by Kay Hooper
“Senator LeMott denied it was him,” Hollis noted.
“And since LeMott was straight about everything else—finally, when it was all over with—we pretty much have to believe him. So Seymour has been a very large question mark in a supposedly closed case.”
“Until now,” Diana prompted.
“Until now. Well, sort of. He’s still a question mark, only of a different kind. We finally got a hit on the prints from the male victim.” Quentin waved the fax he was holding. “Got his rap sheet right here. He is—or was—Brian Seymour, aka David Vaughan, the name he was born with. Nothing serious on the sheet, just some petty theft, B&E, minor assault. Dropped off the grid about five years ago, when the church records indicate that he went to work for Samuel.”
DeMarco leaned back in his chair with a lightly exhaled breath, eyes suddenly narrow in his usually expressionless face. Methodically, he said, “Somebody reported it to the Director when Galen was shot, and there were only three of us who witnessed that. Carl is still involved with the church—such as it is—so highly doubtful it was him. It wasn’t me. Brian’s disappearance marked him as the likely snitch. But there was no sign whatsoever that he was linked to the Bureau. No sign he ever acted as a police or other law-enforcement informant. In fact, despite his seemingly easygoing personality, the man was all but a ghost and too careful for me even to get a clear set of his prints.”
“Yeah,” Quentin said, “and we all know you took it personally that you were never able to track him down after that whole manufactured history of his fell apart.”
Ignoring that, DeMarco said, “And now, months later, he turns up as a victim in a serial-killer case we’re investigating? Unless there’s a connection we don’t yet know about, I’m guessing the odds against that have to be astronomical.”
Hollis said, “And it’s just plain weird. Very weird. It can’t be coincidental. Can it?”
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” DeMarco said.
Quentin shook his head. “Neither do I. Not this kind, at any rate. So … two very different cases, one of them apparently solved months ago, just linked up. And what do we do with that?”
Speaking up finally, Miranda said, “We find out a hell of a lot more about the common denominator. David Vaughan: aka Brian Seymour.”
“Hey, what’d you do, pull a double shift?” Duncan asked, pausing in front of Bobbie Silvers’s desk.
“You said we could sign up for overtime if we wanted. I signed up.” Before he could protest further, Bobbie hurried to add, “I think maybe I found something interesting, Sheriff.”
“You mean about these murders?” He was honestly surprised, not because he doubted her investigative instincts but because she’d had so damn little to work with.
“Yes. At least—maybe.”
Duncan rested a hip on the edge of her desk. “Okay. What?”
Bobbie didn’t have to gather her thoughts; she’d been rehearsing what to say for more than two hours as she waited for him to arrive. “First, I reached out to all the other law-enforcement agencies, as ordered, and asked for any missing persons who might possibly fit our victims. Only I went five hundred miles out rather than a hundred.”
Duncan winced. “Given how little specific information we have, that must be some list.”
“More than a hundred names,” she admitted.
“That’s a hell of a long list, Bobbie,” he pointed out.
“Yeah. I didn’t want to try to eliminate any on my own, for obvious reasons. I don’t know enough about the victims. But every missing-persons report had snippets of additional information, some of it not listed in the computer databases but written in by the investigating officers. Years ago I had a really experienced cop tell me that there are always things in the paper file that don’t fit into any of the forms—some hunches by the investigating officer, naturally, but also bits of hard data. So I went looking for that kind of information.”
Duncan cocked his head as he studied her. “You got cops to dig out and read through files for you in the middle of the night?”
“I owe a deputy in the next county over a drink,” she said somewhat sheepishly. “The rest were mostly bored and willing to help out.”
Suddenly uneasy, Duncan said, “We’re not ready to go public with any of our speculation, Bobbie.”
She nodded. “I told them I was updating our missing-persons database and, because of spotty Internet out here, I had to do most of it manually. Boring second-shift work. They were sympathetic.”
“First spot comes open on the day shift is yours,” Duncan promised.
