by Stone, Mary
The interview with the family. Their pain leaped off the page, every response to the detective’s careful questioning fraught with despair. Because they’d come from Charleston to collect their daughter’s body, the detective was able to interview them in person.
Clay flipped to the back of the cream file folder and smiled when he found the silver disk in a plastic pouch affixed to the back cover. Taking the disc out and slipping it into the drive on his computer, he put his headphones on.
The case number and Charity’s name flashed on the screen, followed by the date—three years after her initial disappearance. The words faded to reveal a table in a gray interview room, where Mr. and Mrs. Parker were slumped in chairs side by side, bottles of water untouched in front of them. Even through the grainy picture, their grief was evident. The couple held hands under the table, chairs pushed as close together as they could get, leaning on each other.
The sight of them was heart-wrenching, but it wasn’t the first set of grieving parents Clay had seen, and unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last. At least he was spared the task of notifying them about their daughter’s passing. He grimaced. That was by far the worst part of the job. The FBI saved many victims, sometimes reuniting them years later with families who’d given up hope. But there were many who died, and dealing with those families was the worst.
The detective sat across from the couple, a standard notepad on the table in front of him. He was solemn, his voice soft and level as he asked questions. Though he had a transcript of the interview in front of him, Clay turned the volume up.
“Mrs. Parker, I want to start with when you last saw your daughter. Do you remember the date?”
Faith Parker shook her head. “It was June, three years ago, right after school ended for the year.”
The detective glanced up from his notes and leaned forward. “Three years ago?”
“Yes.”
“That’s three years before Charity was killed.” He flipped through the notepad, circling a note with his pencil. “Charity was killed recently, and you reported her missing just a month ago. Can you explain that?”
“She was coming home.” Mrs. Parker’s voice cracked. “She called to tell me she was coming home. I offered to come get her, but she wanted to do it on her own.” The woman wailed, burying her face in her husband’s shoulder, sobbing for a full minute while the detective waited patiently.
After her cries had lessened in volume enough to be heard over, the husband spoke for the first time, addressing the detective. “Charity ran away at sixteen. We didn’t know where she was. We filed a missing person’s case then, but nothing came of it. My family was devastated, but we figured when she was ready, she would call us. That’s why we kept our landline when we rarely used it. Just in case. The night before her nineteenth birthday, she called our house and asked if she could come home. It was the first time anyone had heard from her in three years, and we were so relieved.”
“What else did she say?”
Mr. Parker paused, shaking his head. “I wasn’t home, so I don’t know. She talked to Faith. By the time I got home, she’d already hung up.”
“Did she have a cell phone?”
“She called from a pay phone.” Faith swiped her sleeve across her face to dry her tears. “It was a weird number. Ocelot or something like that.”
“Ocotillo?” The detective’s hand was poised, pencil tip on paper.
“That’s right. I’ve never heard of the place, but she said it was close to El Centro.”
“Was that where she was going?”
Mrs. Parker nodded, sitting up a little straighter, focusing on the questions. Her despair was quieted for the moment, but Clay knew that could change in an instant. Grief was a strange thing, and no one reacted the same way. She was eerily calm, as if the sobs from a few minutes before hadn’t even happened.
“She said she could get to the station in El Centro, and I was going to buy her a ticket for the bus.” Her face collapsed again, but she managed to keep her emotions under control. “We should’ve picked her up. I don’t know why she didn’t want us to come get her.”
“We wouldn’t have judged her,” Mr. Parker interjected. “She’s our daughter. Whatever she had to do, she did to survive.”
“Is there anything else she said, or something you might have heard that you can think of? Even if it seems like a small thing. Do you know how she was getting to El Centro? It’s a good thirty-minute drive from Ocotillo.”
“I don’t, but I think she was going to catch a ride with a trucker.”
The detective scribbled a few words on the notepad and turned his attention back to Mrs. Parker. “Why do you say that?”
“She was supposed to call me when she got to the bus station, but she never did. I found the number she called from on the caller ID log and called it back. The person who answered didn’t know Charity, but he told me it was a pay phone at a truck stop. The night she called me, I could hear a diesel engine in the background. I just remember that sound making it hard to hear her, and when she called, it was really late. Who else is on the road that late at night? Just truckers.”
Clay played the rest of the interview, but there was nothing more to glean from the hour-long talk with the parents of Charity Parker. They hadn’t seen their daughter in three years before that day. Whatever they knew about their daughter and her habits was useless to the detective, but Clay was focused on one thing. Charity’s mother thought she’d heard a diesel engine running in the background. Was it possible that his hunch about the truck driver connection was right?
He closed the video and tucked the DVD back into the file folder, then he perused the search results that had come in while he was watching the interview. More than a dozen cases popped up, each matching the keywords he’d typed in: trucker, desert, highway, abandoned. He skimmed the files, his pen scratching across the page as he jotted down case numbers and took notes.
