by Debra Webb
“But there is a victim,” McBride argued. “We just don’t know the specifics.”
As valid as Worth’s point was, this wasn’t about him. It wasn’t even about the victim.
This was about McBride’s ability to meet the challenge.
And he only had twenty-four hours.
CHAPTER TEN
Vulcan Park
5:30 P.M.
16 hours, 30 minutes remaining …
“The K-9s have been over every inch of this park.” Vivian mentally cringed as she reported her status to Worth. There’s nothing here, sir.”
Six hours, ten acres. And nothing. Dammit.
Worth had been right.
McBride had sent her here to head the search while he focused on identifying and tracking down anything he could find on the victim. And she had gotten nowhere. She had wasted time and resources.
A reporter, Nadine Goodman, and a cameraman from WKRT had shown up and attempted to question Vivian. Park security had sent them on their way. Fortunately, that one news crew was all that had bothered. Leave it to Nadine Goodman to sniff out the scent of a story ahead of the pack.
The hoopla at the cemetery had been about Alyssa Byrne, the daughter of one of the city’s prominent families. If the media had gotten wind of McBride’s participation, there was no indication. Vivian hoped their luck held out. Still, it seemed odd that a high-profile reporter like Goodman would show up for a missing persons search without a socially elite name attached. Goodman was the one to worry about. She was ruthless. If she got wind of McBride’s participation, this case would ignite in the media.
Worth ordered Vivian back to Eighteenth Street. That lone command proved more devastating than if he had raked her over the coals.
She shoved her phone back into its holster and considered the official vehicles scattered around the parking area. All of it a major waste of time.
McBride, Pratt, and Davis were still working on identifying the latest victim and narrowing down the list of fans that had followed McBride’s career. Finding the victim was like looking for that single four-leafed mutation in a field of clover. There were hundreds of Joneses in the Birmingham area; more than a third had first-name initials that began with the letter A—if the letter was even intended as an initial.
Basically, they had nothing.
How did you look for a missing person when you didn’t even know who you were looking for? Coming to Vulcan Park had been a shot in the dark at best.
What Vivian needed was a Coke. She had barked so many orders and walked so many miles over the park grounds, she was exhausted. The high sugar content would do her good. Lunch had come and gone with no time to care. After giving Birmingham PD’s team leader the final word to head home, she made a stop in the gift shop.
“Dollar fifty-nine,” the clerk said after ringing up the soft drink.
Vivian handed her two one-dollar bills and reached for her Coke. A long line of brochures advertising local attractions filled display racks on the counter next to the register. The first couple snagged her attention. Shelby Ironworks and Sloss Furnaces. Both historic landmarks, the latter was now a huge open-air museum. Vivian had visited the Sloss Furnaces on a sixth-grade field trip. She reached for the brochure, some distant memory vying for her attention. She definitely needed that sugar; her brain was going to sludge.
She and McBride had considered Sloss Furnaces and Tannehill Ironworks as well as Shelby Ironworks as secondary search locations, but none of those were located atop Red Mountain like Vulcan Park. That one factor had advanced the park to the top of the priority list.
But they had been wrong … she had been wrong.
“Now there’s a neat place to visit,” the clerk said with a knowing nod. “I take my kids there every year for the haunted house they put on. Scares ’em to death.”
Maybe it was the low blood sugar level or the gut-wrenching frustration, but Vivian opened up the multi-folded brochure for a look. Anything to take her mind away even for a second. “It’s been a while since I was there,” she remarked, more to herself than to the woman behind the counter.
“Oh, you definitely need to go back,” she urged. “Why, that old place is something to see. Towering smoke stacks and furnaces.” She cackled. “Old pipes snaking around in every direction like steel ghosts peeking around corners.”
Vivian smiled, allowing the woman’s enthusiasm to put a chink in her tension. “Sounds like fun.” She twisted the top off the drink bottle and downed a long, much needed swallow.
“Good educational experience too,” the clerk went on as she passed Vivian her change. “Been here over a hundred years. Those blast furnaces melted all that ore dug outta this very mountain and turned it into steel. That’s what made this city. Birmingham wouldn’t be nothing but a fuel stop between Huntsville’s Rocket City and the capitol in Montgomery if it hadn’t been for places like Sloss.” She gave a resolute nod. “Don’t let those rusty old boilers and water tanks fool you, they’re an important part of our history.”
Vivian almost asked her if she got a commission for her sales pitch, but then that final remark the lady had made cut through all the fatigue and frustration and kindled a spark of relevancy—rusty old boilers and water tanks.
Water tanks.
“ … you must find her before she drowns in her regret …”
“May I take this?” Vivian quickly refolded the brochure.
“Take a handful. We got loads of ’em.”
“Thanks.” Vivian hurried out the door, her renewed enthusiasm morphing into heart-pounding anticipation as she punched in the speed dial number for McBride. She had programmed him in at some point last night. She had almost programmed him right back out after his smart-ass comment in the elevator this morning. They would be talking about boundaries again very soon.
