Before He Preys

by Blake Pierce

  “Seems like a pretty solid connection,” Mackenzie said. “Who’s the guy?”

  And even before she got her answer, she was pretty much expecting it. Sometimes, a case just fell together that way.

  Roberts answered: “Mike Case.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mackenzie was quickly coming to understand that when teens didn’t leave small towns after high school, they often ended up working for their parents somehow or another. It had been true for Kenny Skinner and it was apparently true of Mike Case as well. Sheriff Tate had placed a call to J.T. Case and had gotten confirmation that Mike Case was working on the crops today, out at the Cases’ farm.

  Because J.T. Case was known to be something of a hard ass—although a well-respected hard ass—Tate had insisted on accompanying her. She had tried to convince him that she’d be fine, but he wasn’t having it. Because it wasn’t worth the argument, Mackenzie relented.

  Mackenzie could have found the farm easy enough even without Tate behind the wheel of his cruiser. The cornfield stuck out immediately on the right side of the highway just as she had driven out of the Kingsville town limits. Seeing the corn sent her mind spiraling back to Nebraska, where her journey had started. She recalled walking through the tall stalks when the Scarecrow Killer case had been ramping up—seeing the bodies tied to the posts as if beckoning her forward into a future she wasn’t sure about.

  When Tate parked the car, Mackenzie took note of the two men attaching a small platform trailer to the back of an older-model GMC pickup. They both looked up the patrol car, seemed to not really even notice them, and then went back to attaching the trailer.

  Mackenzie and Tate walked up to the pickup truck. She figured she’d let Tate kick things off since he seemed to have a read on J.T. Case. She was more interested in getting a read on Mike, though. She wondered if this was going to be the kind of tight-knit southern family that stuck together no matter what. Would the father still protect his twenty-something boy as if he were a helpless toddler?

  “Hey there, J.T.,” Tate said. “You too, Mike. How’s things going?”

  “Not too bad,” J.T. said. He slipped a bolt through the hatch of the trailer, connecting it to the truck. “I’m about to take this trailer out there and round up the dead stalks, so if we can make this quick, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Well, I’m just here as a friendly escort, really. I want you to meet Agent White, from the FBI. She’s here to look into the recent deaths.”

  Both of the Cases looked up at Mackenzie with great interest. Apparently, the mention of the FBI had broken them out of their stubborn I-don’t-care attitudes.

  “Deaths?” J.T. asked. “Don’t you mean suicides?”

  “Well, that’s what they both look like from a distance,” Mackenzie said. “But further investigations have led us to believe that there was foul play involved in at least one of them.”

  “That don’t mean it’s the case for all of them, now does it?” Mike said.

  “Well, that’s what I’m trying to find out. The tricky thing is that there are so many of these suicides from that bridge over the years that it’s hard to individualize each one. So what we did was look for links between them and so far, there’s only one link to be found.”

  “Tell me, Mike,” Tate said. “You remember getting in a fight last year with a guy named Chris Osborne?”

  Mike scoffed a bit and nodded his head. “Yeah. What about him?”

  “You happen to know who he was dating at the time?”

  This time, Mike outright laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Yeah…he was with Malory Thomas at the time.”

  “And what was the fight about?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Me and some friends were out at a bar. And maybe I said a few inappropriate things to Malory. Offered to buy her a few drinks. Chris didn’t like it and ran his mouth. We ended up fighting. End of story.”

  “Sheriff, I don’t appreciate what you two are suggesting,” J.T. said.

  “Hey, I don’t either,” Tate said. “But in regards to a case like this where there are very few leads, we have to go down every possible avenue. And right now, the only link we have between two of the victims is Mike.”

  “What other link?” Mike asked. “What other victim?”

  “Carl Alvarez, from three years ago,” Mackenzie said. “Records indicate that he was busted for possessing a pretty good stash of pot. He offered up your name, said you sold it to him.”

  He looked away quickly and as far as Mackenzie was concerned, that was proof of guilt. Still, he shook his head. “Yeah, I got grilled hard for that,” Mike said. He then looked directly at Tate and added: “But it never stuck, did it? Apparently chasing after people without any hard proof is what goes for police work in Kingsville.”

  Sensing some sort of local tension brewing, Mackenzie took charge of the conversation, steering back toward the matter at hand.

  “Mike, if I asked you to provide proof of your whereabouts the last several nights, would you be able to do it?”

  He went quiet for a moment. Mackenzie couldn’t tell if he was trying to think of his alibis or deciding whether or not to allow the interrogation to continue. Finally, he crossed his arms and answered.

  “Yes. For the last three nights, I’ve been out at Road Runner’s bar, just down the road. Before that, I slept here for the night, crashing on the couch.”

  “You do that often?” Mackenzie asked.

  “He does,” J.T. said. “But I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

  “So you can attest to the fact that Mike slept on your couch four nights ago?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Yes. He gets these back spasms from time to time. The little idiot took four painkillers for it that afternoon and I wouldn’t let him drive.”

  “And how about the bar?” Mackenzie asked Mike. “How did you pay?”

