She answered on the first ring, the steady tapping of her computer keys apparent in the background. “Hey, John. Things getting any better in Wisconsin?” she asked, exaggerating her own Midwestern accent.
He smiled despite the severity of the situation. “Not good. We have another victim. I’m heading to the crime scene now.”
The tapping stopped. “That makes six, right?” she asked with a lisp, meaning she was likely chomping on a pencil. A bad habit she’d picked up before joining CORE, and one she always did when her mind was spinning with angles and ideas.
“Pop the pencil out of your mouth before you get a splinter, or chip another tooth. Keep it up and Ian might revoke your dental coverage.”
“Don’t nag me,” she said. “I’m not in the mood. Owen had me on a wild goose chase earlier today and ended up putting me behind on my own stuff, which Ian’s been bitching about.” She released a frustrated sigh, and he pictured her fisting her short, auburn hair, and narrowing her large green eyes.
“Sorry you’re having a bad day,” John said. “I think I’d rather deal with Owen and Ian’s bullshit than look at another dead woman.”
“Always one upping me, aren’t you? Okay, you got me beat. What do you need?”
“Is Owen finished with his current case? I could use him here.” Owen Malcolm was former Secret Service, an excellent investigator, interrogator and negotiator. He had a way with words, a way of fitting in where he didn’t belong. The running joke was that he could probably steal the church collection basket while seducing a nun, and still charm a priest into forgiveness.
“Nope. He probably won’t be back until sometime next week. If Ian didn’t have me chained to this desk, I’d come help.”
Rachel had yet to go into the field, and had been chomping at the bit for some out-of-office action for months. “You’re our eyes and ears, along with the best researcher any of us could have ever asked for. You’re needed at base.”
“While much appreciated, the sweet talk isn’t necessary. Now tell me what you need.”
“You tracked the last contract Garrett Winston had, would you be able to do it again, only this time dig deeper?”
“Sure, how deep?”
While he suspected he was going to end up on the top of her shit list, he had a hunch that needed to be followed. “As far back as you can go. Rachel, I know it’s a pain in the ass, but I think he’s a serial rapist and murderer. I want to—”
“Take a look at all of his former routes, compare them to cold cases with the same MO that you’re dealing with in Wissota Falls. Got it. And you’re right, it’ll be a pain in my ass, but it beats the hell out of what I’ve been working on today. I’ll call you later when I have something.”
Damn she was good. “Thanks, Rachel.”
“No problem. And John? Um...oh geez,” she muttered, her Upper Midwestern accent rising to the surface again. “I never know what to say when one of you are heading out to look at a crime scene.”
Celeste’s face, while she’d been under the second trance, flashed in his mind. Reddening as she fought to breathe, hands clawing at the phantom cord around her neck. “Not a whole lot. Just call me when you have something. And keep that pencil out of your mouth.” He disconnected the call and eased off highway fifty-three, turning into Tilden.
Minutes later, he drove his rental through the gates of Hess Steel and Fabricating. The mill was not only Tilden’s largest manufacturer, but employed more than half of the town.
Slowing down, he realized they weren’t going to be able to keep this murder from the media. Mill workers flooded the parking lot, some nodding toward the CSU vans and deputy cruisers, while others were either on their cell phones or using them to film the scene. News of the murder would spread fast. The Internet and small town gossip would see to it, and Matt Boysen, who’d been true to his word so far, would probably spill every detail he had on the other five murder victims before someone else did.
He parked his car next to one of the police cruisers, then went to the trunk to retrieve a couple of pairs of shoe covers and Latex gloves. As he slammed the trunk shut, a muffler backfired and the crowd ducked. He swung his head and caught sight of a rusted-out minivan.
Speak of the devil.
As Matt Boysen parked his van, John headed toward where Roy stood.
“Matt makes a hell of an entrance,” Roy said with a shake of his head.
“You’re going to have to give him something. With the amount of people hanging around here, it’s going to leak anyway.”
“What about Celeste?”
