The Cold Room

Eighteen

Taylor revisited the events of the morning, blushing deeply when she thought about the look on the Brit’s face when she’d walked into the kitchen. Like Paris seeing Helen for the first time. How embarrassing. She tried to put the whole event out of her mind. She needed to focus. There was a lot to do today.

The bucolic drive up Old Hickory was pleasant; the green pastures of the Steeplechase on her left, the woods where she’d chased and caught the Rainman to her right. No matter where she looked in Nashville, there were reminders of her past cases, her successes and her failures. The Rainman, a serial rapist named Norville Turner who’d terrorized Nashville for ten long years, was due for trial soon. She’d have to check with A.D.A. Page to see what the exact dates were, but she knew she’d be testifying. The bastard had clocked her in the face during his attempt to flee, and she remembered the satisfaction she felt when she punched him back. She’d knocked him out; her black eye had lasted a full week. It had been a perfect ending to a bitter and difficult case.

She crossed Hillsboro and wended her way into Brentwood. Traffic was heavy, but within ten minutes the gas station appeared on her right. McKenzie stood by a department-issued Caprice, dressed in a gray suit and light blue tie that made his eyes look dark hazel, holding two cups of coffee. She pulled up next to him, hopped out of the truck, and relieved him of one of the drinks.

“You like lattes, right?” McKenzie said.

“I do. Thanks.” Taylor was trying to cut back on the Diet Cokes, using lattes for the caffeine rush.

“You want to drive?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said. They climbed in and got situated. In addition to getting the coffee, McKenzie had brought donuts from Krispy Kreme. They were still warm. Taylor selected a plain glazed and savored it. She finished it, licked her fingers, then turned the engine over.

“That was sweet of you. Thanks.”

“No problem. The hot light was on. Figured we could use some sustenance, it being this early and all.”

“That was a kind thought. By the way, we tracked down a piece of evidence last night. Remember the Picasso monograph on Hugh Bangor’s coffee table?”

“No. What was it?”

“A catalogue raisonné, a book representing the pictures and background of the artist’s life work. There was one of Picasso on Bangor’s coffee table. Tim Davis found a print that matched a sex offender named Arnold Fay. We had a long talk with Bangor. Turns out he and Fay used to be an item; Fay was the one who broke into Bangor’s house. He left the monograph as a present, and that’s how we got the print. But Tim found a page missing from the back, so we went up there last night and had another look around. We found a second monograph, this one a catalog from an event at the Museum of Modern Art, and it was missing the back page, too. Someone cut those pages out. I’ve got a call into the publishing house to see what was on the sheet. They’re supposed to fax us a copy.”

“Hey, that’s great news. You should have called me, I would have helped. You were at Hugh, I mean, Mr. Bangor’s place?”

“Yes, but it was pretty late. We stopped on a hunch.”

“Oh. Okay.” He sounded disappointed. Taylor was starting to think that the attraction Bangor had for McKenzie might just be mutual.

He sighed. “I sort of already know about Fay. I was doing some research on Bangor, looking at his background and all that yesterday. Remember when he said his partner died of AIDS five years ago? He wasn’t telling the truth. I found his name, and looked him up, too. It was the Fay guy.”

Taylor glanced over at McKenzie. “Bangor told us all about it last night. It sounds like a bad situation. Did you find anything else?”

“Not yet. I’ve had the file pulled from the archives. But I asked Mr. Bangor about it last night. It must have been after you left. The boy was thirteen when Bangor’s partner was twenty-one. He came out to his parents and introduced Fay and they freaked. They pressed charges and Fay went down for statutory. The boy was so upset by his parents’ reaction that he recanted his affair, said it was a rape, let Fay get convicted. At least, that’s what Hugh said.”

“What’s the kid’s name? Did you run his record, too?”

“I did. Christopher Gallagher. He’s in Texas now, clean. I’ll keep following up, see if he’s got an alibi. It would be a solid motive. Though coming from Texas to commit a murder seems like a lot of effort.”

“Well, think about coming from Italy. I’m not willing to disregard anything just yet.” She decided to take a chance.

“McKenzie, be careful with Hugh Bangor. We don’t know why he was targeted, and we haven’t completely determined his role in this murder. He could be an innocent, he could be implicated. Whatever you do, if you decide to get involved, wait until the case is done, okay? We don’t need any more bad press.”

“You know?” he said. He sounded miserable.

“I suspected. And it’s not a problem, okay? Just promise me that you’ll watch your p’s and q’s with Hugh.”

He was quiet for a minute. “You know my girlfriend, the one who killed herself?”

“You’ve mentioned her.”

“It was because of me. We were engaged and I called off the wedding. I just couldn’t do it. I’d been in a relationship with a man from college for a couple of years, on and off. I kept thinking that if I just got married, I could lead a normal life. But in the end, I couldn’t go through with it. She didn’t handle the news well. It was horrible. Took me two years to stop carrying around the guilt. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“Of course not. That’s your business.”

“I appreciate that. I moved up here from Orlando to get away from it all. I couldn’t take living in the same city as her parents. We’d run into each other at the grocery store. It was awful.”