  “Cash. But you can ask anyone that was there and they’ll tell you. I was there until at least eleven at night. And then I went straight home….except last night when I caught a ride with a woman I’ve been seeing.”

  “Can we have her name and number?” Tate asked.

  J.T. stepped in front of Mike and shook his head. “No. No, you can’t. And I’m sorry, but I’m going to ask you to leave as nicely as I can. I am well aware that my son has made some poor choices, but to suggest that he killed anyone, much less pushed them from a bridge or some such shit, is insulting. He’s given you more than enough information to prove his innocence and I will be damned if I’ll continue to let you keep grilling him.”

  Tate seemed to get a little defensive over this, but Mackenzie was satisfied. She took a step back toward the car, nodding for Tate to follow her. “That’s fine,” she said. “Thank you for your time, gentlemen.”

  Tate followed her slowly back to the car, clearly a little confused. When he was back behind the wheel and starting the engine, he gave the Cases one last glance.

  “That was all you needed?” he asked.

  “Yes. A small town like this, it will be easy enough to figure out if Mike Case was indeed at the bar these last three nights. And if he was, it pretty much eliminates him from Kenny Skinner’s death. And if his father is vouching for him having slept on the couch on the night Malory Thomas was killed, that clears him of that, too. I would like to have you send someone to the bar to make sure the story checks out. If it doesn’t, we’ll pay him a visit again…and this time with evidence that he’s lying about something.”

  “What does your gut tell you?” Tate asked.

  “I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s not Mike Case. Both he and his father were more concerned about us relentlessly asking questions and questioning his character than what he was being accused of. There’s guilt and then there’s defensiveness. Rarely will you see them so blended. Those guys were caught off guard by it all. They were legitimately baffled that we were trying to accuse Mike of murder.”

  Tate grinned. “Man…if your mind w
orks like that all the time, you must stay exhausted.”

  She supposed it was a compliment. He was mostly wrong, though. It was when her thoughts fired on all cylinders that she felt the most energetic. It was, in fact, how she was feeling as they headed back to the station. She was on the trail of a killer who was likely a resident of the small town she was currently investigating. That usually meant that the conclusion to the case wasn’t too far away.

  But she also knew that those isolated cases could sometimes be more dangerous. She gave the cornfield one last wary look as they passed by, as if to remind herself of this.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Because the case was currently in a state of file-checking and waiting on coroner results, Mackenzie decided to head back to DC. There, she’d stop to visit Barry Burke at the medical examiner’s office to see if things were any clearer in regards to the body of Kenny Skinner. The trip was only seventy minutes or so; if anything happened to come up in Kingsville while she was gone, she could be back there within an hour.

  She headed out of Kingsville with all of this in mind. In the back of her head, she was also aware that she wanted to go back in order to check in with Ellington. Speaking to him on the phone was one thing, but having been lovers for several months and work partners even longer than that, there was much more she could gather from a face-to-face talk.

  The transition from the backwoods of Kingsville to the interwoven roads and streets of DC and its suburbs was gradual but still managed to creep up on her. Before she was fully aware of how much time had passed, she found herself taking an exit toward an appointment she had set up over the phone with Barry Burke at the medical examiner’s office.

  It was 1:37 in the afternoon when she met with Burke in one of the examination rooms. The room had recently been cleaned and sterilized. The surfaces were shiny, the air thick with the smell of ammonia.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news for you,” Burke told her, leaning against one of the exam tables.

  “Bad news first,” she said.

  “I found absolutely nothing on Kenny Skinner that would indicate there was any foul play involved. There was some bruising on his chest but quite frankly, there would be no way at all to determine if they were preexisting or not.”

  “So all of his injuries aligned with what you’d expect after someone dropped one hundred and seventy-five feet onto those rocks?”

  “Yes, pretty much. In Kenny’s case, I just hope the blow to the head killed him before the absolute devastation of his shattered back had time to register through his nerves. His spine was shattered in a few places and two of his ribs had burst out of his skin.”

  “Yeah, that’s bad news all right,” Mackenzie said. “What’s the good news?”

  “Well, the good news is that because there was no evidence to support murder, I don’t have to show you any of the grisly pictures.”

  “That is good news. I already saw it up close last night and that was in poor lighting. So yeah…I’m good not seeing it again. I do have a question for you, though. Can you look back through your records to see if the body of a guy named Carl Alvarez came through here sometime three years ago?”

  “Yeah, I can check on that for you. You need it now or can I send it to you?”

  “Just let me know as soon as you find out.”

  “Are you looking for the same kind of thing?” Burke asked. “Evidence of something that might point towards murder rather than suicide?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “I can check but I have to tell you—suicides like these, jumpers from such a height—it’s going to be very hard. Especially on bodies that have already come and gone.”

  “I expected as much,” she said. “But I’d still like to know for sure.”

  Burke nodded at her. And even though he said nothing, the look on his face told her that he understood her desperation. Other than the revelation about Malory Thomas hanging from the edge of the bridge, she really didn’t have much to go on. She was, essentially, chasing ghosts.

