Chapter 1
“I don’t care if it’s ketchup or red paint or salsa or pomegranate juice, when I first saw it, I thought it was
blood
,” Detective September Rafferty said, stabbing her finger at the piece of construction paper depicting a child’s artwork lying on her station desk. “This message came to me. On a picture of my
second-grade
artwork. The killer sent it to me.”
“It’s ketchup and something else,” another of the Laurelton Police Department’s detectives said.
Detective Gretchen Sandler skewered the roundish man with a scorching look. “Jesus, George. Stay on point. It was meant to look like blood. It was meant to scare the shit out of her.” To September, she said, “I can’t believe you can remember what grade you were in when you did that.”
They all looked down at the offending piece of paper: light blue construction paper with glued-on, cut-out pictures of brown-, orange- and mustard-colored leaves falling from the sky into a pile at the bottom of the page. An ink-stamped happy face and several gold stars ran across the top of the piece, with a teacher’s handwritten note:
Your birthday cupcakes were terrific! Way to start the school year!
But underneath the teacher’s words, new ones had been added in a bloody scrawl:
DO UNTO OTHERS AS SHE DID TO ME.
September said tautly, “Mrs. Walsh was my teacher, and I really liked her. The falling leaves were the first art project of the year, and my mom hung it up on the bulletin board in the kitchen for a long time.”
“So, this killer got it from your house?” Gretchen asked.
“I don’t know . . . maybe . . .” September frowned. Or had someone connected with her family sent it to her?
It had been two weeks since she’d received the message at the station. Two weeks since it had arrived wrapped inside a birthday card that read, “Way to go, 3-YEAR-OLD,” except someone had written in a zero beside the three, making it “30.” Two weeks where September had delved through the notes, files and photos associated with the Do Unto Others killer and forced from her brain the fact that he’d sent her this disturbing message.
“They know my age,” September had said when the missive first appeared, brought to her at her desk by Candy in administration.
“Jesus, Nine,” her partner, Gretchen, had said on an intake of breath. “It really does have to do with you!”
She’d meant the investigation they were working on—The Do Unto Others killer. The serial killer who, over the last several months, almost from the moment September had started as a detective with the Laurelton Police Department, had left several women’s bodies in both Winslow and Yamhill Counties, two in fields, one inside her own apartment. The bodies were discovered in varying states of undress, but each of them had marks across her torso, maybe the beginnings of words, maybe something else. And one had the full
DO UNTO OTHERS AS SHE DID TO ME
message, carved out plainly in the skin of her abdomen, that had later been sent to September.
Two weeks ago . . .
At the time September’s thirtieth birthday had been looming, but it had since come and gone, and she’d ended up passing through that day in a fog. She’d barely made note of it, or her brother’s birthday the day before hers, for that matter. She and Auggie were twins, born on either side of midnight August 31. He’d come into the world first and was named August; she’d arrived second, on September 1, hence her name. Christening their children with first names attached to their birth-months was just one of the strange quirks her mother and father . . . mostly her father . . . were known for. Braden Rafferty had firm ideas about family, though he’d been an unfaithful husband and an absent parent, and this naming of his children undoubtedly stemmed from his own desire for control and order. At least that’s how September saw it. Had she and Auggie both been born in August, she wouldn’t put it past him to have named them August and Augusta. That’s just who he was, and was indicative of why she generally steered clear of him and most of the rest of the Raffertys as well, except her twin. Luckily, the whims of fate had stepped in, delivering her and her brother on different days and different months, so he was August and she was September.
When the “bloody” artwork had first arrived at the station, she’d told Auggie about it, and he’d nearly come unglued. Not a big surprise, as her brother, whom she’d followed into law enforcement, was known for his penchant for saving damsels in distress. The killer’s threat against his sister had sent Auggie to their lieutenant, and September’s twin asked to take on the case himself. September had quickly stepped in. Hell, no! She and Sandler were working on Do Unto Others, thank you very much, and besides, Auggie was still deeply involved in the wrap-up of another case, that of the masked man who had stormed into the front offices of Zuma Software and opened fire on the employees. That was a big case and though arrests had been made, there was still a lot of work to be done on it. He could damn well finish it.
Auggie had argued that his case intersected with September’s, but in the end their superior, Lieutenant D’Annibal, had listened to September and allowed her to stay on Do Unto Others, at least for now. Auggie wasn’t wrong, however. Do Unto Others’s third victim had turned out to be related to one of the prime suspects in the Zuma case. It seemed improbable, impossible really, that that was mere coincidence. Was Do Unto Others some kind of copycat of the Zuma killer? Maybe he was following the Zuma case and grabbing victims peripherally involved, to gain notoriety . . . or something? Whatever that connection was, it had yet to be discovered.
Meanwhile Auggie was told to stay on his case and September and Sandler were the leads on Do Unto Others. Auggie hadn’t exactly acquiesced, but he was too busy to really protest much, and though, in reality, September wouldn’t have minded working with him, Gretchen Sandler was her partner and they were in this together, for better or worse.
Now September looked at the board that held Do Unto Others’s three victims: Sheila Dempsey, Emmy Decatur and Glenda Tripp, in that order. Tripp was the only woman found inside her apartment. The prevailing theory was the killer had followed her home and attacked her, but had been scared away before he could fully carve his message into her skin. Since the other victims’ bodies had been moved to fields, it was also assumed he’d been thwarted in getting the body to its eventual “final resting place.”
