Whispers of the Dead

CHAPTER 16

WITH LIGHTS BURNING in every window and TBI vehicles clustered outside, York’s house had the starkly surreal look of a film set. It was in the grounds of Steeple Hill, hidden well away from the cemetery behind a fold in the pine woods. Like the funeral home itself, it was a low, rectangular block of concrete and glass, a failed attempt to transplant Californian 1950s modernism to the deep south. Once upon a time it might have been striking. Now, surrounded by the shadowy pinnacles of the pine trees, it just looked decayed and sad.

A crazed-paving path led to the front door, its slabs choked by straggly weeds. The crime scene tape that bracketed it gave the house an oddly festive air, although that impression was quickly dashed by the forensic agents searching it, ghost-like in their white overalls. At one side of the house, across an overgrown rectangle of lawn, a driveway led to a garage. The door was raised, displaying a patch of oil-stained floor but no car.

That had disappeared along with its owner.

Jacobsen had briefed me on the drive over. ‘We didn’t see York as a realistic suspect for the homicide, otherwise we’d have arrested him sooner.’ She’d sounded defensive, as though she were personally to blame. ‘He fits the standard serial killer profile to some extent—right age, unmarried, a loner—and his inflated sense of self-importance is a typical narcissistic characteristic. But he doesn’t have a criminal record, not even any warnings as a juvenile. No skeletons in his closet that we could find. Apart from the circumstantial evidence, there’s nothing to link him to the actual killings.’

‘The circumstantial evidence seemed pretty strong to me,’ I said.

It was too dark in the car to see her blush, but I was sure she did. ‘Only if you accept he deliberately incriminated himself by steering us towards the funeral home in the first place. That isn’t unheard of, but his story about hiring a casual worker seemed to check out. We’ve found another former employee who claims to remember Dwight Chambers. It was starting to look as though Chambers might be a legitimate suspect after all.’

‘So why arrest York?’

‘Because holding him on public health charges would give us more time to question him.’ Jacobsen looked uncomfortable. ‘Also, it was felt that there were certain… advantages to taking a proactive approach.’

And any arrest looked better than no arrest. Politics and PR were the same the world over.

Except that York hadn’t waited around to be arrested. When TBI agents went to pick him up that afternoon, there had been no sign of him either at the cemetery or his home. His car was missing, and when the TBI had forced entry into his house they’d found signs of hurried packing.

They’d also found human remains.

‘We’d have discovered them sooner, except for a foul-up with the paperwork,’ Jacobsen admitted. ‘The original warrant only covered the funeral parlour and grounds, not York’s private residence.’

‘Are the remains recent?’ I asked.

‘We don’t think so. But Dan would rather you see for yourself.’

That had shocked me even more than York’s disappearance. It seemed that Paul had been unavailable. Sam was having a bad night. They’d thought she was going into labour, and while that had proved to be a false alarm he wasn’t prepared to leave her on her own.

So he’d told Gardner to ask me instead.

Paul had sounded tired and frazzled when I’d called him. Not that I doubted Jacobsen, but I wasn’t about to go without speaking to him first.

‘I’ve told Gardner I’ll take a look first thing tomorrow, but if he wants an opinion tonight then he should ask you. Hope you don’t mind,’ he’d said. I told him I didn’t, only that I was surprised Gardner had agreed. He gave a sour laugh. ‘He didn’t have much choice.’

He obviously hadn’t forgiven Gardner for siding with Hicks against Tom. While Paul was too professional to let his personal feelings get in the way of an investigation, that didn’t mean he couldn’t turn the screw a little.

I wondered how Gardner felt about it.

Jacobsen hadn’t stayed at Steeple Hill. After dropping me off she’d gone to check on the forensic team’s progress with the payphone. I’d been directed to a van where I could change, and then made my way to the house.

Gardner was outside the front door, talking to a grey-haired woman in white overalls. He was wearing overshoes and gloves, and though he gave me a glance as I approached he didn’t break off his conversation.

I stood at the bottom of the path and waited.

With a last terse instruction to the white-clad agent, Gardner finally turned to me. Neither of us spoke. His displeasure was almost palpable, but whatever he was thinking he kept to himself. He gave me a curt nod.

‘It’s upstairs.’

