Hard Silence (7 page)

Photos from past cases and excerpts from his recently edited chapters pinged through Jeff’s brain. All the guy was missing was rope, but he wouldn’t need rope if his victim was already dead.

The suspect pushed his cart to the door, and Jeff shifted to the balls of his feet. Should he leave his cart and follow the guy? Maybe call the Hastings PD? There were a lot of women in here; office-supply shopping seemed to always be relegated to women. What if the asshole with the box cutters was waiting in the parking lot when one of these shoppers came out with her hands full?

“Sir? The line’s moved. It’s your turn.”

“Thanks.” Jeff turned to see a pretty blonde with a hand basket full of sticky notes and legal pads. She was in tight pants, an even tighter jacket, and three-inch heels. Her sunglasses were propped on her head. She looked good enough to eat and slow enough to catch. Yeah, he’d make a call from the parking lot. He could follow the guy and keep the dispatcher on the phone.

One last look would get him a physical description. Tall, strawberry blond, trimmed beard, shaggy hair, jeans, work boots, and a uniform. A janitorial uniform. Shit. He was profiling a
janitor
. Heat bloomed under Jeff’s skin as he pushed his cart forward.

He took twice as long at the register as the janitor/axe murderer, and managed to hold it together until he reached his car. Yanking open the trunk, he tossed the bags inside.

Damn it. He spent too much time with dead people and criminals. It wasn’t bad enough he had photos of them taped to the walls at home and on the pages of his teaching materials, now he was seeing them in line at the store.

He threw the map on top of the bags and pushed the trunk lid down, but it wouldn’t close. He snatched it from the pile and watched the pedestrians and drivers in the parking lot. What would it be like to go through life
not
knowing what lurked in the shadows? To never know how easily, how quickly, life could change?

“You sure had a load of things to buy. Are you setting up an office?”

The woman with all the sticky notes was standing beside the neighboring sports car, her driver’s door open, and leaning against the roof. Her hair gleamed under the sunlight, almost as bright as her smile.

“I’m setting up shop in Fiddler for a few weeks,” Jeff muttered as he pitched the map into his backseat.
I’m supposed to be on friggin’ sabbatical. I’m supposed to be writing.

“I go through there on my way home. I work for my dad in Baxter. They keep promising a supply store over there, but it never happens. Baxter’s too small. There’s a great truck stop on the way to Fiddler. They do breakfast all day. Maybe we could stop for coffee?”

Seriously? She was hitting on him? She’d known him five minutes and he already knew what she drove, her route home and where she’d stop. A truck stop. A place with a motel attached. Where nameless, random drivers passed through on their way to unknown locations. With large sleeping compartments behind the seats. He could be anyone. Take her anywhere.

Did no one have common sense anymore?

“Thanks, but I’ve got a long day ahead of me.” Jeff smiled as he slid behind the wheel. “You be careful driving home, ma’am.”

Jeff drove away, watching in the rearview mirror to make sure the blonde danger magnet got into her car and pulled out of her parking space. The spot in his brain itched again. The woman had been hitting on him, and he was more worried about her safety. Apprehension frittered at the edge of his brain, making him think about turning around and chasing her down, taking her up on her on her offer. He could do that...but he didn’t.

When his phone rang, he answered out of habit, “Crandall.”

“Hello, Agent. It’s Colonel Eric Freeman from the Idaho State Police. We met a few years ago at a seminar on blood splatter?”

Jeff stifled his sigh. Only he could spend a sunny day with the top down, the sun heating his hair, dealing with serial killers, suspicious janitors and blood splatter. “Colonel Freeman, I’m sorry but—”

“Don’t worry about not remembering. And call me Eric. Your SAC gave me your number.”

Of course Bob gave out his number. Because rewriting three manuals and tracking down an interstate killer wasn’t nearly enough to do. “How can I help, Eric?”

“We’re building a new lab, and our team is sort of at loggerheads. I could use an expert opinion, and maybe a little guidance. Any chance I could buy you lunch and pick your brain? Maybe in a few weeks?”

Jeff pulled in his professional enthusiasm. If he missed anything about Chicago, other than his friends, it was his lab. But he didn’t have time for a four-hour round trip. “In Boise?”

