The Absence of Mercy

32

Ben brought the car to a stop, nestling the right wheels up against the curb. Vehicles crowded the small street on either side, an unfamiliar spectacle in this sleepy community whose inhabitants had grown unaccustomed to the finer points of parallel parking. Half a block down, Tony Linwood was climbing into his parked cruiser. He glanced over, and Ben raised a hand. Tony smiled and waved back.

“Quite a turnout,” Susan commented from the front passenger seat, unbuckling her seat belt.

“Yeah,” Ben replied, taking stock of the swarm of people congregated on the front lawn of the Dresslers’ residence three houses down. After eleven and a half weeks in the hospital, Monica Dressler was finally home, and the whole town, it seemed, had come here to welcome her back.

“Dad, can I have a slice of this when we get inside?” Joel asked from the backseat. On his lap, he was holding a pie that Susan had baked this morning in anticipation of the event. It was covered with plastic wrap, but the warm, sweet smell had still managed to permeate the car during their short trip.

“You fat pig,” Thomas whispered from the seat next to him. Joel stuck his tongue out at his older brother, who reached over and pinched his left flank hard enough for Joel to yell out in protest. The pie plate tottered precariously in Joel’s lap.

“Stop it,” Susan hissed, glaring back at them. She’d been irritable most of the morning. Most likely, Ben thought, it was the prospect of coming here today. Despite Monica’s excellent recovery, his wife still found the topic upsetting to talk about. Some tragedies, he supposed, fell too close to home.

“Shall we?” Ben prompted, grasping the latch to his door.

They stepped out into the August sunshine. The air, thick and humid, hung on them like a grumpy child demanding to be carried. Tiny insects weaved in frenzied clouds in front of Ben’s face, and perspiration dampened the back of his shirt as he walked with his family up the street. They ascended the front steps and laced their way slowly through the crowd, extending greetings and engaging in brief conversations as they went.

The interior of the domicile was full of friends and acquaintances, and Ben was reminded of the similar reception at Children’s Hospital many weeks ago, a time when things had not looked so promising. The somber concern etched into many of those faces was gone now, replaced by a jubilant, almost giddy atmosphere of celebration and relief. They had pulled through this together, it seemed, and at the center of it all was Monica Dressler, who sat on the couch in the family room like a china doll on display, a glass of apple cider resting on her lap. She glanced over at them and waved, the pleasant smile surfacing like a reflex.

“Come on,” Thomas said to his brother in a rare display of inclusiveness. “Let’s go say hi.”

Susan shot them a look but said nothing, taking the pie from Joel’s hands.

Ben placed a hand on the small of her back. “It’s okay. Let’s find Paul and Vera.”

“I’ll need to get over to the hospital soon,” she advised him. “I still have some patients I need to check on.”

“Sure,” Ben acknowledged, trying not to be angry with her. Standing here amid the din of cheerful conversation, the attack nearly three months behind them and with no similar events since then, he couldn’t help but feel optimistic. The fingers of anxiety and dread that had taken hold of him following the murder of Kevin Tanner had loosened their grip significantly, their presence now feeling like a scar from a wound that had almost healed. The worst of it was behind them, he felt, and like almost everyone else here he had chosen to embrace the idea that this town would indeed recover. He was riled by his wife’s reluctance to do the same.

A hand fell upon his right shoulder. “Now, there’s a man who looks like he needs a drink.” Ben turned to encounter Paul Dressler, smiling broadly.

“Hi, Paul. Good to see you.” He looped a hand around Susan’s elbow, and she too turned to greet Monica’s father.

“Thanks so much for coming,” Paul said. “It really means a lot to us.”

Susan smiled. “You must be so relieved to have her home again.”

“We’re very grateful,” he said. “The doctors and nurses took such good care of her. And the thoughts and prayers of everyone here played a major role in getting her home so quickly. Vera and I are overwhelmed with gratitude.”

“How’s she feeling?” Ben asked.

“Much better,” he replied. “She has pain, of course—part of the healing process—but they’ve given her medication for that. They set her up with a physical therapist five days a week. They have her walking on a treadmill, exercising the muscles in her left hand, working on getting her strength back… all kinds of things. They don’t take it easy on her, either. She comes home pretty exhausted.” Paul glanced to his right and spotted his wife near the entrance to the kitchen. He waved for her to join them.

“Hi, Susan,” Vera said, walking over and giving Ben’s wife a hug. “I’m so glad you were able to make it.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it,” Susan replied, and Ben smiled to himself, recalling the resistance he’d had to contend with at home. “Paul was telling us about Monica’s physical therapy,” Susan noted.

“Oh, yes,” Vera said, rolling her eyes. “They work her so hard. I honestly don’t know if it’s good for her, so soon after being released from the hospital.”

“The doctors said it’s important,” Paul reminded her. “We want her to be able to regain as much function as possible.”

“I know,” she said. She turned a conferring gaze toward Susan. “It just seems a little extreme, is all.”

“I’m sure the physical therapists know what they’re doing,” Ben’s wife responded, trying to reassure her.

Vera turned her head to study her daughter from across the room. She was sitting on the couch next to Thomas, who was resting a hand on her shoulder and conveying some piece of juicy gossip to her in hushed, conspiratorial tones. Monica listened for a moment, her eyes cast slightly up and to the right, then her face broke into a wide grin and she brought her left hand up to cover her mouth as she laughed. From this distance, the two prosthetic fingers looked natural and uniform with the other digits. Vera turned back to Ben and Susan, who had followed her gaze. Her face was contorted into a mishmash of pain and gladness. “Thomas has been so good with her,” she said. “They’ve become close over these past several weeks.” She smiled, her eyes glistening with moisture. “It’s good to see her laugh.”

Susan nodded. “Is she saying much?”

The volume of the conversations around them seemed to decrease slightly, as if this were a question on everyone’s mind.

Vera’s face took on a hard, protective look that Ben had seen once previously when he and Thomas had visited Monica in the hospital. (“They said she’ll probably wake up very soon,” Vera had told them then. “Dr. Elliot says there’s no reason she shouldn’t.”)

“She talks plenty,” Vera advised them. “She’s able to make her needs known to us.” She searched their faces for understanding, and Ben found himself nodding supportively, wanting to place her fears at ease. “She’s been through a lot,” Vera continued. “The doctors said she’ll open up more with time.”

“She doesn’t recall much about the incident?” Susan asked, and Ben shot her a reproachful look. This was obviously uncomfortable territory for Monica’s mother.

“No, not much,” Vera replied, looking down for a moment at the tan carpeting beneath their feet. She looked up at them again, her eyes weary. “And given the circumstances, I think that’s best, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Susan agreed, taking Vera by the hand, her body transforming into a soft posture of empathy—a physical bearing, Ben thought, that seemed to come so much more naturally to women. “Yes, I do.”

33

“Are you sure you’re ready?” he asked, positioning his player for the penalty shot. The electronic crowd on the television screen in front of them roared with simulated fervor. “I’m not gonna take it easy on you this time.”

“Go ahead. Bring it,” she replied, adjusting the Xbox 360 controller in her lap. She used her right hand for most of the controls, but she could still use her functional left thumb on the D-pad and left stick. She’d never been one for video games in the past, but her physical therapist had suggested that thirty minutes a day would help with her fine motor control, and Monica found that the games also helped pass the time, particularly when her friends came to visit. Anything to take the attention off me, she thought.

Thomas’s striker moved slightly to the right, then his body was in motion and he kicked the ball toward the upper left corner as Monica’s goalkeeper made a diving leap in that direction, deflecting the soccer ball up and over the goalpost.

“No goal!” she exclaimed as the crowd went wild. “What a save!”

“Lucky,” Thomas remarked. “You anticipated that one.”

“No, I’m just faster than you—even with only one good hand. Here, let’s take a look at the instant replay.”

“We don’t need to watch the replay,” he said, but the slow-motion video was already under way.

“It looks even better the second time,” she teased him, and he covered his eyes in protest.

“That’s two games to none,” she said. “You ready to quit?”

