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Dan hated to admit it, but Kakazu was right. He had not seen anything like this before. The cabin was the most horrific crime scene he had ever witnessed, bar none. Eleven small mummified bodies. Wrapped in cloth bandages like something out of a third-rate horror film.
The human remains were dressed like little dolls. Some were even posed. Some had painted faces. One was dressed like a teddy bear, with a decapitated teddy head over the actual head. Four sat around a small table laid out with decorations. A birthday party for those who would never have another birthday.
“Where did these boys come from?”
“We have no clue. We’ve barely begun to collect information. But the cabin does appear to some superficial similarities to the one your client described—”
“And none of you believed.”
Kakazu tucked in his chin. “I’m still not convinced. But this does match the description, so we’re dutifully notifying defense counsel.”
“The killer couldn’t have found these boys around here.”
“We’re speculating that the killer made occasional forays into civilization to pick up supplies. Food, sundries—”
“And children.” He pinched his nose, trying unsuccessfully to block out the stench. “Couldn’t have done it often. Too hard to get back and forth. But he probably didn’t need to. Or want to. And once he had them back here—where could they go? Even if they escaped, trying to get from here to anyplace they might be found would be almost impossible.”
“Or would require a great deal of good fortune. The angels smiling.”
“No kid who was abducted and dragged out here is going to claim the angels were smiling upon him. Do we know who any of the kids were?”
“Not yet. We’re going through missing persons reports for the last fifteen years, but that takes time. And if the boys were runaways, there may be no local reports.”
“Do we know what...the killer did with these boys? I mean—” He swallowed, then tried again. “Was it just for murdering? Or torture and murder? Or was there...more?”
Kakazu’s head lowered. “We don’t know. But common sense suggests...more.”
“Some kind of pervert.”
“More like, pathological sadist.”
“Gets off on seeing children tortured?”
“Another grotesque possibility.”
“So basically...the worst thing it could possibly be.”
“We haven’t seen any signs of cannibalism. But other than that...yes. As repulsive as it gets.”
“And if Ossie came from here—”
“There’s no evidence of that.”
“He described the cabin.”
“In the vaguest possible way.”
“There’s nothing vague about a yellow triangle on the gable. Or the number.”
“Could be a lucky shot. Something he saw somewhere else.”
“I’m not buying it.” He turned his head away from the bodies. Was it too soon to leave? He thought he’d done a good job of playing the tough guy and pretending this didn’t make him want to hurl. But if they stayed down here much longer, he was going to vomit, tough guy or no. “I think you know Ossie was here.”
“Then how did he get away?”
“Presumably he left after his captor—the corpse upstairs—died.”
“Then how did he get back to St. Petersburg?”
“That’s what we need to find out.”
“And how did the heir to a fortune end up in this hellhole in the first place? What happened to his memory?”
He felt a shiver. “If I’d been here, I’d want to block it out of my memory, too.”
* * *
Dan stared at the body on the stretcher. Since this adult corpse, unlike the others, had not been mummified, the techs from the medical examiner’s office were able to deal with it in a more typical fashion. After a preliminary examination and the removal of exemplars, they prepared it for the arduous journey back to the city.
The body was covered with tattoos. Caked blood on the right hand. Bald, wiry, stained flannel shirt. In his fifties or sixties. “Joe.”
Kakazu squinted. “What?”
“That’s what Ossie called the man who lived with him in the cabin.”
“Did he mention the man was a serial killer?”
“No. He probably didn’t know about that part.”
“It would be hard to keep that hidden.”
“Maybe not. Serial killers tend to be careful. Meticulous. And Ossie was young. Innocent.” He looked away from the corpse. “What killed him?”
“Believe it or not—natural causes.”
“Too bad. I was hoping one of his victims got free and came after him with a chainsaw.”
“No signs of that. Looks like his time was up and he stroked out.”
“Is it wrong for me to hope it was painful? At least for a little while?”
“No.” Kakazu thrust his hands into his coat pockets. “I hope he thrashed on the floor for days in complete misery. But in all likelihood, it was quick. And there was no one around to help him.”
“Because he’d killed everyone who might possibly help him.”
“I have a hunch the boys he brought to this cabin would not have been that keen to help. Torture has a way of turning people against you.”
No doubt. If he saw the fake UPS guy who’d attacked him writhing on the ground, he was relatively sure he’d keep walking.
He bent over to get a closer look, peering over the shoulders of the technicians prepping the body to be moved. Not terribly healthy, even before the stroke, probably. No ring, nor trace of a ring, on his left hand. “Can we be sure this is the man who killed those boys?”
