Chapter 4 #2
He appreciated that. He'd been in rooms where people tried the other approach first. It never ended well.
“Lieutenant,” he said.
“Mr. King.” She shook his hand. “My understanding is you're here on the Porter case and a possible multi-jurisdictional connection.”
“Yes, ma'am. Eight prior cases, which I believe are connected. I'd like to walk you and your assigned detective through what I have and let your office assess it.”
She nodded once. Not deferential, she wasn't built for deference, but she nodded in a genuinely cooperative way, in the way of someone who understood that fighting a federal mandate was a waste of institutional energy that could go toward solving a murder. “Detective Reyes has been on Porter’s case since day one. Fifteen years as a homicide detective. You'll want him on the task force your boss said you’re building.”
“Absolutely,” Marcus said.
“One thing.” She stopped outside the conference room door and looked at him directly. “You’ll need to read this.” She handed him a file with a statement in it.
Marcus set down his briefcase and gave the statement his full attention.
Detective Haven Stone, Nashville PD Robbery Division, regarding an attack on the Shelby Bottoms Greenway six days prior to the Porter homicide.
The report was clean, precise, and detailed.
She'd documented the attack in clear sequence, noted the suspect's physical description with appropriate confidence intervals, and flagged the behavioral indicators that distinguished the incident from a robbery.
The attending officers had written it up as attempted robbery.
She had not corrected them in the report itself.
But he noticed she hadn't called it that either.
What she had called it, in the narrative section, in the specific language she'd chosen for a document that would go into a case file and potentially into evidence, was an assault by an unknown suspect employing a pre-planned tactical approach and controlled force.
Not the language of someone who believed she'd been assaulted by a snatch and grab.
It was the language of someone who knew exactly what she'd experienced and was being careful about what she put in writing before she had more.
“Six days before Porter?”
“Yes,” Carver answered.
“I’ll need to make arrangements to speak with her.”
“I just received this statement. I knew she’d been assaulted, but the specifics weren’t conveyed, and I didn’t ask for them.
I only found out when I got wind of her partner pulling cases that weren’t his.
Her sergeant was on his way to see me after Stone connected the dots.
She identified a missing fingernail as a marker. Reyes doesn’t know it yet.”
“She’s right. Let me lay out what I have and then get his read on this.”
“That sounds good, but first I’d like to remind you …” Carver paused and then met his gaze. “My people built this case from the ground up. They did good work. Whatever and whoever you’re bringing in, I'd ask you to come in as a partner, not as a hostile takeover.”
“I want to catch this bastard. I’m partnering with you.
This perp needs to be stopped, and that’s my only focus,” Marcus said.
“The work your people did is the reason I'm here. Reyes's scene documentation on Porter is what confirmed the serial connection for me. His inclusion of the ME’s notes was essential.”
Something shifted in her expression. She seemed to recalibrate her opinion of him. “All right,” she said, and opened the door. “Let’s get to work.”
* * *
Detective Reyes had fifteen years on homicide and the personality of someone who'd learned early that cases either owned you or you owned them. Reyes wasn’t owned by any case.
He sat across from Marcus with the eight new files spread between them and went through them in sequence, methodically, asking questions that were damn good questions.
Marcus answered them straight. No performance or territorial bullshit.
That didn’t catch murderers; it wasted time.
An hour in, Reyes sat back in his chair.
“The staging,” he said. “It was the same at every scene.”
Marcus nodded. “Every one of them. The MEs have sent photographs of the missing fingernail in each case.”
“But the MEs didn’t write it up the same way?”
“They each had one body. Some were found in advanced decomp,” Marcus reminded him. “No reason to read it as intentional misinformation.”
“True.” Reyes was quiet for a moment. “The nail is what … a trophy?”
Marcus nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.”
“That's not in the press.”
“No, and it won’t be. Guardian has contacted each of the jurisdictions to put tape on those files. Nothing else is to be released.”
