Cooper was just about to ask Det. Tyler if they should change up their location when Cooper spotted movement at the side of a sorority house. The house was big, three floors and wide. People were home or at least Cooper assumed so with the number of lights that were on. The yard was heavily tree-lined. Cooper caught sight of a guy walking down the street. He stopped in front of the house, looked around and then walked up on the grass. He stopped again and looked around. He took off in a jog around the side of the house and out of Cooper’s sight.
The guy had been dressed in dark clothes, looked older than a student, and had something in his hand Cooper couldn’t quite make out. Nudging Tyler, Cooper asked, “Did you see that guy?”
“Yeah,” Tyler responded, his eyes also fixed on the house. “Let’s go check it out.”
The pair made their way out of the truck and took the same path as the guy down the street. As they stepped on the grass in the front yard, a woman screamed. Cooper looked at Tyler and the two men took off in a sprint around the side of the house. There they found a man in front of a side door of the home, trying to open it. He was saying something Cooper couldn’t hear, but each time he pushed against the door, it would give an inch and be pushed back at him. Cooper assumed someone on the other side was trying to keep him out.
Tyler drew his gun. Cooper tackled the man to the ground. The man gave no resistance. Cooper rolled him over to look at his face. He was older than Cooper, but he wasn’t sure by how much. The man yelled to let him up and something about his daughter living at the house. Cooper rolled off the man and got to his knees. The man struggled to a sitting position.
“What are you doing?” the man said, wiping dirt off his face.
Det. Tyler aimed his gun at the man. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Two girls stepped out of the side exit. They were both panicked. “He was trying to break in!” they shouted in unison.
The man turned to them and shouted right back. “I’m here for my daughter. She goes to school here.”
Cooper grabbed the guy by the shirt and yanked him to his feet. “Explain, now. Who is your daughter?”
The man stumbled over his words. “Her name is Amy. She lives here.”
The two girls looked to each other and then back to Cooper. The dark-haired girl said, “There’s no Amy here. No one uses this door. He didn’t knock. He slammed against it and tried to get in.”
Cooper asked the man for his name. He got no response. Tyler got out his cuffs and slapped them on the man. As Tyler escorted the man to the front of the house, Cooper assured the girls they were safe and to go back inside.
As Cooper came around to the front of the house, he texted Luke and told him what was happening. By the time the police car pulled up, which was going to take Tyler and the man to the station, the response from Luke was even more confusing.
Luke texted: Same. Just apprehended a man trying to break into the freshman dorms. Claims he’s a father. No one knows his daughter. Headed back to the station now.
CHAPTER 29
Luke looked at the man sitting across from him dressed in a dark polo shirt, jeans, and a pair of beat-up running shoes. He told Luke his name was Craig. Luke didn’t believe the man was a father. No one seemed to know his daughter. There was something about the man’s story Luke just wasn’t buying.
“I’m going to ask you again to tell me why you were trying to break into a freshman dorm.” Luke leaned back in his chair like he had all the time in the world.
“I told you,” Craig said, putting his head in his hands. “I was there to see my daughter. I heard on the news about the threats at the school. I came to see if she was okay.”
“Why not call her?” Luke countered.
Craig stammered, “I tried, but she didn’t answer so I was even more worried.”
“I see,” Luke said, not believing a word of it. “Give me her number. I’ll call her right now, and we can assess her safety.”
Craig didn’t budge. He just watched Luke. Finally, he said, “I don’t want her involved in all this. I’m not giving you my daughter’s phone number.”
“Well you can’t be too worried about your daughter then,” Luke said smugly, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. “She doesn’t live in that dorm. I have the school checking for her records right now. What about her mom? How can we reach her?”
Craig shook his head. “We’re divorced.”
“You don’t seem too worried about your daughter right now.” Luke leaned forward, pointed at Craig and said angrily, “Why don’t you just tell me what’s really going on here. I’m going to know one way or the other if your daughter even exists soon so you might as well be out with it now. Otherwise, you’re wasting my time.”
Craig said nothing. Luke watched his face for any recognition. He knew the man was lying, but he wasn’t sure of his angle. Luke stood and kicked the chair back behind him. “I’m going out there to give you a few minutes to get your head right. When I come back in, I want some answers.”
Again, Craig said nothing. He just sat calmly at the table with his hands folded in his lap.
As Luke left the small interrogation room, he ran right into Det. Tyler. “Cooper said you brought someone in. What do you have?”
“Don’t know. It doesn’t make a bit of sense to me. The guy claims his daughter lives at the sorority. He was trying to go in a side door. The girls we talked to said no one of that name lives there.”
“I got the same situation in there,” Luke said, pointing at the door. “He looks like a dad. He says he’s divorced. Couldn’t reach his daughter and was going to check on her. The dorm monitors don’t know of anyone by the daughter’s name. Gabe is running down leads at the school to see if his kid exists. I should hear back any minute.”
