The Coldest Fear Read online

  He lifted a manila folder—the one he’d found in Cordelia Morse’s room—from the seat next to him and flipped through the contents. There was an address with a detailed map paper clipped to it. Inside were several photos and newspaper clippings. Cordelia has been very busy, he thought. The prying bitch almost ruined everything. But, in a way, she should be thanked. She had found someone he had been trying to find for years. The next victim.

  But the next target would be a little more difficult than any of the others. Too close to home. If there was such a thing as a serial killer’s how-to manual, the first chapter would be called “Never shit in your own nest.” It was a crude saying, but still, very to the point.

  After he had been released from the asylum he had immediately cleared out of the Illinois/Indiana area and moved down south. Within a week he had claimed his first victim. That one was far too close to home, and it hadn’t taken the police very long to come knocking. He had thought he’d taken every precaution, but his face was too well known. It had taken all his talent to get the police off his scent, but it had taught him a huge lesson. Since then he’d traveled the country, honing his butchering skills, never killing more than a few in any given locale.

  But then he had the misfortune of coming across the article about Jack Murphy. Call it fate. Call it kismet. Whatever. He found himself being drawn home. And at the same time his long-lost sister, Cordelia, was close to finding him. She had some connection with a local attorney, Lenny Bange, and he still wasn’t sure what Lenny had been able to do for her, but he planned to find out. Maybe she had only asked him to help her track her brother down. Maybe she knew something that she shouldn’t. In any case, she could not be allowed to find him. No one could ever know who he really was. So, of course, he had to stop her. But to find out that Cordelia had also found the other . . . well, that was serendipitous.

  He would kill the woman, of course, and then he could go back to his tried-and-true methods. Oregon would be a good place for the next kills. Oregon had their fair share of serial killers. One more wouldn’t matter one iota.

  He looked at the newspaper photo of the woman and reread the twenty-year-old article from the Shawneetown newspaper. She looked old even then, and now she was ancient. It had been many years and a lot of miles since their paths had last crossed.

  Another of his mother’s sayings came to him, A lot of water under the bridge.

  He never knew what that meant exactly, but it was appropriate in an ironic fashion in this case, since that saying would directly involve the next murder.

  He smiled at the thought of Arnold Byrum finding the note he’d left for him. Arnold had to be in hog heaven, getting all of that information. And if Arnold wasn’t as stupid as he looked, he had probably figured out by now that the information was coming from someone directly involved with the slayings. Like maybe the killer.

  This is working better than I’d imagined, he thought and started the engine.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Shawneetown, Illinois, covers two and one half miles of Southern Illinois and boasts fourteen hundred residents according to the Internet. Jack looked at the hand-painted billboard as they flew down the highway at nearly twice the speed limit. Written in foot-high white letters on the billboard that marked the city limits were the words, 1,412 CITIZENS AND ONE GROUCHY OLD COOT. Under the words was a painting of a frowning face with shaggy white hair and a scruffy growth of beard.

  “They must be talking about you, pod’na,” Liddell said, and slowed to twenty-five miles per hour as they entered the town proper. Captain Franklin had called ahead to let the Shawneetown Police Department know the two detectives were coming, but Jack had not heard who would be meeting them.

  After driving less than five blocks they were already coming to the other side of town, or at least the end of civilization. The downtown buildings were built close to the road with barely enough room for narrow sidewalks. The sun was just going down, but CLOSED signs hung in the darkened windows and doors.

  The town seemed smaller than it looked on the map, and more unfriendly than you would imagine a small town to be. They turned off Highway 13 onto North Lincoln Avenue and then onto Shawnee Hill Drive heading north. The houses and trailers were scattered outside the city proper. Blinds moved in windows, but no one came outside their homes. In fact, they hadn’t seen a single soul outside since they had entered the city. Jack had heard a rumor on the cop grapevine that this town liked to smoke the green giant, and that marijuana consumption was an Olympic sport here.

  “It’s a perfect night,” Liddell said. “Where is everyone? Where are the kids?”

