Consumed (4 page)

“I know, and you’re sure?” she asked.

I leaned back and rubbed my eyes. “Yes, I’m sure. I mean, we have a pretty damn good life as it is, don’t we?”

“Of course we do. I don’t know. I just… Can you deal with it just being you and me?”

“It’s been just you and me for twenty years. I’m pretty sure the next twenty will be just as good. Plus, we have Porkchop. I think of him as a son. A fat little slobbering, furry son that poops in the yard, but a son nonetheless.”

I heard her chuckle and sigh. “I love you. Okay.”

I wasn’t really sure if her saying ‘okay’ meant we were done trying or what, but I wouldn’t question it further. The conversation wasn’t really something for the telephone when I was multiple states away at work.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I’m fine, babe. Go back to work and give me a call later.”

“Okay. I’ll call you as soon as I can. I love you.”

“Love you, too.” Karen hung up.

I clicked off from the call and stuck my phone back in my pocket. After letting out a long breath, I heard tapping at the room door, so I walked over and opened up.

“Ready?” Beth asked.

“Yeah, one car or two?”

“Let’s just take mine. I doubt we’ll need to split up already.”

“Sure,” I said. “One second.” I grabbed my laptop bag, which contained the investigation file and left the room. We took Beth’s car from the lot and headed west for the hour drive to the resident agency. I spent the hour listening to Beth tell me about the movie she’d seen the prior night with her new love interest, Geoff the banker. He brought her a single rose and chocolates when he’d arrived, held doors for her all night, and sent her off with a kiss on the cheek at the end of their date—a real gentleman, she said. It all sounded a little too good to be true, so I asked a few follow-up questions. Beth went on to say that he’d paid for his movie in change and an older woman had dropped him off and picked him up from their date—Beth was thinking that was his mother. I nodded but didn’t say anything further.

The navigation on Beth’s cell phone said the address for the resident agency was coming up on the left. She put on her blinker and slowed down.

“Um,” I said, staring out the window to my left.

Small single-story red brick buildings made up what looked like an office park. All the buildings were the same size, none much larger than a common three-bedroom ranch. Each building looked the same, with six white windows and a row of parking spaces at the front and side.

Beth turned in.

I caught the sign listing the businesses as we entered the lot. I saw things like attorney names, a dentist, and a number of insurance offices. Beth made a couple of turns through the lot before finding our building—the Clarksville resident agency. We parked. I grabbed my file and stepped out.

“Not quite the glamor of our—or the Chicago—office, huh?” Beth asked.

“Not really. There can’t be more than a dozen agents that work here.”

“Probably not even that many.”

We walked for the front door and entered. Just beyond the entryway was a short, waist-high wall like one seen in a courtroom. Just behind the wall, a woman sat at a desk. I assumed her to be some form of receptionist. Beyond her, to the left, right, and back were offices. I noticed a few potted trees in the corners and a group of five or six desks in the center of the room. Between the offices on the back wall was a big metal FBI insignia.

Beth approached the short wall and the woman at the desk.

She pulled out her credentials. “Agents Harper and Rawlings to see an Agent Clifford.”

The woman turned her head. “Tom!” she shouted.

A man poked his head from one of the offices at the back and looked out at us. He left the office and approached.

The man appeared to be in his fifties, average height and build. He had short brown hair that was graying but still formed a damn-near-perfect flattop, and he wore a gray suit with a yellow tie.

“Are you the two agents from Virginia?” he asked.

Beth pointed to herself and then me. “Beth Harper, and this is Hank Rawlings.”

We both shook his hand.

“Tom Clifford. Why don’t you guys come on back? I just got off the phone with the sheriff’s department. I guess they found another woman’s remains an hour or so ago.”

Neither Beth nor I responded.

He opened the waist-high wall at the walkthrough, and we followed him back to the office he’d come from.

“Grab a seat,” he said.

Beth and I did.

“What can I do to help?” he asked. “I’m not really sure how we are handling this here.”

