The silence stretched thin.
She turned back to him. “Was she raped?” Her eyes pleaded with him to tell her no.
But he couldn’t lie. “It’s probable.”
Her eyes welled up with fresh tears. “My poor baby.”
“How do you know she didn’t have sex with that boy? Jesse Tyson?” Duncan Cromwell spat the words. “How do you know he didn’t rape her?” His hatred was palpable. Had he been out on the dunes? Had he seen Jesse and Helena having sex and then attacked them in a rage? It was Frazer’s job to figure that out.
“I can’t be a hundred percent sure of anything, which is a reason I need to ask you more questions about how you found them. You didn’t know Helena was on a date with Jesse Tyson?”
They both shook their heads. “She never told us.” Lannie Cromwell plastered her hand over her mouth.
“She told you she was sleeping over at Kit Campbell’s house?”
Duncan’s eyes narrowed. “Why wasn’t Izzy watching them like she was supposed to be?”
“She was at work and thought Kit was here with Helena.” Frazer gave in to the need to defend her.
“She never thought to check?” Duncan asked bitterly.
“Did you?” Frazer queried back.
Duncan’s gaze ricocheted off his. “I trusted Helena. She’d never have even thought to lie to me until she started hanging out with Kit Campbell. She’d never have gone off with a boy without that little bitch egging her on.”
“You seem very angry at the idea of Helena having a boyfriend,” Frazer said carefully.
“She was too young. At that age, young men are after one thing.”
“And Helena knew you felt this way?”
Duncan nodded.
“Which is why she lied to us,” Lannie snapped.
Duncan ran agitated hands through his thinning hair. “Look, I know I made mistakes, but I wasn’t the only one. The most important thing is catching the bastard who hurt Helena.” The man’s desperate gaze reminded Frazer of broken glass. Parts of him were sharp, parts were splintered. He was falling apart on the inside.
Serial killers often began to unravel at some point. So did grieving parents.
Frazer took charge. “We’re in the early stages of this investigation. I’d very much like to talk to you about the scene you came across yesterday morning, Mr. Cromwell. Ideally I’d like to hypnotize you to tap into any subconscious memories.”
The man’s eyes went round enough to see his whites and his mouth dropped open. He glanced repeatedly at his wife. “I can’t.” He shook his head. “Not in front of Lannie.”
“I want to know everything.” Her voice was a guttural growl. “I need to know.”
Shocked at how she was behaving, she looked toward the glass door where their other children were watching TV. There was no noise from the other room.
“It isn’t a bad idea to share what you saw with your wife, Mr. Cromwell. I realize the horror and grief are raw, but the imagination can be worse.”
“No. No. Nothing is worse than that. Nothing.” Duncan Cromwell pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, rose to his feet. The cat ran between his legs and the man tripped. “Dammit!”
Frazer held his breath.
Duncan bent down and grabbed the kitty, hugged the creature to him and buried his face in the pure white fur. “I can’t get the image of her out of my head, Lannie. Every time I close my eyes I see her lying in the sand like a broken toy. I don’t want you to see that. I don’t want you to suffer, too.” The crack in his voice sounded like heartbreak.
“I’m already suffering, D. I need to hear what happened to Helena. I need to know it all.” And weigh exactly how badly she’d let her daughter down. Frazer knew the steps.
The man stared at his wife, defeat written in every crease on his face. Frazer helped him sit back down. “Take a deep breath in. Hold it. Now let it out slowly.” Frazer guided him through a few more breathing exercises, noticed Lannie Cromwell was doing them too. Most people did. It couldn’t hurt. “Relax,” he told the guy, “and close your eyes.” He didn’t abuse the trust that went with hypnotism, although he’d once tried to trick Rooney into answering a question while supposedly in a trance. She’d caught him even then.
The cat struggled and squirmed to get out of Cromwell’s grip. The man let it jump down.
Ideally, Frazer would encourage the man to lie down and get comfortable. Play some new-age music that created a false environment—a safe environment. But they were trappings, not essential. The main thing was calming the mind and getting it to focus on where you wanted it to go.
