Shadow Fall (Tracers Series Book 9) (33 page)

“That’s right.” She squared her shoulders and seemed to settle in for the interview. “He didn’t give his name.”

“He gave his location, though?”

“Yeah, he was very specific. Said he was at Corrine Timber, northwest quadrant, near the capped gas well. Said he’d been walking through the woods with his dog and came across a skull.”

“Did you think it was strange to get a call like that? So early, I mean, from someone walking his dog?”

“Not really. We get all kinda calls all the time, day and night.” She shrugged. “Anyway, the sheriff said it was probably a poacher, so in that case it makes sense he’d be out early.”

M.J. consulted her notes. That assumption was the reason she was here. What if it wasn’t a poacher? The profiler who’d briefed the task force said he believed the UNSUB was interested in the investigation, interested enough to insert himself in some way.

Such as calling in an anonymous tip to investigators. Maybe he felt overlooked and wanted to make sure he got credit for every one of his kills.

“I asked did he live in town, but he wouldn’t answer,” Amy said. “Just repeated the location of the skull and hung up.”

M.J. nodded. She’d listened to the tape.

“We traced the call, though,” Amy added. “It bounced off the cell tower right there near the Corrine Timber field office. The address popped up there on my screen. There’s nothing much out that way, you know. Nothing at all, really, but a bunch of woods. So either he was standing right near the timber office with his cell phone or he was right there in it.”

“That’s what we thought, too. We had some of our tech people take a look at the call.” M.J. didn’t mention that they’d traced not only the call but the number itself. The call had come from a no-contract phone, a throwaway.

And that was another red flag. What was a hunter doing walking around with a burner phone? Sure, it was possible, but M.J. thought it seemed odd.

“Have you thought about asking their landsman there in the timber office?” Amy said. “Maybe he saw something. He might not have been there that early, but you could ask.”

“Good idea.” M.J. jotted some notes. She already had plans to talk to him.

Amy cast a glance at the TV, where they were running camera footage of Silver Springs Park on an endless loop.

M.J. cleared her throat to pull Amy’s attention back. “You probably get hundreds of calls a day, so this may sound like a strange question, but . . . any chance you recognized the voice?”

She brightened. “Actually, I do sometimes. We’re not that big a county. And Dunn’s Landing is so small, so . . . yeah, sometimes I know people.” Her brow furrowed. “You want to know if I recognized him?”

“That’s what I was wondering, yeah.”

“I didn’t. I mean, I would have told the sheriff that.” The crease in her brow deepened. “You don’t think it’s
him
, do you? The killer?” She twisted the tissue in her hands. “Oh, Lord. You do, don’t you? You think he was the one who called in those bones?”

“We’re just tying up loose ends, really. The sheriff’s probably right about it being a poacher, but I just thought I’d ask.”

Amy darted a look at the door, as if someone might come bursting in, and M.J. regretted coming. Clearly, she was freaking this girl out.

But if there was even a chance she knew something, it was worth the visit. M.J. couldn’t stop thinking about the profiler, about how certain he’d been that their UNSUB would at some point find a way to involve himself because it would give him some sort of thrill.

“Are you sure you don’t remember anything else about the call? Maybe a background noise or any kind of detail about his voice?”

Amy shook her head, looking flat-out scared now.

M.J. flipped shut her notebook. “Well, thanks for your time. I’m sorry to bother you.”

“It’s no bother. I’ve just been stuck here nursing this cold and watching the news.”

M.J. glanced at the TV screen, where the footage had shifted to a live report. She read the headline crawling across the bottom of the screen, and her heart skipped a beat.

TARA COMBED THROUGH
Liam’s files, getting more and more bleary-eyed with each passing minute. Her head throbbed, and it wasn’t just the computer work. It was the anxiety, the steadily mounting pressure.

The autopsy.

She closed her eyes and tried to shake it off. She couldn’t think about it right now or it would paralyze her. She took a deep breath and refocused her attention on the information before her, looking for that crucial clue. More than three hundred men had been through Liam’s training camps. Tara had culled through almost half of them but still had a long way to go. And she still hadn’t found the psych evaluations. Did he keep them on a different system, or had someone deleted them? Tara had put in a call to their tech expert earlier, but he hadn’t yet finished with the thumb drives.

