by Blake Pierce
Clements knocked on the door. Mackenzie made sure to step back in order to seem less intimidating. She recalled Charlie’s reaction to her presence on that first crime scene. If he felt that she was running things, he might not talk at all. But if she could take a back seat—if she could even maybe seem subservient to Clements—that might be her best bet.
Charlie answered several seconds later. He opened the door about halfway and Mackenzie took note of his expression when he saw who was on his front porch. At first there was confusion and then a flash of fear. She watched his eyes closely, knowing that eyes that shifted nervously usually indicated either guilt or that the subject was hiding something. With Charlie Holt, she saw that telltale sign quite easily. He was absolutely hiding something and he was not happy that the local police chief and an FBI agent were paying him a visit.
“Charlie,” Clements said, “I’d like to ask you some questions about the mess going on in Little Hill. You think that would be okay?”
Charlie didn’t answer right away. He shifted his eyes again, this time looking to the floor. “I guess,” he said hesitantly. “Come on in. But…well, why is she here?”
“Because it’s a federal case,” Mackenzie asked. “My being here eliminates a middleman and speeds up communication. Nothing big.”
“She’s right,” Clements said. “We just have a few basic questions to ask.”
Charlie led them into his house. The TV was tuned to Wheel of Fortune and a plate of mac and cheese and cut up hot dogs was sitting on the sofa. Mackenzie saw all of this but she also noticed that Charlie picked up his cell phone from the small coffee table and pocketed it right away. He did it quickly, as if trying to hide it.
“So, you know that a local guy is missing now,” Clements said. “Brian Woerner.”
“Yes, I know.”
“We were wondering how he got into the park at all with the cops and rangers blocking the roads,” Clements said. “Any ideas on that?”
“None,” Charlie said. “Some of these local kids know the woods just about as well as I do. He probably used to neck down there with some girl. Or get stoned, or something.”
“Probably,” Clements said. “Charlie, do you know who was supposed to be monitoring the road that Woerner was able to access the park from?”
Mackenzie listened to all of this as she took in the rest of the living room. She did not want to scour the house without his permission. As it was, Clements was questioning him pretty aggressively; Mackenzie did not want to give him another reason to freak out prematurely. He was guilty of something and she hoped to find out without things getting nasty.
“I don’t know,” Charlie said, finally answering the last question. “Andrews, maybe?”
“It wasn’t you?” Clements asked.
“No. I was…ah, hell, I forget. I was down by the water station most of the day, protecting that road.”
“Oh, okay,” Clements said. He gave Mackenzie a brief glance that told her that this was a lie. He frowned slightly, knowing what they were going to have to do.
Mackenzie stepped forward then. While she did not agree with the way Clements was approaching his interrogation, she knew she had to stick with it. Good cop/bad cop only worked in the movies. In reality, it was consistency that usually got results.
“Charlie, can I please see your phone?” she asked.
“What phone?”
“The one I watched you slip into your pocket like some magician when we came in.”
“What for?” Charlie asked.
“Just to check something. You seemed anxious to get it out of our sight.”
“You need a warrant for that, don’t you?” Charlie asked.
“Damn, Charlie,” Clements said. “Just let her see your phone.”
“No. It’s none of her business.”
“If I have to get a warrant, I will,” Mackenzie said. “Or you can save me the trouble and an obstruction charge by just handing it over and—”
She was interrupted mid-sentence as Charlie reached out, grabbed his plate of mac and cheese and hot dogs, and threw it like a Frisbee.
Clements had just enough time to let out a quick “What the fu—” before it hit him in the face.
It took exactly two seconds for Mackenzie to move. Charlie had already bolted for the back of the house. His footfalls thundered through the place like a herd of cows. Mackenzie went after him, unsure if he was attempting an escape or making a dash for a weapon.
She followed him into a small hallway that led to a small kitchen. Beyond it, she could see a back door and the night waiting outside. Charlie was heading for the back door, apparently thinking he could escape.
From behind her, Mackenzie heard Clements scream out Charlie’s name in primal rage. She ignored it, though. Charlie was fast but he was also jittery and scared. He made it into the kitchen but as he turned and headed for the back door, Mackenzie dropped low and launched herself at his knees.
She hit him dead-on, taking his legs out. He toppled over, striking his head on the edge of the kitchen counter. Mackenzie came up out of a roll, bouncing hard off of a row of cabinets along the floor. She then dove on Charlie before he had time to even figure out what had happened.
Mackenzie planted a knee in his back and pulled his arms behind him. In that instant, Clements came rushing into the kitchen. He nearly pushed Mackenzie off of Charlie so that he could slap a set of handcuffs on him.
“Get on your fucking feet,” Clements muttered. He yanked Charlie up and pushed him hard against the counter.
Mackenzie did her best to look away from Clements. There was macaroni and cheese in his hair and smeared on his face. A chunk of hot dog was trapped between his neck and the collar of his shirt.
“Charlie, you’re under arrest,” Clements seethed. He then turned to Mackenzie and said, “If you tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you. And if I can’t kill you, I’ll kill myself.”
