Wait for Dark
Page 16
Clearly incurious, the sheriff was nodding. “Well, in the case of you four, if those are Bureau-issued cells, when you powered up or checked your phones, you’d get the text warning but no alarm, and they won’t ping back. Same thing with any law-enforcement-registered cell. Basically, the system is designed to alert—but otherwise ignore them. Something about frequencies, and the fact that any of us could be in situations where it wouldn’t be wise to have alarms going off, or our locations pinpointed.”
“Impressive,” Hollis said. “And if a civilian’s cell is dead or off?”
“The system attempts to deliver the warning a second time within five minutes, and then it logs an alert that notifies one of our operators. Same thing with the landlines, except that the emergency message is spoken, a recording, and the system logs a successful contact even if the phone has voice mail.”
“So you wouldn’t necessarily know if people living at that home got the warning.”
“Not with the existing system, no. That’s one of the bugs they’re trying to work out.”
“And you?”
He didn’t have to ask her to explain the question. “I have operators listening in on the landline calls; that’s one reason I expect those contacts to take longer. If a machine or voice mail picks up, the operator cuts into the automated system and calls the number at least twice more, leaving the message for them to call the sheriff’s department immediately.”
“Do you wait?”
“No, not if the emergency is dangerous in any way. An Amber Alert is one thing; a severe thunderstorm warning or flash flood warning is something else entirely. It’s passed on to dispatch, which immediately alerts the nearest patrol car in that area. They have orders to knock on doors and even shine their flashlights through the windows, especially if the family vehicles are there. Anything suspicious, they’re authorized to break a window to get in.”
Curiously, DeMarco said, “It sounds like a pretty elaborate system for a small town that I’m guessing doesn’t experience too many emergencies.”
“Yeah, except for regional or national Amber Alerts, our emergencies tend to be weather related. We get some rough storms up here, and there’s always the danger of flash flooding from all the streams and creeks, so warnings are taken very seriously. There are several outlying homes and farms that can be cut off by flood-level streams, sometimes for several days, and so they need immediate warning. It doesn’t happen every year, but we’ve had rough springs the last two years I’ve been sheriff.”
“So you’ve had chances to work out the kinks,” Hollis said.
“A few, yeah.”
“Hey, what’s happened here?” Jill Easton came into the conference room, followed by her assistant, Sam. She had an armful of file folders, which she absently handed to the sheriff, her gaze on Kirby. But it was Cullen who answered.
“A nosebleed, no big deal,” he said, then glanced at the clock and added, “Unless the bleeding hasn’t stopped when we take away the pressure and ice in two minutes. If it hasn’t, Jill, then you’re up.”
She nodded. “Sure. Do you know what caused it? Not really high enough here for elevation to be an issue.”
“I just get them sometimes,” Kirby said, and rolled her eyes at the funny sound of her own voice.
Jill merely nodded gravely, but her assistant seemed to have an abrupt urge to turn away and hunt through his equipment bag for something.
Mal couldn’t quite hide his own smile, though it died as he began looking through the autopsy photos. He sat down at the conference table with a sigh to really go through the files, his face more grim by the moment as he studied them.
But he was the only one not either openly or covertly watching Kirby, and Hollis knew Kirby hated being the center of this kind of attention, so she drew the doctor’s attention to herself. “Have you had any more thoughts about that seeming ligature mark around Perla Cross’s waist?”
“Not about the source or the reason, but I’m pretty sure there was some kind of cord, cable, or rope tied pretty tightly around her waist while she was still alive. Left quite a mark, as you saw this morning. And it’s deeper and more pronounced on the front of her body than on the back.”
Slowly, DeMarco said, “As if she was pulled backward?”
“More like jerked backward. With considerable force.”
Hollis said, “With enough force to impale her on those sharpened limbs?”
“I’d say so.”
“Could a single man have done that?” Hollis was thinking of the attic, the tree, the angles involved. She was no geometry whiz, but it just didn’t seem possible that Perla had been killed the way she had been killed.
“Not without a little mechanical help, if you want my opinion. Mal’s catapult idea would have worked just dandy, but if it had existed, it wouldn’t be a small thing, it would have left marks on the floor—and I don’t see how anybody could have taken it apart and gotten it out of the attic in the time available.”
“I kept picturing one of those giant medieval catapults,” Hollis confessed. “The things they used to throw giant boulders or balls of burning pitch.”
“While storming a castle or trying to set an enemy’s ships on fire?” Jill nodded. “It’s what I pictured first, but I had a pal whose longtime hobby is machines of war send me some info, and according to him, a person-sized catapult is not only possible, there are directions on the Internet on how to build one. And it’s not all that hard. But it would have a lot of moving parts and you’d have to have some pretty advanced knowledge of construction. In addition, the same problems for us exist if your unsub used something like that: it still would have been too large to hide intact in that attic, taking it apart and hiding it would have taken time, and the parts would stick out as something unusual even in an attic. And there just wasn’t time for something like that to be removed from the attic, not given Perla’s time of death. And I am sure of that window for time of death, by the way.”
