The Holiday Killer Read online

  In her pocket, her phone went off once, twice, and then three times, but she ignored it. She curled up into a ball, leaning against the stone, tears running down her cheeks.

  "How could I have been so stupid?" she demanded of the air, rubbing at her chilly arms. "How could I not know something was going on? God, why did I trust him?" she asked the sky, curling up a little tighter. "It's not like this is the first time he's done this…"

  Hours later, the cold of the coming winter night forced her to retreat to her car, where she rolled up on the back seat with a picnic blanket to cover her. She sobbed and slept intermittently until a knock on her window woke her.

  "Ma'am? Ma'am, you can't park here," the man said, gently rapping on her window. "We're about to close the gates."

  "Good," she mumbled, curling up tighter. "Just leave me here. I'll look after your graveyard for you."

  "Liz!" Bill was the next thing she saw, towering over her, with his booming voice of authority threatening to wake her completely. She rolled over, looking at him with bleary eyes. "What the hell are you doing out here?"

  "I could ask you the same thing," she muttered, rubbing at her eyes and sitting up. "The groundskeeper called you, didn't he?"

  "He didn't trust you to look after the place on your own, so he called the cops." Bill stepped back as she opened the door. "With the description, I figured it was you. We couldn't work out what happened to you after you left at lunchtime. We were starting to get worried, actually."

  "Phil called you, too, didn't he?" She stretched, rubbing at her neck. "As far as I'm concerned, that asshole can go jump off a cliff."

  "What did he do this time?"

  "He's been fucking Lisa, that's what he did this time. I came home for lunch and they were going at it like rabbits. I walked in on them."

  Bill sighed, opening the door of the car and offering a hug. She climbed out of the cruiser and hugged him tightly, crying into his shoulder.

  He waved off the cops behind him, who had their hands on their holsters. "Liz, you need to talk to someone about this. You can fool the captain and a judge, but you're not fooling me. You're not coping, and you haven't been coping for a long time, not since Jamie died."

  "The court appointed me a psychiatrist," she muttered, yawning and pulling her jacket tighter against the cold.

  "Then use him. You've been talking to him about Jamie, and he declared you safe for work, but you need to tell him everything—not just what you think he wants to hear."

  Liz frowned. She hated dealing with the psychiatrist, so made things up to give him something to do without delving into her actual thoughts. But she hadn't realized that she was so transparent to the outside world—or at least those who knew her—and made a mental note to talk to her psychiatrist, just in case he was talking to someone he shouldn't.

  "He's a jackass, Bill. I got the okay to go back to work, and that's all I needed. I don't need to talk about Phil to him. I can deal with this on my own."

  "By leveling a gun at Phil's head? You know that was the wrong thing to do, right?" Bill sighed, grabbing her shoulders and leaning her back to face him. "Yeah, he rang me and told me about it. You could get into a lot of shit over that, you know."

  "I really don't care at this point, Bill. My husband has been cheating on me, my son is dead, and the only person I can depend on right now is you." She rubbed at her face, the chill wind biting at her cheeks and nose. "He whimpers all night, Bill. I can't sleep, and it's driving me nuts. And then he does this! With her!"

  "Cut him some slack, Liz. He lost his son, too. Of course he'd have nightmares, need to sort himself out—"

  Disbelief colored her thoughts as she rubbed her face, trying to work out why Bill couldn't see reason. "He was told what happened, Bill," she said, shrugging off his hands. "He didn't see Jamie's body, he isn't stuck with those images in his head every night. But I'm the one with a clear mind, a clear conscience, and he's the one driven into the arms of another woman. He should be supporting me, helping me through whatever it is I'm supposed to be going through, instead of running into the arms of my goddamn partner!" She threw her hands up in frustration, walking away from him a few steps.

  He held his hands up, trying to placate her. "You're right. That wasn't something he should have done, but you shouldn't be pushing him away, either," he said, one hand on her shoulder. "You have survivor's guilt, Liz. A very special case, with you. You have to talk to your psychiatrist about this, to get it cleared up, and to save your marriage. Don't do what I did to my ex-wife when Phil's sister died, Liz. Don't push your spouse away."

  She stared at him, numb. What the hell kind of response is that? "No, it's done, Bill, I'm not dealing with this again. I'm not going back, and he can get the hell out of my house."

  Bill sighed, letting his hand drop. "If you think that's best, Liz, then I won't stop you. But remember, the review board wants to know whether they can trust you. They need to see that you're moving on, that you've gotten past your mental break, and coping with what happened to Jamie, and a divorce is not the best way to convince them that you're emotionally stable and unlikely to shoot someone over a trivial matter."

  "I don't want to be a cop anymore, Bill," she said, sighing. "There's just too much shit associated with it, and there's no way I can get through everything I've lost because of it. I don't need it adding more crap to my plate."

  The sergeant sighed through his nose and took her elbow, leading her to his patrol car. "You can't talk to the psychiatrist, that's obvious. So talk to your son, when you need to. Until then, I'll get one of the uniforms to grab your cruiser. Come home for dinner."

  Liz smiled sadly. He wasn't paying attention to what she was saying, that much was obvious, and she didn't have the energy to make him listen. "Thanks, Bill. I just might."

