by Elle Gray
“Let us begin,” I call.
Nine
Briar Glen Sheriff’s Station; Downtown Briar Glen
“I’d like to see Sheriff Morris, please,” I say.
The man behind the inch-thick plexiglass at the front counter has sergeant stripes on his uniform sleeves, dark hair that’s obviously been colored recently, dark eyes, and a bushy mustache that would probably would have fit right in on an adult film set in the 1970s. He takes off his glasses and looks me up and down, appraising me, and clearly finding me wanting.
“Got an appointment?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t－”
“Sheriff’s busy. Make an appointment and come back then,” he snaps.
He puts his glasses back on and returns his attention to the phone in his hand. It’s painful watching his brow furrow as he struggles to hunt and peck his way to keying in a text message. Clearly, this guy isn’t incredibly tech savvy, and would probably feel more comfortable with a rotary dial phone. He notices I haven’t moved and looks up at me, his expression darkening.
“There somethin’ else?” he grumbles.
“Yes. In fact, there is,” I say and slap my credentials down on the counter. “Special Agent Blake Wilder. I’d like to speak with Sheriff Robert Morris.”
I hate badging people and asserting my position like that. It definitely starts things off on the wrong foot. But when you run into an obstinate buffoon, you do what you have to do.
If the man’s expression was any sourer, it would curdle milk. But he picks up the phone and turns away from me so I can’t hear him, or read his lips apparently, as he mutters low into the receiver. He drops the phone back into the cradle a little harder than necessary and turns to me, his face etched with his displeasure.
“Go straight back, take the first hallway on your right, and the Sheriff’s office is at the end of the hall,” he says.
A moment later, a loud buzzer sounds, so I walk to the door to the right of the window and pull it open. I step through and wind my way through the desks that fill the administrative area of the station, heading for the corridor at the back the Sergeant so helpfully directed me to.
I know I should have called ahead to schedule a meet with Sheriff Robert Morris. It would have been the proper way to go about introducing myself and all that. But I’m not a big fan of bureaucratic protocols. They’re cumbersome, and in many cases, entirely unnecessary. I’ve found that people so often get hung up on the protocols and following the proper channels that things get lost in the translation. Especially when it’s we Feds dealing with local LEOs.
I much prefer showing up unannounced. I’ve found that walking in on these guys in their natural habitat without giving them the benefit of time to sanitize things or put on a happy face is more beneficial. At least, it is to me. I know that some of them get their panties in a bunch about it and it puts them on the defensive, but I’d rather have them unscripted and blunt, than listen to them pour honey and garbage in my ear. Ten out of ten times, I’ll take the truth. Even if it irritates me.
As much as the Bureau has tried to soften our stance－or at least, tried to make a public show of softening our stance－when it comes to dealing with crimes in local municipalities, old feelings and rivalries die hard. Not all of the locals trust us, and although I can’t say I necessarily blame them, it would be nice if they would at least make a good faith effort to work with us. Meeting us halfway would go a long way toward bridging that divide.
That’s not to say all local PDs are that way. Many aren’t. But there is a large number of small-town sheriffs who resent us and would just as soon shoot us as work with us. They’re protective of their towns and don’t like outside interference. While I get that, most of these guys are simply too proud to ask for help and view our presence as something that will make them look bad. It’s pure egotistical macho idiocy. Plain and simple.
I find my way to Sheriff Morris’ office and knock on the door.
“Come,” he calls, his voice muffled.
I open the door and step in to find him sitting behind his desk, a cup of coffee in one hand, a breakfast burrito in the other. Morris is a large man, wide through the shoulders and chest. His hair is iron gray, he’s got dark, piercing eyes that I don’t think miss much, and a strong jawline. He’s a fit man who looks like he takes good care of himself. He’s clean cut, looks freshly shaved, and has that Old West, small town, gunslinging Sheriff look about him.