As soon as McBride answered his cell, she blurted, “I think we started with the wrong place. Can you meet me at …”—she paused at the driver’s side door of her Explorer and glanced at the front of the brochure—“Sloss Furnaces on Thirty-second Street?”
McBride had news of his own. He had ID’d the victim. He would provide details when they rendezvoused at Thirty-second Street. She opened the vehicle door, tossed her phone onto the seat, and jumped behind the wheel. Maybe things were starting to come together. ’Bout time.
En route she put in a call to the leader of the search team provided by Birmingham PD and requested support at the Sloss Furnaces location. The team leader didn’t sound too thrilled, it was Friday and his team was ready to call it a day, but he agreed to meet her there. This could be another dead end, but waiting was out of the question. They had to try.
Calling Worth would be a last step, right before they launched the search on-site. If she were lucky McBride would brief him and save her the angst. The SAC wouldn’t appreciate her sidestepping him but she couldn’t afford to waste the time and McBride was supposed to be calling the shots anyway.
At every traffic light that caught her, she glanced over the history of the old steel mill to refresh her memory.
Sloss Furnaces and the production of steel from the iron ore of Red Mountain had been pivotal to the rapid growth of Birmingham “ … forged the path from atop Red Mountain …”
Hundreds of men had died there, most burned to death, but the work never ceased “ … built on blood, sweat, and determination …”
Jesus, they should have been looking at that e-mail from a much broader scope. She had wasted all those hours.
Get a grip. This sudden charge of inspiration could turn out to be nothing more than wishful thinking. But with nothing else to go on, this was the next logical step. All she could do was make decisions based on the facts she had available.
The same way McBride had three years ago.
For the first time since she started her career in the Bureau, she understood how easy it would be to fail. The realization made her respect McBride’s incredible record all the more. The dedication an
d determination required to even begin to set that kind of precedent boggled the mind. Maybe that was the reason he had done a full one-eighty after leaving the Bureau. Just maybe he didn’t know how to be anything else, so he didn’t even try.
She pushed the troubling thoughts aside. Now wasn’t the time to be distracted. And his personal problems were not her concern. Going down that path would only lead to places she did not need to go.
Considering they only had about two hours of daylight left, she put in another call to the search team leader and suggested he send two smaller teams to Shelby Iron Works and Tannehill Iron Works. Neither of those locations was as high profile in Birmingham’s history as Sloss Furnaces but why ignore any possibility? The hours were ticking down. She was banking on the idea that the unsub would go with the higher profile location just as he had when selecting a cemetery … but then there had been extenuating circumstances at Oak Hill with the resealing of the tombs.
Damn, every time she believed she had a valid point, something else bobbed to the surface of her tumultuous thoughts to negate it.
She had made the decision to go with Sloss … now she had to face the possibility of having made the wrong one.
7:00 P.M.
Sloss Furnaces
20 Thirty-second Street
15 hours remaining …
McBride and Pratt were waiting when she arrived at the parking area under the First Avenue viaduct Aldridge was briefing Birmingham PD’s search team. The Coke had prompted Vivian’s second wind. She was ready to solve this puzzle.
The steady thump-thump of cars passing on the viaduct overhead resonated in the air like a heartbeat. A train’s lonesome croon somewhere in the distance underscored that repetitive thud.
When she reached the gate where McBride waited, he showed her a four-by-six photo of a blond woman.
“A Jones?” she asked.
He shot her a look that said, if only it had been that easy. “A Jones turned out to be Katherine Jones. Thirty-nine. Widowed. No children. She’s employed by the Wal-Mart on Hackworth Road. She got off work at eleven last night and no one has seen her since. We might never have gotten to her name in time using the telephone directory if her sister hadn’t reported her missing.”
“How did her sister know she was missing?” Those who lived alone sometimes went for days before anyone noticed they were missing.
“They were supposed to meet for lunch today. The sister’s been worried about Katherine’s depression. So she went to her house when several hours passed with no word. The back door had been opened by force and there were signs of a struggle.” He lit a cigarette, took a deep drag. “Looked staged. But, however he got her out of the house, she was gone. Forensics is there now.”
“Neighbors?” Vivian asked as they entered the Sloss property.
“No one saw a thing.” He gestured to the K-9s and their handlers. “Aldridge has the blue vest Katherine Jones wore to work last night. Hopefully that will put the dogs on her scent. Worth and Talley are questioning her family. The vic’s husband was killed in an automobile accident two years ago. According to her sister, she hasn’t been herself since.”
“ … her regret …” Mrs. Jones had lost her husband. Had to still be grieving. Fury roared through Vivian. What was this scumbag doing? First a child, then a woman who had already lost her husband. What harm could either of these victims ever have done to the unsub? That was the one thing Vivian looked forward to in all this, putting him behind bars.
“Where do you want to start?” She refolded the brochure so that the map faced out, then surveyed the sprawling industrial complex that had the look of being trapped in time. The goliath restored furnace she remembered vividly from that elementary-school field trip. The towering blast stoves and enormous smokestacks too. She had felt like a tiny speck surrounded by the massive metal giants that had somehow dragged her back a full century. Felt that way now.
