The Axis Legacy, page 11
“Damn.” She took the phone from him, wiping her fingers on a paper napkin before tapping on the screen. “They did the odontology match on this one.”
She wondered if Donovan could hear the disappointment that she would have liked to have done it herself. Even so, her job was not to please herself and the speed of the analysts was often necessary.
The upside of this case was that there was no timeframe pressure on them. At least not right now. The body was old. The serial killer believed to be in prison. But even without time pushing against them, there was just so much to do.
“I'm comfortable working on that assumption: that we're correct,” Donovan said. He cut through a stack of pancakes that was unbelievably high and already half gone. He speared six layers on his fork, dunked it in syrup, and managed to eat it impossibly quickly. “What this means—or at least leads to—is that all four of these foster kids were likely dispatched in the same way.”
Eleri’s fork was halfway to her mouth, but she paused mid-motion and set it back down. Though she'd wondered about that same conclusion herself, hearing Donovan say it out loud put pause to her thoughts and made her go another step. “That means somebody purposefully took out the foster kids. They've all been buried in similar locations. I mean, the locations were all over the map, making it difficult to pinpoint a centralized place where their killer might be operating. But the locations of each body showed too many similarities.”
The bodies had all been found deep in National Park land. Away from trails and rivers, nothing too boggy where a body might float. Soft enough ground to dig a good deep grave with relative ease. They were each four, or sometimes, five feet deep. The bodies had been curled up, fetal position, making the unit compact. That meant the grave could simply be a hole rather than a nice six by eight rectangular shovel-out.
There was no ceremony putting these bodies in the ground. It was just about hiding them. They'd clearly decomposed in the space, leaving a depression. Three of the four had later been found by cadaver dogs hunting for bodies on other cases. Because again, Eleri reminded herself not only had no one been looking for these kids, but in over a third of the cases, no one had even reported them missing in the first place.
“What it means,” Donovan said, finally setting his own fork down—a move which gave truth to just how solemn or gruesome his statement was going to be. “Is that someone went out and summarily dispatched these foster kids . . . for some reason.”
“And not the Sleepytime Killer,” Eleri added. “There’s absolutely nothing similar in the MO. It looks like whoever it was got them, strangled them . . .” She paused. “Do we have any idea if they were drugged?”
She stopped herself again. “Were soil samples collected?”
“In two of the cases, yes. But in the other two, the team that found the body seemed to carefully dig it up, then recognize that it wasn't the missing person they were looking for. So they exhumed the bones and simply set them aside with no further work.” Donovan was eating again, but his expression stayed solemn.
“Holy fuck,” Eleri said softly.
She'd been guilty before of not giving death its proper dignity. She'd fallen prey to the dark humor that seemed almost necessary in the job. And she'd certainly done stupid shit. Hell, she had a young girl's body—the bones all that remained—sitting on the bed in a hotel suite in an unrecognizable mid-grade chain, hoping that no one would recognize that she and her partner were FBI agents. She simply carried human remains with her from place to place.
But the idea that someone could find an unidentified body in an unmarked grave and simply set it aside, thinking that no one would ever care, was a stunning low.
“Locations of the four bodies don't triangulate anything known that we have.” Donovan was still throwing out what they had, a good method of helping something snag. “I mean they're in the same area. But all these kids initially started at the Weatherby Adoption Agency in Corcoran. It's not surprising that the bodies are somewhere in that area.”
“But,” Eleri added, “even without any real triangulation, we still have three clear suspects.”
Donovan nodded along, seeming to agree.
Eleri took two more bites, the silence settling between them as though they both knew what needed to be said, but neither of them wanted to be the one to say it.
“We have a serious problem with this case,” Eleri finally broke.
“I know. Four of the people we've interviewed have had very concerning . . .”
She raised her fingers for air quotes. “Talents.” Langdon and Lula Carpenter, Janice Marquez, and Tate himself.
Donovan agreed. “I noticed that, too. And it’s not just that they have talents but, my God, they are truly horrible people.”
Eleri had to agree with him on that count. Even being in the room with Janice Marquez made her skin crawl, and she’d met some pretty shitty people before. “That makes me wonder about these missing foster kids . . .”
“I already started having that thought myself.” Donovan stabbed at the last pieces of his breakfast before shoving the whole mess into his mouth just as Eleri’s phone rang.
She stood up and headed back to where she’d left her purse on the table as they came in. Digging through, she listened to two more rings before she found it and held it up to him. She said the name out loud before she hit the button. “It's Barbara Abbott.”
They both knew that couldn't be good.
26
Donovan listened as the older agent sounded distraught.
“Lula escaped.”
“And Langdon?” he asked.
“Still in. An extra guard has been placed on him.” Abbott’s reply was swift and comforting.
“What kind of guard?” Eleri asked. They all three knew what she meant.
“I was here when you two left. Then I brought in another two NightShade agents so that we could run shifts.”
