The River Runs Dry (7 page)

“Is there something I can help you with Miss....?”

“Trent, Jessie Trent.”

She stepped quickly and dropped down into the chair opposite him as she spoke. He looked at her like she was mad.

“Are you getting any closer to finding the killer?” she asked quickly.

Jack's eyes narrowed slightly and he sat back. “I can't discuss that with you I'm afraid Miss Trent. I'm just looking to have a quiet breakfast before getting back to work.”

“But it's just, well, I was friends with Taylor Lane. I want to see this guy suffer for what he did to her.”

Jack's eyes loosened up and he took a sip of his coffee. “What makes you think it's a guy?”

Jessie was slightly taken aback by the question. It never really crossed her mind that it might be a woman.

“Um, because most are. I think it's over 92%....and most victims are women too.”

Jack nodded. “You know your stats Miss Trent. But they can be misleading.”

“So you think it's a woman?” Jessie asked quickly.

Jack shook his head. “No, there are no signs to suggest that. But, you can never rule it out.”

He looked at her, her keen eyes working things over. “So you knew Miss Lane? I'm sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks, she was a friend from school. I guess the whole town's grieving as much as I am.”

“That's what I'm afraid of,” said Jack, once more gulping his coffee.

“What do you mean?”

“All of this,” he said, “this media storm. It could send things one of two ways. The killer might run a mile, making it harder and harder to track him or....”

Jessie leaned in. “Or?”

“Or the opposite. Some serial killers love the media attention that comes with their acts, and the media, well they just make it all worse by glamorizing them on film and TV and in books....”

Jack checked himself, thrusting his coffee mug back up to his lips.

“So you think this is just the start?” asked Jessie, quietly.

“I've said too much already,” Jack said, looking around. “It's not good to speculate Miss Trent. As cops we prefer facts, so that's what I'm hunting.”

He stood up suddenly and pulled out his wallet. “Here, this should cover it,” he said, handing Jessie a ten dollar bill. “Once again Miss Trent, I'm sorry for your loss. And don't worry, we'll get them.”

He winked at her before stepping forward and out of the door, just as Brian shouted once more from across the room: “Jessie! Table 3!”

…

Jack stood outside Claire Marshall's house, looking at the front door. The place was still cordoned off by the police, with a single cop standing guard outside by his car.

He walked through the barrier and into the house, nodding at the cop as he went past.

It was warm inside, the air close and humid. No windows or doors had been opened for a couple of days, and the place still had the smell of death lingering inside it.

Jack walked into the kitchen and looked at the floor, the body now taken away. The blood had been washed away by now, too, the entire place carefully examined for any clues before being cleaned to allow Claire to move back in. They came up with nothing. Not a strand of hair. Not the tiniest piece of fabric from the killer's clothes. All they found was a dash of red mud on the floor which suggested a shoe size. Size 12 was the assessment, suggesting that they were dealing with a tall individual, someone over 6 feet by an average conversion.

Jack walked to the back door, which was bolted shut from the inside. It had been like that when they found the body, suggesting the killer left the way he came – out the front. It made sense, given that he didn't know the house. Everything pointed to a random killing, not one that was thought out. No, Tara Bradford didn't know her killer, and the killer didn't know her. It was very much a case of wrong place, wrong time for the poor victim.

Jack turned and walked back into the living room where the girls had drank wine and passed out. The coroners report had indicated that chloroform was used to subdue the girl as she slept, with traces found on her collar, as well as the sofa where she lay. What wasn't clear, however, was how much of an affect it had.

In many cases, chloroform causes fatal cardiac arrhythmia when used in too high a dose. Often, a high enough dose to knock someone out completely and subdue them is sufficient to kill them as well. The coroner couldn't determine, therefore, whether the girl was actually dead before she was stabbed in the brain.

In the end, what does it fucking matter anyway. She's dead now, that's all that matters.

Jack rushed his hands through his hair and grimaced slightly as he saw the scene playing out in his mind's eye. The killer creeping in through the unlocked door, a chloroform-soaked rag in his hand, gripping tight around the girl's mouth and nose, preventing her from crying out, from screaming, before she passed out in his arms.

