“Oh, hell, yeah!” he exclaimed, and looked down at her, his perfect white teeth flashing a grin that she knew made most girls’ knees weak.
Caroline laughed and shoved him a little. “What do you know?”
“Girl!” he said, “your mother was a MILF if I ever saw one! Trust me, she wasn’t near ready to go to her grave.”
Caroline swiped at her eyes again and they sat there on the porch, quiet for a moment. She looked up at the stars. “I hear the cicadas out there. They’re starting to emerge.”
Josh shuddered. “Ugly bastards! Sometimes I can actually hear them snapping out of their skins.” He shuddered again, an overexaggerated gesture.
Caroline grimaced, but laughed.
“It’s going to be all right,” he said, changing the subject. “I promise. You’ll get it together, Caroline.”
Caroline looked up at him. “So does that mean you’re not mad anymore?”
He took his arm from around her shoulder and joined his hands in front of his knees. “For now . . . but I’m going to be one pissed-off muthafucker if I miss my shot at the mayor’s desk because of you.”
Caroline frowned, but said, “Look at the bright side . . .”
He eyed her uncertainly. “Yeah, what’s that?”
“James Island might not ever get another mayor.”
He lifted a brow. “That’s not a bright side, Caroline.”
“Well, at least then you wouldn’t have to worry about messing things up.”
“That’s where you have it dead wrong, girl. I’d rather get in there and fuck everything to hell and back than never get the chance.” He stood, brushing himself off. “You should go in. I want to check on Mama before I head home.”
Caroline stood too, wishing she were more like him. Nothing seemed to bother him for long. “All right. Thanks for checking in on me. Tell Sadie I love her and I’ll see her soon.”
He winked at her. “Night, Cici.”
Caroline’s heart jolted at the unexpected endearment. “G’night, Josh.”
“Get the hell inside and lock up,” he demanded.
Without another word, Caroline smiled, went to pick up the bags she’d abandoned beside the car and hurried inside.
Chapter Eighteen
T
here were no surveillance cameras in the garage.
Jack also poked around for witnesses, but nobody had seen anything. He wasn’t surprised. It probably would have taken all of three seconds to write a five-letter word in pollen dust on a dirty car.
Telling himself that Caroline had just angered one of the
Tribune
’s readers, he refocused his energy.
At the moment, he had more urgent business to attend to. He sat in his office, staring at his computer screen with an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, poring over what he knew so far—which was precious little.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
Like the moments during a hurricane, when the eye passed over, and it seemed the worst was over, but you knew down in your gut that despite the eerie silence, the worst was still to come.
He had a dull headache—probably lack of sleep—and he craved a smoke.
Right now, he could use the resources the FBI had at their disposal—resources CPD wouldn’t have access to. But at this point, he couldn’t even request FBI assistance because the case didn’t meet the criteria, and locally, the higher-ups didn’t want to call it a serial homicide—despite the implications—and despite Caroline’s suggestive article. At the moment, they were way more concerned with doing damage control than they were with profiling a killer—particularly since there was only one body.
He had to give the higher-ups this much: serial homicides were rare, making up less than one percent of all murders committed during any given year. The odds were against this being the work of a serial killer . . . and still somehow he knew it was. Still he didn’t need a bunch of talking heads telling him what to look for in a suspect—half that shit was a bunch of TV mythology anyway. He rubbed his eyes.
Focus, Jack.
So this was what he had: a handful of facts that might, or might not, be relevant to a solid profiling. But A) the investigation was his until they took it away or they fired him—which was becoming a distinct possibility. And B) until someone gave him a reason to think otherwise, he was going to listen to his gut.
Data indicated most known serial killers were white males between twenty-five and thirty-five and since the victim was Caucasian, the killer most likely was Caucasian, too. Also assuming their killer was male, male serial killers had a consistent pattern of killing strangers, so he probably didn’t know his victim either. If one surmised he had killed before, it would stand to reason he was also an extremely organized killer since there were no bodies to be found.
According to the Holmes typology, they were probably dealing with an organized, nonsocial offender—someone who had an above-average IQ, a college graduate maybe. He was someone who probably attacked using seduction into restraints—possibly a father figure—someone people trusted . . . someone people
wanted
to trust. Sometimes, serial killers even had jobs that put them close to the action, so they could keep tabs on the investigation and stay ahead of the game. He would likely be socially functional—probably even drove a flashy car and wore Italian shoes, and didn’t need to work at night, because he wasn’t hiding . . . he left his crime scene whistle clean, killing in one place, dumping the body at another . . . except that this time their guy had been interrupted.
