Stone Cold Read online

  ‘Was this at night or during the day?’ Maietta asked.

  ‘Night, after I got back from work.’

  Griffin nodded. With the abduction occurring at night, and in a large house with its own garage and drive, it would have made it reasonably easy for Dale McKenzie to transfer Sheila from the house to a vehicle and away from the scene without being noticed. Even with their curtain–twitching neighbours, the foul weather of that night would likely have deterred most observers.

  ‘Okay, and what happened next?’

  ‘Car,’ Sheila uttered. ‘I was dragged into a car and driven someplace, it took a long time. I got dragged into a chair and that’s where I stayed until you found me.’

  ‘The storage units,’ Griffin said, ‘here in town. That’s where we found you.’

  Sheila nodded, coughed a little before speaking. ‘I could tell there were people not far away during the day.’

  ‘You could hear them?’

  ‘Feel them,’ Sheila said as she shook her head. ‘Vibrations, through the recliner.’

  ‘Did they move you at all from that place?’

  ‘No. They kept me there the whole time.’

  ‘Did they speak to you at all?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Griffin leaned forward in his seat. ‘What did they sound like? Was it a man or a woman?’

  ‘They spoke through a microphone of some kind,’ Sheila replied, ‘one of those stupid deep–throat things. I couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman.’

  ‘What did they speak to you about?’

  Sheila swallowed, struggling to talk through her pain.

  ‘They asked me about my life,’ she said, ‘about my husband, about our money and what we were doing with it. They asked a lot of questions about Dale in particular. They eventually told me he had contacted the police and that my life was in danger because of it.’

  ‘Your husband did the right thing, Sheila,’ Maietta said. ‘Unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons.’

  Sheila coughed again, louder this time. ‘I don’t doubt it,’ she snapped with as much force as she could muster. ‘He knew what would happen if I died. He’d get all of the money, every last penny. I bet he ran to the police the first chance he got.’

  Griffin blinked in surprise. ‘It didn’t appear that way to us, ma’am. Your husband appears to have been extremely distressed by your disappearance.’

  ‘Is that so, detective?’ Sheila asked, and with a supreme effort she turned her head on her pillow to face him. ‘Then where the hell is he now?’

  Griffin frowned. ‘We’re not sure.’

  ‘What a surprise,’ came the bitterly whispered response.

  ‘But you didn’t see anybody, or hear anything at all that would help to tell us who your abductor was?’ Griffin asked.

  ‘No,’ Sheila croaked. ‘I was blindfolded, my ears were plugged and I was gagged.’

  Griffin watched her for a moment, long enough for her to sigh and relax her head back into her pillows again.

  ‘Did you smell anything?’ Griffin asked.

  To Griffin’s surprise, Sheila McKenzie’s dry, cracked lips widened into a faint smile as she stared up at the ceiling.

  ‘Finally, detective, you’re onto something.’

  Griffin leaned forward on his seat. ‘Tell me, quickly. Anything you could tell us might be of huge importance.’

  Sheila turned her head and looked at him. ‘What importance? My husband is a lowly airline pilot with an over–inflated opinion of himself. What could possibly be important about him?’

  Griffin braced himself. ‘Four women, who have died in suspicious circumstances in several states over the past fifteen years. All of them apparently drowned in the bath after random strokes and heart–attacks. It turns out that all of these women had one thing in common: they all are connected to the aviation career of Dale McKenzie.’

  Sheila stared at Griffin for a long moment. ‘Go on.’

  ‘All of their bank accounts were emptied before they died,’ Griffin said, ‘and local police were never able to trace where their money went. The cases went cold despite hints at a boyfriend in all of the cases who was never identified. Every one of those women was an orphan with no family to support them. Are you seeing a pattern here, Sheila?’

  Sheila gaped at Griffin. ‘Are you saying my husband is a murderer?’

  ‘Each of the victims died in cities where Dale McKenzie was known to have flown to during his career with various airlines at the time of their deaths,’ Maietta explained. ‘The connection was only made when we started digging into his past and working with other agencies and forces who had dealt with those murders.’

