CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Derek sat in his car with James Payne. They were across the street from the security company where Howard Mills worked.
They had a copy of his schedule from his supervisor and assurances that Mills would not be notified that he was under investigation.
Derek had taken the man at his word and hoped not to be proven wrong.
"I talked to the supervisor again this morning," Derek told James as they both drank their morning coffees. "The job last month was a three-night job installing new locks on the office doors. It’s a large building, but the work wasn’t hard. I think that’s the key.
It wasn’t only across the city, but the job was spread over multiple nights, and the supervisor did admit it could be done in two nights, but they gave three, so whoever did it, which turned out to be Mills, didn't have to rush and make mistakes. And it gave some contingency time."
"And the job he switched from?" James asked.
"A small job," Derek said. "It was only over the course of a few hours, and it wouldn’t have provided a solid alibi."
James nodded, then took a larger drink of his coffee, swallowing loudly.
"So, we know he switched out jobs for the previous two murders, and even though we don't have proof of it, we can assume he did the same with the others. Schedule a longer job each time over multiple nights, and rush to do the job once he’s killed someone. "
"Of course, it means we can't prove anything unless we can put him at the scene of each crime," Derek reminded.
"We know he switched jobs, and that can give him a good alibi, but at the moment, that’s all they are: good alibis.
Solid, in fact. We can't take this to anyone, or we prove he’s innocent. "
"Which he could be," James said.
"Yeah, he could be," Derek agreed.
They both took swigs of their coffee.
"If he kills every five years, or seven years in more recent times, then he must go dormant in between," James pointed out. "We might not get anything from him, even if he is the killer. He’s survived this long without capture."
"He’s never had anyone looking his way before," Derek pointed out. "The killer is smart, likely confident, too. We hope we can use that to our advantage. As long as he believes he’s in the clear, we have a chance."
James nodded and looked up at the rear-view mirror, which showed the security and locksmith offices behind. Derek looked in his side mirror as Howard Mills exited the central office and headed to his designated van, the one with the gray lock symbol on the side.
Mills was in his early fifties, with short, graying hair, and wore a weathered security company uniform.
Derek watched as Mills started his van and drove from the lot.
He didn't follow immediately; he waited until Mills was out of view before he started the car. They had a schedule of where Mills was going, so they didn’t need to keep him in view the entire time, especially when driving to jobs.
Although they did want to remain in his vicinity in case he made any stops.
Derek pulled out of their parking spot and spun the wheel to make a U-turn to the other side of the street, starting their slow pursuit.
"A family man," Derek said. "Mills has a wife of twenty-seven years, two grown-up children, a house in the suburbs, and a pretty regular life. Some would call it boring. Does that make it less likely that he’s the killer?
He has a daughter who is twenty-three now.
The woman he killed most recently was around that age. "
"I’ve seen some things in my time," James said. "I’m sure you have, too."
"I have," Derek confirmed. "Sometimes, there’s no telling what someone can do or will do."
They drove in silence as they tailed Mills from a distance to his first job for the day at a small dress store.
Derek parked a little way down the street from Mills’s van, and they both watched Mills take his bag from the back of the van and then go into the store.
The uniform he wore gave him some anonymity and those around him confidence.
Here was a man who was here to help people.
No one suspected that he could be a killer.
No one except for Derek and James.
James took out his lunch bag and opened it, handing Derek one of the sandwiches he’d made that morning.
Derek took it with a smile. There was something comforting about the sandwiches and the time and effort the retired cop put into them. They were better than any fast-food Derek might usually get when on a stakeout. The sandwich for that day was simply ham, butter, and English mustard.
They sat there in silence, eating their sandwiches and finishing their morning coffee as Mills completed his job in the dress shop, ending a little over an hour and one additional trip out to his van and back.
Once again, they followed at a distance, knowing where his second job would be, but not wanting to be too far from him in case he made an unexpected stop.
"This could take some time," James noted. "How long do we follow him for before we move on to the next person?"
"I don't know," Derek admitted. "That’s the hard part. What if we move on too soon? Perhaps we follow him for a couple of days, and then we move on, but we circle back if we don't find anything else. You’re right that he might come dormant for years now that he’s killed again. We know nothing about his cycle."
At the next stop, they watched Mills grab his bag from the back of his vehicle and enter the residential property. James reached into his bag again and pulled out some chocolate chip cookies baked that morning. They had no coffee this time, not wanting to make a stop while following Mills.
"Emma had a pair of yellow boots when she was nine," James said out of nowhere.
Derek’s mouth fell open a little as a question came to his lips, but he forced it back.
James talked a lot about finding Emma’s killer now that he was on the case with Derek, and he often talked about Alison when she was a child, but he didn't talk a lot about Emma from before she was killed.
Derek remained quiet, hoping James would talk some more.
"I don't remember where she got them," James continued a few seconds later.
"Cath must have bought them for her. They were bright yellow like sunflowers, and Emma loved them from the moment she got them. Oh, they were the most wonderful boots in the world, according to Emma. I didn’t know about that. "
James chuckled before he continued, staring out the front of the vehicle the entire time.
