Last Words

by Mariah Stewart

  “You got that part right.” Beck nodded. “We don’t know who we’re dealing with.”

  “Why you?” she asked. “There were other local chiefs there. Why did he pick your car and not one of the others?”

  “I have no idea. I’m trying not to read too much into it.”

  He pushed the chair back from the table and stood.

  “You feel like taking a walk?”

  “Sure.”

  “ Garland, I have my phone if it’s important,” Beck said as he passed the desk. “We’ll be back in a while.”

  Garland was on the phone, but raised a hand to signal he’d heard.

  Mia followed Beck through the lobby and out the front door. She dug in her bag for her sunglasses, then swung the bag over her shoulder.

  “Pretty town,” she said as they walked toward the water.

  “One of the prettiest towns around. I want to keep it that way.” He stopped at the end of the macadam drive. “St. Dennis sits right at the convergence of the New River, which you can see straight ahead there, and the Chesapeake Bay, out there to your left, where that big cruiser is headed. During the War of 1812, the town was shelled by the British. Several of the houses in town still have cannonballs embedded in their walls, but none fell. St. Dennis is very proud of that.”

  “Ahhh, spoken like a proud native,” she said. “Born and bred here, I assume?”

  “No.” He turned and started toward the brown, shingled building that stood at the end of the parking lot.

  “Really? Could have fooled me.” She hustled to keep up. “Where are you from?”

  “Here and there.”

  O-kay…

  “So where are we headed?” she asked.

  “I want to give you the lay of the land around here. St. Dennis is split pretty much in two by Charles Street, which is the main road you came in on. Half of the town faces the water, the other half faces the farms on the opposite side of town. Along Charles, we have shops where you can find just about everything. Eateries that run the gamut from pretty damned posh to a storefront with tables on the sidewalk where you can sit barefoot and eat hot dogs. We have an art gallery and an antiques shop and a bookstore where you can find comic books and first editions as well as the latest best sellers. There’s a marina where you can dock your boat and a boatyard where you can buy one if you don’t already have one.” He paused. “We have a population of about fifteen hundred.”

  She slowed down. She got it.

  “That big a commercial district plus a low population equals a tourist town.”

  “Mostly on the weekends, yeah. And we have several old inns, bed-and-breakfasts, that sort of thing, so we get a lot of people staying around in the summer months. We had our Harbor Festival last weekend. Close as we can figure, our population just about tripled.”

  “That’s a lot of people coming and going, some staying,” she said. “So you have to wonder…”

  “Yeah. Was he one of them?” Beck turned back toward the municipal building. “Let’s walk up to town.”

  He was tempted to add If you’re up to it, in those shoes.

  What was it with women and high heels? He’d seen Vanessa teettering on heels that had to be four inches. And Steffie, too, whenever they’d gone out to dinner. Agent Shields’s weren’t that bad, and she didn’t seem to have a problem keeping up with him, but still. It was one of those things men just didn’t get.

  “Of course, he could just as easily be a local, living in any one of these small towns. Until we can learn a little more about him, we’re all just speculating. One of the reasons I wanted the FBI involved was to have access to your profilers. Maybe help us get a handle on what type of person we’re dealing with.”

  “We can do that. Let’s try to get a handle on the whole picture first. We’ll start with the victims, see what they have to tell us.”

  “But they’ll send someone, right?” They reached the end of the walk that led to Charles Street and stopped at the corner. “They’ll send us someone who can do all that?”

  “They did.”

  He stared at her for a long moment.

  “You mean you-”

  “I’m trained to do it all.” She tried to smile good-naturedly, but a weak grin was the best she could come up with.

  “Sorry. I thought you were just here as an investigator.”

  “That’s all part of it. However, if I feel we need someone with more experience, I won’t hesitate to call in one of the big guns.”

  Someone in a passing Buick slowed down to yell a greeting at Beck.

  “How’s your wife feeling, Tony?” He called back.

  “Doin’ better, thanks!”

  “Tell her I was asking for her.”

  “Will do!” The driver of the car waved and continued on his way.

  “Nice shops.” Mia glanced across the street to the row of storefronts.

  “Like I said, a little something for everyone.” Beck gestured toward the place on the corner. “Let’s grab something cold, then I’ll give you a short tour.”

  He held open the door to Sips, a narrow one-room affair that sold only drinks. After a chat with Sam, the owner, about the body in Beck’s Jeep while he poured them each a large drink, Beck cut the conversation short.

  “Won’t take much to feed that fire,” Beck said after he and Mia stepped back outside. “It’s all anyone wants to talk about.”

  “How many homicides do you have in the average year?” she asked.

  “Average?” He pretended to think it over. “Maybe one. Most I recall was one year when a couple of runaways from Baltimore holed up in one of the abandoned shacks down near the river. One of them flipped out and beat the other one to death with a shovel while he was passed out. We also had a shooting that same year, so that was two. Hal might know of others. You can ask.”

  “Hal?”

  “He was the chief of police before me. He still works part-time when we need extra hands, which we always seem to, this time of the year.”

