Until Dark (19 page)

Kendra took out the narrow sheet of paper and laid it on the desk in front of the sheriff.

“This is what we have. Any idea what it might mean?”

Gamble picked up the paper and studied it.

“
Because?
Is that what he was trying to write?” Gamble shook his head. “
Because
what?”

“No clue,” Kendra told him. “I told him that we’d seen his mother at the ranch this morning—”

“How’d that go, by the way?” the sheriff interrupted to ask.

“Okay, I guess. Emmy’s not a font of credible information. She seemed more concerned with the rhythm of her rocker than anything else,” Kendra told him.

“Sad but true.” Gamble nodded. “Sorry. You were saying?”

“Just that I was telling Christopher about seeing his mother, and talking about the ranch and Zach and Ian, and he started crying and he said something that sounded like this.
Be . . . ca . . . ca
.” She mimicked the sound the boy had made. “I gave him the paper and pen and asked him to write down what he was trying to say, and that’s what he wrote. It could be
because
. . . but that doesn’t really mean anything by itself.”

“I’d like to make a copy of that paper, if I could. Maybe it will mean something to someone.”

Kendra handed over the paper, waited while Gamble made a copy, then folded it and put it back into her bag when he returned.

“Shame he’s the way he is,” the sheriff was saying. “Might have had something meaningful to tell us about that day. Sorry you made the trip all the way out here for nothing.”

“It wasn’t a wasted trip. We got to see the files on the investigation, and look over the trial notes.” Adam rubbed his chin. “Which reminds me. Kendra said that Ian might have had several hundred dollars with him when he left New Jersey. That Zach had told him about an old man who claimed to be a descendant of Cochise who was going to sell some items to Ian. But I didn’t see where he was interviewed.”

“There’s a mention in the file that one of the boys from the ranch did say that Ian and Zach were going to see some old Indian, but no one knew who or where. I believe there was a search made for this man, but there’s no indication that any such person was ever found. Who knows, maybe he didn’t exist. Could be that Zach had made it up.”

“Why would he do that?” Kendra frowned.

“Hey, who knows why kids do half the things they do, make up the stuff they do. You should hear some of the stories I hear.” Gamble paused to answer his ringing phone, gave a few instructions to the person on the other end, then hung up. Turning back to Adam and Kendra he asked, “Now, where will you go from here?”

“I guess the next logical move is to talk to Webster.”

“As in, Edward Paul? Are you serious?” Gamble raised an eyebrow.

“As long as we’re here, we might as well.” Adam turned to Kendra, who was trying to look as if she was not as startled by Adam’s comment as the sheriff was. “Why leave a stone unturned?”

“You won’t learn a damn thing from him. One of the assistant county DAs was out at the prison two weeks ago on another case. Says Webster is still insisting he’s innocent.”

“Maybe he figures if he continues to profess his innocence, sooner or later someone will listen.”

“Who knows?” Gamble looked up from his desk and met Kendra’s eyes. “I’d be happy to call the warden out at the prison and arrange for Agent Stark to see Webster. I’m assuming that you won’t be going with him.”

“No, no, I’ll go,” Kendra told him. “I’ll go.”

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Adam told Kendra as he pulled up to the gatehouse and gave their names to the guard.

“I know I don’t have to. There, Adam, he’s waving us through. Thanks,” she called out the window. “I want to. I mean, I may never again get this close to him. I want to hear what he has to say. And who knows, maybe he’ll slip up and say something.”

“Something like what? Something like, okay, I confess. I killed your brother and your cousin, here’s where the bodies are, and oh, yeah, I gave your brother’s watch to some guy I passed on my way back out of the hills?”

“Hey, it could happen.”

“Ready?” Adam asked after he’d parked the car in the visitors lot.

“As ready as I’m going to be.” Kendra opened the door and got out. The sun had already warmed things up to a toasty ninety degrees, but on the advice of Sheriff Gamble, she wore long pants to keep her legs covered and a camp shirt that covered any shape she might have.

