Authors: The Echo Man
'There's
no tape,' Bontrager said.
Jessica
scanned the back of the van, looking for a tape. Then she went back to the
front of the vehicle, searched through the console and the glove compartment.
Empty.
'Sometimes
there's a memory card,' Bontrager said. He clicked a few more buttons.
Different menus flicked by on the LCD screen. 'Yeah, the card's still in
there.'
Bontrager
thumbed a few more buttons, the screens ticked by. He hit a button. A video
copied to the memory card began to play.
There
were only twenty seconds or so of video and audio, but it was chilling. The
video showed someone walking up to the camera along a dark lane. The camera was
shaky, showed the figure from the shoulders down.
'It's
you,' a voice whispered. Was it Albrecht speaking? Impossible to tell.
Without
another word, the door of Albrecht's van was yanked open. The video spun into a
collage of images: trees, night sky, the side of the van.
The
image then became a stationary shot along the ground, showing Sawmill Road
stretching out into the darkness. This continued for a few moments before the
screen went black.
Bontrager
stepped a few paces away from the van, pointing his flashlight at the ground.
'Jess.'
Jessica
walked over. On the trunk of a fallen tree was a small pool of blood. A few
more drops on the grass led deeper into the woods, over trampled branches.
Weapons
in hand, the two detectives stepped into the forest.
Lucy
couldn't move. She was lying on a cold stone floor. A draft was coming from
somewhere. She had been yanked roughly out of the van, walked down some stairs,
and deposited on the floor. Then she heard a door slam and a lock turn.
Then,
nothing.
The
good news was that her captor had not tightened the plastic band around her
wrists. She still had a little slack. She rolled over and began to work on the
band, flexing and relaxing her wrists. After a few minutes her lower arms began
to feel numb. She stopped for a while, started again. After ten minutes or so
it felt as if she might be able to begin to work her hand free.
When
she had been dropped on the floor she'd felt a small puddle of water. She
rolled over and over until she was on top of it. She angled her body so that
her hands got wet. The water was freezing. She had never done well in science
classes, but she figured that this might be a good thing, if it helped her
hands contract and not the band.
She
took a deep breath, bracing against the pain she knew was coming, and started
to twist her wrists out of the plastic band.
No dice.
She wet her hands
a second time. They were growing numb again, but she couldn't stop.
The
third time she tried, she felt the band slip over the base of her thumbs. With great
effort she pulled her right hand out of the plastic band.
Lucy
stood up, a little shaky, pulled the tape from her mouth. She gulped the cold
air.
There
was virtually no light in the room. With her hands out front, she felt along the
wall. It was a small room, a cellar of some sort. Stone walls. There was a
bench, a couple of old chairs. Everything had a deep layer of dust on it. She
felt her way over to the door, listened for a while. Silence. As gently as
possible, she tried to turn the knob.
Locked.
The
trail of blood stopped about twenty yards into the woods, where the forest
became thick and tangled before dropping into a steep gorge.
Jessica
and Bontrager shone their flashlights into the ravine, but the beams were
instantly swallowed by darkness.
'Albrecht
is hurt pretty bad,' Bontrager said.
'If
this
is
Albrecht's blood.'
Bontrager
looked at Jessica, then back at the blood trail, which was quickly being washed
away in the drizzling rain. 'You're right. We don't know if this is
Albrecht's.'
'We
have to call it in, Josh.'
Bontrager
hesitated a second, no longer. He ran back to the road, called PPD dispatch,
identified himself and their position. Dispatch would contact the closest
emergency services agency and police K-9 units.
Jessica
returned to the road. They stood on the shoulder.
'I'll
stay here,' Bontrager said. 'I'll wait for the search team.'
'It's
over, Josh. Even if Mike Drummond keeps his word, they're going to put all this
together.'
Bontrager
took a few steps away, thinking, turned back.
'Okay.
Here's what happened. I was following a lead. I saw the vehicle, pulled over,
discovered the blood. I called it in. Before I could get back to my car I was
ambushed. This is why I'm a little unclear on the details after that.'
'No
one is going to buy that.'
'Maybe
yes, maybe no. We'll worry about that later.'
Jessica
considered the scenario. 'Are you sure?'
'Yeah,'
Bontrager said, planting his feet apart. 'Make it look good.'
Jessica
took a step back. 'Josh . ..'
'I
know you box, so try not to kill me.'
Jessica
put on one of her wool gloves, hesitated. This was getting deeper and deeper.
'Are you
sure
sure?'
'You're
talking me out of it.'
Jessica
reared back and threw the punch, pulling it a little. It caught Bontrager on
the right side of his jaw. Bontrager reeled back, nearly toppling over.
'Wow.'
She
had bloodied his lip.
'Jesus
Christ. Are you okay?'
