Ashes, Ashes, They All Fall Dead

by LENA DIAZ,

“He lived with his father until his father kicked him out. But get this: The reason his father kicked him out was because one of his father’s friends—John Crawford—warned him about his son’s obsession with little girls.”

  Matt sucked in a breath. “So you figure he killed Crawford to get revenge. Why, after all these years?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “His obsession with little girls, was he obsessed with anyone in particular?”

  “You’ve got the flyer.”

  Matt swore again. “All right. I’m leaning heavily toward Hoffman as our man. I’m assuming you haven’t found him yet or you’d have led with that.”

  “I’ve got every spare man working on it. He hasn’t filed taxes under his social security number, ever. But his social security number popped up on the radar starting three years ago, at a construction business in Alabama. A company paid FICA taxes on an Isaac Hoffman, same social security number as the Hoffman we’re looking for. We don’t know where he went when he disappeared from Priceville all those years ago, but we know where he’s been for the past three years. I’ve alerted local law enforcement. And I’ve got a team of agents on the way right now.”

  Matt scrubbed his jaw and leaned back in his chair. Hoffman popped up on the tax rolls three years ago. The same time frame when the letters started. Could that be a coincidence? If he’d been clever enough to keep his identity concealed for so many years, why get sloppy now?

  “Matt, you still there?”

  “Yeah, sorry. What about Tonya Garrett? Any news?”

  Casey let out a deep sigh. “Unfortunately, no. SWAT’s getting into place to make an entry into Hoffman’s apartment to search for her. If she’s not there, they’ll pull back and stake out the apartment until Hoffman returns.”

  “If he returns.”

  “Yeah, if. Keep me posted on what you find out from Latham. Gotta go.”

  Matt hung up the phone. He was glad he finally had a suspect’s name to work with, and he wanted to believe that Casey was right about everything. But Matt wasn’t sure. They still didn’t have any witnesses. Very little physical evidence. Everything Casey had was based on speculation and timing, because a troubled young man disappeared at the same time as the abduction. The tie-in with Crawford was interesting, promising, but again—there was no proof.

  He printed several copies of the profile the task force had created, as well as copies of the missing-persons flyer.

  The flyer that had been issued before Tessa was even born.

  The implications of that were staggering and had bile rising in Matt’s throat. He drew a shaky breath, then another. His hands clenched into fists, crumpling the flyers he’d just printed. He sat there for a long time, struggling for control of his emotions, pushing back the anger. He needed to be strong. Tessa would need a port in the storm today.

  Because her entire world was about to be shattered.

  HER CAPTOR NUDGED Tonya in the back with his rifle. “Hurry up. We’re almost there.”

  She half turned to look at him while she continued walking up the slight incline. “Almost where?” she cried, her tears making black streaks through the dust on her cheeks. “Please let me go. I won’t tell anyone about you. I promise. I’m only seventeen. Let me go, please.”

  This one was almost more trouble than she was worth. He raised his flashlight like a hammer, ready to beat her into submission.

  “No, no, no, I’ll shut up. I’m sorry.” She turned away, her footsteps faster as she hurried around the corner and out of sight.

  He laughed behind her. She probably thought she was getting away. He followed, more slowly, waiting.

  She cried out her frustration up ahead.

  He laughed again and rounded the corner. “What’s the matter, Tonya? You don’t like your new home?”

  She cowered at the entrance to the cell, shielding her eyes from the light from his flashlight. “What do you want from me? Why did you bring me here?”

  “Get inside.”

  She grabbed the bars on the door and shook her head. “No. Please. Don’t lock me up in there. I won’t try to get away again. I’ll sit in the truck with you. I’ll be quiet. I won’t try to get anyone’s attention this time. I’ll—”

  He backhanded her across the face.

  She gave a little scream as she slammed against the bars.

  “Get inside,” he repeated.

  She ducked away and stumbled into the cell, collapsing onto the cot. She wrapped her arms around her waist, staring at him like a deer he’d once killed.

