Believe No One (4 page)

‘Okay,' she said, at last. ‘I'll meet you there.'

Dominic's on the Hill was a favourite with the St Louis PD, and a crowd of cops were living it up at a twelve-seater table in the centre of the room. Fennimore had worked with two of them in the past, and he'd met others after one of his lectures. They invited him to join them, but Fennimore declined, waiting instead in a booth at the back of the restaurant, nervously watching the door.

Ten minutes later, Kate Simms walked in, and he had to grip the table to quell the urge to surge to his feet. With cops, a look could be cause for speculation, and gossip could quickly turn to outright scandal; Kate had come all the way to the United States to avoid exactly that, so he kept his seat and waved her over, trying to look insouciant. They looked anyway – how could they not? She was tanned and fit, dressed in a plain white blouse and navy cotton chinos. The last time they spoke, her brown hair was cut pixie-style, but she'd grown it out, and now it hung, straight and glossy, to her shoulders. One of the cops made eye contact and grinned. Fennimore frowned and made a point of shaking her hand and offering her a seat with ostentatious formality.

Kate played along. ‘Cops?' she said softly as she sat opposite. ‘How marvellous.'

‘I'm sorry. I didn't think.'

The look she gave him said that was par for the course.

‘How are things at home?' he said, breaking a pause that threatened to become a silence. ‘Becky must be in the middle of her GCSEs.'

‘Oh, Becky's
seething
with teenage hormones just now. Exams are
killing
her with stress. Or boredom. Or both, simultaneously.'

‘Sounds grim,' he said.

‘She'll be fine once the exams are over and she can escape back to London to see her old schoolfriends.' The family had relocated to the north of England after Simms's relationship with London Metropolitan Police soured.

‘And Tim?' he asked cautiously. Fennimore had only found out about the five-year-old the previous year. Simms must have fallen pregnant just before he took flight to Scotland. But she had proved evasive on that interesting coincidence.

‘Tim has Granny wrapped around his little finger,' Simms said, with an affectionate smile. ‘Kieran's the only one who can do anything with him – he's a daddy's boy.'

‘So Kieran's managing okay without you?'

‘Well, Mum's there, of course, and Kieran …' A strange light came into her eyes, and he waited for her to say more, but after a moment she braced, forcing a smile. ‘Kieran's having a blast in his new job.'

‘That's good.' The peculiar light flashed in her eyes again and her left thumb found her wedding ring. She worried at it, the smile fading from her face, and he added, ‘Isn't it?'

‘Yeah,' she said. ‘Great.'

Fennimore looked into the soft brown of her irises; when Kate Simms was angry or amused, amber light seemed to flash from the centres, but this was different; more complicated. He wished he was better at reading people, but as Simms often told him, he lacked the social skills for subtlety. Oh, he recognized evasion and bullshit easily enough; that was the scientist in him. Assume everyone lies, believe no one and question everything. But the subtler emotions and non-verbal cues often escaped him.

‘“Great”?' he repeated. ‘Am I missing something here?'

‘I do hope so,' she said. ‘Shall we order?'

‘Okay. You don't want to launch straight in?'

‘Will an hour or two make a difference?' she asked.

‘No,' he said, sad to admit it.

‘Then whatever you need to ask will wait. I'm homesick, and it's good to speak with an old friend.' He thought he saw her eyes begin to glisten, but she picked up her napkin and flicked it open, adding with a half-smile, ‘And I may as well get a decent meal out of you, if I'm expected to sing for my supper.'

He showed her a printout of the photograph after they'd ordered coffee at the end of the meal. She gasped, seized the photograph and pored over it while he told her that it was sent by anonymous email, the account opened with the purpose of sending it and closed immediately after he'd received the attachment.

She set down the photograph carefully, looked into his face. ‘Nick,' she said. ‘You've had scores of just this type of thing over the years. If it was genuine – if the sender
believed
it was genuine – they would have sent contact details.'

‘Not if by sending it they would implicate themselves in some way.'

‘Then why send it at all?'

