Chapter 17
A few minutes later they were seated across from each other at the dining table. As John picked up his fork, she said, “It’s not your grandma’s gumbo.”
He took a bite of the omelet and nodded with appreciation. “It’s good.” He reached for the bottle of Tabasco in the center of the table and sprinkled his omelet liberally. “No offense.”
“None taken,” she said, laughing. “In Louisiana, isn’t it considered one of the five basic food groups?”
He took another few bites, told Mutt he knew better than to beg, and ordered him to go lie down. As Mutt slunk away, he said to Beth, “It really is tasty. I wouldn’t have pegged you for a cook.”
“I can cook an omelet and make a passable spaghetti Bolognese. Cooking for one isn’t very motivating.”
“You don’t have anyone to cook for?”
“Not currently.”
“Divorce?”
“I’ve never been married. Only one of what I would call a relationship.”
“How serious?”
“We lived together for a while. A short while.”
“What happened?”
She pushed a bite of omelet around her plate, picking up stray chunks of tomato and bell pepper. “Soon after he moved in, we discovered we had some irreconcilable differences.”
“He never put the seat down?”
She smiled, then said, “I expected monogamy. He didn’t quite grasp the concept.”
In the faithfulness department, he was no one to judge another man. Then again, his first affair had been in retribution for his ex’s second. At that point, there hadn’t been much of a marriage to salvage. Nevertheless, Roslyn’s betrayal had hurt.
He said, “If the guy knew how important that was to you, and he cheated anyway, you’re better off without him.”
She pointed the tines of her fork at him. “Exactly the conclusion I reached minutes before kicking him out.”
“No one since?”
“No one notable.”
“You’ve got plenty of time.” He paused, then asked, “How old are you, anyway?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Damn.” He lowered his chin to his chest and said under his breath, “I knew it.”
“What?”
He sighed. “You’re too old for me.”
She laughed. He laughed. When it subsided, he decided to venture into territory he thought might be restricted. “I was an only child. You?”
The humor in her expression evolved into desolation. She looked down at the tabletop and followed the wood grain with the tip of her index finger. “I had a sister two years younger.”
He noticed she used the past tense. He waited. If she said no more, he wouldn’t push.
After an audible swallow, she said, “I think Dad must’ve been disappointed that one of us wasn’t a boy. But, unlike me, who was studious, actually somewhat of a bookworm, Adele turned out to be an incredible athlete, which dad could better relate to.”
“What sport?”
“Tennis. By middle school, she was playing at a level well beyond her age. Her potential was evident. She truly was amazing.” She looked across at him as though to make her point. “I was proud of her.”
Then she lowered her head again. This time she tinkered with her unused spoon. “Our family life revolved around her lessons and practices, tournaments and elite training camps. My parents’ focus was on her continuing to excel and eventually go pro.”
“Did she?”
“No. She died of a brain tumor. Only three months after it was discovered. She was sixteen. I was a senior in high school.” She looked up at him again and took a swift breath. “It was a rough year.”
“I’m sorry.”
She gave an obligatory nod. “My parents were shattered, especially my dad, who had put so much stock in her future. When I left home to attend LSU, it was like an escape from the shrine to Adele that our house had become. Paradoxically, their grief was a living thing that consumed them.
“A week before I graduated from university, they were found by a concerned neighbor, dead in their bed, lying side by side. Two gunshots. The pistol was in my father’s hand. They called it a murder-suicide. But I believe they’d made a pact. They had nothing to live for.”
“They had you.”
She gave a rueful shrug. “As I said.” Their eyes held until she suddenly pushed back her chair and carried her plate to the sink. “I have dessert. A pint of ice cream, a pint of sorbet. I barely got them here before—”
She broke off when his computer chimed. He almost knocked his chair to the floor as he got up and rushed over. He didn’t even sit down before accessing his email. “Yes!” He smiled over at Beth. “Roberts and Cougar both came through.”
The next few hours were spent reading through the documents, notes, and interview transcripts that had been sent to him. But plowing through the material had yielded nothing that the detectives hadn’t already told him. His initial excitement had fizzled, then died.
For the past half hour, he’d been slouched in his easy chair, staring into near distance, sullen and incommunicative. He’d declined ice cream when she’d offered to dish it up. When Mutt wandered over to him seeking a pat, John had rubbed him behind the ears, but had paid little attention. Mutt had given up and gone to lie down at Beth’s feet.
