by Lisa Regan
“Did she know his last name?” Noah asked. “Or where he lives?”
“She said he would ride his mountain bike to their house. That’s all. But she’s only eight. It’s not unusual that she wouldn’t know details adults take for granted, like his last name.”
Josie sighed. “We’ll see what we can turn up.”
It was late by the time the entire team was assembled at the stationhouse. Their police headquarters was housed in an old, three-story stone building that was on the city’s historic register. It had been converted from the town hall into the police station over sixty-five years ago, and with its double casement arched windows and old bell tower at one end, it resembled a castle. On the second floor was what they called the great room—an open area filled with desks and filing cabinets where the detectives worked and uniformed officers did their paperwork. The Chief’s office was across from the bullpen. Josie, Noah, Gretchen, and Mettner all had their own permanent desks which were pushed up against one another, forming a large rectangle. They all sat at their desks now, waiting for the Chief to arrive. Gretchen typed reports. Josie entered Lorelei’s name and other vital information into a series of databases, trying to find any information she could. Beside her, Noah prepared a warrant for Lorelei’s and Holly’s medical records. Mett scrolled through notes he’d made in his phone.
The only other permanent desk now belonged to their press liaison, Amber Watts. Mettner had brought her to the wedding as his date, and now, perched on the edge of her desk with a tablet in hand, she still wore a low-cut, pale pastel green dress that hugged her svelte figure. Her thick auburn curls cascaded down her back. It wasn’t lost on Josie that every few seconds Mettner’s eyes drifted away from this phone screen toward Amber.
Noah leaned over and whispered in Josie’s ear, “Do you think Mett was really upset about us walking out on our wedding, or upset that we ruined his romantic night with Watts?”
She laughed quietly. Mettner had been smitten with Amber from the day she walked into the stationhouse, but he’d never been quite this obvious about it. Josie wondered if the wedding was their first date or if they’d already been out together.
“Detectives!” hollered Chief Chitwood as he emerged from the stairwell. In his hands he carried a cardboard box filled with food that Josie immediately recognized from the menu offered at their wedding reception. Chitwood placed it in the center of their desks. “Adam Long sent that. It was left over from the reception.”
All four of them dove in, and for the first time that day, Josie realized how hungry she was. She hadn’t eaten in many hours. Chitwood gave them a few minutes to eat before he launched into the briefing. “Any of you talk to Dr. Feist?” he asked. “Either of the autopsies done yet?”
Josie said, “We did. Both are finished.”
She and Noah told the team everything they’d learned from the medical examiner. There was a long moment of uneasy silence as they all took in the savagery of the attacks on Lorelei and her daughter. Then Chitwood turned to Mettner. “What’ve you got, Mett?”
Mettner picked up his phone, scrolling. “Not a hell of a lot,” he said. “None of the Harper’s Peak staff or the guests we interviewed saw a damn thing. We found nothing on the CCTV footage from any of the buildings or parking lots. None of the staff recalled ever seeing Holly before, and we think with her white eyelashes, anyone would have remembered her. We believe she must have been brought onto the grounds through the woods. Search teams didn’t find anything. There were a couple of paths that led away from Harper’s Peak through the woods, but none of them led to the Mitchell household. If she was brought in a car, whoever did it managed not to get captured on camera or be seen by the staff or guests. The last time anyone was at the church was the evening before, around seven p.m., when Tom Booth went to the church to open it and get it ready for today’s ceremony. We know from the autopsy that she died today, though, so the killer left her there sometime this morning or early afternoon.”
Gretchen said, “We’ve gotten a warrant for Lorelei’s cell phone records. If we can get those, maybe we can see who she last called or texted.”
Mettner sighed. “Unfortunately, those are going to take almost a week to come back. Three days at the most, the carrier said.”
Noah said, “The DNA under Holly’s nails will take even longer than that to come back. Weeks, maybe even months.”