She glanced at her phone. It was after four. What was Liam up to all day that he’d been so evasive about? And why hadn’t he called? She looked at her phone again and felt a wave of apprehension. Followed by a wave of disgust.

Would this be the new normal if they started up a relationship?

He seemed to think they were already in one. She thought of the amused look on his face this morning and felt a fresh onslaught of nerves. Thoroughly annoyed with herself now, she slid her phone under a file and focused back on the screen.

Brannon walked in and dropped a fast-food bag on the table. “Hungry?”

“No, thanks.”

He sank into a chair. “I finished with the ViCAP search,” he said, pulling out a sandwich. “You know how I told you I had hundreds of results for strangulation homicides? I’ve narrowed it down to two. In both cases the bodies were dumped near military bases.”

Tara leaned back in her chair. “Sounds interesting.”

“One is a ligature strangulation and the body was recovered just outside Camp Pendleton in California.”

“That’s a Marine base,” she said. A lot of Liam’s men had been through there. “What’s the year?”

“Oh-two.”

“Hmm.”

“Second case is more recent.” He picked up his drink and took a slurp. “Two thousand seven. Manual, no ligature. Victim was a stripper, found in a wooded park not far from Fort Benning.”

“That’s Army. You used to be stationed there, didn’t you?”

“The place is huge. Practically everyone in the Army’s been through there at some point. But what really caught my eye is the killer used a knife. She had defensive wounds on one of her hands.”

“Any particular details—”

“Not on the weapon. And no DNA recovered, from the looks of it. But I’ve got a call in to the lead detective in Georgia. This case has been on ice for a while, but I’m hoping he has a list of suspects somewhere.”

“That’s a good lead.”

“I know.” He chomped into his sandwich and glanced around. “Where’s M.J.?”

“Out on an interview.”

“What about Jason?”

“He’s supposed to be picking up surveillance tapes.”

As for Ingram, Tara didn’t know. He’d been conspicuously absent from Crystal Marshall’s autopsy. It was possible he hadn’t wanted to observe because he knew the victim, but he should have at least sent a deputy.

Tara returned her attention to her computer. She still had a hundred names to go.

“That looks fun,” Brannon said around a mouthful of food. “You need a hand?”

“I got it.”

“That the spreadsheet from before? You’re obsessed with that.”

She looked at him. “Lot of potential leads here.”

“If you buy into the profile.”

“You don’t?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I prefer physical evidence.”

“Same with me,” she said. “Such as the murder weapon, which happens to be a Full Black knife with a seven-inch blade. Wolfe Security took a shipment of those two years ago. And a shard of glass recovered from Catalina Reyes matches the optical glass from some of the rifle scopes Wolfe Security uses. How’s that for physical evidence?”

“Okay, fine. I hear you.” He slid his chair closer. “Sure you don’t want a hand?”

She started to refuse him but then remembered Mark.

You need all the help you can get from anywhere you can get it, so lose the pride.

Tara had never been good at delegating, but she needed to learn. There was more to leadership than bringing people doughnuts.

“Here.” She scooted her chair aside to make room for Brannon’s. “This is a database of trainees. They all went through one or more of the boot camps at Liam Wolfe’s ranch, and many later applied to work for him. Right now I’m going through the names and anything about their background that jumps out. If something flags my attention I click on the name and it links to the biographical info and a photo. That’s where you can get date of birth, physical stats, detailed employment history.”

“Lot of info for a bunch of trainees,” he said.

“I know. The camps are sort of a proving ground for job applicants. They get a hundred applicants for every spot so they use this as a way to pare things down.”

“Separate the men from the boys, I get it,” Brannon said. “Is there any way to look up military service, see if anyone was at Fort Benning that year I mentioned?”

“Not a bad idea.” She clicked on the cell for military experience. “It lists branch of service. You could at least narrow it down to Army.”

“Here, let me try.”

Tara’s phone chimed, and she grabbed it, letting Brannon take over at the computer.

