The Devil, the Witch and the Whore (The Deal Book 1) Read online

  “We got a report of some damage at the old Trelawney Road diner,” one of the other deputies says. “Broken windows, the door left open, that sort of thing. Maybe some blood, but the caller was too scared to go inside and take a proper look round. I was gonna head out and check it out. I know it's a long-shot, but maybe it's connected.”

  “So what are you doing standing here?” I ask. “Get moving, and let us know what you find.”

  “It might not be a coincidence,” the deputy replies, already heading toward the door.

  “There are no coincidences right now,” Hinch tells him. “Not in a town this small.”

  I turn to him, surprised that he parroted one of my comments from last night.

  “Sorry,” he stammers nervously. “I just... It sounded good last night, when you said it. I thought I'd use it myself, but maybe I shouldn't have done it when you were around.”

  As a couple more deputies head to the door, I look back down at the map. A moment later, Hinch's phone rings and he answers, heading out of the room to continue the conversation. I try to hear what he's saying, but the door swings shut and I turn back to the others.

  “What about the connection to the Cane family?” Lewis asks. “Someone was saying earlier that it might be worth checking on Liam Cane, to make sure he's still at the hospital in Gordonville.”

  “Get on it,” I reply, realizing that I never got a chance earlier to make that call. I need to stay focused and make sure I don't forget things. Right now, the pain is becoming more and more of a distraction. “And while we're at it, let's -”

  Suddenly the door opens and Hinch comes back in, and I can immediately tell from the look in his eyes that something's wrong.

  “That was Doctor Shaw,” he says, with a hint of shock in his voice. “They got a hit on the serial numbers in the metal found in the girl's body. They managed to ID her.”

  “Who is it?” I ask.

  He hesitates, almost as if he's scared to answer.

  “Who is it?” I ask again. “Spit it out, man!”

  “It's Leanne Halperin,” he says finally. “It's Chris Halperin's daughter. She's the one we found all cut up in the forest.”

  ***

  “Is this to do with me?” Chris Halperin asks, sitting stony-faced at his desk in the town hall. “I win the mayoral election, and just a couple of days later my daughter...”

  His voice trails off.

  “Is it some kind of message?” he adds finally. “Is this how the world works? You get into a position with any kind of power at all, and someone sees fit to murder your only child?”

  “There's nothing to indicate a connection at the moment,” I reply. “You haven't received any threats, have you?”

  He shakes his head, but in truth he seems too shocked to really say much at all. I can't even begin to imagine how he must be feeling right now, and I don't want to try imagining how I'd react if something ever happened to Ramsey. I remember Chris from the old days, from when our daughters used to play together, and we even shared a beer now and again at local events. Now he's in a suit and tie, looking strangely out of place behind the mayoral desk, and I'm sitting here having just told him that his girl – all of eighteen years old – was found dead in the forest.

  I don't like the way the world has changed.

  “Leanne would seem to have been dead for approximately three days,” I continue finally. “Maybe four. Given that, I need to figure out a timeline and get everything straight. When was the last time you saw her?”

  He stares at me for a moment. “I've been busy,” he says finally.

  “I'm sure, but -”

  “I've been winning a fucking election,” he continues, sounding a little exasperated and defensive. “Daisy and I, we've barely slept. We've been going crazy, all day every day. We told Leanne she'd have to take care of herself for a little while, we gave her money and we told her to just keep busy. That doesn't make us bad parents, that makes us good parents. We just didn't want to have her caught up in the middle of all this madness. She's eighteen, for fuck's sake, she should have been able to look after herself for a couple of days!”

  “We just -”

  “So don't look at me like that!” he hisses.

  I hesitate for a moment, startled by his reaction. “Chris, I -”

  “I'm the fucking mayor now!” he roars, getting to his feet and banging the desk with his fist. He's red in the face now, flustered and ready to boil over. “My daughter's been murdered and you think you can sit there, judging me? Are you fucking serious?”