  “He was the chief and now he’s a part-timer? That sits okay with him?”

  “I haven’t heard any complaints. Actually, it was his idea.”

  “Hey, you.”

  Mia turned to see a pretty young woman step out from the doorway of the shop they just passed.

  “You’re just going to walk by and not even poke your head in to say good morning?” The woman walked toward them, not bothering to mask the fact that she was appraising Mia from head to toe.

  “Good morning,” Beck said. “ Ness, this is Special Agent Mia Shields, from the FBI. She’s here to help out with the investigation. Agent Shields, my sister, Vanessa.”

  “Oh. Wow. FBI.” Vanessa looked impressed.

  “Good to meet you.” Mia smiled and looked past Vanessa to something that caught her eye in the shop window. The sign over the door read Bling in stylized letters. “You work in this shop?”

  “Actually, I own it,” Vanessa told her proudly. “My little piece of the world.”

  Mia stepped closer to the window. “You have some lovely things. That’s an interesting bag there…”

  “It’s a fabulous bag. Stop in sometime and take a look while you’re here.”

  “ Ness, Agent Shields isn’t here to shop,” Beck stage-whispered.

  “True, but that doesn’t mean she can’t come by when she has a spare minute.” Vanessa smiled broadly at Mia. “Just to look.”

  “Maybe I’ll do that before I leave town,” Mia nodded. “Just to look.”

  “Good.” Vanessa turned to Beck. “So where are you off to?”

  “Just showing Agent Shields around. I want her to have a feel for the town.”

  “Don’t forget to show her the houses down around the square. And the old church. Oh, and the Breakstone Inn.” Vanessa turned to Mia. “It’s just gorgeous. We have so many beautiful homes that are totally restored, it’s one of the-”

  “I don’t think Agent Shields is interested in an architectur
al tour,” Beck said.

  “Actually, I am,” Mia told him. “It helps get a feel for the town and the type of people who live here. I’d like to see-”

  She was interrupted by the sound of Beck’s ringing phone.

  “Excuse me,” he said to both women as he took the phone from his pocket and answered. “Beck.”

  He listened for several minutes, then said, “Thanks. I’ll get back to you.”

  “Problem?” Vanessa asked.

  “I’d say so.” He turned to Mia. “The body that was found in my car, the one we believed to be the missing woman from Cameron?”

  “Yes?”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Isn’t…” Mia looked confused.

  “It isn’t Mindy Kenneher.”

  “So who is it?”

  “That’s a damned good question.” He started to cross the street, motioning for Mia to follow.

  “I guess if you had a report of a missing local woman you’d have mentioned it by now.” Mia caught up with him on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.

  “Good guess.”

  “So it isn’t the woman you knew about, the one from the neighboring town.” She quickened her pace. “And you haven’t gotten word of anyone else missing?”

  “None.”

  “Which means he brought her here from somewhere else just to jab at you a little, or someone’s missing who hasn’t been reported.”

  “Judging by the appearance of the corpse, this one’s been missing for a while. The flesh was pretty soupy.”

  “What’s your guess, weeks?”

  “Tough to tell. Even the ME wasn’t sure she’d be able to pinpoint how long the vic’s been dead. Given the heat and the temperature that would have built up inside that plastic wrapping, I don’t know that we’ll ever know for sure how long she’s been dead. Unless, of course, we’re able to identify her and figure out how long she’s been missing.”

  “I’ll call someone back at the Bureau, see if he can shoot over a list of women who have been reported missing over the past, let’s say six months in a fifty mile radius. We’ll see if any of them match the vital stats of your vic.” They reached the municipal building and headed for the door.

  “I’ll give the ME a call and see what she’s got that we can use. As I said, the body is in pretty bad shape.”

  Beck held the door and allowed Mia to enter the building first. Garland was flagging him down with a fistfull of phone messages and Beck grabbed them as he walked by, mouthing a thanks to the dispatcher who was busy taking another call.

  “There’s a phone in the conference room you can use,” Beck told Mia. “My office is the next door over. Come on in when you’re finished.”

  “I brought my own.” She took her phone from her bag and held it up as she went into the conference room. He had calls to make as did she.

  Five minutes later Mia tapped lightly on Beck’s open office door then entered without waiting for his invitation.

  “Someone in my office is running through the latest NCIC missing-person entries,” she told him.

  “Great. We’ll see if any of them match up with the ME’s best guess.” Beck leaned against the corner of his desk. “She’s thinking the vic is in her mid-twenties, blond hair. Hazel eyes. Five feet six inches tall, weight at the time of her death was probably around one twenty-five. Extensive cosmetic dental work-a lot of porcelain crowns. Expensive stuff. The flesh was in poor condition so she’s not sure of any distinguishing marks like birthmarks. There is an old healed fracture of the right forearm, most likely a childhood injury. And that’s all we’ve got to try to match her up with.”

  “If she’s in the system, we’ll have her. If not-”

  “If not, we go on the six o’clock news and let the world know what we’ve got. Someone has to be looking for this woman.”

  “In the meantime-”

  “In the meantime, we wait,” he snapped.

