A Soul To Steal (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book One) (2 page)

LH File: Letter #1

Date Oct. 1, 1994

Investigation Status: Closed

Contents: Classified

Dear Mr. Anderson,

Some of what I tell you will be lies. I don’t mean to get us off on the wrong foot, but I thought I should make that clear from the outset. There is, at least, a good reason for this caveat. Within the day, this letter will be in the hands of the police and they will pore over every detail, real and imagined. If I only offered truth, it might provide them with a roadmap to me and I’m not quite prepared for that. Yet.

I am a longtime reader of the Chronicle—that part is no lie, I assure you. In particular, your work has captivated me. It’s something in how you write about crime. It seems pedestrian in others hands. But you offer me enough details that I can almost hear the squeal of tires at a roadside accident and smell the smoke from the fire. You are very talented and I have no doubt you will go far.

So allow me to hand you the biggest story of your career.

Approximately 6.7 miles from here to the northwest, just past Waterford on Clover Hill Road, lying in a shallow stream bed, you will find a body. While it’s possible some local urchin will spot it first, it’s sufficiently fresh that I think it likely you could be the first on the scene. Whether you want to see it yourself, or call the police, I leave up to you.

The name of the victim is Henrietta Verclamp. I had nothing against her. She was an attractive 37-year-old artist given to painting nature scenes and we chatted quite amiably shortly before her death. Even when she saw the knife, she didn’t really understand. And why should she? Monsters lurk in the dark, not the daylight, and most don’t stop to chat.

To help you with color for your story, I will tell you this: She attended George Mason University and studied history. Art was something she took up to pass the time when she returned home to Leesburg, Va., while she decided what she wanted to do with her life. On a lark, she entered one of her paintings into a competition and the rest, as they say, is history. She won. In the 15 years since, she has never achieved widespread fame. But I think you will find her reputation was good and growing.

She had wonderfully red hair, an easy laugh and a certain twinkle in her eye when she smiled. Oh, in case it’s relevant, she screamed delightfully when I sliced into her. Unfortunately, I cut a little too close to the left lung and she began choking on her own blood, which rather diminished the effect.

No one heard her. She died at 11:33 a.m. this morning. Her parents, whom she mentioned still live in Leesburg, undoubtedly think she is out painting. Can you call them and tell them yourself, or is that too tacky? I really wish I understood more about the niceties of reporting. I mean, that way you would get a great scoop, right? Be able to tell all about their reactions right as they hear their only daughter has been murdered? That would make for great color, I would think. God, I wish I could see it, but I’ll have to rely on you to convey what you can. I leave it to you to best judge the situation. I can’t know everything and your work has left me sufficiently impressed that I’m confident you will know the best way to handle it.

Now for your questions. I suppose the biggest one is: Why? As you know, it’s the hardest question for anyone to answer. Why does a man feel like watching football on a Saturday afternoon, a cold beer in his hand as he kicks his feet up on the couch? No, that’s a bad analogy.

Why does a woman enjoy a good game of tennis with her best friend on a Sunday morning? That’s better—more active. Believe me, murder is an aerobic workout.

My point is: You do these things because on some level, they are a lot of fun. A way to relax. A way to blow off steam after a hard day’s work. And I figured it was a good way to start the month off right.

There are other reasons. I wouldn’t want you to think I murdered her just for fun. I did it because I wish to prove a point: the world is changing. It’s something indefinable in the air and water. History is a cycle of the rise and fall of civilizations and individuals. There comes a certain point where the apex has been reached and everything begins slipping into darkness.

That point has now come. When it turned, I can’t exactly say, but I feel it under my skin. Underneath the perfume of the roses, you can begin to scent the rot and decay setting in.

I don’t mean this just at a national level. You can feel it here too. Maybe you already do. You are a perceptive man.

Loudoun
County
has stayed much the same as it has for 200 years. But that is beginning to slide. Fairfax County is growing and expanding. Pretty soon, the future will be at the door. There will be immigrants, developers and yuppies flooding through our gates. And that will bring with it the enemy of all humankind: change.

