by L A Dobbs
If there was one place on the planet that Sam loved to be, it was his log cabin deep in the woods on the outskirts of town. He’d inherited it from his grandfather, and kept it largely decorated the way it had been when his grandparents were alive. It wasn’t fancy, but it had everything Sam needed, including fond childhood memories. The furnishings were practical—overstuffed furniture, braided rugs, and a small television. The only thing that wasn’t practical was his grandmother’s china cabinet filled with fancy glassware and china that Sam never took out.
The warm cedar log walls were decorated with deer heads and mounted trout and bass caught by Sam’s grandparents. A large moose head adorned the river rock fireplace. Sam’s ex-wives had hated the place, stating that the taxidermy gave them the creeps. That didn’t seem to bother Jo. She always made herself right at home, which she was doing right now by rummaging in his fridge, a disappointing endeavor because she was looking for something other than his favorite Moosenose beer.
“I knew I should have stopped at the package store and brought my own,” she said, using an elk horn bottle opener to pop the top. She took a swig, then made a face. “Tastes like dirt.”
Sam sipped his beer. To him it tasted like a fine blend of summer and relaxation.
“Anyone in there?” Mick’s voice drifted in from the front of the house. Sam glanced over the half-height bookshelves that separated the kitchen from the living room, his gaze lingering just a second on the photo of his daughters before continuing on to see Mick peering in from the other side of the screen door.
“Come on in,” Sam shouted, and then turned to Jo. “Better grab the whiskey.”
Lucy greeted Mick in her usual tail-wagging manner. He crouched down to her level and ruffled her fur before standing to accept the tumbler of whiskey from Jo.
“How’s it going? Anything new?” Mick asked as they took seats around the oak mission-style coffee table.
Mick sipped his whiskey, his brows raising higher and higher as Sam filled him in on their visit to Menda at the prison. When Sam was done, Mick leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs, the glass resting between his knees.
“And there’s no way Menda could have done it?”
“Nope. Reese did a full work-up. He wasn’t in that area.”
“That’s creepier than hell that people idolize and follow serial killers,” Mick said.
“No kidding.”
“We also might have a lead on one of the victims,” Jo said. “My sister remembers a young girl who had an older boyfriend from up north. She went with him one day and never came back.”
Mick nodded thoughtfully and then said in a soft voice, “How is your sister?”
Jo shrugged and glanced down at the phone. She’d told Sam earlier there had been no further texts from Bridget.
“Says she’s getting her act together.” Jo’s voice was casual, but Sam could tell by the way she picked at the corner of her beer bottle label that she cared deeply about her sister. She was just afraid to get her hopes up.
“If your sister’s friend is one of the victims, maybe her family can tell us something,” Mick suggested.
“Maybe,” Jo said. “They’re checking to see if she’s one of the victims. We still haven’t identified the other remains, so it could just be the girl took off. Runaways are like that.”
Mick turned to Sam. “What about the meth lab? Anything new on that?”
“Not much back on that yet. The Staties and the FBI are still going over things,” Sam said.
“And Menda claims no knowledge of that.”
“Nope. Says it was family land and he’s never been there.”
“And you don’t have any other leads?”
“None, other than the fact that the skeletal remains had that bog birch leaf, and the leaf came from the cabin, and the cabin was a meth lab.” Jo blew a few corkscrew curls off her forehead, took another swig of beer, and made another face. “Maybe Holden Joyce is right and we’re trying too hard to prove that Thorne is involved, and that’s blinding us to other suspects or clues.”
“I don’t think so.” Mick pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “I did some research and came across this incident from Thorne’s past. It’s not public. He was a juvenile, so the records are sealed, but I have my ways.”
He unfolded the paper and tossed it onto the coffee table. It was a police report.
“What’s that about?” Jo asked.
“Seems that Lucas Thorne wasn’t a model child. He and his friend Robert Summers were pulled in on suspicion of cat mutilation.”
