The Fear Collector (39 page)

“I know.”

In that moment even Jeremy Howell’s kid sister could see that there was nothing to her brother’s apology. He had meant to hurt her. He wanted to hurt her.

Years later after Cecilia married and found fewer and fewer excuses to come home she told her husband about the time her brother tried to choke her with a belt.

“I don’t want that sick SOB around our kids,” Kirk Morris said.

“I don’t, either, but I don’t blame him. Not really. I think that the stuff my mom was doing to him was making him that way.”

“What was she doing to him?”

“Not
that
,” she said emphatically. “She was always whispering in his ear. Telling him things.”

“What was she saying?”

“Empowerment stuff. I watched her lean next to him and say, ‘You’re better than the rest. You are special.’ ”

“What’s so creepy about that?”

“It wasn’t in the words,” she said. “It was in how she said things and how he reacted. It was like something secret, maybe forbidden, dark. I don’t know.”

“Now you’re acting weird.”

“Maybe I am. I was a kid. Maybe I just didn’t get it. But on more than one occasion I remember my mother telling him that being the best was a lonely endeavor, one that few could understand. She said, ‘Your work will only be known if you get caught.’ ”

“Get caught?”

“Something like that. I don’t know for sure. It was a long time ago. Really, when I look back, my brother never really had a chance.”

“I don’t feel sorry for him and I don’t want him around our kids.”

“I do feel sorry for him, but I agree. I don’t want him around the children, either.”

Although the Morrises lived only across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Gig Harbor, they never saw much of Uncle Jeremy. Their mother said he was too busy. A recluse. He had a demanding job. She never told her children that their grandmother actually lived with their uncle. Oddly, they never asked about her. They assumed that she, along with their grandfather, was dead. After all, why wouldn’t their grandma come to see them if she was alive?

* * *

The crack.
The way out
. The source of the air. Emma Rose woke up, her mind still zeroing in on what she needed to do above all other possibilities. Her head throbbed and she wanted to throw up. But more than that, she wanted out of the apartment. She wanted to go home. She pulled herself up from the mattress and found her way to back to the wall with the crack. At least, that’s where she was certain it had been the day before. On her knees, she ran her hands over the wall, but she couldn’t find the opening. Had she gone the wrong direction? The room was not that large. How was it that she couldn’t find the source of the airflow? It was dark as always, but she’d found it before by feeling the air pass through the opening. How was it that she couldn’t find it now?

God, help me. Where is it? Where did it go?

The Howells had moved to a nice middle-class neighborhood in Tacoma, on North Howard, not far away from where Ted had grown up. Donna Howell had taken her relocation money from the old neighborhood in Ruston and paid cash for the two-story house with the brick façade and bright green louvered shutters—a house that Peggy had insisted was the perfect location. After Donna died in 1994, the house was willed to Peggy, who was already living there with her adult son, Jeremy. While none of the neighbors liked Peggy, they did appreciate Jeremy’s dedication to keeping the yard in perfect shape. He never missed a mowing and, better yet, kept it sprinkled in the summer.

“I haven’t seen you in years. Since you were a child. But I know who you are,” Peggy said, when she answered the door. “You look a lot like Tricia, not quite as pretty, but a lot like her.”

“Hi, Peggy,” Grace said, looking her over. Peggy wore jeans and a sweatshirt. Her skin was wrinkled and her hair was long, but very thin. It dawned on her that her sister would be showing signs of aging by then—had she not been murdered. “May I come in?”

Peggy nodded. “If you must. I’m surprised you’ve come by. Your mom pretty much disowned me. Shoved me to the side when all I wanted to do was help bring Tricia back home.”

“That was a long time ago, Peggy.”

“Yeah, well, it still hurts,” Peggy said, searching for her cigarettes. “I worked my ass off putting up flyers, you know. I did everything I was asked to do and then some.”

“I came here to talk about my sister.”

“You want a cigarette or a beer or something? I have some thick-cut potato chips if you’re hungry.”

“I’m not hungry, Peggy. But I am here for something.”

“For what?”

“The truth.”

“What kind of truth?”

