Death Notice

“Trust me,” he said. “I’m not.”

Henry wasn’t lying. He might have been interesting once, but his life in the past five years was a strict schedule of work and solitude. Every morning he arrived at his third-floor office by nine. He worked until six, taking an hour to eat lunch at his desk. When he left for the day, it was via the back stairs, where he could bypass the prying eyes in the main newsroom. Once home, Henry exercised for precisely an hour. After that, he prepared dinner, watched an old movie on TV, then read a book until he grew tired. In the morning, he had breakfast, made his lunch, and repeated the routine.

His unbending schedule, coupled with the fact that he rarely showed his pale face in the newsroom, had earned him a nickname among the reporters—Henry Ghoul.

No one suspected Henry knew about the nickname. But he did. And he thought it amusingly appropriate, just like death sentence. He was the phantom of the newsroom, the odd duck writing about dead people. Sometimes he went out of his way to act accordingly, sweeping ghostlike up the back steps and making sure moody music emanated from his office under the eaves.

As for the other, crueler reason they called him Ghoul, Henry tried not to think about it. He couldn’t change the way he looked. Not now, anyway.

“Well, interesting or not, you should visit me sometime,” Deana said. “We can go to lunch.”

Her suggestion was the biggest surprise in a conversation filled with them.

“That’s probably not a good idea,” Henry said.

“Why? I don’t even know what you look like.”

Henry touched his face before he spoke, his fingertips running along the scar that started at his left ear, sliced through the corners of both lips, and ended in the center of his chin. Moving upward, his hand slid across the mottled skin above his left eye. Although he couldn’t see it, he knew the large burn mark retained a dark redness against the white of his flesh. It was usually darker in the morning, only fading as the day progressed.

“We should get back to the fax,” he said.

Deana didn’t bother to hide the disappointment in her voice. “Of course. What’s the name?”

“George Winnick. I can’t tell if it’s legitimate or not.”

Henry heard the rustling of paper on Deana’s desk, followed by a few taps on a keyboard.

“There’s no sign of him in our records,” she eventually said. “Did the fax come from us?”

Henry told her the fax didn’t seem to have come from any funeral home—another sign of its impostor status. Having nothing else to add, he thanked Deana for her help and hung up before she had another chance to invite him to lunch. He then grabbed the obituary for George Winnick, crumpled it into a tight ball, and dropped it into the trash.

Henry spent the rest of the morning writing obituaries for people who actually were dead. There were four of them altogether, two coming from funeral homes outside of the county and two faxed to him by Deana Swan. On the second fax, just beneath the funeral home’s letterhead, she had scrawled, “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

She had, mostly because Henry had been momentarily detoured from his usual routine.

He worked in the same manner he lived: without spontaneity. Everything in his impeccably organized office had its place and its purpose. The lamp on his desk illuminated the cramped and windowless room. The bookshelf bulged with reference materials. The fax machine, exactly an arm’s length away, provided grist for the mill.

While writing, he played one of the many tragic operas downloaded onto his computer. That morning, he listened to Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. Instead of a distraction, the swelling music, soaring arias, and tale of doomed love served Henry well. It helped him concentrate, allowing him to sustain the somber mood necessary to write about those who had shuffled off this mortal coil. And by the time poor Isolde died of heartbreak, he had finished his work for the morning.

Lunchtime was promptly at noon. Henry ate the same meal every day—turkey on wheat, small salad, bottle of water. He brought everything from home except the water, which was purchased from the vending machine downstairs.

In the break room, a lone reporter stood in front of the snack machine, mulling over his options. He offered a forced smile, which Henry refused to return. Henry Ghoul didn’t smile.

The reporter’s name was Martin Swan. Blandly handsome, he had the look of a former football star going to seed in the working world. His white shirt fit tightly, and his silk tie trickled down a broad chest and the beginnings of a beer gut. Henry knew nothing about him other than the fact that he was Deana’s brother. In a town as small as Perry Hollow, coincidences like that were common. Because of this tenuous link between them, Martin always felt compelled to talk to Henry, even though his voice was usually poised somewhere between sincerity and indifference. Today was no different.

