He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not (5 page)

He didn’t know what she’d done.

Chapter Three

T
he taller and brawnier of the five FBI agents scanned the faces of the Shadow Falls detectives sitting around the conference room table. Logan had the impression the man was cataloging each person’s features and comparing them to a mental list of the FBI’s most wanted. His hawklike gaze zeroed in on Logan. “Chief Richards?”

Logan nodded and stood. He’d worked with Feds before, but he was also used to working on their timetable. Since calling them this morning, he’d expected they would arrive several days, maybe even a week later, depending on their workload and whether they agreed with his opinion that he might be dealing with a serial killer. Having his secretary usher the Feds into Monday afternoon’s detective meeting was a pleasant surprise. They certainly hadn’t wasted much time driving in from the Jacksonville field office four hours away.

He shook the other man’s hand. “Call me Logan. Thanks for getting here so quickly.” He introduced Riley and the other detectives sitting around the room.

“I’m Special Agent Pierce Buchanan. We spoke on the phone.” He introduced each of the men who’d accompanied him.

“Welcome to the Panhandle,” Logan said, motioning to some empty chairs as he sat down. “I wish it were under better circumstances.”

“Trust me, I’d rather be here than anywhere else right now. This could be the break I’ve been looking for.”

One of the FBI agents whispered something to Pierce. He nodded and looked at Logan. “Mind if we set up some photos and diagrams around the room?”

“Not at all.”

Two of the special agents set briefcases on the table, and started piling the contents onto the conference room table and sorting it into stacks. Two other men began taping photographs onto the white board that ran along the back wall.

Pierce folded his arms across his chest as he stood beside Logan’s chair. “I’m convinced your killer is the same killer I’ve been chasing for the past couple of years.”

“And the Branson case we discussed on the phone?”

“From the photographs and case notes you emailed me, the signature fits. If so, this guy has operated longer than we thought. I’m surprised we didn’t hear about the Branson case before now. Is your station set up on VICAP?”

Logan hesitated. The previous chief of police hadn’t bothered to link the Shadow Falls PD with the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program database. As a result, the Branson case was never reported to the FBI. If it had been, the FBI would have sent an automatic notification back to the SFPD when a similar murder occurred. The SFPD could have teamed up with the FBI years ago. Maybe they could have solved the case and prevented Carolyn O’Donnell’s death.

“We’re set up with VICAP now,” he said, not willing to air his grievances with the former police chief in front of his men.

Pierce gave him an assessing glance. “You weren’t the chief when the Branson case happened?”

It sounded more like a statement than a question, but Logan answered anyway. “I worked in New York City for most of the past decade.”

“New York? I thought your name sounded familiar. You cracked the Metzger case, didn’t you? Hell of a job.”

Silence filled the room, and every eye turned to Logan. Metzger was a serial killer who’d plagued New York for fifteen months, killing a dozen women before Logan was put on the case. He’d solved it in less than three weeks. But he was never comfortable with the accolades he’d received. He’d simply come at the case with fresh eyes, saw a pattern others would have seen if they weren’t so close to it.

“What can you tell us about the killer?” Logan asked, steering the conversation back to what was important.

Pierce nodded, not looking the least bit offended by the gruff response. He was all business as he turned to his men and directed them at tacking up pieces of paper and pictures on the dry erase board. By now, it was covered with photographs of women who looked remarkably similar. They were all young, slim, white females with long brown hair.

A stab of guilt shot through Logan when a picture of Carolyn O’Donnell was added to the board. He didn’t know what else he could have done to find her in time, but it still bothered him that he hadn’t saved her.

He now realized that even if his men had told him about the Branson/Stockton case right when O’Donnell went missing, it wouldn’t have mattered. After reading through the old case file yesterday afternoon and learning that Dana Branson was killed in one of the cabins on Black Lake, he’d sent his men to search that area. The cabins were rotting and run-down, unused for years since a drought had dried up most of the lake. There was no sign that the killer had taken O’Donnell to one of those cabins. And the case files had yielded no other leads that could have helped them find her in time.

Logan looked past O’Donnell’s pictures to the pictures of Amanda. The first one was her college graduation photo from before the attack. Logan didn’t think she looked all that different now. She was still beautiful, even with her scar. She had the same mass of thick, cinnamon colored hair and deep blue eyes that tilted up at the corners.

The main difference between the woman in that photo and the woman he’d met this morning was her smile, or lack of one. He hated that a stranger had taken away the joy and hope that had filled her college picture.

The second photo was from the crime scene at Black Lake. Amanda was balled up inside a hollowed out oak tree where the police had found her after she’d escaped and hid from Dana’s killer. It wasn’t the first time Logan had seen that photo. But now that he’d met Amanda, seeing her skin so deathly pale and smeared with blood was far more disturbing. When an agent handed him a sheet of paper, Logan was grateful for the excuse to look away from that haunting picture.

“Special Agent Nelson is passing out the profile he put together on the killer,” Pierce said. “We’ll update it with information from the O’Donnell and Branson/Stockton cases, but we believe it’s still a viable profile.”