  She stared at him for a long time, then said calmly, “I’ll be waiting in the conference room. I’d appreciate it if you’d get me a copy of the files on the two vics-the first one that was found, and the one who’s still missing. In particular, I’ll need to see all the interviews. Family, friends, coworkers.”

  He looked at her quizzically.

  “Know the victim, know the killer.” She turned and went into the conference room, closing the door quietly behind her.

  8

  Mia rested an elbow on the edge of the table and tried to brush off the twinge of annoyance that flared inside her when Beck had cut her off. Clearly he was used to being in charge. She could deal with that. All her life she’d been surrounded by men who were used to giving orders. What bothered her about Beck was his seeming dismissal of her.

  She wasn’t used to being dismissed.

  Pushing aside her personal feelings, Mia searched her phone’s listing of numbers, found the one she wanted, and hit the call button.

  Maybe I should remind him that he was the one who called me into this case, she thought as the number rang. Okay, maybe not me specifically, but he did call the Bureau looking for help.

  “Hey, Will, hi, it’s Mia again. Let me give you a different fax number for that information I just requested.” Voice mail had picked up and she read off the number of the fax machine in the conference room. “I hope you got this message before you left for the weekend.”

  She decided to make good use of the few minutes she had to herself. She’d wanted to make a few notes regarding the case, so she took a small notebook and a pen from her bag and began to write a list. At the top went the interviews she’d already requested from Beck, followed by photos of the crime scenes, including the car where the last victim had been left. She’d want to walk Beck’s neighborhood at night and she’d want to see the victims, if possible. And she wanted to listen to the tape. Most of all, she wanted to hear the voice of the man who’d devised such a unique method of disposing of his victims.

  She paused with the pen in her hand. It was more than merely a means of disposal, she knew. Wrapping his victims in clear plastic was about control and it was about his need to be up close and personal with their death. He wanted to see, to smell, to experience every emotion, every labored breath, every bit of the struggle of his victim as he wound the plastic closer and closer to her face. The sheer terror as the film covered first her mouth, then her nose, the horror in her eyes, all most likely aroused him unbearably, probably to the point of climax.

  She wondered if the plastic wrap had been tested for semen.

  But of course, the killer had hosed down the victim that had been left in Beck’s car. Still, there could be some traces inside the folds of plastic. And what about the one left on the porch of her family’s home? She made a note to check that everything that came in contact with both victims had been tested for traces of semen and sweat, including the Prestons’ porch steps and decking.

  That, too, was telling as far as this killer was concerned. It hadn’t been enough to make Colleen Preston suffer. He had to make certain that the people who loved her the most saw firsthand just what she’d gone through.

  “Could it be personal?” she murmured aloud.

  “What?” Beck stood in the doorway. Mia hadn’t heard the door open.

  “I was just wondering if the fact that the killer left the first victim-”

  “Colleen Preston,” he reminded her.

  “Yes, thank you. Colleen Preston. We should use her name. I was wondering if maybe the killer left her for her family to find because there’s some personal connection. Some reason he’d like to rub their face in it.”

  “In the fact that she’d been killed?”

  “In the manner in which she’d been killed,” Mia corrected him. “He wanted them to know he’d had total control over her body and her life and her death. He wanted them to know exactly what he’d done to her. He wanted them to see just how much she’d suffered. How vainly she’d gasped for air. How terrified she’d
been. And that he’d orchestrated it all.”

  She stood and began to pace.

  “Why else make the tapes? Why let them hear her last words, if not to taunt them?”

  “Because he’s a sick son of a bitch.”

  “Oh, that he is. But this goes deeper than just being sick. This has a personal edge to it.”

  “You could be right about that. Right now, we need to take a drive.”

  “Where to?” She slid her bag off the back of her chair and grabbed her notebook and phone from the table, then followed Beck into the hall.

  “Sinclair’s Cove. It’s a bed-and-breakfast about a mile outside of town. I just got a call from the owner. He heard about the woman that was found in my car, and thinks he might know who she is.”

  “Who does he think she is?”

  “One of the grad students who worked for him. She went home for a family wedding in Colorado over the weekend of the first and never came back. Last week he called her parents’ house to find out if she’d quit, but they were under the impression that she was here. The Monday after the wedding, she left home to drive back to the inn. They spoke with her once while she was on the road, but they haven’t heard from her since.”

  “And they didn’t miss her until her employer called?”

  “She’s twenty-five years old, she’s been living away from home for some time now. I guess she didn’t check in all that often.”

  As they walked past Garland, Beck held up his phone, apparently to show the dispatcher that he had it with him.

  “Shit. My car…” Beck said when they reached the parking lot and he realized his Jeep was being processed as a crime scene and he’d loaned his cruiser to Hal.

  “I’ll drive.” Mia pointed to the black Lexus SUV parked under one of the few trees with a canopy large enough to provide shade.

  “Nice wheels,” he said as they walked toward it.

  “Thanks.” She unlocked it with the remote, then opened the driver’s side door and slid behind the wheel.

  When Beck got in, she said, “So, I guess this story is the big news around town.”