did not come easily that night, and when it did, his dreams were filled with the image of the nurse with the pillowcase over her head. Or was he even sleeping when those images appeared? He might have even been awake. He thought he heard noises in the house, creaks and thumps. Probably just pipes and floorboards of an old house settling, but he couldn’t help conjuring an image of Ruth Snethen wandering around the rooms with the pillowcase over her head, bumping into things as she tried to find her way.

Find her way where? Why, up to his bedroom of course, looking for him, angry that he hadn’t shown up at the train station earlier so he could have saved her. He imagined her standing beside his bed, looking down at him even though she couldn’t see through the fabric of the pillowcase, her hands reaching out to grab him and stir him from his slumber.
Wake up
, she called, her voice muffled from the cloth covering her face.
Wake up and help me.
Help you what? he asked, looking at the hooded figure beside him in the dark bedroom.
Help me save the children.
What children?
The children in the trunk.
What are they doing in the trunk?
Suffocating!
Who put them in the trunk, Ruth?
We don’t have time for that; I have a train to catch.
The train doesn’t come to Smokey Hollow anymore.
I must find my way out of here. I can’t stay.
But Ruth, how can you leave when you can’t even see where you’re going.

He reached up and pulled the pillowcase off her head. Her eyes bulged in their sockets, her mouth hung open, and finger-sized abrasions marked her scrawny neck. That was when Brian realized he was dreaming and no one was standing by his bed. But he was holding on to something and looked down at his hand. His fingers gripped the pillowcase he had ripped from his own pillow. He threw it onto the floor.

Despite the sleepless night, he felt rested in the morning and his nerves relaxed, with no desire for a cigarette, a cup of coffee, or an antacid. Downstairs, another note had been slipped through the mail slot. He was excited because it had been a few days without hearing from his anonymous friend, and he had worried the attention had driven the mystery messenger into hiding. But what good had hiding done for Ruth Snethen?

He picked up the envelope, seeing the familiar black ink and a dark smudge, thinking his mystery writer needed a better pen. He wondered how long ago the envelope had been shoved through the mail slot, and opened the door, stepping out and not surprised to see Ash Street quiet and deserted. He opened the envelope and pulled the white piece of note paper out. Written on the blank sheet was the latest message, once again a question:

Why has The Pillowcase returned?

The Silhouette

Darcie had no idea he was getting these notes. It was a conscious decision he had made to keep from worrying her too much. She had enough to deal with since the discovery of the trunk. He saw no need to add undue stress to her situation, with a baby in the belly. He tucked the note into his pants pocket and told her he was heading to the office.

“But it’s Saturday,” she complained. “I thought we could do something together.”

“I have a murder story to follow up on,” he said, firmly back in reporter mode. “I need to call the medical examiner’s office, the State Police, lots to follow up on.” He kissed her on the check. “Maybe we can do something later.” Then he was out the door.

Sitting behind his desk in his office, he stared at the note. He took particular notice of the capital letters in “The Pillowcase.” It wasn’t just that all three murder victims had their heads covered with a pillowcase. It was stated as if it were a proper noun, like someone’s name. He fired up the computer on his desk and went to a search engine, typing in the words: The Pillowcase.

The list that popped up on his screen started with links to linen companies but was soon followed by another reference: a series of murders committed by an unknown culprit dubbed The Pillowcase.

Brian stared at the screen, his mouth agape. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He clicked on a link and began reading. A string of murders had taken place throughout New England—seven known victims, male and female. The bodies were mostly found in wooded or deserted areas. One was found in an abandoned barn, one at the bottom of a dried-up well, and one beneath a railroad trestle. The victims had two things in common: they were all strangled, and they were all found with a pillowcase over their head.

There was no pattern to where the bodies were found—some in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont, none in Maine or New Hampshire. Most of the locations were fairly remote but not what would be considered very rural, at least at the time. And here was the real kicker:
the murderer was never identified and never caught.
The killings spanned a decade. Then all of a sudden they stopped. No suspect was ever named. No one was ever brought to justice. The killer just faded away.

Being a reporter on a cop beat for many years, Brian was surprised that he wasn’t familiar with the story. But he saw the reason why. The last murder attributed to The Pillowcase, before he seemed to disappear forever, was more than fifty years ago.

Brian stepped out of his office. Beverly Crump and Isaac Monck were at their desks, typing away. He glanced from one to the other. Bev was in her late fifties; Isaac a little older. Both of them would have been kids at the time. And that would have been at the end of the killing reign.

“Either of you ever heard of a serial killer known as The Pillowcase?” he asked, eyes darting back and forth between the two. He was met by perplexed glances.

“No,” Bev said. “Though it’s a cute moniker.”

No, Brian thought. Not if you’d seen what I saw in the train station. He looked at Isaac.

The older man scratched his head with the eraser end of a pencil, as if trying to unearth some forgotten memory. “I have a vague recollection,” he said. “Something a long time ago, when I was a kid.” He closed his eyes for a second, and then reopened them. He shrugged. “Not sure. You need to talk to someone really old.”

Brian licked his lips, thinking. “Thanks anyway,” he said, grabbing his camera and a notebook and heading out the door. In a minute he was across the street at the police station, greeting Wanda as he entered.

“Chief around?”

She looked up at him with a smile. “He’s out.”

“Any idea where?”

She gave him a look of reluctance to answer.

“Please,” he said, with a smile.

She sighed. “He’s checking out a house on Whispering Lane.”

“What’s going down?”

She cocked her head. “Someone reported seeing lights at night at a vacant house that’s up for sale.”

Didn’t sound like anything important. “Let him know I need to talk to him,” he said, turning to head out the door. He stopped. “Make that, I’d like to talk to him.”