CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"A stroke of luck," Detective Wolfe said.
Alison and Hartley were back in the FBI offices, where Wolfe had joined them to give an update on Kenneth Sterling’s whereabouts.
"What are you talking about?" Hartley asked.
"Those were Dr. Payne’s exact words," he replied. "She told us that if we were to solve this case, we would need a stroke of luck. She says that, and then we get this? I’d say that’s extremely suspicious."
"Would you?" Hartley asked, defending Alison. "Do you really think that Dr. Payne is the one committing the murders?"
"He’s right," Alison said. "About it being suspicious. The killer is obviously trying to frame me. It would be an unknown risk for them to plant one of my hairs at the crime scene if they didn’t know it could be traced to me, so they must have known that I had my hair tested as part of my training at the academy. That’s the only reason my DNA is on record. "
"Which sounds extremely convenient to me," Wolfe said. "It’s exactly the sort of thing you could say if your victim grabbed one of your hairs and you didn't realize."
"Someone grabbed one of my hairs without me realizing," Alison admitted. "The killer could have planted the hair at the first crime scene, but they chose to wait until the fourth. Why was that?"
"You tell us," Wolfe challenged.
"I’ve been focused on the case since I got here," Alison said. "Someone around me could have easily pulled out a stand of hair without me noticing. Or cut a strand. Where have you been lately, Detective Wolfe?"
"I’ve been searching for Sterling," he said. Wolfe dropped off the desk he was perched on and puffed out his chest.
"And how’s that going?" Hartley asked. "Have you located him?"
His chest dropped back to its normal position. "We haven’t been able to locate him yet," he admitted. "No one has. He’s disappeared."
"How about you find him instead of accusing Dr. Payne?" Hartley asked.
"All I’m saying is that she’s compromised now," Wolfe said. "Either she’s the killer, or someone wants us to think she is. You said it yourself, Dr. Payne. The killer is smart and knows law enforcement. If they placed the hair there, then they mean for us to know that, and it’s all a part of the larger plan, right?
If Dr. Payne is allowed access to the case, then the killer can use that.
The closer she is to the crime scenes, the easier it will be to frame her. "
"I’ve spent most of the time since Dr. Payne got here with her. She’s either been with me, at the office, or at her hotel. I can speak for her—I’ll be her alibi. She’s not the killer."
"I hate to admit it, but Detective Wolfe is right," Alison said. "The closer I am to the case, the easier it’ll be to frame me. This is obviously a part of the plan now. The hair wrapped around the finger wasn’t a mistake. The killer placed it there. If they did, then it means it’s only the first part of their plane, and Detective Wolfe is right again.
The hair was obviously placed there to try to frame me, but it’s only the start.
I think there’s more coming, and this is where we need to be careful.
Whatever they’re planning, they’ll escalate next time.
Perhaps it is better I’m not a part of the case right now. "
"Unless that’s what they want," Hartley said.
"What if they want you off the case? They’re obviously scared of you catching them, and this is a good way to remove you.
Then, when you least suspect it, they abduct you or do something worse.
The best place for you right now is to be with me.
We go everywhere together, and you stay in your hotel the rest of the time.
We make it impossible for them to frame you. "
"It’s a brilliant plan if they do mean to frame me," Alison said. "They won't leave me alive if they do. They can’t."
"What do you mean?" Hartley asked.
"The hair sows the seeds of doubt in my connection to the case, and perhaps removes me from it, as you said. When they escalate, they’ll make it look like I’m the killer, but they can't leave me alive to deny it or give evidence. It’ll be a victim and me, both dead.
That’s how they’ll do it, and it's in line with what they’ve done so far; they’ll make it a mistake that we all make.
It ties it up brilliantly. Everyone thinks I did it, and it brings the case more attention. "
"And the killer gets away with it," Hartley said.
"Unless she is the killer," Wolfe reminded her.
"She’s not the killer," Hartley maintained. "And you’re not going anywhere, Dr. Payne. The only chance we have of catching this killer is with you on the team. Stay by my side, and they don't get a chance to frame you. Will you do that?"