“Do you always work on a federal holiday?”
His wife snorted.
A sad smile curved Cromwell’s mouth. “I never stop working. There’s always something to catch up with. Research to check. Reports to write. Data to collect.”
“You love your job?”
“It’s what I always wanted to do, ever since I was a little boy. Protect the land. Not just talk about it the way some tree-huggers do, but actually make a difference.”
“It was a blustery morning. The sea was rough. Why’d you go out to Parson’s Point?”
“I got a report of a washed up harbor seal down on the beach at Rodanthe. I went to check it out. Saw there was a car parked on the side of the road near the lighthouse.”
Jesse Tyson’s car. It had been taken into evidence.
Cromwell’s breathing was settled and deep. “So I stopped to make sure no one was in the dunes.”
“What did you see when you first arrived?”
“There were several sets of footprints running through the sand. I remember being angry. People around here are quick to complain about erosion but most of them can’t read a no trespass sign no matter how big you make it. I remember I unzipped my jacket because I was so hot with anger.”
The same jacket he’d draped over the naked body of his daughter. The same jacket that was now in evidence waiting to be processed, as were the rest of Cromwell’s clothes. “What happened next?”
“I came up over the foredune ready to give someone hell. I got to the top and looked down…” He swallowed audibly. “My eyes couldn’t make sense of it.”
“Can you describe the scene in detail for me? Tell me everything you see.”
Frazer thought the guy was going to break out of the dream state, but after a few shallow breaths Cromwell sank heavily back against the wooden chair. “I saw the boy, Jesse, first. He was lying on his back, head lolling off to the side, blood staining the sand. A split-second later I saw the naked body of a young woman—her knees were bent and parted. She was,” he breathed slow and deep, “sp-spreadeagled in the sand.”
Vagina exposed. Staged for shock value. Degrading the victim even more than they’d already done. The fact the father had found the body might have heightened the thrill for the killer. Awful to witness, important to know.
The mother covered her mouth with her hand. Tears filled her eyes.
“Part of my brain was thinking that I’d interrupted two people who’d had sex but they were so incredibly still…it didn’t look natural. I kept trying to process it.” Duncan Cromwell swayed a little in his seat but his emotions were submerged in this state of altered consciousness. “I realized it was Helena. I felt like someone had hit me with a brick—the force of that knowledge. I ran…” Tears streaked the man’s cheeks—common during hypnosis and grief.
“Where were Helena’s hands?”
“They were resting on her stomach. That’s when I saw the bracelet.” The man was growing more agitated. He wasn’t deeply under, but the detail was there and Frazer didn’t want to push it.
“Was she wearing any other jewelry when she went out?”
The mother nodded vigorously, but Frazer raised his hand to keep her quiet.
“She wore gold stars in her ears. Her mother bought them for her when she’d aced her math test last year.”
“Were her eyes
open or closed?”
“Open. Wide open. I kept waiting for her to blink. When I got closer I could see they were bloodshot and cloudy. There were marks on her neck, and blood on her thighs.” He bit his lip. “I can’t believe someone did that to her—to Helena. You wouldn’t treat an animal that way.”
Helena had gotten off lightly compared to some victims—especially Denker’s victims—and if that wasn’t the saddest thought of the day Frazer didn’t know what was.
Cromwell continued. “I took off my jacket and covered her. Then I called 911 and started mouth-to-mouth.”
Lannie held out her hand to her husband, but he didn’t see it. Frazer watched her fingers curl and slowly withdraw back into her lap. “Ambulance arrived and then Izzy Campbell showed up around the same time, but she didn’t even try and save Helena.” The tone turned malicious.
“Helena was already dead, Mr. Cromwell.” The man had subconsciously known that, he’d even said her eyes were cloudy.
“It was freezing, and she didn’t even try.” Cromwell’s rage had transferred, which disturbed Frazer.
“She helped save Jesse Tyson,” he said carefully.
