The Bone Harvest

by Stacy M Jones

  Brie paused. Tears formed in her eyes. Luke offered her a sympathetic smile.

  “You have to know when Lily wanted to leave, I offered to walk her home, but she knew the guy I liked had just walked in. She told me to stay. I guess she didn’t want me to miss my chance at talking to him.”

  Luke smiled. It sounded like Lily. She was always looking out for other people like that. Puzzled though, Luke said, “There’s something I don’t understand. I spoke to a lot of the girls Lily was with that night, but I don’t remember talking to you. No one mentioned your name.”

  “I don’t know who you spoke with, but I assume you talked to the girls Lily had headed to the party to meet. Lily had a few different groups of friends. I wasn’t friends with the girls in the sorority. I wouldn’t assume they’d even know about me. As I said, Lily and I lived next door to each other in the dorm. We also had an English class together. I didn’t go out to parties very often, but as I said, a guy I liked was there that night.”

  That made sense to Luke. It bothered him now that back then he didn’t explore further. His focus was only on the girls, he had heard, Lily was with at the party. He never explored other friendships she might have had. He wanted to chalk it up to his inexperience, but it felt like the weight of another failure.

  Luke leaned forward with his arms on the table. “I’ve always been curious. The girls I thought Lily was with at the party weren’t even able to give me a time that she left, or tell me how much she’d been drinking. Do you know what time Lily left?”

  “I do,” Brie said quietly. “I think we need to back up though. There’s a reason none of those girls could answer those questions.”

  Luke raised his eyebrows, his curiosity immediately piqued.

  Brie went on. “Some of the girls Lily planned to meet at the party were there. But when we came in, they wouldn’t talk to her. They brushed Lily off, giving her the cold shoulder. Lily was upset, but you know how she was, she ignored it. Lily said that one of the girls was a little jealous that she had been dating her new boyfriend, Chris. I guess this other girl liked him. They banded together and left Lily out. I think it’s one of the reasons she left early.”

  “What time did she leave?” Cooper asked. He jotted down some notes as Brie talked.

  “It was right around ten. Lily made the joke that she was probably the lamest freshman there. That she’d be home asleep by ten-thirty on a Friday night. It took about fifteen minutes to walk back to the dorm.”

  “Did you see her after that?” Luke asked hopefully.

  “Yeah, that’s the strange thing. I watched Lily walk out the door. Then I went in search of the guy I was there to see. I talked to him for a short period of time. He grabbed another beer and suggested we head outside to the front porch. Once I was out there, I was surprised to see Lily just down the road, talking to a history professor – Aaron Roberts. I recognized him because, back then, it was a joke around school how cute he was, and how he didn’t look like a professor. Everyone wanted to take his class.”

  “Did my sister know him?” Luke wondered. He wasn’t sure where this was going. He shifted in his seat and looked over at Cooper who looked back at him and shrugged. This was all new information for them.

  “Not that I was aware of,” Brie responded, “but they seemed really engaged in conversation like they had known each other so maybe they did. He was parked at the curb, leaning against his car. Lily was standing in front of him. I wanted to yell to her, but she was too far down the road to hear me.”

  Cooper inquired, “Did Lily look like she was enjoying the conversation?”

  “She did,” Brie affirmed. “Apparently felt safe enough with him that she got in his car and left.”

  Cooper and Luke shared a look of surprise. No one had told them anything like this back then or even through the years as Luke looked into his sister’s disappearance.

  Luke looked back to Brie. She was crying. Luke started to speak, hoping to say something comforting, but she waved him off.

  Brie said regretfully, “I tried telling the cops this at the time. They said they’d look into it. When I followed up, the detective said that I had to have been mistaken because Aaron Roberts said he was out of town that weekend. They said he had an alibi. They said I must have been drinking and got mixed up.”

  Luke leaned forward. “Is there any chance you were mistaken?”

