In the Woods Read online

  He was thinking about something big and hairy. Something strong enough to lift a pickup truck off the ground. Something he'd wounded.Something that might just be stalking him where he lived.

  About the last thing in the world he wanted to do right then was step out the back door to see what was causing the ruckus. The temptation to pick up the phone and dial Larry’s number faded when he considered the consequences. He didn't want to look like a hysterical fool if the police came out to find some raccoon had torn into his garbage bags.

  A gun. He wished he had a gun. He'd broached the subject once and Helen hadn't spoken to him for a week. She was afraid of firearms, of the violence they bred, even after Alex tried to convince her that it was violence they were meant to discourage. She didn't see it that way so there was no gun in the Kerwood household. He pulled a big flashlight out of one of the kitchen drawers, weighing it in his hand as a potential weapon. Not exactly a .357 Magnum, but better than a spatula.

  He went out into the garage and, after a moment to garner his courage, he opened the rear service door. The back yard lay dark, quiet. Sinister, he thought, then almost laughed aloud. Sinister did not describe the place he'd been meaning to build a barbecue. It was full of flower beds, Japanese beetle traps and hummingbird feeders, for God's sake, not neighborhood axe murderers!

  He stepped boldly out onto the small cement patio, thumbing the switch to cast a narrow beam over the grass and bushes beyond.Nothing out of the ordinary as he moved the light in a slow sweep toward the garbage can corral he'd made from rail road ties. He’d almost started to breathe easy again, a relief that was premature.

  The light reflected off dull metal. One of the cans' lids was lying on his lawn but the cans weren't disturbed. Almost as if they'd been knocked in passing.

  By what?

  By whom?

  Alex muttered a heartfelt oath, beginning to wish he'd called the cops and risked looking like a fool. Better a live fool than a dead hero.

  It looked like an oil stain at first, flat, dark, just a small dot upon the patio slab. But Alex was an old hand at recognizing stains, after such grim firsthand experience, and as he bent down to give this one a closer look, he was pretty damned sure of what he would discover.

  And found himself within inches of a human shoulder lying in the grass at the edge of the cement.

  Only there was no human attached, just half a forearm.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Search lights circled the back yard like the center ring under the Big Top. The same grim-faced officers were there, poking at the bushes framing the area, finding nothing more than a few broken branches and some neighbor kid's softball.

  Alex glanced down at the blood-drenched sheet lying next to his patio. It was in the exact same spot he'd planned to start bricking in the barbecue. Now, he'd be looking for someplace else. The idea that he'd have to change that made him angry. The fact that the police had to come back made him angrier. The way Chief Connor Pellman stared at him as if measuring him for a cell, made him furious.

  "Okay, what the hell is going on?" Strain put a crack in his voice, but that was all right. He wanted them to know he was upset.He wanted them to know this kind of thing wasn't usually on his evening agenda.

  Connor Pellman regarded him unblinkingly. "We're working on it."

  "Like hell you are! This is the second time in as many days that pieces and parts have suddenly popped up at my house. Now, you tell me what's up."

  "Calm down, Alex." That came from Larry Gorham, who looked weary and distracted over the whole thing. Alex flung his hand off.

  "Bullshit! Are they showing up anywhere else?"

  Pellman stared right through him. "Like Detective Gorham said, we are—"

  "I said, are they anywhere else? Other than the abduction sites?"

  "No," Larry told him bluntly. "Just here."

  Alex raked his hand through his hair and paced in frustration."What's this guy want with me? I don't get it. Why is this happening?How can he come here, onto my property, into my garage, and not leave one clue? Tell me that, will you? Why here? Why not your house or the neighbor's?"

  "We're looking into that."

  Alex glared at the police chief, offended and afraid of what he saw in the man's steady stare. "I didn't do this. I didn't do these things. If you're looking for a scapegoat, I'm not going to bend over and go 'Baaaa'. This is you guys' mess, not mine."

  "It would seem that the mess has decided to roost in your back yard, Mr. Kerwood, so I would say that makes it yours, as well."