“You don’t need to hear some of the things the men might be yelling, if they see you,” Gamble explained. “So my advice is to cover it all up and pretend not to notice them.”

Kendra had taken the advice, and as a result, was overly warm by the time she reached the prison door. Gratefully, the interior was air-conditioned, though claustrophobic, with an endless series of doors that locked with a heavy, solid sound, and narrow, endless, colorless halls that led farther and farther into the depths of Arroyo State Prison, halfway between Benson and Tucson. The plan was to stop at the prison, meet with Webster, and go directly to the airport for the flight back to Philadelphia.

The guard paused in front of a dark green door that had a large screened window set in the middle. Through the glass, Kendra could see a table, painted the same green as the door, and several mismatched chairs.

“The prisoner will be brought in as soon as you’re ready,” the guard told them. “I’ll be right here the entire time you’re in there with him.”

“Thanks,” Adam nodded.

The guard ushered the two of them into the room, and pushed a button that resulted in a muffled buzz somewhere behind the door, which was set to one side of the back wall. The door opened, and Edward Paul Webster, in ankle shackles, his hands cuffed behind him, shuffled in. He looked over his visitors without comment, then seated himself opposite Kendra and stared at her from lifeless brown eyes.

Finally, she said, “Do you know who I am?”

“They told me that you’re the sister of one of the boys they say I killed.” His face, pale and pocked with old acne scars, was without expression. “I did not kill him or that other boy, let’s get that out of the way right up front.”

He turned to Adam and sneered, “Hear that, Mr. FBI?”

“You were tried and convicted by a jury—” Adam pointed out.

“It was all bullshit,” Webster interrupted, the surface of his raw anger scratched. His fleshy lips curled upward on one side and his face distorted into an ugly mask. “There were no bodies, no evidence to even link me to either of them. I was railroaded. My biggest crime that day was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, that, and stealing that car . . .”

“What about Christopher Moss?” Kendra asked with a touch of sarcasm. “Have you forgotten about him?”

“No, I haven’t forgotten about him,” he singsonged his response, mocking her. “That kid was a basket case when I picked him up on the side of the road. He was crying and shaking and babbling and clutching that jacket, just like I told the police then. I’m telling you the same. I never saw your brother or that other kid, I never touched the Moss boy. I stopped to give him a ride because he looked like, well, he looked like he’d seen a ghost or something, okay? Like something had spooked him big time.”

“The police thought maybe you had spooked him, Webster.” Adam rested his arms on the table. “The jury believed that you were responsible for Christopher’s hysteria.”

“That kid hadn’t been in my car for more than five minutes when the police stopped me.”

“The car was reported stolen from one of the campsites that was located in the immediate area where the boys were hiking.”

“Yeah, I stole the car. I never denied that. The keys were in the ignition, I was tired of walking, it was hot, I figured what the hell.”

“What were you doing up there? Up there in the hills?” Adam continued his questioning.

“Well, Mr. FBI, I’m willing to bet if you thought it was important enough to make this trip, that you’ve already read the file your boys have on this case.”

“You were hanging out with friends,” Adam said dryly.

“That’s right.”

“The police were never able to find those friends to talk to them.”

“Maybe they didn’t want to be found.”

“Maybe they were underage boys.”

“Maybe they were.” Webster shrugged. “So what?”

“Wouldn’t that have been a violation of your parole?” Adam asked.

“Maybe so.” Webster smirked. “So, what’s the point of this?”

“I was hoping you’d . . .” Kendra sighed.

“What? Confess?” He laughed out loud. “Lady, I have nothing to confess. Not about those boys, anyway. I said when I was arrested, I said when I was tried. When I was sentenced. When that lady came out here—the mother of one of those kids later became a senator or something and she made my life a living—”

“She was my mother,” Kendra interjected.

“She still a senator?”

