CHAPTER SIXTEEN
By late afternoon, the briefing room at the Harlan County Sheriff’s Department had become too small for the dead.
Karen Sloane’s photograph occupied the upper left corner of the murder board. Ruth Keller’s sat beneath it. Linda Mercer’s image, printed from the missing-person file, had been added that morning beside a photograph of her Corolla inside the barn.
Three women. Three tongues removed. Three lives reduced to notes, dates, maps, and arrows.
Selena sat at the computer nearest the board, working through another set of Elmsview High records. Across the room, Kelly typed at the second terminal. Neither woman had spoken for almost twenty minutes.
The silence carried more weight than the work required.
Selena had replayed the conversation at Blethan’s office several times since leaving. Kelly had challenged the high-school theory without raising her voice or dismissing the evidence. Selena had responded as if disagreement were disloyalty.
That knowledge did not make an apology easier.
“Kelly.”
Kelly looked over.
“I was out of line at Blethan’s. You were right that we shouldn’t make the school connection the only one.”
Kelly studied her for a moment. “Thank you.”
Selena nodded once.
A printer worked near the back wall. Kelly crossed to collect the pages, returned to her desk, and placed them beside a legal pad. Her movements were careful and efficient. No signs remained of the previous night beyond the water bottle at her elbow.
Selena returned to the alumni database.
The victims’ school years overlapped, but the records continued to resist them.
Karen appeared in the school paper and two literature events.
Ruth had belonged to the business club and played volleyball.
Linda’s activities came several years later.
No teacher, club, disciplinary matter, or school event connected all three.
Boyd Cutler had led nowhere beyond old anger.
Trina Vale’s photograph and the motel records supported Boyd’s alibi for Karen’s murder.
Arnold had finished checking the later deaths.
Boyd’s phone records showed no travel outside the Wallins Creek area during either likely death window, and the available traffic-camera and plate-reader checks had found no sign of his F-150 on the routes to Ruth’s house or Talon Road.
Nothing connected him to Ruth or Linda beyond their years at Elmsview High.
The door opened.
Arnold entered carrying a folder beneath one arm. He wore his uniform again, but the skin around his eyes had a tired, irritated cast. A faint red patch marked the bridge of his nose.
Selena leaned back in her chair. “How did your date go?”
Color rose from his collar.
“Eh, not to my liking. Let’s put it like that.”
Kelly glanced over the top of her monitor.
Selena folded her arms. “How so?”
Arnold placed the folder on the table and took longer than necessary to align its edge with the wood.
“We went to Roy Tanner’s bar.”
“That sounds uneventful so far,” Selena said.
“It was, until she ordered the hottest chicken wings they sell.”
Kelly gave a small groan. “I remember those wings. They’re horrendously hot. He still serves them?”
“Unfortunately.”
Selena studied Arnold’s reddened nose. “And you ordered them, too.”
“She said she loved spicy food. I didn’t want to sit there eating plain chicken while she was setting fire to herself.”
“You hate spicy food,” Selena said.
“I know that now with greater conviction.”
Kelly turned her chair toward him. “How many did you eat?”
“Two.”
“That’s not many.”
“The second one nearly killed me.”
Selena felt the first hint of amusement she had experienced all morning. “Dare I ask what happened after?”
Arnold sighed and pulled out a chair.
“A piece of chili got caught in my throat. I started coughing. Proper coughing, where you can’t breathe and everyone in the place turns to see if they should help.”
“Did she help?” Kelly asked.
“She slapped me on the back hard enough to move a rib.”
Selena pressed her lips together.
Arnold continued, “Then my eyes started watering, so I rubbed them.”
“With the hand you used to eat the wings,” Kelly said.
“That became clear immediately.”
Selena pictured him coughing, crying, and trying to maintain whatever dignity remained at a crowded bar.
“I didn’t cover myself in manly glory,” Arnold said. “Let’s put it that way.”
“There are plenty more fish in the sea,” Selena told him.
“In Elmsview?” He shook his head. “That’s a small pond.”
The door opened again.
Connor entered with a muttered, “Hey.”
No one answered quickly enough to make the greeting feel natural.
His uniform shirt appeared freshly changed, but exhaustion had settled into the lines around his mouth. He crossed to the coffee machine without removing his jacket and pushed a paper cup beneath the dispenser.
The machine clicked.
Nothing came out.
Connor pressed the button again.
