Buried (A Bone Secrets Novel 03) (25 page)

And the boss would say…

Fuck. He had to push on until Chris Jacobs was dead. He’d let the issue slide for two decades, confident in Chris’s lack of memory. But now he was starting to wonder. Jacobs lived like a man who had something to hide. The question was: Did he have sufficient motivation to keep it hidden?

Moot point. The waiting time was over.

It was time to clean up the mess that was Chris Jacobs. And he was stoked to do it. This little adventure from the boss had gotten his blood pumping. He’d kept his sordid side buried for a long time, keeping his other business only to himself. This time it was like he’d been given permission. Sometimes it felt like he had two lives. One to show the public and one just for him. This time his boss knew exactly what he was doing; it was almost like having an observer. God, that felt good.

His boss hadn’t given him an assignment like this in years. It was great to know he was needed for something besides the other mundane daily tasks he did for the boss. He had skills. Lately, there hadn’t been any use for them.

He finished up in the restroom and stepped into the tiny convenience store to pay for his gas. The overweight clerk was alone, his gaze glued to a tiny TV set mounted behind the counter near the ceiling as he sipped on a straw from the biggest soda cup Gerald had ever seen. He glanced at Gerald and then bounced his gaze back to the TV.

“All set?” There was black decay between all of the clerk’s front teeth.

Probably sucks on sugary Coke all day long.

Gerald nodded and pulled cash out of his wallet, eyeing a Hostess display with Twinkies and Ding Dongs. The clerk’s teeth made him change his mind.

“I can’t believe it’s been almost ten years since someone was murdered in Luna County,” the clerk said as he punched buttons on his register.

“What?” Gerald looked at the TV. A news reporter was standing on a familiar street in Demming. He couldn’t make out her words. “What happened?”

“Someone murdered the bakery owner in Demming last night. They’re clueless on what happened.” The clerk slapped the change in Gerald’s hand without counting it back.

Rude. Lazy. Sloppy.

Gerald felt a slow burn of anger start in his chest and swell outward.

“Stupid police out here don’t even know what to do with a murder.” The clerk picked up his cup, sucked at the straw, and turned his back on Gerald, his focus on the TV.

Gerald envisioned the clerk unconscious on the floor behind the counter with blood seeping from his ear. Gerald’s skin prickled in a good way.

“Look at those idiots. Just standing—holy crap!
Check her out
.”

Gerald looked.

Jamie Jacobs stood out from the circle of cops. Next to her, Michael Brody held her hand. The scene was shot from a camera across the street, as the reporter droned on. But Jamie stood out. Long legs, long black hair, perfect ass.

“Fuck. I ain’t never seen a piece like that around here. I’d like to tap me some of that.” The clerk took a long, noisy suck at the straw.

Gerald stared at the clerk and swallowed the small bit of bile that had risen at the thought of the sloppy man with someone like Jamie. Revulsion curled his upper lip.

“Looks like someone’s already gettin’ some,” the clerk chortled. “Lucky dude.”

Gerald glanced at the TV. Apparently, the cameraman found Jamie pleasant to focus on. He’d zoomed in on her and Michael Brody, who’d moved his arm around her shoulders. Even Gerald could pick up the protective waves flowing off Brody and across Jamie.

What’d Brody think of the mess inside the bakery?
Coulda been your girlfriend…

Did they know where Chris would turn up next? They probably wouldn’t be standing around if they did. Gerald twisted his lips. He had to figure out Chris’s next move. Following the sister had worked pretty well, but now she looked lost and confused.

Too bad her time with Gerald had been so short. They could have had a lot more fun. Kinda like he’d had with the old Mexican.

Maybe…

Maybe the sister simply didn’t know that she held a clue to where Chris was going next. Maybe she just needed motivation like he’d given the old man. Or would Michael Brody be more motivated to hunt down Chris Jacobs if his girlfriend was threatened?

Gerald knew of two men who would probably do anything to protect Jamie Jacobs. There had to be an advantage for him in that fact. An idea started to simmer in the back of his brain, hovering just out of sight.

What if…

He was in the middle of nowhere, and all the police for hundreds of miles were focused on a tiny bakery. They didn’t even know what they were looking for. And he knew where Jamie and Brody were staying in Demming.

What would Chris do if the police found a bunch of Twinkies in place of Jamie?

Would that bring him out of hiding?

Gerald dumped his change on the counter and fished a few more bills out of his pocket.

“How many Twinkies will that buy me?”

Mason headed out to look at the bunker again. All the evidence had been collected. It’d been enough to fill a small U-Haul trailer. Mason was a bit overwhelmed by the huge amount of crap that’d been taken from a bunker that, at first glance, had seemed sparse and bare. But when it came to children, they overlooked nothing. Anything that could give them a hair or fiber had been pulled. The state lab was going to be backed up. Again.

He’d looked over everything the techs were removing, but he’d been focused on the big items. The kids’ backpacks, the cameras, the pictures. The state crime lab would let him know if a grain of dirt yielded any amazing clues.

The scene beneath the big firs was quiet. One lone trooper held the assignment to keep away the curious public. The OSP navy sedan with its distinctive gold swoop was parked in the shade but blocked the pathway to the scene. Its driver sat in the front seat. Mason saw him put down a novel as he pulled closer and then stepped out of his vehicle. Mason parked beside the sedan and pulled out his ID for the trooper. He didn’t recognize the cop, but he figured Ray would have known him instantly. The trooper waved off the ID.

“Afternoon, Detective.” He waved his wide-brimmed hat to fan his face. “I wasn’t expecting anyone today.”

