Flesh and Blood: Chapter Seven
Respite.
When Mae Bishop finally did in her abusive husband and dumped his body in the river, she thought her troubles were behind her. When his ghost shows up and leads her away from the police and straight into the lair of a serial killer, she realizes trouble never left. And when a mysterious angelic being recruits her for purposes yet unknown, Mae knows she and trouble are in it for the long haul.
You're reading Flesh and Blood. This is Chapter Seven.
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Chance stood at the opening of the garage, taking in the scene as the county medical examiner looked over the body hanging inside. He didn't bother to ask the cause of death. He could make a pretty good guess. Besides, he wasn't sure yet whether he had any jurisdiction on this case.
He'd been pouring himself a badly needed cup of coffee at the sheriff's station when the call came in. Chance already had his hands full wrangling the manhunt for his suspect, and the missing young women calling in their whereabouts appeared unrelated. At first.
Except for one thing the weeping girl had said to the dispatcher: "She saved us."
She wouldn't elaborate on who "she" was, but Chance had a gut feeling that he should ride along, just in case.
While he waited for the paramedics to finish with the two women and let him know whether they were fit for questioning, he lent his investigative skills to the crime scene. And it didn't take long to find evidence that his gut feeling was correct.
In fact, he was looking at it.
He stepped carefully around the damp towel that had been discarded on the garage floor and climbed into the bed of the old pickup truck -- slowly, so as not to cause the blocks it was sitting on to tip and bring the whole thing crashing down. He stood up and crept gently toward the front of the truck bed and stood behind the cab, looking down on the roof and the hood jutting out before it. He slid his phone out of his pocket and pulled up the photos that had been sent to him just moments before -- the satellite shots he'd requested of the fugitive's hideout.
The images zoomed in on a beat up old truck sitting in the field where Chance had found a patch of dirt and tire tracks leading away from it. Bishop's getaway vehicle. It was impossible to identify the make and model from that angle and that distance, but as Chance compared the images with the very truck he was standing on, it sure looked like a match.
"Agent Davies?"
Chance turned to see a deputy standing at the entrance of the garage. He didn't catch her name. He carefully made his way to the rear of the truck and let himself down, glancing at her name tag as he straightened to face her. "What is it, Deputy Moore?"
"Thought you'd like to know we found strands of hair and discarded underwear in the bathroom. It doesn't appear to belong to the victims."
"Are you sending it for testing?"
"Yes, sir. The sheriff already ordered it."
He nodded. "Keep me posted."
"Will do."
She turned to go. She'd already gone several steps when he called, "Deputy?" She turned back to face him. "Is the hair red?"
She nodded and then continued on. Davies looked back at the truck. "So what were you doing here, Mrs. Bishop?" He turned toward the car lot and looked over the rows of cars. He spotted an empty space at the back. "You most likely came here to swap out your vehicle. Did you know you were walking into a serial killer's den? Were you a victim fighting back? Or was this some kind of vigilante hit?"
He went over to the empty space. The lot was a mix of sparse gravel and mud, and tracks were visible where the car had backed up and skirted around the other cars in the lot on its way to the main drive. Chance crouched down and took closeup photos of the tread, but he doubted it would tell him anything useful about the car.
Standing back up, he looked toward the sky. The lot backed up to the woods, and there was too much overhang from tree branches to get a clear satellite view of this spot.
Somehow, he doubted that Bishop's victim had kept good records of the cars he sold.
"Agent?"
This time it was the sheriff who called to him from the front of the lot. Chance pocketed his phone and went to see what the portly man had to say. "Did you question the girls?"
He nodded, looking pale. He glanced furtively toward the garage and wiped his mouth before shoving his hands in his pockets. "I bought my daughter's first car from Al Stimpson." He shook his head in shocked disbelief.
"Not such a nice guy, huh?"
He kept shaking his head. Then he jerked it in the direction of the barn. "You think your fugitive did that to him?"
"I don't want to draw any conclusions until I speak to the other victims. But it's looking that way."
The sheriff said the name of Christ in a way Chance couldn't be certain was meant as a prayer or an imprecation. "You can question them. But go easy on them. They've been through a lot. And from what they told me, Stimpson had it coming."
Chance didn't say anything to that. As far as he was concerned, that was for the courts to decide. He left the sheriff and made his way toward the ambulance parked in front of the house, where the two previously missing women sat on the back bumper, holding tightly to one another.
"Miss Davis? Miss Givens? I'm Agent Chance Davies with the Federal Bureau of Investigation." He showed them his badge. "Are you up to answering a few more questions?"
