A Stranger at the Door (A Rachel Marin Thriller) Read online

  “Cut me some slack—I didn’t have time to think of anything snappier,” Serrano said.

  A dozen officers flooded the house. Serrano and Tally hauled Spivak to his feet.

  “John,” Tally said. “Look.”

  She pointed at Spivak’s pants. There was a splotch of red by the right cuff. It looked fresh.

  “That’s not his own blood,” Serrano said.

  CHAPTER 36

  Raymond Spivak sat in an interrogation room inside the Carltondale Police Department. His thick wrists were manacled to the metal table in front of him. A plastic cup of water sat untouched just out of reach of his right hand. Detectives Serrano and Tally stood on the other side of a two-way mirror, observing Spivak. He seemed simultaneously nervous, agitated, confident, and angry.

  A tall black man, six five or six six, wearing a brown suit and wire-rimmed glasses, approached the detectives, hand outstretched.

  “Lieutenant Graysworth Allen,” he said. “Which one of you Lawrence Taylored him?”

  Tally raised her hand. “It’s all about leverage, sir.”

  “Nicely done, Detective.”

  “Just wish we’d gotten there sooner,” Serrano said.

  “Do you have an ID on the vic?” Tally added.

  Allen nodded. “The body was found in the den, next to the couch. Ligature marks around the vic’s neck match the blood-coated piano wire we found in a plastic bag in Spivak’s pocket. Safe to say after forensics and our blood-spatter team are done in that house, we’ll have enough to send Raymond Spivak to prison for several lifetimes.”

  “So Raymond Spivak garroted Lloyd Lincecum,” Serrano said.

  “That’s a hard, brutal way to kill someone,” Tally said.

  “Look at the size of Spivak’s forearms. He could asphyxiate a cave troll,” Serrano said.

  “Sorry? Cave troll?” Allen said.

  “Ignore him—his brain is swimming with weird fictional creatures,” Tally replied. “So Spivak kills Lloyd Lincecum on the same day we begin to investigate his son Peter’s knee injury and disappearance from school. What about Peter’s mother?”

  “Stefanie and Lloyd Lincecum divorced eight years ago,” Allen said, “but she’s not Peter’s biological mother. There’s no mother listed on Peter Lincecum’s birth certificate, but we’re working on it. Stefanie has been arrested five times for possession and possession with intent to sell. Currently serving eighteen months in Pinckneyville after she tried to buy a rock from an undercover. We’ll talk to her, but as far as I know, she’s been out of the picture for some time and wasn’t a target.”

  “Have you found Peter Lincecum yet?” Serrano asked.

  Allen shook his head. “We found the boy’s cell phone in his locker at school. He obviously abandoned it so he couldn’t be tracked. We’re trying to unlock it as we speak. I miss the days when unlocking a cell phone was easier than programming a VCR.”

  “Does the name Evie Boggs, or Evelyn Boggs, mean anything to you, Lieutenant?” Serrano said.

  “No. Should it?”

  “How about Myra?”

  “Got a last name?”

  “Fraid not. But this Evie Boggs was arrested five years ago at Raymond Spivak’s home with presumed intent to harm.”

  “Harm . . . him?” Allen said with a doubtful snort. “I could park my F-150 on this guy’s shoulders.”

  “I hear you,” Serrano replied. “But we read the arrest report. Raymond Spivak ran from her. This Boggs woman is skilled and dangerous.”

  “So what does Evelyn Boggs have to do with Raymond Spivak murdering Lloyd Lincecum?”

  “Boggs is a person of interest in a murder we’ve been investigating in Ashby. A schoolteacher named Matthew Linklater. We believe Spivak’s killing Lloyd Lincecum is related to matters surrounding the Linklater murder.”

  Allen’s eyes narrowed. “How?”

  “A woman named Rachel Marin does some investigative and forensic work for us,” Tally said. “The other day, she was following a pair of teenagers working for a man named Bennett Brice, who has a connection to Evelyn Boggs. Peter Lincecum attempted to kill Rachel Marin, or at the very least scare her off, we believe at the behest of Bennett Brice. Marin injured Peter Lincecum while defending herself but was then knocked unconscious by another assailant. Then Lincecum disappeared. We believe Peter can provide information on Brice and his organization, and it all ties in to the murder of Matthew Linklater.”