“You’ll be getting an obituary from my sister soon,” Martin said flatly.

Henry stood at the machine next to him, fishing in his pocket for change. “What makes you think that?”

Martin’s voice suddenly became animated. “You didn’t hear the big news?”

“Hear what?”

“Someone was murdered this morning. Chief Campbell found him in a coffin on the side of Old Mill Road. It’s creepy as hell. Poor George.”

The name made Henry freeze. “George Winnick?”

Martin nodded. “Did you know him?”

A chill shot up Henry’s spine. He felt surprise. And fear. The coincidence was too great to not cause at least some bit of fear.

“What time was he found?”

“I think eight or so,” Martin said. “Have you heard something about it? I’m working the story, so tell me if you have.”

Henry left the break room without saying another word. Taking the back steps two at a time, he rushed into his office, streaked to the garbage can, and rustled through its contents until he found the balled-up sheet of paper.

He smoothed the fax out on his desk, scanning the single sentence typed across the page.

George Winnick, 67, of Perry Hollow, Pa., died at 10:45 P.M. on March 14.

In the top left corner of the page was a series of small numbers printed in black. A time stamp of when the fax was sent. Henry read it three times, disbelief growing with each pass. Another chill galloped up his spine. Unlike the first, it stayed there, refusing to be thrown off even as he scooped up the fax, grabbed his coat, and sprinted out the door.

THREE

The man sitting opposite Nick Donnelly was ugly. There was no doubt about it, no eye-of-the-beholder bullshit. He was ass-ugly, yet Nick couldn’t stop looking at him. He was fascinated by the man’s pockmarked cheeks, greasy hair, and teeth that resembled half-nibbled corn on the cob.

Nick bet it was torture to be that unattractive. Thank God he’d never know. The Donnellys were a good-looking, strong-bodied clan. Black Irish, with faces that could have been carved by Michelangelo himself. Add in the rogue’s smile inherited from his father, and Nick knew he was one handsome devil.

But this other guy—this Edgar Sewell sitting a table’s length away—he’d had a hard life. Nick was sure of it. Being taunted. Being called names. Heart sinking every time he looked in the mirror. It still didn’t excuse what he did. Nothing could, no matter how ugly he was.

“So, Edgar,” Nick said. “Why did you do it?”

Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, the man lowered his eyes to the handcuffs at his wrists and said uncomfortably, “I told you already.”

Edgar’s voice matched his looks—unbearable. High-pitched and wavering, it made Nick’s ears hurt.

“Tell me again.”

“Why do you need to hear it again?”

“Because I want to help you.”

It was a lie. Edgar Sewell, the killer of three little girls, was a lost cause. He would spend the rest of his life in this shithole prison outside Philadelphia. Nick’s true goal was to crawl inside his mind and figure out what drove him to commit his unspeakable acts. Understanding that could possibly help Nick stop the killers who were still out there, still preying on the innocent and unsuspecting. That’s why Nick wanted to know.

“They told me to do it,” Edgar said.

“Who?”

“The voices.”

It was the old voices-in-my-head-made-me-kill excuse. Nick had interviewed four killers in the past week, and Edgar Sewell was the third person to use it. But it was a bullshit excuse, used to hide their true motivations. People like Edgar killed not at the behest of ominous voices. They killed because they wanted to.

“What did these voices sound like?”

“I can’t remember.”

Nick leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “That’s interesting. If voices in my head told me to butcher little girls, I’d remember what they sounded like.”

That made Edgar change his tune. “I do remember.”

“Then tell me.”

Edgar stalled by putting his left thumb to his lips and licking it, his tongue a flash of pink poking around the thumbnail. Nick had seen two other killers do the same thing. It was a trait that signaled maternal issues.

When Edgar became aware of Nick watching him, he jerked his thumb away and said, “Elvis.”

Nick had to give Edgar credit for originality. The others had simply said Satan. But the lie also pissed him off. After an hour, he had learned nothing new about Edgar Sewell. But now it was time to put him on the spot and, hopefully, get some real answers out of him.

