CHAPTER SIX
Selena kept her rental car two lengths behind Connor’s sheriff’s SUV as the road unwound through the county.
Dust spit now and then from his tires. Sunlight flashed off the rear window when the trees thinned.
On either side of the road, fields ran out in dull winter color, bordered by fences that leaned with age and weather.
A pair of crows lifted from a ditch as the two vehicles passed, black wings beating low over scrub and briar.
Her hands stayed steady on the wheel. Steady hands suggested calm, and calm was not what she felt.
The church had gotten to her. Worse than that, she had let Connor see it. She had stood there in that dead place with its boarded windows and peeling paint and said too much. Not much by any normal standard. Still more than she had meant to give him.
Selena slowed her breathing.
She knew how to keep distance. Washington had taught her that in ways Harlan County never could.
Being part of a city, the anonymity of it.
She loved that. The ability to disappear.
In Harlan, if everyone didn’t quite know everyone, the reality wasn’t far from that.
The distance Washington had taught her was useful.
A wall built from work and time zones and cases big enough to drown out the small private things.
Yet one morning back in these hills, and the old place was already finding cracks in her.
A church.
A road.
Connor’s voice in a dark stairwell.
That was all it took.
Her phone buzzed in the cup holder. Meg Calloway.
Selena tapped the steering wheel control to answer through the car speaker. “Raven.”
Meg’s voice came through crisp and level as always. “How’s the investigation going?”
Selena glanced at Connor’s SUV up ahead. “Potentially more complicated than the initial report suggested.”
“I see. How so?”
“There’s something about this killer. The religious iconography of it.”
Selena took the next bend carefully. “I found what looks like a Roman numeral for the number two hidden behind a piece of furniture in the loft. Written in dried blood. If I’m right, Brenda Colter may not be the first victim. This could be the start of a serial pattern.”
Meg was silent for a moment.
“I was hoping this would be one and done for you.”
“So was I,” Selena replied. “Could you get someone at the office to run some database checks for me? Just to see if the first victim was reported previously.”
“I’ll get that looked into,” Meg said. “Missing persons, unsolved, unidentified, regional overlap. Anything within realistic travel radius first, then we widen it. Sound good?”
“Great. Thanks, boss.”
“What’s your next move?”
“Other than a distant cousin, the victim doesn’t have a next of kin. We’re going to talk to the ex-boyfriend, Dale Mitch. Volatile according to the local file. I’m following Sheriff Chase there now.”
That brought a pause a little different from the last one.
Meg said, “How are you two getting on?”
Selena let out a breath through her nose. “We’re not, but we’re keeping it civil.”
Connor’s SUV slowed ahead to take a narrower road that broke off toward a stand of scrub trees and low trailers set back from the main route. Selena followed.
Meg spoke again. “Don’t let the personal history get ahead of the case.
The people who are gunning for you in Washington are probably hoping for you to get tangled up in this with your ex.
I’m starting to think that’s why they requested I send you there.
A report saying you’ve been uncooperative with local law enforcement at the expense of the case would be another black mark against your name. Don’t give them the ammo.”
“I don’t plan to.” She hated the insinuation. She hated even more that Meg was right.
Silence sat between them for a moment, made easier by years of knowing what did and did not require saying.
Meg broke it first. “Keep me updated, okay, Selena?”
“Will do.”
“Bye.”
The line disconnected.
Up ahead, Connor’s brake lights flared as he pulled to a stop outside a run-down trailer at the edge of a dirt lot.
The place looked half-collapsed from fatigue rather than impact.
Metal skirting hung loose beneath it. One window had been covered with plywood.
Another had a curtain pinned over cracked glass.
Rust stained the steps leading to the front door.
Beer cans sat crushed near one tire track as if someone had kicked them aside instead of throwing them away.
Selena parked beside the SUV and got out.
Connor was already stepping from his vehicle, hat in hand.
She looked at the trailer. “This Mitch’s place?”
“His last known address.”
Selena started toward the steps, eager to get things rolling.
Connor moved in front of her, not aggressively, just enough to make her stop.
She looked at him. “What is it, Connor?”
He kept his voice low. “Look, you’ve got all the expertise in this area. I can’t deny that. But it’s been a long time since you’ve been in Harlan County. People expect to be spoken to a certain way here, and they might close up with a big-shot FBI agent around.”
Selena folded her arms. “Can you stop calling me a big shot.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
Connor held her gaze. “Maybe I should take the lead talking to this guy.”
