After parking, we walked in quietly, mindful of any afternoon services, but the place was all but vacant save for a woman dusting the pews. “Can I help you?” she asked when she saw us.
Candice strode forward and introduced herself before jumping right to the purpose of our visit. After she’d explained that she was there on behalf of Mrs. Dixon and was looking into her granddaughter’s disappearance, the woman directed us to the office building next door. “You’ll want to see the church secretary, Genevieve. She’s been here for twenty years and knows everyone who’s ever come or gone from this place.”
We found Genevieve in a tiny office suite on the second floor of the building we’d been directed to. I guessed she was about sixty, but she looked much younger with a smooth caramel-colored complexion and beautiful amber eyes.
Candice introduced us and told her why we’d come. “Oh, how is Francine?” she asked when she heard we’d just come from Mrs. Dixon’s.
“I think she could use some company,” I said bluntly. “I believe that poor woman is as sad and lonely as they come.”
Genevieve clenched her fist and placed it over her heart, like it pained her greatly to hear that. “You know, when Fatina went missing, Francine came here every day to pray. But when it became clear that her grandchild wasn’t coming back, she just lost all faith. It was like she felt personally betrayed by God. She stopped comin’ to church, so the reverend and me went to her every Sunday. But soon she stopped answering her door and she refused to take our calls. After a while, I guess we gave up on her like she gave up on us.”
“I think she could use another visit,” I said. “And I think she could use her piano back.”
Genevieve’s mouth fell open. “Where’s her piano?”
“She said it was in storage.”
“Oh, that poor woman!” she exclaimed. “She loved her music more than breathing. She used to play and sing for our choir. Lord, Lord, that woman has a voice!”
“Maybe some members of your congregation can help her get the piano out of storage?”
Genevieve grabbed a pad from her desk and scribbled on it. “I’m makin’ myself a note,” she said. “We’ll get to it right away.”
After making sure that Mrs. Dixon was taken care of, we focused on the painter. Candice explained that a week before Fatina had gone missing, Mrs. Dixon had had her house painted by someone who posted his information on the church’s bulletin board. “Do you currently have anyone in your congregation who might make a living as a painter?” Candice asked.
Genevieve tapped her lip thoughtfully. “We have quite a few men who might fit that description. I’ll have to go through our records to find out, but if Francine got that name off of our bulletin board, then the man would have had to go through me. No one’s allowed to post anything up there without my permission, and I make sure that anyone wantin’ to sell anything or advertise is either a member of the congregation or related to someone who is.”
Candice and I brightened. That was exactly what we’d been hoping for. “He would have posted his ad sometime near the spring of two thousand eight. So you can exclude anyone fitting that description who wasn’t a member before then.”
“Leave it to me,” she assured us. “It might take me a few days, but I’ll get you a list together.”
We left the church buoyed by the fact that we might finally have a solid lead, and Candice drove us over to Antoine’s. This time we got lucky; he was outside in his driveway washing his Jeep.
“Had a feeling I’d see you two again,” he said cordially as we walked up the drive.
“Wonder why,” Candice muttered under her breath.
“Thanks again for saving my life,” I said loudly. I felt a little guilty over the fact that we had to ask Antoine about talking to Loraine Walker.
Antoine scrubbed his car with a sponge. “Part of the job,” he said, and for the first time I saw the hint of a wry grin on his face.
“Part of the job?”
“Protect and serve,” he recited.
Candice and I exchanged a look. “Ah,” she said. “Well, we really do appreciate it, Lieutenant.”
“But you’re not here to talk about that.”
“No.”
Antoine tossed his sponge into a nearby bucket and turned to face us. Placing his hands on his hips, he said, “Did you find Keisha’s killer?”
“Not yet,” Candice said.
“Got any leads?”
I had to marvel at how quickly Antoine took control of things like conversations and drowning women.
“No,” Candice told him bluntly. I was a little disappointed that she didn’t at least share the possible lead we’d just gotten from Genevieve.
“Then what’s this about?” Antoine asked.
Candice kept her voice level, calm, almost friendly. “Did you perhaps investigate your sister’s disappearance on your own?”
“Of course I did,” he said. “She was my baby sister, ma’am.”
I was surprised at his honesty. For once he was being completely forthcoming.
But I could tell that he still wasn’t winning points with Candice. “I see,” she said. “In the course of your own investigation, did you perhaps interview a woman named Loraine Walker?”
“Yes.”
“So you lied to us when we first talked to you. You knew about her daughter, Patrice, before we mentioned her.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked, shocked to discover that Antoine had told me a bold-faced lie and I hadn’t picked up on it.
Antoine regarded me coolly. “When you two showed up on my doorstep, I had no idea what your motives were. I mean, why would you want to dig into a cold case that even the FBI hadn’t been interested in?”
He had a point, but I countered with, “Does it really matter what our motives were as long as we were looking into it?”
Antoine gave me a crooked smile. “I’ve been in a war zone for the past year, ma’am. We learn not to trust strangers pretty quick.”
