The Seekers, page 7
“So, the real killer was probably a local farmer. Someone living among the others. But does someone who does something like that stop killing?”
“It would depend on the real motive.”
“You mean, if it was an insane ax serial killer, he’d have to keep going.”
“I’m not a profiler, but as far as I’ve heard, killers like that keep killing. Unless they’re caught and executed or locked up, or unless they move on elsewhere.”
“What about the Satanism?”
“Here’s the thing. If you want to worship Satan, hey, it’s your right in this country to worship as you please. When John Blymire and company killed Nelson Rehmeyer in 1928, Blymire went to prison. Not for witchcraft but for murder. Newby wouldn’t have gone to prison for being either a witch or a Satanist—he was committing murder. Maybe someone else in the area was a Satanist and either wanted Newby out of the way for giving all Satanists a bad name should he be discovered or because, as a Satanist himself, he wanted to offer up a massive sacrifice. The witchcraft in the area is famous. Not Satanism.”
“But—” Carl stopped, looked up and inhaled sharply.
“There you are,” Brad Holden said, making his way through the tables to join them. “Carl, have you heard anything yet?”
“No, not really,” Carl said. “I know there are FBI agents who have been investigating in Philadelphia, I know that Dallas and Joe are questioning people and might have some leads, but that’s about it.”
Brad looked at Keri. “And you. You disappeared most of yesterday.”
“I was here. I guess we just kept missing each other,” Keri murmured.
“Did you sleep okay?” Brad asked.
“Is any of us sleeping okay?” she asked.
“We are in a very tough situation,” Brad agreed.
“And I’m so sorry,” Carl said.
“Hey, not your fault,” Brad assured him. He turned to Keri and plunged in with, “I’d love to either hypnotize you or do a memory session. We sit, and you close your eyes, and then go back, step by step, over everything that happened. You don’t just remember what you saw—you think about textures, about smells, about everything that has to do with the senses. You might remember the woman in white.”
Carl’s phone started to buzz, and he excused himself, standing to walk to the front of the café to answer it.
“Brad,” Keri began, “I’ve been over it, and I’m going to have to go over it again. We haven’t even met two of the agents working the case yet. Please—”
“Keri, it’s painless, I promise you. There’s something there. Something in what you saw. If you’d only accept that it might be something, then we could—”
“Keri, I need you.” Carl came striding back to the table, anxious. He had money out and set it on the table. “Excuse us, Brad. Please. We have to go.”
He reached for Keri’s hand. She rose gratefully, and yet she couldn’t just walk out. “Carl, I can pay for my own food—”
“Keri, please, I work for a living. I can pay for two omelets.”
“But Carl, wait... What’s happening?” Brad demanded.
“We’ll talk later, Brad. Keri, please, if you don’t mind.”
She followed him out of the café to the entrance to the hotel, thinking that he had once again come up with a ruse to rescue her.
But that wasn’t it this time.
A large black SUV was waiting outside; Carl opened the back door and ushered her in.
She was glad she had come to know and trust Carl, otherwise she might have worried about simply sliding into an unknown car. Even then, if she’d just had a moment to think... But it all happened so quickly.
Carl spoke up. “Special Agent Dallas Wicker is doing the driving, and that’s Joe Dunhill, ex-best-cop-ever. Joe, Dallas—Keri Wolf.”
She could see that the man driving was blond; the man next to him had brown hair. Both glanced back at her in friendly but brief greeting.
She recognized the dark-haired man from the night before: Joe Dunhill.
Something about that seemed a little unnerving. He had been about to talk to her. He had apparently known who she was. And now here he was, looking at her as if he had already assessed everything about her, even her mind.
Ridiculous. She could stare back and assess them, too.
She estimated the men to be in their early thirties; good faces, with a certain look about them... She thought of it as a law enforcement look. It wasn’t that they seemed hard, just...determined?
“How do you do?” Keri said.
“Hi, Keri,” Dallas said, his eyes on the road.
She’d wondered if the car was going to speed off as if they were in a movie. But Dallas drove smoothly out of the circular driveway.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Back to the inn. The forensic team has finished there. They went over the entire place,” Dallas told her.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help. Just... All she wanted to do was roll back time, and never see the corpse of the poor, brutalized woman.
Keri glanced at Carl. “I think that Brad Holden is the one really anxious to get back in,” she said.
“Yes,” Dallas said. “I believe he is anxious.”
“He will be soon, I suppose. You’ve released the inn back to Carl, so he’ll be able to invite whoever he wants, right?” Keri asked, looking at Carl.
Joe turned slightly. “Yes, but he’s most likely going to want to bring in a cleaning crew that specializes in crime scenes. The basement is...”
“Bloody,” Keri said flatly. She was concerned and looked at Carl. “Okay, so why is it that you just have me coming back with you?”
“Because we’re operating under the assumption that you’re innocent,” Dallas said.
She should have been relieved. She found that she was a bit resentful.