  Sheila seemed to realise how close she had come to death, and some of the anger and determination returned to her eyes as she stared at Griffin.

  ‘He was there, at the storage unit,’ she said finally. ‘Somebody came to rescue me, but Dale arrived before she could free me. I know it was Dale who abducted me, because the idiot still wore the same aftershave when he came to visit me. He figured he’d thought of everything,’ Sheila smiled. ‘I guess he’s not as smart as he thought he was. I could even smell his scent, if you know what I mean, on his shirt?’

  ‘You’re sure it was him?’ Maietta asked.

  ‘I know my own husband,’ Sheila hissed, but then her anger faded abruptly. ‘At least, I thought that I did.’

  ‘Somebody came to rescue you?’ Griffin asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Sheila nodded. ‘A woman, a pretty young thing. She said she had followed Dale and found the storage unit.’

  ‘How did she know your husband?’

  Sheila’s anger broke through her pain again. ‘Because the bastard was having an affair with her.’

  ‘With the woman who came to free you?’ Griffin asked, and was rewarded with a nod. ‘Did the woman give you her name?’

  ‘No, but Dale referred to her as Kathryn,’ Sheila said, ‘and the odd thing was that she didn’t refer to Dale by his name. She called him Stephen.’

  A uniformed officer poked his head around the corner of the door. ‘Detectives? You’re not going to believe this, but emergency services just pulled in with a woman who’s mumbling about a Scott Griffin.’

  Griffin leaped out of the chair and followed the uniform down the corridor outside, Maietta jogging to keep up as they rounded a corner into the emergency room as a gurney was being wheeled through, pushed by two nurses.

  Griffin barged his way in alongside the gurney as it was wheeled along and looked down at the woman who lay beneath thermal blankets, her face flushed blue and her teeth clattering hard enough to send ripples through her jowls.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Griffin asked.

  ‘All…..yyyyy…’

  The woman was in the throes of severe hypothermia and Griffin guessed she was naked beneath the blankets, her entire form trembling as though live currents were seething through her body.

  ‘How did you know my name?’ he asked.

  ‘Kkkkaatthh….ryynn.’

  ‘Kathryn?’ Griffin asked as he jogged alongside the gurney. ‘Where is she?’

  Ally struggled to form words, her eyes quivering with the effort.

  ‘Llllll…aaa….yyyy…’

  ‘What?’ Griffin urged. ‘Come on Ally, say it!’

  ‘Lllll..aaa….yyyyy…’

  ‘She’s out of it on some kind of drug!’ a nurse yelled. ‘We need to get her out of here!’

  Griffin was pulled urgently aside by the nurses as they tried to get lines into the woman’s flabby arms.

  ‘Say it!’ Griffin yelled as Ally was wheeled away.

  ‘Lllll…aaaa… yyy… k.’

  ‘Lake,’ Maietta snapped. ‘She’s saying lake.’

  ‘Hhunnnt..rrrrr,’ Ally managed as she was wheeled away and her head slumped back onto her pillow.

  ‘Hunter’s Lodge,’ Griffin snapped. ‘There’s a lake up that way, some sort of tourist resort.’

  Griffin tu
rned to Maietta and pointed at the gurney as it rattled down the corridor. ‘Stay with her, find out more if you can and call me if you get anything useful!’

  ‘Where the hell are you going?’

  ‘To the lodge,’ Griffin yelled as he turned and ran. ‘Send back–up, then call in and set up roadblocks out of town to cut Dale McKenzie off!’

  ***

  43

  It was hard to keep track of time.

  Kathryn’s body was crammed into the trunk, enveloped by darkness. She could not move a single muscle. Pain throbbed in long, slow, agonising pulses through her ankle, and every now and again she felt a hole in the road shudder through the vehicle’s suspension and jolt her painfully.

  She had gone too far. She realised that now, could admit it to herself. In her fury she had blinded herself to what she was doing, had deliberately overridden her natural caution, her common sense, and become… what, exactly?

