CHAPTER 38
“Are you out of your mind?” Harrison demanded,
double-checking that the locks were secure. “You called that
psycho?”
“It was originally your idea,
remember?”
“That’s before I thought you could
really do it,” he admitted.
“When you were trying to get info for
your story.”
“Well . . . yes . . .” God, he’d been
such a fool. Now she was on the warpath, determined to come
face-to-face with the maniac who had nearly sliced her to ribbons.
“But then he came here and nearly killed you and . . . now you’re
calling and taunting him again? Laura, you don’t have to do this.”
He put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged him
off.
“Don’t try to distract me. It won’t
work. I can’t live the rest of my life in fear,” she said evenly,
and he wondered what had transformed her. Had it been meeting with
her sisters at Siren Song? Visiting Mary’s grave? Something
Catherine had said? Whatever the case, now Laura was on some kind
of mission.
At least that was what it looked like
to Harrison.
Gone was the frightened, worried Laura
he’d first met, and in her place was a determined, fire-in-her-eyes
woman who was ready to do battle, it seemed, at any
cost.
“When I was talking to Becca, I heard
his voice. It was weaker, maybe because I was with one of my
sisters, I don’t know, but he found me, and I’m sick of it, sick of
living in fear, sick of him being able to terrorize me. Sick of
him.”
“The police—”
“Don’t know him like I do and they
don’t know that we communicate.” Before he could even suggest that
she confide in Stone or Dunbar, she held up a hand. “They wouldn’t
believe me if I told them, so don’t even go there. They’ve promised
me protection, and I’m pretty sure they’re keeping this house under
watch, so I’m safer here than a lot of places.”
“Not twenty-four/seven, they’re not,”
Harrison reminded. “This is no sanctuary.”
“Agreed. Not for me. Nor my sisters.
Any wall around Siren Song isn’t strong enough to keep him out,
either.” She leveled her calm gaze at him. “He has to be
stopped.”
He wouldn’t be able to change her mind.
He could see that clearly. “I’ve got a gun,” he admitted. “And a
license to carry it. It’s locked in my apartment.”
“Why the hell don’t you have it on
you?”
He thought of the violence he’d seen in
his life; how his brother-in-law had been gunned down, an innocent
victim, one homicide victim among the hundreds across the country
in recent times. “I didn’t think we needed it, until the other
night.”
“And now?”
“I’ll get it.”
“Good.”
Harrison gathered up his laptop and
belongings while she, grudgingly, packed an overnight bag. Then
they drove to a restaurant in Cannon Beach, where they ate chowder
served in hollowed-out sourdough bowls and watched the sun play tag
with the clouds. She told him more about the meeting at Siren Song
and that she had to work a couple of shifts, but he felt that she
was holding back, that there was something more, a secret, behind
the sadness in her gaze and the determined set of her
jaw.
Once back at her house, they split up.
She headed to Ocean Park, and he, though he didn’t like it, drove
on to Seaside to put in some hours at the Breeze, then to stop by his apartment for his pistol.
All the while he was nervous and on edge. He told himself that
Laura was safe at the hospital, that Justice wouldn’t risk an
attack where there were so many people around, so many cameras, a
place the police would be monitoring.
He pulled into the lot of the
Breeze. He’d been kidding, of course, when
he’d told Laura that he’d been playing video games online. He’d
really been working on the Justice Turnbull story, for two reasons:
one, because he wanted to write it, but also two, because it was a
puzzle that needed solving and Justice was a killer who needed
catching. He wanted to be a part of that.
Currently, there was one piece of the
puzzle that was nagging him. Justice’s escape had been because he’d
complained of some ailment that the staff at Halo Valley wasn’t
able to diagnose or treat. So he was being transferred to Ocean
Park Hospital on Dr. Zellman’s orders. Justice’s illness now seemed
more of a ruse than a reality. But how had he fooled the staff, and
especially Zellman?
That conundrum was on his mind as he
made his way to his desk, walking by the newsroom, where a
television was mounted and Pauline Kirby’s face was plastered all
over the flat screen. Looking seriously into the camera, she was
talking about the band of Seven Deadly Sinners and their
crimes.
“She’s really running with this,” Buddy
said from his cubicle.
“Whatever.” Harrison wasn’t really
interested.
“Y’know, you really punched Noah
Vernon’s old man’s buttons. The guy is going berserk! He’s called
and complained but Connolly loves it. Likes all the attention the
Breeze is getting! Believes any publicity is
good publicity. And Pauline hasn’t let up an inch. Your story about
Envy is just the beginning. She’ll probably feature each of the
kids involved, stretch it out, and get up close and personal, the
whole human interest angle.”
