The Dead Room (3 page)

5

The living room had a high cathedral ceiling and two spinning fans. Someone had taken a knife to the black leather sectional sofa and two matching armchairs. The cut fabric had been pulled aside, exposing springs and wood. Each cushion had been gutted. White cotton filling and foam covered the overturned furniture and smashed pictures in a fine blanket, like snow.

Drops of blood on the beige carpet. Drip lines and smears on the shards of glass shaped like shark’s teeth sticking out from the bottom and sides of the door that led to the redwood-stained deck.

Darby found the switch for the backyard lights.

She looked again at the muddy footprints that lined the redwood-stained deck and stairs. The handrail to her right had a bloody smear running down it as though someone had gripped it.

Darby pulled the handle of the sliding door. Locked. She found a security bar placed along the bottom railing to prevent intrusion. The only way to get through the door was to break the glass.

There was plenty of glass on the carpet but very little on the deck. She looked at the other side of the living room. On the bare white walls, two holes in the plaster – the kind left by bullets.

Someone had stood on the deck and fired at the door; that explained the glass blowback on the carpet. Then the shooter had moved inside the house and… what? Tied up the victims? No. Someone had reported hearing gunshots. A single shooter couldn’t have fired, moved inside, subdued two victims and tortured the woman. Too much time.

For the next twenty minutes Darby searched the living room for a spent shell casing. She didn’t find one. She checked the kitchen floor. No luck. Had the shooter taken the time to pick up the brass?

She removed the security bar, unlocked the sliding glass door and stepped on to the deck. The shades on the back windows hadn’t been drawn. No reason to, as there were no homes back here, just a big backyard with an in-ground pool and shed and, beyond the fence, the woods leading to Salmon Brook Pond.

Pine stood with two patrolmen near the fence separating the backyard from the driveway. He seemed taller than she remembered, but his body still carried that odd mixture of fat and muscle, like a football player who’d gone to seed. Bald on top now, the remaining black hair on the sides shaved close to the scalp.

They all had phones pressed up against their ears. Pine didn’t see her. The tall, pale patrolman with the crew cut did. He stared at her while she searched the deck.

Darby made her way down the steps, sticking close to the clean railing on her left, away from the blood and muddy footwear impressions, pausing to drop evidence markers. When she reached the backyard, she turned the corner and ran the beam of her flashlight on the crushed rock underneath the deck.

A wink of metal in the light. She ducked underneath the deck and saw an evidence cone next to an expended round; Banville had already photographed it. Using a pen, she picked up the shell casing. The words ‘44 REM MAG’ were stamped on the round metal ‘spark plug’.

.44 Remington Magnum ammo. A single shot could put down a bear.

Darby eased the casing back on the crushed rocks and searched the area around the deck. She didn’t find any other casings.

She moved back to the steps and ran the beam of her flashlight across grass yellowed by the sun, bald patches full of muddy rainwater.

There, fifteen feet away from the stairs – blood on blades of grass.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Pine and the two patrolmen heading her way.

‘Boyos,’ Pine said. ‘Let me introduce you to –’

‘Stay where you are,’ Darby said. She dropped an evidence marker and continued her search, thinking back to the drag marks in the kitchen hallway. Two straight parallel lines, the kind made by dragging a body. A bloody smear leading down the garage steps and across the garage floor and then no more blood. Had a body been hauled inside a vehicle?

The teenager had been transported to the hospital and the mother was inside the house. Was there a third victim?

The blood drops on the grass stopped at a gate. It was unlocked. She eased it open, found a bloody handprint on the wood.

Inside the woods, footwear impressions moving up a steep incline blanketed with dead leaves and pine needles.

‘Put on a pair of furry ears and you’d look like the Easter Bunny,’ Pine said.

She turned and saw him standing just a few feet away, the underarms of his white shirt dark with sweat. He reeked of cigar smoke.

‘It’s been, what, three years since I last saw you?’

‘My mother’s funeral,’ Darby said. ‘What’s going on with the teenager? I heard he’s at a hospital.’

‘Physically he’s fine. He’s in some sort of shock. One of the ER docs tried to give him a sedative and he freaked. We’re giving him some space to calm down. I’ve got people guarding his room at St Joe’s, so there’ll be someone there when he’s ready to talk.’

St Joseph’s was Belham’s main hospital. ‘The news said he was at Mass. General.’

