Cold Case at Carlton's Canyon (13 page)

Chapter Seventeen

“We have to go, Justin,” Amanda said. “That was Lynn Faust’s mother. She found Suzy Turner’s body at the event center.”

Deidre gasped. Justin’s jaw tightened as he stood.

“Let us know if you think of anything else, Deidre,” Amanda called over her shoulder as she and Justin rushed to the door.

A gusty breeze hit her as she stepped outside, and a hint of rain scented the air. She couldn’t believe that Suzy was dead, too.

How many more women had to die before she stopped
this maniac?

Her hand trembled as she tossed Justin the keys. “You drive. I’m going to try and reach Julie and Lynn again on the way.”

Justin jumped in, started the engine and called for a crime team and the ME as he backed out of the Anderson driveway.

For once Amanda was glad to have someone else to rely on. She felt frail and vulnerable and...as if she’d failed.

Emotions welled inside her, threatening to overflow.

But she had to maintain control. When she found this unsub and had him—or her—in custody, then she could fall apart.

Justin maneuvered through the subdivision and turned onto the road leading into town. She punched Julie’s number again, but, just as she’d feared, no one answered, so she left another voice mail.

Next she tried Lynn, and got her voice mail, as well. “It’s Sheriff Blair. It’s important I talk to you, Lynn. You may be in danger. Call me immediately.”

The event center slid into view, and she pointed it out to Justin. “Park in the lot on the left.”

Justin veered into the space, turned to her and placed his hand on hers. “If you need me to handle this, I can, Amanda. I understand that you knew these women and their families and that this case is tearing you apart.”

Tears burned the backs of Amanda’s eyelids, but she blinked them back. The last time she’d cried had been at her father’s funeral. She couldn’t break down now.

“I did know them. That’s why I have to stop this madness.” The temptation to hang on to his hand fluttered through her, but she had to resist.

Suzy’s mother was waiting for news. News that was not going to be what she wanted to hear because Amanda had failed to find this psycho.

If Julie and Lynn died, their blood would be on her hands, too.

* * *

J
USTIN
CURSED
AS
he climbed from the squad car. Amanda was blaming herself, but Suzy’s death was just as much his fault as hers.

He should have figured out who this perp was by now. Instead, he felt as if they were chasing leads all over town. First Terry Sumter, then Donald Reisling and his father, then Carlton Butts’s brother and now this Bernadette Willis was a suspect.

The fact that Amanda hadn’t been able to get hold of Julie or Lynn meant they might already be in trouble.

Dead on his watch.

Amanda straightened her spine as they approached the front door of the building, but a middle-aged woman wearing a white skirt and sweater rushed out, her face streaked with horror and tears.

“Sheriff, it’s so awful,” she cried. “Suzy...she’s in there....Why would someone do this?”

Amanda paused to calm her, her voice soft. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Faust. When did you find her?”

“Right before I called you,” she said, hysteria lacing her voice. “What’s happening in this town? First Kelly Lambert and now Suzy! And that horrid mess at the school. Who’s doing this?”

“We’re doing everything we can to figure that out,” Amanda said firmly.

Justin tried to telegraph to her that it would be all right.

But both of them knew that was a lie.

The town’s residents, more specifically the young women of Sunset Mesa in Amanda’s very own graduating class, were being targeted by a killer who was growing bolder by the minute.

“How did the killer get into your building?” he asked.

Mrs. Faust pressed two fingers to her forehead as if thinking about the question. “I don’t know. I didn’t have anything here today, so I stopped by tonight to drop off some flower arrangements for a luncheon we’re having tomorrow.”

“What type of luncheon?” Amanda asked.

“It was a mother-daughter event, one we set up every year to honor the mothers and daughters the day before the reunion begins. The country club mothers put it together.”

“So not every female in the class is invited?” Amanda said. “Just the ones whose parents belong to the club?”

Mrs. Faust wiped at her eyes. “That’s right. Why? Does that mean something?”

“It means whoever left Suzy’s body here chose this spot to make a point just as they chose the school,” Justin said.

“Because he or she felt left out of the group,” Amanda pointed out.