  “Maybe the crumb-munchers heard that a full-grown Yeti was coming to eat and pillage,” Jack suggested. He’d gotten into one of his quiet moods and had hardly spoken during the forty-minute trip from police headquarters.

  “You could be right, pod’na. I thought I spotted some lamb’s blood on the doors downtown.”

  “That only works in the Bible, Bigfoot,” Jack said, finally coming out of his reverie.

  “You’re almost funny,” Liddell said. “Did you hear that the last chief of police here was convicted of growing and selling marijuana?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “He’s got new charges now.”

  Liddell glanced over. “I thought he was in prison?”

  “He is. But while he was in prison he tried to hire someone to kill the judge and prosecutor that put him away,” Jack said.

  They passed a small town park with swing sets, teeter-totters, and a merry-go-round, all unoccupied, and drove on in silence, looking out over the landscape. Unlike the Evansville area, the trees here still held a painter’s palette of fall foliage with reds, yellows, and greens that were visible in the car’s headlights. The area was absolutely beautiful, but devoid of people.

  Liddell followed a sharp curve, then headed up a steep hill that would eventually feed back into Highway 13. The police department was supposed to be at the top of the hill. It was. And suddenly they were there.

  Liddell pulled into a gravel parking area just big enough for two vehicles. A marked police car of sorts occupied the other space. The police car looked like an Indy 500 pace car, and on the hood and sides a firebird was painted. The police station was a trailer with wooden steps leading to an open door. Rock music played loudly from inside.

  Liddell and Jack mounted the steps and walked into the open door of the Shawneetown Police Department. Standing with his back to them, a younger man in a skintight uniform played the air guitar along with the rock music. He was close to Jack’s height of six feet, but he was thin to the point of being bony, and his face was a study of sharp angles with a peach-fuzz mustache. He was about to belt out the chorus when he noticed he had company.

  Lieutenant JJ Johnson motioned for them to wait and crossed to his desk to turn the radio off. “That’s better,” he said when it was quiet, with not the slightest hint of embarrassment showing on his face. He stuck out a callused hand that belied his youth. “Lieutenant Johnson. Call me JJ.”

  Jack and Liddell shook hands with him and introduced themselves; then JJ motioned for them to find chairs. Luckily there were exactly three chairs inside the small office space.

  “Chief said you’d be here this evening sometime,” JJ said, and spit into a Styrofoam cup that was stained brown inside. “What he didn’t say was why you was coming.”

  Jack noticed that JJ’s uniform shirt was half buttoned up and he was not wearing a belt. He guessed that the young cop must have been off duty, but being the junior officer in this two-man department, was stuck with doing the grunt work.

  On the wall behind the other desk was a photo of the chief of police that bore a strong resemblance to JJ. Jack guessed there might be some nepotism at work in the hiring practice of the Shawneetown Police Department.

  “I hope we didn’t interrupt any important plans, Lieutenant,” Jack said, and noticed the young man straighten up slightly with pride at being addressed by his
rank.

  “Naw, sir,” JJ said, and spit into the cup again.

  He reminded Jack of most of the young policemen he’d met over the years who were trying desperately to present a tough side. Most of them bought pickup trucks, or muscle cars, and tried very hard to grow mustaches. And then there were the ones who had taken up chewing tobacco, or smoking cigars. And of course the ones that added to the above by hanging out at the Fraternal Order of Police Club and drinking heavily to prove just how “bad” they were.

  JJ fit the profile. He was trying to grow a mustache, was chewing and spitting, and even though he didn’t have the physique for it, he had his button-up shirt pegged at the sides and arms. Jack knew JJ would have a pair of wraparound shades in his police car somewhere.

  “We’re investigating a suspicious death,” Jack said, and saw a gleam come into JJ’s eyes. “The victim used this address as a next of kin,” Jack said, and showed JJ the Illinois Bureau of Motor Vehicle printout on Cordelia.