Pine’s hound-dog eyes twinkled with delight. ‘Yeah, that’s what I told the press. Figured we’d get the vultures to head to Boston. Most of them did. Some of them, as I’m sure you saw on your way in, are still camped out front.’

Nice move, Artie
. ‘What’s the kid’s name?’

‘John Hallcox. Mother’s name is Amy Hallcox – we found her Vermont licence in the handbag. Neighbours say she and her kid came here about a week or so ago. They don’t know his name. They pretty much kept to themselves. Some of the neighbours saw them flitting about the house but mostly they stayed inside. Woman drove a red Honda Accord. Got the plate number all over the radios but so far nobody’s seen a damn thing. You see the drag marks in the kitchen hall?’

Darby nodded.

‘My guess is someone dragged a body and drove away,’ Pine said. ‘As far as we can tell, it was only the woman and her kid. We don’t know anything about this third person.

‘House belongs to an elderly couple named Martin and Elaine Wexler. Guy’s a retired doctor. Must’ve done well ’cause he’s vacationing somewhere in the South of France, from what we’re told. We’re trying to pin their location down.’

Darby shut off her flashlight. ‘Why didn’t you tell operations about the amount of damage in there? I could’ve had more people working here before I arrived.’

‘I didn’t make the call. I know who did – don’t worry, I’ll tear him a new one. Sorry I couldn’t talk when you called. It’s been a madhouse here.’

Darby felt the heat of the night and her exhaustion move through her and press against the back of her skull. She didn’t want to waste what energy she had left arguing.

‘As you can see, I checked the woods.’ Pine pointed to the mud caked on his shoes and trouser cuffs. ‘No need to go back there. I followed the footprints – don’t worry, I didn’t disturb a thing – I followed them all the way to Blakely Road. That’s where they ended. Whoever ran back there is long gone.’

Darby wondered if a vehicle had been parked on the dirt shoulder of the road. She made a mental note to check for tyre tracks.

‘I take it you’ve been inside the house.’

‘Oh yes,’ Pine said. ‘I won’t be forgetting what I saw in there for a while.’

‘Who else has been in there besides you?’

‘Just the first responding officers, Quigley and Peters. That would be them standing over there in the corner. I kept them here in case you had any questions.’

‘Did they search the entire house?’

‘That’s their job.’

She knew that but didn’t like it. Imagined some key piece of evidence stuck to the bottom of a boot and then lost somewhere outside now, gone. ‘Did they track mud up the deck steps?’

‘Let’s go ask them.’

‘I’ll be right there.’ Darby clicked on her flashlight and turned back to the gate. She could hear Pine grunting as he waddled away.

She stepped into the woods and found two compost piles of dead grass clippings a few feet from the back fence. Mosquitoes whined against her ears and danced in the beam of her flashlight.

Moving up the incline, she thought about how much she hated these woods. Five years ago she had discovered a buried set of female remains – another victim of Daniel Boyle and… the other one, Boyle’s mentor and killing partner, Traveler. A lot of their victims – the missing women, men and children, her childhood friend Melanie Cruz – had never been found, buried somewhere out here –

Darby stopped walking, and listened to the sound of a mobile phone ringing somewhere in the darkness ahead.

6

Darby ran up the incline, boots sinking deep into the wet ground, the beam of her flashlight zigzagging through the darkness. She reached the top quickly and without much effort.

The ground levelled off to a bumpy, uneven area of half-buried boulders and downed tree limbs and branches. The phone rang again, a soft, pleasant sound that reminded her of wind chimes. It came from somewhere straight ahead. She moved quickly, ducking underneath limbs, dried branches crunching and snapping underneath her boots.

A third ring, very close.

There, a small square of light glowing in the darkness about thirty or so feet ahead. She moved her flashlight to it. A BlackBerry, judging by its size and shape. She reached into her back pocket for an evidence bag.

Branches snapped in the darkness somewhere ahead of her. She swung her flashlight to the sound, the beam whisking past trees and another steep incline leading up, up.

A man dressed head to toe in black tossed something into the air. Before he ducked behind a tree she caught sight of the night-vision goggles strapped across his shaved pale head, a gloved hand clutching a sub-machine gun against a tactical vest holding grenades.

Darby dropped her flashlight and ran, knowing what was coming.
Whatever you do, don’t turn around, don’t turn
–

An explosion followed by a blinding light that lit up the woods.
Stun grenade
, she thought, ducking behind a tree.

