She wasn’t wrong. It was well over an hour before the breathing of all the others indicated they were asleep. Megan herself had been very tired and had almost succumbed more than once. She heard movement and looked up. Ellie was sliding the top half of her body out of the bed and coming across the gap between their beds on her hands on the floor. It looked very odd but Megan leaned over and started in the same fashion towards her. They met in the middle, their faces close enough to feel each other's breath.
“No one has escaped,” Ellie whispered in the softest voice Megan had ever heard but when they met eyes the young woman added seriously, “Yet!” Megan smiled, and at once her mind went to the two of them racing over the farmlands in the dead of night, the wind whipping through their hair and the cold sting of the fresh air of freedom on their skin. She could see it happening now.
“I’ve been watching him for a while,” Megan said so low it was almost only mouthing the words. “Tell me what you know and we can put it all together.” Ellie looked scared at this.
“We have to be super careful,” she said. She craned her neck to look around to see that no one was stirring though Megan was sure no one would be able to hear them- they could barely hear each other! “Everyone is so scared they could do anything if they heard us talking about escape.” Megan nodded that she understood. She already had an idea they would be able to communicate in the bathroom using writing with their fingers in the steam on the mirror.
Megan ran her hand across the floor and grasped the fingers of Ellie’s hand.
“We can do this,” she said and Ellie smiled briefly at her.
Chapter 28
BY THE TIME SARAH AND Malick arrived at the scene of what was to be the ‘Agrarian’s’ fourth victim, there were already two squad cars, an ambulance and fire brigade and the forensics van. Flashing lights lit up the rural sky and could be seen for many miles around. There would be no shortage of people by now who knew the location of the latest murder and by that fact most likely the name of victim too. This was going to be all over the press in no time flat.
Thankfully, the officer on the door reported no one had entered since he called in the crime. Sarah felt sorry for the officer, he looked pale and nauseous and she imagined what he'd seen inside was worse than anything a rural cop should ever have to come up against.
“We need to get in there,” a man from the forensics team said coming to the door.
“You can get inside in a minute, I just want to have a quick sweep first, don’t worry I won't disturb anything,” Sarah said, the last part pre-empting his objection.
“You know that’s impossible,” he replied exasperated, but he knew Sarah was in charge here. She didn’t bother to reply and out of the corner of her eye as she went through the front door, she saw Malick shrug to the man as if to say, “What are you gonna do.’
“What was that about?” she snapped once they were both inside the house.
“The usual, good cop, bad cop,” he said smiling.
The smell of blood was overpowering and when they came to the door of the kitchen where the body was, the floor was covered like a still lake with thick drying blood. It was still drying, Sarah thought, how recent had this been?
“Jesus,” Malick said, “Look at this mess.”
Sarah looked at the body and saw it was a male in his thirties, like the others. His legs had been cut off and left on the floor beside the body. Casting her eyes about the room, she sought the message she knew would be here. The murder was in a different fashion than before but this had to be the same guy.
There were no items strewn about at all, and for a long time Sarah looked, just knowing there was going to be something. But there wasn’t, unless forensics could find something too small for her to see, or else covered already in the blood.
Then her eyes saw it. A simple white envelope was stuck to the refrigerator door with a magnet. On the front read: ‘FAO S. Brightwater, F.B.I
Sarah felt sick that it was addressed to her personally, but that didn’t mean anything. Her name as lead agent on the case had been in the various newspapers and online rags multiple times in relation to this case. Malick followed her gaze and saw the letter too.
“I think someone left you a love letter,” he said grimly. Sarah didn’t answer, instead she was looking to the floor for the route to the letter that wouldn’t involve her stepping in blood. Once she found this she followed it and then stood before the letter. She slipped on her plastic gloves and removed the magnet, lifted the letter and replaced the magnet exactly where it had been. Forensics were not going to like she’d touched the letter at all but to hell with them, she thought.
Malick was beside her now as she drew the single sheet from the envelope as carefully as she could. She handed the envelope to Malick and then unfolded the sheet.
“Bastard!” she shouted after reading the single line of handwritten text on it.
“What is it?” Malick asked, trying to see the paper for himself.
“It says ‘Oh, so close this time!’”
“Asshole,” Malick said through clenched teeth. Sarah nodded and took the envelope back and bagged it together with the letter. There wasn’t anything else of interest on first glance around the room, so it was time to let the forensics people in to see if they could gleam anything more, though she doubted it.
They searched the rest of the building to be sure no one else was here and then let the forensics team in once it was all clear. Sarah was standing by the door of the kitchen watching the team go about their business when Malick came back up to her.
“I don’t see anything else that looks like a message this time. Do you?” he asked. Sarah had been looking for just this since arriving in the house but she’d seen nothing. She shook her head dolefully and sighed. This one was hard to bear, they were only hours from getting it right. They could have caught him, she was sure of it.
