Death Wears a Beauty Mask and Other Stories (29 page)

Kevin. Of course he would come looking for her when she didn't show up in court. He'd know something had happened to her.

Ica, her housekeeper, would look for her too. She came in on Mondays. She'd know something was wrong. Bree remembered dropping the coffee cup she was holding. It shattered on the kitchen floor as Mensch grabbed her and stuck the needle in her arm. Ica would know that she wouldn't leave spilled coffee and a broken cup for her to clean up.

As her head cleared, Bree remembered that just before she had turned and seen Mensch, she had heard a footstep on the basement stairs. Her mouth went dry at the thought that somehow he had come in through the basement. But how? Her basement door was bolted and armed, the window barred.

Then sheer panic swept through her. Clearly this hadn't just “happened”; this had been carefully planned. She tried to scream, but could only make a muffled gasping cry. She tried to pray, a single sentence that in her soul she repeated over and over:
“Please, God, let Kevin find me.”

•  •  •

Late Tuesday afternoon Kevin received a worried phone call from the agency where Bree worked. Had he heard from her? She never
showed up for work on Monday, and she hadn't phoned. They thought she might have been stuck in court all day yesterday, but now they were concerned.

Fifteen minutes later, August Mensch watched through a slit in his front window drapery as Kevin Carter held his finger on the doorbell to Bree Matthews's town house.

He watched as Carter stood on the front lawn and looked in the living room window. He half expected that Carter would ring his doorbell, but that didn't happen. Instead he stood for a few minutes looking irresolute, then looked in the window of the garage. Mensch knew her car was there. In a way he wished he could have gotten rid of it, but that had been impossible.

He watched until Carter, his shoulders slumped, walked slowly back to his car and drove away. With a satisfied smile, Mensch walked down the foyer to the basement steps. Savoring the sight that would greet him, he descended slowly, then walked across the basement, as always admiring his tools and paints and polishes, all placed in perfect order on shelves, or hanging in precise rows from neatly squared pegboard.

Snow shovels hung over the cinder blocks that he had removed to gain entry into Matthews's basement. Beneath them the mortar had dried, and he had carefully smeared it with the dry flakes he had kept when he separated the blocks. Now nothing showed, either here or on Bridget Matthews's side. He was sure of that.

Then he crossed through the boiler room, and beyond it, to the secret place.

Matthews was lying on the mat, the restraints still on her arms and legs. She looked up at him and he could see that underneath the anger, fear was beginning to take hold. That was smart of her.

She was wearing a sweater and slacks, things he had taken from her closet.

He knelt before her and removed the gag from her mouth. It was
a silk scarf, tied so that it was neither too tight nor caused a mark. “Your boyfriend was just looking for you,” he told her. “He's gone now.”

He loosened the restraints on her left arm and leg. “What book would you like to read to me today, Mommy?” he asked, his voice suddenly childlike and begging.

•  •  •

On Thursday morning Kevin sat in the office of FBI agent Lou Ferroni. The nation's capital was awash with cherry blossoms, but as he stared out the window he was unaware of them. Everything seemed a blur, especially the last two days: his frantic call to the police, the questions, the calls to Bree's family, the calls to friends, the sudden involvement of the FBI. What was Ferroni saying? Kevin forced himself to listen.

“She's been gone long enough for us to consider her a missing person,” the agent said. Fifty-three years old and nearing retirement, Ferroni realized that he'd seen the look on Carter's face far too often in the past twenty-eight years, always on the faces of those left behind. Shock. Fear. Heartsick that the person they love may not be alive.

Carter was the boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend. He'd freely admitted that he and Matthews had quarreled. Ferroni wasn't eliminating him as a suspect, but he seemed unlikely and his alibi checked out. Bridget, or Bree, as her friends had called her, had been in her house on Saturday, that much they knew. They had not been able to locate anyone who saw or spoke to her on Sunday, though, and she hadn't shown up for her court appointment on Monday.

