Last Words (23 page)

“Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Connor doesn’t.”

“So that’s why you were late.”

She nodded.

“Jesus, I feel like a real jerk,” he said. “Giving you so much shit about not answering my calls…”

“Hey, it’s okay. Given the circumstances, you were entitled to be a little testy.”

“‘A little testy’ is very kind.” He touched her shoulder. “Why didn’t you call me?” he asked softly.

“Everything just happened so fast. One minute, Connor and I were in the kitchen, getting dinner ready, the next minute, he’s flying down the steps with his gun in his hand. Before I knew it, the troops started arriving. Besides, there wasn’t anything you could have done from here.”

“You had some backup?”

“Our boss sent five or six agents out to process the scene. There were some prints near the basement window where the prowler had been kneeling, I guess while he was cutting away the glass. Then they found some tire prints down the road, which they casted and are trying to match.”

“I’d be interested in knowing what kind of tires they were. They’re going to try to match them to a vehicle, right?”

“They’ll try. Sometimes tires are too generic to get a good match, but other times you get lucky. We had a case last year where we caught a kidnapper by tracing the tires he’d just bought for his van. The treads were so deep, we knew they had to be relatively new, and there were only three places in the area that sold that particular type of tire. We had the guy in less than a day.”

“What happened to the victim?”

“It was already too late for her,” she said simply.

“Take the next left.”

She turned onto a one-lane gravel road that led into a wooded area beyond which she could see the river.

“I have an APB out on Lisa’s vehicle, and I’ve notified the other local agencies and the state. But I want to call in your people to help find her.”

“Done.” She picked up her phone from the console and tapped in some numbers.

While the phone was ringing, they entered a clearing. A long clapboard building, its paint faded and peeled down to the grayed wood, stood off to their right. The St. Dennis cruiser was parked alongside the building, and Mia pulled up next to it. Beck got out and met Hal halfway between the two vehicles.

“Put me through to John if he’s in, please,” Mia said when Mancini’s secretary answered the call. “And if he isn’t there, please find him.”

24

Beck pushed open the door of the old building and stepped inside onto ancient chipped linoleum that at one time might have been red. Beneath his feet the floor sagged noticeably, and the stale humid air smelled of wood that had long since gone to rot. A wasp flew repeatedly at a dross-covered window and somewhere down the dark corridor in front of Beck, something scurried along the ground.

Mia finished her call and went into the building a minute or two later. She raised her sunglasses to the top of her head so that her eyes could adjust to the light. From up ahead, she could hear footsteps—Beck’s and Hal’s—and when she came to a large square room, she stood still to place the others. Off to the right, her senses told her, and she followed, treading carefully on the weak floor.

“Jesus God in Heaven!” Hal seemed to choke with pain.

“Oh, God no.”

“Beck!” Mia called to him as she ran, following their voices.

“Sweet Holy Mother of God.” Hal was transfixed before the figure that lay sheathed in shiny transparency on the bed.

“Is it…” Mia stepped closer. “Oh…oh, no…”

A stone-faced Beck turned his back on the abomination on the bed and opened his phone. “Garland, find out where Todd Singer is. It looks like we found Lisa. And get Dr. Reilly on the line…”

Mia stood with her hands in the pockets of her cutoff jeans, watching the scene unfold. News had spread quickly through the community—complements perhaps of an overly excitable EMT—and before anyone realized what was happening, the anguished husband had arrived and attempted to rush inside the building.

“Where’s Lisa? Where is my wife?” Todd had cried, and it had taken both Hal and two newly arrived officers from Cameron to subdue him.

Mia remained apart, studying the scene, taking it in, mulling it over, even as Hal accompanied a distraught Todd Singer to the ambulance where he was given oxygen. When Beck finally emerged, after having secured the crime scene, Mia walked over to him.

“Beck, I’m so sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through right now.” She put a hand on his arm, and he pressed his own hand over hers.

“Thanks.” His eyes were murderously dark and haunted. “When I find this bastard…when I get my hands on him…”

“Look, I understand how upset you are, I know you were friends. I want to get this guy, too. But I need to talk to you.” Her hand still on his arm, she led him close to her car. When they were out of hearing range, she said, “Beck, this doesn’t feel right.”

“What do you mean, doesn’t feel right?”

“He just took her yesterday, and she’s dead already? That’s not his thing. For him, this is all about the power, all about humiliation. Why would he kill her right away, before he’d made her suffer?”

Beck met her eyes momentarily, then looked away when the ME’s van pulled up.