  He chuckled and slammed the door shut. He hung the key on a hook ten feet outside the cell, where she could see it.

  Her eyes grew big and round with hope. He wondered how long it would take before she realized everything in her little home was bolted down. There wasn’t anything she could use to try to get that key off the wall.

  “What are you going to do to me?” she whispered.

  “I’m not going to rape you, if that’s what you’re worried about. You’re not my type.” He laughed again. “You’re just bait.”

  Tonya choked and drew back on the cot, curling into herself.

  He leaned against the bars. “My girl will be home soon. We’re going to have a reunion. And then I won’t have any use for you anymore, so I’ll have to get rid of you.”

  He pulled a box of matches out of his pocket. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled out a match, caressed the smooth wood, then flicked the head against the strip on the box.

  The match flared to life.

  He walked away, laughing as the girl’s screams of terror echoed on the rock walls.

  MADISONVILLE, KENTUCKY, HOME of the Hopkins County Sheriff’s Department, could have graced a Kentucky tourism postcard. Tessa stared through the windshield of her and Matt’s latest rental car. It was hard to imagine they were parked in almost the exact spot where her sister was murdered over twenty-three years ago. She forced those ugly thoughts away and focused on the beauty around her.

  The little two-lane highway was surrounded by gently rolling hills, dotted with a mixture of sparse, deep-green winter grass valiantly struggling to cling to life amid the choking blue-green grasses of summer. If there were some horses on those same hills, the spot would have matched the vision of Kentucky that Tessa had always had in her mind—bluegrass and horses and acres of pastureland.

  “Looks like this might be Latham,” Matt said.

  Sunlight glinted off a dark blue SUV as it slowed to a stop on the other side of the highway, waiting for a semi to pass. As the car waited, a black-and-white Murray police car with its distinctive battering-ram grill rounded the curve and waited behind the SUV.

  “Looks like Stephens came too. I didn’t know he’d be here,” Tessa said.

  “Neither did I.”

  The wind whipped behind the semi as it passed, buffeting the car Matt and Tessa were sitting in.

  The police car and SUV made U-turns in the middle of the road and pulled to the shoulder behind them.

  Matt popped his door open. “Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  Detective Larry Stephens joined them on the side of the road.

  “We didn’t expect you to be here,” Matt said.

  “I wanted to make the introductions, and warn you.”

  “Warn us?”

  He motioned toward the SUV. Latham stood in the vee of his open door, staring at the same hills Tessa had been admiring just moments ago, as if he were sizing up the situation, or trying to remember the last time he’d been here.

  “Sheriff Latham’s a bit eccentric, and hard-nosed,” Stephens said. “Tight-lipped. Wouldn’t share much with me. He wouldn’t tell me anything at all over the phone. Insisted on meeting you in person. Not sure why.”

  Funny. Tessa would have described Stephens the exact same way.

  “I don’t mind,” she said. “All I care about right now is finding the missing girl.”

  “What missing girl?”
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  In spite of his advanced years, Sheriff Latham seemed perfectly fit and had walked up to them so silently, Tessa hadn’t even noticed he was there.

  He eyed her and Matt, as if he was trying to make sure they weren’t on the FBI’s ten most wanted list.

  “Matt Buchanan, Special Agent Tessa James,” Stephens said, “meet Roy Latham, sheriff of Hopkins County.”

  “Former sheriff, retired five years now.” He ignored Matt and Tessa’s outstretched hands. “What missing girl? I thought you were here about that old car crash.”

  Matt handed a copy of Tonya’s photograph and the killer’s profile to Tessa. She nodded her thanks.

  “Looking into the accident is part of our background search to try to find the man who abducted a young girl from Savannah.” She handed the photo and paper to Latham.

  He studied the picture just as thoroughly as he’d studied Matt and Tessa. “How old is she?”

  “Seventeen.”

