Dead of Night

Page 49

“Why didn’t you tell the police what you heard?”
“Because I don’t think you had anything to do with his death. And even if I thought you did...” He trailed off on a shrug. “He got what he deserved.”
“I know what he did to her,” Sarah said softly. “I remembered something earlier at the service. I saw him coming out of Rachel’s room one night. He threatened to send me away if I told anyone what I’d seen.”
A strong breeze swept through the trees, blowing dead leaves across the graves. The cardinals were on the ground now, pecking through the dirt.
“It continued, didn’t it?” she said. “It never stopped until she died.”
Curtis closed his eyes. “She never admitted it to me, but I suspected. Especially after she got pregnant.”
Sarah’s stomach churned. “Oh, God.”
“She didn’t want to admit that, either, but she couldn’t hide it from me. I tried to get her to run away with me. I told her I didn’t care who the baby belonged to. I’d raise it as my own. I almost had her convinced. Or at least, I tell myself I did. And then she was killed.”
“Did my father know about the pregnancy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Curtis, do you think he could have had something to do with her death?”
“I’ve wondered about that, but I don’t think so. He was crazy about her. Obsessed with her. But I don’t think he would have taken her life. If I’d thought that, I would have killed him myself a long time ago.”
Sarah shivered. “I’ve always wondered why he never loved me. Now I’m glad he didn’t.”
“You know why he couldn’t love you, don’t you?”
“You knew?” she said softly.
“I guessed,” he said. “You looked so different from Rachel. She was so fair, you’ve got all that dark hair. And then one day, I saw—”
“You saw what?”
He shook his head. “I saw you and I figured it out.”
“It’s funny,” Sarah said. “All my life I’ve never really known who I am. And now for the first time, I think I might actually like to find out.”
Curtis smiled. “Maybe church would be a good place to start.”
Sarah glanced up at him. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
“I think you already know.”
* * *
Everyone had left by the time Sarah got up and walked back across the cemetery, pausing briefly to pluck two roses from the fresh mound to place one each on her mother’s and sister’s graves. Then she turned and followed the flagstone pathway to the gate.
Twilight was still more than two hours away, but the trees along the sidewalk blocked the sun. Sarah was cold and tired and she hadn’t gone more than two blocks before her new shoes had rubbed blisters on her feet. She yanked them off again and carried them by the heels as she plodded along on the cold pavement.
A car pulled to the curb beside her, and she turned in relief, thinking it was Curtis. But her smile died when she saw the squad car, and a moment later, Lukas Clay got out.
He propped an arm on the top of his car as his gaze dropped to her shoes. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. I’m just walking home from the cemetery.” She gestured aimlessly with the shoes.
“Want a ride?”
She hesitated. “I guess that all depends.”
“On what?”
“Did you just happen along or were you specifically looking for me?”
He frowned. “Does it matter?”
“It does if the ride includes a trip to the police station.”
“I’m not here to arrest you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m just offering you a ride home. You look pretty miserable out here. But if you’d rather walk...”
“No, that’s okay.” She hobbled over to the car and climbed in. “Are you sure this isn’t considered a conflict of interest? I am still technically a suspect, aren’t I?”
“I don’t think giving you a ride home is crossing any boundaries.”
They were silent, until he turned down Sarah’s street, and then she saw all the cars still lined up at the curb. “Stop,” she said in alarm.
He shot her a puzzled look.
“I’m not going in there.” She couldn’t go inside her father’s house and mingle with the people mourning his death. Not after what she’d just remembered.
“Where do you want to go, then?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere but here. Just drop me off in town. I’ll find someplace to hang out until everyone leaves.”
“That could be a while.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care.”
He scratched his chin. “All right, look. I’ve got an errand or two to run. You can ride along with me if you want.”
She turned. “You don’t mind?”
“No. But I’m headed out to the country. I won’t be back for a while.”
“That’s fine by me.”
They drove south on a two-lane highway that led them deep into the countryside. They were miles from town. Miles from anywhere, Sarah thought as Lukas turned onto a gravel road lined with hedges and shaded by pine trees.
The road dead-ended into a private lane, and as they drove through, the tires thumped on a metal cattle guard.
A few minutes later, they pulled up to a white clapboard house raised off the ground on stilts. The house had two chimneys and a large screened-in porch to keep the bugs out on warm summer evenings.
Sarah noticed new shingles on the roof and a fresh coat of paint on the gutters.
“Is this your house?” she asked as they got out of the car.
“Yeah, but I don’t live here. I have a place in town. I only come out here every couple of weekends or so to do a little work.”
“It’s nice,” Sarah said, gazing around. “Isolated, though.” She rubbed her arms against a sudden chill. The day was getting colder.
“Come on in,” he said. “I’ll show you around. But watch your step. I’ve got several projects going at once, and you never know when you’ll trip over a loose board or a stray hammer.”
Cane rockers were lined up on the porch. In the summer, you’d be able to sit there and watch the lightning bugs, Sarah thought.
Lukas opened the door and she stepped inside. “Uh, you weren’t kidding about the projects, were you?”