Mason shook the trooper’s hand. “Robertson,” read his name badge. “I wasn’t planning to come out. I just need to look around again. How long have they got you on guard duty?”

Robertson snorted. “Tomorrow should be it. Haven’t had any Curious Georges to turn away since yesterday. You guys are done here, right?”

Mason nodded. “I think they took away everything but the bunker itself. And there were a couple of guys who wanted to do that.”

“They’re gonna have to do something with it. Fill it up with concrete or weld it shut. Don’t need any other assholes deciding to make use of it.”

“There’s been talk of the welding idea. That’s probably what they’ll do. I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes.”

The trooper gave an informal salute and went back to his book.

Mason used his own hat as a fan. The forest was giving off a dry, dusty smell that reminded him of a woodstove burning old wood. It was going to be a bad summer for wildfires if they didn’t get some rain. In Oregon, usually you could count on
rain off and on until July 5th, but this year had been hot and dry since April.

He strolled to the bunker entrance and stared at how the earth had been flattened and trampled around the hatch. So many feet over the last few days. The quiet of the forest was overwhelming. No sounds at all. Was this how it’d been for the children? During the investigation, the site had been crawling with people. Now it felt empty and lonely.

How long had the children been in there?

Mason looked up. The firs blocked his view of the sky. A few pieces of blue shone through here and there, but the dark-green ceiling felt ominous. Like it was smothering something, keeping something hidden from the rest of the world. Which was exactly what it’d done for twenty years. But it was still hiding one thing.

Where was the body of Daniel Brody? The forest hadn’t revealed that secret.

Mason stared into the dense woods. Another boy was in there somewhere; Mason imagined the trees hiding his final resting place.
Why hadn’t Daniel been buried with the other children?

The cadaver dog and her handler had been through the immediate surrounding woods several times. Her amazing dog had found nothing. He’d had her walk the farm again, too. Daniel’s final resting place was staying buried for now.

When Mason had a suspect in his hands, he was going to get that answer. No matter what it took. Cecilia Brody deserved to know the fate of her son before she died.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. Ray was calling.

“Yep.”

“Got a minute?” Ray asked.

“You bet.” He hadn’t decided if he was going back down in the bunker today. His previous two descents had given him
emotional nightmares that he didn’t care to repeat. He moved toward the pit and stared into the abyss where five bodies had been hidden for years.

“We’ve put together another ID on one of the bodies from the pit.”

Mason stepped back from the yellow caution tape, slightly disturbed by the coincidence of his location. “I’m fucking staring into the thing right now. That’s freaky. What did you get?”

“One of the females was reported missing fifteen years ago.”

“Fifteen?” Mason pressed the phone tighter to his ear. “She was seen that recently?”

“Yes, she was reported missing by an aunt who’d seen her the week before.”

“So our unsub brought vics here after Chris Jacobs escaped. What’s her history?”

“One solicitation arrest. Eight years before she vanished.”

“Nice. Let’s hope our guy keeps sticking to the same MO. We’ll pin him down.”

“Even better. She had a previous address in the same neighborhood as the other victim we identified.”

“They were neighbors?” Mason wanted to rub his hands together. Would the other victims come from the same fishing pond? Enough dead fish from one area and they could start narrowing in on the common denominator. History had proved serial killers were creatures of habit. They liked routines. When something worked well for them, they had a tendency to repeat, trying to match that success.

“Dawn Henderson. She was thirty when she went missing. Had a decent job as a receptionist at a car dealership, no steady relationship at the time, and no issues with past boyfriends that
we could find back then. One day she was at work, and the next day she wasn’t. Basically, she vanished.”

“Basically,
all
these victims vanished. That’s part of this guy’s MO. He really knows how to take people without leaving a freaking clue. They vanish off the radar without a blip.”

“I haven’t gotten in contact with Henderson’s aunt yet, but there’s an interview with her in the file that the vic had been distraught in the past over the murder of her roommate several years before but had received therapy at some point and had been doing well. For a while, she’d been nearly suicidal.”

Mason’s Spidey-sense went off. “How many years before she vanished was her roommate murdered? Was that in the same neighborhood?”

Ray shuffled papers in the background. “Nine. Almost ten years. Ugly scene. And the address is close to where Dawn was living when she disappeared. The roommate was attacked in their home. Name was Sandra Edge. She was sexually abused and then strangled. Dawn Henderson wasn’t home at the time, but she found the victim after.”

“They catch him?” Hope rose in Mason’s chest.

“Yep. He’s in Salem.”

Shit.
“The state pen?” Mason asked. “He’s been locked up this whole time?”

“I’m looking…yeah, he hasn’t been out at all.”

“Name?”

“Lee Fielding.”

Mason’s brain was working at full speed. There was something here…he could feel it. But the guy had been locked up the whole time? “I still want to talk to him. And would you run a search for the registered sex offenders who were living around
the residence…aww crap! That’s before they had to register with the state, isn’t it?”

“The roommate’s murder occurred a few years before state law had sex offenders registering. And they only had to register for five years at first, but I’ll see what history I can find for that area.”

“Our tattooed man is plainly a sex offender. Something tells me he’s got to be in the system somewhere. And I still haven’t heard back from the gang unit about his tattoos.” Mason filed a mental note to follow up. “I’ll call and tell the state pen I need to talk to Lee Fielding. Maybe I can get in this afternoon or tomorrow morning.” Mason paused. “I’ve got a good feeling on this one, Ray.”

“Damn it! Don’t say that! You’ll jinx it, Mason!”

Mason smiled into his phone as he strode back to his car.