  He shook his head, looking genuinely troubled. He put the profile page on top of the picture, his lips moving as he silently read it. When he finished he folded the photo and profile and put them in his shirt pocket. “You think the guy in that profile is the one who abducted that young girl?”

  “We do.”

  “And you think he’s the same perpetrator Stephens called me about, from twenty-three years ago? You think he set fire to a group home? And you think he had something to do with the crash I investigated?”

  “That’s our working theory.”

  He braced his legs wide apart. His gaze seemed to linger on Tessa’s hair.

  His silence had her feeling uneasy, especially since he was staring at her so intently. Matt must have felt the same way, because he subtly moved his body closer to hers, as if to protect her.

  “Anything you can tell us about the accident would be appreciated,” she continued.

  “It wasn’t an accident.”

  “Yes, I know. Someone shot the driver and caused the wreck.”

  He cocked his head. “You’re her. Red.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The little girl in the car with Jane Doe. I nicknamed the little girl ‘Red,’ for obvious reasons. You’re that little girl, aren’t you?”

  She exchanged a surprised glance with Matt.

  “Yes, sir, I believe I am.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I . . . I’ve had dreams, through the years, nightmares really, or so I’d always assumed until recently. Now I believe they might be memories.”

  His mouth flattened. “That’s a shame. I’d always hoped you’d remember one day, so we could give the other girl a name besides Jane Doe. I always wanted to catch the son of a bitch who killed her, but I didn’t have anything to go on. Everywhere I looked was a dead end.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d call her Sissie,” Tessa said. “It may not be her real name, but it’s how I remember her. She was my sister. Please don’t call her Jane Doe.”

  He nodded, his hard gaze softening. “Like I put in the report, near as I can figure, Sissie was driving south, going about ten miles over the limit. Someone shot her through the back windshield, either from another car or perched up in the hills on the other side of the road. I never could figure out for sure. There weren’t any skid marks, so she never hit the brakes. The car ran off the road right about where we’re parked and flipped a couple of times, landed upside down in the ditch. A man drove by right after it happened and called it in.”

  “Was the car stolen?” Matt asked.

  “The plates were. They didn’t match the car. But I couldn’t tell you who owned the car. I traced the Vehicle Identification Number through every registered owner since the car rolled off the showroom floor. The last known owner lived right here in Hopkins County. But he sold the car for cash five years before the accident. The new owner never registered it. The car was untraceable.”

  “Did you rule out the previous owner as a suspect in the shooting?” Tessa asked.

  “He was two hundred miles away visiting family at the time. Alibi checked out.”

  “What about the man who reported the accident?” Matt asked.

  “You take me for a rookie, son?”

  Matt coughed as if to cover a smile. “No, sir.”

  “Then it won’t surprise you to know I put the witness through a full workup. Tested him for GSR, had him stripped down butt naked and tested every piece of clothing he had too. Not a trace of gunshot residue. He’s not the one who pulled the trigger.”

  “What do you remember about Sissie?” Tessa asked.

  Latham’s faded hazel eyes zeroed in on her. “She looked a lot like you, spitting image. I could have sworn I was seeing her ghost when I walked up. I’m not surprised she was your sister. Same red hair, pale complexion. She didn’t have a purse on her, no ID, which of course seemed odd. I’ve never met a woman who’d leave the house without her purse. Her clothes struck me as odd too. She wore a long dress, all the way to the ankles. Nothing fancy, not one of those prom dresses or anything like that. More like a church dress. Real plain, cotton, covered every inch of skin from her neck down. Even her arms were covered. It was smack-dab in the middle of summer. Didn’t make sense that she’d cover herself up like that.”

  “Sheriff, are you saying you had no suspects at all?” Tessa asked.

  Something flickered in his eyes, but then it was gone. Tessa didn’t know what that look meant.

  “I spent two months following up every angle I could think of. I called every law-enforcement agency within a hundred miles of here to see if they had any missing-persons reports for two young girls with red hair.” He glanced at Stephens. “Nothing turned up.”

