by KJ Kalis
15
Cash didn’t waste too much time at the scene talking to the local police. They never knew anything anyway. He took a moment to introduce himself and then nodded towards the house, “The family inside?”
The officer standing in the driveway, whose name badge read Rogers, nodded. “Yeah, they are. It’s not a good morning for them.”
“That’s the truth,” Cash said, walking away.
Inside, the house wasn’t what Cash expected. On the other trips he’d made to Tifton, he’d been inside many of the homes. Most of them were dated and worn. Not Lexi Cooper’s house. It looked like whoever lived there spent every waking minute fixing it up. New floors, new paint, modern decorations. Not at all what you’d expect for a tiny rural town in the middle of nowhere, but then again, Cash realized you wouldn’t expect it to be the target of a serial killer either. He heard the murmur of voices coming from the center of the house. Looking behind him, he saw Janet was in tow. He stopped for a minute and whispered, “Let’s just assess this first. Maybe there is another explanation.”
“Like what?” she frowned.
By the look on Janet’s face, Cash could tell she’d already decided it was the serial killer again. “I don’t know, maybe there is an ex-wife or ex-husband involved. Maybe an ex-boyfriend that could have taken Lexi. I don’t want to assume it’s our serial killer until we know something more, okay?”
Janet nodded.
Although Cash’s gut told him the serial killer had escalated to nabbing children, he hoped it wasn’t the case. How he and his team would respond would become clear in the next couple of minutes. He weighed the options in his head. Serial killer or domestic issue? Cahs was betting on serial killer. Cash swallowed as he turned the corner into the kitchen, a bright space facing the backyard, a bank of windows staring out at the green grass. The kitchen was filled with white cabinets and hardwood floors. It looked like something from a magazine. Huddled around a table with four chairs on the opposite side of the kitchen island, a man and woman sat with a police officer. The noise of Cash and Janet coming into the kitchen alerted the officer. Standing up, he said, “Give me just a moment, okay? I’ll be right back.”
“Strickland, it’s nice to see you again, I think,” the man said, extending his hand.
“I feel the same way, Kevin. Wish it was under better circumstances.” Two years before, Cash had met Kevin Barnfield after the last Tifton detective retired and moved out of the area. Kevin was a good guy but trying to deal with a serial killer on his own had proven to be too much. Cash was lucky, though. Kevin knew the resources needed to solve the case were far beyond what the Township could offer. He’d always welcomed Cash’s help and never interfered. At least there was that to be grateful for. “Want to give me an idea what’s going on? We just got the basics this morning.”
Kevin pulled a black-covered notebook out of his pocket, checking his notes. “Wish I had more for you. Apparently, the mom, her name is Keira, went in to go and check on Lexi at about two o’clock in the morning on her way to the bathroom. Randy, Lexi’s dad, was sound asleep. When Keira checked Lexi, she was tucked safely in her bed, from the way she tells it. When they got up this morning, she was gone. Dad found the room empty when he was getting ready for his shift at the firehouse. They searched the house and the yard but didn’t find anything.”
“Were the doors locked?” It was a basic question, but one that needed to be asked. Whether a five-year-old could unlock doors or not, Cash wasn’t sure, since he didn’t have any of his own children, but it was worth a shot.
Kevin nodded, “Yeah, unlike a lot of people in Tifton, Randy said they lock the doors every night.” Kevin shook his head and leaned around the corner and pointed toward the front door, “Why more people don’t lock up at night, I’ll never understand, especially with the killer still running around.” He pointed, “See that deadbolt there? Randy said it’s too high for Lexi to open. She’s just a little one.”
Cash swallowed. He hated cases that involved kids. “Did I hear right she’s five?”
“That’s right.” Kevin reached into his back pocket and pulled out a picture, handing it to Cash, “They gave me this. It was taken about a month ago.”
