I Will Come for You Page 6

  “Why don’t you do it?” Carter balks.

  “Because I’m the boss and I told you to do it.”

  “This is way out there,” Carter says. “I’m talking left field. The south forty. The kind of move that’s going to make Command nervous. They don’t like nervous. Have you ever noticed how much they like to follow rules and regulations?”

  Graham smiles and feels the tension in his shoulders ease. Carter is dragging his feet, but he’s moving in the right direction.

  “You know there’s something there.”

  “I know when to dismount a dead horse,” Carter corrects.

  “Even the best emerge from the box, burn the book, ignore department directives in favor of exploring other possibilities. That’s how some crimes are solved.”

  “Suspect profiles are considered eighty-three percent accurate,” Carter points out, making one last bid for the path of the tried and true.

  Graham stares at Carter and lets the air thicken between them. What can you say to someone who goes to bed dreaming numbers? Who clings to them during the day, seeking their guidance. Nothing. Carter is by-the-book. Graham is willing to trust instinct over protocol, and to face the consequences if he’s wrong.

  “If you can’t follow me on this, I understand,” Graham says.

  “That’s the thing about leadership,” Carter says. “The view from the back seat is never good.”

  “And that’s when you trust the driver.”

  The tension is broken by the beeping of Graham’s watch. 4pm. He needs to call Isaac. 4pm. Time always moves faster when the crime is murder. The first twenty-four hours offer the most promise for capture. After that, clues dry up, and finding a clean lead is like mining silver out of the city dump.

  Shelly Iverson’s body was found by her father twenty-two hours ago. And if the killer isn’t done, if he has another victim planned, Graham has forty-eight hours, tops, to catch him first.

  The KFK never takes more than three days to finish what he started.

  There are more killings in pairs than there are single victims.

  “Why don’t you go get yourself something to eat,” Graham suggests. It’s approaching

  the dinner hour and neither of them stopped for lunch.

  “Don’t shut me out,” Carter protests.

  “I’m going with my gut,” Graham says, wishing he knew exactly where that was. Right now, he has only a feel for where he’s going, like a blind man in a dark room. “You don’t like to take chances, and this is a big one.”

  “What do you have against profiles?” Carter demands. “There’s a reason the department goes to all the trouble to research and create them, you know.”

  “Sometimes it’s what’s not in them, the seventeen percent unknown, that marks a serial killer.” He turns back to the board and starts to make notations next to the victims’ names. Some of this is easy. Next to Lance and Steven he writes ‘mischief?’ because what more could two little boys get into other than pranks or carelessness? Then he writes “lie,” because it’s possible. It’s even probable that boys their age would make up a story or a harmless lie that could be twisted by a diseased mind. “Sometimes, Carter, it’s what we haven’t learned that will lead us to the killer’s door.”

  Graham moves to the long conference table that is covered with stacked files and loose reports. He sifts through them until he finds the one marked Tuney, the most recent murder before Iverson. He feels Carter looming behind him.

  “Go,” he suggests. “Work whatever angle is calling you. Just work fast.”

  “I’m open to new ideas,” he says. “I just like to know where I’m headed.”

  “That’s not always possible.”

  “No kidding.” Carter removes his jacket and hangs it over a chair. “So what about stealing?”

  Graham looks up. “What about it?”

  “That’s a commandment. No stealing. You think maybe Simon Tuney could have stolen something? Kids his age, if they get into trouble, it’s usually for shoplifting, vandalism...”

  “That’s good,” Graham says, walking to the board and adding the word ‘thief' with a question mark next to Tuney’s name. “This is good.”

  “Yeah,” Carter agrees. “It feels good. Like maybe we’re finally on to something. So, what do you want me to do?”

  “Pull the files on Cowen and Howe. We have a lot of foot work to do, cold calling, we’re going to tear through people’s closets, expose anything and everything possible. And we have about ten minutes to get it all done.”

  “I’m good at finding the dirt.”

  “And find a priest. Getting that list could really narrow the field of focus. Give us a fighting chance. At least we’ll know what we’re looking for.”

