The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 4-6 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set Book 2)

by John W. Mefford

  “It hasn’t been easy. I feel like I’ve been to hell and back.” She stopped talking, her eyes staring into nothing. I could only imagine her mind reliving the torment she had apparently felt. “So many raw emotions, especially when everything blew up.” She wiped her hand across her face, clearing a few wayward tears. “As time passed, and all the anger and hurt finally faded away, I started to listen to my inner self.” She patted her chest.

  “You did some soul searching. Traumatic events can bring out the best or worst in people. Sounds like you got the better of it. That’s pretty cool.”

  “On one hand it is, but I heard a few months ago that Vince had gotten out of prison, and for some reason, I felt guilty for not opening up and telling everyone about him and Penny and my suspicions of him being a child predator.”

  “Guilt is a debilitating condition. I highly recommend avoiding it. Take action, deal with it, or wipe it from your brain.”

  Her lips cracked a brief grin. “Sounds like you have experience.”

  I could see Terri walking up. “Life doesn’t offer free gifts, but it’s how we respond that ultimately decides our happiness.”

  “Thank you. I’ll remember that.”

  “Alex, we gotta run,” Terri said, grabbing her purse.

  Her direct tone matched her rigid facial expression. “What’s up?” I asked, grabbing my coffee and standing.

  She gave me a cold stare. Without her saying a word, I knew that look: there had been another murder.

  21

  A distinct smell of Chinese food invaded my senses, distracting my attention from the series of disturbing images attached to the whiteboard.

  I turned and saw a twenty-something kid in a white shirt and tie shoveling in some type of noodles while walking over to Gretchen at the main conference table in the FBI war room.

  “Who’s he?” I asked Nick, who was hobbling up on just one of his crutches. I assumed just using one crutch was his way of convincing himself he had made significant progress in his recovery from his sprained ankle. He grunted with each pained step. When he finally finished his twenty-foot hike, he huffed out a breath and looked for something to anchor his weight. I moved over, and he took hold of my shoulder.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Isn’t that what partners are for?”

  He gave a straight-lipped smile, but didn’t respond. That was code for only one thing: he thought I was cheating on him by partnering with Terri on this crazy “eye killer” case. He had basically said as much when I was forced to work with a CIA operative named Archie a few months earlier. Nick was a funny guy, but if my husband had been half as loyal as Nick, he might be alive and I might still have my family intact.

  “That’s Brandon. He’s another SOS, on the same team with Gretchen.”

  “She’s been heads down pounding that keyboard like it’s nobody’s business. Is he working with her?”

  “I think so. But I also think he’s kind of got a thing for her,” Nick said with a wink as both of us peered over at the unlikely couple. Standing at least six-three, Brandon was all arms and legs. His belt was so cinched that it looped around to his back. Meanwhile, Gretchen’s tiny feet couldn’t reach the floor when she sat in a chair. But it wasn’t their polar-opposite body types that stood out most. It was their age difference.

  “Gretchen couldn’t rope in Brad, so now she goes even younger, and dopier,” Nick said. “I might be gay, but I still don’t get women.”

  Almost instantly, my neck grew stiff. I tried stretching it both ways. I tried too hard.

  “What’s wrong?” Nick asked, looking at my face as I kneaded my neck.

  “I think I just got the mother of all cricks.”

  “Is that some type of cougar joke? Mother…?” he said with a wry smile.

  Just when I thought I was finally comfortable with the age gap between me and Brad, Nick shot off his mouth.

  “Gretchen is lonely, I think. Maybe she and Brandon actually have that special connection.”

  “Are you serious? The Alex I know would have hit me with a raunchy joke.”

  “Let’s just focus on the case.”

  He gave me an odd look, and then we both turned to stare at the gruesome images from the crime scene along the rocky, tree-lined shore of the Mystic River, the second in the last three days. While the similarities between this homicide and Emma Katic’s murder were eerily similar—a single gunshot wound in her forehead, and her eyeballs cut out—there was one noticeable difference: I knew this victim.

