Nate Mahoney bemoaned the condition of what he considered some of his finest work. But then he looked up miserably.
“Wow. I’m sitting here thinking that my artistic talent was wasted—and Natalie and Amelia are dead. I feel like a horrible person.”
“You are a horrible person,” Becca said. “Oh, I just meant that as a tease, Nate. You’re not a horrible person.”
Clara hated seeing them so unhappy. “Hey, it’s just a bad situation.”
Jackson was behind her. “I’m sorry, but this entire prank was in really bad taste, as well,” he said.
Becca sank down on one of the living room’s sumptuous, plush sofas. “It was Natalie’s idea,” she said.
“And Amelia embraced it,” Tommy Marchant added. He sat down, too. He was holding a bloodied piece of leg, but didn’t seem to notice. “I was so excited when we first came here. I mean, here is the thing about Natalie. She really loved doing Vacation USA. She thought that our country was wonderful and that people didn’t realize how diverse. They didn’t need to have the money to run off to Europe or South America, they just needed to know what was right in their own backyard. I remember when I got to come up here on the site inspection for Black Bear Island. When old Justin Crowley brought me about on the snowmobiles, I was so ecstatic! Such a cool, unusual and beautiful place!”
“Then, of course, Natalie came out. And she was whining about production money—as usual,” Becca remembered.
“And,” Nate told Jackson, “saying she couldn’t understand how the money for Vacation USA came from Gotcha.”
“When she was out here herself,” Becca said, “that was when she came up with the idea of inviting the actors from the Fate over. She could get one of her well-sponsored Gotcha segments—and then showcase the beauty of Alaska!”
“What happens now with the company?” Clara asked.
Nate waved a hand in the air. “Well, Natalie was CEO, but there are stockholders. I guess we didn’t even worry about that yet.”
“They’ll make Tommy CEO, I’ll bet,” Becca said. “He’s older. He’s been around.”
“Thanks,” Tommy murmured drily.
Becca didn’t seem to notice. “We’re not that big a company, but we do have a board—mostly slightly rich guys who like to have a hand in television, play like they’re big producers, you know? But, Tommy is the only one who really knows how to pull shows together. Oh, there’s Misty, of course, but she’s kind of a follower, you know?”
“Maybe we ought to be looking for jobs instead of moping around,” Nate said. “Of course, I really think that I’ll be fine. I’m good at what I do.”
“I’ll vouch for that,” Clara murmured. “Well, do you want some help?”
“You want to help?” Nate asked her.
“I’m here—sure. What do I do?” Clara asked.
“Here,” Nate said, handing her a leg. “Peel this stuff off...it’s just garbage. We’ll preserve the leg.”
Clara took the leg and stared at it blankly for a moment.
But she’d said that she’d help. So she sat there, peeling the dried “blood” off the plastic leg.
She noted that Jackson wasn’t amused by any of it; he had brought a laptop with him and she assumed that he had accessed the internet the police techs had gotten working.
At any rate, he frowned while he read.
Looking at the stack of props on the floor, Clara thought that it was going to be a long day; it was good that she was helping.
She started back at it, thinking of the plays she had done, the dramas and the tragedies.
Nothing ever quite this gruesome...
She looked up to find that Jackson was staring across the room.
Amelia had reappeared.
She seemed to waft through the space. And she sank down beside Clara.
“There’s something...” she said. “I feel that there’s something familiar that I’m kind of getting a sense of now...something that sparks memory.” She looked at Clara a little helplessly. “I can’t figure out what it is. It’s important—I know it.”
“Think!” Clara told her.
“Huh? What?” Becca asked.
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking...um, what the heck is this stuff, anyway?”
“Mostly red dye and corn syrup—gone sticky in the days past,” Nate said morosely. He paused and added, “Honestly, hard to tell from the real stuff sometimes. I think you have a fly caught in there, too.” He was quiet. “Really like the real stuff, I guess,” he added.
They all fell silent; they all went back to work.
Amelia remained, an image, perhaps, in Clara’s mind, looking perplexed.
And Jackson stared at the two of them.
* * *
The cliffs and caves on Black Bear Island were treacherous. Some formations were hard ground, hard rock, piled with earth and snow. Some were just ice. And some were just snow. A wrong step could bring a man crashing down to die on a jagged crop of rock or ice.
But both Mike and Thor knew the landscape—and knew to respect it.
They left the snowmobiles behind the high ledge on the southern side of the island and began the slow descent through the crystal-white cover down to the “beach” below.
There, caverns and glacial ice—carved out in the earth long before the coming of man—stood in what was truly fairy-tale beauty. The ice and snow shimmered in the sun. The water glistened. Sea birds flew overhead and the ever-present Alaskan salmon jumped high now and then, creating magical diamond-like dances on the horizon.
Snow and rock crunched beneath Thor’s feet as he walked along the shoreline. About fifty yards from where their descent ended, the caves began.
