He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not

by LENA DIAZ,

  In spite of his complaining, Pierce dove in, helping stack all the boxes by the table. Then he pulled up a rusty metal chair and, after dusting it off, sat down to start sorting through the contents of each box. He squinted in the dim light from the grimy windows as he tried to read the label on a thick file. “Remind me again exactly what we’re looking for?”

  Logan sobered, his grin fading. “Any missing person, abduction or murder case file within the past decade. Shadow Falls is the only place our perp has struck twice that we know of. I’m hoping to find some earlier case that will lead us to a suspect. Maybe he grew up here and that’s why he returned. I’m particularly interested in the Northwood case.”

  Riley dropped a thick file on the table. “Northwood? When was that?”

  “Ten years ago, almost to the day.”

  “Ten years . . . ten years,” Riley mumbled as he tore into another box.

  “What’s so special about the Northwood case?” Pierce asked. He added another folder to the small stack.

  “Anna Northwood was murdered in a motel room a couple of miles from here. I was involved in that case.”

  Riley paused and looked up at him. “Was she abducted first?”

  “No.”

  “Did the killer leave a rose at the scene?”

  “No.”

  The room grew silent and Logan sighed beneath the weight of Riley and Pierce’s stares. “I know that case is most likely not related to our current case, but while we’re here I’d like to get that folder to look through it and see if anything was missed the first time around. I was a rookie back then, made a stupid mistake, and because of me the suspect got away.”

  Riley let out a low whistle. “Man, that sucks.”

  “Yeah, it does.” Logan pulled one of the folders toward him and flipped it open.

  “What kind of rookie mistake?” Pierce asked. He sat with both elbows on the table, no longer interested in the files or boxes.

  Logan’s gut churned. He didn’t want to talk about this, but he wanted that folder, and it would be a lot faster finding it with Riley and Pierce’s help than by himself. Looking for other similar cases wasn’t exactly a ruse, but it was close.

  “I pulled over a white van on a routine traffic stop. I’d probably remember that van to this day even if there hadn’t been a murder. It had writing all over the back doors, quotes from scriptures twisted into different meanings. The one I remember most was, “Do unto others before they do unto you.”

  Riley stumbled and dropped the box he was carrying. “I’m okay,” he called out as he reached down to retrieve the box.

  “You were saying?” Pierce urged.

  “I pulled the van over because it didn’t have a license plate. It had a piece of cardboard in the tag holder that read “lost tag.” I was walking up to the driver’s door when a call came in about a murder, two blocks away. I waved the driver off before I even got to his door, and went to the scene.”

  Pierce studied him for a moment. “Let me guess. The killer was the one driving the van.”

  Logan nodded stiffly. “I had a bad feeling about that van. My internal radar was going nuts from the minute I saw those twisted scriptures and the black curtains in the back windows. I knew in my gut something was wrong. He’d been driving too carefully, like he had something to hide. But even if I hadn’t been suspicious, I should have radioed back to the murder scene to see if there was a description of a getaway vehicle. Standard procedure. If I’d followed the rules I would have known I’d just pulled the suspect over.”

  “How certain are you the killer was driving the van?” Pierce asked. “Maybe someone saw the van near the hotel when the body was discovered and assumed—”

  “There was a witness. A maid at the motel saw a man run from the room. She was too far away to give a good description of him, but she saw him get into a white van that matched the same description as the one I’d pulled over, right down to the scriptures.”

  The quiet in the room was palpable. Logan glanced over at Riley. He was standing next to a stack of boxes with a thoughtful expression on his face. Before Logan could ask what that expression meant, his cell phone rang.

  He answered and listened quietly to Officer Karen Bingham, his hand clenching into a fist as she reported what had been found.

  “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Logan said. He flipped his phone shut and shoved his chair back from the table. Pierce and Riley looked at him expectantly.

  “They’ve found the primary scene where Carolyn O’Donnell was killed.”