“I can imagine. Okay then. It’s our little secret. Now. When the information comes in from the publishing house, I’ll need you to go through that page, run down every single detail you can. Who, what, where, when, why and how, okay? There’s something there that can help us, I feel it in my gut. You know Lincoln Ross?”

“Sure. He’s a great guy.”

“Lincoln said you’re handy with the computer. Show me what you’ve got with this, okay?”

Once she hit I-24, she drove fast, in the left lane, buzzing around slower cars and flashing her lights at the eighteen-wheelers who strayed into the left lane from time to time. She passed the 840 loop, headed into Murfreesboro. Not long now.

McKenzie kept looking over at her, like he wanted to say something else. She waited for him, watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was staring at her, trying to be subtle about it. She finally got impatient.

“You’re staring. What is it? Do I have donut on my face?”

He blushed when he realized she’d been aware that he was looking.

“Seriously, man, what is it? You’re giving me a complex.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Your scar. Is it true, the story? About how you got it?”

Taylor subconsciously ran her right hand across her neck. She rarely thought about the scar anymore, though it was there, in sharp bas-relief across her neck, the souvenir of a crazy, desperate man. Four inches of desecrated flesh. Another millimeter and she wouldn’t be here today.

“What story? Guy got desperate. Never get in close with a suspect with a knife, McKenzie. You’ll end up getting stuck.”

“I meant that you killed him.”

Ah.

“I’ve only killed when I had no other choice, McKenzie.” She was amazed at the coldness in her voice. Calm, dead, frigid. The air in the car was charged. McKenzie squirmed, realized he’d crossed some invisible line. She was just about to apologize when the car radio buzzed.

“Detective Jackson? This is Dispatch. Be advised, 10–64, possible 10–89, drowning, code two, Radnor Lake. Please respond.”

Taylor groaned and muttered a few choice expletives. She nodded at McKenzie, took the last Murfreesboro exit.

McKenzie keyed the mike. “10-4, Dispatch. We’re on our way. We’re just south of Murfreesboro, it will take a bit for us to get there. Out.”

Taylor dug her notebook out of her pocket and handed it to McKenzie. “Call the Coffee County Sheriff, his name is Simmons. Tell him we got pulled back to town. Tell him I’m sorry and I’ll get in touch with him later.”

Taylor was already back on the highway heading north. She put the flasher on and took advantage of the rest of the drivers scurrying out of her path to exceed the speed limit. Another murder. At the lake, the 10–89 was logical, but the code two meant there was something urgent about the call. She had to assume it was a murder. It never failed-they tended to pile up on one another. Though Radnor Lake-they didn’t get called there too often. She wondered what was going on, then contented herself with putting her foot on the gas.

At least this got them off the topic of her scar. She still wasn’t comfortable enough with McKenzie to talk about the terror she’d felt when she saw her own blood spilling down her chest. That insane moment of clarity between the cut and the pain. She knew she was dead. She should have been dead. She was damn lucky Baldwin had been there. His medical training saved her life. Always handy to be hanging out with a doctor during a chase.

She forced it from her mind. No sense going there.

They made it back up to Davidson County in twenty minutes, took the Bell Road exit, blew up Old Hickory to Granny White. Within minutes they’d plowed through the tony neighborhood surrounding the lake and turned right on Otter Creek. The entrance to the park was a half a mile up the road. Leafy green oak trees overhung the street, three red posts halted traffic into the preserve. There was a parking lot to her left. She pulled into it, joining the rest of the responding officers.

Several police cruisers were in the lot, lights off, which was strange. Tim Davis’s crime-scene van was parked by the entrance to the trailhead.

Taylor and McKenzie exited their vehicle. Taylor was struck by the verdant beauty of the surroundings, the quiet. All this ten miles from downtown Nashville.

Paula Simari was standing by her cruiser with a blond, white-faced park ranger. Max was in the backseat, straining against the window.

The ranger’s name tag read R. Kilkowski. A pair of oval-shaped brown plastic glasses rested on her impossibly small nose. When Taylor shook her hand, she noticed it was trembling.

“Simari. Ma’am. What’s happening? Why no flashers?”

“It disturbs the wildlife,” the ranger said. “We’ve had three bald eagles, two adults and a juvenile, in the park in the last week. We’ve canceled everything in the hopes that they might nest here. Officer Simari was kind enough to agree to try to limit the commotion.”

Taylor raised an eyebrow but didn’t say a word. She knew how deadly serious the conservation efforts were at Radnor Lake. It was one of the only protected wildlife sanctuaries-a real biological ecosystem-near a major metropolitan city in the country. Radnor Lake consisted of twelve hundred acres of pristine lake, wildlife and walking trails. No biking or picnics were allowed-the fragile ecosystem was dependent on clean, quiet and calm. This was sure to rattle everyone’s, and every thing’s, cages.

The “Friends” of Radnor Lake were a veritable who’s who of Nashville’s elite, and they threw some serious cash behind the conservation efforts. The lake had started in 1913, as a water-filling depot and hunting area for the L amp;N Railroad Company and had morphed into a privately held, privately funded nature reserve. Taylor knew that a dead body wouldn’t be high on the board’s wish list.

