“Yeah, but from a northern state.”
I continued to press our luck. “When did you last seen him?”
Tucker squinted in thought again. “Yesterday, before shift.”
“And what time was that?” Jack inquired.
“Six thirty.”
Jack handed his card to Tucker. “Call if you remember anything else.”
Tucker nodded, and we headed back to the rental. As soon as we were in the SUV, Jack called Pike. “I need you to run a quick search for anyone who owns a red Prius in the area.”
-
Chapter 6
PAIGE WAS ALL FOR HUNTING sadistic serial killers, but it would have been nice if the investigation could have waited one more day, just until Valentine’s Day was behind them. Instead, she’d had to explain to the man she’d been seeing for eight months now that she was suddenly out of town. It was hard enough to make a long-distance relationship work without the added flux of her job. Adding to the list of complications was that he’d planned to fly into Virginia to visit her today from where he lived in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
She’d texted him when they were still in Quantico—taking the coward’s way out—but hadn’t heard back from him. Maybe he’d just been too busy to check his messages, or maybe he had and he wasn’t going to talk to her again. What if he had been headed to the airport? What if he’d already… “Zach, can you just pull over for a minute?”
Zach looked at her from the driver’s seat. “Right here?”
“Sure.”
“Okay.” He pulled to the side of the road and put the hazard lights on.
“I’ll just be a minute,” she said before hopping out of the vehicle. Shit, she really should have called him sooner, not just assumed he’d get her message in time. But she’d boarded the government jet and had gotten swept up in the investigation.
Ring. Ring.
“Hey,” he answered. His unimpressed tone told her he’d seen her message and his caller ID before picking up.
“It’s Paige,” she said anyway.
“I know. What’s up?”
“You got my message, I take it.”
“I did.”
“I’m sorry, Sam.”
The line remained silent and it was stirring up her anger. She tried to douse it with reasoning: maybe he hadn’t been able to get a refund or exchange his ticket. “I didn’t have advance notice or you know I would have—”
“Called sooner? Yeah, I’d hope so. Listen, Paige, I’ve gotta go.”
“You know what the job’s like,” she pleaded.
Sam Barber was a detective and knew that neither of their jobs was a strict nine-to-five.
He sighed. “I know. I just wish you would have called instead of texting.”
“We were headed right out of town.” Paige caught Zach looking out at her. “I’ve gotta go, too. Talk later?”
“Sure.” He hung up before she could say good-bye.
Heat bloomed in her cheeks. She would be forty-four this year, and she’d spent all her life single, unattached, and happy. There was a lot less drama that way. Why had she ever thought a relationship could give her more? Sadly, she knew the answer: she’d had a taste of what one could have been like with Brandon. But Sam wasn’t Brandon, and Brandon… Well, he wasn’t an option.
The back window lowered. “You coming?” Zach asked.
She pressed on a smile and got back in the SUV. “Yeah.”
Zach merged onto the road again and headed to Wesley Graham’s house. Pike had given them Graham’s work information and his home address. They’d tried the hotel where he worked first and were told he’d booked the week off months ago. Hopefully, this was a staycation and they’d find him at home.
A Honda was in the driveway, and Zach parked behind it. “Looks like we might have gotten lucky.”
“That is promising,” Paige agreed.
Zach pointed to the open front window. “And so is that.”
The door was wide open by the time they reached it. A thirtysomething man smirked and said, “Let me guess, you’re the FBI.” He held up his hands. “And no, I’m not a mind reader. I saw that the FBI was being called in on the news last night.”
“Wesley Graham?” Paige asked while holding up her creds.
“The one and only.” He smiled at her, and she felt oily from his leering gaze.
The lieutenant’s words came to mind. Single and proud of it.
Well, if he made a woman feel this cheap with just a look, his bachelorhood wasn’t much of a surprise.
“Come in.” Graham stepped back into the house, holding the door for them to enter.
Paige looked around. The living room was to her immediate left, and an eating area and the kitchen were on the right. The place smelled of recently fried eggs and onions, but the stovetop and counters were clear and clean. Except for a game console in the middle of the living room floor, a stack of Blu-ray movies, and a glass partially filled with a dark liquid on his coffee table, the house was exceptionally tidy. And while Graham lived in a residential neighborhood, he was single, and if his staycation was any indication of his social life, he might not have many friends. That would certainly make it easier to murder and mutilate men. Then again, he might have a lot of friends who were all working this week.
“Do you have somewhere you’d prefer we sit?” She guessed he’d want to be next to that drink.
“Just head into the living room. Park it wherever you like.” Another smirk—laid-back, casual. Predatory.
Paige had stood by the marsh, surrounded by bugs, coated in humidity, but now was when she needed a shower.
She and Zach sat in chairs that faced the couch, and Graham resumed his position next to his drink and picked up his glass. He had it to his lips but lowered it without taking a sip. “Oh, how rude of me. Would either of you like something to drink?”
