Merciless (23 page)

“I’ll do whatever it takes to catch this killer.”

“And I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my father.”

He leaned forward. “What happened to the museum? I’ve never seen it.”

“It burned to the ground seven years ago,” she said.

“Where was it?”

“In Alexandria.”

“Everything was destroyed?”

She hesitated. “The museum was completely destroyed.”

“Museums have outbuildings and storage facilities for collections they can’t show. Any place like that remain?”

Again she didn’t answer.

“You can delay. We can play games. But, Counselor, I will find it.”

Still she didn’t speak.

“One way or another we have to find out what happened between your father and Darius. Better me looking
into this. Someone else finds out about it first …someone like Donovan … and there will be no saving your father.” Mention of Donovan’s name was a low blow, but it had the desired effect.

“There’s a place in western Fairfax. I found out about it after my father died. But I’ve never been there.” Her voice sounded so even and cool, a sign she’d fallen back behind the ice wall. “A storage unit.”

“Do I need to get a warrant? Or are you going to take me there?”

Dr. Dixon sat in his study staring at the scrapbook he’d so carefully kept for years. He’d gently and lovingly cut out each article, paying close attention to creating neat, even edges. Clear lines. A surgeon’s touch.

He smoothed soft hands over the pages of an entry made a year ago. The headline read: CARLSON DEFENDS SISTER’S DECISION.

Angie Carlson.

He studied the grainy newspaper photo of her. He smiled. She had such a determined gaze as she stared into the camera’s lens. She was the type of woman who could bring a man to his knees. She was a fighter, a modern-day Athena, and a woman warrior.

For the last couple of years he’d been content to watch. And as much as he wanted more from her, he needed to be careful. He’d been charged with attempted murder once, and he never wanted to go through that again.

He’d never intended to kill that whore. He’d simply been getting his money’s worth. She’d promised rough sex, and that’s what he’d paid for. It wasn’t his fault that she freaked out.

It was just his damn luck that the woman’s screams had caught the attention of Kier and Garrison. The detectives had been dogs with a bone. They’d believed that he had killed the missing prostitutes. They’d tried to bully him into a confession. That’s when he’d sought out Angie, his Athena, and she’d come to his rescue.

He knew having a woman defending him would pay off in the court of public relations. And in the courtroom, Angie had been brilliant. She’d made the prosecution’s star witness look foolish enough that the jury had dismissed the charges. There’d been no more talk about him having killed those other women.

And he’d not killed them. That had been the work of The Other. He’d done the killing.

He’d also suggested they change the game. He wanted different women. More challenging kills.

And in all honesty, Dixon wanted more too. He’d grown tired of whores. So they’d chosen Sierra and then Lulu.

The Other had been clear who would be next. He wanted Angie.

She was no great beauty. Pleasant looking to be sure, but not anywhere close to the beauty she could be if he had time to really work on her. He’d once suggested during his trial that he could straighten out her nose and add a bit of fullness to her cheeks. She’d tossed back a quick but polite no.

That had been the first time she’d said no, and he’d felt the rush of anger. But they’d been in the midst of his murder trial so he’d been careful to hide his feelings. Their time would come. It would just have to be later.

After his trial, he’d come to her a second time. Their professional relationship had ended, and he’d felt free to suggest that they spend personal time together. He
believed they were perfectly matched and destined to be together.

Again, she’d told him no. However this time the veil of politeness had dropped, and he glimpsed her disgust for him. She’d taken up his cause not because she believed in him but for the money he’d paid her. She was no different from the whores he’d paid and used for sex.

That’s when he’d begun to plan and dream of the day he’d have his Athena all to himself. Then, she could satisfy his sexual appetites.

He had to be careful. The Other would not appreciate his rebellion. He expected Dixon to do as he was told. But Dixon didn’t want to share her with The Other. He wanted her for himself. He wanted to hide her away and use her over and over again.

Dixon knew he’d have to move quickly, before The Other realized what he planned.

Saturday, October 8, 3
P.M.

