Should Be Dead (The Valkyrie Smith Mystery Series Book 1) (10 page)

“That’s the registration on the RV.”

Diekmann raised his eyebrows. “This is our guy?”

“Maybe. It could be stolen, of course, but it’s worth a shot. If nothing else, you can at least add the license plate number to the BOLO.”

“I’ll take care of it. Do you have any other leads?”

“Not yet. I’m working on something, but it’s not very solid. I’ll let you know how it turns out.”

“Maybe I can help.”

Val raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Diekmann rose from his desk and opened the file cabinet behind him. He flipped through the files, found the one he was looking for, and then tossed it on the desk in front of her.

“Take a gander at that. Tell me what you think.”

There was a name written at the edge of the folder: “Murphy?” she said.

“Look inside.”

Val opened the file and her heart almost skipped a beat. She saw a photograph of a female victim lying on a kitchen floor. The white tiles were smeared with blood, and her clothes were riddled with stab and slash marks.

“The wounds are inconsistent,” she said. “Are some of these wounds postmortem?”

Diekmann settled back into his chair. “Correct. The killer raped and tortured her to death, and then came back for more. Does that crime scene look familiar to you in any way?”

Val nodded. She glanced at the date. “This was three months ago?”

“We never found the killer. Obviously, I thought of him the instant I saw the Brooks residence. But this crime was different. I couldn’t be sure if it was the same person or not.”

“These marks on her body… he really hated her, didn’t he?”

“Either that, or he just hates women in general,” said Diekmann. “The coroner came up with a profile, but we don’t have the kind of resources you do.” The sheriff leaned forward on his elbows. “Tell me, in your professional opinion:
Is it the same guy?
”

Val bit her lower lip. She glanced at Diekmann and then back at the file. She started to say something, hesitated, and then made up her mind.

“You have two killers,” she said at last. She pointed at the picture. “Whoever did this… he may be one of them.”

Diekmann leaned back, looking her up and down. “Go on.”

Val took a deep breath.
Too late to change your mind now,
she thought.

“The first killer might be tied to several other murders across the Midwest. I have very little evidence against him, and until now, I thought he had disappeared. We used to call him the Collector, but now he’s started calling himself Odin.”

“And this is the case you have been working on?”

“Yes.”

Diekmann crossed his arms and fixed her with a cold gaze that sent a shiver of dread down her spine. “I don’t care much for being lied to, Mrs. Smith.”

“You have to understand that I couldn’t even be sure this was the same killer. I still can’t prove it. Not until we have him in custody and compare DNA. Until then, I’m just chasing shadows.”

“All right,” Diekmann said. Val let out her breath and only then realized she’d been holding it in. “From now on, we work as a team. Understand? Because if I don’t know that I can trust you, I will
not
have you endangering my team, or my investigation.”

“Agreed.”

“Good. What else should I know?”

Val took a breath. “The writing on the wall. Do you know what it means?”

Diekmann opened another file and thumbed through the pictures inside. He pulled out a photo of the scene inside the Brooks home. Val glanced at it, and nodded.

“Nate’s supposed to be working on it.”

“Don’t waste your time. It says:
I am Loki, I shake the earth.”

Diekmann’s frown deepened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s the name of another Norse god, like Odin.”

“That’s how you know there are two of them?”

“That, and from the evidence.”

Diekmann put the picture away. He handed her the first file; the one involving Loki’s first murder. “Take this file with you and look it over. See if anything clicks. If something does, call me.”

Val thanked him. She left the office feeling like a young girl who’d just been scolded by a grade school teacher. She crawled into the Packard and started driving south without any idea of where she was going. She just wanted out of there.

On one hand, Val felt guilty about deceiving the sheriff. He was a good man. He just wanted to do right by his team and the people who had elected him. On the other hand, he had made her feel like a silly schoolgirl, and that was irritating. No, it was more than that. It was offensive. How dare he talk to her like that?