  “So, you think the perp is out there, watching people commit crimes, then he targets and bears judgment on them?”

  “I think that’s one way it could go down. It’s also possible word-of-mouth, stories in the news, even our own crime watch reports could be helping the KFK find his victims.”

  “What about Iverson?”

  So far, Graham has discovered nothing in Shelley Iverson’s life that points a finger at a possible suspect. She grew up in King’s Ferry, left only to attend college, came back four years ago and taught fifth grade at the local elementary school. She attended church on Sundays and sometimes a day or two during the week. She bought her groceries at the VIP market in Nanaimo; drove a 2009 Camry; had one credit card; she paid her bills on time; rented a small cottage with beach access; and had a collection of ceramic lighthouses, many of which she purchased on road trips up and down the Pacific coast. He found a stack of library books on her night stand; she preferred nonfiction, biographies and travel journals.

  This is a thumb nail view of Shelley Iverson. A caricature, really. It doesn’t touch on anything as personal as her goals and dreams. It doesn’t explore her feelings for family or anyone special they have yet to unearth. Shelley Iverson didn’t keep a diary, as far as they know. She bought a day planner, but it was found on a closet shelf, still in its wrapping. Graham spoke to nineteen of Iverson’s friends and colleagues, just a first pass, in the now twenty-three hours since she was found murdered. None of them dropped even a sliver of a lead in their laps.

  The only thing they have on Iverson that is leading them to sin is the boys’ clothing and a few random items she could have purchased for her classroom prize box.

  “I’ve already started a sketch of her daily routines,” Graham says. “She doesn’t baby-sit. Or take in sewing. Not that I’ve found yet.”

  “She had a few hand-held game systems, some comic books--Spiderman, I think--and a collection of Nerf balls and yo-yos.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know about the electronics, but she had a reward box in her classroom. The comic books and toys are a fit for that.”

  “You’re talking yourself out of a motive,” Carter points out.

  “My son had her for fifth grade,” Graham says.

  Carter nods. “Yeah.”

  “So motive’s front and center.” He’s not likely to forget it. He’ll talk to Isaac, but Graham doesn’t believe she got to his son; Isaac showed no signs of it. But she could have gotten

  to other boys, and that needs to be addressed.

  “We’re looking for pedophiles. If we want to track the killer from his next possible victim. And, if he’s killing in pairs by associated crime.”

  “Or any other kind of sexual deviant,” Graham says. “How many sex offenders are registered on the island?”

  “I looked into it,” Carter confesses and wavers under Graham’s hard stare. “Earlier, when we first realized maybe Iverson was messing around.” He tries to shrug off his discomfort and continues, “One-hundred, seventeen that we know about.”

  Graham nods. “So you were already working a new theory?”

  “I was thinking about it,” Carter admits. “The trouble is, numbers don’t lie.”

  “They
don’t show the whole picture, either.” Graham lets it go, “How many offenders in King’s Ferry?”

  “In the town proper, four. In surrounding areas, another seven. Most of them are concentrated in and around Victoria.”

  “We need to put them on alert,” Graham says. “And we need a print out of all offenders, names and address.”

  “I’ll get on it.” Carter walks towards the door, then stops and turns around. “Don’t hate me because I love numbers,” he says, “but statistics show that women are the biggest threat of known pedophiles. You know, it’s usually the mother of a victim who goes after the scum bag.”

  “I know. But that doesn’t apply here. The KFK’s been working a long time, and retaliating against a multitude of sins.”

  “I’m going to pull all recent offenses anyway,” Carter insists.

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “One more thing, if we’re going to throw out the profile, then maybe we should forget about average white male, aged thirty-eight to fifty-two.”

  “Already forgotten.”

  Chapter Nine

  Sunday, 5:30 pm

  Isaac sits at the kitchen table, under the tiffany chandelier his mother bought and insisted his father place above their dining table. She didn’t take it with her, not any of the times she left. In fact, she never took more with her than she could carry in one hand. The first time, when Isaac was seven years old, she clutched a small, pearled jewelry box that belonged to her mother. She didn’t say good-bye. She didn’t take her clothes, her makeup, not even pictures. He thought for sure she was coming back.