“Smart,” Eleri had murmured voicing Donovan's own thoughts. When he'd met agent Abbott, he’d been impressed by her competence. Though his original impression had been that she wasn't up for the job, she’d proved herself more than capable. Now he had to ask. “How exactly did she escape?”
“The exactly part is hard to pin down.” Abbott huffed a short breath then explained. “She took out Agent Rafferty—huge guy, former college football player, sandy brown hair, green eyes, dentist-straight smile.”
Donovan grinned at her description, looking up to find Eleri doing the same despite the high level of concern the phone call had raised.
“A wolf, like you.”
It figured that she’d figured him out. Though Eleri and Donovan hadn't introduced themselves, listing talents and accomplishments, Barbara Abbott had clearly gathered all the details.
“Something happened in the room and Rafferty went in with her.”
That was the mistake, Donovan thought. Rookie move.
“He emerged two hours later with a bump on the back of his head, no memory and never having shifted. In the video, Lula walks right out the door, even though Rafferty clearly secured everything behind himself heading in. Then—in the hallways—there’s not a single scrap of footage of her at all. Not coming or going.”
“What?” Eleri interrupted.
“Yeah.” Abbott sounded surprised herself. “I was wondering if she was like a vampire and didn’t show up on film.” There was a pause, and she defended the idea with, “Hey, I’ve seen stranger things on this job. But there isn’t even footage from when we first brought her in, with or without her showing up.”
Donovan and Eleri’s eyes snapped to each other across the coffee table. He mouthed, “Christina?” Eleri shrugged, but the shrug seemed to agree that it was a possibility. Lula’s skills might look like their fellow agent and friend’s.
Abbott was talking again and it wasn't lost on Donovan that he'd simply assumed if Lula Carpenter overpowered anyone it would be the older woman with her silver hair, short stature, and ability to present as a mild mannered librarian type. But no.
“I put Rafferty in medical care. I'm taking the other agent with me, and I've hit up SAC Westerfield for another team to join us. Feel free to call me if you need me, but we’ve got to hunt down a fugitive right now.”
“Yes, ma'am,” Donovan answered, enjoying how confident he felt that Abbott would not only find Lula Carpenter, but bring her in and make the woman unhappy while she did so.
“Keep us posted?” he asked.
“Of course.” With that, the phone clicked off. No long polite goodbyes. Just an agent who knew exactly what she was doing.
If he'd hung up with a smile, it quickly turned to a scowl.
“Well, fuck me running,” he offered into the open air.
“Amen to that,” Eleri Agreed. “What does Langdon even have?”
While it was clear she meant talents or skills—the kind that would put him in the middle of the Weatherby Adoption Agency scandal—Donovan didn’t know. Langdon had married Lula Carpenter, whom he had clearly known all along was Isabel Richter, but he hadn’t exhibited anything Donovan would call a talent.
His answer to her question went a different direction. “He has big hands.”
Eleri shook her head as if she didn't understand, but he watched as the idea dawned on her and her expression grew wide.
Langdon Carpenter had big hands that could easily strangle foster kids that the Carpenters didn't want out in the world.
“Was it just the kids that went into foster care?” Eleri asked now. “Or were there maybe more children adopted out by the Weatherby Agency who were trouble?”
Was trouble a code word for talented now? Donovan didn't have the answer to that.
He used his knife to saw the empty styrofoam container in half, folding it over and stuffing it down into the ridiculously small trash can the hotel afforded. He held it out for Eleri, watching while she closed hers and crushed it along with the little bit of food still left inside.
Reveling in the mundane task of watching her clean off the coffee table and shove all the paper napkins down into the trash can he held out helped soothe his jangled nerves. He then went and set it outside the hotel room door.
Housekeeping could not come in here. What if they snooped? What if they found information on the laptops or saw some of the papers in the folders? They’d learned not to leave those kinds of things behind.
“There are only three people we could find who worked at the agency,” Eleri sighed. “And I have no desire to interview any of them ever again.”
Still, they both knew it was unlikely she would get her wish.
Mundane task finished, Donovan locked the hotel door behind him like he always did and faced the unpleasant truth. “We need to find out where they were getting these infants. Were there just random pregnant teenage moms in the area?”
Eleri held her hands up as if that might be obviously ridiculous in this case. “We can't interview Lula Carpenter again—not if we can’t find her. Langdon Carpenter has practically locked his teeth together and won't tell us anything. And Janice Marquez—even if she did tell us anything—can’t be trusted to tell the truth anyway.”
It sounded like Eleri had it locked up. But she didn’t.
“There were two other agencies in the area operating at the time. They might be able to tell us a little more.”
Eleri’s shoulders slumped, the corners of her mouth turned down. “We're going back to Corcoran, aren't we?”
“I think we have to.”
Twenty-four hours later, Donovan was sitting across the table from a retired OB GYN who'd worked at one of the other agencies. He was grateful—more than grateful—that no scents of concern came off the man at all. Beside him, Eleri seemed perfectly comfortable; she’d not tapped her ankle against his even once.
Then again, Donovan reminded himself, no bad vibes had come off Langdon Carpenter, either. So, he kept his muscles tense and his guard high.