He hadn't touched Claire, that much was clear. He'd acted so silently that she didn't wake, lifting Tara's body and carrying her into the kitchen, carefully choosing one of Claire's own blades to carry out the murder. He left the knife there, lying beside her, blood and bits of flesh and sinew caught on it's sharp, serrated edge.

These were the facts, but there were questions that Jack couldn't decipher. First and foremost, was why didn't he kill Claire as well? Why just Tara? Why not both of them?

Perhaps he was spooked, perhaps he didn't want to overstay his welcome. It's possible that he was scared of being caught, scared that Claire would wake up, scared that there was someone else in the house. The common perception of serial killers is that they feel nothing, no fear, no guilt, no shame. But they do feel some things, and they are not immune from feeling afraid themselves.

Jack looked around the room, his mind still ticking over. He can't have known that there was nobody else in the house, not unless he already knew the victim, or some details about her at least. But no, this had the hallmarks of an opportunistic kill, a random choice, not a pre-planned one.

So he was quiet, silent even. He'd have waited outside, waited for the time to strike. Only when he was absolutely sure they were passed out, that the rest of the house was empty, would he have entered. So he must have been watching them somehow....he must have seen when they were asleep.

Jack looked up at the window at the end of the room, looking out onto the front yard. He checked around the rest of the room, but there were no other windows there. He stepped quickly out of the front door and searched with his eyes along the grassy patch out the front.

He'd have stood here, right here, crouching down low and waiting.

He ran his eyes close to the ground, and up along the outer window sill, starring close to the small ledge. Then he stopped, something catching his eye. He leaned in closer, his heart rate beginning to rise.

Is that.....blood?

There seemed to be a fleck of red caught on the wood, where a small splinter jutted off the main ledge. He picked out his tweezers and grabbed the splinter at its base, tearing it off from the wooden sill, before examining it closer.

Yes, yes it is blood!

His pulse began to soar as he looked at it, a clear dab of red on the end of the small slice of wood. The killer must have pricked his hand as he stood there waiting, his hands gripping on the ledge as he peered in through the window.

If his blood was on a database somewhere, any database, they'd be able to catch him, or at least identify him. A smile creased his face and he slowly started nodding.

“I've got you now,” Jack whispered to himself, “oh I've got you now.”

Chapter 9

Darcia had been sobbing again. She'd been doing that a lot recently, but this time it was for a different reason.

“I can't believe he'd do that. Are you actually serious?” Her tears were drying up now, her voice growing firmer.

“Sorry babe, you know what he's like. He doesn't have a sympathetic bone in his body. If I were you, I'd quit anyway. It's a shit job Darc.”

“I need the money though. What else will I do?” She spoke with an edge to her voice. Darcia had never thought much of herself, of her ability to make anything of her life. She was content working a basic job, hoping to find a nice man to marry. The simple life would be enough for her. Jessie wasn't sure if she'd ever leave Burgess.

“Anyway, if it's such a shit job, why are you doing it?” She spat the words out slightly, a little run down and emotional after the last couple of weeks' events. She wasn't her usual self.

“Well that's something else I need to talk to you about,” Jessie said, her words slightly heavy. “I'm...I'm thinking of leaving Darc, leaving town.”

Darcia's face contorted into a frown. “How do you mean? Like, going on vacation or something? Yeah, I'd want to get away from all of this shit for a while as well...”

“No Darc...I mean for good.”

“For good? No...where?”

Jessie stood up from the bed where Darcia lay and walked to the window. Her eyes ran over the town that held so many memories for her, good and bad, the town that had been her home her entire life. She loved it, and hated it, in equal measure. Recently, though, her thoughts had gravitated towards the later. The town was slowly becoming her prison, sucking the life out of her. If she didn't escape soon, if she didn't escape now, she might never do so.

“I'm thinking of going back to college, picking up where I left off. All that's happened over the last couple of weeks, with Taylor....it's made me think, you know. Life's too short to be stuck here forever.”