“Then we need to work with what we know until we get them,” Josie said. “What else have you got?”
Mettner said, “The ERT wasn’t able to get any prints from Holly’s body or that creepy pinecone thing that was left with her.”
Gretchen said, “Chan couldn’t get prints from the other stick man that was left at the Mitchell house.”
Mettner lifted his chin in Josie’s direction. “Any idea what the meaning is behind those?”
Josie stopped scrolling through the search results on her computer concerning Lorelei Mitchell and met Mettner’s eyes. “Clearly they’re dolls of some sort. Emily said that they mean ‘he’s sorry’, so my guess is that the killer made one for Holly as a symbol of his remorse, and that the one he left at the house was intended for Emily.”
“But he didn’t kill Emily,” Noah said.
“No, but he killed her family. Plus, Emily obviously knows who this person is, even though she won’t tell us.”
Mettner sighed and swiped a hand down his face. “You’re telling me we could go get this killer now if this kid would just tell us who he is?”
“It’s not that simple, Mett,” Noah said.
“It sounds like it is,” Mettner shot back. “I know she’s been traumatized, and she is afraid, but if the case is that easy to crack, someone should be over at the hospital right now trying to get this information out of her.”
Josie said, “The social worker is there with her now. The attending physician ordered a psych consult. A psychologist might have better luck coaxing the information out of her. I know it’s frustrating, Mett, but going after an eight-year-old girl who just lost everyone she loved in a brutal double murder is not going to help things. We need to work with what we’ve got.”
“Which is nothing,” Mettner said, tossing his phone onto the desk. Amber sidled over and put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. A shudder ran through him. “Seeing that poor girl. It got to me.”
Sometimes Josie forgot that Mett didn’t have as many years on the job as the rest of them—or as many heartbreaking cases under his belt.
Gretchen said, “It gets to all of us, Mett. If it didn’t, I’d be worried about you.”
From lowered lashes, he looked at each one of them. “You never show it.”
Josie said, “I’ve been known to lose my shit now and then.”
Mettner scoffed. “Please. You never lose your shit.”
“Not true,” Gretchen said. “The boss cried up a tree during the floods last year.”
Mettner raised a skeptical brow at Gretchen.
“It’s true,” Josie confirmed. “I’ll say this, though: a tree is a pretty good place to come undone. No one can really see you.”
The room erupted into laughter. Even Chitwood gave a less severe frown.
Gretchen got the conversation back on track. “All right. Let’s talk about what we have, because we have a few things to run with. We got prints from the house, for one thing. We were able to match Lorelei’s, Holly’s, and Emily’s. We’ve got four other sets of prints that are unidentified.”
The Chief said, “Any of them turn up in AFIS?”
The Automated Fingerprint Identification System only held records of fingerprints from people who had either been arrested or convicted of a crime.
Gretchen held her pen straight in the air. “As a matter of fact, yes. One of the sets belongs to Reed Bryan, age fifty-eight. He was arrested and charged with aggravated assault nine years ago. Looks like a domestic issue. Wife dropped the charges.”
“Really?” said Noah. “Wh
ere does Reed live?”
“He’s got a farm south of Denton, but he also owns Bryan’s Farm Fresh Produce which has a market about three miles away from Lorelei’s house.”
“I know that place,” Josie said. “You have to pass it to get to both Lorelei’s house and to Harper’s Peak.”
Chitwood said, “How many prints did they find in the house from this guy?”
Gretchen flipped a page in her notebook. “Two sets. One on the front door and one on the doorway into the kitchen. Nothing upstairs.”
“But not the truck,” Chitwood said.
“No, sir. The only clear prints we got from the truck were from Lorelei and her kids. Chan couldn’t get anything from the other set—the handprints—because of the smeared blood.”
“It’s after midnight now. Let’s leave it till the morning then. If he was the killer, I’d expect his prints to be all over the place. First thing tomorrow, someone’s got to talk to him. What else did Chan get from the house, Palmer?”
