part0044

Blake pulled onto the gravel and put the Nissan in park. As he stepped out, he glanced up at the second-floor windows of Lucas’s house. The old woman wasn’t there.

In a few moments, Hopkins would be there to serve the search warrant. He figured he had just enough time to find an aspirin and maybe suck down a cup of coffee.

At the station, Blake had typed out his statement himself. He had tried to be as thorough as possible, accounting for every moment from the time he saw the boat at the outhaul, to his arrival at the dock with Lucy and Zoe. It hadn’t been easy. The pounding migraine behind his eyes had only gotten worse with every keystroke.

While he typed, Detective Berret ran back and forth to his desk. He came to look over Blake’s shoulder, then returned to his own keyboard to add the next tidbit of information into the search warrant affidavit. It turned out to be enough detail to suit his purposes, but Lucy and Zoe’s accounts would provide a clearer picture.

When Blake left, the judge was signing the search warrant. Hopkins was gathering a few officers to help serve it, once they got word back from Berret that it was all set. Lucy had just gotten medically cleared and begun giving her official account. Christa and Gwyn stayed with her. It would be some time before Zoe would be asked to do the same.

Blake went into the house and headed for the kitchen. He pushed the power button on the Keurig coffee machine, inserted a pod, retrieved a mug from the cupboard just above it, and placed the mug under the nozzle.

While the water heated, he went into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet above the sink in search of an aspirin or a Tylenol. He felt weird about being in there. For some reason, going through someone else’s medicine cabinet felt like an invasion of privacy, even though he had spent nearly a week in the house. But having located a bottle of Excedrin, it was well worth it.

Blake popped two pills, then walked over and started the machine brewing. As it sputtered its last drops, he swiped the mug and headed to the front porch.

As he took a seat on the settee, waiting for Hopkins to arrive, he wished there had been reason to visit under better circumstances. He knew Christa and Gwyn wouldn’t mind if he were to stay a couple of extra days, but he needed to get back to Haeli, and they needed their space to deal with the aftereffects of everything.

Thinking of Haeli, he took out his phone and, using the voice activated feature, said “Call Haeli.” He hit the speaker button and took a sip of his coffee.

“This is Haeli,” the recording answered, “go ahead and leave a message, if people still do that kind of thing. Bye.” Beep .

“Hi, it’s me. Just wanted to let you know I’m okay. And that I’m coming home. I’ll try to grab a flight out in the morning. You will not believe how things turned out. I mean, you literally won’t believe me when I tell you. The good news is we found Lucy, and she’s safe. Miracle, right? Anyway, see you soon. Bye. I’m gonna text you right now too. Okay, bye.”

Blake hung up, then brought up the text messaging application. “Just left you a message. All set here. Heading back tomorrow. See you then.”

Hopkins’ Impala appeared, followed by two marked cruisers. Hopkins pulled into Christa’s driveway. The cruisers pulled onto the grass, one in front of Lucas’s house, the other in front of Christa’s.

Blake gulped his coffee as Hopkins got out of the car.

“You coming with?” Hopkins asked,

“Damn skippy,” Blake said. He finished the last swig, put the mug down and headed to the yard to meet Hopkins. The other two officers filtered over. One of them carried a Halligan tool. The multifaceted crowbar had many uses, not the least of which was breaching locked doors.

“Try not to scare the old woman,” Hopkins said. “From what I understand, she’s not going to like us being in her home.”

“You’re about to tell her that her nephew was a psychopathic killer,” Blake said. “Oh, and that he’s dead. I’m sure she’ll get over us being in the house.” He laughed.

“Point taken,” Hopkins said. “We’ll give the knock one more try. If she won’t answer, we’ll pry it. Let’s go.”

The group moved around to Lucas’s front door. Hopkins banged on the door with the side of his fist. “Police Department with a search warrant,” he yelled. “Open the door Cathy.”

Hopkins put his ear to the door. “It occurs to me this is the first time we’re going to break in with the actual legal authority to do so.” He grinned.

“Not as fun,” Blake said.

Hopkins backed up from the door. “Cathy. Last chance. You need to open the door.”

There was no change.

“Do it,” Hopkins said.

The officer with the Halligan stepped forward, inserted the pick end, and torqued the bar until the door popped open.

The smell that emanated from inside the house was nauseating. Worse than the smell of excrement that filled Lucy and Zoe’s cell at Dutch Island. Blake could only imagine how bad it would be inside.

Hopkins went in first. Then Blake. Then the two officers.