“Are you watching this?” M.J. asked, and Tara caught the urgency in her voice.

“Watching what?”

“Turn on a TV.”

“I don’t have one. I’m in the basement.” Tara glanced around. “Why?”

“Pull up a local news Web site. Anything. Everyone’s running it.”

Tara’s pulse picked up as she moved to her laptop and entered one of the Houston TV stations. Beneath the station’s logo was a shot of Sheriff Ingram standing behind a podium.

“God damn it.” Tara clicked the video. “Where is he?”

“Silver Springs, I think. He called a joint news conference with the police chief.”

“. . . investigation is ongoing,” Ingram was telling reporters.

“Sheriff, has he been charged with a crime?” came a voice from the audience.

“Has
who
been charged?” Tara asked, dismayed.

“He’s being held for questioning,” Ingram said.

“Sheriff, has Mr. Wolfe confessed to the murders?”

Tara’s blood ran cold as she stared at the screen.

“No comment,” Ingram stated. “Like I said, this is an ongoing investigation.”

“He arrested
Liam
? When the hell did this happen?”

“I’m trying to find out,” M.J. said. “I think the arrest was this morning.”

“On what charges?” She glanced at Brannon, but he seemed as confused as she was.

“Criminal trespass,” M.J. said. “At least, that’s what Jason told me. I haven’t confirmed it yet.”

“That’s a misdemeanor! He’s making it sound like they’re charging him with murder.”

“I know,” M.J. said.

“This is a disaster.” Tara stood up and looked around helplessly. Her gaze settled on the grisly crime-scene photos taped to the case board. She pressed her hand to her forehead. “Does Ingram even realize what he’s doing? He’s trashing a man’s reputation just to have an excuse to stand in front of a camera.”

“I know, it’s bad,” M.J. said.

Bad didn’t even begin to describe it. Tara felt like her head was going to explode. “Where are you?” she asked M.J.

“In my car. I’m following up on that anonymous phone call. The dispatcher tells me it came from Corrine Timber’s field office, so I’m headed over there to interview the property manager, Oscar Valero.”

Tara looked at Brannon, who was now on his phone. He glanced at her and took the call into the hallway.

“Need me to come in?” M.J. asked. “I could help with damage control.”

“No, I’ll handle it.”

“Okay, I’ll call you if I get anything.”

Tara clicked off and stared at the phone in her hand. She felt sick to her stomach. She had to get control of this. She couldn’t have a rogue sheriff out there calling press conferences. And she couldn’t have the time and resources of his entire department being wasted on publicity stunts.

And what about Liam? The professional reputation he’d spent years building was being dragged through the mud. Even if they released him without charges, the damage was done.

Tara’s gaze landed on the computer where Brannon had been scrolling through files.

The picture on the screen made her breath catch.

The man in the photo stood beside a tree, holding a rifle. He wore an Army-green T-shirt that stretched over bulging muscles, and his face was covered in green greasepaint right up to his hairline. He looked like the Incredible Hulk, and Tara remembered Corey Bower in his pajamas playing with his action figures.

I saw the Hulk down by the creek once . . .

An unfiltered observation from a little boy. And Tara had dismissed it.

She sank into the chair, her heart pounding as she studied the man’s face, his build, his military haircut.

“Holy shit,” she breathed.

Even with the greasepaint, she recognized his eyes.

M.J. PULLED UP
the driveway searching for the white Toyota pickup registered to Oscar Valero, fifty-six, of Dunn’s Landing. As she rolled through the gate, she spotted the vehicle parked beside the double-wide trailer that Corrine Timber used as a field office.

She parked and got out, glancing around. The woods were quiet, no whine of a chain saw or grumble of a truck engine or even the faint tap of a woodpecker to break the silence. She picked her way across the muddy parking area and mounted the wooden steps to knock on the door.

No answer.

She looked through the window. A fluorescent light glowed over a work station in back. She tried the door, but it was locked. Again she knocked.

“Mr. Valero?”

Nothing.

M.J. checked her watch and blew out a sigh as she scanned the area. The sound of distant voices made her turn around. Across the firebreak she spotted a shed.