The Bone Harvest

by Stacy M Jones

  “It’s that easy to steal a car from their lot? I thought car rental places had better security than that?” Cooper asked, a bit surprised.

  “You’d think they would, right?” Luke agreed. “They didn’t. While they have cameras up and a fence around the perimeter, the surveillance system has been broken for years. There’s a lock that was broken on the fence and the office lock was picked. No alarm system either.”

  “The killer must have done some advance prep to know all this,” Riley suggested.

  The group agreed, adding comments at once about the kind of advance work that would need to go into pulling off the robbery, abduction, and murder.

  Luke quieted them down. “This had to have been carefully planned like I think all of them were. He knew in advance where my parents lived, probably even watched the neighborhood to see what kind of activity goes on at night, and the accessibility of the woods. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had walked it before in the dark to know the terrain.”

  Captain Meadows asked, “The crime scene techs get anything from the Jeep?”

  “They are still going over the evidence they collected,” Luke explained. “It’s a rental so there could be a million prints. Given how meticulously this looks like it was planned, I assume the killer wore gloves and wiped it clean when he returned it. I don’t think he’d be so sloppy as to give us a print. But the tech did find what they thought might be drops of blood in the back and some fibers they need to test.”

  Up until now, Gabe had been quiet. He asked, “Have you thought beyond this case that this might be his regular pattern – stealing rentals for body transport? It’s certainly risky, but given most bodies aren’t found right away, nearly all the evidence would be lost and never tied back to his vehicle.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Luke concurred. “I also wondered if maybe that is why the abductions happened on Friday nights. Not all, but some rental places are closed on the weekend so it gives him access to steal and return before anyone knows a car is missing. We got lucky this time with a witness. Many people are in and out of rentals. They are cleaned between use, no one would be the wiser. Evidence would be easily destroyed or so contaminated it would be useless.”

  Captain Meadows interjected, “We can’t assume he does it the same way all the time. It’s definitely something to consider, but let’s not hang our hats on it just yet.”

  “Agreed,” Luke said. “I’m definitely open to wherever the evidence leads us.” Luke changed subjects to cover additional evidence, but a knock on the conference room door interrupted.

  One of the tech guys poked his head in the room, apologizing. He entered the room and walked over to where Luke stood and handed him a tablet. “We’ve got a visual of him. It’s pretty solid.”

  Everyone got up from the table and crowded around Luke to watch the video. He clicked play. On the screen, the Jeep Compass came to life. The killer was headed up Fairview back toward S. Lookout. The timestamp indicated it was three-eighteen in the morning, which fit with what Ryan had said. The position of the camera was such that it didn’t pick up the tag number. Had Ryan not been out there, it would have just been one more Jeep among a sea of many.

  The man driving, clearly visible, had both gloved hands on the wheel. A dark cap was pulled low on his head, but his side profile was clear. The man never looked at the camera. He seemed to have no idea it was even there.

  Luke clicked the video again, and they watched it twice more. He turned to the tech guy. “This is great. When you get the chance, grab me a few good still photos from the video.”

  The tech guy headed out with the tablet, promising to return with photos within the hour.

  Once seated back around the table, Det. Tyler said, “Well that certainly confirms the neighbor’s story, even the time.”

  Luke detailed, “Ryan is down with the sketch artist now, and they are working up a photo. We can show him this to confirm as well. Then we can work with both and see what we have. Let’s get this photo to Gabe too, and see if either of the two men can identify him. I know they said they never saw him, but maybe they did and didn’t realize it.”

  “Can we rule out Aaron Roberts?” Gabe asked.

  Cooper responded, “I don’t think we can. If the photo was head-on, I think I could tell you one way or the other, but with this side shot, we’d need a comparison. They have similar looks. Aaron was wearing glasses. I just can’t be certain.”

  Det. Tyler agreed. “I can’t rule him out either. This guy and Aaron have the same build, but with the hat on and no glasses and the angle of his face in the video, it’s just too hard to tell.”

  “Gabe, can you pull him in for questioning and see if you can get his alibi for the weekend?” Luke asked. “Cooper and Det. Tyler were focused on Lily’s case, but we know he wasn’t home the first time we went to question him but was back by Saturday mid-day, which certainly doesn’t rule him out.”

  CHAPTER 38

  After a quick break, the group went back to sifting through the evidence. Luke tried not to jump from topic to topic, but it all flowed together.

  When there was a lull, Captain Meadows spoke up. “You all know me. I like to take the careful approach, but I don’t think there is any way this isn’t connected to what went down last weekend in Fayetteville.”

  He shifted in his seat and read some notes he had in front of him. “I want to go over more evidence, but while things are still pending, tell me more about this dark web connection. Looks like those two guys in Fayetteville connected with the killer in some chat room. Do we have any more detail on that?”

