Cold Truth

21

“Cass, can you sketch out for me what you saw on the killer’s hand?” Craig Denver asked after Annie related what Cass had told her while under hypnosis.

“I don’t think so. I don’t really remember what I saw.” Cass shook her head. “I’m sorry. I just don’t remember.”

“It was something like this.” Annie picked up a pen and her notebook. “She said a big bird, with claws like this…”

Annie bent her fingers to form claws, as Cass had done while under hypnosis.

“Like a hawk? Like some type of raptor.” Denver studied it for a long minute, then muttered, “I’ll be damned,” before buzzing for Phyllis.

“Phyl, I need you to take a look at something in here.”

He held up the sketch when the secretary appeared in the doorway. “What’s that remind you of?”

Phyl didn’t miss a beat. “Looks like the logo on top of the newsletter we get from the sanctuary. Just got one the other day.”

“You still have it?”

“I think so. Let me take a look.” She disappeared behind the closed door.

“I should have figured that out from your description.” He turned to Cass. “Your mother was instrumental in having that bird sanctuary set up down there off Bay Road. That was a big project of hers.”

“I do remember that.” Cass nodded and turned to Rick. “I took you there. Down near where we found…”

“Right. There was a plaque in memory of your mother.”

“They had a big dedication ceremony when the sanctuary was opened.” The chief rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Seems to me that was that same summer.”

He looked up when Phyl came back into the room, holding up the newsletter. Across the top was the picture of a hawk, its talons extended as if reaching for something.

“What do you think, Cass?” Denver asked.

“I remember seeing writing paper in the house, on my mother’s desk in the corner of the living room, that had that hawk on it. I think my mother used to send out letters on it.”

“She probably would have,” Phyl told her. “She was one of the founding members of the sanctuary and was involved in all the fund-raising efforts. I was on her committee two years before the sanctuary opened. As I recall, we raised enough money to open three months ahead of schedule.”

“None of which tells us why the killer would have had the image on his hand,” Anne Marie reminded them.

“Oh.” Phyl rested her arms on the back of a nearby chair and leaned over slightly. “Founders’ Day. They have a big event every year to raise money to keep the sanctuary going. There’s a fair with rides for the kids, food, a little petting zoo, that sort of thing. They set it all up in the parking lot. When you pay to get into the fair, you get your hand stamped. That means you don’t have to pay for any of the events, and you can go to the sanctuary for free the entire weekend. As long as the stamp is still on your hand.”

“Were they having this fair back in 1979?” Rick asked.

“That would have been the first one, I think. I can check on that, but I’m pretty sure the sanctuary was founded in ’79,” Phyl said.

“It was. I remember,” Cass told them. “I remember hearing my mom talk about it. She was really excited about it and happy that it was going to happen. The dedication was the day before the attack at our house.”

“I can confirm that,” Phyl was saying as she left the room. “I’ll get the date of the dedication. It was a big deal back then.”

“So our boy would have been at the dedication of the sanctuary,” Rick said. “That’s where he would have come into contact with Jenny.”

“June first, 1979.” Phyl’s voice came through the intercom. “I called my sister. Says she remembers because it was her seventeenth birthday that weekend and all the kids who had volunteered to work at the sanctuary had come back to the house that night for cake and ice cream.”

“All the kids who volunteered?” Rick asked. “Your sister was a volunteer there that day?”

“Yes.”

“Phyl, get her back on the phone, then come in here. We need to talk to her,” the chief instructed.

“Will do.”

Phyl returned in less than a minute and hit a blinking light on the desk phone, then tapped Speaker. “Louise?”

“I’m here.” The voice floated from the box.

“Louise, Chief Denver here with Detective Burke and Dr. McCall and Agent Cisco from the FBI. We need to ask you a few questions.”

“Fire away.”

“You were at the dedication of the bird sanctuary back in ’79?”

“Yes. There were fifteen or twenty of us there that day.”

“’Us’?” Rick asked.

“Kids. From the high school.” She laughed. “Mr. Raddick, the science teacher, gave extra credit to anyone who volunteered to work out at the sanctuary that spring.”

Rick took over the questioning. “Not to work only that day?”

“No, no, in order to get the credit, you had to go at least one day each weekend that whole marking period.”

“Did you go?”

“Most weekends.”

“Do you remember who else went?” Would it be too easy to have names handed to them? When was the last time that had happened, Rick asked himself.

“I could probably remember most of the kids who went. Mostly girls, but a bunch of the guys went, too. Some of the real popular guys.” She paused. “I remember thinking it was odd that those guys went.”

“Odd in what way?”

“Guys like them weren’t generally interested in that type of thing.”

“Guys like who?” Denver leaned toward the speakerphone. “Do you remember names?”

Louise laughed again. “Sure. It was that whole bunch-you remember, Phyl. Billy Calhoun, Jonathan Wainwright, Joey Patterson, Kenny Kelly… that group.”

Denver groaned.

