A drop of blood ran down Carrie’s throat as the knife nicked. ‘Don’t you dare lie to me,’ the man said quietly. ‘If you know who I am, you know I have nothing to lose.’
Malcolm closed his eyes. He couldn’t think when he was looking at her. He was too scared. ‘Okay. But take her back to shore, first. Otherwise, I won’t tell you.’
Carrie’s scream of pain was muffled by the gag in her mouth. Malcolm’s eyes opened and he stared, horrified. Then he retched, violently. He couldn’t look back, couldn’t look at the finger the man held out for his inspection.
Severed.
He’d cut off her finger
. ‘I’ll tell you,’ he rasped. ‘Dammit, I’ll tell you.’
‘I thought you might.’ The man stepped away from Carrie and she tucked herself into as small a space as her bonds would allow, whimpering. From his front pocket the man pulled a notepad and pen. ‘I’m ready when you are.’
Quickly Malcolm spat the names, hating himself for it. For all of it. For staying that night, for watching. For writing the letter and endangering his wife. The man showed no emotion as he wrote the names, then pocketed his notepad.
‘I’ve told you,’ Malcolm said, his voice cracking. ‘Now take her back. Let me get her a doctor. Please, put her finger in some ice. Please. I beg you.’
The man studied the knife, red with Carrie’s blood. ‘Did she say that?’
‘
Who?
’
The man’s jaw cocked. ‘My
sister
. Did she beg?’ He grabbed Carrie’s hair and yanked her head back. He held the knife to her exposed throat. ‘Did she?’
‘Yes.’ Malcolm’s body shook with sobs. ‘Please. I’m begging you. My wife did nothing. Please. I gave you what you wanted. Please don’t hurt her any more.’
The man’s arm jerked, the knife sliced, and Malcolm screamed as blood spurted from her body.
No. No. No. Please God, no
. She was dead. Carrie was dead.
Callously, the man cut through the twine with which he’d bound her and her body landed at Malcolm’s feet. ‘I should leave you here to watch the birds eat her flesh,’ the man muttered. ‘But someone might find you before you died, then you’d tell on me. I could cut your tongue out, but you’d still find a way to tell. So you have to die too.’ He lifted Malcolm’s chin, forcing him to look up. ‘I’ll cut your tongue out anyway. Any last words?’
Standing naked on deck, he watched as the last of his clothes sank below the gray water, following the path Malcolm and his wife had taken. They’d be chum by nightfall.
The worst of the storm had passed as he’d dealt with the disposal of the bodies. There had been a lot of blood. Luckily he’d brought a change of clothes. He’d shower off the Edwards’ blood before sailing the
Carrie On
to a private marina whose owner would be asking no questions. There he could hose the blood off the deck and remove any markers identifying the boat as Malcolm Edwards’.
Going below, he paused at the galley counter, where he’d put the notepad for safekeeping. He couldn’t risk getting it covered in blood. Not like he needed the list anyway. The names were already etched in his mind.
Some he’d expected. A few were surprises.
All would wish they’d done the right thing twenty-one years ago.
Chapter One
Baltimore, Maryland, Monday, May 3, 5.35 A.M.
Z
z Top growling in her ears, Lucy Trask sang along as she jogged the path that cut through the park behind her apartment, not caring that she was hopelessly off key. Gwyn was their singer, after all. Nobody cared what Lucy’s voice sounded like, only how her bow sang. Besides, nobody was around to hear her this morning except other runners, and they had earphones just like she did.
This time of the morning there was no one she needed to impress, nobody whose opinion she needed to worry about. It was one of the many reasons she loved the hour before dawn.
She rounded the curve at the end of the path and slowed to a stop, her serenity suddenly gone. ‘Oh no,’ she murmured sadly. ‘Not again.’ It was Mr Pugh, sitting at one of the chess tables, his tweed hat illuminated by the street lamp behind him.
She detoured off the path, jogging to the green where her old friend had spent so many hours checkmating all challengers. Those days were long gone. Now he sat alone in the night, his head down, the collar of his coat pulled up around his face.
She sighed. He’d wandered out of his apartment, again. She slowed her pace as she drew close, approaching quietly. ‘Mr Pugh?’ She touched his shoulder gently, taking care not to startle him. He didn’t like to be startled. ‘It’s time to go home.’
