The Kind to Kill, page 9
‘OK,’ Bogle said, the word scratchy in his throat. ‘Will do.’
‘You know,’ said Tim, ‘it’s also possible the person who took her was already here.’
‘And that’s door number three. We have to ask why she was targeted,’ I said. ‘If it’s some sicko with a grudge against women, there are plenty of single out-of-towners around right now. Why complicate things by choosing a woman with a husband in tow? To me, that suggests he had his eye on her already. We could be looking for someone who already knew her, but who’s also a local. Somebody she’s been concealing from her husband.’
Bogle said, ‘But how probable is that? It’s summer. We get people passing through all the time. Isn’t it more likely she was killed by a random tourist?’
‘I vote for that theory,’ said Tim. ‘I know Shana said Hearst called this place the boonies, but come on. We’re not all Children of the Corn and banjo-strumming mountain men.’
‘Maybe that should be the town’s new motto,’ Bogle put in. ‘“Not all murderous kids and sadistic mountain men.” Could be just the PR angle Chet Bell’s looking for.’
The vision of Bell looking the fool as he waved a sign that X’d out both movie casts was strangely satisfying. I hadn’t wanted to think about him, but I knew I couldn’t avoid a confrontation for much longer. Rebecca Hearst’s death was going to hit this community hard. Small towns tend to insulate themselves against the world’s hard edges, and when the world finds a way to pop that bubble, the shock can be a doozy – even when it’s not the first time violence has managed to seep in. That’s why the story of a kid missing from Fruitland, Idaho, population 5,000, will trump a similar tragedy in LA or Chicago every time. It’s about the breaking of some arbitrary set of rules the locals established to protect their own. In places like Alexandria Bay, people make a pact with God and expect to be rewarded. Fewer sins in exchange for a home free from harm.
But it had happened again, in a place where it shouldn’t. A killing. A woman abducted from the safety of her life and hauled kicking and screaming toward oblivion. It had happened on a warm summer Sunday night, when Rebecca Hearst should have been listening to the crickets chirp outside her motel window and wondering whether she should add a side of bacon to tomorrow’s breakfast at the DineRite. Her murder was an open hand slap. Chet Bell wasn’t going to take the blow lying down.
‘Bogle’s right, though,’ I said. ‘The perp could be someone in town for the summer, or just for this week. The season’s almost over. If they’re visiting, it’d be easy to kill her, pack up, and leave.’
‘Well, the word is out,’ said Bogle. ‘Her photo’s all over the news.’ We’d put out a plea to the public, too, asking anyone with information about Rebecca Hearst’s murder to contact the state police. ‘If that theory holds water, the killer could already be gone.’
Up close, Bogle’s shaved skull was lumpy, hills of bone protruding more in some places than others. His philtrum was off-center, knocked a little to the right, and that made him look rough, like a biker who’d been in more bar fights than he could count, though I knew he’d sooner grill ribs and watch football at home than brawl in some filthy dive. I sometimes found myself wondering what he’d looked like with hair. Had it softened him? Did Bogle always emit this threatening energy, or was that just about his hairlessness and hulking Frankenstein form? One day, I might ask him. But not today.
‘There’s something weird about this,’ I said, locking him in my gaze. ‘Can you see it?’ It was a test, one that I needed him to take. To his credit, Tim stood by in silence.
Bogle pondered my query for a long time, idly pushing his wedding band around a heat-swollen finger. ‘She wasn’t very well hidden, for one thing. The attempt to conceal her body feels …’
‘What?’ I pushed.
‘… sloppy, I guess. Like the killer was in a hurry.’
‘Is that the only way to read the scene?’
‘It could have been intentional,’ he said after a few slow blinks. ‘Like, the person who did this wanted her to be found.’
‘It’s the timing that bugs me,’ I said. ‘Pirate Days kicks off tomorrow. There are a million places he could have dumped her where she might not be discovered for weeks, if ever.’ I pictured the divers on the back of the police boat, preparing to search water that went on for miles and brimmed with more seagrass than a forest has trees. ‘The river, or the woods. Instead, he picked the quarry.’ In truth, it was a miracle Rebecca’s body hadn’t been found sooner. There were countless piles of stone there for customers to choose from, but in summer – construction season – the quarry was a busy place.
