Ties That Bind

by Anne Patrick

  "Are you and your daughter close?"

  "Not as close as I'd like us to be. You know the hours a cop works, it's hard to find a balance. Since moving here, it's improved. We're attending church regularly, and I go to as many school functions as I can."

  "Does she play sports?"

  He beamed. "Star forward on the basketball team, and she went to state last year with her volleyball team."

  Jo grinned. "I'm impressed."

  "You should be. How about you? Were you and your parents ever close?"

  "When I was younger, my dad and I were close. As a teenager I was closer to my mother, though. We seemed to relate better."

  "Your mother's a member of the church we attend. Though I don't know her very well, she seems like a nice woman."

  Jo smiled, offering no reply. As a child her whole family had attended church, but when her father was elected sheriff, and her mother had started teaching again, they'd stopped. Jo wondered if things would have been different if they'd stayed active in the church.

  The sound of the front door slamming drew their attention to the doorway of the kitchen. A few seconds later a younger female version of Austin appeared. She ran her fingers through shoulder length blonde hair, as a smile spread across her face at the sight of them.

  "What happened to dinner at Jesse's?" Austin asked the teenager.

  "They're having salmon patties. Who in their right mind eats salmon patties, I ask?" She shifted her gaze between the two. "I'd much rather risk your cooking."

  Jo turned to Austin. "I thought you said you were a good cook?"

  "He told you that? I'm Bailey by the way, just in case he failed to mention he had a kid."

  She laughed, accepting her hand. "Jo, and yes, he did mention you. As a matter of fact, I was under the impression you were joining us for dinner." She tossed Austin a curious look, wondering why he hadn't mentioned the change of plans.

  "Well, it appears I am now. Unless you only brought home enough for two?"

  "Are you kidding? I know your appetite. I knew you'd be hungry again the moment you got home."

  "Funny, Dad. You're a real riot. I can't help it if I'm a growing girl."

  Since the teenager was as thin as a rail, Jo doubted any of the extra calories Austin spoke of managed to stick around long.

  "Why don't you help Jo with the salad while I go check on the steaks?"

  Jo turned to his daughter and found her eyes fixed on her.

  "Dad said you were a federal agent. That's pretty cool."

  Nodding, Jo went to the refrigerator and gathered the ingredients for a salad.

  "So you get to travel a lot, huh?"

  "Believe me, it's not as glamorous as it sounds."

  "Yeah, I imagine it must be tough on your family. You are married, aren't you?"

  "No, I'm not married."

  "Really. How interesting."

  Jo glanced over. The teenager was grinning. "Before you go getting any ideas, your father and I are just colleagues."

  "Mumm. Dad said you were a profiler, that must be pretty exhausting work?"

  "What makes you think that?" She wondered how much Austin had told his daughter about her.

  "I dropped by the sheriff's office after school today and you were asleep in my dad's office."

  No wonder the girl was curious. "Jet lag. I live on the East Coast."

  "Jet lag, huh?"

  Jo stopped grating carrots long enough to look up at her. "Are you always this inquisitive?" If so, she'd hate to be one of Bailey's teachers.

  "Sorry. It's just that Dad's never brought home a woman before, much less cooked for one."

  "Your Dad doesn't date?" Jo asked, then wished she hadn't.

  "What, are you kidding? Look at the man. Of course he dates. He just hasn't ever brought one home."

  Jo laughed. "So am I the reason you didn't stay at your friends for dinner?" she asked, figuring the girl's dislike of salmon wasn't the only reason she'd come home.

  "Partly. Jesse's mother did mention she'd heard that Dad was seen having dinner with a pretty woman the other night."

  "I'd forgotten just how small this town is." Jo moved to the refrigerator to see what flavors of dressing they had. She found a bottle of Italian and set it on the counter.

  "You've been to Claremont before?"

  "I grew up here."