  “Raymond Spivak was not at that home looking for Lloyd Lincecum,” Serrano said. “He was there to kill Peter Lincecum. Lloyd got in the way, so Spivak killed him. We think this murder, Evelyn Boggs, and the Linklater homicide are all connected to Bennett Brice.”

  Allen looked through the mirror at Raymond Spivak, his manacled bulk locked to the table, then back at Serrano and Tally. “Just what in the hell did you bring to my town, Detectives?”

  Spivak hardly seemed nervous, which disturbed Serrano. Either he knew he was going to prison, in which case he could relax, or he was confident he wasn’t going to prison, in which case he likely had a hell of an expensive lawyer en route who was probably also kept on retainer by the devil himself.

  Then the interrogation room door opened, and a man of about fifty walked in. He wore black shoes that looked expensive and were polished to a gleam and a suit that likely cost more than Serrano’s car. He sat down next to Raymond Spivak and put an arm across the man’s broad shoulders, like he was consoling a child whose pet goldfish had just died.

  “Freaking Chester Barnes,” Tally said. “Figures.”

  “He charges two grand an hour,” Serrano said, “and has defended enough cold-blooded criminals to populate Martin Scorsese’s entire filmography.”

  Tally looked at Serrano. “What in the hell did we bring into this town?”

  Forensics found a pair of nitrate-coated Firm Grip workman’s gloves at the Lincecum house, matched Lloyd Lincecum’s blood type to the stains on the gloves, and confirmed that dirt from underneath Raymond Spivak’s fingernails matched dirt found inside the glove’s fingers. With that, Raymond Spivak was formally charged with first-degree premeditated murder in the death of Lloyd Lincecum and remanded to the holding cells in Carltondale to await arraignment.

  Serrano called Rachel as they drove back to Ashby and put the call on speaker.

  “John,” she said, “what’s going on? Did you find Peter Lincecum?”

  “Not exactly. We hit a snag.”

  “A snag? Define snag?”

  Tally said, “We got to the Lincecum house and found Peter’s father, Lloyd, murdered.”

  “Oh my God. What about Peter?”

  “He skipped out of school and hasn’t been seen since,” Serrano said. “His cell was found in his locker. Carltondale police are searching for him. We think the man who killed Lloyd Lincecum was really there for Peter.”

  “Well, this just keeps getting worse,” Rachel said.

  Tally added, “Also, the man we arrested for Lloyd Lincecum’s murder was Raymond Spivak.”

  There was silence on the other end.

  “Rachel?” Serrano said.

  “You’re kidding me, right? The same guy Evie Boggs tried to kill murdered Peter Lincecum’s father?”

  “Yup. Spivak was formally charged about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Where the hell is Evie Boggs?” Rachel asked. She sounded worried. Serrano and Tally exchanged a glance. Neither had ever heard Rachel so unnerved before.

  “We might ask you the same question,” Tally replied.

  “There’s no way Evie can know that Spivak is in town,” Rachel said. “Or if she does know he’s here, they’re not on the same team. She would have carved out his guts and gone Hannibal Lecter on his sweetmeats.”

  “Do we know why Evie wanted to kill Raymond Spivak in the first place?”

  “Evie despises the Spivaks,” Rachel said. “Raymond Spivak knows why. I need to speak with him.”

  “Not gonna happen,” Tally said.
“We’ve already had to cede jurisdiction on the Lincecum murder to the Carltondale PD. They won’t even let us question him, let alone you. And there’s another thing.”

  “I’m not sure I can take another thing,” Rachel said.

  “Spivak’s lawyer is Chester Barnes.”

  “Chester Barnes. Oh, fantastic. He would represent Charles Manson if the check cleared. But it also tells us that Spivak has money. A lot of it. Or he’s bankrolled by someone else who does.”

  “You think it might be Brice?” Serrano said.

  “I don’t know. I don’t see Bennett Brice being shortsighted enough to call Peter Lincecum to attack me, then immediately try to have him killed. He would know we’d point the finger right at him. I think Spivak is acting independently of Brice.”

