Autumn Secrets (Seasons Pass Book 4)

by Susan C. Muller

  He’d stopped at a drive-thru for some chicken fried rice, but he set it on the counter and headed for the shower. The hot water pouring over his head helped wash the day away. When he came out, Sweet Pea was ready for her dinner and a game of tug.

  His own dinner was cold by the time he got around to it, but he ate it without tasting a thing.

  By ten thirty, he and Sweet Pea were curled up in bed. He’d watched enough of the news to realize Lincoln Montgomery was a master bullshitter. He sidestepped every question like an intricate tango, giving answers but no real information.

  He was working with the HPD in an advisory capacity only.

  This was an extremely complex case. Don’t expect any quick answers.

  It could be months before the victims were identified, if ever.

  The HPD was working diligently to find the monster who committed these heinous acts.

  The resources of the FBI were at the disposal of the investigating detectives.

  It might be some time before they knew if these cases were connected.

  Everyone should be patient and let HPD do its work.

  Wow, if he’d told the news media to wait for answers, they’d have boiled him alive, yet they loved Montgomery and ate up every word he said.

  Noah didn’t care. It got the vultures off his back for a while, anyway. Only one thing worried him. In one shot, he saw an old red Sentra, faded to pink, parked among the news vans. Its owner stood apart from the Botoxed, fake-tanned, hair-sprayed news lightweights.

  R. J. Perry from the Houston Chronicle. Gray Don King hair and more wrinkles than a shirt left in the dryer overnight. He wouldn’t take hot air for an answer. He’d keep after the story when everyone else had moved on to the latest Hollywood divorce.

  Noah set him on the trail of a good story once, then stepped back and let the veteran newsman do his work. In return, Perry kept his name out of the paper. That didn’t mean they were friends. Or that he trusted the man.

  If Perry thought that one encounter entitled him to special treatment, he was dead wrong.

  Noah shifted restlessly, waking Sweet Pea. Thoughts of that damn dogged reporter pricked at his conscious. Perry might be a pain in the ass, but he never quit until he had his answers.

  Could Noah say the same for himself? Had he once let go of a case without putting up enough of a fight?

  Was it too late now to make it right?

  God knows, he’d carried the weight of it for the last ten years.

  Noah had worked with Doc M often enough to know he’d be at the morgue early, no matter how late he worked the night before.

  At 7:00 a.m., the office wouldn’t be open yet, and the front door locked tight. He drove Lola around back to a door he knew the M.E. used. The sight of Doc’s Carroll Shelby Cobra parked near the inconspicuous entry made Noah smile.

  How could someone who dealt in death every day be a daredevil in his personal life?

  The cherry-red car with the white racing stripe screamed speed. The guy was going to end up on his own table one of these days, but damn, he’d have fun until then.

  One thing didn’t make Noah smile. Parked next to the Cobra was a canary yellow VW bug he’d noticed at the crime scene which probably belonged to Doc’s lab tech. Next to that was the now not-so-shiny black SUV with government plates.

  Damn. How early did a guy have to get up to beat that Feebie into the office?

  Inside, Montgomery stood with his back to the door. He wore a disposable paper lab coat over wrinkled slacks and held a clipboard in one hand. When he turned, Noah spotted a heavy beard-shadow.

  The Fed hadn’t beaten him into the office. He’d been here all night.

  Doc M glanced up. His bloodshot eyes had bags big enough to store a week’s worth of laundry. “Ah, Detective. Perfect timing. We were wrapping up here. Lincoln has agreed to type up his notes and send them to you. Isn’t that right?”

  Lincoln? Were they BFFs now?

  The agent tapped his pen on the clipboard. “Absolutely, Milo. I’ll try to get these over to Noah’s office in the next hour or so.”

  What the fuck? Milo? He’d worked with the doc for several years now and he didn’t even know the man had a first name.