“Maybe she fought him off, he got pissed…”

“He likes it when they fight back. He wants that. Because he knows that it doesn’t matter, in the end, he’s going to win.” She lowered her voice. “There’s something really wrong with this scene.”

“Who else would it be?”

“Oh, I think it was him, all right. But why bring her here? It obviously isn’t the place where he brought the others. We know he must have a place where he takes them…keeps them. Tortures them. We’ve been all through this building. There’s nothing here. So why did he bring her here?”

“What are you thinking?”

“I think he killed Lisa to get her out of the way. I’m pretty sure we’re going to find she wasn’t suffocated the way the others were. I think she was probably dead when he wrapped her up.”

“We won’t know for certain until Viv is done with the body.” Beck’s eyes clouded as he watched the ME’s assistant bring out the gurney holding the body, encased in a dark blue bag.

A hush fell over the small crowd that had gathered. The only human sound was Todd Singer’s sobbing.

“Beck, maybe something someone told Lisa yesterday tipped her off to something the killer didn’t want anyone to know about. Somehow he figured out that she knew and needed to keep her from telling anyone else.”

“That would make sense. It’s the only thing that does.” He stood with his arms folded, looking beyond her to where Lisa Singer’s plastic-encased body was being gently loaded into Vivien Reilly’s van. He turned and waved Hal over.

“I want Mickey Forbes picked up now and brought in for questioning. Now. Keep him there until I get there.”

He turned to Mia. “I’m going with Viv. I’ll meet you back at the station.”

Mia nodded, understanding that his accompanying the medical examiner was as much to make sure his friend’s journey wasn’t made alone as to be there when cause of death was determined.

“Sue, make sure Todd gets home all right. Give Jay a call and have him meet you over there so the guy’s not alone.”

Beck started toward the van, then looked over his shoulder at the three of them: Hal, Sue, and Mia.

To no one in particular, he said, “Has anyone heard from Duncan?”

25

Mia was waiting when the first of the FBI crime scene techs arrived. As she showed them where the body was found and walked them through the building, the more she was convinced that Lisa’s death had been, for the killer, a matter of necessity rather than the fulfillment of a fantasy.

“We’ve been dealing with three crime scenes for each of our victims,” she explained to Trish Sterling, one of the first techs on the scene. “The place where he’s held them, the place where he killed them, and the place where he disposed of them. In this case, however, it appears we may have all three scenes in one. Most unusual for this offender.”

“We’ll see what we can find for you,” Trish told her as she slipped the plastic booties over her shoes.

Mia pointed to them and said, “Unfortunately, you’re going to find a lot of footprints in there. The chief, the former chief, me…”

“And no one covered up?” Trish frowned.

“The ME and her guys did. The others…we didn’t realize we were entering a crime scene.”

“Well, you, Shields, have sure kept us busy for the past…” Trish looked at her watch. “Looks like eighteen hours or so.”

“You were over at Connor’s?”

“Yeah.” Trish nodded. “When this call came in, I figured I’d take this one, since I was the closest tech.”

“Aren’t you tired?

Trish grimaced and asked, “Aren’t you?” She gathered up her evidence kit and started toward the building. “It was worth it to see your cousin Connor in the flesh. I’ve been hearing about him for years. Nice when reality lives up to the myth…”

Mia watched as several other techs prepared to enter the building. To the last man, she gave her card. “Here’s my cell number. Give me a call when you’re finished here.”

She drove herself back to St. Dennis, the radio off and the windows down to blow out the hot stale air that had been building up since she arrived at the old building earlier in the day. Her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten a thing but she had no appetite. That Lisa, of all people, had become a victim made her weak in the knees. Lisa, who had everything, who had so loved her life…it just seemed so unfair. Why, she wondered, was Lisa targeted? What had she learned?

Beck suspected that Mickey Forbes was the man they were after. Maybe he was right. He had the opportunity, he had access to the building, and if in fact he’d killed the other women, he would have had a motive, with Lisa asking so many questions right there in what was essentially Mickey’s own backyard. If he had been in the company of all of the victims, either at the gym or at the coffee shop or both, sooner or later, someone might have remembered and start putting it all together. Perhaps someone already had, and Lisa had figured out who that someone was. Maybe Lisa had been on her way to speak with that person. Maybe she’d told Mickey before she left the Goal Post…

“Maybe,” Mia whispered. “Maybe…”

She parked in Beck’s reserved spot out front of the municipal building and went inside. After the heat of the day, the air conditioning refreshed her. She waved to Garland on her way in and went straight to the kitchen, hoping to find something with some sugar in it. There were three Cokes left, and she took one.

