Thomas Prescott Superpack (10 page)

In any other situation the five of us would have shot the shit for twenty minutes, each of us filling our respective colostomy bag to the brim, but today was all business. We’d let a killer go free and he was back doing what he did best; chopping and raping, and not in that particular order. From the eight eyes sitting on my chest and the ache in the pit of my stomach, I surmised I was father corn in this steamer. Caitlin played catalyst, “Your theory, Thomas?”

Oh, right. My theory. Here goes everything. I stood, coughed into my hand, and said, “Tristen Grayer . . .”

I coughed once more to add dramatic effect, then continued, “. . . is a twin.”

Chapter 16

Blank expressions canvassed the faces of my peers. Gleason rocked back in his chair, steadfast, and did a rolling motion with his right hand, “Care to elaborate?”

I sat down and crossed my right leg over my left. “Do you guys remember Robert Elby? He was the neighboring farmer who stumbled on Ingrid Grayer’s body.”

They all nodded.

I continued, “Well, I tracked him down in late April and grilled him in-depth about the Grayer family. He told me what he knew and I went to the Aroostook County Records office to try to corroborate his story. Aroostook is so remote only about half the residents are in the record books, but I was fortunate enough to stumble on the Grayer family history. Penelope and Timothy Grayer were blessed with a daughter, Ingrid of course, and identical twin boys, Tristen and Geoffrey.”

None of the four blinked. Caitlin asked dryly, “Tristen had an identical twin? Why wasn’t any of this researched at the time?”

“Because Elby initially told police Ingrid and Tristen lived in the farmhouse alone. No one had any reason to think otherwise, why would we? I only went in search of the information months later because everything ended so neat and tidy.”

Tristen Grayer had shown these people a torn photo Scotch taped back together. I was in the midst of pulling off the tape.

Gleason asked, “So where was the brother Geoffrey in all this?”

“Dead. At least according to Elby. Apparently, the Grayer farmhouse went up in flames three years ago, whereby, the parents and Geoffrey died in the fire. There was no investigation. Hell, there isn’t even a record of any fire. No death certificates, nothing. It was during the winter and nobody noticed. Elby said when spring came, he passed the Grayer farm and saw half the house had burned to the ground.”

Caitlin said, “We knew about the fire. It was hard to decipher at first sight because of the condition of Ingrid’s body, but while doing the autopsy I came across a large amount of scar tissue, presumably from a fire. Also, when Elby gave us the description of Tristen, he’d remarked how he was horribly disfigured from a fire he suffered years earlier.”

I set her straight. “Elby mistook Tristen for Geoffrey.”

Gregory looked flustered and for the first time I couldn’t blame him. He asked, “So where was Tristen in all this?”

“That’s the question. My theory is that he flew the coop after he set the fire.”

Conner said, “You think Tristen set the fire that nearly killed his entire family?”

“That’s precisely what I think.”

Gregory asked, “Why would he try to kill his whole family?”

“I would have to ask him that question, but I’d assume it would have to be sexual. Everyone was probably doing everyone else. Mom, pop, sister, brothers.”

He smirked, “And just what evidence do you have to back this assumption?”

“For starters, while I was at the records office I did a little background on the Grayer family and there appears to be quite a bit of incest. The parents, Penelope and Timothy, were once brother and sister. It goes all the way back to Johanis Elbert Grayer bopping his cousin in the late 1800s and trickles down.”

Gregory threw me a skeptical look, “So the family fooled around, Tristen sets fire to the house and skips town. He’s out of the picture. Geoffrey kills Ingrid and goes on a killing spree. So we got the name wrong. We still got the right guy.”

I smashed my fists down hard on the table, sending a couple wayward drops of coffee spitting onto the table. “No you fucking idiot, you didn’t get the right guy because about ten hours ago I found a woman in thirty pieces in my sister’s bed.”

Todd turned into Zechariah before my eyes and I said, “Let me finish my theory. Three years pass and Tristen, for whatever reason prompts these psychopaths to return to the scene of a crime, feels obligated to go sight-seeing. October first of last year, he makes his way back to the Grayer farmhouse and is shocked to learn his siblings somehow survived the blaze.

“He bursts in and finds his derelict burnt-to-shit brother screwing his derelict burnt-to-shit sister’s brains out. Then to top it off Tristen discovers Ingrid is carrying Geoffrey’s child. The fashion in which he killed Ingrid tells the story. Tristen enjoyed every second of it, he’s never felt so alive, he’s instantly addicted. He wisely holds off killing Geoffrey, knowing full well he has someone to take the rap for all the monstrosities he plans to commit in the coming days.”