“Cat mutilation?”
Lucy whined and looked at them disapprovingly. Apparently she didn’t like the idea of cat mutilation even though her relationship with Major was tenuous at best.
Mick made a face, “Yeah, apparently they killed a neighbor’s cat and not in a nice way. Not that there is any nice way to do that.”
Jo put her beer down and leaned forward, pulling the report toward her. “This is great!”
At their raised eyebrows, she grimaced. “Not that a cat got killed, that Thorne did this. This is common behavior among serial killers. They start with animals, then progress to people.”
Sam appreciated that Jo had been doing her homework on serial killers, but it was too bad they couldn’t exactly use this information officially. They’d have to get some sort of a warrant to unseal the record, but how would they explain that they even knew it existed?
“So, we aren’t off track,” Sam said.
“No, and the timing makes sense. What if Thorne really is a disciple of Menda? If he’s following in his footsteps, doesn’t it make sense that he might use that old cabin on Menda’s land, sort of as a tribute?”
Sam snapped his fingers. “And then when he discovered his wife’s company was buying it, he had to move the bodies.”
“But how would he know that land was Menda’s? It was in the trust and no one knew he even owned it,” Jo asked.
“Who knows with Thorne? He’s got contacts and he might have been determined enough to find out. It’s not impossible. After all, we did it.”
“Good point.”
Mick stared into his tumbler, swirling the amber liquid. “I think it’s a little far-fetched that the guy is both a drug dealer and a serial killer, don’t you?”
Sam glanced at Jo. Holden’s words came back to him. Was he grasping? “It might be, but it might not be. At least we can check him out for both. That doesn’t mean I’m going to be blind to other suspects.”
Mick nodded. “I hope it is him. Putting him away would solve a lot of problems, including a personal one for you and me.”
Sam nodded. Earlier that summer, Thorne had come into possession of a knife that Mayor Dupont had been holding as leverage over Sam and Mick. Where Dupont had gotten it was anyone’s guess, but the knife led to something in their past, something Sam wasn’t particularly proud of, and DNA evidence on the knife could be taken the wrong way with disastrous results for Sam and Mick. But with Dupont out of the way, the knife was no longer a threat.
Sam squinted at the report. “Wait! Richard Summers. Isn’t that Beryl Thorne’s brother?”
Jo nodded, “The one who is sick.”
“I remember Harry said that’s how Beryl and Thorne met. That he was a friend of the brother.”
Mick looked up from his drink. “I wonder how sick this brother is. Too sick for us to ask about Thorne? If they were that close, maybe the brother has information we could use to nail him.”
“I don’t know. If Beryl was taking over the company, he must be pretty ill.” Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to push his way in to talk to the sick brother. It could alienate Beryl.
“If he’s too sick, getting access to talk to him could be problematic. I get the impression that family protects their own,” Jo said.
“True. It might not be easy to get access to him, but I know someone we can get access to, and that person might make an even more informative source.”
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Chapter Twenty-Three
Jackson Pressler had created an owl sanctuary on his land where the Great Bearded Owls had been discovered. Marnie Wilson had told Sam that Beryl Thorne went to the sanctuary every Thursday morning. Seeing as it was Thursday morning, Sam figured it was a great day to take Lucy for a walk in the woods. If he ran into Beryl and got a chance to talk to her alone, all the better.
If she was having doubts about her husband as Sam suspected, maybe she would open up about some of her suspicions. If Lucas Thorne was a serial killer, wouldn’t he have exhibited some telling behavior? And who better to notice than someone who knew him intimately?
The crisp chill in the morning air heralded the advent of fall. Even though it could still be steamy in the afternoons, the days were getting shorter and cooler, and while Sam hated to say goodbye to summer, he didn’t mind saying goodbye to the humidity it brought.
