Sticks and Stones Read online

  He lived long enough to get her on the force after he left, but not long enough to find out exactly how much sense his words would one day make.

  She was more like her pa than she ever cared to admit, but Police Chief Ethan Montgomery constantly reminded her. Like her pa, she took full responsibility for everything that happened during any of her cases. Any blood spilled was spilled on her own hands. She took everything personally, same way he had. And, like him, it wore on her. She wondered how much of the stress contributed to the cancer that finally took him.

  Leah’s son, Abe, had been six when his grandpa died. Leah always consoled herself with the fact that he at least got to know his grandpa those half-dozen years. Not like Abe’s own pa, Leah’s husband, Billy, who died in an early morning head-on collision that took him out of not only her life, but Abe’s, and her daughter, Caroline’s, life, too. Billy left them all far too early. Leah doubted, if not for the shoe box full of photos she had given him, that her little Abe even remembered what his pa looked like. He was only two when Billy passed.

  Now Abe was thirteen and Caroline turned sixteen this past Christmas, and Leah wondered how different things would be for them if they hadn’t lost their pa twelve years ago—if Billy hadn’t decided to pass that eighteen-wheeler in front of him.

  But there was no point in thinking about it, some mistakes you just can’t come back from. Billy’s decision to pass that truck that fatal morning was one of those mistakes.

  She still missed Billy and her pa, but her pa was different. Somehow, she still felt him with her some days. She even found herself talking to him during those times when she could badly use his sage advice. Of course, he never answered, but it still usually helped to ask the questions.

  Ethan Montgomery had hired Leah’s pa and he’d also agreed to bring Leah on when her pa suggested it. And after all this time, he was still working at the station, although every year he seemed to come in later and later. These days, he rarely arrived before eleven. Leah expected he would just keep being later until there was no time left in the day and that would be when he retired. Until then, he spent most of his time behind a ridiculously large desk in a squeaky chair watching the Crimson Tide stop the Auburn Tigers from making any yardage.

  Because of the connection her pa had to Ethan, Leah knew she was treated differently than Chris. She was made “detective” not just to walk in her pa’s footsteps, but also to allow Ethan to pay her a higher wage. She and her two kids needed all the help they could get. This was something Ethan and her pa arranged without her even knowing, but now it was pretty much common knowledge. At least Chris didn’t seem to hold any animosity toward her because of it. She wondered sometimes, though. Especially on those days when Chris sat at his desk doing nothing but crossword puzzles his entire shift. Even if the phone rang, there were days he’d wait for her to take the call.

  She didn’t mind so much. Chris was more of a desk cop anyway. That’s how he was cut. According to Ethan, Leah was different. Chris did have some special talents, though, like his uncanny ability to unearth the details of juvenile records.

  “I see your mind moving,” Chris said to her. His regulation boots were up on his desk and the coffee he’d fetched for himself was sitting beside his hat. Leaning back in his chair, he put his arms behind his head. “What I don’t see are the details moving around. Care to let me in?” He spoke tentatively, almost like he was scared.

  Leah looked back at the paper. “This is impossible.”

  Chris just shrugged.

  “It’s a copycat. It’s gotta be. But why would someone copycat a case they had to dredge up from fifteen years—”

  Chris cut her off. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not a copycat. It can’t be.”

  “Yes, it can, Chris. Remember, the holdback about the stakes with the drawings was leaked. That’s how Harry Stork became the Stickman.”

  “I know,” he said. “But the staked stickman page wasn’t the only holdback. There was another. A big one. And it wasn’t leaked.”

  A thought suddenly came to Leah, one that probably should’ve come long before now. “Wait a minute. Why am I just reading about this now? Which police department was on the scene last night? Last time I checked, Leeland Swamp was in Alvin.”

  “Yeah,” Chris stumbled. “That . . . I . . . we . . .” He glanced at the door to Ethan Montgomery’s office. It was mainly glass, like the walls, but brown blinds hung down that Leah couldn’t remember ever seeing open. She could only imagine how much dust was collecting inside them. Of course, now the door would be locked. Leah glanced at the white clock hanging in front of her desk on the wall between the door and the window. It was twenty past eight. They wouldn’t see Ethan for another two or three hours.

  “What time did you get the call?” Leah asked. She remembered Chris was still at his desk when she left. She doubted he would have stayed much longer than fifteen more minutes, and she had gotten home just after five.

  “What call?”

  “Whoever found the body. I’m guessing it must’ve been around five?”

  Chris scratched the back of his head. “Ethan called me at home,” he said.

  Leah tried to process this. “Ethan was still here when it came in? That’s”—a miracle—“unusual.”

  “Yeah, um, the body hadn’t turned up yet.”

  Narrowing her eyes, Leah asked, “What do you mean? Wait, if this holdback you’re talking about was so secret, how come you know about it?”

  “Ethan told me about it yesterday. What matters is, it wasn’t a copycat kill. It’s more than that. Ethan was pretty clear.”

  Leah felt the heat rise in her skin. A trickle of sweat ran down the back of her blouse, tracing a line from the bottom of her bra strap, along her vertebrae, and right into her brown pants.