Staring at it, Cash saw Lexi had long blonde hair and a wide smile. In the picture, she was wearing red shorts and a white top, her feet bare. It looked like a picture the family could have taken in the backyard while she was out playing. “Any chance this is a family abduction? Any exes in the picture we need to know about?”
“Doesn’t seem like it,” Kevin said, closing the cover to his notebook. “On background, Keira and Randy met in high school and got pregnant shortly thereafter, while he was at the Fire Academy. Neither of them had any significant exes in their past.”
Cash frowned, “Neither of them was married before or had a lover that might be a problem?”
Kevin shook his head no, “Doesn’t look that way. Wish that was the case, though. Might make the job easier.”
Cash caught Keira looking at him. He turned away, not quite ready to talk to her yet. “Any chance Lexi just wandered off? Any idea about entry or exit points?” Cash knew he was prolonging the agony of having to talk to the parents, but at least if he could get some more details out of Kevin, he’d have a better place to start.
“The parents don’t think she wandered off.” Kevin pointed, “Let me show you her bedroom.” Cash followed Kevin down the hallway, pictures of the family dotting the walls. A quick left turn and they were in Lexi’s bedroom. It was on the first floor, at the back of the house.
It looked like what Cash imagined every little girl’s bedroom did — pink everywhere cast against fresh white walls, a pink comforter on the bed. There was a patterned rug on the floor, and a dollhouse in the corner, a plastic one, like the one his niece had. She was only a bit older than Lexi. Cash swallowed. He couldn’t imagine if his brother lost his daughter. Walking to the only window in the room, Cash looked out. It faced the backyard. There was a stretch of grass and then dense woods. Cash tilted his head and looked at the window. It was slightly ajar. “Anybody touch this?”
“Not that I know of. You see something?”
“It looks like the window isn’t completely closed. You think Lexi would have done that?” Without saying anything, Cash looked over his shoulder at Janet, who gave him a nod. She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and sent a text. One of the agents they brought with them was a specialist in crime scene analysis. If anybody could find fingerprints on the window, it would be Jeremy. “Let’s get Jeremy in here to take a look and see what he thinks. Maybe he can pull some prints for us.”
Cash stayed by the window, wanting to make sure no one touched it until Jeremy came in. Jeremy was a thin man, the kind that could never eat enough food to fill out his frame. He had dark wavy hair and thick glasses. When Cash first met Jeremy, he assumed Jeremy couldn’t see very well. On the contrary, Jeremy saw things that no one else did, solving more cases than he’d ever been given credit. Cash said a silent prayer that today would be one of those days.
A moment later, Jeremy came into the room, already wearing gloves and shoe covers, carrying what looked like a toolbox. Flipping it open, he looked at Cash, “What you got?”
“This window looks to be cracked open.”
Jeremy leaned over and looked at it, “I agree. Want me to work it up?”
Cash nodded, “Yeah. Give me everything — fingerprints, fibers, hairs. And take a peek on the outside, too. No telling what might be out there.”
“You got it.”
Cash looked at Janet, “Let’s get one of the other agents in here to stay with Jeremy while he does his thing. As far as I’m concerned, this entire room is now an active crime scene. Let’s keep the parents out for the time being. And you and I, we’re going to go see what they know.”
Janet nodded, not looking up, still on her phone. The team came prepared with radios but didn’t use them during the initial phases
of the investigation. Texting was just as easy and was less disruptive to the victims. “Okay. All set.”
“Good. Let’s go,” Cash said, leaving Jeremy behind.
Heading back down the hallway, Cash found Keira and Randy still sitting at the table. They were huddled over glasses of water and a box of tissues, some of them crumpled nearby. As they got closer, Randy Cooper stood up, “Thanks for coming. I’m Randy,” he motioned to Keira, “and this is my wife, Keira.”
“Sorry to meet under these circumstances,” Cash said. “Mind if I sit?”
“Not at all,” Randy said.
