Shadow of Vengeance (7 page)

“Doubtful. Whoever’s behind this has been at it for a long time. They know what they’re doing.”

After shifting the Lexus into PARK, he killed the ignition and turned to her. “Or maybe it’s your sheriff who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

She glanced at the Dixon County Sheriff’s Department sign and shrugged. “Let’s go find out.”

Owen climbed out of the Lexus and followed Rachel into the building. When he stepped inside the small foyer, he felt as if he’d taken several steps back in time. From the look of things he guessed the building hadn’t seen an update since the 1970s and probably hadn’t been cleaned since then either. The stale smell of cigarette smoke and some flowery bathroom spray hung in the air. The walls, chipped, filthy, and stained brown from nicotine, had been painted dark mustard. The scuffed linoleum floor, an ugly olive and gold, actually matched the walls.
 

A young brunette sat behind a desk that had likely been built a couple decades before she’d been born. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“We have an appointment with Sheriff Tyler,” Rachel replied and gave her their names.

Seconds later, a man Owen placed around his age, entered the foyer from a back hallway. Dressed in a light brown shirt, with the town and state insignia on the sleeve, and a pair of jeans, he approached them. “Miss Davis?”
 

When Rachel nodded, he extended his hand. “Jake Tyler.”
 

As Owen introduced himself to the sheriff, he ignored Rachel’s smug smile. He’d been wrong to assume the sheriff was a decrepit old man counting his days until retirement, and was certain Rachel would remind him later.
 

“Come on back,” the sheriff said.
 

“Jake.” The receptionist stopped him. “Abby’s running late for her shift and I have a class in thirty minutes. What do you want me to do? I can go to class late.”

The sheriff puffed his cheeks, then blew out a breath. “No, Melissa. School’s important. Adjust the switchboard and have the calls go to my cell phone.” Then rubbing the base of his neck, he led them down the back hallway and into a cramped office.
 

“Sorry about the mess. Our basement flooded around the first of the month, and there’s not a whole lotta places for storage. You should see the jail cell.” He moved stacks of file boxes off the chair in front of the desk, then retrieved a folding chair that had been hidden behind more boxes along the wall. “Please, have a seat.”

Ever the gentleman, Owen gave Rachel the cushioned chair. Although worn and the upholstery cracked, the chair beat the hell out of sitting on metal.

“Is your receptionist a college student?” Rachel asked as she sat.

“Yeah. I have eight students who split all the shifts. It usually works out fine…” He shrugged, then said, “Honestly, I don’t mind if I have to occasionally deal with the calls. When I took on this job, the woman who’d been running the front desk was a Townie—born and raised—and a real problem. With barely twelve hundred people living in Bola, you tend to know everyone. She spent more time gossiping than doing her job. I couldn’t have her tying up the phone lines so she could call her friends and give them all the dirty details about how so and so was spending the night in jail for such and such.”

Rachel smiled and shook her head. “Sounds like a nightmare.”

“You have no idea. I’m down to three deputies when I should have six. The salary isn’t enough to entice anyone with a law enforcement background to move to the area and I refuse to hire anyone from town. Long story, but I tried that route once and ended up arresting that deputy and throwing
him
in jail.”

“How long have you been on the job?” Owen asked.

The sheriff leaned into the chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Six years.”

“And before that?”

“I was a Marine.”

“You’re not from Bola?”

“Pittsburgh.” He held up a hand just as Owen planned to throw him another question. “Look, I’m sure you two are wondering what the hell the dumb hick sheriff has been doing while college kids go missing.”

Owen looked to Rachel, who shook her head as if he were a jackass. Realizing he’d inadvertently been playing twenty questions with the sheriff, he said, “Sorry, Jake, I didn’t mean to insult you. But understand it from my point of view. You were obviously in high school when the first student went missing, and ended up inheriting this mess. I still want to know your background and your capabilities as a sheriff. I want to know what you’ve done to stop this during the last six years.”

