Chapter Twenty-One
Twenty-One
Fort Bragg, California
Ronan felt amazing. He had that zing of energy that came with finally finding a credible lead. Because he had one. He was closing in.
“That’s exactly what I need, Lorne,” Ronan said, snapping a photo of the credit card number used three nights ago to fill Steve Garfield’s Ford Explorer. “Thank you so much for coming in and finding this for me.”
Lorne Nicholson, a sixty-five-year-old local who wore a lot of plaid flannel, had called Ronan as he was finishing the interviews with the staff at the inn. Lorne had found the Explorer on his surveillance footage and had the credit card number used to purchase a tank of fuel.
Ronan expected to hear from the other gas station owners by morning. They might supply different card numbers if the killer had used or stolen multiple credit cards, but this would be a place to start.
Their guy had driven up to the pump like he hadn’t killed eleven people. He’d filled up the Explorer’s tank, not even bothering to hide his face.
He was getting cocky.
That’s good for us.
“You close to finding this sonofabitch?” Lorne asked.
“I hope so,” Ronan said fervently.
“You’ll do it. Your parents didn’t raise a fool. So, what happens next?”
“I find out who owns this card. I’m hoping it’s not stolen, but if it is, we keep tracking him. Thanks, Lorne. I really appreciate this. I have to go.”
Ronan hurried to his SUV and immediately dialed Howard, who answered on the first ring. Looked like his boss hadn’t been able to sleep.
Welcome to the club.
“Whatcha got?” Howard asked.
“No one at the inn remembers seeing our suspect’s face except for Carrie, but I got a hit at one of the gas stations in Fort Bragg. It was him, filling up a white Ford Explorer.”
“He’s been driving Garfield’s car all this time? Bold bastard.”
“That’s exactly what I thought. I have the credit card number he used. Can you have someone run it?”
“Absolutely, although it’s probably stolen. Send it to me. Good work, Ronan.”
“Thanks. I’m going to head home. I need some more sleep.”
“Hold on. I have some information for you. I got a call from the jail. Miller’s wife was ready to talk. She wants a deal so she can get her baby back.”
“That isn’t going to happen, is it? Her getting the baby back?”
“That’s up to the courts, but I’ll send them my two cents asking them not to reinstate custody of the child.
I went to see her and she told me that the growers hadn’t shot her husband after all.
She said it was some guy who was wandering around.
Her husband thought he was a cop and shot at him.
Missed, unfortunately. The guy shot back and that’s how he ended up with a perforated gut. ”
“Our guy?”
“None other. I showed her the suspect’s photo in an array and she picked him out with no hesitation.
I asked how they knew about the growers, since that’s who they’d claimed had done the shooting.
She said her husband already knew them. That they’d worked his grandparents’ farm all those years ago when Reece lived with them.
I got the impression that Miller’s grandparents weren’t just growing kale and beans back then.
Anyway, Miller gave the two growers some of the cash he’d made from pawning the jewelry and two of the three stolen paintings in exchange for the right to camp in their territory.
The growers even helped them pitch the tent they were living in. ”
“And told the bounty hunters that they hadn’t seen them.”
“Yeah. Miller was pissed off that the growers hadn’t killed the women, but according to the wife, the growers said they weren’t going to jail for killing hunters whose position was being tracked by their associates.”
“Why didn’t she tell us this when we arrested her?”
“She said she panicked. That she didn’t want to add shooting at a cop to their list of sins because Miller was still convinced that was who’d shot him.
She didn’t know the growers were dead, too.
She didn’t realize what was happening until she heard some of the deputies discussing the corpse they’d pulled out of the well, and that’s when the wife knew she had tradeable information.
She realized that the guy who’d shot her husband had to be the same killer who’d dumped the body in the well.
And then something her husband had seen made sense.
The guy who shot him was dragging something heavy and gray along the ground. ”
“A body bag?” Ronan asked.
“Yep. I sent CSU back to the scene and they found the bag, buried about a half mile from the well. An animal had half dug it up but hadn’t been able to tear through the bag.”
“Evidence he killed Kasey somewhere else, then. Which is what we thought, because she was too decomposed to have been in the cold water for that long. That’s good to know. Fills in some blanks.”
“It does. But that’s not the big news.”
“Howard.” Ronan knew that he sounded a little whiny, but he was tired, goddammit.
