Find Me If You Dare (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 2) (9 page)

                                     Chapter Twenty-Two

The apartment complex was old, worn down and not in the best part of town. There was a row of two-story brown brick buildings with more weeds than grass on the surrounding grounds. The cars in the parking stalls were mostly older models, beaten up and dented.

The landlord met us on the second floor landing before a door marked 14D. He was heavy-set and looked as though he hadn’t bath
ed or shaved in a few weeks. He probably would have changed his stained baggy white tank top and loose-fitting gray sweatpants if he’d known it was the FBI responding to his call instead of the local police.

“You see, I got Vinnie a job at my cousin’s smoke shop after he got out of
Huntsville,” the landlord was explaining to us, “he’s been real good at not missing any work. So when my cousin called me and said Vinnie didn’t come to work and didn’t call, I checked his apartment and he didn’t answer. Vinnie doesn’t have a car or anything, and he doesn’t have any family that I know of, so I thought I’d call you guys.”

“Do you have a key to his apartment?” Director Phillips asked.

The helpful landlord produced a key ring out of his pocket and started looking through the different keys for the right one.

“Got it,” he stated as he produced the right key and inserted it into the lock. He opened the door and moved aside to let the law enforcement officers step inside but not before letting out a few foul expletives.

The doorway was blocked by several broad sets of shoulders so I couldn’t immediately see inside, but I could clearly smell the sharp, metallic scent of blood.

“Let’s clear the scene first,” Phillips ordered in a low voice, “we need to make sure the suspect isn’t still at the premises. We need to check for additional victims
. Be careful not to do anything to disturb evidence.”

“Stay here,” Logan told me in a firm tone as he took out his weapon and followed the other agents into the small apartment.

I was left out on the landing with the landlord. He looked nervous and sweaty, probably not at all comfortable with having local law enforcement let alone federal agents snooping around the area. We stood there in a kind of strange silence. Small talk at this moment seemed unnecessary. I tried not to let my imagination about what was inside the apartment get the best of me.

It wasn’t long before I heard Phillips give the “all clear” and start securing the crime scene.

“Agent Carter,” Phillips started issuing orders, “let’s get your top forensic people out here. Sawyer, talk to the landlord. Find out everything you can about the man who lived here. Get a full background check. See if you can get a picture so we can send it out over to the coroner and see if it’s a match to our John Doe.”

“Coroner?” The landlord gulped.

I tried looking into the apartment through the open door. I couldn’t see much from my perspective. It wasn’t a very large apartment. The doorway opened into small living room area, then off to the right a tiny kitchen with a table that might seat one or two people. The table and kitchen counters were cluttered with dirty dishes and fast food containers. Flies were buzzing around rotting food.

Into the living room area was a shabby-looking
rusty brown couch and a scarred coffee table. An old television sat on an old bookshelf empty of books. The floor was covered in a light tan carpet. From where I stood, I could see several dark stains on the carpet.

I was curious yet repelled at the same time. What had taken place in this small apartment? I took a step closer to see if I could get a better view but was immediately blocked by Logan standing in the doorway.

“It’s not a pretty scene Caitlyn,” he whispered quietly to me with an apologetic look. I could tell he was debating with himself about how much he wanted me to see. His protectiveness towards me was warring with the possibility that I might be able to help this investigation in some way.

“What can you tell me
about the tenant that lived here?” Logan was back in detective mode and questioning the landlord.

Sweat starting running down the man’s forehead as he shifted from foot to foot,
looking around him as he tried to decide how much to tell.

“I haven’t known Vinnie for long,” he rubbed his sweaty hands on his pants, “he moved in about three or four months ago, after he was released from Huntsville.”

“He served time in the state penitentiary?” Logan asked, writing down the information in a small notebook.

“Yeah,” the landlord reluctantly nodded his head.

“Do you know what he served time for?” Logan pressed.

“Director Phillips,” Agent Carter called from the back of the apartment
, “we found a wallet with ID. We’re running the social now.”

“Check with Huntsville,” Logan called, “he was a recent parolee.”

Everyone had cell phones out and were making calls. Because the crime scene needed to be processed, the apartment landing became the place where the agents and Logan paced, reluctant to disturb anything more in the apartment until the forensics team arrived.

I watched, feeling somewhat helpless, as the agents walked back and forth between the apartment and the van we arrived in, pulling out laptops, typing in information.

Before long, several of the local law enforcement agencies that were at the other scene were showing up here. The growing number of police cars were starting to gain the attention of the local residents. It probably wouldn’t be long before the news media arrived too.

“We have an ID match,” I heard Director Phillips inform Logan.
I walked over to where they stood in the parking lot, a laptop open on the car seat before them. “His name was Vincent ‘Vinnie’ Malone. We were able to get his records from Huntsville and the coroner identified him from several tattoos.”

