Cody McFadyen - The Darker Side

"I see blood on her seat cushion," Callie observes, jarring me from my thoughts. "Easiest thing to do will be to just take the whole cushion. Take hers, take his, then search for prints. That's a good avenue. It would have stood out if he'd worn gloves. Then vacuum everything for trace. That's pretty much going to be it."

"I think he would have taken something," James notes. I turn to him. "What?"

"A trophy. He left something in her, the cross. He's into symbols. He needed to take something."

Not all serial killers take trophies, but I agree with James. It feels right.

"Could have been anything," Alan says. "Jewelry, something from her purse, a piece of her hair." He shrugs. "Anything."

"We'll go through her belongings, see if something obvious is missing," I say.

"It's only getting colder, so what's the game plan, honey-love?"

Callie's right. I've started to get the smell of him but there's nothing else here that's going to help me.

"You and James are going to stay here and finish processing the scene. Call me when you're done. Alan, I want you to drop me off at Lisa's place, and then I want you to interview the witnesses. Flight attendants, passengers, anyone and everyone. Follow up on how he bought his ticket as well. Did he use cash? A credit card? If he used a credit card, it was probably a false identity. How'd he make that happen?"

"Got it."

Callie nods her assent.

I take a final look at the window Lisa had died next to, turn, and walk away from it forever. It'll fade eventually, I know. Someday I'll be sitting at a window seat on an airplane and I won't even think of Lisa Reid.

Someday.

ALAN AND I ARE ON THE FREEWAY HEADING BACK TO ALEXandria. We don't have much company on the road; just a few other night-drivers who, like us, probably wish they were in bed. Alan is silent as he drives. We have the heaters blowing full tilt to deal with the cold. Darkness has really settled in, darkness and silence and still .

"What is it about the cold that makes things seem more quiet?" I wonder out loud.

Alan glances over at me and smiles. "Things are more quiet. You're used to Los Angeles. Doesn't get cold enough there to drive people and animals inside, usually. It does here."

He's right. I've experienced this before. Between the ages of six and ten, before my mom died of cancer, we used to take family driving trips. Mom and Dad would synchronize their vacation time and we'd spend two weeks trekking halfway across the U.S. and back. I remember the hard parts of these trips; the unending sound of the wheels on the road and the world rushing by, the intense, almost painful boredom. I also remember playing car games with my mom. I-spy, counting "pididdles" (cars with only one headlight working). Raucous, off-tune car songs. Most of all, I remember the destinations. In a four-year period, I saw great parts of Rocky Mountain National Park, Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore. We crossed the Mississippi in a few places, ate gumbo in New Orleans. We rarely stayed in hotels, preferring to camp instead. One year, Dad got especially ambitious and drove us all the way to upstate New York in the fall. He wanted us to see the Catskill Mountains, where Rip Van Winkle was supposed to have snoozed. It was an unbearably long trip and we were worn out and cranky by the time we arrived. We pulled into the campground and I got out of that car as fast as I could.

The trees were incredible, either evergreen or with leaves on the turn, short and tall, young and old. It was cold, cold like it is here, and I remember the bite of it on my cheeks, my breath in the air.

"Not only do I have to pee in the woods," my mother had groused,

"but I have to get goose bumps on my ass while I do it."

"Isn't it beautiful, though?" my dad had said, a little bit of awe in his voice, oblivious to her anger.

That was one of the things I loved about my dad. He was eternally young when it came to viewing the world. My mom was more careful. Like me, she had a cynical edge. Mom kept our feet on the ground, which was important, but Dad kept our heads in the clouds, which had its own value.

I remember her turning to look at him, ready with some smart quip that died on her lips when she saw the actual joy on his face. She'd pushed her grumbling away and turned to look as well, finally seeing what he was seeing, getting infected with his wonder, stumbling into his dream.

"It is," she'd marveled. "It really is."

"Can I explore?" I'd asked.

"Sure, honey," Dad had replied. "But not too far. Stay close."

"Okay, Daddy," I'd agreed and had bounded off, heading into the trees.

I'd kept my word and stayed close. I didn't need to go far; fifty steps and I had found myself alone, more alone than I'd ever been. I'd stopped to take this in, not so much afraid as interested. I'd arrived in a small clearing, surrounded by a number of tall trees with dying leaves that hadn't given up the ghost just yet. I'd spread my arms and tilted my head all the way back and closed my eyes and listened to the stillness and the silence.

Years later I'd find the body of a young woman in the woods of Angeles Crest and remember that stillness and silence and wonder what it was like to be killed in the middle of nowhere, to have that solitude as a cathedral for your screams.

I was ten years old on that trip to New York, and it was the last trip we took before my mom got sick. When I think of my parents, I always think of them then, at that age, just thirty and thirty-one, younger than I am now. When I think of being young, I remember those trips we took, I-spy and pididdle and are-we-there-yet and my mother's complaints. I remember my father's wonder, my mother's love for him, and I remember the leaves and the trees and the time when stillness held beauty instead of the memories of death.

LISA'S CONDO IS NEW CONSTRUCTION,located near the center of Alexandria. The buildings are nice, but don't really fit their surrounds.

"Kind of like California in Virginia," Alan observes, putting voice to my thoughts.

The condo is brown wood and stucco on the outside, with its own small driveway. No one has entered yet; there's no yellow crime scene tape on the door. We pull in, exit, and walk up to the front door. Alan will clear the condo with me before leaving to go chase up on witnesses. We'd swung by the morgue so I could grab Lisa's keys. I am fiddling with them in the bad light from the streetlamps to find the one we need.

"Probably that one," Alan notes, indicating a gold-colored key. I fit the key into the deadbolt lock and it turns with a click. I put the key ring into my jacket pocket and we both pull our weapons.

"Ladies first," Alan says.

THE CONDO HAS TWO BEDROOMS,one of which doubles as a home office. We clear these as well as the guest half-bath and the master bathroom before holstering our guns.

"Nice place," Alan observes.

"Yeah."

It's decorated in earth tones, muted without being bland. Catches of color appear throughout, from maroon throw pillows on the couch to white cotton curtains with blue flower trim along the edges. It's clean and odorless, no smell of pets or dirty clothes or food left out. She didn't smoke. The wooden coffee table facing the couch is covered in a happy disarray of magazines and books. Lisa was tidy but not fastidious.

"Okay if I go?" he asks.

I glance at my watch. It's now 5:00 A.M.

"Sure. Before you get on to chasing down witnesses or following the money, get a search going for murders with a similar signature."

"The cross, you mean?"

"The cross, or just the symbols he left on the cross. I don't think we're going to find any really old crimes, but we might find some new ones."