‘I don't know. Guilt, or concern, or—'

‘Cruelty?' she finished. ‘What if this is just another sadist who wants to twist the knife?'

‘It may be,' he agreed. ‘But you have to admit, you thought it was Suzie.'

‘Yes, I thought it looked like her – at first. But a thousand sixteen-year-old girls – a
hundred
thousand – will look like Suzie.'

‘I know – I know that. But, Kate – do you remember Suzie had that nasty accident on her skateboard a few weeks before—' he faltered ‘—before she went missing?'

‘Of course.' Suzie had been practising kerb drops on a board she'd borrowed from Kate's daughter, Becky.

Fennimore turned the photograph, located the exact position of the mark on the girl's temple and placed the image in front of Simms again. ‘See?'

She looked at the picture, then up into his eyes, and he read compassion and weariness in hers. ‘I see a shadow, Nick. A smudge on the screen.'

‘That's why I need your help.'

‘With
what
?' Now she just seemed exasperated.

‘Digital enhancement,' he said. ‘I have the software, but I don't have the expertise. If the image was enhanced, I could be sure.'

She shook her head.

‘There might be contextual clues in the picture – things I've missed—'

‘No,' she said. ‘A hundred times, no.' She had raised her voice, and heads turned at the cop table on the other side of the room.

She flushed, lowered her voice. ‘You need to stop torturing yourself. I thought you had a lead, something I could work with. I'm sorry, Nick, truly, I am.' She gathered her belongings and slid out of the booth. ‘I wish I could help you. I—' She stopped, took a breath. ‘Have a great trip,' she said, then she turned on her heel and left.

Alone in his hotel, Fennimore checked his daughter's Facebook page. His coded message to the anonymous emailer remained unanswered. He read the latest comments, deleting the hate and allowing the rest into the public domain, then checked the three email accounts he kept active. There was no sign of a reply from ‘Anon'. He found an intriguing message on one of his private accounts – an address he gave out to delegates at conferences. It was from A. Hicks at Williams County Sheriff's Office. The only A. Hicks he knew was a deputy sheriff in Oklahoma.

Sheriff's Deputy Abigail Hicks. Fennimore had been in the US for an IHIA annual symposium the year before last, and accepted an invitation at short notice to host a seminar at the Christian Laurie Conference in Mountain Home, Arkansas. The excellent fishing, low crime rate and cheap real estate made it a popular retirement destination for police officers. They took it personally when a young woman was murdered at a rest stop just off I-40, near the city. The retired police officers created a charity and raised funds to set up the conference named after the young murder victim. They ran the conference on a tight budget to keep it affordable to delegates, many of whom were self-funding: deputies, paralegals and CSIs from the rural counties who couldn't afford the cost of bigger venues. Deputy Hicks worked out of the sheriff's office in Creek County. She impressed Fennimore as sharp, astute and persistent.

Her email was formal, restrained, and the style didn't match up with his recollection of her forthright and friendly manner. She was investigating the murder of a young woman, she said, discovered by a farmer when he went to drag a fallen tree out of one of his ponds.

‘The body was buried in mud when the bank of the pond collapsed. The landowner reports that the pond was frozen between November and March. In consideration of the climate and geographical factors, the Medical Examiner estimates that the body was probably put in the water in late October or early November, before the frosts set in. The body was well preserved because of a combination of cold and the mud protecting her from animal predation.'

It read like a report from one of his undergrad students, and he wondered if she was practising her skills on him. Deputy Hicks thought that the death of this victim might be linked to another murder, three years earlier.

She had included her mobile number. It was 11 p.m. and when she answered the call, he heard country music in the background, a clamour of voices.

‘Professor!' she exclaimed, in her old friendly tone. ‘How're you?' Not waiting for an answer she said, ‘Hold on – I'm gonna step outside.' A few seconds later, the music and background chatter cut off abruptly.

‘You got my email,' she said. ‘Thanks for getting back.' He could hear the grin in her voice. ‘So, will you look at my case?' she asked, direct as always.