The house had the typical upside-down design of its style and era, so that the bedrooms were downstairs and the living quarters on the first floor. The once white walls and ceilings had been stained a dirty yellow by decades of cigarette smoke, and the same ochre patina clung to the doors and furniture like grease. Underlying the pervasive stink of stale tobacco was a musty smell of old carpets and unwashed sheets.

The sense of neglect and dilapidation was made worse by the turmoil of the search that was under way. Forensic agents were poring through drawers and cupboards, pulling out the detritus of York’s life for examination. I felt their eyes on me as we went upstairs. There was an air of anticipation that I recognized from other crime scenes when a significant find had been made, but there was also open curiosity.

Word of my reinstatement had obviously got around.

Gardner led me up a staircase whose corners were felted with dust. The whole upper floor was open-plan, with kitchen, dining and living areas all combined. Most of the fittings looked original: partition shelf units and frosted glass cupboards straight from a 1950s advert for the domestic American dream.

But the furniture was a mishmash from the intervening decades. A rusted fridge hummed loudly in the kitchen, while an imitation chandelier with candle-shaped lightbulbs hung over a scuffed dining table and chairs in the dinette. An overstuffed leather armchair sat in the centre of the living area, its split cushions patched with peeling electrical tape. Positioned in front of it was a huge flat screen TV, the only recent piece of furniture I’d seen.

There were more forensic agents busy up here. The house was in chaos, though it was hard to say how much was due to the search and what was the result of York’s personal habits. Clothes were strewn about, and boxes of junk and old magazines had been pulled out of cupboards. But the sink and breakfast bar were invisible beneath dirty dishes, and crusted cartons of takeaway food lay where York must have dropped them.

Several of the search team broke off what they were doing to watch as Gardner led me across the room. I recognized the bulky form of Jerry on his hands and knees on the floor, poring through the drawers of a battered sideboard. He raised a gloved hand in greeting.

‘Hi, doc.’ The jowls of his face wobbled round his mask as he energetically chewed gum. ‘Nice place, huh? And you should see his film collection. Porn paradise, all alphabetically listed. Guy really needs to get out more.’

Gardner had gone over to an alcove near the sink. ‘So long as it’s all still there when you’re done.’ There were chuckles, but I wasn’t sure if he was joking. ‘Through here.’

A walk-in cupboard was set in the alcove, its door wedged open. Its contents had been pulled out and lay spread around: boxes of chipped crockery, a plastic bucket with a split in its side, a broken vacuum cleaner. An agent knelt by a cardboard box of old photographic equipment: a worn SLR camera that had obviously seen better days, an old-fashioned flash unit and light meter, old photographic magazines, their pages faded and curling.

A yard or two away, isolated from the rest of the junk in a cleared space on the dusty linoleum, was a battered suitcase.

The lid was down but gaping, as though whatever was inside was too big for it to lie flat. Gardner looked down at it, making no attempt to approach too closely.

‘We found it in the cupboard. Once we saw what was inside we left it alone until someone could take a look at it.’

The suitcase seemed too small to contain a human being. At least not an adult, but I knew that didn’t mean anything. Years before I’d been called out to examine a grown man’s body that had been crammed into a hold all even smaller than this. The limbs had been folded back on themselves, the bones broken and compacted into a shape no living contortionist could hope to achieve.

I squatted down beside it. The brown leather was scuffed and worn, but without the mould or staining I’d have expected if the remains had decomposed inside. That fitted with what Jacobsen had said about them not being recent.

‘Can I take a look?’ I asked Gardner.

‘That’s why you’re here.’

Ignoring the acid in his voice I reached for the lid, conscious of everyone watching as I lifted it open.

The suitcase was full of bones. One glance was enough to confirm that they were human. There was what looked like an entire ribcage, against which a skull had been wedged, the mandible still connected so that it bore the hallmark grin. Looking at it, I wondered if Jacobsen’s words in the restaurant had been intentional: No skeletons in his closet that we could find.

They’d found one now.

The bones were the same tobacco colour as the walls, although I didn’t think cigarette smoke was responsible this time. They were clean, without any trace of soft tissue. I leaned closer and sniffed, but there was no real odour beyond the musty leather of the suitcase.