  Brie shook her head. “I’m confident in what I saw. As I had said, neither of us were drinking that night. Neither of us felt great. We had both taken some cold medicine before we left. We were young, but neither one of us was stupid enough to mix that with alcohol.”

  Luke didn’t say anything. He was processing the information.

  Brie took his silence for doubt. She locked eyes with him and said forcefully, “I wasn’t drunk. I wasn’t confused. I know exactly what I saw, but I couldn’t get them to believe me. I don’t know what kind of alibi he had or even if the cops really talked to him, but he was there that night. Lily got in his car, and that was the last time I ever saw her.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Luke reached across the table and grabbed her hand. He looked Brie in the eyes and said, “I believe you. I’m not doubting what you’re saying. This is just all new information for me, and it’s taking me some time to process.”

  “You have to understand,” Brie sniffled, “I’ve been carrying this for a long time. I had tried to get the cops to believe me then. I had told some of the other girls we lived with at the dorm. I had told my parents, but everyone kept trying to convince me I must have been mistaken. I knew I wasn’t, but nobody listened to me. Over the years, I assumed it must not have been important.”

  Luke understood exactly how she felt. “Do you have any idea where Aaron Roberts is now?”

  “No, if I’m remembering correctly, he left after the spring semester.”

  Luke started to speak but Cooper interjected, “We were seniors when you were a freshman and I don’t remember him at all. But then again, I didn’t know many people in the history department. Do you know how long he had been at the school prior to that point?”

  “He was new our freshman year,” Brie indicated. “That’s why I thought it was strange that he knew Lily. She wasn’t taking any history classes. She hadn’t even declared a major. I don’t even know how she would have met him.”

  The three of them went back and forth on a few more questions, trying to pin down details. When Luke was sure he had everything he needed, he thanked Brie and promised they’d be in touch. Luke also told Brie that if she remembered anything else not to hesitate to call.

  Once out of the fine arts building and standing on the sidewalk, Luke turned to Cooper. “What do you think?”

  “I believe her,” Cooper said confidently. “It’s a shame we didn’t know about her then. I can see how she was missed. Lily was supposed to be at the party with that other group of girls. Not one person had hinted at anything different. Sounds like now we might at least have a lead to run down.”

  Luke and Cooper made their way back to the police station to meet with Det. Gabe Barry. Det. Tyler was there, too. Luke made introductions and caught everyone up to speed on the meeting with Brie Hall. The four of them took up space in the Fayetteville Police Department’s conference room – more of a strategy war room, as Gabe described it.

  Gabe asked, “That was a long time ago. You think her memory is solid?”

  Luke ran a hand down his face. He tried to think objectively. “I do. It really seemed like Brie’s been carrying this around with her for a long time. She didn’t embellish. She didn’t create a big story of it. She just stated what she remembered. It was traumatic for her. She carries a lot of guilt, it seems, for not stopping my sister from going with him and for not getting anyone to listen to her back then.”

  Cooper waited for Luke to finish and then added, “Brie also didn’t say the professor was guilty of anything. She just said she saw Lily talking to him and get in his c
ar. He could have just driven her home. We don’t know what happened. The part Brie was most frustrated by was that the cops told her she didn’t see what she did. That’s what was suspicious to her.”

  Det. Tyler turned to Gabe, who was sitting directly across the table from him. “You got the detective’s notes from back then?”

  “I do,” Gabe answered. “But there’s no mention of this guy. There’s no mention of any guy. The detective, at the time, simply states that Lily left the party with the intention of walking home, and she was never seen again.”

  “Well that’s what we got, too,” Luke said sarcastically, “but that doesn’t seem now like it’s anywhere close to the truth.”

  “Luke, I’m not questioning you,” Gabe countered. “I’m just telling you what the report said. Mistakes were clearly made.”

  Det. Tyler interrupted, “Why don’t we just go to President Kane and ask to see this guy’s record. See what the university knows about this guy. If he worked here, there must be some record of him.”

