Eleven (10 page)

I shook my head conscious of Jack’s eyes on me.
Mark one off for the old man.
I was young, was that a crime?

“She went out of town to the next county over. Sh-shopping for decorations. She called from the store and sounded so happy.” Nancy’s eyes welled with tears again. “That was the last I heard from her.”

“What about that morning when she left? How did she seem to you?”

“Jus’ like normal, I s’pose.”

“She wasn’t anxious, upset? She didn’t complain about anyone watching or following her?”

Nancy went quiet. “Did Lance kill my baby girl?” Tears fell down her cheeks. She pulled her hand back.

“We’re still investigating who, and what exactly happened.”

“As Betty asked, is there more than one?”

I did my best to redirect. “What about Lance Bingham? Did your daughter know him?”

“Course. We all attended the same church.”

“Which church?”

“Lakeview Community.”

“Is it Catholic?”

“No, but it’s Christian.” Arms crossed.

“We will look into this for you Nancy.”

She blinked hard and rose along with Betty.

“Breakfast is on the county. Sheriff Harris settled up already,” Betty said.

The two women walked away, leaving three pairs of eyes watching me. Zachery shook his head, Paige looked at me with some sort of empathy, and Jack’s jaw sat askew.

“You two checked with the churches here I thought.”

“We did, even Lakeview, but Bingham wasn’t a member,” Paige said.

“And no one knew him?”

“They heard of him but didn’t know him.”

Jack fished out a cigarette. “It’s time to go.”

CHAPTER 13

 “You can’t promise anyone anything. First rule.” Jack spoke with a lit cigarette perched in his lips.

The four of us were standing near the SUVs in the parking lot.

“All I said is we would look into her missing daughter.”

“What you in effect promised is something that might not even factor in to this case.” He took a solid drag from the cigarette, letting the ash build up on the butt.

“But she very well might.”

“You a gambler, Kid? Because that’s what you just did.”

“Her daughter knew Bingham, went to the same church—”

“But three years ago Bingham was in prison. If, and I’m using that generously, if the girl is the last victim, it wasn’t Bingham who killed her.” He dropped the burning cigarette to the dirt and extinguished it with a twist of his shoe. “Their prior relationship might not mean anything. We don’t give people false hope.” Jack turned to get in the SUV.

“And what’s wrong with false hope? Isn’t hope of any kind better than none?”

Jack stopped moving and didn’t say a word. Zachery watched me with large eyes, and Paige’s movements froze with the SUV door open and her hand on the handle. Seconds passed.

“Seriously.” I knew the single word came out as a desperate appeal.

Jack got into the SUV and slammed the door.

“Shit!” I stomped a foot into the dirt of the parking lot and found myself turning to Zachery for reassurance. He shook his head and got into the other SUV.

It had already been decided before I got a lesson on what to say and what not to, which direction we would be heading. Jack and I would be seeing Colt Smith, Sally’s fiancé, and Paige and Zachery would be paying the guy’s parents a visit. I found it ironic how something
that might not even have to do with the case
, as Jack put it, had us literally spinning wheels on the gravel to investigate it. Of course, I kept that part to myself.

We now knew the name of the church that Bingham had attended, the Lakeview Community Church, a non-Catholic denomination. We had assumed that he would have an affiliation with Catholicism because the talk about repenting and gaining forgiveness was similar terminology as was used in the religion.

This factor just proved, however, nothing in the analysis was concrete. Maybe Bingham’s connection to the religion went back further than Salt Lick. Maybe there was Catholicism in his past, maybe there wasn’t.

We had forwarded the photograph of Sally to Jones for comparison to the most recent victim. Jack activated the hands-free and called Jones to see how he was making out. Jack had to leave a message, and that didn’t improve his mood any.

We pulled up to the address indicated for Colt Smith and were about to get out of the SUV when the phone rang. Caller identity read Nadia Webber. Jack answered by saying, “You got the Twit thing figured out?” He looked over at me. He had intentionally referred to Twitter incorrectly.

“I have something better than that. You also asked me to dig into any open cases that show similar MOs to this case. Sarasota, Florida, sir.”

“What are we looking at?”

“Eleven bodies.”

“Ah, shit.”

“The murders date back to ’71.”

“Bingham would have been twenty-two at the time,” I said.

“Tell them to forward all the information they have on the case.”