“Her name stays out.”
“I’d already made that crystal clear to him yesterday. What I want to know is where she is now and who’s looking out for her?”
“I dropped her off at the diner. Will said he’d bring her home and stay at the house.”
Relief crossed the sheriff’s face before he narrowed his eyes. “You ready for this?”
“Not really. Tell me how the hell Lloyd came out here today, found nothing, then a few hours later—”
“I know you’ve got a hard-on for Lloyd, and I don’t blame you after the way he’s been acting. But he was out here. I talked with the owner of the mill and he confirmed it. A couple of kids were playing in the woods that butt up against the mill’s property. There’s a drainage pipe that filters to a little creek. Kids like to look for crayfish there.”
The heartburn returned. “Kids found her?”
“Unfortunately. Dan’s with them over there,” he said, and nodded toward the deputy’s cruiser.
Two boys, both appearing to be around ten or eleven years old, slumped against the cruiser, their faces pale, their eyes hollow with fear. “Where are their parents?”
“They’ve been notified and are on their way. The kids have been questioned. They said they didn’t touch anything, just ran as fast as they could to the mill when they saw the girl. The good news? They’ve already ID’d her as Lauren Sundahl.”
A quick ID was a great start. If they could pinpoint her last known whereabouts, who she’d associated with, those leads might help them. “Excellent. How did they know her?”
“She works at the Mini-Mart—a convenient store and gas station at the center of town. The kids said she was cool because she used to give them a break on candy and gum when they didn’t have enough money.”
He glanced back at the boys again, wondering how this would affect them. “Have you seen the body?”
“No, I was waiting on you. Lloyd was first to the scene. I arrived the same time as Mitchell and his team. They’re already working the area.”
John pulled an extra pair of boot covers from his pocket and handed them to the sheriff, who shook his head. “I’m prepared this time.” He pointed to his boots, which were already covered.
“Good, then I guess we’re ready.”
“Hardly,” Roy muttered as they made their way up a small slope. When they reached the top, he pointed to a well-used path.
Nodding, John followed him. As they moved deeper into the woods, the trees thickened, darkening the area, making it appear more like dusk than late afternoon. When bright yellow tape caught his attention, he reached in his pocket and drew out a few antacids. Like the sheriff, he’d come prepared this time. While the heartburn hadn’t completely set in yet, he had a feeling it would in a matter of minutes.
While working for both the FBI and CORE, he’d viewed many dead bodies. But this one in particular had him on edge. Through Celeste, he’d felt this victim’s pain and fear.
He had watched her die.
No, he had watched Celeste die in her place.
Mitchell approached as they neared the police tape. “John, Sheriff,” he said with a curt nod. “Been seein’ way too much of each other lately.”
“No shit,” Roy grumbled. “What have you got for us?”
“Come see for yourself.”
As they followed Mitchell, John couldn’t help the sick anticipation twis
ting his stomach. Since the second trance, he hadn’t been able to push the image of Celeste being raped and murdered by two men from his mind. Although irrational and illogical, considering Celeste had simply worked as the woman’s conduit, he hadn’t been able to stop the memory. Still, he needed to erase Celeste’s image from his mind and replace it with the victim’s.
“There she is,” Mitchell said, pointing to the drainage pipe.
Conscious of his steps, he moved toward the victim. When the stench of her decomposing flesh hit him, he stopped. His eyes burned and watered, nausea tumbled through his stomach. Blinking, he turned away and coughed into his shoulder, fighting the bile burning the back of his throat.
“This area clean?” he asked Mitchell.
“Yeah, I had my team work the victim first. They’re combing the surrounding area as we speak. Once we move her, we’ll take another look inside the drainage pipe. For now, go ahead and look all you want.”
“Roy?”
“I’m good, I can see enough from where I’m standing.”
“Wussing out on me?” John asked as he slipped a small flashlight from his pocket, and began moving toward the victim.
“You betcha.”