They were mammoth, appearing—from the water—like giant back mouths, waiting to consume the unwary into darkness forever. They were treacherous; at high tide, water filled the beds beneath them, except in winter, when they were solidly frozen. At low tide, the water was gone, and inside, they offered a spectacular view of natural formations.
Boats could catch on jagged rock and ice—and the inhabitants might well be left in freezing water, helpless to escape. Thor knew that, when early explorers had first come to the island, they had found the bones of many a lost sailor caught within the snow and ice and rubble.
It was low tide. He looked at Mike; they had several hours to explore.
He turned on his heavy-duty lantern, illuminating the first cave they entered. Mike did the same. Light filled the darkness, but created eerie shadows in the depths of the formation.
“I’ll go left,” Mike said.
“I’ll take the right.”
Thor moved in carefully, raising the light, looking everywhere. Police officers and Coast Guard men and women had searched, but there were nooks and crannies abounding here—it would be easy to miss a clue, especially when you weren’t really sure what you were looking for.
“Beer cans!” Mike called out. “Rusty—they’ve been here awhile.”
“Yeah, I found a broken flashlight. Been here awhile, too, though—all rusted out.”
“Hey, Thor! Come over here,” Mike called.
Thor did so, making his way around a spike of rock that seemed to grow like an oak, straight up from the earth.
“What do you make of this?” Mike asked.
Thor hunkered down while Mike held a light up high.
There were splotchy, circular dots on the ground. The color was a deep crimson, almost brown.
“Blood?” Thor wondered.
He walked carefully to the last bit of trail and looked beyond. There were more of the spikes of rock heading toward the rear of the cave. He moved around them and came to what appeared to be a wall of rock and ice.
But there was a break in it.
br /> He slid around it. A crevice—almost like a closet-sized room—had been naturally created there.
He shone the light.
And he found what he was looking for.
A rough brown blanket lay on the ground.
And on top of it...
“Mike!”
He picked up the spade that had been left there. Once upon a time, it had been an ordinary farming spade. But it had been altered. It had been sharpened and honed until it was...
“Sharp enough to slam down and cut through a woman’s body,” Mike said from behind him.
There was a large butcher’s knife beside the spade.
It, too, had been sharpened and honed.
“Especially if you use both tools,” Mike said quietly. “I’d say these are the weapons or tools that our killer used,” he added softly.
“Yep. Especially when you consider the fact that they’re still covered in blood.”
* * *
Forensic crews were busy as the afternoon wore on.
By early evening, Thor came by the Mansion; he’d been in touch with Jackson, so Clara knew that he had found something—the weaponized tool that the killer had used to bisect Amelia.
She was sitting on the porch with Jackson when Thor parked his snowmobile and she hurried out to meet him; he looked tired but grim and satisfied. He greeted her with a smile and, as she reached him, set an arm around her shoulders and waved to Jackson. “You okay?”
She nodded. “The crew from Wickedly Weird is staying tonight. They’re showering now. We cleaned and packed a bunch of their props and bloody creations,” she said. “It was a quiet afternoon.” She searched out his eyes. “You found...what...was used?” She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t just say the tool that bisected Amelia. She never knew when Amelia might pop up. And she just didn’t want the young woman hearing her—even if she knew what had happened to her.
He nodded. “I thought something had to be here somewhere. Forensic teams are out again; God knows, maybe we can get a bit of trace evidence somewhere.”
“Okay, but you know that Tate Morley is here—you just need to find him,” she said.
“Yes.”
“But you don’t know who he might be working with, and it’s illegal to just run around and take people’s blood or ask them to spit—right?”
He grinned. “Something like that,” he told her. He was looking out toward the trees; she felt him straighten, and for a moment, she thought that he had seen someone he mistrusted—or perhaps the ghost of someone walking in the trees.
But he lowered his head and said softly, “Hey, take a look. Be quiet, and he’ll hang around awhile. There’s a moose over there.”
She turned slightly. And she was awed by what she saw. The animal wasn’t a hundred yards away from her; he was beautiful. And huge. She’d seen a moose before—in a zoo. But it had been a little one, and it hadn’t been standing in the snow by the beautiful rich green canopy of a field of pines.
“You do have to be careful with them. They’re very powerful, and if they’re frightened...” Thor warned.
“Do you know, the last thing on my mind is thinking of a way to bug a moose,” she said.
He grinned. “We get them by the compound, and some of them come up for scraps now and then. But, sometimes, people just want to feed them and they do it awkwardly and they wind up getting kicked, and a kick can do you some damage. Wildlife is just that—wild life.”
“He’s fantastic,” Clara said, and she studied the strong lines of his face. “You love Alaska, don’t you?”
He looked back at her. “I do love it. It is my home. I’ve lived away from it. I may live away from it again. I am a Bureau guy—when I need to move around, I do. But there’s always a little Alaska in my heart. You?” he asked her. “Do you love home—New Orleans?”
“Magical and unique, and yes, of course, I love it. But...I do what I do. I leave when I need to.” She grinned. “Yep, and there’s always a little NOLA in my heart!”
