So Close the Hand of Death (15 page)

“Poor kid. The shame of his family’s demise was too much for him. You see that a lot in Munchausen cases, the survivors are unable to cope,” Baldwin said. “Unless Ewan had a hand in it.”

“Now that one I couldn’t tell you. Kid was horribly depressed, it wasn’t a huge shock. Though why kill Errol? Or Edward, if that was the case?”

“We’re pretty sure he got his start very young, tried his hand at hurting people when he was still a teenager. The death of a sibling at his hand would fit the profile.”

“Ah. I get it,” Morgan replied. “Well, there’s more, might answer your questions. So now we’re left with Ewan. On the surface, he seemed like a good kid. He was smart, especially with computers. He went to school every day. Stayed out of trouble. But something was wrong with him, broken. Like he was just waiting, kind of like a snake does when it’s about to have dinner. I use to have a boa constrictor. Thing was a tease. It would watch the mouse dance around, let it crawl all over him, and just when the mouse thought it was safe, that’s when the snake would attack. Same with
Ewan Copeland. He was just biding his time. Fooling all of us.

“When he was sixteen, he raped one of the girls in the group home. Not your garden-variety date rape, either, he cut her up. Slashed her stomach with a knife. That got him sent to juvie. They kicked him out when he was eighteen. He disappeared from here, and no one has heard hide nor hair of him since.”

“Until now.” Taylor pushed her plate away. It was a sad story, but she felt no true sorrow for the man who’d morphed into the thing that haunted her.

“A rape that violent definitely fits. And that’s the only one on record?” Baldwin asked.

The chief handed over a file folder. “Yep. This is what I could get of his record under such short notice.”

Taylor took the file, flipped it open and set it between her and Baldwin on the table. The file was thin, but there was a picture. She detached it from the two-hole punch, angled it to get the best light from the window. A young man, with brown hair, blue eyes, a thin chin. He didn’t look like anyone she’d ever seen. She tried to age-progress him in her mind, fill out the cheeks, add some facial hair. She couldn’t envision him properly; they’d have to do it for real on the computers. He certainly didn’t look like the man she’d seen in the Nashville bar Control a year before. He looked nothing like the composite sketch they’d put together, either.

She tamped down the disappointment. Just because they had a name and a backstory, that didn’t mean it was all going to fall into place. That would make this too easy. Nothing with the Pretender was ever easy.

“What about Betty? I’d like to talk to her, if that’s possible,” Baldwin asked.

“Nope. She’s dead.”

“Man, our timing is impeccable. That’s too bad. What happened to her?”

“The cancer got her. Breast, like her mama. She died six months ago. They sent us a notice for the paper.”

The story had taken almost an hour to tell, the sky was just starting to dim. Early sunsets in the mountains during winter. Taylor was anxious to get moving, to see some of the town, to get a sense of what, and where, the Pretender, no, scratch that, Ewan Copeland had come from.

Baldwin sensed her desire.

“Chief, I can’t thank you enough for going through all of this with us. I think we’re going to ride around a bit before we crash for the night.”

“Of course. If there’s anything else I can do, just shout. I’ll be around all night. You can hang on to that file, it’s a copy. I got this. You get hungry again, you might try the barbecue place ’bout a mile down this road. It’s new.” He pointed to his right.

“Thank you.”

They all stood, grabbed their coats and scarves. Taylor allowed Baldwin to help her into her shearling. She saw the waitress, Amy, laughing in the corner with one of the busboys. A thought occurred to her.

“Chief, whatever happened to Stephanie Sugarman?”

“Steph? Name’s Anderson now. She had Copeland’s kid, a girl. About a year after the kid was born, Steph ended up getting married to the owner of the Point and Shoot. They had a few more, too. There are lots of Anderson kids running around these days. Got them some sweet grandbabies now.”

“So she still lives in town?”

“Yeah. Right down the street from here, actually. It’s just north, right up from the police station. You can’t miss it, it’s a pretty house. Biggest one on the street. Three stories, red brick, brown shutters, with a wide white veranda. You might even catch her at home, she babysits the grandkids in the afternoons until their parents get off work.”

