Perhaps it was also his way of telling the world how sorry he was.
Because he was sorry. He’d go to the florist tomorrow and buy flowers – a cheap little bouquet – for the family. He couldn’t talk to the florist, but he could write out simple instructions. The gift would be anonymous. And if he could find a good place to hide, he’d stand near the grave when they buried her, bowing his head like any other mourner.
He pulled another chain taut on his workbench, clenching its ends as tightly as he could, applying all his strength to it, silencing its rattle. But deep down, he knew that this wasn’t enough to make him master of the chains. For that, he’d have to put the chains to use again. And he’d use one of the straitjackets still in his possession. Someone must be bound, as he’d been bound.
Someone else would have to suffer and die.
Chapter 8
As soon as Riley and Lucy stepped off the FBI plane, a young uniformed cop came dashing toward them across the tarmac.
“Boy, am I glad to see you guys,” he said. “Chief Alford’s fit to be tied. If somebody doesn’t take Rosemary’s body down directly, he’s liable to have a stroke. Reporters are already all over this. I’m Tim Boyden.”
Riley’s heart sank as she and Lucy introduced themselves. Media on the scene so quickly was a sure sign of trouble. The case was off to a rocky start.
“Can I help you carry anything?” Officer Boyden asked.
“We’re good,” Riley said. She and Lucy had only a couple of small bags.
Officer Boyden pointed across the tarmac.
“The car’s right over there,” he said.
The three of them walked briskly to the car. Riley got in on the front passenger side, while Lucy took the back seat.
“We’re just a couple of minutes from town,” Boyden said as he started to drive. “Man, I can’t believe this is happening. Poor Rosemary. Everybody liked her so much. She was always helping people. When she disappeared a couple of weeks ago, we were all scared for the worst. But we couldn’t have imagined …”
His voice trailed off and he shook his head in horrified disbelief.
Lucy leaned forward from the back seat.
“I understand that you had a murder like this before,” she said.
“Yeah, back when I was still in high school,” Boyden said. “Not right here in Reedsport, though. It was near Eubanks, farther south along the river. A body in chains, just like Rosemary. Wearing a straitjacket too. Is the chief right? Do we have a serial on our hands?”
“We’re not ready to say,” Riley said.
The truth was, she thought that the chief must be right. But the young officer seemed upset enough already. There seemed no point in alarming him further.
“I can’t believe it,” Boyden said, shaking his head again. “A nice little town like ours. A nice lady like Rosemary. I can’t believe it.”
As they drove into town, Riley saw a couple of vans with TV news crews on its little main street. A helicopter with a TV station logo was circling above the town.
Boyden drove to a barricade where a small cluster of reporters had gathered. An officer waved the car on through. Just a few seconds later, Boyden pulled the car alongside a stretch of railroad track. There was the body, hanging from a power pole. Several uniformed policemen were standing a few yards away from it.
As Riley stepped out of the car, she recognized Chief Raymond Alford as he trotted toward her. He looked none too happy.
“I sure as hell hope you had a good reason for us keeping the body hanging here like this,” he said. “We’ve had a nightmare on our hands. The mayor’s threatening to take my badge.”
Riley and Lucy followed him toward the body. In the late afternoon sunlight, it looked even weirder than it had in the photos Riley had viewed on her computer. The stainless steel chains sparkled in the light.
“I take it you’ve cordoned off the scene,” Riley said to Alford.
“We’ve done it as best we could,” Alford said. “We’ve got the area barricaded far enough away that nobody can see the body except from the river. We’ve rerouted the trains to go around the town. It’s slowing them down and playing havoc with their schedule. That must be how the Albany news channels found out that something was going on. They sure didn’t hear about it from my people.”
As Alford spoke, his voice was drowned out by the TV helicopter as it hovered directly overhead. He gave up trying to say what he meant to say. Riley could read the profanities on his lips as he looked up at the aircraft. Without rising, the helicopter swung away in a circle. The pilot obviously intended to circle back this way.
Alford took out his cell phone. When he got someone on the line, he yelled, “I told you to keep your damned chopper away from the site. Now tell your pilot to take that thing up above five hundred feet. It’s the law.”
From Alford’s expression, Riley suspected that the person on the other end was giving him some resistance.
Finally Alford said, “If you don’t get that bird out of here right now, your reporters are going to be barred from the news conference I’ll be giving this afternoon.”
His face relaxed a little. He looked up and waited. Sure enough, after a few moments the helicopter rose to a more reasonable height. The noise from its engine still filled the air with a loud and steady drone.
“God, I hope we don’t get a lot more of this,” Alford growled. “Maybe when we cut the body down, there’ll be less here to attract them. Still, in the short run, I guess there’s an upside. The hotels and B&Bs are getting some extra business. Restaurants too – reporters have got to eat. But in the long run? It’s bad if tourists get scared off from Reedsport.”
“You’ve done a good job keeping them away from the scene,” Riley said.
“I guess that’s something,” Alford said. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
Alford led Riley and Lucy nearer to the suspended body. The body was held in a makeshift chain harness that wrapped around and around it. The harness was tied to a heavy rope that looped through a steel pulley attached to a high crossbeam. The rest of the rope descended to the ground at a sharp angle.
Riley could see the woman’s face now. Once again, her resemblance to Marie shot through her like an electric shock – the same silent pain and anguish that her friend’s face had displayed after she’d hanged herself. The bulging eyes and the chain that gagged the mouth made the sight all the more disturbing.
Riley looked at her new partner to see how she was reacting. Somewhat to her surprise, she saw that Lucy was already taking notes.
“Is this your first murder scene?” Riley asked her.
Lucy simply nodded while she wrote and observed. Riley thought she was taking the sight of the corpse awfully well. A lot of rookies would be off vomiting in the bushes at this point.
By contrast, Alford looked decidedly queasy. Even after all these hours, he hadn’t gotten used to it. For his sake, Riley hoped that he’d never need to.
“Not much of a smell yet,” Alford said.
“Not yet,” Riley said. “She’s still in a state of autolysis, mostly just internal cell breakdown. It’s not hot enough to speed the putrefaction process along. The body hasn’t started melting down from the inside. That’s when the smell would get really bad.”
Alford looked more and more pale at this kind of talk.
“What about rigor mortis?” Lucy asked.
“She’s in full rigor, I’m sure,” Riley said. “She probably will be for another twelve hours.”
Lucy still didn’t look the least bit fazed. She just kept jotting down more notes.
“Have you figured out how the killer got her up there?” Lucy asked Alford.
“We’ve got a pretty good idea,” Alford said. “He climbed up and tied the pulley in place. Then he hauled the body up. You can see how it’s anchored.”
Alford pointed to a bundle of iron weights lying next to the tracks. The rope was tied through holes in the weights, knotted carefully so that it wouldn’t come loose. The weights were the kind that might be found in weight machines at a gym.