Laugh or Death (Lexi Graves Mysteries Book 6)

by Camilla Chafer

  "I began to walk and got tired of central Montgomery so I started heading further and further out and kind of ended up here. This is a nice neighborhood. Do you live here?"

  "Uh, yeah, this is my bungalow," I said, gesturing to the house behind me.

  "Wow, it's so pretty. Very you. I imagined you'd live in something whimsical."

  "You imagined?" I frowned.

  "Well, I feel like a cabin man and I live in a cabin. Except for right now, while I live in a hotel," he said, "but my cabin is where my heart is. I guess... you don't look like a townhouse kind of person. This is you. I like that."

  "Thank you. Barney, stop it," I added as Barney growled and Leo pulled his hand away, standing up. "Sorry, he's not normally such a jerk. He just stole a tray of sausages and I guess he got stomach ache."

  Leo laughed. "What a character. How long have you owned him?"

  "I don't," I replied, pointing to my neighbor's house. "He belongs to my neighbor, but he likes to visit."

  "You're not an animal lover?"

  "I love animals, but I don't have time for one. My job keeps me pretty busy."

  "That's good to know," said Leo, giving me a one-shouldered shrug. He made it seem casual, but I knew he could be anything but, given how angry he became the last time I saw him. "Listen, I feel I should apologize for the other day. I didn't mean to get so angry. I was an ass and I shouldn't have taken it out on you. I just get so low, you know, and I miss Nancy, and all I can think about is her alone and not knowing the way home... I sincerely apologize. Forgive me?"

  "There's nothing to be sorry for," I assured him. "It's part of the job and we know how frustrating it can be to not have any answers. We're still working the case and we have new leads."

  "What kind of new leads?"

  "I'd rather tell you about it when I know something solid. I don't want to give you anymore false hope."

  "I understand, but I'd really like to know. It would mean a lot to me to be able to read the case file. Perhaps I'd see something you missed?"

  "That's against company policy, we do not allow clients to read case files. I'm sorry. Besides, they're at the office."

  "Maybe we could get together later. Put our heads together over dinner?"

  "That's a nice offer, but I'm leaving town tonight."

  "The leads?"

  "The leads," I confirmed.

  "I hope you've got someone going with you? Your boss slash boyfriend? Does he live here too? I can't imagine him as a bungalow man."

  "No, he has a house elsewhere."

  "So it's just you? I hope this is as nice a neighborhood as it looks?"

  "It is, and I have first class security," I assured him as Barney pressed himself against my legs. "And that doesn't include this lump of a guard dog."

  "Well, that is good to know. I guess I better get on with my walk and leave you to follow your leads. You'll keep me updated?"

  "Of course."

  "And sorry, again. I really appreciate you doing this. I hope you find Nancy soon."

  "Me too," I agreed, feeling sad that I would probably be giving him very bad news in the next few days. It was bad enough that the poor guy had been searching for Nancy for months. Soon, I would have to tell him he was searching for a ghost. Nancy didn't exist and he'd been taken for a ride. As I waved goodbye to Leo, he took off down the street, and I had to wonder about fake Nancy's motivation for having a relationship with Leo. Was it for companionship? Or was she working some unknown end game that finally came to fruition?

  I nudged Barney's belly with my knee and he took off for home. I watched him from the mailbox as he nudged his way through the front door before disappearing inside. Perhaps Nancy was exposed somehow, I decided. Perhaps her angle on Leo wasn't working out and she had to make a run for it. Leo didn't report anything missing or reveal any serious misgivings about the nature of their relationship. Of course, it could have been a lot more simple than that. Even criminals needed affection. Maybe she fell for Leo and someone else spooked her? Someone from her dark past?