“We’re going to bounce between the sheriff’s department and here and also try to work with the Nashville PD,” Beth said. “Hopefully, if we all work together, we can get a lead.”

“Sure, but I mean, are you two in charge of this thing, or what?”

“It’s our investigation, yes,” Beth said.

I glanced over at her.

“Okay, I just had to know where we were at there,” he said. “We’re pretty much a jack-of-all-trades kind of place around here—everything from drugs to guns to murders, but I can’t say that I’ve worked a serial-killer investigation before. Where do we start?”

“Well, what do you know about the history of this investigation?” Beth asked.

“Geez, it’s kind of ingrained into the area around these parts. Everyone knows about the torsos and The Butcher. I can’t say that I’ve ever been through the files prior to yesterday, though.”

“The Butcher?” I asked.

“Local name,” he said.

“Sure. So when were you first contacted by the local sheriff?” I asked.

“Yesterday morning. Chief Deputy Whissell is who called me.”

“And what’s your relationship like with the sheriff’s department?” Beth asked.

“Good. Real good. I’ve known Auggie, the chief deputy over there, for a couple of years. He transferred in from somewhere when the last chief deputy retired.”

“Okay, we’ll need to meet with him,” Beth said. “Preferably this evening yet, if they’ve found another body.”

“Sure. Let me give him a call and see where he’s at.”

Beth and I took her rental, following Agent Clifford toward the sheriff’s station. He’d told us the drive would be about ten minutes.

I looked over at her. “What’s with the ‘it’s our investigation’ thing? I thought we consulted and aided unless otherwise necessary.”

She rocked her head back and forth. “Yeah, I think this is one of those necessary times. I have a couple reasons why if you’d like to hear them.”

“Shoot. I’m all ears.”

“Well, we’re bouncing between a police department in Nashville, a sheriff’s department, and a tiny little resident agency of the FBI.” Beth held up a finger for each reason. “You know how Agent Clifford gave you that ‘we’re a jack of all trades here’ line?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I wasn’t going to finish the quote for him.”

“Exactly. A jack of all trades is a master of none. Think about it. We have… what, like twenty different divisions in our location. Each division has how many people? This guy and the few people he works with have to handle all of that. Don’t get me wrong—he’s an agent, and probably a damn fine one, but this is our specialty, and in this instance we need to head it up. That, and if our killer has been doing this in the same area for thirty years… I’m just saying that if someone hasn’t been caught by now, they probably never will be if someone from outside doesn’t come in and do it. That means us.”

“Got it,” I said.

“Looks like we’re here,” she said. Beth nodded her chin toward the windshield.

I looked out. Agent Clifford was pulling behind a sheriff’s white Dodge Charger with a green stripe running down the side. We pulled to the curb behind Clifford alongside a three-story red-brick building with no windows.

Beth and I got out.

“The entrance is up here,” Agent Clifford said. He pointed up the hill a ways, at a couple buildings that looked to be a bit newer but were still red brick. As we walked up, I realized they were all connected as one large building. I glanced farther up the block, to the building on the corner—a red-brick two story that looked to be a good hundred-plus years old. The roofline of the building had a number of ornate dormers. The top of the building had a steeple. It might have been an old jail. I glanced around further.

“Hmm,” I said.

“Hmm what?” Beth asked.

“Look around. Up, down, across the street up there, and behind us. Not one building in sight other than that parking garage that isn’t made out of red brick. Kind of weird. Must have had a hell of a sale on red bricks about a hundred years ago.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Check that out.” Beth pointed across the street toward a building in the distance. Another red-brick building stood with its entire side covered by a huge old mural of what the downtown area we were standing in had looked like back in the day—it was about the same.

I shrugged. We followed Agent Clifford into the building, checked in at the front desk, and waited. A silent five minutes later, an older tall, overweight man with short white hair and a short white beard approached. He wore black slacks and a white long-sleeved shirt with black breast pockets. A black tie hung from his neck. He had star-covered epaulettes running up his shoulders above his sheriff’s department patches. A badge was affixed over his heart.

“Tom,” he said.

