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

  “That’s not the same thing at all,” Eric said. “So what the hell do you want?”

  “It’s not about what I want, Eric,” Ruddock said. “It’s about what you want, and what you’re entitled to.”

  “And what do I want?” Eric said, sarcastically.

  “Opportunity,” Ruddock said. “You want people to hear you. And you want them to listen, because you deserve to be heard. I know you have a voice, a strong one. And that voice, plus your brains, can get you everything. You won’t need to listen to anyone ever again, but they’ll listen to you. Boy, will they listen to you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Just say yes. To opportunity.”

  “And what does that mean—opportunity?”

  Ruddock smiled. “I’m about show, not tell. I want you to come to a meeting. Tomorrow. One a.m. Voss Field.”

  “The baseball stadium?”

  “Yup. You’ll see what I’m talking about.”

  “In the middle of the night? My mom—”

  “If you really want something, you find a way to make it happen, and you don’t let anything stand in your way. Definitely not a curfew, and definitely not parents. Trust me. This will be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “As a show of good faith,” Ruddock said, “I’ve been instructed to tell you that we’re offering you a generous signing bonus. Just for coming.”

  “Signing bonus?”

  Ruddock took out a cell phone. He typed in the URL of Cedar Bank and logged in. He tapped the screen a few times, then showed Eric the website.

  “That’s . . . that’s my name,” Eric said, shocked.

  “This is your account. It belongs to you.”

  “There’s ten thousand dollars in it.”

  “That’s your money. If you come tomorrow night. If not, the account will be closed, and we’ll just go on being strangers. Now put out your hand.”

  Eric hesitated.

  Ruddock laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to read your palm.”

  Eric extended his hand, opened it. Ruddock placed something in his palm, then closed Eric’s fingers over it.

  “Don’t show this to anyone,” Ruddock said. “If you do, you’ll regret it. We take it as seriously as death, and in time you will too. See you tomorrow.”

  Ruddock squeezed Eric’s palm. As Ruddock walked away, Eric noticed another boy looking at him. Tony Vargas, a good-looking junior. He did not know Tony well, had no classes with him, and hadn’t said more than two words to the kid in his life. Tony had a thick scar on his neck that was the subject of many rumors at Ashby High. Gang initiation, suicide attempt, et cetera. For some reason, Tony was staring at Eric in a way that suggested a familiarity. Tony nodded almost imperceptibly at Eric, then walked on, leaving Eric confused and unnerved.

  When he was alone, Eric opened his hand. Sitting in his palm was a gold coin the size of a silver dollar. It was embossed with an image of four arms coming together, like a plus sign, their hands meeting in the middle. Shaking in unison. At the top of the coin was printed one word.

  Fratres.

  Eric had taken introductory Latin. He knew what the word meant.

  Brothers.

  CHAPTER 6

  It took the Ashby Fire Department several hours to confirm the structural integrity of the remains of the Linklater home before they would permit forensics and investigating officers inside. As they waited, Serrano and Tally interviewed the crowd of onlookers and knocked on neighbors’ doors, hoping someone could shed light on Matthew Linklater’s death.

  Rachel paced the driveway like a caged lion watching a limping zebra. She couldn’t wait to get inside the house. Several months back, after she’d helped put a killer behind bars (nearly killing him in the process), the Ashby PD realized Rachel Marin could be a valuable asset to their overworked department. She had proven her abilities on the Constance Wright murder investigation—even if she’d pissed off the rank and file by doing their jobs better than they could. Serrano and Tally convinced APD brass she would be a boon to the squad, so Rachel was hired as a freelance forensics consultant. Serrano even dangled the possibility of a full-time position if she played her cards right and stayed out of trouble, but Rachel said that wasn’t her goal. She didn’t fully trust the legal system or law enforcement, and the Wright investigation hadn’t given her much reason to change her mind. But solving crimes was far more satisfying than any other kind of work she’d ever done. And to move on with her life, Rachel had to feel competent. Needed. Able.

