Cause to Fear

by Pierce, Blake

  “I need some time alone,” she said, not being totally honest. “I need to get my head wrapped around this guy and his motives. When I’m done do you want to maybe drive back down to the Fresh Pond Reservoir?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  With that, they parted ways. Ramirez headed for his office while Avery made her way toward the elevators. This killer was turning out to be just like the ice that seemed to have such a hold on him—cold and slippery. If she had any hope of getting into his mind and figuring out who he was and why he was acting out, she was going to need some help.

  Avery hated to admit it, but she was at a total loss for the first time in her career

  And she knew just who she needed to see: Sloane Miller, the A1 psychiatrist.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  From time to time, Avery felt guilty for using Sloane’s services. Dr. Sloane Miller was on staff to work with officers who were buckling under the pressure and stress of their jobs. Of course, in the A1, most of those officers would never admit they needed help. That’s why Avery had never had much of a problem getting a few minutes of Sloane’s time.

  This afternoon was no different. When Avery entered Sloane’s office, she was sitting behind her desk drinking coffee and reading something on her laptop. She gave a genuine smile when she saw Avery step in.

  “At the risk of seeming a little too full of myself,” Sloane said, “I was thinking I might see you in the next day or so.”

  “How so?” Avery asked.

  “The way the news is talking about these letters we’ve been getting. The person who wrote those things is begging for a psych evaluation. And assuming the guilty party won’t just show up at my door, I thought you might.”

  “Am I that predictable?”

  “Predictable isn’t the word. I think you’re looking for thorough.”

  Avery took a seat on the other side of Sloane’s desk. It was much more comfortable than the chair in Connelly’s office. “I just can’t figure out the sort of man that would do this,” Avery said, getting right to the point. “The killing part, sure. Been there, done that. But the inclusion of ice, the absolute neatness of the bodies…it’s an equation that just doesn’t seem to add up. There are too many pieces that don’t complement one another.”

  “And that’s strange to you?” Sloan asked.

  “Yes. There’s no concrete motive that I can see.”

  “Well, all of those pieces that don’t fit are a clue in and of themselves, I think,” Sloane said. “I think your intelligence is getting in the way here. You’re trying to make sense of something that has no trace of logic. Based on the bit I know about the case and the nature of these letters, I think a logical approach is going to hinder you.”

  “Abstract thinking isn’t my strong suit,” Avery said.

  “Oh, I know. But from what I’m seeing, there’s some legitimate form of psychological disturbance with this person. The letters themselves denote that they want to be caught, right?”

  “I believe so,” Avery said. “The latest letter actually says it.”

  “But the fact that the killer is being so careful with what he’s doing suggests a need to remain hidden. But why would you want to stay hidden but hope someone catches you?”

  Avery chewed on this for a moment, the meaning of Sloane’s riddle slowly coming together. “It’s a cry for help that they don’t even know they are making,” she said, forming the idea as she spoke it aloud. “He’s staying hidden and being careful not to get caught for some subconscious reason—shame, guilt, or something like that. But he wants to be caught because…well, he either wants to brag about what he’s doing or he realizes deep down that he needs to be stopped but doesn’t have the willpower to stop himself.”

  And if he wants us to catch him for some subconscious reason, she thought, that clearly denotes a psychological lapse of some kind. He’s kidnapping and killing while, at the same time, knowing it’s wrong and wanting to be caught—maybe even realizing he deserves the punishment.

  “Exactly,” Sloane said. “So what sort of person might wrestle with such things?”

  “Several kinds,” Avery said. She smirked, realizing that just like that, Sloan had managed to put her on the right track—a track she had been unable to see due to her logical approach. “But at the root of it all is a reason to stay hidden…something he’s ashamed of or hates about himself. And that might mean he has a previous record of some kind. But…there’s still too many X-factors.”

  “Self-loathing and hate could be a very good reason for making sure the bodies are in pristine condition,” Sloane suggested. “It could suggest regret or even a battle within his conscience.”

  Avery nodded. These were all points she had come to on her own and shared with others but to hear them reworded in a more logical way was always helpful.

  “I agree,” Avery said. “But locating a man driven by self-hatred is like finding a needle in a haystack. There are so many of them. I think the thing that will make this guy stand out is that there seems to be a sort of artistic gesture to it. It’s not just that the bodies are hairless and cleaned. I mean, their nails are done, for God’s sake.”

  “Maybe a man who has some sort of sexual identity crisis?”

  “Maybe,” Avery said. This thought had not occurred to her before. Makes sense, she thought. A man who adores the appearance of women, maybe even envies their bodies…what better way to shave like a woman, to do nails like a woman? It would be much easier to have the real thing. Maybe this is some sort of fantasy of his, just not of a physically sexual nature.

  “No real profile seems to fit just yet,” Avery said. “It’s still all coming down to finding proper leads.”

  “Well, once you reach that part of the case, I’m of no use any longer. I believe that’s where your skills come in.”

  Avery let out a little laugh. “You know…I’m taking the role of sergeant sometime in the next month or so. If I have my way, you’ll be given much more credit for the work you do.”

  “Sergeant, huh? That’s great news.”

