What Burns Within (33 page)

Luke Driscoll sat down, his usual easy smile in place. “No problem. What happened?”

“I went through some floorboards.”

The smile added a questioning twist to it. “Is that all in a day’s work for you?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly.”

“So, what can I do for you?”

“What can you tell me about the number forty?”

“Are you serious? You called me up and asked me to come over to talk about the number forty?” The smile hadn’t disappeared from Luke’s face, but his eyes had narrowed a touch, like he was lingering somewhere between intrigued and baffled.

“It has some religious significance, doesn’t it?”

“Sure. There are some who believe that it take forty days for a soul to be purified, that it’s a predetermined period of devotion and preparation.”

Ashlyn grabbed her note pad and started asking questions.

THURSDAY

Ashlyn barely felt a twinge of pain as she walked to her desk, perhaps a little slower than usual, but under her own power. She set her files down, tucked her hair behind her ears and started skimming through her messages.

Nothing, nothing, nothing…Nicholas Brennen. Hmm. She glanced at her watch, convinced it was far too early to call. She set that message aside.

That’s when she noticed the folded paper, tucked partway onto a tray. She knew the handwriting immediately, pulled it out and sat down.

Ashlyn,

We’ve had a witness come forward with some potential
leads about Taylor Brennen’s abduction, and Alex Wilson is
turning out to be a viable suspect. I’ve put all the notes in a
file, which is in the top drawer of my desk
.

There’s also a report from the lab in there with the data
on the contents of the bundle you recovered from the fire and
the photos you took of the object on the wall and the room below.
There was also a message from Carl Parks for you. I
put it in that file
.

I’ll be in early—Daly’s bringing breakfast. He said he’s
putting a display board in his office, and he wants us in there
at 8 AM, ready to go through everything
.

Knowing you, it’s 5:30 as you read this, so you should
have enough time to get ready
.

Tain

Ashlyn set the note back on her tray, glanced at her watch and smiled. She went to his desk and removed the files.

“What did you do, wait until it was officially past midnight and come to the office then?”

She spun around, the words, “Will you…” already out before their gazes met.

Craig offered a half shrug as an apology. “Sorry. Looks like you’re ready for this, though.”

He knew her well enough to guess at what was going through her mind, but she had no opportunity to ask. Tain and Daly walked in.

Tain shook Craig’s hand, offered a curt nod but said nothing.

“Okay, take me through everything we’ve got,” Daly said.

“June fourteenth.” Ashlyn pointed to the date at the top. “Julie Darrens went missing. She went with her oldest sister to pick up a few things at the corner store. This wasn’t a daily ritual, but it wasn’t uncommon. Julie had a tendency to dawdle, and her sister was walking briskly, trying to coax her along. She turned back and found the bag Julie had been carrying was dropped on the sidewalk. Julie was gone.” Ashlyn tapped the evidence photos, one of Julie from school, one of the scattered groceries on the pavement. “They were walking past a vacant lot on one side. Across the street was park land, a treed section with walking paths about ten feet off the road. Since it was June and the trees were covered in dense, green leaves—”

“No eyewitnesses,” Daly said.

“Same day, a building here—” Tain moved beside Ashlyn and tapped the map—“was set on fire. Simple gasoline accelerant, but the thing that stood out was the fact that wood had been cut out of the floorboards, stacked meticulously, doused in gas and then set ablaze. A charred doll was found lying on top, like a funeral pyre, and an angel had been hung from the front door.”

“Similar scenario on July eight,” Ashlyn said. “Isabella Bertini went missing. She disappeared from her own backyard, where she’d been playing with her sister. As simple as a ball rolling into the trees behind their home, and she never came back. The ball was found a few feet from the Bertini family property.”

“The Bertinis have since put in a fence,” Tain added. “Same day, another fire here.” He pointed to the next location. “Same accelerant, same thing with the angel on the door.”

“July twenty-fifth, another arson. Only this time, we didn’t have another girl go missing. Julie’s body was found at the scene. The fire was in Coquitlam, the lead investigators on the abduction cases worked from Burnaby, coordinating with Robinson, who was still in charge of the arson investigation then.” Ashlyn shrugged. “And maybe the scene could have been handled better. We don’t have much to go on.” She tacked a picture of Julie Darrens’s body up beside the date.

“Before that, though, we had another arson, same pattern,” Ashlyn continued. “This one happened July eighteenth. No abduction and no body.” Tain circled the place on the map where that fire had occurred. “And you’ll note, no pattern emerging with our fire locations either. They’re all over the place, just like the abductions.”

“Someone who feels comfortable moving around,” Craig murmured. Just like his rapist.

“August eighteenth. Taylor Brennen goes missing from a fair. We have another arson.” Ashlyn turned and looked at Tain, who marked that location on the map with a number 4. “We’re still working leads about Taylor’s abduction.”

Tain nodded. “I took a statement yesterday from a man called Iggy Klipper. He claims he saw Taylor at the fairgrounds without her brother. He said that she was approached repeatedly by a clown and also by a vendor selling jewelry.”

“Did he see her go with either of them?” Daly asked.

Tain shook his head. “He didn’t think much of it at the time, and he went out of town that day, to do a small fair in Victoria. He got back, saw her picture in the paper—”

“And came in to alleviate his conscience,” Daly said.

