Delia's Shadow (29 page)

Gabe moved all but four of the boxes to the far end of the room. He and Dora circled warily around each other, each careful not to accidentally brush against the other and send sparks shooting between them. I knew full well what they were doing and why, but Matt was clearly puzzled by the odd dance to keep out of each other’s way. Unless he asked, I thought it best not to attempt an explanation. Disapproval radiated from Gabe’s father as it was.

“Delia, I need you as well.” Dora motioned me to the table. She kept her back to Gabe’s father and spoke quietly. “It seems I was too optimistic about how much the killer’s presence and the victim’s pain would fade. I did what I could to prepare, but I never expected this much anger. Not after thirty years. I’d planned to keep you out of this. Now I don’t see another choice.”

“Tell me what to do.” I wasn’t eager to touch the belongings of long-dead victims, the killer’s letters, or riffle through reports detailing the conditions under which a body was found. Subjecting Isadora to the pain appealed to me even less.

“The less I handle some of the items in these boxes the better, otherwise fainting is a very real possibility. I doubt that would overly impress Captain Ryan.” She shut her eyes and concentrated. “The box on the far right, open that one first. Her name isn’t on them, but the files about Aileen Fitzgerald’s murder are inside. Some of her belongings are inside as well, her ring and some buttons. You’ll know when you find them. Lay everything out on the table. We’ll go from there.”

Jack’s father had never reported Aileen missing for reasons of his own and the police had never found her body. There was nothing to connect Aileen Fitzgerald to the letters taunting Matt or the items sent as proof the killer held another victim. Of course her name wasn’t on the file.

I scolded myself soundly for trembling. After all these months of wondering about Aileen, of having her ghost following me night and day, the thought of touching things that belonged to her in life shouldn’t come near to undoing me. That was silly and I knew it. Isadora’s wan face and the strain around her eyes gave stark testimony that this was much worse for her.

Lifting the lid sent the odor of musty old paper and smells I couldn’t name into the air. Dora was right. I knew which envelopes and files contained Aileen’s things as soon as I touched them: a small wooden box, a thick folder stuffed with papers, the now familiar pale blue stationery, and a small brown envelope, full of lumps I took to be a ring and buttons.

Three more times I did as Isadora instructed, lifting out files or envelopes, and spreading them out on the scratched and gouged pine table. Dora knew the name of a victim in each box and what scraps of their lives remained to tell their tale. My hand went to the right files each time. I didn’t know whether I acted under silent guidance from my ghost or Isadora’s influence. I wasn’t certain I wanted to know.

Gabe cleared the boxes off the table once I’d finished. The four piles left behind struck me as very sad, a poor, cold memorial to symbolize a person’s life. I desperately wanted justice for all of them, for Aaron Casey and all the other victims I didn’t know. This man left too much grief and terror in his wake. That needed to end.

Dora threaded her arm through mine. “I’m going to ask one more enormous favor of you, but only if you’re willing. I’d like you to act as a buffer between me and the victim’s belongings. There’s no danger, Dee, but I can’t say for certain how uncomfortable this will make you. You’re sensitive enough I can’t predict that with any accuracy.”

My first night back in San Francisco I’d walked through ghost after ghost in the train station, experienced the death of person after person. I could think of little worse than reliving someone burning alive. Bravery grew a bit easier in the face of that. “I’ve survived living with ghosts most of my life, I can survive this. How do we start?”

“Ghosts? Now you’re dragging ghosts into this?” Matt scowled and moved away from his desk. He looked between me, Dora, and Gabe, all of us unsmiling and sober, and shook his head. “Never mind. You’ve all lost your minds if you believe that load of hogwash. Get this circus over with. I’d like to talk to Gabe in private.”

Dora gave Matt her brightest, most guileless smile. “I understand your skepticism, Captain Ryan, but there’s no need to insult Delia and your son. Perhaps I can convince you to apologize. Would you have more faith in my hocus pocus if I told you exactly how this murderer hurt each of these four women? How much pain they suffered at his hands, the bones he broke, or how long it took each of them to die? Or perhaps you’d like a description of what it was like for Sarah Miles as he cut her heart out. I can do that for you.”