  Luke nodded. “I don’t know what they will give us—”

  Luke didn’t get out his full thought because Cooper interrupted. He turned his phone so it faced Luke, “You think this is the guy? I found him on LinkedIn. Says he’s still local to the area.”

  Luke took Cooper’s phone and read the profile details. History professor. Worked at the University of Arkansas when Lily disappeared as Brie said. There were gaps in his employment history, and he seemed to bounce around a lot. He was originally from the Washington D.C. area.

  Luke handed the phone back. “I’d say that’s him. We have an address?”

  Cooper typed a few things into his phone. He looked back up at them. “Says here he lives about ten miles from here, heading closer to Springdale.”

  Gabe offered, “We can go have a talk with him, Luke. See what he remembers.”

  All eyes were on him, but Luke wasn’t sure what he was feeling. He didn’t expect it to be this easy to track the guy down. Luke thought he’d have a little more time to mentally prepare. “I think maybe you guys should go. I’ll sit this one out. I’ve got a bit to do here.”

  Cooper eyed him. “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” Luke confirmed. “I think if you and Tyler go, you’ll have better luck and be more objective. If this is the guy sending letters and I show up at his door, what’s going to happen? I just think you’ll get further questioning him if I’m not there.”

  CHAPTER 27

  I thought with Luke gone, the days would have crawled by for me. They didn’t. It was like a mad dash to get things done before I left for New York. I had spoken to Luke on Wednesday evening, and he had told me about Aaron Roberts. Cooper and Det. Tyler had gone to the man’s home, but he wasn’t there. They tried a few more times and assumed maybe he was out of town.

  Luke sounded stressed, as anyone would be, but there was something else in his voice. A weariness I’d never heard before. I avoided telling him the cause of death in the Virginia and New York murders, and thankfully, he hadn’t asked. I just didn’t have the heart to tell him that the girls had been stabbed in the chest. There would come a time for that, but it wasn’t now when he was in the middle of an active threat. I had told Luke about the girls’ missing fingers, which was what sealed the deal for us that the cases were connected.

  Missing on Fridays, in October, was compelling, but it hadn’t been enough for me. The fact that they had been freshmen, killed the same way, and that the victims’ fingers were missing, was what finally convinced me the Virginia and New York cases were connected. If the rest were connected, I couldn’t understand how the killer could so easily commit these crimes undetected. It also puzzled me why these were the only cases where bodies were found fully intact so quickly after the murder.

  If it was all the same killer, why leave bodies just in Virginia and New York? These murders weren’t his first. They were right in the middle – 2000 and 2008. It was this fact that kept tripping me up. I spent Thursday following up on cities where skeletal remains had been found. Few wanted to give me information over the phone, but I managed to get a handful of confirmations that victims had been missing fingers on their left hands. The pattern remained.

  Late Thursday afternoon I also had an appointment with my therapist. I just wanted a check-in before I left town. I was concerned that the stress of the case and worrying about Luke might trigger an anxiety attack. She cautioned me to keep my stress levels in check, and then offered some breathing exercises, knowing that less stress wasn’t always possible with my line of work.

  Now early Friday evening, I sat in my kitchen, moving my dinner around on my plate. I’d barely touched the lasagna I’d made. I had already texted Luke and Cooper to wish them luck. They had a solid plan in place, and really there was nothing more they could do. It didn’t mean that a million things couldn’t go wrong.

  I was flipping through a news app on my phone when there was a knock at my front door. I answered to find Emma standing there. “Let’s go get ice cream,” she said with a mischievous grin.

  “Ice cream?” I asked, looking back at my kitchen and my uneaten dinner.

  “Yeah, come on,” Emma encouraged. “You’re just sitting in there stressing about what Luke’s doing. You need a break. We can walk over to the new place on Kavanaugh.”

  The new ice cream shop had replaced the Starbucks on Kavanaugh Boulevard, one of the main streets that ran through my Heights neighborhood and connected to Hillcrest, where Luke’s parents lived. I was completely bummed when Starbucks left the spot, but there were several other Starbucks in the city. I just liked being able to walk there, and they had a decent patio.

