by Blake Pierce
She finished up her coffee and had started tidying up the kitchen when the doorbell rang. She was expecting company, so it did not take her by surprise. She went to the door and answered it, smiling politely at the man on the other side.
“Hey there,” she said. “Come on in.”
He was dressed in a basic black T-shirt and a pair of jeans. He had a small backpack slung over his right shoulder presumably to hold his tools and gadgets. “Sorry I’m late,” he said.
“Oh, no worries at all.”
“Based on the conversation we had, I don’t see it taking too long.”
“Great.”
She led him down the main hallway, toward the den. As they walked, she spoke up—mainly because she had never been one to tolerate awkward silences.
“You know, I found it odd that you weren’t listed online anywhere. I only knew about you because of the business card I saw on one of those business bulletin boards at the gym.”
“I just prefer it this way,” he said. “I don’t trust much of anything online. And I hate answering emails. It’s just easier this way.”
“Yeah? You stay pretty busy?”
“As busy as I need.”
“Good,” she said, starting to wonder if maybe she should have done some more research before hiring him. He wasn’t creeping her out by any means, but he was a little off-putting. She wasn’t sure why; it was no specific thing she could put her finger on.
They came to the den, where she stood to the side and gestured inside. “Well, there you go. If you need anything, let me know.”
“Will do. Thanks again.”
“Thank you!”
She walked back into the kitchen, opening up the fridge and compiling a grocery list in her head. She worked from home as a freelance virtual assistant, but she was between clients right now and was having a hard time finding more work. Until she found more clients, she figured she’d do her best to assume the role of stay-at-home wife—something she never thought she would be but, in all reality, was sort of starting to enjoy.
She typed her grocery list down into the cute little app she used for daily tasks. Done with that, she set it down on the counter and started digging through the small recipe box she kept by the stove, planning to come up with a menu for the remainder of the week after tonight’s date. As she was nearing the end of it, she heard something behind her. She turned and was startled to see the man she had let inside five minutes ago standing there.
“Did you need something else?” she asked.
“No. I was just wondering…where does your husband work?”
“Um…no offense, but I don’t think that’s your concern.”
“Oh, no…nothing like that. I guess that did sound creepy. No, I saw a picture of him on the mantel in the den. He’s standing by someone that looked very familiar in an office setting and I couldn’t figure out who it is. It’s driving me crazy.”
“Oh!” Relief flooded through her; for a moment there, she had started to get freaked out. “He’s a copy editor with Ember and Hudson Books. The other guy in that picture you’re talking about is James Franco. They ran into one another a few months back at some meeting.”
“Oh, that’s so cool. Sorry…didn’t meant to startle you.”
“Oh, it’s okay.”
She turned her attention back to the grocery list, but apparently her guest was not done.
“Any kids?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Yeah, I thought you looked rather young. Early twenties?”
The relief she’d felt moments ago disappeared completely and was replaced with something very much like dread.
“Yeah,” she said. She glanced over to the phone on the counter. It was about ten feet away from her.
“This is a nice house,” he said. “A lovely den, too. How long have you lived here?”
She reached out for the phone, not really caring if it seemed rude. She noted that his eyes followed her closely as she picked it up.
“Sorry,” he said. “I do tend to get a little talkative. I’ll get back to work.”
She nodded and watched him go. When he was out of sight, she unlocked her phone and pulled up her recent texts. She pulled up the latest to David and started to type a new message. She started to pace, as she usually did when she got nervous about something. She tried to think of what to say, but never even got the chance to start properly. All she got out was: The guy…
But she got no further.
She felt something slip around her neck and then a very hard pressure against her spine. She didn’t even have time to cry out. Whatever was around her neck pulled tight and she could not breathe. Her neck felt as if it were being pinched by a giant and at once, she started to struggle.
It did not last long, though.
Meredith fought for less than thirty seconds before darkness started to envelop everything she saw. Her phone slipped from her hands, clattering on the floor, her text to her husband incomplete and undelivered.
CHAPTER NINE
The Frankfield Inn’s bar had been surprisingly good the night before, not just for drinks but for the food. It was not, however, open for breakfast or lunch. That’s how Kate and DeMarco ended up at an IHOP the following morning, having an early breakfast after checking in to no results at the Frankfield PD. They pored over the case files as they sipped coffee and nibbled from massive breakfast plates that Kate knew would go mostly uneaten.
“No way you look at this do Karen Hopkins and Marjorie Hix seem alike in any way other than their age,” DeMarco said. “Not in their professions, not their interests, not their contacts, nothing.”
“Well, nothing except husbands that didn’t value them,” Kate pointed out.
“And if there were no affairs that we know of, what does that leave?”
“I think we may need to start looking into friends…even passing acquaintances. Someone has to know a link. Someone would have to know what sort of friends Hopkins and Hix had coming in and out of their homes.”
