A Necessary Evil(36)
“What did you want me to see?” Kurt asked over his shoulder.
“This way.”
Kurt followed his partner down the dimly-lit hallway a few paces until Lonnie stopped at the doorway of a bedroom on the right, which stood wide open. Lonnie pointed to a bureau in the corner. Kurt stepped into the room and looked around. To the right was a twin sized bed with a couple of pillows and a patchwork quilt which was folded back. Someone had been sleeping here recently. A rocking chair sat in one corner and a cherry bureau in the other. There were no decorations, no paintings, and no personal items anywhere.
“Collin’s room?” Lonnie asked.
“Probably,” Kurt responded. “What’s with the bureau?”
“Go check it out,” Lonnie said, seeming a bit too excited for Kurt’s liking.
When he approached the dresser, Kurt noticed a large black photo album lying on top of a white lace doily. It was open to the first page. Kurt looked at Lonnie, who gestured for him to go ahead and look. When he did, Kurt saw the very first picture was of a man in his mid-thirties with his arm around a pretty young woman who had a baby on her right hip. The woman was smiling, but the man had a more serious look on his face. His brows were furrowed, and a cigarette hung from between his lips. Kurt realized instantly he was looking at a picture of Julian and Martha McAllister and their infant son, Collin. But there was no way Lonnie knew about the whole Julian connection, so Kurt wondered what had his partner so excited.
“Keep looking,” Lonnie said when Kurt shot him a curious look.
Kurt reached into his pocket, pulled out a pair of blue latex gloves, slapped them on, and flipped the page. The next thing he saw was a newspaper clipping from April 2, 1979. The headline read LOCAL GYM OWNER STILL MISSING, COPS SAY. Kurt didn’t read the article because he already knew how that story played out. He kept flipping. It soon became obvious that Collin was obsessed with his father’s disappearance. But toward the end, the articles became more current. One clipping was dated January 15, 2014. It told the sad tale of a twenty-year-old college junior who had gone missing two weeks prior and still had not been found. In the upper right-hand corner of the article was a picture of the missing girl, Elena Patrinko, and around her face, Collin had drawn a red heart.
Kurt fought back the bile that rose in his throat as he flipped through the rest of the book and realized Collin McAllister had kept a scrapbook about all the girls he’d kidnapped—and killed—before Mollie. It was a macabre reminder for Kurt that he had failed at finding those poor young women. He felt dizzy, and his mouth was dry. He would have to live with that guilt for the rest of his life. The only thing he could possibly do to redeem himself was to find Mollie…alive.
Kurt didn’t read the articles. He’d read them all before, anyway. But right as he was about to close the book, he saw the last page had one picture taped right in the center. Kurt bent down and squinted. He cursed himself for refusing the bifocals, but after a couple of seconds of intense focusing, he was able to discern that the picture was of a tall, gnarly-shaped tree. That was it. Nothing but a tree.
What the hell?
Kurt’s mind raced. Why would Collin have a picture of this tree on the very last page of his scrapbook? It meant something, but what? He wiped the sweat that was beaded up on his brow and steadied himself against the bureau before he passed out.
“Whiskey, you okay over there?” Lonnie asked from the doorway. “I told you you’d want to see it. It’s some pretty messed up shit, isn’t it? Looks like he’s definitely our perp for all the missing girls. And he’s pretty obsessed with his father’s disappearance in ’79. But I can’t make heads or tails of that tree.”
It wasn’t just a picture of a tree. Kurt knew it in his gut. That tree meant something to Collin. Enough so that he put it at the end of his creepy scrapbook. It marked something. Maybe that was where he buried the girls. He looked down at the picture again and studied it as closely as he could. The tree held no further clues, but just as his eyes began to hurt from straining so hard, he saw it. There, on the ground, about two feet away from the base of the tree, was a handle. Like the handle of a door. Why on earth would there be a handle in the middle of the…
It came to Kurt like a bolt of lightning. He pulled the picture out of the album, spun around on his heel, and held it up for Lonnie to see.
“It’s there!”
“What’s where?” Lonnie looked utterly confused.
“The bumpy tree marks the spot, Lonnie. He’s got a bunker under the ground!”
Chapter 19
Frankie
He was still riding the wave of adrenaline that had coursed through his veins when he’d stormed the bunker on Collin McAllister’s property and shot the bastard before he could hurt Mollie. He felt like his insides were vibrating, and there was a bounce in his step as he walked through the back entrance to Trifecta. As soon as the door swung open, he saw Collin McAllister tied to a chair in the corner. Bruno was sitting at one of the tables staring him down. Frankie had to hand it to Bruno. He may not be the brightest bulb in the closet, but he did exactly as he was told.
“Hey, Bruno.”
Bruno startled and turned in his chair. “Oh, hey, boss. You scared me.”
“Sorry about that, kid. Has this asshole said anything yet?”