East Salem Trilogy 01-Waking Hours Page 14

  He didn’t just like them a little. He liked them a lot, and he had enough money to buy anything that caught his fancy, from the latest iPhone or digital e-book reader to an ice-fishing reel that had a built-in GPS to help locate the exact spot on the frozen lake where you drilled a hole and caught fish the last time you went ice fishing. He owned one of those, and he didn’t even ice fish. He couldn’t pass a Brookstone or a Sharper Image without picking up something, and the SkyMall catalogs he read on airplanes were the best part of any flight. When he’d decided to act on his childhood dream to become a private investigator, his first step was to take classes at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, but his second step was to go shopping.

  He went to bed early but set his alarm to wake him shortly before moonset, 3:53 AM, knowing the task he had in mind was best accomplished in absolute darkness. He dressed quickly, donning black sweats and boots, a black hooded sweatshirt, and his Barbour raincoat with the multiple pockets he’d need to carry the gear he’d laid out on the kitchen table. His ATN PVS7 Generation 3 military-grade night vision goggles went in one pocket. His SureFire 10X Dominator flashlight, which emitted 60 lumens for normal purposes but switched to 500 lumens, like a Star Trek phaser set to stun if you needed to temporarily blind someone, went in another. His Iridium 9555 satellite phone, which gave him reception anywhere on earth, went in the vest pocket. His Garmin Nuvi 680 GPS transponder, to bookmark his path, went in a side pouch.

  In a matte black canvas backpack he stowed away three spray bottles of aminophthalhydrazide, commercially known as Luminol, a chemical that could reveal, by a chemo-luminescent reaction visible to NVGs, the presence of blood in solutions as dilute as one part per million, even if it had been exposed to the elements for up to three years.

  He threw the backpack over one shoulder and his White’s Spectra V3i metal detector, the best money could buy, over the other. He was about to leave when he thought twice and went to his top dresser drawer, where he kept his .45 Taurus 1911SS automatic. He moved the gun aside and found what he was looking for, the Boy Scout knife his father had given him when he’d become a Webelo. He put the knife in his pocket.

  He checked his cell phone to see if he’d missed any calls from Dani. He’d been doing that a lot lately. She hadn’t called. He hoped she was sound asleep. He armed his security system and checked himself one more time in the mirror and grabbed the keys to the Jeep.

  The night was pitch black, but he didn’t need light to see where he was going. He’d rambled and explored the woods of Bull’s Rock Hill and the shores of Lake Atticus since he was a boy. He never got lost. Maybe that was where he’d gotten his sense of direction. It was where he’d played hide-and-seek or flashlight tag, and where he’d hiked with his dad, bug jar in one hand and butterfly net in the other. It was where he’d learned to ride a bike and where, beginning in seventh grade, he had run the trails and bridle paths before and after school to get in shape for sports. His triumphant moment came when he ran all the way to the top of Bull’s Rock Hill without stopping. Eventually he ran the hill with ankle weights, then with ankle weights and a full weight vest, and finally, on a bet, he ran it carrying one of his teammates on his back, though by the time he reached the top, he was more staggering than running. He knew the way by daylight, and he knew it by moonlight, and he knew it when there was no moon at all and the path was difficult to find.

  There were three routes to the top of the hill. The easiest was the southwestern approach along a gravel road and then a well-trodden path to the top. Next easiest was a footpath from the northwest that wound for about two miles through the woods. The most difficult route was a trail from the northeast that ultimately zigzagged up a steep incline via a series of switchbacks. The southern and southeastern faces of the hill, overlooking Lake Atticus, were too steep to be scaled except by rock climbers.

  When Tommy tried to imagine somebody going to Bull’s Rock Hill to commit a crime, any crime, but in particular the gruesome murder he was hoping to help solve, he couldn’t imagine the perpetrator taking the first approach, where he’d be visible for much of the way. Nor could he imagine anyone taking the third, because it was too steep. So he parked his car on Keeler Street, at the gravel pull-off where the middle path began. The fact that the land was private property had never deterred the joggers and hikers and picnickers who used it, nor had The Pastures ever made a point of asking trespassers to stay away as long as they respected the lower reaches of the golf course itself.

