The Fifth to Die: A gripping, page-turner of a crime thriller. J.D. Barker

out, toward the left corner under a large birch tree, a snowman stared back at them.

      The beady black eyes glistened under a stovepipe hat. The snowman was tall, at least six and a half feet, maybe more, the body thick and wide, glistening with ice, a red rose at his snowy lapel.

      The arms were fashioned from tree branches, each capped with a black glove. The right hand held the handle of a wooden broom. A corncob pipe jutted from the corner of its makeshift mouth, and dark blood trickled down from an icy neck.

      Snow fell, filling the air with a white haze. The scene was so odd, so picturesque. Porter felt he was looking at the page of a childhood storybook, not a real yard. There was a swing set off to the far right and woods behind the yard.

      “Nobody in your family made that?” Nash asked.

      Mrs. Reynolds had her arms wrapped around her son. “No.”

      The single word escaped her lips, but she didn’t take her eyes off it, this stranger in her yard.

      Porter tugged at his zipper and reached inside his coat, retrieving his Glock.

      Brady’s eyes went wide. “Whoa, is he going to kill the snowman, Mom?”

      “I’m not going to hurt the snowman. I’m worried he may try to hurt me,” Porter said quietly. “Did you see anyone else out there? Anybody at all?”

      “No, sir.”

      “How about you and your mother go back into the living room for a few minutes? Think you can take care of your mom while my partner and I check this out?”

      Brady nodded.

      Porter looked from the boy to his mother. “Go along now.”

      When they were gone, he turned to Nash. “Stay here and keep a bead on those trees back there.”

      Nash withdrew his own weapon, his eyes scanning the woods.

      Porter stepped out the back door, into the falling snow. From somewhere in the back of his mind, an old children’s song began to play.

      Small footprints littered the newly fallen snow, crisscrossing the yard near the door, then petering down to a single set ending at the snowman. Porter followed the footprints as best he could, taking small strides so he could place his feet where the child had rather than create another trail. Snow had fallen most of the night, a few inches at least, but it seemed inconceivable that someone could build such a thing without leaving any tracks. His eyes drifted to the broom perched in the snowman’s hand. He supposed it was possible that whoever did this used the broom to sweep away their tracks, but that didn’t explain how they got the broom back into his hand without leaving a final trail. Porter also noted that their yard was fenced. A four-foot chainlink. The gate leading to the front yard was open.

      Porter saw a faint trail leading from that gate to the snowman. Not footprints, more of an indent, as if something heavy had been dragged from the front of the house to the back, to here.

      He stood in front of the snowman.

      It towered over him by nearly a foot. From this angle, the smile upon its face, made from tiny pieces of a broken branch, looked more like a smirk.

      Porter remembered building hundreds of these as a kid — pushing the snowball along until it became a snow boulder, too heavy to push at all. Normally, a snowman is constructed by starting with a large snow boulder at the base, then placing another smaller one on top of that to form the torso, then another at the very top to take the place of a head.

      This snowman was not constructed that way.

      The snow on this snowman had been packed in place. Someone took the time to sculpt the snow into the shape of a snowman rather than use the far faster traditional method.

      All of these thoughts rushed through Porter’s mind in an instant as he glanced over the creation from top to bottom, his eyes finally landing on the dark red at the neck — dark red seeping through the white like a giant snow cone.

      Porter snapped a branch of a nearby oak and, using the splinted end, carefully plucked at the snow beneath the darkest red spot, where it congealed at the base of the neck. Whoever built this had sprayed the snow with water as they worked, causing it to harden into ice — another trick Porter learned as a child. If made properly, a snowman would be as sturdy as a stone statue, standing tall for the remainder of the winter. If you failed to harden the snow, chunks would break away with the first sun. By midafternoon, half your work would be piled at the ground.

      Porter used the stick to break through the ice and to scrape away the packed snow, digging deep enough to reveal the torn neck of the man beneath.

       14

       Lili

       Day 2 • 9:15 a.m.

      It hurt.

      It hurt so bad.

      Lili’s body convulsed in one big spasm as her lungs fought to expel water, to cough it out. She inhaled in a quick gasp even though she didn’t want to, she didn’t want to breathe in more water, she didn’t want to die. She did inhale, though, the motion as involuntary as listening, and this time her lungs filled with air. She coughed again, ridding her lungs and throat of more water. This was followed by another gasp.

      She was cold.

      So cold.

      No longer in the water but lying on the concrete floor.

      Her eyes snapped open.

      The man was above her, his palms pressing down into her chest.

      As her eyes met his, he stopped. His eyes went wide, and he leaned in, his stale breath rushing over her face. “What did you see?”

      Lili gulped another breath of air and swallowed, then another after that.

      “Slow down, you’ll hyperventilate.” He reached for her right hand and pressed his thumb into her wrist. “Your pulse is still a bit irregular, but it will even out. Lie still. Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth, calming breaths.”

      Lili forced her breathing to slow, doing as he said. Sensation returned to her fingertips, to her toes. She was so cold. She began to shiver uncontrollably.

      The man reached for the quilt and draped the sour material over her body. “Your body temperature began to drop the moment you died. It will return to normal in a moment. What did you see?”

      She tried to blink away the haze from her eyes, but it hurt to try and keep them open. The thin light seemed incredibly bright, hot, burning. When she pinched her eyes shut, she felt a light slap at her cheek.

       Died?

      “What did you see?” he asked again. He rubbed her arms through the quilt, the friction slowly warming her.

      “I . . . I died?” She coughed again, the words scratching at her throat with the last bit of water.

      “You drowned. Your heart stopped for a two full minutes before I brought you back. What did you see?”

      Lili heard the words, but it took a moment for them to sink in. Her brain was sluggish, thoughts moving slowly, groggily.

      Her chest hurt. There was a deep pain at her ribs. She realized he had probably performed CPR to expel the water and kick-start her heart. “I think you broke my ribs.”

      He grabbed her shoulders and shook her limp body. “Tell me what you saw! You have to tell me now before you forget! Before it goes away!”

      The pain at her chest burned like a knife gouging her belly — Lili shrieked.

      The man released her, pulled back from