  JJ’s face turned ashen and the hand that held the paper shook, but only slightly. “Oh my God, it’s Cordelia,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” Jack said. “I hope she wasn’t a relative.” He was kicking himself for forgetting that in these small towns everyone knows, or is related to, everyone else. He should have smoothed the way over the telephone, but there was no putting the cat back in the bag now.

  JJ went behind a desk and sat down. “She’s not a real relative, but we grew up together. Lived in the same house. She lives in an apartment on the other side of town. You guys passed the turnoff for her place on the way in here, I bet.”

  Liddell took out his notebook. “Address?”

  “I know right where it’s at,” JJ said. “You said a suspicious death? Can you tell me what happened to her?”

  Jack pulled up a chair and began. When he was finished, Lieutenant JJ Johnson stood, buttoned his shirt, and said, “I’ll take you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It was late afternoon when Arnold finally made it through the garage door into his kitchen.

  “Arnold, is that you?” came his mother’s voice from up the stairs. “Arnold, where have you been?”

  “Yes, it’s me, Mother,” he said with a sigh. He took his jacket off and laid it across the kitchen chair, then slipped out of his shoes. His feet were killing him. They had always been uncomfortable, but his mother had bought them for him many years ago, just before she became ill. He couldn’t bring himself to part with them.

  He put the kettle on to boil, hoping some chamomile tea would relax him a bit, and opened the door to the fridge to see if there was something to eat when his mother’s voice startled him.

  “Arnold, you’d better get up here.”

  She sounded panicked. Arnold ran to the stairs. “Mother? What is it?” She didn’t answer, and he ran up the stairs and down the hall to her room. When he opened the door the overpowering odor of urine hit him.

  His mother lay on the bed, propped up against the headboard by several large pillows, and everything, bedding, and clothes were soaked in urine.

  His excitement at being on the front page of the newspaper had lessened gradually throughout the workday, but the sight of his mother’s frail and almost bony figure lying in that filthy mess finished off any thoughts he’d had of himself or his own importance. I shouldn’t have left her alone for so long, he thought.

  “Couldn’t you reach the bedpan, Mother?” he asked, and her expression hardened.

  “Pah! Why don’t you use the bedpan?”

  She did this deliberately to punish me, he thought.

  The doctor had told her to use her walker and go to the bathroom. Lying in bed all day was not good for her. But she was stubborn, and seemed to take pleasure in her selfimposed helplessness. Regardless, she was his mother, and he couldn’t bring himself to be cross with her.

  With a resigned sigh he said, “Let’s get you cleaned up, Mother. Then I’ll bring you some sweet tea.”

  “Hmmpf,” she said, and looked down at the floor beside the bed. Arnold followed her gaze and spotted a pile of urine-soaked newspaper. He recognized the front page. His story. His front-page story.

  So. I guess that’s what she thought of my story, he thought, and dutifully bent to retrieve the wet mess.

  In the master bathroom he disposed of the wet newspaper in a plastic bag, tied it shut, and set it by the door. His hands were smeared with black ink from the wet newspapers, so he used his elbow to turn the hot water handle on the sink.

  He scrubbed his hands with lilac-scented hand soap under the scalding hot water and counted silently, One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, until he reached twenty.

  As soon as he turned the water off his mother yelled from her bed, “I didn’t hear you count, Arnold!”

  “I counted to myself, Mother.”

  “I said . . . I didn’t hear you!” Her voice was sharp. “Don’t sass your mother, you ungrateful twit.”

  Arnold turned the faucet back on, and this time counted loudly so that she would hear, but he didn’t put his hands back under the water. The skin on his hands was red and painful from the hot water as it was. This was his little rebellion. A small thing really. A concession. He had been pretending to obey her for such a long time now that it came easily.

  He smiled and began filling the tub with water for Mother’s bath.

  “Are you filling the tub, Arnold?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Well, don’t get it so hot this time!’

  “I won’t, Mother.”

  “And don’t get it too cold!”

