Chapter 39

GARCIA STEERED THE Pontiac back on interstate 94 heading east and came to a dead stop as they neared the outskirts of downtown St. Paul. “Terrific,” he said.

“There must be an accident,” she said, trying to look around the minivan in front of them.

Traffic inched forward enough for Garcia to take an exit. “I’m getting off this parking lot.”

The downtown roads were as snarled as the interstate. “Don’t people stay in anymore?” Bernadette muttered, glaring through the passenger window at a knot of diners leaving a restaurant.

Garcia, screeching around a slow-moving compact, said, “Some folks have a life.”

She relaxed a little when they finally got on the Wabasha Bridge, aiming for a St. Paul neighborhood just south of downtown. Bluffs dotted with trees overlooked downtown and the river. Beyond the trees were homes, including one belonging to Charles Araignee, receptionist moonlighting as a serial killer. She’d considered him a bit player in this drama—the doctor’s errand boy—and now he was turning out to be the main attraction. The first time she’d even heard his last name was when the brothers uttered it at the kitchen table. The spiders in her dream finally made sense: Araignée was French for “spider.”

Unlike downtown, there were few cars on the road and no one on the sidewalks. On the right was a green tower containing steps that started at the top of the bluffs and led straight down to Wabasha. The structure reminded her of a forest ranger’s fire lookout.

When they got to Prospect Boulevard, the street that topped the bluffs, Garcia pulled the Grand Am to the curb and turned off the engine. The agents silently surveyed their surroundings. A knee-high stone wall ran along the top of the bluff, and at one end of the stone barrier was a sidewalk that led to the green tower. The lighting in the neighborhood was like that around the rest of the city, with green poles topped by antique-looking lamps. While there was enough light to see down the streets and sidewalks, the wooded bluff beyond the stone wall was black. No homes were perched along the sides of the hill itself. At the very bottom were caves dug into the sides of the hill. They were once used for a variety of ventures (Bernadette remembered reading something once about a mushroom grower), but now most of them were filled in. It was a strange slice of St. Paul that seemed better suited to a wilderness area than to a city.

“What was the address again?” asked Garcia as he shoved his car keys in his coat pocket.

She fished a yellow square out of her pocket and tipped the note toward the light cast by the streetlamp. “The doc said Chaz doesn’t live on the boulevard. He’s on one of the streets running behind it.”

Garcia reached under his seat and pulled out the Hudson’s Street Atlas, flipped until he got to the neighborhood, and handed it to her. “We should have called for backup.”

“We’ll call when we get there,” she said as she studied the map. After taking so many wrong turns in this case, she wanted to make sure Charles was indeed holding Regina Ordstruman at his home and not at another location. It’d be an embarrassment to the bureau and a humiliation to Garcia in particular if an army descended on an empty house.

“You know where we’re going?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She closed the book and dropped it on the seat between them.

“Okay.” He reached past his coat and blazer, took out his Glock, and slipped it into his trench pocket.

She popped open the passenger door and reached inside her jacket pocket to touch her gun. “I’m ready.”

As they stepped out of the car, Bernadette felt the nighttime scenery rock and tilt. She could have been standing on the deck of a boat. Waiting for the sensation to pass, she kept her hand on the open door of the Pontiac.

As he shut the driver’s door, Garcia looked at her. “Are you okay?”

“Something’s going on with this guy, and it’s happening to me, too.” She steadied herself and closed the passenger door.

Garcia came around to her side of the Grand Am with his cell in his hand. “I’m going to—”

“Don’t call anyone yet.”

“Are you going to be any good to me?”

“I’m fine.”

“Your session with the scarf was hours ago,” said Garcia, dropping his phone back in his pocket. “Why are you still picking up vibes from this asshole?”

“I have no idea.” A gust of wind sent leaves tumbling down the sidewalk. Shivering, she snapped her jacket closed up to her throat and pulled her gloves tighter over her fingers. She swore her tolerance for the cold had diminished since her tumble into the river.

“How far?” asked Garcia as they crossed the quiet street.

“A couple of blocks,” she said.

“Same drill as with the VonHader boys,” said Garcia as they went down the sidewalk. “We’ll scope it out before we make any big moves. If he’s not home …”

“Then he’s got her somewhere else.”

“You’re sure he’s got someone?”

She hated hearing that doubt in his voice. No wonder he’d given up so readily on calling for backup. “If you don’t believe my sight, believe the prof. Wakefielder’s got a student missing.”

After less than a block of walking, her chills turned into a hot sweat. She unsnapped her jean jacket and let the wind buffet her body. As the cold seeped through her shirt and hardened her nipples, another sensation invaded her body: lust. It had to be him again. She’d never had such an enduring and intense link to a killer. With previous murderers, she’d shared feelings so briefly. Why Charles was different dumbfounded her. Getting rid of him and his sick psyche was going to be a tremendous relief.

Reaching the corner, she scrutinized the street sign to make sure they were headed in the right direction. “One more block,” she said, and they kept going.

After a few minutes of silence, Garcia blurted: “Your work on this case—”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Don’t go there, Tony. I know I screwed this up from the get-go.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The prof did it. Matt did it. No, wait, Luke did it. Maybe they all three did it. Shit. It’s none of them. The fucking butler did it.”

“You nailed it in the end,” he said. “The brothers are at the cop shop.”

“Yes, but not for the dead girls. Plus the VonHaders’ attorney will get them home in time for their morning Wheaties.”

“But we’re on our way to bagging the worst bad guy. It’s all good.”

“That’s why you keep asking if I’m sure he’s got another victim with him.”

“I believe you.”

He sounded unconvinced, but she let it go.

Every other home they passed had decorations in the yard or on the porch. Plastic tombstones. Rubber skeletons. Witches on broomsticks. Carved pumpkins. Bales of hay. Dried cornstalks propped against fences and dried ears of corn tacked to front doors. “When’s Halloween?” she asked.

“I don’t know; it’s coming up.”

“We don’t have a life, do we?” They hung a right, both of them walking briskly while eyeing the houses around them and the collection of cars parked on the street. No one was out and about.

Charles’s place was the last house on a dead-end street. The VonHaders told them that he had inherited some money from an aunt and had used it to buy and refurbish the place. Unfortunately, they’d never been inside and couldn’t give the agents a layout of the interior.

Standing at the top of a steeply graded lot, it was perched like a castle. In the valley on one side of Charles’s place was a boarded-up house. In the dip on the other side was a patch of hardwoods and evergreens, a natural barrier that made up the dead end.