"I’ll do whatever it takes to catch this killer," Alison said.
"Good," Hartley said. "Which means finding Sterling.
He must have gone somewhere. He must have been in the city at some point, and then he traveled to each of the crime scenes to kill his victims. We know he went to the museum.
He must be on some CCTV footage somewhere.
Detective Wolfe, liaise with Detective Nolan in Washington, D.C.
, and see if he has anything on his end.
He traveled there somehow, and he must have stopped for snacks and drinks; he must have scouted out the warehouse and taken his victim somewhere.
Sterling can't have just vanished, so I want him found. Understood?"
Detective Wolfe took one final look at Alison, as if sizing her up, then Hartley nodded to Hartley before leaving them in her office to make some calls.
"I don't think he really believed you’re the killer," Hartley said. "He’s being cautious."
"He’s a good detective," Alison said. "If I were in his position, I would suspect me, too. It would be the perfect crime to position myself within the case and run it from the inside out."
"I know you’re not the killer," Hartley said.
"Don't let your biases get in the way," Alison said. "I’ll do as you asked and stay with you when I’m not at the hotel, but you need to vet me. Check the time of each murder since I got here, and ensure that I didn’t have time to travel to each one under the guise of being at the hotel. It looks like the murders all happened at night. That would be when I was at the hotel. Do the work and rule me out properly so you’re not accused of not doing your job properly. "
"I will," Hartley said. "And if you have to run off suddenly for some reason, I’ll make sure I go with you. I really hope it isn’t you, Dr. Payne. If it is, then we don’t have a chance."
"I couldn’t," she said. "I believe I have the skills to do it, all apart from actually taking in a life, but I couldn’t do that. I haven’t told you this, but my sister was killed twenty-two years ago.
I’m still looking for her killer. I couldn’t make someone else go through what I’ve gone through.
" Alison had to take a deep breath. "I’m sorry, that doesn’t connect to the current case, and it’s exactly the thing I might say if I were trying to play you. "
"I believe you, but I’ll do my due diligence," Hartley said. "It has to be Sterling, right?"
"Everything points to him," Alison said. "It’s unusual timing for him to disappear. His neighbors haven’t seen him, nor his family, nor anyone else. He’s just disappeared."
"And he fits the profile," Hartley said. "The file we have on him now is pretty comprehensive. He’s a retired FBI profiler who’s consulted on the first three original murder cases, both in official and unofficial capacities. We know that his work never met a high standard, and he was dismissed from many higher-profile cases relatively quickly after being brought on to consult. He’s been criticized by his superiors and his peers.
There was some criticism at the time he worked, but more so after the fact. "
"Public criticism?" Alison asked.
"I’m not sure about that, but the more we talk to his former colleagues, the more negative comments we have on him. Perhaps he heard that from all of them when he was working, or he caught wind of comments after working cases. Either way, he wasn’t well-liked."
Alison recalled what Dr. Carver told her. "I think he stagnated. Everyone around him improved and grew, and he didn't. I think he was fine at his job, but he was never great."
"He works with different people on different cases, and he hears them talking about him, or knows they were whispering about him in secret. It eats away at him, and even if he believes he’s good at his job, he knows others don't think so."
"Or it pushed him to understand that he wasn’t good at his job.
A vocation he gave his life to," Alison commented.
"He took early retirement, but that still gave him a career spanning over thirty years. He had to listen to people talking about him all that time. It was what he chose to do, and he wasn’t good at it. "
"Even if he isn’t connected to the Butcher case, he’ll have had access to the files.
He would have had lots of time to read over them while he plotted for this.
He’s older and retired now, but he’s not that old.
He’s in his early sixties. He could still have the energy to kill the five victims and position them.
We won't know the exact shape he’s in until we catch up with him.
He’s on the run and has evaded us thus far.
That tells me he could kill all five victims."
"He’s not just hiding out," Alison pointed out. "He’s evaded us, but he’s also been able to kill someone in Washington, D.C.
without us stopping him. That makes him intelligent, precise, and brave.
