In the kitchen, he spotted another stack of boxes in the corner where a table should be. “More files?”
She looked up from grinding coffee to shake her head. “I haven’t fully unpacked.”
“When did you move in?”
“Move in?” she said absently as she spooned coffee grounds into a filter. “I guess it’s been about a year now.”
“And you haven’t unpacked?”
“Old habits die hard.” She grabbed the carafe and took it to the sink to fill.
He joined her, inching closer. “What habits?”
She didn’t seem to want to answer.
He nudged closer, eyeing her until she sighed.
“Fine.” She planted her hands on the countertop. “Foster kids never fully settle in because they don’t know when they’ll have to move again. And I was one of those kids. After a while, it just gets easier to leave some of your stuff packed and dig it out if you need it.”
He could see her as a kid. His tough, strong Becca, keeping things packed. Keeping a part of herself packed, too. People had let her down, over and over, obviously.
He slid his hand across the counter and covered hers. He waited for her to jerk away, but she didn’t. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. That kind of life must have been hard.”
She said nothing.
“How did you end up in foster care?” He pushed, but he suspected she’d clam up or redirect the conversation.
“My mom was an alcoholic,” she said softly. “She crashed the car. Killed herself, nearly killed me.”
“And your dad?”
“I never knew who he was. After Mom died, the police spent like half a second trying to figure out his identity, but my mother freely slept around, so it was an impossible task.”
He took her hand and turned her to face him. “And I whined about my family today when I should just be thankful for them.”
“Hey, it’s no biggie.”
As a cop, Connor knew the conditions of some foster homes. Given Becca’s unwillingness to unpack, he suspected she’d run in to some of them and carried the damage with her.
He looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of that. I really am.”
She peered at him for a long moment, then freed her hand and turned to the coffeepot. “It was a long time ago and belongs in the past.”
She was right. It did belong in the past. But as much as she claimed she was over it, it was clear that she wasn’t. He was suddenly very glad that Vance had sent her away today. Otherwise, she’d have been there to see the cadaver dog light on death time after time. To see Dr. Williams carefully dig around the flags to prove that one more terrified girl had lost her life. To prove that the shocking number of seven, maybe eight, lives lost to Van Gogh was seeming more likely by the minute.
“Your time is ticking away.” She raised her shoulders into a solid wall that seemed impenetrable. “You want to spend your half hour dissecting my past or talking about Van Gogh?”
“Both,” he said, surprising himself.
She looked over her shoulder at him, studying him for a tense moment before a monster of a frown claimed her face. “I can’t do both. You’ll have to choose.”
“Message received. Your past is off limits. I’ll take Van Gogh.”
She spun and headed for the family room. He traipsed behind her, his disappointment in her unwillingness to talk to him a physical ache. He’d let his guard down around her and let her get to him. Really get to him. And he had no idea what to do about it.
She gestured at the club chair. “Have a seat.”
He did as asked, but couldn’t help wondering why she felt such a need to control the situation. He dug out his small notepad, then shook his head. “With all of the information you’ve dug up, this little thing isn’t going to cut it.” He tapped the table that looked like an office supply store had thrown up on it. “Mind if I borrow one of these legal pads?”
“Go ahead.” She took a deep breath and started. “I know we’ve covered part of this, but I’m going to start at the beginning of the timeline so I don’t miss anything. On Valentine’s Day in 1999, a fifteen-year-old girl, Lauren Nichols, was found huddled in the doorway of a storefront.”
She shared the exact address, and though it would be in the case files he’d review tomorrow at the office, he jotted it down so he could look it up on the Internet as soon as he got home.
“She was dressed in a white gown like the one Jane Doe is wearing.”
“Can I see the pictures of Lauren?”
Becca shook her head. “There aren’t any in the case file.”
“None?”
“None.”
“Don’t you find that odd?”
“Perhaps there are some in the official files, but I don’t have access to them.” She took another breath and continued. “Lauren told a story of a madman who’d abducted her and Molly and held them in a basement. He’d cut off the ears of three girls, had preserved them in canning jars that Lauren saw on the shelf, and he was trying to cut hers off, too.” She paused and swallowed hard. “Then she said that he was holding my foster sister, Molly Underhill.”
“And the detectives believed Lauren’s story?”
“Mostly. She showed them the slice behind her ear where Van Gogh had started his cut before Molly interrupted him and the number engraved on her stomach. She also had contusions around her wrists consistent with being tied up and trying to escape.”
“And your friend? This Molly? Did Lauren show the police where to find her?”
“Lauren was so terrified when she ran that she’d gotten turned around and couldn’t lead the police back to the house.” Becca jutted out her chin as if she felt a need to defend Lauren’s action. “That put some question in the detective’s mind, but a few days later, Van Gogh’s first victim was found, minus her ears.”
“Since you’ve worked this investigation over the years, do you have a current address for Lauren Nichols?”
Becca shook her head. “We have the old foster home address, but she didn’t stay there after the abduction.”
