“That will work,” I said.
The dispatcher rattled off the number, which I wrote down. I thanked him, hung up, and then dialed the number for King. He picked up within a single ring.
“King,” he said.
“Hank Rawlings.”
“Is something going on?”
“I just wanted to confirm something with the vehicle of Katelyn Willard,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“That there is no registration in the vehicle. Basically, I want to see one way or another if that’s what she handed our guy in the video.”
“Well, the car is in our garages. They’re within our complex. How time sensitive is this?”
“I’d like to know by tomorrow morning,” I said.
“What time in the morning would you need to know by? I go in pretty early, six thirty or seven in the morning. I’d like to be there, but I’m about an hour away. Can it wait until morning, or do we need to do this tonight?”
“I guess it could wait until morning. I’m going to need to be back at our field office at around eight. So if I was going to meet you, it would have to be right around seven so I can get in, out, and back here.”
“Seven would work,” King said.
“And you said the vehicle is there at your station?”
“Our garages are attached at the far end. You can just meet me in the main building, and we’ll walk over. Same place you guys came in when we met with the family and roommate.”
“Okay.” I ended the call and leaned back in the office chair that I sat in. “One more call,” I said.
I looked through the investigation file to find the contact information for April Backer’s family.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I finished my phone call with Ball back in Manassas and walked into the hotel. Beth was seated at the bar, where her text message a couple of minutes prior had said she’d be. As I walked up, she was tapping away at her phone’s screen. I pulled up a stool next to her, and Beth put her phone into her purse, which was hanging from the back of the bar stool.
“Drinking away your sorrows?” I asked.
Beth looked over her shoulder at me and gave me a quick smile. “Just a rough day. Dealing with the families was hard. This is ginger ale, though.”
“So who was your last visit with, and how did it go?”
“Trisha Floyd’s father, and not so hot. It’s hard watching a big, fifty-some-year-old man break down in tears with nothing you can say to him that’s going to help.” She let out a long breath. “He didn’t know anything that could help us, either. He’d last talked to his daughter the day prior to when we believe she was abducted. After the guy was done with the tears, he started requesting the photos the FBI said they had that proved his daughter was deceased.”
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“That I didn’t have the photos to show him. Then he asked me what the photos were of, to which I just told him that I hadn’t seen them. I didn’t know what else to say, and the guy didn’t seem like he was going to stop. I thanked him and left. The whole situation just wasn’t good. These families need some kind of closure, not just the FBI saying these women are dead. I mean, I don’t know.”
“Do you think we should show them photos of their daughters decapitated?”
“No,” Beth said. “What about you? Did you get anything with your phone calls?”
“A bit,” I said. “April Backer’s vehicle was also found with the driver’s window down. The keys were on scene but not in the ignition.”
“Window down, just like our missing Katelyn Willard,” Beth said. “People don’t leave their vehicles with the windows open. It’s a connection.”
“I still want to link up a few more things, but the chances are getting a little better. In the video, the guy takes a piece of paper from Katelyn. I’m thinking it was the registration. I’m meeting with Chief Deputy King from the Oldham County Sheriff’s Office tomorrow morning at seven to get a quick look at her car in the impound lot. I want to see if there’s a registration in it or not. I also called April Backer’s mother to see if I can have someone check her vehicle, which is back in possession of the family, to see if there is a registration in it. Still waiting on a call back from her, though.”
“You probably won’t see that call until late tonight or the morning would be my guess,” Beth said. “When I went out to meet with her earlier today—Nancy is her mother’s name—she said she was a second-shift worker.”
“Good to know,” I said.
“Have you checked in with Ball?” Beth asked.
“I just got off the phone with him a few minutes ago. I brought him up to speed with where everything is at.”
“All right. Well, it looks like we have some wheels in motion. I’ll tag along with you in the morning.”
I nodded in agreement. The bartender walked over to see if I needed anything.
“Same as hers,” I said.
Beth let him know she was fine for the moment.
“So, this new information could help out with the press conference,” Beth said. “Does Duffield know?”
“I talked with him a bit, but I’ll give him the rest in the morning after we look into Katelyn’s car and hear back from April’s mother. Having a possible suspect is a hell of a lot better than telling the press that we pretty much have nothing other than ‘Someone is killing people.’ I doubted the ‘No bodies, no evidence, no suspects, no leads’ was going to go over well.”
“Yeah, probably not,” Beth said. “Though I’m not sure the ‘We think it might be a police officer or someone posing as one’ will go over too well either.”
“Not something we have any control of. It is what it is.”
The bartender set my drink before me. I took a sip. Beth’s phone chirped in her purse next to her. She ignored the sound. A second later, her phone chirped again. Beth shook her head, yanked her phone from her purse, and held down the button to power it off.
“He just doesn’t get it,” she said.
“Scott, I’m assuming.”
