Once Shadows Fall (27 page)

T
he storm that broke over Atlanta was short and violent followed by a purposeful rain. Jack could hear it beating against the roof and windows in Beth’s dining room. Ben Furman and his assistant had to scramble to complete their electrostatic images. All the detectives were now assembled around the dining room table. Furman had returned to the lab to process what he found, leaving a technician to go through the house looking for fingerprints. If it was like most homes, 99 percent of them would be worthless. Jack finally made his decision and advised them they would probably find his there as well but didn’t elaborate beyond saying he and Beth had had dinner together. Childers held his eyes for a moment, then nodded and informed him they’d reached the property manager who was en route and would furnish them the last two days of tape from the security camera once he arrived.

“I think what happened is pretty clear,” Jack said. “An attack took place. One or more people gained access to the house, overpowered Beth, and abducted her.”

“You only found one set of shoeprints in the living room,” Spruell said.

“But there were two outside. The fact that we didn’t locate the second set in here doesn’t mean much, only that they weren’t obvious. Let’s start from the premise that the assault was the killer’s work. Unfortunately, Ben Furman and I turned up very little that’s helpful. Did either of you have any luck?”

Childers said no, as did his partner.

“So where does that leave us?” Penny Fancher asked.

“Waiting for the killer to make contact,” Jack said, “and pursuing what leads we do have from the other cases.”

“Which isn’t much, from everything we’ve heard,” Spruell said.

“No,” Jack admitted.

“Has the chief talked with you about bringing in the FBI?” Childers asked.

“He did. And I told him I was fine with that.”

Dave Childers turned to Penny Fancher and inquired, “Was Sturgis working on any other cases?”

“This was it.”

“Any open on her books?”

“No.”

“I understand she wasn’t married. What about a boyfriend or ex-husband?”

Penny Fancher turned to Dan Pappas. “Dan?”

“Her ex is William Camden, the writer. As far as I know, he lives someplace in Connecticut, and they haven’t spoken in years. She never mentioned being involved with anyone, but I’ll check with Lenny Cass. Her dad’s a cop in Charlotte. I imagine he’ll be in her cell phone.”

Childers glanced at the phone, which was now sitting in a plastic evidence bag on the table, and then said, “Jimmy and I can run down the brother and sister. You want to make the call to her father, you being her partner and all?”

“I’ll do it,” Jack said. He was about to continue when he realized he was being stared at by James Spruell. Whatever the reason, he was in no mood to deal with him. He swiveled his chair and returned the gaze until Spruell looked away. Peggy Fancher decided to end the meeting.

“All right, let’s secure the house and get on with it.” Penny Fancher turned to Dave Childers and informed him, “I want daily status reports. We’ll meet in my office at eight AM on Tuesday to see where we are. Hopefully, we’ll have heard from the killer by then.”

Once again, Jack considered letting them know of his relationship with Beth but decided to hold off, at least for the time being. If he disclosed they were sleeping together, even if it had only been once, it could result in his being summarily removed from the case. That was unacceptable now. Beth’s life was at stake.

On the ride home, Jack and Pappas were quiet. Neither had much to say. The enormity of what had happened was like a boulder teetering precariously above their heads and waiting to break loose from its foundation.

The rain continued, coming down in gray sheets that turned the streetlamp on Jack’s corner into a haze. At eight o’clock that evening, Pappas touched base to tell him Childers and Spruell had looked at
the security camera with two of the neighbors. They saw a late-model, brown Toyota Avalon pull into the neighborhood around 7:00 PM and leave a little after 1:40 AM. Neither thought the car belonged there.

“That jives with what the detective told me about seeing her at the precinct. According to Mickey, she left just after one.”

“They were probably waiting for her when she got home,” Jack said.

“What puzzles me,” Pappas said, “is there was no sign of forced entry. Maybe she knew them and let ’em in.”

“Or they got past her alarm,” Jack said. “It doesn’t sound like Beth to let someone in at that hour. Besides, we found her gun in the living room.”

“She might have drawn it after they were in,” Pappas said.