Nick reached down and opened the briefcase sitting next to his chair. He pulled out a manila folder that contained three photographs. The first one showed a brown-haired girl who smiled shyly for the camera. Nick slapped it onto the table and slid it toward Edgar.

“This is Lainie Hamilton. Do you remember her?”

Edgar refused to look at the photograph, turning his head until he faced the wall.

“I know you do,” Nick said. “She was eight and lived downstairs from you. Her mother, Ronette, was a prostitute, just like yours was. And on June 1, 1980, you offered Ronette twenty dollars to have sex with you. Any of this ring a bell?”

Edgar popped his thumb into his mouth and shook his head.

“She refused, didn’t she? She laughed at you. Maybe called you ugly. You went back upstairs to your apartment and stewed. Later that night, when Ronette was walking the street, you snuck downstairs, broke in, and killed Lainie.”

The thumb popped out long enough for Edgar to say, “The voices told me to.”

“There were no voices,” Nick said, his own voice growing angry. “It was only you. And you killed little eight-year-old Lainie of your own free will. You even liked it so much that you did it again six months later to the daughter of another prostitute.”

Nick tossed a second photo onto the table.

“Then you did it again.”

A third photo. All three of Edgar Sewell’s victims—the youngest six, the oldest eleven—looked up at their killer with innocent eyes.

Forced to face their stares, Edgar said, “They deserved it.”

“Who? The girls?”

“The mothers. Those dirty, filthy whores. They thought they were better than me. They were rotten sluts who were mean to me and made fun of me and called me ugly, just like—”

Nick finished the confession for him. “Your mother?”

Edgar nodded so vigorously that Nick was afraid he’d bite off part of his thumb, which was shoved fully between his lips. Then, to Nick’s surprise, Edgar Sewell did what none of the other killers he interviewed had done.

He cried.

The tears signaled that the interview was over. Nick knew he’d get no more information out of Edgar. Which meant it was on to the next prison—this one in Centre County—and maybe two more after that, if Nick had the time.

Before leaving, he stopped by the prison’s public restroom, which was one step above a gas station’s. One toilet. One urinal. Permanent grime coated the sink’s basin. Nick tried not to touch it as he splashed cold water onto his face. In the mirror, a hollow-eyed man stared back at him.

Christ, he was exhausted. This was the start of his second week interviewing killers, and all that talk and travel had taken its toll. But it would be worth it in the end, he hoped.

After drying his face, Nick exited the bathroom and then the prison itself, relieved to be free of its walls, its bars, its unrelenting grimness. His mood brightened enough that he could muster a whistle. A little “Folsom Prison Blues” in honor of his location.

The good mood—and the whistling—lasted only until he reached the parking lot, where an unexpected visitor waited for him.

Captain Gloria Ambrose, his boss at the Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, leaned against the unmarked car that had shuttled her there. She hugged herself for warmth until she caught sight of Nick. Then her arms dropped to her sides. The move was vintage Gloria—always trying to look tougher than she really was.

“How did you find me?”

“You made an official request to speak to a prisoner of the state,” Gloria replied. “So finding you was easy. I should be asking you why you’re interviewing prisoners when you’re supposed to be on vacation.”

Nick was on vacation. At least officially. And what he did during his time off was his own business.

“Just tell me what’s going on,” he said irritably. “I know there’s a reason you’re here.”

Even more, he knew what that reason was. Gloria didn’t even need to tell him. Her presence alone spoke volumes.

“He struck again.”

“Where?”

“A town called Perry Hollow. It’s about forty-five minutes from here. The rest of your team is already there.”

“I assume you want me to join them,” Nick said.

Gloria, who was done with being cold, opened the car’s rear door and slipped inside. “That’s entirely up to you,” she said, sneaking a glance at the gray-walled prison rising behind Nick. “You are still on vacation.”

She closed the door, leaving Nick alone in the frigid wind with one question still unspoken. He was about to rap on the car’s window, but it lowered before he had the chance, revealing Gloria’s stern gaze.

“And no,” she said. “I won’t tell anyone about your extracurricular activities. But next time you say you’re taking a vacation, do it. You can’t keep pushing yourself like this, Donnelly. It’s not healthy. You really need to learn how to let go.”

