Devoted in Death (17 page)

“There’s no official victim in Silby’s Pond. I’d remember.”

“No, ma’am. Sir. Lieutenant. Sorry.” He scrubbed at his eyes a moment. “I was saying how I figured you’d be willing to talk with me, so I drove up to Branson, as it’d be the best place to get a shuttle through to New York. I got the last one heading out, figured I’d hit lucky. Until they dumped us in Cleveland ’cause of the weather. So I rented a truck, and drove the rest.”

“From Cleveland, in this weather.”

“The only way to catch them is to catch up to them. I haven’t managed that yet.”

“Have a seat. You want coffee?”

“All I can get. Black would be just fine, thanks.”

She got two from the AutoChef.

“Who do you think they killed in your town?”

“Melvin Little. He’s what you might call a fixture around those parts. He served in the Urban Wars, and he never could get through that, if you know what I mean. He came home, to his parents, a younger brother and a sweetheart. What my own daddy tells me, is Little Mel – as he was called, being small in stature – used about any substance he could get his hands on to muffle the nightmares, the voices, the memories. I know this doesn’t matter, but I want you to know him.”

“You’re getting your fifteen,” she told him.

Nodding, Banner took a hit of caffeine. His eyes went wide and glassy. “Sweet Baby Jesus, what is this? Is this New York coffee?”

“Not exactly. It’s real coffee. I’ve got a connection.”

“Real coffee.” He said it like a prayer, with awe and reverence.

Remembering her first taste of Roarke’s coffee, she smiled. “Need a minute?”

“It could take days.” He smiled back, and she saw, beneath the fatigue, a great deal of charm. “Wait till I tell the boys back home.” Then he sighed. “Little Mel, he couldn’t adjust back. They tried what they try, but he was just one of the lost. There were too many, I guess. He didn’t like being indoors much, so he took to sleeping out in the hills, in the woods. You have what you call here sidewalk sleepers.”

“Yeah.”

“And they, some of them, they make a kind of home for themselves out of what they scavenge. He did that. His family took him food and supplies, but after some time, it was clear enough he wasn’t coming back. Most times he was drunk or high. He never hurt anybody but himself.”

She could see Melvin Little – Banner painted him well. And she sensed more. “What was he to you?”

“His sweetheart? That’s my grandmother. She loved him, loved the boy he’d been, but she couldn’t reach the man who’d come back. She married my grandfather, but she still went out to see Little Mel from time to time, take him food and fresh clothes. I got in the habit of going out to check on him every week or two.”

“So you looked out for him.”

“We did what we could. It’s true he might go rifling through a car or a cabin or shed now and then if it wasn’t locked up, take what caught his eye. More often in the last couple of years. Not when anyone was in them, you understand, and he never did a break-in. If it was locked, he left it be. Otherwise, he’d just go on in, poke around, take something to add to what he called his collection. Might be a fork or a doorknob, a broken clock.”

“You considered him harmless.”

“He was harmless.” Banner took a moment, another hit of coffee. “We had a boy go missing once. The family had gone camping, and the boy wandered off. We were putting the search team together when Little Mel comes walking into the campsite with the boy riding on his shoulders. The boy said how he’d been chasing a rabbit, and he got lost, and was crying and hurt his foot. And Little Mel came along, gave him a candy bar, wrapped up his foot in a handkerchief that was, truth be told, none too clean, and said how he’d give him a ride back to his mama. And he did. He never hurt anybody.”

“What happened to him?”

“I knew when I went out to check on him something was wrong. Not that he wasn’t there, but his things, they were jumbled up.” Banner paused, shaking his head. “He took pride in his collection, and there was an organization to it. And that day, there wasn’t.”

He looked up again, into Eve’s eyes. “You know how you get that pull in your belly?”

“I do.”

“I had that. I went looking for him, at his usual places. Where he liked to fish, where he’d take what he called his preambles. I didn’t find him until the next day. I went back the next morning, took his nephew’s son who’s a friend of mine so we could cover more ground. I found him in a gully, all broken up. You’d have thought how maybe he’d slipped off the track above, taken a long, bad fall. But he was a damn mountain goat, I swear. He’d been dead three days.”