“Absolutely,” he replied. “I know when I’m beaten.” He rose and made his way to the kitchen. “You want anything from the fridge?”

“No, I’m good,” she called out, returning the equipment to the cabinet beneath the TV.

Thomas returned to the living room, a glass of juice in his hand. He sat down on the couch and looked at her, shaking his head.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re doing great. Two months ago you were just getting home from the hospital, and now you’re kicking my butt in soccer.”

“Video soccer,” she clarified. “It doesn’t take much athleticism to sit in front of the television pushing buttons. It’s the real-life physical activity that still gets me.”

He shrugged. “Little bit at a time. Feel like going for a walk?”

She glanced out through the window and frowned. “It looks windy outside today.”

He said nothing, just sat there sipping his drink, studying her with those cavernous green eyes.

She sighed, realizing how pathetic the excuse sounded—even in her own ears. Since returning from the hospital, wandering more than a few blocks from the house made her nervous. She could tolerate the trips to her physical therapy appointments, which were indoors and took place in surroundings that were both familiar and unchanging, but being outside was a different animal altogether. For the past eight weeks, Thomas had been helping her with that anxiety, encouraging her to take walks with him throughout the neighborhood during his frequent visits. There were days, in fact, when it wasn’t so bad—when she could imagine going out by herself, could imagine returning to the activities she’d taken for granted only five months before. But there were others days—ones like this one—when that degree of comfort and independence still seemed a long way off.

“Okay.” She acquiesced. “Let me get my jacket.”

They left the house and ventured out into the October afternoon. The daylight hours were getting shorter now, the fall season settling in with its restless, gusting days and clear, chilly nights. Already the leaves were abandoning their perches, casting themselves bravely into the abyss as they fluttered silently and gracefully to the earth. And with the thinning of deciduous limbs came the thinning of activity, as people began to hunker down in anticipation of the approaching winter. Cars sat dormant in driveways, and the few people they passed seemed to move with a stiff, deliberate pace, as if their minds were burdened with other things as they dragged rakes back and forth across modest yards, their hands rising now and then to wipe absently at their noses. A small dog paced them briefly as the two teenagers ambled down the sidewalk, but even he lost interest after half a block, turning back to return to the front steps from which he had risen.

“Seems quiet out here,” Monica observed. “There are fewer people than I remember.”

Thomas said nothing, only waved to an old man taking out the trash.

“Do you feel like people have changed around here since all this began?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“They just seem… less sociable… more cautious, even with those they know. I feel like people are pulling in on themselves. ”

Thomas thought this over. “I feel like we’ve been asleep for a long time,” he said, “and now we’re finally waking up. We’re opening our eyes and seeing what’s out there—what has probably been out there all along.” He stooped to remove a stick from the walkway, tossing it onto the grass to their left. “It scares people. They don’t know what to do.”

They walked on in silence for a while, the wind billowing insistently at their backs.

“It’s times like this when we need each other the most,” she said, looping her arm around his and giving him a brief squeeze. He looked at her and smiled, his face calm and impassive as the rest of the world swirled wildly around them.

34

“Excellent! You came!” Devon greeted Thomas and Monica as they approached the group from across the open field. Their feet shushed through a blanket of gold and burgundy leaves, leaving linear wakes of exposed grass behind them.

“Of course we came,” Thomas replied, pulling a pair of cleats out of the duffel bag he was carrying. He sat down on the ground and began removing his sneakers.

“You’re in for it this time, Stevenson,” Devon warned him. “I’ve got Big Joe on my team.”

Joe Dashel stepped forward from amid the cluster of teens. Joe had played college football for Ohio State during his freshman and sophomore years, but a knee injury had sidelined his athletic career for the final two years of college. With his bum knee, Big Joe wasn’t as fast as he used to be, but at 240 pounds he could still pack one hell of a wallop. “Sorry.” He shrugged. “He’s been asking me all week.”

Thomas gave Devon a disparaging look. “All week, huh?”

“Hey, what can I say?” Devon responded. “I’ve got a score to settle.”

Marty Spears ran at half speed onto the field, cutting to the left in a cross pattern twenty yards out. “Hit me,” he said, and Russell Long threw a spiral pass into his outstretched arms.

Devon looked down at him. “What d’ya say, T? The teams are all set. We’re just waitin’ for you.”

“Well, let’s do it,” Thomas replied, stuffing his tennis shoes into the duffel bag and getting up from the grass. He turned to Monica. “You okay?”

“Mm-hmm,” she said with a nod, then took a seat beside Lynn Montague and Cynthia Castleberry.

The boys fanned out across the field, already talking smack before the game had commenced. “Remember,” Devon called out to his teammates as they prepared to receive the initial kickoff, “if you catch the ball, lateral it to Big Joe.”

“Okay, here it comes!” Bret Graham yelled, and with a whumpf the ball was punted high into the air, turning once end over end as it traveled deep into the other team’s territory.

“It’s great of you to come,” Lynn commented, leaning over and giving Monica a sideways hug.

“Thanks.” Monica smiled. “It feels good to get outside. I really missed that, being in the hospital.”

“How do you feel?” Cynthia asked.

“Okay. Not great, but okay,” Monica replied, trying to remain upbeat but honest. The truth was, her days were still overshadowed by pain and stiffness much of the time. Her physical therapy sessions were often agonizing. The medications the doctors had prescribed only went so far to alleviate those symptoms. And, of course, there were the nightmares.

“You cut your hair short,” Lynn observed. “It used to be down past your shoulder blades.”

Monica reached up with her right hand, fingering the short black locks. “It was just easier,” she said, “less to deal with.” She kept her other hand tucked into the front pocket of her hoodie, self-conscious of the two prosthetic fingers, despite the meticulous attention the plastic surgeon had paid to their aesthetic appearance.

“I like your hair this way,” Lynn told her. “I think it’s cute.”

“Thanks.”

On the field, there was an audible crunch as Big Joe made his first hit, sending Bret Graham to the earth like a wet towel. Cynthia winced. “You okay?” she called out.

“Fine, fine,” Bret assured her, getting up slowly and lifting a hand in her direction. He looked a little dazed.

“Hey,” Devon admonished him. “No fraternizing with the spectators.”

Monica looked at Cynthia. “So you and Bret are a thing now?” It was amazing how much she’d missed. There was something profoundly distressing about emerging from such a prolonged incapacitation to find that the world had moved on without her. It was an emotional sucker punch she hadn’t quite anticipated.

“We’ve gone out a few times,” Cynthia told her. “It doesn’t mean we’re going steady or anything.” She turned an appraising eye in Monica’s direction. “What about you and Thomas? You two seem pretty close lately.”

Monica blushed, and there was only so much her pale skin could do to hide it. “We’re just friends,” she said. “He’s been very kind to me.”

“Seems like more than that to me,” Cynthia remarked, but she didn’t press her further. “Run, baby, run!” she yelled as Bret made a mad dash down the sideline toward the end zone.

They watched for a while longer, alternating cheers and protests as the game went on. Paul Dalouka took a hit from Big Joe that knocked the wind out of him hard enough that he elected to sit out most of the third quarter. Monica began to feel her limbs stiffening as she sat there on the grass, and there was a mounting pressure within her bladder that she was able to ignore for only so long. She considered going home, but it felt good to be among her friends in a setting where she was not the frail and beleaguered center of attention. She glanced around. There was no public restroom in the vicinity, just the field, surrounding woods, and a small parking lot to the north. She decided to hold out a while longer, but after another fifteen minutes there were few remaining options.

“I’ve got to go pee,” she whispered to Cynthia, and she stood up and made her way toward the woods at the outskirts of the park. She stood at the lip of the forest, peering in. The fall season had already robbed the trees and much of the underbrush of their leaves, making for a less effective visible curtain from the vantage point of the field behind her. She would have to go in a ways to ensure her privacy. She took a step forward, and from beneath the sole of her shoe the leaves and small sticks crackled loudly in her ears. She closed her eyes. I can do this, she thought to herself. I’m just gonna go in a few yards, is all. I’m perfectly safe here.