“Let her,” he said, glad he was done
with that particular article.
“Maybe she’ll take some of the heat
from the leader’s old man. Bryce Vernon is threatening a
lawsuit.”
“Sounds just like him.”
Harrison found himself wishing the
Turnbull story would come together and, more importantly, the whack
job would be caught and put behind bars forever. Until then,
Harrison felt that Laura wouldn’t be safe.
As Buddy took a call on his cell phone,
Harrison tried to work, but he couldn’t get Laura off his mind. He
wondered how she was doing at the hospital.
She’s fine, he
told himself but couldn’t shake the feeling that something was
wrong. Really wrong. She’d been so different today.
Then again, her life was totally out of
control.
He put in a couple of hours on the
computer, adding information to Justice Turnbull’s file, printing
out articles and blogs about the killer from his earlier spree,
then drove to his apartment.
Traffic was thick and the sun was just
setting over the western horizon, streaking the sky in shades of
orange and magenta, leaving deep ribbons of color on the calm
Pacific. He pulled into his parking space, between two faded yellow
lines in the worn asphalt, grabbed his laptop, and hurried to his
unit. From the long porch, the building offered a peekaboo glimpse
of the sea, but he was so lost in thought, he made only a cursory
note of nature’s brilliant display.
Once through the front door, he
realized he’d barely been in this—his home—in almost a week. In
that time, his situation hadn’t improved. In fact, more dust had
settled, and the leaking kitchen faucet was still keeping up its
slow dripping tattoo. The unopened boxes and crates seemed to mock
him; the camping chairs with their cup holders were a joke. He
compared his place to Laura’s cozy little bungalow, and this cold,
empty space that couldn’t even come close to a bachelor pad came up
short. Cream-colored walls with not a picture upon them, only nail
holes left over from the previous tenant; a beige rug that showed
wear down the hall; a bathroom so white, it was hard on the eyes,
the strip of bulbs over the mirror and sink nearly blinding; his
travel shaving kit and a faded green towel hung over the shower
door the only signs that anyone resided here.
If you could call it that.
The one sliding door off the cracker
box of a kitchen had a set of vertical blinds with several slats
missing, and the almond-colored appliances were circa
1972.
“Retro,” he muttered, walking to the
bedroom, where the blow-up bed was covered with his rumpled
sleeping bag. He’d managed to put some of his clothes into a small
dresser. His one suit and a couple of sports coats and jackets were
hung in the closet. On the top shelf, surrounded by boxes, was his
locked gun case. He pulled the metal box down, unlocked the
combination, and saw his pistol, a Glock he’d bought a few years
back and never used. He picked up the 9 mm, loaded it, made sure
the safety was on, then stuffed it into the waistband of his
jeans.
“Locked and loaded,” he muttered as he
found a leather jacket, slid it on, and saw that it effectively hid
the weapon. “Just like on TV.”
He phoned Laura’s cell, and his call
went directly to her voice mail, so he didn’t bother leaving a
message, just left the apartment and locked the door behind him as
he stepped outside.
Night had fallen. The security lamps
were humming and casting the parking lot in a blue-tinged light. A
few stars were just beginning to wink high overhead as he reversed
out of his space and nosed his Impala toward the street. He planned
on finding out when Laura’s next break was, then meeting her in the
hospital cafeteria. Just to assure himself she was
okay.
He wended through the traffic and
headed south along Roosevelt Drive, which was essentially the part
of Highway 101 that wound through Seaside. On the outskirts of
town, his cell phone jangled. Expecting to hear Laura’s voice, he
answered, “Hey.”
Across the wireless connection, he
heard a rasping, ominous voice. “You’ve been with the witch!” the
caller intoned, turning Harrison’s blood to ice.
“Who is this?” he demanded and, with a
quick look in his rearview mirror, cut into the empty lot of a
bank.
“Sssshe’s the spawn of Ssssatan,” the
caller hissed, and Harrison’s pulse started hammering. The caller
was Justice freakin’ Turnbull?
“Who the hell are you?” Harrison
demanded, staring through his windshield and seeing nothing. His
gaze was turned inward; his concentration on the
caller.
“They all will die . . . all the
witchesss who hide in their fortresss,” he scoffed. “Ssssiren
Ssssong . . . The sssisters think they’re ssssafe.” Then Harrison
heard a smile in the caller’s voice. “But they never will be, not
until all of Satan’sss spawn are dead, their black sssouls going
sssstraight to hell!”