Nick drove to Perry Hollow in the company of the Rolling Stones. Nothing was better for a road trip than Jagger’s tremulous voice and the band’s relentless sound. Nick propelled himself along the highway to the strains of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Gimme Shelter,” and “Brown Sugar.” By the time the band was showing some sympathy for the devil, he had reached Perry Hollow, where a devil of a different stripe had just claimed one of its residents.

He found the crime scene easily enough. On the outskirts of town, it was the place with the most people gathered there. The entire road was closed, forcing Nick to stop his car on the hard shoulder.

Sitting in his car, he surveyed the scene. On one side of the barricade was a crowd of curious onlookers. They craned their necks and talked among themselves, their faces all displaying the same shell-shocked look. On the other side of the police tape was a mix of sheriff’s officers and state troopers. They, too, stood around and chatted while looking as stunned as the bystanders.

The only people in the crowd unfazed by the situation were the only three faces Nick recognized. And that was because they worked for him.

Tony Vasquez was the first to spot Nick as he flashed his credentials and ducked under the police tape.

“You made it,” he said, lifting the brim of his campaign hat. A full-time state trooper and part-time bodybuilder, he was the only task force member who wore a uniform. It sure as hell made him look intimidating, which Nick knew Tony liked. But he also wore it with a certain amount of pride. Only 2 percent of the state’s troopers were Hispanic. And Tony was one of the best. With stats like that, he had every reason to be proud.

“We placed bets on if you’d show up or not,” he said. “I won.”

“How much?”

“Twenty bucks from Cassie and the chance to bench-press Rudy.”

“Well done, Vasquez.”

Rudy Taylor, the bench pressee, was nearby, kneeling before a patch of ice on the side of the road.

“Is this where he was found?” Nick asked.

Rudy nodded. “But he didn’t die here.”

“How can you tell?”

“No blood. No struggle. Just the box he was dumped in.”

Stump short and toothpick thin, Rudy Taylor was considered the odd duck of the team. His size didn’t help. Neither did the bowl haircut that made him look like a grade-school science club president. But he was the best crime scene technician they had. Rudy could survey a scene for five minutes and find ten things a whole team had missed after looking for an hour.

“What about tire marks or footprints?” Nick asked.

Rudy stood and stomped the frozen ground for effect. “There’s not too much of that on this ice. I did find something in the snow over there.”

He pointed to a footprint a few feet away. It was marked with a yellow evidence tag.

“You wax it?” Nick was referring to impression wax. Sprayed from a can, it let them make impressions in the snow without destroying the footprint itself.

“Yeah,” Rudy said. “It belongs to the first responder.”

“Where’s the body?”

“The medical examiner took it away fifteen minutes ago.”

The answer came from the last member of Nick’s team—Cassie Lieberfarb. She stood behind him, a state police baseball cap pressed onto her frizzy orange hair. On her feet were the bright green galoshes she always wore in the field. She called them her profiler boots.

“How was Florida?” she asked, her eyes zeroing in on Nick’s face.

“Hot and sunny.”

“Then where’s your tan?”

Nick shrugged. “I used sunblock. Now back to the murder—who’s the victim?”

“Caucasian male,” Tony said. “Mid-sixties.”

“Just what our guy likes,” Cassie added.

“When is the autopsy?”

“At four.”

Nick compiled a list of things that needed to be done that day. He and Cassie had to examine the corpse before the autopsy started. While they did that, Rudy would supervise the collection and examination of evidence. Tony would wrangle up the best sheriff’s officers he could find and start the legwork. When they met up again eight hours later, they’d hopefully have a time of death, a cause, and enough evidence to point to a suspect. Only Nick and the rest of them already had an idea who the killer was. As for why he killed, none of them could begin to guess.

“Has the victim been identified?” he asked.

“The first responder did an ID,” Tony said.

“Who was that?”

“The police chief.”

“Let me talk to him.”

Cassie pointed to the crowd, picking out a woman in uniform who was dwarfed by the other cops around her.

“She is right there,” she said with sisterly pride. “Her name is Kat Campbell.”

