by L. T. Vargus
“Except that I found pupal cases on Dustin Reynolds,” Fowles said.
“Pupal what now?”
“The life cycle of the blow fly goes through several stages,” Fowles began. “The adults are attracted to the body, where they lay eggs. The eggs hatch into the larvae or maggots, which feed on the remains. As they feed, they pass through three larval stages and into the prepupal stage, at which point they begin to migrate away from the body to fully pupate. They spend several days as pupa before hatching into adult flies, and then the cycle begins anew. Each of these stages takes place for a specific length of time, which varies depending on the surrounding environment. In this case, the predominant factor is ambient temperature.”
“OK,” Furbush said. “I’m with you. For now.”
“The fact that I found pupal cases on Dustin Reynolds means that at least one life cycle has been completed.”
“And how long does that take?” Furbush asked.
“Given the weather in the last few weeks, my current estimation for Dustin Reynolds’ time of death would be fourteen days.”
“Fourteen! That’s twice what we originally thought!”
Dr. Kole cleared his throat.
“Once a body is in the putrefaction stage, it can be very difficult to pinpoint a specific time. I gave you my best estimation after a very preliminary examination at the scene. But after completing the full postmortem exam, my findings align with what Mr. Fowles is saying. I estimate Dustin Reynolds’ time of death at 10-14 days.”
The muscles along Chief Furbush’s jaw bunched and unbunched.
“This makes no sense. No damn sense at all,” Furbush said.
“I found something else during the autopsy.” Dr. Kole’s voice was restrained. Calm. “And I apologize I don’t have the written report for you yet. I was in the middle of finalizing it when I got this call.”
“Might as well drop the bomb and get it over with, doc,” Furbush said.
“Dustin Reynolds had a fractured skull.”
Furbush’s hat came off. It seemed for a second that it did this on its own, but then Darger saw the shaky hand latched onto the brim. She thought the chief might toss it on the ground and stomp on it. Instead, he only wiped his brow before replacing it on his head.
“Are you telling me that Dustin Reynolds slipped and fell in the tub? Cracked his skull?”
“Normally, that would be my guess. But the blunt force trauma occurred on the parietal bone just behind the coronal suture.”
“English?” Furbush asked.
Dr. Kole patted his tuft of white hair.
“The top of the head. Now, if the injury had been almost anywhere else, I might be inclined to argue an accidental fall,” Dr. Kole explained. “But a fracture on the top of the head… well, that’s hard to sell as accidental, unless he was doing a somersault into the bathtub.”
Darger’s heart began to beat a little faster at the implication. Had someone struck Dustin Reynolds on the head in order to incapacitate him before drowning him?
“Did you check his lungs?” she asked.
The doctor shook his head.
“The decomposition was too advanced to determine whether or not he drowned, unfortunately. But considering the skull fracture, and the way he fits into all of this, I’m not comfortable ruling it an accident.”
He paused and held up his hands to stop their inevitable next question.
“On the other hand, there isn’t enough evidence at this time to label it a homicide either. I think his death certificate will read ‘Undetermined’ for the time being.”
Air rushed out of Furbush’s lungs as he heaved a sigh.
“Another dead end.”
“No,” Darger said. “We know we’re on the right track now.”
“But if Dustin Reynolds is just another victim, we’re back where we started, aren’t we?”
“Not at all. It’s obvious that Dustin Reynolds was connected to all of it somehow. Twenty years ago, his girlfriend dies the same way. And now we have four other bodies, plus him, meeting similar ends? This isn’t a coincidence. All of this has to tie back to Christy Whitmore somehow. And we know for sure now that Dustin was tied up in that. Maybe not directly. Maybe he’s just the link between Christy and the killer.”
One of Furbush’s fingers stroked a spot of stubble on his chin.
“OK. Yeah. That’s something to work with.”
“We should go back through the witnesses and interviews for the other victims,” she suggested. “If we can find a connection between the new victims and either Christy Whitmore or Dustin Reynolds, we might just find our killer.”
The metal table laden with the grisly remains of the woman pulled from the lake was only a few feet from where they were standing. Even without looking directly at it, Darger caught glimpses of the pale bloated flesh in her peripheral vision.
“Any idea on the identity?” she asked.
Furbush glanced at the table and covered his hand with his mouth.
“Our other victims were relatively easy to ID since the women were all reported missing beforehand. But we haven’t had anyone reported missing since Shannon Mead. We’ll check with the surrounding jurisdictions, and the state police have a Missing Persons clearinghouse online. But for now, this girl is a Jane Doe.”
Chapter 44
Back at the station, Furbush brought everyone up to speed.
“We’re up to four dead women, five if you count Christy Whitmore. Dustin Reynolds, our best suspect to date, is now crossed off our list, since he was dead long before our most recent victim.”
Pacing the front of the conference room, Furbush cracked his knuckles.
“How he fits exactly with the rest of the victims, we’re not sure yet. But according to the coroner, his death is looking less like a suicide and more like a homicide. Our current theory at the moment is that he’s another victim in all this.”
Detective Kwan raised a question Darger had been grappling with herself.