“It’s that damned doorbell security system that’s tripping me up,” DeMarco said. “Whoever killed Marjorie Hix likely came in through the garage. The answer would be why.”
“It could have been any number of reasons. Maybe it was someone who was actually in a car with Marjorie. They could have come back to her house together, Marjorie parked in the garage, and then they went into the house.”
“You know, this would be much easier if these husbands took an interest in their wives,” DeMarco joked.
Kate clung to the comment. She felt like, though it had been said in jest, there was something to it. Was there something there they were potentially missing? If the husbands did not keep up with their wives, what might those husbands be missing out on? Maybe it was more than just intimacy and attention. Maybe it was smaller things?
“I wonder,” Kate said, “if there were smaller things in these women’s lives that the husbands didn’t even know about. If we dig very deep, could there be some small and seemingly inconsequential thing they shared in common? Something maybe linking them to the killer?”
“It’s a great thought, but that takes us right back to finding someone who actually knew these women better than their husbands.”
Kate realized that it did sort of create a very ragged circle with no end in sight. Still, she focused on that last comment, wondering if they had missed something smaller and almost invisible among the crime scenes. Something in the background that seemed of no consequence at first or even second glance.
She was about to say this out loud when her phone rang. She dug it out of her pocket and saw that it was Melissa. She was flooded with that mix of anger, resentment, and sorrow. She nearly ignored it right away but then remembered how distracted she had been yesterday. If she did not take this call, she’d wonder about it all day.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, getting up from the table. “I have to take this.”
DeMarco waved her away casually as she
continued to read over the case notes. Kate made her way to the front doors, stepping outside onto the sidewalk in front of the restaurant as she answered the call.
“Hey, Lissa.”
“Mom…I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry to call, I really am, and I know I said some messed up things in that message yesterday but…”
“Calm down,” Kate said. She worried that something else had happened between her and Terry. The protective mother in her wondered if Terry had left them or, even worse and more unimaginable, struck Melissa or Michelle. “Slow down and star over.”
“Michelle is showing her symptoms again…when we had that cancer scare. Mom…what the hell do I do?”
“What’s she doing?” Kate asked, trying to stay as calm as possible.
“When she cries, she screams. And it’s exactly the same kind of screams as before, when I took her to the doctor and they saw those abnormalities.”
“How long has she been doing it?”
“Since yesterday afternoon. And Mom…God, I’m so sorry. I blamed you. I blamed you and Alan, thinking he had fed her something he shouldn’t and…”
“Melissa, it’s okay. Look…that screaming was just one symptom, remember? What were some others?”
“There was a fever, but the doctors weren’t even sure it was related.”
“Melissa…when you picked her up from my house, was she fine?”
“Yes. She got a little upset when I started yelling at Alan, though.”
“You yelled at Alan?”
“Mom, I was so pissed off. At you, at him, at myself…”
“Okay, fine. Look…if it’s just screaming, treat it as if it were gas or colic. Honey, you can’t assume every little thing that goes wrong is going back to where we were a few months ago. The doctors cleared her. You know that.”
“I know, but…”
“Hasn’t she always been a little fussy after she stays with me for a long period of time? Remember…we talked about this? Your little one does not like change. It throws her off. This sounds to me like nothing more than colic.”
“Are you sure?”
Kate had no idea why, but this question angered her. Melissa sounded almost hysterical, paranoid, and nervous—wanting to ensure that her baby was fine. But at the same time, she also sounded hopeless and totally inept.
“Swaddle her in a blanket and then lay her flat on her belly. But just for a while and do not leave her. Make sure her face is turned to the side and rub her on the back. Do that for a while and then roll her over. Do it a few times. If she’s still screaming after all of that and you need to just be sure, call the pediatrician.”
“Mom, I don’t know. I think it’s more than gas and…”
“You’ve thought this twice since the scare, Melissa. And what did it turn out being both times?”
There was silence on the other end. Kate assumed the silence was the result of Melissa sneering on the other end. “The first time it was gas and the second time was mild reflux when we tried her on that new formula.”
“Exactly.”
“Mom, what if…”
“Melissa, I love you. And I will always love you. But you are a mother now. You can’t come running to me with every problem. Especially when…”
She’d nearly ended that statement with “especially when I’m working,” but managed to stop herself.
But Melissa apparently knew how the statement was going to end. “Yeah, got it, Mom. Especially when…”
“Melissa, I—”
Her phone beeped at her as another call came in. She checked it and while she did not recognize the number, she did recognize the local area code.
“Melissa, I have another call I have to take.”
“Of course you do.”
Melissa ended the call, the slight click sending a shiver through Kate. She inhaled deeply, let it out, and then answered the other call. “This is Agent Wise.”
“Agent Wise, it’s Sheriff Bannerman. I need you and your partner to meet up with me as soon as possible.”
Even before she asked the question that came out of her mouth, she knew what he would say. It was just a gut feeling she had, one that she had learned to trust early on in her career.
“We’ve got another body…a third victim.”