Then she frowned. Normally he’d look up, that lost expression in his eyes, and she’d take him back to Barb who was so weary from caring for him all the time. Tonight he didn’t look up. He was still. So very still. Her heart sank.
Oh no. No, no, no
.
She reached to press her fingers to his neck, then covered her mouth to muffle a scream when his body slumped over the table, his hat tumbling off his head. For a moment she could only stare in horror. His head was misshapen, caked with dried blood. And his face . . . She stumbled backward. Bile burned her throat.
Oh God. Oh God
. His face was gone. So were his eyes.
She took another step back, blindly. ‘No.’ She vaguely heard a whimper, realized it was her own. Her breath hitched in her lungs and she forced herself to breathe.
Do something
. Her hands shaking, she found her cell in the pocket of her shorts and managed to dial 911, flinching when a crisp voice answered.
‘This is 911. What is the nature of your emergency?’
‘This is . . .’ Lucy’s voice broke as she stared at the remains. She closed her eyes.
Not remains. It’s Mr Pugh. Somebody killed him. Oh God. Oh God
.
‘This is . . .’ She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.
‘Miss?’ the operator repeated urgently. ‘What is the nature of your emergency?’
Sternly Lucy cleared her throat. Called on years of training. Forced her voice to steady. ‘This is Dr Trask from the Medical Examiner’s office. I need to report a murder.’
Monday, May 3, 6.00 A.M.
Detective JD Fitzpatrick studied the small crowd gathered behind the yellow tape. Neighbors, he thought. Some still wore bathrobes and slippers. Some were old, some middle-aged. Some cried. Some swore. Some did both.
He ventured close enough to listen in as he approached the crime scene. This was the time to listen, when shock had their tongues loose.
‘What kind of animal could do that to a helpless old man?’ one of the younger women was demanding furiously, her hands clenched into fists.
‘He never hurt anyone,’ the man next to her said in a bewildered tone.
‘Goddam gangs,’ an old man muttered to no one at all. ‘Not safe to leave your house any more.’
JD noted the well-maintained grass of the small community park. There was no evidence of gang presence here, but he’d seen it clearly enough on the drive in. This had been a pocket of safety for these residents. A sanctuary that the ugliness outside hadn’t yet touched. An illusion, he knew. Ugliness was everywhere.
Now the dead man’s neighbors knew it too. It didn’t take a gang to do a murder. One perp was enough, especially if the victim was elderly and vulnerable.
‘This is going to kill Barb,’ an old woman cried brokenly, leaning against another old man. ‘How many times did I tell her to put him in a home? How many times?’
‘I know, honey,’ the man murmured. He cradled her gray head against his shoulder, shielding her eyes from the scene. ‘At least Lucy’s here.’
The old woman nodded, sniffling. ‘She’ll know what to do.’
Barb was probably the wife or daughter of the dead man, but JD wondered who Lucy was and what it was that she’d know to do.
Two uniformed officers stood inside the yellow crime-scene tape, shoulder to shoulder. One faced the neighbors, the other the crime scene. Together they were a barrier, blocking the view of the victim as best they could.
CSU was already here, snapping photographs and processing the scene. Between the cops and CSU, nobody in the waiting crowd could see much of anything now, but JD knew that many of them had seen enough before the scene had been secured.
The two uniforms pointed to a third cop standing next to Drew Peterson, the leader of the CSU team. The cop was Hopper, JD was informed. The first responder.
‘Thanks.’ JD stepped around the two uniforms, steeled for what he’d see. Still he fought a grimace. The victim sat in a chair fixed to the pavement, his body sprawled over a park chess table, his head and face beaten so severely that he was unrecognizable.
Who would do that to an old man? Why?
The victim wore a beige trench coat, buttoned to his neck, belted around the waist. His hands were shoved in his pockets. There didn’t appear to be any blood on his coat or around the chair. The only blood visible was dried on the victim’s face and scalp.
Officer Hopper approached, a grim determination in his steps. ‘I’m Hopper.’
‘Fitzpatrick, Homicide.’ After three weeks on the unit, the words still felt strange in JD’s mouth. ‘You were first on?’ he asked and the officer nodded.
‘This is my beat. The victim is Jerry Pugh. Sixty-eight year old Caucasian male.’
‘So you knew him. I’m sorry,’ JD murmured.
Hopper nodded again. ‘Me too. Jerry was harmless. Sick.’
