Delusions With Murder: A Rilynne Evans Mystery (7 page)

Matthews shifted his gaze from the map to Rilynne looking both confused and impressed.  “Brilliant, Evans,” he said as he turned abruptly and ran out the door, almost knocking Detective Wilcome over, who had just walked back in.

“Okay everyone, I see you all found the binders our crime scene investigator Ben Davis put together for us.  The bank that owns the ATM in the grocery store across the street from the apartment building is sending over the camera footage for us to go through.  The camera points right at the front of the building, so hopefully we will catch the perpetrator leaving with our victim.  I know I don’t have to tell you, but assuming the pattern is consistent, we only have five days to find Mr. Hartley alive.  Okay, so does anyone have any leads or ideas of where we should look next?” Wilcome looked almost desperate for someone to provide anything new that might help them get ahead of this guy.

The looks around the table were all pretty consistent, exhaustion and desperation.  Rilynne was the only one who seemed to have anything to say.

“Matthews is looking into which houses within our search area have basements.  The perpetrator would need a place to hold the victims that would provide a good deal of control and containment, which a basement would provide.”

The idea they had a new place to start looking seemed to arouse a bit of hope amongst the detectives.

“I’m going to go back to the victims’ families,” said LaShad.  “The key to catching this guy is finding out how he’s picking his victims.”

“Good.  Skinner, Johnson, and Steele will work with you.  Start at the beginning.  I want every detail of their lives starting with their first words.  Evans and Davidson, find Matthews and get working on the list of houses with basements.  Butcher and Jerkins, check on the ATM tapes.  As soon as they get in, I want every frame examined.  I want a picture of everyone entering during the time the cameras in the building were off.  The first thing I want you to focus on is the abduction time, though.  If Hartley was lured out, we should be able to see who he walked out of the building with.

“Also, pay close attention to anyone carrying anything out of the building big enough to hold an unconscious man.  We have only a thirty-minute window from the time we know he arrived home and the call came in.  That gives us a small area to concentrate on.”  Wilcome took a deep breath and glanced around.  He looked like he wanted to add something else, but couldn’t find the words.  “You know what you need to do,” he stated simply, then turned and exited the room.

Detective Matthews had been right; there was a short list of homes within their search area that had basements.  “There are thirty-eight homes within the city that have built in basements.  It will take a little longer to get the list of homes in the woods.  Even then, we are not guaranteed that if the killer built a house with a basement, he would have put it in the building plans.  But it gives us a place to start.”  Matthews divided the list between the three of them, and they got to work.

Rilynne had just finished getting the owner information on the houses on her list when a brown lunch bag dropped down on her desk beside her.  “Tuna with sliced tomatoes on white.  Your favorite, right?”

She spun around in her chair to see Ben holding what appeared at first glance to be an evidence box.  Upon closer inspection, she saw it was filled with the paper to-go bags from the diner across the street.  “How did you know?” she asked as he handed her a bottled water from the box.

“Noticing details is my job,” his knuckles dragged mindlessly across his chin as he quickly changed the conversation.  “So, are you making any progress?”

Rilynne stood up to help Ben distribute the lunch bags to the rest of the detective unit.  “Yea, we have some new leads.  We got lucky with the placement of the ATM across the street.”

“What ATM?” he asked quickly, dropping the bag that was in his hand. 

“There’s an ATM in the grocery store that faces the front of our building,” she responded as she reached down to grab it.  “Hopefully we will get a picture of who Hartley left with.  I… what happened to you?”  She had not noticed until she stood back up that there was something off.  Just below his hair line there was a fresh cut, with a bruise reaching all the way down to his left eye.

His ears burned red as he quickly smoothed his hair down, trying to cover the marks.  “I, uh… it’s a long story.  Well, I have to get back to work.  Just wanted to bring y’all some lunch.  I’ll see you around.”  He hastily placed the box on the desk behind Rilynne’s, and left the office.

“Huh,” she said under her breath to herself, then brushed it off and reached for her sandwich.

*     *     *

“Okay, so where do we stand?” Wilcome called from his desk across the room.  If the darkness had not been sneaking in from the office windows, Rilynne would not have known it was as late as it was.

“We have the owner records on the houses within the city limits that have basements.  Three are owned by older couples that have been ruled out.  One is a state foster home, and according the family services office there was a surprise inspection performed yesterday, and the basement is set up as a family entertainment area.  Two of the houses are currently vacant, one is condemned and the other is in the process of being sold.  Tylers and Rodriguez are looking into them now.”  Matthews, who had pinned the locations of the homes on the map, was removing the ones they had already ruled out.

“We are running background checks on the owners of the remaining ones,” Rilynne jumped in.  “We are also still waiting for the list of homes in the woods with basements.”

“Good,” Wilcome answered.  “Where are we on the footage from the ATM?”

“Butcher is working on getting us a copy of it right now,” Jerkins answered.  “We have the equipment set up for it as soon as it gets here.  We also have the images of the known people, so we can put names to faces as quickly as we can.”

Wilcome nodded slowly, “Good, good.  It’s a little after nine now, the rest of you head home.  I want you well rested for tomorrow.”

Rilynne grabbed the stack of papers off of her desk, and walked with the rest towards the elevators.

She seemed to be on autopilot for the walk home, and reached her building without remembering how she had gotten there.  She glanced up and down the street before walking in the door, and was relieved to see Nicole’s car was not there.  All she wanted tonight was a large glass of wine and as much quiet at possible to concentrate.  She moved her coffee table against the wall, and laid out the papers she had left the office with across the living room floor.

She has just finished pouring herself a glass of wine when there was a knock at the door.  For a brief moment, she considered pretending she wasn’t home, but decided against it.  She placed the glass on the table, and pulled the door open.