“Hey, would you wait up,” Malcolm said as he got out of the police car. Angie had driven her car to Liddell’s Storage, and he had followed. He’d offered to drive her, but she’d refused. Eva had begged off the trip, and Garrison had remained behind to search for more connections between the families.

Angie had seemed almost relieved that Eva wasn’t coming. Malcolm could see she was worried over what they’d find in the storage unit.

Liddell’s wasn’t the typical metal-box storage place where people stowed excess furniture. It was a large warehouse with climate-controlled areas.

He opened the trunk of his car. “There is no race, Carlson.”

She didn’t glance back or slow her pace. “Keep up. Move faster.”

Malcolm stared at Angie’s straight-back posture and clipped steps. Despite brave talk, she was scared of Daddy Dearest’s secrets.

He grabbed a crowbar from the trunk, which he figured might come in handy with a storage shed full of crated boxes. He slammed the trunk closed. Parking-lot gravel crunched under his boots as they crossed to the front office.

He pushed through the door and found Carlson standing in front of a plain desk. Behind it sat a kid with long hair, a white T-shirt, and jeans. A television with rabbit ears resting on a crate by the desk broadcast the afternoon football game.

Malcolm shut the door behind him, catching up to Angie as she showed her Virginia driver’s license to the kid behind the counter.

“The name is Carlson. No, I don’t know the unit’s number.”

The kid glanced briefly at Malcolm, then pulled out a big black spiral notebook, opened it, and searched the pages. “Number Nine. Go through the doors behind me, and then go all the way down the center hall. It’ll be on the right.”

“Do you have a spare?”

“For this account, yes.” He flipped the book to the back, where several keys were taped. He grabbed the one with a nine on the tab and handed it to her.

She held the key in her hands as if it were a foreign object. “How long have you been working here?”

“Six months.”

“Not exactly a lifetime,” she said. The kid barely looked old enough to drive.

“Yeah. I guess this kind of business doesn’t make for long-timers. Nobody stays more than a year.”

“What about the facility’s owner?” she said.

“I hear the place has been sold three or four times.”

“What do you do if someone doesn’t pay rent on a unit?” Angie asked.

“We notify them, and if they don’t respond within two weeks we haul the contents away to the dump.”

“You can just throw people’s stuff out?” she said.

“Hey, we tell them our terms and conditions when they take on the space.”

“What about the Talbot Museum?” Kier said.

“They are paid up. So there’s no reason to call or write until the bill is due, which is thirteen years and two months from now.”

“What about visitors?” Malcolm pressed. “People visit storage units all the time.”

The kid glanced back at his big black book. “According to this, there’s been no activity since the stuff was first put here.”

The kid manager glanced back at the television and back at Malcolm. “You need anything else from me?”

Malcolm shook his head. “Nope.”

“Great. I want to catch the last of the game.”

“Hey, if Alabama scores let me know,” Malcolm said.

The kid laughed. “No way, man. I’m Florida State.”

Malcolm glowered. “Great.”

The kid pressed a button under the desk, and the door behind him buzzed. “You can go in.”

Malcolm opened the door for Angie and waited as she passed. They walked silently down the hallway.

“I made some calls on the way out here about the fire that destroyed the museum,” he said.

She glanced at him. “Why?”

“Gut feeling, I guess. And let’s face it. Fires have a way of happening when a Cross family member is involved.”

“So what did fire investigators say?” Angie said.

“The fire department determined that a short in the museum’s electrical wires caused the blaze. They never proved arson.”

“It was just a fire.”

“Maybe. The lieutenant said the fire might have been contained, but the sprinkler system malfunctioned. The fire spread very quickly and destroyed the building in half an hour.”

“I remember when it burned. It was just days after Dad died. Nothing survived the fire.”

“That had to be rough.”

She shook her head. “I’m glad he didn’t live to see it.”

“Was your father the kind of guy who missed critical details like maintenance on a sprinkler system?”

“I never knew him to ever take a shortcut with the museum.” She sighed. “But maybe he was planning to get it fixed. His heart attack was very sudden.”

“I wonder why he rented and prepaid twenty years for this space.”