Val had gone through too much to be put in that position. She was not about to let Diekmann -or any man, for that matter- make her feel like a child. Frankly, after her experiences, Val was surprised she was even capable of feeling those emotions at all. For so long, she had just been numb.

Then there was that other thing, that little voice of her conscience that whispered to her from the recesses of her mind:
But you’re still lying to him, Val! You aren’t even a cop. Don’t you remember that?

She shoved her thoughts aside and hit the speakerphone. She wasn’t in the mood for introspection, or any other such childishness. She had work to do.

“Say a command,” the phone voice demanded.

“Call Matt.”

The phone rang, and Matt picked up immediately. “Val, I’m sort of busy right now. You do remember that I have classes, right?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I just wanted to let you know that I might have a profile on Loki.”

“Great. Email it to me. I’ll go over it this evening. Anything else?”

“Have you had any luck with your search?”

“Val, it’s hardly been three hours since we talked. I had to take a test this morning.”

“Sorry. Just checking.”

“I’ll call you later.”

Val disconnected, bringing her attention back to her surroundings. The landscape outside her windshield had changed. The industrial urban sprawl at the southern end of Vine Hill had somehow morphed into vineyards and narrow winding back roads. The sun had just begun to burn through the fog, and the light hit the brightly colored autumn leaves, setting the vineyards on fire. Val rolled the windows down and the scent of fermenting wine washed over her. She inhaled deeply, lightened up on the accelerator, and decided to enjoy the drive.

For an hour, Valkyrie cruised aimlessly down the meandering back roads, the landscape seamlessly gliding from vineyards to hills and back again, and at last into tall coastal mountains layered in redwoods and floating tendrils of fog. She came to a town, a small community tucked into the hills not far from the coast with brightly colored buildings and one main street. The scent of roasted garlic and grilled meat guided her to a diner at the edge of town. Val’s stomach rumbled as she parked, and it was only then that she realized she hadn’t eaten since her dinner with Riley the previous night.

Her mind flashed back to his sudden departure, but she once again dismissed it. Riley was a bundle of nerves. At the age of thirty, he had just finally lost his virginity. He had some things to work through.

The restaurant was a clean, quaint country diner with checkered tablecloths and matching curtains, and cow-shaped ceramic cream and sugar dispensers on each table. Val took a seat by the window overlooking the street. She ordered a steak burger and then paged through Diekmann’s file while she waited.

The report and accompanying pictures were enough to take the edge off her appetite, and she suddenly regretted bringing the folder in with her. The restaurant was not the kind of place to stare at pictures of a brutally murdered middle-aged woman. Val was about to put the file away when she came across something entirely unexpected: a photo and profile on the murder suspect. She forgot everything else as she leaned forward on her elbows, scanning the description. The suspect was six-feet, four inches tall with a lean build and dark hair. His name was Michael Vincent Barnes, and he had left fingerprints
everywhere
.

According to the report, there was little doubt that Michael Barnes was the killer. The problem was that he had no prior criminal record, and had apparently disappeared without a trace after the murder. Diekmann had tracked down Michael’s father Shelby at an address in nearby Lake County, but he described the man as uncooperative. A follow-up visit with a search warrant and a dog team proved that Michael was not hiding on Shelby’s property. The sheriff issued an arrest warrant for Michael of course, but the suspect was in the wind.

After reading the file, as far as Val was concerned, Michael Vincent Barnes
was
Loki. There were too many similarities between the crime scenes. Those differences she saw were not because of Loki, but because of Odin. It was his signature on the crime scene, but it was Loki -Michael Barnes- who had done most of the killing.

While eating, Val considered her next move. She needed to scan the file and send it to Matt, but he wouldn’t even be out of classes until that evening. In the meanwhile, she decided her best bet was to pay a visit to Shelby Barnes. She hoped he would be more cooperative with an FBI agent than a local sheriff. If nothing else, she wanted to get some details about Michael’s past, to learn how he had evolved into the killer Loki.