“Oh my God,” Rachel groaned. “For someone who didn’t mean to be insulting…”

“It’s okay,” Jake said. “Actually, I appreciate your partner’s bluntness. And he’s right. I did inherit this mess. My first year as sheriff, a student went missing, and the Hell Week note was left in his dorm room. When I started questioning folks I discovered that, over the prior fourteen years, the same damned thing happened seven other times. The previous sheriff was dead, so he was obviously no help. The deputies claimed that the former sheriff exhausted every possible angle, which was a lie. My initial file on the first kidnapping victim I dealt with is thicker than all seven my predecessor investigated. So I called the Michigan State Police.”

“You’d mentioned they’re not interested in helping,” Rachel said.

 
“Yeah, the first time they came to Bola, it didn’t go well. I gave the two inspectors from the State Police Field Service Bureau the Hell Week note I found in the missing kid’s dorm. In the meantime, I contacted the kid’s parents, gathered a couple hundred volunteers from Bola and the university, along with trained search-and-rescue dogs loaned to us from another county. The inspectors even had divers come in to search the river. This search ended up going on record as the largest of its kind in this county, ever.”

Rachel leaned forward. “But you never found the kid. That must have been rough.”

“No.” Jake shook his head. “We found him.”

“But I thought you told me you’ve never found any of the bodies,” Rachel said.

“True. None of the
missing
boys have ever been found. This kid wasn’t missing though. He was in Niagara Falls with his girlfriend for the weekend.”

Rachel frowned. “But the note.”

Jake shook his head. “The State Police lab found fingerprints on it, and those prints ended up matching a couple guys from the fraternity the not-so-missing kid was pledging.”

“I take it everyone knows about the kidnappers MO,” Owen said.

“That’s right. My predecessor and his deputies kept no secrets. Those two frat boys thought it would be funny to plant the note. Their hoax cost the county thousands of dollars it didn’t have. The two boys lost their scholarships and were eventually expelled. And, their little prank ended up damaging my reputation.”
 

Aside from assuming the sheriff had been days from retirement, Owen realized he’d pegged Jake Tyler wrong. It sounded as if, during his first year on the job, Jake had done everything by the book with this particular case. Unfortunately, that hadn’t mattered. Although the circumstances weren’t his fault, the sheriff had been the lead on the investigation, as well as the eventual fall guy. Owen could relate to Jake’s frustration. Hell, a misguided and manipulative seventeen-year-old girl had cost him his career with the U.S. Secret Service. After his reputation had already been ruined, he’d later learned she hadn’t meant to, just like he was sure those two frat boys hadn’t meant for their prank to blow up in their faces, or Jake’s for that matter.
 

“None of this was your fault,” Rachel said. “I still don’t see why, after that incident, the State Police—”

“It gets better. Two weeks later, another kid went missing. The kid’s RA, his roommate, the guys from the fraternity he was pledging…they all thought he’d gone home to see his family. No one contacted me, or anyone at my department, about his disappearance. A month later, I get a call from this kid’s parents, asking me to check on their son. When I went to his dorm room, and looked through his things, I found the Hell Week note. This time, because now I knew this Hell Week kidnapping had been legitimately going on for fourteen years, I checked the note against the others my predecessor had saved. They matched.”

“Did you call the inspectors to help?” Owen asked.

“No. I set up a smaller search party. By nightfall, I sent everyone home with the intent to go back the next day. Which we did, only I knew we weren’t going to find the kid.”

“How?” Rachel asked.

The sheriff withdrew a file folder from his desk, then handed Rachel a photo. Her eyes grew wide, then she handed the four by six glossy to Owen. He stared at the decomposing body of a Caucasian male, who had likely been in his late teens, or early twenties, then looked to Jake.
 

“I found that in my mailbox the night we did the initial search. Except the two inspectors I worked with on the prank, I’ve never shown anyone that photo,” the sheriff said, and gave a yellowing piece of paper to Rachel. “Or the note that came with it.”
 