“The truth that only you know. The truth that the only living witness knows.”

Peggy, still looking for her cigarettes, gave up. “You’re talking in riddles. Can you get to the point? I have to take my son out for a haircut later.”

“Jeremy?”

“Yes, Jeremy.”

“Is his father home?”

“No. His father is dead. Now you’re going to have to leave. You’re making me uncomfortable and I don’t like feeling that way in my own home,” Peggy said.

“I thought that this was your mother’s house.”

“She’s dead. It’s mine now.”

“Right. She was bought out by The Pointe developers, is that right?”

Peggy nodded. “She was. And they really screwed her over. They were supposed to give us six months before they tore down the house so we could salvage those gorgeous old leaded windows by the fireplace. But no, they didn’t. Really made my mom mad.”

There were several ways to conduct interviews. One way was to build up to the key question, one little drop at a time, until there was a bucket of water to toss over the witness. The other tactic was to just go for the jugular.

Grace used the second technique.

“You killed my sister, Peggy. Didn’t you?”

Peggy stepped backward. “Jesus! Where did that come from?”

Grace had Peggy where she wanted her.

“Tricia wanted you to stop messing around with the professor, didn’t she? Did she say she was going to tell? Did you kill her because of that?”

Peggy looked flustered and angry.

Where were those damn cigarettes?

“I have no flipping idea what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do. I think you killed her and buried her at your mom’s house on Ruby Street in Ruston.”

“What are you talking about? Killed her? Buried her? You are really going to have to leave now. My son is at work and when he gets home he’s going to rip you a new one for treating me like this.”

“The bones found at the beach were full of lead and arsenic. They came from your yard. You know what I’m talking about. I can see it in your eyes.”

Emma Rose could hear yelling going on above her. It wasn’t the TV. It was louder, continuous. Two women were yelling at each other. She heard footsteps. Someone other than
him
was there. This was her chance. Her only chance.

She took the
People
magazine with Selena Gomez on the cover and rolled it up into a megaphone.

“Help!” she screamed. “I’m down here!”

She stopped and listened for movement, but there wasn’t any.

Next, she did what she had to do. It was her last chance. Her only hope. The stakes could not have been higher. If she failed, she would die.

She took the match she’d found up from the floor and ran it against the concrete, but nothing happened. Only a white line.

You have to light!
she thought.
Light! Please!

She tried it again. She could smell the scent of a burning match, but there was no flame.

God, why don’t you love me?
she asked.

She thought of Elizabeth Smart. She’d made it. She’d found freedom.

The match lit and she held it the edge of the
People
cover. She knew that Selena had been through a lot of things in her life, and she would forgive her.

It was a torch. She was the Statue of Liberty. Emma Rose knew that the smoke would need to find the nose of someone who would help her. Someone upstairs. Someone yelling. For good measure, she took off her T-shirt and doused it with Sam’s Club diet cola and held it over her mouth and nose. Next, she carried the blanket to the chair under the furnace vent and lit it on fire.

If she died of smoke inhalation or even if she’d burned alive, it would be better than dying at the hand of the sicko who held her in the apartment. She held the Sam’s Club-diet-cola-soaked T-shirt and waited by the door. She didn’t cry. She wasn’t even that scared. She knew that whatever happened would be for the best.

Whatever happened, she would be free.

Grace stopped talking. She breathed in cautiously.

“I smell smoke,” she said.

“I don’t smell anything,” Peggy said. She was angry. Her face contorted. “I want you to leave.”

“We need the fire department.” Grace reached for her phone and Peggy shoved her, knocking it out of her hand. It spun across the floor like a gyro.

“Are you crazy?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Get the hell out of my house.”

“The smoke must be coming from the basement.”

“No, it’s not. I was cooking earlier. Get out of my house!”

Grace picked up the phone with one hand, and pulled out her police issue. She pointed the gun at Peggy.

“What’s downstairs, Peggy?”

She punched in 911 with her thumb and put the phone on speaker.

“I’m at 2121 North Howard and there’s a fire. This is Detective Grace Alexander with the Tacoma PD. I need backup, too. This is an emergency.”