Morris sets his mug of coffee down, but doesn’t get up when I come in. He simply looks at me from the other side of his desk, his feet propped up on the top and crossed at the ankles, munching away on his burrito.
“Special Agent Wilder,” he says around a mouthful of what smells like egg and chorizo. “To what do I owe the distinct dishonor of a visit from the Federal Bureau of Intimidation?”
I chuckle softly to myself. This is starting off well. Everything I’d read about him last night had said he was a straight shooter, no nonsense, tough as nails guy. He’s known around here as a solid lawman who takes the job of protecting his town very seriously. As a sacred duty. I didn’t read anything about him having any particular axe to grind with the Bureau. So, this is a fun surprise.
Without waiting for an invitation, I shut the door behind me, walk across his office, and drop down into a chair across from him. He arches an eyebrow at me, an amused smirk on his face, but says nothing. Morris takes a big bite of his burrito and stares at me while he chews. It’s clearly a tactic he’s using to try and assert his dominance. By remaining silent and making me wait, he’s trying to intimidate me, and at the same time, show me that he’s the boss and he’s in control.
It’s a common enough tactic and pretty easy to spot. I’m frankly surprised that Morris would try it with me, since he’s got a reputation as a fair and open-minded guy who’s willing to do whatever is necessary to do the job. Apparently, that willingness might end when it comes to dealing with the Feds.
I lean back and stare right back at him, showing him that I not only know what he’s doing, but that it doesn’t intimidate me in the least. I’m used to dealing with cocky, arrogant, chauvinistic men. The Bureau’s full of them, so I’m well versed in dealing with their types. I lost any sense of fear or intimidation of them a long while ago. If I hadn’t, I never would have made it through the Academy in the first place.
“What are you doing here, Agent Wilder?” he finally asks, his slow drawl only adding to the Old West Sheriff image I have in my head.
“Nothing as sinister as it seems like you’re imagining right now.”
“I guess time will tell.”
I let out an irritated breath. There’s a rather large piece of me that would like to put this man in check. There’s a part of me that would like to shut him down and put him in his place. But the calmer and more rational side of my personality takes control and throttles back my irritation. It reminds me the best way to catch flies is with honey, rather than vinegar. Or whatever that old saying actually is.
“Look Sheriff, there doesn’t need to be any animosity between us. I’m not here to get into your hair, or－”
“Then why are you here?” he interrupts me.
I bite back the pointed and sarcastic remark that’s sitting on the tip of my tongue and force myself to take a breath. When I feel reasonably calm, I start again.
“I’m here because I’ve noticed that Briar Glen has an unusually high violent crime rate compared to the state and national averages,” I say. “We thought it warranted taking a closer look at.”
He scoffs and shakes his head. “Ain’t you guys got enough to deal with on your own instead of pokin’ around here in our business?”
“Forgive my impertinence, Sheriff, but doesn’t it concern you that Briar Glen has one of the highest violent crime rates in the entire country, especially for a town this size?”
His expression darkens as he puts his feet down and slams his burrito down on his desk, scatterin
g egg and meats across his blotter. He frowns as he glances at the mess and I can see his jaw clenching tight. Clearly, I’ve hit a nerve with the man. He grabs a napkin and wipes his hands, then scoops the mess into the trash can and drops his burrito on top of it all. Morris takes a long swallow of his coffee, then leans forward.
“To answer your question, of course it concerns me,” he growls.
“I just want to understand how you can have a violent crime rate six times higher than Seattle when you have a third of the population.”
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that, Agent.”
“Can’t?”
He sits back in his seat, taking a long swallow of his coffee, and as he does, I see the emotion in his eyes. The number of deaths and violent crimes in Briar Glen does indeed weigh on him. I can see it’s taking a toll. It’s not much, but it at least gives us some common ground to operate from. If he’s willing to work with me, that is.
“Look, Sheriff Morris,” I start again, adopting a more conciliatory tone, “me being here isn’t an indictment against you. It has nothing to do with your work－”
“Then why are you sitting in my office?”