  “So whose side is Evie Boggs on?” Tally said.

  “I don’t know. But if the other Spivak brother, Randall, is really as dangerous as you say, my guess is he’s looking for Peter as we speak. We need to find Peter Lincecum immediately, because if we don’t, Randall Spivak is going to make sure nobody ever sees him alive again. And I will not see any more kids hurt by these psychopaths.”

  CHAPTER 37

  After hanging up the phone, Bennett Brice went to his wine cabinet, studied the bottles, then settled on a 2014 Domaine Leroy Vosne-Romanee. He held it, turning it over until he could see the faintest reflection of his own face in the glass. Then he gently placed it back, opened a cabinet, and took out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. He poured three fingers into a crystal tumbler, sniffed it, and took down half the portion in one swallow.

  Benjamin Ruddock had gone home after lunch, stomach full and questions sated. For the time being. Brice sympathized with the boy, having to spend his nights at home with that father. But Ruddock was smart and ambitious and, above all, a fighter. He would be on his own soon enough and would never look back.

  “Don’t tell me you’re not going to offer me one,” Evie Boggs said, gesturing to Brice’s drink.

  She sat on a cream-colored sofa, cell phone next to her thigh, right foot absently tapping the floor. Brice refilled his glass, then poured another one, a larger one, for Evie. He handed it to her.

  “I suppose there’s not much to toast to at the moment,” she said.

  “Unfortunately not,” Brice replied. “It’s been a very difficult week. Those impetuous . . .”

  “Monsters,” Evie said. “You can say it. They can’t hear you right now.”

  Brice said nothing, just sipped his drink. He took a seat in a chair across from Evie. He took another sip, then set the glass on the coffee table.

  “Peter Lincecum is gone,” he said.

  Evie’s face turned white. She shook her head, liquor spilling from her tumbler onto the carpet.

  “Oh, no. Bennett. Don’t say that. What happened? Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. We work with one of the teachers at the boy’s school. He alerted me that Peter was injured, likely by the Marin woman when they confronted her. But Peter disappeared after the nurse questioned him about his injury.”

  “Bennett. This is out of hand.”

  “You know I would have never sent Peter into harm’s way,” Brice said.

  “I know,” Evie said. “The brothers. I should have slit Raymond’s throat when I had the chance.”

  “That’s not all,” Brice said. “Raymond went to the Lincecum home to find Peter.”

  Evie leaned forward. Her cell phone slid onto the floor. She did not move to pick it up.

  “Bennett . . . ,” she said through gritted teeth. “What happened?”

  “Raymond killed Lloyd Lincecum. I have a cop in the Carltondale PD who told me Detectives Serrano and Tally went to the house to find Peter and found Raymond there right after he’d finished off Lloyd.”

  “Serrano and Tally? From the Ashby PD? So the Spivaks and the cops are looking for Peter.”

  “That is the situation,” Brice said. “Everything with Matthew Linklater got far, far out of hand.”

  “Oh God.” Evie swallowed the rest of her drink. “Nobody else was supposed to die.”

  “You know I don’t approve of violence either,” he said.

  “That’s not entirely true,” Evie said. “You sent the boys to hurt Darren Reznick, didn’t you?”

  “He will heal,” Brice said, “and will have learned a valuable lesson.”

  Evie stared at Brice’s hand. The Johnnie Walker was rippling; Brice’s hand holding the drink trembled.

  “Bennett,” Evie said. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

  Brice swallowed the rest of his drink, then placed the glass down, making a clink-clink sound as he struggled to keep his hand even.

  “I thought getting to Eric Marin would keep his mother in line.” He took another drink. “I was wrong.”

  “Rachel Marin is not someone who is ‘kept in line,’” Evie said. “I told you what she did back in Torrington. She killed Stanford Royce. I know it.”

  “Maybe if it ever came to it, we could get the Torrington PD to reopen the Royce investigation. But right now, my concerns aren’t a trial. They’re Peter Lincecum and Randall Spivak.”

  Evie said, “I know this family. Randall started hunting Peter the moment the cuffs were put on his brother. I need to find Peter before Randall does.”

  “You’ll have to move fast. Randall is psychotic. And with his brother locked up, he could be even more volatile.”

