“She’d still know the truth.”
“Sure, she’d know.”
“Seems to me, all that knowing and never being able to tell, that’d be enough to drive someone crazy. It’d eat away at me.”
“I guess it depends on how badly you want to forget. I think the Impaler kidnapped Amy Eckhardt. I believe it. And I want her to be okay.” She fought back tears.
Detective Howland smiled at her. “Amelia Earhart sounds a lot like Amy Eckhardt, is that why you brought up the banker?” He took a final draw from his cigarette before flicking it out the window. “You need to know, we made an arrest in the Impaler case. It’s what I wanted to tell you.”
“What? Who is it?”
“Some guy named Tam Gillis. We’ve been building a case against him for months, finally got enough to charge him.”
“And he’s the guy?”
“Everyone gets a day in court. But between you and me, this guy’s guilty. You should have seen his house. Full of Satanic symbols, it was enough to give you the creeps, I’ll say that.”
“And Amy?”
“No Amy, I’m afraid. I never thought the two were related.”
“Why wouldn’t they be related? This makes no sense. People don’t disappear for no reason.”
“Amy’s the type of person that might disappear for no reason.”
“What does that mean?” Bess asked.
“I know you’ve been on the case for a couple days now, but I’ve been on it a mite longer. Amy was a troubled young lady. I think it’s more likely she started a new life as a banker than died on an island.” He sounded so confident. Bess wanted to believe him, she wanted this to all be the truth. She imagined police officers in riot gear busting down Greg’s door and walking a frightened—but living—Amy Eckhart out of his house. “I don’t want to see you get hurt, Miss Jackson. And I’m very much afraid that’s what’ll happen if you keep poking around like this. You don’t need to solve any crimes. It’s all over.”
“But what about Greg?” she asked. “You say you know all about Amy, but you didn’t even know she had a boyfriend.”
“To my knowledge, Amy wasn’t seeing anyone. Where exactly did you hear otherwise?”
Bess paused. She didn’t want to admit to calling Monica Bortles or incriminate herself for impersonating an officer. “Greg told me. He mentioned it today.”
Detective Howland seemed to consider this for a moment. “Well, someone’s probably at his house right now. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”
Bess followed Detective Howland to the police station to give a statement and file a report about Greg and then drove home in silence. She knew he was right. She couldn’t keep poking her nose where it didn’t belong and expect to come out of this unscathed. At the same time, she knew Amy was reaching out to her for help. The police said they caught Vlad and there was no sign of Amy. But sometimes the police made mistakes.
Her yard was devoid of decoration, dragon masks or otherwise, and she trudged up to the house without enthusiasm. She unlocked the door and deadbolt with different keys and absently wiped her feet on the doormat before walking into the cool dark interior of her house.
The room seemed the same as always, but with small, yet important, differences. The drawers of her desk were pulled out, the contents protruding ever so slightly over the edges. The things on top of her desk had been swept off the side and onto the carpet. Her couch cushions were in place, but had a fluffed look, as if they’d been taken up, plumped, and replaced. Bess grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator, opened it with her tulip opener, and walked back to her bedroom.
The door was open, which wasn’t unusual. The bedsheets were crumpled on the floor—also not unusual. In fact, her room was normally in such a disarray she couldn’t honestly say if anything was different. If the room were tidy it would have been a better giveaway.
She should have been afraid, she knew that, but her insides felt numb. Her nerves were desensitized from overuse. She checked her closets and under her furniture, making sure she was alone in the house.
Her mind slid to her radio and she began to chew her lip anxiously. Apparently she was not totally without feeling. She drank her beer and traipsed to the garage, saying a silent prayer that she wouldn’t find the radio smashed on the concrete. Bess’s notebook was sitting in its regular spot on the card table next to her wholly intact radio. She picked up the notebook and noticed with sadness, but no real surprise, that most of the pages had been ripped out. Only the front and back covers remained, with a few blank pages in between. All of her notes were gone.
“It’s fine,” she said to herself. “I don’t need them.”
The police had arrested the murderer. And if someone else was breaking into her house and stealing her notes, well, she would take comfort in the knowledge that it wasn’t Vlad. Or maybe it was.
Bess didn’t turn on the radio. She was a little afraid of it. Instead, she tried the local news. Detective Howland hadn’t given her much information about Tam Gillis except that he’d been a Satan worshipper. And didn’t that feel fine? Blaming all this chaos on the biggest, baddest evil man knew how to articulate, yeah, that felt just right. And then they could all go back to believing these sorts of things didn’t normally happen. That this was some outlier event that could never touch them again.
As suspected, the news was full of juicy facts about Tam Gillis. Tam was a young nineteen-year-old loner, living near the center of town, working at Morning Glory Café only two blocks from his apartment. Police had suspected Gillis since he showed up at the funeral of the Impaler’s second victim, Ashley Bunkirk. Others in attendance said they didn’t recognize Gillis and that he was acting strange—lurking in the back of the crowd, not speaking to anyone. He was later seen hanging around the area of the park where Ashley’s head had been found.
Police began watching him and picked up on some odd behaviors. Several of his neighbors had called in noise complaints, claiming loud chants and wails could be heard through the walls at all hours of the night. When police arrived at his apartment to follow up on these complaints, officers noted not only unusual music coming from the residence, but also strange smells.
Bess wasn’t clear on how the police had finally landed on Tam Gillis belonging to a Satanic cult. Several small things led to one big search warrant and then there they were, with a house full of pentagrams, knives, and what the news anchors described as “herbs common in the dark arts.” Bess eyed her spice cabinet warily, wondering which of the contents might betray her.
Bess clicked off the television and sighed. If Detective Howland thought this was the guy, she would trust him, but she had her doubts. A little voice inside her head asked her exactly why she trusted the detective. Certainly the man had done nothing to earn any trust. He’d dismissed her entirely. But it was easier to trust the people who claimed to be in charge. At the end of the day, Bess wanted him to be right.
Her stomach growled. She glanced at the clock. It was too late to cook, but not too late to order Chinese. Within forty-five minutes, she was feasting on General Tso’s chicken and fried dumplings. Her house had been put back into the same general semblance of order it’d held before and she was feeling mostly happy.
After stowing the leftovers safely in the fridge, Bess drew a hot bath and slid in, letting the water lap up around her chin as she sank low under a thin layer of bubbles. She let her mind drift. The past few days had put her brain into overdrive and it felt good to allow it to stop. To be quiet for at least a few minutes.