For the first time since being promoted to detective, she felt like she was at a dead end.
Dead end, she thought, the words starting to build an idea in her mind.
She thought about the dirt road the second body had been found alongside. Hadn’t it come to a dead end in that field?
And how about the abandoned house? The gravel road that had led to it and the third victim had come to a dead end in a small square of dirt in front the house.
“Dead end,” she said out loud as she left her house.
And suddenly, she knew where she had to go.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
His living room was mostly dark, illuminated only by the thin shafts of morning sun that managed to creep through the blinds. He sat in an old ragged armchair and looked to the old roll-top desk against the far corner of the room. The cover was rolled up, revealing the items he had kept from each sacrifice.
There was a pocketbook with a wallet inside. Within the wallet, there was a driver’s license belonging to Hailey Lizbrook. There was also a skirt that had belonged to the woman he had hung up in the field; a chunk of strawberry blonde hair with black dye at the tips from the woman he had placed behind the abandoned house.
There was still room for reminders he would bring back from the rest of his sacrifices – reminders of each woman he took for the sake of the work the Lord had delegated for him. While he was pleased with how things had gone so far, he knew that there was still work to be done.
He sat in the armchair, staring at his reminders – his trophies —and waited for the sun to finish rising. Only when the morning was fully engaged was he to start working again.
Looking at the items on the roll-top desk, he wondered (not for the first time) if he was a bad man. He didn’t think so. Someone had to do this work. The hardest jobs were always left to those who did not fear to do them.
But sometimes when he heard the women scream and beg for their lives, he wondered if there was something wrong with him.
When the shafts of lights on the floor went from a translucent yellow to an almost too-bright white, he knew the time had come.
He rose from his chair and walked into the kitchen. From the kitchen, he exited the house through a screen door that led into his backyard.
The yard was small and enclosed by an old chain-link fence that looked both out of place and somehow camouflaged by the neglect of the neighborhood. The grass was tall and overrun with weeds. Bees buzzed and other nameless insects scurried as he approached, making his way through the tall grass.
At the back of the yard, taking up the entire back left corner, was an old shed. It was an eyesore on the already ugly property. He went to it and pulled the door open on its old rusty hinges. It creaked open, revealing the dank darkness inside. Before stepping in, he looked around to the neighboring houses. No one was home. He knew their schedules well.
Now, in the safe light of 9 AM, he stepped into his shed and slid the door closed behind him. The barn was thick with the smell of wood and dust. As he entered, a large rat scurried along the back wall and made its exit through a slot in the boards. He paid the rodent no mind, heading directly to the three long wooden poles that were stacked to the right side of the shed. They were stacked in a miniature pyramid shape, one on top of the other two. Ten days ago, there had been three others there. But those had been put to good use to further his work.
And now, another must be prepared.
He walked to the poles and ran his hand lovingly along the well-worn cedar surface of the one stacked on top. He went to the back of the shed where a small work table was set up. There was an old handsaw, its teeth jagged and rusty, a hammer, and a chisel. He took up the hammer and the chisel and returned to the poles.
He thought of his father as he hefted the hammer. His father had been a carpenter. On many occasions, his father would tell him that the Good Lord Jesus had also been a carpenter. Thinking of his father made him think of his mother. It made him remember why she’d left them when he’d only been seven years old.
He thought of the man that lived up the street and how he would come over when his father was not home. He recalled the squeaking bedsprings and the filthy words that came from the bedroom among his mother’s cries – cries that had sounded both happy and hurt all at the same time.
“Out secret,” his mother had said. “He’s just a friend and your daddy doesn’t need to know anything about it, right?”
He’d agreed. Besides, his mother had seemed happy. Which was why he’d been so confused when she left them.
He set his hands on the top pole and closed his eyes. A fly on the wall might have thought that he was praying over the pole or even communicating with it somehow.
When he was done, he opened his eyes and put the hammer and chisel to use.
In the scant light that came in through the cracks in the boards, he started to chisel.
First came N511, then J202.
Next would come a sacrifice.
And he would claim that tonight.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mackenzie found herself walking into a small coffee shop with the barest flicker of hope. After she’d made the awkward call to her sister, she’d placed another phone call to someone she hadn’t spoken to in quite some time. The conversation had been brief and to the point, concluding in agreeing to meet over coffee.
She looked up now and spotted the man she had called right away. He was hard to miss; in a crowd of rushed people on their way to work, mostly young and well-dressed, his white hair and flannel shirt stood out drastically.
He was turned away from her, and she approached him from behind and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“James,” she said. “How are you?”
He turned and smiled widely at her as she sat down in front of him.
“Mackenzie, I swear you just get prettier and prettier,” he said.
“And you just get smoother and smoother,” she said. “It’s good to see you, James.”
“Likewise,” he said.
James Woerner was pushing seventy but looked closer to eighty. He was tall and skinny, something that had once prompted the officers he once worked with to call him Crane, after Ichabod Crane. It was a name that he’d adapted to himself after he retired from the force and had spent eight years as a consultant for the local PD and, on two occasions, for the state police.
“So what’s going on that might be so bad as to have you reach out to an old fart like me?” he asked.
There was humor in the question but Mackenzie felt herself shrinking away from him as she realized that James was the second person in less than two hours to assume that she had called because she was in a spot of trouble.
“I was wondering if you ever had a case that got under your skin,” she said. “And I don’t mean something that just bothers you. I’m talking about a case that affects you so badly that you get paranoid when you’re at home and it feels like every failed lead is your fault.”
“I assume you’re talking about the poorly named Scarecrow Killer?” James asked.
“How…” she almost asked but then realized she knew the answer, even as James answered it for her.
“I saw your picture in the paper,” he said before sipping his coffee. “I was happy for you. You need a case like this under your belt. I seem to remember telling you that you were destined to crack cases like this several years ago.”
“You did,” she said.
“Yet you’re still hanging out in the trenches with the local PD?”
“I am.”
“Is Nelson treating you okay?”
“As well as he can, given the crew he has working for him. He’s all but put me at the front of this case. I’m hoping it’s a way for him to let me prove myself so all of the macho bullshit from the others can come to an end.”