Last Words Read online

  “So you said.” He leaned against the back of the booth and smiled. “And I’m not arguing.”

  “Good, ’cause it wouldn’t do you any good.” She placed several bills on the table and looked across at her brother. “You ready?”

  “I am.”

  They both stood at the same time and headed for the door, Beck stopping at this table and that to have a word here and there. While he did so, Vanessa waited patiently, watching her brother shake a hand or pat a back, always with a smile on his face.

  “You’re in your element here,” she said when he joined her at the door.

  “Seems so.” He pushed the door open and nodded to the couple coming in as he and Vanessa went out.

  “I’m glad. It was a long time coming.”

  He didn’t bother to respond. There was nothing to be said.

  “You’re almost happy here, aren’t you?”

  “Almost.”

  “I guess that’s something.” She touched his arm lightly to acknowledge his admission, then pointed to the end of the street. “My car’s down there. Where’s yours?”

  “I let Hal take the patrol car. He spent too much time on his feet today. I figured I could walk home, walk in to the station in the morning.”

  “Walk me down to my car, then, and I’ll drive you home.”

  “Sure.”

  They strolled along the newly cobbled sidewalk, renovated in the early spring when the final colonial touches were made to the town to play up its revolutionary war heritage and hopefully, bring in some tourist money. Vanessa’s heels tapped on the stones as they walked the two blocks to her car.

  “I got a postcard from Mom,” Vanessa told him when they’d gone half a block. “She’s in North Dakota.”

  When Beck didn’t respond, she said, “She’s remarried. A sheep farmer this time.”

  “Did she invite you to come to see her?”

  “No.”

  “Did she say she’d come to see you?”

  “No.”

  “Did she apologize for-”

  “Stop it.” Vanessa had reached her car and stood at the door, her key in her right hand. “Just…stop.”

  “Then stop telling me about her. I don’t care where she is and I don’t want to know what she’s doing.”

  Vanessa unlocked the door. “Get in. I’ll drop you off.”

  “I think I’ll walk.”

  “Don’t be mad at me, Beck. I just thought you’d want to know-”

  “Know what? That Maggie’s alive and well and living large out West? Fine. You told me.” He exhaled a long, deep breath. “I’m not angry with you. I swear I’m not. I just don’t want to hear about it, okay?”

  “Okay.” Vanessa nodded. “You sure about the ride?”

  “Positive. I really feel like walking, but thanks anyway. And thanks for dinner.”

  Vanessa saluted and got into her car. Beck stood on the sidewalk and watched until the sedan disappeared around the corner at Gull Lane, then began to walk home. It was hardly late-barely ten o’clock-but already St. Dennis had turned in for the night. Many of the houses were closed up, with lamplight or the blue haze of a TV in the occasional window. Almost everyone in town had participated in some way over the weekend, and everyone who had done so was tired from their efforts. Beck’s long legs covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time, and within five minutes he was home. He unlocked the front door and stepped into the dark house, snapping on a lamp in the living room as he passed through to the kitchen, where he poured himself a glass of water and tried not to think about the fact that he now knew where his mother was. Life was so much easier when he didn’t know. Not knowing relieved him of the responsibility of having contact with her.

  Yeah, right, he snorted. Like anyone in this family has ever really been responsible for anyone else.

  Not true, he reminded himself. He’d made himself responsible for Vanessa the day she walked into his life and announced, “Hi. I’m your little sister. Mom said it was about time we met…”

  So typical of Maggie. That was just the way she’d dumped Beck on his unsuspecting father. Just as Beck had had no idea he had a sister, his father had had no idea he had a son.

  Beck figured that, in the long run, he’d gotten the best of the bargain. Maggie had done only two things for Beck that really counted in his life: she’d dumped him on his father’s front door when he was fourteen, and she’d sent him a sister. Twenty-six years old at the time and newly divorced from an abusive husband-her second-and as different from Beck as the sun is from the moon, Vanessa had quickly been welcomed by not only her brother, but by his father as well. They certainly made an odd trio, he mused as he turned off the lamp he’d switched on earlier. The craggy old man, the beautiful, leggy young woman who looked like a fashion model, and the cop who’d taken a lifetime to find himself.