“Relax, I’m getting to it. When CSU opened the bag, guess what they found?”
“Um, disgusting body juices?” The smell coming from the well was still etched into his memory.
“Well, yes, but not only disgusting body juices. They found vomit, too.”
Ronan sat up straighter. “The killer threw up into the body bag?”
Vomit meant DNA.
“I hope so,” Howard said. “The DNA samples are on their way to the lab, although it’ll take the lab weeks to get to it.”
The DOJ lab was a three-hour drive south and had a notorious backup. “Do you have anyone you can lean on to speed it up? We’ve got eleven bodies hanging on this guy.”
“I am aware. I’m going to be making phone calls first thing in the morning. I have a few favors I can call in at the lab and I’ll get the other jurisdictions involved to send requests for a quick turnaround as well.”
Ronan mulled this over. “How long ago did the Millers say they saw our guy wandering around?”
“A week, which is about how long the coroner thinks the growers have been dead. My bet is they saw him wandering around with a body bag, got testy about his trespassing, and he killed them. Or maybe he killed them preemptively. He saw them and knew who they were because he’d been listening the night Randolph and Lambert met them.
He killed the growers before they could kill him. ”
“Any of those could be the truth.” And it probably mattered, but Ronan’s brain was preoccupied with the timeline. He’d figure out the motivation later. “Kasey disappeared two weeks ago. He kept her somewhere else—in a body bag—for a week before dumping her in that well. Where did he keep her body?”
“Good question.”
Ronan remembered Garfield’s basement and how bad it smelled.
When it got that bad, it was difficult to quantify the scale of the odor.
Was it one body? Or had it been two at some point?
“Ask CSU to go back over Garfield’s basement.
See if they find evidence of Kasey’s body having been stored there. ”
“CSU may not find anything if her body was stored in the body bag, but I’ll check. I’m wondering why he went to all the trouble. Why let the body cook in a heated basement only to dump it in the well? Why not dump it right away?”
That, Ronan thought, was a very good question.
“I’m not sure, but this guy has made an elaborate plan.
Killing eleven people over two years to frame Elle Randolph means he’s been patiently playing the long game, figuring that sooner or later law enforcement would charge her.
This might be a long shot, but what if the killer wanted Elle to find those bodies yesterday?
What if he knew she’d find Miller and his wife and figured they’d either tell her what they’d seen or she’d smell the body in the well—and/or the growers—and find them herself? ”
“He would have to have known she’d find them eventually.”
“True,” Ronan said. “But our suspect knew she was searching for Miller. He knew she’d had a confrontation with the growers.
He heard all that through the listening device.
We know he’d found Miller because he shot him.
And the growers, because he shot them, too.
” A thought struck him. “Elle put a tracker under Wendy Miller’s car so that she wouldn’t lose her after she left the pharmacy on Monday. What if our suspect did the same?”
“I’ll have CSU check Wendy’s car right away. Where’d you stash Randolph and the lawyer?”
“In a short-term rental owned by a friend.”
“The one next door to your house?”
“Yes. That way I can keep an eye on them.”
Howard was quiet for a moment. “Step carefully, Ronan. If you get too involved, I’ll have to take you off this case.”
Ronan should have denied it, but there didn’t seem to be much point. “I know. I do like her. Quite a lot, actually. But I’m aware of my priorities. Right now it’s keeping her safe. I can’t do that if you take me off the case, so I will be careful.”
“Thank you. And now that that’s over, go home and get some rest. I’ll call you with results of the credit card search. I gave it to my analyst while we were talking and she should have something for us soon.”
“Thanks, Howard. More later.”
He ended the call and headed home.
To Elle. Even though she wasn’t in his actual house, she was close enough for him to know she was safe.
He’d pulled out of the gas station’s lot when he got a call from a number he didn’t recognize. Using his hands-free, he accepted the call. “This is Detective Clarke.”
“Detective, this is Sara Lambert.”
He wondered if she’d changed her mind about Elle giving him the body cam footage. Too damn bad. Elle had already agreed. “I hear congratulations are in order.”
“Thank you, but that’s not why I’m calling. I’m going to give you some information I would never give the cops, because they’d ask where and how I got it and I’m not divulging that. This is about Elle and her safety, so I’m telling you. Can you respect my boundaries and not ask where I got it?”
Ronan hesitated. But she was right. This was about Elle and her safety. “Yes.”