She opened her eyes and took another step forward, and another, willing herself to go on. A tree branch jutted out at her, and her hand went instinctively to her throat to protect herself. The pace of her respirations quickened. She was finding it difficult to breath. In her mind, she pictured herself lying in a frozen pond beneath the ice, trapped only inches from the surface as her hands and mouth searched desperately for an opening. Her lips and fingers began to tingle. She could hear her own heartbeat smashing wildly against her chest. To her right, something dark and furry darted across the ground. She followed it with her eyes, and when she looked up he was standing there in the forest waiting for her, beginning to move silently in her direction. She turned to run, turned to escape, but it was too late, too late because he was directly behind her now, the tips of his fingers brushing against her dark black hair, grasping for a purchase, and she opened her mouth to scream and this time she found her voice in time, and she screamed and screamed for them to come and find her before it was too late, before she felt the first slice of the instrument into her chest. There was warmth now sliding down the inside of her leg and she knew she was bleeding heavily but she couldn’t find the wound. She stumbled out of the woods and fell to the ground, curling herself into a tight ball, her arms wrapped protectively around her head as she continued to scream, waiting for the searing pain that would descend upon her and the blackness to follow…

… commotion now, the sound of footsteps running toward her, someone yelling to give her space. She’d made it to the side of the road somehow, and they had found her, lying here in the mud and rain…

“Monica.” Someone’s voice, a hand stroking the side of her head. “Monica, honey. You’re okay. You’re okay.” But she wasn’t okay—wasn’t okay at all. Can’t they see what he did to me? She could feel the paramedics hoisting her body into the rig, could feel the sharp pinch of a needle as it entered her arm. Hang on, girl. You stay with us now, do you hear me?

“Monica.” Again in her ear, a female voice, calm and reassuring. “Open your eyes. We’re all right here with you. You’re safe, honey. It’s okay.”

She opened her eyes, and the bright sunlight flooded in. Here was the face of Lynn Montague, and the others behind her. They looked down at her, all of them, their expressions uncertain and apprehensive. “Do you want me to call an ambulance?” someone asked in a hesitant voice, and Lynn shook her head.

“No. No, she’s fine. She’s okay.” She continued to stroke Monica’s hair, gently brushing away the leaves and broken strands of grass that had taken refuge there. “Leave us alone. Go back to your game.”

They went, the sounds of their voices fading in the distance, and Monica began to cry. Her body shook, and she turned her face into the grass, drawing her legs up farther into a fetal position. Lynn wrapped an arm around her shoulders, trying to soothe her. “Shhh, it’s okay. You’re safe,” she whispered. Monica looked up at her with supplicating eyes. There was something beaten and naked in her expression. “I wet my pants,” she said, as if she were a young child standing shamefaced in the doorway of her parents’ bedroom.

And once again she began to cry.

35

“Come in. It’s open,” the chief of police called out from behind his desk in response to the light rapping on his office door. He gathered the few papers scattered in front of him, sliding them into a manila folder. As his years of service on the force continued to march along, he was finding himself increasingly trapped in this somewhat depressing administrative office attending to an ever-growing assortment of paperwork. It was certainly one of the downsides of the elected position he’d held over the past twelve years, and it was a chore he would be happy to relinquish once he retired. As far as he could tell, all of those forms over the course of his career—literally thousands by now—hadn’t ever done anyone any good.

The door to his office opened, and Detective Schroeder stepped inside. “You got a minute, Chief?” he asked.

“Sure, Carl. What’s up?” Sam leaned back in his chair and gestured for the man to take a seat.

Carl pulled a small notebook from his inside suit pocket as he sat down. “The body they pulled out of the west bank this morning doesn’t look like the work of our guy,” he reported.

“No?”

“Single gunshot wound to the right temple. Powder tattooing of the skin. Very close range. Most likely self-inflicted. We’ve made a positive ID and the wife’s been interviewed. Guy lost his job six weeks ago. Wife says he’s been acting pretty depressed lately. Almost certainly a suicide, although we’re still waiting for the ballistics report.”

“What’s he doing washing up on the bank of the Ohio River?” Sam asked.

“The guy lived in Newell, West Virginia, about thirty minutes north of here. Right off the river. We’ve got a witness says he heard a gunshot near the bridge to East Liverpool two nights ago. He called it in to West Virginia State Police, who sent an investigating officer but found nothing. The most likely scenario is the guy shot himself on the bridge, fell into the river below, and was swept downstream in the current, surfacing two days later on the west bank just south of Brown’s Island.”

Sam nodded. “I suppose he could’ve still been murdered and dumped in the river, but I agree that a single gunshot to the head doesn’t sound much like our guy’s work.”

“Nope.”

“So…” Sam mused. “It’s been five months since the second attack. Maybe he decided to move on. For all we know, he could be somewhere in southern Arkansas by now.”

“Yeah,” Carl agreed, but without much enthusiasm. “Maybe.”

“But you don’t think so,” Sam observed. It was not a question.

“No. I don’t.”

Sam sighed. “Neither do I.” His face looked tired, carrying within it the accumulating effects of more than a few sleepless nights since this whole mess had begun. “What about the psych patient who escaped from the hospital? Any word on him?”

“He hasn’t turned up yet, although we’ve certainly been out looking for him.” Carl frowned. “The FBI’s forensic profiler doesn’t think he’s our man.”

“Why is that?”

“She says that psychosis is not usually the primary issue with serial killers. Let’s see, I have a quote from her somewhere in here…” He flipped back several pages in his notebook. “Okay, here it is. ‘Medically speaking,’ she says, ‘psychosis involves a loss of contact with reality. Symptoms include delusions and hallucinations, which are false perceptions of reality. Serial killers, on the other hand, usually have a fairly accurate perception of reality. They often seem normal, even charming, and they understand right from wrong. They just don’t care.’ ” Carl looked up. “The way she explained it to me, Chief, is that psychotic patients get better with treatment and medication. Serial killers don’t.”

Sam folded his hands in front of him. “They can’t be fixed.”

“No,” Carl replied. “Which is why they continue to kill people—”

“Until they’re stopped.”

“Right, Sam. Until they’re stopped.”

The big man was silent for a moment, his eyes focused on the desk in front of him. “The Dressler girl give us anything useful yet?”

“Nothing helpful to the investigation,” Carl answered. Following her return to consciousness, he’d visited her twice a week in the hospital. She’d been nonverbal during the first two of those weeks, and his questions had been met with dull stares interspersed with episodes of sporadic sobbing that had escalated, in a few unsettling cases, into outright screams requiring administration of a hefty dose of sedative by the hospital staff. The girl’s nurse had cast a disapproving look at Carl enough times for him to give it a rest for a while. As time passed, however, Monica had begun to talk, first in single-word utterances and later in more normal sentences. When she did speak, it was mostly to her parents and friends, and although Carl’s face had become a familiar one by now, she’d said very little to him—none of it pertaining to the night she’d been attacked. He’d tried a few more times since she’d returned home, but eventually her mother had asked him, politely, if it wouldn’t be better to let Monica recover some more before paying her any further visits. “I’m sorry,” she’d apologized. “It’s just that she seems to do better on days when you’re not here.”

In the office now, Carl and Sam sat across from one another, contemplating the same thing but having no new developments to discuss. It was frustrating, not only because the physical evidence so far hadn’t yielded a suspect, but because time was not on their side. Sooner or later their lack of forward progress on the case would most likely cost them another life.

“Still nothing from the BMV images?” Sam already knew the answer to this question. Hell, they’d closed that avenue of investigation more than three months ago. But sometimes it didn’t hurt to go over things again.

Carl shook his head. “Nothing worth pursuing further,” he said. “Four individuals with driver’s license images demonstrating the left upper canine–premolar diastasis we were looking for. One of the four people is dead. Another one is seventy-four years of age and has advanced lung disease. He can’t walk from one room of his house to the next without gasping for air and having to rest for fifteen minutes on home oxygen. The other two individuals both have solid alibis during the time of at least one of the two attacks.”

