by T. R. Ragan
“True.”
“What about you?” Sawyer asked. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I’m good. I’m also stronger than you think.”
Sawyer smiled. “I’ve always known you were tough.”
“Do you think the police will see through Lena Harris’s confession?”
“No telling,” Sawyer said. “The entire Sacramento Police Department is overworked as it is, so I guess it depends on who’s working the case.”
“They released Bruce Ward’s wife, Sandra,” Aria said.
“That’s a relief.”
“You don’t really think that Lena Harris killed Nick Calderon and Bruce Ward, do you?”
“No,” Sawyer said before another thought came to her. “I didn’t want to say anything about the Copycat Killer in front of Nate earlier, but I was wondering whether or not you were able to visit Stanley Higgins.”
Aria made a face. “I did and it was horrible. Have you ever been to a taxidermist?”
“No.”
“Well, I think I would have been fine if I hadn’t seen what he had in his back room. Preserved animals with human faces made from wax.”
“What?”
“Not kidding you.”
“What did Stanley Higgins look like?”
“Five foot nine, heavyset, slow walker, slow talker, monotone, quiet voice, and creepy smile.”
“How heavy would you guess?”
“Over two hundred and twenty pounds, at least. Are you going to give his name to the police?”
“I have more work to do.”
“Okay, well, I’m going to go to the shelter, but let me know if you need me.”
Aria gave Sawyer a quick hug before she left.
As Aria walked away, Sawyer thought about the man she’d chased on the railroad tracks.
He was lean and he was fast.
If she eliminated Stanley Higgins as a suspect, the only one left on her list of possible copycat killers was Jimmy Crocket. Emily Stiller had told her that Jimmy Crocket worked downtown.
Sawyer needed to go home and gather a few things before she drove back to town. Although she was hungry and every part of her ached, she knew she wouldn’t be able to rest until she checked him out.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Back home, Sawyer made quick work of reading through her notes until she found what she was looking for. According to Emily Stiller, Jimmy Crocket worked at Midtown Design Studio.
She grabbed her bag and headed out. The studio was located on Sixteenth Street. Sawyer found a parking spot on the street. The office was small. Three people sat at various desks, two to the right, one to the left. All women. All busy.
The one sitting to the left with a wild tangle of silver hair looked up. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Jimmy Crocket. I was told he works here.”
One of the other women sitting to the right pulled off her eyeglasses and said, “We only have one man who works here, and his name is Corey Moran.”
“Corey Moran works here?”
“That’s right. Do you know him?”
“I know of him,” Sawyer said, her mind swirling with speculation and ending up in a black hole since no logical connection formed.
“He’s been working here longer than any of us. If he’s not here, he’s at home.”
“He’s good at what he does,” the silver-haired woman said, “which is why he can work wherever he chooses.”
Sawyer felt completely off her game. Wanting to make sure they were talking about the same person, she pulled out her phone and showed the woman the picture Aria had taken. “Is this Corey Moran?”
The woman leaned closer for a better look. “Yep. That’s him, but it’s awful blurry.” She picked up a framed picture on her desk and handed it to Sawyer. “Here’s a better picture of the gang. That was before he grew his hair out.”
Sawyer felt sick to her stomach. She was pretty sure that was the face of the man she’d seen leaving the trailer park. How could that be? Nothing made any sense. She handed back the picture. “Is he expected in today?”
The silver-haired lady shrugged. “He comes and goes. I haven’t seen him in weeks.”
“I saw him two days ago,” one of the others said. “Do you want to leave a message for him?”
“No, that’s okay. Thank you.”
The minute Sawyer stepped outside, she moved away from the studio windows looking out to the street and leaned her back against a brick wall. She didn’t like the funny feeling swirling inside her.
Think, Sawyer, think. Start from the beginning. They met at the shelter when Corey Moran brought in a dog.
A lost dog.
Nick Calderon had a dog.
She needed to go to the shelter and talk to Aria right away.
Sawyer walked into the shelter and rushed over to the counter where Tiffany was doing paperwork.
“Is Aria here?” Sawyer asked.
Tiffany looked up and her eyes went wide. “Whoa! What happened to you?”
“It’s a long story.” Sawyer looked around. “Is Aria walking the dogs?”
“No, she went to lunch with that handsome new boyfriend of hers.”
Sawyer did her best to remain calm. “Any idea where they went?”
“No. Sorry.”
Sawyer’s heart was racing. “Speaking of her new boyfriend. He brought in a dog, is that right?”
“Yes. His name is Duke. Funny you should mention Duke, because we just found him a forever home.”
“Does every dog that comes in get checked to see if it has a microchip?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Did Duke have one?”
“I can check right now.” Tiffany skimmed the papers in front of her. She looked up and frowned. “Looks like Duke got missed. It happens. In fact, I remember that being one of our busier days.” She opened a drawer and grabbed an object that looked to Sawyer like a magnifying glass.
Sawyer followed Tiffany down the aisle lined with cages. Each cage had a tiny chalkboard strapped to it. Tiffany stopped at the cage with the name Duke written on the board.