  Larry silently studied the gore-soaked sheet. He was elbowed aside by Anne Goodnight's team, and gave way graciously. He didn't have to wonder what she'd find this time. He'd seen that shoulder, the way strips of flesh were ripped, the way meat was missing in chunks.

  Mouthfuls.

  "Alex, does anyone in your neighborhood own a really big dog?"

  Alex looked at him blankly. "What?"

  "A big dog," he repeated, not wanting to dip into it any deeper than that.

  "No. Just a half-blind poodle across the street. That's why I didn't hear any barking or anything to warn me about the intruder.Do you think I ought to get a dog?"

  "I think you ought to consider staying someplace other than here.”

  Ignoring his boss's severing glare, Larry led Alex back inside the house. The kitchen was bright, its cheeriness almost obscenely artificial considering what lay in the back yard. When they were alone, Alex turned to his old friend.

  "He thinks I did it."

  Larry didn't try to deny it. "I don't. But I do think you might be in danger if you continue to stay in this house. Alex, you need to pack a bag.”

  "Who is this guy?"

  Larry didn't want to answer that anguished demand. Because he didn't want to discuss his theory that it wasn't a guy at all. Instead, he smiled consolingly, trying to convey more confidence than he was feeling at the moment. "We've got a great little lady working in our lab. Let's wait and see if she turns anything up, okay."

  "I'm worried about my wife." That just came out. Alex hadn't planned to admit it but Larry was nodding.

  "I don't blame you. Who knows the way sick mind’s think. Can you go stay with her?"

  "Her mom lives in an apartment with one bedroom. She’s never exactly been . . . fond of me."

  "Alex, don't stay here."

  "I'm not leaving my house." Helen was gone. If he left, too, that would be like they'd both abandoned the life they'd led under this roof with no hope of anything returning to normal again. He wanted to be here, to answer their phone when she called. If she called. "I don't want to live out of a hotel like some criminal under guard while that guy out there manufactures evidence to put me away for a long, long time. I won’t! None of this is my fault!"

  Larry just looked at him, his stare sympathetic but offering no apology or answers. And Alex wanted both. Finally, he sighed.

  “I guess I could bunk at the station house.” Reluctance weighed in his voice as he imagined the questions, the awkward explanations.And the sinister suggestion whispering that wherever he went, he could be putting those around him in danger. Then Larry extended an unexpected salvation.

  "You can stay with my wife and me for a few days. Until this is over."

  Alex looked at him, searching for the motive behind that offer.It sure as hell wasn't police procedure, and he found it hard to stretch their decade old association that far. It was more than a friendly gesture. There was an intensity to Larry Gorham that he wasn't willing to explain to Alex, but it was enough, just that look, to give the fireman hesitation. What wasn’t he saying? What did he know?

  "Just for a couple of days," Larry coaxed again.

  "Just for a couple of days," Alex echoed cautiously, giving in because there didn’t seem to be any other options other than a jail cell.

  "That's fine." Relief etched the detective's tired features.

  "I need to call my wife. She'll be closing up at the pet stor
e by herself in about a half hour. I don't want her going to her car alone. I'd go get her but we've been having some problems." Alex turned away, embarrassed, afraid. "I don't know if she'll want to come with me."

  "My wife will stop in and pick her up. Elizabeth's a persuasive woman. Why don't you go grab some clothes for both of you."

  Alex stood, undecided for all of thirty seconds. He glanced through the dining area window to see the lights whorl about his grass, gigantic fireflies. He considered the window broken out in the garage. It wasn't safe. His own home wasn't safe for him and that reality waded up under his ribs like a painful bout of indigestion.Damn. A man couldn't be safe in his own home! He wanted to yell, to rant, to fling accusations at the police officers so steadfastly doing their jobs. Why can't you people keep us safe?

  Then suddenly an image shocked through his head, that of the charred woman he'd brought out of the house, sitting up in that puddled yard to stare at him through cooked eyeballs rimmed white against the blackened remains of her face. And he could hear her accusation even though she no longer had the lips to speak them, or the lungs to breathe them.