‘So maybe he wanted us to find her?’ Bogle mulled that over, pleats of skin on his naked brow. ‘Why?’
‘That’s the question. In New York, those homicides …’
Reflexively, I glanced at Tim, knowing he’d be watching me. He was.
‘One of the women was left at a construction site,’ I said. ‘An empty lot cluttered with just enough lumber and machinery to provide the cover he needed to dump and run. He wanted us to find her, too. In that case, he was making a statement. I wonder if we could be dealing with something like that again.’
‘What kind of statement, though?’ Bogle’s eyes were wide. Alert.
‘Well, I’ll tell you what I think. In spite of what her husband believes, Rebecca Hearst might have been seeing someone else.’
Tim had been quiet up until that point, but now he said, ‘Meaning she planned to meet someone up here?’
I shrugged and said, ‘Could be. Maybe she instigated the fight with her husband so she had an excuse to get away, and rendezvoused with her lover somewhere near Collins Landing. It would explain how her phone ended up by the bridge. And maybe her love interest is from these parts. Why else wouldn’t Rebecca tell her husband who recommended the Admiral Inn?’
‘Because it was her guy on the side,’ said Tim.
‘It fits,’ I said with a nod. ‘Explains the fight she had with Hearst, and why she took off afterward, too. It explains why they ended up at a crappy motel with no security cameras on the outskirts of town.’ It was the motel that had me so convinced. Godfrey Patrick Hearst III was an unlikely guest at a two-star highway motor lodge, especially when there were a half-dozen waterfront resorts within a few miles’ drive.
‘I wouldn’t recommend that motel to my worst enemy,’ said Bogle, reading my mind.
‘Exactly. There are other options in town, but they’re all in town. The Admiral backs up to those residential streets, streets that would most certainly be empty at night. It’s the perfect place to meet someone if you’re planning on leaving your husband.’
‘So you think she was going to leave him,’ Tim said. ‘She’s meeting her guy – but it doesn’t go the way she expected. And what, he gets violent? Tosses her phone and then kills her?’
‘If her phone’s in the water, or busted from landing on the shore, the husband can’t track her. Maybe,’ I said, turning the idea over in my mind, ‘the relationship was still new, and Rebecca got cold feet. There’s this thing that happens sometimes, when a woman who’s spoken for is interested in someone else. It’s flirtation, at first. Good clean fun. She tells herself it’s harmless, and keeps playing along. The guy reads her enthusiasm as consent. Inevitably, they reach a point where the guy wants to take things to the next level.’
‘It’s do or die time,’ said Bogle slowly, his gaze on the floor. ‘Teasing banter is one thing, but extramarital sex … there’s no going back from that.’
Score another point for Don Bogle. ‘If that’s what he wanted from her, and she denied him? That could piss him off,’ I said.
‘So, he kills her.’ A pause. Bogle’s forehead wrinkled. ‘Or someone else does.’
I pointed a finger at him. ‘Yes. A crime of opportunity. Someone sees her over by the bridge, distraught and alone, and pounces. And if it was someone else, Rebecca’s side boy may soon come forward waving an alibi. A homicide on the front page of the paper is sure to tip him off to the fact that he’s a suspect.’
‘Wow,’ Bogle said, and my eyes slid to Tim. Tim, who looked sullen standing between us, hands clamped to the edge of the desk and his shoulders up around his ears. I felt a little guilty for enjoying the ease with which Bogle and I were spitballing. It was a feeling I’d come to associate only with Tim.
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ I said. ‘We can theorize all day long, but without any physical evidence of a boyfriend or motive for murder, we’re nowhere. We need to shake a suspect out of the bushes. Since Rebecca’s friends and family don’t seem to know anything, I think we should look at social media.’ It was an avenue we explored often, and I was optimistic that we’d hit paydirt. We’d wasted no time poring over Rebecca’s recent calls and messages, and I’d managed to get her phone records as well, but we hadn’t yet done a deep dive into her social accounts. ‘If she was two-timing her husband, she had to be in contact with him somehow. Nothing suspicious on her call and text history means we move on to Facebook and Instagram.’