She’d been browsing through a boring report filed by the detective in Shreveport when she bravely broke an extended, broody silence. “They really do have precious little.”
John grumbled, “Nothing precious about it.”
“We can discount the Whitmore case,” she said. The file from Gayle Morris in Galveston had popped up in John’s email shortly after he’d received the other two. “Detective Morris is thorough, but that case isn’t relevant.”
“Larissa Whitmore’s body was never found.”
“But the culprit is in prison.”
“Dobbs seems too conspicuous.”
“Like Billy Oliver.”
“Exactly like that. If Dobbs threw that girl overboard, it doesn’t make sense to me that he then curled up in his bunk and went to sleep. Billy is dead, Dobbs is locked away. Both dispatched. What are the odds?”
“You think they’re scapegoats?”
“I don’t know what to think.” He pulled himself out of the chair and began pacing. “For the moment, let’s not discount the Whitmore case.”
“Why?”
“Geography. You yourself said the abductions were regional.”
“You said they weren’t.”
“I was being a jerk, wishing you would go away. But afterward, I looked at a map. The four cities are located within an area bordered by two parallel interstates running east to west, and another two running parallel north and south.”
“You’re including Galveston?”
“It’s just a jog off Interstate 45. It’s not a perfect square, but if our perp lives somewhere inside that area, those cities would make convenient hunting grounds. In advance of the blood moon, he set up shop.”
“A place to do his dirty work? He couldn’t have owned or leased any kind of structure without leaving a paper trail.”
He spread his arms out from his sides, indicating the cabin. “I have.”
“But he may not be as smart as you.”
“Or he’s a lot smarter. You, too, because you raised a good point. So, okay, let’s assume that he chose these cities because he’s well acquainted with them, knows the highways and byways. On the night of the blood moon, he drives into town, cruises the streets until he spies a vulnerable target. A young woman walking her dog. One riding her bicycle.”
“Crissy was leaving a convenience store.”
“He could easily have grabbed them and been gone in under a minute.”
“I doubt any of those women willingly went with him. How did he subdue them?”
Beth was playing devil’s advocate, but rather than become irritated with her, John seemed to welcome the dialogue. Speaking his thoughts aloud had energized him. Brow furrowed, fingers linked over his nape, elbows extended, he walked a tight circle.
“There are all kinds of ways to subdue the victim,” he said. “Right now, let’s focus on once she’s in his clutches. What next? Does he do the deed then and there and dispose of her immediately? Or does he transport her to a place he’s prepared?”
“I would say the latter.”
“So would I. He’s not impulsive. This is one patient son of a bitch. He waits for blood moons to get his thrill. My guess is that he takes them somewhere. Like a trophy.” He flipped his hand toward the head of the fearsome razorback on the wall.
“He has a lair,” he continued. “But not one in each city. No, this is someplace near his home where he can go on a regular basis. He goes to gloat and savor his successes. If we find him and his den, God knows what else we’ll find.”
He stopped moving and looked down at her. “Proving yourself right might involve some horrific stuff, Beth. You need to reconcile yourself to that. If we catch him, you need to be prepared for anything, and it could still be beyond your worst imagining. We may find three bodies. Possibly Larissa Whitmore, too.”
“She was in the Gulf of Mexico, on a boat, with Dobbs.”
“Even he doesn’t dispute that.”
“It could have been an accident of which he was unaware, as he claims.”
“Or, some other dude did it.” He frowned with concentration and started pacing again. “May fifteenth, right? College exams were done, the boardwalk and Pleasure Pier on Galveston were crowded with people ready to kick off summer. Whoever he is, he would have blended in. He spotted Larissa in a bar. She was getting soused on tequila and high on weed.”
“Making out with Dobbs.”
“A problem for our guy. Definitely. But he’s got until what? What was the time frame of the eclipse that night?”
She checked her notes. “In Central time zone, coast of Texas, nine-twenty-eight to eleven-eleven P.M .”
“Okay. Unrushed and unnoticed, he could have stalked her all day. Then… then… Shit. How would he have gotten her off that boat?”
“He could’ve been on the boat with them.”
“A threesome? Dobbs would’ve said so. And how would the culprit have gotten back to shore?”
“Of course,” she said, looking chagrined. “What was I thinking?”
He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Don’t beat yourself up. My brain is fried, too.”