“And you’ve looked for her?”
Her eyes widened. “You have to ask?”
“No. I guess not. You wouldn’t let a chance to talk to Van Gogh’s only eyewitness pass you by.” He made a note on the legal pad to try to locate Lauren.
Becca took a sketch down from the wall and handed it to him. “They did a rendering of Van Gogh in ’99. It was on the news, but you may not have seen it.” She retrieved another drawing. “I had another sketch done with his age progression. He’d look like this today.”
“You had someone draw this just this afternoon?” Connor studied the sketch.
“No, I have one made every year on the anniversary of Molly’s disappearance.”
He wanted to say that was all kinds of crazy to be so obsessed with the case to commission an annual sketch, but he’d seen law enforcement officers consumed by cases that they were unable to solve, and they weren’t crazy by any stretch of the imagination. They also didn’t have personal connections to their cases, the way Becca did.
He studied the picture. “Burn scars?”
She nodded. “Lauren said his entire face and hands are covered with them. She thought he was in his mid-twenties at the time of abduction, and she said the scars looked old. Detective Orman jumped all over that. He had his team scour hospital records for anyone with severe facial burns, but found nothing. They even got the FBI involved in nearby states, but there were no leads.”
Connor held up the sketch. “You would have thought that, with this extensive facial disfigurement, someone would have recognized him from the news, back when the first girl’s body was found.”
“I always thought it was odd.”
&
nbsp; “I suppose he could be a hermit, not getting out of the house except to stalk these young girls.”
“He has to eat and do all the regular things people do.”
“He could have his groceries delivered, though. Today, a person can get most everything he needs from the Internet. And he could work from home.”
“Sure, that’s likely today, but not so much in the nineties. People didn’t work at home as much then.”
“But it wasn’t unheard of.”
“True, but to never leave the house? I guess it’s possible. It just seems like a stretch, unless he had someone living with him. But if that’s true, why didn’t they turn him in?”
“Maybe he lived with his parents. Parents rarely report their own children.”
“Lauren said he often talked to his mother, like she was in the room with him. I initially thought that meant she was dead, but maybe he was still living with her.”
Connor handed the sketches back to her. “Can I get a copy of the current drawing?”
She nodded. “So what else do you want to know about the investigation?”
“Prime leads that fizzled and why. Your opinion of the lead detective. Did he do his job well? Sloppy, thorough? What did he share with you that’s not in his case file? That kind of thing.”
“What makes you think I talked to him?”
“Really?” he asked, rolling his eyes. “You’re a pro. You’d leave no stone unturned.”
“Okay, fine, I did. It took me four years of pestering him before he agreed to see me. Then, out of the blue, he called and said he was ready to talk about the case. I later learned that was when he received his cancer diagnosis.”
“He’s dead?”
“You didn’t know?”
“Vance just said he wasn’t the same after that case. So when he retired, he didn’t stay in touch with the guys and no one at the precinct could tell us anything about his current life. I was planning to try to locate him tomorrow.”
“The closest you’ll come is his daughter, Eva Waters.”
“The TV reporter?”
Becca nodded. “Start by asking her questions, and you’ll find your name as a headline on the six o’clock news.”
“Did you ever talk to her?’
Becca relaxed against the wall. “We talked for a few minutes back when her dad was sick.”
“So if you questioned her now, she wouldn’t think much of it. She’d just think you were trying to run down Van Gogh.”
“I suppose so.”
“That’s even more of a reason for my lieutenant to add you to the team.”
Her body stiffened. She blinked a few times then looked at him. “Is that what you want to happen? Me on the case?”
That’s the big question of the day. “Do I want you all wrapped up in a horrific serial killer case? No.” He continued to look at her, her expression softening and morphing into something he couldn’t read from across the room. Something he’d have to see up close to decipher.
He got up. Started for her.
Don’t do it.
He ignored his brain’s feeble warning and crossed the room. She drew in a shallow breath and held it, her eyes glittering with something he’d never seen there before. Keeping his eyes on her, he planted his hands on the wall on either side of her head. “Do I want to have your input on this case and see you on a regular basis? Yes.”
“Don’t go there, Connor,” she chastised, then licked her lips.
It was nearly his undoing. “I get that we agreed to put aside our personal feelings, but Bex, I gotta tell you, instead of making it easier, I think it’s making it harder for me. You know, the forbidden fruit thing.”
“You’ll just have to try harder then. I mean it, Connor. We need to focus. Now more than ever.” She pressed on his chest, trying to push him back, but he refused to budge.
“Um-hm,” he said, but for some reason, he couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth as she talked.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re starving, and I’m the last morsel of food on this earth.”
“I am starving, honey, and I’m starting to think you’re about the only satisfying thing on the menu.”
Chapter Twelve
REGINALD DIDN’T LIKE the cold, and his clunker of a van didn’t much like it either. It huffed and puffed up the final hill toward the trail entrance.
