Traces of the Girl

by E. R. FALLON

  Captain Nolan greeted them when they entered. Harry had already called the captain with the news about the probable connection between the deceased doctor, Emily Will, and Joyce and Albert Fisher. On the phone Nolan had mentioned Sharon McGuire had finished her statement and they’d sent her home with an officer. And now they’d have to get Reed’s statement. Even if the Fishers had a head start, Harry liked how the investigation was moving along fast. It was a good sign when that happened because the longer time passed the less likely it would be that the Fishers would be caught. Nolan already had an officer ready to go with Reed into a private room and take his statement.

  Maple entered after Reed left with the officer. Nolan spoke to him for a moment then went into his office.

  “We got your warrant so you can return and dig through Emily Will’s house,” he said.

  “Great, thanks.”

  Harry knew it was less likely that Emily was in on the auction house crime since she’d left her gun behind. But they might find some clues about the Fishers during the search.

  “Hey, Maple I bet you didn’t know Cannon trained with the FBI,” Carlow said with a grin that made Harry want to slap him.

  “Thanks for keeping my secret,” Harry mumbled.

  “Really?” Maple’s eyes brightened and he seemed intrigued. His dark good looks didn’t hurt, but Harry wasn’t interested in romance, especially with some FBI hotshot younger than her. “Be careful Officer Carlow, I heard she’s also a kickboxing champ. That’s what your captain told me.”

  Harry tried to wave it off. “It was a long time ago.” She looked at Maple. “And about my alleged ‘training’ with the FBI, it was a summer course. My old department wanted me to gain experience with serial killers since I was entering the homicide unit.” Then she got right down to business. “What did you find at the Fishers’ former residence?”

  Maple sighed. “Apparently, they hadn’t lived there for some time, according to the landlord. Unfortunately, this meant that there was nothing belonging to them left there because he threw their remaining belongings out when he kicked them out for not paying rent. He seemed to think they might have lived in their car after that. Anyway, it makes sense why they’d rob the auction, because they were desperate for money.”

  The phones started ringing non-stop and Harry ordered Carlow to his desk to answer them. Most of these turned out to be fake calls where someone insisted they committed the auction murders or knew who did, but in reality they hadn’t done or known a thing.

  Harry briefed Maple on what she and Carlow had found at Emily Will’s house.

  “Besides the corpse, any signs that Ms. Will was in distress?” he asked. “Ropes? Tape? Drag marks?”

  Harry shook her head. “No, there was nothing like that. And there were no drag marks, but it rained.”

  “If there were no signs of a struggle, we can’t rule out the possibility that she’s involved with the Fishers.”

  “You think, what, she strangled her doctor – the prints on the victim are too large to be hers in my opinion – and then went on the run with the Fishers? Why would a decorated military veteran like Emily Will help scum like them? Any angle I look at it from, it doesn’t make any sense she would help them. She doesn’t fit the profile. I think they kidnapped her.”

  “Are you sure? Because I don’t agree.”

  Harry disliked his arrogance. “I’m very sure,” she said. “You’re not going to go running to the captain and tattle on me, are you, Maple? Because I’d like to stay on this case and I’d like to keep my job.”

  Maple gave her a look that conveyed to her that he would never complain about her to anyone again.

  “Did you get the CCTV from the truck stop?” she asked.

  Maple nodded. “I already went over it. Nothing. It doesn’t cover the whole area.”

  “Damn it.” Harry’s phone rang. The medical examiner. “Hello?” she answered.

  The ME confirmed what Harry already knew: the body was Dr. Tompkins. They’d formally identified him through his dental records. He had been strangled by a male and died a few days ago. They were able to tell whether the fingerprints were female or male from the amino acids. This was a relatively new development in forensics.

  Strangled by a man. Albert Fisher, Harry thought. She ended the call.

  Harry told Maple what she learned from the phone call. “What do we know about the Fishers?” she asked.

  Forensics had found footprints inside Emily Will’s house that would have matched the Fishers, Dr. Tompkins, and Emily Will herself.

  Maple seemed to read the case notes from memory. “Joyce and Albert Fisher, two sort of locals with family ties to the area. Joyce has an ex-husband named John Wright who lives in the area. I tried reaching him but he’s on vacation. Both Joyce and Albert kept their father’s surname – Joyce never took her husband’s last name while they were married. Apparently, according to those few people who know them, both Joyce and Albert think their father is deceased.”

  “He’s not?”

  “He’s very much alive according to the Social Security and DMV records I’ve obtained. I’m guessing the family used the death to cover up his abandonment. Their mother committed suicide after their father left. Joyce and Albert’s remaining family abandoned them after and they were moved from group home to group home. Joyce lived with a couple of other teenagers in a trailer park at one point. Albert spent most of that time in Rolling Hills, a few states away.”

  “Rolling Hills. Why does that sound familiar?”

  “It was all over the news years ago. It was a notorious boys’ home that shut down about a decade ago after an abuse scandal.”

  “What a horrible experience he must have had there.”

  “Lots of people have hard times. Most don’t go on to kill multiple people.”