“She died a few years ago.”

“Gee, I’m real sorry to hear that,” Webster said with neither sympathy nor sincerity.

“I can see that you are.”

The two stared at each other for several long minutes. Neither of them blinked.

“Look, we were just hoping that you’d give us an idea of where the bodies were—” Adam began.

“You deaf, buddy? I don’t know anything about those boys. And what’s the big deal now, anyway? Why’s this coming up again now?”

“There’ve been a series of murders out East,” Adam told him. “Young women. Seven of them, in a short period of time.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“Ian Smith’s watch was found under the body of the last victim,” Adam told him.

“So what?”

“So Ian would have had the watch with him when he was killed, and—”

“And you think I took the watch, maybe gave it to someone?” Webster snorted in disgust. “I don’t know how many times I have to say it. I never saw your brother or his stupid watch. And just for the record, most of my friends don’t do women.”

Kendra looked up at Adam. Webster was not going to give them an inch on this.

“Look, I will tell you what I told the cops who arrested me. I done a lot of things in my life. Things that don’t fit your idea of what’s, well, let’s just say that things maybe you wouldn’t do. But that’s my business and I ain’t in here for none of that.” He looked at Adam. “But I never killed no one. I never saw those two boys. I didn’t touch that kid—Moss.”

“Then why was he crying hysterically when the police pulled you over?”

“I don’t know, and frankly, at this point, I don’t give a shit.” Webster stood up. “I got nothing more to say.”

Without looking back, Webster walked to the door at the back of the room and the guard on the other side of the glass opened it as he approached.

“Well, that was enlightening.” Kendra sighed and stood up. “Let’s get out of here.”

* * *

“I can’t remember the last time I was so happy to see sunlight,” she said after they’d signed out and walked through the front doors of the prison. “And what an ugly man he was. I don’t mean just physically. I mean everything about him. Smirking, creepy, mean-spirited . . .”

“I agree,” Adam said as he unlocked the car. “And I hate to say this, but maybe we should consider the possibility that he’s telling the truth.”

“Are you crazy? That is one mean son of a bitch in there.”

“I agree. But being a mean son of a bitch doesn’t necessarily make him a murderer.”

“He was convicted—”

“On purely circumstantial evidence. From what I read in the reports that were in Gamble’s file, emotions were running pretty high about this case. Two boys missing and presumed dead, the only witness the killer and an emotionally disturbed young man who was found in the company of a man who’d been convicted in several states, over several decades, of raping and beating young boys.”

Kendra stared straight ahead as Adam slowed on his approach to the gatehouse, where he returned their guest passes to the guard.

“Frankly, I believe Edward Paul Webster should spend the rest of his natural life behind bars,” Adam continued. “He’s done some heinous things in his day. He’s a predator and nothing will ever change what he is and what he’d do again if he got the chance. If they let him out tomorrow, I’d bet my last dollar that the first thing he’d do is look for some young boy to assault. I’ve yet to see a reformed pedophile. But I don’t know that he’s a killer. I don’t know that I believe he killed Ian and Zach. Why not admit it? He isn’t going anywhere, either way. Ever. Life without parole means just that. So it shouldn’t matter. He’s already been convicted. Why wouldn’t he admit it if it’s true?”

“But if Webster didn’t kill them,” she swallowed hard, “that would mean . . .”

She hesitated, the thought incomprehensible to her.

“Yes,” Adam said. “That would mean that the person responsible for Ian and Zach’s deaths is still out there.”

Chapter
Eighteen

“Do you realize what you’re saying?” Kendra’s eyes had widened at the thought. “It never occurred to anyone that Webster could be telling the truth. That all these years, he’s been in prison . . .”

“Where he does undoubtedly belong,” Adam muttered, “if not for this crime, then for all the others.”

“While someone else has been free, all this time.”

He’d been silent for a while then, his mind quickly processing the possibilities. He hadn’t liked what he’d come up with.

