window as a SUV pulled into the almost vacant parking lot. He recognized the SUV, it belonged to the Sheriff, Emily’s dad.
He walked out with Grace and the other girls. They waved good-bye as they piled into the SUV.
“Tucker,” Henry said.
“Henry,” Sheriff Rybolt responded.
“I was waiting to make sure the girls had an escort home.”
“Glad you did, it was a bad one yesterday,” Sheriff Rybolt looked at Grace. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow though. Get some sleep.”
“You try to do the same,” Henry walked Grace to the SUV. It was still running, the inside was warm and welcoming as they slid into the heated seats.
“He did it again?” Grace asked.
“Yes, he did it again.”
“Are you going to catch him?”
“I don’t know, we’ve got some Marshals up here to help us,” Henry thought about the female Marshal. She had struck him as odd. There was something different about her; he couldn’t put his finger on it though.
“Took you long enough,” Hilary, his wife, said as the two of them stomped snow off their shoes at the front door.
“She was having slices with friends, I went in and sat with all of them until Sheriff Rybolt showed up to pick up the other girls,” Henry said, immediately defending Grace.
“Is that why you were out so late?” Hilary turned her eyes on Grace.
“Yes, Emily and Kara didn’t want to leave until one of our parents came to get us,” Grace took her book bag upstairs, away from her mother’s piercing gaze.
“And you think that’s an acceptable reason for her to be out late?” Hilary turned full force on Henry.
“Yes, Hilary, it’s March, it gets dark early and I’d rather them have pizza at a busy pizzeria while waiting for parents than to have them be out on the streets, alone,” Henry pulled off his coat.
“So their children are our problem?”
“There’s a serial killer on the loose, I would hope that everyone is looking out for everyone else’s children.”
“Whatever, Henry,” Hilary walked away, dismissing him with a wave of her hand.
Henry went to his study, glad the debate with his wife was over, at least for now. He was sure she’d bring it back up at breakfast, but for now, it was quiet. They hadn’t shared a bedroom since Grace had been born.
He pulled out all the case files from the drawer. Inside were all his autopsy photos. He had been meticulous about taking the photos. He wanted to make sure every nuance had been captured. The photos were good quality, they did his work justice.
Tomorrow held some promise. Tomorrow night he might be able to go out and find his prize. Or maybe he’d just grab the waitress at the diner. She had been just about perfect.
This thought brought him back to Dr. Cain. She was also just about perfect. She was very matter of fact. She was very proper. Her clothing had screamed loads about her. It had obviously been bought with meticulous care for color and shape. Even with the multiple fleeces on, she had been shapely. Yet, there was still something that nagged him about her. Something he couldn’t put his finger on or identify. Something that was unique and screamed at him to be cautious around her.
He stopped thinking about her and went back to his photos. He did such good work on these women. He was a master in this domain.
There was a knock on the door of the study. His daughter, he thought as he stood up. Sure enough, Grace stood in her flannel pajamas outside the door. He closed the study behind him.
“Sorry I made mom mad,” she whispered.
“It’s fine, honey, mom is just freaked out because of the killer. But we had a group of US Marshals come in today to help with the search. We’ll have him found out in no time,” he assured her.
Grace gave him a hug and a kiss and went back upstairs. He went back to his study, locking the door behind him. His eyes fell on the photographs of the first three women. They were different. They weren’t his.
Those three had belonged to his son, Henry Junior. He had come home from war a broken man. Too broken to even live on his own, he had moved back into his parents’ house. His father had found the photos after Henry Junior had taken his own life.
A tear sprang to his eye. He wiped it away. His work made him feel close to his dead son. The son that had taken a finely crafted blade to his own body, opening up over three dozen wounds. He had bled to death in less than three minutes. In the snow, in December, next to a freshly killed moose.
Henry still didn’t understand the meaning behind the moose or the suicide. All he did understand was that his son had somehow turned into a killer when he arrived back in Alaska. A killer who seemed to hate women.