  Emma was just trying to take my mind off things. I grabbed my phone, some cash and locked the door behind me. It was a quick walk, and once I was there, I was glad for the company.

  We both ordered. I grabbed a mint chocolate chip milkshake and Emma had a hot fudge sundae that looked delicious. As soon as we were at the table, she dug in. She looked up at me and laughed. “Pregnancy. Don’t judge.”

  I held my hands up. “No judging. Glad you’re enjoying it. I have no appetite, otherwise, I’d have had the same. I’m nervous about Luke.”

  “How’s he doing?” Emma asked between bites.

  “He says he’s got it covered. Cooper told me that Luke did back off and let him and Tyler question a professor that was seen with Lily on the night she disappeared. That was good. Maybe Luke understands his limits this time.”

  “I hope so,” Emma offered. “We both know how bad it can go when you mix personal with a criminal case. Speaking of mixing personal with work, how are you feeling about going back to stay with your mom and sister?”

  “I’m okay. It will be nice to crash at my mom’s while I work on the case,” I said, taking another sip and then regretting it. I drank too fast and my head was stinging. I held the spot on my head.

  Emma frowned. “You’re as bad as Sophie sometimes. I’m glad you think it will be okay. You haven’t really been back since your sister Liv started dating your ex-husband. I didn’t know if it would be awkward.”

  “It shouldn’t be,” I said and really hoped that was true. My sister Olivia had been dating my ex-husband for close to a year now. “I’d like for them both to be happy, I just don’t get what they see in each other. Maybe it’s true and opposites attract.”

  “How long do you think you’ll be up there?” Emma asked, taking the last spoonful. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and pushed the bowl away.

  “I don’t know, but I’m hoping not long. I’m excited that I won’t be going it alone,” I explained, finishing off my milkshake. I picked up my garbage and Emma’s and dropped it in the can by the door. Returning, I added, “A detective from Virginia is coming up to help me along with Jack, the detective in Troy. They both handled the cases directly back when they occurred. Both seemed pretty motivated to find the killer.”

  “That’s great you’ll have help,” Emm
a said. Giving me a motherly look, she added, “Just try to stay out of harm’s way this time.”

  CHAPTER 28

  A lot of private investigators and even cops hated surveillance, but not Cooper. It was one of his skills. Even if he had to sit for hours and had five minutes of action, it was worth it to him. He knew it was a long game. Some investigators wanted to knock down doors, interview perps, and shakedown people for information. Cooper was content to wait in the shadows and let the action come to him.

  It was late on Friday evening just before eleven o’clock. The night had been quiet. Luke’s team and two others had been out since five that evening. The decoys went to parties. Cooper had walked the streets himself several times, watching for any suspicious activity. Nothing all night. It had been quiet.

  Cooper sat in his truck with Det. Tyler near a row of sorority houses. Luke was with Gabe positioned at another location. Most of the university kids they saw were walking in groups. The most action they’d seen was about an hour before when a girl, obviously drunk, took a tumble on the sidewalk, but her friends helped her back up, and they went on their way.

  Det. Tyler asked, “You really think this guy was going to tell us his plan?”

  “I don’t know, but better safe than sorry.”

  “I know Luke really feels like this guy is the one. I hope he doesn’t have him out here just chasing his tail.”

  Cooper agreed with that. He’d watched Luke through the years invest time, his own money, and more energy than one person should have into the case to get nowhere. He wasn’t sure that Luke would recover if all this was just a game, someone screwing with him for the fun of it.

  The ping of Cooper’s cellphone cut through the stillness. It was just Luke reporting in that all was quiet where they were stationed. Another thirty minutes passed by. Cooper was ready to call it a night. The throngs of kids walking back and forth had slowed to a trickle. Most, Cooper assumed, had heeded their warning to make it a quiet night.