“
I need to talk to you again,” he insisted.
Silence.
Cameron sized her up: mid-to-late-fifties, bright red hair—a shade you find in the discount aisles, not growing naturally on heads—and skin seared by the sun, the color of a raw steak; it stretched across her face, a texture not unlike Saran Wrap.
“
Ma’am?” Cameron persisted, pulling out his badge.
She stopped raking, let out a dramatic, bothered sigh, and inspected the badge as if questioning its authenticity. Unimpressed, she grunted, then turned back to her work.
He cleared his throat, loudly.
“
I keep myself to myself,” she said with a hiss, as if scolding him, still raking, still avoiding. “Said I don’t know
anything.”
“
Did you know the Foleys, ma’am?”
“’
Course I knew ‘em. They were my neighbors,” she said, stabbing at the ground, not looking up.
“
How well did you know them?” he asked.
“
Not very well.”
“
But you knew them, maybe had some conversations with Mrs. Foley?”
She stopped raking, rested the palm of her hand on the top of the handle, and gave him the benefit of a full stare. Over-enunciating each word to show her displeasure, she replied, “Like … I … said … I … keep … myself … to … myself.”
Short of firing a shot his way, the woman was about as uncooperative as anyone could get. Cameron knew the only game she’d understand was hardball.
Batter up.
“
Ma’am, the last thing I want to do is
bother
you, but I’m not here trying to sell broom handles. Three people have been murdered right next door to this house—
your
house. That makes you a material witness.”
He paused. “Now, we can do this the easy way, and you can take a few minutes to talk to me, or I can bring you down to the station and maybe get a warrant to search your home as well. It’s up to you. Which sounds better?”
The woman looked up into Cameron’s eyes. Her face was hard and stiff—except for lips that quivered almost undetectably. She jabbed her rake into the ground and sighed, then removed her gloves, picking them off one finger at a time, as if they were the cause of her annoyance.
Cameron clicked his pen and held it to his pad. “Your name?”
“
Della. Della Schumacher,” she replied grudgingly.
“
Last name is spelled?” He didn’t look up.
She spelled her last name.
“
You said you knew the family. How well?”
“
Not very. We were
just
neighbors.” Apparently that didn’t make for intimate relationships.
“
What about Ben?”
“
We talked occasionally,” she said, dismissing the notion as if irrelevant.
He looked up and met her eyes. “Define occasionally.”
Della spoke and sighed at the same time. “Ben took care of Snowball once or twice while I was away visiting my sister in Phoenix. It was no big deal.”
“
Snowball?”
“
Yeah, my cat. I paid him a few bucks to do it.”
Cameron looked around the property.
She followed his gaze. “She’s not here. Haven’t seen her since the murders. All that commotion—the bright lights, the reporters everywhere, they scared her away.”
Cameron shifted to another subject. “What kind of a kid was he?”
“
Ben?”
No, the cat
, he thought. “Yes, Ben.”
“
Normal.” She stopped and snorted. “Or at least I
thought
so.”
“
Thought?”
“
Well, it’s obvious he
wasn’t
. He just
seemed
that way. It was all an act. The kid was a murderer. Probably killed all those others, too.”
“
In what way did he seem normal?”
“
Good lord!” she said. “I don’t know!”
“
You just made the statement. You
must
know.”
She rolled her eyes, then thought about it, as if the act itself took great effort. “He was respectful of his elders—that’s rare these days. Kids don’t have manners no more.” Her face turned sour. “Of course, shooting his family kinda blows
that
theory all to hell, now, don’t it?”
Yeah
, thought Cameron,
it sure does.
“Observe anything about Ben’s relationship with his family?”
“
No. I don’t think so.”
“
You don’t sound very sure,” he prodded.
“
Look. Like I said, I keep myself to—”
“
Yeah, you keep yourself to yourself. I get that.”
Della narrowed her eyes and jutted out her lower jaw. “Is there anything else? I have work to do.”
So do I
, thought Cameron. “What about on the day of the murders?”
“
What about it?”
“
See or hear anything unusual?”
“
Like I said
, I barely knew the kid. I only seen him coming and going to school … things like that. They seemed like okay kids—both of them.” Then she mumbled under her breath, “Never figured the boy for a cold-blooded killer.”
“
So you only saw Ben coming and going to and from school? That was it?”
“
Yeah. That and sometimes when he was doing his chores around the house.”
“
What kind of chores did he do?”
She clamped her hands firmly to her hips and tilted her head almost completely sideways. “Now how in the world would I know that? It’s not like I stand there all day watching him. I only saw him ’cause I was making my tea. I’m
not
a nosy neighbor.”
“
Right. You keep yourself to yourself,” Cameron mumbled, still writing on his pad.
“
Exactly.” She angled her head, chin up, to see what he was writing.
“
Did you see him at all on the day of the murders?”
She moved her gaze to the ground, scratched her head, mulling over the question. A spasm of cooperation flourished and then faded. “As a matter of fact, I did.”
Cameron stopped writing and looked up at her. “Where did you see him?”
