Deadly Fate (7 page)

Simon sprang to her rescue.

“We're all in the cast, sir. Ralph Martini and Larry Hepburn are the gentlemen over there. I'm Simon Green. And, yes, our leading lady is Clara Avery,” he said.

“Miss Avery!” Kimball said, walking over to her. He took her hand. She wanted to scream and wrench it away.

He kept looking at her as he spoke again. “I came as soon as I heard about what happened. They said it wasn't necessary, but...I'm so glad I'm here.”

4

“W
e've got to make some decisions,” Mike said, joining Thor and Jackson after the initial interviews. “The groups out there are getting restless. I've still got the film crew separated from the caretaker couple and from the ship's cast, but they're all getting edgy. One of the film guys was saying he was already getting cabin fever, but his mate, Becca Marle, was saying that she didn't want to be out of sight of a cop for the next year. Are we getting them all on a boat or holding them here for a while longer?”

“None of them is under arrest,” Jackson said. “We can't really hold them.”

“Some of them, I think, want to be held,” Mike said. “Until we find this guy.”

They were all silent. It was a dream that a killer such as this could be caught quickly. Many serial killers had reigned for more than a decade before being caught.

Some never were.

“Do we have anything else? Anything more from the forensic crews?” Thor asked.

“Still not a damned thing,” Mike said. “Doc Andropov has taken the body—says because of the snow, he'll try to run some tests and pin down time of death. He says that from the data he has so far, she was most likely killed early this morning, murdered and bisected elsewhere. Said it's hard to be certain because the body was packed in snow, but Amelia Carson was with the film crew last night until about eight. I just got off the walkie-talkie—talked to Detective Brennan, head on the case via the state police—Bill Meyer patched me in from the Coast Guard cutter. This is the info I have from him. They were all staying at the Nordic Lights Hotel on the waterfront in Seward,” he said, pausing to look at Thor and reminding him, “Where we arrived at the investigation into Natalie Fontaine's murder this morning.”

Thor nodded. “Yes, we knew that they all had rooms at the hotel—and, of course, that other than Misty and Miss Fontaine's remains, none of them were in their rooms. Thanks to Misty, we knew what we'd find at the Mansion as well, and that a ship's show cast were out here, too. That's why we came to the island as quickly as possible.”

“I spoke with Brennan this morning, too,” Jackson said. “Director Enfield put us together. He's the man who made arrangements to get me out here as quickly as possible. Seems like a really good cop—solid and quick. Enfield likes him.”

“He is a good cop. We've worked with him before,” Thor said.

“Anyway,” Mike continued, “Detective Brennan has been interviewing everyone he can find at the hotel. There's a desk clerk who was on the night shift, Arnold Haskell, who says that he saw Amelia Carson up and heading out before it was really light.”

“Sunrise was just about 5:00 a.m.,” Jackson said.

Thor murmured, “That would have meant that morning twilight began at about 3:00 or 3:30 a.m.” In Alaska, summer days were long. Because of Alaska's position near the North Pole, it was really only truly dark from about midnight until three or three thirty at this time of year. Some people couldn't stand the continuous light in summer and the equally continuous darkness in winter. It didn't bother Thor at all, but he knew that visitors often found themselves wide-awake far too much of the day.

“Did she leave the hotel?” he asked.

“He wasn't sure. She stopped to demand to know why there was no coffee in the lobby yet—he told her that coffee didn't go out in the lobby until six thirty and that there were little pots in the room. She was not nice to him.” He hesitated, looking at Jackson and Thor and grimacing. “Apparently, after speaking with other employees at the hotel, Detective Brennan came to the conclusion that while Natalie Fontaine was all right—not someone you gush over, but all right—Amelia Carson was not liked by many people. She was all smiles in front of a camera, and self-centered and entitled off camera. Brennan told me that a maid at the hotel said Amelia treated her as if she was little better than a cockroach.”

“Are there cockroaches in Alaska?” Jackson wondered aloud.

“There are cockroaches everywhere,” Mike assured him.

“In every way,” Thor murmured. “So what did Haskell say? She did or she didn't go out?”