“Whoop de fucking do.” Acid laced the man’s words and he opened his eyes. Frazer held his gaze but let it be. He was hurting. His child was dead and Isadora Campbell was an easy target. Rational wasn’t always a choice.
He repeated the deep breathing exercises with the man to calm him down again and moved on. He needed to see the scene clearly. “So Helena lay on her back. Where was Jesse in relation to your daughter?”
“He was at a right angle to her. Boots close to her hips.”
Frazer wished he’d seen it first-hand. It sounded like the killer had staged the bodies to look a certain way. “Did the boy look like he’d been moved?”
The father blinked. “Yeah, he’d been moved. There were drag marks down the face of the dune.” He frowned, staring at an image in his mind. “But not Helena. I didn’t see any drag marks around her body.”
There were shades of a disorganized offender here. The explosive violence, lack of restraints, the fact bodies had been left in view where they’d been killed—all traits of a so-called disorganized killer. But to him, the crime scene itself reflected control. The lack of physical evidence—no trace had been found on the victim in terms of hairs or semen or blood. The ME was going to take swabs off her skin in an attempt to find contact DNA. The assailant may have taken the teens by surprise—incapacitated Jesse with the shovel. Then taken his time assaulting Helena, who’d been his true target. She hadn’t resisted, hence the lack of defense wounds. The killer had left the bracelet on her tiny wrist to deliver Denker’s message. This was assuming Jesse hadn’t been part of the attack. There was nothing to suggest that, but Frazer refused to discount anything at this point. The bracelet strongly indicated other factors were in play. He ran the scenario through his mind. If Jesse was in on it, why beat the kid and leave him for dead? No, the pair had both been attacked. Jesse had been the greater threat so take him out first, fast and hard. What would Helena do?
“She ran,” said Frazer.
“And he caught her.” This from the mother who looked like she wanted to throw up.
“The boy’s wallet was lying in the sand next to him. I could see dollar bills in it. Why would someone take the kid’s wallet out of his pocket but not steal his money?” Duncan was frowning, as if he was standing on the beach looking down at the scene—exactly what Frazer needed him to do.
“I’ll check his credit cards.” But Frazer’s brain sparked. Had the unsub been searching for something else in that wallet? Something even he carried on the off chance he might one day miraculously have sex. If that was the case, this crime had definitely not been planned because most experienced rapists were savvy enough to carry a condom. “Did you see a shovel at the scene?” Frazer asked.
Duncan closed his eyes again. “Yes. Off to the left as you looked at the sea. I didn’t pay it any attention. I kept seeing Helena’s clothes strewn around the place and thinking it was so cold last night. She must have been so cold.” His shoulders shook as tears ran unheeded down his cheeks.
The mother hugged her stomach with one arm and covered her face with the other.
“Did you know Helena was seeing the Tyson boy?” He was repeating questions from earlier because that’s what investigators did.
“She wasn’t seeing him.” The father’s denial had a ring of desperation to it. He didn’t want to believe his little girl had lied to him. “That Campbell girl is a bad influence on Helena.” Duncan Cromwell’s eyes got wide. “Was. Was a bad influence.” His voice dropped away to nothing. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to saying that.”
“How long had they been friends?”
“They started hanging out after Kit’s mother died last year. Helena gravitates—gravitated—toward people who were suffering.”
“She sounds like she had a kind soul.”
“She was easily led.” Cromwell bit out. “She’d never have gone to that party unless Kit Campbell convinced her to lie to us.”
“Did you know she drank alcohol?” Frazer asked. According to the other kids she’d had a couple of tequila shots.
“She would never…” Duncan sputtered to a stop. Then he shook his head. “Obviously I didn’t know my daughter very well.”
“From everything I heard, she was a great kid. You should be very proud of her.”
“She lied to us, had a secret boyfriend, drank, and God knows what else, but you think she was a good kid? I don’t recognize this person you’re describing as my daughter, ASAC Frazer.”