The first deceased woman in the search had been found by a real estate agent photographing the property for a perspective buyer. Abandoned by a nursery business that had gone bankrupt, the boarded-up building littered with old planters and little else had obscured the woman’s body from the highway. Like Charity’s crime scene, there were several sets of tire tracks nearby, but Jane Doe had been strangled, not bludgeoned to death. Picked clean to the bone and spread out by wild animals, a broken hyoid bone was the only perimortem injury.
Clay let out the breath he’d been holding, relieved the poor woman hadn’t been alive when the scavengers had descended. Unidentified, there was little information on the victim and her whereabouts before her murder. The only thing that was clear was she hadn’t choked herself, nor had she dumped herself in the California desert.
The second woman was found in a wooded area near Conway, Arkansas, a few hundred feet from a wide shoulder of the interstate. She’d been discovered when a man pulled over to walk his dog. Alerted by her scent, the retriever had dragged the man into the forest until they were a few feet from her body, which was curled up in the fetal position at the base of a large tree.
According to the detective’s notes, the man thought the woman had gotten lost and fallen asleep, but when he’d moved closer to check on her, it had become clear that she’d been murdered. Backtracking to his car, the man had done all he could to preserve the scene, but there was very little evidence to begin with.
Sheila Walker had run from her attacker, opting to seek shelter in the woods instead of racing down the road in search of help. Stabbed over thirty times, the medical examiner had noted a significant time lapse between the first stab and the last.
Clay found the photos from the autopsy and clicked to enlarge them on the computer screen. The M.E. had grouped the stab wounds based on bruising and coloration—six in the first group, and another five. The final nineteen had happened all at once. All in all, from the initial stab wound to death, approximately two hours had passed. A passenger vehicle pulled off to the
side of the road for that long might’ve drawn attention, but a semi wouldn’t have. A tired trucker would sleep wherever they could, and a passing motorist would think nothing of it.
He connected almost a dozen cases before he stopped, sure he was on to something. Excited, he gathered up the photos from Charity’s case and stuck them back in the folder before packing his laptop case. He kept the transcript and notepad out, threw the strap over his shoulder, and jogged up the short flight of stairs to Agent Carr’s office, which overlooked the agent floor. He tapped on her office door, even though she’d already spotted him through the glass that made up the entire front wall of her office.
“Yes?” she said as he swung the door open.
“I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to take vacation.”
She smiled, stopping mid keystroke and giving him her full attention. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Why the sudden change of heart?”
“Charity Parker’s case got me thinking, so I ran a search.”
“I thought you’d be intrigued. What did you find?”
Clay turned his notepad around so she could read his notes from where she sat. “There are several cases where the bodies were found in remote areas, some in the woods, and some in the desert, but all near a major highway frequented by truckers. I want to run the trucker angle, since all the dump sites seem to be popular places for semi drivers to pull off to get some rest.
The way the vics were killed varies, and it’s possible the sites were chosen because semitrucks would cover the killer’s tracks with multiple tread patterns, but my gut is telling me the killer is a trucker. I think the change in M.O. is a forensic counter measure, weapon of opportunity, or both.”
“Are you heading to Arizona?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Charleston.” Handing the transcript to her, he pointed to a specific line near the bottom of the first page. “Charity Parker’s mother heard a diesel engine in the background of the call, and I bet there’s more. I need to talk to the Parkers face to face and see if there’s anything they might have missed when interviewed. Mrs. Parker was the last person to speak to her daughter.”
“Besides the killer,” SSA Carr said grimly before handing the transcript back with a nod. “Looks like you’re headed to Charleston.”
He nodded, his spirits lifting at the idea of heading back to the pretty town. The added perk was that Detective Ellie Kline was in Charleston too.
5
Friday couldn’t have come soon enough. Ellie handed Fortis the update file for John Doe, found November first, nine years ago. She couldn’t wipe the triumphant smile from her face as she sat in the chair in front of his desk. She’d fulfilled his and Chief Johnson’s orders, working on Fortis’s list. She couldn’t help the euphoria that came with a solved case, which not only gave closure to family, but made her city a safer place.
Fortis arched an eyebrow as he laid the file on his desk. “You close it?”
“All but. His name was David McEntire. I managed to find his sister and notify her.” Ellie’s smile turned sad. “She was relieved to know what had happened to him. Apparently, he lived a hard life, and she was not surprised to hear he’d passed away.”
“Is she able to come in to provide a DNA sample?”
Ellie nodded. “She’s in Philly, so it will be next week at the soonest, but I’ve prepared the case to be closed, so she is able to take his things with her after the testing.”
“Already?”
Shrugging, she leaned across the desk to open the file. “His death was listed as suspicious, but not being able to identify him stalled the investigation. Mr. McEntire’s family didn’t report him missing until after the case went cold. I was able to make a positive ID comparing the crime scene photo and the one from his missing person’s file. After reviewing the crime scene photos and the notes from the original detective, I asked Dr. Faizal to take another look at the case.”
“Did she do the original autopsy?”