Matt’s jaw tightened and his ruddy complexion turned ashen. “No one other than Thom and I knew about what happened to Sarah Miles. Her father was a fellow police officer. We kept the condition of the body out of the files so he wouldn’t know. Finding her dead was hard enough on her parents.” The conviction in his eyes that Dora was a fake began to crack. “I never told Gabe, either. Is this the kind of thing you did for the department in Atlanta?”

“This is exactly what I did for them and equally as painful.” Dora’s smile faded and she held my arm tighter. “I came here to help Gabe discover this man’s identity. I’d appreciate you staying quiet so I can get on with it.”

Dora turned her back on Matt and ignored the muttered conversation he had with Gabe. I had a harder time pretending not to hear. Matt’s tone was distinctly sharp and unhappy, Gabe’s expression tight and controlled. I felt partly responsible.

“Delia? Did you hear me?”

I blushed and shook my head. “Sorry. What should I do?”

“Open your hand and lay your palm flat on top of each item. I’ll put my hand over yours.” She wiped her palm on her skirt. “You’re already attuned to Aileen. We’ll start with the killer’s letters from her file. Maybe we’ll get lucky and not have to go any further.”

She didn’t believe that nor did I. I sucked in a deep breath and set my palm on the small stack of blue envelopes. Nothing happened. Not until Isadora laid her hand over mine.

Jumbled images filled my head, boats on the bay and a house near the water, and flashes of the face I’d seen in my dreams, a man with cold blue eyes, dark hair and a chipped front tooth. Each glimpse chilled my blood and brought a stab of pain behind my eyes. Uncomfortable, but bearable. I hoped it wasn’t any worse for Dora.

We moved from small pile to small pile, each group of letters tied to a different victim. The angle I saw his face from was different, the light sometimes behind or to the side, but I’d no doubt I saw the same man each time. This was the face of Aileen Fitzgerald’s murderer, the same man who’d killed all the people in Matt and Gabe’s files.

The pale blue envelope on the stack marked with Sarah Miles’s name was marred with rusty brown stains, larger streaks smeared and smudged on the corners. I laid my palm on top as I had with all the rest. All the agony of Sarah Miles’s death was concentrated in that one small square of paper. I jerked my hand away immediately, cradling it to my chest and panting for breath. “Oh, God … oh, God.”

Gabe frowned and started toward me, but Dora waved him back. She put an arm around my shoulders and whispered in my ear. “I can do this alone if need be, Dee. Just say if the pain is too much.”

“No. I’m all right.” I scrubbed my palm against my skirt, the gesture a twin of Isadora’s. Breathing was easier with her arm on my shoulders. “I was surprised, that’s all. I’ll finish what I started.”

“This one will be the hardest for both of us. More of Sarah Miles’s presence remains and she didn’t go easily.” Dora smiled, but that did nothing to lessen the strain and fatigue in her face. “Together, then.”

Our hands came to rest on the envelope simultaneously. Pain overwhelmed all else, at least at first. Images were sharper when they came and focused on the killer’s face. Sarah Miles memorized everything about the man murdering her, every scar and imperfection in his features. She held tight to the anger of being helpless and not being able to fight free. She carried that rage into the grave.

Anger grew in me as well. I understood why Gabe and Jack spoke of this man as a butcher. He’d taken his time with Sarah Miles.

What the dreams and glimpses of Aileen’s memories hadn’t shown was how big he was, tall and broad-shouldered. Muscles in his arms told of days at hard labor. Her killer was very young, not much past boyhood. His pale blue eyes were even colder and spoke of nothing but death, his face unsmiling and marked by deep, fresh scratches. Sarah had hurt him. I took grim satisfaction in that.

And Sarah Miles’s memories were strong even after thirty years, as if her blood splashed on cheap paper held the essence of all she’d struggled to remember, all the rage she’d nursed. I suddenly knew who the murderer was with a certainty that startled me. Ethan Brennan had killed all these women. Ethan Brennan was still murdering people.

Sarah’s father was a policeman. She’d known him, too.

Isadora pulled my hand away with hers. The room spun in dizzying circles and I held the table edge to keep from falling. I couldn’t rid myself of the pain, the feel of his knife cutting through Sarah’s skin and her terror. Sucking in air as quickly as I could unsettled my stomach more. I stumbled along the length of the table, out the door, and behind the carriage house to be sick in the weeds.

