The Fury - Jason Pinter [39]
whacks and enough glass had broken for me to clear the
rest out with the branch. I carefully climbed through the
window. The blood around Helen Gaines's head looked
dark red, almost dried but not completely. A small piece
of metal floated in the gore, but I couldn't tell what it was.
I smelled the air, a faint but still noxious odor present. I
looked closer. There was a chance she was still...
I gently moved her hair away from her neck so I
could check her pulse. And that's when I realized that
this woman was black. It was not Helen Gaines.
I pressed three fingers against her carotid artery,
praying for a pulse. I felt nothing. I pressed again, this
time on her wrist. Silent. Dead.
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I looked at the body.
My hands shook as I reached into my pocket and
pulled out my cell phone. Thankfully there was recep
tion. My fingers fumbled and I had to dial 911 three
times before getting it right.
"911, what is your emergency?"
"A woman's been killed at 97 Maple Lodge Road.
Please get here quick."
"Sir, can you check her pulse?"
"There's no pulse. Please just get here."
"All right, sir, an ambulance is on the way. Do you
know the victim?"
"No," I said, nearly passing out as I sat down on the
rim of the porcelain bathtub. "I don't."
Sitting in the pool of blood, about two feet away from
the body, was a tiny diamond earring, lying next to
another thin sliver of what looked like gray hair. The
diamond was a princess cut. One day, a few weeks ago,
I was looking online at engagement rings. Thinking
about whether I could see Amanda wearing one. I re
membered seeing the name--princess cut--and
thinking it was perfect. A princess for a princess, I'd
thought.
But there was only one earring on the ground.
The other was either taken by the killer. Or still being
worn by someone who'd escaped.
Then I looked at the body again. The victim's ears
weren't pierced. Which meant the single earring on the
ground had belonged to Helen Gaines. And she'd
dropped it before she fled.
15
Her name was Beth-Ann Downing. She lived two
floors above Helen and Stephen Gaines in their apart
ment in Alphabet City. She and Helen had been friends
for fifteen years. She owned a Camry, which she parked
in a garage on Fourteenth Street. A call to the garage
confirmed that Beth had taken the Camry a few days
ago and had not returned it. Beth-Ann Downing was
fifty-three years old. Divorced. One daughter who lived
in Sherman Oaks, California, Sheryl Harrison, who was
on a flight to New York City to attend her mother's
funeral.
Beth had worked as a bank teller. According to the
police, gas and credit-card receipts showed she'd left the
city with Helen Gaines the very night Stephen Gaines
was killed. A waitress at a diner on I-87 recognized Beth
and said she'd been eating with another woman. That
woman fit the description of Helen Gaines, Stephen's
mother. Beth was either fleeing from something, or was
simply helping an old friend who was fleeing from
something.
And last night she was killed when a bullet severed
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her brain stem, fired from less than a foot away. Death
was almost instantaneous.
Almost.
And I wondered if Beth-Ann Downing had even
known what her friend was running from.
We'd given our statement to Deputy Reece Watts of
the Indian Lake Police Department. I took a little extra
time washing the blood off my fingers.
We told the police everything we knew. From early
forensics, it appeared that an SUV or van of some sort
approached the Gaines residence during the night, when
both Helen Gaines and Beth-Ann Downing were asleep.
They pried open the storm shutters and snuck in through
the basement.
Beth had awoken, and went downstairs to check on
the noise. She saw the intruders. The police confirmed
there was more than one. Several pairs of footprints,
they said. They chased her to the bathroom, where they
shot her. In the confusion, Helen Gaines had escaped.
That's why we saw tire tracks leaving the cabin.
Helen had fled while