by Blake Pierce
“Is that all that different from regular cotton?” Kate asked.
“I’m not positive,” he said. “But we see a lot of clothes and fabric-related material come through here. And I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve come into contact with something with noticeable traces of bamboo cotton. It’s not a very rare material but it’s just not as widespread as your basic cotton.”
“In other words,” DeMarco said, “it wouldn’t be too hard to locate companies that use it as a primary material?”
“That, I don’t know,” Reed said. “But you may be interested to know that bamboo cotton is present in lots of fluffier blankets. It’s quite breathable from what I’ve seen. You’re probably looking for something on the pricier side. As a matter of fact, there’s a warehouse just outside of town that manufactures the very sort of thing I mean. Pricy blankets, throws, sheets, that sort of thing.”
“Do you know the name of it?” DeMarco asked.
“Biltmore Threads. They’re a smaller company that nearly went belly up when everyone started buying everything online.”
“Anything else you can tell us?” Kate asked.
“Yes, but it’s sort of grisly. With the Nash woman, I believe the fabric was shoved so far down that she nearly vomited, even that close to death. There was stomach acid on the fabric.”
Kate thought about the amount of force and effort it would take for someone to do that…about how much of one’s hand would go into the victim’s mouth.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Reed,” Kate said.
“Certainly. Let’s just hope I don’t see a third piece to that blanket anytime soon.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Eerily enough, the drive to the Biltmore Threads warehouse took Kate and DeMarco down the same stretch of road they had taken into Whip Springs at four o’clock that morning. The factory and warehouse were located down a two-lane road that snaked off of the main highway. It was tucked away, along with the stretch of dying grass that served as its landscaping, in the very same woods that had hidden the Nash home from the main road.
From the looks of the parking lot, Biltmore Threads wasn’t doing quite as badly as Will Reed had suggested. The place looked to employ at least fifty or so people, and that was based on just this time of day. With a factory like this, Kate assumed there was shift work involved, meaning another fifty or so would probably come in later on for the night shift.
They made their way inside, walking into a dingy lobby. A woman sitting behind a counter looked up at them with a peculiar expression. It was evident that they didn’t get many visitors.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
DeMarco went through the round of introductions and after they showed their IDs, the woman at the counter buzzed them in through a door on the far end of the lobby. That same woman met them there and then led them down a small hallway. At the end of the hall, she opened a set of double doors that led onto the Biltmore Threads production floor. Several sets of looms and other equipment Kate had never seen were thrumming with life. On the far side of the large work floor, a compact forklift was carrying a pallet of stacked cloth elsewhere into the warehouse.
After leading them carefully around the edge of the floor, the woman stopped at another door and led them inside. Here, there was a thin hallway adorned with five rooms. The woman brought them to the first one and knocked.
“Yeah?” a man’s voice boomed from inside.
“We’ve got visitors,” the woman called before opening the door. “Two ladies from the FBI.”
There was a few seconds’ pause and then the door was opened from the other side. A dark-haired man wearing thick glasses greeted them. He looked them up and down, not out of nervousness but sheer curiosity.
“FBI?” he asked. “What can I do for you?”
“Can we have a minute of your time?” Kate asked.
“Sure,” he said, standing aside and allowing them into his office.
There was only one seat in the office other than the one behind his desk. Neither Kate nor DeMarco took it. The dark-haired man did not take his seat either, electing to stand with them.
“I assume you’re the supervisor?” Kate asked.
“I’m the regional manager and day shift supervisor, yes,” he said. He extended his hand quickly, as if embarrassed he had forgotten to so earlier than this. “Ray Garraty.”
Kate shook the offered hand and then showed her ID. She then reached into her pocket and withdrew the scrap of fabric from the Nash scene.
“This is a scrap of fabric from a recent crime scene,” she said. “And we believe it could be key in catching a killer. The forensics lab found bamboo cotton in it, and I understand that Biltmore Threads uses bamboo cotton rather regularly.”
“We do,” Garraty said. He reached for the bag and then hesitated before asking: “Do you mind?”
Kate shook her head and handed it to him. Garraty looked it over closely and nodded. “Without actually tearing it further apart, I can’t give you any guarantees, but yeah, it looks to have some in it. Do you know where the fabric came from?”
“I’m assuming a blanket,” Kate said.
“Looks like it,” Garraty said. “And while I’m not one hundred percent sure, I think it might have been designed and manufactured here.”
“Right here at Biltmore Threads?” Kate asked.
“Perhaps.”
Garraty handed the plastic bag back to Kate and then walked to an old beaten-up filing cabinet tucked away in the back corner of the small office. He opened the bottom drawer and after fishing through its contents for a while, pulled out two different books. They were both quite large and as he started leafing through one, Kate saw that they were both inventory catalogues.
“The color and the design you can sort of make out look familiar,” Garraty explained as he went through the pages. “If it was made here, it will be in one of these books.”
It was an exciting thought, but Kate wasn’t quite sure what it would mean. If the blanket in question was made in Biltmore Threads, did it really even open up that many possibilities? There were many more questions to ask before coming to such a conclusion.