“Cathy,” Hopkins called out again. “Are you home?”

It was a silly question.

The front entrance opened into what would have been a living room. Now, only a three-foot wide path cut through the room and forked off toward the kitchen and the stairway. The rest of the room was full of junk and trash, piled head high.

They moved slowly, watching where they stepped. Blake wasn’t sure what he was walking on, but it wasn’t a solid floor. It seemed to be a matted layer of decaying garbage that squished underfoot. Each step releasing new and more potent odors.

Along the edge of the path, about halfway into the room, was the melted remains of what looked like a cat.

“How could anyone live like this?” Blake said. He kept his voice low in case the old woman was in ear shot.

“She’s not staying here,” Hopkins said. “We can’t leave her in this.”

Hopkins made his way toward the staircase. Blake followed him as the other two officers peeled off toward the kitchen.

They climbed the stairs, staying in the middle of the narrow path and avoiding contact with anything on either side.

At the top of the stairs was a bathroom. Its condition was indescribable.

There were two closed doors on either side of the hall. Hopkins chose one and headed toward it. He paused to take a pair of blue rubber gloves from his pocket and put them on. Then he turned the handle and pushed the door open.

Even with Hopkins obscuring most of his view, Blake was floored by the condition of the room. Not because it was disgusting, but because it was just the opposite.

They entered the large master bedroom and looked around.

“Lucas’s room,” Blake said.

The hardwood floors were clean and polished. There was hardly anything inside the room but a twin bed and a single bedside table. The closet was open, displaying about a dozen articles of clothing, neatly hung, and evenly spaced across the wooden dowel. The attached bathroom was equally spotless.

Blake walked over to the nightstand. He reached out for the knob of the small drawer.

“Don’t touch anything,” Hopkins said. “Not yet. We’ll come back to it.”

Hopkins moved back to the hallway and toward the remaining closed door. Blake joined him.

The stench from inside was already worse than they’d encountered up to that point.

Hopkins pushed the door. It opened about two feet before being stopped by whatever was behind it. From the seven-foot-tall mounds of trash visible through the gap, it was clear what stopped it from fully opening.

Hopkins squeezed through and into the path. It was so tight, Hopkins was forced to cant his body on a diagonal while he moved. Blake had to turn completely sideways.

Ahead, on the far side of the room by the window, there appeared to be a clearing. As they reached the end of the path, Hopkins let out a wretched noise. He jumped backwards a good six inches, almost colliding with Blake.

“Holy mother of God.” he rushed forward again.

As Hopkins cleared the path, Blake got a view of what had caused Hopkins’ reaction.

There, on the floor in front of the window, was the old woman’s dead body. And not even her whole body. It was only her head and torso. No arms, no legs.

Blake crouched down and looked at her face. It was Cathy, for sure. The same woman who had shot him dirty looks from that very window almost every day since they got there. It seemed they were one day too late.

Close up, she was nothing but skin and bones. Her hair looked as though it were a solid mass that hadn’t been washed in years.

Behind her was a rocking chair, positioned in front of the window. The chair from which she would have sat and taken in her view of the outside world. It was caked with feces, just as the floor was below it.

How did she get in this condition? Lucas said he was taking care of her. He said he was feeding her. But he wasn’t. He had neglected her. Murdered her. And desecrated her body by hacking her into pieces. He was a true monster.

Hopkins crouched down next to Blake and leaned in close to the body. He pointed his gloved finger toward the edge of her short shirt sleeve.

“Check this out. If you look from this angle, you can see the stump, it’s healed over.”

Blake shifted to get a better view.

“Wait,” Blake said, “Did you see that? Is her chest moving slightly? Is she breathing?”

Her eyes snapped open.

Both men sprung backward as Hopkins let out a startled yell. Blake stopped himself before he crashed into the tower of trash behind him. Likely preventing an avalanche that would have buried them all in filth.

“She’s alive,” Hopkins hollered.

Blake could see that. He took a breath as his heart rate declined toward a normal level.

“Cathy,” Hopkins said. “Can you hear me?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out but an awful gurgle. She tried again. Her chest expanded, and she opened her mouth wide.

The empty cavity was the stuff of nightmares. Rotten teeth framed the small slab of mangled meat that remained toward the edge of her throat. And the noise. The horrible noise that could never be unheard.

Hopkins pulled out his phone and dialed. “It’s Chief Hopkins. I need an ambulance, right now. Tell them to step it up.”

“Shhh. It’s okay,” Blake said, softly. He touched her hair with his bare hand. “We’re going to get you out of here.”