Death Notice (20 page)

But once he settled in his new town, he discovered that memories of Gia were just as prevalent there as they were in Pittsburgh. That’s when Henry realized thoughts of her would follow him no matter how far he roamed.

“Now I’m a good obituary writer,” he said. “For most of these people, I’m the author of the last thing to ever be written about them. That’s an important task. I take it seriously, and I try to do it with respect and honesty.”

“You make it sound so noble.”

“It is. People are too quick to forget the dead. This society encourages it. You’re supposed to mourn for a bit and then move on. What I do preserves them. Their lives are printed right
there on a piece of paper, for anyone to see at any time. I help them not be forgotten.”

“People don’t forget,” Deana said. “They go about their lives because they need to. They have to work and raise their kids and meet new people. It’s called life, and it doesn’t stop when someone dies. It goes on. Just because you go on doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten those in the past. But at some point you need to let them go.”

She stared directly into Henry’s eyes, making him wonder if she knew more about his past than she let on. As far as Henry knew, no one in Perry Hollow was aware of what happened to him before he arrived. They only saw the present Henry—dour, dark, disfigured. That’s all he wanted them to see, which is why he remained in the shadows.

“I like you, Henry,” Deana said quietly. “You seem like a good man, and there aren’t too many of them in this town. Trust me, I’ve looked.”

She edged toward him, drawing so close that the light, sweet scent of her perfume danced in his nostrils. She was going to kiss him. And Henry, astonishingly, wanted her to.

The kiss, when it arrived, was a peck on the cheek. Deana then slid her lips down to his own. As they made contact, a jolt of electricity exploded in his brain before zipping directly to his groin. Deana kissed differently than Gia, with more brash fervor than he was accustomed to. Her tongue caressed his own before slipping out of his mouth and running across his upper lip. When it reached his scar, all the excitement Henry felt immediately ceased.

“We need to stop,” he said as he gently pushed her away.

The look in Deana’s eyes shifted from arousal to confusion to hurt. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re a wonderful girl. But I’m not ready for this yet.”

A slight pain pulsed at Henry’s temple. The burn mark, no doubt flushed and flaring. He touched the scar on his face, fingertips tripping over the spot Deana had just kissed.

“It was only a kiss,” she said. “It’s not a big deal.”

“That’s the problem. To me, it’s a very big deal.”

After quickly walking Deana home, Henry returned to his apartment and tried to sleep. But the abrupt—and awkward—end to the night made that difficult. He pictured Troy Gunzelman in the floating casket. He thought of the sad expression on Deana’s face as he broke off their kiss. And he had the dream—not as a whole but in fragments, as if his brain was a television being controlled by an impatient remote.

When morning arrived, he was just as exhausted as when he had gone to bed. But it was another workday, and he suspected writing Troy’s obituary would be at the top of his agenda.

Groggily, he got out of bed and followed his morning routine. When he opened the front door to leave, the
Perry Hollow Gazette
was waiting for him.

GRIM REAPER STRIKES AGAIN
, the headline screamed. Below that, in only slightly smaller letters, it read,
FOOTBALL STANDOUT MURDERED, FOUND IN COFFIN.

The byline belonged to Martin Swan. Back in his reporting days, Henry would have felt a twinge of jealousy about that. But not now. Now, Martin could have all the attention-grabbing stories he wanted. Henry didn’t care.

He scooped up the paper and tossed it into the trash can next to the door. When he turned around to leave, he noticed something else in the hallway. Something he hadn’t seen since March.

There was no box this time. No attempt to disguise what it was. Instead, the portable fax machine sat out in the open,
the buttons on its front panel making it look like a face. It was smiling at Henry, he was sure of it. Smiling and beckoning him to join the next round of whatever game it was that they were playing.

Had she been given the choice, Kat would have picked getting a root canal over holding a press conference. She couldn’t stand the thought of facing all those reporters and their questions. If she could have avoided holding one, she would have. But that wasn’t possible. A son of Perry Hollow was dead—a beloved one at that. When a town’s football hero gets slaughtered, it’s owed a press conference.

After a meeting with the mayor, the county sheriff, the prosecutor’s office, and the state police, it was decided that Kat should do the talking. She was the face of Perry Hollow, they said, and she knew the most about the case. But Kat couldn’t help feeling like a sacrificial lamb. All of them had thought George Winnick’s killer was behind bars, and no one wanted to break the bad news that he wasn’t. That left Kat to do their dirty work.

So at 9:00
A.M.
sharp, she stood outside the police station and confronted a gauntlet of reporters. It wasn’t just the
Gazette
that was interested anymore. Media outlets from far outside the county now wanted a piece of the action. As she gave her opening remarks, she saw reporters from
The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times,
and practically every TV station in the state.

“I’ll first go over the details of the case,” she said, “then I’ll open it up to questions.”

Taking a deep breath, she began.

“Troy Gunzelman was found dead at approximately nine thirty last night.”

She read her statement from a sheet of paper Lou had typed a half hour earlier, after Kat heard back from Wallace Noble.

The autopsy results were similar to George Winnick’s, with a few variations. Instead of merely slicing the carotid artery, the killer had cut the jugular open as well. It was exactly like Bob McNeil had demonstrated—one to let the blood out, one to let the embalming fluid in. The killer again used a mixture of formaldehyde and water, although the solution hadn’t entirely filled Troy’s circulatory system. Apparently, he had been in a hurry.

