The Bone Harvest

by Stacy M Jones

  Tyler looked back down at his notes and added, “Atlanta police department didn’t even take a report. I called, and they had nothing. They were only familiar with the case because the podcast had renewed interest in the community. I talked to a detective in their cold cases who said maybe one day they’d take a look, but it was never an open case for them. The university line is she ran away because the pressure got too much for her. She was from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Her parents are hardworking folks but didn’t have the money to fight the system. Jordan was going to university on a full scholarship. Her family used what resources they had, but there has never been a full-scale investigation. Jordan, it seems, just vanished.”

  “They a black family?” Luke asked.

  “Yes,” Riley answered. “The victim in the Alabama case is black as well. It’s too early to tell, but I wonder if that’s his victim type. What did you find out there?”

  Luke spent a few minutes filling us in on the case related to the University of Alabama. Similar circumstances to Chamblee University, but people saw Frannie leave the library. She had told friends she was heading back to her dorm. With Jordan, they didn’t even know that much. I didn’t have much to add that Luke hadn’t already found out.

  “What do you think?” Luke asked when he was finished going over everything. He looked around the room at us, but I wasn’t sure what to tell him. I didn’t feel like I had enough to say for certain that the guy was real. He could have easily pulled the details from the Chamblee case from the podcast. While not much was out there about the case in Alabama, there was still a website he could have stumbled across. Before I could explain that to Luke, Captain Meadows said what I was thinking.

  He leaned his arms on the table and looked directly at Luke. “It sounds like all he told us could be found online. I’m not saying he’s not the real deal, but I also haven’t ruled out he’s some twisted sicko screwing with you.”

  Cooper stood and pulled a thick file folder from his knapsack. “I’d agree with you,” he said as he slapped the folder down on the table, “but I found some interesting cases in a broad search and a scary trend.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Cooper had our full attention. He bent over the file folder and pulled out pages that were clipped together. He explained, “I had no idea the minefield I was walking into when you asked me to do a broad search, Luke. I thought I’d maybe come across a few cases. There are seventy-nine cases going back to 1990. These are the cases of missing university girls where either there was no body found, or a body was found and the case remains unsolved.”

  Cooper handed stacks to each of us. Captain Meadows took a handful and asked, “You said you found a scary trend?”

  Cooper nodded as he handed a stack to me. “Yeah, all the freshmen went missing in October. I didn’t notice it at first. Then I hit three cases in a row that were all freshmen and all went missing in October. I went back through them all again and noted that all the missing girls who were freshmen at the time of their disappearance went missing in October.”

  I flipped through the pages, taking in their contents. Most were pages from websites created by families or friends of the missing. Some pages were pulled off other sites including social media.

  “The cases from Chamblee and Alabama are in there. Your sister too, Luke,” Cooper noted.

  Luke rubbed his hand down his face. “Are there any other similarities?”

  “Not that I saw, but I didn’t dive in too deep. I didn’t screen out age, or location, or anything like that.”

  Cooper picked up a page and held it up. “Like this one, I wouldn’t think this is connected. This girl is from UCLA and had a boyfriend who went missing at the same time. She was a senior. It just doesn’t seem to fit the same circumstances as the others.”

  We all nodded in agreement.

  “What do you want us to look for?” Tyler asked, holding his own stack in front of him.

  Luke looked at all of us but seemed at a loss for words. After a few seconds, he informed us, “I guess just look through and see if anything feels like it fits. I don’t even know what to narrow down. Cooper said the freshmen girls went missing in October. My sister went missing from a party and the other two have library connections. That’s all we are really working with. Better to cast a wider net right now. Let’s make three piles – freshmen who seem to fit, others that seem to fit, and then those cases that don’t fit.”

  We all put our heads down to read the pages in front of us. The stack in front of me had pages with photos. Girls stared back at me. They were so young with so much potential in life snatched away. It was depressing to think about too deeply.

  Every few minutes one of us would add to the piles. The freshman pile seemed to be growing more rapidly than the others. No one said much, but there was the occasional deep sigh.

  When Luke added the last case, he picked up the freshmen pile and flipped through it, counting the number of cases. Then he started making two piles out of them.

  “What are you seeing?” I asked.

  “I’m just separating by location.” Luke moved one pile to the right and indicated that they were all the cases, twenty-five in all, that were east coast and south. The smaller pile had cases out west in Oregon, Colorado and South Dakota.

  “Are you thinking those don’t fit?” Tyler inquired as he picked up the pile of three cases and started thumbing through them.

  “They were just the odd ones out so I wasn’t sure. Not that they wouldn’t fit. We just seem to have a bigger cluster on the east coast and in the south especially.

  “We’ll need to go through these and see what more we can find out,” Luke indicated. He directed his attention to Det. Tyler. “I need you to run my sister’s case through ViCAP and see what else comes back. Then we can cross-reference to this list.”