“I passed my info off to Gabe, too.” He added with frustration in his voice, “The guy isn’t giving up anything. I have nothing to go on. I don’t even know for sure if a crime was committed. I don’t think pushing on a door to get in would qualify as a break-in, especially when he’s got no weapons and no burglary tools. He wasn’t yelling at the girls or nothing.”
“Same with this guy. I find it strange there are two that happened near the same time – tonight of all nights.” His phone pinged. Gabe sent a text, letting Luke know that there was no one at the school with Craig’s daughter’s name.
“This guy’s a fraud,” Luke said definitively. “Cooper still out there on surveillance?”
“Yeah, everyone is still in place other than us. I’m going to take another crack at this guy.” Tyler walked back down the hall. He stopped briefly to look at papers on a nearby desk and reentered the room.
Luke went back to the interrogation room. Pushing open the door, he looked at Craig calmly sitting there. Luke demanded, “Well your daughter doesn’t exist. You’ve got one last chance to tell me or I’m throwing you in a cell.”
“You don’t have anything on me,” Craig countered angrily.
Luke held up his hand and counted down his fingers one by one. “Lying to me, pretending to have a kid on campus to get access to a dorm, and scaring students when you tried to break into the dorm will at a minimum give you a trespassing charge.” Then he added with emphasis, “Trust me, I can get creative from there. Those kids at the dorm you scared will certainly back me up.”
Craig’s eyes shifted. It was the first break in the man’s body language.
Luke took his seat and stared at the man across from him, thoughts spinning through his head. Luke got an idea so he tried a different approach.
“Look, Craig,” he said, sitting on the edge of his chair leaning in, “I don’t actually think you’re a bad guy. I think someone set you up to distract us. Why go down for someone else’s crime?”
Craig’s eyes snapped up and met Luke’s. “If that were to happen, and I’m not saying it is, what kind of trouble would I be in?”
Luke shrugged. “Maybe none if you can help us out. It’s really
up to you at this point.” Luke leaned back and didn’t say another word. He got the crack in the armor he was looking for. Now all he had to do was wait.
After a few minutes, Craig admitted, “You’re right. Someone gave me directions on what to do, where to go, what to say. He paid me five grand to do it.”
Not exactly what Luke was expecting so it took some constraint to hide his surprise. “Who was it?”
“I really don’t know. I swear,” Craig conceded. “I’ve been out of work for a while so the money was great. The job was listed on the dark web in a chat forum. The guy was looking for someone to come to the school and try to get access to the dorm. He gave the specific date and time, too.”
“What was the plan after that – once you got access?”
“Nothing, honestly,” Craig replied. “I was just supposed to try to get access. If I did, I had to tell the guy how. If I didn’t, I had to tell him that, too.”
“Who was this guy? What did he call himself?”
“The Professor. I’d never seen him in the chat before, and haven’t seen him since. He seemed to get on there and then was gone.”
“How’d you get paid?”
“I had asked that and the guy never answered. One morning, the money was in an envelope on my doorstep. It creeped me out. I never told the guy my address. But the money was there.”
“Anything else you need to tell me?”
Craig looked down at the table.
Luke prodded again. “If there’s something else, this is the time to tell me.”
Craig said cautiously, “I don’t know what this means, but he told me I’d meet you. I’m supposed to tell you that he won this round. That he’ll see you on the harvest fields next time.”
CHAPTER 30
Luke struggled to breathe. He couldn’t believe what he just heard. Luke’s mind raced, running through the possibilities. Were they set up or was a girl taken right under their noses? Luke wasn’t sure. Luke feared a student was missing, and they didn’t know. How long would they have to wait until some poor family came in and filed a missing person’s report? It brought him right back to his sister Lily and the day his own parents had gone to the police station. A mix of fear and anger rose up in Luke’s chest.
If no student was missing, could this guy really have played Luke? Made him and the university run all over the place like puppets and terrorize a community for nothing? That was a far cry better than a missing girl, but Luke didn’t like being at someone else’s mercy. Before Luke could ask Craig anything else, there was a knock on the door that made them both jump.
Luke took another hard look at Craig, who sat with a blank look on his face. Det. Tyler stood in the doorway. His face was flushed and there was a line of sweat at his brow. Det. Tyler waved Luke out.
Once the door was securely closed, Tyler, in rushed speech, told Luke the same story he just heard right down to the final taunting threat. Tyler added defeated, “What do you think?”
“I don’t know.” Luke pinched the bridge of his nose. “No one has reported anything from the field. There have been no disturbances, but I’m not sure what this means. Heads are going to roll if it means we were screwing around with these two while he took another girl.”
“We did everything we could,” Tyler said softly, more to himself than Luke.
“We did,” Luke agreed. He looked down at the floor, thinking it through. He looked back up at Tyler. “Let’s call Gabe and tell him. Maybe they can get some extra patrol units out and start canvassing. Better to actively think we’ve got a missing girl than sit here and do nothing. After that, keep grilling your guy to see if he’ll give up anything else. I’ll do the same. Let’s meet in an hour.”
