by Julia Shupe
I felt eyes upon me and turned. It was Jacob. Actually, Agent Forrest to me now. He was staring at me, hands clasped across a knee. Nodding tightly, he turned his attention to the front of the room, where the row of blank bulletin boards mocked us. Maybe, like me, he was wondering how we’d fill them. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I silenced the sound, checking once more for missed calls. Linda and Danny would be busy with breakfast. I’d left the two of them drowning in syrup. Part of me had wanted to stay with them and relax, to stick five candles in that damn plate of pancakes and spend the rest of the day burning off the calories. But work beckoned. It always did. And this particular case had piqued my interest.
I’d always been drawn to the darker side of life, to the frightening stories, and the unexplainable tales, to the parts of humanity that frightened everyone else. It was probably one of the things—if not the thing—that had driven Scott away. I hadn’t been a particularly good wife, nor had I been popular in school, where we’d met. I’d never fit in with the cheerleaders or athletes. I hadn’t met friends at the mall on weekends, or run for class president, or joined the yearbook committee. I’d always had plenty of boyfriends, of course, but I’d never been part of a girlish clique.
But where I was dark, introspective, and pensive, Linda had always been outgoing and fun. She’d always been sunny from the inside out. When we were younger, our differences were much more pronounced, so much so in fact, that we’d never been close. But as we both matured, we came together, in mind and spirit. We were polar opposites who met somewhere in the middle. Maybe I lightened up, or she became darker. Maybe some of my cynicism infected her. Or maybe life had beaten her natural exuberance to a pulp.
Regardless of our pasts, we were now each other’s bedrock. When our mother was taken, we were all each other had, and thankfully, we’d become quite close. Linda cared deeply about Danny. She loved him as if he were her own. I was a newly divorced single mother who’d needed a nanny, and there she was. What more could a mother ask for? There was no other person I trusted more with my son than Linda. She could cook, and garden. She was a natural caretaker. She could fold small squares of origami into horses, dragons, and unicorns. One day, I knew, she’d make an excellent mother. Until then, we let Danny fill the void.
I, on the other hand, excelled at other things, at investigative work and analytics, at peeking behind the ghoulish masks of rotten people and accepting the things I found hidden back there. I’d never shied away from darkness. To excel at this job, I’d been forced to embrace it.
“How long did you stay at the scene?” I asked Gil; suddenly curious about the things I’d missed.
“Too long. Long enough to sweat my ass off. I feel for those techs. They’ll be out there for days. When I left, they were up to sixteen separate graves.”
“Sixteen,” I murmured, my eyes sliding back to Jacob. Our gazes locked and I felt my stomach flip. Eyes pinned to his face, I whispered to Gil. “From what I gathered, we might be asked to join this team. I think they’re planning to add us to—”
“Ness,” he shushed me. “They’re getting started.”
Settling into my seat, I watched Jacob calmly cross the room. Earlier, I’d been so focused on Cowpen Slough I hadn’t taken the time to really look at him. And now that I could, I felt myself smile. Beneath the harsh florescent bulbs, he seemed quite older than I remembered him to be, or maybe it was the frown that was pulling on his mouth, or the bags beneath both his eyes. None of that mattered, though; he was still quite handsome. In high school, he’d been tall and gangly with big feet, his wavy hair hidden beneath a baseball cap, his nose too large for his face. But the man crossing the room now was fully fleshed and sure of himself. He carried himself with confidence and maturity. His features were balanced, his chest broad, his shoulders wide. He was moving briskly to the front workstation, a grainy photograph fluttering in his hand. Walking to the board, he pinned the photo to the cork, and turning to room, said, “This, ladies and gentleman, is Carlton P. Tubbs. For the Cowpen crimes, he’s our number one suspect. In the 1980’s, he was dubbed the Trailside Skinner. Did a stretch at Folsum at the age of nineteen, and was released on good behavior after serving nine years.”
“Good behavior?” someone shouted from the back of the room. “How’s a guy named the Trailside Skinner get released on good behavior?”
“And after only nine years,” Gil added.
