Heather Graham - Deadly Fate

And had to do with him and Jackson—and the Fairy Tale Killer.

The day had been ungodly long. While he and Jackson continued to speak with the others, Mike worked with the state police.

No one knew why the phones were down. The techs believed a phone line had been cut somewhere, but it would take a very long time to find out how and where. Of course, phones and electricity went out on the island often enough without help from a criminal mind.

The radios had just been gone. Taken. How or when, no one knew.

The television worked via satellite, but the internet system on the island had been through the phone company and was thus down, as well.

The island had been, for all intents and purposes, cut off.

Thor was good at reading people. At seeing ticks and nuances, the fall of someone’s lids over their eyes, the way they sat—many little things that gave away a liar.

But it seemed—so far—that everyone was telling the truth. Becca Marle, a woman in her early thirties, was athletic and he had the feeling she was usually competent and capable of handling her mic and sound system on her own. She had short dark hair and a muscular, almost square shape, which made him, naturally, wonder about her strength. But, she was still stunned when they spoke; she broke into tears every few seconds, as well.

Tommy Marchant was the oldest in the group, maybe forty-five or fifty, tall with a slightly protruding middle, graying hair and a sun-wrinkled face.

He’d spent most of the interview shaking his head. “Natalie. I’ve worked with her—on one project or another—for nearly twenty years,” he’d repeat now and then. He’d wince, and shake his head again. “Can’t believe it—can’t believe it.”

Nate Mahoney had been the most interesting of the film crew in his initial interview. He couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around the fact that the deaths had been real. He talked about being a fabricator. He could make almost anything appear to be something else. “But, these days...well, there are unions and all, but I hang around to fix fabrications, of course, but also to deal with props and help out. Film...and TV! So fickle these days. The blood and guts were all my inventions. Great, huh. Oh, God, how terrible now. The fake has become the real. I mean, I’m good at what I do, but...wow. I don’t know much about self-defense. I’m scared. Should we be scared?”

Thor had told him that he needed to be vigilant, alert and wary—and, of course, to report anything at all to him or Mike immediately.

He thought about Becca Marle again. She had spent most of the interview crying. She was so distraught she hadn’t even thought to be afraid for herself, but, he imagined, soon enough, she would. Of the seven main members of the Wickedly Weird Productions team, she and Misty Blaine were the two surviving women.

The Annabelle Lee cast had been talkative—maybe because they all knew Jackson Crow already. Jackson’s appearance was a good thing. While Thor felt that talking with Clara Avery had been somewhat of a challenge, it had been easy, thanks to Jackson, to gain trust and a comfortable rapport with the three men.

Now...

Mr. and Mrs. Crowley.

“Their name just had to be Crowley,” Mike murmured, bringing the pair in. Neither Jackson nor Thor responded and Mike added, “Crowley. You know—like Aleister Crowley. The satanist.”

“Yeah, we know about Aleister Crowley,” Thor told him, managing a grim smile. “But, hey, it’s still a pretty common last name.”

“Just don’t think we needed it here!” Mike said. He hesitated and added, “And they’re weird! Remind me of that painting—American Gothic, I think it’s called. Or those movies you see where the old folks are raising a tribe of cannibals who feed off travelers.”

“Mike, there aren’t that many travelers out here—a family of cannibals would starve pretty quickly,” Thor told him.

“They’re still weird!” Mike said.

He’d been to the toolshed and around the Alaska Hut with the couple while Thor had interviewed the others.

Although the police and forensic crews had been scouring the island, the how of the crime here remained a mystery. No weapon could be found; no hiding place. Of course, with not much blood at the site of the body, Thor hadn’t needed the medical examiner to tell him that Amelia Carson had been killed elsewhere, and brought to be left in the snow for discovery. But how had the killer gotten her there—and gotten away—without being seen?

Unless he was among those in the house.

Ralph Martini, Larry Hepburn and Simon Green vouched for one another; they had come to the island together.

Thor had found Clara Avery running through the snow himself.

That left the film crew—unless the three actors had gone crazy and started chopping people up together, a scenario that seemed unlikely.

And then there were... Mr. and Mrs. Crowley.

According to Ralph, Larry and Simon, the first people they had seen were the film crew, when they had—screaming bloody murder over what they had discovered at the Mansion—run into the Alaska Hut. Apparently, Mr. and Mrs. Crowley had been in on what was going on.

Of course. The film crew had signed saying that they would make sure every last piece of fake blood was cleaned up, every bit of fabrication was taken away and the Mansion was left as it had been.

But the members of the film crew had arrived at the Alaska Hut at different times. And no one had seen Mr. or Mrs. Crowley until they’d been there at least twenty minutes or so.

Now Mrs. Magda Crowley sat across from him. She looked stiff and dignified, wiry and fit in jeans and a turtleneck sweater, and still—as Mike had commented—somewhat reminiscent of American Gothic.

“Mrs. Crowley, you’re aware of the dead woman found in the snow, of course.”

“Of course,” she said humorlessly. “My husband and I are older—we’re not deaf or stupid.”

Touché.

“Where have you been all morning? You’re not deaf or stupid so you must know that since you live here, you definitely fall into the suspect range,” Thor said flatly.

Jackson cleared his throat.

But Magda Crowley seemed to like his tone.

“Working, Agent Erikson. Preparing meals. Justin and I live up at the main house, but we came out here early—about five forty-five this morning. We were to leave the house—my pleasure, with the way those film people rigged it up yesterday!—so that it was prepared for the people to come in and see all that fake blood and gory stuff. Justin and I have been in this house since that early hour. We made sure this place was fitting for more filming, for meals. We freshened the bedrooms, we cleaned and prepared. Period. That’s it. Those film people showed up one by one, and then they laughed their asses off waiting for those actor boys to come screaming through the snow. Got to admit, they were kind of anxious when Miss Fontaine and the hostess didn’t come over with the boys. After they all laughed at scaring the actors so badly, they started to argue about whether or not to head over to the Mansion, but someone said something about waiting for Clara to show up and that’s where everything was when I started to hear the commotion going on. You’d showed up with that Clara girl and that was the first I knew that anything whatsoever had gone wrong.”

“You and Mr. Crowley were together all the time?” Jackson asked.

“What? Joined at the hip? No. I was making biscuits. He was making beds,” Magda Crowley said, looking from Jackson to Thor. “Good cop, bad cop?” she asked.

“We’re not cops,” Jackson said.

“That’s right...you’re federal men. Well, you know, this is Alaska,” she said.

“I do. I’m from Alaska, Mrs. Crowley,” Thor told her.