“You really should find out who’s at your door before you just open it.”  Despite the smile on his face, there was an obvious note of frustration in his voice.

“You are beginning to sound like my mother.  Besides, I have this beauty to protect me,” she said, tapping the sidearm still attached to her hip.  “So, did you come over just to harass me?”

“No,” Ben replied as his ears quickly burned red.  “I was actually wondering if Nicole was over here?  She has some files I really need, and she isn’t home or answering her phone.”

“No, I haven’t seen her.  Her car wasn’t here when I got home.  Would you like to come in?  I was just about to order a pizza and look over the case.”

“Um… yeah, sure.  I can stay for a bit.  What are you looking at?” he walked in the living room and sat on the pillow Rilynne threw on the floor for him.

“Do you want a beer?” she asked as she walked back into the kitchen to grab her wine and her case files.  “Or I have some wine if you prefer.”

“A beer would be great, thanks.”

She handed him the amber bottle and took a seat next to him on the floor.  “You worked all of the scenes right?  Well, except for the latest one.”

“All but the first abduction scene.  Nicole did that one herself, I believe.  Why do you ask?”

“I’m just trying to get inside of this guys head.  He put a lot of thought into the reactions he wanted to receive from the way he set the scenes.  Maybe if I understood the reactions better, it could help me understand him a little more.  It sounds silly, I know.”

“No, not at all.  It’s impressive, actually.  You seem to be able to get in these creeps heads better than anyone else.” Ben stared at the papers on the floor, and would not meet Rilynne’s eyes.

“Yeah, I have always had a knack for profiling people.  From what I hear, you are one of the top crime scene investigators in the country.  Now that’s an extraordinary accomplishment.”

Ben just shrugged and took a large swig of his beer.  “I just have a knack for noticing the details.” 

Rilynne chuckled and picked up a stack of crime scene pictures and handed them to Ben.  “Well, details are exactly what I’m looking for right now.  Let’s start with the first dumpsite.  What did you first notice about it?”

Ben flipped through the pictures.  It was a site similar to the one where Rilynne had found the last victim.  The body had been found by a group of college kids on a camping trip.  The pieces had been spread around the clearing, and no real effort was made to hide them.  The area was a popular spot for campers and hikers, and anyone from the area would have known the body would have been found relatively quickly. 

“We have had our share of murders, but I had never seen anything so brutal before,” he stated, staring at the picture of the victim’s head, which had been placed atop a pile of rocks.  “It was almost contradictory in itself.  He obviously wanted the body found, or he would have disposed of it more carefully.  But at the same time, he made some attempt at covering the pieces.”  He handed the picture to Rilynne. “Like the head; he placed it on a pile of rocks, but put a few branches on top of it to conceal it.  He didn’t just want the body found.  He wanted it to be a shock when it was.  You go to grab a small pile of brush to set a fire and find that you have grabbed a human head.”

“Yeah, that would be one hell of a shock. You want another beer?” she asked as she got up to refill her glass. 

“Sure, I could go for another.” 

Rilynne plopped back down on her pillow, and picked the picture of the head back up.  “Why do you think he changes their appearance?”

“He lost someone important to him and he’s trying to replace them in a way.  Or maybe the press is right, and he has a major thing for pirates.” He leaned back against the couch, grinning at Rilynne.

“It’s got to be the pirates,” Rilynne chortled.  She spun around to face Ben, and sat her glass of wine on the floor in front of her.  She was not used to seeing Ben so at ease.  Where he usually seemed closed in and shy, he was now relaxed and outgoing. 

“Maybe you could help me with these also,” she grabbed the stack of owner records for the houses with basements, and handed half to Ben.  “We think the men are being held in a basement, and these are the homes in the city within our search area that have one.”

“Not many are there?” he flipped through the stack before looking over the one on top.  “I guess we don’t really have a need for basements much here.  We always had one when I was growing up.  Even my brother had one when I moved in with him.  What makes you think a basement is being used?”

“It would be the ideal place to be able to control a full grown man,” she said while finishing her glass of wine in nearly one swallow.  Perhaps it was just the alcohol, but telling the lie didn’t sit right with her that time.

Sometimes it really got to Rilynne; she lived with a huge secret she had to keep from everyone.  Other than her mother, she had only told one other person about her ability, and that was Christopher.  But she didn’t even know Ben all that well; she didn’t know why it would be bothering her so much.

“So, are you going to tell me what happened to your head?”  She reached up and gently pushed his hair back to get a better look.  Though his ears flushed pink, he did not push her away.  The cut was worse than she had originally thought.  It was nearly an inch long, though his hair hid most of it.  The bruise ran down the side of his forehead and stopped below his eye.  If his hair had not been so long, it would have been much more noticeable.  Rilynne could not help but notice as she pulled her fingers back that his hair truly was as soft as it had appeared to be.  And the strong smell of peaches lingering around him was almost intoxicatingly sweet.

“It really wasn’t anything,” Ben said, his knuckles slowly dragging across his chin.  His chocolate eyes were searching Rilynne’s face, looking for a way past the question.  Although Rilynne was almost overcome with curiosity, she did not want to push him.  “It was a door wasn’t it?  You have to show them who’s the boss you know; don’t let them push you around like that.”

Ben let out a shocked little laugh as Rilynne twisted back around and leaned against the couch.  Ben had just finished the last of his beer when there was a knock at the door.  “I’ll get it,” he said, hoisting himself up and walking towards the door.  He pulled it open, revealing a very disheveled looking Nicole. 

“What happened to you?” Ben asked with a touch of concern in his voice.

She walked in and dropped down in a chair at the table.  “Eh, it’s just been one of those days,” she replied as she threw her head back and closed her eyes.