CHAPTER TEN
Victim number three, a twenty-four-year-old named Meredith Lowell, lived in a cute little two-story home about three miles outside of Frankfield. When Kate and DeMarco pulled into the U-shaped driveway, an ambulance was pulling out the other end. There was a single cop car in the driveway, unoccupied. Bannerman stood on the porch at the front door, watching as the agents parked and got out of the car.
“What’s with the ambulance?” Kate asked.
“The husband found the body. Came home from work early to surprise her and had a minor cardiac episode. He was in the back of the ambulance. He was wailing and crying as they put him in, poor guy.”
“You the only officer on the scene?”
“I’ve got more on the way. I wanted you two to have access to the scene before anyone else.”
“Thanks for that,” Kate said as she and DeMarco joined him on the porch. Bannerman opened the door for them and they stepped inside.
It was the smallest home they had been in but it was still quite nice. The living room sat off of a small hallway on one side of the house and everything else sat on the opposite side. About halfway down the hall, a den sat off to the right. In front of them at the exact center of the home was a large kitchen.
The body of Meredith Lowell say on the floor, her head resting directly beside the dishwasher. Her eyes were wide open, staring up at the ceiling. Her blonde hair was tufted out around her head like a little halo. Right away, Kate could see the mark on her neck and knew this was not just a random murder. This was a third victim of the killer they were after.
Kate knelt down by the body on one side while DeMarco dropped to the other side. She studied the marks on Meredith’s neck and saw right away that they were similar to the other victims. The marks on Meredith’s neck were essentially just one mark, with a few areas where the strangulation weapon had drifted a bit. The indentation from the weapon was the same width as the others and although the area was red and swollen, there were no areas that were cut into as there had been with Karen Hopkins. There appeared to be no other signs of attack; the killer had clearly come in with the intention of strangling her.
“Did you manage to get anything out of the husband before he left?”
“Very little. He wanted to help, but the medics were too concerned about his health. They’re going to let us know the moment he’s okay for visitors. What I did get out of him, though, was sort of telling. He left for work later than usual, with plans to get home early. But he actually managed to leave work much earlier than he expected. He had intended to come home and surprise his wife, planning to take her to lunch, a movie, and then dinner. A nice little day date.”
“So he wasn’t gone long at all, right?”
“He said he was gone perhaps three hours and fifteen minutes.”
“I think that gives us definitive proof that the killer is being invited in,” Kate said. “Even if it was just someone who knew the family’s schedule well, there’s no way they could have known the husband was going to come back early.”
“Could have just been luck,” Bannerman suggested.
“This also breaks the connection we thought we had with the other victims,” DeMarco said. “This woman is young.”
“Twenty-four, by the husband’s words,” Bannerman said. “The husband was older, though. Maybe forty, if I had to guess.”
“Any kids?” Kate asked.
“I don’t think so,” Bannerman said. “Not between the two of them, though this seems to be the husband’s second marriage. But if she’s this young and there are no kids here in the house right now, my guess would be no.”
“You said you have units on the way?”
“A
bout five minutes away by now, I’d think.”
“Coroner?”
“Right behind my guys.”
“Good. With this body so fresh, it should be easy for them to find out what was used to strangle her. And if we can figure that out and make sure it could be applicable to the other murders, that could be a huge help.”
Kate got to her feet and started to slowly pace around the kitchen. She went to the back door, which led out to a cute little patio. No signs of a break-in, no signs of a struggle. Nothing. She then walked through the hallway and did a lap around the living room. From a quick first glance, nothing appeared to be missing or disturbed. She checked the front door and found it just as untouched as the back.
She walked through the den, taking the same approach. She looked over the furniture, the family-related items. There was a piano in the center of the room, a small writing desk tucked away in the corner, a beautiful acoustic Gibson guitar on a stand in another corner. Nothing disturbed, nothing removed.
Wait…but there’s something here. Some link…what am I missing?
She could feel her intuition trying to bring something to the surface. She wanted to force it, but knew better. It would come soon enough. Still, she looked around the room one more time, trying to figure out what exactly was gnawing at her.
By the time she returned to the kitchen, the first of Bannerman’s units showed up. And, as he had said, the coroner arrived directly behind them.
There were three other officers in all, looking the place over and running through routine procedure—checking for prints and essentially running through the same checklists Kate had just run through. But really, with the husband on the way to the hospital and no one to question, their jobs were over within a few minutes.
Kate and DeMarco stood by in the kitchen while the coroner snapped a few photos and examined the body. “Any idea what the killer used to strangle her?” DeMarco asked the coroner.
The coroner, a hardened woman who looked to be in her forties, gave a lazy shrug. “Hard to tell. I don’t see any fibers or evidence of rope burn, so I’m going to rule out rope or twine right away. If I had to make a quick non-educated guess, I’d think it was some sort of craft string—maybe something plastic or made with a pliable sort of weak metal.”