Change is inevitable, but there are times in life when we must make a stand. I intend to do so. My medium is the one best understood by every being on this planet, from the lowly maggot to us—fear.

Don’t worry, I won’t single out immigrants or minorities. I’m not prejudiced and—in all honesty—that would be trite and predictable. For terror to be most effective, it has to be indiscriminate. You can’t ever believe you are safe. You have to always be looking behind you, wondering who is there in the shadow beyond the streetlight. So, starting today, everyone is up for grabs.

I will be the thing people fear. And for all time, my name will send a shiver down everyone’s spine. It will become synonymous with the creeping darkness.

Today is the first day of October. By the end of it, five women, five men and five children will be rotting in the ground. You cannot stop me, just as you cannot stop change. I am night. I am cold. I am flesh rendered and torn. I am steel. I am the harbinger of fall: I am death.

You can call me Lord Halloween.

Chapter 2

Wed., Oct. 4, 2006

Kate woke up thinking about a corpse.

The image should have been faded like an old photograph wearing around the edges. But instead it felt fresh, more real than yesterday, as vivid as a minute ago.

There was a buzzing sound. She had to clear her head with some effort (she could still clearly see the hand lying awkwardly off the bed—the flesh was pink but it was cold to the touch) and realize it was just the alarm clock.

Her hand reached out and fumbled over buttons until the noise stopped.

She took a dim account of her surroundings and tried to let the dream go. Of course, it wasn’t really a dream at all. It was a memory, a related but fundamentally different beast.

It felt stuffy in the room. Kate got up and walked to the sliding glass door. She opened it and felt a breeze blow past. She walked out onto the balcony of the Hotel Leesburg and was treated to a partial view of the town. Zoning laws did not permit any tall buildings within the city limits, so the view was a poor one.

Still, she breathed in the crisp fall air and took in the orange color of the leaves. It might have been beautiful, but she barely noticed.

Why is it always the same? The image of walking across the ground floor of her childhood home, so real she could feel the carpet beneath her toes. In the dream, she knows what is happening above her but cannot stop. She’s stuck on repeat, a character in an old home movie doomed to do the same thing again and again.

But the dream (or the memory, it didn’t matter anymore) could not explain why she was here—why she had come back. Kate stared down the street and felt her hands grip the cold rusty railing. What was she doing here?

She could hear the chirping of birds, with one long mournful call breaking through the morning air. It was the only answer she received.

Would you know it if you went crazy? There was supposed to be a catch—you can’t be crazy if you wonder if you are insane. But it didn’t feel like a blanket exemption. What happens if you can look at your own behavior, evaluate it coldly in the light of day, recognize it for utter lunacy, but can’t stop it?

There was no reason for her to have left Ohio, a suitcase thrown in her trunk, and return here. Not a good one anyway. Did she expect an answer, or healing, or…

She let the thought drift off. Compulsion. What she felt was a compulsion, an obsession, and she hadn’t been able to stand it anymore.  

Kate turned and walked back inside. She sat on the bed and put her head in her hands. Before she could even begin to be depressed, the familiar anger took over, the feeling growing quickly inside her. Why? It was a question that echoed in her head every second of every day. Why had this happened to her?

She stood back up again and walked to the bathroom to take a shower. As she turned on the water, she tried to block out her own thoughts. There were no answers inside her head. She had to trust the instinct—the compulsion—that brought her back here. She hoped some answers were out there somewhere.

It was not until after she toweled off that she saw it. She had just begun to brush her teeth and absentmindedly looked in the mirror. When she looked up, she saw a word written in the mirror. It had been drawn in careful strokes as if the writer had taken their time. Kate was so surprised, she stumbled back through the bathroom door.

 “Sanheim,” it said.

For a moment, Kate almost screamed. But when she opened her mouth, no sound came out. Instead, when she blinked, the message was gone. All she saw was fog on the mirror.