“The girls lied to you because they wanted to go to a party. Teens do that. No one could have foreseen the consequences.” Although he could have. Years of seeing murder victims meant if he ever had kids he’d probably keep them under surveillance 24/7. God knew how Alex Parker or Mallory Rooney were going to cope, but he suspected some sort of electronic tracking device might be involved.
“You didn’t leave the house at all on the night of Helena’s murder?” Frazer kept his eyes on the man.
“No. I wish I had. If I’d been at the dunes I might have been able to stop this.” Duncan Cromwell stood and started pacing again. “Where was Kit Campbell when Helena was attacked? They’re supposed to be best friends. They were supposed to be together. Where was the little bitch?”
Whoa.
“It wasn’t Kit’s fault either, Mr. Cromwell.” His words didn’t seem to penetrate. Grief was an ugly creature.
The cat resumed her begging, and Cromwell strode to the cupboard and pulled out a box of kibble, which he poured into the empty dish. The cat started crunching on the food. He looked up. “This is Helena’s cat. She usually feeds him.”
They locked eyes and the realization Helena was never coming back to feed her cat hit home with renewed force. It would hit home every day for years to come, usually a few seconds after they opened their eyes.
“When can we bury her?” Lannie asked.
Frazer saw the strength in her gaze. Hoped it was enough to get the family through this.
“It depends on whether a second autopsy is deemed necessary.”
The mother looked appalled by the idea. Bad enough to suffer that indignity once, but twice? Or maybe everything paled to insignificance when your baby was murdered. Maybe nothing could ever be worse than that.
“I promise to keep you updated and do my best to get your daughter’s body released as soon as possible.”
“Thank you.” She inclined her head stiffly. She looked both stronger and more fragile than Duncan.
“You own two vehicles?”
“One.” Duncan shook his head. “I use a work truck and we have a minivan.”
“Any bikes or motorbikes?”
“No. Well,” his eyebrows pinched, “that’s not true. We have pushbikes in the garage. The kids use theirs.” He jerked his chin toward the connecting door. “But me and Lannie haven�
��t biked anywhere since the summer.”
“And Helena?”
Duncan’s expression soured. “She rode everywhere in Kit Campbell’s VW. Hasn’t touched her bike in months.”
Frazer’s phone buzzed in his pocket, but he ignored it. He was pretty sure Duncan Cromwell had told him everything his brain could handle at this point. He wasn’t off the hook, but Frazer would wait to see the evidence before he made his next move. This was no ordinary rape-murder, not if Ferris Denker was involved. “The local police might have more questions for you.” He hadn’t mentioned that officially it wasn’t his case, but as he was a senior FBI agent it was unlikely anyone was going to call him on the details.
He went to leave, then hesitated on the threshold of the front door. “I know it’s painful, but you should talk to your other children about Helena’s murder.”
“They’re too young to understand.” Cromwell shook his head.
He looked the man in the eye. “I’m not saying give them details, but tell them enough that they understand what’s going on—because if you don’t, the other kids in school will. And they won’t be kind about it. They’ll be brutal.” He slipped a card into Duncan Cromwell’s hand. “This is the name of a psychologist I recommend for grief counseling. Do it for your kids’ sake. Do it for yourself. But do it.”
He walked outside and checked the message on his phone.
The crime scene techs at the beach had uncovered human remains. Parson’s Point was officially a dump ground.
Chapter Ten
AFTER DROPPING THE groceries at home and taking the Christmas decorations down, Izzy decided it was time to confront Kit. She pulled up outside a small cottage on the north side of Rosetown, right next to St. Olaf’s Church. Her mother’s old VW Beetle was parked at the curb. It was Kit’s car now.
Pastor Rice’s house was the other side of the road, facing the church. A small graveyard lay behind the quaint red brick building with its white wooden spire. Her mother was buried there.
Izzy put her hand on the door handle and elbowed it open. Barney watched her attentively from the cargo hold, ears pricked. “Ten minutes.” She told him. Because he understood every word and, apparently, knew how to tell time. She left all the windows cracked for him. It was a cool day and she wouldn’t be long.
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