by D. F. Hart
***
As soon as she got home, Lizzie headed for the shower to wash off the grimy feeling that dealing with Nolan had left her.
Forty minutes later, wearing her old Seattle PD sweatshirt and yoga pants, and with a towel wrapped around her hair, she padded into the kitchen to figure out dinner. The empty silence around her made her sigh.
Donny hasn’t even been gone a day and I miss him.
“You must be psychic,” she proclaimed when she answered her suddenly ringing cell phone.
He laughed. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I was just thinking about you. Everything all right?”
“It’s going well,” he told her. “Matter of fact we should be able to head out sometime tomorrow. How was your first day as an FBI agent?”
“Well, I got to deck a guy, and I’m pretty sure I broke his nose, so, that’s always fun.”
“What? What happened?”
She took a deep breath and told him.
“I agree, the smelling hair thing was creepy. What exactly did he say to you?”
She took another deep breath, and told him that, too.
As she spoke, Donny had to count down from twenty in his head to curb the sudden and intense anger he felt toward a man he’d never met.
When he finished counting, he said, “Get out. Really? He was actually dumb enough to say that?”
“Yep.”
“Wow. Yeah, he had an ass-kicking coming, for sure.”
“What gets me is how the hell he thought saying something like that would actually convince anybody to date him. Seriously.”
“Honey. Please tell me you filed a complaint.”
“You bet I did. Directly with the sheriff himself.”
“Did you fill Nathan in?”
“I told him the overview. I didn’t tell him exactly what Nolan said, since he’s my boss. I thought that might be a little awkward.”
“What was Nathan’s reaction?”
“It was all he could do not to laugh when I told him I knocked Nolan on his ass. And he said the guy had it coming.”
“Well, he’s right. You’re not going to have to deal with that guy anymore, are you?”
“Nope,” Lizzie said firmly. “Nathan agreed he’d take point if we have to have any further contact with that jurisdiction.”
“Good. Hey, Rick says to tell you Faith’s heading your way.”
Lizzie laughed. “Are you boys a messenger service now?”
“Ha, ha, funny lady,” her fiancé retorted. “No, they were on the phone just now, and Faith said something to him about coming to your house to hang out, but her phone needs to charge.”
“Oh. That works. I was about to call her, actually, so thanks for the heads up.”
“I love you,” Donny murmured as Lizzie’s doorbell sounded. “Sounds like your company has arrived.”
“Yep. And I love you too. Call me when you get on the road tomorrow?”
“You got it.”
***
Lizzie opened the door to find her best friend standing there with takeout.
“Hey,” Faith said. “Sorry for not calling first, but I really need to talk to you. I figured you hadn’t eaten yet, so I brought dinner.”
“Is that Italian?”
“You know it.”
“I knew we were besties for a reason. Get yourself in here.”
They plated the pasta and Lizzie poured some wine.
“What’s going on? You look nervous or excited, I can’t really tell which,” she asked Faith.
“Um... a little of both, I guess? I went out to Jandy’s after work, and she was showing me around, and it just hit me as I was looking at her backyard.”
“What hit you?”
“I looked at the layout, and suddenly I could totally see Rick and I having our wedding there.”
Lizzie’s eyebrows raised.
“I mean, look at this,” Faith continued as she pulled her phone off its charger for a moment. “Look at the pictures I took.”
She pulled up her gallery and handed the phone to Lizzie.
“Wow. That is really, really beautiful,” Lizzie exclaimed. “Yeah, I can totally see that as a wedding spot, absolutely. So why are you nervous?”
Faith took back the phone Lizzie handed to her and put it back on the charger.
“I just... I don’t know.”
“Oh, honey. What’s to be nervous about? You have an awesome man who’s head over heels in love with you who is also your best friend. And you feel the same way about him, I can tell. So, what’s the problem?”
Faith shrugged her shoulders.
“You know what you have is solid, right?”
