The Killing Room

THIRTY-TWO

The drive to West Virginia took just over five hours, but that was not according to Detective Jessica Balzano, who slept most of the way. When she awoke the car was stopped, parked on the side of a dirt road, with the strangest anomaly occurring. There was sunlight coming in the windows. Bright yellow sunlight. It was by no means warm, and there were patches of snow dotting the endless, rolling brown hills, but the sky was blue and the sun was dazzling.

Jessica glanced over at Byrne. He was staring out the window, lost in thought. When he noticed that Jessica was awake, he reached into the back seat, brought back a container of coffee.

Jessica sat up. ‘Don’t tell me I slept the whole time.’

‘Purt’ near,’ Byrne said with a smile.

‘Wow. We must be in West Virginia.’

Jessica rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She brought down the visor, opened the lighted mirror. ‘Oh, my God.’ She snapped it shut, took the coffee from Byrne. ‘Are you saying we stopped, you got out, bought coffee, got back in, and we drove some more without me waking up?’

‘Actually we stopped twice.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘Last time was an hour ago. The coffee won’t be hot, but it’s strong and it’s pretty good. Sweet rolls are in the back if you want one.’

Jessica opened the coffee, sipped. Byrne was right. It was forty-weight.

‘You’re going to love this,’ Byrne said. He reached out, tapped a button on the navigation screen on the center console. Jessica put on her glasses, looked at the readout.

There were two lines. If they were in Philadelphia, or just about anywhere else, the entire screen would have been cross-hatched with streets, boulevards, expressways, turnpikes. Here, at the northeastern tip of West Virginia, there were two roads. One going north and south. One going east and west.

‘Have you ever seen this screen so empty?’ Byrne asked.

‘Never.’

Driving around Philly, with its one hundred neighborhoods and thousands of streets, Jessica quite often needed to pull over, put on her reading glasses, and scan the screen. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, navigation was a lot easier.

‘You said we stopped twice,’ Jessica said.

‘I stopped at the sheriff’s office. There’s only two deputies working. It’s really more of an outpost.’

‘They didn’t see me sleeping in the car, did they? Please tell me they didn’t see me sleeping in the car.’

‘No. I parked a block away. The whole town was only five blocks long, so we were pretty much on the outskirts.’

‘And you left me alone in the car? In the middle of such a hotbed of criminal activity?’

Byrne smiled. Jessica sipped her coffee again, then chugged half the lukewarm cup. She had to get it together. She rolled down her window, let some of the cold air in. ‘What did we get from the sheriff’s office?’ she asked.

‘Not much. The older of the two deputies was about twenty-five, and he said that the address we have used to belong to the Longstreet family, but no one has lived there for quite some time. He said our best bet was to see a woman named Ida-Rae Munson, who lives along here somewhere. He said if we couldn’t find it to call him and he’d come out.’ Byrne held up his cell phone. ‘I tried. No signal yet.’

Jessica glanced out all four windows. There were rolling brown hills in all directions, but not a single dwelling of any kind.

‘Did you get a map?’

‘No,’ Byrne said. He tapped the navigation screen again. ‘This is about as detailed as it gets.’

Byrne pulled back onto the road. About a mile away they came to a long thicket on the right.

‘Stop,’ Jessica said.

Byrne stopped, backed up. There seemed to be an opening in the thicket, which led to a long hardpan lane that headed up to and over a ridge.

Jessica looked at Byrne. As he pulled in, scraping the sides of the sedan against the dried bushes, she finished her coffee, and willed herself awake.

There was no way of knowing what they were going to find over this ridge.

The house sat atop a low rise, at the end of a 200-foot driveway. The closer they got to the structure, the more Jessica began to wonder what kept it standing. It was a three-room shack, with a roof so patched and tar-papered it looked to be in danger of blowing off any second. The ridge of the roof was so bowed it looked ready to snap. There was a crumbling chimney to the left, one at the back. Smoke poured from the larger of the two. In the fields surrounding the shack were the rusted remnants of old trucks, stoves, car parts. A well pump stuck out of the ground at the end of a trampled trail through the weeds.

Jessica and Byrne got out of the car, walked to the house. The sun was still out, but a frigid breeze blew over the hill. They stepped cautiously onto the swayback porch. Jessica knocked. From inside they heard a dog bark. It was a high-pitched sound, which was good news. No one, outside of postal carriers, had more of a love/hate relationship with dogs than police officers. This did not sound like a big dog — Rottweiler, shepherd, or even an old redbone hound. This was a beagle at best.