He let Lucy out of the Tahoe and took a deep breath of pine-scented air before pulling a gray sweatshirt over his police department T-shirt and starting into the woods. This was what he loved most about White Rock, the pristine forests where you could walk alone with your thoughts and no reminder of civilization, the sounds of birds, and chipmunks and squirrels scurrying through the underbrush, the dappled sunlight dancing on the path in front of him as it filtered through the canopy of leaves above. Lucy trotted along beside him, staying back to sniff at something every so often before racing ahead to catch up.
The path was more beaten down than Sam remembered from the last time he’d been here. The owls apparently had plenty of visitors now. Good. The more awareness there was of this rare species, the more apt the public was to get on board with protecting them from the construction that was a blight on his town. Ideally, now, if he could put Thorne away, he wouldn’t have to worry so much about that construction.
He almost didn’t recognize Beryl without her power suit. She looked smaller, younger, more vulnerable in her maroon hoodie and faded jeans. She held a big camera in her hand, pointing it up at the tops of the trees. Sunlight glinted off her hair, highlighting natural strands of copper mixed into the chocolate brown base color.
She turned as Sam approached. Her eyes flickered with confusion, then recognition and a smile. “Chief Mason, I didn’t know you were a friend of the owls.”
“As a matter of fact, I am. I’m a friend of nature.”
Her smile widened, and Sam felt as if he was making inroads. They had something in common, and that was the first step toward getting her on his side.
Beryl pointed to the tree tops. “One of the bearded owls is up there. They rarely come out in daylight, but sometimes they roost in the trees in the early morning. That’s when I often get my best shots.”
Sam shoved his hands in his pockets and looked up. The owl perched on a limb as still as a rock. The pattern in its white and gray feathers blended into the bark of the tree to make it barely distinguishable. As Sam watched, the bird lazily blinked one large round, golden eye. “I was admiring the owl photographs in your office. Did you take those?” It would have been a great line to butter her up with, but Sam was sincere.
“As a matter of fact, I did.” She looked down at her camera and shrugged. “Just a little hobby. Something to get me outside.”
Sam’s gaze drifted in the direction of the new hotel construction. From this part of the woods he could barely see the skeleton of the building. If Thorne had continued the lobby construction on this side, the parking lot and clearing of trees for the parking lot would have made the building quite visible. “Does your husband share your love of owls and nature?”
Her expression turned guarded. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I noticed he moved the lobby for the hotel over there.” Sam tilted his chin toward the hotel. “It’s further away from the sanctuary.”
Beryl simply nodded.
“Was that at your request?”
She shrugged. “I may have had something to do with it. Lucas does as he pleases, usually.” She aimed her camera at the tops of the trees and clicked a few shots.
Sam detected a hint of bitterness in her voice, indicating that maybe she wasn’t that happy with what Lucas did. “We’ve made some progress in the case that involves the land we were asking you about. It could be tied to the skeletal remains we found.”
Her head whipped around, her face wrinkled with concern. “What are you saying?”
“Just that the two might be connected. We don’t think you had anything to do with it. Not your company, at least.”
Her frown deepened. “What does that mean?”
Sam gave another half shrug. He didn’t want to spell it right out and accuse Thorne because that could put her on the defensive and might have the opposite effect of what he intended. He only wanted to plant the seed to let her know they might be onto her husband and open the door for a confession if she had any doubts about him.
“It doesn’t really mean anything. We have a few suspects. We think it also may be related to the drug crisis plaguing our town.”
Sam watched her face carefully when he mentioned the drug crisis. Had her jaw tightened or was he imagining it because he wanted to believe that she knew something about Thorne? Or maybe it was just because he had mentioned the drug crisis. Most people got upset about that.
“You think it might be the same person? That’s highly unusual, isn’t it?”
“Unusual, but not impossible. We think the skeletal remains might’ve been runaways who got involved in drugs. Easy pickings for someone who wants to kill.”
