___________________________
Less than thirty minutes later, we were back on board the Gulfstream jet, bound for Los Angeles.
Rae hadn’t let go of me the whole time – not until the Dolphin helicopter had deposited us on the apron at Kodiak Air Station and we’d stooped our way to the waiting plane. Learning my secret should have revolted her. Made her see me for what I was. It should have killed any feelings she had for me. It hadn’t. I was a damaged bird with a broken wing and she was prepared to do everything in her power to patch it up and make it fly again.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that some things are irreparable.
The jet broke through a thick layer of cloud and leveled out beneath a canopy of stars. Rae was making coffee in the small galley. I was watching ice crystals growing on the plastic pane.
Out of respect, Rae hadn’t pried any deeper. All the questions concerning the how’s and the why’s behind George becoming a serial killer were courteously postponed. For now, she was being understanding, soothing, consolatory. In time, when the upset subsided, she’d peel away my layers of deceit until the complete and unadulterated truth was exposed.
Maybe when she saw my rotten core she’d loathe me the way I loathed me. Maybe for my own good.
“Thanks,” I murmured as she handed me a steaming mug. “You didn’t say how you found out about Cornsilk’s flight.”
She sat down, heavily, facing me with tears in her eyes, magnifying the hurt. “On a hunch, I had the airlines check bookings made prior to the BOLO being issued. I figured there was a chance Cornsilk had seen us at the hotel before the boat went
ka-boom
and decided to scoot while the going was good. At precisely twelve-fifteen this afternoon, he used his First Tennessee Visa card online to make a reservation on the three-twenty-five flight to Anchorage.”
Literally minutes before the BOLO went out.
“Gabe, I don’t know this guy from Adam, but I swear he could fall into a barrel of shit and come out smelling of roses.”
Rae always had a way with words.
I sipped coffee. “What time is he expected at LAX?”
“Eleven-thirty tonight. His connecting flight was out of Ted Stevens at five-fifteen.”
I checked my watch, added an hour for the time zone difference between Alaska and California. Four hours. That’s all we had before Cornsilk landed in LA. Even with the Gulfstream on full throttle, I wasn’t sure we’d make it.
“You went back to Akhiok to be with George,” Rae said suddenly. “But you were someplace else. Where was that?”
“Paul Engel’s house. George’s body wasn’t in the clinic. Engel had moved him. That’s why I was out there. I was looking for answers.”
“Did you find them?”
“No. I just ended up with more questions. Engel had this weird setup going on. Plus, he tried to kill me, twice.”
Rae’s eyebrows met in the middle.
I ran through the course of events that had taken me to Deadman Bay in the thick of night and to the frosty confrontation with Engel. I told her about Engel’s sadomasochistic porn movie and about how I’d chased him to the roof.
“But you didn’t find George’s body?”
There was a thistle in my throat. “No. I’ve put Locklear on the case. Let’s see what he comes up with.”
I’d left the Kodiak cop to investigate in my stead. Given him explicit instructions to search Engel’s place with a fine-toothed comb. Told him to call me with news the second he found the missing corpse –
my son’s body
– and to warn me the moment Engel turned up.
Best of a bad situation.
Right now I was more focused on catching Cornsilk.
I stared into the coffee, at the swirling blackness. Snakeskin had killed my son and something ugly was stirring deep within my hypothalamus. I’d never subscribed to the biblical justice of an eye for an eye, but the more I pictured Snakeskin’s milky orb, the more that ugliness within me wanted to pluck it out and crush it under the heel of my boot.
___________________________
Her heart was beating so fast it made her feel lightheaded.
The private detective had phoned with good news.
She knew he would.
Her husband was worried she was wasting her time, their time. The family-run business had taken a hit these last twelve months. Their income had halved. They were at risk of defaulting on their mortgage payments, bank loans. The minivan had been repossessed. Her husband was worried she was investing too much of herself into lost causes. Chasing ghosts while the rest of her life, their life, fell into chaos and ruins. He was worried it was making her ill. She needed to let go, move on. He didn’t understand. Could never understand the force driving her forward.
It was in her chemistry.
Unalterable.
Nothing else mattered except this.
The investigator hadn’t told her all the details – she didn’t need to know everything, even though she’d asked, pushed – just the necessary facts to give her stamp of approval on his next paycheck, plus expenses.
He’d got a lead.
He’d tapped into a friend who worked for the FBI.
He’d come up with a name.
He was running checks, making calls and asking questions.
Essentially, earning his extortionate fee.
She was getting nearer.
She had a name and soon she’d have a location.
It was good news.
Her heart was beating so fast it made her feel lightheaded.
___________________________
By the skin of our teeth, we landed at Los Angeles International Airport with minutes to spare. Even with all the plugs pulled, our pilot had made no guarantees we’d arrive at LAX before the passenger plane carrying Gary Cornsilk touched down. As it happened, a strong tail wind had given us an unexpected push and we’d left hot rubber on the tarmac at precisely 11:22 p.m. – exactly eight minutes before the Boeing 737 carrying Cornsilk had berthed at Terminal 3.
We hit the ground running and didn’t stop until we’d arrived at Cornsilk’s gate.
