Death Notice (13 page)

“Rudy has all the evidence at the state police lab,” he said. “If there’s something to find, he’ll find it. Cassie is working on a profile. And Vasquez is as determined as they come. He’s probably raiding mortuary schools as we speak.”

“I didn’t mean to sound like an ingrate,” Kat said, finally plopping onto a bench. “I appreciate your help. You have no idea how much. But this is Perry Hollow’s first murder. Ever. And it’s still sinking in.”

Every town had a dark side. It didn’t matter if it was big or small, rich or poor. It had one. Nick was certain of it. And it was always revealed eventually.

For Holcomb, Kansas, that moment was the day two
punks killed a farmhouse full of people and inspired Truman Capote to write
In Cold Blood
. In Westfield, New Jersey, it was when John List murdered his mother, his wife, and his three children. And for Newton, Ohio, it was the day his sister—

Nick forced himself to not think about it. It had taken years of practice, but now he had it down to an art form. Whenever Sarah popped into his mind, he immediately came up with something else to think about. A Beatles tune. “Eleanor Rigby,” perhaps. Anything but what happened to his sister and what it did to the rest of his family.

That night he focused on Kat Campbell, a one-woman representation of Perry Hollow itself. It was clear neither she nor the town had known about its dark side. But now they were being forced to accept it.

“I never thought it would happen here,” she said. “Mostly because I have no idea how someone could do such a horrible thing to another human being.”

“Cassie’s profile should explain some of that,” Nick said. “But whoever it is, he probably has some kind of trauma in his past, most likely something to do with death or funerals. Sexual abuse as a child could also be likely. We’ve found that serial killers are often created after suffering at the hands of another person.”

Kat’s mouth opened, her lips forming a circle of surprise.

“Serial killer? You think whoever killed George is planning to do it again?”

“Possibly. The faxed death notice, for one thing. The manner in which he killed George. The desecration of the body. All of it points to someone who is very clever and very prepared. Even the pennies on the eyes are textbook serial killer. It’s a calling card. He wants people to know the death was his handiwork.”

“What if you’re wrong?” Kat asked. “I’m not saying you
are. But maybe someone with an overactive imagination had a beef with George Winnick and decided to kill him in the most elaborate way possible. That could be the case, right?”

It could, Nick knew. But it wasn’t.

“Crimes as elaborate as this murder don’t just happen once,” he said. “It took too much planning on the killer’s part to be only a one-shot deal.”

With most of her coffee gone, Kat shook the cup, trying to find more to suck out. When she couldn’t, Nick handed her his cup.

“What about the dead cat? Is that another calling card?”

“Before they move on to humans, many budding killers start with animals. Maybe this guy still enjoys the thrill, so he keeps doing it. I already told Deputy Bauersox to check your town’s police records for the past twenty years and see if any kids from Perry Hollow were charged with cruelty to animals. I hope you don’t think I’m stepping on your toes.”

“If it helps, then step away,” Kat said. “Anything else?”

“Just a question. This guy who discovered the faxed death notice—”

“Henry Goll.”

“What do you know about him?”

Kat shrugged. “Very little. I only met him for the first time today. He seems to be a mystery to most people around here.”

“Think he’s capable of murdering someone?”

“No,” she said, bristling at the very suggestion. “He’s physically capable, yes. But I don’t think he’s the killing type. He’s the one who alerted me about the fake death notice.”

“Maybe that was so you wouldn’t suspect him. Who’s to say he didn’t fax the obituary to his own office before going out to the Winnick farm and killing George. It’s definitely one hell of a way to throw you off the trail.”

“No way,” Kat said with a finality that made it clear the subject was now closed. “I’m sure Henry Goll is one of the good guys.”

“And sometimes,” Nick countered, “the good guys are actually the bad guys.”

A loud bang from a few blocks away prevented the chief from responding. The sound echoed through the chilly night, blasting toward them multiple times. But Nick only needed to hear it once to know what it was—a gunshot.

Kat recognized it, too, and was out of the gazebo within seconds. Nick followed, sprinting out of the square and down two blocks until they were at a street smattered with modest houses. Nervous residents peered out the windows of every home but one. Standing on the porch of that house was a man holding a shotgun, which he stared at with a mixture of surprise and pleasure.

The gun’s presence didn’t slow Chief Campbell, who marched up the porch steps and started berating the man.

“Lucas, what the hell is going on?”

“The safety was on,” the man said. “I swear to Christ, it was. Or at least I thought it was.”

A hollow ring in his voice instantly told Nick that he was lying. From the amused way he looked at the shotgun, Nick surmised the man had fired it just to see what would happen. The result was a hole in the porch roof the size of a dinner plate. Chunks of plaster surrounded the man’s feet, and his entire top half was dusted with disintegrated drywall.

Kat brushed some of it off the man’s shoulder before saying, “I see they let you out of jail.”

“I served my time.” He gave her a crooked, leering smile. “Now I’m a free man.”

Nick focused not on the shotgun but on the man holding
it. Massive in both height and girth, he had the ferocious look of a pit bull. Shaved head. Neanderthal brow. A bump in his nose signified it had been broken at least once.

His appearance was so distinctive it initially masked the birthmark on his face. When Nick eventually did notice it, he found it hard to look away. As large and unruly as the man himself, it covered most of the right side of his face, its pigmentation twice as dark as the rest of his skin. It looked like a handprint, as if someone had slapped his face so hard it left a permanent mark.