He couldn’t blame the sheriff from keeping his distance. And as he moved closer, flicking the beam of light into the drainage pipe, he suddenly wanted to wuss out, too.
A slow steady stream of murky water trickled passed the young woman’s nude body, and led into a small creek. Her head, partially coated in mud, and fully coated in bruises, dangled from the edge of the cement pipe.
He crouched closer, and gagged.
“Flies might be disgusting, but in this case, they’re a beautiful thing.” Mitchell crouched next to him. “The girl in the bog—”
“Courtney,” John snapped, tired of the bog tag line. Hell, he was tired of this entire fucked up case.
“Right, Courtney had insect larva on her, several kinds in fact. Because she’d likely been submersed in water for a while before she’d surfaced, the timeline wouldn’t be as concise as what you see here.” He pointed to the cuts on Lauren Sundahl’s face. “Based on the insect activity, my guess is that she’s been dead for at least four or five days. The majority of the maggots appear to be molting to the pre-pupa stage. I just dabble in entomology, though, so I made sure we took samples to be certain. I’ll have them sent to the same lab we used for the girl in the...I mean, Courtney.”
“Good.” John moved the flashlight over the victim’s neck. With the way her head dangled, he had to shift and crouch closer.
The stench had his gag reflex going into action. Again, he fought it, tried not to let her become personal, and viewed her body as an investigator.
She’d become more than personal.
This victim, this young woman who had so much life to live, had spoken through Celeste. She’d used the woman who had snared his heart to tell her story, to explain how she’d died.
“Did you check her neck?” he asked, and handed the flashlight to Mitchell.
“Not yet.”
“Keep the flashlight on it,” he said as he whipped the Latex gloves from his pocket, then shoved his hands into them. Knocking the fly larva away, he shifted her throat, then sucked in a breath.
“She’s been strangled.” Mitchell leaned closer. “Just like the four women from the dump site.”
John stepped away from the body, needing distance, fresh air and a moment to think.
“We’ve canvassed a fifty foot radius and found nothing,” one of Mitchell’s crime scene techs said as he approached. “No footprints, and no fibers so far, but we’re still searching.”
“Thanks Tom,” Mitchell said, then pinched the bridge of his nose, and looked to the ground. “This doesn’t make sense, John. Are we looking at two different killers? The evidence points—”
Roy’s cell phone stopped Mitchell short. The sheriff stepped away to take the call.
“The evidence points in that direction,” Mitchell continued. “From what we found at the first dump site compared to the girl from the...I mean Courtney, and now this victim?”
John peeled the gloves from his hands, the same questions banging through his mind in time with the drumming from the mill not more than a hundred yards away. “Hopefully the autopsy will—”
“John,” Roy shouted, as he shoved his cell phone back into his pocket. “We’ve got to go. Now.” He looked to Mitchell and raised a hand. “I don’t have time for the particulars, but I’ll need one of your techs.”
“You’ve got me,” Mitchell said without hesitation, then shouted a couple of quick orders to his men.
With a nod, Roy ran faster than John had anticipated. He caught up with him, and gripped his arm. “What the hell, Roy?”
“Keep moving,” he panted, as he jogged down the path leading to the parking lot. “We’ve got a dead prison guard and Winston in the ER.”
* * *
John stood inside Winston’s small jail cell, eyeing the dead guard, Curtis Hoyt. An empty syringe, the alleged murder weapon, rested a few feet away from the body. Near the entrance of the cell, a pool of blood coagulated. Winston’s blood.
“What do you think?” Roy asked from behind him.
“Are you finished taking pictures?” he asked Mitchell.
“Yep, you’re free to snoop.”
During the drive to Eau Claire County Jail, he’d called Rachel and already had her snooping into Hoyt’s background. “Thanks,” he replied, then looked to the sheriff. “You told me Hoyt served as an Eau Claire traffic cop, right?”
“Twenty-two years before he had a massive heart attack. He came to work at the county jail afterward, less stress.”
He snapped a pair of Latex gloves on his hands, then crouched next to the syringe. “More like less pay,” he commented under his breath.
