He waited until they’d settled in two lawn chairs before asking Wylie, “What else made it a strange morning?”
“I ran into Frank Ingram when I left the house. He wanted to know why the sheriff had paid me a visit. I fudged the truth, saying it was because we found Nelly’s body. He wondered how we managed that since the cave is well hidden.”
“Oh really? Interesting.”
“He qualified that by saying that’s what he’d heard, anyway, and then said we should have called him to help us search. I told him we were just hiking and it was dumb luck we found it.” Wylie took a drink of coffee. “Then he said it was a good thing the two of you were with me or Kingman might have thought I put her body there and then let him know where to find her.”
“Damn.” Garry shook his head. “Sounds like he was probing to find out if Kingman thinks you’re the killer. Hell, he’s a volunteer deputy, he should know if he does.”
“Chances are he doesn’t get called into work unless it’s something big, like the morning we searched for Nelly.”
“True. Did you get the feeling he was waiting for you?” Garry asked.
“To leave the house? Maybe. It was pretty fortuitous that he happened to be right there the moment I left to come over here.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too. If we had a suspect list, he’d be on it.”
“The only one, so far. We need to figure out who else it could be.”
Garry grinned. “You mean we’re not going to follow Kingman’s orders to keep our noses out of his business?”
“I’m not,” Wylie said. “I don’t like being his only suspect, although he seems to have backed off on that, for now.”
“There’s too many guys it could be, and that’s just the ones who live here. If it’s an outsider.” Garry shrugged.
“I don’t think it is. When we thought it was only Nelly, then the idea it was a tourist or a hiker taking advantage of her living alone was viable. Now, with where we found her, and Emma being missing, I think it has to be a local. Hell, I know it does. No outsider would have told the sheriff they saw me carrying something that might have been a body into my house.”
“That’s a good point. Okay, whoever it is, he’s probably closer to our age than Carl’s, right?”
“I’d say so, and in good shape,” Wylie replied. “Carrying Nelly’s body to the cave, down from the top of the ravine or up from the bottom, would take a fair amount of strength.”
“I agree, even if they had her body slung over their shoulder to leave their hands free.” Garry tapped a finger on the arm of the chair, frowning in thought. “All right,” he said. “Maybe I’m way off base, but let’s start with men you’ve met since you moved here. It seems sort of unlikely that someone who doesn’t know you would figure you’d be the perfect patsy.”
“It’s a small town. I’m sure most everyone’s at least heard about the newcomer.” Wylie tapped his chest.
“Heard, yes, but that’s it. People, guys, you’ve talked to who know your background because you told them, or Tom did, might think putting a detective in the frame for the abductions and Nelly’s murder would do two things, take any suspicion off them and be amusing since Kingman hates competition.”
Wylie waggled his hand. “Too convoluted. Let’s stick with our original premise. He’s had the urge to kidnap and possibly kill a woman, but was afraid to try until I showed up. Timing is everything and as the new guy in town I’m the obvious suspect, which he took advantage of.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. He finds out he loves the thrill but it doesn’t last, so he takes Emma next.”
“Hides her somewhere…Damn, I should have asked Kingman if Nelly had been tortured or sexually assaulted before her death.”
“I doubt he’d tell you.”
“But he might tell you or Carl, if you asked nicely.”
“Nicely?” Garry grinned even as he took out his phone. “Carl,” he said when his call was answered, “Wylie would like you to nicely ask Kingman if the bastard raped Nelly before he killed her.” After a pause, he said, “Nicely was his word. Think he’d tell you?” Another pause and then, “Yeah, it is. Let us know if you succeed.”
“Is what?” Wylie asked when Garry ended the call.
“‘Worth a shot’, according to him. Now, back to the original question. Who have you met since you got here?”
“You.” Wylie grinned.
“I’m serious, damn it.”
“Sorry. All right, Emma’s cousin, Roger, for one.” Wylie held up a thumb. “The man who owns the gas station, umm, Dave, I think.” He lifted a finger.
“Yeah. He fits our age range, so count him in.”
