Where the Blame Lies, Page 5

  “Yeah, Cathlyn remembered that too.”

  “Same thing with the chain. It was reported that Josie Stratton was chained to the wall. We hadn’t given out that detail though. My guess is that someone at the hospital who was privy to that information, talked to a reporter.”

  Zach nodded, thinking. “This guy used a condom. The man who abducted and raped Josie Stratton obviously didn’t. What are your thoughts there?”

  Murphy let out a long sigh, opening the box next to them and taking out Josie’s file. He opened it in front of him and leafed through it for a moment, his eyes tightening at the corners. From where he sat, Zach could see photos of the crime scene Josie had escaped from and subsequently been able to lead police to, photos of Josie herself, face gaunt, her postpartum body malnourished and fighting infection, but eyes filled with fire. Despite the hell she’d endured, she still had fight in her, if only a spark. He’d seen it then, and he could see it now, even in an upside-down photograph as Murphy quickly turned the page. It felt like a hot poker seared the underside of his skin. The only words he had to describe the emotion coursing through him was deep admiration.

  “If the copycat knows the case, he knows that Josie Stratton had just given birth when she escaped. If he’s smart, he learned from the first guy, learned not to get his victim pregnant, and learned not to leave DNA evidence behind.”

  Zach nodded. The same conclusion Cathlyn had come to as well.

  “The other thing that’s similar is the starvation factor,” Murphy noted. “Marshall Landish didn’t leave Josie Stratton to starve to death, but she often went hungry, often feared starvation.”

  “Do you think this new suspect tried the same method and accidentally killed his victim that way?”

  “Could be, or could be it wasn’t his intention to starve her at all. He could have been picked up on another charge, spent time in jail while his victim slowly starved in that basement.”

  “She was hydrated though.”

  “Josie Stratton drank rainwater from a crack in the wall when it was available. Perhaps your new victim had access to water that didn’t come from the perp.” Maybe. Zach would have the criminalists look at the walls of the basement, determine if there were cracks. If so, and the victim stayed hydrated that way, it was possible that the suspect had unintentionally left her there because of being detained elsewhere. At this point, countless possibilities loomed.

  His head was starting to hurt. Murphy dropped the file back into the box and pushed it toward Zach. “Look through this. Maybe there’s something in there I’m not remembering that will help with this new case.”

  “Thanks, Murphy.”

  “No problem.” Murphy paused and then stood slowly. Zach stood as well. “She calls every year, you know?”

  “Josie?”

  Murphy nodded, frowning. “Yeah. But . . . come to think of it, she didn’t this year. She used to always call on the anniversary of her escape, ask if we had any new leads about her son.” He ran a hand over his thinning hair. “Killed me to give her the same damn answer every time, but we just never could find a shred of information on what Landish did with the infant.” He shook his head, pressing his lips together. “Anyway, she would have called in February but she didn’t. I guess everyone gives up at some point.” He sighed, tapping his fingers on the table. “Truthfully, I’m glad she has.”

  “Why?” Zach asked.

  Murphy looked him square in the eye. “Why? Because kid’s gotta be dead. A sick fuck like that? I can’t see him dropping the baby off on some nice old lady’s doorstep. Plus, if he had, someone would have let us know. It was national news. Hell, international. Nah, he threw that kid in some garbage dump, treated him about as well as he treated his mother. And Josie Stratton not calling this year? I gotta hope maybe it means she’s moving on.”

  “Do you know where she’s living now?”

  “Last time I talked to her she had just moved to Oxford, Ohio, near an aunt. The address is in the file there.”

  Zach thanked Murphy again, took the box, and walked back to his desk. Just as he was sitting down, his cell rang. Jimmy.

  “Tell me you have something,” he said.

  “Yes, siree. Pretty sure I have an ID. The woman on our missing persons list who disappeared after leaving her job at the bar in Hyde Park? Aria Glazer? She had gotten a tattoo on her ankle six months before she disappeared. Her roommate was at work, but I talked to her briefly. She’d forgotten about it at the time of Aria’s disappearance, said she was distraught, and the question of tattoos didn’t come up.” Zach was sure the detectives who’d interviewed the roommate had asked about identifying marks, but maybe she didn’t consider the tattoo. Sometimes you had to be really specific with people.