A low mechanical hum started, then stopped.
“Come on.”
He opened the compartment, adjusted the cup, and struck the side of the machine with the heel of his palm. Coffee spluttered into the cup, filling it halfway before the flow ended.
Connor stared at the result as if the machine had acted deliberately.
Arnold met Selena’s gaze and widened his eyes.
The message required no words.
Someone’s in a bad mood.
Arnold rose and collected the folder. “I’d better get out of here, or I have a feeling I’ll be next.”
Connor gave him a flat glance.
Arnold left before the door had finished swinging.
Selena waited until Connor took the chair at the end of the table.
“What’s wrong?”
He drank from the cup, grimaced, and set it down. “Linda Mercer’s husband is devastated.”
“Phil?”
Connor nodded. “He kept asking whether she suffered. Asked if she knew what was happening. Asked why I didn’t find her sooner.”
“You couldn’t answer any of that.”
“I know.”
Kelly lowered her attention to the desk, giving him what privacy the room allowed.
Connor rubbed both hands over his thighs. “I sometimes wonder what’s happened to this place.”
Connor stared into the half-filled cup. “Phil had all her medication lined up on the kitchen counter. He said he kept thinking she’d walk in and complain that he’d moved it. Then he started apologizing to me for the argument they had before she left.”
“What did you tell him?” Selena asked.
“That people say things when they’re angry. It didn’t put her in that barn.”
“Did he believe you?”
“No.” Connor turned the cup between his palms. “I’m not sure I did either, and I know better.”
Guilt rarely cared about evidence. Selena had watched families take responsibility for choices made by killers because blame felt easier to carry when it had a familiar name.
Selena glanced toward the murder board. Elmsview and the surrounding county had never been as safe as childhood memory pretended. Poverty, addiction, grudges, and violence had always existed beneath the familiar roads. Three women killed with the same ritual still changed the scale of it.
“At least you care,” Selena said. “A lot of people grow cold the longer they deal with this.”
“I signed up to be sheriff to help the community, not bury them.”
The words remained between them.
Connor picked up his coffee again but did not drink. “How are you getting on?”
Selena turned her chair toward him. “Blethan confirmed the same type of weapon was used on all three women. Fixed blade, around six inches, partially serrated. He believes it’s a combat-style knife, although a hunting or survival knife could have the same features.”
“Same knife in all three attacks?”
“He can’t prove that yet, but the cut patterns are close.”
“Anything else?”
“No foreign DNA on Karen or Ruth. No usable unidentified prints. Linda’s examination and the vehicle processing are still underway.”
Selena studied the three photographs. Karen had just left a marriage and moved somewhere isolated.
Ruth had told Oliver he was pushing things too fast. Linda disappeared after telling Phil she was done being ignored.
The women had not only attended the same school.
Each had been pulling away from a man when the killer found her.
“Whoever chose them knew what was happening in their private lives,” Selena said.
Connor followed her attention to the board. “Friends? Coworkers?”
“Or somewhere they were talking when they thought no one was listening.”
Connor glanced toward the school records spread across Selena’s desk. “You’re still working the high-school connection.”
“Yes.”
He shifted his attention to Kelly. “What about you?”
Kelly turned from her computer. Her posture changed, the hesitation disappearing.
“Actually, I think I have a breakthrough.”
Selena’s fingers stopped on the keyboard.
“I don’t think the high school is the connection,” Kelly said.
Irritation rose at once, sharper because Selena had expected the challenge.
Connor leaned forward. “The writer angle?”
“No. Karen belonged to a couple of writing groups, but Ruth and Linda didn’t. Nothing connected them there.”
Selena kept her voice even. “Then what have you found?”
Kelly picked up the pages she had printed.
“I found a connection, but to be sure I had to get some official backing to chase down the lead. Seattle’s cyber squad helped me prepare the preservation requests and the technical affidavit.
The Commonwealth’s Attorney took the warrant application to a circuit judge.
And I got some interesting info that connects all three victims based on their internet usage. ”
Selena turned fully toward her. “You did what?”
“I used contacts I’ve worked with for years to chase a lead. I should have told you before I did it.”
“You didn’t clear that with me.”
“I didn’t think I had to. I was just trying to help.”
“You’re assigned to my office, Kelly.”
“We’re both federal agents working the same homicide series.”
“That doesn’t mean you contact another field office without telling me.”
Connor glanced between them. “What did they get?”