Page 60 of Last Seen

Chapter Forty-One

Theo

Nashville, Tennessee

One Week Later

Theodore Donovan steers his rental through the entrance of the Donelson Corporate Centre.

It doesn’t look like much. The Metro Nashville Police brass have quarters here while their new building is being designed and built, and Theo is meeting with the head of the specialized investigative support group, who, as it happens, worked the Susannah Handon murder scene twenty-eight years ago.

He counts himself lucky to have found an active employee who was a part of the case.

Cops usually burn out after their twenty years on the job.

Burn out or get moved up. This guy is the latter.

Theo’s gut is twisted with knots. Halley’s been on the run for a week now.

According to the sheriff in Brockton, she is now the primary suspect in the murder of a woman in Brockville, Tammy Boone, as well as responsible for the near death of the sheriff’s brother, with whom she’d been holed up.

The sheriff made it clear something was going on between them, and the mere thought makes Theo’s blood pressure spike.

The primal fury at the idea of his wife with another man is hard to tamp down.

But it’s his fault, too. He’s barely touched her in months.

Too busy. Too angry. Too much pressure. She’s always been a physical creature.

It’s his own damn fault she went looking for comfort elsewhere.

Still, he didn’t realize she was that far out of the marriage already. Of course, he hasn’t wanted to face that things have been over between them for a while now. Guess she needed to make a clean break of it.

But the idea of someone else loving her, fingering that crazy streak of white in her otherwise dark hair, listening to her breathy snores .

.. That he’s lost her makes him sick. That she’s accused of murder and a number of other felonies doesn’t help.

She doesn’t want him, she’s made that clear, but he can’t let this lie.

He has to find her, and he has all the skills and power to do so.

He fumbles an antacid pill into his mouth and dry swallows it. He is low on sleep, low on patience, and high on frustration. Not the best formula for his system.

He hasn’t heard from Halley since the text with the photos telling him she was heading to Nashville a week ago.

When she didn’t answer his texts, he got worried.

When the sheriff of Brockville tracked him down and told him Halley had shot his brother Noah, he was in disbelief.

When her Jeep showed up in Nashville, but with no trace of her anywhere near it, Theo took a week’s personal leave, got Charlie settled at the neighbor’s, and got on a plane.

None of this makes sense, but he knows his wife.

He doesn’t think her capable of these crimes.

He’s worried about her. She might have had a break, yes.

That’s what the Brockville sheriff wants him to believe.

That she was unstable. Upset. Irrational.

But he’s inclined to believe something else could be going on.

Which is why he’s here. He’s going to get to the bottom of this. He’s going back to the beginning.

Theo badges the girl at the front desk. “I have an appointment with Sergeant David Lemke.”

The woman nods and presses two buttons on her phone. “An ATF agent is here for you. Okay, thanks.” Then to Theo, “Have a seat over there. He’ll come get you.”

He grabs some pine. A door opens a few minutes later, and an older man with graying hair and beard waves him over. “Lemke.” He sticks out a hand. “You’re Donovan?”

“I am. Thanks for making the time.”

He follows Lemke through an institutional labyrinth. The hallways are lined with boxes.

“Temporary digs,” he explains. “We’ve been moving around facilities. Total shit show. They tore down our old place before the new one was built, so we decentralized most of the divisions of HQ, and only the brass and some admins are here.”

“Been there. Moving desks is a pain.”

Lemke leads him to a generic interior room with glass walls on three sides that looks like something straight out of The Office , only with the requisite photos of the chief of police, the governor of Tennessee, and the president of the United States hanging on the one solid wall.

An American flag stands sentry in the corner.

The desk is clear of detritus, but a thick file sits in its center.

“Have a seat. Your wife’s in quite a bit of trouble.”

Theo nods. “That she is. But like I said on the phone, I can’t see her for this. Attempted murder is not her style.”

“But it is her gun, with her prints on it, and on the bullets, according to the forensics. They dug the slug out of Noah Brockton, and the ballistics are solid. No questions there. That’s why they put out the warrant for her.”

“You’ve been doing this long enough to know nothing is a fait accompli. I know Halley. She could no sooner shoot an innocent man than she could hurt an animal.”

“Then why have the gun in the first place?”

“You know the answer. Protection. Someone was killing people connected to her mother’s case, and she wanted to be able to defend herself.”

“Then this isn’t a stretch at all. What if Noah Brockton isn’t so innocent?” Lemke asks. “What if he is the killer? What if he attacked her? She shot him, panicked, and ran?”

“More likely, but I’m still not convinced.

We won’t know for sure until we find her, or he wakes up.

Take a look at this,” Theo says. He hands over his phone.

“She texted me from Brockton’s phone minutes before she went dark.

Wanted me to run the faces. Said this was the killer.

I got a match to the woman, she was in the juvenile system.

That’s Catriona Handon. Halley’s older half sister.

It’s the other one, though, I can’t land on.

He’s tied up in this. Halley was convinced that he’s the killer, and I’m inclined to agree.

I talked with Baird Early in Marchburg, sent him these pics, and he matched this guy up to a video feed he has in Marchburg. That’s where two women were killed.”

“And let me guess. Noah Brockton was in Brockville the whole time.”

“According to one hell of a lot of witnesses, yes. This man, though, wasn’t. I’m hoping you can help me ID him.”

“That’s why you wanted the Handon murder file? It was twenty-eight years ago. We don’t have much in the way of visuals. Just a few shots. Lost the video years ago. The floods. All that’s really left is up here.” He taps his temple.

“Anything could help. I’ve seen parts of the file—autopsy report, the crime scene stills, but if I could look through the whole thing ...”

Lemke watches Theo. “You really don’t think she did this.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay. Let’s play this your way.” Lemke sits.

