The Defenseless (10 page)

Chapter 20

We piled into one SUV and followed McClellan out to the scene. No sign of an ambulance, so they had likely been and gone. Cruiser lights were flashing. Investigators were combing the road and leaving yellow, numbered evidence markers in their wake. The snow was stained red down the center of the driving lane and it didn’t take a genius to figure out how that had happened.

Jack pulled up beside a cruiser where Hogan was leaning on an open door, watching everyone as if he were in charge. He bobbed his head toward us.

“The victim’s name is Clyde Ellis. So far, he’s still hanging on, but barely.”

“I assume you have reason to believe the victim’s fate is somehow connected with our case,” Jack said.

“The victim is Clyde Ellis and he was charged with dragging his dog behind his truck.”

Paige’s hand shot up to cover her mouth. “I’m going to be sick.”

“Let me guess the charges against him were dropped too?” I asked.

Hogan nodded.

“How could he beat that? You’d think that one would be easy to prove,” I said.

The detective looked at me.
“Yeah, if you were there watching the act.”

“And let me go further out on a limb here. Ellis was charged twenty-six years ago?”

“You got it.”

“The killer probably knows we’re here,” Zachery explained, “to act again so soon.”

“He’s trying to have the last say. He doesn’t think he’ll get caught,” I said.

“Was there any evidence pulled at the scene?” Jack asked Hogan.

“Crime scene is still processing, but we believe he was gagged with silver duct tape. We found a small piece near his mouth. We think the perp ripped off most of it and took it with him.”

“Ellis would have suffered in silence. I can’t even imagine the hell he went through. He would have felt his bones break and realized he was going to die—painfully.” Paige shook her head, and I’d swear, even in the limited light, her eyes were misted.

The rest of us remained silent for a bit, assimilating what we’d just been told.
While some people might argue that violence against others was as natural as breathing and that it went back to the beginning of time there was nothing natural about it.

Hogan picked up again. “We know for certain that Ellis was bound by chains to the back of a truck.”

“A truck specifically?” Paige asked.

“Yeah. Based on trace evidence and the damage done to our victim. Broken legs, ribs, back. You get the idea.”

Zachery winced.

“My thoughts exactly,” McClellan added, speaking for the first time since we arrived.

“Is there any evidence he was given anything to suppress the pain?” Paige rubbed her arms and bounced, no doubt to warm herself.

“Not that we’re aware of. We only got a couple words out of him at the scene. He,” Hogan swallowed roughly, showing his first signs of empathy, “he said, ‘I’m sorry.’”

The impact of the man
’s last words bared us all to silence. Our killer’s mission had been accomplished. His victims knew why they’d been targeted and this one was moved to remorse.

“What about the distance between Ellis’s house and where he was found?” Jack asked.

“Only three miles.”

“Our unsub lives in the area,” I offered.

“And he obviously has transportation,” Zachery said.

“How far was Ellis dragged?” Paige asked Hogan.

“Investigators have worked their way up the road with a keen eye for any trace of blood and tissue. One thing about the snow, it made things a little easier to spot. The first sign of blood appears one mile from where he was found.”

“He was dragged for a mile? I’m going to be sick.” Paige’s one hand shot to her mouth, and the other to her stomach.

“Where did the trace start? That could give us the location of our unsub,” Zachery reasoned.

“It started in the parking lot of a rundown garage. It hasn’t been open to the public for years now.”

“Do they have a locked gate on the lot?” Zachery wasn’t deterred.

“No. Just a sign that reads no trespassing. As if that’s going to stop a killer.”

Jack pulled on his cigarette, the amber butt glowed in the night despite the strobes of emergency vehicles around us.

“So it could be anyone.” The realization dampened any excitement that had started with the thought we were getting closer to our killer. “Who owns the garage?”

Hogan shook his head. “They go south in the winter. Besides there’s no trace leading into the building. We believe it’s more likely Ellis was bound to the truck in the lot.”

Hogan gave it a few seconds and continued. “Now, t
here were no witnesses who saw him being dragged, but the girl who found him was pretty shaken up. I say girl, but she is in her twenties. She was taking her dog for a walk, to clear her head, when she found him. Said all she heard was moaning at first. Thought it was the ghost of her grandmother.”