DeMarco said, “So the unsub used something more basic, more common?”
Jill nodded again. “Some kind of block-and-tackle setup, maybe. A pulley. Ropes or fairly thick but flexible cable. Something to give him leverage. And I’m not sure where he would have been positioned to get the necessary leverage to apply that much force. I’m guessing there was something rigged higher up in the tree as well as in the attic, or outside the attic at the peak of the roof. And we just missed it the first time.”
Her assistant joined the conversation with a resigned expression and muttered, “Christ, I’m gonna have to climb that tree. I knew it. I just knew it.”
Jill glanced over her shoulder at him, more amused than annoyed. “Afraid so, Sam.”
“Dammit. Then can we go now, please? Aside from not being able to see shit, I’d rather not be up in that tree after dark for all kinds of other reasons.”
“We can leave as soon as Cullen’s ready.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when Cullen replied. “We can leave anytime. The bleeding’s stopped.”
Kirby, the makeshift ice packs removed, dabbed at her nose with the stained handkerchief a bit gingerly, but they could all see that her nose was no longer bleeding.
“Breathing okay?” Jill asked her professionally.
Kirby breathed carefully in and out through her nose. “Yeah, fine. Thanks, Cullen.”
“That’s what partners are for.” He took the now-soaked ice packs back to the kitchen area for disposal, then returned to the conference room, rubbing his hands together. He got the light Windbreaker from the back of the chair where he’d been sitting and shrugged into it. “Ready when you are,” he said to Jill and her assistant.
“Watch your back,” Hollis warned, her voice light but her expression showing a fleeting anxiety.
“Always,” he replied in the same tone.
TWELVE
And another body to offer more questions, after tonight. He was ready, everything in place for his plan. Reverend Pilate was in place, and had provided the added benefit of his cell phone and the emergency-alert text from the sheriff.
The sheriff.
He wondered when Malachi Gordon would catch on to what was happening. Or if he would. He was generally a good cop but in this case was quite likely blind to the truth.
Most people were, when it was hiding in plain sight right under their noses.
—
MAL CLOSED THE Perla Cross autopsy file with a muttered curse, then proved he had in fact been paying attention to the others in the room, asking Hollis, “Why’d you warn Cullen to watch his back?”
Hollis gave it a beat, then said, “Because I think we could be targets.”
“You said this guy wasn’t picking random targets.”
“We wouldn’t be random. We’re a threat. Or, at least, he could see us as a threat.”
DeMarco nodded toward the evidence board. “And if we’re right about that male-female pattern holding, the next victim will be a male.”
Mal rubbed his face with both hands in a slightly weary gesture, then said, “I really hope you guys are wrong about there being another victim. But I don’t think you are.”
“Did you see anything you didn’t already know in that autopsy report?” Hollis asked.
“No. But I heard you and Jill talking about there likely being some kind of equipment or device that helped the killer slam Perla into that tree. Which makes sense, given how hard she was thrown. Do you think they’ll find signs of whatever was used?”
“They will if he wants us to find something.”
Frowning, Mal said, “No offense, but I really hope this guy isn’t as bright as you think he is.”
Hollis shook her head slightly. “None taken. But I don’t think it’s as much his intelligence as it is his meticulous planning. I think he’s been planning all this for a long time. Until Mrs. Cross, he made sure his victims’ bodies were pretty much destroyed, or at least left so damaged there’d be no evidence to point to the killer. Of the first four victims, only Karen Underwood’s body wasn’t completely destroyed, and with a falling elevator car as the murder weapon, what could we possibly find to help us? Nothing.”
“But he left Perla impaled on those limbs. Didn’t do anything to destroy the body.”
“No, he didn’t. So the question is, did he lose it with her? Or was the manner of her death always part of his script? And if it was part of his script, then why did he decide to so abruptly stop arranging accidents? Why make it so obviously murder? The question I keep coming back to, no matter how far away from it I get.” She sounded just a little frustrated, and there was a tiny furrow between her brows, her expression almost but not quite a frown.
“You think it was part of his script, don’t you?”
Hollis nodded immediately. “We do. Especially now that we believe there’s a good chance he used some kind of device.”
“That sticks out?” Mal was definitely frowning.
“Mechanical,” Hollis said. “Except, possibly, for the grill, all of the first four deaths were caused by something mechanical, some kind of machine that failed, or worked in a way it wasn’t designed to work, or was sabotaged.”
Mal looked over at the evidence boards briefly. “Another commonality?”
“It will be,” DeMarco said, “if there’s evidence that some kind of constructed device was used to kill Perla Cross.”
Returning his gaze to the agents, Mal nodded. “And it hasn’t been part of the profile—as least what you’ve told me so far—because as soon as you got here, there was Perla.”