“He’s acting like him showing up here and making an ass out of himself was supposed to be endearing—supposed to show me how much he cared. Now, he’s trying to make me feel bad for making him leave town when he came all that way to try to talk to me. He got on a plane and traveled states away just to see my face and try to resolve an argument—his words, not mine.”
“You do realize that there’s something wrong with him upstairs, right?” I tapped the side of my head. “I mean, seriously. Ex-husband, current boyfriend, or whatever aside, his actions aren’t that of a normal person.”
“I just… I don’t know what to do, Hank. He just won’t stop. If I turn on my phone, I get endless texts, instant messages, or e-mails from him. It’s never-ending.”
“Get a different phone number,” I said. “Or phone, that isn’t bugged.”
“I deleted that immediately,” Beth said.
“Doesn’t take away the fact that he put it on there without your knowledge.”
She didn’t respond.
A couple minutes of silence stretched on. I sipped at my drink—she did the same.
At about the five-minute mark, Beth broke the dead air. “So what is our tomorrow looking like?”
I ran through it with her. “Katelyn’s car, talk with April Backer’s family, press conference, meeting with the mailbox family, and catching our guy.”
“Good plan. The mailing from that specific mailbox still seems like too much of a coincidence. He had to know that the family was out of town.”
“Did we ever get occupations for everyone in the household?” I asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“We should do that tomorrow,” I said.
“Are you thinking it could be a coworker or something?”
“Well, if we think he knew that these people were out of town, that leaves postal workers or someone else connected—friends, family, coworke
rs, neighbors.”
“Hmm,” Beth said.
“Hmm what?”
She took a sip of her ginger ale. “Do you think we should do a little door knocking around the area when we finish with the family?”
“They’ve done it already. But I guess expanding the radius a bit couldn’t hurt. There isn’t much penciled in for our day after we’re through meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Mailbox.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Mailbox,” Beth said with a smirk. “I like that.”
I shrugged. “Thanks?”
“Did you eat anything?” Beth asked.
“Not since… Hell, I don’t even remember. No.”
“Did you want to grab something from the restaurant here or find some place to go or what?”
“The restaurant here is fine,” I said. “I’m kind of wiped, and it looks like we’ll be getting an early start tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
Beth and I finished our drinks, got a bite to eat at the restaurant, and called it a night. I was up in my room by a couple minutes after nine thirty and stretched out on the hotel-room bed. I was a solid twenty minutes into channel surfing when my phone rang. I figured it was Karen and reached over for my phone on the nightstand, but the caller ID on the screen was a number I didn’t recognize. I clicked Talk.
“Hank Rawlings,” I said.
“Hello, this is Nancy Doyle, April Backer’s mother.” The woman’s voice was quiet and strained.
I sat up in bed. “Hi. It’s Ms. Doyle, you said?”
“Yes.”
I found the remote for the television and clicked the mute button. “Okay. This is Agent Hank Rawlings with the FBI. I actually had a question regarding your daughter’s vehicle that I was wondering if you could help me out with.”
“Did you find something new?” she asked.
“Possibly, but we’re trying to match a couple of things up to know for certain.”
“Oh,” she said. “Whatever I can do to help find who did this.”
“Do you know if the registration for your daughter’s vehicle was in the car?”
“I guess I don’t know why it wouldn’t be. April is…” A long pause came from her end of the phone. When she spoke, her tone of voice was lower than it had been a moment prior. “She was mindful of those kinds of things.”
“Is there a way that you could check to see if it is there?” I asked.
“I’m at work right now. I’d have to go home and check. Let me go tell my supervisor that I’m leaving early. It will take me a few minutes to get out of here and about twenty minutes to get back to my house.”
“You don’t have to leave work to go and check—just as soon as you can,” I said. “We would just like to know by morning.”
“It’s fine, and if I can do something to help find who did this to my daughter, I’m not going to wait around to do it. They’ll understand here.”
“Okay, could you just call me back after you check?” I asked.
“I will.”
I gave her my cell-phone number and hung up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
William’s hands were gloved. He pulled the roll of film from his camera and walked downstairs to the laundry room.
As he opened the door, he heard scratching and shuffling. His eyes shot to Erin, who was backing away from the door of the cage. She cowered in the back corner.
“Come here and put your finger through the bars,” William said.
Erin said nothing and didn’t obey.
“Do it!” William shouted.
She tucked her fingers to the palms of her restrained hands and clutched her legs, making herself small.
“Get your ass over here and do what I say. If you don’t do it. I’ll get a saw and take both of your hands this second. You saw the bodies. It’s something that’s in my plans either way.”
Erin scooted to the cage’s door and stuck a dirty index fingertip through the metal bars.
William walked to her, crouched, and pressed her fingertip to the edge of the roll of film.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll bring you your food in a little bit.”
He turned and left the room, closing the door at his back.