  “Nobody's judging you,” I reply, trying to defuse the situation. “Chris, I'm sorry, I'm just here to ask you some questions. It's been a long time since I saw Leanne, since she and Ramsey used to hang out together. I don't know what she was like once she got older. We need to check her social media, her email, her computer... We need to know if she's been in contact with anyone over the past few weeks, maybe someone she met online.”

  “My daughter is not some whore who talks to men on the internet!”

  “I know that, but -”

  “She's the same fucking age as Ramsey, or had you forgotten?”

  “I hadn't forgotten,” I tell him. “I remember how close they were and -”

  “Have you called Ramsey and told her yet?”

  I pause. “Well, actually I -”

  “Oh, that's right,” he adds, spitting the words out with undisguised venom, “I almost forgot. You don't have any contact with your daughter, do you? You're basically a deadbeat father. So don't lecture me on being a good parent, not when it's been years since you spoke to your own kid. You can't even call Ramsey to let her know that her best friend died.”

  “We need to establish a timeline,” I reply, figuring I just need to stick to the facts here. “It's possible that she knew the person who killed her. Do you happen to know Ramsey's online passwords and -”

  “My daughter is not a whore!” he screams. “Don't you fucking suggest that!”

  “I'm not suggesting that she -”

  “She didn't talk to men on the internet! Jesus Christ, what kind of girl do you think she is? We raised her properly, we made sure she was aware of all the dangers that are out there, so don't you fucking dare suggest that she brought this on herself!”

  “I wouldn't suggest that for one moment,” I reply, and I'm starting to feel as if I'm not going to get answers to any of my questions. Not from Christ, not today.

  Getting to my feet, I feel another ripple of pain in my gut, and I figure the best approach might be for me to head back to the station and have somebody else come out here to speak to Chris and Daisy Halperin later.

  “I can't even begin to understand what you're going through right now,” I tell him, “but I want to assure you that we will catch whoever's responsible. We're already working on a number of leads, and we're appealing for witnesses. Somebody has to have seen Leanne in the period leading up to her murder, and soon we'll have a much better idea of her movements.”

  “You're damn right you'll catch the bastard,” he sneers, “because if you don't, I'll have your badge so fast, you'll forget you were ever wearing it in the first place. Have you brought the FBI in yet?”

  “I'm not sure if -”

  “You fucking idiots sure as hell can't solve anything on your own.”

  I open my mouth to reply, before hearing a distant, echoing shriek coming from one of the other rooms.

  “That's my wife,” Chris says firmly, fixing me with a determined stare. “Her sister's with her, consoling her over the death of her only child. Now I don't know how you're used to doing things around here, James, but I want a report on my desk by the end of the day, detailing exactly what happened to Leanne. I'm the fucking mayor now, in case that slipped your mind, so you work for me.”

  “I don't think that's a very -”

  “You will give me that report!” he yells. “Do you hear me? You will give it to me, or I'll come down to that station and rip
it out of your goddamn hands along with your badge!”

  “Sure,” I mutter, figuring that I can't exactly talk him out of it. What would Buddy do right now? “And -”

  “And then you'll catch this son-of-a-bitch,” he continues. “Who's the suspect? Do you have a name?”

  “We have to -”

  “Tell me!”

  Storming around his desk, he marches toward me.

  “Chris,” I say, starting to feel that perhaps I should have left already, “I'm -”

  “Tell me!”

  Grabbing me by the collar, he slams me against the wall and then leans closer, bathing me in a cloud of his foul breath.

  “I want to know who killed my girl!” he sneers. “I want to know right now, and then I'm going to go out there and find the bastard and I'm going to make him pay!”

  “I can't just name a suspect for you!” I gasp. “Chris -”

  “Tell me his fucking name!” he screams, leaning even closer.

  For a moment, the intensity of his anger reminds me of the last man who pinned me down. It's been ten years since my encounter with Mikey Cane in the forest, and I've relived that moment in my mind almost every day. But this is the first time since that encounter that I've let anyone get close enough to manhandle me again. Ordinarily I'd push him away and arrest him, but ordinarily I wouldn't have a crippling pain in my gut.