When everyone had a copy, he stepped to the white board. “We’ll review the profile in a few minutes. First, look at the pictures of the women he killed, or left for dead.”

“What do you mean,
left for dead
?” Riley asked from his seat on Logan’s left.

Pierce drew red circles around the faces of Dana, Amanda, and another woman.

“The killer’s pattern is to stab and strangle his victims, except for these three cases. He stabbed these women, but he didn’t kill them. He left them to bleed to death. We don’t think he cared if they lived or died. He plays a twisted game of chance with each victim, deciding whether to finish them off based on the outcome of that game.”

He glanced at Logan and nodded, as if to reassure him that he’d withhold the information about the thorns. That was something Logan had insisted on when he’d called the bureau. Having information to hold back was vital for culling out false confessions, or for proving they had the real killer in custody.

Continuing, Pierce said, “It’s not the killing that excites him as much as the fear he elicits from his victims.”

Encouraged by the possibility of another witness who might be more willing to be interviewed than Amanda was, Logan indicated the picture of the third woman circled in red. “Did she survive?”

“Only long enough to answer a couple of questions. She’d lost too much blood.” He pointed at Dana’s and Amanda’s pictures. “Since these two are his first known victims, their case is crucial to our investigation. A serial killer’s first murder is often the one where mistakes are made, before he hones his craft and learns from those mistakes. That’s why we’ll focus heavily on both the Branson/Stockton case
and
the O’Donnell case. Solving the first may very well solve the last.”

“Since Stockton survived, do we have a sketch of the killer?”

Pierce glanced toward the detective at the far end of the table who’d posed the question. “The woman who told us about the game said her attacker wore a hood.” He looked at Logan. “I haven’t seen the Stockton interview notes yet, but I’m under the impression the witness couldn’t identify her attacker, that he wore a hood when he was with her too?”

“That’s right.” Logan glanced around the table. “She could only describe him as a white male with brown eyes. She judged him to be about six feet tall, around one-hundred-eighty pounds.”

“Hell, I guess I did it,” Riley joked. “You just described me.”

A few weak laughs sounded around the table.

“It’s a generic description, true,” Pierce said. “But you can use that to help prioritize suspects as you conduct your interviews. Don’t rely on the description entirely. Eye witness accounts are notoriously inaccurate.”

He pointed to each picture, naming the victims and briefly describing the details of each murder.

“How often does he kill? Is there a pattern?” Riley asked.

“That’s the one thing that’s consistent with this killer,” Pierce said. “Every summer he abducts two women, usually in two separate attacks. Again, the Branson/Stockton case is an exception since he took two women at the same time. We can only assume he saw an opportunity and took it. Or he might have learned from that first attempt and realized it was too difficult to control two victims at once, so he didn’t repeat that mistake.”

“You said he kills two women every summer,” a detective called from the corner. “Is there a specific time frame between kills?”

Pierce shared an uncomfortable glance with one of the other agents before answering. “It varies. The first year he killed his victims three months apart. The time frame changes every year.”

Logan sat forward in his chair. “Exactly how does it vary?”

“The time between kills gets shorter.”

“How much time passed between kills last summer?” Logan prodded.

Pierce cleared his throat. Logan knew from the haunted look in the agent’s eyes that he wasn’t going to like his answer.

“Three weeks.”

“I
’ve answered all of
your
questions,” Pierce said, as he and Logan walked through the squad room to the recessed elevator lobby in the middle of the back wall. “Now it’s my turn to ask
you
a question.”

Logan nodded at several uniformed officers coming in for the night shift. “Ask away.”

“When can I interview Ms. Stockton?”

A ripple of irritation shot through Logan. He wasn’t sure why. “I spoke to her this morning. She doesn’t want to discuss the case with anyone.” He stopped in front of the pair of elevators and pressed the “down” button.

“She might change her mind if you tell her the FBI wants to speak to her.”

For some reason, the other man’s persistence was irritating. Logan frowned and punched the button again. “I don’t think that will matter.”

“Perhaps. But sometimes witnesses feel more comfortable speaking to the Feds, especially if they’ve lost faith in their local authorities. No offense intended, but from what I saw of the investigation the last chief ran, it wasn’t exactly comprehensive.”

Logan grudgingly admitted to himself that the agent was right, as they stepped into the elevator. The case wasn’t handled well and Amanda obviously agreed, based on the way she’d acted this morning. She didn’t trust the police to keep her safe and he couldn’t blame her. Still, if anyone was going to interview her, he wanted to be the one asking the questions.

“I’ll ask Ms. Stockton to speak to you. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough. I’d also like to read through the complete case file as soon as possible.”

“You’ll have full access to anything you want. We’ll make copies of everything for you to take back to the Jacksonville field office.”

Pierce shook his head. “I’m not leaving. I’m staying here until this case is resolved or the killer moves on to another city and strikes again.”

Logan smiled, genuinely relieved. “I was hoping you’d say that. Where are you staying?”

“We drove straight here. I’ll grab whatever motel room I can find tonight and be more discriminating tomorrow when I’ve got more time to look.”

They exited the elevator and strode through the lobby of city hall. The police station took up the entire second floor. City hall took up the first floor and an annex next-door.