Chapter 27 #2
“Kalo handed this over to me and I made some calls.” Rowley smiled.
“I wanted to find out a little about him. I asked the principal if he recalled him and he told me Rourke was quiet, intelligent, and socially awkward. The incident with his teacher involved him attacking her for taking his property. Apparently, Rourke carried a strand of his mother’s hair.
His mother passed when he was younger and his father had drunk himself to death.
The kid had been sent to his old grandmother’s house.
He’d been playing with the hair during class and refused to put it away and when the teacher took it from him, he apparently went ballistic.
The school expelled him after he refused to apologize.
” He cleared his throat. “The principal mentioned this was about fifteen years ago and times have changed. Now, he would have been suspended and offered counseling.”
“This tells me the teacher involved embarrassed Rourke in front of the entire class.” Jo sighed. “This would be enough for a person to carry resentment if they were inclined to be psychopathic.”
“I found Rourke’s name in the list of children who’d been involved with social services.” Beth looked at Raven. “That makes him two for two. Not proof, by any means, that he’s involved. He’s kept his nose clean since leaving school, but we can’t dismiss him as a possible.”
Jenna waited for Rio to update the whiteboard and looked at the faces around the table. “Anyone else?”
“Yeah, I found a guy by the name of Sean Jones.” Beth gave Styles a side-eye. “Over to Styles.”
“Oh yeah.” Styles gave her a lopsided smile.
“I hunted down Sean Jones. He is a gardener who works for the local council, so he’s frequently around schools, hospitals, and the social services department.
He went to the school, but we found nothing bad there.
He’s another casualty of parents divorcing.
He went through a long fight in court. He apparently wanted to live with his father, but his mother got custody of him.
Not twelve months after the custody case, she died after a short illness.
During this time, his father remarried and moved to another state.
They placed Jones in foster care. He was bounced around and got into trouble.
One report mentioned he’d hung a cat by the neck from a tree outside a teacher’s house.
He is one to watch. I figure he has an ax to grind with both teachers and social workers. ”
Listening with interest, Jenna nodded. “He fits the profile. They often start with animal cruelty. Anyone else?”
“There is one. It’s a hunch really.” Kalo shrugged.
“Working beside Jo all the time, I’m starting to look at people from different angles.
There is one person who showed up in my radar.
He is known as Dr. Lionel Graves, although he is no longer a doctor of any description.
He lost his license some years ago and is living on disability.
He was once the local psychologist and former school counselor.
I accessed some old files regarding him and discovered he treated several troubled students, including one who later died by suicide.
He kept detailed notes that haven’t been placed in any type of restricted files.
It seems to me he has a fascination with criminal psychology and up until recent changes to the security system, still had access to school records. ”
“I discovered a number of complaints against him, from the teachers, the students, and the social workers that he came into contact with.” Beth tapped on her keyboard.
“There is also a complaint he lodged at the local hospital where he accused one of the nurses of writing a report about him to try and prevent him from getting disability.”
“Yeah.” Kalo nodded. “He seems crazy enough to kill.”
Jenna stood and stared at the whiteboard. “We’ll need to find these people and go and speak to them.”
“We need an hour.” Carter nibbled on a fry, dropped it back into the container, and brushed salt from his fingers.
“Tonight, we plan to take down the fentanyl distributors out at the BW Ranch. Give us guys an hour to sort out what we need to do. I’ll need Styles with me to organize our people to deal with the drugs.
It’s too dangerous for us to go near them and we have specialized teams to handle that part of the mission.
” He glanced at Kane. “I’m sure you’ll have your deputies back real soon to hunt down suspects. ”
It was a reasonable request. She nodded.
“Okay, you go and talk in my office. I’ll be able to find these suspects with the help of Beth, Kalo, and Jo.
” She raised her gaze to Carter. “You’ll never get a team from Helena here in time to deal with the drugs—not in this weather. Have you made other plans?”
“They’re already here.” Carter grinned around a toothpick. “The moment Kane alerted us to the mission, they hit the road. They’re holed up at the motel waiting for the green light.”
As the chairs scraped and leftover food vanished along with the men, Jenna looked at the others. “We’ve got this.”