Sawyer watched Tiffany put the scanner at the dog’s head and slowly scan side to side all the way to the tail. She made several passes. It wasn’t until she scanned the dog’s neck that Tiffany said, “Oh, my goodness.” She quickly locked the cage, and Sawyer followed her back to the counter.
“What did you find?”
“Give me just a moment,” she said. “Duke has been chipped, and now I need to look the number up on the registry.” It wasn’t long before she had the owner’s name: Linda Calderon.
Sawyer ran out the door without saying goodbye. Once she was in her car, she was shaking so badly she had to count to ten to calm herself.
She called Aria again, but there was no answer. She sent a text asking her to call, told her it was an emergency.
And then she called Lexi.
“Where are you?” Lexi asked. “I thought you would be here by now. We have a lot to discuss.”
“I need a favor,” Sawyer said. “I’ll explain later, but I need your help.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“I don’t have my laptop with me, but I need to know if a person named Jimmy Crocket had his name legally changed.”
“Give me a second.”
Sawyer could hear papers rustling and then fingers clacking away on the keyboard. Seconds felt like hours as she imagined Corey Moran taking her sister home with him. The thought of Aria being taken to his basement or tied up in some sketchy bedroom made her feel sick to her stomach.
“Jimmy Crocket is now Corey Moran. Do you need anything else?”
“An address. I need his address.”
“Are you okay?”
“I just need an address,” Sawyer told her.
“Okay. Okay.”
Minutes later, Sawyer was on the road, headed for a town house located a few miles away.
Corey Moran was the same
man she’d chased after when she’d gone to see Aston Newell at the auto shop—his light-brown hair blowing back behind him.
She’d seen him again at the trailer park. He’d looked right at her.
If he’d hurt Aria, she’d never be able to forgive herself for not putting two and two together soon enough.
The town house was located on T Street between Ninth and Tenth. She parked as close to the place as she could, then shut off the engine, readied her pepper spray, and ran a half block to his place. She rushed up the stairs to the patio and knocked on the door to the right. “Aria! Are you in there?”
Corey Moran opened the door, and she shoved her way past him.
“What the hell—”
She whipped around, her teeth gritted as she aimed the canister of pepper spray at his face. “Where’s my sister?”
He raised his hands in self-defense. “Your sister?”
“Aria. Where is she?”
“Oh,” he said. “Aria and I had lunch at the Burger Patch on K Street. When we parted ways, she told me she was going home.”
“I know what you did,” she said, not realizing how stupid she’d been to confront a possible killer until that very moment. She took a step backward, her hand shaking.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“That dog you brought to the shelter, the shelter where you met my sister, had a microchip.”
“I see.”
Palmer always said she reacted before thinking. He was right. She considered pushing past him and rushing out the door, but what if he was lying and Aria was inside? She turned and ran to the back of the house, calling Aria’s name.
“She’s not here,” he said, following as far as the kitchen. “I would never hurt your sister.”
Sawyer was in the bathroom, her chest tight and her nerves frayed as she yanked the plastic curtain hanging over the bathtub to the side.
Nothing. Her emotions were running high, and she felt on the brink of crying with relief. She checked the bedroom closet next. Nothing there.
Aria wasn’t here. Please be safe at home, Sawyer thought as she returned to the main room. “I talked to Nancy Lay,” Sawyer told him, glad to see he hadn’t moved. “She told me how you were bullied.” She walked past him as she talked.
He followed her into the main room.
“You burned down the Children’s Home of Sacramento, didn’t you?” she asked.
“I did.”
Surprised by his admission, she stopped to look him over.
His gaze met hers.
He didn’t look like a killer, but since when did a killer look like a killer? How many women had walked off with Ted Bundy? The BTK Strangler had installed security alarms. People had opened their doors and let him right inside.
But still, there was something about Corey Moran that made her believe he was telling the truth. Her phone vibrated. She pulled it out of her pocket and saw a text from Aria: Call me when you get a chance. I met with Corey again and I need to talk to someone. My heart is broken.
Her sister was alive. Brokenhearted, but alive. Corey Moran had not harmed her sister. He’d gone after the men who had abused him, just as the Black Wigs had done.
She slipped her phone back into her pocket. She was about to ask him straight out if he had killed Nick Calderon and Bruce Ward, but then thought better of it. She knew the answer. But what she didn’t know was what she would do with the information if he answered her truthfully. She also wondered about Felix Iverson. Who really killed him? But again, did she want to know the answer?
“Bringing the dog to the shelter was your downfall,” she finally said.
“Maybe. But then I wouldn’t have met Aria.”
“So everything you did was about revenge?”
“Something like that.”
“Why now?” she asked, but had a feeling she already knew. The Black Wigs had started a movement. That hadn’t been their intention, but that was exactly what had happened. Lexi’s niece, The Slayers, females everywhere were tired of being assaulted and then watching the perpetrators walk free. Corey Moran had been no different. An opportunity had presented itself to him, and he’d jumped at the chance to finally get even.