Bobbie grinned, then tried her best to recapture her professional air. “Well, I’m nowhere near done yet, but I did cover about two dozen of the reports so far, closest first. So within a fifty-mile radius, I’ve probably got detailed reports on two-thirds of the missing persons.”
“You’re not working three straight shifts,” Duncan warned her.
“Don’t worry, Sheriff; I’m so tired I wouldn’t even try. But I’ve got a start, and if you and the agents think it’s necessary, or even worthwhile, I’ll pick it back up when I come in this afternoon. That’s assuming the agents don’t take up where I left off and get it all finished by then.”
“Okay. So what in that two dozen reports so far struck you as interesting?”
“Just one report, actually. You know how things stick in your mind? Well, about a year ago, there was all that excitement over at The Lodge. Remember?”*
“When that kind of thing happens practically in your backyard, you remember. It was a real mess. They found old bones on the grounds—and in some cave nobody knew about. Human bones. And they had a murder at the time. Somebody went nuts and killed one of the maids.” He frowned. “I seem to recall the feds were in on that one too.”
Bobbie was nodding. “One fed in particular—Quentin Hayes. The local investigating officer, Captain Nathan McDaniel, noted in the file that Agent Hayes had visited The Lodge several times over the years and that he had a childhood connection to the place. I… uh… read about it at the time. I was curious.”
“At the time” had been just after she got her job with the Pageant County Sheriff’s Department.
Duncan frowned but said mildly, “Don’t do that again, Bobbie. Use your position here to satisfy personal curiosity.”
Sheepish again, she said, “Yes, sir. I know better now, honest.”
He was satisfied she did. “So Quentin spent some time at a pretty reclusive resort thirty miles from here. Don’t see as how that would have anything to do with the murders here.”
“Neither did I. Until I found another connection.” She opened the topmost file of the stack on her blotter and turned the page so he could read it if he so chose, even though she was relaying the information. “Reported missing ten days ago, Taryn Holder, age twenty-eight. Blond hair, brown eyes, five foot seven, a hundred and twenty pounds. Single. Her boyfriend in Knoxville reported her missing when she failed to return from the latest spa break she was in the habit of taking at least twice a year.”
Duncan got it quickly. “At The Lodge?”
“Yeah. She was last seen checking out and driving away. She never made it home.”
——
Miranda said, “You should give that deputy a raise. Whether this pans out or not, she showed real initiative.”
Duncan nodded. “Yeah, I’m bound to lose her to some big-town police department. Or to you lot. Look, I sent her home to get some rest, but if you need any of my people to help out later on—with anything that doesn’t involve carrying or using a weapon—I’d recommend Bobbie.”
Miranda smiled. “She’s one of your part-timers.”
“Yeah. She grew up in a hunting family and probably knows how to handle a gun better than I do, but she hasn’t gone through the training yet, so I’m not about to issue her one. That aside, she’s smart, she learns fast, and as you can see she’s ambitious and resourceful. Plus, she just plain enjoys th
e work.”
“We may well need her.” Miranda looked at the stack of files with a rueful sigh. “Unless another murder victim turns up far outside your jurisdiction, we might be staying in Serenade awhile longer than I’d anticipated.”
“Because of what Bobbie found?”
“That. Also the fact that this location is fairly central in relation to the other murders, so it’s a good base for us geographically, especially given the helicopter we have at our disposal. And… this is a small town, quiet. No TV station, and the one newspaper is a weekly. Working here, we have a better shot at avoiding the media spotlight at least a little longer.”
It was Duncan’s turn to sigh. “I know it’s a judgment call as to when to go public with this kind of information, but if this is a serial killer with eight notches already on his belt…”
DeMarco spoke up then to say, “No commonalities, Sheriff. We don’t have a clue how he’s choosing his victims, how he’s hunting them, or how often he needs to kill. Warning people that a killer is on the loose when you can’t also tell them how to protect themselves is only going to lead to panic.” He shrugged. “Chances are, your people here are already doing what they can. Locking their doors, bringing outside dogs in at night, sleeping with shotguns within reach. They would have started taking steps yesterday morning, when word of the first victim got around. By last night, after we had a second victim, I’m betting the whole town was on alert.”