My guess is that he went to Washington, D.C.
, and he’s moved on to somewhere else. He must know we’re after him by now, which suggests he’ll move farther geographically.
That’ll only make it harder to catch him. "
"Okay," Hartley said. "I’ll talk to the team and ensure that they’re spreading the investigation across the country. If you’re right, then he could have gone anywhere."
"Yeah, do that," Alison said.
Hartley left her office to talk with the team in the bullpen.
Something still nagged at Alison. The killer had a strand of her hair.
That was found at the most recent crime scene, and that didn't mean that the killer didn’t have more of her hair or DNA.
The question was when the hair was taken.
She hadn’t been in contact with Sterling, which raised some worrying possibilities.
The first was that Sterling was not the killer, and they were looking in the wrong place.
There was also the possibility that Sterling wasn’t working alone, and someone else had procured the hair to pass it on.
He might have begun the process a long time ago and gotten one of Alison’s hairs months ago.
Or, he could have accessed her hotel room and taken hair from her brush.
If it had begun long before, he could have done the same thing, but in her home.
All of the possibilities were worrying, and Alison knew there were many more possibilities than the ones she could reel off without thinking too hard about it.
When her phone vibrated on her desk, she picked it up and was glad to see Derek was calling. If there was someone who always calmed her down and helped her to think straight, it was Derek.
"Hey," she answered.
"Hey," Derek said. "How’s the investigation going?"
"Yeah, I’m not really sure," she said. "There’s a lot to talk about, but maybe I can do that when I get back to the hotel tonight? We have a suspect, but we don't know where he is. Your office might get a call from the office here. They’re widening the search."
"If I can help, let me know, but I won't go to the office unless they need me to. We have…Well, we might have a suspect here," Derek said.
Alison thought Derek would help to calm her with his call, but he heart started to beat faster as she thought about the prospect of a suspect.
They’d had suspects before, and they had all ended in disappointment.
Alison hated that feeling, and there was a chance she would feel it again, but she couldn’t stop the hope that filled her.
"Who is it?" Alison asked.
"His name is Howard Mills," Derek said. "He’s been with the same company for the last thirty years. Never progressed upward within the company or moved from one company to another. He has a stellar record. Never missed a day, not even through sickness. No criminal record. Never in trouble at work or caused any problems. He’s exactly the type of person we’re looking for. "
"Flies under the radar and doesn’t cause any trouble," Alison confirmed.
"Exactly," Derek confirmed. "We looked into his record, and he does take his vacation time every year, but never when the women were killed. That’s what we expected, too. If a vacation lined up with murders, that would cause suspicion. Everything about him is unremarkable in every way, or remarkable if you’re his employer. "
"So, what next?" Alison asked. "You surveil him and see if there’s anything unusual in his routine? See what he does when he’s not working?"
"Yeah, that’s the gist of it, but there’s more," Derek said. "We looked at his employment record, and there’s no written documentation of shift changes going back farther than ten years, so we only have two requests to go on. He’s only asked to switch shifts twice in the last ten years."
"Seven years ago, and recently," Alison said.
"Precisely."
"He wanted jobs closer to where the women were killed," Alison commended.
"No, it’s the opposite," Derek said. "He wanted jobs all the way on the other end of the city.
He wanted to be as far away from the crime scenes as possible and to have a record of them.
We don't know about the job seven years ago, but according to his supervisor, the job was recently a multiple-night job. "
"Which means he could have killed on the first night, and then spent the subsequent nights catching up," Alison pointed out.
"That’s exactly what I was thinking," Derek said. "It gives him an alibi if someone ever came sniffing around. Tomorrow, your father and I are going to do just that. We’ll watch him for a while and see if there’s anything there."
"Okay, but be careful," Alison said. "If you see anything suspicious, we can get him. If he spots you, then he might run, he might destroy anything that can link him to the crimes, or he might come after you and my father."
We’ve come this far," Derek said. "We don't back down now."