"We already told the sheriff everything we know," said one of the women. By the way she sat up straighter and held an arm protectively around her companion, he judged she was the stronger of the two.
"I'm sorry, Miss..."
"Davis. Jana Davis. Really, Agent Davies, can't we just go home now?"
"You'll likely have to make a stop at the hospital first, but the Sheriff's office is working on contacting your families. You won't have to stay here much longer. I just have some questions about the other woman you mentioned."
"I already told the sheriff. She saved our lives. If not for her, we'd still be rotting in those cages." She shook her head. "I still can't believe it. When he took her out of her cage, I just knew he was going to kill her."
His heart sank a little. "So you're saying she was one of his victims. How long had she been held captive with you?"
"Not long. I mean, she just got here this morning. I don't think she expected to find us. He beat her up pretty badly when he caught her trying to let us out."
His heart lifted again. The timeline matched what he knew of his fugitive's movements. "Do you know what she was doing in that basement?"
"We didn't ask. I was too busy begging her to call the police."
"But she didn't."
"No. She seemed to think she could get us out herself. That just got her locked up beside us." Again, she shook her head, her expression dazed.
"Do you know what happened after he removed her from the cage?"
"He put a leash on her and dragged her upstairs. After that we could hear some noises. It sounded like they were fighting, and he was yelling. And then everything got quiet for a long time. I figured that meant he'd killed her. But then after a while, she came back, and told us he was gone. That's when she let us out. And then she left. That's all we know."
At that point, the other young woman buried her face in her friend's shoulder and began to sob.
"I'm sorry. I know this is hard for you both. Just a couple more questions. Can you tell me anything else about her? Did she tell you her name?"
"No."
"What about a description? What did she look like?"
Jana shrugged. "It was dark down there. We didn't really get a good look at her."
Chance studied her face carefully. She held his gaze steadily -- a little too steadily, the tilt of her chin defiant, as if daring him to challenge her. He knew she was keeping something back, but now wasn't the time to press for more. He nodded. "Thank you, Jana. You've been a big help."
He returned to the sheriff, who stood watching while a team from the coroner's office lowered Simpson's mangled body into a bag. "You get what you need?"
Chance nodded. "I'm sure it was Bishop. I'd say it seems likely she killed him in self-defense, but frankly, that much stabbing seems like overkill."
The sheriff glanced back toward the young women. "After what those girls told me, I'd say it was just the right amount of kill." With a tired sigh, he took off his hat and rubbed his forehead. "I wish we could assist you more with your manhunt, but I'm gonna need all my manpower searching these woods. Something tells me we're gonna be turning up scattered remains for weeks. Maybe even months."
"I understand. I have a feeling she's long gone by now, anyway. Could you spare someone to give me a ride back to the station?"
"Sure." He called out to Deputy Moore and waved her over. "I almost wish I could help you find her. Except I wouldn't want to arrest her. I'd want to shake her hand and buy her a beer. Off the record, as far as I'm concerned, your fugitive's a goddamn hero."
"Might I remind you that your hero is suspected of bludgeoning her husband to death with a hammer and disposing of the body?"
"I remember. For all we know, that guy had it coming, too."
Chance kept silent. By all recorded accounts, Wade Bishop had been a stand-up guy and a pillar of the community, but Chance had a feeling a lot of people would've said the same about Al Stimpson. Good Citizen and Nice Guy were some of the favorite masks that monsters liked to wear. Even so, his personal conjecture had no bearing on his actual job of apprehending Mae Bishop.
He had to find her and bring her in. But he didn't have to like it.
***
The Caddy guzzled gas like an unsupervised toddler guzzled cherry Kool-Aid, and got way less mileage. As much as Mae wanted to put the state line between her and the carnage she'd left behind, that would require making too many stops. Besides, she was too damn tired.
So after riding the E for as long as she dared, she took the first exit that promised a motel.
She donned the wig and sunglasses before heading inside to check in. Together they did a decent job of hiding her bruises, as well as her identity. She paid cash for the room, signing in under the name Ellen Knight--her mother's middle name coupled with a word related to her last name. The counselor at the women's shelter had told her that would make it easy to remember without being so obvious she'd be easily identified. Only a chess fan was likely to make the last name connection, and that ruled out all of the Bubbas and good ol' boys at the sheriff's office back home.
The same name was printed on a fake ID, which featured a picture of her wearing that very same black wig, supplied by the same women's shelter. They had also provided the cabin that only a day ago had served as her refuge and safe haven.
She located her room at the back of the motel, on the ground floor. She parked the Caddy several spaces down and lugged her suitcase to the door. The motel still used old fashioned locks with keys, so she had to set the case down and use her good hand to open the door.
