Angel Fire (25 page)

“Just a second,” Greg said to the man, “let me just check one more thing.” He couldn’t believe what he was doing and he didn’t know why, but he slipped under the car. He pulled a pen out of his pocket and wrote the vehicle-identification number on his arm where he could pull his sleeve back down over it.

“Well, sir. It was just a couple of loose wires. I tightened them and you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Thanks. How much do I owe you?”

“Forget it; it really was no trouble.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah. My father would kill me, says I’m not much of a businessman. But I just can’t see charging people for nothing. So maybe you’ll bring your car back when there’s a real problem or tell your friends about our garage.”

“You bet. Thanks a lot. Mind if I use your restroom?”

“Outside and around back,” said Greg, following him out.

When the man rounded the corner of the building, Greg wrote down the license-plate number. It was probably a silly thing to do, there were so many green minivans around.

The sky was a crystalline blue and there was a light breeze. Greg looked up and immediately saw two vultures circling low off in the distance.
Today was something’s last sunrise
, thought Greg. He didn’t notice the driver coming up fast behind him as he turned and headed back into the garage.

J
effrey awoke before Lydia the following morning and lay beside her, watching her breathe, watching the delicate rise and fall of her chest. One arm was draped over her rib cage, one thrown above her head, hair spread around her pillow. He brushed a jet-black strand from her cheek and allowed himself to be overwhelmed. She opened her eyes slightly, peered at him through lowered lids, and smiled.

“Feel okay?” she asked.

“Never better. You?”

“I feel good,” she said simply. “This feels …”

“Natural?”

“Yeah. I just thought it might be weird, after all these years, to wake up beside you like this. But it feels like I’m finally in the right place, you know?”

“I know,” he said kissing her lightly on the mouth.

“The temptation is to lie here all day with you, but we really need to get moving,” said Lydia as she sighed, sitting up and looking at the clock.

“You’re right,” he said, the memory of last night’s events and the knowledge that Lydia was in danger moving over his thoughts like a stormcloud. “Let’s go talk to Benny Savroy.”

—

T
he home of Benjamin Savroy and his mother, Greta, looked like a gingerbread house in all its impossible charm and sweetness. Painted red with white shutters, each windowsill held a colorful flowerbox. The lawn was perfectly manicured and lined with lush green shrubs and a white picket fence. Lydia and Jeffrey approached the house by its cobblestone walkway. To the right of the path was a gorgeous flower garden, as lush and well tended as the church garden. She noted many of the same plants and the same wet black earth that she had seen at the Holy Name. She wondered if Benny tended both gardens.

They were greeted at the door by a woman who looked like everyone’s favorite grandmother. Small and plump, with thick gray hair pulled into a braided bun, Greta was wearing a red T-shirt under a denim jumper. Her ruddy complexion seemed to glow and her blue eyes sparkled with warmth and kindness.

“Listen,” she said with an unmistakable New York accent, blocking the doorway, “Father Luis called to say you private investigators might be dropping by. I don’t want anyone bothering my son. He’s a good boy and he never causes trouble.”

“Mrs. Savroy—” began Lydia.

“Ms.,”
she interrupted.

“Ms. Savroy, we don’t want to bother your son. We just want to ask him a few questions.”

“Why?”

“In connection with the murders of Maria Lopez and Christine and Harold Wallace, and the disappearance of Shawna Fox, all members of the Church of the Holy Name,” said Jeffrey. “We are asking the parishioners and volunteers of the church questions to determine if they have seen or heard anything unusual.”

“If you think my son had anything to do with that, you’re
nuts,” said Greta, flushed and nearly shaking with anger. “He has the mental capacity of a twelve-year-old.”

Lydia found her reaction defensive and incongruous with the situation, watching as the woman furiously wrung the dishtowel she held in her hand.

“No, ma’am,” said Jeffrey, his tone at once soothing and authoritative, “we just want to know if he’s seen anything. You can cooperate with us, or we can have the police come and take him in for questioning.”

She considered Jeffrey for a minute, eyes narrowed, hands wringing.