“Stay here with her,” Justin told Amanda. “I’ll go in and examine the scene. Send the crime scene team and ME in when they arrive.”

Justin headed inside to check out the body. He heard Amanda asking about Lynn as he entered the building, then only the echo of his footsteps as he walked across the slick marble floor. The exterior of the building was nondescript, but the inside was upscale. White tablecloths were draped over several round tables and more rectangular serving tables jutted up against the wall. Silver and china plates had been set, rose-colored napkins tied with white lace atop the plates and bouquets of fresh roses filled a cart, obviously centerpieces waiting to be distributed.

The room looked formal and classic, just waiting for the socialites to adorn it.

Except for the dead body perched in a sitting position on a dark green velvet sofa on the stage.

Justin had never seen Suzy Turner in person, but in her photograph she was a pretty girl. Yet the green eyes that had been lit up in the photograph were now wide, glazed with shock and fear, and her normally olive skin was pale with death.

He yanked gloves from his pocket and inched toward her, a wave of anger and sadness hitting him. Suzy Turner might have made mistakes as a teenager; maybe she’d even been mean to some guy or girl. But she had been a kid ten years ago and didn’t deserve to die and be left like this.

He knelt and brushed his hand across her cheek in a silent apology, giving her a moment of quiet reverence before he did anything else.

Swallowing back emotions, he examined her neck. The same type of bruise pattern indicated she’d been strangled with a man’s belt. Her dress looked disheveled, probably from the killer moving her body, but again there was no visible evidence of sexual assault.

Heart hammering, he checked her hands. One lay across her heart as if the killer had positioned it there, while the other dangled open by her side.

Using his cell phone, he snapped some photos of her exact body position and the area, then lifted her hand from her chest and slowly uncurled her fingers.

Just as he’d expected, inside lay a class ring.

He lifted it up and examined the inside and saw the initials JK.

Julie Kane.

Was the killer sending a message that Julie Kane was next?

* * *

A
MANDA
FELT
M
RS
.
F
AUST
’
S
horror deep in her bones. “Listen to me, Mrs. Faust. I promise Sergeant Thorpe and I will find out who did this. But right now, I need you to talk to me. Did you see anything out of the ordinary when you arrived? An open window? Broken lock? A car leaving the place?”

“No, no,” Mrs. Faust murmured. “The parking lot was empty. I don’t know how the killer got in. Maybe he broke the lock.”

“Did you touch anything when you went inside?”

“The door,” she said. “The kitchen counter in the back room.” She looked frazzled. “Maybe the walls. I brought the flowers in the back door, then put them on the cart to move them to the ballroom. That’s when...I found Suzy.” She gripped Amanda’s arms. “Does Suzy’s mother know?”

Dread balled in her stomach. That would be the worst part. “Not yet. I’m going to send my deputy out to tell her while Sergeant Thorpe and I investigate.”

“Do you know who did it?” she cried.

“We have a couple of suspects we’re interviewing. I need to ask you something else.”

Fear deepened the grooves around her mouth. “What?”

“Have you seen or talked to Lynn today?”

Mrs. Faust shook her head. “No, we spoke yesterday. She was shopping for a dress for the dance Saturday night, then she said she was going to meet Suzy...” Realization dawned, and the woman gasped. “My God, no...”

Her legs buckled, and Amanda caught her before she collapsed. She eased her down on the front steps to the building and urged her to take deep breaths.

But the woman’s fingernails dug into Amanda’s arms. “You think this maniac has my daughter?”

“I don’t know, but I called and left her a message to phone me ASAP. Where does she live?”

“In Austin,” Mrs. Faust said. “But she’s been staying at the inn in town. A couple of her friends were supposed to be coming in tonight, and they wanted to be together. It was Julie Kane’s idea.” Her voice cracked. “Lynn said it would be like old times, a big slumber party.”

Amanda’s throat thickened. “Keep trying to call her and let me know if you hear back. Maybe she and her friends are out shopping and having dinner and took in a show or something.”