“What about the daughter?”

“Ruth? She’s a sweet girl. Doesn’t live here anymore, but visits sometimes. You know how it is when they grow up.”

Baldwin shook the chief’s hand in farewell. “I take it the Point and Shoot does a steady business?”

“Son, you know it. Keeps us all in high cotton—them with the bar earnings, me with the drunks getting into fights in the parking lot. Y’all be safe out there, you hear?”

Taylor watched the chief amble toward his patrol car, tipping his hat at a couple who came out of the bookstore. What a story. It didn’t surprise her though—the Pretender
would
have a mythology. He couldn’t have just been a crazy kid, no, the courts would claim he was twisted into being by his psycho mother. It fit his profile so well.

She knew he’d never been an innocent, despite what Baldwin said.

“This file’s pretty thin,” Baldwin said.

“Yeah. We need to get some more background.”

“Let’s go talk to Stephanie Anderson. She might be able to give us some more insight. I’ll let my team know what we’ve found, too.”

“Okay.”

They headed toward the car, Taylor’s head swiveling around the shops on the main street. Had they known what evil resided in their midst? And what would the Pretender do when he found out they’d cracked into his background?

And Jesus God, he had a half-sister out there. A sibling. Another potential target.

The thought made her knees go weak. They needed to find Ruth.

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Indianapolis

Dear Troy,
Mind-numbingly simple. Surely you have a bigger challenge ahead?
BB

H
e had to admit, the steak lived up to expectation. And the atmosphere in the St. Elmo Steak House, home of the world’s best shrimp cocktail, wasn’t too bad either. Cozy. Warm. Brick. He liked brick. Liked the looks of the hostess who was stumbling around in impossibly high heels, too, casting glances over her shoulder at him every time she wobbled past. Blond hair, brown eyes. Tight black skirt over one of those buttonfront pin-tucked blouses that was actually a bodysuit. He had an ex-girlfriend who loved those things. They snapped right at her cunt, perforated for easy access. They could fuck up against a wall and she’d never have to get undressed.

He took a sip of his excellent Bordeaux and sighed. The hostess wasn’t a part of the game. He’d have to save her for another time. The job was finished here in Indy. He’d killed a woman named Mary Jane. Sweet Mary Jane Solomon. Mary Jane, the pretty and plain. All tied up with a delightful little bow. She’d scratched the hell out of him, raked her nails along the edge of his arm, but he’d brushed her nails with her toothbrush before he left, and changed into a long-sleeved shirt before dinner. He’d gotten blood on the UPS delivery uniform and had to burn it. Exorcise the DNA demon with fire and toothpaste. Some Indy cop was going to find a naked UPS man and think someone had a uniform fetish.

He laughed to himself. Pretty plain Mary Jane’s eyes had lit up when he came to the door. She wasn’t used to getting packages; she lived alone, had few friends…by choice, of course. Terribly shy Mary Jane. A stutterer, poor thing. Then he had rung the doorbell. Rung Mary Jane’s bell, too. Changed her life forever. Death did that to a girl.

One bite left. The meat was luscious, melting in his mouth, leaving little greasy butter trails running down his chin. He always drowned his steaks in butter, just like dear old mom used to do. It made the meat tender.

He checked his watch, it was only 10:00 p.m. He wasn’t scheduled to be in Nashville until noon the following day. He’d gotten ahead of the game, so to speak. He had time for dessert, then a chat with the hostess. Maybe score a number, or an email, or, the best of all possible worlds, she would whip out her smartphone and friend him on Facebook. Reverse look-up the number and he would have her home address. Email and he
could track her down on the internet with ease. But with Facebook, he’d have her pants down in moments. These silly girls put all their personal information out there for the taking, their birth dates, pictures of themselves drunk and naked, announcing to the world exactly where they were at all times. They made themselves bait. They asked for it. He loved technology. It made the job so much easier.

He waved to his waiter for the check. It was time to move on to the last portion of the game. Time for his big reward. He was looking forward to a nice calm night. He could swing back through Indy on his way home, see if he couldn’t get himself a date.

