Chapter 14
Fourteen
Casa Cousins was not what Lincoln had expected.
It had to be one of the largest houses in all of Apex.
Granted, there was still a lot of Apex he hadn’t seen, but of the parts he had, only the chancellor’s mansion on Main Street was bigger than Barry and Trudy’s place.
On the other side of Lake Sardis from Lincoln and Carter’s rental, the large agro-chic farmhouse with its white-paneled walls, massive windows, and pitched slate roofs was situated on five acres of prime lakefront real estate.
Most of the area was wooded, the structure hidden among the forest, except directly behind the house the trees had been thinned to provide a stunning view of the lake.
Behind Lincoln, the back door to the kitchen opened, and his partner’s footsteps thudded across the pine deck. Lincoln braced his forearms on the patio rail, staring out at the lake. “I’d say business is booming at Flour Power.”
“You’d be right,” Carter said. “Partially.”
“Barry’s pension?”
“More like his inheritance.” Carter assumed a similar position next to him. “This was the Petticoat family land.”
That made a certain amount of sense. Best piece of real estate in town owned by one of Apex’s founding families. “Why Barry? Not Larry and Harry too or instead? Harry was the eldest. Did he have it first, before his death?”
“Nope. Homestead was passed down, chief to chief, since their great-great-grandfather. I’d guess as an incentive to keep them here in Apex and on the force. Larry and Harry split the rest of the inheritance.”
Lincoln glanced back over his shoulder at the shiny modern structure.
“This isn’t the original house, though.” His work required him to be familiar with architecture and architectural trends.
Buildings, as the focus or backdrop of a picture, were another clue in dating photos.
Like clothing, a building’s architecture was more useful as a backstop, and in this case, this sort of agro-chic had become particularly popular the past two decades.
More simply even than architectural trends, the house didn’t show the wear and tear of a multigenerational structure.
“You’re right,” Carter confirmed. “That’s the Flour Power part of it. Trudy and Barry razed the old homestead and built this one ten years back.”
“How’d Harry and Larry feel about that?”
“That note in there makes me wonder.”
“You too, huh?” Lincoln straightened and turned around, leaning back on the rail and watching O’Shea direct the ERT team inside, two of them working on fingerprinting the patio door that Carter had avoided exiting out of. No disturbing the evidence.
The diagnosis—on Letter Elegant, Batch 302—had been taped to the sliding glass patio door. O’Shea had instructed it be left there for Lincoln to see when they arrived. Lincoln understood why; the positioning of the note was as important as the diagnosis itself.
“I want to hear what you think as a field agent before I tell you my theory.”
Beside him, Carter remained facing the lake, elbows braced on the rail, as he ticked off his suspicions on his fingers.
“The Petticoats are a founding family. All of them have gray hair, and by the pictures I saw on the walls at FP and at the police station, they have been for a while. The lax follow-up of the missing persons reports. He’s the police chief in a position to know more about the goings-on here and who is coming and going through his town, including passers-through who happen to get into a car accident or other altercation.
He’s old enough and been on the force long enough to be Dr. Fear.
” All five fingers on the one hand were extended.
“And then there’s the note.” He held out the other hand, five fingers wide.
Lincoln chuckled. “By he, I take it you mean Larry?”
Carter nodded, and Lincoln shifted back around, mimicking Carter this time.
“Alternate theory.” He began counting off on his fingers.
“The Petticoats are a founding family. All of them have gone gray prematurely. The lax follow-up of the missing persons reports. He was the police chief, and now he co-runs a bakery that’s the town hub.
” Catching the divergence, Carter raised a brow.
Lincoln kept going. “He’s old enough and was on the force long enough to be Dr. Fear.
” All five fingers on the one hand were extended.
“And then there’s the wandering.” He held out the other hand, five fingers wide.
Smiling, Carter tilted his head back toward the house. “How do you explain that scene?”
Lincoln began counting off theories anew. “Staged. He’s toying with us. He’s throwing us off, so he doesn’t get thrown off track again.”
“And the note? Claustrophobia?”
“Fitting.” Barry or Trudy, one of them suffering from a fear of enclosed spaces, builds a house that was designed to be open, the living room the airiest of all, and with an expansive view of the lake just beyond the sliding glass doors.