“No. The ISP’s headquarters are in Hastings.”

That was more like it. He resisted the urge to reschedule his day and stay in town. “Sure. Shoot me an email and we’ll get it scheduled.”

They disconnected the call, and Jeff’s phone buzzed in his hand. What now?

“Hello?”

“Hi, Jeffy.”

“Ruthie,” he grumbled at his sister, one of the few people who ever dared call him that. “How’s the mother of my favorite nephew?”

“Tired. I don’t know how Mama did this four times.”

“That’s why God makes them cute and helpless, sis,” Jeff said. “How did the hearing go?”

She was quiet for a long time, and the prolonged silence chilled him through. “Ruth Anne?”

“The board just called me as a courtesy. Kyle Davis was granted parole.”

Jeff’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. Suddenly he was thirteen again, sitting at the top of the stairs in the midnight darkness, worried about getting caught out of bed while he watched his mother open the door. Reverend Steele and Captain Graves had been standing in the rain, their words drowned out by the thunder and his mother’s wail. He’d given up his hiding spot to catch her as she sank to the floor.

“How’s Mom?” He managed to squeeze the words past his tight throat, but he couldn’t talk and breathe at the same time.

“Worried about us.”

“I should’ve come home. I should’ve—”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Ruth said. “He’s been a model prisoner—drug treatment, twelve-step program, getting his GED, college, helping other inmates learn to read.”

“Because he wanted something. How could you—”

“Hey,” Ruth barked. “
I
didn’t do this. We did everything we could. We had your statement. Captain Graves came up from Florida. The current commander of the Highway Patrol testified. We tried, Jeff. They disagreed with us.”

“So all that
we’ll always honor your dad’s sacrifice for the state
was utter bullshit.”

“I hated to call you with this,” Ruth said. “I know you’re trying to get finished and back to work. Don’t let it distract you.”

One of his father’s murderers was free to walk the street, to feel the sun and laugh with his family, and
he
was supposed to stay on task?

“We can’t do a damn thing about it, Jeff. We lost this round. Vince Baker’s hearing is next year. We’ll try again then.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he muttered as he exited from the interstate onto the road that would lead to Fiddler. “Love you, Ruthie. Thanks for calling.”

He hung up. The fluffy white clouds he’d admired this morning now drifted across his day, creating shadows and gloom. Twenty-three years and he still felt the weight of his father’s disappointment and his mother’s grief.
Sorry, Pop. We tried.

Pressing his foot to the accelerator, riveting his gaze on the yellow line in the asphalt, Jeff kept driving until he was home.

* * *

In the garage, he scrounged for a hammer and finishing nails, hoping Mrs. Simon wouldn’t mind a few small holes in her wall in the name of justice. Striding through the house, he avoided looking at the smiling family photographs.

He unrolled the butcher paper in the hallway, using the length of the wall to estimate the measurement. Satisfied, he cut paper, carried it into his office, and tacked it up.
Hammer. Not a distance weapon. Up close and personal.

Something about whacking the nail, hearing the crack, feeling the nail sink in, made him feel better.
Had Ron Thomas’s killer felt this same release of tension?

Drywall dust drifted to the floor, dirtying the immaculate space. Bashing someone’s head in would be messy. No one could wander around in bloody clothes. Cleanup would be necessary. So would extra clothes.
You’d have to scout the location first, put clothes in the trunk and remember your weapon.

Starting with the oldest case, he flipped open the Archer file and taped the contents to the butcher paper. He scribbled notes as he worked.

The full skeleton of Beau Archer had been exhumed and reassembled at the coroner’s office. Empty space represented where tendons and ligaments had once held the large bones together. The only flaw in the bones, other than long-healed breaks and dental work, was the jagged hole at the base of his skull.
Had he been prone when he’d been struck? Who got someone that big to kneel, and how?

Had he been restrained? Wouldn’t he have struggled? Not if the killer was armed.
But, if I had a gun, wouldn’t I just shoot him? Why go to the trouble of the hammer, and the mess?

If a man that size had struggled against restraints he’d have damaged his forearms or wrists. There’d been a case in Kansas City a few years back where the victim had been a five-foot-tall, hundred-pound woman. She’d cracked both her right radius and ulna as well as her left thumb. Beau Archer would’ve broken something
.