  Montgomery immediately started listing the salient points. “As a quick recap, we found a total of eleven bodies in the vacant field plus one in the empty building. Six are recent and six have been in the ground perhaps as long as ten years, although it could take months to narrow that down. Using visual examination of the fresher bodies and bone structure for the older ones, we know one woman was of Asian descent and three were black. Of the eight that are left, we know one was Hispanic and two were white. That leaves five unknown.”

  Yeah, yeah. I can do the math. Get on with it.

  “Bone structure alone can’t distinguish between white and Hispanic.”

  Another fact I already knew.

  “But we believe at least two of those were white due to hair color. I’ve managed what I consider a fairly accurate estimate of each woman’s age, height, weight, and any distinguishing marks still visible. I’ve assigned an approximate date of death to the fresher bodies. They range from one year to one month.”

  “He’s killing one every other month.” Now they were getting somewhere. A pattern always helped.

  Doc M peeled off his gloves and nodded to his assistant to take away the body he’d just finished. “Not necessarily. A couple of the dates were close together and there were large gaps between others.”

  There went his first solid lead. “Is there anything you can tell me that might help?”

  The doc’s tired eyes lit up in anger. “My job is to give you facts. Your job is to interpret them.”

  Noah forced out a calming breath. The doc was exhausted or he wouldn’t have snapped that way.

  “If I may,” Lincoln Montgomery spoke up. “All of the women were young, between seventeen and twenty-six, and of slight stature.”

  Less weight to lug across a vacant field in the dead of night.

  “They were all manually strangled with great force.”

  An indication all were killed by the same hand, but not proof.

  “Impossible to tell on the earlier victims, but the later ones show signs of forced sexual intercourse. However, no hair, semen, or trace evidence can be found.”

  Like Jansen said, lack of evidence is not evidence.

  “Most had broken wrists or displayed signs of restraints.”

  Most, but not all.

  “They all had shoulder length or longer hair.”

  Easier to grab hold of. Still nothing definitive he could take to the chief.

  “None had food in their stomachs.”

  Whoa. There was something he could latch onto. Was the guy keeping them alive for at least a day?

  “I’ve got something for you, Doc.” Noah laid a folder on the counter. He’d been carrying it around since the first body was uncovered, but it had weighed on his mind much longer than that. “The dental records of a young female who went missing ten years ago.”

  Doc looked surprised, and not much caught the old goat unaware. “You’ve already been into the office?”

  “No, this is a copy. I had it at home.” He held his breath, waiting, but Doc didn’t ask any questions.

  Montgomery glanced up from his clipboard. “Leave that here and once we’ve made impressions and given them time to set, I’ll send them off to a forensic dentist. Don’t expect results anytime soon.”

  The delay would be hell for those sitting at home waiting, hoping.

  He chose to go with his first lie of the day. “I understand. After all these years, what difference does a few more days make?”

  Traffic between the morgue on OST and headquarters downtown on Travis Street was still morning rush-hour heavy. Noah considered cursing at the idiots who blocked intersections, causing gridlock, but really, what was the use?

  It would raise his blood pressure, but fail to get him
to work any quicker.

  He turned up the radio, ready to sing along, when Paige Reimer’s new single came on. For a moment, he pictured her naked, laughing and eating his share of the jelly beans. Then he pictured Conner’s face as he stood over her stalker’s dead body. The man she’d failed to mention had sent her threatening letters until it was too late.

  Much as he missed Betsy, he’d rather be alone than with someone he couldn’t trust.

  Conner was already at his desk when he reached the squad room. How early did he have to come in to beat that guy?

  “How was the morgue this bright and shiny morning?” Conner slid a cardboard cup of Starbucks finest his direction.

  Was that a coincidence or had his partner learned his secret? He never ate or drank anything before a trip to the morgue. Throw up one time and the doc never let you forget it.

  Hell, it was more than that, but that was a good enough reason.

  “Doc M and our friendly, neighborhood Fed stayed up all night organizing, comparing, assigning numbers to the victims. Montgomery promised to email me the results within the hour. So far, the information is sketchy. Only what he could learn with a quick glance. Most of what they found, we already knew. They fall into two time periods. Ten years ago and within the last year. The doc promised to work over the weekend and have more detailed information for us by early next week.”