As he’d followed Carter and O’Shea around the rest of the crime scene—three place settings of half-eaten breakfast, cooking dishes in the sink, minor signs of a struggle—Lincoln couldn’t stop his gaze from drifting back to the note placement, nor could he stop his brain from circling the same two suspects.
Barry or Larry, and how that note could factor in for each.
“It could apply to both,” Lincoln said, the ultimate conclusion he’d drawn. “If Barry or Trudy is the victim, one could interpret this house, and the need to wander, as a means of counteracting a sort of claustrophobia.”
“Being so tied to Apex,” Carter said, picking up the thread. “A relatively isolated mountain town. And if Larry is Dr. Fear, that must grate. Barry or Trudy wandering off the land he wanted and Barry away from the job he wanted.”
“Go more meta,” Lincoln said. “And back to that notion of being stuck here, in Apex. What if that diagnosis is Dr. Fear diagnosing himself? If it’s Barry, we laid that out.
His need to wander. If it’s Larry, or anyone else for that matter, it likewise makes sense.
Dr. Fear’s first victim of every cycle is someone he spots here in Apex.
An out-of-towner he latches on to, who gives him an excuse to leave town, and he works out his claustrophobia, albeit violently, by working out other people’s fears for a week in DC before returning home. ”
Carter slowly rotated his head, eyes wide. “Holy shit, L. That’s the motive. That’s the missing piece of the profile.”
“I have been researching this killer for more than a decade. I just didn’t have all the pieces until now.
” Plus, the underlying theory also wasn’t unfamiliar to Lincoln.
In fact, he probably deserved a face-palm for not making the connection sooner.
But not in front of the FBI team. Carter maybe, but no self-flagellation in front of O’Shea and company.
“Gabby talks about being stuck someplace the same way,” he explained to Carter.
“Every assignment, thirty months in and she starts yammering about the walls closing in. It’s time for her to go.
Clearly, Dr. Fear’s mileage varies as to how long he can go between cycles.
Something must happen that triggers the walls closing in for him. ”
Carter was nodding now. “All that makes sense.”
“Even more than you know for Larry.”
Lincoln and Carter almost knocked heads as they straightened and whipped around to the source of the new, unfamiliar voice.
Dressed in jeans, a sweater, a puffy vest, and combat boots, the woman at the near end of the deck was unremarkable in appearance—average height, brown eyes, black pixie-cut hair, freckles across the bridge of her nose.
But she was remarkable in her bearing—authority and confidence rolled off her, as did unconcealed indignation at Lincoln and Carter.
Cop, Lincoln discerned, the bulge at her side beneath the vest—a holster likely—propping up the notion.
Carter had come to the same conclusion. “Detective Lang?”
“Jo,” she said sans hand.
Josephine Lang. The detective Carter had mentioned who’d turned a blind eye to all those missing persons cases, including Stacy Weathers’s.
This woman? Lincoln didn’t see it. Everything about her screamed competent.
Or maybe she was just competent at covering things up?
Her next words confused Lincoln further.
“So you two are the reason my husband has been MIA for two days?”
“Two days?” Lincoln said. “And I thought Barry was married to Trudy?”
She pointed inside the house—at Agent Mark O’Shea, on the phone, standing by the kitchen table alone. As if sensing her attention, he glanced up and the adoring smile that brightened his face was unmistakable. He was definitely in love with this woman. His wife, apparently.
“You’re married to O’Shea?” Carter said. “I thought he worked out of Richmond?”
“He does, but his field office covers Apex and he has some experience with ViCAP, so he’s regional point for serial cases. We have a house here and in Richmond. We make it work.”
“How do you know who we are?”
“Well, let’s see,” she said, approaching. “Last time I spoke to Mark, he said he was called out on a serial case, and I watch the news, which is flooded with Dr. Fear coverage, and you two were out here discussing said serial killer, ergo . . . ”
Competent and smart.
“He also mentioned working with some hot-as-fuck agent and his pet professor.”
“Hey!” Lincoln squawked.
“Okay, you got me.” Her frosty demeanor melted, a little. “I made that part up.”
Lincoln took a gamble, on her judgment of them and her trustworthiness, despite those missing persons reports. Something didn’t add up there; he wanted to know why. He extended a hand. “Agent and Professor Lincoln Monroe, Quantico.”