  And ordinarily, the man pinning me to the wall wouldn't be the town's newly elected mayor, and a grieving father.

  “I'm dying,” I want to tell him, even though I can't quite get the words out. “Does that make you feel any better? I checked myself out of hospital so I could finish this case, but it's probably the last investigation I'll ever run. I've only got weeks left, maybe a couple of months, and I'm in agonizing pain most of the time. I'm a dead man walking and I swear, I'm going to spend every moment of my remaining time, every second, tracking down the monster who killed your daughter.”

  But I can't say that.

  I refuse to be that pathetic.

  “Chris -”

  Suddenly he punches me hard in the gut, hard enough to send a thud of pain crashing through my chest. Normally I'd be able to hold up, but I feel a fierce sharpness, like a blade slicing up into my ribs. As soon as Chris lets go of my collar, I drop gasping to the floor, and it takes several more seconds before I'm even able to draw breath.

  “You used to be kinda tough,” he mutters. “What happened?”

  “Long story!” I gasp.

  He turns and heads toward his desk. Still not quite mustering the strength to get to my feet, I wait as I hear his footsteps getting further and further away, and then suddenly he stops.

  “The forest, you said?” he mutters finally.

  I force myself up.

  “That's where they found Leanne?” he continues. “In the forest?”

  I nod.

  “Huh.” He pauses, clearly lost in thought. “I've heard the stories about that forest. We all have. Do you believe them?”

  “There are a lot of stories,” I point out.

  “You know what I'm talking about. The tunnels. The devil, the witch, all that stuff. Do you believe a word of it?”

  I pause, before shaking my head.

  “Me neither,” he continues. “Not until today, anyway. But I swear to you, if anything even remotely connected to that forest is responsible for Leanne's death, do you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna rip it all down.”

  “Rip it down?” I ask, still struggling to get my breath back.

  “The forest. Dodderidge, Kelham Glade, Pellow's Peak, the ridge, the rise, the valley, those mountains... I'll sign an order to sell every square mile to a developer, and I'll do it on the condition that he levels every tree and covers the entire fucking place with concrete. By the time we're done with it, there'll be no forest, not anymore. Deal will be surrounded for miles and miles in every direction by flat concrete, and I'll even make sure that the concrete flows into that maze of fucking tunnels. And then we'll see if people still spew bullshit about there being monsters and ghoulies out there. Because if that forest killed my girl, or anything from that forest killed her, then I'll destroy the forest. Simple, huh? That's how I got elected, after all. Didn't you hear my big slogan? Simple solutions to big fucking problems.”

  Still feeling a surge of pain in my gut, I realize that there's nothing I can say to him right now, so I simply turn and make my way slowly toward the door.

  “And don't forget to send me that report,” Chris mutters. “I want to know how Leanne died. Every detail.”

  I stammer something about sending it to him as soon as I get to the office. Once I'm out in the corridor, I lean back against the wall and wait for the worst of the pain to pass, but a moment later I hear Chris's wife Daisy sobbing in the distance. I want to go to her, to tell her I'm on the case, but I doubt she'll be very pleased to see me. The fact that I'm dying, the fact that this is probably my last investigation, means nothing to anyone except me. All that matters, really, is that I catch this bastard.

  So instead of saying another word to anyone, I turn and start shuffling along the corridor, heading toward the stairs. I've got a job to do, and a killer to find. And yet ten minutes later, I'm sitting in a bar on East and Fifth, drinking whiskey even though every sip makes my gut hurt a little more.

  Thirty-Four

  Deputy James Kopperud

  10 years ago

  “I saw the devil,” Mikey's voice hisses, echoing through my thoughts. “I went down there, under the forest, and I saw the devil! I saw the witch, too! They're both real, and they're just waiting for the whore to join them! Every word of it's real!”

  Suddenly someone knocks at the door, and I turn to see Buddy coming through from the main office. There's lots of noise and activity at the station tonight, even well after midnight, and after a moment he turns and signals at someone.

