The Killer in Me

by Winter Austin

  Once Sheriff Benoit had dismissed the crowd, she and Lila sequestered themselves inside the sheriff’s SUV. Each woman kept to her own counsel as the sheriff drove to the school Maya Wagner had briefly attended.

  Lila’s shoulders sagged. Had she not insisted on seeing Neva McKinnley again, how long would the poor woman’s body been left at the bottom of the stairs? Worse, who would have found her? Obviously, the sheriff was right in keeping the son at arm’s length to protect him from the gruesome sight, but there was a good chance Jason McKinnley would have found his mother like that. If he wasn’t the one who’d done the dirty deed.

  Lila could agree with the sheriff on a certain level. Jason McKinnley’s reaction to the news of his mother’s death looked legit. On the other hand, far as Lila could tell, he had everything to gain from her death. Greed turned even the most loving of families into monsters.

  Still, intuition whispered in Lila’s ear. The mayor of Three Points was not the man she needed to look for. Someone else had been in Neva McKinnley’s home last night. Someone with murder on their mind. And their motive could be as simple as shutting her up.

  This family feud Deputy Meyer spoke about between his family and the Kauffmanns, a name that kept popping up in the last few days, intrigued Lila. The Kauffmann matriarch owned the Barrett property next to McKinnley. A deceased son was part of a drug situation in the same spot as a homicide victim. And now the revelation from Meyer. If Lila were honest with herself, she had hoped that by getting out of Chicago she’d see less of a mafia-type mentality. Obviously, she’d been wrong.

  The sheriff interrupted the stillness. “How are your injuries from the other day?”

  Lila rubbed her midsection. “I haven’t felt a thing the last few days.”

  “Sounds like we followed the doctor’s orders.” Benoit slowed the Interceptor at a four-way stop. “I had Deputy Fontaine call in a few favors and locate some ATVs for you and Meyer to use in the woods behind the Barrett place.”

  “You want me to take Meyer?” Somehow, Lila didn’t see the rookie being much of the backwoods type of male. Especially if his comments about his family held true, Meyer probably hadn’t spent much time riding around on four-wheelers. Fontaine, on the other hand, practically swam in good ole boy testosterone, and it made more sense for him to take her behind the Barrett place. Except they were not on good terms at the moment.

  Turning left after the stop sign, Benoit frowned. “Are you finding the young deputy lacking in some way, Deputy?”

  “No, it’s not that.” Lila cleared her throat. “What I meant was, with the long-standing animosity between his family and this Ma Kauffmann, should he be even near the property?”

  “Told you about that feud, did he?”

  “Among other things, yes, he did.”

  The sheriff made a noise in her throat. She said nothing, parking her vehicle in an overflowing lot across the street from a sprawling two-story, red-brick school. Cutting the engine, Benoit turned to Lila.

  “Brent Meyer and his family are not in good standing.” She held up a finger. “Let me amend that, Brent and his father are not speaking to each other. The rest of the Meyer family is a bit willy-nilly in their loyalties.”

  “He failed to mention that.”

  “It’s not something he’s proud to admit. There’s some bad blood between the Meyer men, but Brent hasn’t seen fit to reveal to me what exactly it was that caused the falling out with them.”

  “Could it have anything to do with the Kauffmanns?”

  Benoit shook her head. “It’s something more personal than that. Something so deep, it has left a wound on his soul. If he told you about the two families’ feud, then you know about his mother’s familial history.”

  “Yes.”

  The sheriff stared out the windshield.

  “This rich, loamy soil brought a whole slew of immigrants to this area. Farmers looking to make a better way of life for themselves. Crops aren’t the only things that ripen around here.” Benoit looked at Lila once more. “Be careful.” And with that ominous warning, she exited the SUV.

  Three days into this job. No dipping her toes in the water here. Lila was thrown headfirst into the churning waters.

