by Blake Pierce
honestly, even if Watts’s scanner showed that he had been scanning packages
within half an hour of David Lowell leaving for work, it would not clear
Watts in her mind. He could have had sex with her, killed her, and then left
the house all in the space of five minutes. It was possible.
Besides…there was her intuition to consider. And one of the hard to
believe things she had come to accept about sexual relationships was that
when there were affairs, it was incredibly rare for a male lover to kill the woman; almost ninety percent of the time, it was the husband.
As Watts led them to the back of the building and then to the left toward
the loading bay, they passed by a pacing Mr. Morris, gripping a cup of coffee
as if it were a life preserver. He looked worried, very concerned about the
state of his driver and his company.
And honestly, Kate didn’t blame him. The media was already all over
these murders. If they caught wind that a Panther Shipping driver was in any
way involved—even if it was just an affair with one of the victims—it would
be terrible for business.
She could sympathize…because if she didn’t wrap this case soon, it could
be equally terrible for her career and the reputation she had spent thirty years
building.
***
Kate and DeMarco sat in the small break room just outside of the loading
bays of Panther Shipping. Through the large window that looked out into the
large adjoined loading area, they could see Morris and Watts speaking. They
were huddled closely together, giving wary glances to anyone who happened
to pass by.
Kate was looking at the printout Watts had handed them after coming
straight from his scanner. It looked like a very thin grocery store receipt,
showing all of the stops Watts had made that morning. There was, of course,
no listed stop for the Lowell residence, but there was one several houses up,
punched in exactly nineteen minutes after Meredith Lowell had cut off the
security camera at her house. The list was forty-six stops long—five of which
had come before his stop by the Lowell residence.
“I don’t see how this proves anything,” DeMarco said. “Nineteen minutes
is more than enough time to have sex and then strangle someone.”
“I agree with that part,” Kate said, “but I still don’t think Ashley Watts is
the killer.”
“Care to explain?”
“Well, he said they’ve hooked up several times before. A simple look back
through the Lowells’ Nest footage can confirm that—even if only to show
that it was turned off before he arrived. So I doubt he’s lying about the affair.
And from my experience, it is rarely the lover that kills the married party in an affair; it’s usually the jilted spouse.”
DeMarco nodded as she looked at the printout. Kate assumed she had
learned the same thing somewhere along the way during her time in the
academy. “Still…he strikes me as a fit. I want to check his truck and his
locker.”
“I won’t stop you.”
DeMarco got to her feet and left the break room. Kate trailed behind,
fairly certain that Watts was not their man, but wanting to give DeMarco her
own space to run with her instincts. As they approached Morris and Watts,
Kate let DeMarco handle the conversation. She would be supportive but
didn’t see the point in piling on.
“Mr. Watts,” DeMarco said, “I’d like to see inside your truck, please.”
Watts looks at Morris and gave a nervous little shrug. “I’m fine with it.”
“That’s fine,” Morris agreed.
“It’s parked in spot eleven out in the lot,” Watts said.
“What have you taken out of it that would have been in it when you
stopped by the Lowell residence?”
“My lunchbox and my backpack. Those are both in my locker.”
“I’d like to have a look in the locker as well. Your backpack and
lunchbox, too.”
“Sure,” Watts said, already digging into his pocket. He took out a small
key ring and handed it over without hesitation. “The bigger one is to the
truck. The one with the little yellow head is to my locker.” He pointed behind
them to the row of orange lockers bolted into the wall. “Mine is number
twenty.”
DeMarco started over toward the locker, Kate still letting her take the lead.
With each bit of permission Watts gave, Kate became more and more sure
that he was innocent. She could tell by the slight slouch in DeMarco’s
posture that she was becoming a bit more convinced of Watts’s innocence as
well.
Still, Kate did her best to remain a loyal partner. When DeMarco took
Watts’s backpack and lunchbox from his locker, Kate helped her search. It
did not take long, as the lunchbox was empty with the exception of a small
empty bag of Doritos, and the backpack only contained his wallet, a Lee
Child paperback, and a change of clothes.
Kate noted that Watts was watching it all. He still looked rather distraught
but there was a sense of calm about him now. If anything, she thought he
looked genuinely confused that two FBI agents were going to such great
lengths to search his possessions.
Without saying a word, DeMarco returned the pack and lunchbox to
Watts’s locker and headed straight to one of the loading bay doors, where the
parking lot waited outside. She walked to parking spot eleven and to the truck
positioned there. She used the key to unlock the double doors on the back,
swung them open, and stepped inside. Kate followed behind, surprised to find
that there was still a small part of her that hoped they might find something.