Angie tensed. “I don’t know.”

When they reached the unit she opened the big heavy lock with the key. Her hands didn’t tremble, but there was tension in her body. The chain dropped free and clanged against the door.

Malcolm reached around her, pushed the door open, and flipped the light switch on. Overhead fluorescent lights flickered on and cast a hard glow on a series of wooden crates. Each box was marked with stenciled letters.

VALENTINE EXHIBIT. NEWMAN ROOM. BANNER ROOM.

Malcolm’s gaze skimmed the boxes. “So where do we start?”

Angie rested her hands on her hips. “I don’t know.”

“You have no idea what’s here?”

“None.”

“You’ve known about this place for seven years, and you’ve never been curious?”

“I wasn’t fond of the museum.” She shook her head. “That’s not true. I hated that place.”

“Why?”

“The museum had my father’s heart. I knew it, and I think my mother did as well.”

He shook his head. “Then why keep this place?”

“I don’t know. There was a lot I didn’t understand about my father. I guess I hoped one day I might have the strength to see what was so important to him.”

“Let’s start front to back.”

“Right.” There had to be forty crates of varying sizes. Their search would take the better part of the afternoon.

Malcolm hefted his crowbar and wedged it under the lip of the first box. With a quick jerk of his wrists, the nails securing the corners came free and the top opened. Foam padding stuffed the box. A little digging and they found vases wrapped in the foam.

“This is going to be a long afternoon,” she said.

“Welcome to the world of a cop. We dig through a lot of hay to find that golden needle.”

The next several boxes revealed much of the same: a dusty collection of spears, a collection of muskets, paintings, and shards of pottery. Finally, they opened a box that held lots of pictures. They weren’t arranged in any kind of order, but each had been marked on the back with a brief description of the scene.

The odd collection appeared to have been taken thirty-plus years ago. Angie discovered an image of her parents.

“That your mother?” Malcolm stared over her shoulder.

“Yes.”

“You look like her.”

“That’s what Eva says, but I don’t remember her from her younger days. She was always tired and worn in my memories.”

“You have pictures, don’t you?”

“No. Father never allowed pictures of Mother in the house. Bad memories for him.”

“What about you?” No missing the anger in his voice. “A kid has a right to a picture of her mother.”

“Once when I visited her, I took pictures. Dad found them and tossed them. She must have shattered his heart.”

“That didn’t give him the right to rob you.”

She traced the outline of her mother’s smiling face. “She was so happy. And young. And Dad never smiled like this.”

“Why save the pictures?”

“Who knows? He never even told me about this unit.”

There was another picture of Angie as a small child. She had a bright, wide grin as she held both her parents’ hands. “This is like staring at an alternate universe. These people look like people I knew, but they sure don’t seem to act like them.”

“What do you remember about the time your parents were together?”

“Mom stayed out a lot. Dad finally got mad about it. They fought more and more.”

“Where was he?”

“Always at the museum. He loved that place.”

“What happened after they fought the last time?”

“Mom said she was going to the drug store. She said she’d be right back. But she never did return. It was another five months before I saw her again.”

“How old were you?”

“Four. I figured out later that Mom must have been
pregnant with Eva. She left Dad and went to live with Blue. After that, I only saw her once in a while.”

She studied the pictures taken of her parents. She went silent.

Malcolm shoved the crowbar under the lip of another box and rammed his arm up with brutal force. Wood splintered and cracked. He dug into the box, pushing the batting aside. “Look what we have here.”

“What?”

“Looks like employee records.”

“Really?”

He thumbed through a file. “A list of anyone who ever worked at the place. The board members are all listed.”

“Dad knew all the employees by their first names. He even remembered the names of wives and children.”

Malcolm frowned.

“What?”

“Your father can recite chapter and verse on an employee but can’t keep a few lousy pictures of his kid’s mother.”

“He did the best he could.” She set the pictures aside and picked up the crowbar and shoved it under the lip of another box.

“Right.” Malcolm glanced at the names.

Her face tight with growing anger and frustration, she drove the tip under another box lip. This time she wrenched so hard the wood on the top of the box splintered.