  Rachel, Serrano, Tally, and Montrose carefully picked their way through the charred Linklater home. Ash and debris covered the floor. The formerly white walls were blistered and singed. What was a home yesterday was nothing more than a pile of cinder now. The real estate firm Linklater used to purchase the house had sent over the floor plans and schematics, and Rachel was mapping out each room in her mind as they went.

  She opened what remained of the kitchen cabinets and examined the appliances. She could tell from the condition of the burners and stove that Linklater cooked frequently. The lack of glassware meant he wasn’t much of a drinker and didn’t host many dinner parties.

  At the foot of what remained of the stairs to the second floor, Rachel stopped. She knelt down, ran a gloved finger over the floor.

  “Detectives!” she shouted. Serrano and Tally came over quickly. “Look at this.”

  At the bottom of the staircase was a large, black burn mark, almost perfectly circular. Rachel traced her finger around the mark. “Look around the margins. See how in the center it’s black and burned? But around that it’s considerably lighter. Like someone poured lighter fluid in a pool and lit it. One of the fires was started right here.”

  Serrano motioned toward the staircase. “The staircase is singed in an almost perfect straight line. And the burn marks get thicker the higher up it goes.”

  Rachel said, “I’m thinking someone pooled an accelerant at the bottom of the stairs, then literally drew a line with it up the stairs.”

  “Gasoline?” Tally said.

  “Most likely,” Rachel replied.

  “So let’s see where the line goes,” Serrano said.

  They followed the burn mark up the stairs, one at a time, stepping gently, testing the wood. The black markings led to an open door at the end of the hall. The hardwood floors creaked beneath them, and they stepped gingerly. Despite the “all clear,” none of them wanted to risk plunging through the floor and being impaled.

  “It’s the bedroom,” Rachel said. There were remnants of several dressers, a reclining chair whose upholstery had burned to the metal, and a pile of molten plastic, twisted metal, and broken glass on the floor.

  “Flat screen,” Tally said, toeing the pile.

  “Oh, that’s awful,” Rachel said, her hand going to her nose. The mattress was burned to a crisp, but Rachel could see small discolorations amid the char.

  “Flesh,” Serrano said. “They said Linklater was still in bed when they found him.”

  Tally looked at Rachel. “You OK?”

  “Oh, yeah. My usual morning routine consists of coffee and then sifting through liquefied skin.” She gulped down air. “The black line. The accelerant goes right up to the bed frame. Linklater was still in bed when the fire started, and whoever set it created something of a makeshift fuse. Accelerant leading all the way from Linklater’s bed to the bottom of the stairs. Light the accelerant, flame goes up the stairs right to the occupied bed.”

  “That’s dramatic,” Tally said.

  Rachel replied. “I bet it was purposefully so. Whoever torched Linklater’s house didn’t want it to even appear to be an accident. They wanted us to know beyond a doubt that it was arson.”

  Montrose appeared at the door. “I see you found the crematorium.”

  “Is there any way to tell what the accelerant was?” Rachel asked.

  “We’ve taken samples fro
m all over the house and sent them to the lab for testing. My hope is that it comes back as ethylene oxide, which has a very high flammability range but is also generally used for industrial purposes.”

  “Meaning the purchase could be traced,” Rachel said.

  “Potentially,” Montrose replied. “But they could have also just used plain old lighter fluid, in which case it could have been purchased at any bodega in the Western Hemisphere.”

  “When you removed Linklater’s body,” Serrano said, “did you find any restraints? Anything that might have been used to tie him up?”

  “Nothing,” Montrose said. “No restraints. He was clothed, but all his clothing and some of the comforter fabric was seared into his skin.”

  “Even if the killer wanted us to know it was arson,” Serrano said, “he or she still wouldn’t want to get caught. So I’d be willing to bet it’ll come back as plain old lighter fluid or gasoline. Untraceable, especially when half the city has stocked up for homemade BBQ.”