He seemed lighter that evening. He’d found a tool that had been sharpened and honed and used to chop a woman in two. She knew that he cared about the victims of crime, and cared deeply.
And still, he somehow seemed a bit lighter.
She liked to think it was because of her. And the night they had shared.
And it was, or so it seemed. He gave her a wry grin and said, “Hm. Kind of like one of those old magazine articles my mom used to read—‘Can a charming Southern actress and hard-nosed Alaskan G-man find happiness somewhere in between?’ Anyway, I guess that’s for the future,” he added huskily. “There are so many men working this damned thing, you’d think that we’d turn up more than what we’re finding.”
She nodded, entranced by his words—and yet he had quickly changed in demeanor.
“Any sign of anything on the mainland?” she asked him.
“Not that I know of yet,” he told her. “Shall we see what’s up with Jackson? I could go for some hot coffee—it’s been a long day.”
She looked over at the moose one more time. The majestic animal was watching them in return. She smiled and turned to Thor. “Yeah, we should go in. But...he’s amazing. The moose. He’s just watching us.”
He grinned. “Something like that. Yes. Down by you, the gators just watch, right?”
“Out in the bayou. Honestly, I haven’t seen one walking down Bourbon Street lately.”
His arm still around her shoulder, he led the way to the porch so they could join Jackson.
Jackson said, “Let’s get somewhere private. FaceTime with Angela—she has some reports for us.”
A police officer was reading a newspaper in the living room; they headed through to the office that Marc Kimball had allowed for their use, glad to see that Kimball wasn’t about.
Jackson headed to the desk and tapped on computer keys until Angela’s face appeared before them.
She greeted them quickly. “We’re still tracing letters to and from Tate Morley when he was in prison. Some went to women we’ve found around the country,” Angela said, and shook her head. “It never ceases to amaze me—the amount of men and women who fall in love with serial killers, many of them believing that they are the one who can cure a bad boy or girl. At any rate, we’re following up on a few leads where someone was mailing from a drop box in Los Angeles. There was nothing about killing, meeting up with one another, escaping—anything like that—in the letters. But Will is working on this—you know his computer and illusion skills!—to figure out what is really being said.”
“Same LA address on a number of exchanges?” Thor asked.
“Yes, and they’re all about finding God, whiteness, purity, and leading a new life in all that’s pure,” Angela said. “Thing is, we should be able to track whoever these letters are going to and coming from, but...it’s a mailbox. And it hasn’t been paid in a few weeks. It was rented to—and you’re going to love this—Jane Doe.”
“Someone just rented a box to someone named Jane Doe?” Jackson asked. “Really?”
“Yep. Hey, a lot of people don’t really care. Said the woman had ID that seemed legitimate. Of course, it wasn’t,” Angela said. “We have people down there.”
“Los Angeles,” Thor murmured. “That would go back in the right direction—someone involved with Wickedly Weird Productions.”
“How well would any of them know Alaska?” Clara asked, mystified.
“Ah, glad you asked!” Angela said. “Actually, the entire group here from the Wickedly Weird Production Company headed north about three months ago—site inspections and all.”
“The only two women left alive who are with the company are Misty Blaine and Becca Marle,” Thor said.
“Then again, it might not be a woman,” Clara put in. “And may
be the letters aren’t love letters at all—they may be coded, as you said.”
“Anything is possible,” Angela said. “But, best educated guess is that Tate Morley is there and working with someone he’s been corresponding with for some time. Again—go figure on people. As I said, some women think that they can change a man. Some are just accomplices in crime. They are just as perverted and mentally deranged and cruel as the men they find in life, or in the prison system.”
“And then again—as you pointed out, Clara—we can’t take anything at face value,” Thor said, studying her. “You could be right. It could be anyone.” He looked back at the computer screen. “Angela, anything more on Marc Kimball?”
She shook her head. “Marc Kimball might as well be a wraith. As far as any eyewitnesses go, he just appeared in the Seward police station.”
“What about past history of our friends on the island?” Thor asked.
“We’ve kept searching, but so far, nothing we’ve found stands out in and of itself. Anything could mean something. Becca Marle could hate men—she was left standing at the altar, but one of our agents out there spoke with a coworker from a previous project who said that Becca had been unsure about the marriage herself. She was embarrassed, but over it quickly. Tommy Marchant had an abusive wife—he could really hate women, except that he’s supposedly been happy as a lark since he’s become his own man. Has he ever done anything that would suggest he was ready to go out and kill and mutilate women? No, not that we can find. Friends say he’s a nice guy—a little leery now when they try to fix him up with someone they think would be nice. Our agents have done extensive work on the backgrounds of the Wickedly Weird people, and we have nothing. Then again, men like Bundy and Gacy were liked by their neighbors, so that doesn’t mean really mean anything. We have Will working on discovering if there is some kind of a code in the letters; we also have people in Los Angeles. I’ll let you know the minute that we have anything, anything at all. You know that.”
“Thanks,” Jackson told her.
“Stay safe,” she said.
As the connection was broken, Mike Aklaq joined them; they brought him up to speed.