T
he chief was right, it was impossible to miss the Andersons’ house. Not only was it beautifully huge in the Southern style of miniature Taras, there were tricycles, toys, multiple discarded gloves and a small batterypowered minicar parked on the front lawn, damning evidence of a juvenile invasion. Children’s laughter rang in the air, shouts of joy that made Taylor’s stomach hurt. When was the last time she’d been so innocent and carefree? So very happy?

They pulled up to the curb, watched as a gang of little boys tore around the edge of the house into the dead grass of the front yard. Playing cowboys and Indians, it seemed, all bundled up against the cold.

Taylor smiled. She did love kids, so long as they weren’t hers.

She and Baldwin wended their way through the game to the front porch. One of the boys, a towhead with incredibly light blue eyes, stopped to gawk at them. When Taylor grinned at him, he picked his nose and ran off toward the back of the house.

“Charming,” Taylor said.

“Little boys,” Baldwin replied. There was something
strange in his tone. She glanced over at him. His face was shuttered, he looked lost in thought. He’d been acting weird for two days now, and she was pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with his suspension, though finding out about that had gone a long way toward settling her down. She’d had a crazy moment when he’d looked at her sideways in the car and she wondered, for the briefest of seconds, if he was having an affair. It was a silly thought. Baldwin wasn’t the kind of guy to sneak around behind her back, but something was up. She let it go—they had enough on their plates. He’d tell her when he was good and ready.

They crossed the porch and knocked on the door. Taylor could smell a wood fire burning, and was suddenly chilled through. She tucked her hands under her arms. She should have asked the waitress at Smith’s to make her a to-go cup of tea or hot chocolate.

The door was opened by a woman with liberal gray streaks running through her dark brown hair. She was of an indefinable age, anywhere from forty to sixty, with either laugh lines or crow’s feet surrounding her eyes, and deep vertical wrinkles sprouting from her upper lip like perfectly planted rows of corn, the telltale sign of a lifelong smoker. Taylor blessed her decision to quit the previous year—it was the idea of having those wrinkles that had forced her to stop.

“Mrs. Anderson? Stephanie Anderson?” Taylor asked.

The woman smiled. “That’s me. What can I do you for?”

Open, guileless. Maybe there was something to the notion of a small town. She pulled out her badge, Baldwin followed suit with his credentials.

“I’m Lieutenant Taylor Jackson, from Nashville,
Tennessee. This is Supervisory Special Agent John Baldwin, with the FBI. May we come in? We need to ask you some questions.”

The woman’s face closed, the smile faded. She hesitated for a brief moment, then said, “What’s this all about, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Baldwin turned on the charm, smiling in encouragement. “We’re here doing background on a former student from this town. We won’t take much of your time, I promise.”

Mrs. Anderson’s eyes narrowed, but she pulled the door open wider. “Come in then. I’m just making the kids some dinner. I hope you don’t mind if I keep cooking while we talk.”

They followed her into the warm, inviting kitchen. It was purely country—oak cupboards with glass insets, cabbage rose wallpaper and flouncy lace curtains, a huge open fireplace at the far end. Taylor crossed to the fire and stood, warming her hands. “That’s nice,” she said.

Mrs. Anderson’s face creased in dismay. “Your nose and cheeks are bright red. I didn’t realize it had gotten so cold out there, we had a right nice afternoon. The fire keeps things so toasty in here, and you know how it is with kids. They love to play in the cold, then come in, warm up, and go back out again. I should probably round them up before they catch their death.”

Taylor did know. When she was a kid, they’d had a lot of snow in Nashville during the winters. She and Sam would spend hours sledding, then decamp back to one or the other’s house to defrost and drink cocoa. She felt almost wistful for a moment, then pulled herself together.

“If you can wait for just a second, Mrs. Anderson,
it would be better to talk without the kids running around.”

“Oh. Of course. Certainly.” Mrs. Anderson went to the stove and took the lid off a huge stoneware Crock-Pot. Steam billowed off the contents. She took a wooden spoon and stirred, and Taylor smelled chili. Despite the meal she’d just had, her stomach rumbled. She loved good chili.