“I suppose so,” Jack said.

“You speak with her folks yet?”

“I called earlier. The answering machine picked up. It’s not the kind of message you want to leave. I was about to try again when you rang.”

“You doin’ okay?”

“Not really,” Jack said.

“Listen, we got a guest bedroom if you feel like company.”

Jack smiled. “Thanks, Dan. I’ll be fine. I’d better make that call now.”

“All right. You change your mind, we don’t go to bed until eleven or so.”

“Understood. Thanks again.”

Jack was about to disconnect, but Pappas wasn’t ready to hang up yet. He said, “Something else has been bothering me.”

“What?”

“Why her?”

“What do you mean?”

“If the guy’s got a hard-on for you, why go after her?”

“Pell went after my partner, remember?”

“Sure. You figure he’s tryin’ to get to you through her?”

“It would be consistent,” Jack said.

“So why not go after you directly?” Pappas said.

“Beth might have been an easier target,” Jack said.

“Why kill her cat, man? What’d he ever do to anybody?”

“I need to make the call, Dan,” Jack said.

After they disconnected, Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, waited for a second, rehearsed what he would say, and then dialed the number. Beth’s father answered. He related what they knew for certain and how
they planned to proceed. Joe Sturgis listened quietly and waited until Jack was through before asking any questions. He seemed calm enough as one might expect of a cop with his experience. Jack wasn’t surprised that he knew about the case and about the Scarecrow years earlier. Beth told him they talked frequently. The only surprise was that Joe Sturgis also knew about him.

In the end, Joe Sturgis thanked him for the call and said he and his wife were looking forward to meeting him in person.

“Thank you, sir. Me, too.”

There was a pause on the line.

“You can call me Joe. I lost one daughter a long time ago. I don’t want to lose another. Get her back, son.”

Jack ended the call feeling worse than when it began.

When the rain finally let up, he decided to go for a walk to clear his head and allow himself time to process what happened. The streetlamps were on and the air was clean and fresh, though the wind was still blowing. A full moon rose, bathing the streets in cold light. As he moved through the neighborhood, the frenetic shadows of the tree limbs and their leaves made him think of children running from trunk to trunk in a nocturnal wood. It called to mind the games his daughter and her friends played when they were little.

The epiphany didn’t hit until he turned for home. Something at Beth’s house was out of place. The realization, when it came to him, was like descending a set of stairs in the dark and thinking there’s one more at the bottom only to find you’ve reached the landing with a thud. It was so obvious that he was amazed it took so long to put two and two together. He called Dan Pappas immediately.

“Change your mind about a sleepover?” Pappas said.

“I’m going back to Beth’s house,” Jack said.

“What? Why?”

“Did Childers and Spruell take her computer?”

“I don’t think so. No reason to.”

“You look at it when you were there?”

“Briefly.”

“Well, I did,” Jack said. “I found a note to Dr. Raymond thanking him for compiling the Mayfield employee list.”

“Okay,” Pappas said.

“It was dated three days ago,” Jack said.

Pappas took a moment to digest this. “How come she was asking for it again? Mundas and Stafford went through the employees at
the beginning of the case. Everyone had an alibi. On top of that, they double-checked their DNA against what we got off Donna Camp. They were all cleared.”

“You asked why the killer targeted her,” Jack said. “What if she hit on something?”

More silence followed. Jack began walking faster.

“Okay,” Pappas said. “I’m with you. That’s a possibility.”

“Remember the legal pad in her bedroom?” Jack said.

“Yeah, on her nightstand. It was divided in columns.
L
,
R
,
S
, something. But they were all blank. We figured she was doing some work at her house. What do they stand for?”

“No idea,” Jack said. “But I think the names she wrote on the first page are Mayfield employees. Some were crossed out; some weren’t. I want to check them against what Raymond sent.”

“Sure, but if their DNA results were negative, it’s a blind alley.”

“We missed something,” Jack said. “I don’t know what, but we missed something.”

The silence was even longer this time.

“I’ll meet you there in an hour,” Pappas said.