  The victim was Candy, the hooker Terri and I had questioned the other night from the back of our car.

  “Do we have her estimated time of death yet?”

  “No, but I did just get her bio information. Full name is Candace Sandberg. She was twenty-seven.”

  I shook my head as the door to the war room popped open. In the background, Jerry, my SSA, gave me and Nick a wave. That was his signal for handing off the visitors walking toward us—Terri and Lieutenant Jackson from the Somerville Police Department.

  After it was confirmed this morning that Candy’s eyes had been surgically removed like the other two victims, Jerry had made a few phone calls. The FBI would no longer play second chair to the Somerville Police Department. We were officially in charge, yet I knew we needed their help, particularly my spirited counterpart, Terri. Perhaps as a career-saving move, Jackson pushed to be included in our war-room session. I was less than enthusiastic, but Jerry had said it was required to maintain an ongoing working relationship with Somerville and other local police departments who might hear about the FBI’s enhanced role.

  “Any updates?” Terri asked, pulling up next to Nick.

  “Not really. Nick verified her full name and age,” I said. “She was only twenty-seven.”

  Terri shook her head. “Twenty-seven going on forty-seven. She’d lived a hard life.”

  Jackson wiped his big mitt across his rubbery face, then locked his arms across his chest. He just stared at the photos, not uttering a word.

  “She was sitting in the back of my car, dammit,” Terri said, further examining the photos.

  “And we offered to help her, remember?” I reminded her, though I didn’t feel any better than she did about Candy’s death. “Unless we lock up every girl walking the streets, no questions asked, then they’re basically signing up to play Russian roulette with all the perverts out there.”

  Terri raked her fingers through her thick, long hair. “With Candy’s death, I’ll bet there’s going to be an abrupt exodus of girls walking the streets, at least in the short term.”

  “Numbers will be lower, that’s for certain,” I said. “But there are too many strung-out, desperate girls for the entire lot to disappear. And with the eye killer striking twice in the last few days, it means we’re dealing with a guy who is completely unhinged.”

  Nick plucked a photo off the board, the one that showed the bullet entrance wound in her forehead. “I keep wondering if it’s the same guy. Ten years is a long time to wait. Plus, the cause of death is so different. Yet we know the surgical removal of the eyes is not exactly a well-practiced skill.”

  “Can’t rule out a copycat killer, albeit one with a great deal of skill or practice.”

  A few seconds of silence. While we’d tossed around the idea of the killer being a surgeon, current or former, a new thought pinged my mind: what if this mysterious person was someone who cut on people once they’d died—a medical examiner?

  “We did bring some data about Candy,” Terri said. “Time of death, based on rigor mortis, was estimated by the ME at between ten p.m. and midnight.”

  “About the same time as Emma. Nick, do you remember the time of death for our cold-case vic?”

  “It’s on my laptop. Let me go check.” He put the picture back under the magnet on the whiteboard and turned to hobble off, but Jackson’s enormous body was in the way. He didn’t even seem to notice Nick, his eyes fixated on the death images.

/>   “We need to bring in Tripuka. And I mean now,” Jackson said. “This crazy, fucking thing should have never happened. We had him locked up. This death is on us!” he barked, his legs shuffling like he had to use the bathroom.

  Terri and I locked eyes. Jackson was her boss, but he was on FBI turf.

  “Lieutenant, no one feels worse about Candy’s death than Terri does. But we can’t create evidence out of thin air.”

  He kept his sights looking straight ahead and scratched his leathery skin. It sounded as if he was buffing an old saddle. “Now that we know the estimated time of death, we need to find out Tripuka’s whereabouts during that window.”

  “Tripuka didn’t have a phone when he was released yesterday,” Terri said, her eyes shifting to Jackson for a quick moment.

  “I’ll put in a call to his lawyer,” Nick said.

  “And I’ll call Miss Lucille,” I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “I’ve been wanting to drop by her place one more time anyway.” I tapped the screen a couple of times, then paused a moment before I dialed her number. “One thing I need to share with everyone, just to be transparent. It’s about last night.”