Selena stepped past him. “I think I can handle it, Connor.”
The porch flexed under her feet as she climbed the steps. Paint peeled from the doorframe in long curls. A sour mix of stale smoke and damp fabric drifted from somewhere under the trailer. She knocked hard enough to be heard through the thin walls.
Nothing.
Selena knocked again.
Movement sounded inside. A shuffle. Something bumped over. Then the door opened three inches against a chain.
One eye and half a face looked out.
“What?”
Dale Mitch was older than Brenda by at least ten years if Selena judged right. Stringy hair. Unshaven jaw. Red-rimmed eyes sunk too deep in a face that had gone hard around the mouth. He smelled of old sweat and last night’s liquor even through the crack.
Selena held up her credentials. “FBI. I’m Special Agent Selena Raven. I need to ask you some questions about Brenda Colter.”
The eye narrowed. “Why?”
“Because we need to pursue our inquiries until we catch the killer,” Selena replied.
“You got a warrant?” Half of his grin could be seen poking out from behind the door.
“No,” she said.
“Am I under arrest?”
“No, Mr. Mitch.”
“Then see ya.”
He began to close the door. Connor stepped forward and wedged his foot in the door. “Dale, I’m the county sheriff. Open the door.”
“Do you have a warrant?” the grin asked.
“No,” Connor replied. “But I can get one if you want. And I’ll wait for my deputies to show up. Then we’ll have a little snoop around your trailer. You wouldn’t have any drugs in there by chance?”
The grin faded.
“Or, you know,” Connor said. “You could just have a sit-down with us, answer our questions, and we’ll be on our merry way.”
Defeat flickered there. The chain rattled back. Dale pulled the door wide and stood aside with poor grace.
Connor had found the way in. Another point for him. Selena knew he’d let her know all about that.
Dale turned and moved away. “Your deputy. That Arnold kid. Told me what happened yesterday. Didn’t know the feds cared what happened to Brenda, though. What’s that all about?”
Selena stepped inside. “We’re just here to help, Mr. Mitch.”
The trailer was dim despite daylight outside.
Curtains stayed mostly drawn. A television murmured from the far end with the volume low enough to make the voices sound trapped.
Ashtrays overflowed on two side tables. A stained recliner faced the TV.
Empty bottles crowded the counter near a sink full of dishes.
The whole place gave off the impression of a man barely managing himself and resenting the effort.
Dale shut the door too hard.
Selena turned to face him. “When was the last time you saw Brenda?”
His jaw worked once before he answered. “Couple weeks.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah. She dumped me like a sack o’ rotten potatoes.”
Selena looked at the man. “And how did you take that?”
“I climbed inside a bottle,” he said. “But I didn’t do nothin’ to her. I wouldn’t, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”
Connor stayed near the door, quiet for now.
Selena took out her notebook. “Where were you two nights ago?”
Dale’s eyes shifted about.
“Here.”
“Alone?” Selena pressed.
“That’s what I said, ain’t it?”
“Doing what?”
He barked a short laugh with no humor in it. “Drinkin’ in my trailer like I said. Which is none of your business.”
Selena wrote the answer down without reacting. “Anybody who can confirm that you stayed here?”
“No.”
“And Brenda didn’t ever come by here at night to try to make up?”
“I said I hadn’t seen her.”
The anger came quickly. Too quickly. Not all of it aimed at Selena, she thought. Some of it was panic trying to dress itself up as defiance.
She softened her tone a notch. “Mr. Mitch, I’m not here to question you as a suspect.”
That was a lie, and both of them knew it. Still, there were lies meant to move a conversation rather than end one. Dale’s shoulders lowered a fraction, though his eyes remained watchful.
“I just need to understand Brenda’s life,” Selena said. “Did she have religious ties? Go to church anywhere? Talk about St. Bartholomew’s?”
Dale snorted. “Church? Brenda?”
“That’s a no?”
“She weren’t exactly righteous, let’s put it that way. She didn’t have time for church.”
Selena tried another angle. “Did she know anyone in Eagleton connected to the St. Bartholomew church?”
“No idea.”
“Any enemies you knew about?”
“Everybody’s got enemies.”
“Did Brenda have any dangerous ones?”
He gave her a long look, then glanced at Connor as if deciding which of them he disliked more. “People didn’t always get on with her.”
“Why?”
“Because she kept runnin’ her mouth. Loose with her mouth. And that wasn’t all she was loose with.”