Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Durham, New Hampshire
Sunday, September 10, 2006
9:24 a.m.
Teshia Elborne’s killer was an artist.
Leigh couldn’t describe these photos any other way. It was twisted—she was well aware—but there was something beautiful in the way the woman’s killer had cleaned and taken care of the body then almost laid her out on the ground. An offering to some forgotten god.
No wonder Professor Morrow had approached her with the opportunity to contribute to his research. She was seriously messed up.
She flipped through the next set of crime photos, a cold chill coming down from the air-conditioning vent overhead in his book-packed office. The breeze ruffled the incident report and witness statements Durham PD had already collected and filed. Not a lot of detectives would’ve handed over confidential case files, but Professor Morrow had his contacts. And now she did too.
“What do you make of the case?” He’d been watching her from behind his desk, those beady eyes never wavering. “Anything jump out at you?”
It didn’t make sense. Why he wanted her opinion. He was the expert. A god among men in the criminology world. She’d read all his published works. He’d recruited her from the psych program to study under him. She was nobody. A freshman with too much emotional baggage, trauma, and a thirteen-year-old brother secretly living in her dorm. Leigh moved on to the next photo, a close-up of the victim’s face.
It was hard to deny Teshia Elborne had been beautiful, even at the center of a crime scene. Blonde hair, almost the same shade as Leigh’s, spread around her in a halo highlighting chocolate eyes and full pink—well, now pale white—lips. Seductive and manipulative. With a wide smile that promised a ringing laugh and that Teshia knew her effect on people. Used it against them to get what she wanted. Leigh couldn’t help but be drawn in. Heaven help those who’d come face to face with the victim before her death. Had Dean been one of them?
“I think the killer has done this before.” While she had extensive knowledge of death investigations, this one felt… out of reach. Disconnected. She hadn’t known the victim, but she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to study the case either. Not if she wanted to apply to Concord’s police academy next year. “Teshia wasn’t his first.”
“Oh?” Professor Morrow leaned forward in his seat. “What gives you that impression?”
Her mouth dried under his attention. One wrong word and he could take his offer back. Leigh slipped her index finger between the first two pages of the report. One name stood out among all the others in the witness list. Dean Groves. The last person to see Teshia Elborne alive. She put that small detail aside for now.
“According to the medical examiner, the killer washed and bleached the body before depositing her at the scene. He knew to clean under her fingernails and ensured not to leave any prints or fibers on her clothing. That kind of discipline is honed over a long period of time and with practice.”
“Very good.” Professor Morrow made a note on the legal pad. Was he really taking her suggestion or was this some kind of blind test? “Durham PD hasn’t made that assessment. So we’ll want to look into past histories of violence when suspects are inevitably identified. What else do you see? What of the victim? Why was she targeted?”
It took everything inside of her not to straighten under his praise. It would be easy to chase the high, but Leigh took another look at the case file in her lap. Upwards of seventy percent of murdered women were killed by someone they knew, half of them by a partner. Chances were Teshia Elborne’s death hadn’t been random. And with police looking to question Dean, she had to assume they’d been close. Possibly a couple.
“Witness statements tell us she was well-liked. Academic transcripts and records show she was involved in a number of social organizations over the years and did well in her classes. I think that got the killer’s attention, but it wasn’t the most important detail for him. She was… popular, held a lot of power. But not over her killer.”
“Perhaps her killer was jealous of all that power. Wanted it for himself.” Professor Morrow made another note, his pen nearly cutting through the thin yellow lined paper. “Or she tried to use her power on him and failed.”
“No. I don’t think this was a crime of passion. The mode of operation tells me the killer is calculated. He doesn’t make a single move without considering all the options available. Based on his high level of intelligence and preparation, I would say he viewed Teshia Elborne more as a tool than a person. He was more than likely using her for something specific.” Leigh couldn’t take her eyes off the witness statement that’d slid free from the stack. One provided by Dean Groves. The text blurred the harder she tried to make sense of his words. Relationship. Two years. Cheated. Confrontation. Her lungs shoved every molecule of air free from her chest. The man she’d started falling in love with wasn’t just the last person to see the victim alive. He’d been betrayed by her. “And then he wasn’t.”
Durham, New Hampshire
Thursday, October 10
7:03 a.m.
A power line sparked and collapsed.
Students grouped tighter at the windows facing a distant Main Street, flinching as one at the impact. Low murmurs expressed disbelief and sorrow at the destruction tearing through town. The storm wasn’t passing. If anything, conditions had somehow gotten worse over the last hour. Hail had reached golf-ball-sized proportions, and Leigh thanked foresight for getting the insurance on her rental car. There was no way she was driving out of here with a car that didn’t resemble Swiss cheese.
Ford took up one side of the bench she’d occupied last night, her on the other, as they crowded into Professor Morrow’s space. Cutting him off from escape. How the hell did he manage to look put together after swamping through the basement with her twelve hours ago when it took everything she had not to smell her own breath?
“All right, Professor. Let’s talk. Setting aside your personal connection to Alice Dietz, we believe you are the killer’s target. Have you noticed anything out of the usual recently?”
Morrow interlaced his hands between his knees. Exhaustion had puffed the bags under his eyes to monumental proportions. Leigh wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him like this. So very… ordinary. He would hate that. To admit he was human like the rest of his puny subjects. “You mean other than the fact you hold information which could cost me my job at this university?”