  I gave the group a brief rundown of the incident with the man in my backyard.

  “And your nanny couldn’t say if it was Tripuka?” Jackson asked, a balled-up fist buried into the palm of his opposite hand.

  “Lighting was poor. She’s rather certain the intruder was male and wore athletic shoes.”

  Nick hobbled a step closer. “What does your gut tell you, Alex? Was it Tripuka?”

  All eyes were on me. “Honestly, something about Tripuka doesn’t sit right. And it mainly has to do with what Terri and I learned this morning from Susan Miller. She wasn’t the only underage girl he targeted.”

  Terri jumped in and provided the detail on Susan’s friend hooking up with Tripuka, and Susan’s belief that he was a child predator.

  “I guess it’s possible for people like that to be rehabilitated,” Nick said. “But even if he’s still a predator, how does that jibe with a serial killer with a fetish for cutting out his victim’s eyes?”

  “Precisely. My exact thoughts ever since we left the coffee shop,” I said.

  “Tripuka’s our guy; I can feel it in my old bones,” Jackson said.

  For obvious reasons, Jackson’s comment immediately lessened my belief that Tripuka could be the eye killer. “He might be, might not be. I’m sure I don’t have to remind everyone that we need proof.” I looked at Nick. “Let’s start by seeing if he has an alibi for last night. But we need the DNA analysis on the hair completed. If that comes back with a high probability of being Emma’s hair, we have enough to arrest him again and get him off the streets.”

  Nick brushed by Jackson’s shoulder as he tottered back to the table.

  “One more thing, Nick. Have Gretchen run a check on recently fired MEs or coroners in the area. Actually, go back ten years.”

  He swung his head around, and his crutch caught the leg of a chair. He started to fall, but quickly caught himself on the arm of the chair, then twisted his body into the seat, almost as if it were a planned dismount. He was huffing and puffing.

  “Smooth,” I said.

  He let his crutch crash to the floor. “Where’s Brad when you need him?”

  With the mention of Brad’s name, I felt my heart skip a beat. Nick splayed his arms, and for a moment I wondered if his question was something more than rhetorical. I was just about to conjure up a response when he continued. “I’ll figure something out here with Gretchen.” As he turned to talk to her, I could see her nodding, but her fingers never slowed down. She took multitasking to a whole new level.

  I stepped to the side and called Miss Lucille, while Terri told Nick she would go ahead and call Wise Ass herself. Miss Lucille almost sounded happy to hear my voice. When I asked if Tripuka had come back to his apartment since he was released yesterday, she said she didn’t believe so. I then told her I needed to swing by, and she welcomed my visit.

  I pocketed my phone and turned back to the whiteboard. Terri was doing the same, and Jackson stood in the middle of the room as if he were the main cog in our investigation. Unfortunately, I viewed him as more of a wayward wrench on the verge of derailing the investigation completely.

  “His lawyer—Wise Ass—did he give you anything?” I asked Terri.

  “You kidding? He just used it as another opportunity to remind me that we’re harassing his client with no proof. And he said if I continue to… How did he say it?” She grabbed the bridge of her nose for a brief moment. “Ah, I remember. If we continue to treat Vince Tripuka like he’s John Wayne Gacy, then he will not only file a lawsuit against the Somerville Police Department and FBI, but he will then solicit every interview he can across the media and start naming the main harassers. He then said my name and yours.” Terri pointed at me.

  “He’s nothing but an ass hat.”

  Terri snorted out a chuckle as Jackson just stood in silence, brooding like a little kid. Well, a little kid whose nickname could have been “manster.”

  I felt another headache coming on, most likely a combination of three hours of sleep over three nights and a complete lack of replenishment from anything remotely healthy.

  “You don’t look good,” Terri said, her strained expression almost making her look unattractive. And that was saying something…about her and me.

  “You know how much women love hearing that,” I said, rubbing the area under my eyes, then taking a glance at my outfit. I must have been a walking zombie when I’d gotten dressed earlier. What was I thinking? A lime-green shirt to go with my blue blazer and khakis?

