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Harrowths credits her knowledge on emotional psychology to Professor Char. Her book will be released next year!
I snap a few photos to send off to Soto so she can dig around. It could all be frivolous nonsense, but with the lack of trails we have to follow I’m willing to try out anything. If things don’t pan out with Jo and Vinny coming back we can explore other ways to get Constantine to talk, or other options to figure out the killer. Wallsburg is a good place to start, and even if he isn’t the culprit maybe he’ll know something that could help.
“Gideon! Officers are here. Do we need anything bagged?”
I listen to Tyler’s voice from the other room, eyeing what’s in front of me. We haven’t gotten along that well with the local PD, and I don’t particularly want to give them the evidence I’m looking at. We’ll deal with it ourselves.
I lean to one side and spot one of the officers. He’s a heavier set man I’ve seen mostly sitting at his desk. “I need some bags, and we’ll be going through all of this ourselves.”
The guy frowns, and he’s standing too far down the hall to make out his name on his badge. “We can do it-”
“That’s not necessary,” I reply firmly, turning back. “We will handle it ourselves.”
Gabe heads to the morgue to meet with Candace’s family and get an ID on the body with the coroner after an autopsy is performed. He offers to try and ask them a few questions too, and once we leave the apartment Tyler offers to go meet him and help with explaining what’s happened to Swan’s next of kin. From what I understand her parents live closer to Tallahassee, and there’s a chance they saw something on the news before we made an official call.
I hate when things work out that way, but I remember the lengths reporters will go to for a good scoop. When I thought my calling was investigative journalism over investigating matters at a federal level, my bosses would get us up at ungodly hours anytime there was any sort of lead to try and get in ahead of the actual authorities. And unfortunately journalists don’t always care if what they are sharing online or on TV stations hurts family members and involved parties. If they did catch wind of their daughters death I hope it was done with respect, but I haven’t personally watched any of the reports today.
I’m dog-shit tired when I get home but I know the place won’t be empty for long. It’s only midday now and I have no idea how long Gabe and Tyler will be locked in speaking with Candace’s parents, and Jensen will let me know once he finishes at the crime scene to see if he needs to stop anywhere else. Today’s going to drag with the way things are going, and having my team staying in my familial home works out. A large portion of the evidence we have is kept here behind the state-of-the-art security system in lieu of the police precinct where I’m not sure I can trust everyone.
Someone in Citrus Grove knows more than they are letting on, and until we know who, everyone is a suspect. After the body was ID’d I headed to the precinct to interrogate Kyle. That turned into a special sort of hell. I asked Soto to pull a background check on him before we walked in, and although nothing extraordinarily concerning popped up there were some minor complaints from his exes about being rough, so he’s not off our radar yet. A little bit of rough treatment can turn to violent murder easily enough if it goes unchecked. Kyle wanted to lawyer up immediately so we didn’t get to ask him a lot of questions as is. He could just be covering his own ass, but I can’t help thinking there’s more to it.
My phone buzzes as I reach the kitchen, and I can’t hold back the groan that slips free when I see that it’s Dad. Of course he’s calling. He’s hungry for updates, even if there’s not much I can tell him. He wants to work the case with me and be let in on everything but I can’t just tell him every little detail like he’s a verified consultant on the case.
Still, Dad might have insight, and talking to him now means I won’t get bombarded with calls for blowing him off later. I click the screen, putting him on speaker. “Hello?”
“There you are!” he barks. “I thought you’d send me to voicemail again.”
“It was a thought.”
Dad huffs. “So, do you have any leads yet? Suspect list? Did you go and talk to the previous victim?”
“Jo,” I supply, knowing who Dad is talking about. When all of this started and the body of Lisanna Estrada was found, it made national news because the killing was so brutal. That’s how Dad heard of the possible copycat to begin with, along with the rest of the country. For the most part it was just another news story during the five o’clock segment, and mostly it was young reporters who weren’t crime enthusiasts talking about the latest brutality in Florida.
Then people started connecting the dots and cops down in Citrus Grove noticed the similarities to the CGS. There was a lot of speculation and rumors, and then suddenly the old cases at Quantico were being called into question.
The case was huge back in the day, and with Alastair in prison rumors started spinning right away when the details of the new death got leaked through reporters. Alastair enamoured audiences without having to do much of anything to gain fans. People obsess over the sick minds of serial killers, and horror junkies ate up his stories no matter how gruesome the outcomes were. At one point he even had a fanbase called the Slayers which got a little out of hand. They were diehard fanatics who romanticize the murders, and although I personally think the group is full of a bunch of nuts no one’s ever shown violent tendencies.
The Slayers are mostly women who fell for a serial killer, probably because Alastair is textbook handsome, between the dark tattoos he’s earned in prison and his light hair. The dual eyes tend to draw people in, and he has a devastating smirk that’s popular online when you search him. He’s the type of person everyone should hate for killing people, but the fans don’t see it that way. Too many of them want him to fall in love with them, prison or no prison.
When Dad calls, he just wants every single detail of the current case like he’s working it. I spoke to the deputy director when the FBI took an interest in Estrada’s death, and as soon as I had the case file in my hand I knew Dad would want to be a part of this.
It was at his suggestion that we dig into Jo and Vinny. Personally it seemed far-fetched that an old victim from almost twenty years ago would have something new to share, but Dad always said that there were little details at the end of the case that didn’t quite add up. Alastair’s guilt was unquestioned given the amount of evidence and his confession, but other things stuck out. Like the details of what happened when Jo and Porscha both crossed Alastair at the same time, and how exactly she got out of the basement cellar alive with all those wounds while her mother perished, hands or no hands.
“Did you ask her about motive?” Dad barks, and for a moment I’m not sure if I missed something that he said. “She knew Constantine very well. She was a weak point for him and knew how to make him bend. For god’s sake she had both of those boys wrapped around her finger. She’s the last woman he ever got to kiss. Surely she has a hold on him.”
“I’m not sure, Dad,” I reply.
“Then amp up the jealousy!” he snaps. “Add some motive to the mess. Did you go and talk to the coroner like I said? Whitmore really is the best. You’re lucky to work with someone like him.”
“I have an agent who’s speaking with the current coroner while I handle this,” I explain, pinching my brows together. “Dad, I know you’re interested in this-”
“We’re going to make sure the sonofabitch pays once more!” he says gleefully. “Constantine deserves the sentencing he got, and this will ensure he never gets off easy on good behavior. He’s not at the Supermax anymore but if you can prove he’s helping the copycat, you can probably boot him back to Illinois.”
I frown. That’s not really something I’m worried about.
“They never should’ve sent him to CGP,” Dad continues. “You know they used to have underground tunnels there? I went with some of the boys once in high school and it was a pretty cool trip. They led off the property, but they’ve been barred and sealed off in the last few decades. Can’t house criminals somewhere with an easy escape route.”
“Huh,” I mutter. I didn’t know that about CGP. I hadn’t looked into the details of the layout of the prison, but it is an older design. Those tunnels could be decrepit and unreliable, but someone escaping from a maximum security prison is willing to take chances. Sealing those off should’ve been done the moment it was a possibility. The penitentiary’s been used as a prison for dangerous inmates for far longer than dad’s old high school days.