  She followed Benoit to the school front. There was no wait to be buzzed in; the door’s electronic locks clicked the moment they approached. Benoit allowed Lila to enter first. Before them was a flight of stairs leading to the second floor. To the left was a wall of reinforced glass, and a heavy metal door. Benoit headed toward the door.

  “Principal Ericksen asked that I show you in as soon as you got here, Sheriff,” the secretary was saying.

  “Expecting me, was he?”

  The middle-aged woman gave Benoit a grim smile. “Unfortunately, he was.” Her gaze landed on Lila, and she frowned.

  “This is my newest deputy. Deputy Dayne is Eckardt County’s investigator.”

  With an acquiescent nod, the secretary led the two behind the counter to a pair of closed doors at the back of the office. The school secretary knocked on one.

  “Enter.”

  “Mr. Ericksen, Sheriff Benoit and her investigator are here.” She opened the door wider for them.

  Ericksen was a tall man in thick, black-framed spectacles, with graying temples and a houndstooth wool jacket that gave mind to a posh gentleman from Oxford or Cambridge. He circled his desk, hand outstretched. “Sheriff, thank you for stopping by.”

  As the two officials shook, Lila scanned the office, cataloging the framed certifications and awards, pictures, and school paraphernalia. Her attention swung back to the principal and she started at the offered hand. Face heating, she gripped the man’s hand.

  “Deputy Dayne, nice to meet you,” he said.

  “Hmm.”

  “Well.” Ericksen looked between the two women. “When the news broke last night about the young woman, I knew you’d be paying us a visit.” He stepped between them and gestured for them to follow him out of his office through a side door. “After her parents had contacted me earlier, I had all the security tapes and her information pulled and set aside.”

  He led them down a bright and gleaming hall.

  “That was fortuitus thinking there, Mark,” Benoit said.

  Lila eyed a pair of girls lugging an armful of textbooks, who stared at the passing officers and their principal. One flushed bright red and turned away after meeting Lila’s gaze.

  “Yes, well, students skipping school is a common occurrence.”

  The two girls kept glancing back. Between those two, news was going to spread fast that cops were in the building. A hazard of the job when dealing with teens. And if someone knew about Maya Wagner and didn’t want to be associated with her activities, all element of surprise would be gone.

  Principal Ericksen made a right turn into another room, flicking on the light. Benoit and Lila entered behind him.

  “I have the recording over here.” Ericksen moved to a filling cabinet.

  Lila walked up to the bank of computer screens. Students were moving about in one hall, near the gym, and an area she thought looked like a shop of some kind. Everyone appeared to be acting normal. There weren’t cameras in the classrooms.

  “Why are the classrooms not covered?” she asked.

  The principal turned to her. “The teachers have a setup that allows them to monitor the kids through their computers’ camera.”

  “That doesn’t help you out if there’s an incident in the room.”

  “If there were funding for that, we’d take advantage of it. We’re lucky to have what we have.” He held up a disc case. “The day Maya Wagner was last in attendance.”

  The sheriff nodded. “I’d like to watch through it here with you. If that works for you?”

  “I expected as much.” He popped the case and slipped the disc in a player connected to a blank screen.

  Lila’s gaze shifted back to the monitors. She spotted the two girls they had passed in the hall. The two wal
ked up to door, paused outside it, looked up in the direction of the camera. Running her fingers through her hair, Lila let her hand slide along her head and then cupped the back of her neck, watching the girls as they spoke to each other and then entered the room. A classroom.

  “What class hour is this?” she asked Principal Ericksen.

  “It’s the end of fifth hour. In ten minutes, the first lunch hour rotation starts.”

  “How many rotations are there?”

  “Three twenty-minute cycles to accommodate all the students. We do have an open campus, so some of the students will go into Juniper to grab something fast.”

  Twenty minutes to drive into town for fast food didn’t seem like a productive use of time.

  “How many students ditch school during the lunch hour?”

  Ericksen’s cheek muscles twitched. Touchy subject. “Frankly, more than the state likes. We’re considering measures to end this ritual.”

