Amanda Stevens - Criminal Behaviour

“You want the twenty-five-cent tour?” Matt asked her.

“Of the house? No, thanks. I’ll just poke around on my own.” She turned back to the foyer. “How do you think he got away with it for so long? The stench must have been unbearable, especially in the summer months. Yet none of the neighbors ever filed a complaint? Even now I can smell the decay.”

“You’re smelling the rats,” Matt said. “This place is lousy with them, dead and alive.”

Addie lifted her gaze to the water-stained ceiling. “I can hear them.”

“Wait until they start nipping at your feet. As to why the neighbors never complained, you have to remember that back in Delmar Gainey’s time, this area was a lot less populated. The houses damaged by the hurricane were either torn down or abandoned. Gainey’s mother died the same year the big one hit. He moved in after she passed, and that’s likely when he began his spree. Her death may even have been the stressor. Being isolated as he was, he could come and go as he pleased—bury bodies in the backyard at all hours—and no one would have noticed.”

“And then he just stopped?”

Matt nodded toward the murky sidelights that flanked the front door. “Didn’t you notice the ramp by the porch steps? Three years after Gainey moved in here, he had a car accident that confined him to a wheelchair. His mobility became limited. He couldn’t go around unnoticed like he did before the accident, so for the next quarter of a century, he had to content himself with reliving the kills in his head. Probably why he stayed in this squalor for as long as did. Couldn’t bear leaving his conquests behind.”

Addie glanced around the gutted room. The remains had already been removed and the scene processed, but the exposed wall studs were a reminder of a madman’s gruesome pastime. “That explains how the smell went unnoticed, but how do fourteen people in a city this size just disappear?”

“Fringe dwellers, most likely. Street people have always been easy prey. We’ll have to check the files to see if any of the disappearances were reported. That far back, nothing is computerized. Someone will have to do some digging.”

Addie nodded absently, her gaze still raking over the walls.

“There’s also the time frame to consider.” Matt’s voice sounded hushed, as if he had intuited her unease. “Could be the reason the disappearances never made the news is because Gainey’s spree overlapped with a more famous predator.”

Addie nodded again, but she found herself oddly short of breath. Why Matt’s observation should hit her so hard, she couldn’t explain. She’d already considered the timeline, but the spoken word had power. In one sentence, her partner had illuminated a connection, no matter how tenuous and indirect, to Addie’s personal nightmare. The déjà vu she’d experienced upon arrival hadn’t been conjured by this house, but by the icy touch of another monster.

“Think about everything going on in Charleston during that time,” Matt said. “The city knee-deep in hurricane recovery and every headline and news broadcast obsessed with the Twilight Killer.”

The Twilight Killer. The very real bogeyman of Addie’s childhood.

“Little wonder someone like Gainey was able to fly under the radar.”

“I guess.” Addie turned to avoid her partner’s penetrating gaze.

His voice softened. “You still don’t like to talk about it, do you?”

“I don’t mind talking about it. I just have nothing new to offer. And it happened so long ago. I barely even remember it.” Not true, of course. She recalled only too well the woman she called aunt standing in the bedroom doorway as Addie had pretended to sleep.

How do we do this, David? That child is barely seven years old. How do we explain to someone so young that her mother has been brutally murdered by a serial killer? Only, it couldn’t have been Orson Lee Finch, could it? You arrested him. Which means there’s another one out there. A copycat...

We’re not going to explain anything tonight. The news can wait until morning. Come away from the door, Helen. Let the girl sleep.

In a minute. I just can’t bear to take my eyes off her. My poor angel...

Orson Lee Finch’s spree had lasted five months. Nine young women had been brutally murdered, all single mothers from affluent families. All slain in the twilight hour by a demented gardener who had left as his calling card a crimson magnolia petal placed on the lips of his victims, as if to seal their deaths with a kiss.

Unlike Delmar Gainey, who had sequestered his victims in his home, Orson Lee Finch had flaunted his kills, leaving the bodies broken and exposed.

Addie’s mother had been the ninth victim—or the first, depending on one’s perspective. She hadn’t been killed by Orson Lee Finch, but her death was a result of his spree. She’d been murdered in cold blood by the FBI profiler who had mind-hunted Finch. For months, SSA James Merrick had tireless tracked the Twilight Killer, only to become the monster he had so obsessively stalked.

“I watched a documentary the other night about the Twilight Killer,” Matt said. “They interviewed people who still think Orson Lee Finch is innocent.”

“Death-row groupies. I’ve run into a few of those over the years,” Addie said.

“No, these people were different. Articulate and respectful, and they made some good points. Got me to thinking.”

“Had to happen sooner or later.”

Matt grinned and folded his arms, which meant he had no intention of letting the subject drop until he’d said his piece. “The case had inconsistencies that I was unaware of until I saw that film. They also ran a segment on Twilight’s Children.” He paused. “They showed your picture, but it didn’t look much like you.”

“Probably an old shot,” Addie said, still avoiding his gaze.

“They said you declined to be interviewed.”

“Because I’m not technically one of Twilight’s Children. Orson Lee Finch didn’t kill my mother.”

“Yeah, but they lump you in just the same, and they still consider your mother the ninth victim. You have to admit, it was one strange, messed-up case.”

“ Messed up is an understatement,” Addie muttered.

Matt continued, undaunted, “An FBI profiler with an almost godlike reputation helps capture the psycho and then ends up stalking and murdering a victim with the same MO in order to continue Finch’s mission. Talk about crazy.”

“Merrick obviously had a psychotic breakdown,” Addie said. “Which is why he remains to this day in the state psychiatric hospital in Columbia. He’s where he belongs. End of story. Let’s get back to Delmar Gainey. We’re standing in his house of horrors, after all.”

“Yeah, sure. We can get back to Gainey. But there’s a lesson to be learned from James Merrick. Especially for you.”

She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Your new assignment.” He let his head fall back against the door frame as he observed her. “It’s a game changer. I’d be the last one to ever stand in your way.”

“I know that. I also know you deserve this assignment more than I do.”

“That’s not true. You’re a good detective, and you’re smart. You need to stop selling yourself short because of a stupid rookie mistake.”

Addie winced.

“Just stay smart, okay? The people who’ll be training you are a different breed. Next-level intense. What we found here is nothing compared to what they deal with on a daily basis.”

“What’s your point?”

“Sooner or later, what they do takes a toll. It has to if you’re human.”

“You don’t think I can handle it?”