“So does Roger,” Wylie pointed out. “Although I can’t see him abducting his cousin.”
“It would be a good cover.”
“Yeah, I guess. There’s Frank, and the guys who work for you. Well, Len. I haven’t actually met the other two.”
“Jim and Tommy. They’re cooks. True, you haven’t been introduced but you saw them last night. Tommy’s the older, gray-haired one.”
“Okay. Counting Tommy out, because of his age, that makes five. Then there’s Owen. He fits the age parameter, too. However, I can’t see him as a suspect. I mean, he’s Carl’s son for God’s sake.”
Garry lifted a shoulder, replying, “Everyone is someone’s son, or daughter if you want to get technical. As much as you want to count him out, we can’t right now. I don’t think Carl would want us to, either. He’s honest to a fault.”
“We need to write this down.”
“Be right back.” Garry disappeared into the house, returning a minute later with a pad and pen. “So far we have Frank, Dave, Roger, Len and Jim, as much as I hate the idea it could be either of them, and Owen. When you get down to it, Kingman’s right on the cusp, age-wise.”
“True, and it would be easy enough for him to get a woman to let him into her house,” Wylie mused. “But I just can’t picture him doing this. Among other things he’s married.”
“Sometimes serial killers are, if that’s what we’ve got going on here. It’s their cover, or something,” Garry replied.
Wylie arched an eyebrow. “Or something?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. This is a pretty narrow field of suspects, based on what might be the faulty premise that somehow I’m the reason behind what’s going on.”
“Not the reason he’s doing it, but why he started now. Because, not to beat a dead horse, nothing happened until after you moved here.”
“It might have happened even if I hadn’t, you know,” Wylie replied. “I’m still considering the idea that our killer fixated on Nelly, went after her, and got a thrill from holding her prisoner. But…” He tapped his fingers together. “She didn’t respond the way he wanted. She didn’t reciprocate his feelings. In fact, she was scared to death of him.”
“He gets pissed and kills her, and then grabs Emma. No, that doesn’t work. He took Emma sometime on Friday. From what Kingman told you, the coroner determined that Nelly died on Saturday.”
“We don’t know that he abducted Emma on Friday,” Wylie pointed out. “Roger didn’t report her missing until Saturday. Probably because she didn’t show up for work and didn’t answer her phone when he called.”
“You’d think he’d have checked on her Friday night to see how she was doing.”
“Maybe he did and she said she was feeling better and would be at work in the morning as usual. If so, that only strengthens our theory that the killer abducted her on Saturday because…Okay, he didn’t mean to kill Nelly so soon. As a result, the lust, need, whatever it is that drove him to take her wasn’t sated, so he found a second victim in Emma.”
“That’s sick,” Garry spat out.
“No shit, but it fits, whether we like it or not. He grabs Emma, takes her wherever he was holding Nelly, and then gets rid of Nelly’s body. If I’m right, it would explain why Roger didn’t tell K
ingman that Emma was missing until after she didn’t come into work Saturday morning.”
“Yeah, the timing fits.” Garry got up and began pacing. “Where could he have hidden Nelly, and now Emma?”
“We’ve been over that. He has to own a house, or a business, with a basement that no one goes into except him.”
Picking up the list he’d made, Garry ran through the names. “Roger has the gallery. Whether he owns the building or not, and I don’t think he does, it probably has a basement. Dave owns his home, and the gas station. Frank has a house, as well as the hardware store, although he owns that with his father. Kingman’s got a house, but he married which would make it hard for him to have hidden Nelly and Emma there.”
“I’m pretty certain Owen has a house because he kidded me at one point about my fixing up his garden when I was finished with mine.”
“He does. So does Len but he’s got a live-in girlfriend so the same thing holds true for him as for Kingman. I think we can scratch Jim since he lives in an apartment complex.” Garry sighed as he sat down again. “This is getting too damned complicated, and we’re only talking about men you’ve met. It could be anyone in town.”
“Especially if the fact I just moved here has nothing to do with why he went after Nelly and Emma when he did.”