He grinned in spite of himself and plucked the piece of hotdog away from his neck.
“Your secret is safe with me,” she said. She stepped forward and reached into Charlie’s pocket. She took out the phone and showed it to Charlie.
“What’s your password?”
Charlie shook his head in response.
Mackenzie shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We can have someone crack it within an hour. In the meantime, I think we need to have a little talk.”
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
The interrogation room inside the Strasburg PD wasn’t much but something about it actually fed into Mackenzie’s mood. It was small, confined, and dimly lit. It smelled of old cigarette smoke and sweat. A single camera sat in the upper left corner of the room, recording the session and relaying it to a small TV in a viewing room down the hall. Because the room was so small and closed off—not much more than a large walk-in closet, really—it was a bit warmer than the rest of the building.
Charlie Holt sat at the small table in the center of the room. He looked nervous and even a bit scared. He’d tried the tough guy act in the car on the way to the police department but it had crumbled away as soon as he had been led into the interrogation room. Despite this, he was refusing to talk. He would not respond to even the simplest, most basic of questions.
There was only one chair in the room, and Charlie Holt was sitting in it. Mackenzie stood with her back against the wall, eyeing him closely and trying to figure him out.
“Charlie…throwing your dinner at a police officer shows either some sort of mental imbalance or a degree of guilt. You understand why we’re suspicious, right?”
Charlie said nothing. He only looked at her fleetingly, in the same way he had on the first day she and Bryers had come onto the case.
“The longer you stay quiet, the more suspicious you seem,” she went on. “More than that, if you don’t give me some answers, I’m going to give up and let Sheriff Clements come in here and question you. And trust me…he’s still plenty pissed and embarrassed about what happene
d. Given the circumstances, I think you’d rather have me to speak to.”
Charlie opened his mouth to say something but then bit it back at the last moment. He shook his head and said: “I’m not talking.”
“And why is that, Charlie?” she said. “What is it that you don’t want to talk about? The murders?”
His eyes went to the table and his entire body seemed to go rigid. He was scared, all right. But Mackenzie thought there might be something else going on. He was scared…but not of her. He was afraid of saying something he shouldn’t but his body language and reaction made her think it was more than spilling his secrets that he was worried about. She’d seen this sort of thing before during her academy training and a few times on a smaller scale when she’d been working as a detective in Nebraska.
“You know where Brian Woerner is, don’t you?” Mackenzie said.
He remained silent.
“How much strength does it take to sever a leg at the knee?” she asked, hoping to jar him into an admission. “And what did you use to make such a fairly clean cut, even through the bone?”
He held his silence but started to squirm uncomfortably in his chair. She studied him, watching his face and narrowing in on his eyes. He was scared, upset…but something else. He was certainly hiding something but she didn’t think it was something he had done. The reaction to her violent descriptions and his utter refusal to talk at all made her think that something strange was at play here.
An idea so profound popped into her head that she stood up from the wall in a hurry.
The blank spot in his records…nothing before college…
She walked closer to the table and stayed quiet. She simply studied Charlie’s face for a moment and saw all she needed to see. Just in case, though, she added one more question.
“You didn’t kill those people, did you?”
He looked at her for a moment…a quick second at best. But it was all she needed to see. There was relief there. There was truth there. And there was…well, there was something else, too.
He’s not our guy at all. Well, he’s not the killer, anyway. If I’m right on this…oh my God…
“I’ll be right back, Charlie.”
Mackenzie left the interrogation room, closing the door tightly behind her, and headed to the next room down the hall. She joined Bryers, Clements, and Smith, all huddled around the small TV bolted to the wall.
“Let me talk to him,” Clements said.
“Not just yet,” Mackenzie said. “Smith, do you recall the specifics of the Will Albrecht abduction?”
“Most of them. What do you need to know?”
“Will was how old when he was taken?”
“Seven,” Smith answered. “A month shy of being eight.”
“Taken nineteen years ago?” Mackenzie asked.
“Yes,” Smith said. “Why do you…no. No way.”
“Will Albrecht would have been twenty-seven years old today. Charlie Holt is twenty-seven years old. He also has a record that has quite a few missing years prior to college.”
“That’s one hell of a stretch,” Clements said.
“Is it?” Bryers asked. “Let’s find out.”
He pulled out his cell phone and placed a call. He walked to the back of the room to speak to the person on the other line. He murmured quietly as a thick wave of tension started to fill the room.
“Just let me get this straight,” Clements said. “You expect me to believe that Will Albrecht survived his abduction and then came back to his hometown without anyone realizing it was him? Not only that, but that he took a job as a park ranger and is now killing people?”
“You’re partly right,” she said. “You know as well as I do that his family moved away after the abduction. So there’s no family here that would recognize him. I don’t think he came back. I don’t think he ever left.”
He stared at her.
“What are you saying?” he asked.
She sighed.
“I don’t think he’s killing these people,” she said. “But I think he’s helping.”
“Helping who?” Clements asked, clearly not understanding.
Mackenzie stared back.