  Luke turned to Cooper and me, “It would be great if you two could start making some calls like we did for Chamblee and Alabama. Just tell them you’re a researcher for the Little Rock Police and that you might have some connected cases. If they give you a hard time, tell them to call me.”

  “Do you want to call the FBI in?” Captain Meadows asked Luke.

  “Not yet. If we are going to bring them in, I want to at least have a better idea of what we’re working with.”

  “What’s your plan then?” Captain Meadows asked, clearly concerned.

  “First I’m going to talk to my parents. Then I’m going to connect with Detective Barry in Fayetteville and go over all the evidence we have with Lily’s case one more time. I need to get a better handle on that, while everyone else is running down other leads. Then we can regroup and see what we have. If we don’t have a strong case that meets their jurisdiction, the FBI won’t even listen.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Luke left the police station about an hour after they wrapped the meeting. He had kissed Riley goodbye and explained that he’d better talk to his parents alone. She understood and headed home. As Luke navigated his way to his parents’ Hillcrest neighborhood, the same one he grew up in, he talked aloud, hoping his sister could hear him. Luke wasn’t exactly sure he believed in life after death, but he figured he’d hedge his bets anyway.

  Luke asked Lily for the strength to be able to tell his parents what was happening and find her killer. He apologized again for not being there to protect her and vowed once again to bring her killer to justice. Luke thought of her smile and the bossy way she was with him. At least that brought a smile to his face. He was sure if there was a heaven, she would have center stage.

  Lily might have been three years younger than Luke, but she was the bossy sibling for sure. Luke sometimes even took her advice, although he never let on, for fear it would have encouraged her to continue her bossy ways.

  While he felt silly for talking to his sister, Luke really did need to summon some strength to talk to his parents. He had no idea how they were going to react. His father, Spencer, and mother, Lucia, were married for forty-one
years. His mother was sixty-six and his father sixty-seven. They had Luke in their late twenties and his sister in their early thirties. Both were retired now, but when Luke was growing up his dad was an eye doctor and his mother a high school English teacher.

  Luke pulled his car into the driveway of his parents’ Hillcrest home, situated across from Allsopp Park on S. Lookout Road near the corner of Fairview Road. The house was grand with a brick walkway flanked on either side by fall flowers. The landscape was gorgeous. During her retirement, his mother had taken to learning all she could about cultivating beautiful flowers. This was the house Luke grew up in. He knew every nook and detail of the place.

  Luke parked in the driveway and made his way into the house via the side door, which lead right into the mudroom. He kicked off his shoes and made his way into the kitchen. Luke grabbed an oatmeal raisin cookie from the plate on the table and took a bite. They were soft, still slightly warm, and fresh. His mother must have just baked them.

  Luke found his parents sitting in the family room. Spencer was relaxing on the sectional while Lucia read a book in her favorite chair, which was so wide and deep it seemed to consume her. It was her favorite spot, and outside of the kitchen, Luke would have been surprised to find her anywhere else. She always read there, catching the light from the window.

  “Luke, honey, we didn’t hear you come in.” Lucia looked up from her book as he entered the room. Luke gave his mother a quick peck on the cheek.

  Luke walked over to his father and sat next to him on the couch. He wrung his hands in front of him. Looking down at the floor, he blurted, “I wanted to talk to you both. I’m not really sure how to tell you, but I have some news about Lily’s case.”

  His mother set her book down and moved closer to the edge of her seat. Luke’s father looked at him with his eyes wide. Luke looked up at each of them, making eye contact for the first time. “I got a letter at the police station from a man who claims he’s Lily’s killer. He said that he had killed before and would kill again.”

  Lucia gasped loudly as Luke spoke. She got up from the chair, crossed the room and sat down next to Spencer. He put his arm around her. She urged Luke to go on.

  “He said he had killed twenty-three girls. He sent another letter, which I received this afternoon. He said he had killed at Chamblee University in 1993 and the University of Alabama in 1996. Cooper and Riley are helping. This afternoon we found those cases and several others that could possibly be connected. I’m going to head up to Fayetteville tomorrow.”

  His parents were both silent. They shared a look with each other and then Spencer asked, “You think it’s credible?”

  “I do, Dad,” Luke offered sincerely. “We were able to confirm those cases he mentioned. The victims were freshmen, too. All of the disappearances happened in October like Lily. There are other things too I can’t go into, but I feel it in my gut. It’s the real deal.”

  Lucia cried softly. Spencer didn’t say anything for a few moments, then turned to Luke and asked, “Do you really think it’s best if you go? Maybe one of the other detectives should handle it.”

  Luke shook his head and sighed loudly. “You don’t think I can solve the case, do you?”

  Both of his parents started to speak, but Luke cut them off. “I know you’ve been disappointed in me, but I finally have something to go on and you want me to give it to someone else? That’s how little you think of me?”

  Luke got up from the couch and stood in front of them. Lucia grabbed for Luke’s hand, but he pulled it back. Luke glared down at them, fighting back tears. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say.