“Oh, it does. Otherwise, why break into your house to set it up so it looked like you’d stashed Nelly in the basement, and then point Kingman in your direction?”
“Luck of the draw?” Wylie replied with a weak grin.
“I don’t think so. You met everyone except Kingman before Nelly was taken, right?”
Wylie thought about it and shook his head. “I met Owen the morning of the search. Of course Carl probably told him about me since he was working on my house by then.”
Ziggy, who was still busy ‘digging to China’, suddenly popped out of the hole and made a mad dash to the gate in the fence that separated the back and front yards, barking loudly.
“I’d say we have company,” Garry said at the same moment Carl told Ziggy to behave.
After letting himself in, grabbing Ziggy’s collar to keep him from escaping before he could shut the gate, Carl settled in the last of the lawn chairs. “Got some left for me?” he asked, gesturing toward the coffee cups.
“Of course.” Garry went into the house, returning with another cup and the coffee pot. After filling Carl’s cup, and refilling his and Wylie’s, he asked, “Did you talk to Kingman?”
Carl nodded, shooting a look at Wylie. “I don’t know what you did to him but he was actually halfway human.”
Wylie gave him a quick recap of what had happened earlier that morning.
“That explains it,” Carl said when he finished. “It took some schmoozing, but I finally got him to answer your question. Of course I had to listen to a five minute rant on why we’re supposed to be keeping our noses out of his business, first.”
“And?” Wylie asked when he didn’t continue.
“Patience, kid, patience.” Carl took a sip of his coffee. “She wasn’t raped. Indications from the ligature marks on her wrists and ankles say that she had been restrained, naked, and spread-eagle. Probably tied to a bed. That’s a direct quote from Kingman, repeating what the coroner told him. She died from suffocation.”
“At least he didn’t molest her,” Garry said softly.
“He didn’t rape her,” Carl replied. “There’s no telling what other things he might have done. You don’t tie a woman to a bed so you can admire her naked beauty. Not for four days before deciding to kill her.”
“If she was suffocated, that means it was intentional,” Wylie said. When Carl cocked his head in question, Wylie told him the theory they had come up with, that the killer took Nelly because he was fixated on her. When she didn’t respond the way he hoped, he got angry and killed her. “Because his need for…for love hadn’t been satisfied?” He looked at the others.
“Possibly, probably,” Garry replied.
“His need for love, his perverted view of it,” Wylie continued, “sent him looking for another woman. He knew Emma lived alone at the edge of town, the same way Nelly had, making her the perfect next target.”
“Proving for sure he has to be a local,” Garry said.
“All this is great in theory,” Carl said. “Proving it is a different story.”
“Yeah, we know,” Wylie replied. “If we are right, or close to it, he could be using one of the empty hunting cabins. They’d have beds, or at least a bed. The same goes for a basement if he brought down a bed once he decided to abduct Nelly.”
“We have a list of suspects,” Garry told Carl, handing it to him.
Carl read through it, before scowling at them. “Owen?” When Wylie explained the parameters they’d used, Carl blew out a harsh breath. “I don’t like it, and I think you’re way off base with him, but I see why you put him on the list. I guess he stays, although I’m going to pay him a fatherly visit and check out anywhere in his house he could be holding her—which he’s not. I’d bet my life on it.”
“Good. That’ll eliminate one suspect,” Wylie replied. Unless he’s using a hunting cabin, but that holds true for any of them, especially Kingman and Len who have women in their lives. I don’t want to make Carl anymore upset by saying that, though.
“I suggest we start checking out those cabins,” Garry said, as if reading Wylie’s mind. “Leave watching the women’s homes to Kingman and his deputies, now that he’s got our list and the map.”
“Lunch, first,” Carl stated with a grin. “I work better on a full stomach.”
“Maybe I should open a second restaurant here for just the three of us,” Garry retorted, although he didn’t seem the least put out by Carl’s suggestion. “I’ll call it ‘The Three Friends’.”
