Whittaker 01 The Enemy We Know (35 page)

Trying not to jingle the keys, I slipped down the hall and into Marshall’s office. Not wanting Hannah to spy a band of light under the door, I left the overhead off. Of course, she’d have to turn off all the lights and lie on the carpet to see under the door, but I was more than a little freaked out. Besides, there was enough sun seeping through the blinds for what I needed to do.

The file cabinet was locked, but the desk wasn’t. I started there. It contained the usual administrator’s office crap—nothing surprising. No vodka flasks or baggies of white powder or pornography. Unfortunately for me, also no file cabinet keys and nary a sign of the knife. The bottom right drawer was one of those deep ones, probably another file cabinet, and unlike the other drawers, locked. I wished that I could have stolen Marshall’s keys when I searched his place, but I’d been sure he’d have a duplicate set of the tiny, easy-to-lose cabinet keys somewhere close by.

Not knowing how to pick locks—they don’t teach such useful skills in grad school—I was nevertheless determined to get in, one way or another. It made sense that if the knife was here, it would be locked up, so the cabinets were especially tantalizing. While I pondered the problem, I rifled through the book shelves, neither expecting nor finding anything suspicious.

Other than the locked cabinets, there was really no other hiding place. I sat in Marshall’s chair, trying to get a feel for his space. Yanked open the top right drawer, stuffed with pens, pencils, and other miscellaneous supplies, and rummaged through it a second time even though I’d been meticulous the first search.

Nothing.

I checked my watch. I’d already used up twelve minutes, and even easygoing Hannah would start to question my continued absence. The office felt hot and stuffy, sweat beading my upper lip in a most annoying way.

With a burst of inspiration, I picked up the potted plant that Marshall had tipped over when Lisa had walked in on our “awkward” moment. Nothing but dust and a milky-white water stain.

Time to admit defeat.

Standing, I wiped sweaty hands on my jeans. A flash of silver caught my eye. Not the keys, but a small container of paperclips next to the phone console. I rattled it back and forth. Aha!

One silver mini-key and one bronze ditto.

I started on the big cabinet, which was full of boring paperwork that I neither understood nor cared about. I slid a hand under and behind the rows of hanging files, looking for the telltale gap that a solid object stuck in the middle of a file would make.

I repeated the routine in the desk drawer. This drawer held personnel records and I had to fight the urge to peek. My good angel was winning until I spied Mary Kate’s name.

After all, I
had
promised Mary Kate that I would look into the matter of her progress report, and it
would
be kind of awkward to bring it up to Hannah. I wouldn’t want Hannah to think I didn’t trust her judgment. That would be rude. And Marshall might not let me check Hannah’s section anyway. And I did promise.

I tweaked the file out. The progress report was right on top, so I was hardly trespassing at all. Skipping over the sections I’d filled in, I focused on Hannah’s pristine handwriting. I read it through once.

Then a second time.

Mary Kate must have misunderstood. Hannah had written a very even-handed evaluation. She did note that they’d had difficulty bonding, pointing out the unusual circumstances of the transfer. She praised Mary Kate’s willingness and dedication, gave her high marks for her ability to empathize with her clients. It was a good evaluation.

Forgetting that I was only going to peek at the progress report, I paged absently through the rest of the file. Mary Kate had never gotten along with Hannah, but I’d just assumed it was because of the abrupt transition. I pulled out her resume—a stunning list of career stops and starts. I smiled at the wide variety of enthusiasms that had led Mary Kate to explore culinary arts, accounting, day care administration, and horticulture before settling on counseling. I flipped the page. Her education history reflected the same scatter-gun approach. Botany, psychiatric nursing, literature, geology.

Wait.
Literature?
I paged through until I came to her college transcripts—three separate schools, which didn’t help. I found it on the second transcript. She’d come within three credits of graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Renaissance literature. Three credits shy, and then she’d switched to psychology, basically starting all over.

Mary Kate?

I shoved the papers back in the file, leaping to my feet. Clutching it tightly, I ran to the front office. Hannah sat at Lisa’s desk separating the files we’d need tomorrow. She looked up in startled surprise at my hurry.