“Garland, have you heard from Beck or Duncan yet? Anyone?” She asked as she popped the lid off the soda can.

“Beck’s still out with Viv. He called a few minutes ago and said he thinks he won’t be much longer. Hal just picked up Mickey. Sue is still over at Singer’s, she said Jay Gannon is on his way over to stay with Todd for a while and as soon as he gets there, she’ll be in.” Garland’s eyes were rimmed with red, as she suspected her own might be. “Do you think it’s him? Mickey Forbes?”

“Don’t know.” She nodded. “Let’s see what he has to say, once we get a chance to talk to him.”

“Hal says he’s lawyered up already.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

“Damn this son of a bitch, whoever he is. Of all people…
Lisa
…”

“I know.” She walked behind him and gave his shoulder a squeeze.

“It just sucks that it had to be her,” he choked.

“It sucks that it has to be anyone.” She gave his shoulder one last pat and headed back to the makeshift office she’d set up in their conference room.

Mia was debating what to do next—where would she be most useful?—when Connor called her cell to give her an update on the near break-in at the house.

“The techs are done and gone,” he told her. “They’re going to run the tire prints to see if they can find a match there. That’s about the only useful bit of evidence they were able to find. The ground wasn’t soft enough to give us good shoe prints.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to hang out here for a while, replace the glass in my basement window, and just enjoy being home for a while. You?”

“I’m going to stick here until this is done. A couple of the techs who were at your house were pulled over here, and they’re still working the scene.”

“Then your friend…”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Mia. It’s hard enough when it’s a stranger, but when the victim is someone you know…”

She knew they both had the same “someone you know” in mind.

“Mia? You still there?”

“I’m here.” She hesitated, then lowered her voice to a near whisper. “Connor, I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

“You need a break, sweetie. It’s been a very intense few years with little time off for good behavior. Take some now,” he counseled. “Walk away if you need to, for as long as you have to. Forever, if that’s what’s right for you.”

“I’d feel like a traitor,” she confessed. “Everyone in the family has been with the Bureau…”

“Fuck the Bureau.” His voice was firm. “You don’t owe the FBI a thing. Look, even your brother Grady had enough sense to know when to leave. You really think he’ll ever be back?”

“He lost everything he cared about—at the hands of his own brother.”

“Well, it seems to me that as protective as you are toward Grady, you could spare a little of that compassion for yourself.”

When she didn’t say anything, Connor told her, “Take some time off, Mia. As soon as this case is over, find a place where you feel at peace and sort things out for yourself. Figure out what’s best for you. Not what’s best for the Bureau, nor for the family. What’s best for you. Get yourself together. It’s time.”

“I’ll think about it. Thanks, Connor.”

“I’m here if you need me.”

“You’ll be around for a while?”

“I think so,” he told her. “I have a few things to work out, too.”

“Then I guess I’ll see you soon,” she told him before hanging up.

“The chief is on line seven,” Garland stuck his head through the door, “and he wants to speak with you.”

“Thanks,” she said and lifted the receiver of the phone on the table behind her. “Beck?”

“You were right,” he said tersely. “Lisa was strangled. She was dead before he wrapped her up. At least she didn’t have to suffer through that slow suffocation the way the others did.”

“So I’m guessing she was not raped, either,” Mia said, and silently gave thanks that Lisa had been spared the agony the other victims had been made to endure.

“Right again. Viv found two little marks on the back of her right shoulder. Looks like she’d been stunned, then strangled, then wrapped up when he was sure she was dead.”

“Interesting. That tells us something we didn’t already know.”

“Yeah, what?”

“It tells us his motive wasn’t the same. This time he was motivated not by lust or the thrill of the kill, but to get rid of her as quickly as possible. This is a totally different sort of crime. This wasn’t about power or pleasure. It was expediency. He needed Lisa out of the way because she knew something he didn’t want anyone else to know, or he was afraid she was about to find out something he felt he needed to protect.”

“Like his identity.”

“That would be my guess. And he knew her well enough to know he’d have to immobilize her if he was going to kill her. And that he’d have to kill her fast or he wouldn’t be able to subdue her. She looked like she was in pretty good shape, she would have put up one hell of a good fight.”

“Lisa was very strong, and she was in great shape,” Beck agreed. “Anyone who knew her would know that. Of course, just about everyone in St. Dennis knew her.”

“I think the killer knew Lisa really well. I think he wanted to kill her quickly to get it over with—not just for her sake, but for his. I think this one was a hard kill for him.”

“Interesting observation.” He fell silent for a moment. “Mickey Forbes would certainly fit.”