Nick would have dismissed the man as a typical thug if it hadn’t been for his dancing eyes and shit-eating grin. He may have been a thug, but he was a highly intelligent one.

“Who
is
that?” Nick whispered to Kat once she returned from the porch.

“Lucas Hatcher,” she said. “Our local bad egg. This could take a while.”

Nick understood. He was only in charge of the murder investigation. Dealing with public menaces wasn’t part of his job. So he wished Kat well and called it a night. Walking away, he heard the chief ask, “Why the hell are you out here with a gun, Lucas?”

“Protection,” the human pit bull said, again unconvincingly. “I’m not going to let what happened to George Winnick happen to me.”

The only lodging Nick had been able to find in town was a bed-and-breakfast annoyingly called the Sleepy Hollow Inn. It was a nice place, if you liked floral prints and lace doilies. Nick did not. But it was better than some of the other hotels he had seen in recent days, so he didn’t mind. Besides, he was too exhausted to be bothered by the décor.

Or so he thought.

Lying in bed, crushed beneath the weight of a rose-dotted comforter, he couldn’t sleep. His mind refused to wind down for the night, and that evening’s caffeine still made his limbs restless. When he closed his eyes, he still pictured George Winnick’s corpse glowing beneath the autopsy room’s lights. When he opened them, all he saw was a too-cute Norman Rockwell print hanging on the wall.

After fifteen minutes of alternating between those two views, Nick crawled out of bed and moved to his suitcase. It took a moment of rooting, but he found what he was looking for—a leather-bound photo album.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he opened the album to a picture of a girl with brown hair and a welcoming smile. Sarah’s school portrait, taken when she was fifteen. Nick had studied the photo so many times it was permanently seared into his memory, yet he got choked up every time he saw it. That night was no different. Looking at the decades-old image of his big sister, that familiar sense of grief rushed into Nick’s heart.

“I haven’t forgotten you,” he told the photograph. “You know I haven’t, right?”

He flipped through the rest of the album, reading newspaper headlines he knew by heart.

NEWTON TEEN MISSING.
That one—dated January 7, 1980—was illustrated with the same photo from the front of the album.

NO CLUES IN DISAPPEARANCE.
January 8, the same year.

POLICE STILL SEARCH FOR GIRL.
The day after.

Nick skipped to the back page. It contained a headline from March 1980. Thirty years earlier. Thirty to the day.

CORPSE BELIEVED TO BE MISSING TEEN.

Nick read the headline a second time. Then a third. And a fourth. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he slammed the album shut and tossed it into the suitcase. He then lay down on the bed, hugged himself tightly, and waited for sleep to come.

“Christ, Henry, look out!”

Henry saw the truck, jackknifed across the road ahead of him. It emerged suddenly, bursting through the curtain of rain that draped itself over his windshield. The truck driver was there, too, running into the road, arms waving for him to stop. The glow of the car’s headlights caused his shadow to loom large on the truck behind him.

He braked, feeling the tires lock as the car skidded. It seemed to pick up speed, sliding closer, closer, closer to the truck driver, who couldn’t get out of the way.

Upon impact, the trucker flipped onto the hood, his face smacking against the windshield. His eyes bulged in terror while his nose formed a pale, flat triangle against the glass. Then he vanished, bouncing up over the car, a single smear of blood on the windshield the only sign he had been there at all.

While this was happening, Henry tried to steer away from the impending accident. He yanked on the steering wheel that refused to budge as the car barreled toward the truck, smoothly, swiftly, inexorably . . .

Henry screamed, the sound of it yanking him out of his nightmare. Lifting his head, he saw he was on the sofa in his living room. A book lay spread open on his stomach, and he examined the spine for its title.
The Man in the Iron Mask
. Definitely a sign he had been in a self-pitying mood.

His left arm dangled off the sofa, hand brushing the floor.
When his fingernails knocked against glass, Henry glanced down and saw a wine bottle. Empty, of course. He must have started hitting the bottle as soon as he got back from the funeral home. Frankly, he couldn’t remember.

When he stood, his back and shoulders cracked loose after so much time spent crammed onto the sofa. He waddled down the hall to the bathroom and took a gratifying long piss. At the sink, he paused at the mirror long enough to stare at his reflection.

“
Mio viso
,” he said. “
Mio viso è ripugnante.
”

After that, he lurched into his bedroom and flopped onto his bed, exhausted. Yet his eyes stayed open, fixed on his digital clock, which stared right back. Ten past five. Too early to get up. Too late to go back to sleep. The nightmare seemed to be aware of this.

It usually occurred once a week and was always the same, right down to the terrified scream that always started it off.

“Christ, Henry, look out!”

Despite its frequency, the nightmare’s intensity never dulled from repetition. That night’s appearance was so forceful that Henry was still shaken five minutes after waking. So instead of futilely trying to get more sleep, he opted to roll out of bed and start his day.

The hangover started to fade once he lurched into the shower. The nightmare, however, lingered. Deep down, he harbored hope it might one day go away. Not that he thought it would. Henry suspected the nightmare—that persistent replay of his past—would stay with him for the rest of his life.

Fifteen minutes in the shower left him feeling awake enough to function normally. And that meant returning to his morning routine. He toweled himself dry before swiping a circle of reflection in the steam-covered bathroom mirror. He then
shaved, being careful to get the stubborn whiskers that sprouted along his scar.