“Evidence of torture, of binding?”

“Broken bones, cuts, bruises, some burns. But… they ruled it an accident. Burns could’ve come from him smoking whatever he managed to smoke, or his campfire. Breaks and cuts and bruises from the fall. We got a report a cabin had been broken into. Lock smashed. A few things taken – not really what Little Mel tended to take – and like I said, he never broke in. They found a little blood, and it was his, so it looked like he’d gone on in, just cut himself on something. Not a lot of blood. But we didn’t find anything that was missing in his collection, or along the way he’d have taken if he’d gone up that ridge and taken a fall.

“It could’ve happened that way, he broke in, cut himself, was maybe careless on the track and fell. You can see the logic to it, if you didn’t know him. But just over a week later, a boy went missing up in Missouri.”

“Noah Paston.”

“Yes, ma’am –
Lieutenant
,” he corrected. “You’ll have to give me time to break a lifetime habit. No question he was taken. There was no accident there. And clear signs he’d been bound, cut and burned and smashed up. A young, athletic boy and poor lost Little Mel don’t seem to have much in common, but they were both alone, both in what you’d call remote areas, both with cuts, burns, broken bones. I couldn’t let it go.

“I can show you the list I have, the names and locations I’ve been putting together since last August.”

Arkansas, she thought. It fell right into her route. “I’d be interested in that, in comparing it with my own list. Not updated,” she repeated when he glanced toward her board. “Not just with Jayla Campbell, but with the possible victims I put together last night. Is Ava Enderson on your list?”

“She surely is.”

When she named more, he shut his eyes like a man who’d found home, nodding, just nodding until she came to Jacob Fastbinder.

“That one’s a heartbreaker. Jennifer – Ms. Fastbinder – she’s pushed all she can push on it, but he doesn’t fit the FBI’s victimology. And like Little Mel, it reads just as easy as an accident.”

“Do you know her?”

“Never met, as such, but we’ve had a number of conversations and correspondence.”

“I intended to contact her today, request she allow the body to be exhumed and transported here to our forensic anthropologist.”

“If you’d let me talk to her, I think I can make that happen. I don’t suppose you could have a look at Little Mel.”

“Are there remains to look at?”

“He’s buried in the family cemetery, like his mama wanted.”

“Having two would give DeWinter comparisons,” Eve considered, and made the call on the spot. “We’ll take him. I need to speak with my commander, but we’re going to take both of them if you can pull it off.”

“Little Mel’s mama’s going to take more talking to than Jennifer Fastbinder, but I can be persuasive. I’m hoping I can persuade you to let me have another cup of this coffee.”

Eve wagged a thumb at the AutoChef. “Do you know how to work one of those?”

“They’re about the same wherever you go.”

“Then help yourself. Take it back to the lounge – can you find it again?”

“I’ve got a good sense of direction.”

“Start persuading. I need some time here to do the same, then I’m going to set up a conference room. When are you due back in Arkansas?”

“I’m on my own time. I took leave.”

That put a hitch in things. “Does your chief know you’re here, what you’re doing?”

“He does.” Banner poked at the AutoChef. “He doesn’t see this the way I do, but he’s given me a lot of room. And I’ve got leave coming.”

“Okay. Go work on clearing the exhumations, and I’ll work on getting the forensics here.”

She sat, and when he’d cleared the room, did a quick and thorough run on him before she contacted Whitney’s office and asked for a window.

10

Whitney sat at his desk, the city he served spearing up through the window at his back. His big hands rested on the arms of his chair; his eyes, dark and keen, stayed on Eve’s as she briefed him.

He wore command as he wore his suit – a good fit with clean lines. While she spoke, his wide, dark face remained impassive.

“And this deputy traveled here from the Ozarks on his own time and dime because the searches you ran were flagged by him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And he did this – at the base – because he believes a war vet with PTSD, with a history of substance abuse and antisocial behavior was one of the victims of the spree killers currently being sought by this department, others, and the FBI in spite of the ruling of his own ME – and the subsequent determination of accidental death by the FBI.”