  “I can answer that,” Gabe said, his voice strong and confident from the middle of the table. “Both of the guys that we arrested said they met the man they called The Professor on a dark web chat app called Blather. We have a detective undercover in there as we speak. He set up a fake profile and is hoping The Professor comes back in. The main server for the site as far as we can tell is India. We aren’t getting much user info that’s for sure.”

  “Do you really think he’d go back in there?” Cooper asked.

  “You never know,” Det. Tyler offered with a shrug. “If he’s connecting with people who are willing to do his bidding, I don’t see any reason for him to stop. It might be something he’s comfortable enough to continue given the anonymity. Gabe, do you know how many total users in that chat?”

  “Thousands,” Gabe responded, sounding frustrated. “We can barely keep up with the chatter that’s going back and forth. You have the option of taking a conversation private if needed or you can chat in the open among users. It shows how many are on at any given time, but not all the screen names. You can lurk in there without giving yourself away.”

  “He might have enough cover to keep going back,” Luke concluded. “Worth a watch either way.”

  Captain Meadows agreed. “Luke, let’s pull in one of our own guys to coordinate with Fayetteville. They can both look at running down some leads in this chat room. We know he operated in there so let’s put some resources there. I don’t know that he’d go back, but it offers such anonymity, he might.”

  “You don’t think he’d be smart enough to know we might put someone undercover in there?” Cooper asked.

  No one responded so Cooper turned to Riley. “You’ve been quiet. What do you think?”

  “He seems to be upping his thrill level,” Riley suggested. “He’s been killing in secret all these years and getting away with it. I think he’s taking more risks to increase the excitement and thrill of the kill. He got bored. I don’t think it gives him the challenge he desires. He said as much in the letters to Luke. Each kill isn’t having the same effect it used to. More risk gives him greater excitement.”

  Luke asked, “You think he’d operate in the chat room regardless of what we might do?”

  “I think that’s why you know about the chat room at all,” Riley said definitively. “I think yes, he’s smart enough to know the cops
might put someone in there undercover, but I think that’s what he wants. I don’t think he would have had those two stooges break into anything in Fayetteville for no reason. You were already focused on the university. He had already turned your attention from Little Rock to Fayetteville. He had no reason to distract you further. I think you have to assume any information you gathered from those two was information he wanted you to have.”

  “Do you think that’s true of information here in Little Rock?” Captain Meadows asked.

  “What do you mean?” Luke wondered.

  “If he’s upping his thrill could he have known the neighbor was going to see him or noticed that the camera was focused on the road? If he really did scout out the neighborhood ahead of time, could he have seen that camera and purposefully went in that direction, allowing us to see him?”

  Riley said, “I think we got lucky with the neighbor being outside. The camera maybe he knew about. He never turned to look. It didn’t pick up the tag on the vehicle so maybe that was another clue for us. I don’t think he’d lead us directly to the car. That’s too much risk.”

  “He had no way of knowing that neighbor would be out there that night,” Cooper added. “Luke, didn’t he tell you his dog never needs to go out at night?”

  “He did.”

  Cooper added, “Then it’s not like the guy lets his dog out each night at three. It just worked in our favor that happened.”

  “I’d agree with that,” Riley added.

  “Are we safe to assume then that anything we got because of Ryan he’d have no idea we know?” Det. Tyler asked.

  “I think that’s probably safe to assume,” Luke said.

  “Luke, you went to the rental place, but you don’t know how he got there, right? No idea if he flew in or drove there?” Captain Meadows asked.

  “No idea. I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to leave his own car right there and steal another. That’s something we still need to run down.” Luke made a note on the board about the car rental place and a question next to it about the killer’s transportation there.

  Captain Meadows said to the group, “Seems we have some promising leads. Some potential evidence in the car. A photo we can match with the database. What’s the plan?”

  “I want to try to look at this case separate from the rest,” Luke explained. He tapped his finger on the table as he thought about how to explain. “My initial goal was to look at Lily’s case, but there’s little evidence to go on. He thinks he outsmarted us, but really, he handed us a fresh case. I don’t know that he even realizes he left an evidence trail. This case needs to be my sole focus.”

  “I’m glad you’re saying that, Luke,” Captain Meadows agreed. “I can’t have you or Tyler take your eyes off this one. Let Riley and Cooper run down some of the leads from the cold cases in other jurisdictions. If the cases converge, they converge, but right now let’s just look at the evidence in front of us on this case only.”

  CHAPTER 39

  The group took a quick break. Gabe hung up, letting everyone know he’d loop back around during the week if he had any updates about Fayetteville and to provide some coordination about the undercover work on the dark web.

  While on break, Luke’s cellphone rang. It was Purvis. “What do you have for me?” Luke asked. Their long-standing professional relationship and friendship no longer required pleasantries.

  Luke listened intently to what Purvis detailed. The details of Cristina’s last moments brought up disturbing images of what Lily could have gone through at the hands of the same killer. Luke viscerally felt the terror his sister might have felt. He swallowed hard and thanked Purvis.