So he hadn’t been restrained. He’d sat still for this, or he’d never seen it coming. No one sat still for death, especially not a violent one. Had he been unconscious? No. An unconscious victim didn’t react, and chances were this killer liked the reaction. Why else kill at such close range?

If Archer didn’t see it coming, he’d been focused on someone else. Bait, maybe, someone who’d been used to lure him to his death. Or maybe he’d been outnumbered—two against one. If not a lure, maybe an accomplice.

The original article on Archer’s disappearance was short. Betty and Beau had been married for almost two years when he’d gone to Atlantic City for a weekend poker tournament. He’d never returned, and Betty was worried he’d met with foul play.

The
Clarion
editor had provided the photo that had run with the story, nearly thirty years ago. Archer was in the Carhartt jacket that was synonymous with rural life. His wide smile was framed by a mustache and goatee, and his head was bracketed by a pair of skinned knees. Most probably those belonged to his stepdaughter, the little girl Betty Archer had brought into the marriage. The girl whose name no one could remember, and a thread no officer had pursued.

Who could blame them after so long? Betty and her daughter had stayed for two months after Beau had gone missing, and they’d taken everything with them when they’d left. Other than the little girl’s knees captured as she sat atop her stepfather’s shoulders, there weren’t any family photos. No one knew where they’d gone, and a later search for Betty Archer had been fruitless.

He went back for another file, pushing the office chair out of his way and into his stack of books, which tumbled to the floor. Jeff halted his research and stared at the bookshelf. Surely Hank wouldn’t mind if he moved a few things around.

He made room for his library, and then tackled the desk—rearranging the lamp, stashing Hank’s ledgers in a drawer, and running the computer cords through previously hidden holes at the back of the rolltop desk. Dragging in a deep breath, he took a minute to enjoy the lack of clutter.

But now the focus was on the grisly photos on the wall. That was wrong in this place full of a family’s happy memories. He retrieved the picture he’d bought at the art show from his bedroom. Returning to his office, he lifted one of the Simon family photos from its hanger and propped it against the wall behind the door.

In its place, he hung Abby’s photo of the fog-shrouded tree. Straightening it, Jeff stroked the silvery, worn barn-wood frame. He didn’t even question whether she’d made it. Straightforward, strong lines, rescued scraps made into something beautiful, picked because it enhanced the picture rather than distracting from it. And it was soft when you didn’t expect it to be.

He went back to work, laying out the other cases and making notes, looking for patterns and similarities. They didn’t go to the same places, have similar jobs, or know the same people. The rest of it was like the memory game he’d played with his sisters as children. Two files had commonalities, but the third didn’t.

His stomach rumbled, and he looked up to find the house dark and shadowy. Dinner was a turkey sandwich, chips and beer eaten over the sink. He’d begun eating this way in high school because he’d always been hungry and he didn’t want to leave a mess for his mother. He still did it in his apartment kitchen, staring at the wall while he chewed and let cases rumble in his head.

The view here was better. Moonlight tinted the tree branches and the tops of the grasses in the field. In the valley below, Abby’s stable roof glowed a dull silver, and the security lights lit the yard and the paddock. But the house was dark. Was she out somewhere? Was she asleep already?

Exhaustion weighted his neck and shoulders, pushing his chin to his chest, but his brain continued to spin on the case.

What he knew had nothing to do with the victims, and everything to do with their killers. And after his review of the remains he was certain he was looking for two people. An organized, patient murderer and an accomplice who helped control and subdue the victim. The notes on Archer and Thomas might mean the accomplice had developed a conscience. Maybe the murderer had died. But why wasn’t there a note on Finch? Did the accomplice feel guilty over Archer and Thomas but not Finch? Had he “earned” it somehow?

Archer’s burial site was different than the rest, but he was also the first victim. Maybe the team had grown nervous about leaving Archer so close to his home.

He walked back to his office, still thinking, and pulled the ancient chair in front of his computer. The seat was lumpy, and the arms wobbled. Maybe he’d buy Hank Simon a new chair to make up for the nail holes in the wall.