The Hollow Ones(28)

“Yes?” she said.

“Captain would like a word with you—inside.”

“Sure thing!” said Odessa, forcing a cheery note in her voice. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”

She remained frozen until the hat brim moved on. Quickly she snapped a handful of photographs with her flash on, then backed out without knocking over any of the bikes. She walked down the side of the house to the street and turned to her car, getting in and driving away.



“Sorry—I thought you were a reporter.”

Odessa smiled and put her credentials back inside her left front pocket. She stepped inside a small office. Photographs taped to the wall around the Portuguese flag showed that the marine patrol safety officer, Mariella Parra, had once been a swordfish boat captain.

She shook Odessa’s hand with a manly grip, flecks of gray in her short, butch haircut, the corners of her eyes creased by the years and by the sun.

“My boss is giving me the next few days off,” said Mariella, dumping things into a canvas bag. “Just trying to get away from here. Do I have to tell what happened again?”

Odessa shrugged. “I’ll take the short version if there is one.”

“What does the FBI want with this?”

“We are investigating a rash of similar rampage killings.”

Mariella took a surprised step back. “You think there was something more to it?”

“No,” said Odessa, “but part of what we do is compile crime statistics in an effort to spot trends.” She was bullshitting behind a smile. “I know this has been traumatic for you.”

“It’s pretty simple.” Mariella shrugged. “I had to check a few permits and stopped into the town hall about twenty minutes before closing. I heard some yelling and I guess at first I thought it was somebody’s birthday or something…you know, a celebration. Maybe my ears wanted them to be happy noises. When the raised voices became screams…I think I stood there for another ten, fifteen seconds, still trying to believe it wasn’t happening. It’s not like on TV, where there’s a buildup. Where you know something is about to happen. Suddenly it was happening and I was in it.”

Odessa nodded. She understood this much better than Mariella knew.

“When I started moving, my blood was cold, and I had my service weapon in my hand. I was so freaked out. I saw the first body, the lady on the floor. She was bleeding out. The man paying his taxes, he was still clutching his bill in one hand, crawling alligator-style down the hall, leaving a trail of blood. The town supervisor, when I saw him, Mr. Colina—he was stabbing the third woman—that poor, poor woman—in the lower back, just over and over with that long screwdriver. At one point…” She choked up, then continued. “At one point the screwdriver jammed on the backbone and—and kind of lifted the whole body, for a brief moment—maybe an inch or two—and then he pried it loose and went back at it. Mechanically—no emotion there…”

Odessa was riveted, reexperiencing her own trauma as she listened. “What did he look like? His expression?”

Mariella winced and shook her head. “Curious? Gleeful? Somewhat absent? His eyes, they were so bright, kind of exploding. And he saw me, and he let the woman fall, the screwdriver blade coming out of her lower back so slowly. The state police, they asked if I said anything to him. I didn’t say shit. I fired my weapon I don’t know how many times. I put that crazy son of a bitch down.”

Mariella exhaled, having gotten through the account one more time, relieved to be finished. Not counting on Odessa to push her for more.

“And then what?”

“Then…he was down and I went running the other way. I was out of the building so fast. It took the police forever to come.”

“I mean…” Odessa tried to put this delicately. “After you shot him. After he went down. Did you run off before he died, or did you…?”

Mariella looked low-eyed at Odessa for an extra beat, and the hair on the back of Odessa’s neck stood on end. “I don’t know if he was dead. I was too far down the hallway. But I waited until he was still.”

“…And?”

Mariella’s breathing deepened. “What are you getting at?”

She knew. Odessa could see that she knew. Odessa came closer, her voice quiet. “You saw something—something come out of the body?”

Mariella was scared. “I thought I saw something. My mind played a trick.”

“What kind of trick?”

She didn’t want to answer. “I don’t know.”

“It’s not part of my report,” said Odessa, “if that’s what you’re worried about. But other survivors of rampage killings such as this…they’ve reported seeing something leave the assailant’s body at the moment of death.”

Mariella looked as though she was going to be sick. She found a bottle of water and took two quick swigs. She looked at Odessa, not trusting her…but needing to share this.

“It was…like a presence.”

Odessa felt dizzy hearing this. “Go on.”

“Not a…not a ghost or anything. An essence.”

“Was there a smell—a burning smell?”

Mariella shook her head fast. “I ran. I don’t know.” She grabbed the floppy handles of the canvas bag and lifted it off her desk. “I’m sorry, I can’t…I have to go.” Then, as though she remembered she was speaking to an FBI agent: “Can I go?”