Roy narrowed his eyes and knelt next to him. “What are you saying?” he whispered, his eyes moving to the hallway where the Jail Captain and the three guards who’d sent Winston to the ER stood.
“I had a search done on Hoyt during the drive here.” As much as he hated Rachel’s habit, he’d send her a couple boxes of number two pencils to gnaw on for her quick response. “Hoyt was up to his ass in debt, over thirty thousand with credit cards, several loans against his house, not to mention the college tuition he’d been paying for his three kids.”
He picked up the syringe and held it into the light. Less than a CC of blue liquid remained. He sniffed it, then shook his head. “Smells like window cleaner.”
“Window cleaner? How the hell would Winston get a hold of not only a syringe, but window cleaner?”
“Exactly,” John said. He set the syringe next to the yellow marker Mitchell had placed earlier, then moved to Hoyt’s body. “Look here.” He pointed to a spot on the pants pocket of the prison guard’s tan uniform.
Roy knelt beside him. “It’s dried, but stained the material.”
“Mitchell,” John said, “Can you make sure you find out what this is?”
“I saw it earlier. If you look close enough, you can see a hint of blue. It might match the liquid in the syringe.”
“So you think Hoyt carried the syringe in his pocket with the intent to use it on Winston?” Roy asked, disbelief in his tone.
“People do strange things for money,” he said as he viewed the dead guard.
“No doubt. Okay,” Roy said on a sigh, and stood, “We should have enough evidence. I’m going to see if we can get a search warrant for Hoyt’s house while you finish here.”
Jail Captain Fredrick Ambrose, mid-forties, big, beefy and slightly balding, narrowed his eyes as he stepped over Winston’s blood and into the cell. “You aren’t suggesting one of my men decided to go vigilante, are you?”
Not yet. “We won’t have our answers until the ME and CSU file their reports.” John looked passed Ambrose, zeroing in on the security camera across the hall. “Have you looked at the video surveillance?”
“Y
es, but unfortunately, the camera is aimed at the hallway, not directly into the cell.”
“Why should it be that easy,” Mitchell said. “Thank God for a little thing called evidence.”
John half-smiled, with a “no shit” on the tip of his tongue, then stood. “What’s Winston’s condition?” he asked Ambrose as they moved into the hallway.
“I haven’t heard.” He narrowed his eyes on the three guards. “But a full investigation into what happened here today will be launched.”
“What did you see when you walked into the cell?” John asked, turning his attention to the three guards.
A lanky, twenty-something, with an enormous Adam’s Apple and an even bigger nose, spoke first. “We heard Curtis screaming and by the time we entered Winston’s cell, it was too late. That bastard had already shoved the syringe in Curtis’ throat, and still had his thumb on the plunger.”
“And you...?”
The guard’s Adam’s Apple shifted. “Detained the prisoner with necessary force.”
“Brantner,” Ambrose shouted at the guard. “What you three did went beyond necessary force, and—”
“Sir,” John interrupted, “Please, let him finish.”
“Well,” the guard continued, shifting his eyes between the Jail Captain and him. “We went at Winston with our batons. He’s a big dude, and it took all of us to contain him.”
“Your idea of containment has just landed all three of you a suspension,” Ambrose yelled. “Don’t leave the building without an official statement. Now get out of my sight.” Running a hand over his shiny head, he looked to the ceiling. “This has never happened before. And by God, I’ll make certain it never happens again. Even if Winston was a piece of shit.”
More than a cop, Ambrose was a wannabe politician. According to Roy, he’d been biding his time, hoping to be promoted to Undersheriff, then eventually elected Sheriff of Eau Claire County. With this blemish on his record, he might be screwed.
What Ambrose didn’t understand was that the piece of shit his guards had sent to the ER had been their only link to the second killer. Based on Celeste’s last trance, the evidence from Courtney, and what happened here today, he firmly believed Winston had been working with someone.
Dark Secrets: A Paranormal Romance Anthology Page 82
