Blake Pierce - Once Shunned

Riley suppressed a smile and waited for Jenn to say something.

Finally Jenn asked, “You think he’s guilty too? Guilty of murder?”

“I didn’t say that,” Riley said.

“Then what do you mean?”

Riley saw that Bill was now grinning broadly and Brennan just looked mystified. But she didn’t want to say exactly what she meant, at least not outright. She wanted to draw her young protégé out with questions. After all, Jenn still had some things to learn about thinking like a BAU agent. And maybe Riley could coax Jenn into seeing things Riley’s way regarding Duane Scoville.

Riley asked, “What were your first impressions when you walked into the apartment?”

Jenn squinted in thought. “Well, it was weird. I mean, the music was weird enough, for a rock musician. But the way the place looked … Robin’s little house wasn’t anything like that. Everything there was so neat. And conservative.”

“Hard to believe they were ever married, huh?” Riley said.

Jenn shrugged a little and said, “Not happily, anyway.”

Riley smiled a little.

“It’s not so hard for me to believe,” Riley said. “I’ve got some idea what it’s like to get married when you’re young and stupid. It’s pretty much the story of my life. Robin and Duane were probably crazy in love and happy for a while. Their marriage might not have even lasted long enough for them to realize how little they really had in common.”

Jenn sputtered, “But—but he acted so …”

Riley said, “Guilty. Yes, I know. He had his reasons. Why do you think their marriage broke up? Aside from those differences that would probably have broken them up eventually anyhow?”

Jenn stared down at her untouched hamburger, obviously trying to think of an answer.

Riley said, “Well, it’s not too hard to figure out. What do you know about Robin’s recent past?”

Jenn said, “She was in a car accident last year, and she lost a leg and …”

Riley could see a light coming on in Jenn’s eyes.

“Oh my God,” Jenn said. “Duane couldn’t deal with it. He’d married a gorgeous young woman, married her because she was beautiful, but suddenly she was … well, mutilated. He just didn’t find her attractive anymore.”

Riley nodded. “In short, he was a shallow little prick.”

Jenn nodded slowly and said, “And he knows it, too. That he was a prick, I mean. He felt guilty about it as soon as he dumped her. But now that she’s dead …”

Jenn paused for a moment, then continued.

“He keeps thinking, if only he’d been a better husband, a better human being , Robin would still be alive today. And he might well be right. So his guilt is eating him up right now.”

Jenn shook her head and added, “Small wonder he acted the way he did. But … what about the closet? Why did he get so nervous when I acted like I was going to open it?”

Riley chuckled and said, “You’d be nervous, too, if you had two FBI agents and a police chief in your room, and you had a bong hidden in your closet.”

Jenn rolled her eyes. “Of course. I should have known.”

Riley didn’t say anything. The truth was …

We don’t really know anything.

For all Riley really knew, Duane Scoville might have killed his wife after all. Maybe killing her was a desperate attempt to put his shame at abandoning her behind him—an attempt that had failed miserably.

Riley didn’t think that was likely to be the case, but she couldn’t be sure. They really had nothing to go on so far and she was just keeping Jenn from jumping to rash conclusions. And she was glad that Jenn wasn’t getting angry and defensive like she had when they’d been in Mississippi.

At that moment, Chief Brennan’s cell phone rang. He took the call, then quickly cupped the phone with his hand to tell Riley and her colleagues …

“This is Agent Sturman on the phone. He says his people got in touch with the Copelands in Europe. They said their camera was set up to record continuously, and to save everything it recorded during their absence. Sturman says they understand the urgency of the situation, and they’ve given us a permission to look at their security feed. They’ve also turned over all the information we need to view it.”

Riley saw Bill’s face light up.

“That means we won’t have to go scrambling after a warrant, then deal with the security company,” he said.

Riley, too, was excited. She asked, “How do we access the feed?”

Jenn suggested, “From what I know about these systems, we ought to be able to connect online, from any computer or even cell phone.”

“I’ll find out,” Chief Brennan said.

He spoke again with Sturman on the phone and jotted down some notes. Then he ended the call and showed the group his notes.

He said, “Sturman gave me a link, a sign-in name, and a password. We should be able to check it out right here and now.”

Riley looked at Jenn, who obviously understood these systems better than she or Bill. She said to Jenn, “Go ahead, see what you can do.”

Chief Brennan handed his notes to Jenn, who took her laptop out of her bag and opened it up on the table. It took just a few seconds for her to make the connection. Everybody at the table crowded around the laptop so they could see the image on the screen.

The picture wasn’t at all sharp or clear. But it was exactly what Riley had expected, based on the position of the camera.

She pointed and said, “Look, this is the street right in front of the Copeland house. Although you can’t see it, Robin Scoville’s house is out of frame, right across the street.”

“So what are we looking for?” Chief Brennan asked.

Riley stifled a sigh.

That’s a good question, she thought.

She thought back to her attempt to connect with the killer’s mind back at Robin Scoville’s house. She remembered imagining how the killer found Robin staring out her front window, then creeping up behind her and taking her by surprise.

Robin had been looking at something outside. Riley was sure of it.

She said to the others, “We’re looking for anything going on in the very early hours of that morning. We’re not likely to see the actual killer out on the street, but we could get lucky. It seemed that Robin was looking out her front window when she was attacked. Maybe we can get a clue what she saw out there. I don’t know what it might be. I hope we know it if we see it ourselves.”

Then she said to Chief Brennan, “You said the time of Robin’s death was around four a.m., right?”

Brennan shrugged. “That’s the approximation the medical examiner gave us,” he replied.

“It’s something we can work with,” Riley said. “Jenn, start the footage at, say, three thirty. Run it fast until we see something interesting.”

Jenn fast-forwarded through the footage. At first, the street was empty. Then a car drove by without stopping. A few minutes later, another car went by and the street was empty again.

Then Jenn stopped the feed.

“What’s that?” she exclaimed, pointing at something large and bulky that had come into view.

Looking at the still frame, Chief Brennan said, “It’s just a garbage truck. Nothing sinister about that.”

Maybe not, Riley thought.

Even so, she said to Jenn, “Back it up and run it slowly.”

Jennifer backed up the feed to just before the garbage truck appeared. Then she ran it frame by frame. The truck was the kind with mechanical arms that automatically picked up garbage bins. Although the camera did not show Robin’s house, it did show the machine picking up the bin on her curb and dumping it into the truck.

But Riley saw something much more important than that.