Long
pause. 'I'm fine. I may never sing with the opera again, but I'm fine.' He
reached down, gathered some dirt from the side of the road, scuffed up his suit
coat.
Jessica
looked from the van, back to Josh, then up Sawmill Road. According to the map she
was about a mile away.
She
wanted to tell Josh to call or text her, keeping her in the loop, but it was
not a good idea. That would put everything on the record. 'You sure you're all
right?'
Bontrager
rubbed his jaw, which was already starting to swell. 'Go.' Jessica checked the
action on her Glock, snapped it back into her holster, and started down the
road.
The
smell of just-turned earth fills my senses. Each shovelful
brings with
it a plaintive voice: a plea of innocence, a shout of unrepentant pride, a wail
of sorrow. I hear them all.
With
the swing of his crimson hammer Kenneth Beckman took Antoinette Chan to the
other side. His wife Sharon had helped. They too smell the earth now, rich with
fur and blood and bone. They are joined by Preston Braswell, Tyvander Alice,
Eduardo Robles, Tommy Archer, Dennis Stansfield, so many others. The earth
always reclaims.
Tonight,
in this place, white skeletons pass through the gloom. They are all around me.
There
is one more note to play. I hear the player coming, creeping through the night.
I push the sounds of murders past from my mind, listen for the footfall as it
approaches.
There.
Can you hear it?
I
hear it.
One
more note.
My
instruments are ready.
Jessica
walked down the road in a darkness so pure and complete that she could not see
her own feet. The drizzle made the going even slower. Her only guide to the
road was the white stripe on either side, along with the compass app on her
phone, which she was reluctant to use. It seemed to put a spotlight on her.
According to the GPS, she would be coming up on the parcel in a few minutes.
She
passed a drive every so often, a gravel lane that snaked back into the woods.
When
she came to the rear entrance to the Briarcliff Cemetery she saw that it was
unmarked. Instead there were two fieldstone pillars, connected by a chain with
a padlock on it. On one of the pillars was a rusted sign warning that
trespassers would be prosecuted. Jessica clicked on her Maglite, aimed it at
the ground, and headed into the cemetery.
The
only good thing about walking through the woods was that she was now somewhat sheltered
from the rain. Before long she came up to the southern end of the graveyard.
She couldn't see far, but she did see lights in the distance. There appeared to
be three large houses, perhaps a quarter-mile apart. She continued down the
access road, passing crypts, monuments, row after row of manicured graves and
expensive headstones. This was a world apart from the Mount Olive cemetery.
At
eleven-thirty she reached the far end of the cemetery, the area that abutted
the rear of Christa-Marie Schönburg's house.
Just
as she was about to cross the field, to the rear of the property, her Maglite
found a headstone bearing the legend:
DR. GABRIEL THORNE
HEALER AND FRIEND
The
grave had recently been dug up.
As
Jessica got closer she was overwhelmed by the size of the house. It was a
three-story Tudor, half-timbered, with cross gables and a steeply pitched roof.
Two massive chimneys rose at either end, both topped with chimney pots. A large
deck jutted out over the backyard.
She
could hear nothing but the rain.
Jessica
studied the windows in the back of the house. There were faint lights in three
of them. She watched for movement, for shadows. She saw none.
Jessica
put her two-way handset on silent, crossed the backyard, and stepped onto the
rear deck.
The
sliding glass door was locked. Jessica walked down the steps, rounded the house
to the east wing. She tried to lift the windows. All were shut tight.
She
had no choice. She found a fist-sized rock in the garden, stood atop the
air-conditioning unit, broke out the window in the first-floor bathroom.
Once
inside, she ran a towel through her hair, wiped her face. She opened the
bathroom door. Straight ahead was a long hallway, leading to a large foyer and
the front door. She left the bathroom, walked slowly down the hallway. To the
left was the entrance to a small pantry, beyond that the kitchen.
Soft
music played somewhere in the house.
Jessica
saw that most of the rooms were lit by candles, dozens of them casting a pallid
yellow light in the cavernous spaces.
She
made her way cautiously down the hallway, watched by the eyes of dead ancestors
peering down from huge oil paintings overhead. In the dim candlelight, objects
waxed and waned - the occasional sideboard, end table, armoire. Each held
danger. Jessica drew her weapon, held it at her side.
She
approached a room, its door ajar. There was only darkness within. She edged up
to the room, slowly inched the door open with her foot.
In borrowed
candlelight she saw shapes in the room. A pair of bookcases, a sewing machine,
a chair. There were two other doors. She could not clear them. There was no
time. She had to take the chance.
She
moved deliberately, right shoulder to the wall, sweat trickling from her
shoulders, down her back.
Before
she turned the corner, into what she was certain was the main hall, she
stopped, tuned her ears to every sound. The music continued: a string quartet.
Beneath it she heard a woman's voice, humming the melody.