Mrs. Anderson started chattering about the boys, her grandkids, bragging on how sweet they were. Baldwin looked at the pictures she pointed to on the wall and murmured his approval. They were dillydallying. It was time to ruin the woman’s good mood.

Taylor settled on a stool at the wide counter. “Mrs. Anderson, we want to talk to you about Roger Copeland.”

The woman’s body stilled, though her arm still rotated the spoon in the pot. She sniffed twice, then with great care, she removed the spoon and laid it gently on the counter in a white ceramic holder shaped like a cauliflower. Despite her attempt to keep things clean, some of it spilled over onto the white Corian counter. The red of the chili sauce looked like blood.

“Roger’s been dead a long time,” she said, soft and gentle.

“We know. We’re sorry to have to bring up bad memories.”

She smiled. “Oh, they’re pretty good memories. I loved that man like nobody’s business. He loved me right back. It was terrible, what that woman did to him.”

“Betty Copeland,” Taylor said.

“That’s right. Betty. Mean as a snake, and crazy as a bedbug. He used to say she was a charmer, that she
put some sort of spell on him. Then he woke up and saw the light, and it was too late. Three little boys, a nutty wife, a career to manage. He was on the road a lot. That helped. When we got together, he wanted out. He just didn’t know how to end it with her. He was scared of that woman.” Her soft Southern accent broadened. “Scairt to death of her, really. Looks like he was right to be, don’t you think?”

Taylor glanced at Baldwin, who met her eyes and raised his eyebrow.
Something here,
his look said. She agreed. They stayed silent, watching Mrs. Anderson as she chewed on her lip for a moment, lost in thought. A gauzy smile appeared on her face.

“At least I have Ruth to remember him by. Not that I’d ever forget him, of course. But time, it does heal all wounds. He never got to meet her, more’s the pity. She’s a lovely girl. Smart as a whip. Looks just like him, too. All the good parts. Roger was such a handsome man.”

Baldwin sat at the counter next to Taylor. “Mrs. Anderson, do you ever hear from Ewan Copeland?”

Mrs. Anderson clutched her throat. “Ewan? Oh, no. That boy. That poor, poor boy. Wrong in the head, just like his mama. You know he raped a girl when he was only sixteen? How does a young man learn how to do that? How do they even know? Movies, I guess, or those girly magazines. The state, they shipped him off quicker than you could say jiminy, that’s the last any of us heard from him.”

“So these are Ruth’s boys you’re babysitting?” Taylor asked.

“Oh, no. Ruth doesn’t live here in Forest City. She’s not married either, though I nag her about it constantly.
No, she ended up going to school to be a scientist, up in Raleigh. She works for the city up there.”

Baldwin shifted on his stool. “Oh? Doing what?”

“Crime lab stuff. Like that TV show,
CSI?
Though she tells me that it’s a pack of lies—her job’s nothing like that. ‘It’s drudgery, Mama,’ she tells me. ‘Nothing cool and glamorous, and we don’t get to carry guns.’”

“She’s a forensic scientist?” Taylor asked.

“Yeah, that’s the right term. Smart girl, my Ruth. I bet she’d love to talk with you, Agent Baldwin. She’s always talked about the FBI, getting into the academy. The selection process is hard though.”

“Yes, it surely is. Do you have a picture of Ruth?” Baldwin asked. Taylor didn’t need to look at him; she could feel that he was practically quivering. It dawned on her why. Oh, my God.

Mrs. Anderson was back to her cheerful self, pride in her offspring’s accomplishments overshadowing the sorrow she’d been feeling about losing the girl’s father. “Well, sure. Right here in the living room. Come on, you can see it, it’s up on the wall with the rest of the family photos.”

The formal living room was painted a glossy eggshell-white, the thick red Turkish rug whisper silent on their feet. The family photographs took up the entire back wall, a huge montage of generations. Taylor’s heart thudded with every step she took across the floor.

Mrs. Anderson pointed to a picture dead center of the collection.

“This is the best one, here. Taken just after her college graduation, see? She’s still wearing her cap and gown. She looks so lovely in blue.”

Taylor covered her mouth so she wouldn’t swear aloud.

When she smiled, Renee Sansom’s imposter was almost pretty.