“You can tell it if you want.”
“Nothing to tell. He’s a boy. Boys suck.”
Vincent laughed. “You got me pegged on that one.”
After a moment, Claire asked, “How are you doing?”
“Just busy,” Vincent said. “Been a rough couple of days here in town.”
“How so?”
Vincent looked at his daughter.
How much should I tell her?
“A few people passed away yesterday,” Vincent said. “Unexpectedly.”
Claire was on the edge of her seat. “Were they murdered?”
He nodded.
“Jesus,” Claire said as she leaned back in her chair.
“Watch the language,” Vincent said, feeling that he was the one responsible for the curse words in her vocabulary.
“Sorry,” Claire said. “That’s insane. Didn’t some other things happen a while ago like that?”
“Yeah. It’s definitely raised some concerns. We’ve managed to keep a lid on everything for now, but it’s a small town. It’s only a matter of time before word gets out.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s my job. It’s what I do for a living.”
No need to tell her any more.
“Do you think you have enough help?” Claire asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s like you said—it’s a small town. That means you have limited resources. Murders, especially multiple ones, require a certain amount of tech and qualified staff to handle that kind of stuff.”
Vincent laughed, impressed. “You’re pretty sharp.”
She shrugged. “I read a lot of Lee Child,” she said.
“Lee Child? Really?”
“I like Jack Reacher. Kind of hot for fictional character…”
Vincent rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m done with this conversation.”
A chuckle from Claire. “Seriously, though,” she said, “you think you have enough resources to find out who’s doing this?”
Vincent, for the first time since everything had started unfolding, thought critically about the resources the town had on hand and debated if it was enough to find the killer tearing through Hollow Green.
After chatting with his daughter, he set her up in the guest room, gave her his credit card to order in some food, and then proceeded to call someone he hadn’t talk to in quite some time.
18
“Special Agent Miranda Stone.”
“This is former detective Edgar Vincent,” Vincent said.
“My, my,” Miranda said. “As I live and breathe…”
“How are you?”
“Good. Busy. You?”
“I’ve been better.”
“Hollow Green been thrown into an uproar again?” She asked with sarcasm.
“Actually,” Vincent said with a sigh, “as a matter of fact, it has.”
A long pause from Miranda. “You’re kidding me,” she finally said.
“Afraid not,” Vincent said. “Two bodies. So far, at least. Both of them killed on Halloween night. And here’s the kicker—my prints were found on both of the bodies.”
Another pause. “Jesus.”
“Language,” Vincent said, forgetting that he was no longer talking to Claire.
“Excuse me?” Miranda asked.
“Oh. Nothing. Never mind. Forgot who I was talking to for a second.”
“That you did. Anyway, you said your prints were found on the bodies?”
“They were. Now the state’s attorney and the chief are gunning for me. You think I did it?” Vincent needed to know which side of the line Miranda was standing on.
“Of course not!” she said without hesitation. “You’re not the type, Vincent. Anyone with a head on their shoulders knows that.”
“Well, I need help,” Vincent said. “Because it’s only a matter of time before I’m in an orange jumpsuit at the rate I’m going.”
Miranda paused. “Maybe I can run some interference for you. Give me a couple of hours, yeah? I’ll make some phone calls.”
“I’d appreciate it. Someone’s planting my prints all over crime scenes, and I’d like to know who.”
“I get it, Vincent. I do. I’ll work fast. Just stay by the phone.”
While Vincent waited for Miranda to call back, he spent the time eating takeout and watching CSI with Claire.
It was the most relaxed he’s felt in a number of days.
“I bought you one week,” Miranda said when she called Vincent back early the next morning, Claire asleep in the guest room and Vincent talking in hushed tones so she wouldn’t hear him.
“How did you do that?” Vincent asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Miranda said. “I have my ways.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “That helps. Now I just need to do a little digging. Figure out who planted my prints.”
“You think there’s any way you could get a copy of the prints your people pulled from the crime scenes?”
“Possibly. I have someone on the inside that’s fighting for me. I’m better she’d be more than willing to try.”
“Good. It would help. I thought I could get some of my people to do a little analysis of it. There’s ways of finding if a print has been planted at a crime scene.”
“Really?” Vincent asked. “I must’ve missed that last conference where that emergence of technology was covered.”
“Trust me,” Miranda said proudly, “I’m with the FBI. We have some fancy little toys at our disposal.”
“I believe you,” Vincent said.
“Get those prints,” Miranda said. “Soon as you can.”
Just then, Vincent heard Claire’s door open. “I’m on it,” he said to Miranda before hanging up the phone.
Claire, in her jammies, approached Vincent with that early-morning squint in her eyes. “Hey, Daddy,” she said.
“Hey, sweetie,” he said.
“It’s so early.”
“I know. The work never stops around here…”
Claire moved to the kitchen. “I thought I could make breakfast before you leave for the day.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet, hon. But I have to go meet someone in a few minutes.”
Claire pursed her lips. “Okay. I understand. Does it have to do with the murders or whatever?”
