Chapter 13

After lunch at the Center Diner, where Laurel ate too much apple pie, she returned to her office and sat on the worn wood of her temporary conference table, staring at two glass murder boards. The one on the left held images from the Jason Abbott case and the one on the right, the new river cases.

Were they connected? Had Jason drowned those two blonde victims? She didn't like the timing of his escape with the occurrence of the newest murders. Drowning and strangulation involved similar violence and loss of breath leading to death.

Kate crossed into the room and handed her an herbal tea. "Here."

"Thank you."

Kate pulled out a chair and dropped into it, looking at the boards. "These are definitely murders, right? Any chance this isn't a serial killer?"

"Yes, these are homicides. Two deaths do not a serial make," Laurel said, repeating a phrase she'd learned at Quantico.

Kate stretched out. "What's your gut feeling?"

"I don't have gut feelings. However, there's a ritualistic aspect to these murders that indicate the killer's compunction to continue."

"They're definitely not one-offs, are they?" Kate asked, drinking her coffee.

Laurel tried never to use guesswork, but these deaths were too similar to miss the implications. "It's doubtful." She glanced at her watch. "I wish we had completed autopsies from Dr. Ortega."

"Do you want me to call him?" Kate offered. "It's too quiet around here without Walter and Nester."

"No. Thank you, though. Dr. Ortega must be overwhelmed right now. I know he'll get to us as soon as he can." But she needed to verify the cause of death in these murders.

"You think the victims were drowned?" Kate asked.

"Yes, but I won't make any suppositions until we have facts."

Kate turned to face the boards. "Who found the victim we're pretty sure is Teri Bearing?"

"A man named Tim Kohnex. Nester's conducting a full background check on the man right now, working remotely. He's also still trying to find where Zeke Caine has been traveling the past several years."

Kate nodded. "I heard Huck mention that this Kohnex fella thinks he's psychic."

"He believes the wind whispers to him," Laurel said. "I guess that could be considered psychic. I don't know."

"What was your take on him?"

She hadn't read much from his facial expressions. "He seemed . . . interesting," she said. "Maybe lonely. He likes his dog. I find it odd that he goes walking by the river before the sun comes up. That's perilous, no matter how well you know the terrain."

"You think he could be our guy instead of Jason Abbott?"

"I have no idea, and we need to keep an open mind about these killings. Kohnex is tall and strong. If these women were drowned somehow, I would say he has the strength to do it."

Kate eyed the picture of Kohnex Laurel had taped to the murder board after returning to the office. "Did he seem serial killer-ish to you?"

"I don't know what that means."

"Right," Kate said, looking over at the board that prominently featured Jason Abbott. "Any news on Abbott's whereabouts?"

Frustration crawled like ants beneath her skin. "No," Laurel said. "I think it was good that we got word out to the public, but so far no leads have panned out."

Kate snorted. "Yeah, I guess."

There was an inflection in her tone, but Laurel couldn't grasp its meaning. "Am I missing something?"

"No." Kate placed her cup on the worn table. "After Huck's interview, I guess half of the calls to the hotline have been to request his phone number."

Laurel tilted her head. "The callers won't give the information to the dispatch? They want to speak directly to the officer in charge?"

"Um, no," Kate said. "They want his number."

It took Laurel a second, and then realization hit. "They're romantically interested in the captain."

"Yeah, Laurel," Kate said dryly. "One lady wanted to know his address so she could mail her bra to him."

Laurel frowned. "Her bra? What would he do with her bra?"

"I don't know. Use it as a slingshot?" Kate chuckled. "Anyway, dispatch is getting a kick out of the multiple requests to meet the captain."

"Oh." Laurel focused back at Jason Abbott's mugshot. Even there, on the day he'd been arrested, his gaze was direct and his stature confident.

"You don't have to be jealous, Laurel," Kate said.

She paused. "Jealous of what?"

Kate studied her for a moment. "Forget it."

Sometimes people just didn't make any sense, or more likely Laurel was missing something again. But right now, she had to concentrate on her job. There wasn't time to deal with anything else.

Nausea rolled up in her stomach, and she sucked in oxygen. Oh, no. She was okay. Oh, wait. No, she wasn't. Lunging from where she was sitting, she grabbed the wastepaper basket from the corner of the room and lost her lunch and all of the pie.

