Mariah Stewart - Cold Truth

Six miles down, she took a right on a narrow lane that led toward the bay. Minutes later she reached a run-down house that sat off the side of the road, the sole structure for another quarter mile in either direction. In the overgrown yard sat the shell of an old Boston Whaler, its hull dry-rotted. Cass parked the car behind the boat and walked around to the back of the house, where three rickety steps led to an even more unstable back porch, which once upon a time had been painted white.

Time and neglect had stripped the wood and weathered it gray. The screen on the back door had long since eroded, and the windows no longer closed tightly. Cass sat on the top step and looked off into the tall cattails that grew from the marsh straight on up to the back of the dilapidated garage. Off to the left was a pond, and from where she sat, she could see a small blue heron wading through the water, head down, cautiously stalking its prey.

She balled her hands and covered her eyes, but all she could see was the body of that dark-haired young woman sprawled out upon the rock.

Oblivious to the sweat that covered her face and dampened her light blue T-shirt down to her waist, she sat immobile and tried to control the emotions that churned within her. Of course, she’d seen dead bodies before, but she’d never reacted like this.

Well, hadn’t her therapist warned her that this might happen someday? That if she persisted in a career in law enforcement, sooner or later she might have to deal with something that might take her back to a place she’d rather not go?

The ringing of her cell phone jarred her, and she answered it on the second ring.

“Burke.”

“Are you on your way in?” Spencer asked, his voice tense.

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll meet you there. I just heard from Denver.” He paused. “Apparently we have a situation.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She hung up and slid the phone back into her jacket pocket.

She sat for another few moments and watched the heron grab something from the water, throw its head back, and swallow its meal in one quick motion. The wind hissed through the cattails, the hushed sound soothing her as few things could. She remembered countless nights when she lay awake in the room under the eaves, right up there on the second floor, listening to that very same sound as she fell asleep. It had comforted her then and it comforted her now.

A moment later she was walking toward her car, her hands steady, her pulse almost normal, wondering what, on this day marked by murder, constituted a “situation.”

Craig Denver sat in the chair the town council had surprised him with as a gift for his twenty-fifth year on the job and simply stared out the window next to his desk. For years, he’d wondered what he’d do if this day ever came, and now it was here, and he was still wondering.

He spread the piece of paper that had arrived earlier that day in a plain white envelope that bore no address. Phyl had found it on the floor of the lobby, near the front door, when she was on her way into the building after having picked up lunch for herself and the chief. She would have tossed it, except for the fact that it was sealed. Her curiosity piqued, she’d opened it, and having glanced at the message once, took it immediately to the chief’s office.

The paper itself was undistinguished, everyday computer stock, the kind that could be purchased at any one of a number of chain office-supply stores. It was the message that had caught Phyl’s attention, a message comprised of glued letters cut from newspapers and magazines, much as a child might do for a homework assignment.

Hey, Denver! Have you found her yet?

She’d carried it down the hall, holding it between two fingers to avoid getting her prints on it, walked into the chief’s office without knocking-something she rarely did-and dropped it on his desk. He had unfolded it, then stared at it for the longest time.

Finally, he asked quietly, “Where did this come from?”

“I found it on the floor in the lobby.”

“You didn’t see anyone…?”

“No one. I’d just picked up lunch from Stillman’s, I wasn’t gone ten minutes. I didn’t see anyone on my way out, or on my way back in.”

“Okay.” He’d nodded slowly. “Thank you.”

Most of the force was still out at Wilson ’s Creek, so he dusted the envelope and the white sheet of paper for prints. There were none except for the smudged partials that he suspected would prove to be Phyl’s. He’d reached for the phone, and called in Spencer and Burke.

Denver sat back in his chair and sighed deeply, wanting nothing more than to start this day over and have it turn out differently.

Coincidence, or copycat?

Either way, it wasn’t good.

Either way, shit was going to be stirred up, sure enough, and he wasn’t the only one who was going to have to deal with it.

He rubbed his eyes wearily and waited for his detectives to arrive.

Cass flew into the parking lot and swung into her reserved spot. Once inside the building, she waved absently to the desk sergeant as she walked briskly through the lobby.

“Spencer here yet?” she asked over her shoulder.

“He went back about a minute ago,” the sergeant replied.

Cass followed the hall to the chief’s office, knocking on the door although it stood partially open.

Denver motioned her in without looking. He sat at his desk, a thick file in front of him.

“We’ve had an odd development.”

He slid a piece of white paper across the desk, and both detectives leaned forward to get a closer look. “This was found in the lobby today.”

Hey, Denver! Have you found her yet?

“That would refer to the victim we found out in the marsh?” Spencer asked.

“Yes.”

The chief tapped his pipe on the edge of the desk. The bowl was empty of tobacco, as it had been every day for the past four years since he’d successfully given up smoking. He still, however, had a need to handle it in times of extreme stress. Like now.

“So he’s taunting us?” Spencer again.

“In a way. He’s deliberately trying to remind us of one of our old cases.”

“How old is old?” Spencer asked. “Two years? Five?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Twenty- six ?” Spencer looked from the chief to Cass, then back again. “Twenty-six years ?”

Denver nodded as he slipped on a pair of thin plastic gloves and opened the file. He took out another white envelope and removed a sheet of white lined notebook paper, which he unfolded and held up for both detectives to see. The message had been composed with letters cut from newspapers and magazines.

Hey, Wainwright! I left something for you on the beach!

And then a second sheet from a second envelope.

Hey, Wainwright! Did you find her yet?

“George Wainwright was the chief of police here in Bowers Inlet for almost thirty-five years,” Denver explained, his voice softening.

“Well, the notes sure look the same. Did you ever find out who sent those?” Spencer pointed to the letters that lay, one next to the other, across the center of the desk.

“We know who sent them. We just don’t know his name.”

“I don’t understand…”

“The Bayside Strangler mailed those letters to Chief Wainwright,” Denver said.

“The Bayside Strangler?” Spencer leaned forward in his seat. “Hey, I heard about him. Geez, he must have killed, what, nine, ten women…?”

“Thirteen,” the chief told him. “He killed thirteen women, back in the summer of ’79.”

“All in Bowers Inlet?” Spencer asked.

“No. Just the two here,” Denver replied. “But over the course of that one summer, he hit several of the other small bay towns as well-hence ‘the Bayside Strangler.’ Killion Point, Tilden, Hasboro, Dewey-he hit all of ’em at least once. Then the killings just stopped.”