  He was about to climb the steps to the second floor when he noticed the blinking light on his answering machine. He hit the play button and leaned against the wall while the message played.

  “Beck, Warren Daley over here in Ballard. I got your message but this is the first chance I’ve had to return the call. Listen, all hell’s breaking loose over here, so call me as soon as you get this. I’m hoping to God you called me because you have something that will help make some sense out of this, because I sure as hell don’t understand it. Never seen anything like this in my life. Call my cell…doesn’t matter what time. God knows I’ll be up…”

  Warren Daley repeated his cell phone number twice, and Beck made a note of it. Whatever was going on in Ballard did not sound good. Beck dialed the number and identified himself when Daley answered the phone. He listened carefully as the police chief told him what they’d found in Ballard earlier that evening.

  “Where are you now?” Beck asked.

  “Still at the scene. I expect we’ll be here for a while.”

  “Mind if I drive down there?”

  “I wish you would, buddy. I really wish you would. It’s the last house on Crawford, where it dead ends.”

  Beck hung up and went right out the front door. In his haste he’d forgotten he did not have his patrol car and had to go back inside the house for the keys to his Jeep.

  This was not going to be a good night, he told himself as he backed the Jeep out of the drive. A bad night for everyone involved, but especially for the family of Colleen Preston.

  3

  At first glance, the thing that lay on the front porch of the small white Cape Cod house looked to be anywhere from five and a half to six feet in length. It was sort of oblong, sort of opaque, and in the porch light’s yellow glare, it was impossible to identify.

  The fact that five or six cops were standing around the object didn’t help. From where Beck parked his Jeep, he could see the vague shape and size, and little else. But since he already knew what had been found on Paul and Kitty Preston’s front porch a few short hours ago, Beck didn’t need to figure it out.

  He showed his badge to the first officer he met at the foot of the driveway, the one charged with making certain no civilians came within fifty feet of the house. The last thing Chief Daley wanted was to subject any of the citizens of Ballard to the sad and strange cocoon that held the remains of Colleen Preston.

  Beck softly greeted one of the local detectives and continued on toward the porch. Upon hearing Beck’s voice, Warren Daley stepped out of the glare and came down the steps as if he carried the weight of the entire Preston family on his back. In a way, he did.

  “Jesus, Beck, this is the weirdest shit I’ve ever seen.” Daley, nearing sixty with a slight paunch and a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, looked pale, even in the light cast by the lamps set up by the CSIs who were hovering over the form on the porch. “You gotta see it to believe it.”

  He motioned Beck forward, then grabbed his elbow and led him to the porch. Beck shook free and climbed the steps, his eyes on the object that lay just outside the front door. From inside the house cam
e a steady sound of anguished sobs. Beck approached the object which glistened in the light and knelt down.

  Inside a cocoon of clear plastic wrap Colleen Preston lay trapped, tightly enclosed from her feet to the top of her head. A closer look revealed that her feet were side by side, her arms behind her, a tiny portion of her tongue showing between her closed lips, her lifeless eyes bulging.

  “Holy Mother of God,” Beck whispered.

  “Yeah. My thoughts exactly,” Daley said from behind.

  “Her parents found her like this?” asked Beck.

  “Her younger brother. Sixteen years old.” Daley shook his head. “Imagine coming home and finding this waiting on your front porch.”

  “Where’s the kid now?”

  “Inside with his parents and one of the state detectives. I had to call them in. I don’t have the crime scene techs to handle something like this, don’t have the lab. The usual, we handle okay. Better than okay. But shit like this…I’m not too proud to say when something’s over my head.” Daley shook his head again. “This is serious shit.”

  “Can’t argue that,” Beck muttered.

