Her Daughter's Cry, page 18
Marissa,
* * *
I can’t find Sara, and the people at her job say she hasn’t shown up for days. I don’t understand what’s happening, please contact me as soon as possible. I think you should come stay here with me where you’ll be safe. Or if you’re worried about coming here, I’ll come to you. I know you don’t have a phone, just let me know where to meet you and I’ll be there as soon as I can. We have to figure out where Sara is, and we have to keep you safe.
* * *
Love, Aunt Lucy
Marissa poured a cup of coffee from the teeny pot as she considered the e-mail. If the previous e-mail was strange, this one was downright bizarre. In the course of an evening, her aunt had gone from deep-freeze to love to come-stay-with-me. Marissa’s recovered memory of her aunt, combined with what she saw Sunday night, was enough to give her a basic sense of who Aunt Lucy was, and this just didn’t fit.
As far as she could see, there were two possibilities. One, that the police had figured out Marissa’s identity and were using Aunt Lucy to bring her in. Two, that Aunt Lucy was the attacker, or was working with her attacker. No matter which, she couldn’t risk going to the house again, or even calling her. That was exactly what whoever was behind the e-mail wanted.
She tapped her fingernail on the side of the cup. This was the opportunity she’d been looking for, the way to turn the situation around. She knew the e-mail was bullshit, which gave her the advantage. She could name the time and place, and could set up everything carefully. If it turned out to be the police, she’d run. And if it turned out to be the killer, she could force them to tell her where Sara was. Maybe even call the police to come get them. Or, if all else failed, she’d kill them herself.
But she couldn’t do any of that without getting a damned gun.
For the rest of the day, she checked her notifications obsessively, almost as stir crazy as she’d been in Sunset Gardens. She searched through additional Facebook groups and considered posting to another of them, but couldn’t risk someone noticing and pegging her as a scammer.
So she distracted herself as best as possible, praying someone would take the bait.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Jo woke early the next morning with an uneasy sense of something pulling at her mind. At first, she assumed it was a new side effect of waking in Matt’s bed, and she pushed it aside. When he pulled her into him, the feeling fled, replaced with something far, far more pleasant.
But as she drove back to her house, the unease returned. Something about the conversations she and Arnett had the day before was niggling at her brain, and she couldn’t remember what. She replayed the day from start to finish, and finally hit on it—in her hurry to find anyone related to Bruce or Hunter, Miguel Navarro had been pushed to the back of her mind. But until they got access to everyone’s phone records, Miguel was the only other person involved in Marissa and Sara’s life, and that meant she needed to know about him.
She ignored a wave of morning sickness as she showered quickly and threw on her clothes. She made a stop for coffee, then drove early to HQ, settled into her desk, and began her search. Almost immediately, she hit pay dirt.
When Arnett arrived, she called him to her desk before he could take off his coat. “Hey, I put your coffee on your desk. But come check this out.”
“You’re up bright and early—or have you just been here all night?”
She half-smiled. “Get this. When Missy told us Miguel Navarro passed away, I assumed it was from some sort of medical issue. But he was murdered.”
“Say what now?” He grabbed his coffee, pulled his chair over next to hers, and stared at the screen in front of her.
“Eighteen months ago he left work at the end of the day, went into the parking garage next to his office building, and rode the elevator up to the third floor. When he got to his car, someone shot him in the head.”
Arnett’s eyes scanned the screen. “Did they catch the killer?”
“Nope, the case is still unsolved. Their theory is he interrupted a drug deal, since there had been an increase in drug-related drive-by shootings in that area for the few months before.”
“No surveillance cameras in the garage?”
“There were, but the locations didn’t cover that particular area. They did catch a car leaving shortly after that, but of course when they traced the car, it turned out to be stolen.”
“So you’re thinking it might be related to our case. How?” Arnett sipped his coffee.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree, Lord knows I’ve seen families with far worse cases of bad luck than that, and the gap in timing is strange if it’s related. But since we’re tapping out on every lead we get, I figured it might not be a bad idea to dig deeper.”
Arnett nodded. “So then the question is, was there someone in his life that wanted him dead, and if so, how does that relate to Sara and Marissa?”
“Exactly. The file mentions a woman he was dating at the time, Alana Lyon. I’m thinking we might want to fit her into our schedule today after we go check out all the workplaces.”
Chapter Fifty
The first interviews went quickly. Bruce Stasuk’s boss at Sanderson Construction told them he hadn’t seen Bruce since April fifth, but he’d never been a reliable employee, so they didn’t lose any sleep when he didn’t show back up. Hunter Malloy’s supervisor said he’d asked for several days off, but had been expected back on Monday. They’d tried to reach him but when they failed, they’d assumed he got a better job offer somewhere—employees ‘ghosting’ their employers was a growing trend, they said.
Tyler Franks, Sara’s branch manager, met them inside the beige-and-russet interior of Wynassett Mutual Bank, and brought them inside a glass-fronted office. He pointed to two beige chairs with a shaking finger, and while Jo explained their purpose, she could hear his chair squeak as his leg bounced under the table.
