Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [97]
It seemed as if time slowed as the police officers moved out of the way and Wizner knelt by the garden, opening his black bag. He removed surgical gloves, a small paintbrush, and a spade. With the brush he carefully whisked away the dirt to reveal a small glass circle, around which he carefully dug with the spade. Lydia moved over closer to him as he reached with his gloved hand and pulled a glass mason jar from the earth. Inside, floating in a clear liquid Lydia could only assume was formaldehyde, was a human heart.
“It’s time to go, Juno,” Lydia said, approaching Juno from behind. He sat where she had left him an hour earlier, barely having moved.
“What did you find?”
“Maybe we should talk about this another day.”
“My uncle?”
“No.”
Juno just nodded.
“Why don’t you come back to my house?” she offered. “You can stay there as long as you need to.”
“I need time alone. I need to be somewhere familiar.” He answered slowly, his voice as slight and far away as he seemed to be. “I need to try to understand everything that has happened here.”
“I can’t let you stay here, Juno. You are part of his plan and he’ll be coming for you.”
“And for you.”
“Yes, I think so. But don’t worry about me. Where do you want to go?”
On the way back to the Hugo house, she brought him to the home of Mrs. Turvey, the woman who had tutored him as a child. She was old but hearty; she took him in her arms and he seemed to find comfort there.
“Lydia,” he called to her as she walked away from him, “take care. Don’t do anything foolish.”
His voice had an odd strength to it and she turned to face him.
“Don’t worry about me, Juno. Just take care of yourself.”
Now Lydia walked around Bernard Hugo’s home and tried to get a sense of him. It was difficult. A few tattered items of clothing hung in the master-bedroom closet; the bed had just one dirty, rumpled top sheet; no photographs sat on the bedside table or hung on the wall. Downstairs there was only a worn recliner and a card table. There was nothing in the refrigerator, except a carry-out bag from the Blue Moon Café and a few cans of Budweiser.
The bag was evidence and she called it to the attention of one of the officers scanning the small, nearly empty house. Lydia wondered if Maria Lopez had handed him that bag, and how many times he’d gone to the café before he’d killed her. He was as alone and disconnected as his victims.
She walked back upstairs to look at the “operating room.” It was so eerie to see her image, her articles, her book covers on the wall of a maniac’s death chamber.
Chief Morrow was on his cellular phone giving a description of Bernard Hugo to the state police, who would then distribute it to neighboring states. “You guys are going to make sure the area airports, and train and bus stations are covered?” she heard him ask. “Right … right.… Well, the only place I can think of might be Colorado. His wife is there. No, I don’t recall her maiden name but I can get it. I’ll get back to you.”
Lydia walked over to the table. It looked so cold, so cruel. The table, the implements, as well as the rest of the room, were immaculately clean now. But she imagined the table covered with blood, imagined Shawna lying on it, her chest sliced opened, and she shivered. Lydia wondered if the killer wanted to see her there, too.
Jeffrey walked up behind her and she jumped a little.
“I’m sure he’s on the run,” he said to her, with too much conviction, as though he were trying to reassure himself as much as her. “He’s not going to get far.”
“He’s not done yet.”
“There’s no way he can get to you or to Juno. I’m not letting you out of my sight. And there are two detectives parked in front of the Turvey