Gabe followed. He wrapped an arm around my middle, holding me up until I’d stopped heaving. I was embarrassed, shaking and sicker than I could remember being since childhood. Spitting to clear the bitter taste from my mouth was even more humiliating, but it was that or vomit again.

He helped me into the patch of shade stretching out from the carriage house. With the wall at my back and his hand on my arm I could stand, but only barely. Sliding down rough clapboard siding to the ground was a real danger.

Gabe wiped my face and mouth with a handkerchief, his professional mask and any semblance of calm shattered. “Are you all right? Talk to me, Dee. You’re scaring the hell out of me.”

How naïve I’d been hit home. There were worse things in the world, much worse, than the brush with death contained in a ghost’s touch. “No, I’m not all right. I may never be all right again. Sarah was in so much pain and … and he kept hurting her. But she fought him until she didn’t have any strength.” I burst into tears, drowning in Sarah Miles’s memories. “Ethan Brennan killed her. He murdered all those people. That’s why Thom Brennan left town. He knew, Gabe, and he lied to your father. He knew.”

Gabe stared, reaction held in check, searching my face for the core of truth that would let him believe. I was a sniffling, tear-stained mess, but I didn’t flinch or look away. I was asking for a great deal of trust.

“Are you certain?” Gabe didn’t ask how I knew or for proof, but his job demanded he hear the answer. People’s lives, including my own, hung on finding this man.

And both of us knew what this would do to his father. Neither of us relished hurting him, Gabe least of all.

“Yes. Sarah Miles knew him.” I swiped the heel of my hand across my eyes. “Ethan is the man you’re looking for. Dark hair, pale blue eyes, and a chipped front tooth. Ask your father.”

Gabe pulled me into his arms. He petted my hair and let me cry on his shoulder, but didn’t offer false assurances or try to pretend the revulsion crawling over my skin wasn’t real. But he’d seen enough of the killer’s handiwork to build nightmares of his own. He wouldn’t dismiss mine.

Gabe

Gabe couldn’t decide which scared him most, how shaken and ill Delia was, or the prospect of telling his father Thom Brennan had lied.

He couldn’t have talked Delia out of helping Isadora and wouldn’t have tried. She’d been determined not to let Dora tackle the files alone. But he’d never wanted this case, his job, to touch her this deeply. Holding her was the only way Gabe knew how to help, other than giving her time. Time might be the only cure, letting the impact of what she’d experienced soften. Living through the days after the quake had been like that for him. He never forgot, but remembering got easier.

His father came around the corner, Dora leaning hard on his arm. She was shaky and pale, but on her feet. Her full attention was on Matt Ryan, speaking to him in low, urgent tones that kept Gabe from hearing what she said.

He’d pushed thoughts of Dora into the background, too consumed with Delia’s collapse to worry about both of them at once. Concern hit him full force now. If Delia was shaken this badly, by rights Isadora should be shattered. Likely she was, but she’d had a lifetime of practice hiding pain. What he saw on the surface wasn’t the entire story. His respect for her resilience rose another notch.

Frazzled was the only word that fit his father’s appearance and demeanor. The haunted, lost look filling Matt Ryan’s eyes was one he’d seen each time they went through files or talked about old cases, but a hundred times worse. Gabe didn’t need to be told that Dora had broken the news about who the killer was and that, somehow, she’d convinced his father to believe. The anguished expression on his father’s face was enough.

That his father had stopped scoffing long enough to listen was nothing short of miraculous.

“I owe you and Delia both an apology, son.” His father wouldn’t meet his eyes, staring resolutely at some point near Gabe’s shoes instead. “I’ve already told Isadora how sorry I am for what I said to her. Your mother’s always said that I dig my feet in like a Missouri mule about all the wrong things. I should have pushed Thom harder for an explanation, but I trusted him. He was my partner.”

Thom Brennan had been more than his father’s partner. The two men had been best friends both on and off the job for fifteen years. He couldn’t imagine how he’d feel if Jack betrayed him. “You did what you thought was right at the time, Dad. No one can blame you for that.”

“I can blame myself.” His father wiped a hand over his face and sighed. “I could have stopped Ethan all those years ago. People died because of me, Gabriel. Probably more than the ones we know about. I was so damn blind with hating Parker I shut out everything he said. If I’d been half the cop I thought I was, I’d have listened.”