McClellan rolled his eyes. I took it to mean he didn’t believe in an afterlife either.

Hogan went on as if he hadn’t noticed. “Anyway, when she realized it was a dying man, she said she screamed louder than a banshee and it took her a long time to calm down enough to dial nine-one-one. She said it took five tries.”

I gave voice to what I figured everyone else must have been thinking. “So, she’s not afraid thinking that a spirit might be talking to her, but a dying man—”

Jack’s glare silenced me. “What’s her name?”

“Connie Shepard.”

“She’s the one who swears to him saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ She says she asked him what he was sorry for, but he passed out on her.”

“Is she here? We’ll need to speak with her,” Jack said.

“She was pretty shaken up and I had officers take her home.” Hogan held up a hand. “We did take her full statement.”

Jack’s scowl was epic. I wasn’t sure if the white cloud around him was the result of smoking, breathing, or actual steam coming out of his ears. He addressed his team. “
We will have to speak to Shepard.”

“I just told you everything,” Hogan protested.

“That was everything?” The derision in Jack’s voice licked every word. “It’s likely you’re missing something.”

Loathing flickered in Hogan
’s eyes. McClellan seemed to be sitting this one out. I can’t say that I blamed him.

“We also ran a quick background and a credit check on Ellis. Just the basic stuff but it was enough to know he was in hawk up to the eyeballs.”

“Would anyone benefit from his death?” Jack asked.

“Too soon to know.”

“And the wife?”

“He’s single.”

“Hmm.”

Zachery said,
“I don’t think this changes anything. The others he targeted were married, but that isn’t the basis of his criteria. He’s after people who abused animals and got away with it.”

“Specifically men who abused dogs,” I added.

“Things we’ve already covered.” Jack’s jaw was taut. “Back to forensics. Anything else?”

“They found a scrape of chrome paint at the scene,” Hogan answered. “They figure it came off—”

“The hitch.”

Hogan
’s eyes snapped to Jack’s, but he didn’t express his irritation over being interrupted. He left that to his body language.

“Good news is they may be able to match that paint to a vehicle make,” McClellan pitched in.

“Yes, they probably can.”

Jack
’s agreement with McClellan had the detective smiling.

I used the opening as an opportunity to voice my suspicion.
“Bowen has a Dodge Ram.”

“You’re forgetting one thing, Pending.”

I glared at Zachery. It was one thing to insist on nicknames when it was just the four of us and quite another that he
’d pull it out in front of other people. “And what’s that?”

“Bowen was in the room with you when Ellis was being dragged along the road like a sack of potatoes.”

Paige scowled at Zachery’s indelicate turn of phrase.

“What’s to say that he didn’t do the deed before we picked him up?” I was struggling to regain ground.
I hadn
’t thought everything through prior to opening my mouth. In a lot of ways, I just wanted this case over.

“A quick solution would be to check the hitch on his truck,” Zachery offered.

We had found his vehicle behind the activist headquarters.

McClellan waved his finger toward him.
“I’ll get a uniform over there right away.”

I nodded, and, as Paige latched eyes with me, the truth reflected back. I was eager to get home, not for Christmas but for closure when it came to my marriage. I was ready to move on with the next chapter in my life. A part of me envisioned sipping wine with Paige while holiday music played in the background.

I had to focus on business.
“What about tread marks?”

“We were able to lift some. Another reason we know we’re looking at a large pickup. We’re also narrowing down the brand of tire.” Hogan passed Jack a glance as if to ask,
satisfied?

“I assume you’re searching Ellis’s house for any clues,” Jack said.

Hogan let out a breath. “We are. Patrol is watching his place tonight and investigators will get over there by morning.”

“Morning?”

“As you can see,” Hogan gestured around, “they
are pretty tied up just getting the evidence from the crime scene.”

“Hmm.”

“What do you want me to say? Do you want me to lie to you?”

I took a couple steps back. Apparently the detective didn’t take too kindly to being on the receiving end of Jack’s infamous ‘hmm.’ I hoped their egos wouldn’t escalate to blows.

Jack disregarded the man. “
Paige and Zachery, you’ll speak with Connie Shepard. See if you can pull anything else out of her. Find out if there’s more she heard him say.” Jack pointed to Detective Hogan as if daring him to speak. His cheeks flushed and I imagined the slew of expletives running through his mind.