The door opened, but there was no one there. Jessica looked down. There, standing in front of them, was a boy of five. He had light blond hair shorn so close to his head that there were red, abraded patches on his scalp. He wore dirty jeans, at least two sizes too large. They were rolled up almost to his scabby knees. He was barefoot, even though the temperature had to be hovering around twenty degrees.

‘Hi,’ Jessica said.

Instead of answering, the boy barked. Loudly. At first, Jessica thought the boy might have yelled for an adult to come to the door, but when he did it a second time, there could be no doubt in her mind. The boy was imitating a dog. At least she hoped it was an imitation.

There was no dog. The sound they heard had been the boy.

‘Is your mom or dad home?’ Jessica asked.

The boy studied them for a moment, then turned and ran. He disappeared out the back door. A few seconds later they heard: ‘Well, come if you’re comin’. Stove’s alight. Shake off the chill.’

Jessica and Byrne stepped inside. The main room was relatively uncluttered and organized, considering the home’s exterior. To the right was a long table, along with a wood-burning stove. Next to that was a sewing machine.

As they stepped further into the room, Jessica saw the woman sitting in a rocking chair. She was somewhere between thirty and fifty, had graying hair pulled back into a ponytail, held an embroidery hoop in her hands. Her right foot was in a cast.

‘Are you Ida-Rae Munson?’ Jessica asked.

‘I am in fact.’

Jessica produced her ID. ‘My name is Jessica Balzano. I’m with the Philadelphia Police Department.’

‘Philadelphia?’

Jessica heard a sound behind her. She turned to see the dog-boy crouched in the corner watching them, little terrier eyes studying them from the midday shadow. When had he come back inside? Jessica turned her attention back to the woman. ‘We had quite a hard time finding your place.’

‘House ain’t moved in thirty years,’ the woman said.

‘I guess what I meant is that it’s a bit sparsely populated in this area,’ Jessica said, for some reason feeling the need to explain herself, and do so with proper grammar, which was far from one of her strengths.

The woman shrugged, ran a hand across her chin. ‘There just ain’t no more jobs, that’s the simple answer. Not in the mines, not loggin’, not pulpwoodin’. Nothin’, nowhere. Everwho had some sense packed and gone.’

Jessica and Byrne just listened. Jessica figured everwho meant whoever.

The woman waved a hand absently at the area behind the house. ‘We used to grow everything we needed, ’cept the ground got used up. All’s we used to go into town for was boots and nails. Coffee, some. Still ain’t no public water out here. When I heard y’all pull up I figured you was with the county, out to give me another shuffle.’

‘We just need to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right?’ Jessica said.

‘I ain’t expected. Ask what y’got.’

Jessica took out her notebook and pen. ‘Ma’am, do you know a man named Elijah Longstreet?’

The woman recoiled as if she had bitten into spoiled fruit. ‘Elijah?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Do you know him?’

The woman looked out the window, and back again. In this light Jessica could see the woman had once been pretty. She had high cheekbones, silver-blue eyes.

‘Weren’t none of them Longstreets no good,’ she said. ‘They say we’re kin way back, imagine. But I don’t believe it. Not a word.’

The woman rocked back and forth.

‘Ma’am? Elijah Longstreet?’ Byrne asked. ‘Do you know where we could find him?’

The woman snorted. ‘I’d look to Hell. Shouldn’t take too long.’

Jessica and Byrne exchanged a glance.

‘Are you saying Mr Longstreet is deceased?’ Byrne asked.

‘God-fearin’ people get deceased. Elijah Longstreet just dead.’

‘Do you know what happened?’

The woman looked at Byrne as if she were talking to a mule. ‘He died. That’s what bein’ dead means.’

Byrne took a deep breath. ‘Ma’am, what I’m asking is, do you know how he died?’

‘They say it was the lung got him, but it was the drink. It was always the drink with them Longstreets.’

‘How long ago did he pass?’

The woman looked skyward, perhaps doing the math. ‘Gotta be twenty year now. More, some.’

Twenty years, Jessica thought. Then why was his fingerprint in a missal found in the hands of a dead man in Philadelphia this week?