  “Get Judge Copper on the phone, Joe!” he yells. “And Katie, do a sandwich run as soon as anywhere's open, okay? Be a doll. And see if that coffee machine can be kicked into service, and if not, take some money from the tin and go buy a new one. We're not animals. We need coffee.”

  He turns to me, before shutting the door and coming over to join me in the interview room.

  “Wanted to get away from it all?” he asks.

  “Something like that,” I mutter, unable to shake a restless feeling that's got my right leg jittering like crazy. “I'm sorry, I'll -”

  “Don't apologize, James. You've got nothing to apologize for.”

  “But I -”

  “You've got nothing to apologize for. Let me be very clear about that fact.”

  He sits in the chair opposite me. He's in the spot where we usually sit when we're interviewing a suspect, and I'm in the spot where the suspect usually sits wriggling and making up excuses. For a moment, Buddy seems content to simply observe me, before finally he lets out a slow, studied sigh.

  “That was your first close call tonight, huh?”

  I pause, before nodding.

  “Tough, ain't it?”

  I try to force a smile, but I can't quite manage. I'm trembling, and I keep reliving that moment with Mikey Cane over and over again. For a few seconds back there, I believed every word he told me, and in my mind's eye I saw him breaking into my home and doing awful things to my family. Even though he's dead now, those images won't quite go away, and I'm starting to realize for the first time how vulnerable Emma and Ramsey must be every night while I'm not at home. The world is not a safe place.

  “Seems like Mikey was pretty talkative at the end there,” Buddy continues, leaning back in his chair. “I didn't really hear what he was yammering to you about. I expect it was the usual insane bullshit that these people spew out. The product of a fevered imagination. Nothing you want to pay any attention to.”

  “The forest,” I whisper. “He was talking about the forest.”

  He chuckles. “Yeah, no surprise. That forest is the go-to bullshit
for every nut-job around.”

  “He seemed to really believe it.”

  Another chuckle. “I bet he did. Feral little turd, that Mikey Cane. He was no good from an early age.”

  We sit in silence for a moment, and I don't realize at first that he seems to be waiting for me to say something.

  “But that's all it was,” Buddy adds. “It's bullshit, James. Fevered, cross-eyed bullshit from a man who'd already seen fit to murder his parents and... Well, I won't tell you what we found he'd done to his mother after she died. At least she was dead by that point. Saved the poor woman a little dignity in life, even if she lost it all in death.”

  Again, we sit in silence. There's so much noise and commotion in the main office, but in here we're shrouded in silence. I know Buddy wants to say something else, but I get the feeling he's come specifically to check on how I'm doing, and I don't think he's made up his mind just yet. I guess we haven't known one another very long, and Buddy seems like the kind of guy who needs to know what he thinks about someone before he knows how to act around them. Either that, or he doesn't know if he can trust me yet.

  “Mikey was saying things,” I mutter finally. “Crazy things, about what he wanted to do to people.”

  “He was trying to provoke you. He wanted you to kill him, so he said things to make you angry.”

  “How long were you listening before you shot him?” I ask.

  “Just a few seconds. Long enough to hear some of the vile filth that spewed out of his mouth, and to know that the kid had a death-wish. It's just a shame he didn't have the courage to kill himself straight up, instead of putting the rest of us through all of that garbage.” He turns and spits on the floor. “Fucking coward.”

  “He said other things,” I reply. “He was talking about things that live under the forest. He mentioned -”

  “That old crock of shit?” Buddy asks, with a big grin. “Well, yeah, sure. That's a fertile well for anyone whose mind is already cracked. Let me tell you, James... Every single individual in this town who's lost their senses over the years, every last one of 'em, has incorporated some of that bullshit into whatever fever they've cooked up in their heads. It's almost too easy, but the important thing to remember is that it's all just madness, okay? Not one word of it's real. There's nothing in the forest, nothing that we need to bother about, anyway. It's just a forest. End of story.”