Kakazu moved to the other side of the room, by the window. He guessed the man probably needed some fresh air. He’d been in this death trap most of the day. “I don’t see anyone else around. Or traces of another person.”
“Ossie was here. I can feel it. It can’t just be a coincidence. But something here...damaged him.”
“Everything about this place is damage.” Kakazu walked toward him. “But you have no proof Ossie was here. And even if he was, it doesn’t prove he’s the heir to a fortune or that he didn’t kill Harrison Coleman. To the contrary, child abuse on this level could easily turn someone dangerous. This discovery doesn’t help you and it doesn’t explain anything.”
“Strong disagree. This could explain everything, if we knew more about it. This dead bastard on the floor was a twisted killer. Probably some kind of sex pervert. Judging by the number of corpses, he’s been making runs into town for years, finding vulnerable boys, abducting them, probably drugging them, then hauling them back here. What happened to Ossie Coleman fourteen years ago? This monster got him.”
“You’re making a huge assumption.”
“It explains why the cops never found the kid. When there’s a billion dollars floating around, it’s only natural to assume that’s the motive behind a disappearance. But what if it had nothing to do with that? What if was just damned bad luck? We know Ossie’s mother killed herself—”
“Probably.”
“So afterward the boy was wandering around alone. Easy prey for a sick sadist.”
“I know you’re just making this up as you go along,” Kakazu said. “But you haven’t addressed the elephant in the room.”
“Which is?”
“If this serial killer kidnapped your client and brought him back here—why isn’t he dead?”
He fell silent. “I just got here. It usually takes me at least forty-five minutes to come up with the complete answer to everything.”
Kakazu smirked. “Before you become unbearably smug, let me show you one more unexpected discovery.”
Kakazu walked to the north wall, just to the side of the sink that appeared to be all the cabin had in the way of a kitchen. He ran his palm along the wall—then found a slight indentation. He pushed on it.
A disguised door popped open.
“This place is not quite so simple as it seems.”
“Far from it. All kinds of hidden cubbyholes and storage places, including a well-stocked drug cabinet. We probably haven’t found them all yet. But you need to see this little hideaway.”
“What is it?”
“The trophy room.”
He felt his heart sink. “I’m going to hate this, aren’t I?”
“Depends. You hear all these rumors about defense attorneys. Do you actually have a heart?”
“Strong and functioning.”
“Then you’re going to hate this.”
“It can’t be worse than mummified corpses.”
Kakazu gave him a look that spoke volumes.
“Oh, damn it to hell.” He didn’t want to follow—but he had to. Not just because he couldn’t bear to show any weakness. This was crucial to unraveling the increasingly complex mystery surrounding Ossie Coleman.
So he stepped inside. And gasped.
He fell backward a step, staggering. “That can’t be—That can’t—”
“It is,” Kakazu said softly.
“T—Trophies?” He felt cold and weak, almost as if he had been transported out of normal time and space.
“That’s our preliminary theory. You got a better one?”
“And they were all—alive?”
“Once. He posed the mummies—but left these so he could remember their faces, I guess.”
The wall was lined with a series of ashen white face masks. Life masks. Or perhaps death masks. All different. All appeared to be recordings of the face of a different young boy. Made of papier-mâché, or something like it. Hung on the wall. His personal scrapbook.
“There must be—” He stopped and counted. “Twenty-three masks up there. More masks than mummies.”
“Yes. We may just be bumbling policemen, but most of us can count to twenty-three.”
“You think there are more dead bodies somewhere? A—A body farm or something like that?”
“Distinct possibility.”
All at once, he felt a powerful wave of nausea wash over him. Something inside started to give. Probably a combination of the physical strain of getting here combined with the shocks that awaited inside. Plus the realization that this Ossie Coleman case was a thousand times more complicated than he had ever imagined.
“I...think I need to sit down.” There were no chairs in the tiny trophy room, so he lowered himself to the floor...
And that’s when he spotted it. One of the masks, on the bottom row. Staring at him.
“Is that...Ossie?”
He pointed at the face mask, then took a snap with his phone. Given the primitive nature of the collection, it was hard to say anything with certainty. The hollow openings where eyes should be sucked the soul from the portrait.
But it looked like Ossie. More accurately, it looked like Ossie—but younger.
In that instant, he realized that he understood absolutely nothing about this case, this case with a billion dollars and a young man’s life hanging in the balance.
And the trial was just a few days away.