He’d stripped away part of the wallpaper, refinished part of the woodwork, and repaired part of the floor. Nothing, however, was finished.
“I’m getting the sense that you get bored easily,” Sarah said.
“You know what they say about idle hands...” He seemed completely different out here, Sarah thought. More relaxed.
“Have a seat,” he said. “I’ll see if I can find us something to drink.”
The room smelled of sawdust and varnish, tugging loose yet another memory for Sarah, but this one more recent. She suddenly had an image of all those udjats on the walls staring down at her.
She saw nothing like that in here, though. Just the opposite, in fact. A crucifix hung on one wall and a print of The Last Supper on another.
When Lukas came back from the kitchen with the drinks, Sarah was studying a photograph on the mantel.
He held up two chilled beers. “Glass or bottle?”
“Bottle is fine.” She turned back to the mantel as he twisted off the caps. “Is this your mother?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“Was. She died when I was eight. I don’t know why, but my memories of her are kind of hazy. It’s like I just stopped thinking about her one day.” He handed one of the bottles to Sarah. “I guess it was easier that way.”
Sarah returned the photograph to the mantel and picked up a small, wooden bird. “Did you carve this?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It used to be a hobby of mine, but I haven’t done any woodworking in years. I used to paint a little, too, but my mother was the true artist.”
“I don’t know about that,” Sarah said. “This is beautiful.”
A horn sounded outside and she turned to the window. “Are you expecting company?”
“A delivery,” he said. “They don’t like to drop things off way out here unless someone signs for them.”
Sarah went outside with him and watched from the porch as he and the driver unloaded pallets of lumber. When he joined her a little while later, she was sitting in one of the cane rockers.
“Kind of cold out here,” he said. “You should have waited inside.”
“I like it out here. It’s really beautiful. When you live in a city, you sometimes forget what a real sunset looks like. With a view like that, I could get used to all this peace and quiet.”
“Yeah,” Lukas said as he turned and scanned the horizon. “I’ve always welcomed the isolation.”
Chapter 28
Michael Garrett greeted Sean at the top of the stairs, and the two men walked back to his office together. Garrett was dressed in black slacks and a gray cardigan sweater over a crisp white shirt. Casual attire for him, Sean suspected.
He motioned Sean to a chair, then sat down at his desk, the gloom of early evening filtering softly through the window behind him.
“Thanks for agreeing to see me so late,” Sean said. “I couldn’t get away until now. The mountain of misery on my desk just keeps piling higher. I guess I don’t have anything on you, though, do I?”
He was answered by one of those implacable smiles. “I’m glad you called. I hadn’t heard about Sarah’s father. Distressing news, to say the least.” He shifted slightly in his chair. “Tell me about this new message you’ve found.”
“It was scrawled across an upstairs wall in the old farmhouse where Sarah’s sister was killed fourteen years ago.”
“Was it the same message?”
“‘I am you.’ There’s no way that can be a coincidence.”
“No, I agree,” Garrett said grimly. “The murders here in New Orleans would seem to be directly related to Rachel DeLaune’s death fourteen years ago. It’s entirely possible the same killer is killing again.”
“But why?” Sean said. “Why now?”
For a moment, Garrett seemed lost in his own musings. “I’ve been thinking about everything we talked about when you were here last. Something about those tattoos has been troubling me.”
“What is it?”
Garrett turned to his computer. “I want to show you something.”
Sean got up and walked over to lean against the corner of the desk as he stared down at the Rorschach-like images Garrett had pulled up on the screen.
“The first two images are the inkblot tattoos from the victims. I lifted them from the crime scene photographs so that I could more closely compare them to the actual Rorschach inkblot. I’ve been looking for similarities, discrepancies, even the slightest enhancement that we may have failed to notice the first time.”
“And did you find something?”
“I believe so.” Garrett used his finger to point out various features in the images. “Clearly, there’s a distinction in the mind of the tattoo artist between the light and dark faces. I thought he was telling us something important by the way he juxtaposes the faces in each image. Light, dark. Dark, light.”
“The left side represents the mirror image, you said.”
“That’s what I thought at first. Two halves of one whole. But after further study, I realized I was wrong. Each face is slightly different and represents a separate entity. Each entity, with its own distinct drive and history, each with its own family of origin.”
Sean’s gaze was riveted on the screen as he leaned forward, trying to make sense of Garrett’s summary. His arm brushed against the mouse, and one of the images skidded across the page. “Sorry,” he muttered. “We didn’t lose that one, did we?”
Garrett didn’t answer. He seemed transfixed by something he saw on the screen. Sean could almost hear his mind clicking.
“What?”
“We didn’t lose the image,” Garrett said. “It’s layered over the first image. Do you see what happened?”
Sean glanced at the monitor, puzzled.
Silently, Michael lifted a finger and traced the outline of a new face within the two merged inkblots.
“A fifth face?”
“An integration of the other faces. One body, one mind, four personalities.” Michael sat back, his gaze still on the screen. “We’re talking about a multiple,” he said quietly.