Gretchen looked at her notes again. “First, let’s start inside the house. Lorelei Mitchell’s blood type is A positive. The blood found on the kitchen island countertop and floor was A positive. The drops of blood from the dining room into the kitchen were O positive.”
“Someone else bled at the scene,” Josie said.
“But not Holly,” said Noah. “She didn’t have any open wounds or lacerations of any kind.”
“It had to be the killer then,” Mettner said.
“I agree,” said Gretchen. “The blood found on the outside and inside of the truck was also O positive.”
Chitwood said, “Do we know Reed Bryan’s blood type?”
“No, sir,” Gretchen said.
“We can’t say for sure whether Reed’s prints were found on the truck,” Josie said, “Although whoever left the handprints on the truck did so in his own blood.”
“We can ask Reed Bryan his blood type and whether or not he’s got any recent injuries when we question him,” Gretchen said. “If he’s cooperative. If he doesn’t have a rock-solid alibi. Also, Chan was able to get impressions of the footprints near the back door. Actually, there were some on the back porch as well. One was from a men’s size ten boot. Hummel’s asked the state police to run the impression through the footwear database to see if he can get a match on the brand, but that’s going to take some time. The other impression was from a bare foot. Chan estimated the shoe size is probably a woman’s six.”
Noah said, “That could be from Holly. She wasn’t wearing any shoes and her feet were torn up—Dr. Feist says likely from running through the forest.”
Gretchen said, “I’ll ask Chan to send the impression over to Dr. Feist for a comparison.”
Josie said, “It was early morning. They were having breakfast. The killer showed up. There was some kind of confrontation that took place in the kitchen.”
Noah said, “That’s probably when Lorelei got hit in the head. The killer was injured somehow. He went out to her truck and got the gun.”
“At some point during all of this, Holly tells Emily to hide,” Gretchen interjected.
Noah nodded. “He shoots Lorelei.”
Josie said, “Holly runs out the back door to get away, and he goes after her.”
“He took the gun with him,” said Gretchen. “It’s nowhere to be found.”
Mettner said, “But he didn’t shoot Holly. He tried to strangle her and then ultimately caused some kind of head injury—at least, that’s what Dr. Feist told you at the hospital, right?”
“Right,” Josie replied. “It’s possible that he attacked Holly while they were still inside the house and she got away. Dr. Feist said she was alive for at least some period of time after she sustained the head injury. She might have gotten away when he went to get the gun. Then after he killed Lorelei he went after her, but by the time he found her, she was dead from the head injury.”
Chitwood said, “Congratulations! You’re all geniuses. You figured out what happened in that house. How does this get us closer to finding the killer? Come on! I can’t have a child-killer running around this city. The cat’s already out of the bag because of the Amber Alert. The press is already sniffing around. Right, Watts?”
Amber nodded. “I’ve been getting calls all evening. We had to release Emily Mitchell’s name with the Amber Alert, but I’m trying to keep both Lorelei and Holly out of the press so far, for the sake of Emily’s privacy.”
Chitwood said, “Have any of you taken a look at Lorelei Mitchell’s close associates?”
Josie pointed to her computer screen. “I’ve been searching databases for the last hour. All her close associates are dead.”
“What do you mean?” asked Chitwood.
“I’ve been searching for any personal information I can find since I got here,” Josie said. “Her only listed family is her mother, who is deceased. In fact, her mother died when she was nine years old. There’s no indication here of what happened to her.”
“She probably went into foster care,” Gretchen said. “Maybe that’s why Emily knew what it was? Lorelei told her stories?”
“Possibly,” Josie agreed. “Other than her mother, there are no known relatives in this database. She’s never been married. She lived in a series of apartments in Philadelphia in her twenties and early thirties. The next address listed is the house here in Denton. There are no other residents associated with it. No neighbors, even, as her house is so remote.”