“I take it you’ve been here before.”
She glanced up at McBride, some foolish part of her mind noting the five o’clock shadow that darkened his jaw despite his having shaved that morning. “Sixth-grade field trip.”
He considered her a moment, for once not staring at her lips. “You know, maybe this is about you as much as it is about me.”
The statement gave her pause, made her frown for a second or two. That wasn’t possible. No one knew about her past … she had no career reputation yet to encourage that kind of attention.
“That was a joke, Grace.”
Her frown turned into a glower. “It wasn’t funny.” She turned back to the rusting graveyard and repeated her question. “Where do you want to start?”
McBride took a moment to evaluate the situation. “I’ve already instructed the team to conduct the usual grid search.” He glanced at her. “You and I will start with anything that holds water.”
“ … before she drowns …”
If Katherine Jones was here and the danger to her was paralleled by the clues in the e-mail, as had been the case with Alyssa Byrne, then she would be at risk for drowning. Some place in plain sight.
In other words—Vivian looked around once more—just about anywhere.
As they passed through the shadow of the cold, quiet blast furnace and threaded their way between the sky-high smokestacks, she had to wonder what around here wouldn’t hold water. Valves, pressure gauges, and pipes that ran in every direction with vines climbing along and around the rusty metal surfaces. Steam vents and shaft openings gave the impression of a landlocked submarine.
Night was coming way too fast. Even with flashlights the iron grate paths along the main walkways were damned gloomy. Somehow in the last century trees had pushed their way up through the sandy earth and stood like alien beings in this metal wasteland. The wind rustled through their leaves, adding another layer to the creep factor.
The search team would scour the dilapidated brick buildings, including the supposedly haunted blowing-engine rooms. A site manager had arrived to assist the search team through the maze of metal.
The gates of hell. That was what one of her classmates had called this place. He had heard his daddy talk about the hundreds of workers who had died here during the factory’s century of operation. The sound of footsteps on the catwalk high overhead jerked her attention there even as she knew a dozen or more team members and two dogs had fanned out in every direction.
Shake it off, Grace. You aren’t twelve anymore. And you don’t believe in ghosts. Between the numerous reported ghost sightings and the fact that Sloss Furnaces had been labeled as one of the most haunted places on earth, she wasn’t exactly looking forward to the next few hours. Her freak-o-meter was set to hypersensitive.
Deep down she knew it wasn’t really this place … it was the coming darkness and the unknown that had her rattled.
Would they be able to find Katherine Jones in time?
Applying her undivided attention where it belonged, back on what she had come here to do, she pointed to a doorway up ahead. “That leads down to the tunnel. It comes out on the other side of the mill. I don’t think there are any side tunnels or cubbyholes for hiding, just a straight path. The team may have already swept through there.”
“I’d like to check it out anyway,” McBride said, setting a course for that destination.
Vivian glanced toward a pair of uniforms up on the nearest section of catwalk then took the plunge and descended those stairs into the tunnel. She remembered this part all too well. Nothing had changed. Long, pitch-dark, spooky tunnel. No place to go but forward or backward, just like she had said. The sounds of their breathing … of each trickle of water … echoed in the tunnel as if time stood still and the sound stretched to compensate. Ankle-deep water splashed around her feet, soaked her shoes and chilled her feet.
When they finally reached the other end, she was more than ready to leave it behind.
“Over there.” McBride indicated a row of large tanks in the distance.
&nbs
p; Vivian glanced at her map. “Boilers,” she pointed out.
Decrepit and rusty, they seemed pretty much past holding water, but the need to be sure wouldn’t be abated by conjecture. Making certain was necessary.
A woman’s life depended on it.
Dusk had settled and Vivian desperately wished that the dogs would lock on to a scent. If it was even possible. That reality hit like a ton of bricks. If Katherine Jones was in water, the dogs might not be able to pick up her scent.
There was always a slim chance that moving her to her destination would have left a scent trail the dogs could latch on to but no guarantee.
Vivian checked the time on her cell phone. They still had twelve hours but most of those would be night hours and not nearly as productive.
One by one, they checked the ten gigantic boilers, every cubbyhole in the walls or in the ground, under- and aboveground rooms, any pipes large enough to accommodate a body, furnaces, stoves—they examined every damned thing they encountered that would hold water and/or a body. And burned up more time—that precious commodity—without yielding the desired results.
“Where the hell is she?” McBride muttered.
Vivian understood his frustration. Neither the dogs nor the team had spotted a single piece of evidence that might give hope. About every ten or fifteen minutes the “clear” signal echoed across the deathly quiet industrial yard and, each time, her hope sank a little lower.
“Maybe she isn’t here.” Vivian hated to say the words out loud but someone had to. As sure as she had wanted to be about this location, she had to face the looming reality that she was, apparently, wrong.
“She’s here,” McBride argued.
When had he decided that with such certainty? What gave him that kind of confidence? Ten years in the field doing exactly this? Or had he been born with an innate sense of finding the lost? His former reputation would certainly seem to indicate so.