Agent Clifford stood and shook the man’s hand. “This is Agent Hank Rawlings and Agent Beth Harper from Virginia.”

“Pleasure,” he said. “Chief Deputy August Whissell. Auggie works too.” He reached out and shook Beth’s hand and mine. “Let’s head back to my office.”

We followed him through the building and up a flight of stairs. He led us to a large office that overlooked the street we’d parked on. A big wooden desk with two guest chairs sat in the back of the room. Miscellaneous awards covered the area behind his desk. Photos of him with what I assumed to be prominent local people adorned the walls. Two black button-tufted leather chairs sat near the doorway we’d entered from. Agent Clifford took one, slid it next to the others near the chief deputy’s desk, and had a seat. Beth and I took the guest chairs beside him.

Whissell closed his office door and took a seat in the big leather chair behind his desk. “You two were informed that another body had been found today.”

I nodded.

“I filled them in,” Agent Clifford said.

“What can you tell us?” Beth asked.

“The body was found out on Buck Smith Hill Road, out by Oakridge.”

The location did nothing for me, but I pulled out my notepad and wrote it down. “Have an address out there?” I asked.

“Off the top of my head, I don’t know. It’s about ten miles or so from here. We’re getting a case file put together on it as we speak. I’ll make sure you get a copy.”

“Thanks,” I said. “These were female remains again, correct?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And tossed alongside the road like the others?” I asked. “Dismembered?”

“Yes to both questions. Just a torso and head—no arms, no legs. And the remains were found about ten yards off the side of the road. She probably would have gone unnoticed for a while if she weren’t wearing a hot-pink skirt. It’s what caught the eye of the passerby that stopped and found her.”

“So same as the others?” Beth asked.

“Yes. Same C.O.D. as well. Multiple stab wounds, and throat was cut,” Whissell said.

“Anyone have an idea how long she was there or even when she was killed?” Clifford asked.

“Coroner was out there. From what I heard, he said she’d maybe been lying there for a day or so. Deceased for about a day longer than that.”

“The coroner took the body?” I asked. “Does that go to a medical examiner’s office or something around here?”

“The body is in Nashville at the facility that handles that for us. We had our own county coroner and medical examiner up until about two years ago, and then we followed suit with what Nashville and Davidson County started doing. There is a private facility that we and the other counties use. For us, it just didn’t make sense, financially, to have our own any longer. We only have five or so murders a year and only so many deaths that are natural that need to be investigated. Kind of hard to keep our own facility up and running for just that. The lead medical examiner’s name there is Chip Nehls though there’re quite a few of them working there. If you guys are planning on going over there, I can give Chip a call and let him know. He’ll be able to make someone available.”

“The body is there now?” I asked.

The chief deputy bobbed his head in confirmation.

“Okay, yeah, that’s probably going to be our next stop,” I said.

“Sure,” he said.

“I know where it’s at, Clifford said. “We use the same facility if it’s something involving us. You guys can just follow me over there.”

I nodded.

“Chief Deputy, what can you tell us about this?” Beth asked. “Do you have any ideas or gut feelings?”

He rocked himself back in his chair. “The originals were well before my time here, but I know it’s been a thorn in the station’s ass since the day it started. It has been one in mine since I took the seat here in twenty ten. I was over in the next county, working law enforcement, when it originally went down and had a few friends that worked here, so I’ve heard plenty of stories about it. And since the culprit has never been found, every time someone has gone missing or has died in an unusual way—or really, anytime something remotely strange happens within about fifty miles—it’s blamed on The Butcher. Been that way as long as I can remember. The Butcher did it, no matter what the
it
was.”

“The Butcher name—we heard it from Agent Clifford here as well. When did that start?” I asked.

“Been around as long as I can remember,” he said.

“I’d ask why the name, but I think it’s pretty self-explanatory,” I said.

He nodded.

“Was there ever a suspect?” Beth asked.

“Yeah, the department here had a guy back when the original bodies were being found. Owen Matheson. Different kind of guy who lived on the outskirts of town, from what I’ve heard.”