  The county medical examiner’s van pulled up and a woman in khaki shorts and a dark tank top got out. As she walked toward the house, she pulled on a dark gray smock that covered her to right below her knees. She reached the porch and climbed the steps, her eyes fixed upon the form on the deck.

  “ Warren. Beck.” She greeted them without looking away from the body.

  “Viv,” the two chiefs responded at the same time.

  “Sorry it took me so long,” she said, her full attention on the shiny opaque cocoon. “I was at my niece’s birthday party in Annapolis. Traffic on the bridge coming back was a bitch.”

  She knelt down, much as Beck had done.

  “What happened to you, sweetheart?” She crooned almost inaudibly. “Who did this to you?”

  She opened the bag she carried and took out a pair of plastic gloves, which she pulled on. She drew closer to the form and leaned over it, studying the contorted face of the victim for a few long minutes.

  “I don’t see any reason to prolong this here, with her family inside.” The ME looked up at Warren Daley. “Let’s get her over to the morgue and I’ll unwrap her there. It’s obvious she was killed elsewhere, and the CSIs can continue to look for evidence here. But there’s nothing to be gained in unwrapping her on her front porch.”

  “It’s your call, of course,” Daley replied.

  Dr. Vivian Reilly stood and muttered what sounded to Beck like “one sick bastard,” then called to one of the technicians to bring a body bag. She stood between Daley and Beck and watched as the victim was removed from the scene.

  “I’ll give you a call as soon as I have something,” she told Chief Daley before walking toward her van.

  “Viv, you ever see anything like this before?” Daley called after her. “You hear about something like this?”

  She didn’t bother to turn around, she merely shook her head emphatically and kept on walking.

  “I suspect if there’d been another like this in the area, we would have heard,” Beck commented.

  “That’s some sick shit.” Daley watched the van pull away.

  “ Warren, have you spoken with Rich Meyer in Cameron?” Beck asked.

  “Not for a few weeks, why?” Daley’s eyes were still on the van’s taillights, just barely visible as they rounded a bend in the road.

  “You got that e-mail from him about the girl who disappeared a few weeks before the Preston girl?”

  Daley turned to look at Beck.

  “You think there’s a connection?” He stared at Beck. “You think the same guy…?”

  “I don’t know what to think.” Beck shrugged. “I’m just saying, a girl went missing in Cameron a few weeks before Colleen Preston. I was just wondering if you and Meyer had been in touch about it; if you knew whether or not the Kenneher girl had turned up.”

  “I’ll give him a call first thing in the morning,” Chief Daley told him. “No point in getting him out of bed now. Not much he can do at this hour anyway.”

  “Chief.” One of the Ballard officers motioned to Daley, and he excused himself before walking away.

  Beck stood to the side of the house and watched the state detectives comb the Preston ’s front lawn for any evidence that might have been left by whoever dumped the girl’s body on the porch for her family to discover. After ten minutes, he waved to Daley, who was discussing something with a few of the state troopers. Daley waved back and called, “Thanks.” Beck nodded and walked down the drive to his Jeep, the image of what had once been a beautiful young woman firmly in his mind’s eye.

  What kind of person did such a thing?

  One sick bastard.

  Viv had gotten that right.

  The following morning local news carried the story. Every channel Beck turned on had a solemn reporter relating the known details, which were few. Twenty-two-year-old Colleen Preston had disappeared more than a week ago and early last night her body had been found on her family’s front porch by her sixteen-year-old brother. No cause of death released. No suspects. No comment as yet from the Ballard police department.

  With so few hard facts, Beck wondered how so many found so much to say about the tragedy. He turned off the television in his office in disgust.

  “Poor thing, that girl.” Garland stood in the doorway. “Any idea what that’s all about?”

  “No clue.” Beck sat at his desk.

  “I forgot to tell you, Chief Meyer returned your call while you were on the phone a few minutes ago.” The dispatcher stepped forward and handed him a slip of paper. “He said to tell you that’s his private line.”