  “It’s also hush-hush for another few weeks, so let’s flex that doctor-patient confidentiality thing, why don’t we?”

  “My lips are sealed,” Sloane said. “Now get out of here and catch us a bad guy. If I have to see another one of those desperate letters come across the news, I might scream.”

  ***

  Motivated by Sloane’s help, Avery headed back to her office. She shut the door and promptly buried her head in the case files. Even with the minor breakthrough she’d had in Sloane’s office, Avery was fairly certain that she’d squeezed every drop of available information from the case files. But she thought there might be easy links to information that she’d already read, links that she could find based on her new approach.

  Excited by a new direction to take, she slipped into the flow easily, bringing each piece of the puzzle together and shifting the pieces.

  Shame and guilt…and some sort of obsession with the cold. Has he committed some previous heinous acts in the cold?

  No jewelry…not a matter of theft, though; he just wants the women to be spotless. This is further proven by his ignorant attempt at trying to scrub away the tattoo on Sophie Lentz’s back.

  Two college girls so far. Was that planned or a coincidence? Different colleges, bodies found twenty-six miles apart. But the Charles River carried Patty Dearborne an unknown distance.

  Homemade chloroform. So while there might be a mental break of some sort at play, he’s smart enough to do research and make his own chloroform.

  Ice…freezing…possible criminal history…

  She looked at the sheet for the notes on the Fresh Pond Reservoir and studied it again. Very few security cameras and they are all at the entrance. According to reports, only two potential crimes on the premises within the last fifteen years—one a public indecency charge for a couple having sex and another for a hunter that was trespassing.

  She tho
ught about this hunter for a minute. According to reports, he was arrested for trespassing. Arrested? Seems a little severe…

  With the wheels really rolling now, Avery opened up the A1’s internal database on her laptop. A few quick keywords and then typing in the address of the Fresh Pond Reservoir pulled up the two items in the report. Completely skipping over the indecent exposure item, she opened up the report on the hunter who had been caught trespassing. She read it slowly, sensing right away that their might be something there.

  Jimmy Daughtry, 54, was caught trespassing on the reservoir grounds in November 2015. Had his hunter’s license on him, claimed he had no idea he was on private state grounds. Cops were called when shots were fired on the grounds while Daughtry was hunting deer. Became violent with one of the arresting officers when the conversation got heated. Arrested for assault and opening fire on public grounds. Released on $7,500 bail. It was later discovered he had been hunting on the grounds for over two years. Past record of child endangerment and attempted sexual assault of a minor.

  Avery then pulled up Jimmy Daughtry’s criminal record. The child endangerment had been for his own child; when she was eight, Daughtry had forced his daughter to swim in the Charles River when it was below freezing outside, a form of punishment for her accidentally leaving the front door of their house cracked open in the winter. The attempted sexual assault had occurred in 2007 when Daughtry made advances on a fifteen-year-old girl outside of a convenience store.

  She took note of his current address and employer, plugging them both in to her phone’s GPS. She then paged Ramirez from her desk phone and found that hearing his voice even at work centered her in an unexpected away.

  “You busy?” she asked.

  “I wish,” he said. “This case is kicking my ass. You?”

  “My ass is getting kicked, too,” she said. “But how do you feel about taking a ride with me to check on a potential lead?”

  “I’ll meet you at the car.”

  And just like that, the case started to seem a bit more promising and Avery started to feel that familiar surge of hope and adrenaline.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Rather ironically, Jimmy Daughtry worked at an outdoor sports shop. It was a second-hand family-owned business situated in the rural area that sat just outside of Cambridge. When Avery stepped inside, she was a little overwhelmed. She had been into sports stores before, sure, but never one where hunting and fishing were the main draws.

  Clothing racks were packed with camo suits and insulated jackets, most of which were bright orange. The entire rear wall was paneled in glass casing, containing a variety of guns. While most of them were basic hunting rifles, a few might have drawn the suspicion of someone working with the ATF.

  Fishing rods and reels were on the wall to the right while other assorted hunting equipment lined the shelves of the opposite wall—everything from duck calls to concentrated bottles of deer urine.

  She approached the counter in the back, situated in front of the guns, and found two men at work. One was working with a customer, filling out a form for the purchase of a firearm. The other was a man who appeared to be in his fifties, his long gray hair combed back. He was looking through a brochure and placing orders into a computer. It was this man that Avery approached. When she drew near, he looked up from the computer. The look he gave her was at first a comical one—wondering what a prim and proper woman was doing in this sort of place, no doubt. But then he apparently put two and two together after noticing her attire as well as the well-dressed man accompanying her. After that, the look on his face became rather grave.

  “Good afternoon,” Avery said, putting on her most pleasant voice in order to keep the man calm before the conversation even started. “We’re looking for Jimmy Daughtry.”

  “That’s me,” he said.

  “I’m Detective Avery Black with Boston’s A1 Homicide Division. I was hoping to have about five minutes of your time to ask you a few questions.”

  “What for?” he asked, instantly on the defensive.

  “I’d really rather discuss it in private. Is there a break room or something around here?”