“They needed to be punished for what they did,” he said.
“It was the Black Wigs, wasn’t it? They went after the people who had harmed them, which drove you to do the same.”
“Inspired me, would be a better word.” He looked sad, but also resolute in his actions. “If only I had met your sister last month or the month before.”
She couldn’t stop staring at him. He had a boyish face and friendly eyes. Sadness fell over her at the thought of everything that had happened. “That would have changed things?”
“It would have changed everything.”
Sawyer noticed a suitcase off to the side. “Going somewhere?”
He nodded.
“So what did you say to my sister?”
“I told her I was leaving town and wouldn’t be back.”
Sawyer said nothing.
He exhaled. “She deserves better.”
“Yes,” Sawyer said, “she does.”
His phone buzzed. “Looks like my ride is here.”
Through the front window, Sawyer saw a car with an Uber sticker pull up outside. She looked at him. They both knew it was up to her to make the next move. “You better get going,” she said.
He nodded, then grabbed his suitcase and headed out. Sawyer watched him climb into the car. She waited until the vehicle drove off and disappeared before she stepped outside and walked back to her car. It wasn’t her job to call the police. How many times had Detective Perez told her to mind her own business? More times than she could count.
So that’s exactly what she would do—mind her own business.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Two days later, at exactly five o’clock, Sawyer finished writing the article about Lena Harris and how her inability to get justice had likely pushed her over the edge.
Overall, Sawyer talked about vengeance and society and how people who have been humiliated or harmed sometimes looked for ways to restore their self-worth. One way to do that was, of course, to punish the offending party, but any gratification would most likely be short lived. Another way to deal with rejection or bullying, for example, was to use compassion and forgiveness, which wasn’t always easy. She talked about how two-thirds of attackers in school shootings had been bullied. Bottom line: a child who bullies needs the same support and compassion as the person who is being bullied before a culture change could happen.
She ended her story with a quote attributed to Gandhi: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”
Next, she wrote her letter of resignation, printed it off, and carried it with her as she made her way down the hallway toward Lexi’s office.
She was ready to move on.
Aria’s idea to open Forever Sunshine, a place where old dogs could live out their lives in peace, had prompted Sawyer to think about her own goals and dreams. She already knew she wanted to help solve crimes, not write about them, so she’d decided to use her share of the inheritance to start her own investigative agency.
From a distance, she could see that something was going on just outside Sean Palmer’s office. As she drew closer, she saw storage boxes piled high.
“You’re just in time,” Lexi said when she spotted her.
There were plastic champagne flutes and a couple of bottles of champagne on Palmer’s desk. Lexi filled one of the glasses to the halfway mark, then handed it to Sawyer. “Are you okay? You look like someone who might have just written a Pulitzer Prize–winning story.”
Sawyer smiled. “I guess you never know. I just finished my piece and emailed it to you.”
“Perfect.” She clinked her glass against Sawyer’s. “Did you hear the news?”
Sawyer shook her head.
“Sean Palmer has officially retired, and I was just inform
ed that I’ll be taking his place.”
Sawyer congratulated her. “I’m happy for you, Lexi. You deserve the promotion.”
“Did you just fall and hit your head? What’s going on?”
“You’re good at what you do, and I’ve enjoyed working with you.”
“But?”
Sawyer handed her the letter. “I was coming to talk to you to see who I should give my letter of resignation to. Looks like you’ve answered my question.”
Lexi pulled out the letter, read it, and set it on her desk. “I cannot pretend to be happy about this. Are you sure this is what you want?”
“I’m sure.”
Lexi’s brow furrowed. “You know what’s strange?” she asked.
“What?”
“Lena Harris confessed to killing all those men on her own, and yet Ian Farley told us there was more than one woman wearing a wig when he went to Brad Vicente’s house.”
“I reported what we learned to Detective Perez, but he wasn’t interested. Maybe there really is no justice.”
Lexi frowned. “Why would Ian Farley lie?”
Sawyer shrugged. “Maybe he was looking for attention.”
“Speak of the devil,” Lexi said under her breath.
A booming voice came from behind Sawyer. “I hear congratulations are in order.”
Sawyer recognized Detective Perez’s voice at once.
Lexi smiled and raised her glass. “What are you doing here?”
“I told Palmer I would grab some of these boxes you packed up and deliver them to his home.”
Sawyer turned toward the detective and said hello.
“Looks like our local hero couldn’t solve this one,” he said to Sawyer. “What a shame.”
Sawyer shrugged. “You win some, you lose some.” She looked at Lexi. “Congratulations again. We’ll talk later.” She set her glass on the desk, waited for Detective Perez to move aside, then headed back the way she’d come. Instead of going to her cubicle, she walked straight to Derek’s office, glad to see him there. She stepped inside, shut and locked the door behind her, and closed the blinds covering his only window.
“I tried calling you last night,” Derek said, “but you didn’t pick up.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I was working on my Pulitzer Prize–winning story, but you’ll be happy to know that it’s finished. I’m here to make it up to you.”