“I know,” Faith said after a long drink of wine. “But I thought that with Kevin at first, too. And look how that turned out.”
“Because Kevin was a jackass,” Lizzie pointed out.
Faith giggled. “He really was. If I’m honest with myself about it, Kevin was from the very start. I just chose not to see it.”
“And Rick is most definitely not a jackass. Not even close.”
“Nope,” Faith sighed, her face softening. “He’s the most kind, gentle, loving man I’ve ever known. He’s everything I’ve always wanted and had given up on finding.”
“I feel you there,” Lizzie told her. “Hell, it took Donny and I being in protective custody together for me to finally realize how I felt about him. Remember?”
“I remember that,” Faith acknowledged. “Rick called it, by the way.”
“Did not.”
“Oh, he absolutely did,” Faith confirmed. “He said, and I quote, ‘I think they’d be good for each other, I really do’.”
“He was one hundred percent right,” Lizzie agreed with a happy sigh before she took another drink of wine. “So, what are you gonna do?”
Faith grinned. “You know what? I am ready. I’m gonna stand in my sister’s absolutely gorgeous backyard this fall, and I’m gonna marry Rick Connor. And that means I have some planning to do. You in?”
“Whatever you need.”
“Including being my maid of honor?”
Lizzie hugged her. “Absolutely.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
At seven a.m. Monday morning, Lizzie’s work began in earnest.
“You’re briefing the group on the Rutherford case in a half-hour,” he told her. “There’s fresh coffee in the breakroom if you need some. We’ll be meeting in the conference room.”
Nathan had his whiteboard all set up and ready to go when the team gathered to talk about each case. He opened the session by briefly introducing Lizzie to her new teammates, Annie and Ben.
Then he launched into the details of the murder of the popular history teacher in San Angelo, followed by briefing his team on the Benji Patterson shooting in Abilene.
“While I was onsite with Detective Ricard in Abilene, I got a call from a Deputy Nolan down in Mason, Texas. Agent Zimmerman went down and collected the initial data on that case. Lizzie, what did you find?”
She took a breath, then stood and moved to the whiteboard.
“Sally Rutherford, white female, fifty-nine, widowed, middle school teacher. Well-known and well-liked in the community, very active and vocal in her efforts to preserve more of the area that was once Fort Mason. She had a dust-up recently with a city councilman over zoning in that area of town, but so far as anyone knows it didn’t progress beyond a few snide remarks during a town hall meeting two weeks ago.”
Lizzie took a sip of coffee, then continued.
“Per the coroner’s estimate, sometime between six and ten p.m. this past Friday she was shot once through the heart from approximately fifty feet away as she stood on her own front porch. Her body was discovered around noon Saturday by the mailman. The casing recovered from the scene was from a .44/40 round, which matches the Abilene and San Angelo cases. Like those cases, the shell casing recovered at the Rutherford shooting did yield fingerprints, but no match has be
en found in the database.”
“Okay. Next steps,” Nathan said. “Lizzie, I need you to start drilling down into our victims’ lives. My gut says there’s a commonality somewhere, we just haven’t found it yet.”
“You got it.”
“Ben, start researching long guns that use that caliber round and are rated for at least one hundred and fifty yards. Both the Baker and Patterson shootings happened at a distance of about two hundred yards away.”
“Yes, sir. I’m on it.”
“Annie, coordinate with the lab. We need to compare those three casings side-by-side. We also need to verify that the fingerprints and any other physical data from all three scenes match. After that, we’ll expand the search parameters. There may be more cases we just aren’t aware of yet.”
“I’ll head to the lab shortly.”
Nathan paused, looking at each team member in turn. “Any questions?”
His team shook their heads.
“Good. I’m going to get started on building a profile of our shooter. I’ll be in my office. Anything pops, let me know.”
They filed out of the room.
“Welcome to the team,” Annie said, and shook Lizzie’s hand as they walked down the hall to the bullpen area.