  “There’s a stock room in the back,” he said, more angry than he was nervous or afraid. “But I’m going to have to clear it with my boss. Can you give me a second?”

  Avery nodded and watched as Daughtry walked over to the man that was still filling out a form for the store’s only current customer. The boss looked over his shoulder, rolled his eyes when he saw Avery and Ramirez, and then shrugged.

  Daughtry then waved them over. Avery walked to the end of the counter where Daughtry led them to the back of the store and through a small door. They entered a small stock room that was crammed with boxes and catalogues. A stuffed deer head was on one wall and a picture of a large-breasted woman in a bikini on the beach was on the opposite wall.

  “Homicide, you say?” Daughtry said. “That’s a new one. We get government spooks in here all of the time to make sure we ain’t selling illegal guns. And it’s been awhile since the law came pestering me about the dumb shit I did years ago. But homicide…yeah, that’s new.”

  “Well, last night there was a body pulled from the Fresh Pond Reservoir,” Avery said. “And since that is the same place you were busted for illegally shooting a firearm, you’re a candidate for questioning.”

  “For what?” he asked. “Dumping a body in the reservoir? Hunting on state-owned land and murder are two totally separate crimes. Shouldn’t a detective know that?”

  “Well, quite frankly,” Avery said, ignoring his lame insult, “it’s the child endangerment and attempted sexual assault of a minor that makes you more of a suspect. Make no mistake…you are being accused of absolutely nothing. Your name just happens to be connected to the site where the body was found. If you can provide solid alibis, we’ll be out of your hair.”

  “This body…was it like the one you pulled out of the Charles a few nights ago?”

  “I’m not at liberty to share case details with you,” Avery said. “All I need from you right now is to know where you were last night.”

  He frowned and looked to the big-breasted woman on the poster, as if she might encourage him. “I was ice fishing.”

  “Where?”

  “On the Charles. I just started doing it this year. It sucks. But it’s a good reason to act like a fool on the ice and have a few beers.”

  “Can anyone verify this?” Ramirez asked.

  “Yeah. There were three of us out there. Call my friends Early Wright and Mike Simmons. They’ll tell you.”

  “Did you catch anything?” Avery asked.

  “Hell no. We started plugging at the ice like I read online and it started splintering. Earl damn near fell into the river when the ice started breaking.”

  “I see,” Avery said. “Can you give me their addresses?”

  “Yeah,” Daughtry said, pulling out his phone. “You know…it’s none of my business, but if some girl was pulled out of the reservoir and he wasn’t caught on camera, there’s only one place he could have done it without being seen.”

  “I assume you know this from your hunting days?” Ramirez asked.

  “Yes. There’s an old trail that runs along the backside, just where the state property takes over. He had to have gone down that. And not a lot of people know it’s there.”

  “You’re certain?” Avery asked.

  “Pretty sure,” Daughtry said. He then showed Avery his phone where he had pulled up the contacts for his friends. Avery typed them into her phone and saved them.

  “Mr. Daughtry, thank you for your assistance. I’m sure you’ll understand my closing with asking about your previous offenses.”

  “You can ask what you want, but I’m not like that anymore. Well…not the child abuse and the thing with the minor. The hunting thing…I still think the state ropes off too much land that should be open to the public. But no…I ain’t been trespassing neither.”

  Just a ma
n trying to escape his demons, Avery thought. She’d seen it a hundred times before. Most of the time she could tell when they were being sincere. She couldn’t quite get a gauge on Jimmy Daughtry, though. She assumed this unexpected visit from someone from the Homicide division would scare any last temptation out of him.

  They left the shop, Ramirez taking an admiring look at some of the fishing rods on his way out.

  “You fish?” she asked as they walked out the door.

  “I used to. My old man loved it. I tried to carry on the tradition for a while after he passed, but it didn’t stick.”

  There’s still so much I don’t know about this man, she thought. An alarming thought, given that they’d be living together soon.

  “Speaking of which,” Ramirez said, “you asked Daughtry if he caught anything when he tried ice fishing. I know you don’t care if he caught anything or not. What was the point of that?”

  “The ice out on the Charles River was strong enough to skate on, but it was still pretty thin from what I could see. I had a relative that used to be into fishing, too. Ice fishing, in Alaska. That’s how I knew that the ice anywhere near here would basically chip away and dump him in the river. That, plus he’s not likely to catch anything in this area while ice fishing.”

  “Ah, so you were trying to catch him in a lie,” Ramirez said.

  “Exactly.”

  “You ever do that weird voodoo conversation crap on me, trying to trip me up?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said as she got in the car.

  She was trying her best to lift the mood because she knew in the back of her head that if Jimmy Daughtry’s alibis turned out to back him up, they were back to having no leads at all.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The water pipes had frozen and he knew if he wasn’t careful, one could burst and make one hell of a mess. But honestly, that sort of mess was the farthest thing from his mind. The thermostat read thirty degrees, as he had cut the heat off yesterday morning (not that it really mattered, as he never set the heat above fifty-five no matter how cold it was outside). He was shivering although he was dressed in sweats and a hooded sweatshirt with a blanket draped over his shoulders and pulled tightly over him.