“Are you willing to be straight with us from now on?” Candice asked him pointedly.
“I will if you will,” he replied, and it was clear he didn’t believe we had nothing new to share with him.
Still, Candice withheld. “The moment we get something solid, Lieutenant, I promise to bring you into the loop.”
Antoine’s eyes studied her for a long moment before he pushed away from his Jeep and went to pick up the sponge again. “Sure you will,” I heard him mutter.
Candice waited a moment to ask her next question. I knew his ability to read her was throwing her off a bit. “Lieutenant, did you discover anything that might be important to our investigation?”
But my savior was out of patience with us. “I’m done answering questions, Ms. Fusco. When you want to open up to me, I’ll open up to you.”
Candice pressed her lips together, clearly frustrated. “Thank you again for your time, Lieutenant. We’ll stop bothering you now and let you get back to washing your car.”
Once we were safely out of earshot, I pressed Candice to consider being straight with Antoine. “What do we have to lose?” I asked her as we got in the car.
She didn’t answer me right away, and I thought it was mostly a pride thing for her. Other than me, she hated working a case with someone peering over her shoulder. It’s what prompted her to leave the big firm she used to work for and hang her own shingle. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “But I’d prefer to have him butt out and work this case with just you and me.”
“Okay, but at some point we’ll have to fill him in.”
Candice smiled. “Right,” she agreed. “The moment we haul Keisha’s killer in, I’ll personally place that call.”
The next few days held little in the way of progress. There wasn’t much we could do until we heard from Genevieve, so after a few days of waiting for the phone to ring, Candice placed several calls to the St. Louis PD and county morgue to try to
track down Fontana Carter, and when that seemed to go nowhere, she did another search of public records to see if there were any more possible victims from our killer that maybe we’d overlooked.
“Whoa,” she said as she sat on the love seat opposite me in her condo.
“What?”
Candice swiveled her laptop around so that I could see the screen. The face peering out at me was another adorable little girl with a slight overbite and almond-shaped eyes. A cold prickle tingled my skin. To my mind’s eye her image was flat and two-dimensional. “Who is she?”
“Essence Jackson,” Candice said. “A missing-persons record was filed with the Dallas police on October tenth, of last year.”
“Did it go to the FBI?”
Candice moved her laptop back to face her. “I doubt it. She’d turned fourteen two months before she went missing.”
I cocked my head. “Why does that matter?”
“Children who disappear under the age of thirteen are considered critical missings, and protocol dictates that the FBI is looped in. But if they’re fourteen or older, they aren’t considered critical and are handled only by the local PD. I missed this one somehow in my first search.”
I got up and went over to sit next to Candice. “She’s a little older than the other girls,” I said.
Candice nodded. “Yeah, but look at her, Abby. She looks younger, doesn’t she?”
“She does,” I agreed. With those big doe eyes, Essence didn’t look a day over twelve.
Candice then read some of the details out loud. “Essence Jackson, age fourteen; missing since the evening of October sixth.”
“Why did her parents wait so long to report her missing?”
Candice’s eyes darted across the screen. “She lived with foster parents, and according to this, she’d run away from their home on several previous occasions, but had always come back within a few days. It sounds like it was a difficult relationship.”
“Well, if you’re wondering, Essence is no longer with us,” I said sadly.
Candice’s shoulders slumped. “Same guy?”
I closed my eyes and focused on her energy. “I think so.”
Candice shut her laptop and got up to fetch her purse. Retrieving her notepad, she walked back to me and sat down again. “We need to map this out,” she said, and began jotting down names and dates. “So far, we know that Patrice was murdered in March of oh-eight and Keisha was murdered in May.”
“Then Fatina was murdered in January of two thousand nine.”
“And now Essence in October of last year.”
“He’s still killing,” I said. I’d hoped that since Fatina had died over a year ago, maybe the serial killer had been imprisoned on another crime or even killed himself. Essence’s death was evidence that, as of the previous October at least, he was still out there.
Candice sighed and rubbed her eyes tiredly. “We’ve got to find this guy, Abby.”
“Did you call Genevieve?”
“This morning. A small electrical fire burned through a section of the church’s basement over the weekend. They put the fire out quickly, but Genevieve told me she’s had her hands full for the past couple of days. She did promise me she’d get to our list soon though.”
“Maybe you could call her again and beg her to make it a top priority?”
Candice nodded. “I think I’d better.” Candice then checked her watch and made a face.
“What?”
“I have to go.”
“Got a date?” I asked hopefully.
“Brice and I are having dinner tonight. I’m making his favorite dish and I’m planning to declare my undying love and devotion to him, or something slightly less ridiculous.”
My eyebrows rose. “Can it be that Candice Fusco is finally stepping up to that plate?”
“Someone’s got to,” she said, tucking her laptop into its case and gathering the rest of her things.
I thought I’d give her a little encouragement, so I said, “Speak from your heart and you’ll be fine. Just tell him how you really feel, and the rest will take care of itself.”
“You’d better be right about this,” she warned playfully. “If he tells me at the end of tonight that he just wants to be friends, I’m gonna come lookin’ for you.”