  She sat quietly, looking out of the window as Bill drove them back to the station. The sergeant was quiet, driving through the streets with the careful, slow grace that comes with decades of patrolling.

  "I walked in on Phil's mother with my partner a few months after Phil's fifth birthday," he said, flashing a guy speeding past the cruiser. The guy immediately slowed down. "She smiled at me and invited me to join them. I walked out, took Phil, and filed for divorce that afternoon." He sighed as he waited for the traffic lights to change, rubbing his forehead. "So I know how it feels, to walk in on that. Somehow, the image of her riding Gareth burned deeper into my memory than a hundred grisly murders."

  "It's a bit of a different situation, though," she said, staring at the snow beginning to fall. "Jamie…"

  "No doubt this affair has been going on for months, Liz. I'm sorry, but I think your son's murder loosened him up a bit, drove him away from you." He pulled into the station's parking lot. "I've seen it countless times. When people lose a child, their marriages fall apart; sometimes straight away, sometimes over years. They blame each other, or they find that they don't have anything in common anymore, or they realize they just can't stand the sight of the other, and their relationship never recovers."

  Liz sighed through her nose, imitating the sergeant. "So what do you think I should do?"

  "Well, burying his convertible in a ton of horse shit is a good place to start, though I don't think you want to ruin that car." The man smiled, clearly joking. "Talk it out with him. But don't do it when you're overemotional or when you're tired. If you can't trust him, then there's no reason to stay. Give it a couple of weeks, maybe. You can stay with me until you get it sorted out."

  "Thanks, Bill," she said, giving him a hug. "Your advice and support mean a lot."

  "We're all a little stupid sometimes, Liz," he said, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and leading her inside. "You'll have to face Lisa eventually, too."

  "Thanks, but I don't really want to speak to her." She rubbed at her arms. "She's a bitch."

  "That's too bad, because you two are going to have to keep working together. I have no one to swap you with."

  "Ke
ep me on the desk job," she muttered, dropping behind her small desk, which was covered in overdue paperwork.

  Bill walked into the little kitchenette to make coffee, and shouted out, "You have to talk to her, whether you like it or not. You'll have to do it eventually."

  Liz sighed in frustration and rubbed at her face. "Fine. I'll talk to her if it will get you off my back." And when I do, I'm going to tell that cow to go straight to hell. If they think I'm going to work with her ever again after this, they have another thing coming.

  Bill nodded, shuffling through things on his desk. The door to his office was open, allowing her to hear him from two desks away. Her desk sat between the kitchen and his office, almost at the mid-way point, so she could be comfortable while he walked around the room talking to her.

  Liz looked at the pile of paperwork smothering her in-tray and sighed again. Might as well get something done.

  Suddenly the doors to the atrium opened and Phil rushed in. Liz glanced up, recognized him, and went back to her paperwork, determined to ignore him. He stumbled up to her, puffing, and stopped in front of her desk.

  "Jesus, Liz, where the hell were you?" he demanded, stepping around to give her a hug. She continued to ignore him, holding up a single finger to stop him touching her.

  "I was with Jamie, where else would I have been?" she asked, filing away a couple of papers for later reference. She noted a complete lack of Holiday Killer files in her pile, and it made her smile a little to know she'd stopped that creature's rampage on the innocent with the death of Mark Windsor.

  "I was worried about you! I had the police out looking for you!" He sat down at the chair next to her desk, scooting as close as he could to her. He reached out to touch her shoulder and she pulled another piece of paper toward her, as though she hadn't noticed him touch her arm.

  "Phil," Bill called, leaning against the doorway to his office. "Can you come here for a minute, please?"

  "Not now, Dad." Phil barely glanced at his father, but reached out to touch Liz's shoulder again.

  Liz reacted fast, grabbing and twisting his hand without getting out of her chair. He was thrown from his chair, his hand wedged up between his shoulder blades. Liz still sat in her chair, looking down at him with a thunderous expression on her face.

  "I don't want shit to do with you or Lisa anymore, Phil." She pushed his hand further up his back, making him squeal in pain. "So piss off and wait for the divorce papers."

  She let him go and Bill helped his son stand up, escorting him toward the door. Liz turned back to her paperwork, ignoring the other officers staring at her.

  11

  One month later

  Liz didn't hear from Phil again after their meeting at the station, though the divorce papers she served were returned much faster than she was comfortable with. She half-wanted him to fight her, to air all his secrets to the winds in a desperate bid to win her back, but the sad truth was that she'd lost him completely without realizing it, and he was gone, refusing to miss her after his first attempt.

  She received word of her hearing a few days before it happened. She was expecting a full array of higher-ups when she walked into the review board, but there was just one familiar, lone old man waiting, sitting behind a table, shuffling papers. He sat back, nursing his coffee as she sat down across from him.

  Her uncle Charles was another in her and Phil's families' long history in the Matryville Police Force. She was related to most of the officers in the station through either blood or marriage, which led to calls of favoritism in training, but her family worked hard to ensure that there wasn't even a sniff of corruption or bias in their work.