“Haskell didn't know—she bitched at him and he did his best to be polite and explain hotel policy and she walked off. He didn't wait to see if she went up the elevator or out the door—he had paperwork and he went back to it. He did say that she had been on her cell phone, bitching at someone on the other end, even while she was bitching at him about there being no coffee for an hour or so.”

“People don't usually kill people and cut them in half just because they're not nice people,” Thor said.

“May depend on who they're not nice to,” Jackson said.

“True,” Thor agreed. “So, by this time frame—if everyone was right about time—it seems that Miss Fontaine was killed first in her hotel room. The killer apparently kept it down, though he was heard, which brought security up. Somehow he killed her, left that room as it was and got out of the hotel with whatever he used to sever her head, and went on to meet up with Amelia Carson, catch her, kill her, slice her in half and deposit her on the snow.”

“And no one saw him,” Jackson said.

Thor met his eyes. “I doubt that,” he said softly.

“The body was behind that snowbank or rise,” Mike said. “If Miss Avery had run about fifty feet parallel from where she was, she might not have seen it.”

That was true.

“Hey, I work with you daily, Thor, and you're confusing me,” Mike said. “You think that there is someone on the island, and you also think that someone saw something?”

“This is all too clean—too neat,” Thor said. “And here's another thought. What if there are two killers? One who decapitated Natalie Fontaine, and one who chopped Amelia Carson in half?”

“Two killers?” Jackson asked. “God, I sure as hell hate to think that there might be two such demented people in the area.”

“There really are a lot of people who hate reality TV,” Mike said. He was serious, Thor realized.

“You just change the channel,” Jackson said. He was looking at Thor, and he knew that they were both thinking the same thing. Tate Morley—the Fairy Tale Killer—was out. These killings had not been carried out in any way like the murders he'd committed before. But he had been locked away for over a decade. He might have changed.

Then again, Thor and Jackson might have such traumatic memories of the man's previous victims that they were ready to pin anything on him.

Realistically, there were new sociopathic and psychotic killers cropping up constantly.

“Our director doesn't believe that the Fairy Tale Killer, Tate Morley, could have anything to do with this,” Thor said to Jackson.

“He basically believes that the display of the bodies is too different,” Mike added.

“Well, what do you think about the people we've interviewed?” Jackson asked. “They all appear to be horrified, devastated and so on—except for Mr. and Mrs. Crowley, who didn't seem to feel one way or the other about the dead. But I've seen cold-blooded killers pass lie-detector tests without blinking.”

“We do have a cast of actors here,” Mike pointed out.

“Three men who left their hotel together and arrived together. And Miss Avery,” Thor said.

“Maybe they were angry—someone filmed them from the bad side,” Mike suggested.

“I know that group,” Jackson told them. “I know Clara well.”

Thor swiveled around to look at his former partner. “You know her well? How well?” It wasn't any kind of an accusation; he knew that Jackson Crow had married another agent. His old friend had never been anything other than the monogamous type. Everything about the man had always been straightforward and honorable.

“An agent I worked with in New Orleans and the
Destiny
is engaged to one of her best friends. I was looking out for that group of performers and working with McCoy when the Archangel was on the ship. I knew Clara and some of the old cast were coming up here to sail the Alaska seas after what had happened there.”

Thor knew about the Archangel case.

And knew that the Archangel was dead. He couldn't help but wish that the same was true of the Fairy Tale Killer.

“So where do we go from here? Send the TV and ship's entertainment people all home?” Mike asked.

“None of them actually has a home in Alaska. The film crew would go back to the Nordic Lights Hotel. Where has the cruise line lodged its performers and staff?” Thor asked.

“Celtic American uses the Hawthorne—about a block down from the other hotel,” Mike said. “I'm assuming that, from what we've seen, the killer's focus is on the film crew and not the Celtic American people. They had to have been targeted—I think we'd all agree on that.”

“They're scared. All scared,” Jackson said. “I'm pretty sure they'll all do anything we ask.”

“You're thinking about keeping them here?” Thor asked.

“One of them may be in on this somehow,” Jackson said.

