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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

While Chief Dawson, Ortiz and Collier spent the morning at the top of the mountain with Aidan searching for anything salvageable from the fire—or evidence pointing to who may have set it—Fletcher stayed at the police station with Grace. They’d spread all of the reports, interviews and pictures from the physical files out on the conference room table as they brainstormed what they had, and didn’t have, to prove who was responsible for the bad things happening in Mystic Lake. They also used their laptops to perform searches on law enforcement websites, trying to identify any similar types of recent crimes.

Fletcher sighed and sat back, shaking her head. “I literally have no leads. I mean, we have fingerprints but no match to any known person. Have you gotten any DNA results back from the FBI lab yet?”

“Not yet, but when I spoke to my boss earlier he said he’d call the lab and push them. They should have had enough time to process any DNA profiles by now. I have a feeling they moved other high-priority evidence ahead of mine.”

“How can anything possibly be more important than getting DNA to match against your known Crossbow cases? That will tell you right there whether this killer is operating in our town.”

Grace smiled. “That’s pretty much what I told my boss. That’s why he’s calling to put the fear of the special agent in charge into the lab. I really do think we’ll get something soon.”

“I sure hope so. I’d like to know for myself whether we’ve got a deadly serial killer around here or just some dumb teenager doing stupid stuff. The first one is scary. The second one just makes me mad.”

“What exactly do you have against teenagers? You seem to want to blame them for everything that happens around here.”

Fletcher snorted. “That’s because they generally are. I’m half convinced that most of the spooky, unexplainable things that happen in our town are the result of an evil group of teens on the loose.”

“Remind me someday to sit down with you and discuss this prejudice you have against the town’s youth and what exactly caused it. But for now, we need to get back to figuring out the case. My boss has granted me another twenty-four hours to try to wrap this up. After that, he’s yanking me back to the Knoxville field office to work on something else.”

“Ouch. Why is he being such a hard—um, so difficult?”

“I honestly can’t fault him. We have a lot of agencies wanting our help on their cases and this one, if it’s not related to the killer we’re after, will easily be trumped by another more urgent case where people have actually been killed. If the DNA comes back and says your guy isn’t my guy, there’s no justification for us continuing to spend resources down here.”

“Except that we need you.”

Grace gave her a doubtful look. “I appreciate that. But you’re doing a great job without me. All of the interviews you’ve conducted and leads you’ve followed up on are exactly what I’d do. I don’t have any secret sauce to solve this thing or I promise I’d share.” She pulled the stack of interview reports toward her that she’d been reviewing. “I’ve noted a few people I’d like to speak to again. But overall, our interviews have yielded pretty much the same answers—that no one has seen any strangers in the area. They don’t have any ideas as to who might be terrorizing your town. The best lead right now still seems to be in finding out who is focusing their rage on O’Brien. If we can figure that out, we’ll have an excellent suspect to match against our fingerprints and DNA.”

Fletcher tapped her nails on the tabletop. “We’ve been focusing all morning on rehashing the interviews. I’m all for going with your O’Brien angle, that someone’s after him. Bring me up to speed on that. I mean, if you think I can help as a sounding board. I don’t want to waste your time if you’d rather work it by yourself.”

Grace glanced at the glass wall behind Fletcher to make sure no one was around before answering. “If you really don’t mind, I’m happy to bore you with my half-baked theories and how I’m looking at this. Maybe you can come up with something I haven’t. But we need to keep this just between us to some extent. My thoughts on this aren’t flattering to some of the police and I don’t want that getting out and offending them.”

Fletcher’s eyes widened. “Sounds serious. Go ahead. I won’t share anything you don’t want shared. And you have me dying of curiosity now.”

“It’s not that big a secret or anything. It’s just, well, I’m confused about how the Nashville police handled O’Brien’s case.”

“You’re talking about the murder he committed? And confessed to?”

A surge of annoyance shot through Grace, but she tamped it down. If she hadn’t met Aidan and considered herself an excellent judge of character, she’d no doubt feel the same way as Fletcher. She’d assume Aidan really was a murderer. But the case didn’t make sense to her and she couldn’t see him killing his wife. If she’d harbored even a shred of doubt about that, it had evaporated last night when she’d seen him hugging that picture of his wife and son after nearly getting killed in order to save it from the fire.