The typology for male serial killers also divided them into four groups: visionaries, missionaries, hedonists and power seekers. Visionaries responded to voices telling them to kill. Missionaries felt they had a duty to clean up the dregs of society. Hedonists were further subdivided into three groups—lust, thrill and gain. Lust killers got off on it, thrill killers simply liked the game and gain killers believed they would profit. Then there were the power seekers who were busy playing God. But this was the problem he had with the experts from Quantico: any and all of these attributes combined could be their killer’s profile.
Studying the screen, Jack plucked the offensive cigarette from his lips and tossed it onto his desk. Then, just for good measure, he picked it up again and tore it in half, tossing it back down, thoroughly annoyed by his own ambivalence.
The results were back on most of the forensics. Apparently, the victim’s tongue was cut while she was still alive. No semen was detected on or in her body, nor was there any other sexually relevant evidence. Still, they couldn’t rule out lust as a motivation. It was entirely possible that since the guy was interrupted, he just hadn’t had time to violate her. Plus, not all rapists penetrated their victims while still alive. Then again, just because he didn’t get off inside her, didn’t mean he didn’t get off.
On the spreadsheet, he had written: power seeker: check; thrill seeker: question mark; missionary: question mark; visionary: question mark; rape: not evident; souvenirs and trophies: question mark. Under each of these, he had written the available evidence placing the killer into each of these categories.
A blinking cursor sat by the last category. If it had been written on a chalkboard, the space beneath it would have been milky from multiple erases, but the cursor sat there blinking insistently, beckoning him to find the answer. His gut told him the tongue was probably a trophy, but he couldn’t be sure—again, just the one body.
Thrill seekers loved sending messages and wanted the world to know the authorities were too stupid to catch them. Jack had a hunch that wasn’t their guy. He jotted a note on his pad to check the national missing persons database, although he didn’t have a clue where to start. As far as types went, it was all guesswork at this point. Unfortunately, until another body turned up—something he was trying to prevent—they couldn’t begin to put two and two together.
As for the blue dye . . . apparently, it was just your common grocery-store-variety food coloring, a purchase that wasn’t easily flagged.
He scribbled a few more notes onto his pad. Some things he still had to do the old-fashioned way—but he knew lots of folks used their smartphones for everything now. Unfortunately, the victim’s phone had been dead and produced no helpful history. Patterson’s hadn’t yielded anything more than they already knew.
They looked into Jones’s romantic interests—at least two guys were talking to her, though according to the roommate she wasn’t sleeping with either of them. There were a handful of friends she talked to daily—including the Realtor who had listed the house on Backcreek Road. Jack met him at the house and did a walk-through, watching the guy’s demeanor. He seemed appropriately disturbed and entirely too curious about the details.
Tossing his notepad onto his desk, he considered Patterson.
Why would the guy show up over at the Aldridge estate? And why the hell would he have Florence Aldridge’s shoe? He felt the guy was innocent . . . but what was he missing?
Something.
His door opened, and Kelly’s head popped in. “Hey,” she said a little meekly. “Are you avoiding me?”
Jack stood, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair.
“Leaving?”
“Yes.”
She came in anyway, closing the door, and Jack cringed, certain no good could come of yet another discussion about their failed relationship.
“I just wanted to apologize.”
“You’ve already done that,” he said. “Let’s drop it.”
“Consider it dropped.” Her expression looked about as forlorn as that of a sad puppy. “I’m sorry, Jack. I don’t know what got into me. I was just so mad.”
He shut off his computer. “I understand why you did it, Kelly.” He turned to face her. “I’m not mad. Just don’t do it again.”
They both had to keep a certain decorum for work, and he was sure Kelly needed all the help she could get. Assuring her again that he wasn’t angry, that he was just busy and didn’t think it was a good idea for them to keep focusing on the past, he walked out.
Kelly stood there a moment after he left. Her gaze fell to the sleeping computer screen. She didn’t dare touch it, but his notebook was sitting right there on the desk in plain sight. In the middle of the page, she spotted a note in his handwriting that caught her attention: “Check national missing persons database. Start south. White females.”
Kelly touched the notebook, rubbing her finger over Jack’s familiar handwriting. It wasn’t within the scope of her job, but if she could find a way to help him do his job and stay under the radar, maybe he would soften a little toward her.
She picked up his pen and turned a page on his notebook, scribbling his notes word for word, then tore out the page and left.
While Bonneau led the troops in the war room, Caroline sat back and listened.