William walked back upstairs, into the kitchen, and placed the roll of film into a box on the kitchen table. His letter had been crafted and already sat inside. William sealed the box and searched the kitchen for his car keys. He wanted to get the package in the mailbox of the family he’d seen leaving with suitcases while he was driving to the dump the week prior. He planned to deal with feeding and walking Erin when he returned.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The sound of my cell-phone alarm woke me from a dead sleep. I cracked my eyelids and glanced over at my phone, lit and buzzing across the surface of the hotel-room nightstand. I stared at it in disdain for a moment before reaching over, silencing it, and kicking my feet off the side of the bed. I clicked on the lamp and rubbed my eyes. The time was five fifteen in the morning. Beth and I were going to have to leave in an hour to get over to the impound lot to meet the chief deputy at seven.
I went through the process of shaving, showering, and dressing for the day. A couple minutes before six, I heard a rap at the room’s front door. When I walked over and pulled it open, Beth was standing in the hall, dressed and ready to leave. She held out a tall cardboard cup of coffee toward me, which I took and thanked her for.
“Morning,” she said.
“It damn well is.” I waved her into my room.
“Are you almost ready? I can give you a bit if you’re not.”
I took a drink of my coffee. “I just need to grab my bag, and I’ll be set.”
“Hear from April Backer’s mother?” Beth asked.
“I did. No registration or proof of insurance in the vehicle. She left work last night and went and checked. She said that April had two envelopes in her glove compartment. One read insurance, which was empty, and one read registration, which was also empty.”
“Furthers the ‘Police officer requesting the information’ theory,” Beth said.
“Correct. I also asked her about the flat tire, but she didn’t really have much to offer there. Basically said that it was repaired at a service station when they got the car back. I got the name of the station but didn’t get any further information as far as what caused the flat.”
“I’d bet that tire is long gone now. And that vehicle and tire were never processed, right?” Beth asked.
“Unfortunately not. Nobody knew what they were dealing with prior to the family getting the car back and the tire changed.”
“So that is probably dead in the water. What is Duffield going to do with the new information on our suspect, or I should say that we may have the suspect on video?” Beth asked.
“I need to call him and see. I tried last night, but I didn’t get an answer on his phone. I’d assume that he’d call me first thing this morning.” I glanced at my watch. “I’d have to think he heard my message and would be up by now. Let me call him quick.” I set my coffee down on the cabinet holding the television.
Beth took a seat at the foot of the bed. I pulled my phone and dialed Duffield. He picked up a moment later.
“Rawlings, I was just about to call you,” he said.
“You got my message?” I asked.
“I did right when I woke up this morning. I’ve been circling the wagons and trying to get the tech guys into the office to get me some stills from the video footage.”
“So you’re putting this guy out there as our potential suspect?” I asked.
“I kind of think we have to. We don’t have much else to work with. I’m thinking if we can get this guy that we have on video in—well, worst-case scenario, we can get to the bottom of what happened to Katelyn Willard. Best-case scenario, he is in fact our guy, and we can put this whole thing to bed.”
I couldn’t argue with his reasoning though I knew that putting out the fact that the suspect could be a police officer, or
could be posing as one, might ruffle some feathers with the local departments. Another thought came a split second later—the public could then fear being stopped, which could possibly put officer’s lives at risk.
“Have you given any thought to how we’re going to approach the possible law-enforcement aspect of this?” I asked.
“It’s a sticky situation,” he said. “I’m still kicking that part around. I’ll make my decision prior to the press conference.”
“Okay. Beth and I are headed to the impound lot to view Katelyn Willard’s vehicle, and then we’ll be in. I’m guessing we’ll be there shortly after eight.”
“Sounds good. We’ll see you in a little bit.”
“Yup.” I clicked off.
“He’s going to give the description of the guy to the public?” Beth asked.
“That’s what he says. Said he was calling in some tech guys to get stills from the video we got.”
“What did he say about the possible law-enforcement thing?” Beth asked.
“That he was still tossing around how he wanted to handle that part.”
“He should probably figure that out.”
“Agreed,” I said. “All right, let’s get a move on.” I grabbed my bag and scooped up my coffee, and we headed out.
We drove the roughly twenty-five minutes to the Oldham County Sheriff’s Department. The time driving was spent spitballing the case and trying to think of the best way for Duffield to approach the possible law-enforcement angle—at the end of our conversation, we had no good course of action on the topic that we’d be able to share with him. Beth found us parking on the street next to the old red-brick building with the white trim and white balcony. We stepped out of the car and walked toward the front doors. I held the door for Beth, and we entered. In the lobby, the chief deputy, dressed in uniform, waited for us.
He glanced down at his watch. “Seven on the nuts,” he said.
“King,” I said with a handshake.
He shook Beth’s hand also and waved for us to follow him as he turned toward the secured door. “You can get to our garages from inside here. Follow me, and we’ll go over.”
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