“The psycho who abducted him twenty years ago.”
They all stared back at her, clearly processing it, as a heavy silence blanketed the room.
“He’s showing textbook signs of protecting someone,” Mackenzie continued. “He’s not worried about spilling his own secrets. He seems more worried about slipping up and saying something he’s not supposed to. And that almost certainly indicates that there is someone else involved. And whenever I direct the questions to the gruesome nature of the crimes, he gets visibly uncomfortable.”
While Clements and Smith mulled this over (Smith with an impressed smile on his face), Bryers joined them again. “I’ve got Intelligence working to pull a birth certificate for Charlie Holt, Virginia Tech graduate and current employee at Little Hill State Park. We should have results pretty soon.”
Clements stared at the television screen with his hands on his hips.
“Unbelievable,” he said. “If this turns out to be true…”
“I want to wait for the call from Intelligence,” Mackenzie said. “I want to know for absolutely sure if this turns out before speaking with him again. He’s scared and sort of fragile right now. If I can use this as a weapon, he’ll crumble pretty easily, I think.”
“But what if he is the killer?” Smith asked. “I mean…did we get him just like that? Is it over that easily?”
It was a pleasant thought but Mackenzie was nearly certain Charlie Holt (if that was his name, something she doubted very strongly) was not a killer. With the way the bodies had been slaughtered and nearly put on some weird sort of display, the killer would likely be very proud and boastful about this work…not cowering and close to tears.
Mackenzie watched him on the television. He couldn’t seem to get comfortable in his chair. On one occasion, he turned and looked to the camera, as if he could feel their eyes on him from the next room.
Behind her, everyone else milled around anxiously. Smith stepped out for a coffee. Clements went out to check on a few smaller matters in his office. Bryers stayed by her side but remained quiet. She felt him back behind her like a ghost…and given his current condition, it was something of an eerie feeling.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Bryers’s phone rang. He answered it quickly and Mackenzie did her best to listen in as Bryers gave a series of Yeahs and Thank yous. When he ended the call a minute later, he looked a little grave yet resigned.
“There’s no record on Charlie Holt prior to middle school,” he said. “He attended Barnes Middle School and the Barnes High School in Pennsylvania. Before that, though…nothing. No record of a birth certificate. No immunization records before middle school. And the only emergency contact Intelligence could find is a Bob White…deceased in 2011. Another thing to note is that there’s some question over the authenticity of the middle school records.”
“Are they fakes?”
“I’m not sure. The guys at Intelligence are looking into it. Still, I think it’s something of a stretch to say that Charlie Holt is Will Albrecht.”
Mackenzie wasn’t so sure.
“Only one way to find out,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTY
When Mackenzie stepped back into the interrogation room, she was very aware of the three sets of eyes that were watching her through the camera. She was also very aware of the distrustful look on Charlie’s face.
“This is your last chance,” Mackenzie said. “You talk now or you’re going to spend some time in jail.” This, she knew, was not accurate unless they could pin something on him—but she was pretty sure he wouldn’t know such a thing.
Charlie only shrugged.
“Why did you try to run when we came by just to ask you some questions about the case? As a park ranger, you should have been more than willing to help.”
/> He stayed quiet. Mackenzie almost wished he would do it defiantly. Maybe with his arms crossed or with a sly grin on his face. But no…Charlie was shaking in his boots, his lips quivering and his eyes on the verge of welling with tears.
“Fine. Stay quiet,” she said. “But in the meantime, I want to tell you a story. Is that okay?” Without giving him time to understand what she meant, Mackenzie started: “While the grisly murders in Little Hill State Park are certainly tragic, it’s worth noting that it’s not the first time something terrible has happened in the park. You see…about twenty years ago, a little boy went missing. He was seven years old and was abducted right off the trails when he got ahead of his parents on his bike. The police searched and searched but the kid never turned up.”
Mackenzie paused here, leaning on the edge of the table and looking directly into his eyes. A tear finally spilled down his cheek, and then another. He let out a pitiful little moan and looked away from her.
“The story continues with a park ranger that has worked at Little Hill for a few years now. He’s a nice enough guy but the funny thing is that when the police started looking back into his history, there’s a big chunk missing. There’s no record of him ever being a kid—not before attending middle school in Pennsylvania anyway. And then there’s—”
“Stop,” he said. “Just stop!” He sniffled and looked up to her again. He looked lost. He looked defeated and broken.
Mackenzie stepped away from the table, just a few steps, to not seem so threatening. She then sighed and put on a soft, reassuring tone.
“Where were you all of those years, Will?”
“He was taking care of me.”
“Who?”
Will Albrecht shook his head. It was the first time he had seemed absolutely unwilling to cooperate. His jaw was clenched and his eyes, while still spilling tears, were ice cold.
“Let me see if I can connect the dots for you,” she said. “I think there’s a chance that you were abducted and then cared for by whoever took you. Maybe the two of you left the area and lived a secret life somewhere else. Pennsylvania, perhaps. And then you come back here with your abductor. You take on a job as a park ranger so that you can…what? Help him find his next victims?”