“Those were the only boys?”

“Far as I can remember. Oh, there might have been a few of the nerdy guys, like Bruce Windsor, but of the cool guys, it was only those four. That’s why so many of the girls signed up, because of them.”

“Anything stand out in your mind from that day?” Annie asked.

“Not really. Just that it was hot and a lot of people showed up. I was in one of the concessions that served drinks-soda and lemonade. We were busy all day.”

“Louise, did you know Jenny Burke?” Rick asked.

“Sure. We all knew her. She ran the volunteer program. We all worked with her.”

“Do you remember if any of the guys seemed to pay particular attention to her, or seemed to be extra-friendly with her?”

“Not offhand. I think the guys all tried to show off for her, though. No one in particular, but it seemed they all thought she was something else. Mrs. Burke was real pretty and real friendly. I remember that at her funeral all the volunteers were there.”

“Anyone stand out in your mind as being particularly upset? Or acting strangely? I know it was a long time ago…”

“Twenty-six years, but I remember. We were all upset. Mrs. Burke was the first person I actually knew who’d been murdered. It hit all of us pretty hard. Like I said, she was real friendly and we all idolized her. I don’t remember anyone being more upset than anyone else.”

“Was she equally friendly with everyone?” Denver asked.

“Sure.”

“Was there anyone you ever saw her argue with, or anyone who sought her out more than the others?”

“Honestly, no, I don’t remember anything like that. There could have been, I just don’t remember anyone in particular.”

“Well, if you remember anything else-or the name of anyone else who worked that day-give me a call back.”

“Sure, Chief. Phyl, I’ll talk to you later.”

Phyllis pushed the button to end the call.

“Anything else, Chief?” she asked.

“Not right now. But thanks, Phyl. That was a big help.”

“Okay if I leave for the day?” Phyllis glanced at her watch. “I told my husband I’d pick him up after work. His car’s getting inspected.”

“It’s quitting time anyway, Phyl. You go on,” he told her.

“Why did you groan when Phyllis’s sister named names?” Annie asked after Phyl had left the room.

“Oh, well, let’s see.” The chief leaned back in his seat and looked at the ceiling. “She named the sons of the high school principal, the former chief of police, the mayor, and a county judge.”

Rick brightened. “Great. So let’s take a look at them.”

Denver was tapping his fingers on the tabletop.

“What?” Cass asked.

“They were a cocky little foursome back then. Inseparable. Practically lived at one another’s houses, went everywhere together. And always into something, the lot of them.” He closed his eyes briefly. “They were the biggest pains in my ass, frankly. Twenty-some years ago, and I still see red when I think about them.”

“Were any of them arrested back then?” Annie asked.

“With Jon Wainwright’s father the chief of police and Kenny Kelly’s father the judge?” He snickered. “What do you think?”

“What types of things were they involved in?” Annie pressed.

“Minor things. Loitering. Disturbing the peace. Starting fights after the soccer games. Speeding, underage drinking. They never were written up for anything, but they were always pulling pain-in-the-ass things that took your time and pissed people off.”

“Low-level sex offenses?” she continued. “Allegations of rape, Peeping Tom activity…?”

The chief shook his head. “Not that I know of, but if there’d been any of that stuff, Chief Wainwright would have dealt with it himself. He wouldn’t have involved us young guys in anything like that. Not if it involved his own son, or the sons of any of those other men.”

“I guess there weren’t records kept of that sort of thing.”

“Not if it involved any one of those four. All the annoying crap they pulled back then, you’ll never find a word written down.”

“What are you thinking, Annie?” Rick asked.

“Just that if you scratch hard enough, you find that kids who have grown into adults like our killer exhibited aberrant behavior at an earlier age. You don’t wake up one day and decide you like to hurt people. You’ve thought about it-fantasized about it-for a long time before you act upon it. I was just wondering what early behavior our boy may have exhibited. What fantasies he may have tried to act out. Peeping is a first step for many who graduate into more serious sex offenses. It’s a logical place to start.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you there.” The chief shook his head. “I wouldn’t have been brought into that loop.”

“They were, what, high school juniors, seniors that year?” Rick asked.

Denver nodded. “Seniors.”

“Any of them college-bound that fall?”

“All of them, far as I remember.”

“So they would have been out of town by the end of the summer,” Annie said.

“When the killings here stopped,” Cass said softly.

“Do I dare ask if you know if any of these men are back in town for the reunion?”

Denver nodded. “They’re all here. All four of them. Saw them at the clambake last weekend. Spoke to each of them myself.”

“Lucy and I were there,” Cass said.

“If our killer was there, he would have seen her. Would have noticed right away how much she looks like Jenny,” the chief said.

“I guess it’s too much to ask if you know where any of these guys have been for the past twenty-six years?” Rick said.