"Whoa, boss." Kate grasped her hair to pull it away from her face. "Whoa."

Laurel retched harder, her body convulsing.

"How much pie did you eat?"

Laurel coughed and then straightened, standing with both arms around the bucket. "Sorry, I must've eaten something unpleasant."

"You look pale, Laurel. You should to sit down."

"No, I'm all right. I need to brush my teeth."

She stumbled out of the conference room and down to her office where she kept a toiletry kit. Supposedly morning sickness abated after the first trimester, and she had great hopes that she would stop vomiting at that time. Although she understood from her research that it was entirely possible she'd be this nauseated through the entire pregnancy.

Taking the tin garbage can with her, she rinsed the thick metal out in the bathroom before washing her face and brushing her teeth. Her throat felt raw, so after returning the wastebasket to the conference room, she walked down to the kitchen and made herself a cup of soothing chamomile tea. Hopefully that would help.

Huck appeared in the doorway. "Hey, Kate said you puked all over. Are you okay?"

Laurel finished stirring the tea. "Yes, I vomited, but I'm all right. I lost all the pie, though."

He chuckled. "Isn't that supposed to go away soon?"

She turned and looked at him. His eyebrows were lifted and his gaze intent. "Is that concern on your face?"

"Yeah. That's concern on my face."

She took a sip of the tea, letting the chamomile soothe her throat. "There's a chance the nausea will dissipate after twelve weeks, but there's no bright line in the sand."

Huck smiled, still looking concerned. "Where does that phrase come from anyway, ‘bright line in the sand'?"

"Oh," she said, sipping again. "The ‘bright' part is new. It used to be just a line in the sand. You know, to delineate a limit. I think, according to popular lore, it was used during the Battle of the Alamo in 1836."

"Is that a fact?" Huck leaned against the doorframe.

"Yes. Apparently Lieutenant Colonel William Travis drew a line in the sand with a sword and asked those willing to stay and defend the fort to step over the line."

"Did everybody step over the line?"

She warmed to the subject. "Everybody but one man."

"Who's the guy who didn't step over the line?"

Laurel ran through what she remembered. "Keep in mind all of this may have been embellished or invented as a good story, but supposedly a man named Louis Moses Rose did not cross the line. This is just folklore."

"I do like how you quote folklore," he said. "You did a good job facing down Zeke Caine yesterday."

"Thank you. You excelled at refraining from punching him in the face."

Huck grinned. "See, you can read people well."

"No, I didn't read that at all. I just know you." It was surprising how much warmth she felt at being able to make that statement.

He cleared his throat. "We should have a dump on Haylee's phone in a day or so."

"Good. Although Jason Abbott is too smart to call Haylee, unless he wants us to know he called her," Laurel said. "I wish we could obtain Melissa Cutting's phone records."

Huck shook his head. "She's an attorney and has a lot of clients. There's just no way."

How irritating. "I know. I don't suppose Abbott would have told her anything of merit anyway. I think Melissa would have communicated a concern to us."

"You do?"

"Affirmative. I know she's representing him, and she's receiving good press from the case, but he is a serial killer, and she must care about her niece some," Laurel said.

Huck nodded. "We're nowhere on Abbott and so far nowhere on the two blondes found by the rivers. What did you think of that Tim Kohnex?"

"He sounded lonely," Laurel said. "Kate asked me the same thing about Kohnex."

"Do you think he really believes he's psychic?"

Laurel shrugged. "I don't know. Do you?"

"Yeah," Huck said. "I think he believes it. Do you believe in psychics?"

She shook her head. "There's no empirical evidence that psychics can read thoughts or know of events before they happen. I think a lot of people put dots together. A good charlatan can do that. A talented performer at a circus or a fair can do that. It's all about reading people, which I do not know how to do, but there are some phenomenally talented grifters out there who are capable of it."

"You think Kohnex's a grifter?"

They'd likely find out soon enough. "I think he might really believe," Laurel said.

"In that case, could he be dangerous?" Huck asked.

Anybody could be dangerous. "It depends what his delusions tell him. What do your instincts say about him?"

"I'm not sure," Huck said. "I found him difficult to read."

That was a rarity for the captain.

"Or," Huck acknowledged, "maybe I was just focused on Zeke Caine being in the same room with you. I didn't like it."

Laurel moved toward him. "I didn't like it either, but I need to discover where he has been during his travels. I want to put him in prison, Huck."