  I shook my head as I rounded the bungalow and stepped through the kitchen door, securing it behind me. After sweeping up the debris left over from Barney's feast and putting it into the trash can, I got the long, cold glass of water I sought before being distracted. Taking my glass into the living room, I picked up my notepad and added a few more notes. Most of it was obviously conjecture, but brainstorming that way could help me work out what happened. It would certainly help me when I questioned people from fake Nancy's past, and while picking Maddox's brain, I decided, as I checked my watch. Grabbing my cell phone, I called him, telling him I was on my way. I stuffed my notepad and cell phone into my purse, grabbed my car keys, locked up and headed for the FBI office.

  ~

  Maddox's office was a lot nicer than his thirty-year-old allocated desk at MPD. This office was bright and spacious with equipment and furniture that all looked like it had been purchased within the last few years. Indoor plants thrived in large tubs. I had a sneaking suspicion the entire smartly-dressed staff shopped for their suits together, but didn't mention it. I just carried on, looking fabulous, as I took the chair Maddox offered me in the small conference room.

  "How's it going?" he asked, landing a coffee in front of me.

  "In general, okay," I told him, noticing he served the coffee just the way I liked it... just like Leo did when he handed me a cup. How did Leo know what my favorite coffee was? I wondered. "If we're talking cases, I'm definitely thinking less missing person and more identity theft now."

  "How come?"

  I explained my recent discovery of Nancy being dead and Maddox raised his eyebrows.

  "Interesting."

  "Yeah, or weird."

  "What did your client say?"

  "I haven't told him yet. Solomon and I are heading up to Greenacre later to check out a few leads. Once we have some answers, I guess it's time to break the bad news."

  "Poor guy."

  "You're telling me. Imagine finding out you know nothing about the most important person in your life."

  "I can't imagine."

  "I just hope she didn't rip him off. I don't want to explain that he needs to check everything he owns, then remind him to settle his account."

  "You know, until you know what is going on with your case, this missing woman is still missing."

  "Yeah, I guess; but who the hell is she?"

  "Take a look at these and tell me what you think." Maddox opened his file and pulled out a sheaf of photos.

  "What am I looking at?" I asked, picking up the first photo. She was an attractive white woman with long, blonde hair.

  "This is my murdered and recovered section."

  I dropped the photo. "Thanks for the warning."

  "It's not like I handed you a severed finger!"

  My jaw dropped. "Is that what happened to her?"

  "No. She was strangled ten years ago. We... I... think she's the first of a series of murders."

  "Oh, okay." I picked the photo up again, then worked my way through the next seven. Six were white women and two were black. All but one were in their mid to late twenties and the eighth was thirty-two. They all had jobs. Teachers, a dentist, a cook, a nurse, a cosmetics rep and a librarian. "Three teachers? Is that an angle?" I asked.

  "We looked into that, but it seems to be a random occurrence. The only common factors we can find were that none of the victims had a partner at the time of their deaths and none had children."

  "Huh. I thought we were looking at missing persons?"

  "They all went missing right before they died, and their bodies turned up within a few hours to a few days of being reported missing. There was no real effort to hide the bodies. The MOs were all strangulation and there's no evidence of sexual trauma or other severe physical assaults. It took several years for these women to come under the umbrella of one case. They were all found in different jurisdictions although the areas were close enough to now believe th
ere was a connection."

  "Did your killer do that deliberately? Dump the women in different jurisdictions?"

  "Yes, we think so. It's not these women I thought you'd be interested in though. It's this stack." Maddox produced another set of photos and slid them over to me. "All these women are still missing."

  "All of them? There must be fifteen here."

  "Fourteen. It's my belief that these women's disappearances are connected to the dead women."

  "How so?"

  "Mostly because of the timeline and locales. I'll admit, it's a little sketchy and maybe not all of the women are connected by this one killer, but I believe some of them definitely are. What worries me is we haven't found their bodies yet."

  "You think they could still be alive?"

  Maddox shook his head. "No. I think the killer got smarter and started covering his tracks."

  "Are any from Montgomery?"

  "No, but this office covers all these locations. The closest victim was from a hundred miles away in Greenacre. She's the last one to go missing, so she's at the bottom of the pile."

