The Angel Creek Girls: A totally addictive crime thriller packed full of suspense (Detective Kay Sharp Book 3)

by Leslie Wolfe

  His white, untrimmed brows furrowed. “Involved, how?”

  “The investigation is still undergoing,” she said, painfully aware just how lame that sounded, but with Marleen Montgomery present, there was only so much she could disclose without jeopardizing her case. “We have established that Mrs. Montgomery’s late husband visited the Coleman residence before Cheryl Coleman’s death. We have also established that Mrs. Montgomery’s husband was having an affair with Cheryl Coleman, and that speaks to potential motive.”

  “Your Honor, I provided law enforcement with an alibi that checked out for the time of Cheryl Coleman’s death and Julie’s abduction. They have no evidence against me, or I would be wearing handcuffs,” Marleen explained, holding her hands out as if to demonstrate she wasn’t wearing any restraints.

  Judge Drysdale turned the focus of his dark brown eyes to Kay. “Is that true, Detective?”

  She nodded reluctantly. “We did check her alibi, yes, but there are other ways in which—”

  “From where I’m standing, you’ve got nothing, and I have work to do. The court order stands.”

  Marleen grinned widely and shot Kay a triumphant look. “Thank you, Your Honor.”

  “Your Honor, we have established that Julie’s kidnapping is part of a series of kidnappings that spans over fifty years,” she blurted out quickly, afraid he was going to cut her off again. But he was taken aback by her words, silent and slack jawed. “We’re looking at a serial offender. We just need a little more time. And these girls are essential to our investigation. Their safety is a big concern to us, being they witnessed the killing of their mother and the abduction of their sister.” He stared at her without interrupting, his attention piqued to the point where it had dissolved his earlier frustration. “I swear to you, they’re well taken care of.”

  Marleen stared at the judge, visibly appalled, slack-jawed and stiff with indignation.

  Kay stopped talking, holding her breath, waiting for him to decide. She’d already said more than she should have, and was painfully aware how Sheriff Logan would feel about it if he ever found out. Only facts backed by solid evidence were to be presented in court, regardless of circumstances. Speculation and unproven theories only hurt people and careers.

  Judge Drysdale reached out across his desk and swiftly grabbed the court order from Mrs. Montgomery’s hand. Her jaw dropped.

  “You have forty-eight hours, Detective.” His voice was back to normal, and the purplish blotches on his skin were waning toward their normal shade of wino red. “In forty-eight hours, you either charge Mrs. Montgomery with a crime, or she takes full custody of these children. So ordered.”

  A wave of relief washed over her, while Mrs. Montgomery protested, her voice weak and humble, with undertones of desperation. “But, Your Honor—”

  “Mrs. Montgomery, don’t get me started,” the judge replied, walking toward the door with large steps that made his robe flutter behind him like a cape. “You conveniently left out several critical facts, like these girls being, in fact, in protective custody as witnesses to a crime. Don’t waste my time anymore.” He opened the door and held it for them with an impatient scowl on his face. “What are you waiting for? My clerk will draw up the new order and this time, Detective, you’d better comply.” He spoke those words sternly, right as Kay was leaving his chambers. He slammed the door behind her unceremoniously, and walked briskly toward the courtrooms.

  The drive back started in silence, interrupted only by Kay’s passenger’s sniffles. At some point, she broke down, sobbing uncontrollably, the emotional toll of the situation finally catching up with her. By the time they reached Mount Chester, she’d recomposed herself, at least on the surface.

  Kay pulled in right by her car and waited. The rain was still falling heavily, but the lightning had subsided some, only rarely a flicker illuminating distant clouds. The sheriff’s office parking lot was one big puddle endlessly rippled by falling raindrops, but there was nothing Kay could do about it. Her reluctant passenger was about to get her pumps soaked.

  “This isn’t over,” Mrs. Montgomery said before stepping out of the SUV. “My attorney will be in touch.” She slammed the door behind her, and Kay waited until she climbed into her S-Class Mercedes, unwilling to soak her in sprayed puddle water if she drove off too soon.