  ***

  Her next stop was the J. Edgar Hoover Building. It had been her place of employment for more than a year now but she still found it hard to believe that the often bashful woman who had started out as a plainclothes cop in Nebraska had ended up here. She walked up to her office, feeling as if she was returning empty-handed. True, it had been her work and insight that had pushed the so-called suicide cases to a murder investigation, but then what? If anything, she had really done nothing more than escalate a situation that seemed to lead them straight to a dead end.

  She ventured up to McGrath’s office and he was able to see her right away. He looked stressed when she sat down in front of his desk. She was starting to wonder just how much pressure the deputy director was placing on him to get to the bottom of his nephew’s death.

  “Strangely enough,” McGrath said, “Director Wilmoth is more relieved to know that there’s a chance his nephew was killed. I suppose murder is a more sympathetic cause of death than suicide. He describes his extended family as being very much about appearances. If it were a suicide, of course, his name might be brought up in the news. By the way, good job of keeping this a secret. In a small town like Kingsville, it can’t be easy.”

  “I get the impression that the PD down there wants it just as quiet as we do. They don’t exactly enjoy the fact that they have a landmark that people are using as a literal suicide machine.”

  “Any new developments?” McGrath asked.

  “I spoke with one potential lead this morning. Kingsville PD is following up on alibis but I am fairly certain it’s going to end up in a dead end. I also stopped by the medical examiner’s office on the way here. They weren’t able to find any evidence of murder on the body of Kenny Skinner.”

  “Yeah, I just spoke to the head ME down there. We’ve got some forensics guys headed down there right now, but no one is really thinking we’ll find anything. So what are the next steps?”

  “I don’t know that there are any,” Mackenzie said. “Kingsville PD has the road to the bridge under surveillance. They’re checking the one possible suspect’s alibis. There was no evidence at the scene…so I don’t know. Aside from meeting with every single friend and every single family member of every single suicide victim over the last few years, I don’t see any real solution.”

  “At the risk of sounding like an ass, I think maybe that’s just what you need to do. Go back down there and stay. Talk to anyone you think might have even the slightest bit of information. We want this done as fast as possible, so you have my permission to stay down there as long as you have to.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Did you come back because of Ellington?” he asked.

  She saw no need in lying. “Partly,” she said. “But I needed to get by to speak with Burke as well. And while I’m here, I’ll go ahead and update my notes. But I’ll make a point to get back down there no later than five this afternoon.”

  “Sounds good,” he said. “Stay on top of this one, White. If you can find an actual killer, Wilmoth is going to take notice. And that could do amazing things for your career.”

  She nodded and left the office, feeling the added pressure of knowing that people higher up the bureau ladder were paying close attention to her on this one. It remained on her mind as she typed up her notes in her office. She felt like she was being scrutinized, studied closer than she had ever been before.

  And while it was nerve-wracking, it also motivated her. Already, her thoughts were turning back to that old bridge—the bolts, the struts, the stomach-churning drop to the rocks below.

  But first, there was Ellington.

  And if the conversation didn’t go right, she figured that might be just as bad as staring down off of that bridge and to the ground below.

  ***

  He wasn’t in the apartment when she got there, so she called his cell. He told her that he was in the park five blocks from their house, getting in a run. She opted to walk
instead of drive, figuring she still had plenty of time if she had until five to return to Kingsville. She found him standing at a bench, doing some post-run stretches. He smiled widely when he saw her and then dropped it when she did not return it.

  “How long of a run?” she asked.

  “Three and a half miles.”

  “Taking it light today, I see.”

  “Just lazy. After everything that has happened, I can’t seem to find the motivation. And when you can’t find the focus to do something as simple as run…”

  “So then let’s talk about it. I need to get back to Kingsville pretty soon.”

  “Going back? What’s the deal down there anyway?”

  She frowned. She hated keeping secrets from him but she knew that she was being watched closely. “Sorry,” she said. “McGrath wants me to keep it quiet.”

  “Would you still be keeping it quiet if things hadn’t progressed the way they had over the last day and a half or so? About the allegations against me?”

  “Well, if you hadn’t been asked to leave, you might be on the case with me,” she said a little bitterly. “So that’s a moot question.”

  “Fair enough,” he said.

  With that, they both took a seat on the bench and looked out to the park.

  “I’ll admit that I have no idea why this bothers me so badly,” Mackenzie said. “I think it comes down to a sense of trust. It’s something I feel you should have told me, especially before we moved in together.”

  “Probably,” he admitted. “But I was ashamed, you know? And honestly, at the time it seemed really insignificant. And that’s where I’m struggling right now. Because at the time, it did seem insignificant. I don’t know why it’s all of a sudden a big deal.”

  “How did the conversation with McGrath go?” she asked. “Is the woman looking for anything?”

  “Other than to make me look bad and make me uncomfortable? I don’t know.”

  Mackenzie nearly asked for the woman’s name. Maybe she’d pull her name from the database and see what kind of a woman she was. It was hard for her to imagine a woman holding a grudge for so long and then seeking her revenge when the political climate was perfect for her claim.