He glanced out to the bank floor before he answered. “Sara took last week off, but I expected her back on Monday. I’ve been worried about her, in fact.”
Jo’s eyebrows rose. Both other employers had expressed annoyance with their employee’s absence, and had become defensive when asked why they didn’t file missing persons reports. “Just earlier today we were told that it’s not uncommon for employees to just stop coming to work. I guess that’s not true for the bank industry?”
“I’m not sure I’d call it common, but it happens,” he answered distractedly. “Is Sara okay?”
“We’re not sure. She’s missing, and we’re looking for any information that might help us find her.” Jo watched the blood drain from Tyler’s face. “Are you okay, Mr. Franks?”
His eyes dropped and scanned the carpet. “Like I said, I’m worried. This isn’t like Sara. She’s one of our best workers.”
“And yet you didn’t file a missing persons report,” Arnett said.
His face went paler still. “I didn’t think it was my place.”
Jo fought back her impatience—didn’t he understand what was at stake here? She reminded herself not to let her emotions get the best of her, and softened her voice. “Mr. Franks, if there’s anything else we need to know about Sara, now’s the time to tell us. She may be in danger somewhere, and in need of help. Time is of the essence.”
His eyes flipped up to hers, then resumed jumping along the carpet’s herringbone pattern. Then he stood up abruptly, pulled the blinds over the glass walls, and sat back down.
His eyes jumped between the two of them. “Anything I tell you, it won’t be made public, will it? It could cost me my job.”
“We can’t promise that. But we’ll do everything in our power to keep it quiet if possible,” Jo answered.
“The thing is… Well, we were having an affair,” he said. “And of course that’s not allowed. But I’m worried because I think her fiancé may have found out about us.”
“Okay, back up. You were having an affair with her. For how long?”
“About four months now.”
“How did it start?” Arnett asked.
“It’s hard to say. We’d always been attracted to each other, and we flirted. I’d been on the verge of asking her out when she started dating her fiancé two years ago. I wasn’t her boss then, but I got promoted shortly after. Then, a few months ago she made a few comments to me about problems in her relationship. Ever since they moved in together, all he did was play Xbox in his spare time. And he didn’t like her mother. She had to admit he wasn’t fully wrong, but it put her in a difficult position. I took the comments as a signal. We were at the company holiday party and we’d both had a little too much to drink, and she was upset because Hunter had refused to come, and…”
“It just happened?” Jo asked.
“Yes, exactly.” He searched her face, a plea for understanding in his eyes.
“If I had a dollar for every affair I’ve heard of that started at an office holiday party.” She shook her head sympathetically. “What makes you think Hunter found out about the two of you?”
“Nothing specifically. It’s just, a couple of weeks ago when we were leaving my house after, um, a stopover, I could have sworn a car followed us.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not positive. But the timing was odd, and the car stayed on my tail as I drove us back to work. A few blocks before we arrived, the car turned another way, so I told myself I was being ridiculous. But it stayed with me.”
“Anything else?”
“No. I know I’m probably overreacting, but when she didn’t show up for work and didn’t return any of my calls, I didn’t know what to do.”
A thought popped into Jo’s head. “When did you last hear from her?”
“The day before she left for her camping trip.”
“You didn’t hear from her at all while she was gone?”
“No, but I didn’t expect to. I assumed she wasn’t getting signal out in the woods, and that Hunter was around once she got back. We tried to keep our communication to a minimum, anyway, because those things get you caught. We had little codes that sounded work-related, but of course I couldn’t send anything like that when she was on vacation.”
“And that didn’t bother you, that she was with another man?” Arnett asked, unable to hide the judgment in his tone or on his face. “Not being able to have her for yourself? Having to play those sorts of games to spend time with her?”
He straightened in his chair. “She was deciding whether or not to leave him. I believe they’d have been broken up within the next few weeks. And yes, I know that sounds ridiculously naive. But she was feeling pressured.”
“Pressured about what?”
“The main issue was her mother. He wanted Sara to make a clean break from her. Sara was resistant. Her relationship with her mother was complex, sure, and sometimes her mother could be overbearing and insensitive. But you only get one mother, and most mother-daughter relationships are tricky. He kept insisting it was a toxic relationship, and that she needed to be done with her mother for her own sake, and the sake of their relationship.”
“Sounds controlling,” Arnett said.
Tyler was quick to jump on this. “That’s what I said. And the thing is, she was really only with Hunter because of timing. She’d just started dating him when her father died, and he was there for her when she was vulnerable.”
“So she wasn’t sure if she’d have stayed with him had she not been in such an emotional place?” Jo asked.
“Exactly.” Tyler jabbed a finger onto the desk.
“Do you know if Sara and her mother went alone on the camping trip?” Jo asked.
His brow creased. “I assumed so, but I don’t know for sure.”
Jo caught Arnett’s signal from the corner of her eye, and stood up. “Thank you, Mr. Franks. You did the right thing telling us this. We’ll do our best to make sure nobody else hears about it.” She handed him a card. “If anything else comes back to you, please let us know immediately.”