  "Nice."

  "No, I didn't mean it like that. I just have them stacked in order from oldest case to newest. Take a look."

  "Thanks." I sipped my coffee as I worked my way slowly through the stack of photos. Like the murdered list, the missing women were all around the same age, with mediocre jobs, and all were without partners or children. Most of them led active, fulfilled lives according to the reports; and no one could find any reason that they would go missing, other than foul play. I was sure there were bigger files on each of these women, but I wasn't here for that. I came to get the basics so we could put our heads together and hopefully, trigger a few brain sparks. "If each woman is connected by the perpetrator, how is he getting around?" I asked.

  "Good question. We thought he could have a mobile job, like a trucker or a sales rep, but the large gaps between disappearances and murders suggest that's not the case. We'd have a wider cluster if it were. Also, even though our twenty-two victims were based in different jurisdictions, it wouldn't be hard for someone to drive to each one and maybe even return that same day. Montgomery is the biggest town closest to their towns."

  "You think we have a serial killer in Montgomery?"

  "I can't say no to that."

  "That's worrying."

  "If it makes you feel better, there are countless active serial killers in the US."

  I pulled a face. "Yes, thank you," I replied sarcastically, "I feel so much better. Gee. Countless serial killers. Yay!"

  Maddox laughed. "And millions of really good people. Don't forget that."

  I turned over to the next photo and kept on reading, gradually feeling more depressed the further I got through the list. How someone could snuff the light out of these women's lives was beyond my imagination. They all appeared nice, normal women, and even if they weren't, no one deserved to be classified as “missing.” I pictured them with friends and family, doing boring, average things with no idea that soon, their dreams would go unfulfilled. It was horrible and sad to know how easily it was for everything to end unexpectedly.

  When Maddox stepped out of the room to fetch me another cup of coffee, I sent a text to Lily. Let's do something amazing, I typed, just because we can.

  I got a reply seconds later. “Okay, but I got to catch a bad guy first.”

  "Me too," I said to myself.

  Tucking the phone away and turning over to the last photo, my breath caught as Maddox's words came back to me: “the closest victim was from a hundred miles away in Greenacre.”

  "Are you okay?" Maddox asked, placing the fresh cup next to me and picking up the empty one. Tossing it into the trashcan in the corner of the room, he said, "You look like you've seen a ghost."

  I picked up the photo of the Greenacre woman, holding it up to him. "This is fake Nancy," I said. "And she's definitely not dead."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Solomon was driving, Maddox called shotgun, and I was in the backseat. For the last half hour, none of us spoke. Lily, however, really committed herself to our text conversation.

  “Are either of them shirtless?” she texted, continuing her hopeful theme that there would be some kind of shirtless dance-off for my honor. The idea didn't thrill me, but I had to admit, I probably wouldn't ask them to stop for several minutes.

  Nope, I replied. Still not talking.

  “Is the atmosphere charged with sexual innuendo?” she asked next.

  No, I typed, but Michael Bublé is playing on the radio. How's the surveillance?

  “Employee is still holed up in the house with his buddy. Meanwhile, I'm out of snacks. I hate them. I love snacks.”

  Let me know what happens.

  “Who cares what happens here? Let me know what happens with you.” She waited five minutes, then texted again, “Anything happening?”

  I slid my phone into my purse and resumed looking at the densely forested landscape rolling past. I wasn't entirely sure who suggested we should all travel together to Greenacre, but it was voiced and decided upon somewhere between my discovery of fake Nancy's photo in Maddox's missing persons file and Solomon’s subsequent arrival to the FBI offices.

  Fake Nancy now had a name, and our case had taken a very unnerving turn.

  I picked up the file Maddox allowed me to take and turned to the photo again, re-reading information that I already committed to memory. Fake Nancy's real name was Peta Hanson and she was a thirty-three-year-old artist and part-time art teacher. She was reported missing six months ago by her family when she failed to return from teaching her night class at the local community college.