In blunt, logical terms it didn’t ring the bell, but…

“The local ME in this case is also the town doctor – a GP. I checked, and she’s only worked on a handful of murders in seventeen years. The FBI has profiled these unsubs, has cemented their victimology. So far they’re not very flexible about thinking outside those lines. Deputy Banner’s vic is on the route I’ve speculated independently, as are several others both Deputy Banner and I have on our separate lists. They didn’t start with Tennessee, Commander. The Nashville vic is only the first we can determine had the carved heart. And the gaps between killings are inconsistent – until you fill them in with the names both Banner and I have added.”

“Have you spoken with Special Agent Zweck?”

“No, sir, and I don’t intend to at this time.” She paused only a moment when he raised his eyebrows. “They’re not interested in this line or these victims – Banner’s already been shot down there. If we find evidence they were part of this spree, I would, of course, share all data and information. I realize this is all based on speculation, Commander, but it’s logical speculation. It fits. And it’s a big stretch to dismiss the fact both Banner and I have hit on so many of the same names.”

He tapped a finger on the edge of his desk. “It’s a big stretch to exhume two bodies and have the remains transported here, to have our people and resources study them for the purpose of overturning CODs.”

“If either of those CODs are overturned, I have a third body. Noah Paston, age nineteen, abducted, tortured, murdered – missing the carved heart in September.”

“That would bring the tally to twenty-four,” Whitney stated.

“Paston’s body wasn’t cremated but buried. If we determine either Little or Fastbinder – and I lean to both – were killed by these unsubs, I believe Paston’s parents would agree to have his body exhumed and tested.”

“And Jayla Campbell?”

“She’s the next, but she won’t be the last. It’s my belief that coordinating with Banner, compiling our separate investigations will open something up, help us find her in time.”

Nearly ten hours off the forty-eight already, Eve thought.

“We have no names, no faces. They’re like ghosts, Commander. That tells me they look normal, ordinary, and know how to blend and behave in a way that doesn’t bring attention. I’ve got uniforms and droids canvassing the area between where Campbell was last seen and her apartment, using the location McNab pinpointed where she texted her roommate. She made it that far, and we don’t know how much farther. Walking alone, as Kuper was, as Little was, as Fastbinder was.

“There’s a mistake somewhere,” she continued. “There always is, but nobody’s found it. Not yet. Mistakes may have happened further back, where nobody’s looked closely enough. We find a mistake, and maybe we’re in time to save Campbell.”

He tapped his fingers on the arms of the chair, then leaned forward. “I want to talk to Banner’s superior.”

“Chief of Police Lucius Mondale. I did a quick background on both of them. Small-town cops, sir, but solid from what I can find. I sent you that data and Mondale’s contact information.”

“I’ll speak with him, and let you know my position on this. Meanwhile, coordinate with Banner. Information’s never wasted.”

“Yes, sir.”

“They were coming here,” he said as she stepped back.

“Yes, sir, by any route I’ve projected, New York is probable destination.”

Rising, he walked to his wall of glass, looked out, hands linked behind his back. “That will be one of their mistakes. Keep this low on the media radar as long as possible.”

“Absolutely.”

“Get it done.”

“Yes, sir.”

Time, Eve thought as she hurried back to her division. The clock ticking for Campbell, and now a second clock running. How quickly could she get the remains into DeWinter’s hands – and Morris’s, she added. She wanted that team on this angle.

They’d miss nothing.

Was Melvin Little the first? She’d done a background there, too. The man had been barely a hundred and twenty pounds, and over seventy. But not altogether an easy target. A war vet who’d known the woods, the hills. Who’d survived in them for decades.

Working in her head, she swung back into the bull pen.

“Peabody, set up a conference room – all our data on this investigation. Where’s Baxter?”

“They caught one.”

Eve switched gears, glanced around. “Detective Carmichael, Santiago, are you on something hot?”

“Just tying one up in a bow, Lieutenant,” Santiago told her.

“Tie it fast, then work with Peabody. Is Uniform Carmichael still in the field?”

“He hasn’t come in as yet. I can check in with him,” Peabody offered.

“Do that.”

She headed for the lounge, pulling out her ’link as she went. “I need Dr. Mira,” she said before the admin could do more than identify the office. “As soon as possible. We’ve had another abduction, and I have new information on the unsubs she’s profiled.”