  “It will be perfect, Mother,” Arnold said, his mind filled with the memory of Bernice’s smile.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Liddell had somehow squeezed into the backseat of JJ’s souped-up Pontiac Firebird police cruiser, but it was a very tight fit. Jack sat in the front passenger seat, holding on to the hand strap above his window as JJ expertly negotiated a curve. A fiery bird was painted on the hood of the cruiser, and Jack felt that was appropriate as they flew down the hill toward the center of Shawneetown.

  When they had explained to Lieutenant Johnson why they were in Shawneetown they weren’t surprised that he knew where Cordelia lived. After all, it was a small town. But they were taken aback by the fact that Johnson had grown up with her.

  “My parents was killed in a car wreck when I was three. Aunt Elmira took me in like I was her own. Elmira adopted Cordelia about the same time, or maybe Cordelia was left with her as a foster parent. Can’t say for sure because it never mattered to us. We was family,” JJ said.

  “So you probably know more about Cordelia than anyone ?” Liddell probed.

  “We went through grade school and high school together. Friends are mostly the same. Jon was always her best friend though.”

  “What can you tell us about Jon Samuels?” Jack asked.

  “Well, for one thing, he wasn’t Cordelia’s boyfriend. He’s gay.”

  “So he was her roommate?” Jack prodded when JJ seemed to have dropped the subject.

  “Yeah. Something like that, I guess. We were all friends when we was little and it seemed like a normal enough thing to me for Cordelia and Jon to live together,” JJ said.

  Something in JJ’s tone made Jack feel that the lieutenant was avoiding his questions, so he changed the subject. “So do you still live with your aunt?”

  “Oh no! I moved out a long time ago,” JJ said. He seemed much happier talking about himself than about Cordelia or Jon. “Got my own place in Old Shawneetown about a year ago.” The way he said “Old Shawneetown” made Jack think it must be the garden district of Shawneetown. “And then Cordelia moved on in with Jon.”

  “So, where does Jon live?” Jack asked.

  “Well, that’s the thing, Detective Murphy. Jon’s sick a lot so he ain’t home much. Know what I mean?”

  “Pretend I don’t know,” Jack said.

  JJ chuckled at t
he sarcastic remark. “That’s a good ’un. I gotta remember that.” He looked over at Jack with a huge grin and said, “Pretend I don’t know.” He swerved off the side of the road and back on, causing Jack’s knuckles to turn white. “I gotta tell Uncle Bob—I mean the chief—that one.”

  “So, where is Jon’s place?” Jack asked again.

  “Oh. Yeah.” JJ punched down on the accelerator.

  Halfway to Jon Samuels’s apartment, Lieutenant Johnson said, “Aunt Elmira’s in a home right down the street. Couple of Cordelia’s friends work there. They were real tight. If anyone besides Jon knew what Cordelia was doing in Evansville, it’d be them. Want to stop there before we go see Jon?”

  Jack and Liddell agreed it might be faster to talk to the friends and aunt before going to Samuels, but then they might have agreed to anything to get out of the police/race car and put feet back on safe ground.

  JJ pulled into the parking area of an old three-story home that had been converted into a nursing facility and braked hard.

  “I guess she must have finally found out,” Lieutenant Johnson said, as the men extricated themselves from the low-slung seats.

  Jack wanted to shake the young officer, but he forced himself to say calmly, “Found out what, Lieutenant?”

  “Who her real family was,” JJ said, then grinned. “I know. Pretend you don’t know, right?”

  Jack nodded. “From the beginning please.”

  “Cordelia was adopted. We were both adopted. But Elmira is my real aunt. You understand.”

  Jack had already heard this part, but he waited.

  “Okay. Cordelia was about two or three when Elmira adopted her and none of us ever knew where she came from. I know I said it didn’t matter to us, because she was family, but it mattered to Cordelia.” He could see he had lost the detectives so he started again. “I mean we were never told where Elmira adopted her from. It was always kinda hush-hush. But as soon as Cordelia got old enough to start asking questions, that was always the big one.”