  “Sure is hot out there,” Chris said, looking out the window.

  Leah snapped the paper at him. “What aren’t you telling me? What do you mean ‘the body hadn’t turned up yet’? What’s this super-secret holdback and why did Ethan tell you?”

  Chris took a deep breath. “Leah, it was a long night. We searched that swamp for three hours before finding the body.”

  “What are you talking about?” The hair rose on the back of her neck. “I wasn’t called in on any search last night.”

  “That’s on account of we didn’t know how you’d react to it. With what happened with your pa and the Stickman fifteen years ago and all . . .”

  Leah’s stomach roiled. Anger swooped in like a hungry vulture. She did her best to hold it back, but heard the edge it put on her words when she spoke. “If you hadn’t found a body, how would you know . . . ? Wait, I am missing something here. What made you even know to look for a body? What aren’t you telling me?”

  Chris said nothing, just shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “Someone had to call someone,” Leah said. “I don’t . . .” No matter how much she tried to make sense of things, nothing worked.

  Chris let out a big sigh. “Man, it’s hot.”

  Leah’s anger swelled. “I am getting mighty pissed off about talking about the goddamn weather, Chris. If there’s something you’re not tellin’ me, I’d best be making your mouth start going sooner rather than later.” Both Chris and Ethan knew Leah had a temper. Neither of them ever wanted to push the envelope and find out how bad it really was.

  When she looked back at Chris, he had seemed to take a sudden interest in the floor.

  “Okay, first things first,” she said. “Tell me about the stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  “The super-secret stuff that actually was held back from the press throughout the Stickman murders.”

  Chris sighed again and took a big drink of coffee. He was running out of stall tactics. “Well, for every victim, this station—well, your pa—was given a letter.”

  Leah cocked her head. “Letter? How was it given? Who gave it?”

  Chris shrugged. “Apparen
tly it came from the Stickman. It would be left in an envelope with no postmark or address, simply your pa’s name written across the front. Inside there was always a single piece of paper folded three times. It had a drawing of a stickman, a time, and a location.”

  “A time and location of the killing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sounds weird. Why didn’t my pa just show up and arrest the Stickman then?”

  “The locations were general. Like the one last night simply said Leeland Swamp, 8:30 P.M. That’s a large area to search in two and a half hours. Not counting travel time. And we had to assume it could also mean somewhere in the surrounding forest.”

  “So the time in the letter designates when the body will be dumped at the secondary crime scene?”

  “According to Ethan it’s more like the maximum time in a range. So, when the letter comes in they knew they had from whenever it was opened until the time it said before the body was staked.”

  Leah thought this over. “If the staked drawings were leaked, this letter thing could easily have been, too.”

  Chris held up his palm. “I know what you’re thinking, but listen. Not every cop on the task force knew about the letters. In fact, Ethan said other than him and your pa, there were four other detectives in the loop, each handpicked by Joe. After the first leak, he wasn’t about to take any chances.”

  “And forensics said all the letters were written by the same person?” Leah asked.

  “All except the last one. They had a weird slant to the left.”

  “And what was different with the last one?”

  “The last one was the one that came the night your pa shot Stork. Mobile said the handwriting didn’t match the rest. It could be the same person, but if so, he wanted it to seem like someone else.”

  “The night my pa shot Stork? There was no victim that night.”

  Chris put his feet back up on his desk. “No, the letter was for Stork. It had the address of the shotgun shack. The actual address. There was no time. Harry was holed up there. He was there when your pa and Strident arrived with the other officers. And there was one more difference.”

  “What was that?”

  “The letter had the initials H.S. written on it.”

  “Harry Stork?”

  Chris nodded. “One would gather, yes.”

  “I thought Stork’s whereabouts came from an anonymous call?”

  With a shake of his head, Chris said, “That’s the story your pa made up. He didn’t want to release the holdout.”

  “Why not, if Stork was dead? The Stickman case was solved.”

  Chris shrugged. “That, I don’t know. I asked Ethan that exact question and he didn’t seem to know, either. He just said your pa asked the other four cops to keep the letters secret. Said your pa always said the case felt ‘unfinished’.”

  Leah considered this. He did always go back to the case. Even years later, she remembered him bringing home Stickman files and staying up late some nights poring over them. She hated those nights. “No wonder my pa got so wrapped up in that case. I always thought he seemed to take it particularly personal. Now I understand. It was personal. He was getting letters addressed directly to him.”

  Chris nodded. “Can’t get much more personal than that. Plus, Joe was the one being quoted in the papers and being interviewed on the news. He was the face of the Stickman task force.”

  It was Leah’s turn to sigh as her eyes went to the clock. “I don’t suppose we’re goin’ to see Ethan anytime soon. You’d think he’d want to tell me all this himself,” she said, trying to keep her anger and frustration out of her voice. Truth was, she also felt a bit betrayed by her pa not confiding in her about the letters all those years.

  “So,” Leah said, “the letter came last night after I left?”