She shook her head. She was going crazy. It was as simple as that.

One way or another, this had to stop.

*****

Quinn sat in his usual place at the Leesburg Starbucks and stared out the window. It had become a ritual, this stop, and he knew it was a bad idea. Starbucks was a giant pit that he threw money into. He could have purchased a coffee maker—it might have even produced better coffee—but somehow coming here made him feel better. Maybe it made him feel less alone.

He picked through the main section of
The
Washington Post
, waiting for something to catch his eye. But aside from the usual political scandals, the various fights in Congress and the inevitable crime stories, there was little to be found. Certainly nothing distracting.

And then she walked in.  Quinn felt the cool draft sweep by him as the door swung open and then shut. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her blonde hair flip off her shoulder—the result of a casual toss of her head. Her hair just brushed her shoulders and curled a little in various directions. It was simple, yet elegant, like her khaki slacks and white blouse.

By now, Quinn was staring shamelessly. No doubt, she was beautiful. Petite and graceful, roughly his age, with delicate hands as she counted out her money for the cashier. But she was compelling in a way Quinn could not begin to explain.

When she turned to find a seat, Quinn almost caught his breath as he saw her bright blue eyes. With great effort, he stopped staring, but continued to steal glances as she stretched out in an armchair to read the paper.

He had never been so drawn to a stranger before, nor so observant of her every detail. Her silver earrings, the way her fingers rested on her eyebrow as she read.

He shook his head. This was stupid.  It was nothing more than a reaction to two dateless years and too much time spent around women who were too old to court. It was a new face, that was all, he told himself. A new face with a great looking body.

Suddenly she caught him watching her. But like a child caught staring, he couldn’t even pretend that he wasn’t. They held each other’s gaze for a moment and then she looked back down at her paper—his paper, his employer in fact. After a while she got up and barely looked his way as she left the Starbucks.

When she was gone, he let out a large sigh, like he had been holding his breath the whole time. What was his problem?

She would be gone now, he thought. If there was destiny involved, surely it had just slapped him in the face and passed him by.

He tossed the paper in a recycling bin and left the shop.

*****

Quinn stared at his desk and for the 15
^th
time this week wondered how he got anything done. The desk was beyond a disaster—it was a crater filled with papers, pads, pens, highlighters and paperclips. Underneath all of it could be the Dead Sea scrolls, but Quinn seriously doubted he would ever know.

It was a pile of rubble that shifted from place to place, exposing bare brown areas of desk. He didn’t think the entire desk would ever be seen again, at least not while he worked there.

Scattered around were various pieces of Tupperware, which he hoped would find their way back to his apartment one day. But considering that every day he forgot they were there, he thought they would have to get up and walk home themselves.

Quinn slung his bag onto an extra chair and flicked on the computer. The computer had no sooner booted up then a little sign appeared in the window.

“How could you perform an illegal function yet, you dumb machine?” Quinn asked it.

Quinn turned off the computer and started again.

He hated computers. Clearly the feeling was mutual. A day that went by without a major computer fault eating one of his stories or just generally going haywire was an event to celebrate. Quinn thought maybe it would help if Ethan actually shelled out some real money for this place, but that was like asking for a miracle.

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by Kyle, who practically burst through the door from the stairwell, walked quickly to his desk and threw his bag on a chair.

“Fantastic,” Kyle declared, to nobody in particular. “Absolutely fantastic.”

Quinn didn’t reply.  You didn’t bother replying to Kyle. In a way, his manner of conversation was like a bad computer program. No matter what input you gave, his output would always be the same.

“I mean fantastic,” Kyle said again, for the first time really turning to Quinn.

“What is fantastic?” Quinn asked, not exactly expecting it to make any difference.

“The fire last night. Whooh, boy,” and Kyle shook his head as if he could not
believe
someone had not seen this “fantastic” thing. “Makes me wish I were still a fireman.”

“Thought you were a policeman,” Quinn shot back.

“Of course, of course,” Kyle said, as if this were a minor detail. “But we handled fires all the time. But last night. Last night was...”

