Death Notice (14 page)

He dressed quickly and went to the kitchen to down his usual breakfast of two eggs, one banana, and a glass of orange juice. After the last bite and a final swallow, Henry made and packed his lunch.

And that was that. His routine was over. It was time to go to work.

Opening the front door to his apartment, he saw the
Perry Hollow Gazette
lying at his feet. The top headline stared at him in big, black letters.

FARMER FOUND DEAD.

He didn’t want to read the accompanying article. He knew the way newspapers worked. They loved stories that elicited the three emotions guaranteed to boost circulation—sadness, thankfulness, and fear. Readers were sad it happened in the first place, thankful it didn’t happen to them, and fearful it eventually could.

The Winnick murder had all three, and Henry assumed the
Gazette
exploited them to their full potential. Martin Swan’s article no doubt had the typical quotes of shock from residents, the various no comments from police, maybe even some editorializing about the sad state of humanity.

What it didn’t have—and Henry had made sure of this—was any mention of the death notice faxed to him before the murder occurred. He had promised Chief Campbell to keep it under wraps. And he always kept his promises.

Henry was about to kick the newspaper into the apartment when something nearby caught his eye. It was a cardboard box, unmarked, and sitting about two feet away from his door. His was one of two apartments on that floor. Since the other was located on the opposite side of the hallway, Henry could only assume that the box was intended for him.

Kneeling, he studied it a moment. The box contained no address or postage, meaning it couldn’t have been mailed. This had been delivered by hand.

The top was sealed only by a wide swath of masking tape, which peeled off easily. When it was all gone, Henry counted to three, opened the box, then looked inside.

What he found there was strangely unexpected but not completely surprising. He should have known finding the Winnick death notice wouldn’t be his only involvement in the crime. Now there was this sudden gift to contend with. The meaning behind both items was a mystery, but their purpose was clear.

Henry was being pulled deeper into a twisted game thought up by an even more twisted mind.

“The cat’s neck was snapped. Probably the day before George Winnick was killed.”

The way Rudy Taylor gave his update—back ramrod straight, notes held tight in front of his face—reminded Kat of a nervous schoolboy giving a book report in front of the class. But despite his looks, Rudy was no schoolboy. And a book report would have been more detailed. So far, Kat had heard nothing but bad news. No prints. No transfer. No DNA. No suspect.

“It was gutted,” Rudy continued. “Then filled with sawdust and put back in the barn, where Mr. Winnick most likely saw it right before he was abducted.”

“Is that your theory?” Nick Donnelly asked. “That the dead cat was intended to catch him off guard?”

He had been forced to lean against Kat’s desk, her office having only enough seating space for three. The other chairs were taken up by Kat herself, Rudy, and Cassie Lieberfarb. It was a tight fit, even with Rudy’s small stature.

“That’s my best guess,” Rudy said. “If it had some special meaning, it probably would have been left with the body.”

“What about the thread?”

“The thread found on both the cat and George Winnick was a cotton-polyester blend. It’s manufactured by Coats and Clark in Charlotte, North Carolina.”

“Is it rare?”

“No. I’m sure you can buy it in six stores in Perry Hollow alone,” Kat said. “I probably have some in my sewing kit at home.”

Nick frowned at the answer. “So I guess it can’t be traced.”

“But we did find another thread,” Rudy said. “On Mr. Winnick’s collar. It’s white. One hundred percent cotton.”

“Do you think it was transferred from the killer?”

“It had to be,” Rudy said. “Unless Mr. Winnick normally wore something dipped in chloroform.”

“Chloroform?”

“That’s correct. The lab is positive of that one.”

The dour expression on Nick’s face transformed into something resembling a smile.

“A handkerchief,” he said. “Doused in chloroform. Anyone else think that’s how the killer was able to overtake George without a struggle?”

“It fits the profile,” Cassie added. “The cut on George’s neck was clean, suggesting practice and premeditation. This killer is methodical and knows what he’s doing. The stitchwork was a little rough, suggesting a male—most likely between the ages of twenty-five and fifty.”

Kat, for one, was impressed. “You got all that from one wound?”

“Not quite. I use statistics and data from past cases to help me. For instance, I know that the killer drives a pickup truck.”

“How?”

“Statistics show most violent criminals in rural areas prefer
them. We don’t know why. But there’s also the fact that he needed something to transport a body with a coffin in it.”

Kat thought about Perry Hollow and its cluster of citizens. Quite a few were men in their thirties and forties. Most of them drove pickups.

“Cassie, you’ve just made half the town a suspect.”

“About the town,” Nick said, “we need to figure out how much of this information gets out. What should we tell the press?”

That morning’s edition of the
Perry Hollow Gazette
sat on Kat’s desk. The newspaper had devoted its entire front page to the Winnick murder, mentioning every detail she had released. The official line was that George had bled to death, which was true. No one needed to know about the rest—dead cat, embalming, and faxed death notice included.

Because the truck driver had seen the coffin on the road, that aspect of the case was released to the public. Martin Swan, of course, played it up in his main article. The paper even included a photo of the spot where the coffin had been found.

The coffin was the part that made the death so fascinating. It was strange, creepy, intriguing. The news stations out of Philadelphia led with it during the morning broadcast. An hour later, it had made its way onto CNN’s Web site. By noon, Kat suspected it would be spread across the country. Just the kind of publicity Perry Hollow didn’t need.

“We shouldn’t release any of it,” she said. “All it will do is stir up the media wolves. And this town doesn’t need more of that.”