  Before evil had invaded her world and changed her life forever, Amanda used to visit the cemetery once a week and leave a dozen roses on her parents’ graves. It took two years of therapy and a philandering brother-in-law to give her the courage to move back to Shadow Falls and resume her weekly visits.

  But she’d never brought roses again.

  Instead, she brought pink carnations. She’d read somewhere that pink carnations meant you missed someone and that you would never forget them. That seemed appropriate. And since the number seven was supposed to be lucky, she always placed seven carnations on her mother’s grave, seven on her father’s.

  And seven on Dana’s.

  Knowing the killer was back, Amanda had debated not coming to the cemetery for her weekly visit. But her parents had devoted themselves to her and her sister, Heather. If it weren’t for the plane crash that had unexpectedly taken their lives, Amanda had no doubt they would have continued to support her and help her. The least she could do was put fresh flowers on their graves.

  And she owed far more than that to Dana.

  Besides, she should be safe. The two plain-clothed policemen who normally sat outside her house had followed her here. One of them was getting out of his car to keep watch over her as she walked through the cemetery. She gave him a small wave to let him know she appreciated his protection. Then she walked up the slight hill to Mr. Reynolds’ flower cart where she always bought her flowers.

  The vendor smiled and reached down for the pink carnations already wrapped in tissue paper, waiting for her. “Your usual order, Ms. Jones.” He handed the flowers to her and took her money.

  The name “Jones” gave her pause and she realized she’d grown used to “Stockton” again in the past few days, since the policemen always used that name.

  “Thank you, Mr. Reynolds,” she murmured. Another group of mourners was approaching the flower cart so she hurried past them, keeping her head bent. Usually she chatted with Mr. Reynolds. He was always nice to her and lived in her neighborhood, but he understood her shyness about her scar. She was sure he wouldn’t hold it against her that she hadn’t stayed to talk today.

  The sound of crunching gravel startled her, but it was just one of the undercover policemen keeping pace about twenty feet away.

  She turned down a dirt path between the graves and stopped under an oak tree with delicate fingers of Spanish moss dripping down. Her mother had loved oak trees, which was why Amanda had chosen this spot when she buried her parents. The shade was nice, too, lowering the stifling temperatures by several degrees. Still, it was so hot outside today that her lungs felt like they were sticking together every time she breathed. Her policeman shadow wasn’t faring any better in the heat. He stopped under another tree, loosening his tie as he took advantage of the shade.

  The hot breeze did little to help, but it did bring out the scent of freshly mown grass. Combined with the sweet, delicate scent of the carnations, it reminded Amanda of better times, summers spent with her mom, dad, and little sister.

  Amanda leaned forward and used the pink tissue paper to brush off the black granite headstone that marked the two graves. Then she filled the two vases with carnations. Normally she spoke out loud, telling her parents what she’d done the previous week. Or, on the rare occasions when she had news about Heather, telling them about her sister.

  She shivered in spite of the heat. There was nothing about this past week she w
anted to share. And with a police officer only a few feet away, she wasn’t comfortable speaking out loud. Instead, she sat on the thick grass between the graves and allowed herself a few moments of silence to quietly remember them.

  Growing up in Florida had been fun. Her dad’s nine-to-five desk job at an insurance company didn’t buy a lot of extras, but it paid the bills, kept a roof over their heads. Mom stayed home to raise her two daughters, taking them to the beach every chance they got. Weekends were for cookouts on the back deck, or sometimes they’d go to a neighbor’s house and enjoy their pool.

  Amanda smiled again as she remembered how excited her father was when he got a promotion and a bonus. Heather was a senior in college. Amanda had already graduated and started her career as a computer programmer. For the first time since her parents’ honeymoon twenty-four years earlier, her parents could afford to go on a real vacation. They’d been so excited about their upcoming trip to Italy.