"They were just regular plastic boots. Still, she wore them everywhere, including the house, except when she had just been out in the rain.
As soon as they were dried off, or we had dried them off at her request, she had them on again.
And then, when the rain came!" James broke into a wide grin.
"She would be out front on our road, which was really quiet back then, and she would splash in the puddles for hours.
Now, I loved that she did that, but it also reminded me that the city was not taking care of our streets and there were numerous potholes in the road. "
Derek laughed at the comment.
"It was her smile that did it for me," James continued. "I would either be out there with her or watching from the window, but it didn't matter how far I was from her; I could still see her beaming smile. She was always so full of life back then."
James fell silent, still staring out the front window. Derek was silent with him, but the story out of nowhere gave him some motivation to push a little more.
"How about before it happened?" he asked. "She would have been an adult. Did that carry over into adulthood? That joy and playfulness."
"Yeah, it did," James said. "She always loved the water, and she was an excellent swimmer.
She was going places. I remember going to watch her swim meets and practices, and she would always splash around more when I was there.
There was always a smile on her face when she was in the water. I like to think…"
James went quiet and looked out of the side window, facing away from Derek.
"It’s okay," Derek said. "Take your time. What did you think?"
James took a deep breath but didn’t turn from the window.
"It’s a silly thing to think, but it was raining on the night she left us.
I like to think that she had some happiness at the end.
I know she can't have been happy when…when it happened.
" James wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve.
"Before that, maybe. She was running in the rain. Maybe she was happy near the end."
"I hope she was," Derek confirmed. He patted James on the shoulder, but the man still didn’t turn around, staring out of the window for a long time.
Derek watched the house, waiting for Mills to emerge.
He had no idea what they were looking for.
It was not as if they would catch Mills in the act of trying to kill someone.
Perhaps he had a storage box somewhere with trophies he had taken from the young women, and that was how they would get him.
Perhaps they would catch him in some lie that would prove he was the killer.
There was a lot resting on hope and time, but Derek didn't care. If he never went back to the office and spent the rest of his life watching people in the hope they were a killer, it would still be worth it. He and Alison had caught a lot of killers over the past two years. They deserved to catch Emma’s killer now.
"He’s leaving," Derek pointed out.
For the first time since talking about his daughter, James looked out the front window again. There was no evidence that he’d been crying.
"No job for another ninety minutes," James pointed out. "We stay closer this time and see where he goes."
They followed Mills to a street with cafes and eateries, and watched as he went into one of the cafes and exited with a to-go cup.
After that, they followed him to a green space.
Derek worried that he would go for a walk and they would have to follow on foot, making them more susceptible to being spotted, but Mills didn't venture far into the park before he sat on a bench.
"Keep an eye on him," James said. "I’ll get us some coffee from that kiosk."
"Okay," Derek said, craving a second coffee for the day and also hoping that James had more cookies in his lunch bag.
James exited the vehicle and headed in the opposite direction of the green space to the small coffee kiosk that they had passed when following Mills.
Derek watched their suspect as he took his lunch from the bag he carried and set it on the bench beside him.
A book came out next. Then Mills opened the book and read as he drank his hot drink and ate his lunch.
A young mother with a stroller walked down the street, followed by an old woman walking a dog. A young family strolled through the park, the two young boys climbing a tree before being called by their parents. An old man met a younger man on a bench close to Mills's. Then a female jogger.
Derek sat up straighter and leaned forward.
It was the first time since he sat down that he wasn’t engrossed in his book.
He still held his book up as if reading it, but subtly looked over the top of the book as the jogger ran by, turning his head to follow her route.
As soon as she was out of view, he went back to the position he’d been in, and read his book again.
James opened the door to the passenger seat and got in, placing the two coffees in the console holders between the seats.
"Did you see that?" James asked.
"Yeah, I did," Derek admitted. "He was watching her, right?"
"That’s what I saw."
"I was watching the whole time you were away, and he didn't look away from his book until that woman ran past him. Then, he couldn’t take his eyes off her."
"It might be nothing," James warned. "I mean, I hope it is something, but it doesn’t prove anything. He has a wife, but maybe he likes younger women, and after being married for so long, he’s looking at new pastures."
"Yeah, it’s a possibility," Derek admitted.
"We continue to watch him. He could have gone home between jobs, but he chose to come here with lunch. Maybe that’s what he does.
He watches young women out running and gets his fix, keeps himself going until he can't take it any longer, and he goes out and kills someone.
We spend a few more days and see if he does the same every lunchtime, see who he pays attention to. "
"Yeah," James confirmed, taking a deep breath.
"If he seems to like young, female joggers more than the average person, we'll all be with him, but not before Alison is back. We only have one shot at this, and I don't want to mess it up. If he’s the killer, Alison is the one who’ll know."
"I hope so," James said. "We need to talk to him to see how he reacts and whether he breaks down and confesses. The killer has been active for years, so I’m sure it won't be that easy. We don't have enough evidence as things stand, so our best bet without more evidence is to get him talking."
"If anyone can get him talking, Alison can," Derek said.