  Bouncing from one monitor to the next, Lila studied the scenes. Whoever had knowledge on Maya Wagner would use this time to ditch, and they’d be left drifting in the wind.

  “Mark, take me to the point where you know Maya was last caught on camera,” Benoit said.

  Lila dragged her attention away from the real-time footage and joined the sheriff. The principal was forwarding the recording at a fast clip. He stopped at the halfway point and let the disc play.

  A bevy of students was streaming through the hallway, some stopping at lockers along the way to switch out books or grab gym bags.

  Ericksen pointed at a particular girl in the upper left portion of the screen. “This is Maya.”

  They watched as she walked toward the camera, stopped next to a locker, opened it, and shoved her bag and books inside, then closed it.

  “I’ll need to look over her locker,” Benoit stated.

  “We’ll go there next.”

  Lila squinted at the timestamp. “Which hour is this?”

  “Maya was in the second lunch rotation. She’d just left a study hall.”

  The girl headed straight for a staircase and went down.

  “Where does that lead?” Lila asked.

  “To the west exit, right out into the parking lot.” Ericksen stopped the player and exchanged discs. “This is the recording from the video camera directed at that parking lot.” He advanced the disc to the point where Maya left the building.

  The teenager skipped down the sidewalk right up to a rusted, white two-door sedan. She bent down to wag her fingers at the driver, then opened the door and slid into the car. The moment she shut the door, the car pulled away. Lucky them, the camera caught the Illinois license plate.

  “Has to be her cousin,” Lila said.

  “We’ll run the plates to be sure. But we need to put out a BOLO for the car.” Benoit jerked up her hand. “Stop it there.”

  Principal Ericksen paused the video. “What is it?”

  Benoit pointed to a shadow at the edge of the screen, right at the corner of the building. “What is that?”

  Lila studied the shape. “Looks like someone standing there.”

  “You’re right.” Benoit tapped the screen. “Do you know who that is?”

  “It could be any number of students who are coming and going.”

  Lila picked up on the strain in Ericksen’s voice. “But it’s not, is it?”

  Clearing his throat, he removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, it’s not. It’s a former student, if I could call him that.”

  She turned from the paused scene and walked over to the bank of computers. The bell pealed, releasing the students. She found the monitor manning the west side parking lot and spotted the shadow in the corner of the building. “Your visitor is here today.”

  Benoit squinted at the monitor. “It appears he’s expecting someone. Who is that?”

  “Dillon Reed. He loiters there, usually smoking, until his girlfriend comes out. She’s in the senior class, and from the moment we realized she was seeing him, her grades have plummeted.”

  “How old is he?” Lila asked.

  “Twenty-one.”

  “And you say he was a former student?”

  “He didn’t graduate. Halfway through his senior year, he dropped out. What could we do? He was eighteen, and in the law’s eyes he met the age requirement. To be frank, I was relieved. I don’t like to see students fail. But there are just some kids that no matter how much you try to reach them, you never get through, because they don’t care.”

  “Reed?” Benoit tapped her holster belt. “His father is Dillon Reed Sr.?”

  “Yeah. You remember him?”

  “Apple. Tree.”

  “Exactly,” Ericksen said.

  “The Reed family has a history,” Benoit filled in Lila. “I want to talk to him. He was standing there when Maya left. He saw who was in that car.”

  Movement on the screen showed Reed Jr. moving into the camera sight as a twig of a girl dressed in a long, black overcoat exited the school. “On the move. We better hurry.”

  “I’ll have Maya’s locker open when you get back,” Ericksen said as the two women left.

  “Have the discs ready for us to take too,” Benoit told him as she strode down the hall.

  “Which way to the west parking lot?” Lila asked.

  “Faster to go out the front entrance,” Benoit said, leading the way.

  Bypassing the office, the two pushed through the doors and out onto the sidewalk. Benoit hung a right and jogged up the sidewalk. Ahead of them, Dillon and his girlfriend were strolling away from the school toward a cluster of cars parked along the street.

  “Dillon Reed,” Benoit called out.

