Mariah Stewart - Cold Truth

“Let’s do it.” Mitch pointed to the fax machine. “But do it now, before we get another incoming. That machine hasn’t been silent for more than fifteen minutes since Tuesday.”

Cass slid the four pages into the fax machine and entered the number for the police department. The pages went through, but when she looked at the confirmation page, she frowned.

“System failure,” she read.

“Try it again. Maybe the machine is overheated,” Regan suggested.

Cass entered the number again and hit Send.

The results were the same.

“I think I’ll give Denver a call and let him know we have this. We can drop it off when we get back to Bowers.”

She speed-dialed the number for the station, but got a busy signal. She disconnected, then dialed the chief’s cell phone.

He answered almost immediately. “ Denver.”

“Chief, it’s Cass. I’m here in Plainsville with Rick at Regan Landry’s home. She and Mitch have put together some information on the four possible suspects that you’ll want to see. I tried to fax it to the station but it didn’t go through.”

“Good luck getting anything through that machine today,” he said curtly.

“It’s acting up again?”

“It’s jammed, been running nonstop.” He paused for a moment, then said, “I take it you haven’t seen the news today?”

“No. We left Bowers early and… don’t tell me there’s been another…”

“Around nine this morning, they found the body of a man who’s in town for the reunion, broken neck.” He declined to tell her that the body was found in a Dumpster outside the very inn in which she was staying, all but under her bedroom window. He still hadn’t decided what to make of that. His gut told him there were no coincidences; on the other hand, as far as they knew, the Strangler had never targeted that particular type of victim, or killed in that manner.

“Who was it?”

“A guy named Carl Sellers. Someone snapped his neck. I doubt you’d have known him. He’s in his mid-forties… left Bowers for college and I don’t think he’s been back but maybe two or three times since.” Even as he spoke the words, it occurred to the chief the victim had most likely been a classmate of the four they already had in their sights. Coincidence? His gut gave another twitch.

“And Cass-we just received a report of a woman going missing last night, early this morning, from downtown Tilden. She fits the description. They haven’t found her body yet.”

She hung up the phone without waiting for the chief’s good-bye. Turning to Rick, she said, “We need to go. Now. Back to Bowers.”

“There’s been another murder?”

“A man in town for the reunion.” Cass turned to Rick. “Chief says he’s in his mid-forties.”

“Same as these guys.” Rick tapped on the folder. “Classmates, maybe?”

“How the hell does that fit in?” Cass was already at the door. “And a woman went missing in Tilden last night. Chief says she fits the description of the others. They’re still looking for her.”

“Anything else you think we need to take back to Bowers?” Rick asked as he gathered the papers.

“We have a bunch of DNA matches-matches to one another, obviously nothing to match to your vics, but still… if we can pinpoint any one of these guys-or any other suspect-as having been in these cities on these dates, we’ll have the start of some serious evidence.”

“We’ll take whatever you have ready. The rest-”

“I’ll wait outside, Rick.” Cass waved to Mitch and Regan. “Thank you both. I’m sorry. I really am. But I have to go.”

“Go.” Regan nodded, and Cassie did.

Regan picked up the envelope Cass had left on the floor and handed it to Rick. “This has most everything we have so far. We’ll make copies of anything we get in today and we’ll bring it to Bowers Inlet if we can’t get the faxes through. Right now, Cass is jumping out of her skin. Take her back, Rick. She’s dying to get her hands into this.”

“She’s still on leave, as far as I know. She’s not going to get her hands into anything. Denver isn’t going to let her near it.”

Regan pointed out the office window. Cass paced impatiently alongside Rick’s car.

“I don’t think I’d want to be the one to tell her that.”

Craig Denver looked out onto the parking lot of the Bowers Inlet Police Department and wondered what the hell was going on in his town.

Women turning up dead, a man found in a Dumpster with his neck broken, a young girl missing and most likely dead as well. What the hell had happened to the sleepy little bay towns he’d loved all his life?

“Chief?” Phyl opened the door between her office and his and poked her head in. “I made some iced tea. I thought you might need something cold about now.”

“Thanks.”

She came into the office with a tall glass in her hand. Chief Denver slid an envelope over and gestured for her to place the glass on it.

“Do you have a minute?” he asked.

“Sure.” She stood uncertainly at the end of his desk.

“Sit.” He waved in the direction of the chairs and took a sip of the iced tea. “No one makes iced tea like you do, Phyl. I swear I’d keep you on even if you were a total incompetent, just to have a supply of your iced tea in the summer.”

She sat, crossed her legs, and waited.

He rubbed his temples as if in pain. “Honest to God, Phyl, I can’t keep up with all this. For the first time in my life, I’m second-guessing every move I make, every decision. I should have brought all four of those guys in for questioning yesterday. I didn’t, and now a man is dead and a woman is missing. What the hell was I thinking?”

“You were thinking if you try to push the killer too fast, you’ll lose him, send him back into whatever hole he’s been hiding in for the past twenty-six years. Which hasty action may well have done. Without probable cause, you have no arrest. Without evidence, you don’t have probable cause. You can’t hold four men because you think one of them might be a killer.”

“You sound like a cop, Phyl.”

“I sound like you sounded yesterday. Those were your arguments when you went back and forth with the DA’s office.”

“Still, maybe-”

“Forget maybe. You don’t even know that Sellers was killed by the same guy. As much as you say you don’t believe in coincidences, I gotta tell you, they happen.”

“What the hell do you make of all this, Phyl?” He stood and began to pace. “All these women, now Sellers…”

“I don’t know, Chief.” She shook her head, understanding that he didn’t expect her to have answers, he needed to bounce something off her. She was well practiced at letting him take his time getting to it.

“Did you know him, Carl Sellers?”

“I did. He was in my sister’s class,” she nodded, “though not a very popular guy, and he certainly wasn’t in with the group of guys you’re looking at. He was one of those who was just there. No real friends, no real enemies, not that I recall, anyway. One of those who left the Jersey Shore, ended up in some big city someplace-I think I heard he’s been living in Chicago -where he became very successful. Didn’t come back home much. Just sort of a schmo who got lucky when he grew up.”

“That was my impression, too, the little I remember about him.” He sat on the edge of the desk, sipped his tea, then put the glass back onto the envelope. “Feels like it’s all connected somehow, doesn’t it? I can’t figure out how, damn it. I’m having a hard time seeing the Strangler all of a sudden going from strangling women to breaking a man’s neck.”

“Maybe it was just a robbery after all. His wallet was missing, his watch.”