The Disciple (18 page)

Brook shrugged. ‘That’s good to know,’ he added stonily.

‘I’m sorry, Damen. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s been a while since I had to live and breathe the life, night and day. It always stays with you, but I guess you forget how personal it gets. And I gather some hack writer’s done a hatchet job on one of your investigations. Must be tough.’

‘I’ll live.’

‘Glad to hear it. Don’t let the bastards grind you down,’ Drexler added, offering his bottle to Brook for a sympathetic clink.

‘The problem is, the last Reaper killing was only two years ago so it sits a little heavier.’

‘I hear you, man. And I know it kinda grates when you ain’t caught the guy.’

Brook gave Drexler a piercing glance but drained his beer to cover it. Drexler immediately picked up the empty and grabbed a couple of replacements from the fridge.

Brook wondered about the wisdom of drinking too much, especially in front of a stranger, and what’s more, a writer. It struck him suddenly that maybe their meeting was not an accident. Maybe the subject of Drexler’s next book was to be The Reaper. After all, Brian Burton seemed to be making a good living out of it, laying open Brook’s faults for the entire world to see. Maybe Drexler was jumping onto the bandwagon. Maybe moving into the same village as ‘The Reaper Detective’ was a shrewd career move.

‘So what are you writing this time?’ Brook asked, trying to seem no more than politely interested.

‘Actually, Damen, it’s a kind of sequel.’

Brook was puzzled. ‘A sequel? I thought you said your book was about a real case.’

‘It is.’ Drexler smiled enigmatically at Brook.

‘But you’ve fictionalised it?’

‘No.’ Drexler continued to smile at his guest, his eyes suddenly boring into him. ‘See, we didn’t catch the guy either.’

‘Oh? And is that what the sequel’s about?’

‘Not really. It’s complicated.’

‘So maybe I should just buy the book. Save you having to relive it,’ said Brook apologetically. ‘There’s always one case that won’t go away, isn’t there?’

‘Like The Reaper?’

Brook laughed. ‘Well, that’s one that won’t go away but The Reaper’s crimes aren’t what haunt me.’ Brook looked into the fire, remembering the decomposing corpse of Laura Maples, the rats who consumed her and the face of Sorenson, her avenging angel. After a pause, Brook said, ‘You know what’s funny, Mike?’

‘Yeah. Nothing’s funny.’

Brook nodded his surprise. ‘That’s right. Nothing.’

They both chuckled and Brook was surprised to feel an unexpected surge of kinship with his new neighbour. For the next half hour they sat in silence, drinking their drinks, smoking their cigarettes and looking at the stars.

Drexler mopped his brow and glanced over at McQuarry, who was at the edge of the clearing sucking on a well-earned cigarette. The heat was stifling in the bowl, despite the disappearance of the sun two hours previously, and the dozens of people labouring away under the fierce glare of the arc lights were visibly wilting.

Sheriff Dupree was speaking to the lead forensic technician and pulled a blue handkerchief across his podgy red face to soak up as much sweat as possible. The Crime Scene Investigator he spoke with held a small brush in his gloved hand, the bristles of which were covered in dust, removed from newly uncovered skeletal bones. His face
was covered by a mask and his whole body by a protective suit. Only his eyes and the bridge of his nose were visible, but still the beads of perspiration stood out like ball bearings. Mosquitoes and flies hovered in the hope of a meal.

Standing below ground level, the CSI levered himself out of the trench with the aid of a hand from Dupree. He waved a hand towards the rock wall of the clearing, which had now been cleared of all the decomposing vehicles. Instead a network of trenches and body-sized holes covered the ground, and more were being marked out with tape by at least a dozen similarly attired men.

Drexler looked over at McQuarry. She caught his eye briefly before turning away to pull another cigarette from her rapidly dwindling pack and lighting it with an urgent inhalation of blue smoke. She’d been there when they’d found the vaguely recognisable bodies of three of the Bailey family in a pair of graves – the father George, fully clothed on his back at the bottom of the pit with a large bullet hole in the front of his skull, mother Tania, lying naked and on top of him, also with the telltale star-shaped hole, this time in the back of her head. One of the girls – possibly the younger daughter Sally, to judge from her frail physique – was in a separate shallow grave next to them, also naked, also shot through the back of the head. Her corpse seemed fresher than her parents’; she’d been kept alive for days or even weeks after her parents had been executed and that, in addition to her state of undress, had clearly flagged up the nature of her ordeal. Of the other daughter, Nicole, there was as yet no sign.

McQuarry, a battle-hardened veteran, betrayed no visible reaction but as they stood together over the tiny girl’s grave while the CSI brushed the dirt from the exit wound in her eye socket, Drexler could almost hear the tension in her body as her knuckles clenched inside her protective gloves. He
could see this one troubled her and McQuarry had barely spoken since the girl had been disinterred with all the respect and solemnity required.

She did say one thing that struck Drexler. At one point McQuarry had taken his arm and guided him towards the little girl’s corpse, still being carefully disentangled from the earth. She pointed at the girl and turned to him. ‘Take a long look, Mike. Remember that face.’ Then she’d stalked away to devour another cigarette, her back to the excavations.

‘How many?’ asked Drexler when Dupree was close enough to hear over the whine of the generator.

Dupree held the clutch of missing persons reports up to his face to check, as though he hadn’t already done the math. ‘Sixteen bodies so far. From the MP reports we’re looking for at least another nine, including a three-year-old child and two … babies. Six and eight months old.’ Dupree couldn’t hold Drexler’s eye. Drexler knew then that the sheriff was a father and lowered his own head in vicarious commiseration. ‘How’s your partner bearing up, Mike?’

‘She’s fine, Andy. Ed’s the thinker. Just giving her some room to work the angles.’

