“Then so am I.”
“No, I will have backup. You wait where you are, Sully.”
“No chance. I’ll see you on Bleak Road, Detective.”
Sully hung up and headed back down the steep hill. He turned left onto Colorado Avenue and drove three blocks northwest. Windshield wipers swiping, he saw a street sign for Bleak Road and made another left. Fresh tire tracks showed in the snow. Had to be from Leon’s car. There were no homes and only a shadowy wooded area for at least two blocks. Bleak described this road perfectly. Uneven pavement turned to gravel under the snow and then a small wooden house and Lerfeld’s old car appeared at the end of the Jeep’s headlights. Sully drove a little closer and stopped. Earlier, he’d locked his revolver in the glove compartment when he’d escorted his dad into the ER. He’d found Charley’s SIG Sauer there and remembered her placing it in the glove box the evening they’d taken the Jeep to have dinner at the Lodge..
Leaving the Jeep’s headlights on, Sully cautiously emerged from the vehicle. Standing behind the open door of the Jeep, he observed the shabby dwelling. The place appeared dark and dead, but he knew differently. There were footprints in the snow. Once again, two sets. He grabbed a flashlight from the console, shut the Jeep door, and followed the prints. They headed straight into the house. Stepping onto a worn-out porch, hestood to one side of the entrance, as he’d learned from his dad, and banged his fist against the door.
“Charley?” Sully called. Nothing. Complete silence. Snow was falling heavily all around him. “Lerfeld!” he yelled. Nothing. He kicked the front door open a split second before headlights shone in the distance, and then an SUV pulled up next to his Jeep. Sully glanced over his shoulder to see Detective Groves getting out of his vehicle. “I’m going in.”
“Wait. I don’t have a search warrant,” the detective said, also shining a flashlight.
“Door’s open,” Sully said, shining his flashlight on the door.
“Did you hear a cry for help?” Groves asked. “Which would give us probable cause for entering this house?”
“Yes,” Sully said. Though he’d heard it on his phone when Charley cried out half of his name, he knew his answer gave them a legal way to enter the residence. With that, Sully stepped into the dwelling and found a switch just inside the door, but when he flipped it, no lights came on. “Hell,” he muttered as Groves entered right behind him.
“Colorado Springs Police!” Groves announced. “Is anybody here?” No answer.
Sully and the detective shone their flashlights around a tiny living room. With trash lining all four walls it could only be described as a pigsty. Walking forward, wind howled through cracked windows. On a broken-down futon was a filthy cushion. A dingy lamp with a crooked shade sat on a small end table. Groves tried the lamp, but it didn’t work.
The place smelled. Bad. It was also freezing cold. Peeling wallpaper and buckets of water on the floor further attested to the fact the place was not only unkempt but exposed to the elements. Beyond the living room was a kitchen barely big enough to turn around in. An apartment-size stove andrefrigerator framed either end of a chipped and stained countertop.
“Look,” Sully said, shining his flashlight on a pile of toadflax on a rickety kitchen table.
“I’ll be damned,” Grove replied. “Toadflax, the Cave Killer’s calling card.”
“Charley said once that toadflax was found in degraded areas. How right she was.”
Groves led the way down a short hallway past a disgusting bathroom. It stunk, and a rat scurried across a floor marred by patches of missing linoleum. In the bedroom across the hall was a bed. Lying on it were two people. And a small dog.
“Police!” Groves announced and shined his flashlight on the bed.
A closer look showed the corpse of an aged, decaying man with dried blood on his torso. The decomposing body of the elderly woman beside him had a knife stuck in her chest. The dog’s head lay twisted at a fatal angle from its body.
“Think that man is Leon Lerfeld?” Sully asked under his breath.
“And his wife,” Groves said, pulling out his cell phone. “Explains some of the stench.”
As Groves called in a report on the bodies, Sully wondered if the couple had been killed in their sleep as they were clad in pajamas. Sully backed out of the room and opened a door in the hallway. What he saw stopped him in his tracks.
“Detective,” Sully called. “Come look at this.”
“Crime scene investigation, forensics, and the coroner are on their way,” Groves said, coming up alongside him. “Is that a hole in the floor?”
“Yeah, big enough for a person to fit through,” Sully said, shining his light into the hole. “And escape into the tunnels.” Helooked at Groves and said, “Leon Lerfeld or whatever his name is, is definitely the Cave Killer.”
“Sure as hell looks like it,” Groves said, staring into the pit equipped with a wooden ladder. “If this hole leads to a tunnel or the maze of tunnels under this area, that would explain how he’s been killing women and getting away without being seen.”
“He has Charley. I’m going after them,” Sully said and took a step.
“No, I can’t let you do that,” Groves said and caught his arm.
“You can’t stop me,” Sully replied and jerked his arm free. Before the detective could grab him again, Sully shimmied down the ladder into the pit. He slowly aimed his flashlight in a full circle. Darkness, muddy ground, and more rats. He pulled his Ruger Redhawk .44 Magnum out of his holster. Sure enough, a tunnel opened to his right. Holding the flashlight in his left hand, he veered in that direction. Hearing a noise at his back, he made a half-turn in time to see Groves drop off the bottom rung of the ladder and into the pit.
“I let my team know we’re possibly on the Cave Killer’s trail,” the detective said.