“Marshal Ford is asking if there’s been anyone new in your life? Maybe someone who’s been asking personal questions or become interested in your work?” She hadn’t meant that last one to sound so biting, but she didn’t feel bad about it either. Pierce Morrow had gone out of his way to obstruct the investigation into Alice Dietz’s murder. He’d broken a cardinal rule as a criminologist, one he’d instilled in her from the very beginning of their mentorship, and had cost himself her respect in a record amount of hours. “Or have you noticed anything missing or moved from your apartment or office?”
“No. Nothing like that.” Weariness coated the professor’s voice. He shook his head, but it didn’t have the same effect as it used to with his eyes cast between his feet. The case was getting to him—all of them. Or was this sudden surrender something else? “I mean, except my driver’s license.”
Leigh snapped her gaze to Ford. “What about your driver’s license?”
“It’s missing. Has been since the night Alice and I… fought.” Morrow rubbed at his face, aging in front of her eyes. Where he’d been a perfect picture of calm and collected yesterday morning in the president’s office, the mask vanished. Leaving nothing but a shell of the man she’d known. “I thought I must’ve dropped it leaving campus. I didn’t think anything of it until now. You think someone is trying to impersonate my identity?”
“While we can’t share details of our investigation, we believe the killer has a personal connection to Agent Brody.” She didn’t miss the twitch of Ford’s mouth. Concern? The marshal’s eyes lifted to hers. No. Not concern. Defeat. As if the mere thought of her working this case cut him on a physical level. “And may be trying to use you to get to her.”
Well, that certainly didn’t sound insane.
Except they had an entire wall of newspaper clippings, dates, photos, and details about her career and life from the time she’d been seventeen years old. Forensics was still running an inventory, but the killer had done a thorough job. Even down to a mere mention of her name as a consultant for a past police department. Leigh stopped herself from shoving her hand into her blazer for the article she’d taken from the board. One neither Ford nor the techs would ever see. But the killer had. He’d left it where she would find it. Like he’d known she’d step into that room. Calling her out.
“Leigh and I haven’t been in touch in years,” Morrow said.
“But you said you followed my career. That you’ve read about every case, that you used your law enforcement and federal contacts to get copies of my case files.” The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as those nights in his office took shape. Memories and feelings she’d shoved to the back of her mind. She’d worshiped the ground her mentor had walked on for so long. Wanted nothing more than his approval. At least up until she’d learned his nasty little secret.
“I did.” Morrow nodded, his eyebrows arching to deepen the age lines streaking across his forehead in uneven patterns. “You were one of my favorite students. I was proud of the work you’d done as a consultant and then for the FBI. Of course I followed your career.”
Right. Because in his mind he’d made her. Thought that he deserved the credit for her success. It wasn’t her merits and personal study of more than two hundred serial cases that shaped her into the investigator she was today. It was him. “Or were you looking to gain my insights again by showing interest in my work?”
Blood drained from the professor’s face as he shoved to stand. Escape. That was what the guilty did. They tried to escape. “I don’t know what you’re talking?—”
“That’s why you reached out so many times over the years, right?” Law enforcement had stopped requesting his contributions. Just as journals had stopped publishing his research. The problem was, it’d all been done before. It’d all been said. Pierce Morrow was stuck in the past and refused to adapt to or embrace changing policies and technologies. He preferred to live in an outdated and underserving landscape that had no use for him. And it was only now hitting him how useless he’d become to the field. “Why you’d send me case files you’d been asked to consult on. Just like the Elborne case.” Leigh kept her seat and her voice rose. It was enough to draw him back in. To try to contain her accusations. “Don’t you remember? Asking me to come to your office and get my take on the case. Why the victim had been targeted. Helping you to understand the killer’s motive. Of course, at the time, I wanted to impress you. I trusted you. I’d known Durham PD asked you to look at the case. What I didn’t know was that you’d take credit for my insights. I also didn’t know you’d had a personal relationship with Teshia Elborne, just as you did with Alice Dietz.”
Ford craned his head up toward Morrow, all emotion void from his expression. It looked as though the marshal was doing everything in his power to remain seated, hands tense in fists. And that absolute stillness. She saw it for what it was now. An attempt at control. “Is that so?”
“The insights you made, while noteworthy, Agent Brody, were child’s play compared to those I’ve made over my career. I have been integral in helping police solve upwards of fifty homicides over the course of my career. Not to mention been published in a dozen criminology and abnormal psychology journals.” Morrow was practically shaking now. Exposed for the fraud he’d become and not even a little bit comfortable with it. He must’ve seen the end in sight. And now… Now he was trying to save himself by any means possible. “I never needed a college freshman’s insights. I saw something in you. Something great, and I fed it. I turned you into the agent you are today. You needed me.”
“No. You used me. And you used Teshia Elborne and Alice Dietz.” Leigh straightened, a full head shorter than the professor but more than capable of putting him on his ass if necessary. What would’ve happened had she agreed to stay to assist with his research instead of joining the Concord police academy? Would she be dead now, too?
“What do you think, Ford?” She couldn’t deny the connection to both victims, then and now.
“I think the killer we’re hunting becomes his victims.” Ford rose from the bench, closing in on the professor. “Who better to steal someone else’s identity than a professor who’s lost his own?”