Whispers of the Dead (30 page)

I
'You think I don't know that?' The shout made him wince, as
though in pain. He glared at the undertaker's body. 'Jesus Christ, do
you have any idea how much time I spent on this? How much planning? This isn't how it was supposed to be! York was my way out,
my happy fucking ending! He'd have been found with Avery's wife,
some loser who'd committed suicide rather than be caught. End of
story! I'd have left Knoxville afterwards, started out somewhere new,
and now look! Goddammit, what a wasteV
'No one would have believed it.'
'No?' he spat. 'They believed the photographs I left at his house!
They believed everything else I wanted them to!'
A pulse had started to beat in my temple at the mention of Sam.
'And if they had, what then? Murder more pregnant women?'
'I wouldn't have had to! Avery's wife was so full of life] She was the
one. I could feel it!'
'Like you could feel it with all the others? Like you did with Summer?' I yelled, forgetting myself.
'She was Lieberman's pet!'
'She liked you!'
'She liked Irving more!'
That shocked me to silence. We'd all assumed that Irving had been
targeted because of the TV interview. But Kyle had been present that
day in the morgue when the profiler had flirted with Summer. The
next day Irving had gone missing.
And now Summer was lying in the dark as well.
She only smiled back at him. That was all. For Kyle's ego it had obviously been enough.
I felt sick. But Kyle had become distracted enough to relax his grip
on Gardner. I saw the TBI agent's eyelids start to twitch open, and
said the first thing that came into my mind.
'What had you got against Tom? Was he such a threat?'
'He was zfraudY Kyle's face twisted in a spasm. 'The big forensic
anthropologist, the expertl Basking in the glory, playing jazz while he
worked, like he was in some pizza bar! Hicks was just an asshole, but
Lieberman thought he was something special] The greatest mystery
in the universe right under his nose, and he didn't have the imagination
to look beyond the rot!'
'Tom knew better than to waste time searching for answers he
couldn't find.' I could hear Gardner wheezing again now, but I
daren't spare him a glance. 'You don't even know what it is you're
looking for, do you? All the people you've killed, these bodies
you've . . . you've hoarded, and what for? There's no purpose to any
of it. You're like a kid prodding something dead with a stick--'
'Shut up!' Spittle sprayed from his mouth.
'Do you even know how many lives you've wasted?' I shouted.
'And why? So you can take photographs'? You think that's going to
show you anything?'
'Yes! The right one can!' His mouth curled. 'You're as bad as
Lieberman, you only see the dead meat. But there's more than that! I'm more than that! Life's binary, it's on or off! I've stared into
people's eyes and watched it go out of them, like flicking a switch!
So where s it go? Something happens, right then, at that moment! I've seen it!'
He sounded desperate. And suddenly I realized that's exactly what
he was.That was what this was all about. We'd been wrong about the
killer's identity, but Jacobsen had been right about everything else.
Kyle was obsessed with his own mortality. No, not obsessed, I
realized, looking at him.
Terrified.
'How's your hand, Kyle?' I asked. 'I'm guessing you only pretended
you'd stabbed it on the needle. Tom thought he was doing you a
favour asking you to help Summer, but you were only hanging round
hoping to see one of us get stuck, weren't you? What happened, did
you lose your nerve?'
'Shut up!'
'The thing is, if you were just pretending, how come you went so
white? It was when I asked about your shots, wasn't it? You'd not
thought about infections from any of the people you'd killed until
then, had you?'
'I told you to shut up!'
'Noah Harper's tested positive for Hepatitis C. Did you know that,
Kyle?'
'Liar!'
'It's true. You should have taken up the hospital's offer of postexposure
treatment. Even though you didn't prick yourself on one of
the needles, it was still an open wound. And there was all that gore
on your glove. But then you weren't planning on staying around,
were you? Much easier to stick your head in the sand than accept
you might be infected by one of your own victims.'
His face had paled even more. He jerked his head towards the
treatment room. 'Last time! Get in there, nowV
But I didn't move. Each minute I kept him talking was a minute
closer to help arriving. And looking at his pallor, the ragged way he
was breathing, I'd started to think about something else. Why had
he chosen to hide, gambling everything on being able to slip out
while we were distracted with York, instead of making a run for it while he had the chance? Perhaps for the same reason he hadn't killed
Sam. The same reason he hadn't already choked the life out of Gardner and
overpowered me.