I picked up a rib that lay on the top. It was curved like a miniature bow. In one or two places I could see translucent flakes peeling away from the surface, like tiny fish scales.

‘Any word yet on York?’ I asked, as I examined it.

‘We’re still looking.’

‘You think he left of his own accord?’

‘If you mean was he abducted like Irving the answer’s no. Irving didn’t take his car or pack a suitcase before he disappeared,’ Gardner said tersely. ‘Now what can you tell me about these?’

I put the rib back down and took out the skull. The bones chimed together with almost musical notes as they shifted.

‘They’re female,’ I told him, turning the skull in my hand. ‘The bone structure’s too delicate for a man. And she didn’t die recently.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

‘OK,’ I agreed. ‘For a start she wasn’t murdered.’

It was as though I’d suggested the earth was flat. ‘What?’

‘This isn’t a murder victim,’ I repeated. ‘Look at how yellowed the bones are. This is old. Four or five decades at least. Perhaps more. You can see where it’s been coated with some kind of stabilizer that’s starting to flake off. I’m pretty certain it’s shellac, which hasn’t been used for years. And look at this…’

I showed him a small, neat hole drilled in the crown of the skull.

‘That’s where some sort of fixing used to be, so it could be hung up. Chances are this came from some lab or belonged to a medical student. Nowadays plastic models are used rather than actual skeletons, but you still come across real ones occasionally.’

‘It’s a medical skeleton?’ Gardner glared down at it. ‘What the hell is it doing here?’

I set the skull back in the suitcase. ‘York said his father founded Steeple Hill back in the fifties. Perhaps it belonged to him. It’s certainly old enough.’

‘Goddammit.’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘I’d still like Paul Avery to take a look.’

‘Whatever you like.’

I don’t think Gardner even realized the implied slight. With a last disgusted look at the suitcase, he headed for the stairs. Closing the suitcase lid, I followed him.

‘Bye, doc,’ Jerry said, jaw still working. ‘Another wasted trip, huh?’

As I passed the sideboard, I paused to look at the clutter of framed family photographs, a visual history of York’s life. They were a mix of posed portraits and holiday snaps, the once bright summer colours washed out and faded. York was the subject of most: a grinning boy in shorts on a boat, an uncomfortable-looking teenager. An older, amiable-looking woman who looked like his mother was with him in most of them. Sometimes they were joined by a tall, tanned man with a businessman’s smile who I took to be York’s father. He wasn’t in many, so I guessed he’d taken most of the photographs himself.

But the later shots were exclusively of York’s mother, a progressively stooped and shrunken copy of her younger self. The most recent one showed her posing by a lake with a younger version of her son, frail and grey but still smiling.

There were no more after that.

I caught up with Gardner at the bottom of the stairs. So far he’d made no mention of the phone call Tom had received the night before. I wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t think it was relevant, or if he just didn’t want to acknowledge that I might have done something useful. But I wasn’t going to leave without raising it.

‘Did Jacobsen tell you about the phone booth?’ I asked as we went along the hallway.

‘She told me. We’re looking into it.’

‘What about Tom? If the call was meant to lure him outside he might still be in danger.’

‘I appreciate you pointing that out,’ he said, coldly sarcastic. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

I’d had enough. It was late and I was tired. I stopped in the hallway. ‘Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but you asked me to come out here. Would it kill you to at least be civil?’

Gardner turned and faced me, his face darkening. ‘I asked you out here because I didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice. Tom brought you into this investigation, not me. And excuse me if my manners aren’t to your liking, but in case you haven’t noticed I’m trying to catch a serial killer!’

‘Well, it isn’t me!’ I flared back.

We glared at each other. We were by the front door, and through it I could see that the agents outside had stopped to stare. After a moment Gardner drew in a deep breath and looked down at the floor. He seemed to unclench himself with a visible effort.

‘For your information, I arranged extra security for Tom straight away,’ he said, in a tightly controlled voice. ‘Purely as a precaution. Even if you’re right about the phone call, I doubt that whoever made it is going to try anything while Tom’s in a hospital bed. But I’m not about to take the chance.’

It wasn’t exactly an apology, but I could live with that. The main thing was that Tom was safe.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘You’re welcome.’ I couldn’t decide if he was being facetious or not. ‘Now, if that’s all, Dr Hunter, I’ll see you’re taken back to your hotel’.