I could tell I was starting to turn the four of them and rode my momentum, “In the ensuing carnage, Tristen takes the eyes of each of his victims. I have this image I can’t shake of Geoffrey Grayer tied to a chair with each of Tristen’s victims eyes encircling him, as if to say, If you hadn’t gone and fucked your sister, hadn’t stuck your peepee in the family teepee, then we would all still be alive.”

I walked to the dry erase board at the front of the room. “It didn’t hit me until I read the dedication page of
Eight in October
about a half hour ago.”

I grabbed a blue marker and wrote each of the eight women’s names on the board: Ingrid Grayer, Bethany Eggers, Amber Osgood, Ginny Farth, Deana Farwell, Shelly Regginald, Amy Elles, and finally Sarah Yeirs.

I circled the first letter of each woman’s last name, spelling out G-e-o-f-f-r-e-y. I turned around and stared at the four frozen faces. “Tristen wanted to cause Geoffrey more anguish with each killing. He wanted his brother to know he was responsible for these women’s deaths. These women weren’t Tristen’s victims,
Geoffrey
was.”

I wrote Jennifer Peppers name on the board and circled the P. “I nearly killed him, I nearly ended his game.”

Underneath the P, I added, r-e-s-c-o-t-t. “It appears Tristen has an insatiable appetite for death and I’m next on his list.”

Chapter 17

We broke huddle at noon. Gleason and Gregory had an appointment with the crime scene. Caitlin had an appointment with the Penobscot County medical examiner. Conner had an appointment to get fitted for his Fecal Barometer Internship uniform. I had an appointment with Alex Tooms, a hammer, and her tape recorder. The task force was scheduled to reconvene at three.

It appeared as though Alex’s little article had created quite a stir and there were a barrage of news vans in the parking lot. It took me five minutes to get to my car, and fifteen to get to the Pulitzer Prize runner-up’s stately lake house. I pulled up to Alex’s gate and eighty-three seconds later, I kid you not, I once again applied pressure on the gas pedal and pulled through.

Alex’s Jeep was parked where it’d been earlier and I mentally prepared myself for some ass-kicking. I had to rap on the door with my fist (seeing as the pretentious scribe didn’t have a doorknocker), of which was pulled inward seconds later. Alex had her hair back in a ponytail and was clad in charcoal sweat pants and a huge Boston College hooded sweatshirt.

Uh-oh, of all the outlandish fetishes out there, mine was as simple as a woman in sweat bottoms and a hoody. Beats a cankle fetish I guess.

Alex smiled and said, “Don’t be too hard on me.”

I was optimistic her saying hard-on was just a coincidence and said, “How could you be so reckless? Your little article has jeopardized our entire case, not to mention the fact you used Jennifer’s name. What if someone from her family stumbled on the article? Did that ever enter your little bird brain?” I was going to add dummy-head, but I didn’t want to play my ace too soon.

She didn’t blink an eye. “I don’t lie to my readers. People don’t want to hear John Doe, they want to hear John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. Plus, in defending myself, I figured you would have called the victim’s family before this article even went to print. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this woman was at one point your bride to be?”

Damn, she was right. I should have contacted Jennifer’s parents last night. I changed the subject, “That’s beside the point. You weren’t privy to that information. I want to see that tape recorder.”

“Sure.”

I followed Alex through a series of turns and finally into a large study, slash library. The longest wall, serving as the front of the house, was covered in row after row of hardback novels. There was an espresso machine in the far left corner next to a pair of maroon love seats, snuggled up to an old brass fireplace.

Alex went to a large cherry wood desk with a large fern at each corner and I heard a drawer roll out of bed. After fiddling for a couple seconds, she extracted the tape recorder and handed it to me, “There you go. Is this going to be Exhibit A at my trial?”

I rolled my eyes at her and stared down at the tape recorder. The sleek chrome contraption
was equipped with more than twenty buttons and I asked Alex, “You steal this from James Bond?”

She plopped up on her desk, as did I, sending a wave of fire through my gluteus maximus. Alex laughed and said, “How’s your butt feel?”

Somewhere between a bee sting and a fraternity paddling. I kept this to myself. “Don’t try to change the subject. You have a remote control for this thing or what?”

“Nope.”

“So what did you do? It was off when I took it and off when I gave it back.”

She took the recorder. “You can program a time frame you want it to run. I programmed it to start recording one minute after I turned it off and run for ten minutes.”

Alex showed the simplicity of the operation and I asked, “Didn’t you think I would hear it turn on?”

She clicked down the record button and the tape began rolling without the slightest sound. She hit
Stop
and said, “Never leave home without it.”

I popped the tape out of the recorder and read in Alex’s scrawl, “Oct. 1, 11:30 PM.”

