Chapter 19

NINETEEN

“He’s taunting us,” Gretchen said.

Josie turned away from the corkboard and nodded her agreement. The whole stationhouse hummed with activity, uniformed officers coming and going, writing up their reports, checking in with their findings, and heading back out to complete more tasks in the Cleo Tate investigation. Gretchen and Turner sat at their desks while Josie stood beside Noah, studying the enlargement of the polaroid found under Cleo Tate’s body. The Chief stalked in and out of his office, grumbling under his breath and occasionally barking questions. Even Amber was there, perched on the edge of her desk, watching all of them with a subdued expression.

“Look at this,” Noah said. “There’s blood around the frame but not the actual photo.”

“He placed it under her body after he killed her,” said Josie. “In one of the few places where it wouldn’t get soaked with her blood.”

“Considering that he clearly wanted us to find this,” said Gretchen, “that was a risk. If she’d been out there any longer, the picture could have been damaged by the decomp process, bad weather, or animals. Any number of things.”

A chill worked its way up Josie’s spine in spite of the frigid air conditioning in the room. Gretchen was right. Any longer and the photo might not have been intact. As it was, the quality wasn’t great. Like the first one, it was somewhat blurred in places, as if it had been taken too quickly. From what Josie could tell, the foreground was black asphalt. A horizontal white line cut across it. Part of another white line extended toward the bottom of the photo, the two lines connecting in a stunted T-shape. Above the horizontal line, a spear of light sliced the scene almost in half. In the distance beyond that was what appeared to be part of a building, but all Josie could make out for certain were windows. The section of the building that was visible was slightly out of focus. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar but she wondered if that was just because it might be any parking lot in front of any store or office building.

“You know what it is, Quinn?” asked Turner. “You figured out the last one.”

Josie turned to see him throw his foam basketball at the net, missing. “The more important question is where it is,” she said.

“There has to be something there that helps us identify it,” Gretchen said. “He made sure to include part of the boat when he took the first photo so that one of us would know he’d dumped her near Cold Heart Creek.”

“One of us?” said Turner. “You mean Quinn.”

Noah shook his head. “I worked the Cold Heart Creek case, too. I was there the day we saw the boat. It just didn’t cross my mind when I saw the polaroid.”

“The photos are so blurred,” Gretchen said. “They only show fragments of places and yet this guy clearly wants us to figure out where they were taken.”

For a few seconds, none of them spoke. Josie’s stomach burned at the thought of what they might find if they could figure out the location where the picture had been taken.

Turner drummed his fingers along the edge of his desk. “I’m gonna go ahead and say the shitty thing out loud. If we figure out where this was taken and go there, we’re looking at another body. Right?”

“Or if we figure it out quickly enough, would we get there before someone else is killed?” said Noah.

“That would be a hard thing for this guy to pull off,” Turner said.

“Not impossible,” Noah said. “If the location pictured here is remote enough, he could leave her bound for a certain amount of time and if we don’t find her by then, he kills her.”

“Then he expects us to play a game he made up when he didn’t bother to tell us the rules,” Turner complained.

“Even if he’s not timing us with the intent to potentially let the next victim live—which wouldn’t be smart if she can ID him—if he leaves us another polaroid…” Gretchen drifted off.

“That means he’s still killing,” Josie filled in. “And he’ll keep going until we can stop him. We should start checking for any women who might have gone missing in the last day or so.”

Turner tossed his ball again. Missed. “Wouldn’t we have been assigned to a case like that?”

“Not if it was something like a welfare check where the responding officers had no compelling reason to enter the home,” said Gretchen.

Turner eyed her. “So we’re talking about a broad who?—”

Gretchen bristled, glaring at him. “No one says ‘broad’ anymore.”

Turner grinned at her. Of all of them, he seemed to enjoy provoking Gretchen the most.

“Okay,” he said. “We’re talking about some spinster?—”

“Turner!” Josie snapped.

His head swiveled in her direction, eyes wide. “What is it now?”

Gretchen’s chair squealed as she stood up. A dollar bill appeared in her hand. “I’ll tell you what.” She leaned over and put the dollar into the jar on Turner’s desk. “You’re a jackass.”

Noah sighed. “Gretchen, that’s not how this system works, and you know it.”

Gretchen ignored him. Josie could see the satisfaction in every line of her face. Josie was beginning to think she enjoyed calling Turner a jackass to his face more than she enjoyed the pecan croissants she wasn’t supposed to be eating anymore.

Turner picked up his jar and swirled it around, the few lonely dollars inside fluttering. “Don’t knock her, LT. I don’t mind getting back some of the money I’ve been putting out trying not to offend these two.”