  Then she pulled away slowly, watching Marleen in the rearview mirror. The woman was sobbing hard, her arms hugging the steering wheel, her head buried between them, her shoulders heaving spasmodically.

  Losing a husband was never easy. Finding out that he’d been cheating must’ve been unbearable, heart-wrenching. Yet, Kay had to look at this family closer, their involvement a safe bet in her mind. She was still missing a few critical pieces of the puzzle and couldn’t yet grasp the whole picture, but asking the right questions of the right people would probably fix that.

  She pulled around the building, looking for a peaceful place where she could spend a few minutes. She wanted to do some homework on the Montgomerys before starting to knock on doors; it always paid to be prepared. As she shifted into park, a chime warned her of a new text message.

  Dr. Whitmore was inviting her and Elliot to the morgue; he had new evidence.

  Torn between priorities, she hesitated for a moment, but then decided to ask Elliot to visit with the ME alone, while she got an early start interviewing the family.

  Time was running out. For Julie, it might’ve already expired.

  44

  History

  Rain rapped loudly against the roof of her SUV, prompting her to move it under a tree, where the noise subsided some, only the heaviest of drops making it through the thick, turning foliage. Occasionally, a torn branch or an acorn fell with a louder thud, but Kay barely noticed.

  She’d pulled up the profile of Montgomery Construction. Founded soon after the end of World War II, the corporation had been held privately in the Montgomery family ever since. Its founder, William Montgomery, a decorated war veteran, had returned home and found that the nation was rebuilding faster than contractors could be found. So, he became one.

  The company had struggled at first, battling the 1945 recession, not many people able to afford new housing so soon after the war, but William had used his veteran status to get some contracts from the government. He’d built several local state and federal buildings, some of which had since been replaced by newer ones, but most still endured.

  Avery was his only son.

  The first time that official records showed Avery’s name was relatively soon after the corporation had been founded, when Avery was barely twenty-two years old. A subsequent filing three months later showed Avery taking over the company from his father, who, per a newspaper article buried deep inside the local City Hall archives, had been battling pancreatic cancer. A small note a few months later accompanied his obituary; he’d lost the battle. Another few months later, his wife, Avery’s mother, followed him to the Valley Rose Cemetery.

  Then there was nothing, no articles and no notable filings, other than the one announcing the birth of Avery’s youngest son, Raymond. Probably the earlier announcements for his two older sons and for his marriage had become lost, such old records never digitized properly by a library that struggled to keep the lights on.

  Then, about a year after Raymond’s birth, Avery’s wife was reported missing.

  Anna Montgomery, twenty-three at the time, was a stunning blonde, her body untouched by her three pregnancies, if the faded photo Kay was looking at had been taken right before she disappeared. Black and white with a tinge of sepia, the picture was a scan of the original missing persons report, probably the one Avery carried in his wallet. The corners had been rounded by wear, and it had numerous lines running through it, a web of them speaking to the many times that photo had been handled. Anna smiled joyfully in the portrait, sporting a white summer dress, almost transparent against the sun. She seemed happy, serene, full of life.

  Kay’s gaze lingered on the w
oman’s face—her beautiful features—and wished she could find out more about who she’d been as a person. It was always the first victim of a serial offender that held the most meaning. She hadn’t fully validated yet that no other first-daughter kidnappings had taken place prior to fifty-seven years ago and were somehow left out of the archives. Until proof to the contrary, she looked at Anna as the first victim in the unsub’s daunting list, and she was different from the rest in at least one aspect.

  She was a wife.

  Unlike the other forty-two victims, who’d all been girls still living with their parents, Anna had been someone’s wife, someone’s mother.

  All the victims had been White, Native, or Hispanic, but Anna and only a handful of others had been blondes. For the unsub, race and physiognomy didn’t seem to matter much, his choice of victims matching, in almost perfect proportions, the population makeup of the region. Whatever it was they had in common, it wasn’t their physical aspects, and that seemed to support her theory about mission-driven killings.

