Agnes Hahn (3 page)

She rubbed her left wrist. There was no need to cuff her at the shelter. But they had. They knew her, knew of her, and yet they felt the need for restraints. And now, they were gone. Off to catch a real criminal, or to pick up an injured animal and deliver it to the shelter.

She was now in the hands of Detective Art Bransome. Why had she remembered his name? Probably because he had pronounced it like it was spelled in all capital letters. With an equal emphasis on each syllable—an accent mark for each. He had tilted his torso forward and then back with each sound, bending only slightly at the waist, like the inflatable, bobbing punching bag she had played with at a friend’s house when she was young.

Detective Art Bransome. Didn’t he realize she was innocent? That this was a ridiculous mistake? Had he brought her in to apologize?

She looked at the reels of the tape recorder, spinning slowly. He had pushed the button without a word to her. He spoke only to the machine. Something about the date and her name. The words were all lowercase, no accents.

Then he had started to pace. With each step, his large belly pushed his shirttail farther across his belt. She caught a good look at the belt before it disappeared. The dark brown leather faded at the margins, frayed with wear. Her frown gave way to a squint. His shirttails billowed from his waist, such a bright white they hurt her eyes.

Why was he waiting? Why wouldn’t he say something?

At the far end of the room, Bransome pivoted on his heels. Agnes’s eyes fixed on his black shoes. They were either patent leather or spit-shined to a military mirror finish.

“Ms. Hahn, would you like a lawyer present for this questioning?”

Yes.

Agnes’s head jerked upward. He didn’t hear it. But it said, “Yes.”

“Ms. Hahn. Do you want a lawyer?”

Bransome seemed to fill the room. He used three people’s allotment of oxygen, and he bragged about it—his heavy inhalations drew across his tongue with a slurping sound.

“Ms. Hahn?”

“No.” It had said yes, but it didn’t understand. She was innocent.

“Okay, then. Let’s get started. Where were you last Saturday night?”

Silly question. Same as always—at home, watching television.

“Ms. Hahn, did you hear me? Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is. Where were you last Saturday night?”

Agnes’s eyes followed the wood grain on the table. The lines were two-dimensional. “At home.”

“All night?”

“Yes.”

“You weren’t in Anchor Bay?”

Anchor Bay? On a weekend?

“Ms. Hahn?”

She kept her arms and legs tucked close, within the confines of the chair, like it was a floor-to-ceiling enclosure. “No.”

“Can anyone else confirm you were at home?”

She looked at the table again. It wasn’t real wood. The grain pattern repeated.

“Ms. Hahn?”

“No.”

“Why should I believe you, then?”

Agnes looked up at Detective Bransome’s massive chest. “I never travel at night. Especially on weekends.” Her eyes returned to the table.

“Why not?”

“I don’t like to drive at night. And people drink on weekends.”

“So you were in Mendocino, at your house, all night Saturday night, but no one can verify it. Right?”

“Yes.”

Bransome walked over and centered himself across the table from her. He leaned forward, his huge hands pushing into the fake wood grain. The table groaned. “And, last month, on the fourteenth. That was a Saturday night, too. Where were you that night?”

Agnes’s eyes scanned halfway up his shirt before the glare drove them back down. “If it was a Saturday night, I was at home. I don’t go out.”

“You never go out on Saturday nights?”

“No.”

“Any nights?”

“No. Unless there’s something I can’t avoid.”

“So, you weren’t in Bodega Bay on Saturday, July fourteenth?”

Bodega Bay? A month ago? Her mind flew through her mental calendar. “No.”

“How about June fifteenth? That was a Friday. Were you in Cotati?”

A frown. “I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean you don’t think so?”

“I give talks. To schools and libraries. About animal adoption and pet care.”

“So you can’t remember if you were in Cotati on Friday night, June thirteenth?”

No need to think back. “Not on a Friday night.”