“Right here,” Garraty said. He turned the book toward them and pointed to one of several different blankets listed on a page about three-quarters of the way through one of the books. “Does that look like a match to you?”
Kate and DeMarco both studied the page. Kate looked back and forth, making sure she wasn’t making herself see some semblance of similarity. But after a few seconds, DeMarco answered for her.
“I mean, the fabric we have is faded, but it’s the same. Even that little faded white checkered pattern.”
“Well, it’s faded because it’s an older product,” Garraty said. He pointed to a line from the item description. “Right here, it says it started being produced in 1991 and was eliminated from our production cycle in 2004.”
“So you made this same blanket for thirteen years?” DeMarco asked.
“Yes. It was a very popular item, which is how I was able to recognize it so quickly.”
“In other words, the last time you would have passed this blanket out of your warehouse was 2004,” Kate said. “Meaning that this sample is somewhere between fifteen and thirty years old.”
“That’s correct.”
Well, even if there could be a link due to the blanket, Kate thought, that thirty-year window makes it very hard.
“Mr. Garraty, how long have you been in your position here?”
“Going on twenty-six years,” Garraty said. “I’ve got retirement coming up next year.”
“While you’ve been here, has Biltmore Threads employed Scott or Bethany Langley, or Toni or Derrick Nash?”
Garraty thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. “The names don’t ring any bells for me, but if we’re looking over a span of more than ten years, I’d refer you to records. There are a lot of employees that come in and out of here.”
> “How soon can you find out for sure?” DeMarco asked.
“Within the hour.”
“That would be appreciated,” Kate said. “And if you don’t mind, just one more question. Have you had any employees cause problems for you or the factory in the past month or so? Any troublemakers or just someone you and other management knew to keep an eye on?”
“Funny you should ask,” Garraty said. “I had to fire a guy just two weeks ago. He was showing up to work stoned and we were pretty sure he was stealing material. When I confronted him about it, he got violent and I had to call security. And since we only have one security guard, the police got involved and he was eventually arrested. But he was out the next day.”
“Stealing material?” DeMarco said, an edge of excitement to her voice.
“Yes…but not that one,” he said, pointing to the plastic bag. “If that’s been discontinued, we haven’t had that fabric in the warehouse for years. No, he came out and told us later, when he cooled down, that he had been stealing it for some projects his girlfriend was creating. She has an Etsy shop or something.”
“Can we get a name?” Kate asked.
“Travis Rogers. He’s about thirty years old. Has a record, I think. Some mild violent crimes. But we tend to give people a second chance at Biltmore Threads, you know?”
“Is he a local?” DeMarco asked.
“Yeah, over in Whip Springs. I can get you his address.”
“Again, that would be appreciated,” Kate said.
Garraty led them out of his office and back down the same path the receptionist had led them, only in reverse. When they were back in the lobby, Garraty spoke with the receptionist while Kate and DeMarco huddled by the lobby doors.
“The blanket being manufactured here,” DeMarco said. “You think that’s just a creepy coincidence?”
“It could be. I’m inclined to think so, given that the blanket hasn’t been produced in so long. It does make me wonder, though…”
“Wonder what?”
“No matter where the blanket was from, we know that it’s got to be old…at least fifteen years and as much as about thirty. And if that’s the case, it makes me think someone held on to it. Why use something so old unless it has some sort of meaning or significance to you?”
She let the question linger as Garraty walked back over to them. He handed Kate a slip of paper with an address scrawled on it.
“I also went ahead and had her look to see if any of those names you gave me were in the system as former employees,” Garraty said. “We got nothing.”
“That’s fine,” Kate said. “It just needed to be checked. Thank you for your help.”
“Glad to do it,” Garraty said, still looking as if the entire visit had thrown him off.
Kate and DeMarco headed back outside. As they headed for the car, Kate looked past the dead lawn in front of the factory and warehouse. The expanse of trees made her nervous in a way she could not explain. Thick forests had always made her feel like that; they offered far too many places to hide. She gave the woods a skeptical look as she got back behind the wheel.
“GPS says this Travis Rogers lives less than half an hour away, on the other side of Roanoke.”
“Then let’s pay him a visit,” Kate said.
Maybe it was because the day had started so early or maybe it was because she could feel herself getting more and more tired by the minute, but she was starting to get a good feeling about this case—a feeling that it might be over much sooner rather than later.
She pulled out of the parking lot of Biltmore Threads desperately hoping that she was right.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Travis Rogers lived in a townhouse not too far away from the thick traffic of a mall complex. Given that it was creeping up on lunchtime, the traffic was pretty bad as Kate neared the place. Passing a Starbucks and a Dunkin’ Donuts also made her realize that, unprofessional or not, she was going to have to stop for coffee after they questioned Travis Rogers or she might very well fall asleep on the job.
She soldiered through and parked in front of the townhouse about forty minutes after leaving Biltmore Threads. She and DeMarco hustled up to the front door, neither of them having much hope that a man in his thirties would be at home in the middle of the day—especially not one who would likely be searching for a job.