Adam’s earliest opportunity for a bit of privacy hadn’t come until they reached the airport in Tucson. He used it to first call John Mancini, then Miranda Cahill. After a brief chat, he’d tersely asked her to meet their flight when they landed at Philadelphia International Airport later that evening.

“Something important?” Kendra asked when she emerged from a trip to the ladies’ room to find Adam standing as if in a trance, staring out the window, his cell phone still in his hand.

“What? Oh, maybe. Look, they’re letting passengers on board our flight. Let’s get ourselves settled in, maybe we can grab a little rest between here and Philly.” He took her arm.

“Is that your way of telling me that you’re not going to tell me what’s going on?”

“It’s my way of telling you that I will tell you once I’ve put it all together.”

She’d been tempted to ask, but didn’t. Once seated on the plane, she closed her eyes and tried to relax. When she fell asleep, her dreams were a murky collage of faces, of mouths moving but no words emanating forth. Edward Paul Webster and Christopher Moss. Her brother, her mother, Emmy Moss. Father Tim. Adam . . .

It wasn’t until they arrived in Philadelphia and Kendra saw Miranda Cahill waiting for them at the gate that she began to sense that Adam was keeping more than his suppositions from her.

“Where did you leave your car?” Adam asked Miranda, the appropriate greetings having been exchanged.

“Right outside the terminal door.”

“I thought no one was permitted to leave cars unattended in the airports anymore,” Kendra noted.

“It’s not unattended,” Miranda told her. “One of Philly’s finest is standing guard waiting for us to claim it.”

They entered the concourse, Kendra walking between the two agents, trying to keep up with their long strides, wondering when Adam was going to tell her what was going on and why Miranda was waiting for them when their plane touched down.

“Is this it?” Adam asked, pointing to a Taurus sedan next to which stood a uniformed police officer.

“Yes.” Miranda nodded.

When Adam asked “May I have the key?” Miranda tossed it to him, then paused to have a few words with the officer who’d been watching the car.

Adam unlocked the passenger side door, and held it open for Kendra, then went around to the driver’s side. Once behind the wheel of the car, Kendra in the front seat next to him, Adam asked, “How would you feel about a little company for a few days?”

“Company? At my house?” A smile tilted her lips. After the intensity of the past few days, a little down time with Adam in the midst of the Pines could be just what the doctor ordered.

“That’s right.”

“You mean, you?”

“No, I mean Miranda.”

“Oh,” she said, trying not to let her disappointment show.
Whoopee.

He was watching Miranda chat with the police officer she’d left in charge of the car.

“Adam, would you please tell me what’s going on?”

“Roll your window down and tell her time’s up, will you?” was all he said.

She did, and moments later, Miranda was sliding into the backseat, waving good-bye to her admirer.

“Did you pack a bag with clothes for a few days?” Adam asked.

“Yes, it’s in the trunk. Now are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“You don’t know either?” Kendra turned in the seat, somewhat hampered by her shoulder restraint.

“No. All he said was to pack for a few nights and get a rental car and meet your flight.”

“Miranda’s going to stay with you for a few days,” Adam told them both.

“I already got that much. Why?” Kendra demanded.

“Because I don’t like the way this whole thing is playing out.” Adam drove onto I-95 and headed south. “Let’s start putting things into perspective, shall we?”

He accelerated, passing a white stretch limousine, before continuing.

“Six months ago, Kendra moves back East. A few months later, a serial killer starts leaving bodies all within the area she’d be covering if the Bureau called in a compositor. And she was called in. She’s seen on television wearing a small gold cross around her neck. Within twenty-four hours, corpses start showing up wearing similar crosses. And then Miranda does a little investigating and finds that the earlier victims all had tiny plastic tortoiseshell butterfly clips in their hair, which their nearest and dearest have confirmed they never saw these women wear, by the way.” He paused, trying to gauge what effect his words were having on Kendra, but her face was inscrutable.