  “You know, when I researched Emily’s Will’s background, I found out she was an orphan.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Her parents were shot to death in a road-rage incident when she was only sixth months old. She never knew them. The original report said she was found covered in their blood. Apparently, she’d gotten out of her seat and crawled over them.”

  “How horrific.” Maple sighed and shook his head. “Did they ever catch the guy?”

  “No. It seemed pretty senseless. Witnesses in the other vehicles said the guy was trying to outrun them at a green light and shot them when they were both stopped at a red light a while later.”

  “An orphan, too. What an odd coincidence,” Maple said.

  “I don’t think it is. I think the Fishers singled her out on purpose,” Harry said. “I’m not sure how they know her, though. Maybe from just the newspaper mentions. They could have probably found out online that both of her parents died and when. She’s an orphan like them, and she can fly a plane. I think kidnapping her was part of their plan all along. I don’t think they robbed an auction, did the murders, and then hid out at her house and took her hostage just because they needed some leverage on the road. I think they planned on taking her from the very beginning.”

  “You think they’re that clever?”

  “I think the sister is. The way Sharon McGuire described Joyce Fisher, Joyce has all the makings of a psychopath. We both know female psychopaths are rare but not unheard of.”

  “What about Albert?”

  “He’s a sociopath, maybe, but not a full-blown psychopath like his sister.”

  “Listen, Detective Cannon, just because you took a course with the FBI a few years ago, that doesn’t make you an expert.”

  Maple’s condescending tone made Harry dislike him even more. She shot daggers at him with her eyes.

  Maple shrugged sheepishly. “You said so yourself it was just one course.”

  “I’m not full of myself like you so I don’t think I’m an expert,” Harry said. “It’s an instinct I have, and after many years in this job, I’ve learned to trust my instincts.”

  “Okay.”
Maple changed the subject. “What if their motive wasn’t just money, but what if they were disgruntled victims of the auction who had their belongings repossessed from them to pay back taxes? The auction even sold off large items like houses and cars.”

  Harry shouted at Carlow to look that up, and they received an answer within minutes.

  “There doesn’t seem to be anything like that with either Joyce or Albert,” he said from his desk. “Nothing about a house or car.”

  Harry was relieved to see his feet weren’t up on the desk even if it belonged to him.

  “Nolan mentioned to me he got a call while we were out,” Maple said. “Forensics found a gun near the scene of the robbery and homicides. They confirmed that the gun was used to kill Maria Cannon. It had an unidentified woman’s fingerprints on it, probably Joyce’s. She appears to have been the weapon’s main user. Albert Fisher’s fingerprints were on it as well so this confirms Sharon McGuire’s story. We got Albert’s prints because he has a criminal record going back to his teens, for misdemeanors. Also, he was in the Navy but got kicked out for lying about his criminal past when he enlisted. Dishonorably discharged.”

  “So Joyce did kill my sister-in-law,” Harry said.

  “It looks that way. Albert’s fingerprints were on the gun also because he probably handled it at some point.”

  “What about Joyce, does she have a record?” Harry asked.

  “She doesn’t have a criminal record. But both have an unstable work history. Albert went from construction job to construction job after the Navy let him go. His supervisors kept mentioning his bad attitude. People who met Joyce, though, liked her, even if they were a little scared of her.”

  “A classic psychopath and sociopath,” Harry said. “Joyce, friendly although intimidating, and Albert, disgruntled in public, unable to censor his rage. It’s Joyce I fear the most.”

  Emily Will had a cell phone that they were able to trace to a road where it appeared to have been disposed of. Why would Emily have tossed her own phone? Someone had done it for her. But Harry didn’t believe that killing Emily’s doctor had been part of Joyce and Albert’s plan, but he had shown up so they had to take care of him.

  The Fishers were likely armed, but Emily Will was former military with expert experience, a real warrior. She reminded Harry of herself and Maria – all three were strong women, and around the same age. Harry could even sort of see herself being friends with Emily under different circumstances, and she couldn’t say that about many people. Except for the fact that Harry hated airplanes with everything she had, whereas Emily must have loved them. Harry didn’t have a specific reason for her airplane phobia and she often made fun of herself for having it. Here she was, a tough-as-nails, kickboxing cop, but get her on an airplane and she’d be scared shitless.

  The fact that Harry could relate to Emily made Harry even more motivated to find her.

  Harry issued a request for all police in the area to look out for the small red car registered to Emily Will. They received a call about a car found submerged in a farm pond close to Emily’s house and Maple took Carlow with him to check it out. Nolan also persuaded Harry to let Maple retrieve Emily Will’s gun from the cavern and check out the house and property further.

  “It’s the Fishers’ car, the one they used to drive to the robbery and then to escape with,” Maple said to Harry when he returned with Carlow. “It’s registered to Joyce’s ex-husband. He’s on vacation but I reached him and he said he gave her the car after their divorce. She was supposed to re-register it in her name but she never did. She and Albert must have pushed it in.”

  “Do you think Joyce’s ex was involved with the robbery?”

  “No. He was away when it happened and his alibi checks out. Any news on Emily Will’s car?”