“It's not released here either. I held it from the press. It was too freaking weird not to be something.”
Marcus nodded. “It's your verification standard if someone tries to claim knowledge of the crimes.”
Reyes looked at the files again. He leaned forward and shook his head as his eyes scanned each of the files.
Obviously, he was trying to adjust to the idea that a homicide he thought was singular wasn't. “I've got a canvas that's been running on the assumption this was local.
Possible prior relationship, victim's known associates.”
“That isn't wasted,” Marcus leaned back in his chair.
“Porter may still have a local connection that drew this guy to Nashville.
The route bent down here for a reason. Or it's part of the route itself, and she was selected the same way the others were.” He paused.
“Either way, the canvas gives you elimination evidence.”
Reyes nodded slowly. “You said nine cities on a schedule. You have a theory on what the schedule is tied to.”
“Working one. I still need to take it to the whiteboard and work it.”
“But you're thinking professional travel.”
Reyes was sharp, and Marcus liked that. “Yes.
I'm thinking the dump sites are too carefully pre-selected for someone passing through randomly. He knows these cities. So, one would assume he has a legitimate reason to be in them. He has time to surveil, select, and plan.” Marcus tapped his legal pad.
“He's not rushing. He's never rushing. The bodies have zero DNA transfer. That tells me the schedule is flexible enough to absorb the time that takes, but structured enough that he moves through a route or a corridor.”
Reyes looked at the map Marcus had drawn. Looked at it for a long moment.
“He'll come back,” Reyes said. It wasn't a question.
“He already did,” Marcus said. “Porter was six days after this.” He slid the statement to Reyes and let him read it. “Lieutenant Carver was just given this when we met in the hallway. He didn't leave Nashville when the first attempt failed. He adjusted and tried again.”
Reyes was quiet as he finished reading for the second time. “Damn, I know Haven. She’s a good cop. Works robbery.” He paused, then asked, “Wait … the dump site?”
“Isn’t the same as the others. She was left on the running trail. An anomaly for sure. But all the other factors are there.” Marcus tapped the picture of Angela. “Why would he leave her there? That’s the question we needed answered.
Reyes nodded. “That and about ten thousand others.”
“I'd like to interview Detective Stone,” Marcus said, looking up at Lieutenant Carver.
“She's on admin leave,” Carver said. “Concussion.”
“Understood. I'd still like to interview her.
With your department's authorization and her agreement.” He kept his voice level.
“She documented behavioral indicators in her incident report that I don't think she would be able to fully develop while on admin leave. She suspected what she was dealing with before anyone else did. I need to know everything she remembers.”
Lieutenant Carver picked up the phone. “Let me call her sergeant,” she said.
* * *
The authorization came through at 2 p.m. After Marcus had talked to her sergeant and her partner. He read between the lines. She was definitely working on this case from home. She’d been stonewalled by her sergeant and her partner until yesterday, but she was still working.
Marcus drove to her address and parked. He sat in the rental for a moment as he looked at the building.
She had the second-floor unit. The blinds were up.
He wondered if she was slowly going insane because she was at home.
He knew he couldn’t stand being sidelined.
He wasn’t a sit down and watch TV type of guy.
Unless it was a football game, but that involved a lot of standing and yelling at the television, so it didn’t really count.
He'd read her incident report three times.
He'd read the narrative section six. Understanding what Haven Stone had documented and how she'd documented it and what she'd chosen not to say directly was the key here. He knew she was a robbery detective with ten years on the job who'd been put on admin leave for a head injury. But she’d been working the case anyway. According to her partner, she’d been going through public records and whatever gaps in the wall she could find. He knew she'd connected the behavioral indicators herself. Her partner had told him she’d requested earlier incident reports on trail assaults. She’d also identified the fingernail detail and what it might mean before anyone with full database access had gotten there.
Detective Stone built most of this from limited access. He got out of the car. He was going to need her.