The Rainy Day Killer (29 page)

4
5

Saturday, June 1:
late afternoon

After returning to the ranch, Hank
dutifully participated in the photo session orchestrated by Nelson P. Wister. By then, his mood had eased up enough that he was able to appreciate more fully the job Brad had done renovating the barn for the Alexanders.

It
was a large structure that had originally been used to store dry feed and hay. It was in excellent condition, with large, solid timbers, sturdy walls, wooden flooring, and a hay loft. Brad had insulated the walls and covered them with more barn board. He converted the area under the loft on one side into a galley-style kitchen, and turned grain bins on the other side into booths for private seating. The loft, accessed by a metal winding staircase from a salvage yard in Roanoke, now featured a separate lounge area and bar. The main floor space was filled with round tables that would seat one hundred and twenty people. At the back of the barn, he’d built a false wall to mask the area the Alexanders had earmarked for the washrooms, and it was in front of this false wall that he’d set up a tableau for the photograph session. The centerpiece of the tableau was a beautiful antique cutter, the kind of sleigh pulled by a single horse in winter. Bill had purchased the cutter from Lane’s brother-in-law, Stuart Porter, a local antiques dealer. Arranged around it were other items from Porter’s shop, including a wagon wheel, a church pew, a buffalo robe, and an assortment of collectibles intended to recreate a nineteenth-century rural look and feel.

Behind the false wall and next to the entrance to the was
hrooms was a set of double doors that led outside. Beyond them, several vehicles belonging to Porter, the catering crew, and others were parked behind the barn.

When Hank
walked in, Wister had already convinced Sandy and Karen to pose in the cutter. As he stood next to Bill Alexander, he was relieved to see that Karen’s smile was genuine. She looked happy. He watched her squeeze Sandy’s hand affectionately and laugh as he said something to her.

“This is Stuy Porter,”
Bill said, indicating a short, white-haired man standing next to him. He wore a navy suit, a white shirt open at the neck, and black cap-toe shoes polished to a high shine. “Stuy, meet Lieutenant Hank Donaghue.”

Stuy shook Hank’s hand. “Lieutenant, is it?” he said with a distinct British accent, giving the rank the English pronunciation ‘lef-tenant.’ “In the army, are we?”

“Hank’s a homicide detective in Maryland,” Bill said. “He’s Karen’s commanding officer.”

“Homicide? You don’t say.
Brilliant.”

“Stuy
’s married to Lane’s sister, Petra. She’s around here somewhere. You’re originally from Stamford, England, aren’t you, Stuy? Near London?”

The antiques dealer
ruffled his thinning white hair, which looked as though it had already received quite a workout. “You Yanks. It’s in Lincolnshire, lad, quite a bit north of London. Between Peterborough and Nottingham.”

“Anyway, Stuy’s stuff looks great, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Hank agreed.

“You look like a man who knows a few things about fine fu
rniture,” Stuy said, handing Hank a business card. “We specialize in Georgian, but I can fix you up with whatever you like. Ship it back home to Maryland for you. Stop by the shop and look us over.”

Hank slipped the card into his pocket and obeyed a su
mmons from Lane to join the rest of the wedding party, who were gathering around the cutter.

It took an hour for Wister to be satisfied that he’d taken every possible photograph of everyone from every conceivable angle. He shot them lined up at the railing
up in the loft while he stood on a table downstairs, he shot them on the winding staircase, he shot them standing before the big front doors, open to the drizzle outside, and he shot them in a corner with barn board on either side.

When he finally gave up and waved them away, it was 4:36
p.m
. Hank went looking for Marie-Louise Roubidoux, and found her sitting at a table with Hudson Barnett. He pulled out a chair and sat down.

“Where are we?”

“Just finishing background checks on all the catering staff,” Barnett said. “There’s the guy from Texas, James Watson, the chef. He’s apparently a friend of Detective Stainer’s brother. He checks out. The local crew was hired from a catering company in Roanoke to do the prep and serving and stuff. They all check out so far.”

“Good,” Hank said.

“The photographer, Wister, checks out. The videographer, his name’s, uh,” he glanced at a notebook on the table, “Gerald Mansfield. We got his business card from Mrs. Alexander and we’re running a check on him. He’s not here right now, but I’ll talk to him later. John Bolingbroke knows Wister but never heard of Mansfield before. We’ll get him checked out, though.”

He consulted his notebook again. “The musicians for the live entertainment
tonight are scheduled to show up at six thirty. I actually know these guys, the Steve Eakin Band. Four Roanoke ex-hippie types who play country swing, bluegrass, you name it. Got one of their CDs. As far as the guests are concerned, Mrs. Alexander gave me a list and we’re proceeding on them. I got all the tag numbers from the church and we’re running them. That’ll take a bit of time.” He looked around the barn. “I’m getting DMV photos sent to my phone, and once they start showing up here I’ll do visuals to match them up. We wanted to request ID at the door but Mrs. Alexander had a little hissy fit, so this is the best we can do.”