He stopped as if searching for the right word.

“Fantastic?” Quinn offered, smiling slightly to himself.

“Yes,” Kyle said, and pointed to Quinn, gesturing with his finger to his nose. “Yes. Absolutely fantastic. This stupid kid was playing with matches in the garage and managed to light some dry wood lying around.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad,” Quinn said.

“Yeah, well, you should have seen what happened next,” Kyle said, savoring the moment, his hands twitching slightly while his eyes shifted away from Quinn and stared into space.

“The kid ran out, got his parents. And they ran in. And the father saw it, right? He knew what was going to happen.”

“What happened?” Quinn asked, still vaguely looking more at his computer, which looked like it was crashing again, than Kyle.

“The gasoline, man,” and Kyle came up right next to Quinn, as if to whisper conspiratorially.  “Two cans of it—just sitting there. You wouldn’t believe it. When it went off, it was like a bomb. A large explosion.”

“Jesus, was anybody hurt?” Quinn asked, for the first time really looking at Kyle. But Kyle still had that far away look, as if he were replaying the whole thing in his mind.

“Was anybody hurt?” Quinn repeated, with more emphasis.

“What? Oh, no,” Kyle said. “No, the guy knew there was no way. He just got his family out and ran. Ran and ran.  But the garage really went up. I saw that fire burning, and whew! What a doozy. Fireguys said they hadn’t seen one like that since the gas explosion over in Ashburn.”

Quinn didn’t respond. He didn’t want to talk about the gas explosion in Ashburn. Janus and he had been the first on that scene—before even the police arrived. It wasn’t a pleasant memory.

“Amazing,” Kyle said again, shaking his head.

“But nobody got hurt,” Quinn repeated.

“No, no,” Kyle said and his voice appeared to echo with disappointment.

Quinn wasn’t sure though and quickly dismissed it. Injured people might make a better story, but he doubted even Kyle was that cold-blooded.

The guy was a softie, despite a muscular build and an almost fu-Manchu mustache—not to mention an obsession with WWF wrestling that bordered on serious psychosis. He wanted the story, but he wasn’t the type to really want someone dead.

“Amazing,” he said again and wandered back to his desk.

Quinn rolled his eyes.

Within two hours, much of the rest of the staff started to arrive.

Janus showed up first, predictably announcing himself by chucking a mini-basketball at Quinn’s head.

“Head’s up,” he yelled a second before he cut it loose.

Quinn nabbed it out of the air with terrific speed.

“Jesus, how the bloody hell did you pull that?” Janus asked.

“Quick reflexes,” Quinn replied.

“Like you knew it was coming,” Janus muttered.

“I've told you before—you Welsh boys can’t throw too damn well. Too busy playing soccer,” Quinn said and grinned.

“Like you throw better?” Janus asked, but he was chuckling. “I’m sorry about the story.”

“The what?” Quinn replied.

“Come off it, mate. I saw the Summer story,” Janus said.

Quinn grimaced and lied, “It sucked.”

“It didn’t and you know it,” Janus replied.

His voice was not entirely unsympathetic, however. He had his own issues with Summer, to be sure, but even photographers knew what it was like to see a better picture in somebody else’s paper.

Quinn sighed.

“What do you want me to say? She beat me,” he said.

“Well at least you beat her the week before,” Janus replied.

“What, the stalker stuff?” Quinn said. “I guess, but no one will remember, and she didn’t exactly give me credit when she did the same story two days later.”

“You expected her to? That’s optimistic of you.”

“No,” Quinn said. “I suppose actually following the basic tenets of journalistic civility is too much to ask.”

Janus laughed, turned and walked back to the darkroom in the corner of the newsroom—the place where the photographers worked, lived and breathed. Quinn briefly wondered why they still called it a darkroom. With everything having gone digital several years ago, there was no need to keep it dark anymore.

He had little time to think about it, however, before Rebecca came out of her office and took a sharp look around.