  Why didn't you keep us safe?

  "I'm going to get a few things," he muttered thickly before making a beeline to the bathroom to pray noisily to the porcelain god.

  ӜӜӜ

  Fur, Fins and Feathers was a modest pet store located along one of the city's busiest thoroughfares. The small, free standing building sat in the shadows of the surrounding mini-malls yet managed to hold a loyal clientele to keep creditors at bay. There was a big sign in the window: SALE ON HAMSTERS. Inside, the greeting was immediate—cedar bedding, small animal waste, antiseptic and rawhide chews. Crowded aisles offered pet toys, aquarium starter kits, wild and domestic bird seed, flea spray, flea dip, flea powder, flea soap, flea collars. Bird cages hung overhead, empty for the protection of the customers. The cacophony was ear-splitting with parakeets screeching, squeaking rodent wheels, whining and yapping from a half dozen cages housing pedigreed puppies of every shape and breed, and distressed mewing from a window display full of tiger-striped kittens.

  Against such a discordant, cluttered back drop, Elizabeth Gorham, in her tailored designer suit and inch-long lacquered nails, looked incongruous. Her heels clicked a brisk staccato on the tiled floor as she approached the counter. A college-aged girl behind it priced cans of pet food. She looked up and, after a quick glance at the clock to note it was five minutes to closing, offered a weary smile. Her boyfriend was sitting in his pickup out front waiting to take her for a burger then to his crowded dorm room to just take her.She anticipated both things and was understandably short with this last minute browser.

  "Can I help you?"

  "Yes. I'm looking for Helen Kerwood. I believe she's the manager here."

  "Yeah, she is. Wait a sec and I'll go get her."

  After the clerk disappeared in back, Elizabeth idly studied the counter display items. She picked up a cat treat and sniffed it. Her features puckered in disgust.

  "They don't smell too good, but wait until you taste one.Yummy!"

  Elizabeth set the odoriferous treat down, embarrassed, then smiled at the other woman, sizing her up, female-to-female. "Are you Helen?" She saw an attractive young woman whose eyes dark were circled by sleeplessness and maybe weeping. Her smile softened empathetically.

  "Yes. What can I do for you?"

  Elizabeth glanced at the clerk and leaned in closer. "I wonder if we could talk privately."

  Helen looked puzzled then hesitant as she assessed the elegant stranger. "Sure.” An impatient throat-clearing brought her attention back to the teenaged clerk. “Go ahead and start closing out the drawer, Trudy.” To Elizabeth, she said, “This way."

  Helen led her back through a door marked DO NOT ENTER, into a room that was obviously more storeroom than office space. A cluttered desk held an old computer. Its screen glowed neon green and registered columns of inventory. Helen angled behind the desk to shut down the program and motioned toward the only other chair.

  Smiling to herself when she thought of her own loan office in the big bank downtown with its gymnasium-sized spaciousness and Italian leather furnishings, Elizabeth moved aside a stack of flyers advertising the dangers of heart worm from a rolling desk chair with a duct taped seat and settled into it gracefully.

  "Don't tell me," Helen began. "You bought a hamster from us the other day."

  "Ah, no . . ."

  "Oops. I thought that's what the problem was. We accidentally got some mean hamsters shipped in." She was babbling nervously and she knew it, but something about the chic lady, so out of place in her strong smelling back room, put Helen on alert.

  "Mrs. Kerwood, my name is Elizabeth Gorham. I'm here about your husband."

  Helen grew even more guarded. "Don't tell me. I have to bail him out."

  "No," the sophisticated woman soothed. "It's nothing like that."

  The breath left Helen's lungs in a startled whoosh and her world spun in light-headed disbelief. Was this the reason for Alex's behavior? This—this woman? An ache of paralyzing magnitude spread like an emotional cancer, devouring all her trust, all her hopes of happiness. Her voice was faint with despair.

  "You two are having an affair."

  The gorgeous creature blinked then let out a warm chuckle."Heavens, no!"

  Relief left her giddy then confused. "Okay, then I guess I give up."