He went on. “A little deeper investigation on Agent Cahill’s part turns up a photo of you that ran in a West Coast newspaper a little more than eighteen months ago, showing you wearing those tiny plastic butterflies in your hair. All this information was relayed to John Mancini. Guess what he found.”

“I’m afraid to ask.” Kendra’s voice was just barely above a whisper.

“There are four unsolved murders in the area between Seattle and Redding, California. The first victim was found almost a year and a half ago. Four beautiful blond women. All single mothers. All were raped, then strangled. All were found with—”

“Small plastic butterflies in their hair,” Kendra completed the sentence.

“You got it. Now, let’s see if you can guess when those killings stopped?”

“I’m almost afraid to.” Kendra’s eyes grew wide.

“The last one was in December of last year. Right after you moved back East. The first one here was four months later.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it took him a few months to figure out you’d left the West Coast, and another month or so to figure out where you’d gone.”

“And you are positive it’s the same man?”

“All signs point to it,” Adam said, following the signs for the airport. “The only difference is that in the West Coast killings he left no DNA. He must have used condoms for the rapes, and was careful not to let the victims scratch him.”

“Why do you suppose he got careless after he moved east?”

“I don’t think he got careless. I think he got cocky. There’s a difference. I think he believes we will never be able to find him.”

“Adam, what are you doing?” Kendra protested. “You’re headed right back in to the airport.”

“That’s where my car is,” Adam told her as he drove into the garage and pulled the sedan directly behind the Audi. “Now, which of you ladies is going to drive to Kendra’s?”

“I can drive, since I know the way.” Kendra turned to Miranda.

“I don’t mind.” Miranda shook her head. “But Adam, I think we need to finish the conversation.”

“First let me fill you in on where Kendra and I have been for the past several days.”

Adam told her all that had happened from the time he and Kendra met with Sheriff Gamble right through their meeting with Edward Paul Webster.

“So the question remains,” Adam concluded, “if we suppose for a minute that Webster is telling the truth, who killed Ian and Zach?”

“The someone who’s trying to get Kendra’s attention now,” Miranda said without thinking.

Kendra frowned, the phrase ringing in her ears. Someone had said that recently.

I’ve been trying to get your attention. . . .

“The phone call,” Kendra said aloud. “At the hotel. He said something about trying to get my attention.”

“Who did?” Adam and Miranda both asked at the same time.

“The man on the phone, the first night I stayed at the hotel.” She looked at Adam. “The night I fell asleep on the sofa, and woke up and went back to my room. There was a message for me, some man whose voice I didn’t recognize. All friendly, as if he was chatting with an old friend. And the message was exactly what you’d leave for an old friend.” She frowned. “I can’t remember what else he said, but that was the tone. I just didn’t pay that much attention because I assumed he’d left the message on the wrong extension. But when I mentioned it to the desk, they said there was no record of the call, that it had come from inside . . .”

“I’ll have someone check that out with the hotel,” Adam said. “It could have been our killer.”

“Who may hold the key to Ian’s death as well as these most recent killings,” Miranda noted. “He may have you in his sights now, Kendra.”

“Isn’t that a bit of a leap?” Kendra turned around in her seat to glare at Miranda. “Even if you assume that there’s a connection between my brother’s death and the death of all these women, why would it follow that he’s after me?”

“Let’s start with the fact that he’s definitely fixated on you, and has been for years. The murders out on the coast stopped as soon as you left the area. And then, there’s the matter of Ian’s watch,” Miranda reminded her. “If we can figure out why, we can figure out who.”

“He might be fixated, as you say, in some way, but the women he’s killing, they’re nothing like me. I’m not blond, I don’t have children, so I’ve never done the super-mom thing . . .”