  “A daisy,” Zach said.

  “Bingo. We need to get dental records.”

  That’ll be a fun request, Zach thought, cringing inwardly at the thought of calling her parents. They’d know immediately why the records were needed. But if this was Aria Glazer, her parents would get some closure, and he might have somewhere to go with this case. Some information that would help find the animal who’d done this, so he could prevent him from doing it again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Before

  Marshall stayed away for three days. On the third day, Josie heard him descending the stairs and burst into relieved sobs. But when he came in the door, she sensed a difference to his mood, something off that she couldn’t put her finger on, especially with his face covered the way it was. She was tempted to tell him she already knew who he was, that the mask wasn’t necessary, but it was the only ace she had up her sleeve, the only thing that gave her a smidgeon of hope that he’d eventually let her go, believing she wouldn’t be able to identify him.

  He fed her and gave her water, and she relaxed back against the wall, the awful hunger pains sated, her thirst quenched. He watched her for a moment, and then reached for something else in his bag, her blood freezing in her veins when she saw what he had in his hand: a knife.

  He tapped it on his palm for a moment, his head tilted as though in thought. “I think we b-both need a reminder about who y-you are, Josie. Something that is p-permanent.”

  Her body stilled and she watched him like a mouse would watch the cat who held it in its clutches. Waiting for the first bite, the strike of claws.

  He pulled her shorts down and she let out a terror-filled wail, clenching her legs together and drawing herself against the wall. OhGodohGodohGod. “Please, no!” she cried.

  “Give me your thigh, J-Josie,” he gritted. “The more you m-move, the more this will hurt.”

  Her thigh? “What?” Her breath came out in harsh pants, her mind a red haze of fear. Her thigh. He was going to use that knife on her thigh. It was better than what she’d first thought he was going to do and so, though she couldn’t stop the wracking shudders moving through her, she stretched out her leg, offering him her thigh.

  “Smart girl,” he crooned, a note of sarcasm in his voice.

  He brought the knife to her thigh and pressed. Josie tipped her head back against the wall and screamed as he dragged it over her skin. The blade felt like fire, and she could feel her blood flowing from the wounds. Her screams turned to shrieks as it went on and on and on, horror ratcheting through her. When it stopped, she was shuddering, her thigh throbbing, throat raw, eyes swollen from crying.

  Marshall wiped the blade on a napkin, and then dropped both back in his bag. He cleaned her wound, Josie gritting her teeth as he poured alcohol over it, and then bandaged it up. “Casus belli,” he said, and she heard his mouth move into a smile. She looked at him blearily. “D-do you know what that means, Josie?”

  She shook her head. Her thigh felt numb now. She was still trying to process that he’d cut words into her skin. And she hadn’t fought. She’d let him. But it was easier that way, wasn’t it? “It assigns b-blame. It will be a reminder to both of us of what you are. When I b-begin forgetting, all I need to d
o is look at what’s written on your s-skin.”

  “Like the cigarettes,” she murmured. It’d been easier not to fight then, too. It was over more quickly that way, she’d learned. She felt sleepy. So incredibly tired. Or was she going to pass out? Maybe she’d lost more blood than she’d thought. Maybe she wouldn’t starve to death after all.

  “The cigarettes?” Marshall asked, confusion in his tone, something else she couldn’t name. A . . . stillness. Don’t think of him as Marshall. You might slip and say it out loud.

  “Mm,” she hummed, her eyes shutting. “My mother used to burn me with her cigarettes. Mark me.” Blame me. Had that been a reminder too? Yes of course. Her mother did it when she was drunk. Josie didn’t even think she remembered it later. She never said a word.

  “Where?” Marshall demanded.