“Turnbull?” he asked.
Click!
The phone went dead in his
hand.
Jesus, what was that all
about?
Immediately, he recalled the number,
then hit the dial button, but no one answered. No voice mail picked
up.
“Damn!”
Had he really been talking to Justice
Turnbull?
Or could it have been a
prank?
No way . . . The voice was too low, too
deadly, too damned weird.
Psychotic.
Even now, his car idling in the bank
lot, traffic rushing by on Roosevelt Drive, Harrison’s skin
crawled. Where the hell was the bastard? Why was he taunting him?
Of course, he knew that some criminals, including killers, got off
on the replay of their crimes in the press. They loved the
notoriety. But it surprised him that Justice Turnbull knew him, had
his number, for Christ’s sake.
Then again, who really knew what went
on in the mind of a psychopath?
Even those who purported to understand
them could be fooled. Dr. Maurice Zellman was a case in point. He’d
been so sure of himself, of his understanding of the maniac, that
he’d let down his guard. And nearly lost his life in the
process.
A little calmer, Harrison grabbed his
wallet and found Detective Stone’s card. He punched in the number
of the offices of the TCSD, only to be told that the detective had
left for the day. Not missing a beat, Harrison next dialed Stone’s
cell number. On the first ring, voice mail answered, and Harrison
was forced to leave a short message telling Stone that Turnbull had
called him and he had a cell number for the bastard.
Once more, as he pulled out of the lot,
he dialed Laura.
Once more, she didn’t
answer.
He tried to convince himself that she
was fine, just busy, that she wouldn’t take his call while on duty.
He also assured himself that if Justice Turnbull had done anything
to her, the maniac would have bragged about it in his
call.
Right?
“Son of a bitch.” He pushed on the
accelerator and risked a call to the hospital. An operator answered
and he asked to speak to Laura Adderley.
“Just one second,” the receptionist
said, and a few minutes later a smooth female voice said, “Nurses’
station, second floor.”
“I’d like to speak to Laura Adderley.
This is Harrison Frost.”
“Ms. Adderley’s with a patient right
now. If you would like her to call you back . . . oh, wait.” Her
voice became more muted as she said, “Laura, there’s a Harrison
Frost on the line. He wants to talk to you,” then, more loudly, “If
you’ll just hang on, she’ll be with you.”
Relief rained over him.
“Hello?” Laura’s voice was a
balm.
“Hey. Just thought I’d check in. Was
wondering if we could have lunch or dinner or whatever your next
break is.”
“I just took lunch . . . I won’t have
another break until one in the morning. You still on?”
“About that . . . ,” he said. Then,
though he didn’t want to worry her, he thought she deserved to know
what was happening, so he explained about the call he’d received,
finishing with, “It was anonymous, of course, but I’ve got a call
into Stone, to find out to whom, if anyone, the phone is
registered. It could be one of those throwaway cells.”
“He’s targeting you?” she asked,
sounding coldly furious.
“I think he’s looking for a little
press, and that worries me because his need for publicity, to be on
page one, might ramp up his anxiety, his need to do something to draw attention back to
him.”
“Like kill,” she
whispered.
“I’ll keep you posted on what I find
out, but be careful. I think you’re safe at the hospital. So call
me when your shifts are over, and we’ll take it from
there.”
She hesitated.
“Laura?”
“You be careful, too. He’s got
your phone number.”
“I told Buddy to give it out. I don’t
think Turnbull’s interest in me is personal. It’s you he
wants.”
“And my family.”
“Yeah.” He almost said, “I love you,”
but caught himself, surprised by how it had seemed so natural to
say.
“You won’t believe this,” Stone said,
an edge to his voice as he drove south toward the Zellman
estate.
“What?” Dunbar asked, sounding far away
wherever she was on her cell phone.
“The reporter, Harrison Frost, the guy
we saw earlier. He claims he got a call from Justice
Turnbull.”
“What? Why?”
“Maybe he wants some publicity. Who
knows? He’s a psycho. But get this, Frost got the guy’s cell number
and I ran it. Guess who it belongs to?”
“Just tell me, Stone.” She sounded
exasperated.
“Dr. Maurice Zellman. I’m on my way
there now. Should arrive in fifteen minutes. Frost is probably
going to show up, but I told him to stay back. Who the hell knows
what’s there.”
“Did you try calling the
number?”
“No answer.”
