The Psalmist (14 page)

 

Chapter 22

A
LAN
B
ARKER WA
S
the chief of detectives in Bridge County, West Virginia, a rural mountain community near the borders of Maryland and Pennsylvania. A Jane Doe had been found there at the bottom of a wastewater containment pit, wrapped in a bedsheet, her hands, ankles, and neck bound with duct tape. Dead from a single .45 caliber gunshot wound just below her right ear. The woman was white, appeared to be in her late thirties, five feet seven, 160 pounds. Wearing jeans and a black T-­shirt. A small amount of marijuana in a Baggie was found in her front pocket.

Sonny Fischer had left four messages with Barker, Hunter saw from the Tidewater case log, going back to Wednesday. Barker had called once, after the second try, leaving a message, but there was nothing after the third or fourth calls.

Hunter brewed a pot of coffee and settled at her desk, the door closed, looking out at the parking lot, the trees shaking in the wind near the halogen lights. The offices were mostly empty tonight, just a ­couple of dispatchers, a desk sergeant, emergency call handlers in another wing of the building, someone moving around in the detective division. She liked the quiet, the lack of interruption. She was going to work on this as long as it took.
Not stopping until I find something
.

First up, West Virginia. There was no home number listed for Alan Barker, but she found listings for several other county officials. It took her four tries to reach one. The assistant county attorney was a Patricia Pembrook, whose voice was so deep that Hunter thought at first she was talking with a man.

“All I can tell you,” she said, “is if it's Saturday night, there's a good likelihood Barky's having dinner over at the Red Lobster.”

“Excuse me—­Barky?”

“Al Barker. Isn't that who you're asking about?”

“Right.”

Hunter found the number for Red Lobster. The girl who answered sounded like she was ten years old.

“I'm trying to reach a Mr. Alan Barker,” she said. “I believe he's having dinner there right now.” She listened to the confused utterances on the other end, then added, “This is urgent. It's actually an emergency.”

Hunter looked at her watch. Six minutes passed before a man's voice came on the line.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Barker.”

“Who's calling?”

Hunter explained.

“Well, geez Louise,” he said. “I'm having dinner with my family right now. Could you call my office on Monday? I don't even know who this is I'm talking to.”

“I just told you, sir,” she said. “And we did call your office. We left multiple messages. Four messages, according to my log. This is an urgent, high-­priority case.” She tried softening her tone slightly. “I just need a minute or so of your time, sir.”

Barker sighed dramatically, twice. Then his voice became more measured. “What is it you need to know?”

“I'm looking at the file from the Jane Doe case there. I'm looking at a possible connection with a Jane Doe here in our jurisdiction. I need to know something, sir. Were there any numbers left behind at the scene where the body was found—­or on the body?”

“Numbers.”

“Yes. On or near the body? Anything like that?”

“Who told you that there were?”

Hunter felt a surge of energy. “No one,” she said. “It's speculation, sir. As I say, it's possible it might tie our case with yours.”

“Do you have a phone number where I can reach you?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, and she gave him both of her numbers.

“And your name again?” Hunter told him. “All right. I'm having dinner right now. I'll have someone call you if we find anything. Thank you,” he said, and hung up.

Then Hunter opened the case file from the Central Virginia John Doe murder and read through it, front to back. The victim was a white male, found beside a rural stretch of State Road 736. Shot in the chest at close range with a .22 caliber handgun. Fisch had talked with two detectives in the case, but they provided no useful information beyond what was in the files, except that they considered the killing drug-­related, most likely a “retribution killing,” the missing tongue meaning he'd been a snitch.

Hunter heard something and looked up. A door closing. Out the window, stray flakes of snow glittered up above the halogen lights. She heard the beep of a car door lock. Listened to the mechanical sounds around her—­—­clock, coffeemaker, the heating. Then she got an idea.

S
HE FLIPPED BACK
to the case file for Jane Doe in West Virginia. The medical examiner was named Carroll Sternwilder, and a
C. Sternwilder
was listed in the white pages on Slope Lane. A male voice answered when Hunter called.