“
What…?”

“
Where’s Mary Kate?” My voice sounded thin and squished, coming via breathless lungs.

“
She’s not here yet. Are you okay?”

I stood clutching the file to my chest, trying to sort through the crazy idea that bounced around my brain like a bunny on crack. I’d never considered Mary Kate. I’d never seriously considered a woman.

I sank into a chair, ignoring Hannah’s worried noises, focusing inward, looking for a hole in the theory. Looking for the mistake. A wave of dizziness swept over me. Hannah squawked louder, and I dimly sensed her kneeling next to me, rubbing my back. When the word “ambulance” penetrated, I roused myself.

“
No! I don’t need an ambulance.”

“
What on earth is going on? Do you want me to call someone?”

“
No. No, that’s okay. I’m just…” No way to explain. I could barely even wrap my own mind around the possibility that Mary Kate might be the one responsible for the sonnets, the doll, the… killings.

My heart thudded erratically. The killings. The killing of two men who—for good or bad—showed interest in me. The two men who captured my attention, who made the sonnet-giver “question with jealous thought where [I] may be, or [my] affairs suppose.”

And what about the
third
man?

Once I cleared town, I pushed my little Focus up to eighty, figuring if a cop tried to pull me over, I’d let him chase me clear to the cabin. A cop would also come in handy if I slammed into a wayward deer, making hamburger out of both of us. I ached for a cigarette.

I considered calling Blodgett but was too scared to let go of the steering wheel; besides, what could I say? Mary Kate studied literature from the same era that the stalker’s sonnets derived from? So did Marshall. And, logically speaking, Paul had the more compelling motive for murder than either Mary Kate or Marshall.

But my gut knew it was Mary Kate, knew it with a certainty that I’d never had with either of the two men. Her whimsical devotion concealed deeper passions; her difficulty with letting go, a rage-filled fear of abandonment.

I sucked as a supervisor.

Tires churned a dust cloud going up Marshall’s dirt road, gravel pinging off the tree trunks. Marshall’s Saab, the only vehicle in the clearing besides my own, sat parked in the same spot as when I’d left last night. I got out and stood next to my car, listening. The engine ticked loudly, but otherwise silence blanketed the property. Too quiet?

The crank of the hinge as I shut the door exploded into the hushed clearing like a shot.

I made for the cabin and was halfway to the door before remembering the killer’s habit of ambushing his prey from behind bushes and shrubs.
Her
prey. Might as well get in the habit of saying that. I darted from side to side in an approximation of evasive moves that I’d seen on TV. If Marshall wasn’t in trouble and happened to look out his window, he’d probably assume I was psychotic.

Nobody shot at me. I made it to the porch feeling like an imbecile and checked the doorknob. Unlocked, as always. Feeling like a storybook character, I poked my head around the corner, calling out a neighborly “yoo-hoo!”

The cabin was dusky and quiet. The same eerie silence as the clearing—ominous, watchful, not at all peaceful. Goldilocks must have had balls of steel, because I could barely force myself across the threshold. Marshall was obviously not in the kitchen or living room, and a quick scan of the laundry room didn’t uncover anybody either. Or any
body
. I shuddered, hating my imagination, and checked the washer and dryer, just in case. Same musty jeans, but nothing scarier.

Heart pounding, I moved back to the living room, heading for the loft stairs. When my knees gave out, I decided crawling was eminently sensible and not the least bit undignified. Marshall’s bedroom door stood open, the sun pouring in with a cheerful vigor that mocked the realities of danger and death. His room was orderly, bed made, clothes hung up. It certainly didn’t look like any kind of struggle had occurred.

Feeling foolish and more than a little relieved, I went back downstairs. I still hadn’t found Marshall, but maybe he was out chopping wood or fishing or doing some other manly, woodsy activity. I decided to try the bell again.

I saw the blood as soon as I stepped outside.

About five yards to the left of the path, a section of the grass had a chaotic, churned look. Droplets and ragged smears of blood splattered the fresh, green blades. In my headlong, scurry-dash evasive maneuvers, I’d rushed right passed the signs, only spying them from the higher vantage point of the porch.

