Part 18 (2/2)

”We've got some things on record about him being possibly involved with arson, like you mentioned. Do you recall him having any sort of obsession with fire when he was younger?”

”Not that I can recall. He used to burn things in the backyard. G.I. Joes, He-Man figures, little Matchbox cars, things like that. But I figured it was normal for a boy of his age.”

That might be the first steps toward burning animals in coolers, Avery thought. And maybe even human bodies in some sort of hidden firebox.

”Do you happen to know where he's living now?” Avery asked.

”No clue. I know he had a job around here for a while at some crematorium. He was living in a rundown apartment back then. But I haven't heard from him since then. I ran into an old friend of his a few months back that said they were pretty sure he was living in Texas somewhere.”

”I see,” Avery said, slowly starting to feel this lead crumble away. She was just about to ask another question, anything that might link Roosevelt Toms back to the Boston area, when her phone rang. She glanced at the display and saw that it was Ramirez. ”Sorry,” she said to Debbie. ”I need to take this. It'll just take a second.”

Debbie nodded slowly, as if she couldn't care less. Avery stepped out of the office and put her finger into her ear to filter the noise of the machinery in the factory.

”I'm glad you called,” Avery said in lieu of h.e.l.lo. ”I need you to do every kind of search you can on a Roosevelt Toms. There's a good chance he's living in Texas and has a spotty record.”

”Yeah, I can do that,” Ramirez said. ”But while I'm doing that, let me give you some news to soak in.”

His tone was rather excited. Either he was managing to put the remarks of the previous night behind him or he had come across something that had changed his att.i.tude.

”What did you find?” Avery asked.

”For starters, the ident.i.ty of the third victim. Her name was Mary Sawyer, forty-one years of age.”

”Any family to notify?”

”That's where it gets good,” Ramirez said. ”d.a.m.n it, Avery...you were right. We went back and looked deep into the other victims. Keisha Lawrence lost her mother about five months ago to breast cancer. They were a small family and Keisha had been put in charge of final arrangements. Her mother was cremated and her ashes were spread somewhere on a beach in North Carolina.

”Then there's Sarah Osborne. She's a real strange one. She was too young to have to make the decision to cremate someone. But when her golden retriever died earlier this year, she cremated it. According to what we know, Fido's ashes are still in a little urn somewhere in a stack of boxes that was taken from her apartment after she died.”

”My G.o.d,” Avery said. ”And how about this new woman, Mary Sawyer?”

”A brother...died of heart failure at fifty-two years of age. He was cremated nine weeks ago.”

”And the missing woman you were talking about, Sophia Lesbrook,” Avery said. ”Her husband was cremated.”

”Yeah, we're working on the a.s.sumption that it can't be a coincidence. We're a.s.sembling a team to comb her house right now.”

”Sounds good. In the meantime, please see what you can do to pull some information on Roosevelt Toms-maybe under the nickname of Rosie. If he's in Texas, he's an eliminated lead. But if there's any doubt of his location, I think he might be our guy.”

”And if Mary Sawyer is indeed the next victim,” Ramirez said, ”that shows that Phillip Bailey is innocent because he's been in our custody for the last twelve hours.”

”And most importantly,” Avery said, ”it proves that the killer is still out there.”

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

Sophia Lesbrook came to slowly. It was almost like waking up from a very bad dream, only there was pain to go along with the fear. It was a pain that started along the right side of her jaw and seem to trace its way halfway down her back. She tasted blood in her mouth and something about the inside of her mouth felt weird. She lolled her head to the right very slowly and realized the lower half of the right side of her face was badly swollen.

That's when she remembered the fleeting image of the man in her bedroom. She had no idea where he had come from and by the time she'd been aware that he was in bed with her and straddling her, it had been too late.

She opened her eyes quickly, an action that seemed to cause the pain in her face and back to intensify.

She was in a room that looked sort of like a bas.e.m.e.nt. She was lying on a cold concrete floor. There was light in the room but it was faint. She saw through her hazy vision that it was coming from a small lamp that sat on a table across the room. A man was sitting at the table, his back to her. He seemed to be concentrating hard on something but she could not see what it was.

She wanted to scream but fought the urge. She did her best to take a quick inventory of her body. Her face hurt like h.e.l.l and with each second she regained her consciousness, she started to realize that the pain that spiraled down her back seemed to also radiate at the base along the back of her neck.

The taste of blood in her mouth was thick but she didn't think there was any actively coming out of her mouth. Looking back to the image of the man in her bed, she instantly wondered if she had been raped but she didn't seem to be harmed in that way. Sure, he could have done a lot of things that would leave no pain or traces of foul play but for now, the fair certainty that she had not been raped was good enough for her.

Then what does he want?

It was a good question. And it was not one she could get an answer to at the moment. His back was still to her and she could still not tell what he was looking at. What she was aware of, though, was that he had started muttering to himself. It was a high-pitched and urgent sort of voice that made her wonder if he might be mentally challenged.

She then eyed the room she was in. Her head was resting in the far corner, giving her a decent view of the room. A few feet away from her head there was a rather large door. There was a strange-looking lock on the outside of it and the U-shaped handle reminded her of the walk-in freezer at the butcher shop her grandfather had once owned.

On the other end of the room, there was a standard door. It was closed most of the way but not completely. In the murkiness on the other side, she could see the beginning of a set of wooden stairs.

The idea of running for her life crossed her mind. His back was to her and he was preoccupied. As if to prove this farther, he continued muttering to himself. This time, she caught a few of the words.

”...too d.a.m.n hard...and now you killed the b.i.t.c.h...still burn but so what...?”

He thinks I'm dead, Sophia thought. I really could get the jump on him. If I move my a.s.s right now, I could make it to those stairs before he got out of his chair.

But she also knew that beyond those stairs, she'd be unfamiliar with the building above them. All it would take was one wrong turn and he'd have her. And then maybe he would kill her...and on purpose this time.

Best to play dead for now, Sophia thought. I'll play dead until I get a better idea of what he's up to...or when I know I can get a good head start on him.

Suddenly, he was turning in his chair. He turned toward her and she closed her eyes. She opened them the tiniest bit, into something thinner than slits. She could barely see him or the object he was holding in his hand. She was pretty sure it was something almost like a large can, something that had a dull s.h.i.+ne to it in the lamplight from the desk.

He was looking at her, perhaps studying her. Hadn't he said something about burning? Was he sizing her up for something?

She didn't know. She concentrated on taking extremely shallow breaths, ready to hold in completely if he came over to her for a closer evaluation.

But he did not do that. He turned back around and placed the object he had been holding on the side of the desk. He started to study something else, setting something out on the desk with loving care. As she watched him, he pulled small box from under the desk. He piled more of it onto the desk. It was odd...but Sophia was pretty sure it was foam or some sort of insulation carpenters used before putting up drywall or sheetrock. She also saw a small container on the edge of the desk. It was yellow with a red top.

Is that lighter fluid?

The insulation and the lighter fluid were weird, sure...but when she was able to finally see the object he had placed on the desk, her heart sank and she felt the need to scream again.

It was an urn.

And she was pretty sure the man had not been talking to himself the entire time. Sophia was pretty sure he had been talking to the urn.

Oh my G.o.d, he's insane.

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