“Thanks.”
“Nice to have you here,” Ben chimed in as he cut left to head to his desk. “Welcome aboard.”
“Lizzie,” Nathan called out, and handed her three manila files. “Case copies. Any desk supplies you need, they’re in the cabinet in the storage room.”
“Thanks,” Lizzie said. “See you later?”
“Yep. We’ll head to lunch around one. A ‘welcome to the crew’ meal.”
And with that, Nathan walked into his office.
Lizzie chose the empty desk at an angle from Annie and settled in.
***
He opened his eyes gingerly at first, his head already railing against the sunlight peeking in through the gap in his dark blue bedroom curtains.
Nope, everything still hurts, he realized with the first deep breath he tried to take. This is ridiculous.
Slowly he managed to maneuver himself from flat on his back to sitting upright on the edge of his bed - and clutched the edge of his mattress as his vision blurred and his stomach roiled.
“Okay, that was a mistake,” he whispered, giving in to gravity once more. Fortunately for him, he fell backward rather than forward, and the soft mattress cradled him as he slipped back into oblivion for a while.
***
By noon, Donny and Rick had climbed into Donny’s truck and were headed south to Texas. Donny had found a property management company that could handle maintenance and seasonal rentals.
“You might as well, man,” Rick had pointed out, when he realized Donny planned to leave the house vacant for long stretches of time. “Turn it into a ‘vacation getaway’ rental. Let it make you some money. And if you get the right management company involved, you’ll have zero hassle. The good ones will handle it all for you. Then when you want to come up, just let them know and they won’t take any bookings while you’re here. Simple.”
“I never thought about all that, but you’re right,” Donny agreed after he’d mulled it over. “And that way someone’s keeping an eye on the place regularly, too.”
Rick nodded. “It’s what I did with my old house for a while. It was a good option while I figured out what I wanted to do.”
***
At ten minutes to one, Lizzie rapped lightly on Nathan’s door.
“Hey, you got a second? Can I run something by you?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Well,” she began, leaning against the doorframe, “I think history might have something to do with it.”
“Meaning?”
“Ed Baker was a history teacher, killed during a historical reenactment at a fort. Sally Rutherford was passionate about saving Fort Mason.”
Nathan’s eyebrow raised. “Keep going.”
“I think... I think maybe it’s all connected to the history somehow,” she said with a shrug. “I just need to figure out how Benji Patterson would tie into that.”
“You up for more travel?”
“To follow up with literally anybody but Nolan? Sure.”
Nathan chuckled. “You and I are going back out to Abilene to re-interview Benji. We can head out right after we get back from lunch.” Nathan glanced at his watch. “Speaking of which, rally the troops and let’s get going.”
***
As Lizzie and Nathan dropped Annie and Ben back at the office and headed west toward Abilene, a killer in Pantego, Texas called for a taxi.
Time to admit defeat, he realized, when he’d come awake again in so much pain he could barely move. That doctor in Junction was right. I never should have left the hospital.
His driver, an older, taller man, arrived in fifteen minutes and watched with a grimace as his fare gingerly made his way to the car.
“You okay? You don’t look so hot,” he observed once the pale young man had slowly, painfully, almost crawled his way into the backseat. “Need help?”
“Yeah,” his passenger said. “Take me to Harris Hospital, please.”
Seventeen minutes later, they arrived, and he was grateful that the driver had taken care to avoid as many bumps on the drive over as he possibly could. He slipped the man a twenty, and gradually maneuvered himself out of the car.
He shuffled up to the emergency room’s automatic doors, his head pounding, his entire chest on fire. Stumbling toward the intake desk, he mumbled, “Help me,” before falling forward.
***
Benji frowned as he saw Agent Thomas approach his front door, walking side-by-side with a tiny brunette.
“Mr. Patterson,” Nathan said, hand extended. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me again. I’d like to introduce Agent Zimmerman.”
