“Like a bomb signature that terrorists use?”
“Yes, like that. Once they get a method down, bombmakers don’t like to deviate because that could get them blown up. With serial murderers, they have their symbolism, but they also don’t want to get caught. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Thanks. You heading back?”
“I am. While I agreed to help you on this case, there is another reason I’m here.”
“Your sister’s case?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, good luck on that.”
“I’m going to need a lot more than luck.”
Chapter 13
BACK AGAIN?”
Cy Tanner watched as Pine climbed out of her truck and approached the house. He was dressed similarly as he had been before, though he had on a T-shirt with an image of the Doobie Brothers silk-screened on it.
“I am. Where’s Roscoe?”
“Probably in the house peeing. Where’s your partner?”
“Running some things down. Do you mind if I look around my old room again?”
“Help yourself. I’ve got an engine I’m rebuilding in my little workshop out back. Nearly done and that sucker will pay my living expenses for the next four months if I’m frugal, which I am.” He looked around at the ramshackle house and chuckled. “But I guess you can see that for yourself.”
“I once helped a mentor of mine at the FBI completely rebuild a 1967 Ford Mustang.”
Tanner gave a lopsided grin. “Damn, what color?”
“Classic turquoise with the parchment convertible top.”
“Now if that ain’t my dream car it’s damn close to it.”
“Rides as pretty as it looks.”
“I bet. Well, I’ll let you get on with it. Just don’t step in Roscoe’s little surprises.”
He headed to the backyard and Pine went inside. She found Roscoe not peeing, but sound asleep in the bean bag chair. She didn’t wake him but just headed up the stairs.
Pine opened the door of her old bedroom, walked over to the window, and looked out. A ladder had been necessary to reach this spot. Too high to climb and no handholds on the plank siding to help someone attempting it. But a ladder was hard to hide or get rid of. And the presence of a ladder should have made marks in the dirt. She knew from the report that the police had looked at that element and found nothing.
So, to take one from Sherlock Holmes, the way I said it is impossible, so in some way I must have said it wrong.
She once more turned her mind to 1989. In her head the bedroom was now full of furniture. She went through the inventory again. Bed, chest of drawers with swivel mirror atop it. A small table and two chairs, with Winnie the Pooh and Tigger painted on them, where she and Mercy would have their imaginary tea parties. An old hat rack and a pine chest at the end of their bed where they kept their toys for the most part.
She walked around the room, pacing the small footprint over and over as time moved on. She finally stopped and rewound the images in her memory.
Something had just occurred to her that never had before.
A chest of drawers topped by a mirror on a swivel.
It had been placed right next to the window.
Right next to the window.
She closed her eyes and willed herself to try to remember that night so long ago.
She and Mercy had been sleeping in the one bed. The bed had been facing the window. It was open that night, she remembered, because it had been so hot that day. The house had no air-conditioning and their mother wanted her girls to catch the night breezes.
A sound had awoken Pine. She was a lighter sleeper than her ten-minute-older sister.
She scrunched her eyes tighter.
Come on, remember. The guy came through the window. You saw him. He took up all the space there. You have to remember.
She superimposed Daniel James Tor into that scene. It was him. It had to be him.
But then her thoughts took a jolt.
Could it possibly be? This had nothing to do with who the intruder was. It was all about how he had come into the house.
She looked at the door leading into the room.
Had it not been a man coming through the window, but the reflection of the intruder in the mirror right next to the window? Which meant he had actually come into their room through the door and not the window. That would explain the absence of any traces of a ladder.
That also meant the person had come through the house, and gone past her parents, who had been downstairs. Or was there another explanation?
She closed her eyes and felt sick to her stomach. It couldn’t have been my father who had done it. It couldn’t have been.
But that meant that the person who had taken Mercy, and nearly killed her, was most likely someone who knew her parents. Maybe someone who was smoking weed and drinking beer with them that night?
She leaned back against the wall as she heard footsteps on the stairs. A moment later Tanner appeared in the doorway.
“Just came to check on Roscoe and thought I’d see if you needed anything.” He looked around the empty room. “Figure out anything yet?”
“Yeah, I might have.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“Maybe. The only thing is: What do I do next to follow it up?”
“I guess solving cases like this ain’t easy.”
“None of it,” she said. “Not a damn thing.”
“You’re not thinking of giving up though, right?”
“If you really knew me, you’d never have to ask that.”
However, as Pine left the room, her words seemed surer than she actually felt.
On the short drive back to Andersonville proper, the thoughts were swirling rapidly through Pine’s mind. They were filled with both cautious hope and logistical tangles. The basic problem was, how many of the people that her parents had known while they lived here were still in the area? She thought she might have a ready answer for this, though. Agnes Ridley and Lauren Graham were both still here, but she regarded neither as a viable suspect. However, either or both of the women should be able to help her with whoever was still around Andersonville who had known her parents.