“Let's go over it again,” Ferroni suggested. “You say that Miss Matthews's housekeeper was surprised to find the bed made and dishes done when she came in Monday morning?” He had already spoken
with the housekeeper, but wanted to see if there were any discrepancies in Carter's story.

Kevin nodded. “I called Ica as soon as I realized Bree was missing. She has a key to Bree's place. I picked her up and she let me in. Of course Bree wasn't there. Ica told me that when she went in on Monday morning she couldn't understand why the bed was made and the dishes run through the dishwasher. It just wasn't normal. Bree never made the bed on Monday because that's when Ica changed it. So that meant the bed had not been slept in Sunday night, and that Bree could have vanished any time between Saturday and Sunday night.”

Ferroni's gut instinct told him that the misery he was seeing in Kevin Carter's face was genuine. So if he didn't do it, who did that leave? Richie Ombert, the contractor Matthews was suing, had had several complaints filed against him for using abusive language and threatening gestures toward disgruntled customers.

Certainly the renovation business caused tempers to flare. Ferroni knew that firsthand. His wife had been ready to practically murder the guy who built the addition on their house. Ombert, though, seemed worse than most. He had a nasty edge, and for the moment he was a prime suspect in Bridget Matthews's disappearance.

There was one aspect of this case Ferroni was not prepared to share with Carter. The computer of VICAP, the FBI's violent criminal apprehension program, had been tracking a particular pattern of disappearing young women. The trail started some ten years ago in California, when a young art student disappeared. Her body showed up three weeks later; she had been strangled. The weird part was that when she was found she was dressed in the same clothes as when she had disappeared, and they were freshly washed and pressed. There was no sign of molestation, no hint of violence beyond the obvious cause of death. But where had she been those three weeks?

Shortly afterward the VICAP computer spat out a case in Arizona
with striking similarities. One followed in New Mexico, then Colorado . . . North Dakota . . . Wisconsin . . . Kansas . . . Missouri . . . Indiana . . . Ohio . . . Pennsylvania . . . Finally, six months ago, there in D.C., an art student, Tiffany Wright, had disappeared. Her body was fished out of a Washington canal three weeks later, but it had been there only a short time. Except for the effect the water had had on her clothes, they were neat. The only odd note were some faint spots of red paint, the kind artists use, still visible on her blouse.

That little clue had started them working on the art student angle, looking among her classmates. It was the first time there had been any kind of stain or mark or rip or tear on any of the women's clothes. So far, however, it had led nowhere. Odds were that the disappearance of Bridget Matthews was not tied to the death of Tiffany Wright. It would be a marked departure in the serial killer's method of operation for him to strike twice in one city, but then maybe he was changing his habits.

“By any chance is Miss Matthews interested in art?” Ferroni asked Carter. “Does she take art lessons as a hobby?”

Kevin kneaded his forehead, trying to relieve the ache that reminded him of the one time in his life he had had too much to drink.

Bree, where are you?

“She never took art lessons that I know of. Bree was more into music and theater,” he said. “We went to Kennedy Center pretty frequently. She particularly liked concerts.”

Liked?
he thought. Why am I using the past tense? No, God, no!

Ferroni consulted the notes in his hand. “Kevin, I want to go over this again. It's important. You were familiar with the house. There may be something you noticed when you went in with the housekeeper.”

Kevin hesitated.

“What is it?” Ferroni asked quickly.

Through haggard eyes, Kevin stared at him. Then he glumly
shook his head. “There
was
something different; I sensed it at the time. But I don't know what it was.”

•  •  •

How many days have I been here? Bree asked herself. She had lost count. Three? Five? They were all blending together. Mensch had just gone upstairs with her breakfast tray. She knew he'd be back within the hour for her to begin reading to him again.

He had a routine he followed rigidly. In the morning, he came down carrying fresh clothing for her, a blouse or sweater, jeans or slacks. Obviously he had taken the time to go through her closet and dresser after he had knocked her out. It appeared that he had only brought casual clothes that were washable.

