Taking Liberty (10 page)

___________________________

If I had a dollar for every dead end I’d ever gone down I’d make the Forbes Rich List, easy.

As it was, Rae wasn’t buying it. She had her arms folded defensively across her stomach, with a doubting twist hooking up her lips.

“If that’s the case,” she began, “where are Westbrook’s personal possessions right now? Take a look at this place, Gabe. It’s spotless. Who goes anywhere these days without credit cards and a cell phone? According to your doctor friend, there wasn’t even a watch on that corpse. No wallet. No money clip. I don’t believe for one second Westbrook traveled here with just the clothes on his back.”

Rae had a point. Women have an inimitable ability to sense reality askew. But I also knew that some suicides cleaned up and put their house in order before taking the plunge.

“Locklear and his chums didn’t process the crime scene properly,” I said. “It’s possible Westbrook’s personal effects could still be on that beach. Buried under the snow. Or even out in the water. You heard what Paul said: there were people all over that crime scene. It was dark. People kicking up shingle. Throwing handfuls of snow on the flames. It was organized chaos.”

“How do you explain the lack of toiletries in the bathroom?”

“Maybe he didn’t bring any.”

“Not even a toothbrush?”

I saw the kink in her lips draw into a pucker; she still wasn’t investing in my theory. The more I thought about it, the less I was too.

“I guess some things can’t be rationally explained, Rae. Suicide victims don’t necessarily think logically. If Westbrook did come here with every intention of taking his own life, I don’t think he was too concerned about having minty fresh breath while he was planning a funeral pyre.”

Rae’s frown deepened.

I apologized. “Okay, I’m being insensitive.”

“Hallelujah Springfield. I’m loving the new you. All the same, this message just about qualifies as the strangest suicide note I’ve ever seen.”

Rae was right. Most suicide notes were confessions rather than accusations. But I’d seen enough suicides over the years to know not every person contemplating taking their own life quoted chapter and verse beforehand, or left a lengthy Dear John conveniently wrapping up their life. Pushed to the point of suicide, few people thought with pure logic. Many were accidental deaths: cries for help that went too far and ended badly. Some by attention-seekers. Some by those who simply turned out the lights without any fuss and faded away.

I wasn’t sure which category Westbrook fell into. Judging by his note, he blamed himself for something unforgivable. Something so terrible that it had driven him to flee this world.

I aimed my cell phone at the mirror and snapped a picture.

Rae’s jury was still out.

“It’s classic self-condemnation,” I said. “You can see it now: Westbrook standing right here, despising his own reflection to the point of making this very public statement. Look at the number of times he marked each letter, Rae. He was desperate to get it out, to stress his self-loathing, to make sure those that came after him knew it.”

“Your psychiatrists must be very proud of you.”

“Rae, I’m serious.”

“So am I. You’ve changed, Gabe. And for the better. But I do think you need to go one step farther and change your mind about this. I’m telling you there’s no way this is a suicide. No way. What if we rewind a little here? What if this is the killer’s room, and Westbrook’s the killer? You have to agree, it better explains why this place looks so spick-and-span. Westbrook removed any trace of himself before leaving for Akhiok.”

“Aside from the nutty note on the mirror.”

Rae smiled. “Touché. Come on, let’s check the guest list. See if any names pop up.”

“Such as?”

“Such as someone who hasn’t been back to their room in two days. Otherwise known as a victim.”

___________________________

What were the chances of a killer and his victim renting out rooms in the same hotel? Then again, what were the chances of our having a reservation there, too?

We headed back downstairs. Rae placed a call to the Kodiak Police Department, requesting backup. I got the chirpy clerk on the front desk to print out a list of all guests booked in and out during the preceding two weeks. Told him that the room upstairs was now officially a crime scene and that no one must enter, especially Housekeeping.

I tapped fingers on the counter. “While you’re at it, check who hasn’t accessed their room in the last twenty-four hours.”

The kid tapped keys. “You guys are determined to make me earn this overtime. Let me take a look at the messenger system.”

The guest list was lengthy. A full house. Mainly single males and couples. In town for business or for visiting family over the Holiday period. I only managed to get a third of the way through before hot adrenaline erupted in my chest.

“What’s wrong?” Rae asked as she came off her cell. “You look like a serial killer just climbed in through your bedroom window.”