She called Blum and told her what she had possibly discovered. She arranged to meet her at the Cottage. Blum was going to find Graham so they could talk to her. After that, they would go to see Ridley.
Pine took a long, hopeful breath. After all these years, she had a possibility. Which means I have a chance.
Chapter 14
I’D HAVE TO THINK about that,” said Graham after Pine had asked her question. They were once more in the breakfast room at the Cottage. Graham was sitting across from Pine and Blum at one of the tables. She had on a light blue skirt, black sweater, and ankle boots. Her hair and makeup were perfect, if overly managed, thought Pine. But then what did she know about such things, really? She used mascara maybe twice a year and lipstick the same.
“I’d appreciate it,” said Pine. “I have a vague memory of some visitors and friends. I was going to ask Agnes Ridley as well.”
“Can I ask why you want to find these people?”
Blum glanced at Pine, who said, “Just standard protocol in an investigation like this. You never know who might have seen or heard something. It might seem unimportant to them, but it could be significant to my investigation.”
Graham nodded but didn’t look wholly convinced by this answer. “What about the poor woman who was found dead?”
“What about her?”
“Does anyone know who she is?”
“Not yet. We’re working on it.”
“You’re working on it?” said Graham in surprise.
“They asked for my help and I agreed to give it.”
“So, no names off the top of your head of people who still live around here who might have known the Pines?” asked Blum.
“There is one,” said Graham after a few moments of thought. “Jackson Lineberry.”
“Name doesn’t ring a bell,” said Pine.
“He was more your dad’s friend, I believe.”
“Where does he live?”
“About an hour from here. Due north towards Atlanta. He has a beautiful home, well, an estate really. Probably the nicest in the area. He’s very wealthy. Has his own jet.”
“What does he do to make that kind of money?” asked Pine.
“Investments. He moved away for a while and then came back.”
They got his address and contact information from her. Pine thanked Graham and asked her to let them know if she thought of anyone else. The woman promised that she would.
They climbed into the rental and headed out after Pine called Lineberry and set up an appointment.
“What did you learn from your search?” Pine asked Blum.
“I accessed the ViCAP database through the secure link like you asked me to,” she said, referring to the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. “I fed in the details that we know currently. There have been other serial killers that have dressed their victims in particular clothing, but nothing that quite matches what we have.”
“Hopefully, we get an ID on the victim soon. That could give us some leads.”
Blum looked out the truck window as they drove north toward Lineberry’s home.
“So you really think that you actually saw the man’s reflection in the mirror and not him coming through the window?”
“I can’t be certain, but I think it’s more likely than not.”
“But it was so long ago, and you were so young.”
“That memory was seared into me, Carol.”
“But for all these years you had thought he had come in through the window,” said Blum.
“I know,” conceded Pine. “I think it was triggered by my being in the room again. I should have come back here a long time ago. I don’t know why I didn’t.”
“It was terrible what happened here. Most people would not want to revisit it.”
“I’m not most people. I’m an FBI agent. I run toward the problem, not away.”
“But still.”
They drove along in silence for a few moments.
“Why Andersonville?” she asked.
Pine glanced at her. “Why not Andersonville? Serial killers have struck in rural areas before. They’re not restricted to urban or suburban locations.”
“Well, it’s easier to evade capture with lots of people around.”
“But there are a lot more law-enforcement resources in the metro areas. If I’m a serial killer, do I want to go up against the NYPD with all it can do and cameras everywhere, or come to a place like this that doesn’t have those assets?”
“I see your point, but there’s something else that’s worrying me.”
“What?”
“Was it a coincidence, or cause and effect?”
Pine gave her a sharp look. “What are you talking about?”
“Was it a coincidence that a dead body turned up the day after you arrived in town? Or did it happen because you came back to Andersonville?” Blum looked worriedly at Pine.
“You’re saying my coming here to investigate my sister’s disappearance may have triggered what happened to that woman?”
“I’m only saying it’s a possibility. But otherwise, it seems a strange coincidence.”
Pine slowly shook her head. “That would require a lot of planning in a very short period of time, including selecting a victim and committing the murder.”
“I guess that is unrealistic,” conceded Blum, with a sense of relief.
Pine glanced at her again. “And are you also thinking that maybe whoever took my sister killed that woman?”
“Well, I admit it did cross my mind.”
Pine shook her head. “No way.”
“So you don’t believe this murder and your sister’s disappearance are connected?”
“It’s been thirty years. Serial killers almost never operate that long. Most retire in their forties if not before.”
“Most, not all. And some take a hiatus before becoming active again.”
“Thirty years would be an extraordinarily long hiatus.”
“But not impossible.”
“Let’s listen to what Lineberry has to say before we run off in other directions.”
“All right.”
After a while, Blum said, “How does it feel being back?”