Because he couldn't.
'You took quite a knock in the crash, didn't you?' I said, trying to
keep my tone conversational. He regarded me with a hunted
expression, his chest rising and falling unevenly. 'I saw the steering
wheel in the ambulance. Must have given your ribs a hell of a crack.
Did you know that's one of the most common causes of death in car
crashes? The ribs splinter and pierce the lungs. Or the heart. How
many times have you seen injuries like that in the morgue?'
'Shut up.'
'That sharp, stabbing pain you feel every time you draw a breath?
That's the bone splinters lacerating your lung tissue. It's hard to
breathe, isn't it? And it's going to get a lot harder, because your lungs
are filling up with blood. You're dying, Kyle.'
'SHUTTHE FUCK UP! "he screamed.
'If you don't believe me, take a look at yourself.' I gestured to the
broken mirror on the wall. 'See how pale you are? That's because
you're haemorrhaging. If you don't get medical help soon you're
going to either bleed to death or drown in your own blood.'
His mouth worked as he stared at his shattered reflection. I'd no
idea how badly hurt he really was, but I'd just fed his imagination. To
someone as self-obsessed as Kyle that would be enough.
He'd all but forgotten about Gardner. The TBI agent was blinking
now as consciousness returned. I thought I saw him shift slightly, as
though he were testing the chokehold. No, not now. Please, just stay
still.
'Give yourself up,' I went on quickly.
'I'm warning you . . .'
'Save yourself, Kyle. If you give yourself up now you can get
medical attention.'
He didn't speak for a moment. I realized with a shock he was
crying.
'They'll kill me anyway.'
'No, they won't. That's what lawyers are for. And trials take years.'
'I can't go to jail!'
'Would you rather die?'
He was snuffling back tears. I tried to keep the sudden hope from
my face as I saw the tension begin to go out of him.
Then Gardner's hand began inching towards his gun.
Kyle saw what he was doing. 'ShitV He wrenched hard on
Gardner's throat. The agent gave a choked gasp and pawed feebly at
his belt as Kyle grabbed with his free hand for the weapon. I lunged
towards them, knowing I wasn't going to reach them in time.
There was a sound from the doorway.

I
Jacobsen stood framed in it, her face blank with shock. Then her
hand swept aside her jacket as she went for her own gun.
'Leave it!' Kyle yelled, twisting so Gardner was between them.
She stopped, hand resting on the pistol grip. Kyle had Gardner's
gun partway out of its clip, but he had to reach at an awkward angle
round the agent's body. The silence was broken only by his ragged
breathing. Gardner was no longer moving at all. He hung from the
chokehold like a sack, his face darker than ever.
Kyle licked his lips, his eyes going to Jacobsen's belt clip.
'Hand away from the gun and let him go!' she said, but for all her
authority there was still a quiver to her voice.
Kyle heard it. Adrenalin had given him a new strength. The moon
face moved from side to side as he shook his head and smiled. He
was back in control. Enjoying himself.
'Oh, I don't think so. I think you need to put your gun down.'
'That's not going to happen. Last chance--'
'Shh.' He cocked his head towards Gardner, as though he were
listening. 'I can hardly feel your partner's heartbeat. It's getting
weaker. Slowing . . . slowing . . .'
'If you kill him there's nothing to stop me shooting you.'
Kyle's smugness vanished. The pink tongue darted out to moisten
his lips again, and at that moment there was the thump of footsteps
from the floor above. Kyle's eyes widened, and as Jacobsen's attention
wavered he snatched the gun from Gardner's belt and fired.
I saw Jacobsen stagger, but she'd already drawn and fired herself.
As Kyle let Gardner fall there were two more cracks and a section of
mirror by my head exploded, spraying me with splinters. Then Kyle's
gun clattered to the floor and he dropped as though his strings had
been cut.
My ears rang for the second time that afternoon as I rushed to
Jacobsen. She was slumped against the doorway, her gun still rigidly
levelled at where Kyle lay. Her face was chalk white, in stark contrast
to the spreading dark stain on her jacket. It was on her left side, a
glistening wet patch between her neck and her shoulder that grew
bigger as I looked.