  “It came after I left, too,” Chris said. “Ethan found it on his way out jammed halfway under the door. He called me right after I got home. Said he almost didn’t open it. Figured it was probably another thank-you card from the Ladies Auxiliary for your helping out with their Mother’s Day parade.”

  Leah gave her coffee mug a half turn where it stood on her desk. “Mother’s Day was at least a month and a half ago. Besides, this one didn’t come to me. It came to you and Ethan. Or . . . ? Who was it addressed to?”

  Chris took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Sweat was dotting his forehead. She didn’t bother following his gaze when it shifted to the window.

  “Well, you know . . . that doesn’t really matter.” Chris stood from his chair, walked over to the coffeemaker, and poured two new mugs full. To one he added three teaspoons of sugar and some cream. He left the other black and handed it to Leah, nodding to her half-filled one. “I think that’s probably getting cold,” he said and sat back down.

  Without saying thanks, Leah took the mug. She stood there silently, holding it and slowly shaking her head.

  “What?” Chris asked.

  Her emotions rose to the surface. “The letter wasn’t goddamn addressed to you or Ethan, was it? Christ, no wonder he’s not here yet. Chickenshit.”

  Chris scratched the back of his head again. “It was just like all the other times,” he said. “The information was delivered to us. The police.”

  “Last time it all came to my pa. Exactly who was this new letter addressed to?”

  Chris didn’t answer. He sat in his chair and ran his fingers once more through his hair.

  “Who was it addressed to, Chris?” Leah said, louder.

  “You,” Chris said, almost too quiet to hear.

  “Who? Say again?”

  He swung his chair toward her. “You. Okay? The letter came addressed to Leah Fowler, so obviously whoever is behind this doesn’t know you were married.”

  “Or he wants to drive home a point,” Leah said in a clipped tone before falling silent. When she spoke again, it was quiet and pensive. “Otherwise, did Ethan say it was exactly like the other ones?”

  “Yes. Exactly.” Chris took a swig of coffee and turned back toward the window. Leah was pretty sure he couldn’t wait for Ethan to get into the office, either.

  “And you didn’t call me in?” she asked. “You and Ethan decided to just handle this alone like a couple of cowboys?”

  “We thought you might freak out,” Chris said. “You have in the past.”

  “You could have used me,” Leah said, growing louder again. “You needed as many cops as you could get. I should have been called, goddamnit!”

  “Well, Ethan said not to.”

  “Well, Ethan and I are goin’ to have some discussion when he gets in.” She looked at the clock again. That big black minute hand was inching its way closer and closer to twelve. “That is, if he ever gets in.”

  Chris took a big, calming breath. “Don’t you find it hot today?”

  “Show me the letter,” Leah said, trying to remain calm. “Surely you thought to make a copy of it.”

  “Of course, but it will only make things worse.”

  “Show me the goddamn letter!”

  “All right.” Chris reached into a file folder on his desk and pulled out a piece of paper. Leah could tell it was a photocopy because it had no fold creases.

  “Mobile has the original?”

  “Yeah. Their forensic experts are goin’ to see what they can get off it. Maybe a fingerprint—I don’t know. There won’t be nothin’ on it. We all know that. This guy’s smart.” He stopped mid-sentence and corrected himself. “Was smart.”

  “Yes, was, because this guy is not the Stickman, Chris! Are you not hearing me? The Stickman was Harry Stork and Harry Stork is dead. The dead don’t come back.”

  “Well, this time, maybe one did,” Chris said.

  The time and place on the paper was 8:30 P.M. Leeland Swamp. The stick-figure drawing had breasts and hair. It was female.

  “What time did you get to the swamp?” Leah asked.

  “Around ten after six.”

  “So you had unde
r two and a half hours to try to save this woman’s life.” She looked once again at the photo on the front page of the Examiner, her brain automatically filling in the missing details. A hideous sight. “Does she have a name? Our victim? Or do you just want me to keep referring to her as ‘she’?”

  Chris wiped his forehead with his right hand. He was starting to sweat in his uniform, even though Leah hadn’t noticed an increase in temperature. “Abilene Williams. Married with two kids. She went missing around eight-forty-five after dropping her son off at school.”

  “So one of you at least went to her house and told her husband what happened?” It actually surprised Leah that they didn’t leave that fun bit to her.

  “Of course. Here.” He handed the rest of the file folder to Leah. She flipped through it quickly. Copies of photos and sketches made at the scene. Reports. “It’s all in here. Her husband was pretty frantic when we got to their house.”

  “That surprises you?” Leah knew what it was like to lose a spouse. Frantic didn’t even come close to describing it. “Two and a half hours isn’t nearly enough time to search that swampland, especially not for two people,” she snapped. “You would’ve had a lot better chance with me helping. I should’ve been called.”

  “In retrospect, I agree.”

  “In retrospect, you and Ethan are assholes. What you two did last night is wrong on so many levels. The letter came to me, I should’ve been called then. And if not, once you opened it and you saw what it was, there should’ve been no question.”

  “I didn’t open it, Ethan did.”

  Leah bit her tongue. “I know.”