Benji gazed intently at Lizzie, then grinned.
“Tiny little thing, but I bet you pack a wallop, don’t cha?”
She smiled. “I can hold my own pretty well, sir.”
“Little firecracker. I like it! Come on in.”
They settled in to Benji’s living room, and Nathan nodded at Lizzie to indicate she was taking point.
“Mr. Patterson,” she began, but the old man cut her off.
“That’s my dad’s name. Call me Benji.”
“Benji,” she started over patiently, “We’ve come across two other cases in the region that have similar characteristics in common with your case.”
“Such as?”
She glanced at Nathan, who nodded again.
“Well, for example, the bullet size, sir.”
“I see.”
“And I have a theory that I wanted to run by you.”
“Shoot,” Benji quipped, and cackled at his own joke.
“Well, sir, the two other victims were interested in local history. Specifically, old forts.”
Benji’s ears perked up. “That’s why I got shot at? I’ll be damned.”
Nathan and Lizzie exchanged looks.
“I’m considered an expert around here when it comes to Fort Phantom Hill and Fort Griffin,” he explained.
Nathan pulled out his little notebook and a pen and began to write.
“Matter of fact, now that I think about it, I did a tour of both places the same week I got shot. Kid from a magazine came out, said he was doing articles on the Texas Forts Trail.”
More silent looks between the agents.
“Texas Forts Trail,” Lizzie repeated, with a sudden feeling of dread. “And how many forts are along that route?”
“Well, let’s see,” Benji began, ticking them off on his fingers. “At the top of the route, there’s Fort Richardson, in Jacksboro, then Fort Belknap to the southwest. After that is Griffin and Phantom Hill on the way down here to Abilene. Keep goin’ south, ya got Fort Chadbourne in Bronte, then Fort Concho in San Angelo. Fort Stockton and Fort Davis are way the hell out west, almost to El Paso.
But Fort McKavett, Presidio de San Saba, and Fort Mason are on it if ya turn and follow it east.”
“Hey,” the old man said suddenly, “A while back there was this lady that was killed in her home in Bronte, not far from here. Saw it on the news. Something about her.... what was it?”
He fell silent, his brow furrowed in concentration, before his eyes lit up and he snapped his fingers.
“Oh, yes! I remember now. She was a big-wig that was involved in the preservation efforts at Fort Chadbourne.”
The icy feeling in Lizzie’s veins grew stronger by the second as she asked, “This kid that you showed around. Got a name?”
“Grant,” Benji said immediately. “Grant Forrester. But he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Kid’s just too damn nice. Besides, if he were gonna do me in I would think he’d have done it while we were out walking around at Fort Phantom Hill, not here in town.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because,” Benji explained, “it’s the middle of nowhere, and there’s no staff working out there like at the other forts. All the others got guided tours and museums and gift shops and stuff. Phantom Hill don’t. As I recall, we were there for about three hours that day. Never saw another living soul the whole time.”
“Interesting,” Lizzie murmured, and thought to herself, The man’s got a point. Why wait and try to take someone out in a public area when you’re already in a more remote spot?
“What does Grant look like?”
Benji scratched his stubbly chin. “Bout five-eleven, six foot, weighs around one-seventy, I guess? I’m not really good with guessing weight. He was about your build, Agent Thomas, if that helps. Brown hair, brown eyes, mustache and goatee. Nice looking kid. Polite. Smart. Rare these days.”
“How old is he?”
Benji shrugged. “Best guess? I’d say late twenties, early thirties, tops.”
***
The doctor looking him over shook his head.
“You really, really shouldn’t have signed yourself out of the hospital down there,” he admonished his patient.
“I know,” he grumbled.
“So now, you’ve not only aggravated your existing injuries, you’ve developed pleurisy, as well. I’m going to admit you, and if you’re wise, you’ll stay here as long as it takes for us to get you well.”