She blinked. 'I'm ... I think . . .'
'Sit down. Don't try to talk.'
I spared a quick glance at Gardner's unmoving form as I tore open
her jacket. I couldn't see if he was breathing, but Jacobsen's situation
was more urgent: if the bullet had hit an artery she could bleed out
in seconds. Feet were clattering down the stairs and along the
corridor but I barely heard. I'd pulled her jacket from her injured
shoulder, my breath catching at how her white shirt was soaked with
blood, when figures burst through the doorway. Suddenly the
chamber was filled with shouting.
'Quick, we need--' I began, and then I was dragged away and
thrust face down on to the floor. Oh, for God's sake! I started to get
up but something struck me roughly between the shoulder blades.
'Stay down!' a voice yelled.
I yelled that there was no time, but no one was listening. All I
could see from my vantage point was a confusion of feet.
It seemed an age before I was recognized and let up. Angrily, I
shrugged free of the helping hands. People were crouching by
Gardner, who had been moved into the recovery position. He was
still unconscious, but I could see that at least he was breathing. I
turned to where Jacobsen was being attended by two agents. They'd
pulled her shirt away from her neck and shoulder on the side where
she'd been shot. Her white sports bra was stained crimson. There was
so much blood I couldn't see the wound.
'I'm a doctor, let me take a look,' I said, kneeling beside her.
Jacobsen's pupils were dilated with shock. The grey eyes looked
young and scared.
'I thought you were talking to Dan . . .'
'It's OK.'
'The . . . the ambulance was only half a mile away, so I came back.
Knew something wasn't right. . .' Her voice was slurred with pain.

1
'York hadn't taken any of the photographs from the house. His
parents, all his past. He wouldn't have just left them . . .'
'Don't talk.'
I
felt a surge of relief as I saw the blood-filled furrow in her
trapezius, the big muscle that runs between neck and shoulder. The
bullet had torn a groove across its top, but despite the bleeding there
was no serious damage. Another inch or two lower or to her right
and it would have been a different story.
But she was still losing blood. I wadded up her shirt and started to
apply pressure to the wound when another agent rushed in with a
first-aid kit.
'Move,' he told me.
I stood back to give him room. He tore open a sterile gauze pad
and pressed it on to the wound hard enough to make Jacobsen gasp,
then began expertly taping it into place. He obviously knew what he
was doing, so I went over to Gardner. He was still unconscious,
which was a bad sign.
'How is he?' I asked the agent kneeling by him.
'Hard to say,' she said. 'Paramedics are on their way, but we weren't
expecting to need them. The hell happened here?'
I didn't have the energy to answer. I turned to where Kyle lay
sprawled on his back. His chest and stomach were coated with blood,
and his eyes gazed sightlessly at the ceiling.
'Don't bother, he's dead,' the agent told me as I reached down to
feel his throat.
He wasn't, not quite. There was the faintest whisper of a pulse
under the skin. I kept my fingers there, looking down into the open
eyes as his heart gave its final stutters. They grew weaker, the gaps
between them longer and longer until eventually they stopped
altogether.
I stared into his eyes. But if there was anything there I couldn't see
it.
'You're hurt.'

I
The agent kneeling by Gardner was looking at my hand. I saw that
it was dripping blood. I must have gashed it on the piece of broken
mirror, although I'd no memory of it happening. The cut sliced
across the existing knife scar on my palm like a thin mouth, blood
welling between its lips.
I'd felt nothing until then, but now it started to burn with a cold,
clean pain.
I clenched my hand on it. 'I'll live.'
It was raining in London. After the vivid sunshine and lush
mountains of Tennessee, England seemed grey and dull. The tube was
busy with the tail end of the evening rush hour, the usual day-worn
commuters crammed into each other's personal space. I flicked through
the newspaper I'd bought at the airport, feeling the usual sense of dislocation
as I read about events that had happened while I'd been away.
Coming home after a long trip is always like finding yourself transplanted
a few weeks in the future, a mundane form of time-travel.
The world had gone on without me.
