Lara Lacombe - Ranger's Justice

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” he said.

“Well, what do you know?” She leaned back and smiled broadly. “Neither do I.”

* * *

“What do you think?”

Rebecca rolled her head to the side, stretching out her neck. It had been a long few hours in the interrogation room, and she was ready for a fresh cup of coffee.

She turned to the detective who’d asked the question. Morris, that’s his name , she recalled.

“He’s not a killer.”

Detective Morris snorted and shook his head. “Just like that? You talked to him for what, two hours, and suddenly you know he’s innocent?”

Rebecca gave him a level stare. “I know he didn’t kill those women. He was on patrol with a partner when the medical examiner estimates both women were killed, which makes for a pretty good alibi, don’t you think? Not to mention, he’s not at all interested in the details of the deaths—he shut down hard when I started talking about it. That’s not consistent with the behavior of a killer. They tend to enjoy hearing about their crimes. Gives them a chance to relive the excitement.”

Morris nodded. “I’ve heard that.”

“He’s not the killer,” Rebecca repeated. “But that doesn’t necessarily make him innocent.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s a possibility he’s working with the killer. Pointing out potential victims, then ‘discovering’ them later so the killer can get his five minutes of fame.”

“Like a wingman?”

Rebecca shrugged. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

“Why would a person want to do something like that?”

She sighed, suddenly exhausted. “There are any number of reasons. But I just don’t know if Quinn Gallagher is the type of man who would do such a thing.” She glanced back at the door to the interrogation room, replaying their conversation in her mind. Nothing he’d said had triggered any alarm bells, but it would probably take several interviews for her to pick up on more subtle cues.

“Anything from forensics yet?”

Morris shrugged. “Not really. Fibers and fingerprints are still being processed. They did say the first scene was fairly pristine, while the second was more compromised.”

“So he probably found the first body soon after she’d been dumped, while the second one sat there longer, giving animals and the elements time to degrade evidence.” Rebecca’s tone was thoughtful as she incorporated this piece of information into her mental file on Quinn Gallagher. She made a note to look at the report on his wife’s death, see if there were any similarities across the sites. It was a long shot, but perhaps there were some commonalities. Her gut told her he wasn’t the killer, but she’d been wrong before...

“That’s what the evidence techs said,” Morris confirmed. He jerked his head in the direction of the interrogation room. “How do you suggest we proceed?”

“Cut him loose.” Rebecca stood and caught a glimpse of Morris’s surprised expression. “You don’t have any evidence against him. There’s no reason to hold him.”

“You really think it’s a good idea to let him back out there?”

“Why not? Either the man is innocent, in which case it’s wrong to detain him. Or he’s working with the killer, in which case he’ll make contact with our perp. Just keep an eye on him.”

“We don’t have that kind of manpower,” Morris protested. “We can’t follow him all the time.”

Her phone buzzed at her hip, signaling an incoming email. Rebecca glanced at the screen and shook her head. “Then I guess it’s a good thing your boss requested my services for the next few weeks.” She pocketed the device and smiled wryly. “I’ll stay close to him while I’m here. In the meantime, I need to change my hotel reservations. It seems I’m going to be here for the foreseeable future.”

Chapter 2

It wasn’t a bad room, as far as hotels went. The bed was small and lumpy, the air conditioner louder than a jet engine. But the air was cool and there was a desk in the corner where she could spread out her files. She’d slept in worse places before.

Rebecca sat in the lone chair in the room, twirling up forkfuls of lo mein as she worked through her emails. Her boss, Franklin Jessup, had told her to stay in Alpine for the next week at least to provide assistance to the local police in their investigation. Normally, two dead women in two weeks wasn’t the kind of thing that would register at the national level, but since she’d already been in El Paso for a forensic psychology conference, the request from Alpine PD had been easy to accommodate.

This one sounds right up your alley , Frank had written. He was right; Rebecca had made somewhat of a name for herself focusing on crimes against women. It was one area where she felt she could really make a tangible difference in people’s lives. Women were so often the target of violence—any time she helped put a killer behind bars, she knew she was saving lives of his future victims.

She had to admit she was intrigued by these cases—two red-haired women found in a national park in the space of two weeks. It was a hell of a pace, even for a serial killer. The local police had already dubbed the suspect “the Yoga Killer,” thanks to the characteristic arrangement of the bodies: hands over hearts, legs bent with the soles of their feet touching. She pulled up the crime-scene photos for another look, noting how each woman had been placed in exactly the same pose, even down to the sprawl of hair across their faces.

“So he doesn’t want to look at you,” she murmured, clicking through the images. That was interesting. It seemed the killer had no problem taking a life, but he didn’t want to be confronted by the empty, accusing stares of his victims. Postmortem guilt, perhaps? Maybe he got caught up in the moment when he was hurting these women, only to be filled with remorse after the fact. The possibility suggested he had poor impulse control, but the situation was more complicated than that. Both scenes had been devoid of any obvious evidence, and the crime-scene techs had reported it looked like the killer had taken pains to sweep away his footprints. Initial analysis of the bodies had revealed no fingerprints or DNA, which meant whoever was doing this was careful and methodical. Still, Rebecca knew there was no such thing as the perfect murder. They’d find the clue that would bring this killer to justice, no matter how improbable it seemed now.

She just hoped they caught a break sooner rather than later.

A quick search of the FBI’s national database revealed no other similar cases, either in active investigation or resolved. That meant the killer was just starting out, or his previous victims hadn’t been discovered yet. It was possible the man had been working quietly for years, perfecting his approach. The fact that he hadn’t left behind any visible clues suggested a seasoned professional, but it was also possible he was just a smart guy who had watched a lot of CSI . A search of the database for missing persons turned up a disturbing number of young women with red hair, but there didn’t appear to be any clusters that might indicate the Yoga Killer had been practicing elsewhere before moving to the Big Bend area. Still, she downloaded the report and emailed it to one of the interns at the Bureau with instructions to search through the files and categorize any cases that might be connected. Serial killers didn’t just sprout from the ether; this guy had a history. All she had to do was find it.

She picked at her dinner, the noodles now cold and congealing into an unappetizing glob. Her thoughts drifted toward the park ranger she’d interrogated today. Quinn Gallagher. The man had been forthright and seemingly honest in his responses to her questions, and her instincts told her he wasn’t a killer. But she couldn’t shake the feeling he’d held something back during their conversation, as if there were things he’d wanted to say but hadn’t. His subtle reticence didn’t make him a bad guy, but it did make her want to know more. She couldn’t quite put her finger on why, but she knew in her bones that Quinn was the key to this investigation. The question was, did he know that as well? Was he truly innocent as he claimed, or was he keeping information from her out of a sense of fear or guilt?