“Of course.” Paige passed Hogan a brief glance. “And you and Brandon?”

“We’re going to wait on word back about Bowen’s hitch. Take it from there.”

Paige studied his face and I guessed what she was thinking. Very rarely did Jack not know everyone
’s next step.

“So if this latest victim wasn’t Gene Lyons, where is—”

Chapter 21

Jack
’s uncertainty over our next step was a brief interlude. The results were in and Bowen was cleared of Ellis’s torture and murder. The hitch on his Dodge Ram was in pristine condition and the tire treads weren’t a match. He had also come up with a sufficient alibi for Simpson’s time of death. He was a free man.

It was ten o
’clock at night but we were headed to Ellis’s neighborhood. My argument about people not being helpful at this time of night fell on deaf ears. Jack had his mind set and his temperament fell somewhere between frustration and raw anger. I wasn’t sure exactly why his mood had taken a fowl turn, but I surmised it could have stemmed from any number of things—Hogan, the fact we had spent time on the wrong guy, or maybe it was a simpler matter, the nicotine in his system was running low.

We started with the house to the right of Ellis
’s. At least there was light casting from the front window. It dulled and brightened telling me someone was watching TV.

“I’ll handle it if you want,” I said, offering out of compassion for the people behind the door.

“That’s fine.”

I wasn
’t sure what he meant by that—that I was good to handle this, or that it was all right for me to sit this one out. I should have known better than to pack two inquiries into one statement.

I knocked instead of ringing the doorbell. At least that way if part of the household were asleep, I wouldn
’t be waking them.

Jack didn’t miss my choice and shook his head.

Feet padded along the floor inside, sending vibrations to the front step. The outside light came on and the curtain in the window was swept aside. A woman
’s face peered out at us and her eyes enlarged, likely the result of seeing two men on her doorstep at this hour.

I was quick to hold up my credentials.
“FBI.”

Fear, confusion, and a flavor of distrust tempered the reflection in her eyes, but the deadbolt
clunked
and the door slowly opened.

“We’d like to ask a few questions about your neighbor who lived in number eight sixteen,” I said.

The woman let her eyes fall over both of us and came back to settle her gaze on me. She hugged herself.
“Why would you have questions about Clyde?”

Her response was promising. She was closer with her neighbor than simply sharing greetings over the fence.

“Come in. It’s freezing out there.” Her arms waved emphatically, hurrying us to get a move on.

She closed the door heavily behind us. Either there was no one else in the house to wake up, or she didn
’t care if they did.

She rubbed at her arms.
“What do you want to know about him?”

Deciding what to disclose and what to withhold was the tricky part. Ellis
’s older brother was the next of kin and lived about an hour away. The notification was being worked out by Hogan and McClellan. We had to be careful what we said until that aspect was handled.

“There’s been an accident,” I said.

“And they sent the FBI? I don’t understand. Is he dead? Is his family being told?”

“Yes, of course. We’re here to ask you when you last saw Mr. Ellis.”

“Why? I don’t know.” She weaved her arms, her eyes burning with intensity.

“Last week, last night, yesterday?”

“Well, he works at the hospital, in engineering. He wasn’t home most days. He must hold odd shifts because I know he’d be home during the week some times.”

“Linda, what in the—”
A man came into the entryway wearing a tattered blue housecoat and rubbing at the back of his head, his hair a ratted mess. His robe was open at the front revealing gray boxers. His eyes were blue and set back in a bed of wrinkles from a hard life. There was something about him that didn’t place
him much over seventy, but he could pass for eighty at a quick glance.

“Be quiet, Lester. This is the FBI. And for God’s sake, do that thing up.” She waved her hand in front of him.

His brow knitted up like he had the onset of a headache, and he made no move to follow his wife’s advice until Jack extended his hand.

“Supervisory Special Agent Harper.”

“Whoa, they sent the big guns to our door, Lin.”

His wife
’s arms were no longer crossed but on her hips. She rolled her eyes at him. “They are here about Clyde. Something’s happened to him. I think he’s dead, but they haven’t confirmed that.”