Tyler agreed and pulled out his phone. Luke went back into the room. He closed the door securely and it clicked into place. It was the only sound in the room. Luke watched Craig who hadn’t even turned to make eye contact with him. He yanked the chair out from the table and slammed himself down. Luke slapped his hand on the table. “We’ve got a big problem here.”
Craig finally made eye contact. “I’ve told you everything I know. I swear.”
“You need to go over every detail again.”
Craig sighed but did as Luke requested. When he was done, Craig added, “I don’t understand why what I did was so bad. It’s not like I hurt anyone or broke in really. I was just trying to see if I could. I wasn’t going to hurt anyone.”
“How do you know no one was hurt while we had to focus on your little stunt?”
“What do you mean?” Craig stammered. He shifted in his chair. The legs scraped against the floor as he moved in his seat.
“You already said you know about the threats at the school. We’ve had cops out all night trying to keep this campus safe. Your little stunt diverted resources. What if you were the diversion he needed to snatch a girl while we were focused on you?”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying. You think the guy who contacted me is the one making the threats on the school?” Craig swallowed visibly. He looked suddenly shaken and sick.
“Not think, know,” Luke stressed. “He’s playing a game with us, and either you’re in on it or you’re just a pawn. I’m not sure which yet. You better hope a girl wasn’t taken tonight.”
“Listen, man, listen. I didn’t have anything to do with this. I swear. He just paid me to see if I could get into that dorm. That’s it.”
Luke leveled a look at him. “But he told you what to do and when to do it, right?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think that means anything.”
“Are you stupid?” Luke asked sarcastically. “Someone you don’t know asks if you can break into a freshman girls’ dorm and report back to him if you could and how you did it. You think there’s any good reason for that?”
Craig looked around the room, his eyes not landing on any one spot.
Luke saw fear take hold as some recognition finally hit that man. “You’re thinking about what I’m saying, aren’t you?”
“I really didn’t think there was any harm,” Craig said, squeaking out each word. “You have to believe me.”
“What else do you know about him?”
“Nothing, I swear,” Craig said, pleading. “Go check my computer. I know you can do that. See where he found me. You can see all of our communication.”
Luke stood, fairly certain he wasn’t going to get any more from him. “We are going to be doing that and more. Meanwhile, we’ve got more than enough to keep you here for a while so get comfortable.”
Luke left the room. He stood in the hall, trying to catch his bearings. He checked his phone and noticed there was a call from Gabe. Luke punched in the other detective’s number.
“What’s happening there?” Gabe asked.
Luke went over the details that he knew to date. Gabe assured him that there was no missing person’s report yet, but cautioned that it was early. Luke asked for officers to take Craig to a cell. Luke was determined to go back out and start canvassing himself.
CHAPTER 31
On Saturday, at close to noon, Cooper and Det. Tyler stood on the front steps of Aaron Roberts’ house. Luke had urged them to go while he finally caught a few hours of sleep. He had stayed out until five that morning, driving around and canvassing. Thankfully, no one was reported missing, but there was the nagging question of who had paid the two men to break into a dorm and sorority and divert police attention. It wasn’t adding up for Cooper.
Aaron Roberts’ home was a two-story with a wide front porch. It had a heavy wood door and no doorbell that Cooper could see. He knocked and waited. He knocked again, loudly this time.
The floor creaked behind the door and Cooper knew someone was home. The door was pulled open, leaving Cooper standing face to face with a man who was a little taller than him, had a solid to stocky build and close-cropped brown hair and glasses. “Can I help you?” the man said.
Cooper introduced himself and Det. Tyler. He confirmed
that the man was, in fact, Aaron Roberts, who had worked at the University of Arkansas, some time ago. Cooper asked if they could speak with him.
Aaron showed no signs of discomfort or fear. He opened the door wider and let them in. As they entered the small, sparse living room, Aaron busied himself with picking up newspapers, magazines, and a few empty cups. He took the items and headed into the hall, calling over his shoulder, “Feel free to sit. Can I get you anything to drink?”
Cooper and Det. Tyler sat on the couch and declined the drink. When Aaron returned, he asked, “You said it’s something related to my time at the university?”
Det. Tyler spoke first. “Do you remember a student by the name of Lily Morgan?”
Aaron sat back in his chair. “I’ve had a lot of students over the years. The name sounds familiar…”
“She went missing and was later found murdered,” Cooper deadpanned.
Aaron’s eyes grew wide. He sat up straighter in his chair and leaned forward. “Now that you mention that, I do recall it. I remembered a girl went missing during my time there, but I couldn’t recall her name. It’s been many years.”
Cooper made direct eye contact and asked calmly, “Do you remember meeting Lily?”
“I don’t believe she was a student of mine.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Cooper said directly. “I asked if you remember meeting her.”
Aaron stayed silent for a moment too long. Cooper could tell the man was contemplating the truth so he didn’t give him the chance to lie. Cooper pointed at him and said, “Let me rephrase. We have a witness who saw you, at least once, with Lily, so we know that you knew her.”
“It was complicated,” Aaron admitted. He got up and walked across the room and looked out the window.
The Bone Harvest Page 10