Val finished her lunch in silence and then hit the road. Traffic wasn’t bad, but the drive from western Sequoia to Clearlake still took two hours. Mostly, this was because of the narrow winding roads. Even though her car was capable of going faster, Val spent most of the time well below the speed limit, trapped behind less capable drivers.

The last part of her journey involved a steep climb up a mountain and a number of hairpin turns. Signs on the side of the road reminded drivers to be cautious and watch out for ice because many people had died there. Looking at the steep four-hundred-foot drop along the edge of the road, Val was inclined to follow their recommendations.

Upon entering Lake County, the first thing she noticed about the area was the high rate of poverty. In the first few minutes alone, she passed three trailer parks, two of which were so run down that they looked like something out of a third world documentary, and then the burned-out shell of a house that had almost certainly been used as a meth lab until it caught fire. The charred remains had been spray-painted by vandals, and the police had set up a tall fence around the property with a sign warning people of the dangers.

Valkyrie’s GPS system guided her around the town of Lower Lake, towards another small community known as Kelseyville. Just outside of town, she left the main highway and turned onto Pepper Lane. She followed the one-lane dirt road into the surrounding hills. From that vantage, Valkyrie could look across the entire southern end of the county. She could see patches of green vineyards and orchards scattered here and there amidst vast stretches of barren, rocky land, and in the distance, the cold blue waters of Clearlake stretching towards the mountains. A thunderstorm was moving in from the north.

Pepper Lane terminated at a small farm with a rundown old farmhouse, and off to the right, an old barn with a collapsed roof. Beside the barn rested a large chicken coop. Val parked, collected her cane from the passenger seat, and approached the house.

Two of the windows on the front porch had been cardboarded over. On the second floor, the windows were dark, and all but one of the shutters was missing. The one that remained dangled precariously by one hinge, banging in the wind, waiting for a good gust to rip it off completely.

Val heard the unmistakable double-click of a shotgun shell being pumped into the chamber, and she froze in her tracks.

Chapter 14

“On yer knees,” a gravelly voice said behind her. Valkyrie turned slowly to see a sixty-something man wearing stained denim overalls and a disheveled straw hat. He had long whiskers and bright blue eyes, the kind usually seen on runway models and crazy people. He held his shotgun low, down by his hip, and he had his finger on the trigger. Val forced a smile.

“Mr. Barnes?” she said. “I’m Val Smith, with the FBI. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

He looked her up and down, sucking his false teeth. “Nope. Turn ‘round and git.”

“Mr. Barnes… can I call you Shelby? I have a few questions about your son.”

“He ain’t here and you ain’t got no business here either. Git back in that car before I disappear you fer good.”

Valkyrie took a few steps towards her car, and then decided to try one more time. “I know what it’s like to lose a son,” she said.

“Yer gonna lose more than that,” he said in a growling monotone.

Val was tempted to believe him. Part of her wanted to pursue the matter, to see if she could convince him to put that gun down and talk to her, but something else told her Barnes was crazy enough to shoot a fed. And since she wasn’t even a real fed, and she hadn’t bothered to tell anyone she was coming here, she was pushing her luck past the breaking point.

“All right,” she said. “You win. I’ll go. But I want you to know that when this is all over, if we don’t get your help finding him, there’s a good chance your son will end up dead.”

“Good,” was all he said as she slammed the car door.

Val backed out of the drive, turned around, and headed for the highway. She was getting low on gas, so instead of driving all the way back to Lower Lake, she headed north and drove the last few miles into Kelseyville.

When she got there, Val was surprised by the place. The town was small, but it was the closest thing she’d seen to a real town since leaving Sequoia. It was surprisingly pleasant. The road was wide, the sidewalks were clean, and there wasn’t a mark of graffiti anywhere. The highway that ran straight through town was lined by old-fashioned streetlights and old-west building facades. Val could hardly believe so many things could change so dramatically from one town to the next. For a moment, she got the surreal sensation that she wasn’t even in California anymore, but had somehow been teleported back to a small town in Idaho.