  “No one reported either of the girls missing?” Tessa asked.

  He gave her a sympathetic look. “No, ma’am. They didn’t. Not for lack of trying on my part. I did interviews with the local TV station and the paper and put out law-enforcement alerts, even contacted the FBI for a hit on any of their national databases. Nothing turned up.”

  Once again they were at a dead end. Tessa had more questions now than when they’d started.

  “I don’t suppose you could get us copies of the case file, could you?” Matt asked.

  He’d been noticeably quiet during her interview of Latham. She’d assumed he was letting her take the lead since she was the FBI agent assigned to the case. But now she wasn’t so sure. Tiny tension lines had feathered around his eyes as he waited for Latham’s response.

  Latham shook his head. “That accident report was all I ever entered in the computers years later when we were digitizing our old cases. You’ll have to check with the current sheriff to have him pull the hard-copy file, if they still have it. Sorry I couldn’t help you folks. Good luck with your search. I hope you find that young girl.”

  He shook Matt and Tessa’s hands, but when Stephens held his hand out, Latham ignored it and walked back to his SUV.

  Stephens colored slightly and dropped his hand. Latham pulled onto the highway and soon disappeared around the curve.

  Matt eyed Stephens with open curiosity. “I thought you and Latham were friends, but it didn’t seem that way.”

  “We’ve had a few run-ins over the years. I wouldn’t say we were ever friends.” He glanced at his watch. “I passed a pancake house a couple of miles down the road that didn’t look too bad. Want to grab some breakfast and toss some ideas around?”

  Tessa hesitated. “Honestly, Detective. I think I speak for both Matt and me when I say it was a surprise to see you here today. Murray’s not exactly down the street. And you didn’t seem all that interested in this case when we were in your office yesterday.”

  His jaw tightened. “Believe it or not, Special Agent James, I felt guilty when you two left. I know I probably seemed callous about that fire, and the deaths of those girls. But I was having a bad day. My arthritis was acting up, and it didn’t help when I crawled around in that annex looking for that file for
you. You didn’t catch me at my best. That’s why I drove up, to make sure Latham answered your questions, and to see if there was anything else I could do to help. Now, about that breakfast?”

  Tessa forced a smile. “Sounds great. We’ll meet you there.”

  She waited with Matt as they watched Stephens drive away.

  “I don’t trust him,” Matt said.

  “Me either. What about Latham? Do you trust him?”

  “Right now, I’m not inclined to trust anyone.”

  MATT ATE A piece of bacon while he and Tessa waited for Stephens to finish writing on the map he’d brought in from his patrol car.

  Stephens turned the map around and slid it toward them.

  “Those are the coal mines operating right now in this general area. Pine trees are common pretty much everywhere, so I don’t think you can narrow your search based on any specific kinds of trees. Then again, I’m not a plant guy, so who knows? But if someone worked at one of those mines, it’s certainly possible they could get coal dust and pine sap on their clothing and bring it home. That would explain the residue on the letters you mentioned.” He popped the last of his bacon in his mouth and chased it with a diet soda.

  “It was particulates, not residue,” Matt said. “Which means the dust was fine, so fine it couldn’t be seen. Same thing for the tree sap. I’m thinking that means the person who left the contaminants on the paper probably wasn’t a miner, or he might have even been a former miner who continued to live in the area around a mine. I see three of these mines have towns nearby. That might narrow our search.”

  Stephens shook his head. “If you want to narrow it down based on the coal dust being in the air in a town close to a mine, then ignore those circles I just made. Active mines are highly regulated. It’s unlikely someone who hasn’t actually been down in those mines would come into contact with the particulates you mentioned.”

  “So, we should look at inactive mines,” Tessa said. “Mines that weren’t as heavily regulated back when they were in operation, years ago?”

  “That makes sense.” Stephens circled three more places on the map. “Those are the only old, closed-down mines I know of around here. But there might be more.”