  "Get out of here. Really? Then you must be Mrs. McDaniels's daughter…I'm in one of her classes at school."

  Of course she was. Jo doubted it could get much worse.

  They had just finished making the salad and had fixed potatoes in the microwave when Austin came in with the steaks. Much to Jo's approval, they looked very good and smelled absolutely delicious. After fixing their plates, they all went outside to the patio to eat. As the sun set, there was a refreshing southern breeze that drifted across the deck, presenting a relaxing atmosphere.

  Feeling as if she were being watched, Jo glanced over at Bailey and saw her nibbling on a carrot stick. "Another question?"

  "No." Bailey grinned. "I can't imagine what it would be like to have your own mother as a teacher."

  "I was lucky enough I was never in any of her classes, but a lot of my friends were."

  "Even worse. Mrs. McDaniels is pretty cool, though. I think she understands teenagers better than most of the other teachers."

  "She has Jo to thank for that," Austin teased. "From what I hear, she was a real handful."

  Jo tossed Austin a smile before meeting the curious expression of his daughter. "I was somewhat over-zealous as a teenager. You've heard of children who are prone to accidents; well I was one that was prone to misbehaving. The harder I tried to stay out of trouble, the more I got into it," she admitted, offering more of her rebellious youth than she'd intended.

  "Is it true you once stole one of your dad's patrol cars and took it for a joy ride?"

  "How in the world did you know about that?"

  "You're mother told us at the beginning of the year. She uses you as an example of how a person is capable of changing. She says you're so good at what you do because you have the instinct and intuition of a cop and the mind of a criminal."

  Her words prompted a smile; Jo had never heard her mother say that before. She wasn't even aware her mother understood what she did for a living.

  "So that's how you do it?" Austin teased, his gaze lingering.

  "Yeah, I'm afraid my secret's out."

  Still smiling, he turned to his daughter. "Just don't go getting any ideas from Jo's teenage adventures, 'cause I promise, I won't be as lenient as her father was."

  "My father was anything but lenient," Jo corrected. "For your information he refused to post bond for me and I had to sit in jail all weekend, while my friends who went along for the ride, were all turned loose within an hour of our capture."

  "A lesson well learned I would imagine."

  Jo tossed him a smile, "Well—"

  "Never mind, let's change the subject shall we?"

  Jo suspected his desire to change the subject had little to do with the threat of her being a bad influence on his daughter, but that he was merely trying to avoid the subject of her family. She appreciated his sensitivity.

  *****

  After dinner, Jo and Bailey did the dishes and Austin dried. Afterwards, Bailey disappeared to her room to finish her homework, while they returned to lounge on the deck.

  "I like your daughter," Jo said, once they were relaxed and glancing up at a full moon. "And dinner was good as well."

  "I'm glad you liked it. It was the least I could do."

  She sensed he still felt guilty for testing her ability. "You know, you aren't the first person who thought I was nuts. Most of the law enforcement agencies I work with are leery of me in the beginning. There have even been times when they wouldn't listen long after I'd given them a profile."

  "Let me guess, those are the cases you spoke of that have gone unsolved?"

  "Some of them."

  "It
must be tough feeling like you have to prove yourself all the time."

  "Now you know why I have a chip on my shoulder."

  "From guys like Detective Thomas?"

  She tossed him a smile. Then, not wanting to linger on the subject, she decided to venture onto a more personal level. "How long were you and your wife married?"

  "Sixteen years. We met in college. Ruth's dad was a cop. He's the one that took me on my first ride-a-long. After that, I was hooked."

  Jo thought back to her first ride in a cop car. She'd just turned eight, and her father was Claremont's newest deputy. Another smile formed at the memory of him letting her play with the siren as they patrolled the county roads. He could have gotten into a lot of trouble if he'd been caught with her in the car. But since he was on his lunch break, and she'd pleaded with him, he let her go along for the ride.

  "Did you hear me?"