Rachel read the note out loud. “Quit wasting tax dollars. The pledge didn’t survive Hell Week.” She handed the paper back to the sheriff. “Do you know if the killer contacted the previous sheriff?”

“Not that I’m aware, and I’ve never been contacted since.”

“What did the inspectors say about this?” she asked.

“That it could be another hoax, and the picture photoshopped. That’s why they didn’t want me showing the photo to the victim’s parents. Plus, there wasn’t one shred of evidence the kid
hadn’t
disappeared on his own. I couldn’t find his wallet, passport, cell phone, or laptop. And, according to his roommate, the kid’s gym bag and some of his clothes were missing. I did call the phone company and asked them to see if they could “ping” his cell phone. They didn’t find anything.” The sheriff placed the note and photo back in the folder. “I did the same thing three years ago when another kid went missing. Set up a search party, looked through the missing boy’s dorm room, contacted the phone company.” He released a deep sigh. “I informed the State Police, but the inspector I spoke with told me to call him when I either have a body, or some evidence to work with…apparently the Hell Week note and all the other missing kids wasn’t evidence enough.”

“Except now you have a witness,” Rachel said.

“Sean’s doctor called me when your brother woke up, but that was about an hour before you were scheduled to arrive. I was at the university and the doctor said Sean wasn’t lucid at that point,” Jake said. “I apologize. I should have asked how he was doing.”

“He’s better than I expected.”

“Were you able to talk to him?”

“Yes, but he doesn’t remember anything. Owen and I are thinking that Sean and Josh may have been drugged. Sean’s doctor is having his blood screened for Rohypnol. My brother said the last thing he remembers is eating pizza and drinking Mountain Dew. He also remembered leaving the dorms, then from there, everything’s black.”

“I’ve been in their dorm room,” Jake began. “I did find a pizza box, but no bottles of any kind of soda. Empty or full.”

“We’re still going to want to check my brother’s room. I’d also like to have a list of everyone you’ve interviewed.”

Used to taking the lead during an investigation, but impressed with how Rachel handled the sheriff, Owen leaned into the metal chair and kept his mouth shut. For now. He’d sworn he had seen a flash of disappointment in her eyes when Ian had informed her that he would be helping her in Bola. Her desire to work in the field was no secret. While he honestly believed her talents lay with her computer skills, he didn’t want to see her fail. There might come a time when he, or any member of the CORE team, might need her in the field, and she needed the experience.
 

Jake gave her another manila envelope. “This is everything I have regarding the Josh Conway investigation. I’ve talked with the RA, campus security, other kids from the dorms, kids from the frat house, and a few people from the university administration office. I planned on talking with the professor Josh and Sean were supposed to meet at the library the night they were taken, but he’s been in class all day.” Jake stood, then moved next to Rachel. After she opened the folder, he leaned in and pointed to a name on the list.

“Got it,” Rachel said. “And Sean’s clothes?”

The sheriff reached across the desk and grabbed a brown paper bag. “Everything he wore the night he was found is in here. Like I told you this morning, I can send it to the State Police.”

Rachel set the bag on her lap. “No, that’ll take too long. The lab CORE uses can give us results within a few days.”

“Nice,” Jake replied. “That’s a hell of a turnaround time.”

If only the sheriff knew the cost. But Ian had deep pockets and zero patience. With any case CORE took on, Ian wanted excellent, quick results. When one case ended, there was always another that needed to be solved.
 

“The perks of a private agency,” Rachel said, then added, “When I was researching Bola and Wexman, I found a blog that claimed Wexman Hell Week was like Bigfoot…nothing but a legend.”

The sheriff sat on the edge of the desk near Rachel. “There are a lot of superstitious people around these parts. Every Townie has a theory about what keeps happening to these students. Some are logical, others are ludicrous. There’s one thing the Townies do have in common though, and that’s…fear.”