‘That depends. What makes you think it's linked to the earlier murder?'

‘Both those women were in water, both were found within a mile of I-44 and they both had duct-tape residue in their hair.'

‘Well, water does wash off evidence, which is why it's such a popular medium for dumping bodies,' he teased. ‘Interstate 44 is a very long road, if memory serves, and it's not unusual for killers to gag their victims.'

‘Is that what they call British sarcasm?' she asked. ‘I
do
know that water destroys evidence and murderers gag their victims, thank you, Professor. And I drove from Wichita Falls, Texas to St Louis, Missouri along I-44 more'n once, so I know how long it is.'

He was smiling, enjoying the fact that she would not take crap from him, even when she was asking a favour, but his scientific antennae twitched with what she said next.

‘But here's the kicker: the glue was too high up on the head for a gag. I'm thinking it was more like a blindfold.'

‘That
is
unusual.' Already he could feel himself being drawn in.

‘Isn't it?' she said. ‘Why blindfold a person if you know you're going to kill them? I mean, they're going to be
too dead
to identify you. And why'd the perpetrator cut it off when he dumped the body?'

He thought about this. ‘Was the victim clothed, or unclothed?'

‘She was naked – no jewellery, nothing.'

‘So, he was removing anything distinctive.'

‘Duct tape – “distinctive”?' she said.

‘Come, now, Deputy,' Fennimore chided. ‘I know you've had a beer, but you're not thinking. What if it was a new brand, or a specialist tape, or extra strength; there might be something unusual in the fabric weave or in the chemical composition of the glue.'

She said, ‘Uh-huh,' and he got the feeling she was making notes.

Suddenly, he remembered something. ‘You said the tape was
cut
off?'

‘The ME's report said some of my victim's hair had been cut straight across, right where the glue was situated.'

‘Of course, he'll have the glue analysed …'

‘It's at the lab over in Tulsa now.'

‘Then it's simple – all you need to do is talk to the Medical Examiner, ask him—'

‘News flash – not all doctors're men,' she said. ‘Dr Janine Quint was the FME.'

‘Okay, ask
her
to compare the samples from the two victims. If the chemical composition is the same, it strengthens your case.'

‘I can't do that – for one thing, we don't
have
a sample for comparison off of the first victim.'

‘You just said there was duct-tape glue on both bodies.'

‘Professor, do you know how county sheriff's departments operate in the United States?'

‘I've watched
High Noon
a few times.'

‘Well, some would say it hasn't changed a whole hell of a lot,' she said with a chuckle. ‘Sheriff is elected, and him – usually it
is
him – and his office're funded through local taxes. Now, if you live in one of the poorest counties in the state, with household incomes forty per cent below the national average, the local law-enforcement budget is apt to get squeezed.'

She seemed to have wandered off the subject, but Fennimore didn't mind – he liked the way that Americans would begin an explanation by telling a story; most he'd met told a good tale, and country folk were the best storytellers of all. Stories gave context, and context was everything in his line of work.

‘In the state of Oklahoma, a lot of counties will take you on as a deputy on a suck-it-and-see type of contract for six months,' Hicks went on. ‘During that time, they can pay you minimum wage and they are not required by statute to provide professional training. After those six months are up, the county is obliged to pay to have those deputies CLEET trained – that's the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training. When you're CLEET trained, you can take the oath and become a
certified
Law Enforcement Officer – with full entitlements
and
a hike in pay, too.'

‘You're about to tell me that a lot of deputies don't make it past the suck-it-and-see,' Fennimore said.

‘Spit out in the dirt like sour candy,' she said. ‘No notice period, no severance pay. Some give up, go to work at the county jail, if they'll have 'em, Walmart if they won't.'

‘And some move on to the next county?'

‘Including me,' she said.

‘Where are you up to now?' he asked.

‘Williams County Sheriff's Office is my fifth in three years,' she said. ‘In all that time, about the only law-enforcement training I got was the Mountain Home Conference, and I pay for that out of my own pocket.'