Ellie shuffled through the papers until she found the original medical examiner’s report. “Yes, but she marked it ‘pending further investigation’ and noted at the bottom it was likely an accidental or natural death. She agreed he died from exposure and would’ve succumbed to cirrhosis of the liver, anyway. He only had a few weeks to live, tops. That, coupled with his transient lifestyle and untreated mental illness make this an open and shut case. There’s no sign of foul play and no reason to hold on to any evidence. The only part of this case that needed solved was the man’s identity. Now that all the files are digital, it’s a lot easier to run a broad search.”
“And you found nothing out of the ordinary or suspect?”
Ellie tilted her head. “Should I have?”
“No, but that hasn’t stopped you before.” He chuckled softly, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. “You’ve had a few cases that should’ve been open and shut, but you managed to uncover something no one noticed. I’ve come to expect it, I guess.”
Jaw clenching, Ellie inhaled through her nose, measuring her words carefully. “That phenomenon had more to do with the detective who labeled the cases as cold. If I was still chasing down Jones’s old cases, there would be more to uncover.”
Fortis held his hand out in a placating gesture. “I knew better than to open that can of worms. Kline, you know—”
“I’m not allowed to investigate anything Jones touched because it’s a conflict of interest at this point.” Ellie leaned back and crossed her arms, eyes going to the ceiling as she repeated the words she’d heard before in a singsong voice. “Yes, I’ve been told several times. I understand, but there are plenty of cases he wasn’t involved in that I could be working.”
“That’s why I have a list.”
She scowled, heat rising into her cheeks as the frustration built. “Most of the cases on the list just needed another look with our updated technology. That’s the second case I’ve closed in a week. I can probably have the entire list done by the end of the summer.” She flicked one hand out, as if this would be as easy as pie. “Any rookie could clear those out, so I don’t understand why I’m wasting my time doing grunt work.”
“You are the rookie detective.”
“Valdez is new,” she shot back.
Fortis clenched his jaw. “Valdez transferred in from Louisville. He’s not a rookie, just new to the area.”
“Okay, but you could give every detective two of the cases from your list and they’d be wrapped up in a week, two tops. I could be chasing bigger fish.”
“If you weren’t so resistant to partnering with another detective, I would allow it. But as long as you fight the inevitable, this is the only way to keep you in line.”
She scoffed, shaking her head and casting her eyes to the floor so he wouldn’t see how deep his words had cut. “I’m a good detective.”
“You’re a great detective, but you’re reckless, and it’s going to get you killed.” His voice was lower now, firm without any malice. “This is my department, and I’ll run it how I see fit.”
He really did see her as a threat to herself.
The realization hit Ellie hard, and it suddenly clicked. “None of the guys want to partner with me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Really?” She shot him an incredulous look. “My welcome hasn’t exactly been a warm one. Detective Decker is the only one who bothers to say hi when I come in every morning. Whenever a tip comes into the main number for one of my cases, Shaw just sends them to my voicemail, but I’ve watched him take detailed messages for other detectives and hand deliver to their desks. The guys go out to drink after work and not once have I been invited. They don’t have to tell me I’m not welcome here; they’ve made it pretty obvious.”
Fortis scowled, but didn’t argue with her assessment. “I didn’t ask their opinion. You’re not the only one who could learn a few things from a strategic partnership, and this department has been a boy’s club for far too long. I know what I
’m doing, Kline. If you could just trust me.”
“Like I did when you said I should spend time with the department shrink? You and Chief Johnson both insisted it was for the best, and look how that turned out.”
She hadn’t meant to bring up the day she’d tried to save Dr. Powell’s life. She remembered the moment she’d realized the scar on his chest had been put there by her own hand as a fifteen-year-old girl. Realized that he’d been Dr. Kingsley’s assistant all along. He’d bled out on the floor after that. That wasn’t a thing that was easy to forget.
Fortis’s cheeks colored, bronze skin darkening on his throat. Swallowing, he shook his head, a muscle ticking in the base of his jaw. “No one knew Dr. Powell was a plant. He started with Charleston PD about the same time you graduated from the academy. There was no criminal record, and Powell wasn’t connected to Kingsley in any way that we knew about. The Secret Service wouldn’t have found anything amiss with Dr. Powell. He was that good.”
“Yet, you act like my paranoia is overboard.”
Setting his glasses on the desk and leaning back, Fortis ran his fingers through his tight, wavy hair and let out a heavy sigh. His voice was gentler than it had been as he continued. “I’ll concede that you were right about Jones, and you were technically correct in believing he wasn’t the only one, but you didn’t suspect Dr. Powell any more than the rest of us. This mission you’re on to prove every last one of your colleagues innocent before you’re willing to trust them is causing a rift in the department. It needs to stop.”
“But—”
He held up a hand. “If it takes sending you on an extended leave, Kline, I’ll do it. I don’t want to, and assigning you a partner so you can build a relationship is a far better way to deal with this. I was wrong to let you work in the evidence room with Reed for so long; especially after Jillian moved into your apartment. She enables your behavior, and that needs to stop too.”
Ellie bristled from the bottom of her feet to the tips of her hair. “She’s helped me connect evidence no one else was aware of.”