Dupree allowed him a watery smile. ‘’Course. Good idea.’

‘Any preliminary forensics?’

‘We’ve recovered several guns that belonged to Caleb Ashwell from the cabin so we’ll see what Ballistics have to say when we dig out the bullets. But as for trace…’ he shrugged ‘…in this heat, decomposition is a lot quicker. Some of these vics are over twenty years in the soil. The Bailey family will probably give us the best chance. They’re freshest.’ The two law enforcement officers exchanged a grim smile. ‘’Specially the girl.’

‘Poor kid,’ nodded Drexler. ‘It’s not hard to imagine…’

‘Isn’t it?’ Dupree looked up at him sharply. ‘Then for her sake, try harder. Let’s give her that peace at least.’

Drexler lowered his head. ‘Any sign of the older sister – Nicole?’

‘Not yet. She may yet be in here but it’s mighty crowded. We’ve found some human remains out in the forest so it seems they didn’t always bury them.’

‘That figures. I’d be dumping them someplace else, Andy. It’d be safer to leave the bodies in a shallow grave in the wilderness. The animals would soon cover your tracks for you. Nobody would ever find them whole.’

‘Then why keep any of the bodies so close to the house?’

Drexler fixed him with a knowing eye. ‘You sure you want me to answer that?’

Dupree looked around and shook his head. ‘Right. Keeps the jackoff closer to home. God in heaven. Maybe it’s time to put in my papers and buy a boat.’

‘You’ll get past it.’

‘Maybe. But Markleeville’s my home and it won’t ever be the same. Gonna be a pervert’s playground when this shit breaks. God knows how many ghouls and murder tourists we’re gonna get around here, getting off on this.’

‘Always someone knitting at an execution, Andy.’

The sheriff blew out his cheeks. ‘Know what, Mike? If I’m reading this right, when we find whoever took out the Ashwells, we should strike them some kinda medal. Better yet, whyn’t you and Ed just go on home and forget about this case and we’ll let the people who done this to Caleb and Billy just live out their days in peace. God knows they’ve earned it.’

‘Billy was just a kid, Andy. We can’t be sure he was involved. He may have been coerced.’

‘Coerced my ass.’ With that the Sheriff spat heavily on the ground and walked back down the track and out of the clearing.

‘We got three more female bodies from the clearing,’ said Dupree, putting the phone down and finishing a note on his pad. ‘That makes nineteen.’ Dupree hesitated over the next piece of information. ‘Two adult females, one naked … and one little girl. They’re exhuming as we speak.’

He cleared his throat and looked up at Drexler and McQuarry sitting across the office. ‘Where were we? Right, Caleb Ashwell and his wife Mandy-Sue bought the gas station in 1974, twenty-one years ago. The year after that the Campbell family go missing somewhere in the state while on vacation. Their vehicle was the oldest in the clearing. It’s not a stretch to assume they stopped for gas and that Caleb, maybe with his wife’s help, maybe not, overwhelmed the family and drove their vehicle into the clearing. The bodies are buried nearby, though there’s no way of telling how long after they were attacked. Our best stab at motive so far is robbery, but I don’t need to spell out other possible motives…’

‘Wait a minute. There were five members of the Campbell family, including two teenage boys,’ said Drexler. ‘Are you telling me they roll up for gas and one man, and maybe one woman, somehow overpowered these people right there on the highway?’

‘If they were armed and had the element of surprise…’

‘Even so, Andy, it’s far from a slamdunk. Another car could happen along, the family might fight back. A lot can go wrong. Yet Ashwell’s been doing this for over twenty years, without any comeback. Seems awful risky.’

Dupree stroked his chin. ‘See what you mean.’

‘You’re forgetting the state of some of the vehicles,’ said McQuarry. ‘They wouldn’t need guns if their victims had just been in a car crash.’

‘So you think Caleb and his wife just wandered up and down 89 in a tow truck looking for car wrecks?’ asked Drexler.

‘Wait, what if Caleb caused the crashes? We’re pretty sure Billy Ashwell was drugged.’ Dupree put on a pair of half-moon glasses and picked up some papers. ‘He drank coffee before he died. If they served coffee to customers with the same kind of drugs Billy had? A few miles down the road the victims would either pull over or crash.’

‘It’s a theory. But surely there could be other cars around that maybe get to the crash site first.’

‘So they drive on by,’ said Dupree. ‘Or maybe they stop and help like regular citizens. But there are plenty of crashes on 89. It’s a tricky drive, ’specially at night. But if nobody’s around they hook up the car and tow it back to the station. If the adults are drugged the kids will be easy…’

‘And maybe they only pick out targets at night and only ones paying cash so there’s no paper trail,’ added Drexler.

McQuarry nodded. ‘Sounds reasonable so far. Only one fly in the ointment for me. Why would a woman conspire to let her husband commit rape?’

‘It’s not unknown, Ed. Maybe she was glad it was them and not her.’

‘Or maybe Caleb’s wife didn’t know about the rapes. Far as I can remember, she would only have been around for
the first one. Maybe the Campbells were just killed and robbed. We have a gap of several years to the next one – the Hernandez family from Arizona,’ continued Dupree. ‘Mrs Ashwell left Caleb before that. She gave birth to a son, then upped and left six months later, leaving Billy behind with Caleb. Maybe she got cold feet after the Campbell killings and couldn’t live with it. She leaves and a few months later Caleb picks up where he left off. 1978, the year the Hernandez family go missing. Only this time he wants more than just their car and their money.’

‘Where’d Mrs Ashwell go?’

‘Nobody knows, Ed. She ain’t been heard from since.’

‘Then how do we know she left at all?’

Dupree and Drexler looked up at her. ‘You think maybe Caleb killed her too.’

‘What mother would leave her baby with a monster like that? These three new bodies. How many you say were naked?’