“One just did,” I breathed, jabbing a finger at a name on the list. “This prize-winning psycho, right here.”

___________________________

The word
coincidence
is a convenient contrivance to discredit the incongruous. A mouthful, but true.

Rae seized the fluttering printout from my hand and read the indicated name out loud – in the same moment the clerk on the counter came up with the same result:

“Gary Cornsilk.”

It meant nothing to Rae, and even less to the kid in the Santa hat. But to me it meant everything.

“You know this person?”

I knew him, all right. But mostly by another name. A name I had given him on a whim, in accordance with his scaly face and his reptile skin boots:

Snakeskin
.

Adrenaline was burning a hole through my sternum.

Since my arrest in the summer, a day hadn’t passed by without Snakeskin invading my thoughts. Early on, I’d made it my mission to hunt him down once I was free from Springfield. Make him pay for the callous murder of Hives, a private investigator I’d hired to do my dirty work. But mostly I’d thought about how I would stop him from finding and killing another serial killer, the killer who had become my prime obsession, the killer I knew as
The Undertaker
.

I took Rae by the elbow and moved us out of earshot of the desk clerk. “Cornsilk is ex-FBI. He was based at the Memphis Field Office. That was until he had a mental breakdown earlier this year and the Bureau put him out to pasture.”

“It still doesn’t explain how you know him.”

The kid behind the counter was leaning over and trying his best to eavesdrop. I turned our backs to him. “There was this farmhouse, in Jackson. It came to light during our investigation into The Undertaker Case. We suspected it was the killer’s family home. An FBI SWAT team was sent in under cover of night, to investigate. What we didn’t know at the time was The Undertaker had rigged the farmhouse with incendiary explosives. When Cornsilk opened the front door, all hell broke loose. Two agents were killed and four were seriously injured.”

Rae was nodding. “Now that you mention it, I remember the incident. I was in and out of the Memphis field office for a while. I knew most of the old school there, including Nielson who was Watch Commander that night. From what I recall, he took a nail through his windpipe and the last I heard he was talking through a machine.”

“Did you ever cross paths with Cornsilk?”

She shrugged. “It’s a possibility, I guess. I didn’t know everyone by name. Maybe if I see a photo.”

“It’ll have to be from before that night. The liquid explosive melted most of his face and all of his humanity. The Bureau sent him to rehab, but he failed every psych evaluation they put him through. They were left with no choice but to show him the door.”

Rae was looking at me suspiciously. “You sure know an awful lot about some guy we pink-slipped. Either you have a good memory for names and incidentals or there’s something crucial you’re not sharing with me.”

Inescapable female intuition. Caught me every time.

Truth was, I didn’t want to tell Rae everything I knew about Snakeskin. Not because I couldn’t, but because Snakeskin was my secret. My pet hate. Mine to hunt down, my way. I didn’t want anyone else coming along for the ride, joining in, interfering with my obsessions. Even Rae.

Rae’s diamond-bit eyes were drilling through my hard outer shell, set to strike a vein of truth at any moment. No way she was letting this one slide.

“Talk to me,” she said, quietly but firmly, “right now, Gabe. I mean it. It’s no coincidence he’s here and so are we. Tell me everything you know.”

I heard myself say: “The concise version is, Cornsilk is a vindictive son of a bitch. He blames me for his life going down the toilet. He came after me, down in Florida. He tried to kill me, Rae. Twice. Tried incinerating me with thermite.”

Therapy had left me with loose lips. I hated it.

Rae’s eyes were wide – appalled by the thought of Cornsilk trying to do me harm. But there was something else behind the horror. Something like skepticism. I could never pull the wool over Rae’s eyes.

“But you weren’t responsible for his meltdown.”

I almost smiled at her choice of phrasing. “True, but he blames me for his downfall nevertheless. It was my case, Rae. I okayed the operation in Jackson. To him, I’m as guilty as the person who did plant those fire bombs. And he’s coming after everyone involved.”

I couldn’t keep it in.

I’d already told her too much.

She
was quiet for a moment, thinking it through.
Frown unmoving, possibly hardening.
I could sense my vague explanation being rolled out and examined under a microscope. Picked at. Undone. I hadn’t mentioned that Snakeskin had also made his intention to kill
The Undertaker
quite clear, but I could see she was about to reach that conclusion without my prompting.

