Bound by Moonlight Read online

  “In my closet. I like having your shoes in there. So I guess I’d better clear out some room.”

  “Happy to give you a hand any time you’re ready, Savoie. I love taking out other people’s trash—though I’m not so good with my own.”

  “We can work on that, too.”

  “Deal.”

  A voice called out, “Hallo in da car. Dat be you, Detective Cass-A?”

  She slid out from under the wheel. “Mr. LaFont?”

  “Dat be me.”

  “Thank you for coming out here so late to meet with us.”

  “I always try to make nice with the polezze. Dis be about Donny Lamb? Da boy gone and done sumpin cross the law?”

  “Just here to ask him some questions.”

  LaFont was a wizened peanut of a man, bent and wrinkled, but with a snap of vinegar in his tone and a flash to his smile that said he had one or two fais dodos left in him.

  “He been a good worker, always on time, never complaining. Kinda slow, not real talky, but dependable. He gots a way wid the animals. Dey lak him. He doan get in nobody’s way and is po-lite to the visitors. Been here ’bout eight months. Works for just a little bit and a place to stay.”

  “Stay? You mean he has a place here?”

  “Just a little shack. Nothing fancy. Gots to fit wid da look of da place, but he doan mind not having no satellite anten nor de air conditioning.”

  Her pulse began a quick, aggressive beat as she un-snapped the flap over her service revolver.

  “Show me.”

  Twenty

  THE VILLAGE CONSISTED of a cluster of rustic buildings around a pond. Solar lights were spaced along the gravel walkway as a liability precaution. LaFont led them in a large loop past the dark abodes and shops, then over a simple bridge, where the path narrowed to hard-packed dirt that wound between various types of animal pens.

  Cee Cee glanced at the row of coops and exchanged a look with Max.

  Chickens.

  The only light now was the sweep of LaFont’s flashlight. With Max slightly behind, moving so quietly she couldn’t detect the sound of his feet on the loose stones, Cee Cee scanned the shadows, alert, ready, heart pumping, mind cool. Her internal clock ticked with the days, hours, minutes left in Kelly Schoenbaum’s life. There was still time left to save her.

  Lamb’s cabin hunched down between a spread of live oaks. Wisps of moss trailed along the roofline like gauzy mummifying wraps. No light, no sound from within.

  Cee Cee put her hand on their guide’s arm to stop him. “This is as far as you go, Mr. LaFont. There’ll be more officers arriving. Bring them here. Quietly.”

  He nodded and pressed the light into her hand before making his way back along the familiar trail.

  Tamping down her eagerness, Cee Cee woke up Byron Atcliff and made her report in a hushed voice. While she gave the details, she followed Max’s sleek silhouette as he circled the building, then disappeared, one with the night.

  Tucking her phone away, Cee Cee began the most difficult part of her job: waiting. First the warrant, then the search, then the stakeout, while somewhere, Kelly Schoenbaum was enduring the unthinkable.

  But it wasn’t unthinkable to Cee Cee. She could think of nothing but the fear, the pain, the helplessness, and finally the hopelessness.

  Make them stop! Please, Lottie, make them stop!

  “No one’s home, Detective.”

  Max’s voice filtering softly out of the darkness was like the jolt of a Taser, and it took a long second to calm her jittery nerves.

  “You’re sure?”

  “He had company. Female. His is the other scent I picked up from the girl on Dovion’s table. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly admissible evidence.”

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit. And here she sat on her thumbs, waiting for protocol to work its way through the red tape.

  She stared at the blank front of the building, with its papered-over windows. She needed to get inside. She needed to see how he lived, to get a feel of who she was after.

  “Detective, don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  She glanced down at Max’s extended hand. “What’s that?”

  “Probable cause.”

  It was a watch. She shone the light across the childish face. A smear of something dark blurred the crystal. Blood.

  “Read the back,” was his quiet suggestion.

  She turned it carefully with the nudge of the flashlight. There was an inscription, brief but enough.

  Kelly, Happy 14th. Love, Daddy.

  “Where did you find this, Max?”

  “Must’ve fallen through a crack in the porch by the back door.”