Inside, she locked the door behind her and drew the curtains tight before tearing off the wig and glasses. She tossed them onto the queen-size bed along with the suitcase, and then collapsed beside them and closed her eyes.
When she pried them open again, she didn't know how long she'd been out. Only that she'd slept heavily. Mercifully, she hadn't dreamed, or if she did, she didn't remember. Her face was sticky with drool and her eyes gummy from dried tears she didn't remember shedding. The clothes she'd slept in were all twisted and bunched and uncomfortable. She hurt all over, and wished like hell she'd kept Al's bottle of ibuprofen.
She stood up slowly, sucking air through her teeth. Every movement roused some fresh new hurt. She peeled off her jacket and let it fall to the floor. Straightening her clothes as she went, she trudged into the bathroom and flipped on the light. The overhead fluorescent flickered and buzzed to life. Ignoring a musty smell that hinted at the presence of mold, she leaned over the sink to splash cold water on her face and rinse out her dry mouth. When she raised back up, the hulking, bloody, eviscerated form of Al Stimpson loomed behind her in the mirror.
Grabbing the carafe from the little coffee maker on the bathroom counter and raising it as a weapon, Mae spun around, only to find herself alone. Slowly, dreading what she might see, she turned back toward the mirror, but saw only her reflection.
Heart hammering, breath coming in ragged gasps, she staggered to the toilet, closed the lid, and sat down. She gripped her knees and focused on her breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Six counts each. She did that until she could no longer feel her pulse pounding. "You're losing it, Mae," she said at last, noting as she did that talking aloud to herself didn't exactly contradict this conclusion.
Feeling somewhat calmer, she returned to the bed. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table and did a double take as she realized the AM light was lit up. She'd slept through the night and half the morning. She considered taking off her clothes and crawling back into bed, but her stomach rumbled loudly, demanding food. She could use some painkillers, too. She remembered spotting a large gas station and convenience store across the street, and a diner next to the motel. At least she wouldn't have to go far.
Mae opened the suitcase and rummaged for a hairbrush. While she looked, something buzzed inside the case. The cheap burner phone she'd been given for emergencies. She'd forgotten all about it. She flipped it open and found more than a dozen messages from her counselor and case worker.
Mae debated whether to call them back. She wanted to apologize. She'd come to them under false pretenses after finding their number written on a bathroom wall somewhere between Wichita and Kansas City, told them she was fleeing her husband, who wanted to kill her. They never asked questions. They gave her a new identity and a safe place to stay, and provided her with counseling, which, considering the hallucinations she kept having -- if they were hallucinations -- didn't seem to have done her much good.
After standing there a few minutes, thinking about what she might say, she sighed and deleted the messages. Then she tossed the phone in the trash bin next to the bed. The less they knew, the better.
"You've got an appointment." Wade's voice came from behind her.
She sighed and pressed her palms against her tired eyes. "I thought you'd finally disappeared for good."
"No chance of that, darlin'. Someone's waiting for you at the diner."
She turned to face him. "Is this another of your friends who's going to want to rape and murder me?"
His face looked pained, and he looked away. "That sicko was no friend of mine. Believe it or not, I didn't like sending you there." He returned his gaze to her. "But you did exactly what you were sent there to do."
"Why? Why me?"
"That I can't tell you. If you want answers, then you're gonna want to make that meeting next door."
Mae sighed. "As long as you're being so helpful, tell me this. Would you be able to tell if someone else was here?"
His brow drew together. "What do you mean?"
"I mean if there was another ghost here, could you see it?"
Wade shrugged. "I don't rightly know. Do you see someone else here with us now?"
"Not at the moment, no. But Al paid me a visit in the bathroom a minute ago." She rubbed the aching knot in the middle of her forehead. "Unless that was a post-traumatic flashback."
He sauntered over to the bathroom door and peered inside. He didn't bother turning on the light, but she had no idea whether he actually could if he wanted to. "I don't see anyone." He looked back at her and quirked his mouth into a half smile. "Nobody here but us chickens."
"As far as you can tell." Mae brushed out her hair, taking care with the tender section of her scalp, and then piled it up under the wig.She hated this. She hated having to see her stupid husband's face, hear his stupid voice. She hated not knowing whether he was real or imagined. She hated not knowing whether any of this was really happening or if she was losing her mind.
She hated having another man's death on her conscience, even if it had been self-defense. And even if he'd had it coming.
Her stomach growled again. She blew out a long, tired sigh, and then found her motel key and stuffed it in her pocket. She might as well go keep that meeting and see what fresh new hell lay in store. At least she could get some pancakes and coffee for her trouble.
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