Last Girls Alive: A totally addictive crime thriller and mystery novel (Detective Katie Scott Book 4)

by Jennifer Chase

  Katie thought it was strange that the detective didn’t want to be more involved, but was happy that the scene would not be disturbed any further. She decided to continue down and circumnavigate the hill in order to have a closer look around the surrounding area.

  “Thanks, John,” she said as she passed him, moving down the hillside until she reached flat ground.

  Standing at the edge of the vast landscape, Katie wanted to get a sense of the area at eye level, which appeared to go on forever. She had known about the existence of Elm Hill Mansion for as long as she could remember, but had never been to the property—there had been no reason.

  In fact, there had been stories of sightings of female ghosts dressed in old-fashioned clothes seen roaming the property when she was in school. No one she knew had the courage to visit. As she got older, the stories seemed to dissipate. It was nonsense, of course, but as she looked around at the isolation caused by endless woods and the sorry state of the house, she saw how it could conjure up those images.

  If she recalled correctly, it had been a private home for a long time, and then the owners left and dedicated it as a home for displaced teen girls in foster care. From the style of the building, she estimated that the mansion was early 1900s, but she would find out for certain when she returned to the office. She looked up the hillside, past the body and crime scene, to the dilapidated estate standing watch over the valley below—it was as if it held the secrets to everyone that had ever lived there.

  Katie made a slow 360-degree turn, studying the terrain and access areas. It wasn’t an easy approach to the property from the wooded trails. The nearest track led west toward a road, which was a solid half mile. The road leading to the driveway would be optimum but the gate below had been locked for some time, so the only other way would be to walk up the steep hill carrying a body. Not likely.

  Instinct told her that the house was significant and held many answers to her questions.

  Katie walked toward the southern end of the property where a slightly grooved path crossed the open hillside to the level area, which was behind the house. She quickly moved up the path. Weeds had overgrown it but it was still clear to see it had been traversed many times.

  She now looked at the back of the house, noticing where the woodwork appeared newer, darker than the front, still had most of its paint and jutted out instead of sitting flush to the back of the house. It was common to add on a bathroom, laundry area, or even extra storage to a house of this age, but she was certain she was looking at the entrance to a basement of some sort. Getting closer, it appeared it had been used as a secured storm door during bad weather, but had become severely neglected over the years.

  Katie hesitated a moment as an uncanny sense overcame her. Maybe it was something to do with her anxiety, maybe it was the reaction of being present at the old decaying house, but she wondered if Candace Harlan had used the basement for her escape. She imagined her breaking out in the middle of the night through the basement door and disappearing.

  After taking a few photos with her cell phone, Katie pulled open the basement storm door and looked down into the darkness as a musty odor drafted upward, making her take a step back. Wanting to find something that appeared out of place, she decided to take a quick look around.

  Katie moved carefully, her sodden running shoes slapping on each wooden stair as she turned on the flashlight application and pointed her cell phone around the room.

  Nothing unusual. Cobwebs, dust, and rotting wood. There wasn’t anything on the walls or the narrow shelves lining one corner, which were made for mason jars filled with vegetables and fruits. For due diligence, she took a few photographs before turning back.

  Back on the hillside, the team had removed the body and were loading her onto a gurney in a body bag before wheeling her toward an unmarked van.

  Katie jogged around the property this time and re-entered the restricted area. As she bent down to slide underneath the yellow tape, she glanced at the crowd. She quickly tallied the onlookers and found that there were eleven people. Most bystanders were talking among themselves while the rest were watching as the gurney slowly made its way to the van.

  Acting on instinct, Katie took two quick photos of the group with her cell phone. They were all men, but she could easily differentiate the construction crew from the others by their work clothes and heavy boots. There were seven by her count, making it six more men than happened to be near when the police arrived. Two had baseball caps and their hoods pulled up so it was difficult to see their identity easily.

  “Hey,” said McGaven as Katie arrived back beside him. “Find anything?”

  Taking one last glimpse at the crowd, she said, “No. I just took a quick walk around the mansion.”

  Detective Hamilton caught Katie’s attention.

  “Here we go,” she said, dreading having another conversation with him, knowing that the sheriff wanted her and McGaven to take over the case. It wasn’t the first time.

  “John and one of the techs are going to comb through the area to see if anything else pops up,” he said.

  “Great,” replied Katie trying to sound upbeat.

  “Look,” the detective began. “I know that things, well, actually circumstances, haven’t been the best, but I wanted you to know that there are no hard feelings.”

  Katie was caught off guard by his statement. She stared blankly at him.

  Detective Hamilton offered his hand to Katie. “Detective, I hear I’ve been relieved from this investigation and that you are to take over,” he said and shook her hand. “McGaven,” he continued, and shook the deputy’s hand, “let me know if there’s anything more you need from me. I will forward you my current notes for the case.”

  “Thank you, Detective,” Katie managed to say. Shocked.

  Hamilton began to walk away and then suddenly turned to face Katie. “I know it’s more than overdue, but I am truly sorry for your loss.”