“Have already.” She paused only a few seconds. “I also have accessed Lori Carter’s medical records. She was admitted to the hospital eight times. She had stitches to her cheek once. The last time her nose was broken.”

“Is there a record of any charges against her husband?”

“No, nothing.”

Jack disconnected the call and leaned back into his seat.

The curtain in the front window of the house pulled back, and a woman looked out. Jack either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He carried on as if we were parked in an abandoned lot.

“Bingham has no next of kin, and no children on record.” Jack ground a palm into the steering wheel. “With the empty grave and the similar murders now in Florida...” His words trailed off, and he picked up seconds later. “The unsub would have admired Bingham, possibly hung around him.”

“No one’s mentioned anyone like that.”

Jack fished out a cigarette and lit up. He put the window down and blew the smoke out the window. “Well, Kid, we’re gonna have to find them.”

“What if the unsub was connected to Bingham originally through his sister Lori Carter. We could find out if she was a member of Lakeview Community Church, find out who her close friends were. It could be a place to start.”

“Hmm.”

Was he giving consideration to what I had said?

“We need to know who the other people in those pictures are.”

“Yeah, great idea, but how do you intend to find out? We already know they’re not in the missing persons database.”

Jack put the SUV into full reverse. Dust from the graveled driveway kicked up into the air.

“Aren’t we going to talk to Colt Smith?”

Jack drove with his eyes straight ahead, determination firing in them.

An hour later, we sat in the visitor’s room at Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex. Jack told me he would be taking the lead on this. The door opened, and the same guards from yesterday led Lance Bingham in.

His eyes instantly latched to mine. As they secured him to the table, across from Jack, he looked at me. A smile spread across his mouth. “Confess your sins yet?”

Jack slammed the flat of a hand against the table. Bingham never flinched. His eyes stayed fixed on mine.

Jack spread copies of the photos on the table. “These were on you when you were booked. Who are they?”

“If you confess your sins, you will be forgiven.” He directed the comment to me.

“He was twenty-three when he went missing.” Jack pressed an index finger to Travis Carter’s photo. “He was your brother-in-law.”

Bingham adjusted his focus to Jack. “He wasn’t worthy of her.”

“Is that why you killed him?”

“Who says I did?”

“We know he beat your sister, got her admitted to the hospital. You think of yourself as The Redeemer. Were you your sister’s savior?”

 Bingham’s eyes lit and narrowed as a lizard’s. “You’ve been doing your homework.”

“We know you love Twitter—”

Bingham laughed. “So impressive you found out about Twitter seeing as I sign away my human rights to log onto the Internet.”

“It allows you to feel powerful, needed, and influential.” Jack dragged out the last word. “And you especially like feeling that way.”

“You think you know someone.” A sardonic smile sat on his lips.

“What about him?” Jack pointed to the photo of Kurt McCartney. There was no reaction on Bingham’s face. “You know all of these people—”

“Says who?”

“You carried them on your person. They were your trophies.”

The statement warranted another laugh. “Maybe I’m lonely. Carrying pictures of strangers makes me feel a connection to others.”

“We know about the other murders.”

“You said there were ten bodies under my house. I have no idea how they got there.” He scanned the table for a few seconds; two of them were spent on Sally Windermere.

We took the photo given to us by Sally’s mother and printed it in wallet-size to place among the ones taken from him at the time of booking.

“You knew Travis Carter. Why carry the picture of a man who beat your sister?”

Bingham shrugged. “He was family.”

“But you also knew her, didn’t you?” Jack put a finger on the picture of Sally. “And before you lie to us, we know you did .”

Bingham opened his hands, palms up on the table. “I didn’t have that picture. Where did you get it?”

“She is dead.” Jack stretched the truth.

Bingham looked at me, a sick smile on his face. “You haven’t answered me. Have you confessed your sins?”

I moved forward three steps. This man wasn’t going to hold power over me, despite the evil in his heart, the intent in his eyes, and his outreach to the world. “Have you?”

Bingham’s face cracked into a wider smile before transforming into laughter.

Out in the hall, Jack patted his pocket but didn’t pull out the cigarette pack. “He said he didn’t have the picture of Sally. We know he didn’t at the time of booking because we slipped it in there, but he recognized her. He also made it sound as if it were in the past tense. His words were,
I didn’t have that picture
. Maybe he didn’t at the time of booking, but the unsub sent it to him since he’s been in here?”