Jed was alone with his rage for so many years, so isolated by his circumstances, by the horror he witnessed, by the impenetrable loneliness that surrounded him. He watched people go about their lives, fellow students, then co-workers, knowing that their perception of the world was so vastly different from his, knowing always that his life was forever cast in the shadow of his past. And as he grew older, his fury and his misery grew, too, and twisted like a vine of thorns, choking him and carrying him over the edge of sanity.
In a way, Lydia had grown to see him as someone fighting isolation, someone trying to create a community for himself, a brethren of misery. He had come to symbolize pure human evil to her. Not Evil in some cosmic sense, not the embodiment of Satan, but evil born of unspeakable psychic pain and cruel injustice, the victim become the victimizer with a vengeance.
But this killer…what was his agenda? What did these people mean to him? She was driving fast, taking the winding roads too hard as the faces of Shawna, Christine and Harold, and Maria swam in her mind. Usually it was so easy for her to see, like in the case of the Cheerleader Murders. All the girls were similar physically and, they later found out, just wicked, nasty young people. Once she knew what they shared in common, it was easy to deduce what type of person would want them, or want to be rid of them. But with these victims, even though she was sure that the church would be the point at which their lives intersected, she just couldn’t see what characteristic they shared, what attracted the killer to them.
A deep fatigue was setting in behind her eyes as she relaxed her grip on the wheel. Her hands felt cramped from gripping it so hard. She sighed, rolling her neck from side to side to relieve the tension gathering there. She had never denied being obsessive about her work. But this case was different; it was her heart and not her brain that was driving her. Maybe that’s what Jeffrey was sensing when he said he’d never seen her like this. She’d never felt like this. Rather than trying to solve something that had already happened, she felt inexplicably that she was racing to prevent something. Not only another murder, which was highly possible, but something even more than that. And that if she failed… well, she couldn’t fail. Failure was not an option.
Fifteen
It was nearly ten o’clock when Lydia’s Kompressor pulled into the dirt parking lot of Smokey’s Sports Bar. The dilapidated building was a caricature of itself, of a dive bar by the side of the deserted road. The gray wood building sagged and was covered with graffiti. A wide variety of pickup trucks, with shotguns mounted on the back windows, sat waiting for their drunk drivers to try to get them home in one piece. God, how grim, Lydia thought as she eyed the flickering neon sign. Most of the letters had gone dark and not been repaired, so the sign just read, “m…e…s…S.’’ “Mess is right,’’ muttered Lydia as she sat mustering the strength to enter. She was stepping out of the car when her cell phone chirped.
“What’s up?’’ she answered, sinking back into the leather interior.
“I was just wondering where you were.’’
She smiled to hear Jeffrey’s voice, hoping that he wasn’t angry with her anymore. She knew she could be a bitch and she was eternally grateful that he always forgave her.
“I’m at Smokey’s Sports Bar. I thought I’d have a few drinks and see if I couldn’t get any action.’’
“Sounds like it’s right up your alley. You still mad at me?’’
“No. Are you still mad at me?’’
“You know I can never stay angry at you. Besides, you were right.’’
There was a moment of silence before he said, “Her heart is missing, Lyd. Removed with surgical precision.’’
“Like Lucky.’’
“Yeah, except everything else is still intact…more or less.’’
“Did you come up with anything out there?’’ he asked, changing the subject.
“Yeah, I think so. I talked to Greg. Turns out Shawna was involved with the Church of the Holy Name. He also said that she had seen a green minivan a couple of times in the days before she disappeared.’’ She could hear him flipping through the pages of a file.
“He never said anything about that before.’’
“No, he said it was just something she mentioned when they were kidding around. It’s probably nothing but if we came up with a green minivan entering the park, we might have a lead. Any luck with the security guard?’’
“The good news is there’s a log, the bad news is that security guards seem to have really bad handwriting, and that a hundred and twenty-three vehicles have entered that park in the last twenty-four hours. We sent detectives over to the airport rental car offices to get a list of their customers since the afternoon before Lopez was murdered, just to cover all our bases. We also got the airport to release their security tapes.’’
“You don’t think it’s someone local?’’
“I don’t know. Like I said, just covering the bases. Tomorrow we’ll have someone start punching license plate numbers into the DMV database, do some cross referencing with VICAP. If a green minivan pops up, we might get lucky.’’
“We should get a list of parishioners and volunteers at the church, too.’’
“Good idea. You almost done out there?’’
“I’m just about to go into this bar and talk to Mike Urquia.’’
“They talked to him for over four hours today.’’
“Well, they talked to Greg, too, and they didn’t get the information I got. Is the autopsy done?’’
“Almost done. Morrow and I are waiting to meet with the ME. He told us already that he thinks she’s been dead for more than fifteen hours, out there for ten.’’
“The killer didn’t do a very good job of hiding her. Do you think he wanted us to find her?’’
“He didn’t stage the scene, there were no anonymous tips to lead police to the body. He didn’t leave any messages or clues. He just dumped her. Maybe he just didn’t care. Maybe he’s that sure of himself.’’
“Did anything else turn up at the scene?’’
“Well, the body bag, which was the best hope for prints, was totally clean. We are working to match the semen and pubic hair to Mike Urquia. All physical evidence indicates that the intercourse was consensual, and Urquia admitted to sleeping with her. We also scraped under her nails and hope there’s DNA evidence, but that will only help to eliminate or confirm a suspect. And obviously results will take a while to come back.’’
“So, nothing?’’
“We’re waiting for toxicology to come back – things are slow as shit in these backwater jurisdictions,’’ he said.
“All right, well, I’ll meet you back at the house.’’
“I have an ugly feeling about this, Lydia. Watch yourself.’’
She laughed at his paternal concern. “I thought you didn’t believe in feelings.’’
He didn’t answer her.
“If you don’t think I can handle a few rednecks then you don’t know me very well,’’ she said, trying and failing to lighten the mood.
“That’s not what I mean,’’ he answered quietly.
“No. I know. Don’t worry. I’ll see you later.’’
The bar was dark and Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven’’ blared from the jukebox in the corner behind the pool table. A few warped cues hung on the paneled wall next to a plastic Marlboro clock. It was like a million other dives in small towns across the country. Dirty and full of smoke, inhabited by overweight, flannel- and denim-clad men who looked like they knew no more familiar sight than their own reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
She perched herself on a stool near the window and waited for the bartender to notice her, which she thought wouldn’t be long since all eyes had been on her from the moment she walked through the door. The bartender, a small woman with teased blond hair and an excess of blue eyeshadow, walked toward Lydia, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. She wore tight, tapered acid-wash jeans, and a cut-up white sweatshirt over a black tank top, Flashdance-style. The eighties had been an ugly decade.
“What can I get for you, honey?’’