  Rachel said, “So they get into the house and subdue Linklater. They would have had to bring him upstairs without alerting neighbors. I’m guessing they knock him unconscious downstairs, then bring him upstairs. Then they set fires from multiple flash points. I’m guessing this one, by the stairs, was set first, to make sure Linklater was trapped. So my question is this: Why go to such lengths to murder a high school social studies teacher but also make it so damn evident that it was murder?”

  As they looked over the remains of Matthew Linklater’s bedroom, Montrose’s cell phone rang. He put it to his ear.

  “This is Montrose.”

  The big man stood still, listening. A look of confusion crossed his face, then his eyes widened. “You’re not serious,” he said. “Holy hell. I’ll let them know.”

  He hung up.

  “Who was that?” Serrano asked.

  “Hector Moreno at the coroner’s office,” Montrose said. “They found something very, very strange in the victim’s body.”

  “You mean on the victim’s body,” Tally said.

  “No, Detective,” Moreno said. “In the victim’s body.”

  CHAPTER 7

  When Hector Moreno removed the sheet from the body of Matthew Linklater, Serrano, Tally, and Rachel sucked in their breath like they were trying to prevent their breakfasts from escaping. The body itself was blackened, Linklater’s features melted away into a ghoulish skeleton. The remaining dermis, the thickest layer of skin, was cracked and split, with cooked fat around the edges. His fingers were curled inward, like horrible claws, which Rachel knew was from the tendons shriveling and contracting from the heat.

  Tally whispered a prayer. Serrano clenched his jaw. Rachel merely stood there, poring over the body of a man who, twenty-four hours ago, had been responsible for teaching her son.

  Though the damage the fire had wreaked upon Matthew Linklater was horrifying, it wasn’t what Rachel was focused on. She was staring at the soda-can-size hole that had been . . . burrowed . . . into the man’s abdomen.

  “What is that?” she asked Hector Moreno.

  “That is where the rodent gnawed its way into his body,” Moreno said, trying to keep his voice even.

  “The what did what?” Serrano said.

  “When I went to remove the organs, I found this hole with a number of very small bones inside the victim’s cavity. I believe they’re rodent bones. And based on the organ and tissue damage, I’m pretty sure Linklater was still alive when it was inside him.”

  “How exactly would that happen?” Tally said.

  “It gnawed its way in,” Moreno said.

  “When you say gnawed,” Serrano said, “do you literally mean . . .”

  “I mean literally split the man’s skin open with its claws and teeth,” Moreno said. “A human sternum is pretty strong, with the breastplate. But from the bottom tip of the xiphoid process to the top of the pubis bone, people are pretty soft. Just skin and muscle and what lies beneath.”

  “What in the ever-loving hell . . . ,” Serrano said.

  Rachel said, “It’s an infamous form of medieval torture. The Dutch used to put rats inside pottery, place it on a naked victim, then put hot coals on top.” They all looked at her. She shrugged. “What?”

  “I’m not sure I want to know how you know that,” Moreno said.

  “It was more commonly used as an interrogation technique,” Rachel continued. “A prisoner would be restrained, bare chested. Then a rat was placed inside a metal bucket, and the open end placed on the person’s abdomen. If the person didn’t cooperate, a torch was held to the bottom of the bucket. As the metal grows hotter, the rat begins to cook, and it looks for a way out. And, well, people are softer than metal.”

  “Is that what killed Linklater?” Serrano asked.

  “I haven’t been able to determine the exact cause of death due to the degrading of most of the internal organs. But I did find something else.” Moreno led them around to the corpse’s head and traced a thin line by the right temple. “When bones reach an extremely high temperature, they begin to crack. This includes the skull, and they generally rupture along their suture lines. But I found one that is not along a suture line. A small fracture in the right temporal bone. It’s not from the fire and appears to have been caused by blunt-force trauma.”

