by Blake Pierce
In other words, he had a fairly clean record. If he was their guy (and Mackenzie already doubted it), he’d have to slip up in order to incriminate himself.
“I don’t know if you’d say involved,” Rick said, finally answering the question. The look on his face made it clear that it was not a topic he cared to talk about.
“You were involved enough to have a restraining order placed against you,” Mackenzie pressed.
“Oh, that.” He laughed and rolled his eyes. “Yes…a girl a little younger than you enjoys having sex with you until Mommy and Daddy find out. And then you’re suddenly a bad guy.”
“You had sex with her before the night you attempted to rape her?”
He smirked. “That wasn’t attempted rape. That was her being a little tease and then getting too worried about what her asshole parents would think about us.”
“For your information,” Bryers said, “her parents are currently—
“Look,” Rick interrupted in a shout. “I’ve stayed the hell away from that family ever since the restraining order was put down. Ain’t no woman worth that amount of trouble. So if this is what that’s about—”
“It’s not,” Mackenzie said. “At least, we hope not.”
“Then why the hell are you here?”
“Because Miranda Peters was found dead this morning,” Mackenzie said. “She’d been murdered in one of the most graphic ways I’ve ever had the displeasure of seeing.”
She studied Rick’s face as she revealed the information. Most of the time, she could read a reaction well. She knew genuine surprise and shock when she saw it. Something indeed came across Rick’s face but she wasn’t sure it was shock or disbelief. It looked more like sadness. Regret, maybe.
“You think I did it?” Rick asked. “Is that it?”
He sounded furious and she could also hear some sadness in his voice. Seeing the look on his face and hearing the hatred in his voice, Mackenzie became very aware of the fact that Rick was still holding the chainsaw in his hands. She was also aware that he was more worried about being accused of the crime than about Miranda’s death.
“No, we’re not accusing yet,” Mackenzie said. “Right now, it would be extremely helpful if you could simply prove your whereabouts last night.”
“I could do that easy enough,” he said. “But it’s none of your damned business.”
“Oh, but it is,” Mackenzie said. “See…I have almost enough reason to slap cuffs on you right now.”
“Bullshit.”
“Tell me, Mr. Dentry…why did things not work out for you being a river guide for Little Hill State Park?”
He looked to the ground and let out a stubborn chuckle. “That’s none of your business, either.”
“All I have to do is make a call to find out. But I’ve been riding around and making phone calls all day. Mr. Dentry…would it interest you to know that Miranda’s body was found in the woods of Little Hill State Park?”
That comment seemed to disarm him. And this time, the expression on his face spelled it out for Mackenzie: this was definitely not their guy.
“What?” he asked. “How?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Mackenzie said. “So please…help us eliminate you from the equation quickly.”
“I got fired from the river guide thing because of my drinking problem,” Rick said. His voice was still stunned and it made Mackenzie wonder if he had, deep down, harbored some very real feelings for Miranda Peters at one time. “My supervisor was Debbie Henderson. Give her a call if you want. She’ll tell you.”
“And how about last night?” Bryers asked. “Do you have a reliable alibi?”
“I came home, had dinner, and then went to the bar. The Oak Post, it’s called. I can give you the names of at least five other guys that can confirm I was there until about eleven.”
“And after that?” Mackenzie asked.
Rick hitched his free thumb over his shoulder. “After that, it was home sweet home. I have to wake up at five o’clock to get out to the job site.”
“Mr. Dentry, when was the last time you saw Miranda Peters?” Mackenzie asked.
He thought about it for a while and frowned as the memory came to him. “She must have been a junior in high school, I guess. I got weak…I drove by her house a few times one day and hoped to see her, you know? On the fifth or sixth time by, I saw her. She was watering her mom’s flowers out in the front yard. Looked real pretty.”
“Is there anything else you’d like to add?” Mackenzie asked, now more certain than ever that Rick Dentry had nothing to do with Miranda’s death.
“No,” he said. “Just…God, she’s dead?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Mackenzie said. “One more thing, Mr. Dentry. How well would you say you know the grounds around Little Hill State Park?”
“Decent, I guess. There are parts that are really just nothing more than woods and overgrowth, though. A lot of nothing.”
“Do you know of anywhere people might be able to hide?”
“Not right offhand,” he said. “But you know, there are stories about homeless people that used to camp out around the park. When I was trying the guide thing, I don’t think it was a problem anymore, though.”
“Thank you,” Mackenzie said. “We appreciate your time.”
She and Bryers got back into the car. As they backed out, Mackenzie saw that Rick Dentry was still standing by the back of his truck. He still held the chainsaw as if he had no idea what to do with it.
“You think he’s clean?” Bryers asked.
“Yeah, he’s not our guy.”