‘I can work that angle,’ Bogle said quickly. ‘If there are messages there from another guy, I’ll find him. And I can see if the Bay Point Grill has any cameras outside, too. Hearst said they were there on Sunday from six to just before ten, right? We might be able to find some witnesses who know something useful about Rebecca’s behavior that night.’
‘That’s a great idea, Don.’
Beaming at me, Bogle slipped the cigarette from behind his ear and began rolling it idly between his fingers. ‘I could use a smoke break. OK if I cut out for a sec? Two minutes, tops.’
‘Go for it,’ I said.
‘Wanna join me, boss?’
I gargled out a nervous laugh as my eyes darted to Tim. I felt hot and ashamed, like a teenager trying to fleece her parents, and somehow that angered me. ‘I’m good,’ I said, trying to sound casual. ‘Take your time.’
When Bogle was gone, I turned to Tim. Chin tucked and head bowed, he was leafing through a stack of papers on his desk. His hair was just long enough that I couldn’t see his eyes.
‘What’s up?’ I said. ‘You on to something over there?’
‘Not yet, but I’m working on it. Boss.’
‘Whoa,’ I said. ‘Why do you sound pissed?’
Tim raised his eyebrows, comically thick. ‘You’ve been smoking,’ he said, his tone flat. ‘I could smell it on you yesterday.’
‘So?’
‘So? So, you don’t smoke. Was this Don’s idea? What the hell, Shana?’
I knew why he was upset. Tim’s dad had smoked when Tim was a kid, all the way until his parents split up, and Tim hated it. But one cigarette wasn’t the same as a lifetime of addiction, and anyway, I was an adult. If I wanted to smoke, well then, I would. It had nothing to do with Don Bogle.
I was preparing to condemn Tim for treating me like a disobedient child, my heart rate already rising, but instead of scolding me, Tim took my hand.
‘Look, I get it, OK?’ he said. ‘It’s the stress. Not gonna lie, I don’t like it. It’s not good for you. But if it helps right now, with what you’re going through, I’ll support you.’
No reproach. No argument. Tim was tender as ever, his hand holding mine as delicately as if it belonged to his frail grandma.
That almost made it worse.
SIXTEEN
‘It is the case that’s bothering you? Or is it something else?’
We were spooning, Tim’s long body molded against mine, me facing the wall of his cottage where my half-open eyes were riveted to a knot on the wood paneling that looked like a face. I had stayed late at work and met him at his cottage, mostly because spending another night apart would lead to a talk, and I didn’t have the energy for that. But now here we were, talking anyway.
In the wake of his questions, the room filled with the sound of bubbling water. Back in June, Tim had bought me an essential oil diffuser as a gift – two, actually, one for his place, the other for mine. All night long the orb would gurgle in my ear, slowly infusing the air with the scent of rose and citrus. It was supposed to reduce feelings of anxiety. Tim said certain oils could interact with the nervous system and brain to alter my mood. To me, it felt like sleeping behind a department store perfume counter, forever on edge as I awaited the next unsolicited spritz.
What was bothering me was that Rebecca Hearst was dead. Would she still have ended up in that quarry if I’d been quicker to react to Hearst’s abduction theory? If Tim and I had found her phone a few hours sooner, and realized its location smacked of foul play? Questions like those didn’t dummy up when you lay down to sleep. In the midnight silence, they were louder than ever.
When Bram died, Alexandria Bay had breathed a collective sigh of relief. The wolf was slain, the sheep free to roam again, complacent in the knowledge that they were safe. I’d done the same, assuming the nightmare was over and that we could all slip back into our halcyon dream. I don’t mean to suggest erasing one lawless individual can completely eradicate crime, but the terror that had metastasized over time, the sense that Bram was forever preparing to pounce … surely that would change after the man who’d done the terrorizing was dead?
It had taken me four months, up until the moment we found Rebecca Hearst, to realize it hadn’t. Evil is a mushroom in the woods; pick one, and all it takes is a hard rain for more caps to punch through the earth, stems twisting skyward as their jelly gills unfold like paper fans. It can happen overnight. In fact, it had.