She frowned at Carl. He didn’t notice.
“I’m sorry,” she protested. “I just don’t see what I can tell you that I haven’t already told people over and over again.”
Joe looked at her. “You’re a historian, right?”
“I don’t consider myself a historian. I look into historical crimes, but that doesn’t mean that I know anything beyond what I’m doing my research on. I mean, a bit of context of the era is necessary...”
Joe smiled grimly. “You were researching the Miller Inn and Tavern, right?”
“Well, yes, of course—”
“You’re what we need then,” Joe said.
“You just said I’m presumed innocent,” Keri snapped. “But am I under arrest here or something?” She was tired. She’d slept, but she’d had that dream... That nightmare.
Dallas glanced at her through the rearview mirror. “We’re asking for your help,” he said.
“Please,” Carl added softly.
She fell silent and soon they rolled up into the driveway at the Miller Inn and Tavern. She was out of the car before anyone could open the door for her. Joe stood by the rear passenger door; he’d been going to open it, she knew.
She looked up at him.
He was tall. He had broad shoulders and a smooth lean build that, she imagined, could be deceptive. She had a feeling he was pure muscle. His hair was brown, the cut just a little long, but his eyes were what impressed her most—they were a clear, cool, unusual silvery gray. The way he looked at her was not appreciative of her manner.
She was resentful, she realized, because she was afraid.
She wished that she hadn’t barked at him so sharply. She almost apologized, but he turned away from her silently.
She followed him up the few steps to the broad Colonial front porch. She almost jumped when Carl set an arm on her shoulders. It was just a comforting arm, and Carl was truly a decent young man. She just wished he hadn’t chosen her to come along for this first trip back.
He stepped ahead of her to open the door and they all walked into the tavern. The bar area stretched to their left. Ahead and to the right were the stairs that led up to the rooms—and the door that led down to the basement.
“So, I’m going to need a specialized cleaning crew now that they’re done in the basement,” Carl said. “I mean, I’ve already seen an architect about maintaining the integrity of the place while doing some updating...and the basement was last, anyway, but of course, the blood... There’s a lot of it, right?”
Keri remembered that Carl had never been in the basement; he and the others had realized that they had to get the hell out.
She didn’t have to answer. Joe said bluntly, “There’s a lot of blood.”
“That’s so confusing,” Carl said.
They all looked at him.
“I mean, I am just an actor, and what I know about any of this is from crime shows. But if the victim was killed before she was brought in, wouldn’t the blood be at the crime site?”
“We believe,” Dallas said, “that when she was killed, the murderer collected her blood and distributed it here.”
“No one knows where she was killed?” Carl asked.
“Not yet,” Dallas said. “But we will find the place.”
Keri leaned against one of the tavern tables. She noticed that the monitors remained, but that Mike’s computer that received the camera feeds had been taken away.
“There’s a secondary crime scene somewhere,” Joe said.
Keri frowned. “Wouldn’t that be the first crime scene? Where she was killed?” she added.
“Goes by what is discovered first,” Joe explained.
“Keri, could you describe for us what happened when you went down to the basement?” Dallas asked gently.
Again. She’d gone through this at the police station.
“Please,” Joe said. “Starting from earlier in the day.”
“Okay,” Keri said. She took a deep breath.
“I arrived early afternoon. Brad wanted to start right off with a live internet feed, so we did. He talked first, then I talked about the history—”
“And then I talked about why I bought the place,” Carl said, nodding his head.
“After that, everyone did different things. The crew was going to set up cameras, and Mike was supposed to be watching the screens. I went into the little museum room—there—and I admit to becoming immersed in all the resources available there.”
“And where were you?” Dallas asked Carl.
“I went upstairs with Brad to room 207. It’s one of the most haunted rooms—a couple was murdered there. Everyone in the inn was murdered that night but reports of the paranormal are heaviest from room 207. That was the room we chose for the crew’s general meeting place... We had cameras in there, too.”
“Brad was with you the entire time?” Joe asked him.
“Yes—no. I was watching one of their thingamajigs,” Carl said. “Some kind of a sensor. It’s important not to keep it by a phone or an electrical outlet, because that will cause it to react when there is nothing there. So, I had it on the table there when Brad went out to see that the others had the cameras all set up. A little bit later, we were all up in the room, talking about what Keri might be able to discover when she went through all the research.”
“Okay,” Joe said. “But, Carl, there was a time when you were all alone up in room 207.”
“Yes, but—I don’t know how anyone in the inn could have left, killed a woman and dragged her into the basement. There were cameras everywhere.”
“There are a lot of blanks—places where the cameras apparently stopped working and just showed gray static. Police techs have been going through it all night,” Dallas said. “Of course, I know that the police have been hard on Mike Lerner—he oversaw the cameras. But he swears he didn’t turn off the basement camera or mess with the others. The camera in the basement went out soon after it was turned on. Footage from other places in the inn have skips in them. Mike swears up and down that he wasn’t responsible.”