“What about Zellman’s home
phone?”
“That’s the kicker. They don’t have
one. Everyone in the house has his own cell, and an answering
service takes after-hours calls for the doctor. Helluva
deal.”
“No kiddin’. I’ll be there in twenty.
I’m—” There was a little gasp, and Dunbar sucked in a shaking
breath.
“What?” Stone demanded.
“Dunbar?”
“I think I’m going to throw up again,”
she said on a sigh. “I’m gonna have to pull over.”
“You sick?”
“Probably pregnant. I’ll let you
know.”
“Well, don’t come to the Zellmans. I’ve
got this one,” Stone told her, surprised.
“Okay,” she said and hung
up.
Stone didn’t have time to think about
that as he took a corner a little too fast, his tires screeching a
little. Was Turnbull holed up in Zellman’s house? Had he stolen the
doc’s phone? Or had someone else called?
It seemed to take forever before he
pulled into the drive and past the stone pillars guarding the gate
which was still dented and lying open, the result of some
unfortunate crash. Carriage lights blazed against the stone house.
Cars were parked in front of the huge garage, and he wondered
vaguely why they weren’t locked inside it, especially after the
son’s Range Rover had been stolen.
He parked behind a BMW, then called
again, trying both Zellman and his wife’s cell. Again, neither call
was picked up.
For a few seconds he surveyed the
place, but it looked quiet and occupied, the lights glowing through
tall windows. He phoned in his position with the department . . .
just in case, then climbed out of the car and eyed the premises
again. Still nothing looked out of place, the darkness shrouding
the huge house on the cliff over the Pacific was to be expected. A
porch light was on, so warily, with one hand on his sidearm, he
walked up the front steps and rang the bell.
From within he heard the sound of
classical music, then quick footsteps. A few seconds later a woman
he recognized as Mrs. Zellman peeked through the windows near the
door, then unlocked the dead bolt and pulled the door open
slightly. A chain still kept the door from swinging
free.
“Detective Langdon Stone, Tillamook
Sheriff’s Department,” Stone said and flipped open his
badge.
“Oh . . . yes.” She managed a tight,
worried smile. “What can I do for you?”
“I tried to call. Neither you nor your
husband answered.”
“Oh, my . . . well, the music is on in
the house, and I was watching television in the den. I must not
have heard my phone.”
“Is your husband inside?”
“Yes . . . oh, and I’m sure you didn’t
reach him, because he’s misplaced his cell. It’s been missing for a
few days now. . . .” She let her voice trail off, then asked, “Is
something wrong? Oh, dear, it’s that patient of Maurice’s, isn’t
it? He’s killed someone else or stolen another car or God knows
what else!”
“Ma’am, I’d like to speak to your
husband.”
She was just rattling the chain when
headlights swept across the drive, and Stone recognized Harrison
Frost’s old Chevy. The reporter killed the engine and sprinted
across the lawn into the light cast by the exterior
lamps.
“Oh!” Mrs. Zellman gasped; then her
brows pulled into a knot. “Mr. Frost?”
“I thought I told you to stand down,”
Stone said.
“And I thought I told you I’d be here
ASAP.”
“Well, come in, come in,” Mrs. Zellman
insisted, anxious to close the door and bolt it shut again, as if a
chain lock or dead bolt could keep out a psycho like Turnbull.
“Maurice,” she called over her shoulder. “We’ve got
company!”
“Is your son here?” Stone asked, but
she shook her head as she led both men down a short
hallway.
“Brandt’s out with friends. Something
about a late movie, I think.” She opened the double doors to a
wood-paneled study, where the doctor was sitting behind a massive
desk, notes spread upon the top, books piled in the corners, the
music much louder within the octagonal room. Through the windows,
Stone guessed, was an incredible view of the ocean, though now,
with the night, all that was visible was darkness.
Zellman looked up over the rims of his
glasses and blinked, then reached behind him and pushed a button on
a console and the music ended abruptly. His neck was still
bandaged, and he didn’t look pleased to see them.
“Maurice, this is—”
Scowling, he waved impatiently at her
and nodded. He knew who they were. But, obviously, he still didn’t
speak.
Stone said, “We want to talk to you
about your cell phone.”
Zellman wrote: It’s
missing. Haven’t seen it for the better part of a
week.
“You lost it?” Stone said.
Mrs. Zellman cut in. “I told you this
already,” she said and opened her hands to the ceiling, as if to
explain to her husband that she was sorry for the disturbance, that
she’d tried to intercept the visitors before they bothered
him.
