Other reporters nodded in agreement. Nick looked from one to another while his insides churned. His collar strangled him, the jacket made him sweat. Another trickle slid down his back. They waited. Every word would be weighed, every gesture measured. He imagined tonight someone would rewind their videotaped version of the news just to see him run down the steps backward. He didn’t care. He turned and ran up the staircase, taking two and three steps at a time, silently praying he didn’t trip and end up back at the bottom.
He crashed through the sheriff’s department doors, smacking the glass against a metal trash can and a wall. A spider crack raced through the bottom of one of the doors, but no one seemed to notice. Instead, all eyes stared at Nick, their heads turned, their attention diverted from the tall gray-haired man in the center of them.
The same group Nick couldn’t get to check a lead without a groan or a question was gathered around the distinguished-looking gentleman, an aging prophet with the beginning of a paunch over his belt and the bushy eyebrows that were now raised in indignation.
“Slow down, son. You just damaged government property,” Antonio Morrelli said, pointing to the crack in the glass.
Despite the rage and frustration, Nick shoved his hands into his pockets, felt his shoulders slump as his eyes found his boots. Suddenly, he found himself wondering how much it would cost to replace the glass.
Chapter 50
Maggie sipped her Scotch and watched from a corner table as she tried to determine which of the airport-lounge customers were business travelers and which were vacationers. The storm had delayed flights, hers included, and had packed the small, poorly lit lounge, which consisted of an L-shaped bar, several small tables and chairs, dozens of model airplanes suspended from the ceiling and an old jukebox filled with songs like “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and “Outbound Plane.”
Her green and black John Deere jacket was stretched across the chair opposite her to prevent any unwanted company. She had already checked her luggage, everything except her laptop computer, which was secure underneath the John Deere green. She thought about calling St. Margaret’s again. She was beginning to think something dreadful may have happened. Otherwise, why would Father Francis have stood her up at the hospital? And why was there no one at the church rectory to answer the phone?
She wanted to call Nick, had in fact dialed the number but then hung up. He had enough things to handle without checking on her hunches. Besides, she was running out of change for the pay phone and had spent her last ten-dollar bill on this and the two previous Scotches. Not much of a dinner, but after spending the afternoon slicing Matthew Tanner’s small body, weighing pieces of him and poking through his tiny organs, she had decided she deserved a dinner of Scotch.
The mark on Matthew’s inside thigh had indeed been human bite marks. Poor George Tillie had tried to come up with several other theories before giving in to the realization that the killer had bitten Matthew over and over again in the same spot, making it impossible to register a set of dental prints. What made matters worse and more bizarre-the bites had occurred hours after Matthew was dead.
The killer didn’t return to the scene of the crime only to watch the police. He continued his absurd fascination with the victim’s body. He was slipping from his carefully planned ritual. Something was causing him to degenerate, to lose control. In his recklessness, he could soon leave incriminating evidence.
Maggie had told George they should look for smudges of semen; that the killer may have masturbated this time, while biting the dead boy, and may have smeared some on the victim. The old coroner’s face had turned scarlet as he mumbled something about doing his job in private.
She didn’t blame George. It had been obvious her presence made him uncomfortable. His manner and method resembled the reverence of a priest, with his careful and deliberate touches and his hushed speech. It was almost as though he hadn’t wanted to disturb the boy’s soul.
Maggie, on the other hand, had cut with clinical precision and had spoken loud and clear for her voice-activated recorder. It was a dead body, void of life and warmth. Whatever had resided within the bone-and-flesh cavity had escaped hours ago. Yet, she had to admit there was something wrong, something almost sacrilegious about slicing apart a child’s body. The soft, smooth and hairless skin hadn’t seen nearly enough scrapes and bruises, nor the bones enough chips and breaks to have really lived. It seemed such a waste, such an injustice. But that was what the Scotch was for-to make sense of it all or, at least, to take her to a place where she wouldn’t care, even if only temporarily.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” The young bartender stood over her table. “The gentleman at the end of the bar bought you another Scotch.” He set the glass in front of her. “And he asked me to give you this.”
Maggie recognized the envelope and the boxy handwriting before he handed it to her. Her stomach lurched, her pulse quickened. She stood up so abruptly, her chair teetered on two legs.
“Which man?” She stretched to see over the crowd. The bartender did the same, then shrugged his shoulders.
“He must have left.”
“What did he look like?” She patted her side through her blazer, reassured by the feel of the butt on her gun pressing against her just under her breast.
“I don’t know…tall, dark hair, maybe twenty-eight, maybe thirty. Look, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention. Is there a problem with-”
She shoved past him and pushed through the crowd, racing out into the bright airport walkway. Frantically, she searched and scanned the passengers coming and going. Her heart pounded against her chest. Her head throbbed, and her vision was a bit blurred from the Scotch.
The long walkway stretched straight in both directions. There was a family with three children, several businessmen carrying laptops and briefcases, an airport employee pushing a handcart, two gray-haired women and a group of black men and women in colorful robes and headdresses. But there was no tall, dark-haired man without luggage.
He couldn’t possibly have gotten beyond the walkway. She ran toward the escalator at the far end, bumping into passengers and almost tripping over a deserted luggage gurney. The escalator went up and down. She chose up and twisted over the handrail to see down. Again, the array of passengers didn’t include a tall, dark-haired man. He was gone. He had slipped by her again.
She made her way back to the lounge, only now realizing she had left her jacket and laptop along with the envelope. Though the lounge was packed, no one had attempted to take over her small table. Even the envelope leaned against the fresh drink where the bartender had left it.
She eased into the hard chair and stared at the small envelope. She gulped the remainder of Scotch in her glass and set it aside. She started on the fresh drink despite the swirling inside her head. She wanted to be numb.
She took the envelope carefully by a corner. The seal broke easily, and she slipped the index card out onto the table without touching it. Even the Scotch couldn’t prevent the nausea and the stab of terror the words inflicted.
In the same boxy lettering, the note said:
SORRY TO SEE YOU LEAVE SO SOON. PERHAPS I CAN STOP BY YOUR CONDO THE NEXT TIME I’M IN THE CREST RIDGE AREA. SAY HI TO GREG FOR ME.
Chapter 51
From down on the sidewalk, he could see Maggie O’Dell inside, scrambling up the escalator. He did have to admit she moved quite nicely-definitely a runner. He imagined those strong, athletic legs looked good in a pair of tight shorts, though the image didn’t much interest him.
He pushed the handcart aside and removed the cap and jacket he had borrowed from the sleeping airport employee. He rolled them into a ball and shoved them into a trash can.