“How are you so sure?” Bransome leaned on the table again.

“I schedule the talks for the mornings so I can get back here in the afternoons. I don’t drive at night.”

Bransome resumed pacing. “Let’s go back to Anchor Bay, last Saturday night. What if I told you a motel operator identified you coming out of a room at eleven o’clock, last Saturday night?”

“It was a mistake.”

“She said she saw the pet shelter woman. She attended one of your presentations with her children. She gave a complete description. Do you want to change your story?”

Agnes gripped the table edge with both hands. “No.”

“Maybe this will jog your memory.” Bransome opened a manila file folder on the table and pushed an eight-by-ten glossy photograph across until it touched her hands. It was a man. Nude. Blood everywhere. His throat was cut and his penis was severed, sitting on his chest, covered with blood.

Agnes felt the room spin. She closed her eyes tight but the turning wouldn’t let up. Her stomach lurched, then went into spasm. Vomit gushed from her mouth, splattering the photograph and half of the table.

“God damn it.” Bransome jumped back, agile for a man so large. He found an unsoiled corner of the photo and lifted it, letting it drain on the table. “Shit.” He dropped it back in the puddle.

Agnes’s head pounded. She didn’t want to look at the photograph, but she couldn’t look away, either. Did they think she could do something like that? She closed her eyes tight.

The door slammed and Agnes flinched. She looked around—Bransome was gone. Why was he asking about all of those places and dates? Sure, she traveled in Mendocino and Sonoma Counties, even Marin County, to give her talks. All carefully scripted and recited. But she was always back by midafternoon.

She glanced back at the photo. The straight, red line on the man’s neck looked clean, like the incisions on the television surgery shows. Her fingers curled into fists and she twisted her feet together under the chair. She couldn’t even kill a spider.

Agnes scanned a wide arc. The new room was nearly the same size as the previous one, and the table and chairs looked like clones. This one had a window, with bars, so it was flooded with natural light.

She relaxed her focus. Her mind floated beyond the window and wound around the cliffs that overlooked the rough Northern California shoreline. Normally, her mood was like the backwater of a protected bay, lapping at the shoreline, rising and falling with a tide of only inches. Today, she felt like huge breakers were pounding in her head, leaving only the coarsest of sand on the beach.

Her thoughts looped back in the opposite direction. The room was within a tiptoe peek of the fringes of the great stands of redwoods. But even within the silence of those fog-shrouded towers, she found no peace.

The tape recorder button snapped. Agnes jumped, her mind once again imprisoned with her body.

Bransome repeated the flat introduction and sat down this time, on the opposite side of the table. “Ms. Hahn, have you ever been arrested before?”

The words pulled together in slow motion.

Bransome leaned forward and spread his hands, palms up.

“Yes.”

Bransome retreated to the chair back. “How many times?”

“Once.” Her eyes followed his hands as he opened the manila file and turned a couple of pages.

“When?”

“Late eighties. I was nineteen, so it was 1989.”

“You were a member of the Animal Action Committee?”

“No. It was called the Animal Protection Committee.”

“That’s not what it says here.” His right index finger stabbed the page like he was trying to hurt it.

“The name changed later. I didn’t know they were breaking into labs. I didn’t know they hurt those people.”

“But you were arrested.”

“Yes, but the charges were dropped.”

“Well, we brought up your fingerprints, along with the ones we took today, and compared them to a print we found at the Anchor Bay murder scene.”

Agnes’s eyes locked on Bransome’s. “It didn’t match. It couldn’t.”

“It wasn’t a perfect print. We can only use the general shape and pattern.” “It didn’t match.” “At that level it did.”

Agnes held her stare. “You’re making this up. I was at home.”

“There’s one way to tell for sure. Would you consent to a DNA test?”
No.

Agnes shifted her eyes to the left, then to the right, then back to Bransome. It would clear everything up. They’d see it was all a mistake.