  At the head of the trail Tommy saw a trash can, and above it a sign that, in the beam of his flashlight, read No Littering. Someone with a black Magic Marker had altered the sign to read No Lettering. On a tree, another sign said All Dogs Must Be Leashed, beneath which someone had tacked a printout of a scruffy-looking brownish grinning mutt named Molly and the words LOST DOG MUCH LOVED—13 YEARS OLD—PART TERRIER AND PART ??? IF FOUND, CALL 917-555-8746. A third sign said “Prevent Lyme Disease These Woods Are Home to Deer Ticks.”

  He worked slowly, sweeping the trail with his metal detector and spraying with Luminol, using his NVGs to search the grounds. According to Frank DeGidio, the police had already searched the trail in daylight but found nothing. Tommy had about three hours until sunup.

  In the first mile he found an earring, forty-five cents, a man’s watch, and a silver filling from a tooth.

  Halfway to the peak, he stopped.

  To one side of the path, where he sprayed the Luminol, he found a drop of blood, then smaller secondary drops in a splash pattern. He’d read about splatter paths in a few scholarly criminology papers and a chapter in a textbook, but he was no expert. He used his GPS to bookmark and cache the location. If he had to guess, it looked as if the blood had dropped from a height of perhaps two or three feet, ruling out—also only a guess—a kill by some bird of prey, a hawk or an owl swooping down on some unsuspecting vole or wood rat.

  Taken alone, there was no way to give the blood droplets any meaning. He moved in a circle, spraying with Luminol and using the NVGs, looking for indications of any larger configurations.

  Don’t be in a hurry, he reminded himself. Maybe Sherlock Holmes saw the whole story in an instant, but for the rest of us it takes time.

  He was thinking the first configuration of droplets was an isolated incident, when he found a second set showing splatter paths similar to the first.

  He marked the spot again with his GPS, visualized a line from the first drop to the second, then projected where the line might lead, from the first to the second to a possible third. He walked the line and had gone another thirty yards when he came to the stump of a mountain ash, sawn off years ago during a forest service timber cull. As a kid he’d learned that ash stumps made great places to hide things because they tended to rot and turn hollow from the inside out. Usually they held stagnant water where mosquitoes bred. Expecting nothing, he sprayed the inside of the hollow stump.

  It was full of blood.

  Oddly, he found no splash or splatter paths on the surrounding ground. Instead, he noted a saturation along one side of the stump’s inner wall, from the top to the pool below. It was as if somebody had very carefully poured blood into the stump, making sure not to spill.

  Why? Were they disposing of it? Trying to hide it?

  He switched off his NVGs and used the flashlight at low illumination. The reservoir inside the stump was probably part rainwater by now. He took an eyedropper from the evidence collection kit he’d bought online from a police supply website and drew a sample, then marked the stump with both a cached GPS reading and a white evidence flag.

  He returned to the trail. Sweeping and spraying as he went, he moved slowly up the hill to the crime scene and the bare granite promontory overlooking the lake. He could get no closer than fifty feet before he came to the area marked off with yellow police tape. He half expected to find a police officer there keeping watch, but he was alone. He considered stepping over the tape but remembered how Dani had cautioned him against c
ontaminating witnesses. That probably went for crime scenes too. He respected the perimeter and stayed outside the circle.

  Even so, there might be something the others had missed. In the movies it was always the most dogged detectives who solved the crimes. He moved slowly, working mainly with the metal detector. He found a rusted bolt, a penny, a BB from a BB gun, and a foil wrapper from a piece of gum.

  As he circled, he looked back to the scene of the murder. He tried to picture two people, or three, four, eight, ten. What were they doing? Standing in a circle? In a line? In a random pattern? How were they killing her? Taking turns? Stabbing? Worse? One kid? Two? All of them? Were some looking away, afraid? Were some holding themselves at a distance? Was anyone hiding, perhaps, or even watching from the bushes, trying not to be seen?