As if reading her mind, Malick said,
“You know there’s a real good chance we wouldn’t have got him even if they had cracked the code earlier than today. I mean, we don’t have the manpower to be sitting on every single farmer in these three States waiting for him to show up.”
“I know, I know,” Sarah said, batting his argument away with her hand, but she felt differently. Except it was more than feeling differently, she knew differently. This had been their chance and there might not be another one. The ‘Agrarian’ might slip into the shadows just like Dwight Spalding had all those years ago. Malick backed off a little, he had experience of Sarah’s temper,
“I’m going to go back to the computer in the car and see what I can find out about the victim,” he said.
“Alright,” Sarah said and she flashed him a weak smile to show him there was no trouble between the two of them right now.
When she was alone, Sarah checked her phone and saw the call from Tyler. Knowing what he’d been doing this evening, she really wanted to call him back and find out what happened. There were too many ears here at the moment, however. She went outside and went around the side of the house to the back. Officers were searching a barn and some out buildings a little way off and she felt it was safe to talk here once she didn’t raise her voice.
Tyler answered on the second ring,
“It’s Sarah,” she said, “You were looking for me?” She checked that no one was getting close to her as she spoke.
“Where are you?” Tyler asked.
“At the Agrarian’s latest crime scene,” she said sadly.
“Is it in Falling Waters?” Tyler asked.
“Yes,” she said, assuming this news had spread far and wide already by now despite the lack of press at the scene so far.
“Carson Lemond knows who all the victims are, including this one tonight,” Tyler said, “He told me the Falling Waters address earlier, that’s when I tried to call you. I called in an anonymous tip about it when I couldn’t get you.”
“What?” Sarah couldn't believe this, “How does
he know them?” she said, doing her very best to keep her voice low but feeling she was in danger of losing control of it.
“He doesn’t know their names, but he knows their faces from the photos I showed him. The victims were all men who let the mob use their land for storing cars and weapons and probably drugs. The mob was tipped off about raids on all of these farms so they were cleared out and left the victims open to the killer.”
Sarah’s mind was racing as she took this in. Was it possible this had been the mob cleaning house and making sure none of the farmers could talk about what they had been doing? That didn’t seem likely, these were not your typical mob murder methods and the famers would probably have known very little, if anything at all, about what was going on beyond their own yards.
“Does Carson know who the ‘Agrarian’ is?” she asked.
“No, he doesn’t know about anything and he’s more scared than ever now.”
“Where is he?” Sarah asked, more out of habit than thinking he would actually answer.
“Still where he was when I last spoke to him, I guess,” Tyler said.
“The press will be here soon,” Sarah said seeing the headlights of a car far away on the main road. “Are you coming or are you still away?”
“I’m on my way home, but I can turn off and head there right now if you think it would be worth my while?” Sarah knew what he was doing; he was teasing her with the information he had- there was more of it she was sure- but he was also testing her commitment to their pact at the same time.
“Come on over,” she said, “If you hang around, I’ll get you inside to the scene.”
Chapter 29
“YOU’RE LEAVING ME HERE on my own?” Carson asked in disbelief when Tyler told him he was going out.
“Yeah, why not?” Tyler asked as he pulled his jacket on.
“Well...”
“Listen,” Tyler could see the worry in Carson’s eyes, “No one knows you are here. You will be perfectly safe here. Just go to bed and get some sleep. I’ll be back in a few hours.” The idea of sleep seemed to perk Carson up for an instant. He nodded.
“Are you going to the crime scene?” Carson asked.
“Yeah.”
“Do you think this farmer killer and the guy who set me up could be the same person?”
“I don’t think so, but I won’t be surprised to find that there is some link between the two of them.” Carson nodded at this, his face drawn and tired. “Get some sleep,” Tyler said, before leaving.
Tyler was running on adrenaline and a lot of coffee by the time he reached Koontz road a couple of hours later. He’d driven so much today he’d been in three different gas stations already. It was worth the tiredness, though to get access to the scene of the latest murder site.
Sarah had told him to call when he got there and do his best to avoid the rest of the press. For this purpose, he parked in with the police cars and donned a grey hoodie to walk to the edge of the property. He dialled Sarah as he surveyed the scene before him. It was so quiet out here, perfect for a murder really. There was no one for miles around that would hear anything going on.
“You here?” Sarah said answering the phone and at that moment, Tyler saw her coming out of the house.
“Yes, right in front of you, at the fence,” he said. He saw her look up and they made eye contact.
“Wait there,” she said and hung up.
Tyler looked round while he was waiting and saw that a young uniformed officer was approaching him silently, his hand on his gun though he’d not drawn it. Tyler looked at him in the face.
“Keep our hands where I can see them,” the officer said and Tyler could hear the nervousness in his voice.
“Okay, don’t worry, I’m here with Agent Brightwater of the FBI,” Tyler said, glancing past the officer hoping that none of the assembled press would see what was going on. If even one of them recognized him Tyler could kiss away any chance of getting into the crime scene tonight.