“I’m referring to his past, and yes, my research into the investigation of Elly O’Brien’s death. My goal is to come up with a list of people who hate him enough to try to frame him at the festival, and for shooting an arrow at me.”

“Speaking of which, are you doing okay? You don’t seem to be favoring your hurt arm.”

“Thanks to over-the-counter pain pills, I’m really good. It only hurt a lot the first night. As for my list of potential suspects, I looked into any issues he had in prison. Like if he had altercations with some of the other prisoners, made any enemies who are now out of prison and trying to pay him back for some real or imagined slight.”

“I bet that’s a long list,” Fletcher said. “Ten years in prison for a convicted murderer no doubt means there are a lot of guys he didn’t get along with. He’s proven to be predisposed to violence. So I’m sure he didn’t put up with anything from the other men while in there.”

Once again, Grace felt a surge of annoyance at the policewoman. It was becoming harder and harder to hide her anger. But she did, or hoped she did.

“Actually, he was a model prisoner. There were zero fights on his record. He seemed to get along with everyone as best as could be expected.”

“Huh. Surprising. So no suspects from prison then? No one’s name to add to a list?”

“Not fellow prisoners, no. Although I did have an admin dig into that a little more for me to see which prisoners he may have known at the time who were recently released, or at least released since O’Brien was paroled. There were a few, but they all came up clean. Actually, two of them reoffended almost immediately and are now back in prison, which clears them since they couldn’t have been in Mystic Lake during the festival. But the others we researched have checked out so far as it being unlikely they could have been here to cause any trouble. That leaves visitors or people from O’Brien’s past from before he went to prison. That list is a lot longer to go through. He owns his own business and knows a lot of people through that, in addition to those he called friends before his wife’s death, and his former in-laws of course. I’m still going through that list. I’ve made some calls, but of course haven’t been able to go to Nashville just yet to follow up in person.”

“How many people are we talking?” Fletcher asked.

“His company in Nashville on average has about a hundred people on payroll, far more if you consider other locations. But I’m focusing on Nashville first since that’s where he used to live and he would have met a lot, if not all of those workers. Most of them are long-term employees who were there back when O’Brien was convicted. Any one of them could hold a grudge for some reason or other. That’s in addition to the twenty-plus friends and his in-laws.”

She whistled. “That’s a huge list. I’d probably focus on the friends and in-laws first.”

“Agreed. I’ve already looked into the friends. Nothing came of it. I’m looking into the in-laws right now.”

“So we need to whittle the other hundred or so down. I’d look for workers’ comp claims in case they blame him for injuries. Maybe human resource complaints about unfair practices, things like that. I’d look into promotions and who might resent him for choosing someone else over them. Seems petty, but when it comes to people’s salaries, that stuff gets pretty personal.”

“All of those are great suggestions. I’d also like to see whether anyone has been fired who might blame him.”

“If you want, I can work those angles,” Fletcher offered. “I worked my only local investigation yesterday to get it out of the way, a petty theft at the grocery store.”

“ The grocery store? There’s only one in town?”

Fletcher laughed. “Pretty much there’s only one of anything in this town. Guess who the culprit ended up being?”

Grace sat back to think, but the grin on the other woman’s face told her the answer. “One of those evil teenagers. Am I right?”

“A hundred percent. I wanted to arrest him and make him cool his jets in our holding cell for a day or two. But the chief made me check with the store manager first. The guy had no backbone. Didn’t want to press charges once he heard it was a fifteen-year-old. So I did what I end up having to do most of the time around here. I went to the kid’s home and spoke to him with his parents present, putting the fear of the almighty police into him. He swore he’d never do it again. But his parents were so quick to pony up the money to pay for what their kid had done that he likely didn’t learn a thing. I’ll probably have to scare him again in another month or two.”

Fletcher held out her hand. “Give me what you have—the prison visitor logs for O’Brien, the employee lists, all of it. I’m begging you. I’d love to speak to some adults and put the fear in them for a change. It’ll be fun.”

“Emailing it to you now.”