  Liam’s cell phone had been found in the weeds beneath a tree, Dani had said. Tommy found the closest tree and scanned the weeds around it.

  Nothing.

  He kept moving, measuring, trying to imagine what had happened and why. They were saying it was some kind of ritualistic killing. What did rituals do? What rituals were there? Weddings. Birthdays. Funerals. Rites of passage. Offerings. Transitions from one state to another.

  Which was this?

  He could probably rule out weddings and birthdays.

  He stood beneath a maple tree, gazing toward the bare rock, the image of a sleeping bull lit by the beam of his flashlight. Had someone stood in this spot the night of the crime, with a view of the killing and the darkened countryside beyond?

  He put the metal detector over his shoulder because it was getting heavy and turned toward the lake, then the woods. When he got a momentary false positive from the detector, he turned it off. Then he turned it on again. It wasn’t going to give him false positives, suspended in the air, resting on his shoulder. The dish had been pointing toward the trunk of the tree. He scanned the tree and heard another positive. There was something metal about six feet above the ground on the trunk.

  He turned on his flashlight.

  Felt with his hand.

  Something.

  He found a small nail, the kind used to hang lightweight picture frames, pounded into the rough bark of the tree at an angle. It appeared to be made of blued steel, not brass or aluminum. It was not rusted. It was new. It had been driven into the bark at an angle. Why at an angle? To hang something from it. Hang what?

  A picture?

  No.

  A mirror?

  A hammock?

  A hammock for gerbils maybe. Why would gerbils want hammocks?

  Concentrate, Tommy.

  Something had hung from it. Something on a strap. Something small enough not to pull the nail out.

  Something electronic.

  A camera.

  Why?

  To record the ritual.

  Why?

  To show it to somebody.

  Who? Why?

  Then he heard something behind him …

  Tommy shut the flashlight off and turned. Nothing. He crouched down and moved from where he’d been standing, just in case someone had him in the sights of a rifle.

  He waited.

  He flipped the night vision goggles down. The electronically amplified starlight revealed an odd array of shadows and shapes. He was certain that he’d heard something.

  Then he saw what appeared to be the outline of a man standing opposite him in the woods, in the shadows between two large trees, but unmistakable. The goggles gave him nothing more than the silhouette. He flipped them up, then found his flashlight and adjusted the setting from sixty to five hundred lumens. He aimed the flashlight at the place where the man was standing and pressed the button, the woods filling with light nearly as bright as a night baseball game.

  There was no one there.

  He searched the area to make sure. Nothing.

  He remembered a story from his days as a Boy Scout, just one of those campfire tales intended to scare, purportedly from ancient Indian lore, a legend about a shape-shifter who resided in these very woods, a demon who was there one minute and gone the next. The Paykak, Old Whitney had called it. Probably scarier because his scoutmaster was also a funeral director, though he never talked about his profession during scout meetings.

  Tommy had bought the premise hook, line, and sinker as a Webelo and had been scared half to death and stayed up until dawn in his tent with the pocketknife his father had given him open in his hand.

  But of course, now that he was older and wiser, he knew the story as just that … a story and nothing more.

  He felt in his pocket for the jackknife all the same. He was older and he was wiser, but he was still human. Something had been there, and then it was gone.

  Tommy drove home and considered going back to sleep, but he had too much on his mind. So he went to the gym instead, thinking he might work off some of his excess energy. He arrived at five and disarmed the security system, turned on the lights, dropped three mesh bags of towels down the chute to the laundry, checked to make sure the snack bar was stocked, and then walked the facility to see if there was anything else he needed to attend to.

  At the batting cages he saw that someone had left a helmet on home plate in the pros cage. The machines were set to various speeds, ranging from 30 mph in the kiddie cage all the way to 105 mph in the pros.

  Tommy entered the cage and bent down to pick up the batting helmet.

  As he rose, a reflexive sensation he could only describe as a kind of instinct, a faculty honed on the football field to protect himself from blindside hits, told him something was coming.