  Jo glanced up at Austin's voice. "I'm sorry?"

  "I asked if you'd noticed that all the bodies have been found close to the highway and at the end of a decline in the terrain. Seeing as how there are no drag marks, he'd have to have some pretty good upper body strength."

  She had noticed that, too, this afternoon when he'd taken her to the last dumpsite. "It would make sense. He's afraid to drag them for fear of leaving evidence. A piece of fiber from the tarp could be analyzed and used later to convict him when he's caught."

  "Pendergrass's brother owns the local gym. I'll have him get a client list that we can reference once we have your profile. Is there anything else you remember from your visions that may help?"

  "He uses a thin white cord to strangle them. I'm thinking that it could have come with the tarp. It'd probably be hard to trace its purchase, though."

  "We only have two hardware stores in the county. It'd be worth checking out."

  So as not to spoil his enthusiasm, she decided not to remind him they were less than an hour's drive from Portland, and the major department stores, where such purchases were made on a daily basis.

  The sliding glass door opened and Bailey stepped onto the deck. "Telephone." She handed Austin a cordless phone.

  The teenager tossed Jo a brief smile before she slipped back inside.

  "Okay, thanks." Austin hung up; then looked at Jo. "That was Slim. We got a call from Texas with a possible ID on the first victim. Houston PD is faxing us the file."

  "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go have a look at it."

  *****

  "Margaret Miller, forty-one, owns a successful retail clothing store in Houston, Texas." Austin read the report to Jo as she stood next to Slim, who manned the radio. "She was reported missing this morning by her assistant manager when she failed to return from her vacation to Portland. She was estranged from her family, having run away at the age of seventeen. She received her GED and put herself through college while working two jobs. A former employer fronted the money to start her business and then she bought him out three years ago. She's also been divorced ten years from an abusive husband who she hasn't had contact with since."

  "Sounds like our Jane Doe number one."

  "You think so?"

  "She was the most difficult one," Jo reminded and then moved from within earshot of Slim. "I've never had a vision as strong as the one I had of her. You were there, you saw me."

  "Yeah," he said quietly. "I'll have the Houston PD notify the parents and get a DNA sample. Shall I have them send it to Washington?"

  Jo nodded. "They'll have the samples Brad sent yesterday for comparison." She then yawned.

  Austin smiled. "Come on, I'll drive you back to the motel."

  "No, I'll be fine." She waved off his offer. "Have you entered these cases into VICAP?"

  He nodded. "Along with a BOLO, not that it'd do any good. Most law enforcement won't pay that much attention to it unless they have a missing person, as was the case in Salt Lake City and now Houston."

  Jo suspected he was right.

  "You're convinced she wasn't the first?"

  "He was too confident, Austin, too comfortable with the body. It's the only thing that makes any sense. People are uncomfortable around death, even someone who kills."

  "I don't have the manpower to do the type of search you're suggesting, Jo."

  "I realize that. It's just that the first kill is usually the most personal. A lot of the time the killer knows the first one and it's usually the one that leads you to his identity."

  "If there's another one out there, they'll turn up. He always put them where they are easily found."

  "He didn't the first one. He knows she'll lead us to him."

  "What do you want me to do, call in reinforcement to search for a body we don't even know is out there?"

  "No, you're right. She'll turn up eventually."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Jo's words continued to haunt Austin throughout the following morning. Sitting at his desk, he continued to stare at the photograph of Margaret Miller. If Jo was right, Jane Doe number one now had a name, too. The physical description, age, and blood type matched. But they wouldn't know for sure until they got the DNA results.

  As if she'd known he was thinking of her, Jo popped her head in his office door and wished him a good morning.

  He glanced at the clock on his wall. It read eight-thirty. "You're up early. Did you even go to bed?" It was almost two this morning when he'd finally dropped her off at the motel. He himself had only managed four hours sleep.