“No, thank you,” she said.
Zach shook his head.
“Suit yourselves.” Graham gulped back a few mouthfuls and set the glass back on the table.
“We’re here to talk to you about the remains that you found last week,” Paige said. “Can you run us through what happened?”
“Ah, sure. I found the leg first, then the arm. They were rather close to each other.”
“Do you remember anyone being around when you found the remains?”
“There was a family with two young kids, and I hurried over and told the parents what I’d found and to stay back. They didn’t listen, and they looked at me as if I were insane or a killer. I thought the woman was going to scream, but instead, she hightailed it outta there. I’d never seen a woman push a stroller so fast. The man was running behind her with a toddler on his shoulders.”
“After they left, what did you do?” Paige asked.
“I called nine-one-one.”
His composure was calm. Paige could imagine him finding the limbs and going about everything in an organized fashion. Adrenaline could account for focus in the moment, but that had long worn off, and Graham wasn’t giving any indication that he was truly affected by what he’d found.
“Have you seen dead bodies before?” she asked.
He shrugged. “At funerals. Why?”
“You just seem very calm about everything.” Paige glanced at Zach, and he was watching Graham intently, likely doing his own assessment of the man. She turned back to Graham. “Most people wouldn’t handle this so well.”
“I watch crime dramas on TV. Maybe I’ve become desensitized? I don’t know, but what I did know was I had found body parts and I had to report them.”
“Why were you at Blue Heron Plantation?” Zach inquired.
Graham looked at him. “I’m paid well, but my job is stressful. I just needed a break.”
Zach nodded. “Do you often go to the
plantation to de-stress?”
“Not a lot, but from time to time. I chose quite the day last week.” Graham looked at Paige, then to Zach, and back to Paige. “The news said more remains were found and they belong to a third person. Is there a serial killer in the area?”
“It’s an open investigation,” Paige said.
“That’s code for yes.”
“That’s code for we’re not telling you anything,” she fired back.
“All right. Fine. What else would you like to know? I think I’ve about covered everything. Do you know who I found? Who was found yesterday?”
Paige angled her head.
“Right. ‘It’s an open investigation,’” Graham parroted.
“Do you know a man named Jonathan Tucker?” Zach asked.
“Nope. Should I?”
Paige brought up his picture on her phone and held it for Graham to see.
“Is that Jonathan?” he asked.
“Yes,” Paige said.
“He looks familiar.”
“Do you know where you’ve seen him?”
“I think he works at the plantation. I don’t know him, though.”
“All right, well, that’s all for now.” Paige got up, handed Graham her card, and headed for the door.
Back in the SUV, Paige turned to Zach. “He really doesn’t give the impression of being shaken up by all this. Beyond that, it’s too soon to conclude anything about him.”
“Except for he obviously had eyes for you.” Zach was smiling as he punched the precinct address into the GPS and put the vehicle in reverse.
She rolled her eyes. “Tell me something I didn’t notice. I was going to make you leave your card.”
“As you’re always telling me, we’re not in the field to pick people up,” Zach teased.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know that’s not why I left my info.”
“Uh-huh, and it seems to me that for all your preaching, you are dating someone you met during an investigation.”
“A detective,” she clarified. “That’s not the same as a potential suspect.”
“How are you and Sam by the way?”
“Doing fine.” A big, fat lie.
“Wow, that sounds exciting.”
“It’s not perfect. I’m not going to lie about that.” Why did she say that? She could have just let the conversation die.
“But you did…just a moment ago.”
“Yeah, I guess I did.” Guilt over the initial deception snaked through her. “I don’t think I’m cut out for a relationship.”
“Hey, long-distance relationships are never easy.”
She turned to him. “I didn’t know you had experience in that regard.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
She smiled. “True enough.”
Silence fell between them for a few seconds before Zach said, “If anyone can make it work, though, it’s you.”
Paige laughed. “Now you’re just being patronizing.”
“I’m trying to be positive.”
“Yeah, okay.” Zach might have just been saying what she wanted to hear, but she was thankful for his effort to build her confidence. Though instead of focusing on Sam and relationships, she’d focus on what she was good at—hunting down killers.
-
Chapter 7
JACK AND I BEAT PAIGE and Zach back to the precinct by a few minutes. It was about six thirty by the time we got situated in the room that Lieutenant Pike had set aside for us.
A conference table sat in the middle of the room, taking up most of the floor space while whiteboards lined three walls, and pictures of wanted persons covered two of the boards. The last one seemed dedicated to our investigation. At least a third of it was covered with photographs of the three limbs. The dates of the discoveries were written on the board beneath them.
We all took seats and filled one another in on our conversations with Tucker and Graham.
“I find it interesting that this man who frequents the plantation has a northern accent,” Zach stated thoughtfully. “It seems, at least based on what we have gathered so far, that our unsub—or unsubs—has a draw to the property. Usually that indicates a history, a connection, of some sort.”