“If you upset him, there’s going to be hell to pay,” she said as she stepped aside, then led them down the hall to a cozy den. Benny sat on the floor, still wearing the beige coveralls Jeffrey had seen him in earlier. He was at least six feet tall and must have weighed in at well over 250 pounds. His sandy-blond hair was neatly combed in a side part and framed his round face, which was the same color and consistency as Play-Doh. His hands looked like bear claws. He was sitting on the floor and watching an episode of
Batman Beyond
on a large-screen television, drinking a glass of milk.

“Benny,” Greta said in the sweet tone Lydia had expected to begin with, “some people are here to see you. They want to ask you some questions.”

He turned around and looked at them.

“Benny, turn off the television,” his mother directed. He did so and then stood to face them. As he pulled himself up to his full height, Lydia and Jeffrey involuntarily took a step back.

“I saw you at the church,” he said.

“Yes, you did. Why did you leave in such a hurry, Benny?” asked Jeffrey.

“You talked about bad things. I got scared.”

“Why were you scared, Benny?”

He paused, rocking and looking at his mother. She nodded.

“I don’t know,” he said softly, sitting on the couch and wrapping his arms around himself.

“Do you take care of your mom’s garden out front?” Lydia asked him, sitting down on the couch beside him so that she was more at eye level with him.

He nodded.

“And the garden at the church, too.”

He nodded again. “I like flowers. They never do bad things. They’re just quiet.”

“I know what you mean. People do bad things but flowers don’t. Right?”

He nodded with enthusiasm, his eyes brightening, happy to be understood. “You just put the seeds in the ground and then make sure they get water and sun. And then a flower comes. Not too soon, but it does come. It’s God that makes the flowers grow.”

“Do you know Father Luis and Juno?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like them?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know anyone else at the church?”

“Not really.”

“Are you sure?”

Benny gazed at his mother and began to rock again. Then he looked to the floor and Lydia followed his eyes. Benny was wearing a pair of Timberland Toledo boots. Lydia took her cell phone from the inside pocket of her jacket and handed it to Jeffrey, who took it and walked outside.

“I want you to think carefully, Benny. You are not in any trouble and you haven’t done anything wrong. Has anybody taken you for a ride in a green minivan? Did someone take you to the park the other day?”

“Benny, what’s wrong?” Greta asked, as she saw his eyes grow red and well up with tears.

Benny released a low moan and shuddered. Greta pushed Lydia aside to get near her son and put her big arms around him. “It’s all right, honey. Try to relax,” she crooned.

“Ms. Savroy, where was your son on the night before last?”

“He was in his bed. Where do you think he was? He’s nothing but a child mentally. He doesn’t go out by himself at night. What is going on?”

Benny’s moaning grew louder. He rolled his head back and his mother tightened her grip on him.

“What about yesterday between the hours of six
A.M.
and eight
P.M.
?”

“I don’t know. That’s when I work. I’m an ER nurse at the hospital and I worked a double shift yesterday. Here probably, or at the church. He can’t drive.”

“Flowers,” Benny said, his breathing becoming shallow, “belong in the ground.”

In the next moment he fell to the floor, convulsing. And Greta, pulled with him, began screaming, “I told you! I told you not to upset him. This is what happens. Oh, God, Benny! Someone call 911. He’s having a seizure.”

Lydia ran to the kitchen phone and dialed 911. As she explained the situation and gave the operator their location, she noticed one of Father Luis’s crucifixes hanging on the wall above the phone.

—

L
ydia watched as the paramedics loaded Benny’s unconscious body into the ambulance and Greta crawled in after him. She had felt guilty and sad as she instructed a police officer to remove Benny’s shoes to compare to the print mold they had taken. She recognized Benny as a pawn in the killer’s game—just like she was. She didn’t know how Benny had been involved, but she knew that he was, and that she had made him remember things he had probably been able to forget, causing him to seize. Through the back window of the ambulance Greta glared at Lydia with unabashed hatred as they pulled away, headed for the hospital. A squad car followed behind.

“I like flowers. They never do bad things. They’re just quiet.”

“Well, the shoes are the same size as the print we found at the park and the forensic report stated that the impression was made by someone upwards of two hundred fifty pounds,” Morrow said, startling Lydia as he came up behind her. “It looks like we might have our man.”