Tim’s bare chest was sticky against my back, his breath moist on my neck, and I tensed when I felt his nose nuzzle my skin. Years of living alone had made me hypersensitive. The creak of a mattress spring, the soft pfff that slid from Tim’s parted lips for a full hour after he fell asleep, these things took getting used to and I wasn’t quite there yet. If he’d been sleeping just then, I would have headed for the river, barefoot through the buggy night. Down to the spot where Bram fell.
Tim had always talked about building a staircase down to the boathouse someday, but for now there was just a steep footpath of bald spots rubbed into the grass. The path tested my balance every time, and I’d lurch as I made my descent, picking my way down the rutted terrain. Lately, the night had the quality of a stuffy room, the air warm and close, but while I sometimes found it hard to breathe, I went anyway.
Tim rarely woke when I went to that spot. He had my back, told me so ten times a day, but more often than not he slept deeply, no doubt luxuriating in his escape from the trouble I’d brought to his hometown. Tim had no idea how much time I spent beside the river, replaying Bram’s death in my mind. Reliving the moment that spray of blood from his head hit mine.
Without turning over to face him, I said, ‘I need to tell you something.’
‘It’s the popcorn thing, isn’t it.’ A huff of breath on my ear. Tim was laughing. ‘I know it’s weird, but my sister started doing it when we were in high school, and as dumb as I thought it was at first, it kind of makes sense. Keeps your hands clean, see? But if it really bothers you—’
‘Ah, no.’ The popcorn thing was weird – who eats popcorn with a spoon? – but Tim’s bizarre snacking habits were the farthest thing from my mind. ‘It’s about the Hearst case. I don’t think you should work it with me.’
Silence. At length, I peeled away and flipped over to face him.
Not everyone has an expressive face. Some people are in complete control of their features and can wipe emotions away like smudges on a night-dark window, leaving behind a view that’s utterly blank. Tim isn’t one of those types. Inches from me, his face was a Mardi Gras parade of thoughts and feelings, bewilderment and doubt.
A few weeks ago, he and I reached a milestone: one whole year of working side by side for the BCI. It had been his idea to commemorate the event with a fancy dinner. Lobster and a strip steak cooked over charcoal on his Weber, grilled pineapple with a dark, sugary rum sauce for dessert. One year ago, I’d arrived in A-Bay, and all the platitudes were true: it felt like yesterday. Time had, indeed, flown.
Looking back, I don’t know what I was thinking when I applied for the job. My abduction had left me dazed and emotionally pummeled. I was broken in ways that couldn’t easily be mended. I’d left the city to put some distance between me and my ordeal, and immediately rushed headlong into a job investigating the very atrocities I was trying to escape. Tim had been aggravating at first, with his side-eye glances and Eugene Levy eyebrows lifting warily at my every move. He didn’t know what to make of me, nor I of him, and so we’d clashed, most famously mid-investigation while trapped on a private island.
That experience had also brought us closer together. We’d been forced to cooperate. We’d become trusted colleagues, then friends. Now we were something more.
I scrubbed my face with my hands. ‘This case … it’s the first homicide since we became a couple.’
‘And?’
‘And that worries me.’
‘It worries you.’ He was ruminating now, poring over every moment of the past few days in search of the anomaly, a word or act that had seemed so innocuous at the time but in fact pulled the pin on a grenade. It was terrible to watch.
‘It’s nothing you did,’ I said quickly, immediately hating how that sounded, as if Tim was an insecure kid afraid of getting his hand slapped rather than a competent – no, exemplary – investigator. ‘What we found out at the quarry, it changes things. This isn’t a suicide or a wife on the run. Foul play means a high-profile investigation, especially in the middle of Pirate Days. It means me on TV and in the news. More than usual, I mean.’ I waited for a sympathetic groan. When it didn’t come, I went on. ‘A woman has been murdered, and there’s no way the media isn’t going to draw a parallel between that crime and Bram’s. The scrutiny I’m going to be under with this … you can’t begin to imagine.’ Frankly, neither could I. ‘And the reporters who cover this thing? They’re going to descend on us like vultures and pick this story clean.’ Not to mention the true crime podcast hosts and crime-obsessed Murderinos for which Cunningham had such distaste. ‘For the next few weeks,’ I said, ‘nothing about my life will be secret or sacred. Including my relationship with you.’