“Isn’t it rare for a serial killer to kill both men and women?”
“Yes and no,” she said. “I’ll use Paul John Knowles, The Casanova Killer, as an example. He killed fourteen women and six men, but the men were always collateral damage or opportunistic killings — husbands and fathers of his intended victims or someone he killed so he could steal their credit cards. That's what we tend to see if there are both male and female victims. Of course there are examples like David Berkowitz and the Zodiac Killer, who killed couples, but it’s my opinion that the women were always the intended targets in those cases as well.”
“Is that why Dustin Reynolds wasn’t moved?”
“It might be,” Darger said. “Dustin is a break in the M.O. in many ways. He’s male, he was left at what we believe was the scene of the murder instead of dumped in a body of water. If the motivation is different — maybe he got in the way somehow or the killer wanted something from him — then that could be why the killer felt no need to perpetuate the rest of the ritual.”
Darger heard audible swallows, saw multiple Adam’s apples bob up and down. This was a concerned group of men and women that were growing tired of more questions than answers, and she’d just given them a boatload of maybes and mights and could-bes. She could practically see the uncertainty buzzing like flies in their skulls.
Furbush took over then, handing out orders to his crew.
“Turco and Baughn, I want you to go through the state Missing Persons registry. If you come up empty there, check Washington, California, Nevada, and Idaho. Someone reported this girl missing.”
Pointing to his detectives and another group of uniforms, Furbush continued.
“Mantelbaum, Reese, Kwan, and Portnoy, I want you to take photographs of our four confirmed vics, plus Dustin Reynolds and Christy Whitmore, and show them to our original witness list. It’s a big list, so divvy it up and get through it however you can. Myself and our consultants will do what we can to pick up an interview here and t
here. But it’s imperative that we find a connection somewhere. It’s there. We just haven’t seen it yet.”
Officer Mantelbaum raised a hand.
“Does this mean I should abandon Dustin Reynolds’ finances? I only really scratched the surface of his records this morning.”
“Actually, no. Stay on that for now. Dustin is wrapped up in all of this. He may even be the missing piece we’ve been looking for. As for the rest of you… Good luck and Godspeed.”
Waiting until most of the men and women had filed out of the room, Furbush tugged at his collar and turned a worried face on Darger.
“I feel like I’m treading water. Is it always like this?”
Darger gave what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
“You’re doing fine,” she said. “And yes, it’s always like this.”
“I don’t know if that makes me feel any better, to be honest,” he said with a sigh. “Any suggestions on our next move?”
Someone had collected photographs of all of the victims and tacked them to a bulletin board at the far end of the conference room. Darger let her eyes drift over the faces.
“I’d like to try talking to Christy Whitmore’s mother again. I want to see who else she remembers from back then. Friends of Dustin she might remember hanging around. Other people they could talk to that spent time with Christy and Dustin.”
“I take it I should sit that one out?”
“Probably so.”
There was a knock at the door. It was Mantelbaum again. His eyelids were stretched wide, like he’d just been doused with a bucket of ice water. He had something, Darger could tell.
“Chief?”
“What is it?”
“This is going to sound a little odd, but… Dustin Reynolds just checked into a hotel.”
“Dustin Reynolds is dead.”
“Well, I know that. I guess what I mean to say is that someone using Dustin Reynolds’ credit card just checked into a hotel.”
“Where at?”
“Right here in town. The Sentinel Inn.”
Darger and Furbush exchanged a glance.
“Let’s go.”
Chapter 45
The Sentinel Inn sat in a neighborhood that had seen better days. Sun-bleached boards adorned the windows of the businesses on either side — a pawn shop and a smoothie place, respectively. American dreams that had been shuttered and forgotten years ago, based on the looks of things.
The hotel itself looked dated. Beat up. A place best suited for meth deals and prostitution and people trying to avoid notice for reasons legal and otherwise. A shithole, more or less, though only slightly more low end than the places Darger normally stayed in when the FBI was footing the bill.
The stucco on the outside of the building sported pockmarks, little crumbled places that made it look like a cheek with acne scars. It had probably once been tan, but it had yellowed through the years, taking on some nicotine tint Darger had observed on the stained teeth and fingertips of the incarcerated.
Darger and Fowles accompanied Furbush’s SWAT crew as they crossed a craggy parking lot, avoiding the menagerie of potholes and mud puddles, and entered the lobby through the glass doors out front.
The clerk at the front desk was an older woman with a fluffy cloud of gray-blonde hair surrounding a face wrinkled by too many hours under a tanning bed. Darger knew for a fact that it was a tanning bed and not the sun because of the telltale white circles around her eyes from the little protective goggles.
She didn’t so much as glance up as they approached, just kept sucking her vape pen with her eyes glued to her phone. Judging by the obnoxious jangling noises coming from it, she was playing some sort of slot machine game.
Furbush cleared his throat.
“You have a room registered under the name Dustin Reynolds?”
The woman removed the e-cigarette from her mouth, looking unimpressed.
“Got a warrant?”
The Chief slid a copy of the search warrant across the scuffed desk.