“So far, it sucks.”
Chapter 15
SHE WASN’T KIDDING about this guy being in the money,” exclaimed Blum.
“It’s like something you might see in Bel Air, or Montecito, California.”
The property was gated and made mostly of stone, and it looked to be about the size of a shopping mall but with far greater sophistication in the materials and design.
Pine pulled up to the gate and rolled down the window. There was a video screen there, and she identified herself and held up her creds.
The massive gate opened and they drove on.
Reaching the front of the house, they climbed out and were immediately met by two men in dark suits.
“Are you armed?” one asked. He was tall and lanky and around forty.
“Of course I am,” said Pine.
“You’ll need to turn over your weapons then.”
“That won’t be happening.”
The other man was physically a carbon copy of the other, though a few years older. He said, “Then you’re not allowed in the house.”
“Fine, he can come out here and talk to me.”
“Mr. Lineberry doesn’t come outside to talk to people,” the first man barked.
“Jerry, Tyler, it’s okay, they can come in, guns and all. This is an old friend.”
They all turned to see the tall, elegant white-haired man standing in the open front doorway. He was dressed in neatly pressed dark slacks, an open-collared white shirt, and ostrich skin loafers.
The man named Jerry looked at Pine and said, “You heard the man, let’s go.”
When he reached out to put a hand on her shoulder to hurry her along, Pine stepped away and said, “Don’t do that.”
“You think you’re special?”
“No, I just don’t like to be screwed with when it’s not necessary.”
“Sometimes you don’t have a choice,” he retorted.
“Well, you’re never going to make that choice for me, Jerry. Now suck up your hurt feelings and lead the way. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.”
Jerry’s face turned red and his expression angry, but he whirled around and marched up to the front door. Blum and Pine followed.
Blum whispered to her, “Have I ever told you how much I admire your style?”
Lineberry greeted them warmly and dismissed Jerry. He led them down a broad, elegantly outfitted hallway with marble flooring, to a large room laid out as an office that was teeming with luxurious touches. These included an enormous antique partners desk with three computer screens topping it, plush seating, and a theater-sized TV screen on the wall. There was also a bookcase made of solid pine with gilded edges, along with oil paintings and a full bar complete with high-backed stools.
He motioned them to a leather couch and asked if they wanted anything to drink. Both asked for coffee. Lineberry hit some buttons on an electronic screen on the wall, before sitting down across from them.
“It’ll be in shortly,” he said. He smiled warmly at Pine. “You could have literally knocked me over with a stick when you called. Lee Pine. I never imagined I would see you again. Always knew you would be tall. Julia was about six feet, nearly as tall as me.”
“I was told that you knew my parents pretty well.”
“Yes, though I knew your father better. Tim and I worked at the mine together.”
“You worked in the mine?” said Blum. “I somehow can’t picture you with a hardhat and pickaxe.”
He grinned at her. “You don’t go down into the earth for bauxite like
you do coal. It’s a surface-mined ore. You scrape it off, or sometimes you’ll use explosives to get at slightly deeper deposits. Tim drove some of the heavy equipment needed to get it out. I was management, worked in the office. But we became friends. We went to the same church.”
Pine said, “I heard you were into investments. Funny transition from bauxite mining.”
“I became a day trader to make some extra money, and got so good at it that I started my own investment fund. Now my firm, Jackson Lineberry and Associates, manages billions of dollars of other people’s money, along with my own. We’ve done very well over the years, and that accords me this sort of lifestyle.”
“I thought all those investment fund guys were in New York or California,” said Pine.
“With available technology, you can work from anywhere these days. I’m less than an hour out of Atlanta. I go there for culture, restaurants, and I keep my jet there, although if need be I have a runway on this property that I can use.”
“What kind of jet?” asked Blum.
“Bombardier 7500. It can fly from here to Moscow on a tank of gas.”
“Would you ever fly it to Moscow?” asked Pine.
Lineberry grinned. “Can’t think of one reason why I would. I’m literally just repeating what the account exec told me about the aircraft.”
The door opened, and a woman in a maid’s uniform walked in carrying a tray. She set the coffees, spoons, creamer, and sugars out for them on the table in front of the couch and departed.
Pine and Blum took theirs black while Lineberry liberally doctored his with cream and sugar. While he did so, Pine studied the man. He was handsome, with features that one might see on an older actor or fashion model. Yet there was something about the man that seemed familiar. Then again, she had known him all those years ago.
“So, getting back to why you’re here,” said Lineberry.
“My sister, Mercy.”
His expression turned somber. “It was beyond awful. They never found her, did they?”
“No, they didn’t. You know they suspected my father?”
Lineberry dismissed this comment with a wave of his hand. “Tim had no more to do with what happened than I did. He was devastated. It ruined his marriage.” Lineberry blanched. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
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