“Want to take a break?”
“No time,” he said with a stubborn shake of his head. “I’ve walked a mile here, but I’m back to where I started. Is his choice random? Or does he stalk them and know where they’re likely to be on the night he takes them?” He looked at his computer, which had gone to sleep. “Pull up their pictures again, please.”
Earlier he had composed the equivalent of a bulletin board, filling his screen with close-up photos of the four young women, two on top, two on bottom. “Give them a good look, Beth, and tell me what they have in common.”
She studied them individually, then leaned back and looked at them collectively. “John, I don’t see anything.”
“That’s right.”
She turned around to him.
“Whatever it is that draws him isn’t a physical trait. Not long blond hair, or blue eyes, or a particular body type.”
“So he does pick at random.”
“Or they have a common trait that isn’t visible.”
“Like what?”
He chuffed. “Well, let’s see.” He began ticking off on his fingers. “Good singing voices, strict religious affiliations, or atheism. Same birthday. Cheerleading. All were mean girls, all made the honor roll.”
“You’re saying that it could be anything.”
“Anything.” He stared into the monitor, the cold light highlighting his eyes and, behind them, his stark desperation to gain insight.
“Those other detectives have compared notes on their victims’ characteristics but haven’t connected one pair of dots. They believe that these women had the rotten luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that the only thing they have in common is that they were abducted on the night of a blood moon.”
He turned away, but had taken only a few steps when he stopped, then came back around abruptly. He said softly, “That’s it, Beth.”
“What?”
Speaking rapidly, he said, “Nowadays, there’s a lot of interest in the occult, fantasy, wizardry, all that. Especially among young people. E-games, Halloween costumes. Hell, the whole Goth thing. Maybe it’s the victims who are fixated on the blood moon, not the perp.”
Beth experienced a tingle of optimism. “I think you could be on to something.”
“I think so, too.” He socked his fist into his palm. “Let’s say our perp is a religious zealot who thinks that all things mystical or supernatural are evil and that anyone who buys into it is—”
“A disciple of Satan.”
“Yes. A handmaiden of the devil. He’s been called to set them straight. He’s been sanctioned to kill them in order to—”
“Punish them.”
“Or to purify and save them.”
“What about Crissy Mellin?” Beth asked. “Was she interested in anything like that?”
“I never knew to ask, but we’ll ask Carla if and when we get to talk to her.” He’d been riffling through their notepads and pens, empty water bottles, the detritus of their hours of work at the computers. “Where’s my phone?”
“End table. Who’re you calling?”
“Morris in Galveston. She’s the one who tipped the blood moon aspect to Barker and the other two detectives.” He pulled up his recent calls and clicked on her number. After several rings, the detective answered amid a lot of background racket.
“Gayle, it’s John Bowie. Bad time for you to talk?”
“Bath time. One tub, three brothers. Hold on while I relinquish refereeing to my husband.”
While they waited, John put the call on speaker so Beth could listen in.
Once back, the detective started by asking if he had received the file she’d emailed. “I did. Thank you.”
“Anything new turn up?”
“Nothing new, but I’ve been thinking of the perp as the one with an obsession for blood moons. But what if it’s the women who have the obsession? He targets them because of it.”
“I’m listening.”
“You said you found nothing suggesting that Dobbs was into mysticism, the occult, astrology, any of that.”
“Nothing.”
“What about Larissa herself? Did she have any interests in that arena? A zodiac tattoo? Anything like that?”
“I got no indication of it. I asked her parents and friends about her interests, hobbies. Nothing like that was mentioned. The posters in her bedroom were of hunky men in G-strings and idols like Beyoncé. Nothing witchy or out there. I don’t think Larissa was that cerebral. Sorry, John.”
He looked at Beth, his disappointment plain. “It was a long shot.”
“A good idea, though.”
“I thought so. I envisioned each of the women caught unaware, abducted while moongazing.”
“Doubtful they would have been doing that in Jackson or Shreveport.”
“Why’s that?”
“Our blood moon here in ’22 was seen against a night sky. But the ones in 2018 weren’t that awe-inspiring in this region. The one in January occurred around eight o’clock in the morning. And because of the Earth’s positioning, it was only a partial eclipse.
“Shreveport’s in July of ’18 was also partial. It, too, occurred in daylight. On other parts of the globe, those blood moons were brilliant. In the southern US, not so much.”