“He knew Lisa that well?”

“They were engaged, before she met Todd.”

“Well, shit. There is no end to the surprises you find in these little towns.” She thought that bit of news over for a moment. “You really think he would have killed her?”

“To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have thought he’d have killed anyone, but God knows I could be wrong about that. He sure got ahold of his lawyer fast enough. Ham’s lawyer was waiting for them when they arrived over at the Cameron station.”

“Why did Hal take him to Cameron?”

“We don’t have a holding cell. We have a room we use when we need to keep someone for a very limited time, but we aren’t set up to keep a murder suspect. I’m sure they’re going to go for bail, and that’s going to take a while. I’d feel better if Mickey was in a secure place.”

“Is Hal going to stay in Cameron?”

“No need to. Rich Meyer can handle the situation. Right now, Hal’s over talking to Christina.”

“I imagine she’ll have plenty to say.”

“She always does.”

“Did you tell Vanessa?”

“Yeah.” He exhaled loudly. “She had plenty to say, too.”

“Guess I’ll see you when I see you.”

“I shouldn’t be too much longer here. I expect to be back within the hour.” He paused, then said, “By the way, when was the last time you ate?”

“Last night. The break-in interrupted what had promised to be a great dinner.”

“If you can hold off until I get back there, I’ll buy.”

“You’re on,” she told him. “I’ll be here.”

Mia drained the last of the soda from the can, then took it into the kitchen and dropped it in the recycling bin. She poked around the snack tray, one of those cardboard displays that offered snacks on the honor system, and passed over the candy bars for a bag of peanuts. She searched her pockets for coins, came up with a dollar, which she fed into the slot. Once the dollar was in, there was no getting change, so she grabbed a bag of chips and took both back into the conference room. She’d just rounded the corner when Garland called her name.

“Duncan’s on the phone. He said he needed to talk to you or the chief right away,” he told her.

“Which line?”

“Two. But the connection is poor. I don’t know what it is with these cell phones this week…”

“Duncan? Mia Shields here. Where are you? The chief’s been looking for you all day.”

“He told me to check out all the abandoned buildings in St. Dennis, so that’s what I’ve been doing.”

“Why didn’t you call in sooner?”

“The reception over on this side of town isn’t too good.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m in the basement of the old bank building over on Locust,” he told her. “I think I’ve found the place where…”

The voice faded out.

“What? You found what? Duncan?”

“I said, I think…” The line went dead.

“Damn it.” She muttered as she swung her bag over her shoulder and hurried down the hall.

“Garland, do you know where there’s an old bank building? I think he said Locust Street?”

“Oh, Locust Lane, sure.” He nodded. “Right on Charles for a block, left onto Locust for two. It’s a red brick building, only property on that corner. Is that where Duncan was calling from?”

“Yes. He found something, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I’m going to run over there and see what’s what.”

“You want some backup?”

She looked around. “What backup? There’s no one else to go. I think he might have found the place where Mickey had been keeping his victims. If that’s the case, I’ll call the techs in from the other scene and have them start processing it.

She left the building and got into her car. She arrived at the old bank in less than three minutes. Duncan’s patrol car was parked across the street. Mia parked behind the cruiser, then got out of her SUV and stood on the sidewalk and looked around. The house on the opposite corner had a for sale sign on its over-grown lawn. Across the street was a park with the frame of a swing set but no swings. This must be one of the areas Beck was talking about when he said there were neighborhoods prime for renovation, she thought.

She crossed the street, assessing the old bank. At one time, it must have been an imposing structure. Even now, with the front windows boarded up, it was handsome, all brick with white pillars and faded black shutters. She walked up the front steps and tried the door, which was securely locked. She came back down the steps and followed a path worn into the grass that wound around to the back of the building, trying each door she came upon. As she searched for an opening, she dialed Beck’s phone, but the call failed. She tried again, but met with failure each time. Damn dead zones. Finally, she gave up and dropped the phone into her jeans pocket. As she rounded the back of the building, she found a door that stood ajar. She pushed it open, and went inside.

The door opened onto a landing, with steps going straight up, and steps to the left going down. She hesitated, listening for some sound, but the building was silent. He’d told her he was in the basement, so she took the steps leading down.

“Duncan?” she called out. “Duncan?”

The windows alongside of the building shed some bit of light in the room directly at the bottom of the steps, but the long hallway that stretched ahead of her grew darker as it fed into the heart of the building. She waited until her eyes adjusted, then followed the hall, her hand opening her bag and closing on her Sig.

Well, this is certainly creepy,
she thought and wondered for a moment if she should have had backup.