  “But it’s woman to woman, so it’s not as bad,” Terri said.

  I shifted my eyes upward and saw Jackson still scratching and staring. He had to know that he was the elephant in the room, in more ways than one.

  Motioning for Terri to follow me, I walked over to the main table and picked up my purse. “We’re heading over to Miss Lucille’s house. See if we missed anything.”

  “You think you can find a piece of evidence that an entire CSI team might have overlooked?” The gangly friend of Gretchen’s had a big smile on his face as he munched on his Chinese noodles while sitting on the edge of the table. “Dude, what a dis!”

  I glanced at Terri, Nick, and then Gretchen, whose hands stopped moving as she turned a nice shade of pink.

  “Dude,” I said, trying mightily to not roll my eyes. “Barney, is it?”

  “Brandon.” He squirmed to his feet. “I, uh, you know, was just wondering about your strategy and all.”

  “Here’s my strategy: chase every lead we can possibly come up with as fast as we can. And then double-check to make sure we didn’t miss anything. It’s called being thorough. If you want to be part of the solution and not the problem, you’ll help Nick and Gretchen here with anything they need.”

  He looked down at Gretchen, let a grin sneak out, then he brought himself to attention, sticking out his scrawny chest. “Yes ma’am.”

  “I’m not your principal. Don’t use that term, please. Just be professional and helpful.”

  I threw my purse over my shoulder and gave Terri a nod of my head, indicating it was time for us to leave.

  “Hey,” Nick said without looking up from his computer. “For starters, our cold-case vic, Gloria Lopez, had an estimated time of death at the exact window, ten p.m. to midnight.”

  “Thanks, Nick. Feel free to call or shoot a text if you or Gretchen find anything else.”

  “You know me. I’m not bashful, especially when I find something,” Gretchen said.

  “Great. No pressure, but we’ve got to have something, and quickly,” I said, turning to head toward the door.

  “By the way,” Nick said. “I’ve got a bunch of those protein smoothies in the breakroom fridge. You’re welcome to take one.”

  “Thanks.” I grabbed two on the way out.

  22

  Chuggin
g the last of the strawberry smoothie, I maintained an even gaze over the back third of Miss Lucille’s property, the garage apartment dead center of my focus. A gust of wind blew a lock of hair in my face, but I let it dangle for a moment as my eyes studied the façade and the stairs leading up to Tripuka’s residence. I could already feel a surge of organic energy pumping blood through my system—a very different feeling than one propelled by caffeine.

  I could hear the distant chatter of Terri and Miss Lucille, mainly Miss Lucille going on about something. And then a high-pitched yelp. I knew that bark to be Harry, her Yorkshire terrier. And it was quickly moving closer.

  Flipping my head around, I first saw a squirrel zigging and zagging as it scampered right between my legs, heading toward the big oak in the backyard. A split second later, Harry took the corner at the front of the house so fast his back paws fishtailed on the driveway, but his legs didn’t stop, and he barreled across the flat pavement and into the backyard. It was a race to the tree.

  “Harry, you little shit. If you don’t leave that poor animal alone, then you get no treat tonight. Do you hear me?” Miss Lucille said, her arms flailing above her head as she clipped forward in tiny steps on a pair of flats. Terri was alongside her, clearly disinterested in the dog-squirrel chasing game.

  As the two ladies pulled up next to me, the squirrel started his ascent up the tree, but Harry refused to stop. He pumped his little legs as hard as he could and scurried up the trunk, taking a snip at the squirrel’s tail just before gravity got the best of him. He tumbled into the grass and then quickly got back on all fours and restarted his barking barrage.

  “Harry, Harry, you’re embarrassing me,” Miss Lucille said, waddling over to the dog’s location and scooping him up in her arms.

  Terri rolled her eyes as Miss Lucille scolded Harry as if he were a child. “Now that I have him under control, I can finally have an adult conversation,” she said with a slight giggle. I’d bet she knew her interaction with the dog was a bit over the top, but that didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy the entertainment.