  She closed the municipal archives and opened Anna’s missing persons report. Avery had filed it himself, less than a day after she’d disappeared. Per his statement, he’d been gone all day working at the construction site and he’d returned after sunset, only to find the door open and his wife gone. His children, all under the age of four at the time, were found inside the house, unharmed.

  Huh, Kay thought, another instance of leaving witnesses alive. Seems he only cares about these firstborn daughters and no one else. Because yes, per the city’s records, Anna had also been a firstborn daughter, a single child.

  There had been no signs of forced entry, and no fingerprints that didn’t belong. The detective who’d investigated the case had found it necessary to put it in his report that Mrs. Anna Montgomery seemed to have left of her own volition, although no luggage, passport, or money were missing from the house. All her jewelry was still there, evidence against a breaking and entering gone bad. Reading between the lines of his report, Kay deduced he’d felt less than motivated to investigate, assuming the young mother had just deserted her husband and young boys and left for San Francisco, by herself or with an unknown lover, in the search of a better life in the city by the bay.

  One critical detail was missing from the case file, and that was the weather, never really required to be included. Scrolling through her recent calls, Kay called Weather Underground at the same number she’d dialed the night before. She recognized the pleasant baritone the moment the man picked up.

  “It’s Detective Kay Sharp, we spoke yesterday.”

  “Ah, yes, Detective, I have your list almost ready,” the man replied jovially. “It took me a while to dig them up, you know.”

  Kay suspected her list of dates was the reason why he was picking up the phone long after his shift might’ve ended. “Which one did you start with?”

  “The oldest one. I figured they’d be the most difficult to dig up.”

  “Perfect. Could you please tell me, what was the weather like on the oldest of dates, the, um, August 29—”

  “Yeah, I have it right here. Four inches of rain, wind gusting up to forty-five miles per hour, temperature dropping twenty degrees. The typical cyclone remnants, courtesy of Hurricane Elba.” The meteorologist stopped talking for a moment, only the rustling of paper coming across the open line. “Actually, I just realized, but all the dates you had me pull up were major tropical storms generated by Pacific hurricanes.”

  “How come we get so many of them? We’re not exactly in the Bahamas here.”

  “They’re not that many,” he replied, the smile in his voice obvious. Her ignorance must’ve been entertaining for him. “Typically, we see about sixteen named storms in the Pacific each year. Ten of them on average develop into hurricanes, and tend to drift west-northwest, like all the Northern Hemisphere hurricanes do. Most of them die at sea; a few make landfall in Mexico. We rarely see a hurricane landfall in Northern California; it almost never happens. We get the occasional cyclone—hurricane leftovers if you’d like, usually just a tropical storm. It could be two, three years before we see one, and it’s always in the fall.”

  The man loved talking about weather. She could tell he was passionate about his chosen profession. “And how bad are they, normally?”

  “By the time they reach us, these storm systems are far less dangerous than a hurricane, although sometimes the name of the storm that has generated the post-tropical cyclone or remnants still lingers.”

  That was unexpected. “Then, what’s this?” she gestured at the rain outside her car, as if the meteorologist could see her.

  “This weather, right now? Just a storm system fueled by Hurricane Edward. You see, a hurricane is a huge storm, its center pressure so low it pulls moisture from hundreds of miles away.” He paused, but she could hear him laughing quietly. “I take it you’ve never experienced a hurricane, Detective?”

  “No, I haven’t had the pleasure,” she replied, staring at the gusty rainfall battering her car viciously and wondering how much worse a hurricane could be.

  She thanked him and hung up. The only thing that mattered was the weather on the day Anna Montgomery had gone missing, and it had been just as bad, if not worse. And that fact brought more questions than answers.