So they were both surprised when the door was answered by a ruggedly handsome man. He looked a little scraggly around the edges but well-groomed. He did look a little tired, though, maybe like he had just rolled out of bed.
“Are you Travis Rogers?” DeMarco asked.
“I am. Who’s asking?”
DeMarco took the lead this time, showing her badge and taking a step toward the door to let him know that they weren’t going to be turned away.
“FBI? What the hell for?”
“Your name came up in passing in regards to a case we’re working,” Kate asked. “If you’d give us just five minutes of your time, we can be on our way.”
Clearly confused and a little alarmed, Travis stepped to the side and opened the door. When he did, Kate saw that his right hand was in a cast from high on the wrist, all the way to the knuckles of his fingers.
It’d be pretty hard to kill someone the way the Nashes and Langleys were killed if you had a cast on your right hand, Kate told herself.
The front door opened into the living room, which was quite clean. A laptop sat on the coffee table. She saw a LinkedIn profile on the screen; apparently Travis was indeed doing some job hunting.
“I’m going to assume this is about what happened with the whole thing at Biltmore Threads, right?” Travis said as he sat down on the couch. “Although I don’t know why the FBI would get involved in something that small.”
“Can I ask why you got violent with Mr. Garraty?” Kate asked.
“It was just months and months of frustration, you know? I’d been asking for a raise for about half a year. I’d been there for almost five years and had only gotten two small pay bumps, so I thought I was due. Garraty basically told me that he could pass on my complaint but if I kept pestering them, it was going to look bad. We had some words and, quite frankly, I lost my shit. I threw his little name placard thing from his desk at him. I started to rush across the room at him but thought better of it.”
“And what about your past offenses?”
“A bar fight when I was nineteen and then defending myself when some dipshit lost his cool in a fit of road rage when I accidentally clipped his car. Not to be a smart ass, but you’re welcome to look all of that up. Look…this whole thing with Garraty and Biltmore Threads…it’s embarrassing. So if there’s anything you need from me, just let me know. I’d like to get it behind me as soon as I can.”
“Well, what about the material you were stealing?” DeMarco asked.
“I only did it twice, and that was after I had started to get pissed off about not being paid fairly. I’m not proud of it. But I’ve been to court and I’m going to pay the fines.”
“Garraty said you stole the materials for your girlfriend.”
“Yeah. Jess runs this little Etsy shop. She makes these trendy little custom clutch purses and shoulder bags. She makes more than I did doing it…so yeah, I took some material for her.”
Kate was all but certain that Travis was innocent. He’d made some dumb choices, sure, and he had unfortunate luck when it came to physical altercations, but he sure as hell wasn’t a murderer.
“What happened to your hand?” DeMarco asked.
Travis rolled his eyes and looked at the floor. “Just another genius decision on my part. I was so pissed when the cops got called on me at Biltmore Threads that I punched the wall outside the building. It’s a brick wall, and it hurt like a bitch. I broke three fingers and got a hairline fracture down the base of my hand.”
“Do you have any proof of when you did this?” DeMarco asked.
“Yeah. Actually, the first bill for the x-ray came today.” He got up and
went to the edge of the counter in the attached kitchen. He retrieved a piece of mail from it and brought it back to them. Kate and DeMarco looked it over and saw that the initial consult for the x-ray had been three weeks ago—at least two full weeks before the Langleys had been murdered.
“At the risk of sounding nosy, can I ask what this is about?” Travis asked.
Kate had just one more thing left to do. She almost decided against it because she was that certain that Travis Rogers was innocent. She took the evidence bag with the scrap of blanket inside of it and showed it to him.
“Does this look familiar to you?” she asked.
His initial reaction told her what she needed to know. There was no alarm, no guilt, no fear. He merely looked closely at it and shrugged. “I don’t think so. Is it something from Biltmore Threads?”
“It is,” Kate said, pocketing the bag again. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Rogers.”
When they headed back out to the car, the feeling Kate had experienced coming out of Biltmore Threads started to unravel. The blanket fabric coming from Biltmore had seem like an omen of sorts, a sign that they were on the right track. But now, back to having no leads whatsoever, she felt a little lost.
“You think we should try speaking to the neighbors of the victims now?” DeMarco asked when they were back in the car.
“That’s the best idea I can think of,” Kate said. “Of course, the Nashes had no immediate neighbors—no one who would be able to see any coming and going from around their house.”
“So the Langleys, then,” DeMarco said.
“Right,” Kate agreed. “But first…I have to get some coffee. This whole regular-sleep thing that comes with retirement has ruined me.”
***
Coffee in hand, Kate stepped out of the car adjacent to the Langley residence. She looked to the house next to it and realized that they may have hit the jackpot. While she hated to give in to stereotypes—especially in her line of work—there was one that she had found usually proved itself true: the older the woman, the more prone they were to gossip. And there was just such a woman standing on the porch next door to the Langley home. She was carefully filling a bird feeder with some sort of liquid. A hummingbird feeder, if Kate was seeing it correctly.