She prayed that was true, but her gut instinct warned her it wasn’t the case. She remembered her conversation with Deidre Anderson. “Mrs. Faust, do you remember a classmate of ours named Bernadette Willis?”

The woman’s eyebrows bunched together. “Just that the mother was a drunk. Someone in town said the daughter was crazy, too. That she had to go to some kind of juvenile delinquent home before she came here because she tried to kill her mother.”

Amanda’s heart stuttered. If that was true, it meant Bernadette had a history of violence.

She might be the unsub they were looking for.

* * *

J
USTIN
GREETED
THE
crime scene team and ME, the sight of Suzy’s body giving the team pause as it had him.

“How did the killer get her in here without anyone seeing or hearing something? This building is right on the edge of town,” Lieutenant Gibbons said.

Justin had already checked out the exits and entry points. “I took a look around. There’s a back exit that connects to the parking lot. He probably waited until it was dark. There are no surveillance cameras, and apparently no security system.”

Unbelievable for a place that catered nice events, but it was a small town and everyone knew everyone else, so Mrs. Faust had probably thought they were safe.

“Look carefully—even a hair might be able to help us nail this perp,” Justin said. “And keep in mind that we may be looking for a female.”

“What makes you suggest that?” Dr. Sagebrush asked.

Justin explained about Bernadette Willis and the cleaning woman at Suzy’s condo complex.

The crime scene team went to work snapping pictures and searching the room. Another tech went outside to rope off the area as a crime scene. They wouldn’t be having the luncheon here tomorrow.

Amanda entered, her mouth in a grim line.

Emotions darkened her face at the sight of Suzy, a battle raging for control in her eyes.

“She was strangled?” Amanda asked.

“MO is the same as Kelly and Tina,” Justin said. “The ring in her hand belonged to Julie Kane.”

Amanda muttered something beneath her breath. “Lynn and Julie were staying at the Sunset Mesa Inn. Mrs. Faust hasn’t heard from Lynn since yesterday. She was supposed to be shopping for a dress for Saturday night.”

“Did you talk to the inn’s manager?”

Amanda clenched her phone. “Next on my list. Then I want to talk to the school counselor.”

One of the crime techs motioned that he’d found something, and Justin walked over to him and saw him holding up a long brown hair with a pair of tweezers. “The victim is blond. You may be right. This may belong to the unsub, a female.”

Or hell, this was an event center; there was no telling how many people had been in and out. They probably needed the names of all the employees, vendors, cleaning staff. Another list to sort through.

“Bag it and anything else you find. And don’t forget to search the door and floor for prints. If our suspect is female, she probably had to drag the body inside. At some point, she might have touched the wall or floor for support.”

Amanda returned, her phone in hand. “Neither Lynn nor Julie showed up at the inn last night. I told the owner to call me if they did. And I asked my deputy to check out the rooms where Lynn and Julie were staying to see if there was any indication where they might be.”

“I’ll call and put a trace on Julie’s and Lynn’s phones.” He punched in the number for his chief and made the request as he and Amanda rushed to her car. This time she took the wheel and, ten minutes later, they were seated in the living room of Faye Romily, the school counselor.

“I don’t understand how I can help you,” Ms. Romily said.

Amanda explained the connections they’d made between the missing girls and the recent murder victims.

“You really think one of your classmates is behind this because of some deep-seated jealousy?” Faye asked.

“The unsub has to be mentally unstable,” Justin explained. “The class reunion was a trigger for the rage that has been eating at him or her for years, so the perp escalated.”

“Deidre Anderson said that Bernadette Willis was cut from the cheerleading squad that year, and that she suffered emotional issues.”

A stricken look crossed Faye’s face, and she stood and wrapped her arms around her waist. “Amanda, you know I can’t discuss the sessions I had with any of the students. That’s confidential.”

Amanda sighed wearily, but Justin squared his shoulders. “Ms. Romily, we believe there are two other young women missing now. If the suspect follows the pattern, those girls may be dead before morning. We don’t have time for a court order—”

“Please, Faye,” Amanda said. “You don’t have to divulge details—just tell us about Bernadette. Did she suffer emotional problems?”