“True enough.” Duncan looked at him curiously. “You’re from a small town?”
“No. But people are pretty much the same all over.”
Duncan nodded, then said, “Well, since I’m sure I’d only cramp your style by hanging around, I’ll head back to the office.” He held up a hand when Miranda would have spoken, and said with a rueful smile, “No need to be polite about it; we both know it’s the truth. Since the ID on the male victim marks him as an out-of-towner, I’ll have my people ask around, show his mug shot, see if we turn up anybody who saw him. But I’m guessing all we’ll turn up is zip. His body was dumped here, like you figured. Chances are he never walked here on his own two feet.
“As for the female victim, if she turns out to be this Taryn Holder from Knoxville, it would seem like she was dumped here as well. Why here I don’t know, and what that shooter yesterday has to do with either I also don’t know. Honestly, I’m hoping he was just passing through, happened to see what was going on, and got crazy stupid enough to take a couple of shots at cops.”
Quentin murmured, “Could be.”
“Yeah, well. We all know that isn’t likely. But if it turns out that neither of the victims is local, that sniper is pretty much your problem—unless he decides to keep on shooting at people. Especially if he’s your serial killer. We aren’t equipped to even start to hunt for a serial killer, like I told you. But if there’s anything me or my deputies can do for you, let us know. If you need another warm body or two, for research or knocking on doors or filing paperwork, whatever, say the word. Until then, we’ll go about our usual business and try to stay out of your way.”
“Thanks, Des,” Miranda said, matter-of-fact. “We’ll keep you informed of any progress we might make.”
“If it concerns my county and this town, I expect you to,” he said, an unexpected trace of steel entering his drawl. Then he smiled again. “Otherwise, I’m not all that nosy. You don’t have to send these files back; Bobbie made copies for you. Good hunting.”
Quentin gazed after the sheriff for a moment, then said rather absently, “I like him.”
“You like anybody who gets out of your way,” Miranda noted.
“It’s a lot less trouble when they do.” Quentin drew a breath. “Okay, if nobody else will say it, I will. If the sheriff’s industrious young deputy is right about the I.D. of our female victim, we could have another connection to another prior case.”
“You’re stretching, don’t you think?” DeMarco said, but not as if he really believed that.
“Am I? What’s the good of being psychic if we can’t take an unexpected fact and make an intuitive leap or two?”
“Especially,” Miranda said, “when we haven’t caught a single break in this case so far.”
“I’m not arguing,” DeMarco said. “Speculation tends to consist mostly of intuitive leaps, anyway, and we do plenty of speculating.”
Hollis said, “You noticed that, huh?”
“It sort of sticks out.”
When Hollis looked at Miranda with lifted brows, she smiled faintly and said, “It’s his military background. Every ex-military agent we have is the same. Just a little bit uncomfortable with speculation.”
“I didn’t say I was uncomfortable,” DeMarco retorted. “But defining a thing is important, that’s all. And, so far, what we have here is speculation.”
Quentin said, “Okay, then let’s speculate. We know David Vaughan, aka Brian Seymour—look, I’m just going to hyphenate the names for convenience, okay? We know Vaughan-Seymour was involved with the church in North Carolina, definitely on Samuel’s payroll and maybe someone else’s. On our side, of those of us here, Reese, Hollis, and I were active in the investigation. Now we may have a connection between the second victim here and The Lodge, where, a year ago, Diana and I were involved in what became an official investigation of a new murder and a lot of old ones.”
Slowly, Diana said, “That makes you the common denominator, Quentin.”
“So far.” He was looking steadily at Miranda. “But we haven’t tried to tie any of the six previous victims to old cases of ours, have we?”
