It was almost three in the morning by the time Genna and John returned to Patsy’s cottage accompanied by two state troopers, two FBI agents, and Patsy’s nephew, Brian.
“Anyone know where my Aunt Pats might be?” Brian asked as the dark blue car with state government plates eased into the narrow driveway.
“Somewhere between here and Slippery Rock, last I heard,” Genna told him.
“I’m assuming she was driving her car?”
“I’m certain she was. What are you thinking?” Genna asked.
“I’m thinking I might want to put out an APB for her.”
“You think she’s in danger?”
“I don’t know what to think.” Brian ran his fingers through his dark brown hair. “There’s absolutely no way of knowing where Michael could be, or where he’s headed. Or what Patsy might have told Michael—that is, Nancy—about her itinerary.”
“My guess is that Patsy and my sister probably stopped at a motel somewhere between here and there, and they’re sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware that there’s been any excitement whatsoever up here.” Genna paused on the dirt drive and turned to him. “But is it possible that Pats could have called Nancy—Michael—and told her—er, him—not to be concerned that they weren’t home yet, that they were staying over someplace and told her where? You betcha.”
“I agree. That’s totally in character for Pats. She might have left a message on the answering machine in there, expecting you to listen to it when you arrived last night. Michael could have played it—hell, if Pats called while Michael was in the cabin, he could have answered the phone and given any one of a number of reasons why he was in the house. So yes, there’s certainly a good chance that Michael knows where to find Pats and Crystal, if he’s looking for them.”
“Then I think if we can have them located without having them alarmed, that would be the way to go.”
“I agree.” Brian walked out onto the road and spoke softly with the two young state troopers who had accompanied them from the camp.
Genna stood in the middle of the yard, hugging herself, looking up into the heavens and giving thanks, not for the first time that evening. The moon still hung brightly over the quiet lakeside community, and the stars still danced overhead, twinkling like glowing gemstones in the night sky. But the beauty of the evening could not diminish the ordeal she’d been through, and John suspected it took all of her professional pride to hold her together at that moment.
“How ’bout we go inside and get some ice for that face of yours?” John asked gently. “You’re going to have some shiner come the morning. And then maybe we can grab a bite to eat—I’m ravenous—and you can lay down and get a little rest.”
“I doubt I can sleep tonight.” She shook her head. “He’s out there someplace. He’s angry as all hell now, and he won’t stop until he finishes what he started.”
“Then let’s go inside and at least tend to your eye.” John took her hand and led her to the front door, which still stood open.
“Crime scene,” one of the detectives reminded them.
“Can we just grab some ice from the kitchen?” John grumbled.
“You’ll contaminate the scene.” The burly trooper crossed his arms over his chest, challenging John to pass him.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, Agent Snow’s face is swelling like a helium balloon. I think you can give us access to the kitchen. It’s right through the door there.”
“I’ll get you some ice,” the trooper told him as he disappeared through the doorway.
“Hey!” John called. “See if you can rustle up a sandwich while you’re in there.”
“There’s an all-night diner out past Wick’s Grove,” Genna tugged at John’s arm. “It’ll take us maybe twenty minutes to get there.”
“I can last that long,” he conceded, and searched in his pockets for his car keys as the trooper came back outside holding a plaid dish towel packed with ice cubes.
He handed it to Genna, who immediately raised it to her face and tilting her head back, eased the cloth onto the area right below her left eye.
“Genna, are you sure you don’t need to be checked out?” Brian asked for the fourth time.
She shook her head. “Except for my face, I really wasn’t injured. All I really need right now is food and eventually, a little rest. A trip to the emergency room would only delay both. I appreciate your concern, but all I really want is a hot meal. A few aspirin and the ice should take care of the face.”
“I’ll follow you down to the diner, if you don’t mind,” one of the Pittsburgh agents said, joining them. “There are some questions that I need to ask Agent Snow.”
“And there are some questions that I want to ask Agent Mancini,” she said as they started toward John’s car. “Like how did you know I was in trouble?”
He told her about Nancy’s comment about the shrimp salad.
“If she’d said anything else, I’d never have caught on. But she picked the one thing that you’d never eat.”
“Shellfish,” Brian muttered. “I remember that you never could eat it. Damn, what are the chances of that?”
“But how did you know where to look for me?” Genna asked.
“Well, when I came down here looking for you, I found the trooper who’d accompanied you down in the driveway. When I found the cottage empty, I ran next door to Nancy’s—I mean, Michael’s—cabin, but there was no one there, either. But both your car and hers were here. Then I heard Kermie caterwauling to beat the band out on the dock. When I went down to see what was wrong, I saw that the boat was gone. I remembered that the campgrounds came down as far as the lake on this end, so it wasn’t too hard to figure out where he’d be taking you.”