  Harry shook her head. No one had called.

  Then she thought, were the Fishers’ planning to go out of the country with Emily? “What if they’re using her?” Harry said to Maple. “Emily, she has flight experience. Maybe they want her to fly them out of the country.”

  “She’s not a pilot anymore. And isn’t she, you know, disturbed? I doubt she can fly.”

  “From everything we’ve learned, she’s still functioning fine. We have no reason to believe she’s lost that skill.”

  Emily Will’s gun had her fingerprints all over it, no bullets, and hadn’t been fired in a long time. It offered few clues to Harry and her team. If the Fishers had touched it they’d been careful.

  Harry’s phone rang again. Caller ‘unknown’. She answered it and they hung up.

  “Is everything okay?” Maple asked.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “You look pale.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Harry believed the calls were from a prolific murderer named Leo Green, who she’d helped put away for life without the possibility of parole when she first started working homicide in the city. He was released recently on a technicality. This had happened after she switched jobs. Her former lieutenant had called her to tell her the bad news, the day before Maria’s death.

  Leo Green, an Ivy League-educated genius investment banker, now former, who’d started stalking women in college and begun killing them after he’d started working for an investment firm in the city, was handsome and charming, a classic psychopath in every sense of the word. Kind of like Joyce Fisher. Green liked to tie up his victims and give them numerous cuts with a very sharp knife so that they bled out slowly over time as he watched. Green came from an established, wealthy family, and the women he killed were young and poor, so he thought he could get away with it. Harry imagined his family supported him now that he was out of prison. His freedom devastated her and made her feel like she’d failed the women he’d murdered.

  As a detective in the city Harry had specialized in cases with female victims. Throughout the investigation and the trial Green had developed a sort of infatuation with her. She’d refused the extra security her department wanted to provide her because she didn’t want Green to think he’d won by scaring her.

  Harry had the calls traced but they seemed to be from different phones or from different locations every time. Harry believed Green must have had a scrambling device he hooked to his phone that did that for him. And regardless of the device, Green didn’t stay on the line long enough to really trace the calls.

  Because of the calls, Harry had the landlord of the small apartment – Mickey had helped her find it – she rented above the grocery in town install an extra lock on her door. He’d looked at her like she had two heads when she asked him. He kept saying how safe the area was and she didn’t need an extra lock, but she’d kept insisting and, eventually, he’d complied.

  She’d already changed her cell phone number once when she moved and she wasn’t about to change it again so soon. Which brought up a question that had been bothering her: how had Green gotten her unlisted number? Who had given her new number to him? Her new colleagues couldn’t have known about her involvement with Green, and only a handful of her former colleagues had her new number, including the city’s assistant district attorney, Rebecca Day, a woman she considered a friend. Nah, Rebecca never would have done something like that, yet someone had. And ADA Day had tried Leo Green’s case.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The sheriff from a few towns over called about a car found matching the description of Emily Will’s that had been involved in a new homicide.

  Maple insisted on coming with Harry and he willingly let Harry drive.

  “The place we’re going to – the sheriff in that area said on the phone that it’s a bad homicide,” she said during the drive. “A family man was shot and killed in front of his wife and child early in the morning.”

  “The Fishers?” Maple asked.

  Harry glanced at Maple and noticed he was staring out the window. “I can’t confirm but it has to be them. We’ll know more when we get to the scene.”

  Night approached fast and Harry wanted to get to t
he location before they lost daylight so, as usual, she drove faster than she should have. She didn’t want to have to use a flashlight when she cased the scene. If Maple noticed her speeding, he didn’t say anything, and to think Harry had thought him incapable of bending the rules a little or allowing someone to do the same in his presence.

  When they arrived, the scene was packed with police vehicles and Harry had to park across the street. She exited the car before Maple.

  “Smell that fresh country air?” he said behind her.

  All she knew about the air was that it was cold, so cold she could see her breath. She grunted and walked across the quiet road to speak with the woman she’d visibly identified as the sheriff, a tall, athletic-looking woman a few years older than Harry herself. She’d heard of Sheriff Carole Sanchez before she even got to the scene because Sheriff Sanchez was one of the few women in prominent law enforcement roles in the region.

  Harry heard Maple trying to catch up to her. Desolate farm fields surrounded them. Far off Harry could see the dim light of a farmhouse. The victim wasn’t a farmer as far as Harry knew, but a resident of one of what appeared to be the very few suburban-style homes around there.

  What had to have been Emily Will’s small red car was half parked in the field, half parked in the road, with the driver’s side door opened to the road. There was a bloodstain on the driveway where the man had been killed. A porch light by the house had already been turned on despite the few remaining hours of daylight.

  Harry’s phone rang. ‘Caller unknown’. Once again, she answered it. Heavy breathing. Then a hang-up. Maple gave her a perplexed look, which she ignored. She didn’t tell him about the call because there was no way she was going to appear even a little vulnerable in front of him, in front of a colleague. It was bad enough he already thought she might not be able to handle the auction case.

  Harry introduced herself to Sheriff Sanchez, who seemed amused that Harry already knew who she was.