Acknowledging both men, Jacob took a deep breath. “They couldn’t hold him any longer, I’m afraid. For his crime, back then, fifteen years was the state maximum sentence. Tubbs attacked a woman in a state-owned park, but the thing was: she lived. He didn’t actually kill her. His crime was brutal, but his victim didn’t die, and so, he did his time, and was let out early. They could only charge him with the rape and the attempt, but technically, Carton Tubbs never murdered anyone. In California—at the time—the stiffest sentence was fifteen years, a sentence that pales by today’s standards. Tubbs, of course, was let out in nine.” Jacob shook his head, clearly disgusted with the system. “That’s just how it was done back then.”
Captain Wahl joined Jacob beside the photograph; his round belly accentuated by Jacob’s flat one. “Tubbs,” he clarified, “was found guilty of attempted murder. He attacked a girl on her morning run, on one of the trails in the Roseville area. The crime was brutal. Meghan Newton was her name. After cutting off one of her feet, he kicked her down a steep ravine.” Lifting his hands, he rubbed his temples, like the words were making his head throb. “It was a miracle she lived, and a combination of several things. She was brave and determined, but more than a bit lucky. Somehow she pulled herself out of that ravine. She crawled to the main road, covered in blood from head to toe, and flagged down a passing vehicle. Like I said: Meghan was lucky. The first two assholes sped right past her, but the third picked her up and took her to the hospital. By then, she was practically dead. She’d lost half the blood in her body.” He rounded his shoulders. “Thank God she lived. It was her testimony that put Tubbs behind bars.”
I tried to picture Meghan’s pain, but I couldn’t. I tried to visualize the extent of her wounds, and the fact that she’d faced her tormentor in court. What determination, I thought, what extraordinary strength of character, what courage it took to crawl from the proverbial pit. I remembered that story. It was tough to forget. Though it happened two decades ago, it was still considered a classic case. I’d studied it in school. Everyone had. I was eight or nine years old when it happened, but it was a case study in most criminal justice classes now, often used to teach the theory of escalation. Everyone knew Meghan Newton had been lucky, and the fact that she’d lived, a mere technicality. Carlton Tubbs was a fledgling killer who’d received a light sentence, and then been set free, a fact that infuriated every person in this room.
I wondered, for a moment, how Meghan had fared, how she’d coped with the horror and the memories. Had she been able to move past it, or had she cracked beneath the pressure? Violent crime can scoop the soul from the toughest person. What kind of empty shell had Carlton Tubbs left behind?
Jacob’s voice pulled me from my musings. He slapped a second photo alongside the first, and stepping back, pointed with his pen.
“This was Meghan Newton back then, after the crime. I’ll tell you what little we know about her now. After the crime, for a while, she stayed on the move. Moving steadily east, she toured the southwestern states, but was never able to hold down a job. She followed the same patterns as those who suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome. She started with alcohol then moved to light drugs, and after that, to the heavier stuff. After several years, she cleaned herself up, and after several more, supposedly found God.”
I frowned. Well yeah. Who wouldn’t? Let’s see: foot chopped off, raped, skinned then left for dead. Drugs were just the beginning. Though I’d never tried anything harder than pot, a hacked off foot could certainly launch an experimental phase.
Jacob held up another photo of
Meghan, this one professionally done. She looked prettier, more pulled together this time, but her eyes held a darkness that still hadn’t cleared, a shadowed place where the memories still lurked. I knew about places like that. I’d been there.
Jacob placed the newer photo alongside the old, the juxtaposition of the two somewhat jarring. “This,” he said, “was taken after Meghan cleaned herself up. She wrote a book about her experiences. It was a horror story, a bestseller in the early 2000’s. But now, for the most part, she’s dropped back into obscurity.”
Gil cleared his throat beside me. “Perp fits,” he noted to the room. “But Florida’s a long way from California, agent. I’ll admit; the MO’s unusual. Cutting off feet isn’t the typical serial killer pastime, but there must be other suspects with similar MO’s, perps on this side of the country perhaps?”