Beryl chewed her bottom lip. She was thinking about something. Sam hoped it was about inconsistencies she’d seen in her husband’s behavior. Maybe she already suspected he was up to no good and this was driving the final nail home. She’d made it clear the other day that she wouldn’t want her family name tarnished. He hoped she was considering the fact that her husband could be either a killer or a drug dealer, and wondering how she could turn him in without being tainted in the process.
“So you have suspects? What kind of person are you looking for?” Beryl glanced over at the construction. “I mean, I hate to think of such a person running around loose in White Rock.”
“Hopefully they won’t be running loose for long,” Sam said. “But you know how it is. We look for inconsistencies in behavior. The deaths were about five years ago, so we’re looking for someone who would have been active then. Maybe someone who had large spans of time they couldn’t explain to their family. Maybe someone who missed a lot of work. You know, that sort of thing.”
Beryl nodded, but her eyes had a faraway look. Sam knew he was onto something, but he didn’t want to push too hard. He needed her to come to the conclusion herself.
She glanced at her watch and her eyebrows shot up. “Look at the time! I have to get to the office.” She picked up her camera case and started putting the camera away. Then she turned back to Sam. “Nice talking to you, Chief Mason. I hope you find your guy.” She slung the camera bag over her shoulder and started down the path.
Sam remained behind, letting her go on her own so she could process her thoughts. As he watched her disappear into the trees he couldn’t help but hope that maybe the seeds he’d just planted in Beryl’s mind would grow to produce a break in the case.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Holden Joyce was already at the station when Sam and Lucy pulled in.
“Late start, chief?” Holden asked.
Lucy sniffed at Holden, glared at Major, and then trotted into Sam’s office.
“Slept in.” Sam ignored the pointed look from Jo. He didn’t need to let Holden Joyce know what he’d been up to with Beryl Thorne. He’d fill Jo in later. “What brings you here? You have any news?”
Holden nodded. “As a matter of fact, I do. The lab was able to match pollen spores found at the cabin with spores found in the tarp that held the skeletal remains.”
“So that’s another link. How solid is that?”
“We still need more, but this is at least one more spoke in the wheel, and also it’s evident that there was a meth lab in that cabin. But the forensics lab couldn’t say how long it’s been since the cabin had been inhabited.”
Sam poured water into the coffee machine, picked a mug from the rack, and held it out toward Holden, who shook his head. Sam glanced at Jo, but she already had a coffee, so he continued making his own. “Were they able to find any DNA to match the remains?”
“Unfortunately, they weren’t.”
“I have something that might be helpful,” Jo chimed in, and they both turned to look at her. She was seated at her desk, the yellow smiley face mug steaming in front of her, a chocolate cruller on a napkin beside it. “Bev Hatch got Amber Desrocher’s dental and medical records. We were able to match her to one set of remains.”
Sam glanced at Jo, and she gave a subtle shake of her head. Either she hadn’t heard from Bridget or hadn’t convinced her to look at photos of Thorne, but Sam wasn’t about to tell Holden Joyce about Jo’s sister.
“I assume Amber’s parents have been contacted. Did they have anything? Maybe they knew who the guy was,” Sam suggested.
Jo nodded. “They have been contacted, but they couldn’t give any information. They hadn’t been in contact with Amber for years, which is the problem with many runaways, unfortunately.”
Holden’s voice turned grim. “That is what makes them so attractive to killers.”
“We have another angle of attack. If the pollen spores directly connect the skeletal remains with the cabin, then we know the cabin was used as a meth lab. We need to get a search warrant for Thorne’s construction sites.”
Holden frowned. “I don’t get the connection.”
“Some of the materials used in making meth are also used on construction sites. Duct tape, rubber tubing, tarps. If we can find those same materials at Thorne’s construction site, there may be some forensic investigation we can do on them to narrow down dye lots or materials and match them up. Maybe we’ll get lucky and discover something that can definitively link the materials at the meth lab to Thorne.”