“Mr. Sternwilder.”

“Yes?”

“This is Amy Hunter, I'm calling from the homicide unit in the Tidewater County Special Investigations Office in Maryland. I'm looking at a homicide case here and referencing your open Jane Doe investigation. I'm interested in the numbers that may have been left behind with the victim.”

“Hello?”

Hunter heard a television in the background—­a buzzing sound that she finally began to recognize as engines in a Nascar race. She repeated most of what she'd just said.

“I'm not authorized to make any statements to the media,” he said in an even-­sounding, high-­toned voice.

“Sir? I'm not the media. I'm the chief investigator for the state police homicide unit.”

“I'm not authorized to talk about it.”

Talk about
it.
Hunter took a breath.

“But there were numbers.”

“Nothing that's relevant to the investigation.”

“But there
were
numbers.”

“Could you give me your name and phone number, please.”

She did, and Carroll Sternwilder hung up.

Several minutes before nine her cell rang. A West Virginia number came up on the screen.

“Hunter.”

“My, you're a busy little beaver,” the voice said.

“Excuse me?”

“I understand you just called our chief medical examiner at home?”

It was “Barky,” back from Saturday night at the Red Lobster. “Sir, I think there may be a connection between our Jane Doe case and the Jane Doe case there. I think you'll want to hear what I have to say.”

“And what do you think that connection might be?”

“I won't know until you tell me if there were any numbers left behind,” she said.

Hunter heard a rattle of papers.

“
Were
there numbers, sir?”

“Well, I've just pulled those files, and the only thing I see is that there were some numbers tattooed onto the small of the woman's back. If that means anything.”

“Was this sent out to other law enforcement agencies?”

“Statewide, yes.”

Statewide.
Meaning they assumed the woman was from West Virginia and that the crime had a local solution. Same as in the Delaware arson case: thinking, for obvious reasons, that the wax museum owner may have been the perpetrator. Local assumptions, local solutions.

“Could you describe it, please? The numbers.”

Hunter felt adrenaline pumping into her blood as she waited.

“Well. It was sort of funny.” He drew a long breath. “The numbers on her back? It was sort of crudely done. We thought at first it might've been 666. You know, the mark of the beast, from the Bible? We thought maybe they'd tried 666 and just done a bad job. But we eventually decided—­it's pretty clear, in fact, they're eights. Two of 'em.”

“Eights.”

“That's right. Eight. Eight. And a six,” he said, drawing out the sound of each number. “That mean anything?”

“I'm not sure.”

“If this is somehow connected to another homicide case, why, naturally that would be of interest to us.”

“Of course,” Hunter said. “One of your investigators told us that you already had a theory about this case?”

“Well, no,” he said. “We have
ideas
. We have a person of interest. But, frankly, we don't have the evidence at this time to make a case against him.”

“Could you elaborate on that, sir?”

“Well, we have reason to think that this is a drug-­related crime. Not far from where this woman was found, there's a drug house, place that's been raided a few times over the last—­I don't know, six, seven years. Man's been charged with possession of cocaine and paraphernalia, on three separate occasions.”

At the far end of the parking spaces, parallel to the building, a Tidewater County sheriff's patrol car whipped into a space. Its lights went out.

“How might this other case be connected?” Barker asked.

But Hunter's thoughts were racing. “Listen,” she said. “I need to check on something. Can I call you back?”

“Well. I suppose.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Drug-­related.
She paged back through the Virginia file. The mutilation. Detectives there believed that the killing was drug-­related, too, although the circumstances were very different: in West Virginia, marijuana had been found in one of the woman's pockets, but there were no drugs in her system. Could the drugs have been planted to make it
seem
drug-­related? To divert attention from what might've really happened?

Hunter considered this new evidence: a three-­digit number, crudely tattooed on the woman's back. Not a number left behind like a calling card, though. A number tattooed there: 886.