Simari shook McKenzie’s hand, tapped Taylor on the shoulder. “Glad you got here so quickly. You’ve got to see this. Thought you might find some similarities to your Love Hill victim. Body is female, black, skinny as hell.”

Taylor felt the first bits of adrenaline crash through her system. She’d assumed this was a run-of-the-mill homicide. As if there was such a thing.

“Drowned?”

“I don’t know. You just need to see it, I don’t want to influence you.” Simari nodded to the ranger. “Lead the way.”

“Do I have to go back there?” Kilkowski asked, voice tremulous. Her eyes were wet behind the glasses.

Taylor reassured her. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to look. Just take us down the right path.” The girl nodded, started walking up the hill from the parking lot, stiff as a board. The three of them followed her.

Simari looked back to Taylor. “It’s damn quiet out here. I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more. No one around at night, the park’s closed.”

“Video?” McKenzie asked.

“Yes. They’re making us a copy. But their guards never saw anything suspicious, on the feed or on their foot patrol. We’ll have to go over the tapes minute by minute. There are no cameras pointing at this spot. Either he was smart or lucky.”

“Or knows the park,” McKenzie said.

They walked about fifty yards up the hill which Taylor knew led to the dam. They disturbed a murder of crows, who flew noisily into the air, then redistributed themselves among the branches to the side of the trail, cawing their displeasure. They watched as Taylor and her crew walked by. She wasn’t fond of crows; it was almost as if they knew her thoughts and were on guard against her.

They heard a distinct crashing sound and everyone jumped, then laughed nervously. There was a flash of white; Taylor assumed it was a deer. It took her heartbeat a moment to get back to its normal rhythm. She was on edge, just waiting for something unexpected to leap out at her.

There was a creek running under the stretch of road they were walking on. It was full, the water moving peacefully. The recent rainfalls had increased the water tables tremendously. Taylor looked down the lip and saw a snake gliding off into the water, its head high. Water moccasin, probably. As they moved through the woods, the crows’ echoing calls were quickly replaced by the pervasive silence. The lake was quiet, the stillness terrifically loud, filled with living creatures’ call signs.

Taylor remembered this stretch of the path. She’d been a part of the search for Perry March’s wife, Janet, the frantic days looking for her body stretching into weeks, months and eventually years. As a cadet, she’d been a lead on one of the search teams, had been on foot for days on end looking under brush and in the woods.

Janet’s body had never been found, but Perry March, after several years in Mexico claiming his innocence, had been extradited and stood trial. He’d been convicted after his father gave a confession that he helped get rid of Janet’s body. Taylor hoped he would rot in jail-he’d been the cause of heartache for half of Nashville for years. She’d always known he’d done it, too; his smug arrogance in thinking he’d gotten away with it was his downfall. It usually was for men like that.

The sun slipped behind a passel of clouds. A storm was brewing. Taylor started worrying about preserving evidence. They rounded a curve in the trail and the lake spilled out in front of them, rippling in the soft breeze. It was a stunning sight, beauty and horror commingled. Twenty feet to her right, Taylor could see Tim Davis picking his way down the opposite side of the path, a camera in his hand.

“The body isn’t in the lake?”

The ranger’s voice quivered. “No. She’s in Otter Creek itself.”

Taylor looked into the flowing creek. She could clearly see the object of Tim’s attentions-a body floated in the shallow water. A few people stood around watching, taking notes.

Ranger Kilkowski made a small mewling noise, handed them off to a handsome man with silver hair, a great tan, and crinkly blue eyes.

He scrambled up the bank, hand outstretched. Where Kilkowski was shy, this guy was a bundle of energy.

“Hey, I’m Dick Harkins. Park manager. Glad to meet you, though I’m sorry about the circumstances.” He waved to the scene below them.

Taylor did the introductions. “You found her?”

“I did. I was taking a walk around, just checking on things. Saw something out of place, a flash of color. I thought it might have been a piece of cloth, something someone discarded. Instead…”

A weeping willow hung over the water, and a fallen branch was sticking up out of the rocky shoal. The combination created a tunnel of shade. Taylor could see easily despite the shadows. She sucked in her breath, started down the bank.

A small woman bobbed gently, moving with the creek’s slight ebb and flow. She was on her back, mouth and eyes open, arms stretched out by her side. In her right hand, she clutched a bouquet of flowers, some red, some blue, some yellow. Her neck was ringed with purple flowers, violets, by the look of them. She was dressed in a long, flowing gown which stuck to her legs, outlining them in white cotton. The skirt had gotten snagged on the dead branch. That must be how she ended up here. Taylor instinctively felt the girl was supposed to be adrift.

“Tim, tell me you’ve documented the hell out of this.”

Tim carefully joined her. “I have.”

“I need to get Baldwin out here. Immediately.”

“What’s up with this? It looks so staged.”

“It is staged. Completely. This time I know what he’s trying to say. This has to be the same killer.”