‘Do you know if Mr Longstreet ever got up to Philadelphia?’ she asked.

‘Don’t know nothing about Elijah Longstreet’s comin’ or goin’.’

Jessica took out a photograph of a cleaned-up edition of the My Missal found in Martin Allsop’s hands. ‘Do you recognize this book?’

The woman squinted at the picture, focused. ‘Oh, Lord. Haven’t seen one of them in years.’

‘Do you own one of these?’ Jessica asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s a book for children.’

At the mention of the word children, Jessica looked around the room. Somehow the barking boy had moved again without her seeing it. She wondered where he was. Had they locked the car?

A knot in one of the logs in the stove popped. Jessica nearly jumped at the sound.

‘Elijah had a girl called Ruby,’ the woman said, resuming her rocking. Perhaps this was her storytelling mode. ‘Redheaded one. Funny girl. Touched some say. Too quiet, y’ask.’

‘Ma’am?’

‘Word was she had a devil-child.’

Jessica looked at Byrne, back at the woman.

‘Lots of stories come out ’round that girl,’ the woman continued. ‘I know she took up with that preacher.’

‘What preacher would that be?’

The woman laughed. ‘You got a nickel? You do, I’ll give ya five preachers and change. Ain’t never been a shortage a preachers in West Virginia.’ She tapped the photograph of the book, handed it back to Jessica ‘He used to hand them missals out like candy. Used to hand out a lot more than that, if you was young and fair.’

‘Do you recall the man’s name?’

She shook her head. ‘Don’t know nothin’ ’bout his name. But I know that Longstreet young ’un Ruby run off slap-quick with him and his church caravan.’ She rocked back and forth, just once, stopped. ‘And her boy like to be the devil.’

‘Not sure what you mean by that.’

The woman reached down next to her, picked up a rusted coffee can, spit into it. Jessica did her best not to look at Byrne.

‘Said the boy was a bad seed. Said the father had the devil in him and the boy come out evil.’

Jessica put her notebook away. Even if she found something useful in this woman’s words, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to read her notes on the subject, or make it part of the permanent case file. What she was sure of was that she was good for about two more seconds of being in this house.

‘Where would we find this Ruby Longstreet?’ Byrne asked.

Another shrug, another spit. ‘Longstreet name’s tainted. She woulda changed it anyways, even if she ain’t got married. I know I woulda.’

‘Are you saying there are no longer any of the Longstreets living around here?’

‘Long gone from here. Anyone with sense long gone from here. Her momma is up to the state nursing home in Weirton. Their house, what’s left of it, is five mile up the road. More, a piece.’

‘We went by there, but we didn’t see anything,’ Byrne said.

‘Oh, it’s still there. You gotta ride that ridge for a spell. Pon m’onor it’s there. Nothin’ but spiders and whistle pigs though.’

At first Jessica didn’t know what the woman had said. Then she worked it out. Pon m’onor was upon my honor. She thanked the woman for her time. The woman didn’t get up, didn’t show them to the door.

Jessica took out a card, put it on the wooden table by the front window. She wasn’t even sure this woman had a phone. ‘If you can think of anything that might help us locate Ruby Longstreet, please give us a call.’

No response. Just the creak of the rocking chair.

As they reached the car, Jessica had the feeling they were being observed. After a few steps she turned.

The boy was sitting on the roof, watching them.

*

Jessica and Byrne headed south. They didn’t talk. The encounter with Ida-Rae Munson and the barking boy had pretty much taken the words right out of them. When they reached the five-mile mark, they came to the overgrown drive that led back toward what they assumed was the Longstreet property. Jessica stopped the car.

‘You sure you want to do this?’ she asked.

‘Well, we’re here, right?’ Byrne asked. ‘I mean, what would a trip to West Virginia be without a visit to the famous Longstreet Estate?’

Jessica wasn’t finding the humor.

‘It would be like visiting Asheville and not going to Biltmore,’ Byrne added.

Against her better judgment, Jessica turned into the drive. She said a silent prayer that they would not encounter any more barking boys.

They rode the overgrown lane back over the rise, more than a half-mile, and saw what was once a home. Two buildings, flattened by time and weather, sat next to a frozen pond. Behind it a dry gully ran down the hill.

