Secrets to the Grave Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Also by Tami Hoag

  Deeper Than the Dead

  The Alibi Man

  Prior Bad Acts

  Kill the Messenger

  Dark Horse

  Dust to Dust

  Ashes to Ashes

  A Thin Dark Line

  Guilty as Sin

  Night Sins

  Dark Paradise

  Cry Wolf

  Still Waters

  Lucky’s Lady

  Sarah’s Sin

  Magic

  DUTTON

  Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3,

  Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London

  WC2R 0RL, England; Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division

  of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,

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  Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First printing, January 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Indelible Ink, Inc.

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Hoag, Tami.

  Secrets to the grave / by Tami Hoag.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-44599-0

  1. Single mothers—Crimes against—Fiction. 2. Child witnesses—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3558.O333S43 2010

  813’.54—dc22

  2010039724

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  With thanks and appreciation to Brian Tart, Ben Sevier, and all the team at Dutton.

  Thanks for understanding what I do and how I do it.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  1986. Ronald Reagan was in his second term as president. On January 28, the space shuttle Challenger disintegrated seventy-three seconds after its launch, killing all seven astronauts aboard, including teacher Christa McAuliffe. Out of Africa won the Oscar for best picture. A mishandled safety test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukranian SSR, Soviet Union, killed more than 4,000 people and caused 350,000 to be forcibly resettled away from the area. The New York Mets won the World Series, defeating the Boston Red Sox in seven games. The Bangles had a number one worldwide hit with “Walk Like an Egyptian.”

  It was a year of big hair, big shoulder pads, and spandex.

  In 1986, DNA science was still in its infancy with regards to law enforcement and had yet to be presented as evidence in a court of law. Investigators with foresight were holding on to evidence obtained at crime scenes and from crime victims, waiting for the science to advance enough to help them convict killers and rapists.

  In 1986, California’s organization for Court Appointed Special Advocates—CalCASA—was still a year away. Local CASA programs (which provide advocates for children to assist them in dealing with the courts and foster care system) existed but were still relatively few and far between.

  In 1986, AIDS was only just becoming widely known as a killer of near epidemic proportions worldwide, and the gay community was under fire. In 1986, it was still considered scandalous for single women to become pregnant and to raise the child on th
eir own. My, how times have changed.

  At the end of 1986, I made the decision to put my best effort into becoming a published author the following year. My first book would be published in 1988, and I would purchase my first desktop computer—with black-and-white monitor—with my advance from that book.

  When I sat down to the first book of this series, Deeper Than the Dead, it never occurred to me that I would be transporting readers to a simpler time. Nineteen eighty-five didn’t seem all that long ago to me. Then, one night at work an infomercial came on my television—for Greatest Hits of the Eighties. As I listened to the sampling of songs, smiling at the memories they evoked, I suddenly came to a shocking realization: Oh, my God, I’ve become nostalgic! I’m old!!

  Once I finally accepted that stunning truth, I embraced my trip back in time while also gaining a renewed appreciation for the technology available to law enforcement—and to the rest of us—today.

  1

  November 1986

  The house stood by itself back off the road in a field of dried golden grass, half hidden by spreading oaks. An amalgam of styles—part Spanish, part ranch—the once-white stucco building was weathered in a way that made it seem a part of the natural surroundings, as if it had grown up out of the earth and belonged there as much as any of the hundred-year-old trees.

  The scene was a plein air painting, soft and impressionistic: the golden grass, the dark trees, bruise-purple mountains in the background, and the whisper-blue sky strewn with long, thin, pink-tinted clouds; the small white house with its old tile roof. On the other side of the mountains the sun had begun its descent toward the ocean. Here, the day seemed to have paused to admire its own perfection. Stillness held the landscape enraptured.

  Nothing gave away a hint of what lay within the house.

  The driveway was a path of dirt and crushed rock with grass and weeds sprouted up the middle like the mane of a wild pony. Falling-down fences the color of driftwood created the lane between two overgrown pastures that had once been home to cattle and horses.

  A vintage Woody station wagon well past its glory days was parked at a casual angle near an open shed full of rusted farm equipment. An old Radio Flyer red wagon had been abandoned near the front porch with an orange tabby cat sitting in it, waiting for a ride. On the porch two kittens played peekaboo among overgrown pots of parched geraniums and kitchen herbs. One propped herself up on the screen door and peered into the house, then squeaked and leapt and dashed away, tail straight up in the air.

  Inside the house nothing moved but flies.

  A horrible still life had been staged on the Saltillo tile kitchen floor.

  A woman lay dead, her hair spreading out around her head like a dark cloud. Her skin was the color of milk. Her lips had been painted as red as a rose—as red as her blood must have been as it drained from the wounds carved into her flesh.

  She lay discarded like a life-size broken doll—made up, torn up, and cast aside, her brown eyes cloudy and lifeless.

  Beside her lay a smaller doll—her child—head resting on her shoulder, face streaked with the last of her mother’s life’s blood.

  The flies buzzed. The wall clock ticked above the sink.

  The telephone receiver dangled near the floor, stenciled with small bloody fingerprints. The last words spoken into it were a whisper still hanging in the air: “My daddy hurt my mommy ...”

  2

  “The victim is Marissa Fordham, twenty-eight, single mom. An artist.”

  Sheriff’s detective Tony Mendez rattled off the facts as if unaffected by what he had seen inside the house. Nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, shortly after he arrived at the scene, he had had to excuse himself from the kitchen to vomit under a tree in the backyard.