  Maybe the file I gave him will help. Maybe it won’t. Either way, no need to mention it. That would only cause questions he didn’t want to answer.

  “Anything to show they were done by the same perp?” Conner had his memo pad out, ready to take notes.

  Yep, if he’d told his partner about the file, it would be there in writing for anyone to read. He ticked off items on his fingers. “They were all manually strangled, young, slight build, long hair, but different ethnicities. Some in each group showed signs of sexual assault and the use of some type of restraint.”

  Conner sucked on his upper lip and put on what Noah called his thinking face. “Nothing to prove or disprove they’re related.”

  Wait till he heard the next item. “Only enough left of the most recent ones to know for sure, but they had empty stomachs.”

  Sparks of interest showed in Conner’s eyes. He knew that would get his partner’s attention. “Hard to keep someone around even for a couple of hours in a suburban neighborhood. He liked that area near the ship channel for disposal. Maybe he likes it for other reasons, also. Did we ever find out who owned that land?”

  They both twisted their heads toward the other side of the aisle and yelled in unison. “Earl?”

  A smooth, mellow voice floated from behind them. “Back here, Hoss. You don’t have to yell. What do you need now?”

  Noah swung his chair around. That damn Earl walked on cat’s feet. He could sneak up on you anytime. “You ever figure out who owned that lot where the bodies were found?”

  “Yes and no. A corporation that’s owned by another corporation that sold part of it to a different corporation. Check your email. It’s in there.”

  Conner scrolled down his messages and until he found the right one and sent it to the printer. Meanwhile, Noah kept up the questions, trying to get a foothold, find a starting place on the case.

  “And the abandoned apartment building?”

  “Harris County. Foreclosed on by a bank that let it go for back taxes.”

  He knew better than to expect the perp would actually own the land he used as a killing field. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t held out hope. “Any names match up on the two properties?”

  “No names at all. Not a human to be found. Only corporations. Like three octopi in a deep sea ménage a trois. An untraceable tangle of tentacles. ”

  Oh lord. That blow to the noggin had turned level-headed Earl into a poet.

  “Who writes the checks? Pays the taxes?” At least Conner hadn’t gone goofy on him. Still down to earth.

  “Well, no one on the apartment building, that’s why the county inherited it. A property management company for the empty lot.”

  Noah pulled a quarter from his pocket. “Flip to see who drives out to the management company and who stays here and works the computer?”

  Conner retrieved the print-out with the company name and address. “You’ve already been to the morgue. I’ll visit,” he glanced at the paper in his hand, “Trusty Property Management, Inc. Although any business with Trusty in its name sends my Spidey senses tingling.”

  “Somewhat better than Honest, but worse than Mother’s.” Noah put his feet up on his desk. If Conner wanted to face an uncooperative business owner, he was welcome to it.

  Earl parked a hip on Conner’s desk. “Yep, never stop at anyplace called Mom’s or Mother’s or Aunt Anybody’s. Got so sick at one I was throwing up meals I hadn’t eaten yet. They all ought to be named Tricky’s or Shifty’s. Give us a little truth in advertising.”

  Noah bit back a laugh. When had Earl gotten so cynical? “What if it’s named after some guy: Bob or Mel or Dickie?”

  “Then you can put money there’s no one by that name even eating in the joint.”

  This time he didn’t even try to hold back his chuckle. Why should he? When was the last time he’d had a full-out belly laugh?

  That’s what was wrong with him these days. He was too uptight, humorless. A smile or a joke wasn’t a sign you didn’t take a case seriously. It meant you were dealing with death and devastation the best way you knew how.

  And this case would take every ounce of coping skills he’d learned in twelve years on the force.