“Yeah. Unfortunately. The quicker we work it, the quicker we can end it.”
“That’s okay.” Claire turned toward the living room and fished around for the TV remote. “I’m here for a week. I’ll just meet you for lunch.”
Vincent smiled, kissed his daughter on the crown of her head, and made his way to the bedroom to change. Minutes later, in typical and quick guy fashion, Vincent was ready to take on the day.
“I’ll call you in a few,” he said to Claire as he scooped up his car keys. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Claire turned away from the television. “Daddy?” she called out.
Vincent stopped in his tracks.
“Are you sure everything’s okay?” she asked. “I just know you. I know when something’s wrong.”
Vincent grinned and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “We’ll talk tonight,” he said.
Claire smiled suspiciously as her father walked out the door, left, and locked the deadbolt firmly behind him.
“Something’s going on with you, Dad,” she said as she surfed through the channels. “And I’m gonna find out what it is.”
Claire sat there pondering the possible afflictions that were racking her father as Wile E. Coyote ran across the screen.
19
“Got some updates for you,” Brandt said to Vincent over the phone as he drove. “I think you’ll want to hear them.”
“Excellent,” Vincent said, pulling further away from his house. “Meet me at the diner in ten. We’ll make it quick. Make sure that Riley doesn’t have anyone following you. I’m worried he might start getting suspicious of our
meet ups.”
“Got it. I’ll see you in five. How you holding up?”
“Hanging in there. You?”
“Hanging in there.”
“Let’s keep it that way. See you in five.”
Vincent took a breath and hung up. “Okay, boss,” he said to himself. “Let’s go about clearing your name.”
Vincent tossed a few looks over his shoulder as he entered the diner, suspicious of damn near everyone and everything in his path.
Riley has people on the lookout for me.
I’m just glad a few of them are on my side.
He entered the diner. Delores was behind the counter giving him a half-smile as she noticed him. Brandt was seated in the corner, a steaming cup of coffee wafting in her face as he slipped into a chair across from her.
“How’d you sleep?” she asked.
“Not well,” Vincent said. “Only got a couple of hours.”
“Same,” Brandt said with a sigh.
Vincent waited for Delores to fill his cup with coffee, before spotting the same man that had shared the diner with him the night of the murders enter a few seconds after. “So,” he said to Brandt. “What have you got?”
“I talked to Desiree Messenger’s family,” she said. “Turns out she had a non-eventful day—before she was murdered, that is.”
“Nothing about a sour attitude? Someone following her? Anything like that?”
Brandt shook her head. “Both of her parents said she was in a pretty good mood the entire day. She came home, just like Ethan Travis did, but there was no sign or indication that anything was off the entire day. That being said, she was even happier when she came home for off-campus lunch.”
“Hmm,” Vincent said. “Quite the opposite of Ethan’s day.”
“Quite the opposite indeed.”
“Okay,” he said. “So it looks like Ethan Travis was the only one having an off day when he got to the football game.”
“As far as I can tell, yes.”
“And Desiree Messenger’s parents are sure that she wasn’t nervous or on the lookout for anyone? Nothing?”
Brandt shook her head. “Again, no. Everything with her seemed to be on the up-and-up. Ethan had a bad day; Desiree had a good day.”
Vincent sipped his coffee. “What about her whereabouts the time of the murder? It was rather odd that a girl was at her high school in PE gear at five in the morning.”
“Not entirely,” Brandt said. “The girls’ basketball team meets at six a.m. to do drills. Desiree was known to show up at the school an hour earlier to get a few practice rounds in before the other girls showed up. Her parents said she was hoping to get a scholarship to State.”
Vincent’s gaze fell to his coffee.
Another innocent life and countless dreams shattered.
“How did she get in the school?” Vincent asked.
“That’s where it gets interesting,” Brandt said, “because the coach supposedly leaves the door to the gym unlocked the night prior so she can slip in unannounced.”
“Sounds like a serious breach of school protocol.”
“It is. That’s why I talked to the coach. But she has no potential as a suspect.”
“Why is that?”
“The woman has been in a wheelchair for the past four years after a car accident.”
“Okay,” Vincent said. “So we’re still a little stale on solid leads for suspects, other than me, according to Riley.”
“I did get a list of the athletes at the school,” Brandt said as she removed a slip of paper from the case file. “We have one hundred and six names for all the students at the school currently participating in athletics. I’ve crossed off Desiree Messenger and Ethan Travis.”
Vincent took the paper from Brandt and read over the list, but no one name stood amongst others—not just yet.
“Oh, boy,” he said. “We’ll have to question each one or find some way of eliminating a few of these names.”
The door to the diner opened as Vincent began to put away the list. A young man entered, fifteen, a sheepish look on his face and a green letterman jacket from Hollow Green High School clinging to his athletic frame. He searched around, his eyes homing in on Brandt and Vincent.
He approached them. “Excuse me,” he said nervously. “Are you guys cops?”