Luckily for me, Officer Hillyard and a fellow female officer bustled in through the main doors just as Rae was about to voice it.

“Dispatch says you need urgent assistance?”

Rae made a pained face. “We do. And we’re so sorry for dragging y’all out here again so soon.”

“It’s no problem, agents.” Hillyard had crumbs in his bushy moustache. Looked like pumpkin pie. “What’s the emergency?”

I handed him a keycard. “Room two-oh-nine. Treat it as a crime scene. No one goes in or out until Forensics get here.”

Hillyard nodded to his partner and they both disappeared up the stairs, armed with a roll of black-and-yellow police tape.

I turned back to Rae. “My hands are up. You were right. I was wrong about the suicide angle.”

She smiled. “Another apology? Oh my. That makes two in a row. Remind me to send your counselors a
Thank You
card. So, we’re in agreement Cornsilk killed Westbrook?”

“I’m leaning toward it.”

“You’re leaning? I thought you didn’t believe in coincidences.”

“I don’t. I’m just having a hard time coming to grips with the discovery, that’s all.”

My brain was wading through the data, bogged down with details.

It was too unlikely that Cornsilk – someone with an unhealthy obsession with fire-starting – would be guesting by chance at the same hotel where another guest had been burned to death. Reasonable to assume therefore that Cornsilk was involved – that he had followed Westbrook to Kodiak, intercepted him at some point, administered a paralytic and then torched him to death on the beach in Akhiok. The question was: why?

What frustrated me the most was the fact we’d been here all night, barely feet from a crime scene and breathing the same air as Gary Cornsilk.

So close.

“You know,” Rae said, “there’s a chance Cornsilk is still here, right now, in the hotel.”

Was it too much to hope for?

Cornsilk’s was a first floor room located at street level along a short hallway. The clerk activated yet another keycard and we slipped down the hall with weapons drawn.

There was an identical paper swingy hanging from the door handle.

Repeat performance.

I slid the keycard in and out. Waited for the green light. Then leaned on the handle and shouldered open the door. We rushed in. Same as before. Rae peeling off into the bathroom, while I headed into the bedroom area.

I heard Rae shout
clear!
and I echoed it back.

The room was an exact copy of its overhead neighbor. Unlike Westbrook’s, this one definitely looked lived in. There were garments on an unmade bed, hooked over the back of the swivel chair and even scattered on the floor. Mainly short-sleeved shirts and boxer shorts, plus one or two pairs of blue jeans.

Snakeskin had an untidy nest.

I went over to the blood-red sofa as Rae came in. There was an open carry-on suitcase propped against the cushions. I peeked inside: more clothes and incidentals, travel tickets, boarding card stubs, survivalist magazines. Unsurprisingly, no sunblock.

Rae pulled open the fridge. “Half a pepperoni pizza in here.”

“Looks like Cornsilk’s still in town,” I said.

Through the window I could see the grille of Hillyard’s police SUV parked nose-in against the metal safety barrier. I picked up the room phone and dialed internally to the room directly above us.

“We’re downstairs in one-oh-six,” I told Hillyard as he answered. “In what we believe is the killer’s room – which means he could return any minute. We need you to move your vehicle and make your presence as low-key as possible.”

“I’m on it,” he said and hung up.

There was a handful of paper receipts on the writing desk. Looked like local eateries and a downtown convenience store. A couple of leaflets advertising things-to-do-and-see in Kodiak – one of which had a folded sheet of paper tucked inside the flap. I held it by the edges and turned it over. There was a picture of a marina on the cover: white boats floating on reflective blue water, with the words
Minky’s Charters
splashed across a navy sky.

I unfolded the printout. It was an invoice, for a boat rental, dated a few days ago. A pleasure craft called
Free Spirit.

“Looks like Cornsilk hired a boat,” I said.

“Explains how he traveled to and from Akhiok undetected.”

I noticed Hillyard through the window. I leaned over the AC unit and rapped knuckles against the glass. He paused with his fingers hooked under the door handle of his Expedition. I pressed the brochure against the pane, so that the picture of the marina was clearly visible.

“St. Paul Harbor,” he shouted, then pointed across the street. “I’ll pick you up out front.”