“Awesome. Wait, you said there was something about the Nashville police that had you concerned. Did one of them hold a grudge against O’Brien, maybe beat him up or fabricate evidence? You think a police officer could be our suspect?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. It’s more a question about the investigation that was performed after Elly O’Brien’s death. The police reports are insufficient, really thin. And they didn’t dig very deep. I’m just surprised, and disappointed, in the lack of depth of their research. Normally, they’re a top-notch agency. But in this particular case, they didn’t dig like I’d expect.”

“O’Brien confessed. They didn’t need to spend additional resources on the case. Makes sense to me.”

Grace nodded, pretending to agree with her. Fletcher’s obvious bias against O’Brien—which again she fully understood—made it difficult to expect any neutrality in looking at who might have it in for him. Rather than go into more detail about her concerns, she decided to keep those thoughts to herself.

“It’s been bothering me,” Grace said. “But I see your point. Are you sure you want to dig into that huge list I sent you?”

“Are you kidding? This is my catnip, something different to dig my teeth into. If one of these guys is our suspect, I’ll find out. However, it’s going to have to wait until after lunch. I’m meeting a friend at Stella’s restaurant.” She grinned. “It’s a guy friend or I’d invite you to come along.”

“No worries. I don’t want to be a third wheel. I’ll order something from that sandwich shop. Is it okay for me to stay here by myself or do you need to lock up and switch the phone lines like you do at night?”

Fletcher’s expression flattened with disappointment. “I didn’t even think about that. You’re becoming like one of our team. Normally, Collier or Ortiz would cover me for lunch. But I don’t know how much longer they’ll—”

The outer door opened and two men entered the police station, Collier and Aidan. A rush of pleasure shot through Grace at seeing Aidan, until she noticed the grim look in his eyes. The hunt for any personal items to have survived the fire must not have gone well.

“Looks like your lunch is salvaged,” she said. “Collier’s back.”

Fletcher turned around in her chair, then shot to her feet. “For once, I’m actually happy to see him. Later, Grace.” She rushed out of the conference room and after a brief chat with her fellow officer was out the door.

Grace locked her laptop, then left the conference room to greet Collier and Aidan. “How did it go? I’m guessing from your expressions, not very well?”

They both shook their heads. Collier said, “No evidence so far that might point to who set the fire. But it’s early yet.”

“What about you…O’Brien?” She’d just caught herself in time not to call him Aidan in front of Collier. “Any luck finding anything salvageable?”

“The fire department had to put out some hot spots that were smoking to make sure the fire didn’t reignite. Because of that, I couldn’t look for anything. I’ll go back in a few hours and see if the fire marshal allows me to search then.”

“Hopefully he will.”

“She,” Collier corrected. “Lieutenant Molly Graham. She was the marshal on call and drove in from Chattanooga. I’m thinking maybe I’ll ask her to dinner later. You know, as a local courtesy from one agency to another.”

Aidan smiled at that, apparently having heard about Collier’s reputation as a ladies’ man.

“Have you two had lunch?” Grace asked. “I’m about to head to that sandwich shop down the block. You’re welcome to join me.”

“You go ahead,” Collier said. “I’m on duty. Can’t leave the station unless another officer is here. Maybe bring O’Brien and me something back if you don’t mind, after you finish your lunch. Hot ham and cheese sounds good. Tell them to put it on the station’s tab. O’Brien, what do you want her to get for you?”

Aidan looked as disappointed as Grace felt. Perhaps he’d forgotten for a moment, like her, that the two of them going to a café together might not be the best idea.

“Ham and cheese works for me, too. Thanks, Special Agent Malone.”

She nodded and hurried to the café. Eating there wasn’t something she planned to do if Aidan wasn’t with her. Instead, she grabbed their lunch to go and headed back to the station.

“Here you go, Collier. O’Brien, I’d like to reinterview you, ask some more questions to try to figure out who has it out for you. If you don’t mind a working lunch, you and I can sit in the conference room. Sound good?”

“Sure. Happy to help.”

Collier looked like he was about to offer to join them, but Grace led the way to the conference room and shut the door behind her and Aidan. When Collier didn’t follow them inside, she figured he must have gotten the hint.