“So it’s a dead end.”

“Pretty much, Chief.”

Sam leaned forward in his office chair, which emitted a soft creak of protest but held fast. The leather swivel chair had been brought into the office shortly after he was elected chief of police in 2001 and had served the large man faithfully during his entire tenure. Carl wondered how much life the legs of that chair still had in them, and he couldn’t help but imagine the explosive result of their eventual failure.

“The shoe prints from the second crime scene,” Sam said. “Any further progress on tracking those down?”

“Size eleven men’s Nikes. They’re from a model that came out a few years back. I checked the…”

“How many years back?” Sam interrupted him. He was a patient man, but he didn’t like ambiguity when it came to the evidence. If one could pin something down more exactly, it ought to be done. Sometimes it made a difference.

“Two,” Carl answered, unflustered. He was used to working with Sam Garston, and had spent many sessions with the chief in this very office during prior cases, the two of them rehashing the evidence incessantly until the pieces eventually began to fit together—sometimes, it seemed, by sheer will alone.

“What model?” Sam asked.

Carl picked up his notepad and flipped back several pages. “Nike Trainer. Manufactured from November 2011 through July 2012. Sold widely across the U.S. in numerous retail stores, as well as online. Pretty popular. It’s a cross-training shoe.”

“Records from local retailers?”

“Six retailers in the area carried the shoe. Two have since gone out of business and there are no records available. Three of the remaining four stores were able to come up with sales records regarding that size and model during the nine months they were sold. Roughly”—he flipped his notepad forward two pages—“sixty pairs were sold during that time. About one-third of the purchases were in cash.” He looked up from the notebook. “That leaves a lot of cracks to fall through, Chief.”

“Uh-huh.” Sam shifted in his chair and there was another protracted, disquieting creak from the supporting structure as he did so. He smiled at his colleague. “How are you getting along with the feds?” he asked.

Carl shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve been trying to play nice.”

“I appreciate that. And Detective Hunt? How’s he holding up?”

“Danny? I don’t know… still learning the job, I guess.” Carl returned his notebook to the pocket from whence it had come. “I think he’ll be fine, boss,” he remarked, “just as soon as he graduates from high school.”

“Just wait till he’s old enough to drink,” Sam warned him.

“Tell me about it. These new guys on the force… you know: lookin’ younger every year.”

Sam nodded in agreement. He looked thoughtful for a moment, his eyes focusing on a spot in the corner of the room he could see just over Carl’s left shoulder. Lookin’ younger every year. Sure. That was bound to happen as one’s own years went by with ever-increasing velocity—an occupational hazard of growing old. But was that all, Sam wondered, or was there something else there? He felt a slight tug in his chest, the pull of an idea that had taken shape while he wasn’t paying attention and was now trying to punch its way through to his conscious mind.

“—okay, Chief?”

“What?”

“You okay?”

Reluctantly, he returned to the moment at hand. Detective Schroeder was watching him questioningly.

“Think I lost you there for a moment, Chief.”

“Sorry.”

“Anyway,” Carl said, “I’d like to stay and chat, but I have to meet with Special Agent Culver from the FBI now, who wants to go over the phone records of every resident in eastern Ohio over the past ten years, or some other equally useless but time-consuming project.”

“Whatever it takes,” Sam replied, and there was something hard in his eyes, like a boy who has been beaten one time too many, and suddenly decides to come up swinging. “Let’s get this guy, Carl. I don’t want any more mutilated bodies turning up in this town.”

“Neither do I,” the detective agreed as he rose to go. “Neither do I.”

36

“How’s it goin’?” he asked, taking a seat at the table across from her. He’d poured two cans of tomato soup into a sauce pan that was heating on the range.

“Okay, I guess. I’m sore today.”

“Where?”

“My arms, mostly. They’ve got me doing these exercises with dumbbells now.”

Thomas gave her an appraising look. “You’re a lot stronger than you were when you first came home from the hospital. The physical therapy must really be helping.” He got up and went to the stove, turned off the burner, and ladled most of the soup into two bowls. “The muscles of your arms and legs are getting ripped.” He placed the bowls on the table, filled two glasses with water, grabbed a set of spoons from the drawer, and returned to his seat. “Bon appétit,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile. She basked in his compliment, knowing that what he had just said was true. She was much stronger now than when she’d first returned home from the hospital, and her arms and legs had become toned and chiseled from her endless succession of mandatory workouts. Except for the pink ridge of scar tissue that ran the length of her abdomen, her stomach was otherwise tight and flat above the subtle outline of her upper pelvis. From a physical standpoint, in fact, she was tougher and more resilient than she’d ever been.

They ate in silence for a while. It was a Saturday in late October. The weather had begun to turn cold, and it was a small pleasure to feel the warmth of the meal settling into her stomach one spoonful at a time. Her parents were attending a retirement party for one of her dad’s colleagues, and they’d left the two of them to fend for themselves for the afternoon. She looked over at Thomas, who had become a semiregular presence in their household, stopping over most days after school—sometimes with a few of Monica’s other friends, but quite often on his own. They would spend those afternoons sitting together in the living room watching television, discussing social happenings among their peers, or heading outdoors for walks and other outings when the weather was nice. It was good for her, she thought. She was being homeschooled for the year, and although this made it easier to coordinate her daily physical therapy sessions and regular medical checkups, she missed interacting with her friends. She found herself looking forward to Thomas’s visits and was disappointed on days when he couldn’t make it. Still, she sometimes wondered how it could be that one of the most popular guys in school had taken an interest in her—a shy, brainy type who would now struggle with a physical disability for the rest of her life.

“So, what are you doing for Halloween?” he asked, tipping his bowl slightly to scoop up the last bit of soup with his spoon.

She shrugged. “I don’t know.” She hadn’t really thought about it much beyond what she wouldn’t be doing. Trick-or-treating through the neighborhoods in the dark, going to a horror movie or a haunted house—all of those things were definitely out of the question.

“Ernie Samper’s throwing a party at his house,” Thomas said. “A lot of people are going, I think.”

She nodded. A party—just like the last one, she thought, and a shudder rolled through her body. No, she decided. She couldn’t. Even the idea of it made her feel panicky. So many things still did these days. She had a running list in her mind, and she added “going to a party at night with my friends” to it. Just one more thing she couldn’t do—might never be able to do—and this thought made her feel isolated and alone. She was a different person now: someone who hid in her house, looking out at the world instead of participating in it; someone who didn’t answer the phone when she was home alone, who made more excuses than plans; someone who still dreamed of being chased through the forest, of lying there in the mud as the figure’s hand rose above her before plunging downward again and again. There was a piece of her that had been torn away that night, something the surgeons could never replace. She placed a hand over her face, feeling the tears welling up inside her.

Thomas watched her from across the table as she struggled to compose herself.

“It’s just that… it’s just…” She made a fist and brought it down hard on the table, causing the spoons to rattle in their empty bowls. The tears rolled freely down her cheeks now, making her appear raw and defenseless in the yellow glow of the overhead light. “Look at me,” she said. “I’m a freak.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am!” She got up suddenly, collecting their bowls and bringing them to the sink, where she filled them with water. The room became quiet except for the sound of the running tap. A few of the neighborhood children were playing ball on the street outside, and their voices filtered softly through the walls of the house and into the kitchen. After a few moments, she shut off the water and turned to face him. The tears were gone, but her eyes were still red and swollen.

“I’m sorry, Thomas. I need to lie down for a while.”

“Sure,” he said. “No problem.”

“I’ll call you later,” she told him, and she left the kitchen, heading down the hall and into her bedroom. She kicked off her shoes and slipped under the warmth of the sheets.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked, hesitating in the doorway.

She turned to look at him from where she lay. “No. I’m not.”

He came in, pulled a chair up next to the bed. He looked at her blankly, saying nothing.

Monica looked up at the bedroom ceiling, watching the way the light from the window danced and swayed across the smooth surface above her. “I still dream about it, you know.”

