Chapter 43
LOUISE
My heart pounded as we pushed through the doors of the Berry Springs police station. Although Ryder tried to conceal it, I could tell he was nervous.
Me? I was a wreck.
Ryder was about to walk into the last place he’d stood as a free man—before being thrown in an eight-by-eight cell for ten years.
The place where his life changed forever.
And he was doing it for me, for Kara, for every woman who’d been raped and murdered and whose case was sitting in an evidence freezer somewhere.
The receptionist, Ellen, looked up from her cell phone and flashed a welcoming smile at me. Then she looked at Ryder, blinked a few times, then went white as a sheet. Much like Mrs. Booth had at Donny’s Diner. The cell phone slipped from her hand, clattering onto the desk, but she didn’t notice.
“Afternoon, Ellen.”
“Heyyy… Ryder.”
Apparently, the two knew each other, as did everyone else in this small town. It was like I no longer existed.
Ryder squared his shoulders. “Is Chief McCord in?”
“Uh, let me check. Reason?”
“I’d like to talk to him about Kara Meyers.” His voice was level but loaded.
Her eyes widened more. Yes, the convicted murderer was here to talk to the chief of police about a woman who’d been murdered weeks earlier.
Ellen refocused on her computer, rapidly typing over what I assumed was an internal instant message system. After a minute, she looked up. “He’ll be right out.”
“Thought so.”
I sat in a cold plastic chair while Ryder stood next to me, his hands in his pockets, staring at the door that led into the station. I reached over and lightly grabbed his forearm. The touch seemed to startle him, and he looked down at me.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” I whispered. “We’re doing the right thing.”
The door opened with a loud beep, and I shot to my feet.
Dressed in a navy dress shirt under a wool vest, a pair of starched jeans, and cowboy boots, McCord locked on Ryder as he crossed the floor, the click of his boots echoing in the silence.
The air was instantly sucked from the room.
“Ryder.” McCord reached out his hand, but Ryder didn’t shake it.
“Hi, Chief McCord,” I said quickly. “Thanks for seeing us.”
The balding chief shifted his attention to me. “Miss Sloane, I don’t have any new information about the Kara Meyers case.”
“We do,” Ryder said.
McCord’s brow cocked. “Do ya now?”
“If you have a second,” I said, “we’d like to talk to you about something we found at Hollow Hill.”
The chief’s gaze flicked back to Ryder before settling on me again. “I’ve got five minutes.”
“It won’t take three,” Ryder said.
“Even better.” McCord turned and strode across the lobby, our cue to follow.
The building fell absolutely silent as we were led through the bullpen. Heads peeked up from tiny gray cubicles. Not even a single phone rang.
I glared at each pair of eyes as we passed. Ryder didn’t deserve this.
We followed the chief into the corner office at the end of the hallway.
McCord removed the papers from one chair and then haphazardly pulled another from the corner, this one with some sort of sticky substance dried to the armrest. The office was a pigsty, and I wondered how someone who fancied himself a leader would allow such chaos around him.
His oak desk was covered in folders, coffee mugs, napkins, wrappers. A file cabinet sat next to an overpacked bookcase. An American flag hung on the wall behind his chair, the only decoration on the bleak gray walls. No pictures, no plants.
McCord tossed a greasy paper bag into the trash can and sank into his chair. I sat in the seat across from him. Ryder remained standing. He pulled a small plastic bag from his pocket.
“Inside this bag is a pendant Louise and I found at the Hollow Hill estate yesterday. I believe it belongs to Maci Jones.”
A moment passed as McCord slowly squinted. “You sure?”
“I gave her a necklace with a pendant that looked exactly like this a few months before Leon Ortiz killed her. She wore it every day. It wasn’t on her when I found her, or in the house.”
McCord leaned back in his chair, expelling air from his lungs. “Do you know how many teenagers have been in and out of that place over that last twelve years?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” Ryder deadpanned.
“No, I guess you wouldn’t. Many. We patrolled it frequently for a while, and because of that, no one goes out there anymore. But before we kicked up patrols, countless locals and tourists partied and did God knows what out there. No telling what you could find if you searched every corner.”
“Didn’t you?” I asked. “When you were looking for Kara? Didn’t you search every corner?”
“There was no sign of her there, or anyone else. As I told you. Seven times.”
“Both Kara and Maci were raped, beaten, and murdered with a string. And it’s widely assumed the String Strangler lives in the area.
I think there’s a connection here that’s worth checking into.
I think Leon Ortiz had an accomplice and that person became the String Strangler.
Have you contacted the FBI about the similarities between Kara’s murder and the other girls murdered by the Strangler? ”
“I have, and that’s all I’m obliged to tell you about that, Miss Sloane. Now if you’ll—”
“I want it scanned for fingerprints,” Ryder cut in. “If nothing turns up, fine. If you get a hit, you’ve got a lead in Kara’s case—which, from what I hear, has gone cold.”
A solid minute passed as the chief stared at us and we stared back at him.
McCord slapped his palms on his thighs and stood. “I’ll see what I can do, kids.” He took the bag with the pendant from Ryder.
“I expect that back after you’re done with it.”
McCord nodded and stepped around his desk, knocking a stack of papers onto the floor. He pulled open the door. “Good to see you again, Ryder.”
This time, I grabbed Ryder’s hand and led him outside.