  “My lower back,” Josie said, cracking her eyes open. His face was close. He was peering at her. He moved suddenly, pushing her forward and yanking up her tank top. She let out a surprised yelp, her chains clinking against each other as he maneuvered her. She looked over her shoulder at him and he was staring at her lower back where several round, pink burns marred her skin. It was why she never wore a bikini, why she preferred having sex in a dimly lit room. She hadn’t thought about those scars in a long time, other than to make sure no one else saw them and asked her what they were.

  Marshall lowered her tank, stepped around her, gathered the things he’d brought, and left the room, the click of the lock echoing ominously. Josie closed her eyes but the burning pain in her thigh kept her from the escape of sleep. Casus belli . . . casus belli. Is it true, Josie wondered miserably. Am I to blame?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Josie used the wooden clothespin to pin the sheet to the line, wind lifting the heavy wet fabric and setting it back down with a soft thwap. Fresh air and the scent of clean laundry met Josie’s nose. A new dryer was on her second-tier list of things to buy for the bed and breakfast, but she had to admit there was a distinct pleasure in fresh line-dried—

  A large shadow loomed behind the material and she sucked in a breath, taking a step back as her heart thundered. Oh please God, no. A hand reached around the white fabric, moving it aside as Josie’s muscles tensed in preparation for flight. “Sorry, Josie, Ms. Stratton, ah . . .”

  A man in dark gray pants and a white button-down shirt stepped through the flapping material. “Cincinnati police, ma’am.” He seemed to register the fear on her face, the way her body was held rigid and stopped, unclipping something from his belt and holding it out in front of him. Her eyes darted to it. A badge. Her shoulders relaxed a fraction and she released a breath, realizing she was holding a wet piece of something clutched to her chest and that the wetness was seeping through her shirt. She tossed it in the laundry basket sitting on the grass and wiped her damp palms down her hips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I, ah”—he pointed back over his shoulder—“I knocked on the door, but no one answered.”

  “No,” she said, getting hold of herself, “I was out here.” The police. With a jolt, it suddenly occurred to her that he might have information about her son. She stepped forward. “Is this about—”

  “No,” he said, flinching slightly, seeming to know immediately what she’d been about to ask. “We don’t have any new information about your son. I’m sorry about that.” Another slight flinch. He did look truly sorry, this stranger. He ran a hand over his short, dark hair. “I have a couple of questions about a new case if you can spare me a few minutes.”

  She regarded him for a moment, confusion sweeping through her. Confusion and disappointment. For a brief second there, she’d allowed herself to . . . hope. “Sure, Officer.”

  “It’s detective,” he said, stepping forward. “Detective Copeland.” Now that her heart had resumed its normal pace and she could think straight—see straight—she took the stranger in. Tall and handsome. Dark hair and eyes, bronzed skin. He appeared to be Hispanic, but the last name Copeland didn’t speak to that.

  They stood there staring at each other for several long beats, a strange something simmering in the air between them. The way he was looking at her . . . It made her feel exposed, jumpy, so she picked up the laundry basket, moving beyond the flapping fabric and turning back to where he stood. “If you’ll follow me, Detective Copeland, we can sit on the porch.”

  He followed her the short distance to the house, and she took a seat in the same chair she’d sat in a few days before when she’d talked to her bully of a cousin. Detective Copeland took a seat across from her. He smiled, squinting off into the yard behind her. “Nice place. Peaceful.”

  “It needs a lot of work, but it’s getting there.”

  “You live with your aunt, Ms. Stratton?”

  “Josie. And no, my aunt passed away six months ago in a care facility. She left this place to me.” She looked toward the farmland beyond, the same way he’d done a moment before. All ten acres that now belonged to her.

  “I’m sorry. About your aunt.” He rubbed at the back of his neck and then nodded to the house. “You plan on running it as a bed and breakfast again?”