Frowning, as if the detective were
stupid, Zellman wrote: Obviously I misplaced
it.
“Then you’ve made no calls on it in the
last twenty-four hours?”
No. How could I?
Zellman shook his head and, somehow while seated, appeared to look
down his nose at them. Why?
“Someone called me from it,” Harrison
said, “and he hissed a message that made me think it was Justice
Turnbull.”
Mrs. Zellman whispered, “No!” and
clasped her hand over her chest, and even Zellman’s facade of
superiority dropped as Frost relayed the conversation.
“Oh, my God, Maurice!” Mrs. Zellman
said, walking behind the desk to put her husband between herself
and the disturbing news. “But how? And why?”
Zellman began typing furiously.
You think my phone was stolen? And then
before anyone could answer, he added, By Justice
Turnbull? When he took the car?
“We don’t know.”
“No . . . oh, no . . . I was afraid of
this,” his wife said, her eyes wide, her skin an ashen color. “When
you deal with all of those mentally unstable . . . murderers. And
that . . . maniac. He’s the worst! I told you, didn’t I?” she said
to her husband. Frantically, she looked out the windows to the
darkness beyond and worried aloud. “He could be here now. . . . Oh
. . . and what if he got the keys to the house? From Brandt’s ring?
Oh, dear God!” She began walking to each of the windows and drawing
the drapes.
You’re sure it was
Justice who called you? Zellman typed, then looked up at
Harrison Frost.
Frost answered, “I’ve never spoken with
him but he said some things that were pretty freaky and he said
them all as if he were hissing. He said things like ‘sssisster.’
”
Zellman looked away. Closed his eyes
for a second. Shook his head almost imperceptibly, as if denying
what he knew to be true.
“Dr. Zellman?” Stone
asked.
Zellman sighed. Guilt crossed his
features as his wife walked into the next room and started lowering
blinds and pulling drapes frantically, the zip and clatter of the
closure filtering into the study.
He doesn’t always
hiss, Zellman wrote, his fingers nearly trembling on the
keyboard. Only when he’s agitated, when he’s
talking about the women of Siren Song, his sisters. Justice
Turnbull refers to the women who live there as his
ssssisssttterss. He paused, then wrote: Is
that what you’re talking about?
“Yes.” Frost’s voice was stone-cold,
serious as a heart attack.
“How did he have Mr. Frost’s cell
number?” Stone asked.
I put it into the phone
menu.
Stone asked, “Is there any chance he
could have a set of keys to the house?”
The psychiatrist’s brow furrowed as he
shook his head. I don’t think so. The keys were
returned with Brandt’s car, and the house key was
included.
“He could have made a copy,” Stone
said, though he doubted it. There just hadn’t been enough time.
Then again, anything was possible.
Justice Turnbull isn’t
that patient or organized. He works off emotion and
opportunity. As he wrote the last line, Zellman flushed and
grimaced. Stone guessed the psychiatrist was thinking of how he’d
played the doctor for a fool out of emotion and opportunity.
He’s also off his meds, so he’s even more
unpredictable, more out of control.
“Son of a bitch,” Frost muttered,
staring at Zellman’s computer screen.
“Someone else is here!” Mrs. Zellman
said, her voice rising as if she was about to panic.
“Probably my partner.” Stone walked out
of the study and told the nervous woman, “Let me get the
door.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Zellman said
gratefully. “I’m afraid all of this business with Maurice’s patient
has me beside myself.” She lowered her voice. “I warned Maurice
about him, you know. To no avail. Even after that maniac threatened
Maurice with his life, it didn’t matter. Not to my husband and his
damned job.” She threw a dark look in the direction of the study,
then rubbed her arms as if suddenly chilled before turning
away.
Savvy Dunbar entered a few minutes
later and the discussion continued, but Stone didn’t learn much
more. The doctor appeared embarrassed that Justice had somehow
stolen his phone—probably because he’d left it in an unlocked car.
When asked about his health, Zellman said he already had speech
therapy scheduled and planned on returning to work early in the
morning. Stone told him not to shut his cell phone service off;
there was a chance that they could locate Justice by GPS. If he
made any more calls, they could zero in on the killer, hopefully
before he struck again.
Shaken, Zellman agreed.
Mrs. Zellman seemed a little calmer by
the time they all left, but she vowed she was changing the locks on
every door and having the gate to their estate fixed as soon as she
could get a repairman out.
“Good idea,” Stone told her and only
hoped it wasn’t too little, too late.