  Conner looked over Earl’s head and rolled his eyes Noah’s direction. “You guys can discuss naming rights the rest of the day. I’m going to see if Mr. Trusty, Inc. will untangle your octopus for me. Other than this, there’s not a thing we can do until Doc M sends us some DNA or fingerprint analysis or forensics finds us some type of clue we can work with. Once we have that, we won’t have time to eat, sleep, or pick our nose until this thing is solved. It’s already Friday. I suggest we take the weekend off. Hit the ground running on Monday. What do you say?”

  Noah’s backbone stiffened at the idea of relaxing while some creep was out there killing women. What if the scumbag worked during the week and cruised around on weekends looking for his next victim while he sat home watching a football game? What if he picked tomorrow to strike again?

  They didn’t know.

  That’s right. They didn’t. Conner had a point. They could sit in the office all day Saturday and Sunday, and what good would it do them? They had nowhere to look and nothing constructive to do. Not until Crime Scene or the doc gave them some data to analyze.

  Meanwhile, he could spend a couple of hours on the computer and see what he could dig up on Tom Meyers’ past cases.

  Then he could put the white-haired lawyer’s problems out of his mind and concentrate on capturing the guy running around town strangling young women.

  He tipped his head toward his partner. “I say you’re right. Spend the weekend with Jeannie and Betsy. Forget this case for a couple of days. Until then, I’ll call the county. Find out which bank foreclosed on the apartment. You work on the vacant lot and Earl’s dancing octopi. If the management company is uncooperative, turn ‘em into sushi.”

  The slight glimpse he’d caught of the old Noah put Conner in a better mood than he should have been considering where he was going. What was the likelihood he’d even find this company, much less they’d be cooperative?

  Earl had dug up an address but couldn’t come up with a phone number. Siri could find the street, but the block number confused her. This was going to be a fun day.

  He took his own car instead of checking one out at the motor pool. In addition to a working air conditioner, his smelled better—part baby power, part upholstery shampoo. Betsy had thrown up on the back seat last week.

  Investigating homicides with a car seat in the back felt wrong, but those things were too hard to get in and out to bother r
emoving it.

  He took the Gulf Freeway toward Galveston until Siri instructed him to follow a back road several miles past Pearland. The farther he drove, the less confident he felt about finding a professional management company hidden among welding shops, boat storage facilities, and the occasional field of cattle.

  His heart gave an extra skip and jump at the sight of the field. Would he ever be able to pass an expanse of open land without wondering what lay hidden a few feet below the soil?

  The road narrowed and a one-car bridge crossed a stream the size of his driveway with barely enough water to wet his ankles. The street numbers, which had been getting bigger, now grew smaller and East appeared before the name.

  Now what?

  Siri didn’t say anything about turning around so he continued for another three miles when the street numbers jumped a thousand, skipping the number he was looking for.

  He stopped in the middle of the road and looked around. On the left, behind a gas station he might need to use if he planned to drive much longer, a dirt road wound behind a patch of pecan trees.

  Siri was unhelpfully silent.

  The station owner shot him a look that would burn through steel when he made a big U-turn around the gas pumps without stopping to buy anything. Conner plastered on a don’t-mind-me-I’m-just-lost smile and waved to the man before easing onto the dirt road.

  Maybe he’d stop on the way back and buy ten gallons of gas and a bag of pig skins. He hadn’t had any of those since Jeannie got pregnant. She claimed the smell made her nauseous.

  Behind the grove of trees, a two-story frame house with a sagging veranda sat half a mile off the road. A hand-lettered sign in front read: Bed and Breakfast, Notary, Pecans, Fresh eggs.

  The pecans were the only thing Conner considered a viable option from the dilapidated building.

  He stepped out of the car in time to be assaulted by an attack rooster.

  The fowl squawked and pecked at his shin. He tried hopping from one foot to the other, but the feathery beast was too fast for him, ripping his pants and drawing blood.

  “You leave George Clooney alone.” The screen door slammed and a heavy-set woman in shorts and a tank top shook her finger at him. Smoke from the cigarette dangling between her lips obscured her face. “Don’t you even think about kicking him. He’ll take your foot off.”