As Cash sat down at the table, he heard Keira start to whimper again. “As I said, I’m sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances, but I want to assure you that the entire weight of the FBI is behind figuring out what happened to Lexi. Can you walk me through it?” Cash knew that Kevin had likely given him all the information he needed to move forward but hearing it from the parents gave them something to focus on. It was also possible they hadn’t given every detail to Kevin — it could be something they didn’t remember or something they simply didn’t want to tell someone who lived locally, especially in a town as small as Tifton. Word traveled fast.
Randy covered Keira’s hand with his own and cleared his throat, “I’m sure the detective told you everything already, but it’s pretty simple. We put Lexi to bed about eight o’clock last night. Keira checked on her at about two o’clock in the morning on her way back from the bathroom. She was there. When I went in to check on her a couple of hours later, she wasn’t there.”
“About what time was that?”
“I don’t know, maybe around four? I was supposed to be at the station by six AM. We work twenty-four hour shifts at the fire station. We’ve got twenty-four hours on duty and then forty-eight hours off. I was up early, getting my gear together to get to work.”
“Thanks,” Cash said, looking over his shoulder at Janet. She was leaning on the kitchen island, taking notes. They had worked enough cases together that he no longer had to ask her to do certain things. She just did them on her own. Case notes were one of them. “Any chance Lexi could have wandered off?”
Keira began to sob, “Wandered off? Why would my baby leave the house in the middle of the night? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Cash hadn’t looked closely at Keira until that moment. She looked like an older version of Lexi, the same long blonde hair and complexion. At the moment, her hair was pulled into a ponytail, her eyes red and puffy, a few stains on the front of her T-shirt. Cash guessed she slept in the same clothes the night before and hadn’t bothered to change, not that he would have either.
“Ma’am, I’m not saying she did, but we have to look at all the possibilities so we know the best way to get Lexi back home. Does that make sense?” Cash said the words slowly hoping they could penetrate the grief written all over Keira’s face. She nodded but said nothing.
Randy looked at Cash, “I don’t think it’s possible she got out of the house. Come over here, I’ll show you.”
As Cash got up, Janet moved to sit with Keira. At the front door, Randy said, “This deadbolt, here, we always keep it locked. Lexi isn’t tall enough to get to it. I showed it to the detective, too.”
“And you’re sure it was locked last night?”
Randy shook his head, “At this moment I’m not sure about anything, but I’m more sure than not it was locked. We’re in a pretty good habit of doing that.”
As Cash stared at the door, Randy’s voice interrupted his thoughts, “I didn’t need to bring you over here to show you the lock. You could’ve seen that from over there.” Randy glanced toward the kitchen where Keira was still seated at the table, “I just want to ask you about this, man-to-man, away from my wife. She’s awfully upset. You think it’s the serial killer?”
Cash’s stomach clenched. The idea that the Tifton killer had a little girl was almost more than he could bear, but he needed to stay professional, no matter what, “Honestly, it’s too soon to tell. We found Lexi’s window cracked open. It could be as simple as she decided she wanted to go outside in the middle of the night and didn’t want to wake you and got herself turned around in the woods.”
The muscles in Randy’s jaw flickered, “Do you think that’s a possibility, what, with the timing? It can’t be a coincidence that we're at the six-month mark.”
Cash paused. There was a point in every investigation when the people involved, whether they were the family or the investigators, had to face reality. Whether that time was now or not, Cash wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to say anything that would upset the Coopers more, but he had to balance that with the fact that Tifton had an active serial killer that hadn’t been caught. Randy was right, the timing was coincidental at best, suspect at worst. “I understand where you’re going, Mr. Cooper,” Cash said, “but my job is to make sure that the team keeps every option open so that we can get the best result. In other words, we don’t know. I wish I could be more specific, but I’ve been here for precisely fifteen minutes and this might take a little bit of time. Can you be patient with me?”
Randy nodded. “I get it. When I get on the scene of an accident, people are cryin’ and yellin’. It’s not easy.” He reached out and put a hand on Cash’s arm, “You’ll do whatever you can to save my baby, right?”