“So they need to be watched,” Thor said flatly. “This TV and entertainment group could still be in danger, here on the island. So, here we are. We all know the situation, and why we're looking for a needle in a haystack. Even Miss Avery pointed all this out. Parts of the island are covered with thick woods. There are massive glacial cutouts along the shoreline allowing for a multitude of caves and caverns. State police and forensic crews have been out there all day. But the geography here is such that someone might well be hiding on the island. We haven't found a damned thing. They haven't been able to give us anything from the mainland.”

“It's only been, what, about ten or twelve hours?” Jackson asked.

“About twelve since we walked into the hotel this morning,” Mike said. “And a long time for scared civilians. We're going to have to arrange for Coast Guard vessels to get everyone back.” He looked over at Jackson, and shook his head slightly. “Director Enfield said you weren't taking over the investigation from our end, but—are you?”

“No,” Jackson said. “I don't know Alaska. You two do.”

“But you had to have been on a plane two seconds after reports of Natalie Fontaine's murder hit the system this morning.”

Jackson nodded. “Yeah. I guess I was waiting to hear about something. Natalie Fontaine's murder coincided with Tate Morley escaping. I guess I'm here on a hunch,” he said, looking over at Thor.

Thor smiled ruefully and told his old partner, “I had a dream last night—a nightmare, I guess one would say.”

That caused Jackson to look at Mike again and speak carefully.

“About the Fairy Tale victims?” he asked.

“Yep.”

Jackson nodded. “Yeah, well, I woke up shaking myself.”

Mike was studying Jackson. Jackson looked back at him. “You're about to ask me something. As in, do I head a unit of ghost hunters?”

Mike grinned. “No, actually, from all I've heard, you do lead a unit of ghost hunters.”

“What were you going to ask?” Jackson asked him.

“Sioux?” Mike said.

Jackson shook his head. “Cheyenne. My dad's side. Why?”

Mike shrugged. “No reason. Except pride. Inuit, here. Old Thor's got some in him, too, though you'd never know it from that thatch of platinum on his head. It's just that I think our Native American people are more open to—well, shamans have always been more into reading dreams than priests. Quite frankly, the Russian influence here brought about a ton of people belonging to their Orthodox church, but...hey, maybe it's the in thing these days to be more native. Anyway, if you two saw something in a dream—hell, I'm up to believing it.”

Jackson laughed. “Honestly? I had a Scottish grandmother more into the spiritual world than my dad's family, and whatever works, that's what I believe in.”

“That works for me. But let's just lay it all out. Bring me up to speed,” Mike said. “Thor and I have been partners for a few years. I know his intuitions are damned good, and I don't know if he's listening to the spirit of an ancestor, a voice in the wind or his own gut. I just know that it's worth paying attention to the voices—wherever the hell they come from.”

Thor looked at Jackson. “You dreamed about Mandy Brandt,” he said.

Jackson nodded.

“Same dream,” Thor said.

“I see you in front of me and I see him, Tate Morley, and the way he was standing over Mandy Brandt. I hear the sound...you shooting Tate Morley. And I can't help but wonder if we wouldn't be plagued by the dreams—if it wouldn't have been better—if we hadn't done the right thing and called for an ambulance.”

“Bad situation,” Thor said. “My aim wasn't great—I couldn't get a clear shot. We're taught to shoot to kill in situations like that. I meant to kill him.” He paused; the moral quandary there was pretty brutal. He and Jackson could have finished the man off, or just let him die; even if they had just let him die, in reality, it would have been murder.

But would it have been better to have committed that murder—and possibly saved lives in the future?

“The question is moot,” Jackson said, as if reading his mind. “Neither of us knew if the injury was or wasn't mortal at the time.”

That was true.

Except he knew that both he and Jackson had been afraid since Tate Morley had been convicted and incarcerated. Prisons were expensive from the get-go; trials were staggering. Executions somehow cost the state far more than incarceration for life—
except that incarceration for life sometimes didn't mean life!

“This can't be Tate Morley,” Thor said. “He escaped in Kansas—I'm sure the authorities are all over finding him there. Everything about this is different. Different method of killing. Totally different display. Except...”