After receiving her own warning, September had gone over every scrap of evidence and report with renewed vigor, but still nothing stood out. There was no trace of DNA at the crime scenes; it was believed the killer had used condoms. He’d raped his victims and strangled them with a thin cord of some kind, but he was careful to take the cord away and it hadn’t left any fibers. So far, they’d been unable to connect the victims apart from the fact that they all had darker hair and similar builds; he was probably going after a type—September’s type, as her own hair was dark auburn and she had a lean, dancer’s build. The killer had been quiet the last few weeks, which, though a good thing, didn’t mean he’d stopped. Maybe he’d set his sights on September as the next victim? Maybe he just wanted to scare her, or play with her?
Whatever the case, she thought, bring it on. This waiting was making her edgy and snappish.
And how had he gotten her artwork from the
second grade
? From her family home? She didn’t want to think about what
that
meant, and though she had more than a few issues with her family, she did not believe any of them capable of terrorizing her, or worse, murder.
She glanced at the clock. Five
P.M.
She decided that tomorrow she would take it from the top again, start with re-interviewing the friends and families of the victims, see if there was anything else that connected them that they’d overlooked. She headed down the hall from the squad room to her locker to retrieve her purse and she realized Gretchen was hurrying after her. She half-turned and stopped, wondering what was up.
“I’m thinking about stopping by Xavier’s for a drink. Wanna join?”
“Umm . . . I don’t know,” September said.
Gretchen Sandler was slim and dark-skinned—a gift from her Brazilian mother—and she possessed almond-shaped blue eyes—a gift from her father—and was a roaring bitch on wheels, a gift she’d apparently given herself. She was smart and attractive and practically no one around the station could stand her. September got along with her okay at work, but the idea of socializing with her was a path she wasn’t sure she wanted to take.
Still, returning to her empty apartment was even less appealing. And going to visit her father at the family home to dig into her own past and see if there was anything there��what she
should
do, what she’d put off for two weeks—was the least appealing choice of the three.
“Well, it is Thursday, almost the weekend . . .” she finally said, as Sandler was still waiting.
“Meet you there,” Gretchen answered.
An hour later September was twisting a bottle of beer on the tan-and-black zebra-wood bar at Xavier’s, watching water condensation slide around beneath the bottom of it. The top of the bar was polished to such a high gloss it reflected like glass and the beaded water shone like diamonds under the lights. Lifting the bottle to her lips, September tried to shut her mind down, but if there was a way to stop the buzz in her head, she had yet to master the trick of it.
Sandler was making chitchat with one of the bartenders, who was liking the idea that she was a cop. Idly, September wondered if Gretchen was thinking about going home with him. That would be fine with her. She really just wanted to crawl in bed and pull the covers over her head for a while.
She said as much to her, but Gretchen was zeroed in on the guy—Dominic, call him Dom—and didn’t seem to hear her. Deciding it was time to vamoose, September headed outside into a sultry September evening with a hot wind blowing the first leaves around, sending them skittering over her boots as she walked back to her silver Honda Pilot. She really shouldn’t have come to the Laurelton steak house and bar wearing utilitarian black slacks and the button-up, short-sleeve shirt she’d worn to work. Even though it was popular with commuters Xavier’s screamed for plunging necklines and chandelier earrings and CFM shoes with four-inch heels.
Like that was ever going to happen.
She should go to her father’s and root through the attic and basement and garage and outbuildings in search of all the old flotsam and jetsam of her days at Sunset Elementary School. She’d been meaning to, ever since the artwork had shown up at the station, but she didn’t like going “home.”
Ever.
She hadn’t been comfortable there after her mother’s death in a car accident when September was in fifth grade. The thought of dealing with her autocratic father, who’d basically disowned her and Auggie when they went into law enforcement, wasn’t a pleasant one, either. And then to have to explain about a killer who was targeting her . . . Braden Rafferty would have an apoplectic fit and the “I told you so’s” would come raining down in a deluge.
And don’t even get her started on Rosamund, the latest stepmother, whose age was closer to September’s than her father’s. The wife before Rosamund, Verna, lay somewhere in between; Braden’s taste had apparently grown younger as he grew older.
Peachy.
Switching on the ignition and the Bluetooth, September dug out her cell and hit Auggie’s number. The phone rang three times before he answered, “Hey, there, Nine.”
Like most everyone who knew her well, Auggie called her by her nickname, Nine, for the ninth month of the year. She’d tried calling him Eight for a while when she was a kid, but it hadn’t stuck. She was Nine, and he was Auggie, and that’s just the way it was. “Hey, thought I’d let you know. I’m thinking about going to Dad’s and looking around for my grade-school memorabilia,” she said, negotiating into traffic.
He made a sound between a groan and a gag. “Better you than me.” Then, “Think that stuff’ll still be there somewhere?”
“Unless someone threw it out after Mom died. But who would that be? Dad? I doubt it. Stepmom One or Two? I’m guessing it just got shoved into the attic or basement and forgotten. If Dad’s there, I’ll ask him.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?” Auggie asked.
“This year?”
“Or, this decade, whichever applies.”
Since their father had basically disowned them, neither of them had seriously tried to bridge the gap, and Braden Rafferty hadn’t made much of an effort, either. “Actually, we talked on the phone on March’s birthday,” September told him. “I was wishing March happy birthday, and Dad was with him, so he took the phone for a few minutes.”
“Six months ago. Pretty good. How long did it take before he suggested you seek other employment?”
“He kept it to himself for once.”
“Well, maybe going to the house will be okay, then,” he said, not bothering to hide his skepticism.
“The killer got my artwork from somewhere. Dad’s house is the most likely place.”
“If it even was the killer who sent it to you.”
“Of course it was the killer,” she stated. “Who else would have it?”