“Oh, well, I know that Ken Kelly keeps the family summer house here in Bowers. And Jon Wainwright, I think I remember him saying he’s worked for a security company for the past, oh, I don’t know, fifteen years or so. Joey Patterson, he’d gone into the Marines for a while, don’t know what he did after that. And Billy Calhoun did tell me where he’s been living, but I don’t really remember. Someplace out west, I seem to think he said,” Denver replied. “I can start asking around.”

“We need to be subtle, Chief. At least for now. We’ll have an edge, as long as he isn’t aware that we’re closing in on his identity,” Cass pointed out. “And if we’re wrong… And we could be wrong-a lot of people would have had that bird stamp on their hand after that weekend.”

“Give me their names again.” Rick reached across the table and grabbed the pen Annie had earlier used. “I’ll call them in to Mitch, have him run the names. See if anything hits. Then, in the meantime, we can start backtracking to find out where each of these gentlemen have spent their time since they left high school.”

The breeze began to blow hard across the marsh, sending the cattails chattering and the birds seeking shelter from the coming storm. He sat on the stump of a tree that had long ago been cut down, and stared across the clearing at the bird blind that stood at the end of the wooden walk.

His eyes kept returning to the plaque that marked a memorial for the woman he had once loved with all his heart.

This is all your fault, Jenny. I’m sorry to say it, but there it is. If you hadn’t led me on the way you did-what were you thinking, leading me on like that? Did you think it was funny? A game, maybe?

His face twisted into a scowl.

You don’t play those kind of games with people who love you, Jenny. I guess I showed you that, didn’t I?

She had always been so nice to him, right from the first day. She’d talked to him like he was an old friend, like he was on her level. Never talked down to him, never made him feel like the stupid gangly kid he knew himself to be.

It always killed him to think that his father had made him volunteer at the sanctuary as a punishment for having been caught looking where he shouldn’t have been looking. If it hadn’t been for that, he’d never have gotten to know her the way he did. He’d never have fallen in love with her, or she with him…

Oh, he’d known who she was, everyone in Bowers Inlet knew Mrs. Burke. She was a knockout, for sure. Only the kids who worked with her at the sanctuary got to call her by her first name. Jenny.

“Call me Jenny,” she’d said that first day.

It had thrilled him every time he’d said her name aloud. He’d used it as frequently as possible.

He’d counted the days, Saturday to Saturday, lived for his hours working out there in the marsh, swatting mosquitoes and green-headed flies. He didn’t care. He was with her, hour after hour, every Saturday. And with every hour spent with her, his love grew until it was the most important thing in his life. Grew until he thought he’d die of it.

She wanted blinds built, he built blinds. Not one or two or three, but an entire series of them, strategically placed throughout the acres that made up the sanctuary. She’d hooked him up with a contractor who’d offered to help build the structures, and he gladly gave up his weekends to labor on something that pleased her so much.

“You’re amazing,” she’d said once, after having climbed the ladder to one of the blinds. “I can’t believe you did this. How many have you built now? Four? Five? Simply amazing. I can’t thank you enough.”

Sure you can, he remembered thinking at the time. I know how you can thank me. We both know how. And we both know you want to.

Love and lust had mixed inside him, a heady brew. She must have felt it, too. No one could feel that way about someone who didn’t feel the same about him. Of that he was certain. The feeling was way too big. It dominated everything in his life. She had to know. She had to feel exactly the same about him. It wouldn’t have been fair otherwise.

And wasn’t it meant to be? After all, the offense his father had wanted to punish him for, well, that hadn’t been much of anything, right? No one was hurt, right? No harm, no foul.

It wasn’t as if he’d actually touched that girl.

He stood beneath the blind and jumped up to grab the under-support beams, then hoisted himself up to the floored area. Leaning over the railing, he gazed out at the deepening shadows. It had been so many years since he’d stood in this spot, this very spot, where he’d listened to her talk about the bird counts they were doing down in Cape May.

“Thousands upon thousands of songbirds and seabirds, can you imagine what that looks like, thousands of birds feeding on the shore?” She’d shaken her head, and that black ponytail had swung seductively. “I’m thinking about taking a van of kids down next year. If you’re home from school, maybe you’d like to go.”

He’d nodded. Sure. Sure, I’ll go… I’ll go anywhere with you.

But of course, he hadn’t. Oh, he’d come home from school in May, but there was no trip to Cape May for Jenny that year. Or any year after.

“You brought it on yourself, Jenny.”

He said the words aloud, certain she heard him.

His thoughts turned to Cass. She had ruined things for him once again. First with Jenny, then with the other one.

He sighed deeply. She was going to have to be punished. Maybe if he wiped her out, it would be all right, like wiping a slate clean.

He found the image of wiping the slate clean with Jenny’s daughter’s blood highly appealing.

Maybe then he could find the one he’d been searching for and they could be together for always. She wouldn’t try to run from him, and he wouldn’t have to hurt her.

Well, he was just going to have to take care of it, once and for all.

He reached up to a low-hanging tree branch and snapped it off.

Snap. Just like that.