“That night?” he asked, and she nodded.

“I dream about running through the woods, about being chased and finally overtaken. I dream about being left there to die in the darkness.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to picture it.

She said nothing, only turned her head to the right so that she could look out at the day through the window across the room.

“In these dreams,” he asked, “do you ever recognize him? Even the smallest detail might help the police to—”

“No,” she said. “Nothing. Just… a shape. A presence.”

He nodded.

“But sometimes when I wake up,” she confided, “and even later, in the light of day…” She looked at him now, needing to make herself understood. “I can’t help but wonder: Am I still back there? Am I still lying there in the dirt, and all of this”—she took in the room briefly with her eyes—“is something else? A dream, maybe. Wishful thinking. Or perhaps…”

“What?” he asked.

She looked down at the shape of her body beneath the sheets, as if assuring herself of its presence. “Perhaps I never made it out of the forest that night. Perhaps I’m really dead. I mean”—her eyes searched his face as she considered this again for a moment—“how would I know if I wasn’t?”

Thomas shook his head. “You’re not dead.” He touched her right ear, ran his finger along the line where her own flesh merged neatly with the silicone prosthetic. “You have the scars to prove it.”

“Don’t,” she said, turning her face away from him. “It’s disgusting.”

He withdrew his hand.

“I’m disgusting.” Her voice was small and defeated.

“No,” he replied. “Not to me.”

She turned her head and studied him for a moment, gauging his sincerity. He looked back at her without flinching.

“You’re sweet,” she told him, reaching up to touch the side of his face with her right hand, feeling the warm, soft contour of his cheek. “Why do you come here to see me?”

He smiled. “Don’t you know?”

She shook her head.

“Well, you don’t know much then.”

“Do you feel sorry for me? Is that why you’re so good to me?”

“No.” He withdrew her left hand from beneath the covers, cupping it gently in his palm. His thumb moved lightly across the two digits that were only partially her own. “Plenty of people in this town feel sorry for you.” He made a face, crinkling the bridge of his nose. “You must be sick of it.”

“I am,” she replied. “I… I just want to feel normal.”

“Why would you ever want to be normal? You’re better than that.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again they somehow seemed to Monica deeper and greener than before. “No,” he said. “I’ve never felt sorry for you.”

She sat up quickly then and kissed him, before she could lose her nerve. His body stiffened briefly in response, then relaxed. She could feel against her chest the measured rhythm of his heart, as if it were her own—and when he kissed her in return it was at once safe and thrilling and everything she had hoped it would be.

“Could you lie here with me?” she asked after they had kissed for a while, and he did, wrapping her in his arms like a child. And sometime later in the silence that followed, as the light filtering through the window tracked its way across the wall with the afternoon’s passing, it occurred to Monica that she was still capable of opening her heart if she wanted to, that her thirst for life might someday be stronger than the sum of her fears, and that there were unexpected events on the horizon—a future far removed from the pain and suffering she had endured over these many months. She did not feel whole again, and maybe she never would. But it was a start—a beginning—and starting, she realized, was the hardest part.

37

“What d’ya think, Dr. S?” Nat called over from the next room. He was holding a human liver in his hands. It was gray and cirrhotic, shrunken from its normal size by a lifetime of heavy drinking. “How much ya figure it weighs?”

Ben looked through the doorway of his office. “I’d guess 875 grams.”

Nat shook his head. “Too high, Dr. S. This thing is pickled. I’m goin’ with 680.”

“Well, weigh it and find out,” Ben advised, turning his attention back to the papers in front of him.

“Let’s place a wager on it,” Nat suggested. “An extra two days of paid vacation for me this year.”

“You didn’t use all your vacation time last year,” Ben reminded him.

“That’s why I need an extra two days this year,” Nat said. “I thought that shit carried over.”

“Nope. Use it or lose it,” Ben told him. “You’ve got enough perks and benefits already.”

“What perks and benefits?” Nat wanted to know, the liver in his hands temporarily forgotten.

Ben slapped his pencil down on the desk, exasperated. Trying to get paperwork done with Nat in the other room was like trying to enjoy a romantic, candlelit dinner with a three-year-old at the table. “Are you gonna weigh that thing, or not?”

“Sure. Yeah. Don’t get all crotchety on me, Dr. S.” Nat walked over to the scale and placed the item in the metal tray. He paused for a moment, allowing the needle to settle on a number. Ben picked up his pencil again and began to—

“Oooh, Dr. S. It’s 692 grams. You were way off.”

“Fine, Nat,” he said, without looking up. “It’s 692 grams. Are you happy now?”

“Definitely.”

The blank diagnosis box at the bottom of the form stared up at Ben, challenging him to come up with—

“You owe me another two days of vacation this year.”

That did it. Ben closed the folder on his desk, got up, and headed toward the front of the building.

“Where you goin’, Dr. S?”

Ben didn’t answer. He snatched his coat off of the rack, opened the front door, and headed out into the frigid afternoon. The trees were barren now, their thin limbs stretched like black veins toward the sky. Ben placed a hand on the rail before proceeding down the short flight of steps, recalling the thin, nearly invisible sheets of ice he’d spotted this morning in the parking lot. The wind tugged at the collar of his coat. He pulled the zipper up as far as it would go, hunching his shoulders to protect his neck and the lower half of his ears from the chill.

At the bottom of the CO’s front steps, he turned right and made his way along the sidewalk. It was mid-December, and there was snow in the forecast—quite a bit of it, from the weatherman’s predictions last night. Ben had noticed this morning that the sky had taken on that thick, bloated look. By early afternoon the flakes had begun to fall, and a good two inches already covered the sidewalk. It crunched beneath his boots as he ambled along. When he got home this evening, he’d have a driveway to clear.

Home. Ben felt his gut tighten momentarily. There’d been trouble between him and Susan lately, although he had difficulty placing his finger on exactly why. Tangentially, at least, it seemed related to the two attacks on the teenagers earlier this year. It had been a stressful time for both of them, and Ben realized that he’d probably made matters worse by being so closely involved in the investigation. It was a topic Susan didn’t like to talk about, and any attempt to broach the subject usually ended up in an argument.

Three weeks ago they’d gotten into it again. It had become evident over the past month or two that Thomas’s relationship with Monica Dressler had extended beyond simple friendship. They’d been spending increasing amounts of time together, and there was little doubt from their body language and the way that they looked at one another that they’d become romantically involved. To Ben, this seemed like a good thing for the both of them, but after dinner one night Susan had gotten on Thomas’s case about it. He’d heard them arguing upstairs in the hallway and had gone up to intervene—a mistake, he realized in retrospect. Susan had snapped at him, telling him to stay out of it. After a brief exchange, he’d found himself standing alone in the upstairs hallway, wondering how in the hell he had ended up coming off as the bad guy.

He’d caught up to her in the kitchen.

“What was that all about?” he demanded, angered by her dismissiveness.

“I don’t know,” she responded harshly. “Why don’t you talk to him about it.”

“I’m talking to you,” Ben replied, refusing to be bullied.

Susan turned to face him. Her jaw was set in that manner she had when she decided to really dig her heels in about something. “I don’t think he should be dating that girl.”

“Monica? Why?”

“Why? Because she’s fragile, Ben.”

“Fragile?”

“Yes, fragile.” She put a hand on the countertop, the other on her left hip. “She’s been through a lot—too much, really. I think he needs to leave her alone. One way or the other, he’ll end up hurting her.”

Ben was dumbfounded. “He’s been helping her,” he pointed out. “You don’t see that?”

She looked back at him, tight-lipped. “No. I don’t.”

Ben walked to the table and rested his palms on the top of a chair back. “You know what I think?” he started. Susan simply stared at him, waiting. “I think you don’t like him dating her because it’s a daily reminder of the assaults. Monica represents something”—he pointed a finger at her—“that you’re having difficulty dealing with.”

“What are you, a shrink now?”

“This isn’t Thomas’s problem,” he told her. “It’s yours.”

She studied him for a moment. “Well, you’re right about that.”