“What’s your name?” the officer asked. Tyler didn’t want to answer and he glanced back to where Sarah had been.
“Keep your eyes on me!” the officer said more forcefully now and Tyler heard the tell-tale swish of his gun being pulled from the holster.
“It’s alright, Officer, he’s with me,” Sarah’s welcome voice came as she approached the fence. The officer looked to her and Tyler sighed.
“Alright,” the officer said, “But you might want to look a little less incriminating if you’re at a murder scene.” He sounded very pissed off.
“Duly noted,” Tyler said as the officer put his gun back away.
“Thank you,” Sarah said and the officer nodded curtly to her and then turned away to go back to his sentry point.
“Here put this on,” Sarah said, passing a jacket to Tyler. He held it out and saw it said police on the back and he pulled it on quickly.
“This could come in handy. Can I keep this?” he joked.
“No,” Sarah said, she was all business on a crime scene. Tyler climbed the old rickety fence hearing it groan with age. They started walking towards the house. “Watch what the others are doing and copy them,” Sarah said, “Don’t ask anyone anything.”
“Blend in and stay quiet, got it,” Tyler said.
They walked towards the house and Tyler looked around at the other people going about their work. Flashlights roved everywhere in all the out buildings and across the surrounding fields and there was a general sense of urgency.
“Where’s your partner?” Tyler asked.
“He’s in the car making some calls. He will be leaving soon but right now only forensics are in the house so I’ll get you in for a few minutes.”
“Is there a message?”
“Only gloating that I was too late and should have done better,” Sarah said coldly. She held out her phone with the photo of the message and Tyler was surprised it was so clear and on paper.
“That’s gloating alright,” he agreed.
Inside the house, they stood at the door to the kitchen and Tyler looked in. It was a gruesome scene but not the worst Tyler had ever seen. Having looked at the body briefly, not thinking there would be anything found there, Tyler scanned the room looking for another message. He felt there would be one. This guy liked playing games and just simply gloating alone didn’t seem to fit. There was something here, he was sure of it. It was likely to be more obscure than before, this seemed to be the format the messages were taking, but what?
There was nothing on the floor and the room looked like it always looked this way, save the dismembered corpse of course. The large table was bare, the countertops had the usual stuff you’d expect on it in any house.
“The letter was on the fridge door,” Sarah said to him. Tyler looked at the door and saw a few magnets holding the odd bill or invoice. He doubted that was going to be a source of information that would lead to the killer.
Still Tyler’s eyes moved around the room, taking in all the walls and then running up. Above he saw thick wooden beams running at angles across the room. They were old fashioned supports and he wondered if there might be anything up there. He looked to Sarah and glanced up. She followed his eyes and nodded saying then to the forensics team,
“Can we make sure you have a real good look at the beams and ceiling of the room as well, please?”
It was difficult to get a proper look around standing in the doorway. Tyler would much prefer to come back later when the room was clear and he could walk around and get a feel for the place.
“You see anything?” Sarah asked him quietly.
“No,” he admitted and she nodded and then indicated for him to follow her outside.
Just as they were about to step outside, Sarah put a hand on his chest and pushed him back out of view of the door.
“Hey, I need to get going,” the voice of Malick came from close by. He must have been on his way in to tell Sarah this.
“You got a ride?” Sarah asked him.
/> “Yes, the field agent is going to drop me home, it’s on his way back to the office here.”
“Okay, I’ll see you in the morning then.”
“Yeah, I guess so, but listen, Sarah, don’t let this personal letter bullshit get to you. It’s all a game to him, you know that.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sarah said and Tyler thought he saw vulnerability in her face for a moment before she added, “Don’t worry, I'm not losing sleep over the fact he can read a newspaper and knows my name.” Tyler wondered if this was true.
“Good,” Malick said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
When he was gone, Tyler said,
“Are you sure that stuff doesn’t bother you?” Sarah shrugged,
“If you’re asking would I rather it didn't happen, then the answer is yes, but each time they do something there’s a possibility of a clue being left behind so it’s not all bad.”
Tyler didn’t know this had answered his question but he didn’t press her more on it.
When they were outside and no one was close enough to overhear, Sarah said to him,
“So, you had those pictures of the ‘Agrarians’ victims on you and showed them to Carson Lemond when you met him?” she asked, her tone as sceptical as it was possible to be.
“I know, I know, I shouldn't be carrying them around with me, but I thought I was going to be staying overnight and was going to look over them in my hotel room. I figured it wouldn’t do any harm to ask Carson if he knew anything about these murders while I was with him,” Tyler knew he’d messed up and it was eating at him inside. He felt he held it under wraps, however. Sarah looked at him questioningly. She most likely suspected Tyler had Carson in his home right now, but how could he be sure unless she said something?
“You’re definitely not going to tell me where Carson Lemond is?” she asked. Tyler shook his head,
A Clattering of Jackdaws (The Birdwatcher Series Book 2) Page 11