  Occasionally in her life when she had faced crisis that had been of her own making, however indirectly, she had wondered: how did it come to this? How did I go from living a happy life to having to deal with something like this? Embarrassing moments from her history flickered through her mind like demons taunting her with past failures, all of which seemed so trivial now. Jilted lovers, offended friends, mistakes at work, schoolroom arguments – all overcome often with little more than an apology or a kind gesture.

  Now, she was facing death. What had she been thinking? She suddenly felt more stupid and alone than she ever had, and a sudden realisation dawned upon her as she lay in the vibrating darkness: nobody will miss me when I’m gone. Her profound sadness deepened as she realised that even Scott Griffin would probably forget about her soon enough, his marriage likely saved along with his career. Kathryn’s usefulness will have ended, along with her life.

  The car suddenly bumped and rumbled as it left the road, and a fresh wave of panic flushed through her body. Kathryn tried desperately to move her fingers but they remained motionless, as though she were looking down upon someone else’s body. Pain flared up and down her leg as she was rattled about in the trunk, and then finally the vehicle slowed and came to a stop. She heard the squeal of her car’s brakes and the engine shutting off. A door opened.

  Heavy footsteps walked to the rear of the vehicle.

  The trunk clicked and then was thrown open.

  The coal–black sky above Dale was spitting a hail of cold rain that gusted in sleety squalls faintly illuminated by the glow of nearby buildings. She could barely make out Dale’s features as he stared down at her.

  ‘Time for you to go for a drive,’ he said.

  Dale reached down and with a heave of effort he lifted her out of the trunk and carried her round to the driver’s side of her car.

  The vehicle was parked on a grassy bank, maybe a quarter of a mile from Hunter’s Lodge, the yellow lighting around the resort glistening amid the blackness. Trees loomed dark and whispered as the wind hurried through their leaves. She smelled the scent of water and saw the lake, the even more distant lights from the city flickering on the dark water.

  Kathryn gasped and tried to speak.

  ‘Please… no…’

  Her words were a ghostly whisper, as though her vocal chords had been whittled down to a hair’s breadth.

  Dale did not respond as he grunted with the effort of lowering her body into the driver’s seat. He strapped her in, and then he reached across her to the passenger’s seat. Kathryn swivelled her eyeballs enough to see Dale open the plastic bag with the pistol in it and let the weapon drop onto the seat beside her.

  Dale produced the knife from his pocket once more. Kathryn’s stomach turned over on itself as Dale lifted the blade to her ear, and then hacked off a chunk of her hair. He lifted the hair to his nose and closed his eyes as he smelled it, then he tucked it into his pocket along with the knife.

  Dale carefully extricated himself from the vehicle and squatted down beside her. Quietly, he reached into his pocket and removed her cell phone. He tossed it onto the passenger seat beside her.

  Then, he sat back on his haunches and admired his work.

  ‘They’ll find the car easily enough,’ he said. ‘Pull it out of the water. You’ll be inside, somewhat more dead than you are now, with the evidence surrounding you. Your car. The pistol. Sheila’s blood on you. The water will make it harder for them to find absolute forensic evidence, but I’m sure it will be enough to convict beyond reasonable doubt.’

  Kathryn, her head lolling to one side and saliva drooling from her lips, struggled to speak.

  ‘You…?’

  Dale smiled again. ‘Me? I’m the victim here, Kathryn. The poor grieving husband who lost his wife to the callous and mentally unstable hands of some loser by the name of Stone.’ He held up two tickets for Hunter’s Lodge. ‘I’ve been up here all along of course. I’m surprised you left the apartment without taking these with you. I’ll suffer of course, for a while, in the aftermath of so much death and tragedy. But I’m sure that Dale McKenzie will soldier bravely on, the life insurance policies from his poor deceased wife adding to the personal fortune he’s been quietly amassing. Maybe I’ll take some time off from flying, emigrate down to Mexico just in case any loose ends come back to haunt me, and try fucking eighteen year old virgins or something instead of middle–aged losers like you.’

  Kathryn tried to respond, but her voice was not strong enough.