“There are,” Jacob acknowledged. “Several, in fact. More than you might expect.” Turning to the board, he pinned a series of photos beside Carlton’s.
“Jason Lloyd, Aaron Shaw, Victor Nortz—to name a few. All have priors. All are guilty of violent assaults. These men are sexual deviants, people. They’re predators and internet fetishists. And there are many more where these came from, all within the general vicinity. It’ll be our job to narrow down this list. But right now, Carlton Tubbs is still the best fit. He’s the only one—out of this group, anyway—who likes skinning as much as chopping. It doesn’t mean he’s our man, of course, but his MO is the closest to the CPD Killings.”
“CPD?” Gil asked.
“Cowpen Does. That’s what we’re calling the victims.”
I frowned. Cowpen Does? Why must we always give these things such ridiculous names? Note to all men, I thought. Even in death, don’t refer to women as cows.
“And there’s more,” Jacob added. “Tubbs has childhood ties to Florida. His mother owned a home here in the mid 1990’s. Went missing some twenty years back.”
“Missing?” Gil asked. “Was Tubbs involved?”
“We don’t know yet,” the captain answered, once again taking center stage. “Laurie Tubbs was a prostitute and a drug addict, so it’s difficult to know one way or another. She either went missing, moved on, or OD’d.”
Gil clearly wasn’t buying it. “Since when are drug-addicted prostitutes homeowners?”
“Since God invented inheritances,” Jacob said.
“Okay. So what happened when Tubbs was released? Did he move back to Florida? Try to claim the house she owned?”
Captain Wahl shook his head. “She’d sold it by then, Lieutenant Knowlton. According to his probation transfer records, Tubbs did come back to Florida, but unfortunately, that’s where the trail runs cold. He violated probation and hasn’t been seen since.”
“So why are we sitting here talking about Tubbs?” Gil wasn’t much for sitting around. I placed two fingers on his arm to steady him. “If he’s the best fit, let’s get off our fat asses, and go pick him up.”
“Easier said than done,” Jacob said. “Like Meghan, Tubbs has dropped off the face of the earth. After landing in Florida, he didn’t leave a trail. He never applied for a driver’s license—in the name of Carlton Tubbs, at least. He has no credit cards, and no bank accounts. He’s never paid taxes or received a W-2. We don’t have anything to go on here. We’ll have to dig deep, because the only thing we’ve got is the house his mother sold.” Jacob settled his arms across his chest. “We have to find him, people. And in order to do that, we have to track his movements. We’ve already placed a call to Folsum State Prison, and tomorrow, I’ll be taking a crew to California.
My ears perked up. A crew?
“Yeah,” Jacob answered. My ears suddenly burned. Had I just said that out loud?
“For this,” he continued, “We need all hands on deck. We need everyone’s help, every agency—state and federal, the medical examiner, forensics, CSI. This one is everyone’s case right now. It’s everyone’s problem. Am I clear? This guy,” he added, tapping the wall, “is active, and very enthusiastic about his work. He won’t stop doing it until someone else stops him.”
Captain Wahl took over, his eyes crawling across the room. “Here’s how this’ll go down,” he said. My arms prickled. Here it was: my future in a nutshell, outlined in this man’s next words. Would I be canvassing neighbors with a notepad and pen, or would I be given a place at the front lines? I wanted to work this case badly, but I wanted my contribution to mean something important. It had been a long time since I’d felt significant or useful. Not since the Serpent case, at least.
“Donald,” the captain continued, “will be leading forensics at the staging area. His team will rip that damn field apart, blade by fucking blade of grass, if that’s what it takes. Stacy’s team will profile the victims. I want everything we can get on every woman: where she went to school, where she worked, where she ate, where she bought her damned groceries. I want a list of ex-boyfriends, old friends, dentists, and doctors.” Jacob circled the room as the captain spoke, passing out a complex hierarchical map. “This,” Captain Wahl continued, “will be our roadmap. Find your name, and you’ll find your team.” He took a deep breath and put his hands on his hips. “And let’s get this jurisdiction crap out of the way right now. For now, this case belongs to local authorities, but at any given moment, that could change. Agent Forrest will consult Lieutenant Knowlton and his team. Harry, you’ll be leading the team charged with finding Carlton Tubbs. Find him. Follow his movements. Kristen, your job is to round up all the other suspects. I want every one of them found and questioned. We need to fill these gaps, people. I want specifics, places, names, and times.”
