Sala said, “And Dr. Thomas, please let us know if you have any luck with the DNA harvesting. We agree the victims are very probably from the area, missing persons or people who were thought to have up and left for whatever reason. It might be our only way to identify them all.”
Sala punched off. “So I bet Mr. Henry wasn’t cremated, he was thrown into the lake wearing his treasured belt buckle. By Susan Sparrow.”
When they walked into the flower-filled entry of the Sparrow Crematorium it was to see Ms. Betty Chugger watching them approach her reception desk. They heard music, a soft harp, from behind a closed door to their left.
Ms. Chugger said, her voice barely above a whisper, her finger over her lips, “We’re holding a small memorial service for a lovely woman who lived her entire life in Haggersville. So we must keep our voices down. It was Mr. Landry’s mama who insisted years ago we provide this service to the family and friends who wish it. It lessens their fear of something they haven’t experienced before, that is, of their loved one being cremated. A kind of closure, Mrs. Sparrow called it. It’s a very nice idea, don’t you think?” She added without pause, “What can I do for you this beautiful morning?”
Ty said, “We need to see Susan Sparrow.”
“Not possible, I’m afraid. Landry said she wasn’t feeling well this morning and he’d wanted her to stay in bed. He fears it’s some sort of flu. Only he and Eric are here today. Would you like to see them?”
Ty looked at Sala, then shook her head at Ms. Chugger. “Not now, but thank you. We’ll be back later.”
Sala looked up the Sparrows’ home address on his tablet.
73
* * *
SPARROW HOUSE
HAGGERSVILLE, MARYLAND
FRIDAY MORNING
Ty pulled her Silverado into the empty driveway of a lovely two-story colonial on Ridgeway Lane, an upper-class neighborhood with spacious front yards lined with maples and oaks. It was quiet, no traffic, no kids, and even though it wasn’t noon yet, the air was hot and still. They walked to the front door, listened, heard nothing except the low hum of the central air-conditioning. Sala pressed the doorbell, heard the ring echo through the house. He rang again, waited, and then tried the doorknob. To his surprise, the front door wasn’t locked. He pushed the door inward into a dim entry hall. Through an arched doorway to the right was a living room with traditional antebellum antiques, to the left, a businesslike study.
Ty called out, but no one answered. They walked through the dining room to the kitchen, and beyond that through a mudroom to another smaller pale yellow study at the back of the house, probably Susan’s.
They walked up the beautiful mahogany stairs, their steps soundless on the Oriental runner, past stylized paintings of nineteenth-century New York and Chicago, evocative and expensive-looking.
They paused, listened, heard nothing.
At the top of the stairs, they split up. Ty walked into an empty master bedroom with more antebellum antiques—a chest, a mirror, a rocking chair—and thick white wall-to-wall carpeting. She looked into a large, perfectly organized walk-in closet, then into the bathroom, another display of opulence, with a Jacuzzi and a double sink in beautiful green-veined marble.
She saw a large white envelope lying on top of three perfectly folded yellow towels in the center of the bathroom counter. It was addressed to Chief Christie and Agent Porto.
She met Sala back at the top of the stairs. He nodded down the hall. “A playroom of sorts, I guess you’d call it—a pool table, some video games, poker table, comfortable leather furniture. Beyond are guest rooms, both with baths. No one up here. What’s that?”
Ty held up the envelope. “It was sitting on top of some towels in the master bathroom. It’s addressed to you and me, by name.”
They sat side by side on the top step. Ty opened the sealed envelope and pulled out three sheets of very fine stationery covered with beautiful cursive. She read aloud:
Agent, Chief, knowing you two, I’ll bet it’s Friday morning and you’ve figured out who I really am, not that it matters because I’ll be gone, and you won’t find me.
I have very little time, so I must hurry. I know I owe you an explanation and answers to all your questions, just as I knew you would find this letter. No, it’s more than an explanation, it’s my confession.
I confess to being solely responsible for the two crimes I’m about to describe to you. I’m very glad I failed in one of them, namely in harming Leigh Saks. My only excuse is that I panicked and didn’t see I had another choice.
As you know, I’m sure, my real name is Albie Pierson. I was fifteen years old when a monster broke into our home and murdered my father, my mother, and my brother. I saw him take off my father’s favorite belt. I watched him carry each of their bodies out to the Gatewood dock, watched, helpless, as he dumped them, one by one, into the lake. I knew he would look for me and kill me, too, so I hid in my special spot beneath the stairs until I was certain he was gone. Finally, I walked out onto the dock, following the trail of my family’s blood, and stared down into the water. I couldn’t see their bodies. I knew to my soul he would come back because he wanted to kill me, too, and I wanted to survive. I took five thousand dollars from my father’s safe and ran.
I won’t go into details about my life. I look back at that fifteen-year-old girl and I admire her. She grew up in the space of a single hour, and she survived. In the beginning what kept her going was the promise she made that horrible day, that she would find and kill the monster who murdered her family. Then this young girl heard the chief of police in Willicott was looking for her as a person of interest, and she realized some people believed she had killed her own family.
The only way to stay safe until she found the killer was to stay hidden. She moved to Chicago and reinvented herself, became Susan Hadden. She studied and learned and read countless news reports online, but she never read anything that could lead her to the monster w
ho’d murdered her family at Gatewood.
I left Chicago and moved to Haggersville six years ago, on a whim, I told myself, but of course it was because I was desperate to be near where I’d lived so happily with my family, close enough to Willicott so perhaps I’d hear something about those long-ago murders, something that would help me find the monster. But not in Willicott itself, where I might be recognized. And so I settled in Haggersville. I realized I never thought of him as a man or a murderer, but always a monster, the monster.