  "Actually, my husband is a detective. I’m here unofficially on his behalf.”

  Relief hardened into a cement of angry heartache. "I knew it."What had he done? Broken some law? A bunch of them? Fighting? Drunk driving? She'd have to put the house up as collateral because their bank account wouldn't support a hefty bail situation.

  Damn you, Alex, how could you do this to us?

  The accusation wailed through her even as she scrambled for the means with which to save him from whatever folly brought this woman to her door. It never occurred to her to wash her hands of him by saying they were separated. Not even for that instant when disappointment swelled to an intolerable degree.

  "Mrs. Kerwood, listen to me. Please. Don't jump to any more conclusions until I've explained everything. This is pretty involved."

  "Alex isn't in trouble with the law?"

  "Not that I'm aware of."

  Steadied for the moment, Helen sat back in her chair. How bad could it be? "Let's have it."

  Elizabeth examined her perfect nails in brief discomposure."I'm not very good at these things. My husband is the soul of tact.I guess I'll just lay it out plain."

  Helen nodded encouragingly, tension knotting up again.

  "Let me start off by saying that Alex is staying at our house for a few days. He and Larry, my husband, go back to high school.I guess that's why he felt compelled to extend a helping hand."

  "Mrs. Gorham, exactly what are you talking about? Why is Alex staying with you?” Panic fisted in her chest. “Has something happened to the house?"

  Elizabeth held up a silencing hand then launched into it with a gusty breath. "You know about the serial killings, of course. And that this wacko has been leaving sick little reminders of his crimes to taunt the police."

  "Yes. Fingers." Helen shivered, wondering what this could possibly have to do with Alex. "Have there been more? I haven't heard anything on the news."

  "They're trying to keep a lid on it. They don't want the press to get people panicked."

  "Not that they aren't already with all of these disappearances."

  Elizabeth took another breath, seeing that Helen was growing impatient, waiting for her to tie things together for her. It wasn’t going to be pretty package. "Yes, you're right. But according to my husband, these new discoveries would be much worse."

  "So, Mrs. Gorham, what does this have to do with my husband?"

  "Elizabeth, please." That nicety preceded an astounding statement. "It seems that body parts have been showing up at your house."

  "What?" Her jaw dropped.
The shock was too much to grasp all at once.

  Elizabeth continued, taking advantage of the stunned silence."I'm afraid so. That's why you two can't stay there until this is over. Larry thinks you both could be in possible danger."

  Helen rose up out of her chair like a sleepwalker. Their house . . .

  Then the worst came out. "Your husband discovered the remains. At this point, he’s more a victim in this than suspect, though there are some who would argue that.”

  "Oh, God! How is he?" She was his wife. She shouldn't have been asking a stranger to relay that personal bit of information.

  Alex . . .

  "Upset, of course. Larry's taking him to our house. He's understandably concerned about you and your safety which is why I'm here. Why don't you come with me. You can talk to him and see how he is for yourself."

  Helen whispered, "I've been ignoring his calls." She glanced at the other woman, fumbling awkwardly for words. "We had a disagreement—a fight. I left. He'd been having trouble coping with his job. He started drinking."

  "Mrs. Kerwood, I've been married to a police detective for a lot of years, not all of them moonlight and roses. There's very little I haven't been through . . . or forgiven. There’s nothing you could say that would surprise, shock or embarrass me. I’m the last one to assign any blame.”

  Helen knew the other woman was trying to be supportive, but her guilt deepened. "I should have been there. He shouldn't have had to go through all this alone."

  "It's better that you weren't, but it's my guess he needs you now."

  Helen hesitated. Were the details of their fight even important anymore?The past two nights on her mother's couch had been miserable, filled with empty hours, punishing self-talk and mountains of angry blaming. The time for pride was past. Her husband needed her. Was there any question of where she wanted to be?

  "Let me finish up a few things around here then I'll leave with you."

  Elizabeth relaxed perceptibly, her expression warming toward the other woman. "We'll sit in front of the fire, have a nice cup of Earl Gray and talk about the men who were lucky enough to marry us until they get back."