  He turned his head, reacted in a microsecond, and hit the deck just before a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball zipped past his ear and clanged into the wire backstop. Had the pitch been another inch lower or a few miles an hour faster, he would have been beaned and, at that speed, possibly killed.

  He stayed low and crept out of the line of fire, but the pitching machine at the other end of the cage was now still, a red light showing instead of green. He listened. He was alone in the building. He approached the far end of the cage carefully along the side wall, opened the door to the maintenance area, and felt the pitching machine. It was warm. Someone had left it on all night.

  He shut it off, grabbed an Out of Order sign from where it hung from a peg on the wall, reentered the batting cage, and hung the sign from the front of the machine. He picked up the ball, which had rolled back down the gutter to the reloading chute. Nothing about it seemed at all unusual, except that it had just tried to kill him.

  “What did I ever do to you?” he asked the ball.

  Then he heard something, distant and impossible to locate. He’d turned up the heat in the building. It could have been a radiator making the sound of someone laughing.

  He was fooling himself.

  “Allow for the possibility that evil is real,” Carl had said.

  Allowing for that possibility in as open-minded a way as he could, Tommy concluded that something evil was trying to kill him, possibly the same person who killed Julie Leonard. But it was also possible that it wasn’t a person. The thing in the woods. The batting machine. He’d been fearless on the football field, but he couldn’t fight what he couldn’t see or understand.

  Suddenly, he wasn’t feeling fearless anymore.

  20.

  Dani checked her calendar, then called Willis Dane’s home number and told his caregiver she’d have time to see him Wednesday afternoon.

  She made toast for breakfast and then called Tommy. She’d wanted to tell him what she’d learned regarding Jalen Simmons and his copycat voice mail as soon as she’d learned about it, but of course it was the middle of the night. She told him that Logan Gansevoort’s lawyer, Davis Fish, was still being uncooperative, as was St. Adrian’s Academy.

  “I’ve gotta run—have an appointment with the guidance counselor at ESH,” she told him. Later she intended to talk with Julie Leonard’s mom and sister and with Amos Kasden’s parents, and s
he hoped Tommy would come along and provide a second point of view.

  “Great,” she said when he agreed. “I’ll pick you up at All-Fit in an hour.”

  East Salem High consistently ranked in the top-ten high schools in New York, despite chronic budget wrangling and school board politics and hirings and firings. Fed by four elementary schools and two middle schools, the school had a predominantly white upper-middle-class student body and had developed a reputation for excellent athletics and strong programs in the creative arts, theater, music, and writing.

  To Dani, the hallways seemed weirdly unchanged. The display case in the lobby outside the main office had been decorated in Halloween themes by the Debate Club, black cats and pumpkins and black construction paper silhouettes of owls saying whom instead of who. On the wall beside it, a map of the world showed the places where senior class projects had helped build affordable housing or schools or clinics. Dani often found herself defending her hometown where, yes, outsiders correctly observed, there was a great deal of wealth and self-interest, but there were also a lot of good people who gave of their time and money and wanted to make the world a better place.

  When she made an appointment with the office, she’d been happily surprised to learn the guidance counselor was a former classmate, Jill Ji-Sung. She’d been a popular cheerleader when Dani was a bookish dweeb.

  Jill remembered Dani too and filled her in on the current social scene at East Salem, which was in many ways not so different from when they had attended, but in other ways was unrecognizable. Cell phones. Text messages. Twitter. Facebook, IM chats, Formspring. The same social dynamics prevailed, the rivalries and petty jealousies and mean kids who picked on weak kids, though now there was cyber-bullying to add to all the traditional ways the strong harassed the meek. Julie Leonard was probably among the latter group, according to Jill.

  “A bit invisible,” the guidance counselor said, “maybe as a survival strategy. We had an incident last year when somebody wrote an anonymous comment about Julie in one of the girls’ bathrooms. Something about the outfit she was wearing. I called her in and asked her if her feelings were hurt. She said it was just somebody who didn’t know her trying to be funny, and everybody had a right to an opinion. She really tried to see the good in everybody. Not as a goody-two-shoes. Just because that was how she wanted to live.”