I put the tape in my pocket and asked, “Is every journalist as skilled in the art of deception as you?”

“No. But mine is in the pursuit of the truth.” She grabbed my chin and turned it towards her. “Still, I’m sorry. You trusted me and I abused that trust. I won’t use you for my story ever again.” She kissed me on the cheek.

Well, there went another good grudge.

It was almost three and it appeared as though I was going to be late to yet another meeting. I pulled up to the Federal Building at 3:15 to a buzzing parking lot, whereby, the news vans had mated and reproduced. It took me close to ten minutes and a hundred, “No comments,” before I found the revolving door.

There was a healthy chance my mangy Van Dyke would be paraded all over the eleven o’ clock news. Maybe I should have shaved, or at least worn underwear.

I opened the door to the conference room and before it was half open, Gregory’s exasperating tongue spat, “You’re late.”

“No, I’m forty-five minutes early.” I’d planned on being an hour late.

I sat down next to Conner, who was now clad in a navy blue suit and looking all the part of the asshole agent. Caitlin slid me a dossier across the table and said, “I met with the Penobscot County medical examiner, nothing out of the ordinary. The eyes on the wall were Jennifer’s.”

It’s an ugly day when you can use the phrase, “Nothing out of the ordinary,” in regards to a women who has been raped, beaten, dismembered, and turned into chicken feed. For some reason the fact the eyes were Jennifer’s came as a relief. If they weren’t hers then there was a fair chance they belonged to Tristen’s next victim. Or as I’d started thinking in terms of Mrs. R.

I opened the folder and skimmed over Jennifer Pepper’s autopsy report. I asked Gleason, “Anything from the crime scene jump out at you?”

Gleason shook his head, “Nope. We talked to your neighbors and no one said they saw anything conspicuous. Not that anyone can see your house in the first place, but no one reported seeing any odd vehicles or such. Zilch.”

“Did you ask them about boats?”

Gregory scoffed, “Why would we do that?”

I leaned forward in my seat, “Because my house backs up to a huge body of water called the Atlantic Ocean. Do you find it infeasible for someone to dock their boat on the beach and drag a woman into my house? Do you find that fucking infeasible?”

He didn’t respond and Caitlin said, “I don’t think we’re going to get any anywhere on this sitting on our asses.”

Caitlin was right, the five of us weren’t going to accomplish anything sitting around a giant coffee table playing
The View
when we should be playing
The Task Force
. I stood up and was out the door in a matter of seconds. There were a couple neighbors who I wanted to chat with personally. It’s not that I didn’t have faith in Gleason and Gregory’s interviewing skills. It’s that I didn’t trust them.

There were two squad cars parked in my lawn and one of the occupants tried to stop me from entering. His partner notified him the house was well within my jurisdiction and he let me pass with minimal confrontation.

The house felt odd, like it was a set in a movie and the cast and crew were out to lunch. I went into the kitchen, grabbed a white garbage bag from beneath the sink and walked upstairs. I ducked under the crime scene tape cordoning off Lacy’s room and straightened. The air flooding my nostrils smelled awful, like the Gingerbread Man’s cremation. I wrinkled my nose, more at the sight of the blood soaked mattress than the stale odor.

The blood on the bed was lighter in some places than others and there was a distinct outline of where one of Jennifer’s hands had rested and another that looked remarkably like a set of shoulders.

I stuffed the garbage bag full of Lacy’s clothes, a couple pairs of her shoes, and circled the room waiting for the clue god to whap me on the head with a stick. I had no such luck and found myself situated in front of a long wall mirror hanging near Lacy’s bed. I took an overview of myself in the mirror; my clothes looked like shit and I had five days’ worth of stubble growing. I ran my hand through the coarse cinnamon follicles and decided it was in my best interest to shave.

I turned to check the profile of my budding beard (I was already having doubts about shedding it) and immediately saw my head had been blocking the reflection of Lacy’s lighthouse painting. A great painting is like lasagna, it takes a couple days for all the flavor to soak in. I was admiring the painting, when whap.

I turned from the mirror and walked toward the wall. Eight inches below Lacy’s painting were the remnants of Jennifer’s eyes last resting place. Blood was caked to the wall in about a three-inch diameter, but the portion of wall where the eyes had touched the wall remained
predominantly white. Within each of these havens was a small black hole, an artifact from where each nail had been driven, and the combined illusion was of a set of glaring eyes. It was creepy, super creepy to be honest, but I couldn’t break away from the marvel.

I walked back around the room trying to place what brought about the whap, but nothing registered. I guess sometimes you just get whapped for staring at yourself in the mirror too long.