“Right,” Hollis said. “We had a few initial ideas in mind after studying the reports you sent on the first four victims, but the grill was always iffy, and then we had no real evidence that some kind of equipment threw Mrs. Cross into that tree. All we had was our conclusion that no single person could have thrown her from the attic with such force. And we knew we weren’t looking for a team.”
“God, I hope not,” Mal said, looking startled.
“This type of killer, apparently playing games or trying to be creative in how he kills, almost always works alone,” Hollis told him. “He’s trying to be clever, to challenge himself or us, or maybe just to hide what he believes is an obvious motive by varying his methods and victims so much.”
“Still . . . we could be looking for somebody who’s mechanically adept,” Mal said slowly.
“We could,” Hollis agreed. “He pretty much has to be, as a matter of fact.”
“Joe Cross is a mechanic.”
DeMarco asked, “Is he good with machines other than cars, electronics in general?”
“Well . . . I don’t know.”
Hollis waited, smiling slightly.
Mal snapped his fingers. “Perla’s cell. He couldn’t get past a simple password. And there’s not even a computer in the house, at least not that I saw.”
“We didn’t see one either. Pretty good signs his knowledge of electronics is probably limited to cars. So maybe he could have sabotaged Clara Adams’s car, but an elevator? A giant piece of farm machinery? Not very likely. Plus, from what you and Emma told us, Joe Cross is not only not the type to kill at all, far less five people including his wife, but he appears to be grieving her death, and deeply.” She paused, then added, “But we still need to talk to him, Mal.”
“Of course. According to talk, a doctor had to knock him out last night. He’s staying with one of Perla’s older sisters, Carla, and her husband, Keith Webb. Apparently the house is pretty much filled with Fergusons, all of them characteristically trying to keep busy. Lot of cooking, I hear. And there’s solid sympathy for Joe, but apparently he just couldn’t stop crying. So a doc knocked him out.”
Hollis nodded, not really surprised.
Mal looked back at the evidence board, frowning again. “But if some kind of device is found at the Cross home, then the killer has to be somebody good with electronics—as well as fairly ordinary tools like a hacksaw or hatchet or some kind of knife. Sharpening those limbs sounds easy, but I’m betting it wasn’t.”
Hollis said, “And he took as much time as he needed to plan. Planning means he was definitely on-script.”
DeMarco said to the sheriff, “Something you may not have noticed in Jill’s reports. She’s certain that the tree limbs were sharpened as much as a week before Perla’s death.”
Mal blinked. “A week before? But that means—”
Hollis was nodding. “That means he was already prepared to murder Mrs. Cross—or at least murder someone in that tree—when he murdered Brady Nash.”
“Did he get them out of order, or—”
“It feels more like he planned to kill them just the way he did, when he did. He knew their routines, Mal. Even Clara Adams was coming home after the night class she regularly taught at the community college about ten miles outside town.”
“Yeah,” Mal said slowly. “She was. And the barbecue hosted by Jeremy Summers had been the same weekend in July for the last three years. The whole neighborhood looked forward to it. Not only is his yard the biggest, with a pool that has elaborate slides for the kids, he always provided dozens of steaks, and asked neighbors only to bring hot dogs or hamburgers, plus sides. And he always had three big grills going, different places in the yard, charcoal only. He claimed you could always taste the propane in foods cooked on gas grills.”
Mal paused, then added, “It was his oldest grill that blew. And a miracle he was the only one standing close enough to be even seriou
sly hurt, let alone killed. There were some minor burns on a few of the other people there, some because they rushed toward the area seconds after the explosion, hoping they could help, and a few because they were hit by falling . . . debris.”
All of them were silent for a moment, all thinking of what that debris had consisted of. Shards of hot and burning metal. And burning flesh.
Finally, Hollis said, “According to your reports, Nash routinely went out to the barn to check on his cows before bed, same time every night, regular as clockwork, even if he didn’t have a cow ready to calve. And even on a day off work, Mrs. Cross would have been home between six and eight, probably getting ready to go out since it was a Friday and she always went out on Fridays.”
“Not without Joe,” Mal said immediately. “That was one of the things they fought about, that even if she went out with her sisters or other women friends, he lurked around the edges.”
“Didn’t trust her?” Hollis asked.
“Didn’t trust every other man in town. And everybody knew it. So what you said before makes more sense. That the unsub had Perla under his control somehow, and made sure all the evidence downstairs said she was gone but hadn’t run away again. He could have figured Joe wouldn’t look closely enough to see stuff there that shouldn’t have been, that he’d just find no Perla and think she’d gone out to be with friends or family, slipping out on purpose before he was due home from work. The unsub probably expected him to do his usual panicked routine of checking all the motels in the area, or even just take off for town to hunt for Perla there. But instead it all just felt too wrong to Joe, and he came here right off to report her missing.”