“Absolutely.”
16
Emily stopped back at the bed-and-breakfast after meeting with Sierra. The day had started in such a hurry she hadn’t even taken a shower, and in the summer heat of Louisiana, she needed one.
After getting cleaned up, she used the back staircase to get to her truck. She found a little restaurant on the outskirts of town and grabbed a bite to eat, waiting to hear from Mike and Flynn.
As Emily was finishing her sandwich, she glanced up and saw an FBI agent standing in line at the cashier. The woman behind the counter was stacking up white bags, filled with Styrofoam containers. A takeout order, probably for the team at Lexi’s house, Emily thought. That didn’t bode well. They were probably hunkering down if they were ordering dinner for the team. Emily wiped her mouth and left enough money on the table to cover the check and a generous tip for the waitress. Part of her wanted to go right out to her truck and drive away, but another part of her was curious. Was this the same agent Sierra had told her about? Emily walked up and stood in line behind him. He had FBI written all over him, from the yellow lettering on the back of his T-shirt to the oversized holster and gun on his hip. Emily leaned around toward him and said, “Excuse me? Are you with the FBI?” It had to sound like the dumbest question in the world given how much lettering was all over his body.
The man turned. He was blonde, with cropped hair and narrow eyes offset by a square jaw. The front of his T-shirt had the round emblem of the FBI and on the other side it said “Strickland.” Bingo, Emily thought.
He nodded. “Yes. You need something?”
“Well, I’m a researcher. I’m in town looking into the serial killer that supposedly is here in Tifton. Is that why you’re here?” Emily tried to make herself sound naïve. It was a huge risk talking to the investigator of the case, but she had to know what he was like. Knowing his personality could be the difference between her leaving Tifton in handcuffs for interfering in an investigation, or something worse, or finding an ally. Which one he was, she didn’t know. Not yet.
Cash’s eyes narrowed, “What kind of researcher?”
Emily’s heart started to beat a little faster in her chest, wondering how long she could prolong the lie, “I’m getting a degree in criminal justice and I’m working on a paper. You know, that kind of research.”
“I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation. You should know that.” Cash turned back around, watching the waitress as she assembled the bags of food.
“Oh, I know,” Emily said to his back. “I was just hoping you could maybe send me in the right direction?”
“Exactly what are you trying to find out?�
� Cash said, spinning around.
By the way he said it, Emily knew she was in his crosshairs. She could tell he was taking a mental picture of her, noticing the details of her face and what she was wearing. Hopefully, her gun was concealed well enough underneath her shirt that he wouldn’t notice. “I don’t know, I’m just trying to figure out the motivation behind the killings. Serial killers are all different, right? Would you agree with that? It seems like they all carry psychological scars, don’t you think?”
Cash turned away from Emily, handing the woman behind the counter a credit card. FBI issued, Emily was sure. A moment later, Cash jammed the card back in his pocket and picked up the orders, turning towards her, “Listen, I don’t know who you are. Maybe you’re doing research, maybe you aren’t. What I will tell you is if you’re sniffing around for a story, you’re sniffing in the wrong direction. As I said, I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
Emily watched him walk out the door, calling behind him as he left, “Okay, thank you!
Have a nice dinner!” She hoped it wasn’t too much, but it probably was. So much for staying anonymous, she thought, mad at herself. What was wrong with her on this case?
At the counter, she bought a brownie from the woman and walked out to her truck. She chewed it, the air conditioning pouring cool air over her as she thought about Cash Strickland. Emily wiped her fingers on a napkin and pulled out her phone, looking at the picture of the business card she’d taken at Sierra’s house. Yup, it was the same person. She didn’t expect him to be quite so harsh, but then it would be hard to blame him for his lack of public relations skills with the pressure he was under. Just as she put her phone down, it rang.
“You have news for me?” Emily said.
“Well, sorta. How are things down there?” Mike asked.