The taxi driver was a polite Sikh who was content to drive in
silence. I stared out at the early evening streets, feeling grubby and
jet-lagged after the long flight. My own street looked somehow
different when we turned on to it. It took me a moment to realize
why. The branches of the lime trees had been barely shading green
when I'd left; now they were shaggy with new leaves.
The rain had slowed to a drizzle, varnishing the pavement with a
dark gloss as I climbed out and paid the driver. I picked up my flight
bag and case and carried them to the front door, flexing my hand
slightly when I set them down. I'd taken the dressing off several days
before, but my palm was still a little tender.
The sound of the key turning in the lock echoed in the small hallway.
I'd put a stop on my post before I'd gone away, but there was still
a forlorn pile.of fliers and leaflets on the black and white floor tiles.
I pushed them aside with my foot as I carried the cases inside and
shut the door behind me.
The flat looked exactly the same as when I'd left it, except dulled
by several weeks' accumulation of dust. I paused in the doorway for
a moment, feeling the familiar pang of its emptiness. But not so
sharply as I'd expected.
I dumped the case on the floor and set my flight bag on the table,
cursing as a heavy clunk reminded me what was inside. I unzipped
the bag, expecting to be greeted by the reek of spilt alcohol, but
nothing was broken. I set the odd-shaped bottle on the table, the tiny horse and jockey perched on the cork still frozen in mid-gallop. I was
tempted to open it now, but it was still early. Something to look
forward to later.
I went into the kitchen. There was a slight chill in the flat, reminding
me that, spring or not, I was back in England. I switched the
central heating back on, then as an afterthought filled the kettle.
It had been weeks since I'd had a cup of tea.
The message icon on my phone was flashing. There were over two
dozen messages. I automatically reached out to play them, then
changed my mind. Anyone who needed to contact me urgently
would have called my mobile.
Besides, none of them would be from Jenny.
I made myself a rnug of tea and took it to the dining table. There
was an empty fruit bowl in its centre, a slip of paper lying in it. I
picked it up and saw it was a note I'd made before I'd left: Confirm arrival time w. Tom.
I balled it up and dropped it back in the bowl.
Already, I could feel my old life starting to reclaim me. Tennessee
seemed like an age ago, the memory of the sunlit garden of
dragonflies and corpses, and the nightmare scenes in the sanitarium,
starring to assume the unreal quality of a dream. But it had been real
enough.
Forty-one bodies had been recovered at Cedar Heights; twenty
seven from the grounds, the rest from the spa and treatment rooms.
Kyle hadn't discriminated. His victims were a random mix of age, sex
and ethnicity. Some of them had been dead for almost ten years, and
the task of identifying them was still going on. The wallets and credit
cards he'd saved speeded the process to an extent, but it soon became
apparent that there were more bodies than there were IDs. Many of
his victims had been vagrants and prostitutes whose disappearances
weren't always noticed, let alone reported.
If Kyle hadn't felt the need to prove himself, he could have carried
on indefinitely.
But not all the victims were anonymous. Irving's body had been
recovered from the same chamber as Summer's, and amongst the
others who had been identified three names stood out. One was
Dwight Chambers. His wallet and driver's licence were in the pile in
the sanitarium's kitchen, and his body was found in the spa, confirming
York's story about the casual worker he'd hired at Steeple
Hill.
The second name to ring alarm bells was that of Carl Philips, a
forty-six-year-old paranoid schizophrenic who had gone missing
from a state psychiatric hospital more than a decade before. Not only
were his remains the oldest that had been found at the sanitarium,
but his grandfather had been the founder of Cedar Heights. Philips
had inherited the derelict property but never bothered to develop it.
It had lain fallow and forgotten, inhabited only by the termites and
dragonflies.
Until Kyle had put it to use.
But it was the discovery of the third ID that caused most
consternation. It belonged to a twenty-nine-year-old morgue
assistant from Memphis, whose faded driver's licence was lying on
the cabinet under the victims' photographs. His remains had been
recovered from undergrowth by the pond and positively identified
from dental records.
His name was Kyle Webster.