  Probable cause for entry.

  “I love you, baby.”

  His smile flashed white as he stepped out of the way to let her work.

  For such a simple structure, the cabin had an amazingly complex lock system. After a few frustrating moments, Max leaned over her shoulder to whisper, “The back’s easier.”

  She straightened so fast they nearly collided. “How do you know? Dammit, Max. Have you already— No, don’t tell me.”

  She shoved him aside and stormed around the shabby building to the back door, which, as he’d promised, was much easier to breach.

  Donny Lamb had been here recently. No thin layer of undisturbed dust topped the spartan furnishings. The dishes piled into the chipped sink were from a recent meal; the scent of grease was still fresh upon the water they soaked in.

  From the threshold she made a slow sweep with the flashlight over the single room, stark and uninviting in its utilitarianism. Above the sink hung an open cupboard stacked with mismatched dishes, Mason jar glasses, canned goods and canisters. A row of medications she’d bet were prescribed by Dr. Farraday. A doorless closet held two coats, coveralls, and muddy waders. A pair of study boots sat beneath them next to a stack of jeans and tee shirts. A lidless tuna can filled with hand-rolled cigarette stubs sat atop a café-sized table flanked by two metal chairs. The only other thing in the room was the bed.

  Her light wavered over it.

  A twin-sized iron-framed bed with rounded head-and footboards. Attached to the four corners by short lengths of chain were thick leather cuffs, wide enough to have made the abrasions found on the wrists and ankles of each victim. Its thin mattress was covered by a rubber sheet. The rusty splotches staining the rumpled material over it could only be one thing.

  Max’s voice intruded into her dark thoughts like a brilliant halogen beam.

  “That container on the floor is a cleaner used to keep down the bacteria in animal pens. He probably uses it in his job. And he used it on that girl on Dovion’s table. The same chemical smell was burned into her skin.”

  Had Lamb sat there calmly smoking at the table, thinking up new atrocities while he watched her twist and silently plead for release through freedom or death? Her mouth would be bound or taped. Above it, her eyes wide and wild with terror and tears that would have no effect on a monster who had no conscience, no heart. He’d scrubbed her down until the harsh solution began to eat away at her skin, stripping away the evidence of his repeated rapes or maybe just for the pleasure of watching her squirm.

  And suddenly she wasn’t seeing Kelly Schoenbaum lying there battered and abused on that bed.

  She saw Mary Kate Malone.

  I don’t want to die. Lottie, don’t let me die here like this.

  A soft sound escaped her as she took a quick step back from that memory. Bumping into Max, whose arms quickly surrounded her. Feeling the tremors racing through her, he rubbed his cheek against hers and murmured, “Let’s wait for your team outside.”

  The next thing she knew, she was on hands and knees throwing up in a patch of ferns. Then Max was crouching beside her, his strong arms pulling her into his lap to cradle her like a child as he sat on the rickety back steps.

  “It’s all right. No one can hurt you now. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, sha.”

  She clung to the stea
dying comfort of his words, spoken in the same low voice that had woven through her dreams for twelve years. She curled into him and pressed her face against his neck, desperate to fill her nose with the scent of his skin instead of the remembered smells of concrete and oily machinery, blood, fear, and the stale sweat of brutal men and brutal sex. Her fingers held him tight to keep from falling back into that pit of pain and despair.

  “Don’t let me go,” she whispered.

  “Never,” he assured her. “Never.”

  “I have to find her, Max. I have to find her.”

  “You will, cher.” He glanced over her shoulder then stood. “Your men are here,” he told her quietly.

  They approached quickly and silently, led by the ancient caretaker: Babineau, Boucher, Hammond, and several others who moved to secure the perimeter. Back in full professional mode, Cee Cee filled them in. Max stood off to the side, out of the way, as still as one of the ghostly statues in Jimmy Legere’s garden.

  “Boucher, I need you to find Schoenbaum. He’ll want to be here. Give Savoie a ride back with you. This is no place for a civilian.” She didn’t glance Max’s way; her focus was on her job. “Junior, secure that door. Mr. LaFont, it’s business as usual. You never saw us.”