  Prior to her disappearance, she made a complaint to the police about several hang-ups, flowers and gifts arriving without any cards. These appeared to have been brushed off as simply a shy secret admirer, and only after Peta insisted that someone was in her car and then in her home, did the police consider it serious enough to pay her a home visit. Without evidence of anything sinister, no investigation ensued and Peta was, again, brushed off. However, when her disappearance was reported, the police took a much more serious interest in her, but by then, it was too late. All this was gleaned from the statement given by her mother.

  "How did Peta's file get to you?" I asked Maddox, breaking the silence at last.

  He turned in his seat. "Some eager new detective read a news report two weeks ago. It mentioned a similar disappearance in a neighboring town that was being linked to other missing women's cases. She did a little digging, discovered I was running point, and emailed it to me."

  "That was smart."

  "I agree. Due to the widespread nature of the victims, I'm relying on detectives like this one to make a connection. There could have been more cases we missed because no one thought they were related yet."

  "You're talking twenty-two women in a ten-year period. If it's the same person, they've been active quite a long time."

  "And getting smarter," Maddox reminded me. "We haven't found all the bodies."

  "Two women-a-year implies that he can control his killing urges," said Solomon. "He's taking his time to plan his next kill, possibly stalking his next victim."

  "Peta is the last case on file, and that was six months ago. If he's sticking to his timeline, he's already looking for his next kill, and has probably identified her," I said, looking at my notes of the disappearances. It was a long and unpleasant list.

  "The only problem is: Peta isn't dead, and she's not exactly missing. It looks like she purposefully became a missing person," said Maddox.

  "Why would she do that? Other than the creepy gifts?"

  "Something spooked her," said Solomon. "She might have made a connection to other victims."

  "Or knew she was the next victim," said Maddox.

  "She'd have to be pretty smart to make a connection before the FBI started collating cases; and something had to tip her off, didn't it?" I asked. "That's if she wasn't the next intende
d victim."

  "That's why we're going to talk to Peta Hanson's family and take a look at her laptop. Maybe she left a clue," Solomon replied.

  "What about the detective? The one who called her case in?" I continued.

  "I'm going to talk to her while you talk to the family," Maddox told me. Solomon glanced over and nodded in agreement.

  "You know, I'm looking at the locations here, and yes, they're all in different jurisdictions, but it’s no more than a day's drive that separates the locations from what I can see," I told them. "We already said if the perpetrator lived close by, he could drive to each location and be back home the same day."

  "That's partly why we linked them."

  "So that means, the killer's home must be somewhere within this circumference," I said, reaching for the map book Solomon stowed in the foot well. I flipped to the correct page, putting a sheet of paper over the top. I made an "x" for every victim's hometown. They didn't follow any particular pattern, which suggested a particular, preferred route; but one thing I did was draw a circle around the outlying ones to contain them all. The dead and missing covered every point of the compass. Staring at the paper, I knew there was more to the locations than that, and finally, it hit me. I stenciled a heavy “X” in the center and passed the sheet forwards. "You know which town is exactly in the center of every one of these cases? Greenacre," I said. My revelation coincided with the first sign for Greenacre, which whizzed past us. "And Peta lived there."

  "And Nancy," said Solomon.

  "And Nancy," I agreed. "And Peta stole Nancy's identity because she knew Nancy was dead and no one would look for her. They could have known each other. That doesn't explain why Leo thinks Peta is Nancy."

  "We can't explain a lot about Leo," Solomon reminded me. "I told you this case stunk."

  "What if Peta killed Nancy to steal her identity? What if Peta is the killer? And this is what she does... steals women’s identities and lives on pretending to be her victims?"

  "Doesn't explain why her family reported her missing," said Maddox.

  I slumped in my seat. "Guess not."

  "Nancy could have been collateral damage. Perhaps Peta was the intended victim and Nancy got in the way."