In the pond were the remnants of an old pickup truck’s fender and wheel well. As Jessica and Byrne got out, and moved closer, Jessica saw that the buildings had been burned, but, apparently, when they had fallen into the pond, the fire halted. Half-walls and a charred ridge pole stuck out of the ice. Tar-paper spread across an overgrown field. Emerging from the ground behind the house were a half-dozen crosses, simple monuments of twined-together two by fours.

‘Well, our friend Ida-Rae was right,’ Jessica said, as brightly as possible. ‘Nothing to see here. Nope. Nary a thing. Let’s go.’

Instead of responding, Byrne walked toward the pile of charred rubble. Jessica recognized the set of her partner’s shoulders, his gait. She knew they were not going to leave any time soon.

Jessica followed, watching the ground for all manner of danger — snakes, rats, and especially old boards with big rusty nails sticking out of them. Once, when she was seven years old, she and her cousin Angela snuck onto a construction site in South Philly, and Jessica stepped on a board, putting a sixteen-penny nail through her right foot. Besides the excruciating pain, she’d had to get a tetanus shot, which was almost worse. Since then it had become a bona fide phobia. She could square off in the ring with big nineteen-year-old girls named Valentine, run after crazy men with butcher knives, but she was scared shitless of stepping on an old rusty nail sticking out of a board.

And snakes. She was not a snake person.

‘I can’t believe a whole family lived in a place this small,’ Jessica said. While the rowhouses in cities like Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia were notoriously small, at least they could grow vertically. This had been a three- or four-room shack, one-story tall. Jessica looked to her right and saw an old metal bed frame grown over by weeds. She wondered how many people had slept in it.

She was just about to ask Byrne what she could do to help move this investigation along, when she heard a noise to her right. An animal sound. She turned and saw, on a ridge about fifty feet away, two black dogs.

Big black dogs.

‘Kevin,’ Jessica whispered.

‘I see them.’

Both detectives slowly unsnapped their holsters, drew their weapons, held them at their sides. Jessica looked back at the car. It was at least thirty yards away. They would never make it, even at a dead run.

The dogs did not have their heads lowered, nor were they growling. But then again, neither Jessica nor Byrne had moved.

‘What you want to do?’ Jessica asked.

‘Just stay as still as possible. Don’t make eye contact.’

The dogs milled back and forth on the ridge, circling each other, nuzzling, sniffing the air. It looked as if they might be protecting something, but were unsure that Jessica and Byrne posed any threat. Jessica noticed they were well-fed, heavily muscled. After a few minutes they turned and loped down the other side of the hill.

Jessica and Byrne stood still for a full minute. Had the dogs left? There was no way of knowing, and Jessica would be damned if she was going to go to the top of the ridge and take a peek.

‘Partner?’ she said.

‘Yeah?’

‘I love the hell out of you, you know that, right?’

‘I do,’ Byrne said. ‘And it means the world to me.’

‘But if you don’t mind, could you do me a favor?’

‘I will surely entertain the notion.’

‘Could we maybe get the fuck out of here?’

‘I think we’re okay,’ Byrne said. ‘I think they left.’

Jessica wanted to believe he was right. She wasn’t so sure.

For the moment her thoughts returned to the case, and to Ida-Rae Munson’s words:

Word was she had a devil-child.

In the context of the horrors they had seen in the desecrated churches, the words certainly took on a new meaning. She just didn’t know what that meaning might be. Either way, it was time for some old school, shoe leather police work. She just didn’t want to do it here.

‘I think we should go back to the town,’ Jessica said. ‘Maybe there’s some forwarding address for this Ruby Longstreet, some attorney who handled the property. I want to see the records of this place.’

Byrne reached into his coat pocket, gave Jessica the deputy’s card. ‘Nice kid. Believe me, he’ll fall all over himself to help you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ll wait here.’

Jessica looked at her partner. ‘You’re going to stay here.’

‘Yeah.’

‘In the middle of nowhere.’

‘Yeah,’ Byrne said. ‘You might want to fix your hair.’

Jessica did a quick comb-through with her fingers. ‘Better?’

‘Better.’

‘You sure you want to do this?’

Byrne just nodded.

Jessica backed her way to the car, listening for the sound of eight heavy paws loping up the hill. She heard nothing. She opened the driver’s door.

‘Kevin?’

Byrne looked over.

‘The dogs?’

Byrne raised a hand, waved. He’d heard her.