Rae had left me alone, pretty much for the past four hours. No good will ever come of prodding a sleeping bear with a stick. I am a firm believer there is a time and a place for talking. This wasn’t one of them.
Besides, my obsession was all-consuming.
We were met at the mouth of the airbridge by eight heavily-armed Airport Police and their unsmiling sergeant . Rae had phoned ahead, advised security about our interest in the Alaska Airlines inbound flight from Anchorage – in particular, of its murderous passenger with the melted face – and controllers had apprised the captain of the situation. The crew were asked to expedite passenger disembarkation, without giving the game away – which can be asking a lot from people who know there’s a killer onboard.
Rae issued orders and we shoehorned ourselves into the angle of the airbridge where it joined the plane, a few feet from the curved fuselage. All of us waiting impatiently as the technicians completed their checks and then opened the hatch.
No way Cornsilk was going anywhere except straight into custody.
Rae had one hand on the heel of her gun, the other balled into a fist. I was clenching my teeth so hard my jaw hurt.
“Y’all remember: we need to take this sumbitch alive right now,” Rae called to all present. “No excuses. Let’s keep this simple and clean.”
Didn’t apply to me, of course. As the father of a murdered child I was exempt. Now I knew how it felt from the other side of the interview table. All those times I’d spoken with hurting parents. All those times I’d offered reassurance. All those times I’d been understanding, while trying to glean information out of their grief, anything to help find the killer of their child. Empathy can be as objective as it liked. Pain is subjective. It changes us. No more so than with the death of a child. Snakeskin could rot in hell for all I cared. I had a bullet in the chamber of my cleaned-up Glock and a steely glint of vengeance in both eyes. If he so much as sneezed out of line, I was prepared to cut the head off the snake.
There was a loud clunk as the hatch swung out and then sideways. Everybody tensed.
Inside the plane, a pair of flight attendants gave us solemn nods of acknowledgement as the first passengers began to filter out.
“Merry Christmas,” Rae said to each passenger as they passed. “Nothing happening here. Move swiftly along. Thank you. Keep moving. Y’all have a wonderful Christmas.”
We were all fervently scanning faces, looking to match the description I’d provided of Gary Cornsilk: a medium-build guy of American Indian descent, early-thirties, military-style tattoos, with one side of his face melted away and one unblinking eye as white as a bird’s egg. No way anybody would overlook a face like that. Anyone who had ever dreamed of monsters under the bed knew their own Snakeskin.
“How many, all told?” I called to one of the flight attendants as passengers streamed by, flashing us wary looks before moving on and up the tunnel.
“Thirty-seven.”
Quite a tally for Christmas Day.
I’d already counted twenty, without spotting anyone who looked remotely like Freddy Krueger. Mostly business people and regular folks returning home for the holidays.
I sensed the uniforms stir restlessly around us.
The last stragglers came out: an old guy with a fuzzy gray beard and crooked teeth; a chubby guy in a business suit several sizes too small; a giggling couple of youths with backpacks and cheesy grins, and then . . .
“That’s everyone,” the attendant stated with a shrug.
Rae and I exchanged confused glances.
“Step aside,” I said.
Our police party poured inside. Eyes scanning the cabin down the length of their guns. On the surface, it looked empty – aside from the usual mess that normally tidy people leave exclusively on planes: discarded blankets, newspapers, garbage. No signs of Snakeskin trying to clamber inside an overhead compartment.
“How many toilets?”
The attendant pointed, “One here. Two at the rear of the plane.”
“Go ahead,” Rae said. “I’ve got this one.”
I nodded and worked my way down the aisle – a pair of Airport Police in tow – checking between seats as we went. Still no signs of Snakeskin cowering under a tray table. Nothing to indicate anything suspicious.
I came to the lavatory cubicles in back. The concertina doors were folded open. No signs of anyone hiding inside. I swept back the curtain on the galley and scanned rows of metal lockers, a transparent garbage bag filled with paper cups and food wrappers. No hint of any invertebrates.
Snakeskin was nowhere to be seen.
Damn.
“What now?” the sergeant asked.
“Have your people double-check everyone leaving the airport,” I said. “Tell them to detain anyone even vaguely fitting Cornsilk’s description.”
He nodded, curtly, and waved his men out.
I regrouped with Rae at the plane’s exit. She was already on her cell. Head tilted to one side. Hand on hip. I heard her asking questions and making incredulous sounds. Figured she was speaking with Departures at Ted Stevens and it wasn’t sounding good.
“Don’t tell me,” I said as she came off the phone, “he failed to board.”
She nodded. “None of the airline staff recall seeing anyone matching his description.”
Double damn.
“But he was definitely on the first flight out of Kodiak?”
Again, she nodded. “No one is confirming a visual ID, but Ticketing claim his boarding card was scanned.”
I was in no doubt that Cornsilk had known we were onto him. As Rae had suggested: probably spied us at the Kodiak Inn, looking into the room registered in Westbrook’s name. Known he’d stand a better chance of escaping if he got off the island. Known that travelling by land would offer a greater opportunity to avoid detection. Known we’d go chasing down the connecting flight even if he skipped the plane in Anchorage.
Snakeskin had spied his chance and had given us the slip.
It was a clever move, leaving us red-faced and empty-handed.
Worst still, we were over two thousand miles distant to do anything about it.