The back of the truck contained only a few straps and carabiner clips
hanging from the walls. There was scattered detritus here and there—a
partially broken board that was scarred up in a way to indicate it was often
used to pry larger boxes away from the walls of the truck. The only thing
suspicious in the truck was a length of nylon rope, bundled up neatly.
DeMarco picked it up and examined it. She showed it to Kate, shrugging as
Kate took it from her.
“It could easily be used as a means of strangulation,” Kate said. “But I
think it might be too thick. The nylon could certainly cause some of the
abrasions we’re seeing, but you have to remember that with Karen Hopkins,
whatever was used to strangle her was so thin that it slightly cut into her skin.
The only way you’re going to get this nylon rope to do that is if you’re
yanking it back and forth—and if that were the case, there would be more of
a rope burn look to the area.”
“I thought so, too,” DeMarco said. She took the rope back and tossed it
down. “Shit. I was sure it was him.”
“I was hoping it was, too,” Kate said. It dawned on her then that this was
not the first time she had witnessed DeMarco pushing hard to pin down a
suspect who had been involved in an affair with a married murder victim. She
wondered if there might be something in her partner’s past that caused this.
“Well, even if it’s not him, it’s obvious he knows at least a thing or two
about Meredith Lowell,” DeMarco pointe
d out. “So he might not be a
suspect, but he’d certainly be a potential source of information.”
Almost comically, DeMarco sat down on the floor of the back of the truck.
“This one is getting to me, Kate.”
“If it didn’t, I’d question your heart.”
“No, I mean…all cases get to me in a certain way. But this one…this one
is really screwing me up. And I don’t know why.”
“It’s a common feeling. And I know it sounds all go-get-’em and whatnot,
but the best way to find out why a case is having such an effect on you is to
wrap it. Typically, once the killer is apprehended and the smaller details of
the case start to fall in place, you’ll be able to step back and see it from a bit of a distance.”
“You talk like you’ve experienced it before.”
“More times than I can count.”
“Guys like this…guys like Watts…they piss me off. My own parents were
both involved in affairs. And they forgave one another…gave it another try,
you know? And it fucking crashed and burned after that.”
Kate did not take the time to feel affirmation from having called it less
than a minute ago. Instead, she reached down and offered a hand to help
DeMarco back to her feet. “Family demons can make it even harder to figure
out why a case is getting away from you,” Kate said. “And to be honest with
you, I’m dealing with that very same thing right now.”
“So how are you able to deal with it so well?”
“Because I’m allowing things to fall apart back home.”
The answer was out of her mouth before she was aware she was going to
say it. And though it felt freeing, there was some sting there as well.
DeMarco seemed taken aback at the honesty of it, too. She took Kate’s
offered hand and got back to her feet. Before starting back for the opened
doors at the back of Watts’s truck, she smirked and said: “So let’s wrap this.
Let’s get that distance.”
Returning the snarky little grin, Kate nodded. “Sure. Just lead the way.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kate and DeMarco had dinner delivered to the Frankfield precinct, filling
the building’s one conference room with the smell of Chinese food.
Bannerman was sitting at one end of the table, slowly chewing on the egg roll
Kate had offered him. Bannerman and Kate were looking up at the dry erase
board as DeMarco stood by it, jotting down notes underneath pictures they
had attached to the board with magnets. The pictures came from each of the
three crime scenes, the ones from the Lowell residence fresh from the printer.
DeMarco jotted the notes down for each case, connecting what seemed like
common links with little broken dash marks that stretched across the entirety
of the board. Sadly, there were very few of these.
So far, they had come up with the fact that the Hopkinses had not had a
security system of any kind in place, making Karen Hopkins unique in those
aspects. Then there was the fact that the Hix residence had been the only site
that had a secondary entrance, allowing the killer to sidestep a security
camera altogether. There had been the connection that the women were
middle-aged wives with non-responsive husbands, but that theory had been
dashed with Meredith Lowell; sure, she had been involved in an affair but her
husband seemed to have basically arranged his world around her.
And while there were still obvious connections, none of them led
anywhere. All of them were at home by themselves during the day. They had
all been strangled by someone they had apparently willingly allowed into
their homes.
But the two most important questions remained, and they were on the
board in DeMarco’s handwriting, circled in red: Who? Why?
“This makes no sense,” Bannerman said. “Either the killer knew that
Meredith Lowell was having an affair and exactly when Watts was coming
by, or it was sheer luck.”