  Katie nodded, appreciating the sentiment and finally understanding why Hamilton was being so uncharacteristically unproblematic about her being assigned to his case. Her aunt’s recent murder still hurt her deeply and Detective Hamilton had been the lead detective on her case. Due to the high emotions surrounding the investigation of the murder of her aunt, the sheriff being the prime suspect, the entire police department had been turned upside-down.

  “I just wanted you to know,” he said and walked away.

  McGaven said, “Well, I didn’t know that hell had frozen over.”

  Katie watched the detective direct the bystanders to disperse. “No, I don’t believe it has…”

  “He put you through a lot of crap during the investigation into your aunt’s death. I’m not so sure that all is forgiven from his perspective. But, it’s a start,” he said, still watching the detective.

  “I know… but we need to concentrate on this case,” she said, not wanting to think about work politics. “We have a lot of graft ahead of us. First, we need to look at Candace Harlan’s missing persons report in more detail.”

  Five

  Monday 1345 hours

  Katie sat in silence, staring at the road rushing past her window as McGaven drove them back to the Pine Valley Sheriff’s Department. It wasn’t an uncomfortable quiet, but rather, a familiar respect for the fact each of them was lost in their own personal thoughts of the homicide at the Elm Hill Mansion. They had worked enough cases together to know staying quiet wasn’t anything personal.

  The body twisted and contorted. The words carved into her back. Katie searched her brain for what “hunter-gatherer” might mean to the killer.

  “Katie?”

  Did it mean that the killer was hunting for victims? She ran different scenarios through her thought process. Had he killed before? Would he do it again? How was Elm Hill Mansion involved? Did the killer intend for the body to be found, or was it just bad luck with the recent rain?

  “Katie?” McGaven said again.

  She realized th
at McGaven had been talking to her. “I’m sorry,” she said, and turned to look at him.

  “You better be,” he replied, cracking a big smile.

  “I was just thinking that the killer took a big risk.”

  “What do you mean? Isn’t killing technically taking a risk?”

  “Some killers take those precious final moments to pose the body, fulfill a fantasy, or enjoy the silence. But this killer took extra time to carve his message on her back. Because it was important to him.”

  McGaven took a corner too fast, making the tires squeal.

  “Hey, are we late for something?” she said.

  “Sorry, this car doesn’t handle like the previous one I’m used to. I know that this vehicle is retrofitted for K9 and seems to have more power…” His mouth had turned downward.

  “I haven’t had a chance to buy a new car yet,” Katie grumbled, remembering the incidents that led up to her Jeep being totaled.

  McGaven turned into the police department parking lot and around to the private area behind the administration building before pulling into the usual parking place.

  Katie opened the door and rushed toward the building followed closely by McGaven. As the heavy door closed behind them, Katie turned to him and said, “I’ll meet you in the office in a few. I need to change.”

  “And shower,” he said and hurried toward the men’s locker room.

  Katie smiled as she passed two female deputies on their way to patrol, and said hello to them.

  “Hey, Detective,” they acknowledged.

  The locker room was deserted.

  Katie quickly went to her locker and dialed up the combination lock. With such an unpredictable job, she always kept an additional change of clothes for just this type of situation. A brown suit fresh from the dry cleaners, two blouses, undergarments, and an extra pair of boots. She grabbed two clean towels from the supply area before she stripped down to take a quick shower.

  Ten minutes later, she was drying her hair when she noticed a folded piece of paper at the bottom of the locker. She was certain it hadn’t been there before. Could someone have dropped it there while she was in the shower? She looked around, suddenly self-conscious, her skin prickling. She walked around the rows of lockers but there wasn’t anyone around. There was a white sports sock on the floor that must’ve escaped someone’s gym bag; otherwise, it was completely empty.

  “Hello?” she said, just to be sure, before walking slowly back to her locker.

  Silence, only interrupted by the ventilation system turning on overhead. Comfortable that she was indeed alone in the locker room, Katie unfolded the small torn piece of paper. It wasn’t handwritten. In fact, it wasn’t a note at all. It was torn from a larger piece of paper, leaving three legible letters—“ETL”—and on the far corner it said “Express”. There was half of a ripped diamond shape on one side. She felt certain the note hadn’t accidentally fallen into her locker, that someone was trying to tell her something and she was supposed to figure it out. But she also knew that her inquisitive mind often worked overtime—and that it could be nothing. Not everything revolved around the murders that crossed her desk. There could be a million reasons why this piece of paper had found its way into her locker.

  Katie didn’t want to break her momentum with the current case, so she pocketed the piece of paper, deciding to discuss it with McGaven later. Shutting her locker, she left the changing room, headed down the hallway and stopped at a familiar unmarked door. A small camera attached to the upper door frame was directed downward at anyone who stood at the entrance. She swiped her keycard and the lock disengaged with a buzz and a click.

  The area was the forensic division of the police department, but it felt like another world. Cut off from the outside, with no windows, and the constant hum of the air being circulated, previously gave Katie a strange almost claustrophobic feeling, but now she felt safe and comfortable. She had been given the chance to occupy a couple of empty offices down here to set up the cold-case unit.