I started to go out, but I’d not even reached the front steps when someone called Gardner from inside the house.

‘Sir? You should take a look at this.’

A forensic agent, overalls grubby with oil and dirt, had emerged from a door further down the hallway. Gardner glanced at me, and I knew what was going through his mind.

‘Don’t go just yet.’

He set off down the hallway and through the door. I hesitated, then went after him. I wasn’t going to stand there like a schoolboy outside the headmaster’s office until Gardner decided if he needed me or not.

The door was an internal entrance to the garage. The air smelled of oil and damp. A bare lightbulb burned overhead, its weak glow supplemented by the harsher glare of floodlights. It was as cluttered in here as in the rest of the house, sagging cardboard boxes, mildewed camping gear and rusting garden equipment crowding round the bare area of concrete where York’s car had stood.

Gardner and the crime scene agent were by an old steel filing cabinet. One of the drawers was pulled out.

‘… at the bottom under old magazines,’ the agent was saying. ‘I thought at first they were just photographs, until I took a better look.’

Gardner was staring down at them. ‘Jesus Christ.’

He sounded shocked. The other agent said something else, but I didn’t pay attention. By then I could see what they’d found for myself.

It was a slim foolscap-sized box, the sort used for photographic paper. It was open, and the agent had fanned out the half-dozen or so photographs from inside. They were all black and white portraits, each a close-up of a man or woman’s face from chin to forehead. They had been enlarged to almost full size, and the perfect focus had caught every feature, every pore and blemish, in sharp-edged detail; a split second preserved with unblurred clarity. Each face was contorted and dark, and at first glance their expressions were almost comical, as though each of the subjects had been caught on the point of a sneeze. But only until you saw their eyes.

Then you knew that there was nothing remotely comical about this at all.

We’d always suspected that there were more victims than the ones we knew about. This confirmed it. It hadn’t been enough for York to torture them to death.

He’d photographed them dying as well.

Gardner seemed to notice I was there for the first time. He gave me a sharp look, but the rebuke I was half expecting never came. I think he was still too stunned himself.

‘You can go now, Dr Hunter.’

A taciturn TBI agent drove me back to my hotel after I’d changed, but those contorted faces continued to haunt me as we drove through the dark streets. They were disturbing on a level that was hard to explain. Not just because of what they showed. I’d seen enough death in my time. I’d worked on cases before where murderers had taken trophies of their victims: a lock of hair or some scrap of clothing, twisted memento mori of the lives they’d claimed.

But this was different. York was no crazed killer, losing himself in the heat of some warped passion. He’d played us for fools all along, manipulating the investigation from the start. Even his exit had been timed perfectly. And the photographs weren’t the usual trophies. They’d been taken with a degree of care and skill that spoke of a deliberate, clinical coldness. Of control.

That made them all the more frightening.

I didn’t really need another shower when I got back to my room, but I had one anyway. The trip to York’s house left me feeling unclean in a way that was more than skin deep. Symbolic or not, the hot water helped. So much so that I fell asleep almost the instant I turned out the light.

I was woken just before six by an insistent trilling. Still half asleep, I pawed for the alarm clock before I realized the noise was from my phone.

‘Hello?’ I mumbled, not properly awake.

The last vestiges of sleep fell away when I heard Paul’s voice.

‘It’s bad news, David,’ he said. ‘Tom died last night.’

You cut it fine. You knew it wouldn’t be long before the TBI agents arrived at the house, but you left it as long as you dared. Too soon and much of the impact would be lost. Too late and… Well, that would have spoiled everything.

It was a pity you didn’t have more time. You hate feeling rushed, even though there was no avoiding it. You’d always known it would come to this. The funeral home had served its purpose. You’d planned it all out in advance; what you needed to take and what would be left behind. It had called for fine judgement and more than a little discipline. But that was OK.

Some sacrifices have to be made.

You’re almost ready for the next stage now. All you’ve got to do is be patient. It won’t be much longer. Just one final chore to nudge the last pieces into place, then the waiting will be over.

You admit to a few nerves, but that’s a good thing. You can’t let yourself be complacent. When the opportunity presents itself, you’ll have to be ready to take it. You can’t afford to waste chances like this. You know that better than anyone.

Life’s too short.