Nick took a moment to size up the chief. She looked exhausted. Her kind eyes were dimmed by the dark circles sagging beneath them, and she moved in the weary, slump-shouldered way of someone carrying a heavy load on her back. Discovering a murder in your own backyard would do that.

“Are you Chief Campbell?” Nick asked as he approached.

The chief nodded. “Are you in charge of the task force?”

“I am,” he responded, shaking her hand. “Nick Donnelly. BCI, the Bureau of Criminal Investigations.”

She eyed his civilian clothes, hoping in vain to find something that indicated his rank and position. Since there wasn’t, Nick volunteered the information.

“I’m a lieutenant,” he said. “But in rank only. In reality, I’m just part of a team trying to catch bad guys.”

“We thank you for the help.”

“Just so we’re clear, the county sheriff has turned the case over to us. So the state police, specifically the BCI, is in charge of the investigation. I hope that sits well with you.”

Kat responded tersely. “Understood.”

“Good. I heard you were first on the scene.”

The chief briefly described everything she had seen and done that morning. It was all by the book, from finding the box to forming a perimeter around the crime scene. That made Nick happy. Sometimes local cops did more harm than good.

“I was told you knew the victim.”

“Only by sight. Perry Hollow’s a small town. After a while, you know everyone.”

Her voice caught on the last word, and for a second, Nick worried that the chief was going to start crying. But she swallowed hard and kept her emotions in check.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We’ve never had a murder before. So it’s been a bad day.”

Nick had no doubt. For Chief Campbell, it was probably the mother of all bad days. And she didn’t know the half of it yet. Once she did, her day was going to go from bad to downright miserable.

FOUR

Kat understood the situation perfectly.

She knew the limitations of Perry Hollow’s police force. Between her and Carl, they barely had enough manpower to write speeding tickets, let alone investigate a homicide. She knew the chain of command in such a situation. If the local cops couldn’t handle a case, jurisdiction moved to the county sheriff. And the sheriff, who was busy running for re-election in the fall, didn’t want to get his hands dirty in a homicide that—if unsolved—could sully his reputation. So he had called in the big guns—the state police. They had the manpower and equipment and a special investigative task force led by lieutenant-in-rank-only Nick Donnelly. Most of all, Kat knew that she needed them more than they needed her, which is why she vowed to do anything that was asked of her.

So, when Nick asked if there was a place his team could work out of, she offered her office. When he wondered if they could make full use of her police force, she introduced him to Carl Bauersox, his eager baby face poking out of his too-tight jacket. And when Nick sought a private place where they could talk, she led him to her patrol car.

And there they sat, the heater cranked on high while the slowly fogging windshield painted the action outside a gauzy gray.

“So why do we need to speak in private?” Kat asked.

Nick answered with a question of his own. “Have you ever heard of the Betsy Ross Killer?”

“No. Interesting nickname, though.”

“I hate it,” Nick said. “But you can thank The Philadelphia Inquirer for it.”

“Why do they call him that?”

“Because like Betsy, he’s good with a needle and thread. His victims had their wounds sewn shut postmortem. Then they were dumped in a public place.”

“How many victims are we talking about?”

“Three so far. The first was found in a park in Philadelphia last year. Another washed up on the shore of Lake Erie nine months ago. The third was found up north in November at World’s End State Park.”

“And you and your task force have been leading the investigation?”

“We have. Three murders. All across the state. And now it might be four.”

It was obvious what Nick was implying, and the thought of it made Kat’s spine stiffen.

“This Betsy Ross Killer—you think he’s the one who murdered George?”

“Perhaps.”

A strong, primal fear pinned Kat to her seat. A murder taking place in Perry Hollow was bad enough. But knowing it could be the work of a serial killer made it all the more horrible. What if he was still in her town? Or worse, what if he lived there, blending in with everyone else?

“Will you be able to confirm that?”

“I hope so,” Nick said. “I need to examine the body. See if there’s a similarity in the stitches and the wounds. Maybe my guys will be able to pick up something from the evidence. So far, Betsy Ross hasn’t left a lot of it behind.”