Блейк Пирс - Before He Feels

Mackenzie wasn’t sure if the look of shock that came over Ridgeway’s face was the result of her disagreeing with him or because she had interrupted him.

“And you gathered all of that from one conversation?” he asked, clearly skeptical.

“I did,” she said. “Of course, this investigation is still quite young so I can’t be certain of anything. What I can tell you is that it’s very hard to conduct an investigation when I get calls that end with me having to leave a crime scene just to listen to people yell and complain.”

She could nearly feel the fury coming off of him now. “I just lost my mother,” he said, each word like a whisper. “I want answers. I want justice.”

“Good,” Ellington said. “We want the same thing.”

“But for us to get it,” Mackenzie said, “you need to let us work. I understand you hold sway around here, but quite frankly, I don’t care. We have a job to do and we can’t let your anger, grief, or arrogance get in the way.”

During the entire exchange, Sheriff Clarke sat at the small conference table. He was doing his very best to contain a smile.

Ridgeway was quiet for a moment. He looked back and forth between the agents and Sheriff Clarke. He nodded and when a tear slid down the side of his face, Mackenzie thought that it might be real. But she could also still see the anger in his eyes, right there at the surface.

“I’m sure you’re used to throwing instructions around at small-town cops and suspects and whatnot,” Langston Ridgeway said. “But let me tell you this…if you drop the ball on this case, or, for that matter, disrespect me again, I’ll make a call to DC. I’ll talk to your supervisor and bury you.”

The sad thing is, he thinks he’s fully capable of such a thing, Mackenzie thought. And maybe he is. But I’d sure as hell love to be a fly on the wall when someone like Langston Ridgeway starts barking at McGrath.

Rather than escalate the situation, Mackenzie decided to stay silent. She glanced beside her and saw that Ellington was clenching and unclenching his fist…a little trick he resorted to whenever he was on the verge of getting irrationally angry.

In the end, Mackenzie said, “If you let us do our job unhindered, it won’t come to that.”

It was clear that Ridgeway was searching for something else to say. All he could come up with was a muffled hmmph . He followed this by turning quickly away and leaving the room. It reminded Mackenzie very much of a child in the midst of a tantrum.

After a few seconds, Sheriff Clarke leaned forward with a sigh. “And now you see what I’ve been having to deal with. That boy thinks the sun rises and sets around his spoiled ass. And he can go on and on about losing his mother all he wants. All he’s worried about is the media in bigger cities finding out that he dumped her in a home…even if it is a nice one. He’s worried about his own image more than anything else.”

“Yeah, I got that same feeling,” Ellington said.

“Do you think we can expect any more interference from him?” Mackenzie asked.

“I don’t know. He’s unpredictable. He’ll do whatever he thinks might improve his chances of getting public attention which will later turn to votes for whatever tainted sea he guns for.”

“Well then, Sheriff,” Mackenzie said, “if you have a few minutes, why don’t we sit down and go over what we know?”

“That won’t take long,” he said. “Because there ain’t much.”

“That’s better than nothing,” Ellington said.

Clarke nodded and got to his feet. “Come on back to my office, then,” he said.

As they made their way down the small hallway, both Mackenzie and Ellington jumped a bit when Clarke shouted, “Hey, Frances! Put on a pot of coffee, would you, darlin’?”

Mackenzie and Ellington exchanged a bewildered look. She was starting to get a very good feel for Sheriff Clarke and the way he ran things. And while they might be a bit rustic, she was finding that she liked him quite a bit – foul language and unintentional sexism aside.

With the evening inching closer to night, Mackenzie and Ellington huddled around Clarke’s desk and went over the existing material on the case.

Shortly before Frances brought in the coffee, Officer Lambert returned. Now that he was not texting on his phone, Mackenzie saw that he was a younger man, in his early thirties. She found it odd that an officer was serving as Clarke’s right-hand man rather than a deputy but didn’t think much of it.

Small town , she thought.

The four of them sat around Clarke’s desk, going over the material. Clarke seemed to be more than happy to let Mackenzie run with it. She was happy to see that he appeared to be coming around quickly…accepting her as more than an equal.

“So let’s start with the most recent,” she said. “Ellis Ridgeway. Fifty-seven years old. As I’m beginning to learn, she has a very arrogant and self-important son. Other than the fact that she was obviously blind, what else can you tell me about her?”

“That’s about it, really,” Clarke said. “She was a sweet lady. From what I can gather, everyone at the home loved her. What scares me about this whole situation is that the killer has to be familiar with her, right? They had to have known she had left the home to target her in such a way.”

“My brain wanted to go there, too,” Mackenzie said. “But if these deaths are connected – and it certainly seems they are – that means that for someone local who knows her to have done it, there would have been a lot of traveling involved. The other death was what…two and a half hours away?”

“Almost three,” Clarke said.

“Exactly,” Mackenzie said. “You know, I even wondered for a while if it could have been another resident, but I got it on good authority from Randall Jones that no one followed her yesterday. There’s apparently video evidence of this which we haven’t seen yet, thanks to Langston Ridgeway’s interference. And in terms of residents or employees leaving the home when Mrs. Ridgeway was absent, there is no evidence to support anyone else leaving during that time – not residents, not employees, no one.”

“And then, going back to that first murder,” Ellington said, “we’ll need to head over to speak to family members soon. What can you tell us about the first victim, Sheriff?”

“Well, it was at another home for the blind,” he said. “And all I know about it is in that same file you have, I’m sure. Like I said, it’s almost three hours from here, nearly up in West Virginia. A rundown sort of place from what I gather. Not really a home, but like a school, I think.”

He slid a sheet of paper over to her and she saw the brief police report from the first scene. It was in a city called Treston, about twenty-five miles away from Bluefield, West Virginia. Thirty-eight-year-old Kenneth Able had been strangled to death. There were slight abrasions around his eyes. He’d been discovered stashed in the closet of the room he stayed in most of the time within the home.

The facts were very robotic, with no details. While there were notes about the investigation being ongoing, Mackenzie doubted it was anything serious.

I bet it is now, though, she thought.

This new death was too explicit to deny. The victims were far too similar, as were the signs of abuse on the bodies.

“I’ve got Randall Jones compiling a list of employees or others associated with the home that could be even the least bit possible,” Mackenzie said. “I think our next best bet is to speak with this place in Treston to see if there are any links at all.”

“The downside here is that Treston is so damned far away,” Ellington pointed out. “Even if this turns out to be a cakewalk, there will be some travel involved. Seems we might not get it all buttoned up as quickly as the illustrious Mr. Ridgeway would like.”