Ben exhaled slowly through his mouth, trying to dissipate some of the anger. There was no use in them fighting about this. If she could just see—

“Yeah,” she said. “I guess you know just about everything.”

“Now wait a minute,” he protested, holding up a hand. “That’s not fair.”

“No, Ben,” she’d replied, leaving the room. “It’s not.”

It had been three weeks since then. The next day they’d made their apologies, sure, but things hadn’t been the same between them. It was the little things, he realized. They no longer took time to discuss the events of their respective days, for example—focusing instead on coordinating their schedules around the activities of their jobs and children. Their conversations were more formal, less personal, and they’d begun treating one another with the sort of cool politeness reserved for houseguests who’ve overstayed their welcome. Ben couldn’t help but wonder whether this was how it felt to embark on those first few steps down the twisting path toward divorce.

He stopped and looked up at the sky, a pregnant gray canopy lying low above the earth. The precipitation was coming down harder now, the heavy flakes catching in his lashes. Visibility was worsening, the sun already riding low on the horizon. He ought to close up the CO early today, make sure everyone got home before dark. The course of his walk had taken him on a winding loop through the park and an adjacent neighborhood, such that he was now back where he had started. He ascended the steps to the front of the building.

A small plastic bag, partially covered by the snow, leaned up against the door. He looked around, then stooped to pick it up, dusting off the powdery whiteness. In another hour, he realized, it would have been covered completely. They wouldn’t have found it until the steps were shoveled the next morning. He opened the bag, peering inside, wondering what sort of—

“Oh my God,” he whispered, the plastic package slipping from his fingers, the blanched, lifeless content spilling out onto the snow. He turned and gripped the wrought iron rail beside him, his body bent at the waist as if he’d been kicked low in the midsection. He could feel his knees buckling, the bile rising high in his throat, the world going dim and distant around him.

Lying in the snow, the palm turned upward in an act of supplication, was what remained of a human hand.

38

“No fingerprint matches,” Detective Schroeder announced, returning his cell phone to the black leather case clipped to his belt. They were sitting in Sam’s office at the station. Outside, the night had fallen, although the snow continued to plummet to the earth with unrelenting intensity. There was already two feet of accumulation on the ground, and the latest weather report was predicting an additional twelve to fifteen inches by morning.

Detective Hunt had been peering out the window. He turned around, his face grim. “It’s gonna be a bitch trying to locate the body in this. Even if we knew where to look…”

“We’ll search the vicinity around the Coroner’s Office,” Sam said. “Given the manpower we have, it’s the best we can do. Although I doubt we’ll find anything,” he added.

Carl shook his head. “The specimen was transported to the front steps of the Coroner’s Office from someplace else. Otherwise, why bother with the bag?”

Ben stood up from his chair and crossed the room restlessly, his fingers pressed to his forehead. A headache had formed behind his right eye, making him feel nauseous and light-headed. He’d dry-swallowed four tablets of ibuprofen thirty minutes ago, but couldn’t say they’d made much of a difference. “What I want to know,” he said, “is why was it delivered to the CO?”

“Good question,” Carl remarked. “We were hoping you might shed some light on that one.”

“I have no idea,” Ben replied. “I wish I did.”

The sound of a snowplow could be heard on the street below. It was the only vehicle that had passed this way over the last hour.

“Maybe he was doing us a favor,” Nat suggested from the corner of the room, and all eyes turned to him.

“What do you mean?” Detective Hunt asked.

Ben’s assistant shrugged. “It would’ve come to the CO eventually, along with the rest of the body. In a way, he saved me the trouble of transporting it.”

“You know anyone who might do that?” Carl asked, one eyebrow raised.

Nat thought this over for a moment. “Naah,” he said. “Not that I can think of.”

Danny turned to Ben. “The bag wasn’t there when you left the CO for your walk.”

“That’s right,” Ben confirmed. “It was sitting right up against the door when I returned. If it had been there when I left the building, I’m pretty sure I would’ve noticed it.”

“So someone watched you leave, knew you were coming back, and placed it there for you to find.”

“Or just happened to deliver it while I was out of the building,” Ben pointed out. “I doubt it was left there for me personally.”

“Why not?” Sam asked, leaning forward in his chair. “It seems pretty clear that it’s a message.”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “He’s taunting us.”

“Us…” Sam placed his big hands on the desk in front of him. “Or you, Ben?”

“For Christ’s sake,” Ben replied, working his right temple with the palm of his hand. The headache was worsening, despite the earlier dose of analgesic. “Why would he be taunting me? Just because I’m the one doing the autopsies?”

Sam’s face was still, his eyes studying the surface of his desk. “I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s something to think about.” He looked up at the men gathered in front of him. “Well… I don’t think there’s anything more we can do tonight. Let’s call it an evening, shall we?”

“I’ll contact Agent Culver in the morning,” Carl told him.

Sam nodded. “That’s fine. Let’s get a few boys to shovel a hundred-foot radius around the Coroner’s Office in the morning, and have the forensic team go over that area for anything useful. Ben,” he said as the others were filing out, “can I have a word with you?”

Ben looked surprised. “Sure,” he said, closing the door to the office when it was just the two of them.

Sam looked across the desk at him for a moment. “I have a question for you, Ben, and I don’t want you to take this the wrong way—but how well do you know Nathan Banks?”

“Nat?” Ben asked incredulously. “Pretty damn well, Sam.”

“Mm-hmm,” the chief replied. He swiveled his chair to the right so that he could look out the window. “He’s an interesting fellow, wouldn’t you say?”

Ben laughed. “Interesting. Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“Left-handed, is he?” Sam inquired, recalling the hand with which the boy had gripped the pen during his completion of the paperwork earlier that evening.

Ben’s face lost its humor. “About ten percent of the population is.”

“Oh, I know,” Sam said with a shrug. “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything that he is.”

“No,” Ben agreed. “It doesn’t.”

“Still,” Sam went on, “I wouldn’t mind having a DNA specimen for our FBI colleagues to analyze… if you think you could get one for us, that is.”

“Sam, I can assure you…”

The chief held up a hand. “I’m sure you can, Ben. Don’t make too much out of it. I’m just making certain that we cover our bases.” He rose from his chair and walked to the window. “We haven’t had a snowfall like this in years,” he said. “Bad timing for this sort of thing.”

“You thinking about postponing the search until some of this melts off?” Ben asked. He was still feeling unsettled by Sam’s questions about Nat. He wasn’t sure whether to feel insulted, indignant, defensive, or none of the above.

Sam grabbed his jacket and shoved one thick arm through the sleeve as he crossed the room. “Get home to your family, Ben.” He opened the door, stepping aside for his friend to pass through. “Someone will find the body,” he said, his fingers on the light switch. “Sooner or later, they always do.”

39

“You Detective Carl Schroeder?” the man asked over the phone.

“I am.”

“This is Sergeant Michael Edwins from the Rock Hill Police Department.”

Carl grabbed a pen from the top of his desk. “I’m sorry, Sergeant, I’m not familiar with that jurisdiction.”

“We’re in Rock Hill, South Carolina, Detective—just a li’l south of the North Carolina border.”

“Okay. How can I help you?”

“Got a man in detention here says he knows yah. Been askin’ for yah all mornin’.”

“What’s his name?”

“Well, his real name’s Clarence Bedford. Born and raised down here in York County, South Carolina. We know ’im pretty well—one of our regulars.”

“I’m sorry.” Carl frowned. “I’m not familiar with anyone by the name of—”

“Goes by the name of Harold Matthews, though.”

Carl sat forward in his chair. “You’ve got him? In custody?”

“For the moment,” the sergeant replied. “He was picked up for trespassin’. It’s a book-an’-release offense.”

“I’d prefer if you hold on to him. Mr. Matthews is wanted for questioning regarding the attempted murder of a young girl here in Jefferson County, Ohio.”

“I’ll bet he is. Roll in to the psych ward, did he?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, he did,” Carl confirmed. “How did you know—?”

“Does it ev’ry time we have a young kid get killed around here. Always confesses to the crime. He’s got a long history with us, Detective.”