"I know." He rubbed the whiskers on his rugged chin. "How many people have you seen in the last two weeks who have worn red shoes?"

She tried to take a moment away from thinking about murder. "That's a game I play with the deputy director of the FBI."

"Yeah, but it's a fun game."

Her stomach finally settled. "In the last two weeks, I would say probably twenty-eight."

"Probably?"

Sometimes she liked to sound as if she was being thoughtful about something when the number just popped into her head. "Okay. Most certainly twenty-eight."

"That seems like a lot for the small town of Genesis Valley."

"I spoke to a kindergarten class about spring and summer safety, and little red boots appeared to be in style." She looked out the window at the softly falling snow. "Although I should've stressed winter safety since that early spring doesn't appear to be arriving."

He grinned. "True. I'm sure the kids had fun with you."

"Actually"—she frowned—"could I take Aeneas with me next time I visit a classroom? I'm not sure they had fun. They looked confused most of the time, and their teacher had to interpret my words for them."

"Yes, you can take the dog next time."

That would be a relief. "I've learned that children like animals and warm to the person with them instantly."

"Which is why many predators have animals," Huck said, somberly.

"Yeah, I thought of that, too," Laurel said. "I wouldn't use Aeneas in a predatory manner, of course."

Huck chuckled. "Of course. For now, why don't we bug Dr. Ortega again?"

"We shouldn't," she said. "I just spoke to his assistant this morning. Is there any chance Pastor John has returned from his snowmobile trip?"

"No. He probably won't return until Sunday night, from what we've been told. Unfortunately, nobody knows the route they took since it was some sort of unstructured ride."

How unfortunate. She aspired to expedite the work on this case. Had Pastor John truly engaged in an adulterous affair with Mrs. Bearing? Laurel walked past Huck and turned toward her office. "We need to speak with him."

"True. I also want to interview the Bearing family, but they're off grieving somewhere unknown. I called the sheriff again, and he claims he doesn't know where they are, but I'm not sure I believe him. The BOLO hasn't helped any."

"That's unfortunate," Laurel noted. The mayor had two sons: one an adult attorney and the other a teenager still living at home.

Huck scrubbed both hands down his face. "I know the mayor identified the vic as his wife, but I saw the face of that victim. There was a lot of ice and damage, and even the bones seemed crushed—is there a chance it wasn't her?"

"That's unlikely. I didn't recognize the wool coat, not that I know Mrs. Bearing very well. But my first thought when they turned over the body was that it was her, and I believe her wedding ring looked familiar." Laurel crossed around her desk and lifted the phone to dial the ME's office.

"Dr. Ortega," he answered.

Laurel blinked. "Oh. Hi, Dr. Ortega. I'm surprised to have reached you personally."

"Oh, Snow. Yes. Agent Snow, I was just going to call you."

She put him on speakerphone. "I'm here with Captain Huck Rivers. Do you have any news for us?"

"I wanted to let you know that I will be performing autopsies on both bodies you sent to me later today."

"Oh, good," she said.

He sneezed. "I have positively identified both victims. The second one is, not surprisingly, Teri Bearing. We had her prints on file. Also, we managed to run the DNA of the first victim, even though I haven't completed the autopsy yet."

Huck straightened in the doorway. "What did you find?"

"I found a match to you, Captain Rivers," Dr. Ortega said.

Laurel stiffened. "Please extrapolate."

"I analyzed the DNA samples from the victim and Captain Rivers using short tandem repeat markers across numerous loci, including analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences."

That made sense. "Those are passed from mother to offspring, correct?" Laurel confirmed.

"Correct," Dr. Ortega affirmed.

"What is your conclusion?" She wanted to hold her breath.

The sound of papers rustling came over the line. "The DNA analysis conclusively supports the assertion that Captain Rivers is the biological son of the first victim. The probability of maternity is 99.99 percent."

Huck didn't move. He didn't even shift his weight.

Laurel searched for a method to provide him comfort, but nothing came to mind. "Thank you, Dr. Ortega. Please let me know when you have the autopsies completed."

"I will. Per protocol, I've notified both of your superiors." Ortega cleared his throat. "Huck?"

Huck looked at the phone. "Hi, Dr. Ortega."

"I'm very sorry for your loss."

Huck's eyes darkened. "Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate it."