“Shit,” he said.

“What?”

“Louise Cross was a board member at the Talbot.”

The edge of the crowbar skipped, and she stumbled forward. She’d have fallen forward if she’d not had the
box to steady herself. Her hand slipped into the crate. Immediately, her hand recoiled. “Oh, God.”

Malcolm looked up from another journal.

Her face paled. “It’s a box of bones.”

Inside the storage unit a lightbulb flashed. Paulie Sommers snapped pictures. “Kier, you have radar.”

Malcolm pushed away from the wall inside the unit and moved toward the door. Finding the bones had triggered calls to forensics and Garrison.

“How so?”

“My ass hits a soft chair, and you call. No other cop has that talent.”

Malcolm grinned. “I do try.”

He glanced down the hall to Angie, who stood silent, her arms folded over her chest. They had barely spoken since the bones had been discovered. He’d tried to strike up a conversation, but she’d been too tightly controlled to speak. She’d sunk into a sullen silence that bothered him. She was afraid, and he had the sense she clung to her composure with a death grip.

Dr. Henson appeared at the end of the hallway, ducked under the yellow tape, and strode toward them. She was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, both of which were covered in splashes of robin’s-egg-blue paint. She’d swept her auburn hair into a ponytail.

The doctor paused when she reached Angie. “Ms. Carlson. What brings you here?”

Angie straightened and let her arms fall to her sides. “The contents of the unit belonged to my father.”

The doctor’s brow wrinkled. “Memory serves, he passed away about seven years ago.”

Angie nodded. “You’ve got a good memory.”

“I visited his museum several times. Quite interesting. You spend much time there as a kid?”

“No,” Angie said. “My father didn’t want me around the place.”

Dr. Henson let the comment pass. “So let me have a look.” In the unit, she extended her hand to Malcolm. “Two crime scenes in a week. We’re setting some records here, Detective.”

He shook her hand. “Sorry to say, yes. What did we pull you away from?” Malcolm said. He wasn’t sure why, but he wanted to lighten the mood for Carlson’s sake.

“Painting my library.”

“I heard you moved in to a new house.”

“I did.”

“Got a lot of books?”

She shrugged. “A couple thousand.”

“A couple thousand. Really?”

“Sure.”

“Anyone else and I’d have called bullshit on them, but you, Doc, I’d believe it. A couple thousand books. Damn.”

A frown creased her forehead. “I don’t see the humor. Everyone has books.”

Angie arched a brow as she came up behind the doctor. “I bet Detective Kier has three and the first two have pictures.”

Paulie grunted out a laugh.

Dr. Henson smiled.

Malcolm let the quip pass. Good to see some of Angie’s fire return.

The doctor moved past him into the room and went directly to the crate. She glanced into the box.

Squatting, she studied the bones for less than a minute. “Detective Kier.”

He came into the room. “Yeah?”

“The bones aren’t human.”

“Say that again?”

She rose and stripped off her gloves. “Not human. I’d say a bear’s hind claw.”

“What?”

Paulie snorted his laughter.

“Don’t feel bad,” the doctor said smoothly. “It has the distinct appearance of a human hand when stripped of the flesh.”

Malcolm rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “Shit.”

“What about the other bones?” Angie said.

“Appear to be animal.”

“Why have the bones?”

“From what I remember from my trip to the museum, Mr. Talbot was an avid hunter. This likely was one of his kills.”

Garrison appeared in the doorway of the unit. Malcolm had faxed museum employee files as well as the names of the board members. It had surprised Malcolm to see that Louise Cross served on the board of the Talbot for a brief time. “You found Gentle Ben?”

“It was his little brother.” Malcolm figured he’d never hear the end of it. He’d learned long ago to let the jabs of other cops roll off his back. The more defensive he got, the more they circled, like sharks around blood. “You find anyone of interest?”

Garrison motioned him out into the hallway. “So far, I contacted eight of the thirty names, and all had either died or moved out of the D.C. metro area. Starting to feel like I’m chasing ghosts. Sinclair is running down the last names.”