Next he would unshackle her hands, connect the leg restraints to each other at the ankle, then lead her to the bathroom, drop the clean clothes on a chair and lock her in. A minute later she'd hear the whir of the vacuum.

She had studied him closely. He was thin but strong. No matter how she tried to think of a way to escape, she was sure she couldn't manage it. The ankle restraints forced her to shuffle a few feet at a time, so she clearly couldn't outrun him. There was nothing that she could use to stun him long enough for her to get up the stairs and out the door.

She knew where she was—the basement of his town house. The wall on the right was the one that they shared. She thought of how upset she had been about the stained wallpaper on that wall. No, not wall
paper
—wall
hanging
, Bree reminded herself, fighting back a hysterical wave of laughter.

By now the police are looking for me, she thought. Kevin will tell them how I accused Mensch of causing the leak in the roof. They'll investigate him, then they'll realize there's something weird about him. Surely they can't miss that?

Will Mom and Dad tell Gran that I'm missing? Please God, don't let them tell her. It would be too much of a shock for her.

She had to believe that somehow the police would start to investigate Mensch. It seemed so obvious that he must have kidnapped her. Surely they would figure it out? But, of course, trapped here in this cell she had no idea what anyone outside might be thinking. Someone would have missed her by now—she was certain of that—but where were they looking? She had absolutely no idea, and unless Mensch radically altered his routine, there would be no opportunity to let them know she was here. No, she would just have to wait and hope. And stay alive. To stay alive she had to keep him appeased until help came. As long as she read the children's books to him, he seemed to be satisfied.

Last night she had given him a list of books by Roald Dahl that he should get. He had been pleased. “None of my guests were as nice as you,” he told her.

What had he
done
to those women? Don't think about that, Bree warned herself fiercely—it worries him when you show that you're afraid. She had realized that the one time she broke down sobbing and begged him to release her. That was when he told her that the police had rung his bell and asked when the last time was that he had seen Miss Matthews.

“I told them I was on my way back from the supermarket Saturday, around two o'clock, and I saw you go out. They asked what you were wearing. I said it was overcast and you had on a bright yellow raincoat and jeans. They thanked me and said I was very helpful,” he said calmly, in his sing-song voice.

That was when she became almost hysterical.

“You're making too much noise,” he told her. He put one hand on her mouth, while the other encircled her throat. For a moment she thought he was going to strangle her. But then he hesitated and said,
“Promise to be quiet, and I'll let you read to me. Please, Mommy, don't cry.”

Since then she had managed to hold her emotion in check.

Bree steeled herself. She could sense that he'd be back any moment. Then she heard it, the turning of the handle. Oh, God, please, she prayed, let them find me.

Mensch came in. She could see that he looked troubled. “My landlord phoned,” he told her. “He said that according to the contract he has the right to show this place two weeks before the lease is up. That's Monday, and it's Friday already. And I have to take all the decorations down from here and whitewash the walls and also the walls of the bathroom and give them time to dry. That will take the whole weekend. So this has to be our last day together, Bridget. I'm sorry. I'll go out and buy some more books, but I guess you should try to read to me a little faster. . . .”

•  •  •

At ten o'clock on Friday morning, Kevin was once again in Lou Ferroni's office in the FBI building.

“Thanks to the publicity, we've been able to pretty much cover Miss Matthews's activities on Saturday,” Agent Ferroni told him. “Several neighbors reported they saw her walking down the street at about two o'clock on Saturday. They agree that she was wearing a bright yellow raincoat and jeans and carrying a shoulder bag. We know the raincoat and bag are missing from her home. We don't know what she did on Saturday afternoon, but we do know she had dinner alone at Antonio's in Georgetown and went to the nine o'clock showing of the new Batman film at the Beacon Theater.”

Bree had dinner alone on Saturday night, Kevin thought. So did I. And she genuinely likes those crazy Batman films. We've laughed about that. I can't stand them, but I had promised to see that one with her.