“At least it’s something we can follow up on,” Ashlyn said. “And the critical factor is that on that day, we didn’t just have a girl go missing. Isabella Bertini’s body was found at the scene of the fire.”

She removed more photographs from the file and tacked them up beside that date. “Exhibit A. A photo of a marking drawn on the wall near where Isabella’s body was found.”

“The sacred heart, a religious symbol,” Tain said. “Also the name of the school that Taylor Brennen attended.”

“I thought you hadn’t been able to identify the markings originally,” Daly said.

“We didn’t,” Ashlyn answered. “Carl Parks remembered what it was and phoned. Tain checked it out, and sure enough—”

“Carl Parks?” asked Craig. “What did he have to do with this?”

“He pulled her body from the building,” Ashlyn said. She pointed at the next date. “That leaves us at August nineteenth. Lindsay Eckert is abducted from a recreation center in south Coquitlam. This is caught on video. Our guy is prepared. Looks like he managed to undo her necklace to lure her into the hallway. He kept just out of sight of the security cameras and grabbed her from behind, using a fire door that had a broken alarm mechanism.”

“This guy knew who he was going after, how to get her alone and how to remove her without attracting attention,” Tain said. “Same day, another angel arson here.” He drew a number 5 on that location.

“How did the guy know Lindsay would go into the hallway for the necklace?” asked Craig.

“It was very important to her. A sterling silver necklace bought for her by her grandmother. She evidently never took it off,” Ashlyn answered.

“But how would he know that?”

Ashlyn shook her head. “We’re open to suggestions. So far, there are only a few things that seem to connect the girls, and they’re a stretch. A couple were Brownies and then Girl Guides, different packs. We have Catholic schools and public schools, but none of the girls attended the same school. They had different hobbies and interests.”

“One thing that does connect these two,” Tain said, pointing at Julie and Taylor, “is Alex Wilson. Alex Wilson took the school photos of them that have been running in the newspapers.”

“What else is special about him?” asked Craig. “That seems pretty weak for naming him as a suspect or a link.”

“He’s the guy who found Taylor’s brother at the fairgrounds. Instead of taking him to police services there, he called 911 and drove him here,” Ashlyn answered.

Craig whistled. “That is interesting. Anything else to go on with this guy? What does your gut tell you?”

“That he’s got nothing to do with the girls,” Tain said. “He came in and voluntarily provided his fingerprints so that we could eliminate him from our investigation into Lindsay Eckert’s death.”

“Mr. Wilson is also a member at the recreation center where she was abducted from,” Ashlyn told Craig.

He frowned. “Mr. Wilson seems a bit more connected than any completely innocent person should be. What’s your plan?”

Tain sat on the arm of a chair. “Well, I wasn’t entirely honest about the reason we wanted his fingerprints. Wilson is guilty of something, but what, I don’t know. He left his job as a photographer—”

“A job that had him traveling around from school to school, church group to church group, Brownie packs, what ever—” Ashlyn circled a large area on the map with her finger—“all over this part of the lower mainland. He’s a guy who feels comfortable with all the areas the arsons and abductions have been in.”

“But you don’t like him for this?”

Ashlyn glanced at Tain, who turned to Craig. “Ashlyn hasn’t met him yet. My gut tells me no. I think he prefers boys, which is why he was so freaked out by being alone with Nicky.”

“I’m going to talk to Nicky,” Ashlyn said. “And once we know why Mr. Wilson stopped working as a photographer, we’ll decide whether to bring him in again. We have nothing at this time to connect him to Isabella Bertini, though.”

“Still, three girls out of four.”

“My guess is, three girls out of five,” Ashlyn said.

Daly and Tain both snapped their heads to look in Ashlyn’s direction.

“Hear me out,” she said, holding up her hand.

She taped the June, July and August calendars to the wall, the pertinent abduction dates circled, as well as the dates bodies were found. “I’ve marked the abductions in blue, the body recoveries in black and the arsons in green. If you count the days between Julie’s abduction and Julie’s recovery, you get exactly forty full days. Same thing with Isabella.” She tapped July 18. “I think he took another girl here.”

“Why?” Daly asked. “Why wouldn’t she be reported?”

“I can think of a few reasons. She could be a pseudo-street kid, one who’s been brought up hard, parents don’t care. Or she’s been mistaken for a runner.”

“Possible,” Tain said as he glanced at Daly.

“The thing is, forty is a number with religious significance. I did some checking. Some people think it’s the number of days required to prove devotion and dedication. There are all sorts of biblical references to forty.”

“It rained for forty days and forty nights,” Craig said, “and Moses prayed for forty days.”

“Right. So, take that, plus the fact that he built funeral pyres under the room where Isabella’s body was left, and in the building where Julie’s body was found, and he’s hanging angels on the doors outside as though they’re some guardian or something, plus the sacred heart drawing near Isabella’s body—”

Daly leaned forward, his face buried in his hands. “Okay. Fair enough. We have to look at the possibility this guy is some religious nut.”

“No sexual trauma to the girls. My guess is this guy thinks he’s preserving their innocence. He takes them for forty days of testing.”

“And then they pass the test, and he sends them to heaven,” Craig said, feeling the distaste in his mouth as his jaw twisted. “Sick.”