by A J Rivers
"That's a little strange," he says.
"Who has a big feature for the one-year anniversary of a serial killer's arrest?" I ask.
He shakes his head, and we head back toward Feathered Nest.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nicolas is the only officer still at the cabin when we get back. He's sitting on the front porch, sipping from a steaming cup.
“Don't worry, it didn't come from the teapot,” he says when he sees my expression as I walk toward him. “I made some coffee.”
“Is there more?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says.
Without another word, I walk past him into the cabin.
“Did you find anything?” I ask as he follows me into the kitchen.
I've already made my way through most of one mug of coffee and have my sights on a second. It feels like it’s been an eternity since the cup from the bakery this morning.
“No. Like I said, it doesn't look like anything else was touched or disturbed. But I did think of something. When you mentioned spice, I knew I'd heard it. It was standing out to me for some reason, but I couldn't remember. Then it just snapped into my head. Before you stayed here, there was a man who was here for just a short while. He didn't even stay for the entire time he had the cabin rented.”
“Clancy mentioned that to me,” I tell him. “He was here about six months before I came and just left. He didn't say anything or even turn out the lights.”
“Exactly. He brought most of his stuff with him, but there were a few things left, and so Clancy came to turn them in. He was convinced the guy would come back and say we'd stolen his property. I remember because I was the one who took the inventory and put it in storage,” Nicolas tells me.
“I thought Clancy said he didn't leave anything. It looked like he just changed his mind and rolled out,” I say.
“Clancy usually comes by if people forget things in the cabins. In this case, it really wasn’t much. Probably slipped his mind. It's not like there were clothes and effects draped all over the cabin. There were only a couple of things left. A little bit of change, a loose button. But the one that I just thought of was a pendant. Like a dog tag, almost. It was under the sofa with its chain. It was broken like it got caught on something and snapped. The man must not have noticed when it fell off,” he said.
“That's happened to me before,” I nod. “I've had necklaces just snap and slide down my shirt without me having any idea what was wrong. What made you think of that?”
“It didn't have his name on it like I would expect to see it. I guess the only way to describe it is like it was a novelty necklace? Like something my sister had at her bachelorette party.”
“What did it say?” I asked.
“Call Spice,” Nicolas tells me.
“Was there anything on the other side?”
“I honestly can't remember. I want to say there was, but nothing big. Like a trademark or imprint,” he says. “Anyway, I don't know why he had that, but that's what I thought of when you said that.”
“Do you still have that tag?” I asked.
“It's probably still in storage at the station,” he tells me. “The man never came back for anything, and as far as I know, we didn't get rid of it.”
“Would I be able to see it?”
“I don't see why not. It's been there for almost two years. If he was going to come back for it, I reckon he already would have. I'll look for it at the station and bring it by when I have some time.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Oh, do you remember his name?”
Nicolas shakes his head. “No. I didn't have any occasion to meet him or anything. To be honest, the only time I actually knew he was here was when he was already gone, and Clancy brought by his stuff. But you should ask Clancy. He would be the one to remember if anybody does.”
“I will,” I say.
He starts toward the door, then stops and turns toward me again.
“You did get a hotel room, didn't you?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “I didn't.”
“You need to do that,” he says.
“We are,” Sam says. I start to protest, but he shakes his head. “Emma, no. I can see it on your face, and I'm telling you it's not happening. We're not staying here tonight. And you're not staying here while I'm gone.”
"Gone?" Nicolas asks.
"I have to go back to Sherwood tomorrow," Sam explains. "I've taken all the time away as I can. But I'm not going to be able to go and focus on anything if I think you're here alone after this happened.”
“I'll call Mirna,” I relent.
There's no point in arguing with him. Besides, it's probably for the better. This guy's already proven he's willing to get up close and personal with me. I don't think he'll hurt me in a way that's so simple and underwhelming. He would do something much bigger, like blow me up on a train. But that's no reason to risk it.
Satisfied by my agreement to go to the hotel, Nicolas makes his way out of the cabin again. I'm reaching for my phone when it makes a sound to alert me to a new message. I don't recognize the number, and I'm surprised when I open the message.
Hey, Emma. This is Andrea. I remembered something you might be interested in seeing.
Bouncing bubbles on the screen tell me she's adding something, and an instant later, a video attachment shows up.
Keely thought it was so glamorous I was being interviewed, she recorded it without him knowing. You can't see a lot, but you can hear it.
Sam and I sit on the couch and hold the phone between us. I press the play button, and the screen fills with an image of Andrea behind the bar. It's obviously night, and the lighting isn't great, but she's easily recognizable in the glow of the neon lights above her head. There's the shape of a man in front of her, but his back is to the camera. Just as she described, he's tall, and it looks like he might have dark hair, but that doesn't really narrow down the population by much.
“Can you state your name, please?” the man asks.
“Andrea Layne,” Andrea answers.