  The couple froze and turned. Lila’s pulse jumped as panic hit his face. He was going to run.

  She’d no sooner thought it and he bolted. His girlfriend let out a yelp when he shoved her.

  “Shit,” Lila spat and sprinted after the kid.

  Benoit peeled off to see to the girl.

  “Dillon! Stop!”

  Lila’s commands seemed to fuel him. He topped the hill and cut across the street, ignoring the cars coming. Lila, yards and closing, threw up her hand to warn the drivers and dodged around the vehicles. Her quarry ran along the street, oblivious to the oncoming traffic. What was this kid worried about that he’d run from cops?

  “Dillon! Stop running!”

  He continued to pump his arms and legs, his coat waving bye-bye at her.

  Sucking air, Lila found her next gear and put on the afterburners. She closed the gap between them. Dillon took a hard left around a corner like a Bears running back avoiding a tackler and clambered onto the sidewalk.

  “Damn it.” Lila swung wide, avoiding the stop sign, and remained street side. Getting positioned just outside his right shoulder, she drew closer to the curb, ready to hop it.

  They were coming up on a large yard dominated by a huge house. Jumping the slight curb, Lila shaved off the last few feet between them and tackled the kid.

  Both slammed into the hardened earth, sliding a few feet. Bouncing over the top of the kid’s lithe body, Lila came to bumpy halt with her legs draped over Dillon’s back. She scrambled around and grabbed his arm before he could get it under his body.

  “Stay where you are.”

  Dillon spewed a litany of colorful words.

  “Shut your mouth,” she snapped, hooking her hand under his arm. “Get on your knees.”

  “No.”

  She leaned down and looked in him in the eye. “Get on your knees, or I’ll cuff you.”

  “What did I do wrong?”

  “You ran from the sheriff.”

  “Nothing illegal about that.”

  Oh, a genius. “No, there’s not. But when you catch sight of a cop and run, you look real suspicious. So, what is it that you’re hiding you don’t want the sheriff or I to know about?”

  “I ain’t sayin’ nuthin’.”

  “Well, that’s just too bad,
Mr. Reed.”

  Dillon lifted his head, groaned, and let his forehead plop onto the ground.

  “Up we go.” Lila hauled the kid onto his knees as Sheriff Benoit approached.

  Coming down to Dillon’s level, Benoit eyed him. For a few agonizing moments no words passed between them.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “Apple. Tree.”

  Lila chuckled.

  “What is she talking about?” Dillon demanded.

  “On his feet, Deputy,” the sheriff said and rose.

  “Up.” Lila helped him onto his feet but kept a hand gripped on his arm.

  “Are you arresting me?”

  Benoit crossed her arms and regarded the young man. “Should we?”

  “Like I told her, I ain’t done nuthin’ wrong.”

  “I thought you weren’t saying anything more?” Lila interjected.

  Dillon blinked, then clapped his mouth shut.

  “Mr. Reed, all Deputy Dayne and I wanted was to ask you a question or two about an incident that happened on Monday. Instead of allowing us this opportunity, you ran. As I’m sure Deputy Dayne explained, when someone runs from us, it looks suspicious.”

  “Questions about what incident on Monday?”

  Lila had to resist the urge to roll her eyes.

  Sighing, Benoit dropped her arms. “Will you give us the courtesy of staying here and answering our questions without Deputy Dayne restraining you?”

  “I guess.”

  Lila released him and stepped back, but remained within arm’s length right behind him.

  Benoit inched closer. “Do you pick up your girlfriend every day at lunch?”

  Dillon shrugged. “Most the time.”

  “And drop her off when her time is up?”

  He scratched the back of his head. “Sure.”

  “I’m going to show you a picture, and you tell me if you recognize the young woman in the photo.”

  No answer. Benoit unzipped her coat, reached inside, and pulled out a crumpled picture. She held it up facing Dillon. He squinted at the image of Maya Wagner in a happier moment of her life on a sunny patch of grass.