Secrets to the Grave

They went into Zahn’s kitchen and Mendez pointed to a broom closet filled with white trash bags, stuffed with who knew what. He plucked up one of the bags and held it open for Vince to look inside.

Prescription bottles filled the bag. Prescription bottles full of pills. Vince reached in and grabbed up several, holding them at arm’s length and squinting to read the labels.

Antidepressants, medications for panic disorders, a new drug Vince had come across in his recent reading on obsessive-compulsive disorder.

“The crazy bastard’s been hoarding his own medication,” Mendez said. “You might have given him a nudge the other day, but I’d say he already had one foot in the deep end.”

“Oh, man ...” Vince sighed and shook his head.

“This stuff is meant to help him,” Mendez said. “The guy’s a freaking genius. Why wouldn’t he take it?”

“Maybe he didn’t like the side effects. Maybe he didn’t trust his doctor not to poison him. Maybe the OCD just wouldn’t let him.”

Whatever the reason, the result wasn’t good.

With no sign of Zahn on the property, the search disbanded. Vince got back in the car with Mendez, who waited his turn as the others maneuvered their vehicles around and negotiated their way through the gridlock of news trucks and reporters.

“Let’s go back to Marissa’s place,” Vince suggested.

“Why?”

“The continuation of my hunch,” Vince said. “We needed extra bodies to get through Zahn’s place. If he’s over there, better it’s just you and me.”

The crime scene having been fully processed, and the press having moved on to more immediate matters like Gina Kemmer and the missing Zander Zahn, attention had fallen away from Marissa Fordham’s home. A deputy was still stationed at the end of the driveway to chase away the morbidly curious, but Dixon had pulled the sentry that had been stationed under the pepper tree in Fordham’s front yard.

In the setting of fog and dead grass, Marissa Fordham’s house looked like it had been abandoned for a long time. Funny how that happened when people left a place. Suddenly the paint looked dull and chipped, and the windows that had been filled with light looked like gaping black holes. The flowers Marissa had tended dutifully when she was alive were weedy and in need of care.

They went inside the house and stood in the living room silently for a moment, looking around. Very slowly, Mendez turned the knob on the coat closet in the entry, and opened it. No Zahn.

They moved through the house methodically and quietly, checking closets and cupboards, finally coming to Marissa’s bedroom, where the initial attack had taken place and the walls and ceiling had been spattered with cast-off blood from the killer’s knife.

Vince put a finger to his lips and motioned for Mendez to stay back.

“Zander,” he said, moving toward the closet. “Are you in here? It’s me, Vince.”

No reply.

Vince closed his fingers around the old white porcelain doorknob and slowly, slowly turned it.

“I’m going to open the door, Zander,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. I just want to see you and make sure you’re okay.”

He eased the door open inch by inch.

Naked and wild-eyed, Zander Zahn was crouched, coiled like a spring on the floor of the closet, clutching the handle of a very large knife.

Later, Vince would remember thinking I should have seen it coming, but in the next instant, as Zander Zahn leapt at him, there was no time to think at all.

72

“He did what?”

Anne felt all her blood drain to her feet. Willa Norwood, her CASA supervisor, stood in her hallway just inside the front door looking ridiculously festive in her colorful African dashiki and kufi hat.

“They think he set fire to the mental health center.”

“Oh my God,” Anne said. “I have to sit down.”

“It happened last night around midnight,” Willa said as they walked through the house, through the family room where Haley was curled up on the couch watching cartoons, and on to the kitchen.

“He set fire to his own wastebasket six months ago,” Anne said. “How could they let him get hold of matches again?”

“I don’t know. Apparently, the fire started in a room they use for storage,” Willa said. “Why it wasn’t locked, I don’t know. But Dennis has been caught messing around in there before.”

“Did someone see him?” Anne motioned to her supervisor to take a seat at the breakfast table, and dropped onto a chair herself.

“Another patient says Dennis came into his room and set fire to his wastebasket. This is really bad, Anne.”

“I know. I’ve been trying to think of somewhere to move him—”

“No,” Willa said.

The expression in the woman’s eyes made Anne’s heart thump in her chest.

“I mean it’s really bad. One of the other patients suffered third-degree burns when he tried to move the wastebasket.” She took a deep breath to deliver the worst of the news. “And an oxygen tank went through a wall and killed the woman in the next room.”

“Oh.”

The word came out on a breath that seemed to empty Anne’s lungs entirely, and she sat there, unable to move or speak or think, until her head swam.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. Dennis had killed someone. Intentional or not, he was now the thing he claimed to admire most—a killer. “Where is he? I’ll have to—Maybe Franny can watch Haley—”

“We don’t know where he is, Anne,” Willa said. “He’s gone.”

“Gone? Gone where? He’s a twelve-year-old boy with no money and no home.”

“In all the confusion with the fire and the explosion and dealing with the wounded, nobody saw him leave. He’s missing.”

The hospital had an open campus. Anybody could come or go anytime they wanted. Even patients—unless they were on a locked ward—could walk out of the building and off the property, and occasionally did. Staff usually kept everything under control, but the scene would have been chaotic. Everyone would have been concerned with the fire and the casualties.

Dennis had killed a woman. He would be able to read about himself in the newspaper.

“This is my fault,” Anne said.

Willa reached across the table and put a hand on Anne’s arm. “No, it isn’t. You’ve done more for that child than anyone in his life.”

“I couldn’t get there to see him yesterday. I promised him I would be there and I would bring him something special if he did his writing assignment.”

“That doesn’t give him an excuse to set the hospital on fire.”

“Everybody in his life has let him down. I was trying to be the one person who wouldn’t do that to him.”

She shook her head and swore under breath. Her thoughts tumbled like kaleidoscope pieces. “What do we do now?”

“The sheriff’s office has been notified. They’re looking for him. I don’t think you should do anything.”

“Yeah.” Anne sighed. “I’ve done enough already, haven’t I? The court wanted to send him to a juvenile facility after the first incident. I begged for that not to happen.”

“You were trying to do what you thought was best for the child, Anne. That’s all you can do.”

“He’ll be going there now.”