  Dale smiled again and pressed one finger to her lips. A red line trickled from his eye like tears of blood where Sheila had stabbed him. ‘Ssshh now,’ he whispered. ‘There’s really nothing more to say, Kathryn. Your time has come.’

  Dale reached across her and with one gloved hand he lifted hers and started the car engine. Kathryn squirmed desperately, felt her legs and arms jerk spasmodically.

  ‘That’s right,’ Dale encouraged her. ‘The drug is starting to wear off. Struggle if you like Kathryn, but it won’t do you any good. It’s far too late for that.’

  He lifted her uninjured foot and placed it on the accelerator, then reached across her again and eased the handbrake off. Then, with one quick movement he flicked the car into drive and jerked back out.

  The door slammed shut as the car rolled toward the lake. Kathryn strained and struggled to get her muscles to work again, tried to guide her hands down to the seatbelt release beside her as she felt the car move. The bank was steep and the tiny pressure of her foot resting on the accelerator was all it took.

  Kathryn let out a strained cry of anguish as the vehicle rolled faster and faster, rumbling down the grassy hillside toward the bleak, black water ahead. Her hands twitched as her foot slipped off the accelerator, but the car was running under its own momentum now.

  She tried to keep her lolling head up while guiding her hands toward the seatbelt release, but she could not take her eyes off her impending doom as with a rolling crash of water the car plunged into the lake. She saw a faint blue line of foam splash up across the hood and wash against the windscreen as the car rolled into the water.

  The engine rattled as it was submerged, and she felt the wheels beneath the vehicle lose traction as the car began to float. Water rushed in through the door seals as the car drifted in blackness, icy cold against her throbbing ankle as it flooded the foot well. She saw the waterline creep up to the windshield, black and rippling. More water flooded into the rear of the car, and it sank lower in the water.

  The engine coughed and spluttered and then fell silent, only the instruments before her glowing in the absolute blackness until they too flickered and blinked out.

  The water rose up to her knees, sloshing bitterly cold and yet invisible in the darkness as though she were already dead and being swallowed by Hell itself. She cried out, fumbling beneath the fast–rising water for the seatbelt release. Her fingers fastened upon it, but they were not yet strong enough to depress the button and release her.

  The water swelled in the vehicle and to her dismay she saw the l
ights of the distant city and their reflections on the water’s surface vanish as the car became completely submerged beneath the blackness. The water pouring through the door seals became deafeningly loud, and she realised that what air was trapped within the car was vanishing in a cloud of bubbles through the tops of the doors and the sunroof.

  The water flooded up to her neck as Kathryn strained to release the seatbelt. Her fingers were already becoming numb from the cold water and they slipped off the release button. She cried out, spitting water as she managed to crane her neck back for one last breath of precious air.

  And then the water flooded over her.

  ***

  44

  Griffin let the car coast as he threw it into neutral, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness outside as he searched for some sign of Kathryn’s car. He could see the lodge up ahead, a handful of bright lights glowing in the vast darkness of the plains, but the road was empty. He was about to give up entirely when from the gloomy night ahead a figure emerged from a bank onto the road.

  A man. Tall. Walking.

  Griffin waited until the last possible moment, the point when the man would hear the whisper of his car’s tyres on the asphalt. Griffin saw the man’s head shift position, turning toward the car.

  Griffin squinted until his eyes were almost completely closed and then switched on the car’s headlights, full–beam. Dale McKenzie’s astounded face was briefly illuminated in a brilliant halo of white light as he threw his arms up to shield his face from the blazing headlamps.

  Griffin swerved his car to one side. He yanked the handbrake on as he shoved his door open and leaped from the vehicle, rolling on the asphalt as he came up running.

  Dale McKenzie staggered, briefly blinded by the bright flare of the headlights. Griffin ducked down as he ran and drove his shoulder deep into McKenzie’s belly, just below his ribcage. He heard a rush of air blast from McKenzie’s mouth as he was lifted clean off of his feet by Griffin’s charge. McKenzie stumbled backwards off the road and onto the verge, tumbling onto his back as Griffin plunged down toward him.