  As her team kicked quickly and silently into action, Cee Cee and Babineau stood with heads together, discussing strategy. Her momentary weakness was gone as adrenaline began to percolate through her.

  As Max moved to follow the young officer, she looked his way to mouth, “I’ll call you.” He smiled faintly.

  DONNY LAMB FINALLY appeared just before sunrise. After they let him walk through their perimeter and into the cabin, every one of them restrained the need to rush in and pummel Kelly Schoenbaum’s whereabouts out of him. They held back, sticking to procedure while Cee Cee slipped away to inform the chief that the suspect was within their circle.

  She located Babineau in the thick brush surrounding the cabin. “Status?”

  “Still inside. No sign of the vic.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “From the really inviting smell of it, cooking breakfast.”

  She crouched down beside him, her gaze cutting between the two doors. “LaFont tells me he’s never missed a shift of work. He should be feeding the animals in about a half hour. We can’t spook him, or he won’t take us back to his hidey-hole.”

  Babineau nodded. “The park opens at eight. Let’s get some plainclothes in here mingling with the tourists. Get the K-9s ready.”

  Then they heard a low growl of impatience from behind them. “Get the fuck outta my way.”

  Stan Schoenbaum looked like he’d been working on a hangover for the last twelve hours. The whites of his eyes were webbed with red. His expression was an anguished twist of rage, frustration, and pain as he struggled with one of the officers and Silas MacCreedy, who were trying to hold him back. Cee Cee waved him through before he created a disturbance.

  “Where is he?”

  Babineau gripped one arm, Cee Cee the other. He was shaking and unsteady, a volatile combination.

  Cee Cee’s tone was a bracing slap. “Inside. Get a handle on it, Stan, or get the hell out of here.”

  “Okay.” He took a big breath and let it out in an alcohol-laced gust. “I’m okay. Let up, will ya.”

  Babs gave his partner a nod and they slowly relaxed their hold. Stumbling, weaving, Schoenbaum glared at them.

  “Why aren’t you doing anything about my girl? Are you sure? Are you sure he has her?”

  Babineau showed him the watch he’d bagged for evidence. “Is this hers?”

  The Vice detective focused his gaze on the blood-smudged watch face with its sad-sack blue donkey, and his features crumpled. A low wail tore through his throat just as the cabin door opened.

  Donald Lamb stepped out into the morning light. He had the same deep auburn hair as his mother and soft, unlined features. He wore his work coveralls, a lightweight jacket, and carried a handcrafted rake in keeping with the museum’s simple setting. With the instincts of a predator, he froze, his attention snapping toward the spot where they were hidden. For an instant his expression went blank in surprise as he took a wary step back toward the open door. Then his free hand darted beneath his open coat.

  Stan Schoenbaum surged forward with a roar, yanking his gun free, emptying it before the startled partners could stop him. The first round ended Donald Lamb’s life. The rest were exclamation points of fury.

  Before the others could take a breath MacCreedy had his arm hooked about Schoenbaum’s neck, wrestling him to the ground a second too late. He had no trouble securing the weapon or subduing the grieving father.

  “Kelly,” Schoenbaum was moaning. “Let me go to my daughter. I need to see my daughter.”

  “You stupid son of a bitch—she’s not here.”

  He looked up at Babineau in shock. “What do you mean, not here? Where is she?”

  “We don’t know! We don’t know where he was keeping her, dammit. Goddammit!”

  Cee Cee assumed a brusque command, calling in the shooting, bringing up the dogs to backtrack Lamb in hopes of finding where he been overnight. The dogs led them to a pirogue tied up at the edge of the swamps. From there, no trail was left to follow. Kelly Schoenbaum could have been anywhere. The only one who knew was dead on the ground, his fingers wrapped around his cell phone.

  Stan took the news with teetering control. “What now? What do we do now?” His hands trembled around the cup of coffee MacCreedy had procured for him.

  “How many boats do we have?” Cee Cee demanded.

  “Eight,” Joey volunteered. “Two ready, six on standby.”