‘He had dementia?’ JD asked and Hopper’s eyes narrowed in surprise.
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘The lady on the front row said she told Barb to put him in a home.’
‘That’s Mrs Korbel. And I imagine she did. So did I. But Mrs Pugh – that’s Barb – wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it, I guess. They’d been married forever.’
‘Who found the body?’
Again Hopper looked surprised. ‘She did.’ He pointed to the other side of the crime scene where a woman stood alone, watching. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, her expression unreadable. But there was a fragility to her, a palpable tension, as if she was barely holding on.
She was tall, five nine or ten. The long hair she’d pulled back in a simple ponytail was a reddish gold that flickered under the bright CSU lights, like little licks of fire. She was very pretty, her features so classically fine that her face could have graced a statue. Or perhaps it was because she stood so motionlessly that he thought so.
She wore a windbreaker, running shorts and a pair of hi-tech running shoes. That she’d been allowed proximity to the scene suggested she was more than a simple bystander, but he’d never seen her before. That face he’d remember.
Those legs he’d certainly remember.
‘Who is—?’ he started to ask, then she turned and met his eyes.
And in a flash of painful memory, JD knew exactly who she was. ‘Dr Trask,’ he said quietly. Lucy Trask, the ME.
Lucy will know what to do
. ‘She found him?’
‘Just before dawn,’ Hopper said. ‘The doc . . . well, she’s a nice lady, that’s all.’
JD found he had to clear his throat. ‘I know. Where is Mrs Pugh?’
‘My partner Rico went to find her. He got no answer when he knocked on their apartment door. The super was waiting with the key. By then the whole building was out here. Everybody but Mrs Pugh. Rico searched the apartment, but no sign of the missus. Her car’s not in the parking lot.’
‘No sign of foul play in the apartment?’
‘No. Rico says it looks like she left. There were a couple extra bowls of cat food on the kitchen floor, and all the kitchen appliances were unplugged. The super’s getting emergency contact info off the rental agreement now.’
JD had been listening to Hopper, but hadn’t taken his gaze off Dr Lucy Trask. She’d looked away, but not before he’d seen the devastated grief in her eyes.
He looked back at Hopper. ‘Get Rico on the radio. Tell him not to call the emergency contact. Give the info to me. I don’t want anyone else informing the wife.’
Hopper frowned. ‘Barb Pugh isn’t involved. She’s almost seventy.’
‘I hear you.’ It was unlikely that an old woman could produce that kind of damage. ‘But I have to proceed like she is involved until I know differently.’
Hopper’s frown lessened slightly. ‘All right. I’ll get Rico on the radio.’
‘Thank you.’ JD crouched next to the victim, studying him up close. Someone had done a real job on Mr Jerry Pugh. The weapon used had been blunt and hard. The attack had been relentless. Every feature of the man’s face had been crushed.
Rage
, he thought. Or maybe a drug-induced frenzy. He’d certainly seen enough of that in Narcotics. This was no garden-variety mugging. Someone had totally lost it.
CSU’s Drew Peterson crouched beside him. ‘Hey, JD. You got here fast. You finally sell your place way out in the burbs?’
JD and Drew had been assigned to the same precinct right out of the Academy, but they hadn’t seen much of each other since Maya died. JD hadn’t seen much of anyone since then. His assignment in the Narcotics division had mercifully swallowed him up. But this move to Homicide was a clean break. A fresh start. And as much as he pitied the poor old man slumped over the chess table, JD was looking forward to the change.
‘Not even a nibble.’ After a frustrating year on the market, JD was about to give up trying to sell the house he’d once shared with his wife. ‘You find anything?’
‘Not a lot so far. We just finished taking pictures. The ME has to do their thing, then we’ll get started. Where’s Stevie?’
‘On her way.’ As soon as she lined up someone to watch her little girl. JD’s partner Stevie Mazzetti normally had all her bases covered when they were on call, but her childcare backups had backfired today. He didn’t mind covering for Stevie. Her need for being covered was rare. She was a good cop. And JD owed her a lot.
JD pointed to the grass around the chess table. ‘He wasn’t killed here. No blood on the grass or on the beige overcoat. Any idea how he got here?’
‘My best guess, by wheelchair. I found tracks in the grass. We’ll take impressions if we can. Chair’s gone, though. Whoever dumped him here took it with them.’