*

Pappas showed up wearing the same tan slacks and white shirt he’d worn earlier. He added a black windbreaker to the outfit and looked only slightly more rumpled. Jack left his car in one of the visitor spaces and was waiting for him by the front door.

“You been inside yet?” Pappas asked.

“No.”

“I’ve been giving some thought to what you said. If she wanted the employee list, why didn’t she make a copy from the one in our file?”

“I intend to find that out,” Jack said.

The door was locked, but Pappas surprised him by producing a key. Jack’s eyebrows rose when he saw it.

“When we were out earlier, I noticed she had an extra key sitting in one of her kitchen drawers,” the detective explained. “I thought it might come in handy.”

They ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and entered.

The computer was still there. Jack flicked it on, brought up her e-mail, and printed the note and list Charles Raymond had sent. Then they went up to Beth’s bedroom and retrieved the white legal pad and compared the names she’d written down. There were thirty-four in total.
Jack now saw all the female names were crossed out, leaving twenty-one men.

Pappas flipped the page to the columns labeled
L
,
R
,
E
, and
S
.

Jack shook his head. “She ever mention this to you?”

“Nope. And I don’t recall seeing any notes about it in the murder book.”

“Maybe they’re in her desk at the office and she didn’t have a chance to update the file. You know how cops are about paperwork.”

Jack and Pappas returned downstairs and spent a half hour going through Beth’s e-mail, starting from the time she caught the case in Jordan. Nothing seemed even remotely relevant.

“I feel like a shit pawing through her personal stuff,” Pappas said.

“Me, too,” Jack said. “No choice though.”

As a last resort, Jack opened her Internet browser and checked the search history hoping it would give them some insight into what the mysterious letters meant.

“You just know this crap?” Pappas commented.

“I read a lot,” Jack said without looking away from the screen.

Pappas shook his head.

Their search ended in frustration. There was nothing in the computer to help them. Jack shut the machine down, and they went outside. Pappas relocked the door. The detective took Raymond’s list and Beth’s legal pad with him.

“I’ll fill Dave Childers in and enter these in the book first thing in the morning. Will you be in?”

“I have a quick stop to make. I’ll be there around ten thirty.”

“All right. Get some rest. Maybe the letters’ll make sense in the daylight.”

“Maybe,” Jack said, walking Pappas to his car.

He was about to get in when Jack continued, “Dan?”

“Yeah?”

“Beth and I are seeing each other.”

Pappas stared at him for a beat, then said, “Seeing as in dating-type seeing?”

“Right.”

Pappas responded by slowly banging his head against the car’s roof.

“Are you nuts? Never mind, I already know the answer. You’ve gotta be out of your minds; the both of you. During an investigation?”

“We didn’t plan it. It just happened.”

“Nobody ever plans this shit. Jesus, Kale, you’re giving me an ulcer. That’s why you looked funny when Childers asked if she had a boyfriend. Why didn’t you speak up then? He could nail you for withholding.”

“I know. It’s more important than ever for me to stay on the case. This could get me bounced off.”

“You bet your sweet ass it could,” Pappas said.

“I can call Childers tonight and talk with him,” Jack said.

“Negative. Don’t do anything ’til I think this through.”

“I told you Dave is fine, but Jimmy Lee’s got a stick up his ass. His father’s some kind of deacon with the church. The whole freakin’ family comes off holier than thou, and it’s rubbed off on the kids. I went to school with his older brother, Teddy.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “Sorry.”

A lengthy silence followed. Jack thought Pappas was going to ask for details. He didn’t.

“All right,” he said, “it ain’t the end of the world. But it sure don’t help right now.”

Jack turned his palms up and didn’t comment. Anything he had to say might only make matters worse.

Pappas looked up at the stars and shook his head. “The only thing that can complete this day would be to call my ex-wife and have her come over and kick me in the balls a few times.”

Jack remained silent.

“All right, don’t stress over it, kid. We’ll work it out. Get some rest. You look like shit. I’ll see you in the morning.”

With that, the detective got in his car and drove off, leaving Jack standing there feeling like an idiot.