“Kermie. My hero. That old furball started all this. When I came back to the cottage tonight, I went around to the back. Kermie was there at the door, laying on his side, panting heavily. All I could think of was getting some food into him so that he could get his shot before he started to convulse. I carried him into the kitchen and opened a can of cat food and let him lick some off my fingers—he was already pretty weak. Looking back, I think I left the backdoor wide open; I was so anxious to take care of the cat. After he’d eaten a bit, I gave him his insulin and sat with him for a few minutes on the floor. He seemed to be okay, so I put him down on the living room carpet and went back into the kitchen to toss out the can of cat food—heaven forbid that Patsy should come home and find an empty can on her counter—and that’s all I remember. Until the phone rang, and I heard Nancy talking to someone and realized that Nancy wasn’t Nancy at all.”
“How did he get away with that?” Brian asked. “How did he manage to fool you all, all summer long? Didn’t you recognize him?”
“How could I have done that? At camp, as a child, I never really saw his face. And except for the one day of trial when I testified, I only looked at him when the judge told me I had to, to identify him. Other than that, I was too afraid of him. And he looked so very different then. His hair was long and dark, he was much younger, and please remember, I was very young at the time. There was no way I could have recognized him so many years later, especially when he was dressed as a woman. There was no way to see through that—and he made a mighty convincing woman, I might add.”
“That’s because he had so many years of practice,” John muttered.
“That’s true. I think he was Sister Anna. As Michael he would rape the girls, as Anna he would tend to them afterward.” She shivered. “And while Anna was dark-haired, and Michael wore a blond wig as Nancy, I think it was the photo of his mother in her bedroom that jiggled something in my mind, but I didn’t quite put it together.”
“That Nancy looked like Mrs. Homer?”
“That Mrs. Homer looked like Sister Anna. I didn’t connect Nancy to either of them at the time. That’s why I asked Mr. Homer’s housekeeper if Michael and Clarence had had a sister named Anna.”
“I remember that. She said that Anna was Mrs. Homer’s name.”
“And it made me wonder if Mrs. Homer had been at the camp taking care of her son’s victims. But if that had been the case, she would have been identified and forced to testify at the trial. She could have been prosecuted as an accomplice, had it been proven that she’d known what Michael was doing to the girls.”
“But she—Sister Anna—simply disappeared on the day Michael was arrested. The police could never find a trace of her, and Michael refused to give any information about her at all,” Brian said. “I remember it drove the district attorney crazy that they couldn’t locate this witness and possible accomplice. Anna disappeared because she didn’t exist. She was just another of Michael’s personas.”
“I’m surprised no one put it together, back then,” John said.
“Michael really had his act together, John. If you’d been around Nancy, you’d never have suspected that you were in the company of a man. I even remember watching her and Patsy together one day and thinking that she was more feminine than Pats. And I remember seeing Sister Anna around the camp. I’d never have put her and Brother Michael together.”
“I wonder if he used the Nancy role to help him abduct some of his victims,” John thought aloud. “That could explain how he was able to get close to them without them being alarmed.”
“Nancy looked like your average woman in her mid to late fifties. Nothing out of the ordinary,” Genna nodded.
“I’m hoping we’ll be able to get good, solid statements from our victims. Those who are still lucid, that is.” John looked at his watch. He wondered how much the women had been able to tell the other members of the team who had made it down to the hospital. Suddenly, he was anxious to be in on the conversations. “Let’s head out to that diner, Gen, then maybe we’ll both be revived enough to drive down to the hospital and see if any of our ladies are still talking.”
“Let me just check to see where my feline hero is. I don’t want to leave him out all night.”
Genna started toward the rear of the cabin, then turned back to the road, and looked across it.
Kenny Harris sat in the screened porch that went across the front of the Millers’ cabin. Genna stood under the front porch light, raised an arm and waved, calling out to him, “Hi, Kenny.”
He waved back, the glow from his cigarette making a thin red arc in the darkened porch.
“Someone should probably go over and tell Kenny about what’s going on,” she said.
“I’ll do it,” Brian told her. “I’m glad to see he’s still up and keeping an eye on things. I didn’t expect him to be.”
“Tell him I said thanks,” Genna called to Brian as she took the first steps down the driveway.
She stopped in her tracks and turned around slowly, watching Brian’s figure disappear into the dark shadows surrounding the Millers’ cabin.
“Kenny doesn’t smoke,” she said slowly. “He has asthma. . .”
“Oh, shit.” John broke into a run, calling Brian’s name.
Genna unlocked her car and grabbed the gun from her bag, and following the others across the road, approached the small house. The cigarette’s glow was gone, but the faint trace of smoke lingered on the breeze.
“Fan out,” one of the agents yelled.
“What’s out behind the cabin?” someone else asked.
“Woods,” Genna told them grimly. “If he gets to the woods, we’re back to square one.”
A shot rang out from the back of the property and somewhere nearby, a door slammed.
“John?” Genna called anxiously. “Brian?”
“Here!” Brian answered, backing around the corner.
“Where’s John?”
“He must have gone around the other side. I didn’t see him.”
Stealthily, Genna crept around the side of the cabin where Brian indicated John had gone. She leaned against the old siding, pausing, listening. She heard cicadas and she heard the screech of an owl. She did not hear the silent footsteps behind her until it was too late.
“I’ll have the gun now,” he hissed into her left ear as he reached around her, grabbing for her wrists.
“You got it,” she said, spinning sharply to escape his grasp and firing twice at point-blank range into his chest.
Once would have sufficed.