“No,” she replied. “There was nothing in the profile, no hint we should have been looking for a connection to us or to past cases. So we had no reason at all to go in that direction.”
“I’d say we have a reason now.”
Hollis nodded and said, “Let’s suppose for a minute. Suppose we do find that the other victims can be tied, however tenuously, to previous cases. Not only cases Quentin worked on, but others too. Is that the key here, or at least something we can use to break open this case? Are we looking at a serial killer who just found a nifty new way of choosing his victims? A more than usually twisted version of a copycat?”
“No copycat as far as the actual murders go. The M.O. is different,” DeMarco pointed out. “No victims tied to Samuel’s church showed signs of the sort of torture and mangling found on Vaughan-Seymour’s body.”
Half under her breath, Hollis said, “No, they showed signs of an even creepier sort of torture.”
“The point,” DeMarco said, “is that the victims in this case were killed and tortured in ways completely unlike any previous SCU investigation I’m aware of.”
Quentin said, “Yeah, there was no victim at The Lodge killed or left the way the female victim here was. So Reese is right: no copycat, at least as far as killing the same way, leaving the bodies the same way.”
Hollis said, “But if we find out that every one of the victims does have some kind of tie to a past case, that has to be the way he’s selecting his targets. Right?”
“I’d say so. Which takes us to a whole new level of serial killer.” Miranda was shaking her head. “Because someone able to go to all the trouble of researching the SCU—in itself not an easy thing to do—is not your typical serial killer. To then kill people who can be tied in some way to cases or places where we investigated, choosing them for that reason only… That’s not about fulfilling his need to kill, the motive that drives virtually all serial killers. That’s personal. That’s a message. It’s about us.”
Grim, Quentin said, “We’re back to this enemy of Bishop’s?”
“Maybe. An enemy of the SCU.” Miranda shook her head again. “We’re getting way ahead of ourselves. These two victims make for a hell of a coincidence, I’ll grant you—but they could be just that. Until we check out the other six victims and see if there are any ties to past SCU investigations, we’re wasting our time speculating.”
“So,”
Quentin said, “we go back into all the files.” She nodded. “There are five of us; we’ll each take a victim’s file and start digging, and we’ll hand off the files until each of us has the chance to study every one of them. All the information we have so far is in our own secure database; after we go through that, we start reaching out to the individual law-enforcement agencies and cops who worked on each of the murders. Maybe they know something that didn’t get shared at the time. Maybe there are other seemingly unimportant notes jotted down in every one of the files.”
Hollis had to ask. “And if that’s what we find?”
“Then,” Miranda said, “we have a completely different investigation on our hands.”
* Chill of Fear
Seven
Haven
THE BOY WAS JUST BEGINNING to toss and turn in his bed, muffled little sobs escaping him, when Maggie Garrett got her hands on him. Almost at once, he stilled, quieted.
Sitting on the side of his bed, Maggie kept her hands on him. Her head was bowed, eyes closed.
Ruby Campbell watched silently from the doorway, her tiny poodle, Lexie, in her arms. It was a scene Ruby had witnessed many times since she and Cody had come here weeks before, but it still fascinated her to watch the shadows of emotions flit across Maggie’s face, the pain and fear and grief.
Because they weren’t Maggie’s emotions but Cody’s. She absorbed them, took into herself all the horrible memories and fears that tormented the little boy, and gave of her own healing energy to make him whole again. So he could sleep for the rest of tonight and maybe smile tomorrow.
Ruby knew this was helping Cody, because it was helping her. Helping her to accept that her father was gone and that her mother, back in Grace, at the church, was only the physical shell of the person she had once been.* A smiling, pleasant shell with no memory, as far as anyone could tell, that she had once loved a daughter named Ruby.
It was still very hard, accepting that. But Maggie helped. And Ruby was more grateful than she had words to express. Because it didn’t hurt quite so much now. Because she was with people who accepted and understood what she could do, people who cared about her. And because she felt safe here, safe in a way she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
