The Night Killer

Diane stood in shock, denying what she was seeing-the Barres sitting completely still, like grotesque mannequins.

“No, dear God, no.” Her voice came out in a tearful whine.

Diane squatted on her haunches and put her head in her hands. On her cheek she felt the cold blade of the knife she held and stood up quickly, looking at it as if it were a snake. Surely not, she thought. But what was he doing out in the thunderstorm taking photographs?

“Get hold of yourself,” she whispered. “Call for help.” Diane felt she had to tell herself out loud what to do to break out of her shock.

“Call nine-one-one. Where is the phone?”

The telephone was near the door on an antique telephone stand. She carefully retraced her steps to the doorway and took a tissue from a box of Kleenex she found near the phone. She wrapped the knife in the tissue and wrapped it again inside of the rain hat and stuck the hat in her waistband for when the sheriff arrived. She took another tissue and lifted the receiver gently from its cradle in a way so as to disturb as little as possible any fingerprints that might be on it. There was no dial tone. She jiggled the plunger on the cradle and listened again. Nothing. She traced the line to the wall. It was plugged in, but dead. She shouldn’t have been surprised. The killer had probably cut the phone line outside.

With a jolt that sent shivers down her spine, Diane realized that the killer could still be inside the house. Start thinking, damn it. She listened to the sounds of the house-raindrops from the wet trees falling on the tin roof, the refrigerator humming, wind, clocks-little else. She didn’t hear walking or floors creaking, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still here. She needed to get to the sheriff. Damn, another long hike-to somewhere. She knew the way to the county seat if she were driving from Rosewood, but she wasn’t sure from here. Jesus, it could be ten or twenty miles away. No, I just have to make it to another house. Surely there was one within walking distance.

The sheriff. Damn it. That was another problem. Leland Conrad was the sheriff of the county, and he wouldn’t call in the GBI for help with the crime scene. Though he might ask them to do some of the forensic analysis. He certainly would not call in her crew from the Rosewood Crime Lab. Not that the way another county ran its government was any of her business, but she felt a responsibility to the Barres. Sheriff Conrad liked to say that he did things the old-fashioned way-the right way-and anytime he needed outsiders to do his job was the time he needed to hang it up.

The problem with the way he executed his investigative philosophy was that all strangers were suspicious, because he knew everyone in the county and what they were capable of. If Diane were being kind, she would say he used more psychology than forensics to solve crimes. Truthfully, she didn’t think he knew his neighbors as well as he thought he did.

Still, Diane had no choice but to contact him. There were two things about that prospect that nagged at her. The sheriff would not do a good job of working the crime scene, and when she told him about the stranger in the woods, he would jump on that as a solution. If the mysterious stranger was the murderer, fine, but if not, the real killer would still be out there, and the man, whoever he was, would be in deep trouble.

How long had they been dead? Diane traced her steps back to where she had stood looking into the dining room. Ozella Barre was facing her, sitting at the end of the table. Her hands were secured with duct tape to the wooden arms of the upholstered host chair. Her head was against the back of the chair. Her eyes were open and covered with a milky film. So-she had been dead over three hours, at least. Not before seven thirty, because that was when they were standing on their steps waving good-bye to her.

Diane did the math. They were killed between seven thirty and nine p.m. Small window for a terrible murder like that. If he’d gotten there right after I left, it would only be less than an hour and a half. She had been walking around in the woods for a little over five and a half hours. It seemed much longer. When, during that time, had she seen the stranger? How long had she been walking before she encountered him, and how long was it after they parted that she found the house? Shit. She didn’t know. Why hadn’t she been keeping track of time? She may not have had service, but the phone displayed the time. Then again, why should she have? Her primary concern had been survival, not punching a clock.

There was the other stranger-the one who was chasing her. He could have come here looking for her and killed the Barres. But why? What reason would he have? Then, what reason did he have to keep a skeleton in a tree?

The Barres were nice people. Who would come in the night and kill them in such a horrible way?

Diane turned her attention to Roy Barre. He sat at a right angle to his wife. She couldn’t see his eyes. She didn’t dare move around more than she had already. Even if Sheriff Conrad didn’t do much in the way of crime scene investigation, she would still leave him a virtually untouched scene. Roy’s head leaned sideways toward his wife. Blood pooled in front of them both on the dark Victorian table. Diane noticed that both their hair was roughed up on top of their heads. Possibly the killer held their hair to pull their heads back in order to cut their throats.

Diane had barely noticed the condition of the rooms when she had entered. She let her gaze drift around the room. The Barres had a comfortable home. The living room was furnished with stuffed chairs, a sofa, and throw pillows with floral designs in subtle shades of blue and green. The chairs and sofa were positioned near the fireplace with the sofa facing it. There was a large blue-and-white rag rug on the floor under a dark-wood coffee table. Several hutches lined the walls with Mrs. Barre’s collections of porcelain figurines. Mr. Barre’s collection of things he’d found on his land-rocks, antique padlocks, old horseshoes, and some of the smaller antique tools-sat on a series of shelves on one wall. The arrangement told her they liked looking at the things they had collected. Two of the hutches’ doors were ajar. Nothing else looked amiss.

Diane turned her attention to the dining room. The dining room furniture was Victorian, like much of the furniture in the house. A mahogany breakfront hutch holding ornate dishes stood against one wall. Here too, the doors were ajar, but the hutch was not ransacked. Diane would like to have seen the rest of the house.

She took out her cell phone and began taking pictures of the crime scene and of the environment 360 degrees around where she stood. When she finished she put her phone back in its case on her belt. That was as much as she could do.

Diane listened again to the sounds of the house. Virtually quiet except for normal house sounds. She retraced her steps out the door and walked down the long steps that led to the road she’d left by not six hours earlier. It was dark except for the moon, and she had to be careful where she placed her feet going down the steep stairs. The road was muddy from the rain. She started off in the opposite direction from where she had gone earlier, walking on the shoulder, trying to keep out of the mud as much as possible. Surely the Barres had another neighbor nearby who wasn’t homicidal or, at the very least, didn’t keep skeletons.

She rounded a bend just as a pair of headlights came over the hill in her direction. Her heart pounded in her chest. She was out in the open with no place to hide. She would have to make a run for it again. Please don’t let it be the stranger from Massey Road-or the killer.

Chapter 5

Diane eased backward, putting distance between her and the road-and the approaching car. A ditch brimming with rainwater flowed between her and the muddy road. A car would most assuredly get stuck if it tried to cross toward her. As it drew closer, Diane saw that it was a rugged-looking Jeep Wrangler. So much for getting stuck in the ditch. She unconsciously stepped farther back. The vehicle slowed and stopped.

Diane’s heart beat rapidly. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t very well run from everyone she met. She was weak and getting shaky. She’d have to take a chance and trust someone.

The Jeep door opened and a man got out, shielding his eyes from the brightness of his dome light, looking in Diane’s direction. From what little Diane could see, he looked young, perhaps in his twenties. She could also see that he was wearing a uniform, and there was a blue light mounted on the dashboard of his Jeep. He was a policeman.

“Miss Fallon? You the lady lost in the woods? I got this anonymous call-well, it was pretty strange, really. I’m Deputy Travis Conrad, ma’am. Well, are you lost?”