She looked back to him one more time in the rearview before Bryers pulled them back out onto the road. Rick Dentry looked like a man deep in thought, perhaps looking back into his past for the single moment where everything had gone wrong for him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was 5:15 by the time they were done at Rick Dentry’s house and Mackenzie was exhausted. The mere idea of driving back to Quantico only to turn around and make the trip again the next day made no sense to her. It made no sense to Bryers, either. While Mackenzie was driving, he called up McGrath and asked for authorization to stay overnight in Strasburg.
Twenty minutes later, they were checking in to a small yet surprisingly quaint motel. They got two single rooms and when Mackenzie stretched out on her bed upon closing the door behind her, she could hear Bryers in the room next to her. He was coughing again. They were dry and bellowing coughs that were starting to concern her. But if he was going to continue to brush it off, she didn’t see the point in worrying herself with it.
She nearly walked next door to see if he wanted to head out to grab a bite to eat but decided against it. She was tired, she could tell that he was tired, and she needed some time alone to process the day’s events. She leafed through the phonebook she found on the bedside table and ordered Chinese food.
While she waited for the delivery, she sorted out all of the information she had pertaining to the case. She laid out each document on the bed and stood over them. She looked down at the grisly pictures of the bodies, the background reports on the leads that had, so far, turned up as only dead ends. There had to be a link here somewhere—a link other than Little Hill State Park and the condition of the bodies.
Or maybe that was the only link she really needed and she wasn’t able to decipher it yet.
What am I missing? she wondered. Is the answer to everything I’m looking for staring me right in the face?
She looked over the handwritten notes from yesterday morning and added Miranda Peters to it all. In terms of the victims themselves, there were no real links. What she did know was that she was still unable to shake the feeling that Will Albrecht’s disappearance nineteen years ago was connected. If anything, she almost felt like that was the hinge piece to it all.
But why? What was she missing?
She looked over a list of the body parts that had been amputated, looking for a connec
tion there. It could be physically motivated. Maybe spiritually, too. Fingers legs, heads…what was the relevance to those pieces, if any at all?
She looked down at the information for the next twenty minutes, stalking from one end of the bed to the other. She didn’t stop until a knock at the door broke her concentration when her Chinese food arrived.
She ate her moo shu pork and fried wantons slowly, finding it a little unsettling that she was able to eat anything at all with the crime scene photos staring her in the face. She tried to figure out what could drive a man to be so violent. Surely he was aware of his need for violence and that what he was doing was wrong. And if that were the case, his violence was probably intentional—as was the fact that he seemed to be dumping the bodies in scattered locations around the park.
Was he laughing at them, playing some deranged game of cat-and-mouse? No matter how much she looked at the maps of the park, she could see no connection—not in the sites where the bodies had been dumped or in the site of Miranda Peters’s campsite. So what was it all for? She had never been one to believe that men killed for no reason. Even if insanity was at the root of it, there was always some underlying cause. Sometimes it was minor, like the killer having a fascination with other killers…an interest that became a sick fantasy.
But there was nothing fantastical about these killings. If anything, the very nature of the dismemberments spoke of something much more basic, more primal.
He wanted attention. That much was obvious. It made her think that the killer was either an only child who had never gotten accolades and praise from his parents or a sibling of overachievers who had never really fit in. And since the bodies were both male and female, that ruled out any motive of sexism.
What else? What else can I figure out about him?
Based on the crime scene photos, there was really only one thing that was driven home: they were dealing with a sick individual.
The hell of it was that she knew they’d catch the bastard if he kept dumping his victims on the park grounds. With drones overhead and extra security along the entrances to the park, there was no way he could keep getting away with it. They’d get him eventually but the question was how many more he could kill before giving himself away.
With her dinner mostly gone and nightfall having nearly taken over outside the motel room window, her cell phone rang from the bedside table. She looked at it as if it were an annoying insect for a moment but figured she should answer it. When she picked it up, she saw a familiar area code that nearly made her ignore it anyway.
Someone was calling from Nebraska.
Her first thought was that it was Zack, calling to drag out the misery of having ever been involved with him even further. But this wasn’t Zack’s number, unless he was calling from someone else’s phone. With her interest piqued, she answered the call with a quick, “Hello?”
“Hey. Mackenzie?”
The male voice on the other end of the line was familiar but she couldn’t make the connection right away.
“Yes, this is Mackenzie. Who is this?”
“Hey, hot shot. It’s Porter.”
The name stunned her for a moment and the emotion that washed over her surprised her. Walter Porter—her partner from Nebraska PD. He had been a partner who had cared very little for her until her last days in Nebraska. And now, nearly six months after seeing him for the last time (in a hospital bed, no less), it was like getting a call from a ghost.
“Porter,” she said, her voice sounding far away. “My God! How are you?”
“Me? Not too bad. With six years left before retirement, they finally decided to give me a shot at detective. Your slot, I guess. Hard shoes to fill. And how about you, Agent White?”