The way she expressed herself implied an emotional connection, but whether it be shock, or simply the human tug that one experiences when an individual passes, I wasn
’t sure. No tears sparkled in her eyes and her voice held steady, uncut by emotion.

Lester angled his head and shoved both hands into his robe
’s pockets. He went and stood by his wife. “What happened? Was he murdered? I mean he must have been for you to be here. Something awful too, I’m wagering.”

I glanced at Jack, uncertain if he wanted to pick things up from here or let me continue. I gave it a few seconds and Jack answered the man.

“He was found in a ditch outside of the city. He has since died, but we believe his death was suspicious.”

“So he didn’t die next door? Oh, thank God.” Linda turned heavenward, steepling her hands as if about to pray.

“You’ll have to disregard my wife—”

She shot him a glare that could have been a superhero
’s secret power.

It didn’t stop Lester from continuing. “Her one fear is that we’ll be broken into and murdered in our sleep.”

“I’ve had that dream since I was eleven.” Linda’s eyes watered now.

“We believe he was targeted.” Jack’s words came without feeling, not that it was a surprise.

“Targeted? Why? Who would want to kill Clyde?”

“Do you remember when you last saw him?” I asked.
When the couple both seemed to retreat, I added,
“I’m sure you can appreciate we can’t get into all the details.”

They both nodded.

“The last time you saw him?”

“I don’t know. I wish I could help.” Linda’s chin pulled up as if fending off a bout of crying, the news finally sinking in.

“You know,” Lester wagged an index finger, “I saw him yesterday, come to think of it.”

Linda’s eyes grew large.
“Lester?”

I glanced at Jack and proceeded.
“Where and when?”

“Next door, of course. I don’t know. It was about two or so.”

The way his wife watched him gave me the impression she questioned his statement.

Lester finally buckled under his wife’s stare. His shoulders drooped, his jaw tightened, and he returned eye contact.
“What, Linda? I know what I saw.”

Maybe it was due to the long day and its events, but I found their interaction amusing. Was this what it was like to be married for fifty years—the judgment, the finishing of each other
’s sentences, the loss of one’s identity? Maybe my divorce was a blessing.

“What were you doing outside at that time of day?” Linda’s hands formed into fists on her hips.

“What? Am I not allowed outside without your permission?”

“The doctor said that you’re not supposed to be shoveling. We hire that boy down the street to come do it. Are you wanting to leave me all alone?”

I glanced at Jack. His jawline was angled sharply. His mouth sat in a flat line. His patience, which had been almost non-existent when we arrived, was
now a quality that couldn’t even be pulled out of him.

“Linda. Lester.”

Their bickering continued.

“Hello? Please.”

The couple fell quiet, and their eyes went to me.

“I’m assuming Clyde was outside when you saw him?”

“Yes, of course.” Lester passed a glare at his wife.

She knotted her arms again.

“What was he doing?”

“He was headed out with someone.”

Jack
’s jaw softened, ever so slightly. My stomach lightened with anticipation. Had this man seen our killer?

“He was with someone?”

“Yeah. That’s what I said.”

“Did you get a look at them?”

He was quiet for a few seconds and shook his head.
“Not really. I mean, I saw that there was a person in the driver’s seat. It wasn’t Clyde. I couldn’t make out the face. The sun was reflecting on the windshield in just the right spot.”

“But you knew Clyde was with them?”

“Yes, definitely. He’s a big guy. He appeared hunched over.”

“So it was a small car that he was in?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know what make and model it was? The color?” My heartbeat quickened.

“It was a Nissan sedan.” His forehead screwed up in concentration. “I don’t know the model, but it was red.”

“An older vehicle? A newer one?”

“Newer.”

“And you definitely don’t recall the model?”

“No. Sorry.”

“No, you’ve done very well. Have you ever seen that car there before?”

Lester glanced at his wife and both shook their heads.

“Did it seem like Clyde got into the car willingly?” I took the shot that Lester had seen him walking toward the car, not just in it.

“I did notice he was looking around and walking slower than he normally does. The guy is over six feet and he usually huffs it anywhere he goes.”

“And you never saw the driver outside of the car?”

“That’s right. I must have just missed him though because I did hear the car’s door slam. That’s actually what first got my attention.”