A tech crouched near the wall where he was working to scrape up bits of candle wax. Several candle stubs, burned to the ground, had already been bagged and logged into evidence and carried upstairs to a tented staging area that had been set up outside the house.
A sheet of the same kind of polyethylene tarp that had cocooned Hocking was bundled into a far corner of the cellar, near remnants of decayed sacking, old wooden produce crates, and little windswept piles of dried Garry oak leaves, acorns, bits of old grass and bark, and strands of witch’s beard that had been ripped from the pines growing on the windward side of the island. Luminol had also revealed as blood the dark stains on the cedar planks that lay across the earthen floor.
O’Hagan crouched near the stains, examining the scene against a set of morgue photographs that she’d brought to the island with her. She pointed with her nitrile-gloved finger to the rough, bloodstained cedar. “The size and spacing of the planks matches lividity patterns on Hocking’s back.” She pursed her lips, resembling some strange Pillsbury Doughboy squatting in her oversize boiler suit and cap.
“What is it?” Buziak said.
The pathologist glanced up at the dangling ropes strung over the support beam. “The rope circumference is consistent with the size of some of the ligature marks around her neck, but ...” She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “It’s the gastrointestinal contents. She consumed a gourmet meal to the extreme.”
“And there is no evidence that she ate that here,” Maddocks said.
“Gives new meaning to a last supper,” Holgersen added. “I’s always thought it was a waste, you know, that last fancy supper request stuff for death row inmates, the food sitting undigested in their stomachs when they kick the bucket.”
Ignoring Holgersen, Maddocks said quietly, “She could have been killed somewhere else and brought here by boat shortly after her murder, before lividity set in, which could have happened when her body was left lying on those planks. Or she could have been brought here right after her meal and then strangled here, with those ropes.” He tilted his chin toward the hanging ropes.
“Yeah, like, she could have eaten anywheres along the coast and gotten out here within the hour by boat,” said Holgersen. “Or she was strangled on the vessel that brought her here. Doesn’t exactly narrow things down.”
The wind outside howled suddenly, and a visible shudder chased through the tech scraping up the wax near the earthen wall. He glanced up, wide-eyed, as if one of the ghosts from the eighteen hundreds pox epidemic had suddenly crossed his grave. The ropes swayed, and upstairs a floorboard creaked. Somewhere an old shutter banged.
And suddenly the little girl was there—she was standing next to the tech with the candle in a soft, shimmering wash of pink. Angie froze. She heard the voice inside her head again, like a singsong playground tune ...
Come um dum, playam dum grove ...
Then the woman’s scream in Polish ...Uciekaj!
The girl spun around and ran with flowing hair and dress right through the cellar wall of black earth. Angie stared at the place the child had vanished, sweat breaking out over her body, her heart beating a steadythwump, thwump, thwump. In the distance, as if down some distorted tunnel, she was aware of Holgersen talking.
“Yeah, so he brings her down here, where she either dies, or she’s already dead when he brings her. Maybe he revisits her a couple of times, and once he’s finished with his fantasy thing, and the cutting, and once he figures she’s going a bit rank, he rolls her up in the tarp, drags her down to his boat tied to the dock, puts out to sea. He then tosses her overboard on the lee side of Thetisby Island. He thinks she’ll go down, except ... the currents and weather start her traveling toward the inner harbor. Then maybe she floats up some, and her ropes get hooked up in some boat prop.” He paused. “Skipper probably thought he hit a log or something. God knows those logs are floating half-submerged everywhere out there—real boating hazard in these parts. And then this freak hookup drags her into the harbor, until the rope is severed, and she flows with the powerful tidal surge into the Gorge, just in time for the homeless dude to see her come up under the bridge.”
His voice droned on and on, then drowned as if being swallowed in a tunnel. The cellar started to go black, all light narrowing to one little pinprick ...
Pallorino ... are you okay ... Pallorino ...
“Angie!”
Her eyes snapped wide. She came back into focus.
“You okay?” It was Maddocks; he had his arm around her, holding her up. Panic kicked in. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dust-dry.
“Ah, yeah. I’m fine.” She dislodged herself from his support, grabbing instead on to the ladder that led down from the trapdoor above, steadying herself as she swayed on her feet again.
“Your pupils are really dilated,” he said. “You look waxen.”
Buziak and Holgersen were staring at her, too. O’Hagan was also watching her intently from her crouched position. Concern creased the old doc’s face, which frightened Angie. She needed air. She needed to get out of here, fast. Every molecule in her body was screaming,Flee! Run!Uciekaj, uciekaj!She blinked as a red flash cut across her vision, and she caught a glint of silver that somehow felt like ice searing across her mouth. Her hand shot to her scar, and she brought it away, examining her fingertips, half expecting to see blood.
“Angie?” Maddocks was using her first name and supporting her by the arm again. “Let’s get you out of here and into some air.” He was helping her onto the bottom rung of the ladder, his arms strong, his body warm. All she wanted right now was to just give in to his solidity, the realness of him, to be vulnerable, to allow him to care for her. But she snapped back and stepped out of his grasp and away from the ladder.
“I’m fine, really, thanks.” She wiped her mouth, ensuring there was no blood there, but her scar hurt, which was unusual.
“What happened? Talk to me.”
Everyone was still looking at her.
She yanked her wool hat down harder over her ears, feeling cold. “I said I’m fine.” She turned back to face the scene. “So why did he bring her here, then?” She spoke quickly, trying to show that she hadn’t lost a beat while she actually felt as though she’d been through a gap of hours, weeks, through some weird time distortion. “For some reason Hocking and this cellar fit our subject’s paraphilic love map, as Grablowski called it. She and this location fulfilled his fantasy.” She turned to her colleagues. “He might be a guy of means—wealthy. He either owns a boat or has access to one. Somehow he’s connected to a demographic that can afford to serve black truffles and fly in Kobe beef from Japan.”
“Or he works for rich people,” said Buziak.
“He must have known about this place,” Angie said softly. “For some reason he’s likely familiar with this island, this old homestead, these waters. He must’ve felt safe enough to leave her here for a while, and whether he’s wealthy or not, he likely has a skipper’s license and sails well enough to negotiate these seas in foul weather.”