“His body was discovered in a homemade coffin floating on Lake Squall. Cause of death was loss of blood. The exact time of death has yet to be determined.”

Kat scanned the crowd as she spoke, immediately picking out Martin Swan. After that morning’s edition, he and the rest of the
Gazette
staff were firmly on her shit list. Martin had decided to give the killer a nickname in that day’s paper, dubbing him the Grim Reaper.

Quick to know a good sound bite when they heard one, the television news stations picked it up immediately, using the nickname throughout their morning broadcasts. And as Kat opened the press conference up to questions, she prepared to be bombarded with references to it.

Several dozen hands shot into the air, attached to reporters already calling out queries. Martin’s was among the highest. Normally, Kat would have picked him first, giving him a home team advantage. But since she was still angry, she pointed to a woman who identified herself as a correspondent from a Philadelphia TV station.

“Do you think the Grim Reaper is responsible for the deaths of both Troy Gunzelman and George Winnick?”

Kat nodded solemnly. “There is reason to believe the perpetrator of this crime is the same person responsible for killing George Winnick earlier this year. Both victims died in similar manners.”

Martin raised his hand higher, stretching it like a brainy third-grader. Kat picked the reporter next to him, a well-scrubbed fellow from CNN.

“Other than the manner of death,” he said, “is there any link between Troy and George?”

“Troy spent a summer working on George Winnick’s farm. Besides that, we have no reason to believe they were linked in any other way.”

Mr. CNN had a follow-up. “Then why these two people?”

“That’s a good question,” Kat said. “I wish I had an answer.”

She saw movement at the back of the crowd. Nudging his way between two reporters was a pale-faced man who stood a head taller than everyone else. It was Henry, arriving late to the media circus.

He had brought a second portable fax machine to the station early that morning. Unlike the first, there was no need to see if it was the same one used to send Troy’s death notice. Clearly, it was. It was the same make and model as the first, and once again, the serial number on the bottom had been scraped away.

Why the killer was leaving them on Henry’s doorstep was a mystery. And while Henry still didn’t seem concerned about it, Kat definitely was. The killer was embroiling Henry in the crimes as much as possible, and she wanted to know why.

Standing at the podium, she caught Henry’s eye. He gave her a nod of encouragement.

“Is it true you received advance warning about both murders?”

The question came from the opposite end of the throng,
near the front. Kat didn’t need to see who asked it. Hearing the familiar voice was enough.

“Where did you hear that, Martin?”

Martin Swan grinned like the cat that ate the proverbial canary. “Is it true?”

Kat had no idea how he had found that out. Not that it mattered. She was cornered and Martin knew it. There was nothing left to do but answer truthfully.

“Yes,” she said. “A fake death notice faxed to your newsroom. Both times, it was received by Henry Goll, the obituary writer, whose cooperation in this matter has been invaluable.”

The revelation turned out to be a double-edged sword. Hearing that it had happened in his own newsroom shut Martin up, which was a plus. But it motivated the other reporters, who riddled the podium with questions.

“Do you believe Troy Gunzelman was dead by the time the fax was found?”

Kat shook her head. “No, I do not.”

A wave of shock coursed through the crowd.

“Are you saying there was a window of opportunity in which he could have been saved?”

“That’s correct.”

The tone of the reporters’ questions shifted quickly. They had suddenly moved from mere information-gathering to trying to pin the blame on someone. Trapped in the glare of their cameras, Kat knew that particular someone was her.

“Was an attempt made to save Troy’s life?” one reporter shouted.

“Of course,” Kat said, straining to keep her composure. “As soon as the death notice was discovered, we did everything in our power to locate him. Unfortunately, when we did find him, it was too late.”

The reporters now tasted blood. They edged closer to her, a hungry glint in their eyes. Their proximity made Kat even more nervous. Her mouth suddenly grew dry, and a thin sheen of perspiration formed on her face. She was about to lose it up there, ready to fall apart in the glare of a hundred cameras. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to fight back.

“Do you think the Grim Reaper will strike again?” another reporter yelled.

“First,” Kat said, gaining control of her voice, “I don’t appreciate or condone that nickname. Giving a killer a name like that only manages to provide him with validation while showing extreme disrespect to the victims’ families.”

Kat glared at Martin, who suddenly found the ground at his feet far more interesting.

“Now to answer your question—I don’t know.”

The reporter persisted. “What will you do if he does?”

“We’ll do what we did last night. We’ll try to stop him.”

“What if you can’t?”

It was Martin. He had raised his eyes to her again, staring defiantly. “What are you doing to keep the rest of the town safe?”

In the back, Kat saw Henry walk away. He had had enough. Kat had, too. But everyone was waiting for her answer. All of them no doubt assumed the Grim Reaper would keep on killing and that she would be powerless to stop it.

“We have scores of people helping with the investigation, from the county sheriff’s office to the state police. And I have made it known to all of them that the safety of Perry Hollow’s residents and its visitors are my top priority.”

The only good part about holding a press conference was that Kat got to have the last word. She made sure she took advantage of it, saying, “To that end, I call upon everyone in Perry Hollow to stay calm while we investigate these crimes fully. I
also ask that if you see something suspicious, report it. If you have any information about these murders, tell us. This is a good town. Folks here look after one another, and I encourage you to remain concerned about your fellow neighbors.”