Wylie snorted out a laugh as they went inside, closely followed by Ziggy, who was the first one to make it to the kitchen. Garry filled his food bowl and then whipped up chicken stir fry with bell peppers, onion, honey, soy sauce, and rice vinegar, which he served on brown rice.
“Now, I need a nap,” Carl said when they finished eating.
“You can nap in the car on our way to the cabins,” Garry replied. “Which reminds me, I need to get the map so we know where we’re going.”
He did, and leaving a very disconsolate dog behind, they piled into his car.
Chapter 12
“We can’t drive right up to the cabins,” Wylie said once they were on the road. “If we’re on the right track and he’s holding Emma at one of them, he’ll hear us coming.”
“It’s afternoon,” Garry replied. “I doubt whoever it is will be there. Everyone on our list has a job so they’ll be at work.”
“Except Len,” Wylie said after running through their suspects. “The restaurant’s closed today.”
“Good point. If it is him, maybe we’ll get lucky and catch him there. What I really want, though, is to find her before she’s ends up dead. She’ll know who took her and can tell Kingman so he can arrest the bastard.” He glanced at the fuel gauge, made a turn into town, and a couple of minutes later pulled into Dave Barnet’s gas station. Getting out at one of the pumps, he began to fill the car’s tank.
Dave came over to greet him, saying, “Didn’t you fill her up a couple of days ago?”
“Yep. Topping off since I’m giving Wylie the grand tour. You met him, right?” Dave nodded. “He hasn’t seen much of the area other than right around here, and since it’s my day off I decided it’s time to remedy that. We might even stop for dinner at Lonnie’s Chophouse on the way back.”
“If I wasn’t working I’d join you,” Dave replied.
“You’re always working,” Garry said with a grin.
“Feels like it,” Dave grumbled. “The joys of owning your own business, but then you know that firsthand.”
“Which is why I close on Mondays. You should try it.” Garry hung up the hose, and asked, “What do I owe you?”
Ch
uckling, Dave pointed to the pump. “According to that, ten eighty.” As Garry paid him, Dave said, “I hired a kid a month or so ago. He comes in after he gets off school, and on the weekends, which helps keep me sane.”
“Now if you could train him to run it on his own…”
“Maybe, when summer comes and he’s free all day. The weekends are too busy to leave a kid here on his own.”
“There is that. Okay, see you next time.” Getting back in the car, Garry pulled out of the station onto the street.
“Do we count him out, since he’s always here?” Wylie asked, and then answered his own question. “Nope, because he’s not open twenty-four-seven. It might be worth suggesting to Kingman that he talk to the kid Dave hired to find out if Dave’s taken advantage of him being there to leave for a couple of hours.”
“Good idea,” Carl agreed. “Of course if Nelly and Emma were abducted before he opens…”
“Yeah. It wouldn’t take long for him to stash them somewhere safe until after he closes, when he could move them to wherever, like one of the cabins we’re looking for.”
“Not a pleasant thought,” Garry said. “The same holds true for all our suspects.”
“Owen included,” Carl said morosely. “But he wouldn’t do that! It’s not in him.”
Neither Garry nor Wylie replied, although having met Owen, Wylie tended to believe Carl was right.
Several minutes later, they turned onto a side road leading deep into the hills. Garry had programmed their first stop into the GPS, using the coordinates he’d recorded from the map site, so finding the narrow dirt road leading to the cabin was fairly easy. He parked partway up; they got out of the car, and quietly walked the last hundred yards.
It was small, with a door and window in front, and a single window on each side. The sun slanted through the trees, striking one of the side windows. Wylie held up one hand then pointed to himself and to the other side of the cabin, saying barely above a whisper, “With luck, the sunlight will be enough for me to see the interior.”
He crept silently to the window to peer in. There was one room, set up with a tiny kitchen, a table and two chairs, and two single beds along the back wall. The beds held mattresses, with no sheets or blankets—and definitely no one tied to either of them. The shaft of sunlight touched the tabletop, which was thick with dust.
New Man in Town Page 12