  “We need three times that if we’re going to cover much ground before dark. I don’t want that little girl out there another night. Babs, you talked to LaFont. Does he know of anyplace Lamb might have gone? Did he talk about some hideaway?”

  “No. He said Lamb kept to himself about his off hours.”

  “Think. Think. What are we missing?”

  “We know the vics were all hookers,” Babineau mused. “How does he pick them up? LaFont said he didn’t drive. He never went into town.”

  “Did anyone ever visit him?”

  “His doctor came out to bring his meds.”

  “His doctor . . .”

  “Once a month.”

  It hit like a brick. The hand on the cell phone. He’d been calling his mother.

  Twenty-one

  DO YOU MIND if I smoke?”

  Cee Cee pushed an ashtray across the table. “Not a very healthy choice for someone in your profession.”

  Judith Farraday shrugged, lit up, and pulled in a long drag.

  “Tell us about Donald,” Babineau began after he’d prefaced their taped interview.

  “Donald was a product of the violence of his conception. It wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t help what he was.”

  “The same kind of animal who killed your husband, who raped and killed your sister, who raped you?”

  Farraday met Cee Cee’s gaze with a casual distance. “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you just have an abortion?”

  “Catholic. I placed him in a good home. I’d hoped for the best for him.”

  “Until his genetics started to show.”

  She smiled grimly at Babineau. “I sent him to the very best facilities. Parental guilt, I suppose—I knew nothing was going to help him. I knew it was my fault, because I conceived him, then abandoned him. How could I expect him to understand why I loathed the sight of him, the very thought of him? I tried to correct that. I tried to make him part of my life, and for a while, with some very nice psychotropics, I thought I’d succeeded. He worked in the clinics with me, doing simple jobs. His IQ was stunted, probably from the trauma in utero. He wasn’t intelligent, but he was quick and strong.”

  “When did you find out he was killing them?” Cee Cee asked.

  Dr. Farraday responded with a calm sigh. “That, I’m afraid, was my faul
t, too. There was this girl, my patient.”

  “A working girl?”

  “Yes. She came on to him, promising him things his sweet, simple mind wanted to believe, if he’d get her drugs from the clinic. They had sex. Sex like wild, rutting animals.” She shuddered, her eyes going glassy. “She demanded money from me, saying she’d tell the police he raped her. So I had to take care of her. I underestimated Donald’s fondness for her. He was inconsolable, went absolutely out of control. The only thing that would calm him was bringing her back. But that was a bit of a problem.”

  “Because you’d killed her.”

  She nodded at Cee Cee’s conclusion. “Yes. The greedy little whore.” That was when the detectives saw the pure madness in her eyes.

  She explained with a terrible logic how they’d moved from city to city. How she would select from her patients a girl who fit the general description of Donald’s lost love. She’d offer the girl money to play out the fantasy that she was the poor deceased Frankie Bell, and for a week or so, the masquerade worked. Donald was a functioning person and Judith wasn’t eaten away by guilt and shame. And then, he’d figure out the deception. And his punishment upon the poor girl was terrible.

  “I’d tell him how sorry I was, that I’d made a mistake. That I would find the real Frankie for him.”

  “So you pimped women for him to kill.”

  Her glare slashed through Cee Cee. “They had a chance. About as much chance as they had on the streets. They were warned. I warned them over and over to go home, to be safe. But they wouldn’t listen.”

  “Like your sister wouldn’t listen when she was told it was too dangerous to remain in a war-torn country?” Cee Cee asked softly. “The way you wouldn’t listen when you were told to go home?”

  She nodded vigorously, almost gratefully. “Yes, just like that. Too much pride to listen. Too much self-importance to think bad things can and do happen. They do happen, Detective. They do.”

  “Yes,” Cee Cee agreed quietly. “They do.”

  “So you took him the girls,” Babineau interjected. “What was with the moon cycle?”

  “I don’t know. Some nonsense he picked up from one of his many wardmates. It calmed him—the ritual, the cycle. It gave him a beginning and an end, so his frustration never got a chance to spike. He could function in the world as long as he had the safety of that ritual.”