  Spencer looked up at Luke, his eyes serious and his mouth set in a firm line. Finally, he stood and put his hand on Luke’s shoulder. “Son, we think nothing of the sort. Don’t be so defensive. We are just worried about you. We know how hard you’ve tried to solve this case. This is, well, I don’t even have words for what this is. Like you, we always assumed it was another student. You’re telling us it’s a killer who has killed twenty-three times. We all want justice, but my biggest concern is you.”

  Luke calmed down almost immediately. His shoulders relaxed, and he was embarrassed for losing his cool. Luke had always felt like his parents were disappointed he hadn’t found the killer. There was always a part of him that felt like a failure as a detective, as a brother, and as a man. Riley told him all the time no one else felt that way about him, especially his parents.

  Luke shook it off. “I’m fine,” he said.

  Spencer stood watching him.

  “Dad, I’m serious. I’m fine. I have Riley and Cooper to help me. Riley is going to stay here and do some research and calls for me while I head up to Fayetteville. There’s a new detective there I’m going to meet.”

  “I pray this can finally stop, not just for us, but for all the families.” Lucia reached for her husband’s hand. “You’ll be careful, Luke, won’t you?”

  Lucia looked at Luke with such worry in her eyes that he reached down and hugged her. He said in her ear, “Of course. I’ll send Riley over for dinner while I’m gone. She can probably use the company.”

  Breaking the tension, Spencer asked, “When are you going to make an honest woman of her?”

  Luke smiled for the first time since he had arrived. “Soon, Dad, soon.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “Since when do you pout?” Luke asked Riley, who was sitting in the middle of their bed, watching him pack. Her eyes were on Luke’s back as he took shirts and pants out of the closet and dresser and arranged them neatly in his suitcase. He didn’t really know how long he’d be gone.

  “Since you are leaving for Fayetteville while a deranged killer is on the loose.”

  “Are you scared to be here on your own? I know you haven’t really spent a night alone since everything happened last year. You can stay with parents, or Cooper can stay here with you.”

  Riley shook her head and said calmly, “You misunderstood me. I’m worried about you. You’re heading up there alone. We all know how difficult this case is for you. I don’t like you being there in Fayetteville without me, or at least Cooper.”

  Luke thought her concern was sweet but displaced. He went back to packing. “Riley, I’m fine, really I am. My parents are worried too, but I got this. You and Cooper just work on the other cases and see if there are any leads, especially the early cases. He might have slipped up somewhere. They usually do early on before they perfect their crimes.”

  Riley shrugged, probably knowing she wasn’t going to get very far with him on this. “In all seriousness, do you really think this guy is legit? I know we found those two cases he mentioned, but he could have found them online.”

  “I know it’s him without a question,” Luke countered. He didn’t really want to go over this again. He was tired of answering the question. Luke felt it in his gut. That’s all he could say, and the only answer he had. Plus, Luke knew as sure as he was standing there that the guy would be in contact again. Luke was hoping he’d let more slip. Luke hated that he needed the killer to direct him, but the guy, at least with his sister, left no discernible clues. It frustrated Luke to his core.

  Riley put her arms about Luke, resting her head on his back. “I know you believe him. Even though I’m trying to stay reasonable and logical, I think I know, too.”

  Luke turned around and hugged Riley, resting his chin on the top of her head. “I don’t really want to go away and leave you here, but it’s probably best we separate to get things done.”

  Riley squeezed him back and then moved out of his arms, sitting back down on the bed. Luke looked down at her, his face pained. “Before I leave, I wanted to ask if you have any ideas on a profile of the killer. I’m feeling a little out of my depth on this.”

  “Unfortunately, not a clue. I mean, so far, the three cases we have are connected to universities. If that’s where he hunts, I would imagine he has to be somewhat inconspicuous in the environment. Given the span of years, he
is probably well into his forties or fifties, and he’s clearly intelligent. He’d have to blend in pretty well, otherwise, someone would have noticed a creepy suspicious guy. Either he’s luring them away from campus somehow, or they went willingly because they knew him.”

  “My sister would never just walk off with a stranger,” Luke said, with confidence.

  “You never know,” Riley countered. “It might have been someone in her classes or someone from campus. Someone could have asked her for help, or directions. Serial killers have a million tricks up their sleeves. Just don’t make any judgments on her. We all go a little outside our comfort zone sometimes, especially at college. Just don’t make any assumptions.”

  Luke knew what Riley meant. He still thought of his sister as a little girl.

  “Promise me?” Riley insisted. “You might overlook something right in front of you.”

  “I promise,” Luke said solemnly. He finished packing and set the suitcase aside for the morning. He pulled out shorts and a tee-shirt to get comfortable for the evening.

  Luke walked to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Catching his reflection in the mirror, he didn’t like what he saw. His tired eyes were swollen and drooping. The wrinkle across his forehead was more apparent. The case was just getting started. Luke finished up and walked back into the bedroom. As he entered the room, Riley informed him, “We had so much commotion, today, that I didn’t even tell you Emma is pregnant again.”