“That may just be a part of it. Maybe he’s trying to get your attention by attacking women of a certain type for a reason that has nothing to do with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“We all agree that he wants to get your attention, but the means he chooses to do that may mean something only to him. Obviously his choice of victim is personal to him, he’s deriving great satisfaction from killing these blond mommies. But the fact is, he’s committing acts that are going to draw you into his world, regardless of who he kills. Since he’s obviously been following your career, odds were that the Bureau would bring you in to work the case, which would bring you into his drama.”

“I agree with Miranda, and so does our profiler.” Adam nodded. “Which is why I asked Miranda to stay with you for a few days.”

“What makes you think I need a baby-sitter?”

“Think of me as a house guest,” Miranda offered. “One who just happens to carry a Sig Sauer semiautomatic.”

“You think he’s going to come after me, don’t you?”

“The phone call I had while at the airport, that was Anne Marie McCall. I’d called her earlier and left a message for her, told her everything we learned while we were in Arizona. She’s convinced that the messages the UNSUB is sending are directed to you. The hair clips, the crosses, he’s telling you that he’s watching you, that he’s been watching you, very closely. That he notices every little thing about you.”

“But why? Why me?”

“I don’t know. The truth is somewhere in this jumble. We just haven’t figured it out yet. And until we do—or until we find him—you and Miranda are going to be new best friends.”

“Then you really do believe that Webster is telling the truth. That someone else killed Ian and Zach.”

“I think it’s a possibility we simply can no longer ignore.”

Kendra got out of the car and walked around the front to the driver’s side. Adam caught her hand.

“I’m not willing to risk your life while we find out,” he told her. “It took me too long to find you again.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Virginia. I have a meeting with John in the morning.” He leaned down and kissed the side of her face.

Miranda cleared her throat; when she met Adam’s eyes her expression was one of amusement. He raised an eyebrow, as if waiting for her to comment. When she did not, he smiled.

“A wise move on your part,” he murmured. “You two keep in touch.”

Adam closed the car door behind Kendra and waited until Miranda had moved from the backseat to the front before stepping back from the car. He waved, then stood in the parking lot, until the sedan disappeared around the first curve on its way toward the exit, praying that Miranda’s presence would prove in the end to have been unnecessary. Kendra hadn’t seemed wild about the idea, but sending her home alone was a chance he hadn’t been willing to take.

“Can we stop at a market or something?” Miranda asked, after Kendra announced that they were nearing Smith’s Forge. “I want to pick up a bottle of shampoo and some conditioner.”

“Sure. There’s a market right up ahead.”

“Do you need anything?” Miranda asked. “Anything I can pick up for you?”

“Nothing that I can think of.”

“I’ll just be a minute.” Miranda hopped out of the car as soon as Kendra stopped in front of the store.

Miranda had been more than a minute. By Kendra’s calculations, it had been closer to twenty by the time she wandered back out of the store, several plastic grocery bags hanging from her wrists.

“I hope you don’t mind.” Miranda opened the back door on the passenger side and put the bags on the floor. “I picked up a few things to munch on.”

“It was Adam, wasn’t it?” Kendra glared as Miranda got back into the car. “He told you that all I’d have to eat in my house would be junk food, didn’t he?”

“Why, no.” A slow smile spread across Miranda’s face. “But I wish he had. I could have saved a few bucks.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I just figured that you and Adam . . . I mean, it’s plain to see that you and he are more than . . . what I mean is, that your relationship is moving toward something. Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she hastened to add, “and not that it’s any of my business—”

“But . . .” Kendra waited for her to continue.

“Well, I figured if you were anything like Adam, when it comes to food, I’d starve to death by the time he gets back here. So I just stocked up on a few staples.”

“Like what?”

“Salsa, tortilla chips,” Miranda said, then added, “But I picked up some strawberries, popcorn, and some of those little carrots, too.”

“The little tiny snack carrots?”

Miranda nodded.

“Did you happen to pick up any dip?”

“Ranch, of course,” Miranda said, a laugh in her voice. “What good are carrots without Ranch dip?”