'He'd been dead eighteen months,' Jacobsen told me, when I'd
called her after seeing a news report on TV. 'There're going to be
questions about how an impostor could have secured a job in the
morgue, but in fairness his documentation and references were
authentic. And there was enough of a resemblance to the real Webster
to fool anyone who only had old photographs to go on.'
I supposed it was in keeping with everything else he'd done. The
man we'd known as Kyle Webster had delighted in misdirection all
along. It shouldn't have come as a surprise that he'd slipped into the
life of one of his victims as easily as he had the sloughed skin from
their hands.
'So if he wasn't Kyle Webster, then who was he?' I asked.
'His real name was Wayne Peters. Thirty-one years old, from
Knoxville originally, but worked as a morgue assistant in Nashville
and then Sevierville, until he disappeared off the map two years ago.
But it's his background before then that's interesting. Father
unknown, mother died when he was an infant, so he was brought up
by his aunt and uncle. Extremely bright by all accounts, did well at
high school and even applied for medical college. Then things went
sour. Around the time he was seventeen school records show
he suddenly seemed to lose interest. He didn't make the grades he
needed and wound up working for the family business until it went
broke when his uncle died.'
'Family business?'
'His uncle owned a small slaughterhouse. They specialized in
pork.'
I shut my eyes. Pigs.
'His aunt was his last remaining relative, and she died years ago,'
Jacobsen went on. 'Natural causes, so far as we can tell. But you can
probably guess where she and the uncle were buried.'
There was only one place, really.
Steeple Hill.
Jacobsen also gave me one other piece of information. When
Wayne Peters s medical records were examined, it was found that as
a teenager he'd had several operations to remove nasal polyps.They'd
been successful, but the repeated cauterizations had resulted in a condition
known as anosmia. Insignificant in itself, it answered the
question Gardner had raised in the spa at Cedar Heights.
Wayne Peters had no sense of smell.
The recovery operation at the sanitarium was still going on, the
grounds being dug up to ensure no more victims' remains were concealed.
But my own role there had ended after that first day. By then
not only had other faculty members from the Forensic Anthropology
Center joined the effort, but the scale of the operation meant that
the regional DMORT -- Disaster Mortuary Operational Response
Team - had also been called in. They'd arrived with a fully equipped
portable morgue unit, and less than twenty-four hours after Paul and
I had first climbed through its fence, the sanitarium and its grounds
swarmed with activity.
I'd been politely thanked for my help and told I'd be contacted if
my presence was required beyond the statement I'd already given. As
I'd been driven through the ranks of TV and press vehicles camped
beyond the sanitarium's gates, I'd felt both relief and regret. It felt
wrong leaving an investigation like that, but then I reminded myself
that it wasn't really my investigation.
It never had been.
I'd been prepared to either extend my stay in Tennessee for Tom's
memorial service, or even fly back for it later if I had to. But in the
end there had been no need. Regardless of what factors had contributed
to it, Tom had died in hospital of natural causes, and so the
formality of an inquest had been avoided. I was glad for Mary's sake,
even though it left a sense of unfinished business. But then what
death doesn't?
There had been no funeral. Tom had donated his body for medical
research, though not at the facility. That would have been too disturbing
for his colleagues. Mary had been dignified and dry-eyed at
the service, standing beside a plump middle-aged man in an
immaculate suit I didn't at first realize was their son. He carried himself
with the faintly irritable air of a man who had better things to
do, and when I was introduced to him afterwards his handshake was
limp and grudging.
'You work in insurance, don't you?' I said.
'Actually, I'm an underwriter.' I wasn't sure what the distinction
was but it didn't seem worth asking. I tried again.
'Are you staying in town long?'
He looked at his watch, frowning as though he were already late.
'No, I'm catching a flight back to New York this afternoon. I've had
to reschedule meetings as it is. This came at a really bad time.'
I bit off the retort I'd been about to make, reminding myself that
whatever else he might be, he was still Tom and Mary's son. As I
walked away he was looking at his watch again.
Gardner and Jacobsen had both attended the ceremony. Jacobsen
had returned to work already, the dressing on her shoulder all but
invisible under her jacket. Gardner was still technically on sick leave.
He'd suffered a transient ischaemic attack - a mini-stroke -- from
being held for so long in the chokehold. It had left him with slight
aphasia and loss of sensation on one side, but only temporarily. When
I saw him the only noticeable after-effect was a deepening of the
corduroy-like lines in his face.