“You’re kidding,” said Lydia.

“You don’t think so?”

“No,” she said, incredulous. “He’s fucking retarded.”

She shook her head and walked away toward Jeffrey. Lydia had been starting to hate Morrow a little less, wondering if she had been too hard on him, even feeling a bit guilty for having held a grudge since St. Louis. Now she remembered why she disliked him so intensely. He hadn’t given a shit about the prostitutes that were killed in St. Louis. He’d just written them off. He’d said, “Johns kill whores every day, Miss Strong.” And he’d ignored her when she’d told him more would die if he didn’t listen to what she had to say. Whether it was because he was lazy or because he
didn’t want to admit that something like that was going on under his nose, he’d shut the door on her. Three more women had died before the case was solved by the FBI. Now he was just jumping at the first person that came along as a suspect: someone who obviously couldn’t have committed these crimes, whatever his involvement turned out to be. Someone who would have a hard time defending himself.

“We are not going to let Benny take the fall for this just because these locals are looking for a victory here. He’s not the one,” she said to Jeffrey, as she passed him and went back into the house. She took the stairs up to Benny’s room.

Jeffrey watched her storm off and turned to see Morrow, who seemed to have had all the air knocked out of him. Morrow wasn’t aware that Jeffrey was observing him while he followed Lydia with his eyes. There was something in the way Morrow looked at her that made Jeffrey, unconsciously, put his hand on his gun.

Moving past the police officers who were overturning cushions and looking into drawers, she sat on Benny’s bed made up with
Star Wars
sheets. It was a child’s bedroom—shelves were filled with toys, posters of Power Rangers hung on the wall, an old computer sat on a blue faux-wood desk. A wastepaper basket was shaped like a football. An oversize polar bear sat on a wicker love-seat by the window. Next to Benny’s bed on the nightstand was a photography book filled with color shots of flowers. She flipped through the pages, wondering how long it would be before Benny was able to speak again.

“Flowers belong in the ground,”
he had said. What did he mean by that? It had raised goose bumps on the back of her neck when he’d said it.
“I like flowers. Flowers don’t do bad things. They’re just quiet.”

“Flowers don’t do bad things. But people do, right, Benny?”
she whispered. Then she slapped the book shut, standing up suddenly, and ran down the stairs.

“Jeffrey,” she said, as she came out the front door … and walked over to Benny’s flower garden. She touched the earth with the toe of her boot and wondered if her thoughts could be right.
“Flowers belong in the ground.” But people don’t, right Benny?
Jeffrey had come to stand beside her.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I think we need to dig up this flower garden.”

L
ydia wanted to be the one to tell Greg. He needed to hear this news from someone who knew what it was like to lose the only person that mattered. But she didn’t have to take it on alone. When Jeffrey had offered to come with her to Greg’s garage, her first instinct had been to tell him no.

“I can handle it,” she said.

“No doubt,” he answered, “but I want us to be a team, Lydia. Let’s deal with the hard stuff together from now on.”

He’d looked a little surprised when she agreed. “Can I drive?” he asked, smiling.

“You’re pushing your luck,” she answered, but walked to the passenger side of the car.

“Wow, this is just like
The Taming of the Shrew.
”

She smacked him hard as they got in the car.

She had watched them load what was left of Shawna’s body into the ambulance. The killer hadn’t even used a body bag for her, just put her in the ground underneath the red larkspurs in Benny’s beautiful, perfectly tended garden. It made Lydia so angry to think that some people never even had a chance at happiness in this world. All those New Age psychobabblers talking about how you make your
own happiness and create positive energy in your life didn’t know shit about Shawna Fox. One of the faceless shrinks Lydia had gone to see had accused her of wallowing in her grief for her mother, had told her she was destroying her life with negative thinking. “Maybe you’re right,” Lydia had answered. “When someone cuts your heart out of your chest and expects you to walk around the rest of your life without it, you let me know how it feels. You tell me when you find a way to stop ‘wallowing.’ ” The irony of that statement was hitting her only now as she and Jeffrey drove to Greg Matthews’s garage, to tell him they’d found Shawna’s body.