Grace didn’t wait for the dispatcher response other than to hear that “help is on the way.”

By then Peggy was gone.

With her gun drawn, Grace made her way first to the kitchen, where the back door had swung open. The door to the basement was locked. She kicked at it, but it didn’t budge. She stepped back a couple of feet and fired in the lock. It took only one shot and the door was open. She turned on the light.

Smoke oozed from the slot in the steel door.

“I’m down here!” It was a scream, but it was soft, muffled. It was not Peggy’s voice, but even if it had been, Grace would have gone down there to get her. She wanted her in prison for what she’d done. Dying in a fire was too good for her sister’s supposed best friend.

Her murderer.

The basement lights were dimmed by the curtain of smoke and Grace called out to whoever it was who was trapped down there.

“I can’t see very well. Tell me where you are.”

Emma started banging against the door with her shoulder. She screamed out. “I’m here! I’m in here. In the apartment.”

The apartment?

Grace crawled on her hands and knees and found the door. Her hands felt for the knob, but it, too, was locked.

“Back away,” she said. “I’m going to fire my weapon to unlock the door.”

A muffled cry came through the wall. “Hurry.”

The gun fired and Grace pushed at the door. It wouldn’t budge.

“I’m going to try again. Please stay away from the door. Do you hear me?”

There was no response.

“Please stay away. I’m going to fire.”

Grace steadied herself in the smoke and shot once more. This time, the lock split and the door crashed open.

Inside, she found a teenage girl, unconscious and half naked.

Emma Rose was alive.

Paramedics carried Emma out on a stretcher into the yard, next to a maple that had already started to turn yellow. Flashing lights and sirens had turned what had been tranquil and beautiful into a nightmare of sorts. Several neighbors had gathered to gawk. One of them was a blond girl, young, pretty. She looked like an angel. When Emma looked up at her she smiled through the oxygen mask. She spoke, but no one could hear her.

“Thank you, Elizabeth Smart,” Emma said.

Grace Alexander sat on the back of the fire truck taking in some oxygen and insisting she was just fine.

“I need to call my husband,” she said. “We need to catch Peggy Howell. She’s responsible.”

The paramedic put his hand on her shoulder; it was a soft, reassuring touch. “Husband’s on his way. Your partner Detective Bateman’s over there.”

Grace looked over as Paul made his way through the chaos of the fire. A neighbor on the west side of the Howells’ house had the stream from a garden hose aimed at the roof of his garage, but that was hardly necessary. The Howell blaze was small, contained to the basement.

“We found the body. We found Emma’s kidnapper. Weird thing. Coroner says he’s been dead five days. Not long after he snatched Emma. This sick SOB.”

She got up. “What body?”

“Her son, I guess. Maybe a boyfriend. Two neighbors had differing ideas about the relationship.”

“Jeremy’s dead?”

“Yes, been dead a while.”

“Did you find his mother?”

“Sit tight. You’ve been through a lot today. But, yeah, we got her. Blues picked her up by the Safeway trying to buy, isn’t this ironic, a pack of smokes with a stolen credit card . . . Diana Rose’s Visa card.”

Grace felt so much relief, she felt her legs go weak. She sat back down. She wanted to call her mother, too. She wanted her to know that it was finally over. Peggy had been the killer. She’d betrayed them all.

“We found some weird shit inside the house,” he said, stepping back a little as an aid car left. “Good thing you’re sitting down.”

“What?”

“You think your mother was a Bundy collector? This gal had her beat tenfold. Photographs, letters, books, it’s like a murderbilia stage show gone wild in there. She even had cue cards for Ted.”

Grace didn’t understand. “Cue cards? What do you mean?”

Paul held one up in a plastic evidence bag. It was an index card, much like the kind her mother had used when she made Bundy flash cards. These were slightly larger and the writing on them was a sloppy printing.

“Weird huh? Like she was making up some kind of play or something.”

“Not a play,” Grace said. “More like a fantasy come true.”

“Grace, we also found this,” he said, holding up the silver necklace with the dove dangling in the flashing lights of the aid car. “It was with her stash of Ted stuff. Right on top. Just sitting there.”