Mettner said, “Is it even possible for someone to be that isolated these days?”
Josie replied, “I checked all the social media platforms. She’s not on them. I didn’t expect her to be.”
“What about work?” Gretchen said. “Did you find any records of employment?”
“That’s where things get interesting,” Josie said. “She was a licensed psychologist in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. She got her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. However, her license was revoked twenty years ago. She never practiced again.”
“What was her license revoked for?” Mettner asked. “Can you find out?”
Josie shook her head. “The licensing board doesn’t get into it, but I can check some other sources. It looks like she was practicing in Philadelphia at that time. If her license was revoked, it could have made the news.”
Chitwood said, “You do that, Quinn. One of you should get a hold of her kids’ birth certificates and see if she listed a father. I know women aren’t required to do this in Pennsylvania, but it’s worth a shot.”
Noah said, “Once I get this warrant finished, we can access her medical records and see who she put as her emergency contact.”
“There was a doctor prescribing her medication,” Josie said. “We should contact him. Vincent Buckley. I’ll look him up. I’m also going to check the deed on her house to see if it’s in her name or not.”
“Good idea,” Gretchen said. “It seems like this woman has had no income for the last twenty years. How has she been surviving?”
Mettner said, “We can probably get a warrant for her financial records as well, but that will take some time, too.”
Chitwood clapped his hands together. “Get going! I want this case solved as quickly as possible. Watts, do your thing with the press.”
Amber said, “Tell them we can’t comment on an ongoing investigation?”
“Right, right,” said Chitwood.
Josie’s desk phone rang. As the others got to work, she picked it up. “Detective Quinn?” said a familiar voice. “This is Dr. Nashat at Denton Memorial. We’ve got a problem.”
Twelve
Ten minutes later, Josie stood outside of Emily’s hospital room once more. From inside, the sounds of the girl’s shrieks cut through Josie’s bones like a thousand tiny knives. Dr. Nashat and Marcie Riebe looked at Josie helplessly.
“She won’t calm down,” said Marcie.
“I can give her some Valium,” Dr. Nashat explained. “Or some Ve
rsed. But I don’t have a proper medical history for her. She could have allergies we don’t know about. Plus, we’d have to hold her down. She lashes out anytime we try to come near her. I called again for the psych consult, but the doctor on call won’t be here for another hour.”
“I’m not sure what you expect me to do,” said Josie.
“She asked for you,” said Dr. Nashat. “Well, she asked for ‘the angel lady cop with the scar on her face.’”
Self-consciously, Josie trailed her fingers down the right side of her face. “Was that before or after she started screaming?”
Marcie said, “We explained to her that you were working and couldn’t come back. Evidently, she didn’t want to hear that.”
“We tried to talk her down,” Dr. Nashat said. “She’s not trying to hurt herself, but she won’t stop… well, you can hear her.”
Marcie said, “I’ve seen a lot of meltdowns in my work, but this is not that.”
“What happened immediately before she started crying?” Josie asked.
“She was asleep,” Marcie replied, mystified.
Josie turned to Dr. Nashat. “Could this be something like night terrors?”
“I don’t think so. She’s fully awake and cognizant. I mean, she’s asked for you twice.”
Josie left them in the hallway and pushed open the door. Emily wasn’t in the bed. Instead, she was balled up in one corner of the room, curled around her stuffed dog, her knees drawn all the way up to her chin. Her mouth stretched wide as she screamed, took in a ragged breath, and screamed again. Josie panned the room as she walked slowly toward her. Rumpled sheet and blanket on the bed. Tray table with a cup of water and a small basin for vomit. Emily’s sneakers were tucked neatly under the bed. Her duffel bag sat on one of the guest chairs. Josie stopped when she realized the zipper to the side compartment was open. She took a quick peek inside, noting that it was empty of all the strange treasures that Emily had insisted on bringing from home. “Shit,” she muttered.