Maybe leave you there for the rats to eat you don't do what she says, when she damn well says it. Granny locked her in plenty, and that'll teach you to mind your p's and q's." He was jerking on the chains as he spoke, rocking back and forth in the chair, teeth bared, skin shining with sweat.
"But she won't sell it. Greedy bitch won't sell it and give me my share. She won't give me anything. Not giving her hard-earned to some freak. Time to take it, take it all. Bitch." "Lights on full." He blinked against them, like a man coming out of a trance.
"I don't have to say anything to you." "No, you've said enough."
CHAPTER 22
She ordered droids and dogs, a search unit, and the equipment necessary for multiple remains location, identification, and removal.
And knew it would be a very long, very difficult procedure.
She requested Morris personally, and asked that he select a team. She expected and was unsurprised when Whitney and Tibbie arranged to make the trip upstate.
For the moment, for a small window of time, they would keep the media at bay. But it would leak soon enough, she knew, and the ugly carnival would begin.
Because she wanted time to prepare, to think, without the distraction of cop chatter or questions, she traveled upstate in one of Roarke's jet-copters, with him in the pilot seat.
They flew through a steady, dreary rain. Nature's way of weighing in, she thought, to make a hideous job more so. She saw a little burst of lightning bloom on the horizon, far to the north, and hoped it stayed there.
Roarke didn't ask questions, and his silence throughout the flight helped steady her for what was to come. This sort of procedure would never be routine. Never could be routine.
"Nearly there." Roarke glanced at the comp map highlighting their destination, then nodded toward the windscreen.
"At two o'clock."
It wasn't much of a house. She could see that from the air as they started the descent. Small, ill-kept, poorly maintained, if she was any judge. It looked to her as if the roof sagged probably leaked, and the lawn fronting the steep, narrow road was weedy and littered with trash.
But the back was blocked in with trees, and in front of them ranged a high fence. The lawn, such as it was, spread up, dipped down, following the rise and fall of land.
There were other houses, and the curious would come out of them before long. None of those houses were close, not to the bumpy land back of the house. A man with a mission, she thought, a man with a job to do, could carry it out in relative privacy in such a place.
Uniforms would knock on doors and ask about the Blues, and a dark van, and any odd activities.
They set down. Roarke killed the engines.
"You feel some sympathy for him. John Blue." Through the rain, she stared at the house, the dark, dirty windows, the scabs of paint puckering its skin. "I feel some sympathy for a defenseless child tortured by a parent, by a woman who most certainly was vicious and cruel. We know what that's like." She turned her head, looked at him. "We know how it can twist and scar. What it can drive you to. And I feel a twinge, maybe more than a twinge, at the way I played the child in Interview. You saw how I went after him." "I saw you doing what needed to be done, even when it hurt you. Hurt you, Eve, as much as him. Maybe more." "Needed to be done," she agreed, and would live with that.
"Because a child didn't kill these women. A child didn't rape and beat and strangle them, mutilate their bodies. A child didn't put Peabody in the hospital. So no, when it comes down to the line, I don't feel for John Blue. We had as bad." "You had worse."
"Maybe." She breathed deep. "Maybe. And like him, I killed my tormentor." "Not like him, Eve. Nothing like him." It was that point, that vital point he'd wanted to make to her. "You were a child, in desperate terror and pain. Defending yourself, doing whatever you could to make it stop. He was a man, and had the choice of walking away. However she twisted him, he was a man when he committed these acts." "The child lives inside. I know that's shrink pap, but it's true enough. We've both got that lost child in us." "And?" "And we don't allow that lost, damaged child to strike the innocent. I know. You don't have to soothe me. I know. We use, I guess, that child to stand for the innocent. Me with my badge, you with places like Dochas. We could've gone the other way, but we didn't." "Well, I had a few detours." It made her smile, and thank God for him. "And we haven't finished the trip yet. Roarke." She touched a hand to his.
"You don't know how hard this is going to be."
"I have some idea." She shook her head, and her face was already bleak. "No, you don't. I've done this before. It's worse than you can imagine. I'm not going to ask you to go back or hang around the edges, because you won't. But I'm saying, if you need a break from it, take it. Walk away for a while. Others will, believe me. There's no shame in it." She, he thought, would never walk away. "Just tell me what you need me to do."
She had the back of the house cordoned off. While the dogs and droids were sent in, she took a team into the house. It was dank and foul inside, dark as a cave, but when she called for lights, the place illuminated like a torch.
No dark rooms for John Blue, she thought.
He'd killed them in the bedroom, the smaller of the two.
His room, Eve assumed, whenever they'd made the trip here. There were locks on the outside of the door old locks.
Locks she'd undoubtedly installed to keep the boy inside.
Lock him in the dark, as her mother had locked her.
So he'd killed her there, on the stained mattress, lying naked on the floor. Killed others there, in her image.
She saw lengths of red cord, remnants of women's clothing, and the smears and stains of blood that had dried on the mattress, on the floor.
"Everything bagged and tagged," she ordered. "I want a full sweep. Personal items of some of the vic's may include their identification. When it's done, I want the porta-lab and tech in here to get samples of the blood. We're going to ID every victim he brought here." "Lieutenant?" One of the team stepped up. He wore his full protective suit, but had yet to attach the mask and filter.
"We're locating them." "How many so far?" "Dogs just found number seven, and it doesn't look like they're done." "On my way." Feeney hustled over to join her. His Mrs Feeney suit was smeared with cobwebs and muck. "Found a Robo-dig in the basement. Looks fairly new. Been used." "Why use a shovel when you can use a machine? And one that makes a manly hum. Neighbors could've heard that." "I'll dispatch some uniforms, start the knock on doors." "Get it started." She pulled on her protective suit, carried her mask out into the rain.
Found seven, she thought. No, they hadn't finished yet.
She knew exactly how many more would be found.
Droids scooted along the uneven ground. One of the dogs barked, and his body went into a shiver of wagging as he snuffed along the ground. At his handler's signal, he sat, waited.
He'd done his job. And they put up the marker for number eight.
Eve walked to Whitney who stood under a wide, black umbrella. "Sir. Do you want me to begin evacuation?" "Eight." His face was set like granite as he stared out at the scene. "This is your procedure, Lieutenant."
"Evac can confuse the dogs. It would be my choice to leave that until we believe all remains are located and marked." "Do so. There's nine," he murmured.
They worked, inside the house, outside in the rain. Dozens of cops moving like ghosts in their gray gear. Dogs barked, droids signaled, and flags were marked on the ground.
"Call them off," she ordered when thirty minutes passed without an alert. "Move in the evac team. Let's have some lights," she called out as she started across the spongy ground.
"Two evac teams, one far west, one far east. Morris." "I'm with you." "I need IDs as soon as possible. Sooner." "I've got dental for the missings on the city list, and those we've culled from this area. It doesn't come up to this number." He scanned the ground where the evac units were beginning to dig. "But I've got equipment in the portable that will match the dentals for what we have. Others are going to take a little longer." "Ground's rocky under this sponge," Roarke commented.