  "I probably got as much sleep as you." She produced a brown bag from behind her back and dropped it on his desk. "I brought you a couple of bagels."

  "You already ate breakfast, too." He'd planned to give her a call and take her out for breakfast.

  "After my run, I stopped in at Bertha's."

  He took out one of the bagels and spread on some cream cheese.

  "By the looks of the outer office, your guys were pretty busy last night?"

  He followed her gaze and peered through the mini blinds at the half dozen men who were in the process of giving statements to his deputies. "I guess after we left, they were swamped with calls. There was a bar fight over at Bobby Jo's. Two are in the hospital with cuts and abrasions. That was followed by a burglary at the mini-mart and a three vehicle accident just inside the county."

  "Must have been the full moon."

  "Yeah, it never fails."

  "Is there anything I can do to help?"

  He glanced up at her offer. Pendergrass was due in any minute, but the rest of his deputies were either busy with other tasks or had the day off. "You could call the local hardware stores for me and see if there is any way of tracking the purchases of blue tarps bought in the last two months."

  "Okay. That it?"

  "For now." He watched her leave. The thought of a profiler performing such a menial task almost made him laugh, and he figured she had to be bored out of her mind to have even offered to help.

  Austin had just finished going over the reports from last night's bar fight when Deputy Pendergrass stormed into his office. "Why is she tracking down leads?" he demanded.

  "Because I asked her to."

  "Well, I could be doing that. I do work here, you know. Besides, I thought she was only a consultant on the case."

  "I am only a consultant," Jo answered from the doorway.

  'This ought to be good,' Austin mused.

  She came into the office and strolled right up to the deputy. "I was under the impression we were working as a team here. But since that doesn't seem to be the case, I wouldn't want to steal any of your glory." She handed him a piece of paper, glancing at Austin at the same time. "Stevens' Hardware does sell blue tarps, but unless they were charged to an account, or purchased with a credit card, there isn't any way of knowing who bought them."

  Deputy Pendergrass gave the paper a brief glance. "What's this?"

  "It's a list of those people with accounts who've purchased blue tarps in the past two months. It's a short list, and I doubt the killer'
s name is among them, but hey, knock yourself out."

  "I'm supposed to go and question these people about a stupid tarp?"

  "I would've been happy to do it myself." She picked up the file on Margaret Miller. "But I'm afraid I'm going to be too busy consulting."

  Austin fought hard to contain his laughter as Deputy Pendergrass stared after her. "I suggest you get right on that, deputy," he barely managed and turned to see Jo heading out the front door. That chip on her shoulder she mentioned last night was more like a boulder.

  *****

  It was mid-afternoon before the office returned to normal. There had been no sign of either Jo or his deputy since morning and Austin entertained the thought that she had waited outside the office for him and made good on the threat she'd made that first day. He suspected if a girl ever did kick his butt, he'd show a lot more respect for the opposite sex.

  He was in the process of clearing off his desk when Walt buzzed him over the intercom, informing him of another possible ID for one of their Jane Doe's.

  "Sheriff Garrett here."

  "Afternoon, Sheriff. This is Detective Kramer with the San Francisco PD; we've got a missing person that matches the description of one of your Jane Doe's. Elena Bradshaw, age thirty-seven. She was reported missing yesterday by her ex-husband after she'd gone to Portland to visit her sick mother and never showed up. I'm sending a photo, and all we've got on her over the wire now."

  "Great. We're going to need a blood sample from her parents for a positive ID. I'd appreciate it if you could send it to the FBI lab in Washington," and rattled off the case number Jo had given him.

  *****

  It took several seconds to rouse Jo to the door and when she finally did open it, she didn't appear in any better mood than when he last saw her. She did, however, look more comfortable in the gray sweats and tank top she now wore.

  "Were you in the shower?" he asked, wondering what had taken her so long to answer the door. He then noticed the cell phone in her hand. Austin offered a silent apology and waited for her to end her call.