Carl put a hand to his forehead, laid the pen back down on his desk. “Is that right.”

“Sure ’nough. He’s a bit of a wanderer. Hops on a bus an’ leaves town to God knows where ev’ry so often for a few months at a stretch. Always manages to find ’is way back, though.”

“He said he’d killed others. Any truth to that?”

“Clarence hit a boy on a bike with ‘is car when he was twenty-three. Said the kid was stealin’ a baby that belonged to his sister. Clarence’s sister has cerebral palsy. She’s in a wheelchair, an’ sure as hell don’t have no babies. Child he hit was twelve. He died at the scene. Clarence was charged with murder, but it didn’t stick none. Turns out he’s got schizophrenia. He’s crazier ‘n a sack of rabid weasels, Detective. Spent a bunch of years in a mental hospital after that. I think he took it hard, though, that kid’s death. Still holds himself responsible. Ends up in our local psych unit ev’ry time a kid around here gets killed—sayin’ he’s the one who did it.”

Carl stood up and looked out at the darkening day through the small window of his office. “That explains a lot. I’m curious, though—there were quite a few scratches on his body when I interviewed him. Any idea what might’ve caused—”

“He’s a cutter. Cuts on himself to relieve tension.”

“I see,” Carl said. “Well, thanks for contacting me, Sergeant. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to send someone down there to collect some DNA samples from Mr. Matthews… or Bedford—whatever the hell his name is. Just to be certain.”

“We’ve got a lab here that can do it for you. Fax me the warrant, and I’ll get ‘em on it.”

“Thank you. Again, I really appreciate your assistance.” Carl took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, knowing that the sinking feeling in his gut was their only suspect in this case disappearing down the drain. “By the way, if Clarence Bedford is his real name, why does he call himself Harold Matthews? Does he have multiple personalities or something?”

“No,” the sergeant replied, “just a lot of underlyin’ guilt, I reckon. Harold Matthews was the name of the boy he hit—the one who died at the scene.”

40

The week leading up to Christmas break saw the heaviest single snowfall in eastern Ohio since 1950. Forty-two inches of fresh powder blanketed the frozen earth over the course of two and a half days. Schools had little choice but to remain closed from Monday through Thursday while the county plows and salt trucks attempted to deal with the mounting drifts. By the time the precipitation finally ended and the major streets, sidewalks, and parking lots were rendered usable, only Friday remained. Drawing on wisdom and experience gained from eleven years on the job, the superintendent of public schools for Jefferson County knew better than to embark upon a futile campaign for the hearts and minds of thousands of children during that one solitary day that teetered precariously on the precipice of a twelve-day winter break. Not wishing to generate ill will among the county’s parents and teachers for his lack of both pragmatism and holiday cheer, he proclaimed Friday a snow day as well and became an instant local hero, if only for a day.

It was a wise move. Many families had already left town for an early start to their winter vacations. The Stevensons were among them, with the notable exception of Ben, who’d decided to remain at home. Sam’s assertion that it was only a matter of time until the second body was uncovered contributed to that decision, as did the chief’s inquiries regarding Nat. It had been disconcerting for Ben, finding himself in the unexpected position of having to defend his amiable, good-natured assistant. And now Ben had been asked to get them a biological sample for DNA analysis. He felt ridiculous snooping around for something like that. More important, he felt like a traitor. Nat looked up to him, respected him, and had an allegiance to both Ben and the CO. In order to accomplish this, Ben would be going behind his back, even if it was to prove his assistant’s innocence. He didn’t like it—didn’t like it at all.

There was another thing, as well. Sam suspected that the amputated appendage had been left for Ben personally, as a message. Or a warning, Ben thought to himself with a shudder. Either way, it was an ominous sign. If Ben was being targeted by the killer, then his family might also be in considerable danger. He’d been immensely relieved when Susan had agreed to take the boys to visit her parents in Sedona, Arizona, for the holiday. It was difficult to know how much of a difference those two weeks would make, but moving his family to a safe location eased his mind. “You should come with us,” Susan had suggested, but Ben had declined. It was important that he be available to assist the detectives if or when the body was discovered. Anything he could do to help them catch this guy had to take precedence.

And yet, now that Susan and the boys were gone, Ben was surprised to discover how much he longed for them. His daily activities provided distraction enough, but in the evenings he found himself wandering from room to room, Alexander the Great padding steadfastly behind him. “It’s quiet in the house without them, isn’t it?” he’d asked the dog, who had swished his tail back and forth in commiseration.

“How are you two getting along?” Susan had asked him that evening on the telephone.

“Alex and I have been watching a lot of movies,” Ben advised her. “How’s Sedona?”

“It’s beautiful,” she told him. “Arizona’s spectacular this time of year. Dad’s taking us hiking tomorrow. I’ll email you some pictures.”

“Great,” Ben said, trying to sound more chipper than he felt.

There was a pause on the line. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Ben reached down and ran his hand along the side of Alex’s broad neck. “I miss you guys, that’s all.”

“You could still catch a flight out to join us.”

“I can’t,” he told her. “Not right now.”

“Now might be the perfect time,” she suggested. “Nothing will turn up until the snow melts.”

“And if there’s another murder between now and then?”

“There won’t be.”

Ben sighed. “You don’t know that,” he said. “I’ve been telling myself for months that this guy has probably moved on. Thing is, I never really believed it. And now this. He’d just been waiting for the right opportunity, Susan—waiting this whole time.”

And mostly, Ben realized, that’s what it came down to now: an act of waiting. Waiting for the snow to melt. Waiting to discover what was lying out there somewhere beneath those infinite drifts. Waiting for another dismembered body part to materialize on the front steps of the CO. Waiting to see where the investigation would lead, how the pieces would fit together, and whose life might be claimed in the interim. Waiting, he thought as he said his good-byes to his family for the night and hung up the phone. Waiting like a sentenced man, standing blindfolded and rigid before the firing squad. Waiting and listening for the hammers to fall.

41

The blizzard that had blanketed most of Ohio and western Pennsylvania the week before Christmas had been followed by ten days of frigid temperatures. During that time, the afternoon highs had peaked above freezing for only a few hours on two separate occasions. As a result, the snow that had fallen two weeks previously had little chance to melt. Except for the sidewalks, parking lots, and roadways that had been cleared by necessity, the majority of the waist-deep drifts across backyards, fields, and forests remained untouched, as if the storm had occurred only the night before.

As one might imagine, this had several ramifications. Ski shops enjoyed an unprecedented surge in business, most notably in the sale of snowshoes and cross-country ski equipment. Local fire departments spent several days digging out hydrants from the mounds of snow under which they’d been buried. Sturdy backs and snow shovels were put to the test clearing driveways and reestablishing usable patches of backyards for small dogs to do their business. Emergency departments attended to a whirlwind of fractures and other injuries sustained by unsuccessful attempts to traverse icy sidewalks and parking lots. And for anyone under the age of twenty (and for many people over that age, as well) the most important derivative of the weather was the nearly unlimited sledding opportunities that presented themselves. Hundreds of thousands of children across the region, all on winter vacation, took to the hills for an exuberant, screaming, accelerating descent down snow-covered embankments on cheap plastic vessels. It was the purest joy many of them would ever know.

These were not the only recreational activities. Bret Graham had convinced his uncle to let him borrow his snowmobile for the day, and by 10:30 A.M. he was zipping across fields of untouched powder, the reverberating growl of the revving engine following in his wake like a snarling mongrel on a tattered leash. He held fast to the handlebars, turning them back and forth as he cut a random, serpentine path through the snow. Eventually, he brought the vehicle to a halt behind 403 Crawford Avenue. He let the engine idle for a moment, then killed the switch. Dismounting, he trudged a few steps across the yard to the rear patio and rapped loudly on the back door. At first there was no sound from within the house. Then he heard light footsteps approaching from the inside hallway, and Cynthia’s face suddenly appeared in a pane of glass. She looked at him inquisitively for a moment, then spun the dead bolt and opened the door.