Pulling my cell phone out, I dialed Blodgett’s number with surprisingly steady hands. Only two reception bars showed, the call immediately switching to voice mail. I told Blodgett my suspicions, gave directions, hung up.

I was a northern girl. I’d gone deer hunting with my dad. Kind of. I knew how to follow the blood track. I took off down the ATV trail, walking on the center strip of foliage between the two parallel ruts of dirt. Ominous dots and random smears of crimson sprouted like sinister blossoms. After a short distance, I realized I couldn’t create a more perfect shooting target unless I drew target circles on my chest and yodeled.

I scurried off-trail, pushing through the scrub trees and bracken, ignoring the branches stabbing my arms and legs. I’d made a god-awful lot of noise, so I stood silent, listening. Only the leaves, oblivious to the human drama below, rustled in the light breeze. The birds stayed mum; small mammals, hidden.

It was the larger ones I was worried about.

The problem with being off the path was that I couldn’t see the blood trail any more. It looked like the bleeder was heading straight down the ATV path, but I’d miss the signs if he veered off. Moreover, the thick undergrowth made it next to impossible to move with any stealth.

I hoped that all this was unnecessary, that Mary Kate had taken off, but could I be sure? The tinny flavor of fear coating my mouth argued against that hope. I kept going. Someone was hurt and that someone was surely Marshall.

Swallowing past the pounding heart currently relocated to my throat, I moved back to the ATV path. Prepared to dive back into the brush, I crept forward as fast as my spotty vision and shaking limbs could carry me. The bloody smears grew fainter and farther apart. I scurried along, hoping the diminishing marks meant that the wound wasn’t too bad rather than that he was bleeding out.

It took forever and a day before I finally came to the edge of another clearing. A tall oak had been felled, the branches scavenged for firewood and cleared away. The stump, sheared nearly flat except for a taller segment that had been ripped away from the falling tree, resembled a throne for a kingly wood elf. A golden carpet of shavings and wood chips littered the forest floor, making it all too easy to spot the gory splash of fresh blood.

I didn’t faint. Almost, but I didn’t. If I had, I wouldn’t have heard the slight panting coming from behind the five-foot-high wall of stacked logs at the very edge of the clearing.

“
Marshall?” I called. Tried to, that is. The only sound that escaped my dry mouth was a cross between a moan and a hiss. I cleared my throat, and the panting stopped.

“
Marshall?” This time my voice traveled far enough that it made me nervous.

I took it as a good sign when nobody popped out and shot me. I crept forward, twigs snapping under foot, the sharp aroma of cut wood filling my nose. A decades-absent yearning for my daddy flooded my soul, forcing me to choke down a sob. Holding my breath, I peeked around the pile. Marshall lay curled on his back, head propped against the side of the stacked logs, legs braced to keep his body angled upright. One hand clamped tight over his lower right abdomen, his blood tie-dyeing his formerly white t-shirt. The other hand clutched an axe.

Our eyes met, but he didn’t seem to recognize me. His lips, white and thinned with pain, trembled; his body shook. I took a step forward, stopped when he raised the axe. It wobbled, the effort making him pant harder. I sank to my knees. We didn’t have time for this.
He
didn’t have time.

“
Marshall,” I whispered. “It’s okay. It’s me, Letty. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Something flickered behind his eyes. He lowered the axe slightly.

“
We’ve got to get you out of here, bud. We’ve got to get help.”

He whispered something I didn’t catch and lowered the axe to the ground. I pulled my cell phone out, flipped it open—no bars.

“
I’ve got to stop the bleeding, Marshall.” I pulled my T-shirt over my head, shivering as the breeze cooled the sweat on my body. Wadding it up, I crawled to his side, praying he didn’t bury the axe in my head.

When he didn’t, I moved his hand, placing the shirt against his wound, and applied pressure. Now that I got a good look, I could see that he’d been pegged by a bunch of buckshot, ragged holes speckled his abdomen like a grisly version of connect-the-dots. Shock and prolonged exposure added to the danger. “Look, bud, this is all the first aid I know. We have to get you back to the clearing.”