That was something Henry could understand. His wife was a monster. Always had been, always would be. He pushed the thought away, turned out the lights and left the study.
Hilary would be in bed by now. He climbed the stairs and when he reached his room, he hesitated for a moment. The fleeting glimpse of Dr. Aislinn Cain had distracted him again. Yes, she was his type, but she would be dangerous. The Marshals would double or triple their efforts if he went after her. He’d have to let her go.
He opened the door to his bedroom. The room was quiet. Hilary had the room next door and her snoring could be heard through the walls. But that was the only sound. He undressed as silently as possible and lay in bed for a long time, focusing on the waitress at the diner.
Five
Morning broke with no news of a new dead body. This meant our killer was two days off his mark. Something had changed his pattern. We were assembled at breakfast with our FBI liaison, Special Agent Arons, Commander Neilsen and Sheriff Rybolt to figure out the “why” behind the time shift.
“Maybe he is being distracted,” I finally offered after they had been throwing ideas back and forth for several minutes while my French Toast got cold and the waitress assured me for a fourth time that they did not in fact carry Karo Syrup.
“By what?” Special Agent Arons asked.
“By us,” I suggested as I forked a mouthful of the unsyruped and rather plain French Toast into my mouth. “We did finally arrive and you said it yourself, he has been killing in state parks, not federal ones.”
“She has a point,” Gabriel backed me up. “Not only did we arrive, but we kind of took over. As long as this stayed a local case, he was free to kill as he pleased, now that it’s federal, we may be throwing up some roadblocks.”
“Like what?” Sheriff Rybolt asked.
“I don’t know, if I did, we’d be that much closer to catching him. However, our presence didn’t go unnoticed by the news, so I’m sure it didn’t go unnoticed by the killer. It wouldn’t be the first time a killer changed his timetable just because we arrived,” Gabriel told him.
I gave up on the French Toast and moved to eating a piece of toast with strawberry-like jam on it. I was pretty sure it wasn’t real strawberry or jam, but the packet had proclaimed it to be so. At the moment, I was more interested in my food than what any of them had to say. The killer had changed. There was a reason, but I didn’t know what the reason was. They could theorize until they were blue in the face and it wouldn’t help us.
As a matter of fact, I was pretty sure this meeting was all about who had the biggest set of balls. The Feds were now here, worse, the Marshals “Death Squad” as I had heard one uniformed officer call us, were involved. The locals in this area were used to dealing with things a certain way. Everyone could tell that. They were also used to US Marshals, but they were used to the sort that banged down doors and served warrants and made arrests of known fugitives. That was certainly not us.
Even the FBI Liaison, Special Agent Fred Arons, was more local than we were. Sure, they had called for our help, but I think they had thought we would magically swoop in and catch their killer from the moment we arrived. The possibility of that happening was pretty much zero. It to
ok time to catch a serial killer, no matter how crazy the hunters were.
“Ok, so if it isn’t us, maybe it’s something else,” I interrupted again, finishing off the toast. “Lucas thinks he has a home life. Maybe something in that home life is creating a disturbance in the pattern.”
“But it didn’t happen until you arrived,” Sheriff Rybolt reminded me.
“That’s not true,” I looked at him, remembering the case file. “There was a time period in December when it happened. It picked up again in January, after the holidays. Maybe he was visiting relatives in another town or state.”
“Do most serial killers have family?” Special Agent Arons gave me a doubtful look.
“Almost everyone has family, this guy is probably married with children,” Lucas answered for me. “This is a man who is highly functional, that means he has a job, a life, killing is an outlet for something, but aside from that, he is probably just like anyone else. He could be a neighbor, a church deacon, hell, just about anything. One thing we know for sure is that he is psychopathic, this means he is a highly functioning psychopath. He could be anyone and he is probably popular with his circle of friends and well respected.”
“You get all that from the way he kills his victims?” Arons turned on Lucas.
“No, I get that from the methodical way he does it. I get that from the fact that he has killed forty-one women in Alaska of all places and not been caught yet. He’s local, he’s respected and he’s