“All right. What about the sheriff’s deputy
, Preston?”

“His orders
from Sheriff Crull are to stay where he is right now, at the end of the driveway, off Alexander property. The sheriff
really
dislikes Mr. Alexander. Local politics.”

“So I understand.”

“Rather than try to go through their dispatcher if we need to communicate with him in a hurry, I gave Preston a spare cell phone and told him to keep it turned on.” Barnett wrote on the back side of one of his business cards and gave it to Hank. “This is the number.”

“Thanks. And the state police?”

“Are available in the event of an emergency,” Marie-Louise replied. “Their position remains that the UNSUB’s still in Maryland and the task force still calls the shots.”

As Hank put the business card into his pocket, a group of people walked into the barn through the main entrance. Barnett checked his phone.

“No DMV pics yet.”

“Let’s see if Sandy can help out,” Hank said, standing up.

46

Saturday, June 1:
cocktail hour

Karen and Sandy were sneaking a beer behind the cutter ta
bleau when Hank and Marie-Louise came looking for Sandy to give them a hand identifying the guests. People were now arriving for cocktails, which they’d started to serve ten minutes ago. As Karen watched them cross the floor, she saw Sandy flag down his father, likely to help identify people he and Lane had invited who were unfamiliar to Sandy. On impulse, she went up the winding staircase and got herself another beer at the bar. It was a free bar, entirely paid for by Bill and Lane, so there was already a bit of a crowd. She spotted Molly sitting at a table with Louise Tench. They both had glasses of beer in front of them.

“It’s okay,” Molly said, “I checked her ID myself. She’s twenty-one.”

“Dad said I could have one before dinner,” Louise said, moving her glass self-consciously, “and one more later.”

“Good for him,” Karen said
, standing beside their table. “Make sure that’s all you have.”

“We were just talking about you,” Molly said.

“I’ll bet.” Karen slipped her right foot out of her shoe and flexed her toes, which were getting a little sore. Louise and Molly were not exactly a combination she expected to see together, the preacher’s kid and a lesbian parole officer with piercings, tattoos, and spiky hennaed hair, but they seemed to have made friends. One of the reasons Karen liked Molly so much was her innate kindness and willingness to relate to people on their terms, rather than hers. It made her good at her job and good company, as well.

“Do you really investigate murders?” Louise asked, staring up at her.

“Yep.”

“That must be
so
exciting.”

“Not really, hon. Mostly it’s
mindless paperwork and endless phone calls and interviews with boring, stupid people. A lot of routine crap, just like any other job.”

“Molly says you’re the best shot in the police department and you’ve killed criminals in the line of duty.”

“Molly runs her mouth altogether too much.” Karen gave her friend a look. “Why don’t you ladies talk about something nice, like puppy dogs or Justin Bieber?”

Molly snorted. “Get real. This little number wants to be a cop, just like the famous Detective Stainer.”

“No, you don’t,” Karen said to Louise.

“Yes
, I do.”

“She thought it was too cool the way you took down Photo Boy in one-point-five seconds
at lunch,” Molly said. “She wants you to show her how.”

“Can you?” Louise asked.

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Come on,” Molly said. “Just show her how you did it. I would, but I
don’t have a clue. I didn’t take that course.”

“Maybe later,” Karen relented. “After dinner. After I’ve got a few drinks in me.”

Molly and Louise bumped fists together, grinning.

Rolling her eyes, Karen raised her glass of beer. “Later, girls. Stay out of trouble.”

Downstairs, she ran into Lane, who took the glass from her hand.

“We’re forming the receiving line in ten minutes. Let’s get ourselves ready now, shall we?”

Karen groaned inwardly. More handshakes and brainless small talk. Would it never end? “Give me five, Lane. I have to pee.”

“Please, as soon as you’re done.”

“I’ll try to hurry,” Karen lied.

Coming out of the stall, she checked her look in the mirror before going back out onto the floor, thinking about what Louise had said.
Molly says you’re the best shot in the police department and you’ve killed criminals in the line of duty.

She’d never wanted to be anyone other than who she was, but for five minutes she’d like to take a break from it and pretend she was a lovely, sweet bride from a magazine who lived in a swanky penthouse apartment and ate chocolate-covered strawberries all afternoon
in bed while watching old movies and drinking champagne.

Maybe next lifetime, hon
.

Pushing through the washroom door, she bumped into the videographer, who was
standing behind the false wall, unloading his equipment from a small hand truck.

“There you are,” he said, half-turned away from her as he
fussed with his camera. “Listen, while I’ve got you, can I shoot a bit of footage of you by yourself, maybe in the sleigh or something?”

“They’re looking for me at the receiving line,” Karen sa
id.

“I know, everybody’s over there already, but I just got here and we won’t have another chance once things get started. Just a minute or two, that’s all.”