I laughed. “I’m perfectly willing to have you take that chance. Now get out of here and go make that dinner!”
As soon as I’d closed the door behind Candice, Dutch called. “You got a minute?”
“Sure, cowboy. What’s up?”
“Can you come down to the office?”
I eyed the clock. It was quarter to three. “Um . . . sure. Want to tell me why?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here.”
On that cryptic note I was left to pull my awful-looking hair into a scrunchie, slather on far too much makeup to distract from the bad hair, pout fiercely at my reflection, and dash out the door.
When I arrived at the office, I found that little had changed since I’d been there last—except that there was a big old “9” on the whiteboard under number of cases solved. I smiled in satisfaction that not only had we met the goal set forth by D.C. and by Brice, but we’d pretty much blown those numbers right out of the water in less than a month.
Dutch waved at me from Harrison’s office and my smile vanished. With a little dread I saw that the blinds were closed. “Uh-oh,” I muttered, walking forward with a pounding heart. I’d never been fired from a job before, and I expected that’s what this was probably about. Either IA had determined that Rodriguez and I were at fault, or Brice had discovered that Candice and I were investigating an FBI cold case on our own.
When I entered Brice’s office, I was surprised to see Rodriguez already there, looking just as nervous as I felt. “Hey,” he said when he saw me. “Heard about that close call you had in Dallas. You okay?”
I sat down in the chair on his left and squeezed his good hand. “I’m fine,” I assured him. “Thanks so much for asking.”
“How’s the scalp?” Brice asked from behind his desk.
“Ready for a shower,” I admitted. “Only a few more days before the staples come out.”
Dutch closed the office door and took a seat next to me. I could see that a single file had been placed on Brice’s desk. With Rodriguez’s presence, I assumed it had to be IA’s findings.
“We’ve called you both in to let you know that the Internal Affairs investigation has been completed, and while they did find fault with you, Agent Rodriguez, for taking an untrained civilian employee to a possible crime scene, they have determined that you could not have foreseen that, given the lack of information from the original investigation. Your old partner admitted that when he followed up with the garage owner, he left out of his notes the fact that Clady’s son had been the one who’d towed the kids’ car and then dropped them off at the motel. Your old partner had also failed to do a background check on Darrell. Therefore, you had no reason to suspect anyone at Clady’s—especially given that you didn’t know previously Russell had a son.
“Further, given that you, Ms. Cooper, have had no firearms training whatsoever, the fact that you were so effectively able to take out the assailant is a commendable accomplishment. IA is making sure to note this in your file.”
I realized I’d been holding my breath and I let it out slowly, but I was still a little unsure what all that meant. “Soooo,” I said slowly, “are we off the hook?”
Brice winked at me. “Yes. You two are officially off the hook. And you, Ms. Cooper, are up for a commendation from D.C.”
“I am?”
Dutch reached over and gave me a gentle squeeze to my shoulder. “Congratulations, Abby,” he said softly.
I shook my head, as if I could rattle some sense into it. “Does this mean we can go back to work too?”
“It does,” Brice assured me. “I realize we’ve called you in on short notice, so if you would prefer to start back with us the day after tomorrow, that
’s fine by me.”
“I’d like to put in a couple of hours today, sir,” Rodriguez said. I could only imagine that he’d probably gone a little stir-crazy at home.
“Of course, Agent Rodriguez,” Brice said, and turned expectantly to me.
“Can I come back tomorrow?” I asked. I’d been unprepared for this little turn of events, and there were some errands that I had to run.
Harrison smiled. “Certainly. We’ll see you tomorrow around eight thirty, Ms. Cooper.”
Dutch walked me out and gave me a big ol’ hug in the hallway. “I’m proud of you,” he whispered into my ear.
“For what?”
Dutch seemed surprised by my question. “For everything.”
“Everything?”
Dutch grinned. “Have you seen the whiteboard, Edgar? We’re solving cases right and left in there.”
I blushed. “You coming home for dinner?”
Dutch wiped his face with his hand. “Wish I could, dollface, but there are a couple of cases I’m working and we’re still trying to sort through all the possible connections.”
“You mean the one with those three dead guys we were talking about the other day?”
“Yep. Sure could use your input on that tomorrow.”
“Absolutely! I promise to help you guys out first thing.”
Dutch wrapped his arm around my shoulders and walked me to the door at the front of the office. “Any luck with the missing girls?” he asked before seeing me off.
“We have some intel we’re waiting to hear back on. It’s a long shot, but if it pays off, it could be gold.”
“Just make sure Harrison doesn’t hear that it’s one of our cases.”
“If the lead comes in, how about I tell you what we’ve found and let you take the case back?”
Dutch’s eyebrows rose. “Is Candice going to be okay with that?”
“Probably,” I said. “I mean, I’ll ask her, but I think if I phrase it right, she’ll agree that it’s better than telling Brice we’ve been working one of his cases behind his back this whole time.”
Dutch gave me one last hug, promising that he’d try not to be out too late, and I left to run errands.