  After ending the call, Luke walked to the restroom to compose himself. He splashed some water on his face. He stared in the mirror and gave himself a pep talk, trying desperately to refocus his attention on the current victim. Luke reminded himself again that he had no concrete proof that his sister died the same way so there was no point running through it in his head. He pushed back the images of what might have been Lily’s last moments on Earth.

  Walking back to the conference room along the narrow hall, the department’s sketch artist walked towards him. She handed Luke a sketch. “Your witness was better than I thought he’d be. Once he started, he was able to give a decent level of detail.”

  “This is good,” Luke said, looking down at the sketch. He thanked her and walked back into the conference room. He went to the board and hung up the photo. The man’s face was slightly tilted but still facing forward. His face was full and his hat was pulled low blocking the shape of his forehead and hairline. His eyes were wide-set, nose straight, lips set in a firm line. There wasn’t much distinct about him. He looked like an ordinary guy. But it was better than nothing.

  Pointing to it, Luke explained, “This is the sketch that Ryan did with our artist. The killer looks similar to the video. Now that you’re seeing more of his face, can we rule out Aaron Roberts?”

  Cooper and Tyler looked at the photo and then to one another. They looked back at Luke and said no in unison. Cooper added, “If you put glasses on him and took off the hat, it could be him. It’s that close, but I still can’t say for sure.”

  Tyler readily agreed. “Aaron and this guy look like average guys. Nothing really distinct. They aren’t someone you’d cross the street to get away from. They aren’t the kind of guys I think most women would be afraid of. They look normal.”

  “That’s why he’s gotten away with it for so long,” Riley added. “He’s someone that blends in. Someone creepy or that stands out isn’t going to be on and off a university campus, stalking neighborhoods and killing girls without anyone noticing. He’s the kind of guy who you’d see and then forget in two minutes.”

  “We can speculate all we want about this guy later, let’s get back to the hard evidence,” Captain Meadows demanded, getting them back on task. “Before you left the room, Luke, you had a call from Purvis. What’s the update?”

  Luke sat back down at the table. “Purvis put the time of death between midnight and two, which means sometime right in the hour or hours before he placed her body in the woods. She died from being pierced through the heart with a thin sharp blade-like an ice pick. There was a small round marking where the handle was slammed into her chest. It was a single stab wound. The killer knew just where to pierce her heart. Purvis said thankfully it looks like her fingers were cut off postmortem.”

  “What fingers were severed?” Det. Tyler asked.

  “Her pinkie, ring finger, and middle of her left hand,” Luke explained.

  Tentatively Riley spoke, “I know that you don’t want to consider any of the previous cases, but this is the same information given to me about the case in Virginia and in New York. Those were the only other cases where a body had been found soon enough to know the method of death.”

  “What do you mean the same – the fingers?” Det. Tyler asked, confusion on his face.

  “All of it,” Riley said. She pulled a notebook from her bag and flipped through pages. “Right here, both the detective in Virginia and my hometown gave me the same information. Both medical examiners indicated the victims were pierced through the heart with the same kind of blade. Both had the same bruised marking and missing fingers.”

  “Are you planning to run down leads on those cases?” Det. Tyler wondered.

  “I am, well the New York case specifically. I’m heading to New York this week. The detective on the case is a family friend. I should have fairly good access. The detective from Virginia is meeting us. Both are retired now and want to solve this as much as we do.”

  “Cooper, are you going with Riley or you staying here to help us?” Captain Meadows asked, giving Cooper a look that Luke caught.

  Luke wasn’t sure what it meant, but he was sure the two had a conversation about these cases Luke hadn’t been privy too. It unnerved him.

  Cooper shifted in his seat. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to everyone abou
t. I was thinking about going to Atlanta. It was his first kill or so he claimed. I was hoping to dig around. Maybe because it was his first, he made some mistakes. The girl was taken from the library, not outside like the others. Now that we have a photo, I might be able to pass it around and see if anyone might recognize him. Think it’s worth the trip?”

  “It might be,” Luke offered, his voice sounding more frustrated than he meant. He was happy for Cooper’s help. “I don’t think you’ll really know that until you get there, but it might prove useful.”

  “Do you need me to stick around instead?” Cooper asked, sounding unsure.

  “Not really,” Luke said. “Actually, the more I think about it, the more it might make sense to dig in and look at what he claims is his first. As you said, there are differences. That’s going back, though, so who knows if any leads will still be there.”

  “I spoke to the victim’s sister, and she has someone who might know something. I really don’t know what, if anything, I’ll uncover, but I’d like to try. If nothing materializes, I can head up to New York to help Riley.”

  That sounded like a solid plan for everyone. Cooper would be driving to Atlanta the next day. As they broke for the day, Riley told Luke she’d see him at home and she left. Captain Meadows and Det. Tyler left as well.

  As Luke walked with Cooper to the parking lot, he asked, “Does Captain Meadows not trust me to handle this case?”

  “What?” Cooper asked, clearly confused. “Why would you think that?”

  “The look between you when he asked if you were sticking around here to help.”