“I don’t know,” Karen said, hesitating. She didn’t want to piss Lane off any more than necessary, but the guy was a lot more polite than Wister had been, and she was feeling inclined to cooperate with him. “Just for a minute.”

“Thanks
.” He set his camera down on the floor and stepped behind her. “Wait, you’ve got a piece of toilet paper snagged on the bottom of your gown. Can’t have that, can we?”

“What?” Karen turned as he bent down behind her.

“Got it,” he said, straightening up with a piece of toilet paper in his left hand.

“Man, that would have been embarrassing,” Karen said, tur
ning away.

“I know.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his right hand suddenly come up from his side. Instinctively, she turned her head back toward him and brought her elbow up in a reflexive, defensive movement.

She heard a snap below her right ear
and felt intense pain as her elbow struck his forearm. Peripherally, she saw a stun gun fly from his right hand as her legs turned to jelly, her brain filled with noise, and she dropped to the floor like a shot steer.

4
7

Saturday, June 1: cocktail hour

A stun gun uses two nine-volt batteries to generate at least eighty-five thousand volts of electricity. The voltage travels like a thousand freight trains through the nervous system into the muscles, causing them to spasm. The movement is sufficiently violent to bring about an instantaneous spike in lactic acid levels, causing the muscles to feel as though they’ve suddenly turned to cement. At the same time, electrical signals to the brain are momentarily scrambled, triggering disorientation and confusion. A half-second of contact is enough to startle, frighten, and hurt someone enough to chase them away. Three seconds of sustained contact, on the other hand, will take down an adult male and leave him in a dazed mental state for up to fifteen minutes.

Because Karen
had instinctively raised her elbow and knocked the stun gun out of the Rainy Day Killer’s hand, she experienced only a full second of contact. It was enough, however, to cause intense pain, to generate enough lactic acid in her legs to cause them to fold underneath her, and to instigate rippling spasms across her body. The sheer unexpectedness of the attack, catching her in a moment when she’d been thinking about the receiving line, Lane’s fussiness, and Sandy’s patient smile, was as much responsible for her sudden confusion as the voltage itself.

She fell on her right side, her knees
jerked up into a fetal position. Her left arm spasmed several times. Her head, fortunately, had bounced off the side of the killer’s equipment bag before hitting the floor, which cushioned the blow and prevented a concussion.

She fought to understand what was happening.

She heard a voice whisper in her ear, “Just relax. You’ll be my best girl ever.”

What the hell
, she thought.
I’m on the floor
.

The spasms passed quickly.

She tried to move her legs. Her left leg straightened slightly, but that was it.

“Hold still, darling,” the voice whispered in her ear. “Don’t move.”

She tried to move her right arm, but it was trapped beneath her body. She moved her left arm. It flopped up and fell back again.

“Don’t,” the voice said. “This
will only take a second.”

She felt the hem of her gown slide up her left, uppermost calf.

Fuck
, she thought.
It’s him
.

She felt the hem being tugged as he tried to move it up to her knee. The tugging stopped
. She felt her slip, which hadn’t come up with her gown, begin to slide up her left calf. Under her right calf, however, it remained trapped between the floor and her ankle holster.

“Damn,” the voice said. “Thigh is better, but calf will do.”

She heard a rustling sound, the movement of his pants against the floor. She swung her left arm again, cutting it around in a weak arc, but it moved through empty air.

Missed him. Not there
.

As
her arm flopped down, the voice returned to her ear. “Hold still. This will just take a second.”

She felt a sharp prick in her left calf, and immediately unde
rstood what was happening.

Stuns her and then pounds in a sedative right away.

Her own words, spoken to Chalmers, standing over Theresa Olsen’s nude body.

Anger flooded her brain
. Just as the brief shot of electricity had poured through her body moments before, robbing her limbs of energy, the surge of anger provided new fuel to her muscles and cut through the disorientation in her mind.

She
swung her left arm again, but this time with more purpose and precision. For the second time, she succeeded in making contact, striking his hand as he was depressing the plunger on the syringe to inject the drug into her body. The syringe flew away, leaving a divot on her calf.

“Damn!”
he yelped in frustration.

She heard him scramble around behind her head. Hands b
egan to turn her over onto her back, fumbling for position under her armpits. He was going to try to drag her, perhaps to get her onto his hand truck and wheel her out the back door to his vehicle.

As she turned, she slowly drew up her right leg and
groped with her hand, trying to find her gun.

Other voices, suddenly loud, burst
through the washroom door. Women talking and laughing. The voices stopped in mid-sentence, mid-laugh.

The hands disappeared from her armpits and the back of her head thumped against the floor, but she was already rolling over
, so she didn’t feel it. Gown tangling around her thick and clumsy legs, she struggled to her hands and knees.

She looked up into the eyes of a woman she recognized as one of Sandy’s cousins.

“Tell them,” Karen croaked. “Sandy.”

“Oh my God, are you all right?” The woman stared down at her,
frozen in place.

“Tell them. Rainy Day Killer
. Here.”