Collecting the Dead (35 page)
July 9, 9:41
P.M.
As we descend to Bellingham International Airport, a bloom of red and silver fireworks erupts over the bay, expanding to a large moon of sparkling light before dissolving into a storm of falling stars. Close on its heels, a second bloom of blue and gold lights the sky in a flash. Like the first, it quickly dissolves, and the night sky reverts to a dusky blue trailing into black. Independence Day has come and gone, but the revelers remain.
Marty’s voice booms over the PA system, loud and as ridiculously obnoxious as he can make it. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Bellingham International Airport. The temperature is a comfortable sixty-two degrees, with clear skies and a light breeze from the south. Thank you for flying Les and Marty Air, and remember that gratuities are always welcome.” Marty peeks around from his seat in the cockpit and gives us a big grin.
I know how he feels; it’s always good to be home.
Hangar 7 is open and waiting as Les wheels the plane along the tarmac and expertly maneuvers it through the wide, though still tight opening. If the hangar is open, that means Diane is still here. I know that Jimmy called earlier to update her on the case, to tell her of Susan’s rescue. I’ve noticed over the years that she waits for us on occasion. At first I thought it was because she didn’t have anything better to do, or that she’s just that married to her job.
I realized about three years ago that that wasn’t the case.
She only lingers after the tough cases, the ones that take a while to solve and rip your guts out along the way. After those, Diane is always waiting, sometimes with cold beer, sometimes with Chinese takeout, sometimes with her homemade white-chocolate-and-macadamia cookies.
Diane waits because she needs to know her boys are okay. She, better than anyone, knows the dark path we sometimes walk. She’s seen the damage it does, despite our efforts to hide it.
As I step through the Gulfstream’s forward door and make my way down the ladder, two figures wait at the side of the hangar, silhouetted by the lights behind them. One is clearly Diane by her shape and posture, the other … is familiar.
Her face comes into the light as I move away from the plane, and now I can see her warm eyes, her high cheeks, her graceful hands. She steps toward me, trying to read my face, a gentle smile on her lips.
“Heather? I thought you were still in D.C.”
“I finished yesterday,” she says. “I just happened to be talking to Diane earlier and she mentioned that you were flying back tonight, so…”
I can’t help but chuckle. “You just
happened
to be talking to Diane, huh?”
A smile spreads across her face, erupting into dimples at each end as her mischievous eyes beam with delight.
“Well, it’s good to see you,” I say. “Really good.”
She moves close as I set my bag down and then her arms are around me and her head is pressed to my chest. Her hair smells of strawberry and I melt into it, forgetting Zell, forgetting Lauren, forgetting everything and taking each second as it comes.
August 13, 3:17
P.M.
Her name was Ally McCully.
She was born in Fairmont, West Virginia. Ally went to high school in Fairmont, fell in love in Fairmont, worked at a hair salon, performed with the local theater guild, and took night classes at the community college in Fairmont.
Ally McCully died in Fairmont.
An urgent early-morning call from the Criminal Justice Information Services complex in nearby Clarksburg, West Virginia, brought us to this dark and gloomy patch of earth. It’s one of the most dismal forests I’ve set eyes on.
The trees are twisted and contorted, limbs bent as if they have elbows, leaves plentiful, though starved and ugly. The canopy overhead is thick with them, blocking out the sun and blanketing the woods in constant twilight. Even the underbrush is thick, armored in spikes and thorns, barring passage.
This is the dark forest of fairy tales, a haunted wood out of fantasy … only worse, for here is the domain of real monsters.
The prints are before me, behind me, around me; their essence a hard ebony, barely illuminated by a fiendish, slow-pulsing glow. The texture is that of congealed blood, the stuff of nightmares. It corrupts her perfect essence of lilac.
As I stare down at the posed body of Ally McCully, an eleven-year-old crime scene—my first crime scene—suddenly shrouds my vision, and it’s as if I’m staring down at the body of Jess Parker all over again.
In the wild hills of West Virginia, the beast has risen.
My nemesis has left his calling card upon the forest floor.
And as my eyes read the story before me, I can’t help but wonder:
Is this Chapter Two
,
or Chapter Twenty-two?
Is this
murder
two, or murder twenty-two? I choke on the fear that it could be the latter, and shiver as I take in the shine of his hands upon her, every part of her, but most heavily upon her throat, where he squeezed the life from her. Simmering ebony oozes about her neck as she lies upon the ground both beautiful and terrible, as if nailed to an invisible cross.
Welcome to hell
.
The white rises in the knuckles of my rigid fists and I force myself to release.
I stumble and nearly fall as my mind simultaneously devours and gags upon the scene, every dark impression of it. I see what the others don’t. I see where he first placed her arms in a raised position before laying them perpendicular to the body pointing east and west. I see the lilac stains where her legs were likewise splayed before being pulled together pointing south.
I see Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man cast upon the ground in black and lilac.
All the elements are here, even the ring encapsulating the likeness; for the devil has walked in a near-perfect circle around the body, leaving a black trail in his wake.
Vomit comes easy and I feel better, but curse myself for looking the amateur.
My left hand begins to tremble, not from muscle spasm or chill but from something deeper in the bone. I shove it quickly into my pocket.
“What is it?” Jimmy asks furtively, pulling me away from the group.
I don’t answer.
“Talk to me, Steps.” His voice is urgent, distressed. Outwardly he’s composed, but I see the alarm on his face, hear it skulking behind his words. “I’ve never seen you get sick at a crime scene, and we’ve been to some bad ones.” Raising his hand toward my chin, he gasps, “Your face is as white as paper!”
I say but two words and he knows my meaning; two words that will set me upon a new obsession and change what we thought we knew; two words that may well destroy me before the end.
“It’s Leonardo.”
S
PENCER
K
OPE
is the crime analyst for the sheriff’s office of Whatcom County, Washington, where he provides case support to detectives and deputies. Prior to that, he was an intelligence operations specialist with the Office of Naval Intelligence. He lives in Lynden, Washington. You can sign up for email updates
here
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CONTENTS
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
COLLECTING THE DEAD.
Copyright © 2016 by Spencer Kope. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Cover design by Ervin Serrano
Cover photographs: silhouette of man © Mark Owen / Arcangel; smoke © Fiore / Shutterstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kope, Spencer, author.
Title: Collecting the dead / Spencer Kope.
Description: First edition.|New York: Minotaur Books, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016000053|ISBN 978-1-250-07287-0 (hardcover)|ISBN 978-1-4668-8483-0 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation—Fiction.|Serial murder investigation—Fiction.|Tracking and trailing—Fiction.|Psychic ability—Fiction.|BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Police Procedural.|FICTION / Thrillers.|GSAFD: Suspense fiction.|Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3561.O63 C65 2016|DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at
http://lccn.loc.gov/2016000053
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First Edition: June 2016