  This was a simple meeting to determine how well she was fitting back into her duties, now that she'd been back a month. She shouldn't have been nervous, not wanting to be a part of the force anymore, but she was. The prospect of being forcefully ejected, as opposed to stepping away on her own terms, left butterflies fluttering in her stomach that threatened to make her sick.

  "I've been reviewing the files of the psychologist in charge of your assessment, and the character witnesses for your normal state of mental health, including one from the…" He pushed a paper aside and peered down at the name. "Governor of Tennessee, who has apparently known you since you were a kid." Her uncle settled back in his chair, smiling at her. "It all seems to be within the agreeable standard."

  "But?"

  "But before I rule on it, I want to ask you a couple of questions myself." He smiled again, but it didn't seem genuine. "For my own peace of mind, you understand."

  Liz said nothing, watching the old man. She'd only ever had bad experiences when being interviewed by him, so she was waiting for the awkward questions and rude jokes to start.

  He took a sip of his coffee, letting the silence stretch out between them.

  "I hear you filed for a divorce recently."

  Liz said nothing, seeing no relevance to the remark.

  "'Elizabeth Rhodes,' it says on your file."

  Liz stayed silent, waiting for a question.

  "That must have been hard on you."

  "The only thing that was hard on me was the death of my son," she said, her voice surprisingly calm for the nervous fluttering rising in her throat. "I dealt with it by shooting the man that killed him. My husband dealt with it by screwing my partner."

  "Which pissed you off, obviously?"

  "What kind of a dumb question is that?" she shot back, glaring at him. "It would have pissed anyone off, George."

  The man nodded. "Certainly pissed me off when I found Betty in bed with another man," he said, putting the empty coffee cup back on the table near his files.

  "I never heard this story. Let me guess, your partner?"

  "God, no. No, Jackson's third-grade teacher. They've been married for twenty-odd years now." He leaned back in his seat, hands behind his head. "What are you doing back here, Liz? Bill and I had a talk. If this place has gone to shit for you, why don't you quit and find something else to do?"

  She sat, thinking. He was right; she could retire, go back to school, do something completely different with her life. But that would mean putting the Holiday Killer and his victims—Jamie—behind her, to forget about them—him—like the hundreds of other closed cases in the archives. Could she really do that? Should she abandon Jamie like that?

  The man nodded, scribbling something on a bit of paper. "You don't really want to be here, Liz. You don't need the memories. You'll have to face Lisa every day, face the whispers of the other officers every time you turn your back. You don't really want to have to do that."

  Liz sat back in her seat, watching the man closely. What he said made sense—she would have to look Lisa in the eye every day. Better to go off and do something else, to be somewhere else. Settle her mind, and if she wanted to come back to the force, then she could—later.

  "You know what," she said, standing up. "You're right. I'm only going to be miserable here. I might as well go out and do something different. Expand my horizons, so to speak."

  The man smiled again, offering his hand to shake from where he stood across the desk. "Keep Bill informed of what you're doing. The man still likes you, and you do still have friends on the force."

  "I will, George. You take care."

  The man gave her a mocking salute as she grabbed her jacket off the back of the chair and left, her head high. She walked through the rows of desks, stopped at hers, looked at the photos and other paraphernalia littering the desk. She swept most of it into the garbage, keeping only a small painting Jamie did of her when he was younger. She folded it neatly and tucked it into her pocket before heading for the door.

  "Liz? What—?"

  "Call you tonight, Bill!" she said, waving goodbye to the confused man.

  Time for a change, she thought, smiling to herself. First stop, a new job!

  *

  Two years later

  Liz stumbled over the threshold, her arms weighed down with shopping bags
, and kicked the heavy, wooden door closed behind her before fumbling for the lights. They blinked into existence and she carried half of the bags into the kitchen, returning for the others before flicking on the news. It was a few days after Thanksgiving, and she was inundated with work until 10 o'clock most nights, which made getting home late a common occurrence.

  She'd spent the day at work, manning a desk at a small legal firm downtown, filing papers, ignoring the outrageous flirts that crossed the threshold, and answering phones—easy work that didn't involve shooting anyone. Now she was looking forward to a long soak in the bathtub, with a glass of wine and a good book—the same thing she'd been doing every Friday night for the year and a half she'd been working at Tyson & Partners.

  She flicked on the news as she began putting the groceries away, and the sounds of the news reporter's high, false voice echoed around the small kitchen.

  "Chaos today as police were called out to a murder on Sheffield Lane. The victim is described as a young boy between the ages of six and eight, with long brown hair and a scar over his left cheek."

  Liz's attention was immediately captured by the reporter, and she stopped what she was doing in an attempt to catch the last of the news story.

  The fuck?

  "No details regarding the condition of the body are being released, but police are appealing to the public for any information that could lead them to the killer. In the meantime, police are warning people to keep their doors locked at night and their children fully supervised at all times. Sheryl Brothway reporting."

  No fuckin way! Liz grabbed the remote and began flicking through television channels, but they were all saying the same thing: A young boy had been killed in one of the more isolated parts of town, but they didn't know who the boy was yet. It was really a simple case, but it was what the reporters hadn't said that piqued her interest.