When the chart finally reached me, I was practically crawling out of my skin. I snatched it so fast I gave myself a paper cut, and when I found my name, I couldn’t help but smile. I’d made it. I was in. I was part of the team.
“We’re in this for the long haul,” Jacob was saying. “Long nights, grueling days. Understand, everyone: every piece of information you gather could lead to something significant. Don’t discount anything—no matter how small or immaterial it may seem.”
Behind me, the door swung open. “Jake,” a man said. “We found Meghan Newton. Got her contact info through her publisher. She’s living in Parkville, Missouri. I’ve got the address.”
Jacob’s eyes met mine. My heart thumped. “Then I guess that’s my cue. I’ll be taking my team to the prison tomorrow. We leave for California first thing in the morning, but we’re making a pit stop in Parkville, Missouri.”
I could hardly breath. I was on Jacob’s team, and tomorrow, I’d be meeting Meghan Newton face to face.
Chapter 10
I slid the filthy box across the table.
“May I touch it?” Dr. Hagen asked, like a runaway child in a candy store.
I nodded. It didn’t matter who touched it now. Just like the others, it had offered no clues. There had been no skin, fibers, prints, or hair—no hair from the killer, at least. It was the same as the others had been: a dead end, a token meant to taunt and drive me mad.
Lifting the box gently from the table, Dr. Hagen lifted the cover, but it was empty. “Same contents as before?”
“Always the same. Just a lock of her hair tied with a red silk ribbon.”
“And you’re sure it’s hers?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? It’s never been anyone else’s before. I know the lab won’t have the results for at least a week, but I’m absolutely positive it’s hers.” I heaved a sigh. “I’d know my mother’s hair anywhere, Adrianna. It looks like hers. It feels like hers. It had the same color, same texture, same weight. It’s my mother’s hair. I’m certain of that.”
“Same wrapping? Same paper?”
I shrugged. “Most likely. Like I said, I don’t have the lab work yet, but it doesn’t take a compound microscope to see the similarities. It’ll likely be the same flat black wrapping paper, the same nondescript box, even the same silky ribbon you can buy at any local Walma
rt. There’s nothing unique, nothing special about it, nothing that can’t be purchased at Kinko’s.”
Dr. Hagen sat back in her chair, the box still balanced in her hands. She held it gently, almost lovingly, as if it were an ancient artifact. “The timing certainly fits,” she said. “But why do you think he always sends them in March? Is the date significant to your family? To her?”
“I’ve been through all of this,” I answered, glumly. “With detectives who are much better investigators than me. I’ve even reviewed it with the captain himself. The month of March meant nothing to mom. It means nothing to me, or to Linda. We’re clueless.”
Dr. Hagen appeared pensive. “Then it must mean something to him,” she mumbled. She chewed her lip while I stared at her face. Adrianna was pretty. Well, no, not pretty. Striking was a better description. She was distinctly attractive in a bold and unconventional way. Her chestnut hair, luxuriant and thick, was streaked with hints of bronze, and trimmed neatly at the ends. It bounced from her shoulders in a way that made most women green with envy. Her face was angular, her lips too big. Her chin was too prominent, but it somehow fit. She could also be cold, and a bit too distant. She was the kind of woman people called stiff, or prim. But maybe, I’d often thought, for this kind of job, she had to be stiff. Maybe she had no choice. Maybe it was the only way to properly distance herself from other people’s pain.
“So California then,” she continued, a rough segue into a very different topic. “New case? Are you able to tell me about it?”
“Nope. Not really. I can’t discuss the particulars, but I can tell you this: it’s big. Very big,” I ran a hand through my unruly hair. “I’ll probably be working on it for the next ten years.”