  As she walked past one of the large forensic examination rooms, she spotted John hunched over a scanning electron microscope, completely unaware of her presence. She paused, wanting to say hello, thought better, and then moved on down a long hallway to her office.

  McGaven sat at his desk deep in research on the computer. His short hair had already dried and he looked refreshed now dressed in his slacks and long-sleeved shirt. Katie could smell the lemony shampoo he often used.

  “You beat me,” she said.

  “Well, I don’t need to get all dolled up.”

  “Funny.” She dropped her jacket on her desk. “What are you looking at here?”

  “I’m trying to locate more about the Elm Hill Mansion, but I’m just finding rumors and ghost stories, nothing that is worthy of the investigation.”

  Katie pulled the missing persons file for Candace Harlan and grabbed a notebook. “This is Candace’s file. It was in a stack with several others I had been considering for our next case. Wow, there’s not much to the report.”

  Turning his chair towards her, he said, “So what do we have?”

  “Five years ago, last June, Shelly McDonald, manager at the house, called the police to report that one of the foster girls in her care was missing. Candace Harlan, sixteen years old, five foot seven, 125 pounds, brown hair, hazel eyes, last seen wearing a white nightgown. There were a few clothing items missing, such as her favorite pink sweater,” Katie said, reading the basic information and pausing to look at her photograph. Reading down, she said, “It looks like the deputy that took the report was… Deputy Hugh Keller.”

  “Oh,” said McGaven in a dull tone.

  “What?”

  “Keller was fired about a year and half ago.”

  “For?”

  “Not following orders, using excessive force. He wasn’t cut out to be a police officer.”

  “That’s a nice way of putting it.”

  “Oh, and he was a jerk.”

  “Okay, that’s better,” she smiled. “According to McDonald, Candace was there at bed check around 11 p.m., but in the morning she was gone. She said that she thought she ran away with a boyfriend—but didn’t have a name.”

  “How many other girls were there living at the house?”

  “It refers to six, including Harlan: Mary Rodriguez, Tanis Jones, Heather Lawson, Terry Slaughter, and Karen Beck. The other girls were all accounted for.”

  “And none of them knew what happened to her?” he said.

  “They spoke to them all. Her roommate, Tanis Jones, stated that Candace was there when she went to sleep and was gone in the morning.” Katie frowned. “Wouldn’t you think that the roommate would have some idea what happened?”

  “Maybe, but maybe she didn’t care, or maybe she was sworn to secrecy.”

  “It says here that Candace didn’t have any family. She was given up for adoption—which never happened, so unfortunately she stayed in the foster care system for her entire childhood.”

  “That’s really sad.”

  Flipping through pages, she said, “There are notations here for other report numbers.”

  “Let me see.”

  Katie turned the file to McGaven. “Oh, that means there were police calls to the house. That seems like a lot of calls for assistance.”

  “How many?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “That’s excessive. Make sure we get all those reports and the names of the reporting deputies too.”

  “On it,” he said. “Don’t you want to start your profile of the killer?”

  “Not just yet. For now I’m more interested in the location, and why the killer thought it was a perfect place to bury a body. Why there and not in some rural area where it wouldn’t be found?” She strained her view to see what McGaven had on the screen.

  “Okay,” he said and turned the laptop so that Katie could see it. “The current owners of Elm Hill Mansion are listed as Magnum Development, Incorporated.”


  “I’ve never heard of them.”

  “Seems Magnum Development, Incorporated, or MDI, is a company with many offices nationwide, but their main offices are in Miami, Florida.”

  “Interesting,” she said.

  “Previous owners?”

  “Sara and Jonathan McKinzie.”

  “Local?”

  “No. Well…” McGaven stalled.

  “Well what?”

  “When I try to get their address, or at least mailing address, it’s like I’m being taken on a wild goose chase.”

  Katie frowned and thought about reasons why someone would not want their personal information on public record. “What about the real estate transaction, new ownership, or escrow paperwork?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t seem to be able to find anything right off. It looks like it was paid in cash.”

  “What is the actual address that the county assessor’s office has on file?” she asked.

  “I have 403 Elm Hill Road, but…”

  Katie read over his shoulder. “But there’s also an older address of 407 Elm Hill Road. So… which one is correct?”

  “Maybe the property was divided up and there is more than one registered address? I just can’t seem to locate them.” He sighed. “I can’t even find the basic info on the house, like square footage or exactly how much land there is.”

  Katie stood up and pulled over the movable whiteboard so that they could both see it. “I guess we need to start with what we know right now.” She picked up a black marker and began writing down several headings: Crime Scene, Body, Victim, Elm Hill Mansion, and Killer.

  “Okay.”

  “Excuse me,” came a voice from behind them.

  “Hey, Denise,” said Katie, turning and smiling at her friend who supervised the records division.

  McGaven immediately stood up.

  “Hi,” said Denise to him.

  “Hi.”

  “Here’s the information from Detective Hamilton from the Elm Hill place.” She put the file on Katie’s desk.

  “Thanks,” Katie said.