His constant interruptions are starting to wear on me. As is his defensiveness. He’s sitting here acting like I’m accusing him of being incompetent or something, when I’ve done nothing of the sort. I need to find a way to break through that barrier and make him see that I’m not actually trying to denigrate him or the job he’s doing. But he’s so busy trying to cover his ass that he’s not giving me an opening to do that.
“I’m sitting in your office because what I do at the Bureau is a little bit different. I analyze data and look for patterns.”
“So you’re a number cruncher?”
I give him a small shrug. “Not exactly. But in some ways, yes. I use the data and look for patterns, like I said. For instance, in Briar Glen, I went back a little more than fifteen years and saw the trend of violent crimes rising steadily… getting it to the point it’s at now. Which is fairly alarming.”
He runs a hand over his face, then takes a swallow of coffee, his eyes never leaving mine. But the flip side is, he hasn’t interrupted me again, and seems to be absorbing what I’m telling him. I find it encouraging, so I plow forward.
“Now, what I’ve been able to determine is that you have a large number of unsolved homicides. Your open-unsolved rate sits at about sixty-four percent.” I tell him, and when he opens his mouth to object, I raise my hand to forestall it. “To be fair, major cities always have high open-unsolved rates. This isn’t like television where every case gets neatly wrapped up in an hour. Actual homicide investigations rarely go the way we think, and unfortunately, more times than not, finding the actual killer is more difficult than fiction has led us to believe.”
He lets out a grunt and rolls his eyes, but nods for me to continue.
“What troubles me is that smaller municipalities usually don’t have an open-unsolved rate as high as yours. To put it in perspective, Cedar Creek is a town in the northeast of the state that has a similar population density to Briar Glen. Their violent crime rate is roughly three percent, well below state and national average. And their solve rate is ninety-six percent. They’ve got very few open-unsolved cases.”
Morris takes another pull from his coffee mug, looking at me over the rim the whole time. Then he sets it down gently and looks at me curiously for a moment. I can see the wheels turning as he puts all the pieces of what I said together in his mind. The numbers I laid out for him paint a stark picture and he knows it. The fact that he hasn’t dismissed me and genuinely seems to be thinking about what I’ve presented him tells me he’s a thoughtful man. One who, his earlier defensive outbursts aside, usually doesn’t speak without thinking.
“So, are you tellin’ me, you think we’ve had a serial killer or somethin’ runnin’ around here for the last decade and a half or so?” he asks.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. Not exactly,” I reply. “I’m just saying that something is happening in Briar Glen, Sheriff. I don’t know what yet, and I’m definitely not saying you’re to blame in any way. But I want to find out what’s going on here. The violent crime rate is alarming, and if there’s some way we can figure it out, maybe we can save some lives.”
He blows out a long breath and seems to be thinking about what I said. Finally he sits forward again, his expression stern. I can see him warring with himself. The statistic I cited is bothering him, no doubt about it. He hates that there are so many open-unsolved homicides in his city. I can tell he wants to do something about it. But the other side of that coin is that to do that, he’d have to work with me. The Feds. He’d have to give up some of his control, which I can see is something he is absolutely loath to do.
But then he nods to himself as if he’s come to a decision. He raises his gaze to me, his expression no less grim, but I see a steely determination in his eyes.
“What do you need from me, Agent Wilder?”
Ten
Pacific Crest Motor Court; Briar Glen, WA
The pounding on my door jerks me out of a fitful sleep. Not that I can actually call what I got sleep. According to the clocks, it’s just after six, so I’m not even sure it qualifies as a nap. On the bed all around me, pages and files are scattered, the result of a long night’s work. I’ve only barely scratched the surface of what Sheriff Morris let me take from the station yesterday. And according to him, there is a lot more being held at an off-site storage facility.