I looked at the mug shot on the computer screen. A middle-aged man looked back at me. His statistics said he was
fifty-six. He had thick dark hair, shaggy and graying at the temples, with a round face and a drooping mustache. His eyes looked tired with bags under them and heavy lines across his face. He was very normal looking, very average. He wasn’t the kind of man that would stand out in a crowd in any way.

“What was he doing time for?” Logan asked as
he used the mouse to scroll down the screen and look at the victim’s convictions.

“This time, child molestation,” Phillips answered, “he did
four years of a fifteen year sentence.”

I mentally shrunk away from the thought. It made no sense. Here was a recently paroled convict living in this small town in Texas.
He’s been incarcerated for the last four years. What possible reason would Lisbeth have for wanting to kill him?

              Chapter Twenty-Three

The CSI team arrived followed shortly after that by the news reporters, just as I had thought. The local police and sheriff’s office were both helpful at making a wide perimeter around the area to keep the media and the crowd at a distance. News vans with reporters and cameras were becoming a sight I wasn’t really happy to be familiar with.

Logan kept me out of the apartment while it was being processed. As the law enforcement officers came in and out I heard low conversations about the bloody scene. There was quiet talk about the victim possibly being tortured and that one body part had been left at the apartment, for display possibly, then the victim had been moved to the field where the body had been discovered. Maybe it was just as well Logan was keeping me out.

I felt helpless and useless. At least Logan was a fellow law enforcement officer. He walked freely between the crime scene and the parking lot, talking with the local authorities and the federal agents, asking questions, doing a job he was very skilled at.

I wasn’t even certain why they had brought me
along. I wasn’t even sure what I could contribute to this investigation. In all the crime scene television shows and mysteries they never show the waiting, the long periods of time with little to do but worry and pace.

Logan
had just come from the apartment again where he was gaining more information from the scene as it was being processed and photographed. He was talking to Director Phillips in a low voice.

“You said
the victim was in Huntsville ‘this time’,” Logan pointed out, “were there any other prior convictions?”

I was still near the van and the laptop we had been looking at earlier. I couldn’t help moving closer to hear more of their conversation.

“Let’s see,” Phillips continued looking through the police record, “a prior conviction in Arizona. Served two years of a five year sentence for exposing himself to a group of elementary school students. Prior to that he did time in the Utah State Prison.”

“Utah?” Logan and I both said at the same time. “What was he convicted of?” Logan demanded.

“Same as the Texas conviction,” Phillips shook his head, “child molestation. It looks as though he may have gone from state to state, looking for new victims. He should have served more time, been given longer sentences.”

I walked away for a moment, my mind racing. This Vincent Malone had served time in Utah. Could it be possibly be just a coincidence?

Utah had a large prison. I clearly remembered driving past it every time I drove down to the State Mental Hospital to visit Lisbeth. It was a heavily guarded facility at what they called “The Point of the Mountain” because the Wasatch mountain range jutted out right at that point. There were countless inmates there and this had been several years ago, possibly longer.

Then it hit me.

“What were his prior addresses in Utah?” I questioned, walking back over to where the men were standing.

Logan gave me a curious look for just a moment before he sensed why I was asking.
He was getting better at understanding my line of thinking, almost reading my thoughts. He took the laptop and started researching the victim’s address history.

“He grew up in a small residential area in Murray, Utah,” Logan was more familiar with the local areas of the state than the federal agents probably were, “dropped out of a local city college.
He drifted from job to job, mostly working small retail jobs.” He scrolled through the information, reading through the background history of this convicted felon.

Logan’s sharp intake of breath had me instantly at his side.

“The charges he served time for in Utah were from a kidnapping and molestation of a six year old girl in his neighborhood,” Logan glanced up from the screen and looked me directly in the eyes. His intense gaze held me in place, frozen where I stood. “He lived in the Riverside Trailer Court. His victim…”

“…was Elizabeth Marshall,” I finished for him.

                 
Chapter Twenty-Four

Years ago, the first time Lisbeth had been taken to the State Mental Hospital, I had remembered the doctor’s talking about how she had been molested as a young child. They believed that had been her first psychotic break. The first one of her personalities had been created from that incident.

Lizzy was believed to have been her first split. This shy, timid little girl somehow
took all the pain and abuse that Lisbeth couldn’t handle. It was her mind’s way of coping with an unbearable situation.

Barbara, Lisbeth’s mother, would never talk about t
he incident. She was of the opinion that if you ignored it, it would go away. I didn’t think Lisbeth even had any kind of therapy when she was younger.

The “family” didn’t speak about it either. After all, they were all created after it happened. Even Lisbeth acted as though she had blocked the entire incident out. Perhaps she had. Maybe Lizzy was the only one who kept a memory of that terrible time in her life. Lizzy and maybe Bethany, the Memory Keeper. She had been charged with keeping the family’s memories and secrets.