“Ms. Hahn. Can we take a DNA sample from you?” “I was at home.”

“The test should answer that, shouldn’t it?”

“Yes.”

T
HE SQUEAK OF
N
IKE SNEAKERS ON THE CLEAN FLOOR
echoed in the corridor of the Mendocino Police Station. Jason froze. What was it about this place? The basketball court traction on the sheet linoleum, the smell of wintergreen disinfectant. They dredged up two-year-old memories that brought him to the tip of dread in an instant. He tiptoed to the door and ground his molars together. Would Bransome remember his squeaking shoes? He’d remember everything else. Bransome had come within inches of breaking some of his own laws two years ago. He’d said so, and Jason had believed him. But right now, Jason worried about the sounds. He wanted to get inside the room before Bransome heard him coming.

Jason took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

Bransome faced the door, his face crimson. “What the hell are you doing here?” He slammed a file folder shut on his desk. “You’ve got balls, coming back here. Why don’t you stay down in Santa Rosa and leave us alone?”

Jason reached out his hand, then pulled it back when it didn’t receive a glance. “Detective Bransome. It’s been a while. I’m here on business. Heard you caught the Menstrual Murderer yesterday.”

“Those details aren’t public knowledge. You call her that in print and I’ll have your ass. Only this time, I’ll do it the back alley way.”

Bransome’s squint honed Jason’s memory to a fine edge. Bransome hated reporters. What had he called them? Sensation-peddling headline hounds? That was it.

“Relax, Detective. That’s just what I call her.”

Bransome took a step closer, violating Jason’s comfort zone, which was five feet with Bransome. “God. You’re still taking a bath in that damn cologne.”

Minotaure.
It was Eugenia’s favorite. She had bought it for him after their first night together. Said she couldn’t resist him in it.

“If you’re here to check on the DNA lab again, it’s clean,” Bransome said. “The old one went out of business because of you. Two friends lost their jobs.”

Jason inched back. “I did what I had to do. The contamination was jeopardizing evidence. I did the right thing.”

“The right thing?” Bransome’s voice bounced around the walls like a racquetball. “Do you know—?”

“I’ve been following Ramirez since he was let go.” Jason tried to match Bransome’s resonance, but he didn’t come close. “I did a story on him last year, and again this year. He’s an upright citizen, married, stable. You know he was innocent.”

Bransome balled his hands into fists. “Really. And the others?”

“I did what was right.” This time, Jason barely heard his own voice.

“Keep saying that. Maybe you’ll convince yourself. I can think of two families you’ll never convince. I’ll take you to meet them if you want to try.”

The wintergreen scent burned Jason’s nose as much as the words burned his ears—a pleasant smell in proper mixture, but irritating here in Mendocino. Everything in this place screamed of two years ago. He had to turn it all off.

“I’m here about the murders. That’s all. They’re big news in Santa Rosa and the whole Bay Area. They started in our backyard.”

“You still with the
Press Democrat?”
A slight grin pushed on Bransome’s cheeks. “I thought you’d be in San Francisco by now, with the
Chronicle.”

Powers straightened his back and pushed his voice to full volume. “Santa Rosa’s home, unless there’s an opening here at the
Beacon.
I’d like nothing better than to work for a small town rag, especially if I’d get to see you every day.”

“So you expect me to cooperate with you—give you information. Is that right?”

“Right now I’m doing background work on Agnes Hahn. I’d like to interview her, though.”

“People with balls the size of grapefruit shouldn’t come within a leg’s length of these shoes.” Bransome lifted his foot and pulled up his pant leg.

“I presume she’s allowed visitors. I’ll make my request through formal channels if I have to.”

Bransome huffed.

Powers took a deep breath and let it out quickly. “Do you know how rare a female serial killer is? And one whose killings are this gruesome? It goes beyond big news. This is sociologically important. This is book material. Don’t you want your name immortalized as the man who caught this depraved woman?”