We came to a meeting of the minds yesterday. He’s still not thrilled that I’m here, and remains skeptical of everything I laid out, but he’s willing to work with me. At least for now. It shows me something about his character－confirms it for me, actually. He’s a man willing to set aside his own pride to do what’s in the best interest of his town and the people in it. It’s something I respect.
As for the files, Morris explained that they’re in the process of digitizing their files and are working backward, so they’ve only gotten to 2015 so far. Anything prior to that is paper. The boxes and files I have spread out all around me are from the years 2013-14. To be as thorough as I normally am, I’ve got a ton of work and a lot more sleepless nights ahead of me.
The banging on the door resumes, so I roll off the bed and stagger across the room, trying to wipe the sleep from my eyes as I shuffle along like a zombie from The Walking Dead. Which is a pretty accurate description of how I feel right now.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I call, my voice sounding thick and slow in my ears. “Keep your pants on.”
I unlock the door and open it, wincing and hissing like a vampire as the sunlight slants in. I hold my hands up to shield my eyes from the intrusion of light, and find Sheriff Morris standing there with a large, steaming cup of coffee in his hand.
“Well, you look like hot garbage,” he observes, thrusting the cup into my hand.
“You say the sweetest things,” I say, inhaling the rich aroma wafting from the cup. “But I’ll forgive you for it this time.”
I take a drink of the coffee, wincing at the heat on my tongue, but not really caring in the moment since I desperately need the caffeine boost. I swallow it down and look up at him.
“I assume you didn’t stop by just to deliver coffee?” I ask.
“Afraid not,” he says, his expression grim. “There was a body found this morning. Figured you’d want to go check it out with me.”
I nod and take another drink of coffee. “I appreciate that, Sheriff. Give me a minute to get dressed?”
“Sure thing.”
I close the door and take another swallow of coffee before throwing on some clothes, pulling my strawberry blonde hair back into a ponytail, and brush my teeth. I decide to forgo makeup and figure I can grab a shower when I get back from the crime scene. Finished getting ready, I bound out of the room to find Morris leaning against his SUV, drinking a cup of coffee, and looking out at the ocean. His face is clouded over, a
s if he’s lost in thought about something deep, though not something entirely unpleasant.
Standing next to him really highlights the size discrepancy between us. I mean, even with him sitting in his chair back at the office, I could tell he was a big man, but I didn’t really realize just how much bigger than me he is. I’m five nine, and though I’m fit and in good shape, I’m lean. Morris is about six inches taller than me and is a bull of a man. He looks like the kind of guy who’d enjoy wrestling bears for fun in his spare time… and could probably win.
“You all right, Sheriff?” I ask.
He nods and instantly, his face clears as he turns to me. That almost wistful look on his face vanishes, quickly replaced by what I imagine is his default stern and gruff expression. But for a moment there, he looked… human.
“Right as rain,” he says, turning to me, his expression betraying a sense of surprise. “Didn’t expect you to be ready so quick.”
I give him a wry smile. “I’m not somebody who needs to get all dolled up before I go out. We’re going to a crime scene, not a club. I’m not here to impress anybody with anything other than my investigative skills.”
The corner of his mouth quirks upward in a smile, a small expression of approval on his face. I’ve never been a typical woman like that. Makeup and fashion just aren’t my thing. I much prefer function and comfort over form. Like, I can’t imagine how much money Astra spends on makeup and clothing. Yeah, she always looks runway ready, and I usually feel like the Ugly Duckling standing next to her, but that kind of thing’s never been important to me.
That’s not to say I’m not without my own sense of vanity. I think as humans, we’re all vain in our own ways. I think I’m an attractive woman, but I usually put more effort into my work, or into learning something that will be beneficial to my work, than I do into dolling myself up for a night out on the town. Yeah, Astra thinks my work-life balance is out of whack, and maybe she’s right, but I’m driven by the mission at hand. There is literally nothing that brings me more pleasure in life than bringing justice to those who deserve it. Both to help the victims and their families gain some sense of closure, and to lock up the monsters who would harm the innocent.