"It's good to meet you, Andrea," he says in a low, smooth voice. It's polished and rehearsed enough to be a professional reporter, but something still strikes me as odd about him showing up again. “Thank you for agreeing to speak with me today. As I said, I’m Fisher, and I’m working on a piece about the events in Feathered Nest.”
“Can I get you a drink?” Andrea asks, always on duty.
“No, thank you,” he says. “If we can just get started.”
“Go ahead,” she nods. “What do you want to know?”
“Just weeks ago, it was revealed the woman calling herself Emma Monroe and purporting to be considering moving into Feathered Nest was actually Emma Griffin, an undercover FBI agent assigned to work on the case. She was the one who eventually caught Jake Logan.”
“Yes,” Andrea says.
“And you and Jake were close,” he says.
Andrea squirms slightly, busying her hands by pouring herself a glass of water from the soda fountain.
“We knew each other, yes. He came to visit me at work.”
“Were you ever an item?”
“I thought this interview is supposed to be about Emma Griffin’s case,” she says. “What does my friendship with Jake Logan have to do with that? Practically everybody around here knew Jake.”
“I'm just trying to get a view of what happened. I'm really interested in my piece standing apart from everybody else's. Everyone else is telling the same story, so a fresh perspective could be very powerful. Speaking of perspective, how would you describe Agent Griffin's state of mind when she was here?” he asks.
“Her state of mind?” Andrea asks. “I'm not sure I know what you mean.”
“Did she seem in control? Like she was thinking clearly and could make good choices? Was she impulsive?”
“I really didn't spend much time with her while she was here.”
“Were you aware that Agent Griffin's boyfriend was taken less than a
year before she was given that assignment?”
“No, I didn't know that,” Andrea says. “That must have been really hard on her.”
“Do you think it clouded her mind?” the man asks. “Now that you know what was going on, can you see any behaviors you might link to that?”
“I really don't know,” Andrea says. “She really just seemed like a normal person to me.”
The clip ends, and I feel like there's no breath in my lungs. I turn to Sam to see if he heard what I did.
"He said Greg was taken,” I say.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Taken,” I repeat. “He specifically says Greg was taken a few months before I was given the undercover assignment. How would he know that?”
“Could this have been the second interview?” Sam asks. “By now news has gone around about Greg reappearing in the way he did. It's obvious he didn't do that to himself. It would be easy to jump to the conclusion that somebody took him.”
“No,” I shake my head. “Think about what the reporter said. Just weeks ago. This is the first interview he did with Andrea. And at the time Greg had been missing for a year, but there was no indication anything was wrong or that there was any foul play. It was strange he was gone, and nobody expected it, but there had been no evidence at all of an abduction. Nothing to that effect has ever been mentioned on the news or discussed by the Bureau. In fact, that was something we all had to agree to.”
“What do you mean agreed to?” Sam asks.
“When it became obvious, he hadn't just walked away for an afternoon, or that he wasn’t taking a weekend to himself, but was actually missing, the Bureau had to take an official stand about it. Just like what happened with my father, there are questions because of his career. Maybe he's missing because he's actually on a work assignment, or maybe he's missing because he was involved in something and had to disappear. The Bureau had to come up with exactly how they were going to broach the topic of him being missing without giving away any sensitive information,” I say.
“What type of sensitive information?”
“The cases he had been working on. Other cases the Bureau was handling. Creagan called a meeting, and we all had to listen to him lecture us on confidentiality and maintaining distance from the situation. It was like he was convinced the media was going to swarm the headquarters, and the integrity of the entire FBI would be compromised. It definitely seemed like he was far more concerned about the ongoing image of the team than finding Greg. Not that I think he didn't care that Greg was missing, but he always thought Greg was a little bit of an odd duck. I guess everybody did. He figured he would just end up wandering back one day, or somebody would stumble on him accidentally, and he would have a perfectly reasonable but somewhat mundane explanation for what happened.”
“But then he didn't,” Sam notes.
“No, he didn't. And we continued to find out together. It was the official stance of the Bureau he was missing, and it had nothing to do with his career. We weren't to discuss or get involved in any form of media unless it was directly approved. After a while, we just had to buckle down and keep believing it because there was nothing else to believe. I wasn't allowed to be a part of the investigation, so Eric kept me as informed about it as he could. He was completely confident Greg would show back up or we would find him.”
“What did you think?” Sam asks.
“I didn't know what to think. But I found it really hard what to believe he would just venture off without telling anyone. But none of us ever said anything to the effect of he was abducted.” I pull the phone closer, so I can try to get a better look at the still image of the man who called himself Fisher. Who is this guy?
Sam and I decide to go back to the hotel and try to get some rest. We are both worn out from the last few days, and I’m not looking forward to him leaving in the morning. I want to savor a little more time with him, knowing we will both be facing difficult things without each other. But no matter how much I try, I can't get my brain to quiet down. I lay there beside Sam, staring at the ceiling and willing myself to go to sleep. Everything keeps pumping through my brain, common questions, and their confusing answers. New questions. Ideas. I can't stop thinking about Fisher saying Greg was taken. It stands out and makes me incredibly suspicious.