“Things are going good,” she said. “The academy was an experience, that’s for sure. But I made it.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I know it means nothing to you, but I’m proud of you.”
“That actually means more than you can imagine,” Mackenzie said.
A brief silence passed between them and it was then that Mackenzie wondered why Porter was calling her. He had never been the type of guy to make a call just to catch up. Just as she was about to ask about the nature of the call, he finally got around to the point.
“Listen,” Porter said. “I had to ask a favor just to be the one to make this call. I thought it might be best if you had this talk with someone you knew and not some stiff guy from the Nebraska State PD.”
“What’s wrong, Porter?” she asked.
“There’s nothing wrong,” he said. “But a few days ago some hot shot private investigator uncovered something that relates to an old unsolved case. It meant squat to him, but he turned it over to the state PD and they looked it over.”
“What case?” Mackenzie asked.
“Well, as of this morning, the Nebraska State Police are taking another look at your father’s case. It hasn’t officially been reopened yet, but if it is, it’s looking like it might come over to the FBI before too long. And…well, you know how they work. Personal interest and all that.”
My father’s case? Had she heard him right? The very idea of it sent a chill racing through her. Images of her father’s body raced through her mind and for a dizzying moment, she felt like she was in the bedroom where he had died.
“You there?” Porter asked. His voice sounded as if it were a million miles away.
“My father’s case? You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“I won’t be assigned to it,” Mackenzie said.
“That’s why I’m calling. To give you a heads-up. Maybe you can sneak a peek before it becomes a federal thing.”
“Do you know what this investigator found?”
“I have no idea. I actually don’t even know much about this new case myself. I’m trying to find out but didn’t want to waste too much time before letting you know.”
“What was the investigator’s name?” she asked.
“A guy by the name of Kirk Peterson. You want his contact info?”
“That would be great. Can you text it to me?”
“You bet. Look…take care out there, hot shot.”
“You, too, old man.”
“Ouch.”
Porter hung up, leaving Mackenzie with a strange sort of nostalgia swirling in her mind. First, hearing from Porter, and then having him dredge up memories of her father.
My dad, she thought.
She’d always wondered what it might be like to solve his case one day—maybe on her own, in her spare time. Until this morning, the case had been dead for more than twenty years. So what in God’s name could have come about to cause the Nebraska State PD to give it a second look after all this time?
Mackenzie sat down on the edge of the bed, the case of the Little Hill State Park killer momentarily forgotten. She wondered who she could call that might clue her in to things back in Nebraska. She’d never made friends with the state PD back home and knew that it would be hell trying to get through all the red tape.
Her cell phone pinged as Porter texted the contact information for Kirk Peterson.
Looking at it, she knew what she had to do. And it was not going to be easy. More than that, it was probably going to be risky.
She sighed and pulled up a number that made her sweat by merely looking at it.
She then pressed CALL and could only hope and pray for the best.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The first call went to McGrath. As she waited for him to pick up, she felt herself growing nervous and anxious. Her stomach felt like it was tying itself in knots as the phone started ringing in her ear.
McGrath answered on the fourth ring and sounded oddly pleasant. Good, she thought. Maybe I’ve caught him in a good mood.
“It’s Mackenzie White,” she said.
“White, what are you doing? How are things there in Strasburg?”
“Coming along slowly, sir. But as much as I hate to say it, that’s not why I’m call
ing. There’s been…well, there’s some things going on in Nebraska with my family. A pretty touchy severe family-related incident.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I’d like your approval to go out there,” she said. “It shouldn’t take long. Maybe two days, if that.”
McGrath was quiet for a while. When he answered, his good mood seemed to have died down a bit. “Do you think we need another agent out there to cover for you?”
“No, sir,” she said. “As a matter of fact, we would likely have come back to the DC area tomorrow. I’ll obviously stay as updated as I can through e-mails and phone calls while I’m away.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “I’ll sign off on it. I trust that Bryers can handle things in your absence. But at the risk of seeming heartless, I can’t give you any more than forty-eight hours. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
With the call over, Mackenzie took a deep breath. She supposed she had just lied to him by omission. Of course, she knew if McGrath found out that she was going home to tackle a potential federal case before it actually fell under federal jurisdiction, he’d go berserk…and with good reason.
She knew she was risking a lot. McGrath was finally starting to warm up to her and she was involved in a fairly high-level case right now. To abandon it for reasons that could eventually cause her even more trouble and hostility with McGrath and his superiors was borderline foolish.
But this was her family. This was her father. And if she could finally solve his case and put it all behind her, maybe the terrible nightmares would finally stop.
Or, some wiser part of her thought, revisiting it all could make the nightmares even worse.
She thought of the dream she’d had about the rabbit—a skewed dream representing an actual event from her life. While it had been a variation that had taken her dreams out of the blood-soaked bedroom, it had still been terrifying.