  Amanda’s smile dimmed. The plane crash had not only taken her parents’ lives, it had driven a wedge between her and her sister. It didn’t help that Amanda was the one who’d suggested the trip in the first place. And then there was John, Heather’s husband.

  Shaking her head, Amanda pushed away the unpleasant thoughts. The policeman leaning against a tree a short distance away was trying not to be obvious about watching her. But the disapproving look on his face, and the way he kept glancing around, told her he didn’t like her being here out in the open.

  She didn’t either, but sometimes responsibility outweighed other considerations. She sighed and pressed a kiss against the cold headstone. “I love you, Mom and Dad,” she whispered.

  After climbing to her feet, she brushed off her jeans and carried the last of the carnations to Dana’s tombstone only a few graves away. Amanda replaced the dried up carnations from her last visit with fresh ones. Keeping her voice low, she told Dana what she told her every week. “I’m so sorry, Dana. Please forgive me.”

  Channel Ten anchorwoman, Tiffany Adams, stared down at the fresh flowers on Dana Branson’s grave. She waved her cameraman over. “Get a shot of this. Did you see anyone by this grave?”

  “Nah, no one’s been over here since we got here.”

  She stepped back so he could get a shot of the flowers. Looking around the cemetery, she didn’t see anyone who might have placed them on the grave. The only person she saw was the flower vendor, Mr. Reynolds. She’d spoken to him on Sunday after the O’Donnell murder and had asked him if he knew who put flowers on Dana Branson’s grave. He’d claimed he didn’t know, but the flowers today were far too fresh for him not to have seen who put them there.

  “Look in that trash can,” she said, pointing to a garbage can near a tree. “See if someone left the packaging from the flowers in there.”

  He lowered the camera from his shoulder and gave her an arch look. “You want me to dig through the trash?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I want you to dig up a story. Now.”

  His shoulders slumped and he mumbled beneath his breath. Tiffany didn’t care what he said as long as he did what she told him. A minute later he ran back with some tissue paper in his hand.

  “Jackpot,” he grinned, holding the pink paper up in the air. “It’s got that flower vendor’s logo on it.” He pointed to Reynolds’ flower stand.

  A slow smile spread across Tiffany’s face. “Call the station. See what they can find out about our flower vendor. I need leverage.”

  “This is one royally screwed up perv,” Pierce said.

  Logan raised a brow. “Is that the FBI’s official assessment?”

  “Hell, yes.” He stepped past one of the technicians who was dusting the boxcar for prints. “He went to enormous trouble to make this torture chamber.”

  Bile rose in the back of Logan’s throat as he took in the black, dried blood that had sprayed across the walls and formed sticky pools on the floor. There were small holes drilled into the sides of the abandoned railroad car to allow ventilation, but even partially shadowed beneath the huge branches of an oak tree as it was, the temperatures inside had to be close to a hundred degrees.

  “I’m surprised Carolyn O’Donnell didn’t bake to death in this hell hole,” he said.

  One of the techs pointed to some of the holes drilled higher up near the top of the car. “There’s a hose hooked up to that hole. The other end is hooked to a generator outside, and a small air-conditioning unit. We think he used that to keep the temperature more bearable, at least while he was here.”

  The tech stepped around Logan and began dusting the next section of the wall for prints.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Logan said. “We’re just in the way.”

  He and Pierce stepped out of the steel tomb, their shoes kicking up dust as they crossed the dirt, away from the hive of activity. The Feds were examining every inch of the forty-foot steel shell while Logan’s detectives walked the grid outside searching for evidence.

  Officer Karen Bingham was taking the witness’s statement. She was sitting on a fallen log beside a white male about twenty years of age. Dressed in camouflage shorts, he wore a white t-shirt that boasted a picture of a marijuana plant.

  Logan glanced around as he and Pierce strode toward Karen. “Where’s Riley?”

  “He’s directing your men in the grid search,” Pierce said.