“Or,” Kate said, “he had been scheduled to come by. Maybe Meredith told
the killer an exact time to come by the house. After all, it appears she allowed
him in.”
“And Watts already told us when we left Panther Shipping that she never
mentioned anyone coming by,” DeMarco said.
“That means nothing,” Kate said. “As we have discovered, she was
apparently very good at keeping secrets.”
“Well,” Bannerman said, “I’ve got several officers reaching out to family
and friends of the victims, looking for any sort of a connection between them.
Even right down to the minute details like which gyms they belonged to and
their pizza place of choice. We’re looking for anything—grasping at any
straw available.”
“Sometimes that can be more helpful than you realize,” Kate said.
Just as the comment was out of her mouth, her phone rang from inside her
jacket pocket. She grabbed it, saw that it was Director Duran, and got to her
feet. “Sorry,” she said. “I have to take this.”
As she stepped outside of the conference room, she did her best to calm
her nerves. She wanted to ask him right away why he felt that DeMarco
needed to babysit her. She wanted to ask him if the career she had built for
herself meant nothing to him. But she knew she could not let her temper get
the better of her. After all, she and Duran had been working together in come
capacity or another for nearly twenty years. She respected him and trusted
him implicitly. If he had DeMarco checking on her, surely there was a
reason.
But he was calling her now, not DeMarco. Perhaps it was to even
apologize or to give her some sort of encouragement.
Kate answered on the fourth ring. “This is Wise.”
“Kate, I need you to explain what was going on in your mind when you
decided to storm in front of the cameras at a press conference.”
“And hello to you, too.”
“Kate, this is no time to be funny. We’ve worked together for twenty-one
years and I don’t think I’ve ever been this enraged at you.”
“Well, did you see the entire thing?”
“I did,” Duran said. “And I know what you were doing. You were trying
to help out an older sheriff who was clearly being bullied by an asshole of a
mayor. But still…by getting in front of those cameras, you basically made
yourself the face of this case—a case, I might add, that now has three victims
and not a single lead.”
“If I’d had time to think it through, I might not have done it,” Kate
admitted. “But as you saw, that conference was thrown together hastily…
probably for nothing more than to take a swing at local law enforcement. But
I did not have time and I acted on instinct. And for that, I’m sorry.”
“Has there been any progress on the case since that little blunder?”
“Not really. We found a guy who was having an affair with the latest
victim, but he’s got some pretty tight alibis. He’s agreed to stay in the area
for repeated questioning if necessary.”
“And that’s all?”
Kate felt her own little flash of rage stirring inside of her. “We’re in a
conference room with Sheriff Bannerman right now, trying to find a c
ommon
thread.”
“Three victims, Kate. Working in a conference room isn’t enough. Look…
I really hate to do this but after the stunt with the press conference and an
absolute lack of leads, I have no real choice. I’m going to have to pull you off
the case.”
“Excuse me?” Some of the rage came through in these two words and as
juvenile as it made her feel, it still felt incredibly good.
“You know how this works, Kate. An agent has been on public television,
speaking about a case. In this case, that just happens to be you. Not only is
there huge pressure coming from farther up the ladder all dumped on me, but
the media is all over it and so far you and DeMarco have absolutely nothing
to show.”
“And you think it’s going to look better for you to pull the face that you
yourself said you believe is now representative of the case?”
“It’s better than nothing. It will show the public that we are actively on the
case and that we keep tight reins on our agents.”
“So you just want us to come in and leave the case to some other pair?”
Kate asked, incredulous.
“I’m afraid you didn’t hear me right. I just want you off. I have another
agent assigned to work with DeMarco.”
“Are you kidding me right now?”
“I’m afraid not. Look…it’s late in the evening. Get some rest and head
back in the morning.”
“Duran, you can’t possibly—”
“Be smart about this, Kate. Know when to stop talking. I expect to see you
in my office for debrief no later than ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
Even if she could have thought of something logical to say, she did not
have the chance. Duran ended the call before she could even wrap her mind
around what had just happened. She stared at the phone, deeply confused and angry, before slowly walking back into the conference room.
DeMarco was writing down the few details they had on Ashley Watts
while Bannerman was polishing off the egg roll. Kate looked at the
whiteboard and realized that Duran was right: they had nothing, seemed to be
going absolutely nowhere, and maybe it had been irresponsible of her to
jump in front of the cameras like that.
The whiteboard told the story. No clues, no connection. Theories that were