  What did the storm mean for the unsub? Nature’s forensic countermeasure? Or did it hold some secret meaning only he understood? Was he repeating an earlier trauma that might’ve happened during a storm? Either way, everything pointed at Montgomery Construction, and that’s where she was headed for answers.

  She turned on the radio and peeled off, sending four-foot-high waves of puddle water in the air. She was headed for the company headquarters, a building she knew well, passing by it every morning on her way to work.

  She turned on the radio, barely paying any attention to the music that was playing. After Imagine Dragons finished their song about liars and how they failed to make their partners happy, the announcer mentioned something about rainfall causing more landslides along the coastal highways and threatening the interstate at two of the bridges over Blackwater River.

  She stepped on the gas pedal and turned her wipers to the max, squinting hard to see where she was going. A distant thunder echoed strangely in her heart, sending shivers down her spine.

  45

  Murder Weapon

  Good thing that Kay’s text message reached Elliot before he took a bite from his sandwich. Just seeing the medical examiner’s name on the phone screen made the mouthwatering smell of honey-baked ham seem tainted with formaldehyde. Feeling his stomach churn, he wrapped up the sandwich and abandoned it on his desk, choosing black coffee instead.

  He’d been running solely on coffee for the past twelve hours, since Kay and he shared a dinner he couldn’t get out of his mind. He’d been up all night, tossing and turning, questions about John Doe aka Dan Montgomery spinning in his mind, intertwined with other questions, about Kay. About the image of her with the two young girls that was seared forever in his memory, seeding unspoken scenarios in his mind.

  He was in awe of her, and that made everything more complicated. She was as smart as a whip; just being next to her made him think he didn’t know which end was up, about pretty much everything. To make things worse, she was his partner, and he knew better than to think of a partner like that, ever again. Last time, it made him leave Texas behind, when his personal relationship with his former partner was used in court to let a perp walk free. That was one heck of a lesson he’d never forget.

  Yet the thought of Kay Sharp kept him up at night, wondering. What if she was the one? What if he’d never be the same if he somehow managed to walk away from her? And why on earth would he have the fortune, big as Dallas, to have this fine woman look at him that way, even for a second?

  He pushed those questions out of his mind as he drove to the morgue, bracing himself for yet another session of torture.

  When he walked through the front door at the
medical examiner’s office, his nose was slathered thick in VapoRub, and he couldn’t smell a rotting wild hog if the thing were laid dead at his feet.

  Thankfully, the two stainless-steel exam tables were empty, their surfaces clean and shiny, the entire morgue spotless. As for the smells, he couldn’t tell with all that Vicks on his nostrils.

  “Ah, there you are,” Dr. Whitmore greeted him. His lab coat was freshly cleaned and pressed, but he didn’t seem to have just arrived at work. He was wearing yesterday’s shirt and slacks, a little more wrinkled than Elliot recalled, as if he’d caught some shuteye on the vinyl couch in the corner, by the door.

  He shook the doctor’s hand, somewhat confused by his amused grin.

  “No need for all that menthol today,” he commented with a quick laugh. “All my tenants are tucked neatly in their refrigerated storage units.” He turned to the side and pointed to a gallon coffee can on a lab table. “This is what I wanted to show you.” He frowned slightly, then glanced toward the door. “Where’s Kay?”

  “She’s interviewing a suspect. I’m all you get today, Doc.”

  “Okay.” Dr. Whitmore tapped his fingernails against the metallic coffee can. “Two rounds of crime scene searches missed it.” He smiled, bringing up lines in the corners of his eyes. “It was well worth sending them back to do another search.” A glint of excitement lit his eyes as his smile widened. “We found the murder weapon.” He walked over to another lab table on wheels and brought it closer. It held a nine-mil Glock on a sheet of paper. “It was completely dismantled and soaked in chlorine, so fingerprints and any DNA are out of the question, but I was able to match it to the bullet we recovered from Dan Montgomery’s body.”

  “That means, beyond any reasonable doubt, my vic was shot in the Coleman residence, huh?”