“You’re certain you were alone in the inn?” Joe asked. He looked from Carl to Keri. They looked at one another.
“We did lock the front door,” Carl said.
“But you haven’t had the locks changed since you officially took possession of the inn,” Joe said.
“No. I wanted to let the Truth Seekers have a chance to come in before I started with renovations and stuff,” Carl said.
“Have you spoken with Mike since the night at the police station?” Joe asked.
Again, Carl and Keri looked at one another, frowning.
“I’ve only seen Brad and Eileen,” Keri said. “Brad just wants to get back here and keep working, and Eileen still seems a little scared.”
“I’ve seen Mike. He’s pretty bummed. Said the police grilled him really hard,” Carl said. “He’s upset and confused. He is the camera guy, but the cameras are simple—I figure anyone could turn them on and off. You’d think someone would be seen in the video, though. I’ve seen everyone since that night—Brad, Mike, Pete, Serena and Eileen. They’re all nervous and anxious, and we want to be at the inn, but we’re a little afraid of it. They love ghosts. They’re not so good with living killers. Then again, who isn’t scared of a living killer?”
Keri took his hand and squeezed it.
Joe turned to look at Keri. “You were downstairs the entire time. You didn’t see anyone else—anyone come and go?”
“I was in the museum. No one came to see me, and I didn’t hear anyone, not even a door open. When I realized that I was hungry, I came back out to the bar area, but Mike wasn’t in front of the screens.”
“I think he was upstairs then,” Carl said.
“You were looking for the others, but you wound up in the basement?” Joe asked Keri.
She took a deep breath. Those silvery eyes of his made him look like a werewolf. She was supposedly presumed innocent. If so, why was he looking at her that way?
“I was going to head up the stairs,” she said. “But I heard something—a sound—as if someone was distressed, and it was coming from the basement.”
“You heard something weird in the basement, and you just went down?” Joe Dunhill asked.
“It sounded as if someone was in trouble or pain—and yes, I went to see if they needed help,” Keri said.
“You weren’t afraid?” Joe asked.
“It didn’t occur to me at the time that I needed to be afraid,” she said, her aggravation with him growing.
He seemed oblivious to her tone. “And then?”
She realized that this was an important point to them, and she felt again as if she was being accused of something, even though they’d said she was presumed innocent.
“Then, I went down the stairs—not all the way. I found Eileen on the steps, and she was hurt. Then I noticed the corpse, and we ran back up and out.”
“You said there was a woman in the basement. Eileen didn’t see her, but you thought you saw another woman down there,” Carl added in a helpful tone.
She inhaled sharply, wishing that she had never spoken, that she had grabbed Eileen and run out as quickly as possible.
But she had seen her, the woman in the long white dress, and she had seen the sadness, the tragedy in her eyes, and she hadn’t wanted to leave her.
And now she was dreaming about her.
“You know what, guys?” she said. Screw titles for the lawmen, special agents, or whatever title they might bear, “I was terrified. Absolutely terrified. I don’t remember. All I remember is that I wanted to get out. I wanted to help Eileen, get out, reach the cops and the others. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything else.”
Despite the fact that they had seemed to expect something more of her, Keri was still stunned when Joe asked his next question.
“Why are you lying?”
Fury ripped through her.
“I am not lying!” she told him adamantly. “That’s what happened. What is the matter with you people? I know that the woman killed was an FBI agent. They have it all over the news. Why aren’t you out there looking for the truth? Carl has been used, this place has been used, all of us have been used! Dammit, ease up on us and start looking for the real criminal out there, whoever it is who wanted to get rid of an FBI agent!”
5
“Well, that didn’t go so well,” Dallas told Joe dryly. He raised a brow as if to question Joe’s manner with their witness.
“Sorry. Miss Wolf is lying,” Joe said, shrugging.
He could see Keri Wolf as he spoke; she was standing at the back window of the Miller Inn and Tavern, watching as Joe and Dallas explored the land that stretched behind the structure. To the left of the back of the inn, there was a rolling expanse of overgrown lawn, and in the distance, the remnants of a small church and the burial ground surrounding it. To the right, nothing but a bit of meadow and then forest.
Dallas didn’t believe that the killer had simply driven up to the inn with the corpse in his trunk, which was the theory Catrina Billings seemed to embrace.
Joe didn’t believe that the body had been driven to the inn at all. It seemed unlikely that no one would have seen or heard an unfamiliar vehicle arriving. He believed that Julie Castro had been killed in the surrounding area and then transported into the cellar.
It was too bad that the crew hadn’t set up any video cameras on the exterior of the property.
Keri stood at the window alone; Carl had remained inside, on the phone with someone.
Joe studied her with interest. She was a very attractive young woman. He hadn’t realized it at first, but he did recognize her name, and then seeing her, he’d recognized her face. She appeared on crime documentaries and news programs now and then, when the focus of a show was a long-ago crime she had researched and written about.