“But we grew up here, our friends are here, our family...”

“I have no family,” Jessie said quickly, turning back to Darcia, who was now sitting up on the edge of her bed.

A short silence hit the room as Jessie turned to look back out of the window.

“I don't have the same ties as you Darc. You've got your mom and your dad and your brother. What do I have? An empty house and working a shit job...”

“You've got me,” Darcia said, standing up and moving over to her. “I'm your family.”

Jessie turned to her again and her tone softened. “I know honey, but you've been here your entire life. I left for a while, I tasted another world, but it was taken from me. It hasn't been the same since I've been back here these last two years.”

“So where would you go? Would you stay near?” Darcia's eyes were welling again. She'd always been an emotional girl but with everything that had gone on, anything was prone to set her off these days.

“Not far, I don't want to go far. LA probably, I'm looking at schools now.”

Darcia nodded. “LA. Like Taylor.”

The memory of their friend rushed through Darcia's mind again as she slumped back down onto her bed, her eyes downcast. Jessie followed, sitting beside her and wrapping her arm around her.

“I've lost Taylor, and now I'm losing you. You're my best friend Jess....I don't want you to go.”

Jessie squeezed tighter around her shoulders. “You're not losing me babe. I'll come back to see you, you can come visit, wherever I am. I just...can't be here any more.”

“And what about your house? Your mom's house?”

Jessie's voice lowered slightly. “I'm going to sell it.”

Darcia looked at her, her eyes widening. “Sell it? But...”

“Yeah, I know, but I can't be locked to that house any more. I need to sell it for tuition. I'd never afford college otherwise.”

“But it's where you grew up. All those memories with your mom.”

“I've still got those memories,” Jessie said, tapping her head, “up here. They're not going anywhere. But if I don't leave soon, I'm afraid I'll be stuck here forever.”

Darcia laughed lightly. “You were never meant to be caged Jess,” she said. “Just like Taylor. Me – there's nowhere for me to go.”

“Don't be silly Darc, you could go anywhere you want. You could come with me, we could get a place together.” Jessie's words were suddenly enthused. She hadn't even thought about it before.

But all Darcia did was shake her head. “I can't leave. I've got my family here, and Tony. Anyway, what would I do in LA, or wherever you go? It would be too big for me.”

“You can do anything. Do what you're going now. LA needs waitresses too, you know. You've got a lot of potential Darcia Robinson.”

Darcia smiled and looked at her. “You think so?”

“Of course! You're young, you're sweet, you're beautiful, you're smart...”

“I'm not sure about that last one,” Darcia said, cutting her off.

“So you agree with the others?” Jessie teased. “Look, all I'm saying is that there's a lot more out there than Burgess, and there's so much you can do honey. Think about it, OK?”

Darcia nodded. “All right, I'll think about it.”

…

Jack's eyes shot up from his desk as Bill stormed in, throwing a paper down in front of him.

“Have you seen this Jack, have the seen what the press are writing about you.”

Jack glanced over the front page of the local paper, but didn't care to look at it for long. He already knew what the press were saying.

They were painting him as the bad guy in all of this, as too young for the case, as incompetent and inexperienced. Jack hadn't quite mastered the ability to ignore all of the jibes that came his way, but he was certainly beginning to learn.

“It's all bullshit Bill. They're just trying to create bad guys and good guys, trying to make this into a bigger story. You know what it's like.”

“But the kid Jack, you brought that kid in for questioning. They're laughing at you out there.”

Jack shook his head. “I have to follow up every lead sir, it's the job.”

Perhaps naively, Jack had thought he'd made a breakthrough, that he had the killer's DNA and that, sooner rather than later, he'd get him. But no, it hadn't worked out quite as Jack had hoped. It wouldn't be as easy as that.

The blood from the splinter had been confirmed as a young man from Burgess, Calvin Williams. He'd been involved in petty criminal activity before, joyriding and engaging in public fights over the last couple of years, and was known as a bit of a tearaway, living with only his father in a small apartment in the center of town.