  So far, after each of her visits, which are never announced, she’s left with: his father’s bowie knife; Isaac’s baby shoes, cast in bronze; a silk screening of Tib Inlet, which they can see from the upstairs bedroom windows; a wooden salad bowl his parents received as a wedding gift; several selections from Isaac’s bookcase; a coaster that featured Isaac’s father in full baseball uniform from the one year he played with the pros; and a framed photograph of Isaac. She isn’t exactly emptying the house, but leaves each time with a small memento of her past life.

  Isaac finishes his homework and slides the math sheet into his binder. He stacks his books on the counter next to the back door so that all he has to do is grab them on his way out in the morning. It’s after five-thirty and he wonders where his father is. Almost always they have dinner together. His father is pretty intense about that. They have breakfast in the morning, sometimes toaster waffles or drive-thru McDonald’s, before his father drops Isaac off at school

  on his way to work.

  His father gets involved in his job and so he sets his watch alarm to ring at four pm, when he calls Isaac to make sure he got home from school OK, to ask if he’s eating a snack, if he started his homework. By five-fifteen, his father is home and they make dinner together. They eat at the table. Sometimes they talk; sometimes they sit through the whole meal without saying much more than pass the salt.

  But he didn’t call today. And dinner is usually at five on Sundays.

  Of course, Miss Iverson was murdered last night and his father, as head constable, is responsible for finding the man who did it. The King’s Ferry Killer. Isaac didn’t know that last night. He didn’t think about who killed Miss Iverson, he thought only about how she tried to protect him, even with her last breath.

  “You’re not safe here, Isaac. . .”

  And about how scary it was, to be so close to a murder the blood flowed on his hands and he could hear the guy responsible, behind him, breathing.

  Isaac thinks it’s a man. He only saw him from behind. Evil was present, and so thick, that it was hard to see through its black robes to the man who wore them like animal skin. Isaac remembers only the shape of him, how much space he took up as he searched for and found some trophy item in Miss Iverson’s closet. Isaac would probably know him if they stood together in the same room, but he can’t pick him out of a crowd; can’t identify him from a picture.

  Isaac tries to shake the feel of evil from his mind. There’s something about that kind of darkness; it was smothering. Isaac felt it all over him, prying at his mind, looking for a way in. It was sharp and mean and shaking with rage.

  He hopes he never runs into the guy again. Ever.

  Not a lot spooks Isaac anymore. When you’re a companion to the dying, everything pales in comparison. But as he turns away from the window, he catches his reflection in the glass, and beyond it a flash, a ripple of white that could have been a sheet hung out to dry, lifting in the wind, except they have a dryer. Isaac steps closer to the door, until his nose is almost pressed to the glass, and watches the flurry of white draw closer.

  It’s not a ghost. It has the levity and the transparency of a spirit, but Isaac has never seen a ghost. Not ever. When the dying draw their last breath, when they let go of this world, they do it quietly. They are simply gone and what remains is a loneliness that is so much more than what even Isaac feels in his mother’s absence. He knows they are gone. They are not waiting around for the right moment to spook someone.

  Isaac flips the switch for the outside light and the darkness is instantly pushed back. A man is standing in the backyard, as casually as if he’s waiting for a bus. His hands are pushed into the front pockets of his jeans; his down vest is buttoned against the cold and as the wind stirs, the guy’s white hair lifts, waves like a flag.

  As though taking the light as an invitation, the man treads across the grass, mounts the cedar steps and crosses the deck to the back door. Isaac’s breath fogs the glass. He wipes at it but doesn’t take his eyes off the man, who is familiar in a way Isaac doesn’t yet understand.

  This isn’t good. Isaac is responding to the energy the man gives off, which is not the bright, clean light of someone who is led by an open heart; he’s responding to the steady, almost hypnotic gaze of the man who stops in front of Isaac and places his hand against the glass, where Isaac’s hand wipes at the cool vapor. What Isaac didn’t clear away evaporates. Heat seeps through the glass and touches Isaac’s palm like a flame.