  “I need a lead. Somewhere to start,” Evie said. “Lloyd Lincecum is dead. I can’t just walk into Peter’s school and start questioning his friends and teachers. Either the Carltondale PD or Serrano and Tally will be all over me in five minutes.”

  “I’m less concerned about the cops being all over you,” Brice said, “than about what happens if you cross paths with Randall Spivak. And if Spivak gets to Peter Lincecum before you do . . .”

  “He’ll never be seen again.” Evie rubbed the bridge of her nose and stood up. She wiped away a tear and headed toward the front door.

  “What are you doing?” Brice asked.

  “I need help. Someone who knows this town better than I do. Someone else who doesn’t want to see any more children hurt,” she said. “I’m going to find Rachel Marin.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Randall Spivak sat on a park bench beside a still pond, holding half a bagel in his hand, tossing crumbs to a small gathering of pigeons. With each crumb tossed, he watched joylessly as a phalanx of feathers fought over the morsel like starving children over a loaf of bread. It was late afternoon, the sun hanging low over the horizon. The park was bustling with children just let out of school. They were oblivious to the tall man. Had they known what he was capable of, they would have run screaming. Randall watched a pigeon nip and swallow a piece of bagel, then turn and squawk at an adversary, declaring the prize for itself alone.

  Spivak’s hair was nicely parted down the left side; at forty-eight he had a sprinkling of gray amid the brown. Crow’s-feet had just begun to set in at his eyes, which gave his face a look of both intelligence and calm. The former he had. The latter he did not.

  He wore a pair of pleated brown slacks, a periwinkle-blue dress shirt buttoned to the top, and a tan blazer. He looked like an accountant, perhaps, or an appraiser, someone whose job was not marred by stress or action. This was also false.

  He did not look like a man who had murdered five people, if there was even such a consistency to that kind of violence. Four of the deaths were premeditated. Only one, the first one, had been impetuous. That was the only killing he regretted. Not the killing itself, but the manner in which it had been done. Sloppy and emotional. He had been just thirty-three at the time, and a woman had spurned him following a date. He had mistaken her politeness for romantic interest and then beaten her to death with a meat tenderizer in her own home.

  The first killing was the only one that bothered him. Again, not because of the action itself, but because it was the only time he had allowed his
anger to get the better of him to such an extent. It had taken three days of careful planning to dispose of the body in such a way that it would never be found. The next four killings were barely even memories. They had left no more of an imprint in his mind than would a mediocre dinner from several months ago. There was knowledge that they did, in fact, take place, but they had no bearing on his current life and were not memorable enough to warrant any further thought.

  Randall had not wanted to be there that afternoon. He was not sloppy, but the same could not be said of the people he worked with and depended on. Despite the red on his résumé, his brother, Raymond, tended to handle the dirty work. But his brother was careless. He loved Raymond like he loved his hands, his arms, his head, his eyes, his heart. Raymond was a part of him. But he also harbored a constant annoyance at his brother the same way you would be irritated with a bad back or a bum knee that ached during the cold months. More of a nuisance than anything, but Randall tolerated him with a resigned, exasperated understanding that there was no permanent corrective to Raymond’s impetuousness.

  He had grown tired of cleaning up Raymond’s messes. But this time, Raymond had gone too far and let things get out of hand. And Randall did not see a way out.

  Randall did not say a word when the lawyer took the seat next to him on the bench. He simply kept tossing crumbs to the birds. The lawyer seemed to be waiting for the man to speak. Then, realizing the taller man would not, he began the conversation.

  “I don’t see your brother getting out of this, Randall,” Chester Barnes said. “They have blood on his clothing that matches Lloyd Lincecum; gloves with small tears that match the piano wire found at the scene, covered in blood and with embedded glass particles from the broken front-door window; a gun with his fingerprints on it that was used to shoot at two detectives; and a positive GSR test. If this goes to trial, we could be looking at life. In fact, I’d say Raymond is lucky this state abolished the death penalty.”

  Randall remained quiet. Then he picked up a palm-size rock from the ground, brushed off a layer of dirt, and flung it at one of the flocks of pigeons. The birds scattered, wings beating the air as they quickly realized their meal ticket had turned on them.