“Family could be in the area. Maybe they were born here but grew up in a northern state,” Paige reasoned. “They could have moved back to the area.”
“Or could just be visiting,” I tossed out there, and then shook my head. “I just wonder how this theory connects with this man in the suit that Tucker sees most weekdays. He said the guy has been going to the plantation for years.” My mind went to the older mother and her grown son. If only we knew who they were. But maybe there was a way of working backward to find out. “At this point, we have no real way of identifying the victims, but what if—and this is a big one—the mother and son from Michigan are behind this? We should see if any missing people from that area connect in any way to the remains found here.”
“Brandon,” Paige began, “we don’t have any sense of a timeline, though. We only know the remains from last week belonged to two twentysomething white males.”
“No, the kid has a point,” Jack said.
Kid was a nickname Jack would pull out for me periodically. I usually cringed when he used it, but this time I was willing to overlook it since I’d impressed him.
“Nadia could do a search,” Jack continued.
Nadia Webber was our go-to analyst who worked out of Quantico. To me, she was a true miracle worker who produced something seemingly out of thin air. I knew she had the aid of warrants and technology, but she also had an analytical mind that made her perfect for her job.
“Instead of going about it from the standpoint of the victims and missing persons, though, I’d be interested to know if there are any similar cases in Michigan. It’s conceivable that the unsub—assuming it’s this man—disposed of body parts in his home area, as well.”
Paige’s eyes widened. “I just had a thought. If both mother and son were from Michigan, they had to have stayed somewhere locally. We might be able to track them down that way.”
“It’s also possible that they lied about where they’re from,” Zach stated sourly, overriding anything that Paige had said. He shrugged when I looked at him.
“Let’s explore Brandon’s suggestion,” Jack decided.
“So if we’re going to look into this, where does that leave us with Tucker and Graham? Jesse Holt? The man with the Prius?” Zach asked.
Jack tapped his shirt pocket, clearly in nicotine withdrawal already, but instead of pulling out his cigarette pack, he went to his suit jacket pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed on speaker, and Nadia picked up on the second ring. He provided her some background on the situation and said, “I need you to dig deep into the history of Jonathan Tucker and Wesley Graham. See if you can find a connection between them somehow, somewhere their paths might have crossed outside Blue Heron Plantation. Also, see if either of them have other properties under their names.”
“Will do.”
Jack continued. “We also need to know if there have been any reports of severed remains remotely resembling what has been found in Savannah in the state of Michigan.”
“Boss?” she asked.
Jack explained our theory.
“Do you want me to pull the background on Jesse Holt, too?”
“No need. The lieutenant is getting that for us. You could see what properties he owns, though. I’ll call you first thing in the morning to see where you’re at.”
“On it.”
Jack clicked off, and Pike came in holding a tray loaded with a pot of coffee, paper cups, packets of sugar, and containers of creamer. He placed it on the table.
“Usually, you can find all this in the bullpen, but I thought you
might like it real handy.” Pike took a seat at the table and grabbed a coffee that had already been made up.
Zach took a cup, dropped in a couple of sugar cubes, and poured himself some coffee. “Anyone else want any?”
“Sure,” Jack replied.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Black for me.” This from Paige.
Zach handed a coffee to Jack and another to Paige.
Pike waited until we were situated. “I’ve got the information you wanted on Jesse Holt.” He handed the report across the table toward Jack, who shuffled it down to Zach, our resident speed-reader.
Jack sipped his coffee while Paige regarded Pike with interest. “When we spoke with Graham, he mentioned a young family being there when he found the arm and leg,” she said.
Pike nodded. “Yep, told us, too. But no luck in tracking them down.”
Zach lowered the report and held up a photo of Holt. His brown hair reached his shoulders and he had brown eyes. After we all took a look, he said, “Nothing too exciting here. He’s twenty-seven, single. He’s spent time in foster care. No criminal record, though. He’s works at the cement factory in town where he’s been for a couple years now.”
Jack nodded and looked at Pike. “How did the investigators make out at the shed?”
“Initial results show no evidence of blood or bodily fluids—human or otherwise.”
“We’ll still pay him a visit,” Jack said. “And the Prius?”
“The search is being run by a detective of mine as we speak,” Pike replied.
Jack nodded. “The phone pulled from the river?”
“Should have the results momentarily.”
It felt like Jack had placed Pike in the hot seat.
Then Jack changed direction, picking up on Zach’s earlier suggestion. “I’d like to know why the remains are being found in the river on plantation property. We need to figure out if this matters to our unsub, and, if so, why,” Jack said.
“We’ve ruled out previous crimes on the property,” Zach said. “Shane said there weren’t any. So if the place does carry a meaning to our unsub, it’s hard to say what that would be. But I’d think the unsub does have a history there.”
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