With that, the meeting was over. Rudy and Cassie left, giving Kat’s office some much-needed breathing room. Then Tony Vasquez arrived, taking up the recently vacated space. Held in his capable arms was a stack of paper that he dropped onto her desk with a resounding thud.

“What’s all this?” Kat asked.

“Enrollment records from mortuary schools. Four of them. The closest is in Halliesburg. Thirty minutes away. All four were nice enough to fax a list of their students for the past twenty years.”

The stack was large—at least two reams of paper. When Kat flipped through it, dozens of names, addresses, and phone numbers passed before her eyes.

“This would be helpful,” she said, “if we had a name. Or something to suggest the killer was enrolled at any of them.”

“We have a name,” Tony said. “We were able to trace the fax number.”

“This is good news, right? We should be happy.”

“Do I look happy?” Tony asked.

Scanning the trooper’s dark eyes and downturned mouth, Kat decided he wasn’t.

“What’s wrong with the name?”

It was Nick, who idly flipped through the stack of pages that Kat had just abandoned.

“It’s a fake. At least, that’s what it seems like.”

Tony told them that the fax number had been activated two days before George Winnick’s murder. It was registered to someone named Meg Parrier. According to company records, the number was used only once—to send a fax to the
Perry Hollow Gazette
’s obituary department.

“That’s dead end number one,” Tony said.

The number was paid for with a money order, also in Miss Parrier’s name. The transaction for the money order took place at a Mexican convenience store in a bad part of Philadelphia. The nervous owner, most likely suspecting trouble with the INS, told the state police he couldn’t remember anything about the transaction.

“Dead end
numero dos
.”

The bill for the number was sent to a post office box, also in a bad part of Philadelphia and again under the name Meg Parrier. A search of the name itself came up with two hits in Pennsylvania. One Meg Parrier was an octogenarian in Erie. The other was a kindergarten student in Wilkes-Barre.

“And there we have dead end number three,” Tony concluded. “So no smiles today.”

“I’d still like to find this Meg Parrier—whoever she is,” Nick said. “We now know the killer had help, whether it was willing or not. What about formaldehyde?”

“Because Bob McNeil said one way to get your hands on a large amount would be to steal it, I issued an APB across the state about funeral home breakins.”

“Any hits?”

“One. In a town called Shamokin.”

“I guess all their formaldehyde is intact.”

“Bingo,” Tony said. “Only cash was taken.”

Kat thought back to their funeral home visit the night before and how Bob McNeil had said there was a black market for everything. His suggestion had been to search the Internet.

“What if,” she said, “the formaldehyde was bought through normal methods.”

“Like the kind of licensed dealer Bob mentioned?” Nick asked. “Don’t you have to be a registered funeral home to get it?”

“Yes, if you’re getting large amounts. Maybe it’s easier to buy it in small ones.”

“And the killer then stockpiled it,” Tony said, catching on.

Kat turned to her computer. “Let’s check our old friend Google.”

Nick and Tony watched over her shoulder as she typed “formaldehyde suppliers” into the online search engine. One click later, dozens of results appeared, boasting names such as
Blain Chemical Co. and M. L. International. Their locations were literally all over the map. Some were as close as Delaware; others as far away as Iceland.

Tony let out a low whistle. “Who knew the world needed this much formaldehyde? We chose the wrong career.”

Kat clicked on one of the listings—a company called Science Lab Supplies Inc. Its homepage, which looked professional and legitimate, announced that the company specialized in supplies used for educational dissections in classrooms. For a reasonable price, Kat could buy a petri dish, dissection tools, and even bullfrogs preserved and ready to be sliced open.

She scrolled through the options until she came to a listing for chloroform.

“Look at this,” she said. “One-stop shopping.”

A few lines below the chloroform was a listing for formaldehyde. Kat clicked once more and was offered a plethora of amounts, ranging from ten milliliters to one liter.

“One or two orders from a site like that and you could amass a pretty good supply,” she said. “Not to mention picking up some chloroform on the side.”

“Especially,” Tony added, “if you’re ordering from different places at the same time.”

“Contact these companies,” Nick said. “All of them. Subpoena their records. Get their order information. If anyone sent anything to Perry Hollow, I want to know about it.”

“Do you think it’ll help?” Kat asked.

A voice from the doorway piped up. “I think I can be of help.”

All three of them turned from Kat’s computer to the office door, where Henry Goll stood. A cardboard box filled his arms.

“I found this outside my door this morning,” he said. “It’s from whoever murdered George Winnick.”

“How do you know?” Kat asked.

Entering the office, Henry placed the box on her desk before thrusting his hands deep inside it. When he pulled them out, Kat saw that he was holding the smallest fax machine she had ever seen.

Henry placed the fax machine gently on the chief’s desk. Removed from its box, it resembled a regular fax machine, only flatter, more narrow, and with a futuristic sheen. A panel of buttons ran along the front and a slot at the top allowed the faxes to roll out. A small tray for paper sat at the bottom.

“Where’s the cord?” Kat asked.

“It’s portable,” Henry said. “And wireless. It works like a cell phone. You can send a fax from anywhere to anywhere, no cords required.”

The three other people in the room looked at him quizzically, wondering how he knew this. The reason was simple—he had read about the device in
The New York Times
a month earlier. It was one of those puff pieces—half article, half advertisement—that every newspaper had been reduced to. People who owned one gushed about how fantastic it was to send and receive actual paper faxes on the beach in the Seychelles and in the far reaches of the Andes.

The machine fascinated Chief Campbell, who knelt until she was eye level with the front panel.

“I had no idea they made these. Technology sure is something.”

“I think it’s a little excessive.”