He patted the dash. “You can do it, Wilbur,” he said, mocking the voice of Mr. Ed, the talking horse on television. His mother had watched that show nonstop, and he’d memorized nearly every word of it. Especially Ed’s lines. Reginald had loved that horse. He was so funny.
As he crested the hill, Wilbur coughed, but Reginald couldn’t be concerned with that. At the far side of the parking lot, the spot just below the trailhead, a Portland police officer stood guard. His car sat in the lot next to a crime-scene van and what looked like another official state van parked on the other side.
Reginald’s heart rate kicked up as he kept the van chugging toward his secluded parking space, but when he reached the spot, his instincts screamed at him to keep driving.
“What do you make of this, Wilbur?” he asked. “Could they have found the girls? Not possible, right? I was so careful. And there was nothing in the news about it. Surely, they couldn’t have found them without it making the news. Mother was all about humility, but even I know how much the world would clamor to meet me if they learned of my special skills. The news stations would be compelled to report it.”
He turned down a side street, then another for good measure, and parked the van on a road filled with cars to blend in with. In many cities, a classic VW van like his would stand out, but not in Portland. There were plenty of the old VWs around the town where California hippies had migrated in the seventies.
He found his small flashlight and binoculars under the seat and headed toward the park. He had a special observation spot that he’d used to confirm the trail was abandoned on the nights he’d brought the girls up here. He’d never run in to anyone this late. Honestly, as much as it was exciting, it was equally annoying that he couldn’t dispose of Allie’s hair thingy, but he couldn’t let it get to him. He still had to be careful.
He moved slowly through the dark, not a step out of place. He was used to the darkness. Used to hours and hours confined to his room and required to sit without any light so he didn’t disturb Mother while she tuned in to Mr. Ed and other old re-runs of the shows she’d watched with her father when she was younger. More of her alone time, she’d claimed.
Not needing his flashlight, Reginald felt the ground through his Chuck Taylor high-tops as he moved into location and perched on a fallen log. He was close enough to see the cop, hear him if he spoke. Reginald planted his elbows on his knees and focused his binoculars to get a good look at the cop’s face. The burly guy strode back and forth a few times, lumbering like it was a big deal to move. He suddenly shrugged and went back to his car where he sat with his door open.
As Reginald watched, the cold, damp air settled into his body, making him cranky. Minutes ticked by like a slug approaching Mother’s favorite spring primroses. He heard a car before it turned into the lot. Another cop car. Maybe a shift change.
The first cop got up. Stretched and yawned. The other climbed out, two cups of coffee in his hands.
“Man, am I glad to see you,” the first one said. “I’ve been jonesing for something to do.”
“So, no action here, then?”
“Not much. The lady anthropologist is still in the clearing, but she’s not saying a thing.” He stepped closer, as if he feared being overheard. “But you gotta know there are more bodies up there besides the one the ME hauled off. They wouldn’t have called in the anthropologist ot
herwise.”
No. They’d found the girls. They were disturbing their peace after he’d worked so hard to drag them to their resting place, using a tarp he’d fashioned into a large canvas bag. Then he’d erased every track, every mark with a rake. He hadn’t been sure he’d gotten them all, but then the rain had set in. The blessed heavy rain, washing the marks away. Maybe that’s how they’d found the girls. The rain had been a real gully washer. It could have exposed one of them, he supposed.
He knew he should have dug deeper, the way he had for the first girls. Dug deep and chose burial sites around the city instead of laying them all to rest in the same location. His heart ached as he lowered his binoculars. One thing was certain. He wasn’t going to hang around here. Allie’s hair clip would just have to go into a dumpster.
“Reginald.” He could hear Mother’s scolding voice. “Haven’t I told you? Every bit of the girls’ possessions from before your cleanse must be buried, just like the girls are buried, or the cleansing won’t work.”
“That doesn’t mean it has to be in the same place,” he said under his breath as he got up to leave. He’d bury the clip somewhere in the boonies. Then what?
Did the fact that the cops had found the girls change anything? Maybe. This was sure to make the news, and he’d suddenly be a hero for saving these girls.
“A hero?” Billy’s voice broke the quiet. “More like a zero. The press is gonna crucify you like they did in the nineties.”
“Be quiet, Billy,” he whispered so they couldn’t hear him. “They have no idea who I am so it shouldn’t interfere in my plans.” But he couldn’t be too careful. He needed a clear head to think this through. He’d have to delay the call about Molly until he’d sorted this out.
“Just for a day,” he promised himself. “Just until you’re sure you’ve covered all the bases.”
He’d waited a long time for Lauren. Mother had taught him patience. He could wait one more day.
IT WAS THREE A.M. when Becca finally closed the door behind Connor. What a night. She should have sent him on his way after thirty minutes as she’d threatened, but it felt good—oh, so good—to talk to someone about Van Gogh after working the investigation alone for so many years. She hadn’t been able to stop. They’d thrown out thoughts and ideas and worked side-by-side through the possible leads. It was so much better than talking to herself.
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