“
He was fumbling around. Over in that shed there.” She pointed past his shoulder to a rundown outbuilding.
Cameron glanced in the direction she’d pointed. “That your shed?”
“
Yeah. It’s mine. I don’t have enough to fill it up. I let them use it …” She stopped herself. “Or I
did
.”
Cameron flipped to a fresh page. “What did they use it for?”
“
Tools, lawn equipment, things like that.”
“
How often did you see him go in there?”
“
Every now and then, I suppose.”
“
How about you, Ms. Schumacher? You go in there?”
“
Yeah,” she said, nodding. “Occasionally. I’ve got some canning supplies stored away.”
“
When’s the last time you were there?”
Della shrugged. “Don’t know. A few days before the murders, maybe. Why?”
“
You see what he was doing in the shed around the time of the murders?”
“
I was making my
tea
?” she reminded him. “It’s not like I stand at the window watching everyone. I have better things to do.”
“
So you just saw him going inside
?
While you were
making your tea
?”
She caught his sarcasm, narrowed her eyes, and glared at him. “Yes.”
“
And never saw him leave?”
“
Correct.”
“
What time of day was it?”
“
Dunno. Towards the evening, I guess.”
“
Anything else after that?”
She eyed her rake. “Uh-uh.”
Cameron closed his notepad. He wasn’t going to get much more out of her, not now. Della Schumacher knew a lot more about her neighbors than she cared to let on, regardless of how many times she repeated her worn-out mantra. Cameron also suspected something else: she was a lot closer to the Foleys than she let people think.
“
Thanks for your time, Ms. Schumacher,” he said, staring at the shed, eager to be there, eager to be finally sifting through clues. “Mind if I just go take a look in there?”
She shrugged. “Whatever.”
“
Thank you. I’ll be in touch if I need anything else.”
“
Mmmm. Looking forward to that.”
Cameron headed toward the shed, wondering just how much Della Schumacher had really seen the night Ben Foley killed his family.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Old Route 15
Faith, New Mexico
Cameron turned his attention to the storage shed. Someone should have checked it. He contained his frustration: it wasn’t on the Foley property, and nobody knew Ben had been using it.
Now it had new significance: a place where he could have stored his belongings, maybe even hidden them.
The shack was rundown, with wood the color of cigarette ash, and the slats appeared buckled in spots where one could peer inside.
Cameron tried but saw nothing in the dark, formless shadows.
He reached for the handle and pulled the door toward him. As he did, a thick ray of sunlight shot through the opening, filling the room with a glow and igniting airborne dust particles that glistened and flickered.
Then, something else: a rancid stench, so strong that it made him dizzy. Cameron stepped back a pace and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, covering his nose and mouth. He moved into the shed, looking around as he did.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but once they did, a white, shapeless object caught his attention near the back wall. Cameron shifted his gaze toward it, squinting, allowing his focus to sharpen.
Then his mind made the connection.
It was Della Schumacher’s missing cat, Snowball.
Dangling in midair. From the ceiling.
Dead.
Cameron moved cautiously into the room, careful not to touch anything. A rusty chain snaked its way around the animal’s neck, tied off with a hasty, rudimentary knot. In its mouth, a pair of pliers protruded, rammed down its throat and pulled apart as wide as they could go. Cameron grabbed the flashlight from his gun belt, aiming it at the hanging animal carcass. He examined its coat. Once pristine and white—as her name had suggested—it was now anything but, covered in a thick layer of dried, caked blood.
Hung up
, he thought,
and dead
.
Again.
Just like Witherspoon. Just like Alma.
Trailing his flashlight down along the abdomen, Cameron looked closer. What had appeared to be gashes on the cat’s stomach were in fact words, carved directly into the skin.
DIEFUCKING CUMSLUT
A malicious, calculated act, and a message, no doubt meant for Della Schumacher.
Christ,
it had to be.
She and Ben were the only ones who ever went in there. Cameron wondered if he’d planned to kill her, too.
There was another side to Ben Foley—that much now seemed obvious—one of which nobody had been aware.
Except for his family—they’d found out in the worst possible way.
As had Della’s cat.
How could I have not seen it
? he wondered.
How, with all my years of training, my exposure to Ben during the summer, could I have missed it
?
Another thing now seemed very clear. Ben had passed over to the dark side at least several hours before killing his family. But how
much
longer? Hours? Days? Weeks, even? Most important, did that now make him a more viable suspect in the Witherspoon murder?
Then there was still the matter of Ryan Churchill. Were the two boys working in tandem?
One of them was dead, the other, still out there. Somewhere.
Something was starting to stink, Cameron thought, really stink.
And it wasn’t
just
the cat.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Faith, New Mexico
Della Schumacher was inconsolable.
Her only companion had been mutilated and butchered, and if that wasn’t enough, the sheriff’s department was holding its body as evidence in a murder case. That didn’t sit well with Della. She stood behind the yellow crime tape wringing a tattered tissue, one that had long outlived its usefulness. With eyes rimmed in red and bottom lip quivering, she listened as Cameron tried to explain why she could not have Snowball back—at least not yet.