This time, Hunter didn't need to call the pastor.

She opened her Bible. A Bible from Hunter's childhood, her signature on the title page. Amy L. Hunter.

88:6.

This time she got it on the first try.

886 was Psalm 88, verse 6.

A simple message. Succinct description of the fate of this woman, who'd been discovered at the bottom on a waste pit on a hillside in West Virginia.

Hunter read it, several times.

You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.

 

Chapter 23

T
HE CO
LD AIR
and silence felt insulating as Hunter walked across the parking lot. But as she reached her car, she heard an engine starting behind her. At the other end of the asphalt strip, a patrol car's headlights lit the trees as it reversed from the space and accelerated toward her.

The car stopped behind Hunter's, blocking her way. The driver's window was lowered. It was Barry Stilfork.

“Sergeant.”

“Evening.”

“Working late?”

“Just tying up some loose ends.”

His eyes loitered on the folders she was carrying. Technically, she wasn't supposed to take files from the building without logging them out. Was he going to make an issue about that? Stilfork's heavy-­handed attitude seemed to her a distorted reflection of where he'd come from. Ship had described him as something of an outcast in school, a tall kid who never laughed, whom ­people made paths around if they noticed him at all. Hunter had heard Stilfork say that his parents, now deceased, had worked in the “food ser­vice industry.” But Ship told her they'd never worked anywhere but at McDonald's up on the highway, which was where they'd met; his mother a food fryer, his father working his way to manager.

“You live down by the marina, don't you?” he said.

“Pardon?”

“You live by the marina?”

“Why?”

“There was a report of vandalism there earlier tonight. Just thought you ought to know.”

“What sort of vandalism?”

“Broken window. Someone driving around with their lights off. Just wanted to give you a heads-­up.”

His eyes stayed with her. There had been several late night vandalism reports over the past few days—­rocks through a window, four or five cars broken into, tombstones overturned at the cemetery. No clear suspects yet. It was as if the church killing had spread a dark fever of mischief through the county. Hunter wondered if Stilfork himself, the only officer on patrol through the night, had any role in it.

“Thanks,” she said. “I'll be fine, Lieutenant.”

“Well, I'll probably be patrolling the area some later. I'll check on your building.”

“No, there's no need for that.”

“Just be careful,” he said, his tone a threat as much as an expression of concern.

It was nine-­seventeen as she started her car. Pastor Bowers would be home by now. Had been home, probably, for hours. Hunter sat in her car and called him. Stilfork's patrol car idled at the entrance of the parking lot, as if he was waiting for her.

Bowers's wife answered. Hunter waited as she called him; it almost sounded as if she said,
It's Nancy Drew!
Probably just,
It's for you!
“Hello?”

“You were right, god damn it,” she said.

“Pardon?”

Hunter inhaled deeply. “Sorry. Let me start again. It's Amy Hunter. You were right. There
is
a third case. Psalm 88, verse 6. I just found it. I'm going back further now.”

“Okay.”

“Can you meet me first thing in the morning?”

“Uh, sure I could.” Hunter wanted his opinion on the Virginia case now, too. “Of course, I do have a prior commitment tomorrow morning,” he added.

“Oh.”

“Could it be after the ser­vice?”

“Yes. Sorry. I wasn't even thinking.”

A
T
FBI H
EADQUARTERS
in Washington, D.C., Supervising Special Agent Dave Crowe skimmed through the details of the peculiar John Doe case from Central Virginia: well-­dressed middle-­aged man, lips sliced off, tongue cut out.

It wasn't his case. Probably had nothing to do with what he was working on, except that he was checking all missing person cases in the region, on the off chance he'd find a piece that fit the jigsawed image in his head. This one didn't. But the description was unsettling. It would stick with him; he would come back to it later—­after he'd learned that the pieces he was collecting belonged to a different puzzle than the one in his head.

For now, though, Dave Crowe closed the file and moved on. He had something much more immediate to deal with.