The light died away. She stripped out of her bunny suit. She couldn’t hide wearing white, couldn’t run in the coveralls.

Voices shouting from the backyard, footsteps cracking branches close by, bodies whisking past leaves and branches.
How many people are in here?

SIG in hand, Darby flicked the switch for the tactical light and swung around the tree. Through the gaps between the branches and tree limbs she caught sight of two men hauling a body up the incline. Two white males wearing suits. The body also wore a suit. White male, white shirt covered in blood, a blue latex-covered hand bumping across the ground as he was dragged away.

‘
Freeze. Boston
–’

Automatic gunfire muted by a silencer tore into the bark above her head.

Darby dropped to her knees, hugging her body close to the tree trunk. Voices shouting
Get down
and
Take cover
. She thought she heard Pine’s voice in the mix. She swung around the other side of the tree and brought up her weapon.

Flashlights crisscrossed through the darkness and she could see thick clouds of grey and white drifting through the trees near the first incline. The man who had thrown the stun grenade, the one with the shaved head and night-vision goggles, had moved out of his hiding spot. He stood near the spot where she’d found the phone.

He threw another grenade into the air, in the direction of the backyard. Darby turned away from it and closed her eyes, waiting. Automatic gunfire erupted from somewhere above her.

When she heard the explosion, she opened her eyes and, using the trees for cover, started moving to the bald man.

He darted up what looked like a second incline and disappeared from her view.

Darby gave chase. For the past week she had run in this oppressive heat with a sixty-pound backpack full of sand strapped to her back. She wasn’t weighed down now. Even in the mud, she ran fast and well.

The man had a good lead. There was no way she could close the gap. She debated about stopping to fire when he disappeared from her view.

A car door slammed shut. Tyres peeled away in a squeal of rubber. By the time she reached the top, all she found was a pair of dimming red tail lights coming from a car far down the dark road. In the distance she could hear the wail of multiple police sirens. Someone had radioed for back-up and the Belham dispatcher had sent out several units.

As impressed as she was by the quick response time, it wouldn’t do any good. Blakely Road, she knew, connected to Route 135. From there the car could jump on to the main highway, Route 1, and disappear.

Worse, she couldn’t offer up a description. She hadn’t seen the car or a licence plate. As for the men, the only thing she could say with any certainty was that all three were white. No, make that four. The body was that of a white male.

Darby holstered her weapon and made her way back down the incline, her legs wobbly from adrenalin. Dozens of flashlights moved through the thick haze of grey and white smoke filling the woods. Everywhere she heard men coughing.

She cupped her hands over her mouth. ‘
Stand down. I repeat, stand down
.’

A group of patrolmen rushed to her with their guns raised, their eyes red and watery from the smoke. They tried to hold their arms steady as they coughed.

One of them saw the gold shield clipped to her belt clip and the laminated ID badge hanging around her neck. He motioned for the others to lower their weapons.

Darby addressed the group. ‘Is Detective Pine back here?’

The tall one with the cleft chin nodded, wiping at his eyes. He could barely keep them open.

‘Find him and tell him the shooters are gone,’ Darby said. ‘Tell him to meet me in front of the house – and tell him to get everyone the hell out of the woods until the smoke dissipates. Call for an ambulance and make sure they bring plenty of oxygen. Get going – wait, not you.’ She grabbed the soft, flabby arm of a short patrolman with a pot belly. ‘I need to borrow your flashlight.’

He handed it over and stumbled away, gagging.

It took her a few minutes to locate the spot where she’d first seen the man who had tossed the stun grenade. The area offered a lot of tree cover. A perfect place to hide – and watch. From this location she could see the backyard.

Her eyes started to water and her throat burned as she ran the beam of light across the ground. She found several footwear impressions – none of them useful – and a single aluminium-foil blister pack.

Ducking underneath the branches, she moved across the soft ground covered with pine needles and leaves. She threw an evidence cone next to the blister pack. Voices shouted to move out of the woods. One kept calling her name.

‘
Coop. Coop, I’m fine. Meet me in the backyard
.’

She made her way back to the incline and saw that most of the flashlights had been shut off. The ones still on were moving away, retreating back to the house.

A patrolman was on his hands and knees, struggling to breathe. Darby helped him to his feet, then wrapped his arm around her shoulder. She grabbed the last evidence cone from her pocket and slowly retraced her footsteps back to the spot where she’d found the mobile phone. It was gone.