  He had been second on the scene, the property being on his side of town. The first responder—a young deputy—had puked under the same tree. Mendez had never seen so much blood. The smell of it was still like a fist lodged at the back of his throat. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the victims in freeze-frame shots from a horror movie.

  His stomach rolled.

  “You said there were two vics.”

  Vince Leone, forty-nine, former special agent with the FBI’s legendary Behavioral Sciences Unit, former Chicago homicide detective. Leone had been his mentor during his course at the FBI’s National Academy—a training program for law enforcement agencies around the country and around the globe. In fact, Leone had come to Oak Knoll more than a year past in part to work a serial-killer case, in part to try to recruit Mendez to the Bureau.

  The case was ongoing. Neither of them had left.

  Leone had just arrived on the scene. They drifted slowly away from his car toward the house, both of them taking in the cool, eucalyptus-scented air.

  “The woman’s four-year-old daughter,” Mendez said. “She had a faint pulse. She’s on her way to the hospital. I wouldn’t expect her to make it.”

  Leone muttered an expletive under his breath.

  He was an imposing man. Six foot three with a mane of wavy salt-and-pepper hair. A thick mustache drew the eye away from the small, shiny scar marking the entrance wound of the bullet that should have ended his life. Instead, the thing remained in his head, inoperable because of its precarious location.

  “I hate when it’s a kid,” he said.

  “Yeah. What did a four-year-old do to deserve that?”

  “Witness.”

  “She knew the killer.”

  “Or he’s just one mean bastard.”

  “I’d say he has that covered,” Mendez said.

  They went through the little gate to the yard and followed the rock path around the side of the house, past an old concrete fountain that gurgled soothingly despite the occasion.

  “Who called it in?”

  “A friend who happened to drop by.”

  Leone stopped and looked at him. “It’s the crack of freaking dawn.”

  To be precise, 7:29 A.M. The sun was barely up.

  “Yeah,” Mendez said. “Wait until you meet him. Odd guy.”

  “Odd how?”

  “Looks-like-a-suspect odd. Who drops in on a neighbor at six in the morning?”

  “Is he here?”

  “He’s with Bill.”

  Bill Hicks, sheriff’s detective, Mendez’s partner. Hicks had a way of putting people at ease.

  “Is Cal coming?” Leone asked.

  Cal Dixon, county sheriff, Mendez’s boss.

  “On his way.”

  “I don’t want to step on toes here.”

  Leone was not on the SO payroll, but he was too good a resource not to call. Studying the country’s worst serial killers for more than a decade, he had seen just about every atrocity one human being could inflict on another. More important, he could discern much from the scene that could point them in a direction in the search for the perpetrator.

  “I spoke with him,” Mendez said. “He agreed.”

  “Good.”

  They paused at the kitchen door. Mendez pointed at the tree.

  “The official puke zone. In case you need it.”

  “Good to know.”

  The scene struck him almost as hard going in this time as it had the first time. The contrasts, he decided—and the smell. Visually, the contrasts rocked him. The kitchen was like something from another era: old-fashioned painted cupboards, a cast-iron farmhouse sink, checked curtains, appliances that had to have been from the fifties.

  It was the kind of kitchen that should have had June Cleaver or Aunt Bea in it. Instead, crime-scene techs bustled around like so many cooks, dusting this, photographing that, all working around the bloating, discolored body of a murdered woman on the blood-drenched Mexican tile floor.

  Leone took in the tableau with a dark frown and his hands on his hips.

  “She’s been dead awhile.”

  “A couple of days, I’d say.”

  “Maggots already,” Leone commented. “Has she been m
oved?”

  “No. I didn’t let the paramedics touch her. There was no question she was dead.”

  The victim’s throat had been cut so viciously she was nearly decapitated. Someone had painted her lips red with her own blood.

  “And the little girl was where?”

  “Laying with her head on her mother’s left shoulder. I moved her when I felt her pulse,” Mendez said.

  “And what had been done to her? Was she stabbed?”

  “I couldn’t tell. She was covered in blood. I couldn’t tell if it was hers or her mother’s. Looked to me like she might have been strangled, though. There were bloody finger marks on her throat.”

  Leone took a handkerchief out of his pocket to hold over his mouth and nose as he moved closer to the body on the floor. He was careful not to step in the blood. He squatted down for a different angle.

  The woman’s breasts had been cut off. There was no sign of them anywhere in the room. The killer had to have taken them with him when he left. A macabre souvenir. The gaping wounds were alive with fly larvae.

  She lay spread-eagle, faceup, staring at the ceiling. She was naked. Wounds slashed her arms, her legs, her torso. She had been stabbed so many times in the lower abdomen, the area looked like a lump of ground meat, crawling now with maggots.

  The blade of a butcher’s knife protruded from her vagina.

  Leone arched a brow. “That makes a statement.”

  “Have you ever seen that before?” Mendez asked.

  “I’ve seen the blade inserted. Never like this. What do you make of it?”

  Leone looked up at him, ever the mentor. He sure as hell had an opinion. The man was a legend. He probably had already begun to build the profile of the killer in his head. By the time they broke for coffee he would have decided the perp had a stutter and walked with a limp.

  He wanted Mendez to think for himself, read the scene in front of him, call on cases he had studied and things he had been taught at the National Academy and in the field.

  “I think maybe the statement is about her more than it is about her killer,” Mendez said.

  Leone nodded. “It would seem so.”

  He stood up, took a step back, crossed his arms. His gaze slowly scanned the room, taking in every detail. Outside the house an engine died, a car door slammed.