  Isaac snatches his hand away and the man’s lips pull back in a smile that is full of discovery.

  “Yes,” the man whispers. ”This is right.”

  He looks into Isaac’s eyes, holding him within the intensity of his gaze. And it feels like a prison.

  “What role do you play in all this, Isaac Marquette?”

  Did he say the words? Or did he put them in Isaac’s mind? He doesn’t remember the man’s lips moving beyond the knowing smile. It’s his eyes. They’re distracting and seem to pull Isaac closer with a sensation of moving through the paned glass as easily as if he was a ghost. Moving until he thinks he could be pulled into those eyes and lost.

  Isaac forces himself to look away. He steps back from the door, wonders if this man can move beyond the glass his way. Enter the house without an open door.

  “Who are you?”

  “Not the devil, but don’t take my word for it.”

  From the corner of his eye, Isaac watches the man shift on his feet. A hand falls loose from his pocket, rises and taps against the glass.

  “Sorry about that, Isaac. I don’t usually use the voodoo on someone I’ve just met. But then, you have a few tricks yourself, don’t you? I wonder what they are?”

  Isaac says nothing. He concentrates his energy on trying to get a deeper feel for him. Evil, the way it fell off the man in Ms. Iverson’s house, isn’t present here. But neither is the light he’s seen in children, in Mr. Frik, who lives next door; in the good among them. That’s one of the tricks Isaac has up his sleeve. He can see, sometimes, if a person is good or bad.

  The man knocks again. “Are you going to let me in?”

  “No.” And to make himself perfectly clear, because in some of the reading Isaac did

  on the supernatural he came across what seemed like fairy tales to him at the time but what may have been based on a kernel of truth: that some spirits can only
enter a home with permission, he states it again, “You’re not invited in. You’re not welcome here.”

  The man laughs, softly. Isaac can tell he’s amused, not chiding him.

  “Don’t put your life into those old tales, Isaac. If someone wants in, in the natural or supernatural, they’re as good as in.”

  Isaac figured as much, which means he’s at this man’s mercy, one way or another.

  “I won’t come in, Isaac. At least, not until your dad gets here.”

  Isaac looks into the man’s face, forgetting for a moment the strength of his eyes and the possibility of danger.

  “What do you want with my dad?”

  “Nothing,” he says. “He wants something from me.”

  He holds Isaac’s gaze and raises his arms as if to say, No harm, no foul. The intensity is gone and Isaac notices color, texture and intent. The man’s eyes are weathered by age to a pale, colorless gray. His face, dark enough he could be native, is heavily lined. He looks like someone’s grandfather, but he doesn’t share the light. He isn’t marked for good. Not that Isaac can tell.

  “You’re young. Still a boy,” the man says. “You have a lot of talent to grow into yet. A lot of wisdom to attain. Not every soul will come before you open. Not every soul is marked by the blemishes of action and inaction.”

  “You can read my mind.”

  “Not so much your mind,” the man says. He steps back, points to a chair on the deck

  and says, “I’ll wait here. Your father was pretty insistent. I can understand why. Can you?”

  “Miss Iverson?” Isaac guesses. Of course, it wasn’t hard. The murder is on everyone’s mind. And this man knows more about it than others. More than his father knows; maybe even more than Isaac knows.

  Chapter Ten

  Sunday, 5:30 pm

  Graham and Carter are on the telephone, Carter working through the family members and friends of the pair murdered in 2008 and Graham digging through Simon Tuney’s past. What little of it there is. If they can find that at least one other victim committed similar infractions against morality, they’ll have an emerging pattern. They’ll need to establish the same with the remaining dead, including his brother, but that can come later, after they capture the KFK. Right now, Graham wants, needs, direction. Action he can believe in. Time is critical and unforgiving. He has no choice but to put all of his energy into one theory, all of his man power and technology a united force in one direction, if he’s going to get to the KFK before his next kill.