  “Thanks.” Beck turned to dial the number.

  “I’m going to grab a cup of coffee,” Garland said as he left the room. “I’ll be in the break room if you need me. Hal’s taken over for me for a few.”

  “Right.” Beck nodded absently as he dialed.

  “Meyer,” a gruff voice answered on the second ring.

  “Rich, it’s Gabriel Beck.”

  “Hey, Beck.” Rich Meyer sighed heavily. “Guess you’ve got your TV on, too. Some crazy shit, eh? I heard from Bart Daniels, one of the state detectives, that girl was wrapped up like some big spider had snagged her and swathed her in spider silk.”

  “That’s pretty close,” Beck agreed. “It’s a miracle that hasn’t leaked yet. Daley’s trying to sit on the details for as long as he can.”

  “You saw her? It’s true?”

  “Yeah. I saw her. It’s true.” Beck blew out a long breath. “It wasn’t pretty.”

  “Heard the bastard left her right on her own front porch, right where someone from her family would find her.”

  “The whole family was over here in St. Dennis all day, stayed late for dinner. Her younger brother was the first one home, found her when he came home last night.”

  “Can you imagine that?”

  “No.” Beck thought of his own sister. “No, I can’t. Listen, Rich, I was wondering if there’d been any more on that case you e-mailed about a few weeks ago, the missing girl. Mindy Kenneher.”

  “Nothing, Beck. And you’re not the only one who’s wondering if she’s met the same fate. Jesus, that’s all we need…”

  “I have to admit I’m wondering. Looking at that body last night, I find it hard to believe this guy hasn’t done this sort of thing before. It was all so…” Beck searched for the word. “Complete. Not a detail was missed. The body wrapped as neat and tight as you please. There wasn’t even an odor. You had the feeling it was all carefully thought out, even how and when the body was left to be discovered. But it looked like, I don’t know, like a prop from a movie. I walked away with the feeling that it was all part of something else, that there was nothing random about the how or the why of it.”

  “All that stuff we learned about in the police academy. About killers.”

  “Right. It had all th
e earmarks of someone who was practiced.”

  “A repeat offender, possibly.”

  “That’s how it looked to me. Of course, I could be wrong.” Beck paused. “I hope I’m wrong. But it made me wonder, about this girl of yours who’s missing, and I was wondering if she still was.”

  “Unfortunately, she’s still gone and there are no leads. No one saw anything. It’s as if she walked out of her office and into the night and just poof, gone.”

  “I was hoping by now, if she was a runaway, she’d have contacted someone. Her family, a friend…”

  “There’s been nothing. And between you and me, I never saw this girl as a runaway. She’s a damned good kid. Good athlete, good grades, never gave her parents a bit of trouble. She seemed to have a great relationship with her mom and dad and her siblings.”

  “You seem to know a lot about her.”

  “The Kennehers live across the street from us. I’ve known Mindy since she was a baby. We’ve combed this town six ways to Sunday. There’s not a trace of her to be found. There’s been nothing since she disappeared.”

  “Must be tough on her family.”

  “You have no idea.”

  From where he stood at his office window, Beck could see Vanessa coming up the walk, swinging that furry handbag of hers.

  “You’re right, Rich. I don’t.” And I pray I never do. “Maybe you want to talk to Warren, maybe put your heads together on this one, see what similarities there might be.”

  “Jesus, I’m almost afraid to. But you’re right. We need to talk.”

  “Anything I can do, you give me a call. If you want to put together a team to search the woods and the fields…”

  “Wouldn’t be a bad idea. Though if the same guy had Mindy, and I don’t want to jump to the conclusion that he does, God forbid, but I’m just saying, wouldn’t he do the same thing? Dump her at her house?”

  “I don’t want to jump to that conclusion, either, but I guess it could happen that way.”

  “Just between you and me, I’m afraid we’re in over our heads here.”

  “What do you mean?” Beck craned his head to see what his sister was doing. It looked as if she’d stopped to talk to someone.