He took the card, and met her eyes, his gaze imploring. “Will you let me know when you find anything out? I know I’m not officially anything to her—”
Jo nodded, and softened her voice again. “We’ll let you know what we find as soon as we can.” Affair or not, Jo had no doubt Tyler Franks had deep, genuine feelings for Sara. Judging by how nervous he’d been, possibly too deep.
Chapter Fifty-One
As soon as they exited the bank, Arnett turned to Jo. “Sara’s missing. Bruce is missing. Hunter is missing. This many people don’t go missing for this long without someone being dead.”
She nodded. “Agreed. Here’s what I’m thinking. Did we stop too soon when we were searching for Sara out at the campgrounds? I assumed we found the dumping site, and that if there was another corpse nearby, Marzillo’s team would find it, and I know they did a thorough job. But maybe there was a second dumping site farther out in the area?”
Arnett rubbed his chin. “Maybe our killer could only carry one body at a time, and lost track of where he dumped the first one.”
“But wouldn’t the dog have alerted us if there was another corpse somewhere nearby?” Jo asked.
“No idea. You saw how Garrison went into reward time with Bones, played with him and gave him treats for finding what he was looking for. Maybe the dog would have to be instructed to look again.”
“True. And we only thought we were looking for one person at that point, but there was certainly enough blood in that cabin for more than one victim.” Jo pulled out her phone and called Garrison Hutter. She explained the situation to him.
“No, he wouldn’t automatically search again, I’d have to give the command. I didn’t realize there was a possibility of a second body,” Garrison said.
“I don’t suppose there’s any way you can meet us back up there, and try again?”
“We’re supposed to go talk to some grammar school kids today, but I think they’ll understand if I cancel.”
An hour and a half later, they met Garrison at the cabin, Marzillo in tow.
Arnett peered at the dog. “How do we keep him from just going to the same site again?”
Garrison shook his head. “Not a problem. Since the corpse has been removed, the scent trail won’t be there, at least nowhere near as strong as it was. If there’s a second body around here somewhere, that’ll drown it out no problem. So just say when you’re ready.”
Jo nodded, and Garrison gave the command, and they started off.
Sure enough, Bones took a different route from his first trip through the woods. He raced down the left branch of the path, then veered off into the left, western portion of the forest.
After a few minutes, Jo checked her watch. “It feels like we’re going farther this time, or is that just because it’s daylight?”
“Nope,” Garrison answered. “The last one wasn’t much more than a third of a mile in. We’ve gone nearly half a mile in.”
As he spoke, the smell of decomposition, much fainter this time, reached her, and Bones stopped.
Two feet away, behind a large rock, a figure lay wrapped in a blanket. Long, dark hair fanned out over the dirt, away from a skull with only a patchwork of remaining skin.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Once burned, Jo and Arnett had Garrison check for any additional victims. They worked their way back to the cabin, but Bones didn’t pick up another trail.
When they returned to the scene, Marzillo called them over. “The team’s searching the area, and obviously our vic will have to be transported and everything will have to be confirmed by the ME. But with so much decomposition, I’m able to get a fairly good look at her injuries right here. What I see is similar to what we saw on Logan, although not as severe, so unless we find something very strange, cause of death here was also blunt force trauma to the head. I can also confirm that we’re looking at the same weapon or type of weapon that was used on Logan. And the stage of decomposition and insect activity puts her right on time to be your missing daughter, killed at approximately the same time Logan was.”
“So nothing on her that identifies her? The hair color matches Sara’s, but other than that…” Jo asked.
“Nope. Unlike Logan, there’s no ID, no phone, no nothing. The blanket also has a Target label, and her clothes are generic retail, from what I can see so far.” Marzillo rubbed her nose with her forearm. “We won’t know for sure until we get DNA back.”
“Can we get a picture of the clothes with the head cropped out? Maybe her Aunt Lucy will recognize them,” Jo said.
“I’ll have Pepper send some over to you. In the meantime, there’s a little more that I can tell you.” She knelt down and pointed toward the woman’s skull. “Her head injury has two locations, somewhat more differentiated than Logan’s were. One is here, at the temple. The other is under here, at the back of the head. The hit to the side of the head is shallower, and the fracture isn’t as long.”
“Head wounds bleed like crazy, so that potentially matches Marissa’s bloody shirt,” Arnett said.
“Correct,” Marzillo said. “The injury to the side of the head is horizontal front-to-back and long, while the injury to the back of the head is short and roughly diagonal, with the most damage at the top of the fracture. I can’t be sure, but my guess is she was standing, possibly running, when our killer hit her the first time, and he caught her with a swing parallel to the floor. Then she dropped to the ground, and standing over her, he hit her again.”
“Which could also match the blood high on the wall in the cabin, then lower on the wall.”
“Just like I said with Logan, I can’t be sure without pattern or directional information, but it’s not inconsistent. There are other scenarios that could account for what we saw, this is just the theory my brain pops out when I put this information into it. The only thing I can say for certain is she was hit at least twice with a long hard object of some sort. And based on the fracture, I’d guess the object had a cornered edge to it, not smoothly round like the billy club we discussed before.”