“What in the hell are you doing out there, Bret Graham?” she asked with a wide grin. Her voice was melodic and feathery. Just the sound of it kicked his heart rate up a notch.

He smiled back. “I’m here to take you snowmobiling, darlin’.”

She looked past him at the machine parked and waiting for her. It listed a little to the left in the soft snow. “I don’t know, Bret Graham.” (She liked to say his full name, as in, “I’m dating Bret Graham,” or “Bret Graham is taking me to the movies tonight.”) “That thing doesn’t look safe.”

“Doesn’t look safe?!” he repeated with an exaggerated scowl. “What do you mean it doesn’t look safe?”

“It looks sketchy,” she replied, crossing her arms in front of her. “Do you even know how to drive that contraption?”

“Do I even…” He let the words trail off at the end. “Shoot! Why, you’re safer on the back of that so-called contraption with me at the wheel than you are standing right here in your own house!”

“I doubt that,” she said.

“You do?” He shook his head in mock disbelief. “Well, go put that snowsuit of yours on and let me show you what it’s all about.”

“Yeah?” She was finding it increasingly difficult to hold back the excitement in her voice.

“ ’Course,” he responded with complete confidence, as if any other course of action was beyond discussion.

“Okay,” she said, her face lighting up with anticipation. She leaned through the open doorway and planted a quick kiss on his unsuspecting lips. “Bret Graham is taking me snowmobiling!”

“That’s right.”

“Wheee!!” she exclaimed, and ran back to the foyer to fetch her gear. Bret stepped cheerfully inside to wait for her, acutely aware that on the other side of the threshold the sun was shining, the snow was soft and inviting, he had an adrenaline-packed rocket ship parked at the ready, and he was here to pick up his girl. When you’re sixteen, it simply doesn’t get any better than that.

When she returned, they made their way through the snow and climbed aboard. Cynthia straddled the seat behind him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. “You sure this thing is safe?” she asked once more.

“No, I am not,” he told her, starting the engine. “But that’s why I’m bringing you along. If we crash, I want something soft to land on.”

“Oh, yeah?” she said. “Well, here’s something soft to land on!” She scooped up a large handful of snow and jammed it into his face.

“Oh, that was not cool,” he advised her, wiping the slush from his eyes. He could feel some of it already winding its way down the front of his neck. “You’d better hold on, girl! You’re in for a wild ride!”

“No. Drive slowly.”

“Right,” he said, and gunned the engine. The vehicle lurched forward, nearly throwing her off the back.

“Whoa! Take it easy!” she yelled into his ear above the din of the motor, the ground already becoming a blur as it sped by beneath them.

The snowmobile whooshed along, cresting small hills with enough velocity to propel the craft into the air for brief moments of time. On the last rise, they took leave of the earth for a full second and a half before setting down with a soft jolt in a spray of dove-white powder. The vehicle scampered down the decline, then hooked a right as Bret directed the handlebars toward a stretch of trees.

“No! Not the woods!” Cynthia yelled into his ear, but her voice was no match for the volume of the engine.

They shot through the trees, which stood a sufficient distance apart for Bret to negotiate a wild, careening slalom around their broad trunks. Cynthia dared to look over his shoulder once, and immediately regretting it, buried her face between his shoulder blades for the remainder of the journey. The motorized vessel yawed to the left and right with each turn. Seventy yards ahead of them, the woods gave way to another vast, open field of untouched snow. At the edge of the woods, Bret could see that the ground fell away slightly, and his plan was to accelerate to a speed that would enable them to enter the field in midair. He pressed down on the accelerator with his right thumb, gunning the vehicle in that direction.

“Whoooo-hoooooo!!!!” he bellowed to no one in particular other than the silent trees whizzing by.

The vehicle never quite made it. Five yards from the point where the woods met the field, they struck something large buried beneath the snow. The nose of the snowmobile dipped sharply, and in an instant both occupants were tossed over the handlebars and into the air. Cynthia’s arms remained clasped tightly around Bret’s waist, and as a result the two of them flew through the air in perfect unison. It took less than two seconds for them to reconnect with the earth, but during that span of time each had an opportunity to wonder just how badly they were about to be injured. Their bodies made a three-quarter turn, head over heels, as if performing a somersault for a gymnastics competition. Both of them were athletes—Bret wrestled and ran cross-country, Cynthia had played soccer since she was five—and neither of them made the mistake of sticking out an arm or a leg to try to break their fall. They stayed tucked—chin down, body loose—and went with the roll. When they struck the earth, they met with a cushion of soft snow in an open field. They rolled twice, the snow crunching quietly beneath them, then came to rest.

The snowmobile sat idling at the outskirts of the woods, nose pitched forward and partly buried in the snow. For ten seconds neither of them spoke.

Taking stock of his physical condition and finding nothing alarmingly out of place, Bret was the first to break the silence. “Cynthia,” he said, rolling over to get a better look at her. “Are you okay?”

“Ugh,” she responded, her face buried in the snow.

He rolled her onto her side. “Is anything broken? Are you able to move your arms and legs?”

“I think… I can move everything but my right arm,” she replied slowly.

“Does it feel broken?” he asked, the guilt already flooding through him in great, rolling waves. “I’m sorry,” he added. “That was really stupid of me.”

“I think… I might be able… to move it a little.” She winced.

“Wait! Don’t try to move it! It’s probably broken.”

“No, hold on a second,” she said. “It was just sort of numb for a second there. I think I can move it. Let me see… if I can…”

Her right hand shot up and smashed an ice-cold fistful of snow into his face for the second time that day. At least half of it found its way into his gaping mouth. Bret sputtered in shock and surprise, falling backward.

“There’s a little present for you!” she squealed. “Bon appétit!”

“Wha—?” Brett spit out a mouthful of snow. “I… I can’t believe you just did that!”

“Believe it, sucker!” she taunted him. “You deserved it. You could’ve gotten us both killed.” She looked back at their downed craft. “What in the hell did we hit, anyway?”

“Hell if I know,” he said. The rear end of the snowmobile was pointing at a 45-degree angle toward the sky. “Hey,” he said, giving her a serious look. “Thanks for not being mad. Most girls would—”

“First of all,” she said, interrupting him, “who says I’m not mad? You’re going to have to make it up to me, you know.”

“And second?”

“Second of all, I’m not ‘most girls.’ Just keep that in mind.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied smartly. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” she said, leaning over and giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Let’s get the hell out of here… that is, if that death-mobile of yours isn’t destroyed.” She was already making her way in the direction of their maimed vehicle.

Bret pushed himself up into a standing position. His legs held. Nothing seemed to be broken. They’d made it through unscathed. That was good. Still, he felt guilty. He shouldn’t have been going that fast. If she’d been injured, he didn’t know wha—

That was when Cynthia screamed. The stark sound of her cry pierced the silent midday air. It leapt into the woods and came scampering out again like a spooked creature trying to escape. He was so stunned that for a moment he could only stand there, gaping at her. Then his feet were moving, seemingly of their own volition, and he was running toward her as fast as he could through snow cresting his knees.

“What is it?!” he called to her, closing the distance. She neither answered nor screamed again—only stood there, body rigid, looking down at the wounded snowmobile. Making his way through the deep drifts was maddeningly slow, and Bret had time to think that he wished she would scream again, just so he would know that she was mentally still with him. A single scream and silence: somehow, that was worse.

“What is it?” he asked again, but by the time he’d completed the sentence he was standing beside her, and he was able to see quite clearly for himself. His girlfriend stared at the snow, at the spot where the nose of the vehicle disappeared beneath the powder, at the thing they had struck that had sent them hurtling through the air in the first place. Thankfully, most of it was still hidden below the surface. The part that was sticking out was enough, though—enough to know what they had found. From beneath the snow, as if awoken suddenly from a deep slumber, a single forearm jutted accusingly toward the sky. The skin was bluish white, only a few shades darker than the surrounding snow, and the appendage ended abruptly at the wrist in a macerated curl of muscle and bone.

They had discovered the third victim.