Finally, my brain shuts down, and I fall asleep. By the time I wake up, several hours have passed, and I feel both better and worse. I hate that feeling. I lay down to rest because I'm exhausted and somehow end up waking with less energy and feeling more dragged down to earth. Climbing out of bed, I step in the shower and stand under the pelting water until it jostles my brain awake. Sam is up when I get out of the shower.
“What next?” he asks. “Where do you want to go?”
“We need to talk to Legends and Mayfield about the train bomb,” I tell him. “We haven't even checked in with them since we left, and they need to know there's another element to the investigation now. The two jurisdictions are going to have to decide if they'll cooperate with each other or not.”
“I would love to see Chief LaRoche and Detective Legends trying to cooperate with each other,” Sam chuckles. “That's never going to happen.”
“Probably not. But it would be really funny to see them try. Let's call him and see if there have been any further developments and fill them in on what's going on here,” I say.
He agrees, and we pull up a video chat to speak to the detectives handling the murders and bomb threat from the train. Mayfield looks happy to see us like he always does, but there's a brooding look in Detective Legend’s eyes that tells me absence hasn't made his heart grow any fonder when it comes to his perception of me.
“Emma, Sam,” Mayfield starts. “It's good to see you two.”
“Good to see you, too,” I say. “How's the investigation? Anything new since we've been gone?”
“Are you askin’ whether we've been capable of managin’ our own investigation while you ran off on another whim?” Detective Legends asks. Always the charmer.
“I'm asking exactly what my words said,” I tell him. “Have there been any new developments since Sam and I left yesterday? You apparently haven't been paying attention to the world around you, or you would know I didn't just run off on a whim. There was a murder in Feathered Nest, and it relates directly to what happened on the train.”
“Notes?” Mayfield asks.
“Yes,” I nod. “There was a note pinned to the clothing of the body, and one written in blood on her wall. Similar concept. Baiting me and telling me to catch him. It's obvious the two situations are linked, so I thought you should know what was happening.”
“Thank you,” the young detective says. “We'll get in touch with the local police department there and coordinate our efforts as much as possible.”
“Sounds good. I think you could both benefit from information the other one can provide. I also wanted to let you know Dean Steele has resurfaced. I haven't interacted with him, but it seems he's been sniffing around outside Feathered Nest. If you're still interested in discussing the situation with him, I suggest you come here.”
“We won't be doin’ that,” Detective Legends cuts in. “We have more than enough to keep ourselves busy here, and no time to waste.”
“Detective Legends, I hardly think interviewing someone who witnessed at least one of the corpses and engaged with me at several points during the trip is a waste of time, considering what you're trying to do is piece together what happened on that train. Seems to me like he might be an important source of information.”
“Miss Griffin—”
“Agent Griffin,” I correct him, my voice cold.
“Agent Griffin, I thought I made it clear to you I don't need your help doin’ my job,” Detective Legends says. “You've been kept as a consultant out o’ professional courtesy, ‘cause you have direct insider knowledge about the situation. But you could just as easily be interviewed and sent on your way.”
“Detective Legends,
I do not purport to help you do your job,” I say.
“That's a good thing because we wouldn't even compare.”
“You're right about that. But I can't fault you. You just need some more experience, and I'm sure you'll improve.”
Sam nudges me in the hip with his elbow, but I ignore him.
“Is there anything we can do to assist with your investigation there?” Mayfield cuts in, glossing over the tension between the other detective and me.
“No, thank you. But I'll let you know if anything comes up.”
“Will do the same,” he tells me.
We get off the call, and I pull up the video from Andrea again.
“What are you doing?” Sam asks.
“I'm going to send it to Eric and see if there's anything he can do about the lighting. I know Fisher's back is to us, but maybe he can improve the quality in some way so we can get more information from it.”
Sam and I spend the next few hours going over everything again, trying to find connections when we decide to break for dinner. When my phone rings, I pick it up without looking at the screen, assuming it's the delivery driver down in the lobby with our dinner. Instead, it's Nicolas.
“I'm sorry it's taking me so long,” he says. “But I still have the necklace. I can have it for you tomorrow if you like.”
“That would be great. Thank you,” I say.
“Oh, and I talked to Clancy. I happened to run into him and asked about the man who stayed there before you. He said the only reason he remembered the name is because it struck him so strange. Doc Murray. But he said he didn't seem like a doctor, so that must have just been his name.”
“Tell him I said thank you if you run into him again before I do,” I say.
“I will.”
Shaking my head slightly, I turn to Sam. “The man who stayed in the cabin before I rented it went under the name Doc Murray. Think about it. Doc Murray. Murray Doc. Murr-Doc. What do you think of the chances there are six more Murrays at home with names like Sneezy and Dopey and Bashful?”