  “Could that be what killed him?” Rachel asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Moreno said. “It wasn’t a severe enough blow to have killed him, but it likely would have caused some cerebral bleeding or at least a concussion. Treatable with medical attention.”

  “Did it occur before or after Mighty Mouse began cooking?” Serrano asked.

  “Again, it’s hard to say, given the condition of the body,” said Moreno.

  “I’ll bet the head wound happened before,” Rachel said. “They had to get Linklater from downstairs to his bedroom without him screaming bloody murder. I’ll bet they knocked him out, cracked his skull, then brought him upstairs.”

  Tally said, “If that holds up, then Linklater suffered the head wound at the front door. Which means he opened the front door for someone. Which means there’s a good chance he knew his attacker.”

  Rachel nodded. “Literally opened the door to his own murder.”

  “So you think Linklater was tortured to give up information?” Serrano asked. “He was a teacher. Who would do that to a teacher?”

  “I don’t think he was tortured for information.”

  “Then why?” Serrano asked.

  “To send a message. Whoever cracked his skull didn’t care how badly the wound injured him. They knew he was going to die imminently anyway,” Rachel said. “Head wounds aren’t like they are in the movies, where someone gets walloped in the head with a sledgehammer, then they wake up an hour later with nothing a couple Tylenol can’t cure. A head wound like this one on Linklater could cause a brain hemorrhage. Right, Dr. Moreno?”

  The ME nodded. “As I said, the skull wound wasn’t enough to kill him, but without proper treatment, it certainly could have presented major problems.”

  “So Linklater was dead either way,” Rachel continued. “Now, there are six other homes on the same block where Linklater lives. The killer may have wanted us to know it was arson and murder, but they didn’t want to actually get caught. Look there. At his mouth. You can see white fibers seared into the dermis. There was a cloth of some sort inserted into Linklater’s mouth to prevent him from screaming. So the killer wasn’t looking for a confession.”

  Tally said, “You’re saying the rat was going to . . . eat into him no matter what.”

  Rachel nodded. “The killer wanted Matthew Linklater to suffer.”

  “A message rat for the cops,” Tally said, rubbing her temples. “Just when you think you’ve seen everything.”

  Serrano said, “What if the message wasn’t meant for law enforcement?”

  “What do you mean?” Rachel asked.

  “You might be an expert on medieval torture, Rache
l, but obviously not movies. When a body is found with a rat, it’s meant to scare other people from talking. Whoever did this knows the press will report the circumstances surrounding Linklater’s death. Linklater wanted to say what he knew—hence the email to you—but before he could, somebody wanted to shut him up and scare others into doing the same.”

  “Obviously, Matthew Linklater knew something he wasn’t supposed to,” Tally said. “But there are no records of any criminal complaints filed by Matthew Linklater, no arrests, and no records of any 911 calls from his home or cell. The only thing that appears to be out of the ordinary was his email to Rachel.”

  Serrano said, “So here’s what we know. Matthew Linklater knew something that unnerved someone so bad that they tortured and killed him to make sure he wouldn’t talk and to scare anyone else from talking. Unfortunately, we don’t know what Linklater knew, how he got it, or exactly who his death is meant to scare. But if this murder was a warning, it was directed at somebody. The big question is who.”

  “And remember,” Tally said, locking eyes with Rachel, “Linklater’s cell phone has not been found, which means the killer likely took it. And whoever has the phone also has access to Linklater’s emails. Which means they know he contacted you and know you’re going to be looking into this murder. So watch your back, Rachel.”

  CHAPTER 8

  When Rachel got home, she tossed her clothes into a pile on the bathroom floor and spent the next thirty minutes showering in an attempt to cleanse the smoke, soot, and grime from her skin and images of the mutilated body of Matthew Linklater from her mind.

  When Rachel moved her family to Ashby, she’d had every intention of disappearing into the unassuming, tree-lined, nod-at-your-neighbor-and-move-along background. She would work a menial job for menial pay, while her children would resume their educations that had been so mercilessly interrupted by fate.