With the doctor’s third answer, Donovan found his brain snapping to sharp alert. In tandem with Eleri, he leaned forward suddenly and sharply demanded, “What?”
27
Donovan plopped down on the too-small couch in the hotel suite outside Corcoran. It looked a lot like the too-small couch they’d just left behind. They were now occupying two different suites in two different states, and he still didn’t have a good grip on this case. “It was a good thing that we didn't get rid of this room.”
“I'm not sure any of this is a good thing,” Eleri replied. Her arms were full when she’d headed into the room, but now she stepped out empty handed. It was the same thing each place they went. They had it down to a science.
But her remark was probably tinged by exhaustion. They’d traveled all the way back and headed right to the interviews before they even made it to the room. It wasn’t like they had to check in or anything . . .
The OB from the first agency had brought up something very concerning when they'd asked if he knew anything about the Weatherby agency. Donovan and Eleri had been hoping for information on how or why the adoption agency was choosing to work with certain mothers and place certain children.
“That’s just it,” he’d said. “I never saw any mothers.”
Donovan had tried to hide his shocked expression. He and Eleri had made sure to ask the people they hunted down from the other agency as well. The second agency was still in operation, and the current staff was able to help them locate one of the doctors and even a front desk worker from the Weatherby agency timeframe.
Eleri had whispered as they left, “That office worker may be gold. They often know a lot more than the doctors do.”
Her prediction had proved correct. Anna was more than happy to talk.
“I had a friend at the other agency, not Weatherby. We were always calling back and forth, trying to figure out if maybe a mother was better suited to one or the other. We were in each other's business a lot.” Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, making the lines on her face seem sweet and charming. But the words were coming out as if she had held them in for far too long. “None of us liked Weatherby.”
“What didn't you like about them?” Eleri had asked. Anna seemed to attach her focus to Eleri, so Donovan stayed quiet and sniffed his way through the interview. Luckily, he’d sensed no concerning smells thus far. If they were there, the people were covering their tracks far better than he was able to detect.
Anna spilled everything. “Every now and then, I would have someone who was in Corcoran or such, and I would try. I would reach out to Weatherby and think maybe this is the right place to handle this mother. I mean, we were two towns over, Weatherby was right down the street. You know, so the mother doesn't have to travel. It's a lot. When you’re fifteen and pregnant, everything is a big deal.”
Even Donovan had nodded along as if he understood but Anna made perfect sense. “Every single time, Weatherby turned us down cold. It didn't matter if it was the front desk or the doctor. Whoever we talked to, they just said no. I don't think they ran a single open adoption. Even back then, everyone was pushing for adoptions to be open!”
Donovan stepped in then, a frown across his face. He thought he understood, but clarification was always best. “What do you mean by open?”
“Well, we like the birth mother to meet the adoptive family before she gives birth, so that they can all talk. Make sure that the birth mother feels it's a good fit and so do the adoptive parents. I don't think people give that enough credit. Adoptive parents are anxious. They really want a baby, and they get worked into a state where they're willing to take on anyone. But we like to remind them they're going into a lifelong arrangement with this birth mother too, and we want a good match.”
She spoke in the present tense even though she’d retired ten years earlier. Donovan smelled the pride on her, the good kind, the kind for a job well done.
Anna kept going, her silver ponytail bobbing with her words. “There's usually some level of visitation, letters, acknowledgement of the birth mother's name, what religion the child should be brought up with, that kind of thing. In some cases, the families bring the birth mothers right into their homes! We have more than one case where the family put the birth mother in the spare room and even took care of her after she gave birth. Then she came back and visited every year. Birthdays, graduations, things like that.”
Donovan tried to shut down wayward thoughts of his own family. Of his mother who had made cookies and curries with equal zeal. He pushed back memories of the father that he'd hated as far back as he could remember. And now, the brother his mother had run away to have, to keep him safe, when Donovan had been left behind, told she was dead.
These open adoptions sounded so much better than what he had had.
“I mean I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone ever saw a birth mother go in or leave the Weatherby agency. Maybe they had another place somewhere where they did that? So the mothers could stay anonymous.” Anna shrugged about it.
But there it had been again: no birth mothers at Weatherby.
Still, her idea was interesting. Maybe Weatherby was the place to go if you didn't want to know the family that was adopting your child. Maybe there was another location somewhere. If there was, there might be records. Though, in all their searches, nothing had popped up. He’d made a mental note of it and remembered it all now, sprawled across the couch that didn’t quite hold him.
“Let's get at it,” Eleri told him from where she stood in the center of the room. There was no time to settle in.
Peeling himself off the couch, he found the few minutes of sitting still had at least done him good after another day's worth of travel. They’d needed to track down the people and do their interviews while there was still daylight to burn.
Now, he checked the time. Still too early to just crawl into bed. So, he sat down beside Eleri and began searching.
Twenty minutes later, Eleri announced, “There's no record of any other Weatherby Adoption Agency. Not in the state and not in nearby states either.”