He reminded her a little of a short, stout, whiskey-drinking Confederate captain, strategizing for battle—not that he acted like a drunk by any means, but he was definitely high on excitement and he had that florid face and veiny nose Caroline associated with good-old-boy drinkers. All that was missing was a uniform. She smiled privately at the images she conjured in her mind and watched him work, pointing enthusiastically at his whiteboard.
Since their talk a week ago, she’d noticed a monumental change in the atmosphere at the paper. There was an underlying ease to the entire operation that wasn’t marred in any way by a lack of excitement. This was how she had imagined it to be when she was a little girl picturing her mother at work.
There was something very exciting going on here, in this last-of-its-breed newspaper—something she had never experienced as a writer for bigger dailies.
“So he left of his own accord,” Brad said, speaking of Patterson. “Though it looks like he pretty much had to. The climate wasn’t exactly friendly after the indictment.”
Caroline depressed the end of her pen on the conference table. “Weird though . . . you usually hear of them shifting dirty old priests to some other parish after an accusation like this. You almost never hear of them leaving the church.”
Brad shrugged, the gleam in his eyes almost feverish. Like Bonneau, he lived for this. “Judging by his appearance—long hair, earring—I don’t think he was ever a by-the-book priest. My guess is he just didn’t have enough years in the church to earn much love up high. He probably lost whatever loyalty he had from his parish after the charges.”
“But he was acquitted,” Caroline reiterated.
“Of a pedophilia charge,” Brad said. “Any doubt about his innocence would surely make his flock think twice about sending their babies to catechism. I wouldn’t trust my daughter with him.”
“But the girl was sixteen,” Caroline argued. “Way past puberty, so it wasn’t exactly pedophilia.”
The entire room turned to look at her.
Caroline realized how it must sound only after she said it. “I’m not saying that makes it okay. What I am saying is that he was found innocent of molesting a sixteen-year-old—almost an adult—and the girl admitted she lied.”
Brad shrugged. “Risk of the trade, I guess.”
Caroline was beginning to notice an edge to Brad that didn’t sit well with her. Maybe it was that competitive gleam in his eye that bugged her for Pam’s sake.
“Doesn’t seem fair,” Pam interjected, and went back to chewing on her pencil eraser.
Bonneau patted Brad’s shoulder. “Have you talked to the girl’s parents?”
“Yep. The mother. The girl’s father died a few years ago of pancreatic cancer. The mom blames herself for not paying more attention to the daughter. I guess she realized her daughter was looking for a strong male figure in her life. She apparently chose Patterson.”
“Poor guy,” Pam interjected.
Bonneau glared at Pam. “Have you made your mind up about this case, Pam?”
Pam’s eyes widened. “Oh, no—sir!”
“Good, and when you do, I don’t want to see your opinion bleeding through your words.”
Pam sank down into her chair. “Yes, sir!”
“So . . . ready for the clincher?” Brad asked, grinning slightly. He gave the moment a weighty pause, obviously enjoying the anticipation. “The girl who accused Patterson of molesting her is missing, too.”
Bonneau’s attention was piqued now.
Caroline sat up straighter and nodded for him to go on.
“That’s all I have,” he said. “There’s not much more. She ran away about a year ago, the mother went to Patterson to ask him to help find her daughter and bring her home. Apparently, she left a ‘good-bye apology’ for Patterson.”
Caroline could almost see a progression of thoughts ticking behind Bonneau’s eyes. “Where’s she from again?”
“Murrells Inlet, north of Charleston.”
“I know where Murrells Inlet is!” Bonneau exclaimed, his face turning a little deeper red. Caroline was pretty sure it wasn’t anger. His eyes were animated.
She started to read through her notes aloud. “So we have a guy who was arrested for suspicion of murder, but released. This same guy was also tried and acquitted on a sexual abuse charge.”
“But it never went to trial,” Brad corrected. “The girl confessed, told her mother and all charges were dropped.”
“Wow. Okay, so no trial, but he was accused of sexual abuse, and the girl who accused him of molesting her is now missing, right?”
“Right.”
“So we have three girls, two missing—”
“One,” Frank corrected.
“No, two. They still haven’t found Amanda Hutto,” Caroline reminded him. “And frankly, this really begins to make sense when you add Amanda to the equation.”
Frank’s bushy brows collided. “Why?”
“Because she’s a child and Amy Jones was barely an adult. Jennifer Williams is sixteen. It connects them a little more . . . don’t you think?” After she said it, she realized maybe she was reaching. She just so badly wanted to get answers about Amanda Hutto.
Frank seemed to consider the angle, and while he continued to mull it over, he turned to Pam. “What about you? What did you find?”