  Logan spotted Riley then, about fifty feet away, walking with one of the other detectives around the abandoned boxcar, pointing to various spots in the dried-out grass and dirt as he spoke to the man beside him. Logan didn’t know why Riley felt he needed to walk the grid. There were more than enough techs doing that already.

  “Chief,” Karen called out, capturing his attention. “This is Gerald Mason. He’s the hiker who found the boxcar.”

  Logan shook the hiker’s hand and introduced Pierce. “Mr. Mason, we appreciate you calling the police when you found the boxcar. I’m sure you already answered a lot of questions from Officer Bingham, but would you mind telling Special Agent Buchanan and me what happened?”

  The young man looked over at Karen as if asking permission. She nodded and smiled reassuringly. His neck bobbed as he swallowed. “I used to hike through these woods when I was a kid. I’m home on break and—”

  “You’re a college student?” Pierce asked.

  “Yeah. FSU.”

  Logan exchanged a glance with Pierce. Mason was from the same campus as Carolyn O’Donnell, Florida State University. “Go on, Mr. Mason. Tell us how you found the boxcar.”

  “It’s been here forever, even when I was little. The railroad left a couple of them in this field and another field a little ways from here when they pulled out years ago. Anyway, I wanted to get away from the house—away from all the relatives, you know?”

  Logan nodded encouragingly and wondered when the kid would get to the point.

  “I hiked up here and then I remember that old car. I thought it’d be fun to look inside, maybe see if any of my old army men or matchbox cars were in there.” He shuddered and shut his eyes.

  “Was the door open or shut when you got here?” Pierce asked.

  “Shut. But it wasn’t locked. I just opened it and . . .” He shuddered again, making a gagging noise in his throat.

  Logan stepped back, out of gagging range. “Thank you, Mr. Mason. Be sure to give Officer Bingham your addresses both at school and home, and any phone numbers where she can reach you if we have more questions.”

  “O . . . okay.”

  Pierce and Logan moved away to stand beneath a towering oak tree where they could keep an eye on the agents and detectives working the scene. The doors to the boxcar were propped open and several men were inside processing the evidence. One of the techs wasn’t dressed like the others. When he turned, Logan realized who he was.

  “What the hell is he doing?”

  Pierce gave Logan a surprised glance. “Who?”

  “Riley. He’s in the boxcar. I specifically told him he didn’
t need to go inside, that the techs are busy in there. I don’t want him contaminating anything.”

  “What are you worried about? He knows what he’s doing.”

  Logan crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Spill it, Logan. Something’s bothering you.”

  “It’s crazy.”

  “I’m used to crazy.”

  “Okay, but let’s get out of this hot sun. Besides, I don’t want anyone else to hear this.” He led the way to his Mustang parked under a shade tree fifty yards back. He sat behind the wheel and started the engine, turning the air-conditioner to full blast as Pierce got in beside him.

  Logan watched Riley through the windshield. “Riley was a rookie cop when Dana and Amanda were abducted. He wasn’t a detective then, but he was on the force, a newbie. In a town like this we only get half a dozen murders a year, usually domestic disputes. What are the odds that a rookie cop would forget about a case as memorable as the Branson case? What are the odds that every detail wouldn’t be burned into his brain?”

  “He did remember the case. He and Clayton are the ones who told you about it.”

  “Only after Carolyn O’Donnell was found murdered.”

  Pierce watched Riley through the windshield, too. “Didn’t you say he was at a conference when she was abducted, in Alabama? And he’d only returned the morning she was found dead?”

  “Yes, but he knew about the abduction. I called him when she went missing. He’s my lead detective. I wanted to pick his brain, see what suggestions he might have for trying to find her. It didn’t occur to him to tell me about the earlier case until after O’Donnell was killed. Three days later.”

  “Which means?”

  “Which means, maybe he didn’t want her found alive.”

  Pierce stared at him as if he thought he’d gone crazy. “Are you suggesting your lead detective is the killer?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just thinking out loud. Things aren’t adding up.”