  Again. So he knew it’d been closed for a while. He worked for the Cincinnati Police Department. He probably knew a whole lot about her. Why this man was here and not one of the detectives she’d become familiar with, she didn’t know. She let out a slow breath. “That’s the plan.” If I can figure out how to fix about seventeen things on my tier-one list with a couple thousand bucks in the bank. “Detective, what can I help you with?” She braced herself. She had to figure this man—for whatever reason they’d sent him, a detective who looked more like a Hollywood movie star than someone who worked with dead bodies—was here to tell her the case of her missing baby was being closed, or filed as a cold case or however that sort of thing worked. It’s fine, she told herself. They can close it if they want. I never will.

  Detective Copeland leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. His dark eyes appeared black in the shade of her porch, his lashes long and lush, curled upward. His shoulders were broad, his white dress shirt pulled tight over his biceps in the position he was in. This man exuded masculinity. He was nothing like Cedric Murphy, the pot-bellied detective with the kind smile and the heavy-lidded eyes, the detective she still had a soft spot for, though she hadn’t spoken to him in . . . over a year. And even before that, it’d always been so brief. Detective Copeland seemed to be measuring her, choosing the words he was about to say carefully, the way people did who were familiar with her abduction. As if, even though almost a decade had passed, she might shatter if it was mentioned. As if she might have forgotten for a while and having it brought up would remind her. If only. “A few days ago, we found the body of a woman chained up in the basement of an abandoned house in Clifton.”

  She froze. She hadn’t expected that. “A . . . body? Chained?” The last word emerged croaky and she cleared her throat.

  Detective Copeland leaned back, nodding, his eyes fixed on her face. “Yes. Steel rings had been drilled into the concrete walls to hold the chain.”

  She felt cold suddenly. “I . . . see. And the girl, how had she died?”

  “She starved to death.”

  Josie let out a small choked sound, sliding down slightly in her chair. “My God,” she said, shaking her head, looking off behind him for a moment. “But, Detective, if you’re here because you think it’s the same man who—”

  Detective Copeland held up his hand. “I know. The man who abducted you died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Your case was closed. I read the file. All of it.”

  “So then you know it can’t be related to my case. It’s just one similarity—the chains.” That couldn’t be completely unique. She had no earthly idea how often a crime like hers was committed, but chains, they . . . must be used sometimes . . . to imprison a victim . . . they . . . She shook her head, attempting to shake loose her meandering thoughts, her spiraling anxiety.

  “There’s mor
e.” He paused for a moment. “Words were carved into this woman’s thigh. The knife went so deep, they were evident on her bone.”

  “Oh,” emerged as half breath, half word, and Josie unconsciously brought her fingers to the place where she wore the scar of what Marshall Landish had done to her. Casus belli. She still carried the blame he’d assigned to her. She always would. In her flesh . . . in her soul. When she realized where her hand had gone, she removed it, her fingers fluttering slightly before she laced her hands and set them in her lap. She met the detective’s eyes. Shrewd, measuring, but . . . kind. His eyes were tight at the corners, his full lips set in a pinched line. He was worried about how she was processing this news. She sat up straight, bolstered by his empathy. “I don’t understand,” she murmured.

  “We think it’s a copycat,” the detective said. “All elements that appear similar to your case were documented in the news. Someone could have read about them and sought to recreate the crime. We just don’t know why. Is there anything you can think of that might shed some light on this girl’s death?”

  Josie shook her head slowly. “No, I . . . Do you know anything about her yet?”

  He paused for a heartbeat as though he were deciding whether to answer her question. “We haven’t informed her family, but we believe she’s a local woman who worked in a restaurant in Hyde Park. She didn’t come home from work one night.”

  She scraped her top teeth over her bottom lip, looking down. “It has to be a stranger. Just using the information available from my case, for whatever reason.” Josie swallowed. “Was she . . . raped?”

  The detective nodded solemnly. “Yes. But in this girl’s case, he used a condom. We haven’t discovered any DNA evidence on the unknown suspect as of yet, though testing is still being done.”

  Josie stared at him, her heart thumping, the heavy feeling of grief descending over her. Finally she nodded. What could she say? “Would you, ah, like a glass of iced tea, Detective?” She figured he had a few more questions, and she could use a moment to gather herself. And the day was warming, the sun high in the sky.