'I'm fine,' he told me, a little stiffly, when I asked how he was.
'There's no reason I can't work now. Damn doctors.'
Jacobsen looked as pristine and untouchable as ever. Except for
slightly favouring her left arm no one would have known she'd been
shot.
'I heard a rumour that she's up for a commendation,' I said to
Gardner, while she was offering her condolences to Mary.
'It's under review.'
'For my money she deserves one.'
He unbent a little. 'Mine too, for what it's worth.'
I watched as Jacobsen spoke solemnly to Mary. The line of her
throat was lovely. Gardner cleared his throat.
'Diane's still getting over a tough time. She broke up with her
partner last year.'
It was the first hint of a personal life I'd had about her. I was
surprised he'd offered the information.
'Was he a TBI agent as well?'
Gardner busied himself brushing something from the lapel of his
creased jacket.
'No. She was a lawyer.'
Before they left, Jacobsen came over to say goodbye. Her grip was
strong, the skin dry and warm as she shook my hand. The grey eyes
seemed a little warmer than they had, but perhaps that was my
imagination. The last I saw of her she was walking back to the car
with Gardner, graceful and athletic beside the older agent's crumpled
figure.
The ceremony itself was simple and moving. There had been no
hymns, only two of Tom's favourite jazz tracks to start and close:
Chet Baker's 'My Funny Valentine' and Brubeck's 'Take Five'. I'd
smiled when I'd heard that. In between had been readings from
friends and colleagues, but at one point the solemnity was broken by
a baby's crying. Thomas Paul Avery howled lustily, despite his
mother's best efforts to calm him.
No one minded.
He'd been born not long after Sam arrived at hospital, perfectly
healthy and squalling his annoyance at the world. Sam's blood
pressure had caused the doctors some concern at first, but it had
returned to normal with remarkable speed after the birth. Within
two days she'd been back at home, still pale and hollow-eyed when
I'd visited, but with no other visible signs of her ordeal.
'It seems more like a bad dream than anything else,' she admitted,
when Thomas had fallen asleep after nursing.'It's like a curtain's been
pulled across it. Paul's worried I'm in denial, but I'm not. It's more
like what happened afterwards is more important, you know?' She'd
been gazing down at her son's wrinkled pink face, but now she
looked up at me with a smile so open it broke my heart. 'It's like all
the bad doesn't matter. It's wiped everything else out.'
Of the two of them, Paul seemed to be finding it harder to deal
with what had happened. In the days immediately afterwards, there
was often a shadow in his face. It didn't take a psychologist to know
he was reliving the ordeal, still cut by how close they'd come, and
what might have been. But whenever he was with his wife and son
the shadow would lift. It was still early days, but looking at the three
of them together I felt sure the wounds would heal.
They usually do, given time.
My tea had gone cold. With a sigh I stood up and went to the
phone to play back my messages.
'Dr Hunter, you don't know me, but I was given your number by DSI
Wallace. My name is--'
The sound of the doorbell drowned out the rest. I paused the playback
and went to answer it. The last of the daylight filled the small
entrance hall with a golden glow, like a forerunner of summer. I
reached out to open the front door and was overwhelmed by a swooping sense of deja vu. A young woman in sunglasses stands outside
in the sunlit evening. Her smile turns into a snarl as she reaches into her bag
and pulls out the knife . . .
I shook my head, scattering the images. Squaring my shoulders, I
unlocked the front door and threw it wide open.
An elderly woman beamed up at me from the step. 'Ah, Dr
Hunter, it is you! I heard someone moving about downstairs and
wanted to make sure everything was OK.'
'Everything's fine, thanks, Mrs Katsoulis.' My neighbour lived in
the flat above mine. I'd hardly spoken to her before I'd been attacked
the year before, but since then she'd taken it upon herself to turn
vigilante. All four foot ten of her.
She hadn't finished with me yet. She peered past the hall into the
living room, where my bags were still waiting to be unpacked.
'I thought I hadn't seen you around for a while. Have you been
anywhere nice?'
She stared up at me expectantly. I felt my mouth start to twitch as