Brandt and Vincent looked at him, both of the perking up when they saw the letterman jacket. “We are,” Vincent said. “Can we help you?”
The kid took his time. “I’m Ronny Elder,” he said. “I played football with Ethan Travis.”
He waited for them to take the lead, Vincent chagrined to hear that word was getting around about the murders.
“Take a seat,” Vincent said. “Talk to us for a minute.”
Ronny sat beside Vincent, wringing his hands. He only looked at Vincent and Brandt in increments, nervous with each breath he drew and each word that he spoke with it.
“I, uh,” he began, “I know about Ethan and Dez. I heard it from my parents this morning.”
A look shot between Brandt and Vincent: We’re in big trouble now.
“What’s on your mind?” Brandt asked Ronny.
Ronny cleared his throat. “I…I’m not sure. It’s hard to explain.”
“Take your time,” Vincent said in a warm way so the kid could feel more at ease.
Ronny looked guilty, on the verge of breaking down. “Dez and Ethan,” he said. “They were… Well, when I heard what happened to them…I couldn’t think about their…club.”
The wheels in Vincent’s brain started spinning.
Here we go…
“What club?” he asked.
Ronny took another moment. “Dez and Ethan were a part of the group of six kids. All of them are, like, the star players of their team. They’re kind of, like…these elitists. They hang together at lunch, date each other, see movies together. It’s their own exclusive little club that no one but these six people are a part of. When I heard that Dez and Ethan were dead, I… Well, I couldn’t help but think about the A-Listers. I saw you guys outside the diner while I was walking to the store, and…I just thought I needed to tell you.”
“A-Listers?” Brandt said.
“Yeah,” Ronny said. “That’s what the group calls themselves.”
Vincent took a mental note then produced the list of names of the school athletes from his inside pocket and set it in front of Ronny.
“Think you can point the names out for us?”
20
Ronny pointed out all six names on the paper for Brandt and Vincent:
KENNETH BATEMAN
SHAWN BATEMAN
DESIREE MESSENGER
ALYSSA MOORE
ETHAN TRAVIS
And the last name was his:
RONALD ELDER
“You’re on the list?” Brandt said. “You’re one of the A-Listers?”
Ronny nodded and looked down. “I was. But I left a few months ago. I stopped hanging out with them. Their attitudes, they… It got to be too much…” Ronny began visibly shaking.
They let the kid have a few seconds to himself. Finally, Vincent said, “Do you happen to know what Ethan Travis was up to the day of his murder? On Halloween?”
“I just saw him at practice. Then at the game. He looked a little pissed off about something when he was playing. Totally threw the guy off. You could tell.”
“We heard something about that. You don’t have any clue what that was about?”
Ronny thought some more. “No. Not really.”
Brandt asked, “Was he close to any other members of the A-Listers?”
“Yeah. Dez.”
“Were they dating?”
“Kind of. They were more hooking up, really.”
“How often?”
“Often enough.”
“Could you be more specific?” Vincent asked.
Ronny exhaled. “Just after games. Before games. Stuff like that?”
“Do you think it’s po
ssible she could have seen Ethan before he was killed? Before she was killed.”
Ronny nodded. “Totally. Ethan had a game last night. He probably hooked up with Dez around noon or so when he went off campus for lunch.”
Vincent looked at Brandt, feeling like a few pieces of the puzzle were coming together.
“Thoughts?” Vincent asked Brandt after Ronny left fifteen minutes later.
She sipped her refill of coffee. “I think Ethan might have gotten dumped yesterday.”
Vincent shot a finger in her direction. “I’m thinking the saem. What tipped you off?”
“Well, it was clear that the two of them were dating.”
“Right.”
“And I think Desiree might have broken it off right before the game.”
“What do you base that off?”
“Well,” Brandt said, “when I interviewed Desiree’s parents, they said all the nice things they could about their daughter, which is natural for any parent to do. But something I found interesting was that they also mentioned she had sort of a… how should I say it? She was sort of a jokester.”
Vincent furrowed his brow. “A jokester?”
“Yeah, that’s what they said verbatim. When I asked them what that meant—you know, to dig a little deeper—they said she just had a knack for getting under people’s skin, and then they gave me an example from six years ago, when she hid her kid brother’s t-ball trophy from him after his team had won a game and hers hadn’t. He cried his eyes out for days before she returned it, regardless of the pressure from her parents. She was grounded for weeks and seemed to take the punishment gladly.”
“Sounds more like she was vindictive,” Vincent said.
“Yeah,” Brandt said. “Couple that with Desiree being benched for the past three games for throwing elbows during a match, and Ethan Travis having the best year of his life this past semester, I’d say the was a recipe for one jock getting envious over another. Trust me when I tell you that athletic rivalries are not specific to gender.”
Vincent rubbed the tip of his chin. “So, Desiree has a bad year, Ethan has a good year, Desiree can’t stand living in someone’s shadow, so she dumps her boyfriend right before one of the biggest games he had just to fuck with him.”
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