Someone must have remembered the incident, someone who remembered who the perpetrator was and had the ability to track him down and find him after all these years.

“We
ll, we have a motive,” Logan was the first to speak after I gave Director Phillips what information I knew about that time in Lisbeth’s childhood. The director was still keeping most of the information about her close to his vest. The local authorities were starting to get the picture that this went beyond this one homicide, but we were still putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

“It looks that way,” Phillips agreed. He gave Logan a look and nodded towards the crime scene. I was trying to figure out what the look was about when Logan turned towards me.

“Most of the apartment is still being processed, but they want you to do a walk through. See if there’s anything that catches your eye, something Elizabeth might have left behind like she did at the home in Park City.” Logan seemed to be reluctant about the suggestion.

Taking a deep breath, I nodded my head and turned to climb the stairs back to the second floor landing and the apartment that was the center of attention.
Logan was right behind me as I passed a few officers and members of the forensic team. At the doorway Logan stopped me. He handed me a pair of booties to cover my feet and gave me a searching look.

“They’ve photographed and removed m
ost of the evidence and taken it in for further examination,” he glanced into the apartment then back at me. “It’s not as bad as it was, but it’s still a fresh crime scene. If you can, try to stay objective. Don’t let it get to you.”

His words felt ominous as I walked into the living room area of the small apartm
ent. I had already seen the tiny kitchen from the doorway earlier. Not much had changed from what I had seen. Same dirty dishes, same discarded garbage. It was hard to know if anything was out of place when it was all so cluttered and dirty. It was all I could do to keep from covering my mouth and my nose to keep from breathing in the rotting smell of rancid food.

The living room area was just as disorderly. Dirty clothes and adult magazines were scattered around as well as more
old food containers.

There were several splotches of dark stains on the carpet w
hich were carefully marked and a young woman in white CSI clothes was taking samples of it.

There were only two doors leading off the living room area. One went to a tiny bathroom. Another technician was in there, but as I glanced in, I couldn’t see much. The other door led to a small bedroom. It was hardly big enough for a double bed and maybe enough room to walk around it. Several technicians were processing this room.

At first it only seemed to be a normal bedroom, until you saw the large dark stain on the bed. There were flecks of dark blood splattered on the walls and ceiling. At the head and foot of the bed were what looked like several electrical cords, as though they had been ripped out of an appliance and used to restrain the victim.

Was he the victim here or was he the perpetrator? Maybe both.

I tried to remember Logan’s advice and fought to stay objective. My stomach started to churn at the thought of what might have happened in this room. Don’t let it get to you, I tried to tell myself, try to stay detached.

Slowly, I tried to make my way around the other people in the room, careful not to touch anything.
They hardly noticed me. My FBI ID hung from a lanyard around my neck and they all must have thought I was supposed to be here.

I didn’t notice any clue or hint in the room. There were no ink pens meant to spell out an abbreviation for a state, no notes that might have been left behind before she fled the scene. I left the bedroom as soon as I felt I had searched enough. Back in the front room I looked around again at the mess. It was hard to see much through the piles of debris
. Any number of things could be hidden among the dirty clothes and garbage. It could take weeks to sort through it all.

“Anything?” Logan asked, looking around the room.

“Nothing is immediately standing out for me,” I shook my head, “of course, it would be hard to find anything in this place.”

“I know,” he agreed while carefully picking up a discarded shirt with one gloved hand and placing it aside.
“It will be a while before they get through processing all this.”

I picked up an old bag from a fast food chain, stale French fries were still in the bottom of the sack. A matching hamburger wrapper wasn’t far away
. A half-empty drink container sat on the old coffee table. As I glanced at it, I noticed one of the dark stains on the carpet.

“I know the evidence is clear Logan,” I couldn’t look away from that deep red blood stain, “I know the motive is obvious. But it still can’t quite connect it.”

“What do you mean?” He asked.

“I can’t connect this apartment, this crime scene and what happened here to the gentle, fun, creative person I grew up with.” It didn’t seem real to me somehow. It didn’t make sense. “In my brain, I know she had to have done this. In my heart…..
I just don’t know.”

“Listen Cait,” Logan’s voice was gentle as he put an arm around me and started guiding me towards the front door, “it’s getting late and this has been a rough last couple of days. The FBI has some rooms for us at a hotel in town. There’s not much more we can do here. Let’s head back there and get some rest.”

“I guess you’re right,” I paused with my hand on the doorknob, turning for one last look back at the apartment, hoping one last time something would jump out at me. One more scan of the room, and nothing.

I took my hand off the doorknob and felt the brush of fabric against my hand. On the back on the door was a plastic hook with a tan jacket hanging from it.  Odd, how in such a messy apartment he still took time to hang up a jacket.

It was then that I saw the blood.