Josie looked at the jars on hers and Gretchen’s desks, stuffed full of dollars. “Maybe we should get one of those signs you talked about, Turner.”

He laughed, a full-throated, genuine laugh. Then he winked at her. Josie tried not to recoil.

With another heavy sigh, Noah said, “We’re losing focus here, and the clock is ticking. Since we haven’t had any missing persons cases recently, the kinds of reports we’re looking for are ones where out-of-town friends or relatives have asked for welfare checks on women who live alone and haven’t been heard from in a few days, maybe longer. Employers might also request welfare checks if someone fails to show up for work and doesn’t call.”

“What if this sicko has some other woman and she hasn’t been reported missing yet,” Turner asked.

“We can only work with what we have,” Noah replied. “Until we can figure out where this photo was taken, or unless the ERT or state lab are able to pull fingerprints or DNA samples that match someone in one of the databases, this is what we’ve got.”

Josie said, “The canvasses and line searches near Cold Heart Creek turned up nothing. I prepared a geofence warrant for that area, but since we didn’t get anything from the one at the city park or the abandoned lot, I’m guessing we won’t find anything in the latest geofence results. This guy isn’t giving us much.”

Gretchen’s chair creaked as she turned to her computer. “I’ll check for missing women.”

“We should look at reports of stolen cars as well,” said Noah. “This guy stole Sheila Hampton’s car and used it to abduct Cleo Tate. If he’s taken another woman or plans to then he may have stolen another car.”

“On it,” said Josie, plopping into her chair and booting up her computer.

Noah said, “What about the auto repair shop guy? The one whose prints were found in the Hampton car?”

“Edgar Garcia,” said Turner. “I talked to him. He doesn’t have an alibi. Says he was home sleeping all morning. It’s his day off. He seemed a little shady. Bad attitude. Said what I figured he’d say—he worked on the car a few weeks ago after Sheila hit a deer. That’s why his prints are inside. I asked for consent to search his phone and he shut me down.”

Noah sighed. “I looked at the photos Hummel uploaded. The places where Garcia’s prints were found in the car are exactly where we’d expect to find them given that he worked on the car. It was a few weeks ago, so still reasonable enough that his prints would be found.”

“We need more than that to get search warrants,” Josie said. “Something that points toward him being involved in the crime.”

“That’s a dead end,” said Noah.

Turner stood and joined him at the corkboard. “I was thinking.”

“That’s new,” Gretchen muttered.

Turner caught Josie’s eye. “Maybe Park— Palmer needs a sign.”

Josie ignored him, going back to the stolen car reports for the last week.

Turner continued, “Just about every car has GPS now. They all have infotainment systems we can use to locate a stolen vehicle and even disable it, like with the Hampton car. If this guy wanted us to find his victims, why not just use cars to do it? If he’s smart enough to know how not to leave evidence behind, how to avoid cameras, and all that shit, he has to know we have the capabilities to find pretty much any car he steals.”

Josie glanced over at the corkboard long enough to see the Chief step up behind Turner and Noah. His hawkish eyes raked over the newest polaroid.

Josie said, “He’s trying to make some very specific point with the pictures.”

“That he doesn’t know how to use a camera?” Turner said.

The Chief held up his phone. “I just talked with Kellan Neal. He’s holding a press conference outside the Tate residence in one hour.”

Amber cleared her throat. She’d been so quiet that Josie nearly forgot she was still at her desk. Everyone turned toward her. “Is he making another appeal to the public? To help find this killer?”

The Chief nodded and patted down some of the loose white hairs floating above his forehead. “It’s not a bad idea given how short we are on clues. He’s also gotten several friends, neighbors and old colleagues to put together a reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer.”

Noah said, “It can’t hurt.”

Amber picked up her cell phone. “I’ll call him and make sure we coordinate. Work out all the details.”

Turner said, “Did you ask him about his son-in-law’s alibi?”

One of the Chief’s bushy eyebrows kinked upward. “Yep. He told me Remy Tate ‘checks out.’”

Gretchen laughed. “That’s it? He ‘checks out?’”

“I thought you said this guy was a prosecutor,” Turner said. “He doesn’t know how criminal investigations work?”

“I think he’s counting on us giving him a pass because he was an ADA,” the Chief said. “But that’s not how I run shit, so as soon as the press conference is over, one of you will bring Remy Tate in. I want a recorded interview and written statement from him. Let’s lock him into a story. Ask him for consent to search his phone. If he gives a shit about finding his wife’s killer, he’ll have no problem with it. First thing tomorrow, I want interviews with friends and family members of Remy and Cleo Tate. I don’t care if Kellan Neal thinks they were living happily ever after or that his son-in-law ‘checks out.’ Right now, we’ve got nothing else, so let’s start kicking over every stone in this guy’s life.”