With a sigh, she set her phone aside, stuffed the vape pen back into her mouth and tapped at the keyboard.
“Sure do. Room 414.”
“And can you tell us if anyone has checked in yet?”
“Checked in yesterday afternoon.”
“Were you working yesterday?”
“Nope,” she said and exhaled a huge plume of vape smoke.
“Is there anyone here who might have been working when the occupant checked in?”
“Nope.”
“Do you take down driver’s license information?”
“Not when they prepay with a credit card.”
“And this room is prepaid?”
The puff of hair bobbed up and down, yes.
“OK. What about the reservation itself?”
“What about it?”
“When was it made? Was it made online or did they call? Who booked it? How many guests booked?”
Another haze of smoke swirled out of the woman’s mouth as she jabbed her fingers at the keyboard.
“Reservation was made two weeks ago. Booked online, and the only name on the booking is the one that matches the credit card. One guest.”
She pressed the vape pen between her lips, and the tip bounced like a conductor’s baton as she spoke.
“Look, it ain’t really my job to go around pokin’ in other peoples’ business. ‘Specially not when they prepay.”
Furbush let out a resigned sigh.
“Fair enough. We’re going to need a key to Room 414.”
After retrieving the keycard and the warrant, Furbush and Darger moved away from the desk to converse privately.
“You think we should stick with the plan?” he asked.
She nodded, hoping it was the right move. With a wave of his arm, Furbush gathered his men into a huddle.
“OK, men. We’ve already gone over this back at the station, but I’ll lay it out once more just so we know we’re all on the same page. Squad A, you’re with Darger and myself. We’ll proceed up to the fourth floor via the elevator. Squad B, you’ll take the side stairwell. When we reach the hallway that gives access to Room 414, both teams will wait for Miss Darger to give the signal. Are we clear?”
A chorus of voices agreed that they were.
“Let’s go, then.”
Darger tugged at the shoulder of her jacket as she boarded the elevator. The Kevlar vest she had on was chafing the hell out of her left armpit. Everyone else wore their vests over their clothes, but Darger didn’t have that luxury. Dressed in street clothes, she would approach the door alone and knock. In her blue oxford shirt and navy jacket, they hoped she’d appear like a hotel employee to whomever was on the other side of the door. They’d open up, Darger would have them step out of the room, and the strike team would take things from there.
Easy.
She hoped.
Beside her, Fowles tapped the button for the fourth floor. He’d requested to come along, and while Darger’s answer would have been a hard no, they were on Furbush’s turf. The Chief allowed it with the condition that Fowles wear a helmet in addition to the vest and that he stay well behind the squad until the subject was in custody.
Fowles looked funny with the vest on under his suit jacket. Bulky and strange. It took Darger a second to figure out what was off about it. Intuitively or not, the getup made his head look massive. An orb rested on his neck the size of a planet. And once she saw it, she couldn’t unsee it.
She heard Loshak’s voice in her head, “Get a load of the watermelon this guy’s trying to pass off as a human head,” and a laugh spluttered out from between her lips, no matter the effort she made at stopping it. It was like trying not to laugh in church.
Fowles arched his eyebrow at her and then squinted.
“Something funny?”
Darger shrugged, trying to reel the giggles in a little and succeeding.
“No. Just nerves. Adrenaline, you know.”
He nodded af
ter a second, but his squint didn’t let up.
Darger turned her attention away to avoid renewed laughter, watching the glowing number above shift from 2 to 3.
She took in the details of the confined metal box they rode in. Smudged handprints and dark streaks from clumsily handled luggage dotted the stainless steel door, and the walls were lined with a hideous brown carpet-like material. It smelled inexplicably like canned spaghetti.
She wondered if they’d made the right choice. They could have agreed to bust the door down, and maybe they still would, but they were going to play it low key first. This could be something benign, after all. A friend or relative could have had permission to use the card. Hell, they might not even know Reynolds was dead. News of his demise had only been spreading for a few hours now.
But after the anticlimax of the cabin — storming in and finding Dustin Reynolds dead — the superstitious part of Darger’s mind worried that this would end up being the chaotic encounter she’d been anticipating.
The glow reached 4, and the car eased to a stop. The elevator door slid open in slow motion.
Fowles waited just outside the elevator while the rest of their group moved down another hallway of worn carpet. Maybe it was off-white at some point, but time and dirt seemed to have darkened it to something like the shade of old bones.
Pausing at a fork in the hallway, Furbush gave a tick of his chin to gesture at the appropriate door, and the whole posse pulled up. This was it.
Darger twitched her shoulders, trying to get comfortable under the vest. She proceeded the rest of the way on her own. Stopping in front of the door to Room 414, her gaze locked on the thick wooden slab set in a rolled stainless steel frame.
Loud music played inside. Deep driving bass. Fast, cheesy guitar wailing over it. It was hard to pick out the melody through the heavy door, but Darger thought it sounded like hair metal.
She wiped the back of her hand at her lip, brought it down to rest on the butt of her gun. Her heartbeat had accelerated the whole way down the hall and now reached a dead sprint. Pulse battering away in her right eyelid. Her mouth gone as dry as hay.
