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A few bumps and bruises, a mild concussion. Nothing she couldn’t handle.
Leigh cringed against the bright fluorescent lights skewering her vision as she headed into the conference room. The station hadn’t changed over the course of a day, but this case had. One victim had been looking into a twenty-year-old investigation, and they had reason to believe the other may have as well. Now they just needed to know why Michelle Cross and Gresham Schmidt didn’t believe what was written in Lebanon PD’s final reports.
And why the killer had possibly altered his MO.
Director Livingstone took position behind the podium at the front as the rest of the team found their seats. “Boucher, where are we at with the search of Michelle Cross’s home and the death scene? Anything we can use to identify our unsub?”
“Not yet.” The lieutenant leaned back in his seat as though he’d rather be anywhere but here. “My guys have photographed and printed every inch of that house, including what we found in the attic. Michelle Cross’s fingerprints came back clean from the notes and photographs hidden upstairs. No one else handled her research. The subject of surveillance—Chris Ellingson—hasn’t seen or heard from the vic since leaving town or in the two months since he’s been back. I’ve got dogs up and down the river near the crime scene, scouring those woods for evidence, and uniforms questioning neighbors about anything suspicious. My guess, killer dropped our dead woman on the bridge and took everything with him. Maybe even changed his clothes to avoid leaving behind DNA. Same with the house.”
“Agen’ Brody, you believed we were looking for someone trained in forensics at the start of this investigation.” The director changed gears. “Is that still the case?”
Leigh’s phone pinged with an incoming message from beside her laptop. Another number she didn’t recognize, but the sender had gone the extra mile to sign her name.
Please call me. Elyse.
Yeah. That wasn’t going to happen. Leigh turned her cell screen down on the table.
This was her chance. To prove she belonged here. To prove Chief Maynor and everyone in this town was wrong about her. “It is. Considering the expertise needed to clean up after himself at the crime scene and Michelle Cross’s home, I’d wager he took a deep interest in law enforcement at a young age and most likely applied to Lebanon PD when he got older. Perhaps taught himself everything he needed to know through his own research as well. Library books, internet searches—he would’ve gotten his hands on anything he could.”
“So, what then? You want us to ask the local librarian who’s been checking out books on forensics?” Boucher asked.
Low laughs eased the tension closing in. From all but Livingstone.
“Let’s keep that in mind as a last resort.” Leigh went on. “Our unsub is good at what he does. Past data and autopsies of the victims conclude killers of this caliber are practiced. Whether in the past or outside of town, there will be evidence of his early experiments. There will be reports of torture of animals or small children, or both. Someone would’ve noticed. A parent or a sibling, a teacher or friend. I recommend we contact the school board for incidents concerning the need for excessive discipline of any particular male students in the past decade to start. Detentions, violence against other children, arguments with authority figures. We should take those incidents and cross-reference them with applications run through Lebanon PD and surrounding towns.”
“Why only male students?” Livingstone kept up the intensity Leigh had noted during Michelle Cross’s autopsy. Always questioning, never satisfied with the answer. For her, knowing every detail ahead of time was a way of defending herself against the unknown. A lifelong pursuit that would only end in disappointment. “Men don’t have a monopoly on murder.”
“You’re right. They don’t, but history shows women are far more likely to internalize their anger and violence against themselves. Not others,” Leigh said. “Apart from that, the trail where Michelle Cross was left for us to find was iced. It would’ve taken someone with great strength to drag her into position without slipping.”
Something along the lines of pride transformed Chandler Reed’s features and threatened to pull her out of focus. Every set of eyes in the room was on her. As though what she had to say was important. As though they believed her. Her brain only managed to process a quick bump in satisfaction at the idea.
“And if your boy isn’t a local?” Boucher swung his attention to the wall on the other side of the room, hands clenched as tight as football laces in front of him.
“Then things get a lot more complicated.” The scars Chandler Reed insisted on hiding beneath colorful tattoos—combined with the note in his voice—attested to experience.
“Our killer was obsessed with hurting these victims. He would’ve planned for every variable and studied them. While we still need a connection between this case to Gresham Schmidt, Michelle Cross has been confirmed to have an interest in the Joel Brody case.” Her voice nearly caught on the name. “I believe the unsub wanted to keep her from finding something in those original case files. Either to protect himself or someone else. As of right now, we have no reason to assume Michelle Cross and Gresham Schmidt were in contact with one another, so our connection is their killer.”
Confidence unlike anything she’d felt before tendrilled through her.
“He’s comfortable in Lebanon. This is his home base. He knows the area and has most likely put an escape plan in place, but only if absolutely necessary.” Leigh stood, rounding to the front of the long table to stand in front of the team. A police lieutenant she wasn’t sure she could trust, a unit director who’d built her team on a grudge, a forensic investigator hiding behind that smile, and a criminologist in search of closure. What more could she ask for? “This is personal for him. He has a lot to lose to go to these kinds of measures, and he won’t stop until he feels he’s completed his task.”
“What’s that?” Boucher set dark eyes on her—no longer distracted—and Leigh suddenly felt that being the center of this man’s undivided attention would cost her. In place of the self-assured, if not cocky, investigator she’d met at the death scene three days ago was a man with his own family to lose. With a son the same age Derek Garrison had been when he’d died.
“He wants what every killer wants, Lieutenant.” She shoved the urge to cut her gaze to another team member deep and met Boucher head-on. “To feel in control.”
Silence settled in the distance between them, and Leigh took her seat.
Livingstone didn’t waste a second. Because in an investigation like this, with so many moving pieces, it was important to keep their eyes on the target: catching an unsub before he killed again. Her brother had been gone three days by the time she’d found the body under the house. Their killer could already have another victim under his knife. “We’ve confirmed the number of stab wounds are consistent between both recent victims, but neither match the results of the boys killed in the original investigation. Dr. Jennings will be in contact concerning toxicology and lab analysis.”
“Wait. How many times were the boys stabbed?” Boucher separated his hands in question without facing the director.
Leigh held back an answer, the visual all too clear in her head.
“Thirty-one according to the autopsy reports.” Livingstone raised her chin a few millimeters higher.
Boucher turned this time. “I pulled those files after we connected this case to the ones from twenty years ago. Nothing in them said anything about thirty-one stab wounds.”
Leigh had an idea of in whose hands the final autopsy reports for Troy Brody and Derek Garrison had ended, but accusing the chief of police of corruption without proof would only detract from their goal. “Detective Maynor—Chief Maynor—was convinced there was a leak of information within the department at the time.” Whether he was that leak, she had her own theory. “Reporters—and family members—knew too much, in his opinion. It wasn’t uncommon with high profile cases at that time to withhold reports from certain investigators to compartmentalize information. Everything would’ve had to go through him.”