“The Handon murder was pretty awful. We don’t have a lot of home invasions with women being stabbed here.

Especially back in the late eighties. I was new to plain clothes, just moved to violent crimes.

Wasn’t my first case, but it was close to it.

It helped that the daughter copped to the murder.

We found her at the bus station three days after, completely fucked up.

I’m talking she looked like she’d been run over by a bus.

She was meek. Didn’t fight, came into custody like she was relieved.

That happens, obviously. It’s hard to fight the energy of a homicide investigation, and we were on it hard. ”

“What did she say happened?”

“Mom wanted to send her back to a wilderness camp she’d gone to.

She’d had a bad time of it there and didn’t want to go.

They argued, she got the knife, she stabbed her.

Beat her little sister in the head and ran.

Public defender managed to get her declared unfit to stand trial because she had some deep psychiatric problems, so she pled out, took a sentence to the juvenile psychiatric facility at Central State.

” He stops. “That’s all in the file. I’m sure you’ve read it. ”

“I have. So has Halley. She was told that her mom and sister died in a car accident, and that’s where her head injury came from. She was there but didn’t remember any of it.”

“The kid took a pretty good bang on the head. And the scene was a bloody mess. Disorganized killer, opportunistic crime. All fit with the girl’s confession.”

Theo senses a but coming. He stays quiet and is rewarded.

“There was always something that struck me as off about the whole thing.”

“What’s that?”

“There was a huge dent in the wood column holding up the mantel, with blood and hair. Hair matched the kid sister. So that was inconsistent with Handon’s testimony that she hit her in the head when she was on the ground.

And the mom was stabbed by someone right handed.

No doubt about it. But Catriona Handon is left handed. ”

“Opportunistic situation, maybe? She had the knife in her right hand.”

“Sure. That’s what she said when we questioned her about it. Well, not exactly, she said she didn’t remember what hand the knife was in. Hardly enough to make us look twice. She was singing like a songbird. It was open and shut.”

“And if it wasn’t?”

Lemke raises a brow. “What, you think someone else was there?”

“I don’t know, man. This all feels wonky to me.

Like you said, it was almost thirty years ago.

She did her time, she integrated back into society.

Then she disappeared, and according to Baird Early in Marchburg, Virginia, where two of the murders took place, her blood is in CODIS at a bunch of crime scenes.

Has she been murdering her way around the country?

I don’t know. Maybe she is the one who shot Noah Brockton. Maybe she’s hurt Halley.”

“That’s a big maybe, friend. But I’m listening.”

Theo pulls out his notebook. “Catriona Handon went missing fifteen years ago after going to Brockville. I did some digging about the town. Another woman who was accepted into the famed writers’ retreat went missing, too.”

“That’s interesting.”

“It’s an interesting place. Very insular. Run by Miles Brockton, you ever heard of him?”

“Should I have?”

“They made a movie about him years ago, how he went into the wilderness alone for years and came back out this mindfulness guru. Anyway, we’re getting too far away from why I’m here.

I’d appreciate it if you could run the picture through your databases, and if you could show me the cameras of Halley abandoning the Jeep?

I want to see her state of mind for myself. ”

Lemke frowns. “There were no cameras near where the Jeep was ditched.”

“What about traffic cams coming into town? Do you have any toll roads?”

“No tolls. We did a quick look around the area where we found the Jeep but didn’t see anything.”

“Would you be willing to look again, and expand it? She had to get to the spot—where was the Jeep found?”

“Off of 440, parking lot of Elmington Park. West End. By the school.”

“West End School?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t that where Catriona Handon was going to school at the time of the murder?”

Lemke thumbs open the file. “Damn, you’re right. She did. How the hell did I miss that?”

“I assume you haven’t been poring over this file the way I have.”

“Nice of you to say. Shit. Okay. Let me make a call.”

He whips his cell from his pocket. Hits a number.

“Lincoln Ross, please.” To Theo, “Linc’s the best computer guy on the force.

Works under a specialized group run by Lieutenant Taylor Jackson, but he’s always happy to do a favor.

Let me turn him loose on this. If there’s something to find, he’ll get it. ”

An hour later, a well-dressed man with a gap-toothed smile shows up with a laptop in his hand. Theo feels a pang. He looks like Lenny Kravitz. Halley loves Lenny Kravitz.

They shake hands, and Ross puts the laptop on the desk.

“All right, we got the Jeep coming into town on 40. Picked it up out by the airport heading west. Once I had a date and time, I was able to triangulate its path. Moves off of 40 to 440, takes the West End exit, and then we lose it. But there’s a TDOT camera just before that exit, and I was able to get into the system and run it back a week.

There is one person in the Jeep. And damn if your instincts aren’t right on, sir. Face ID matches it to Catriona Handon.”

Theo doesn’t know if he’s happy about this, or even more upset. Catriona Handon is alive and well.

“All right. So she’s driving Halley’s car. Where does she go once she ditches it?”

“We’ve got her in a silver Camry heading back east on 40. In the passenger seat. No idea who’s driving, but it’s another woman. I’m running her face but nothing’s popped yet.” Ross pauses. “It is not Halley. I’m sorry.”

They all know what this means. Theo forces away the despair that’s building. He was right about Halley. She’s in serious trouble, or worse. Stay focused, man. You gotta find her.

“All right. So her sister drives her car to Nashville and ditches it. Any chance you got plates on the Camry?”

Ross smiles. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t. Got enough to run a comparison. The Camry is registered to a Cathy Esworthy. And guess where she lives?”

“Brockville?” Theo says hopefully.

“Nailed it.”

Lemke rubs his jaw. “So Catriona Handon is still in Brockville. Where she went missing fifteen years ago?”

“Catriona Handon was in Brockville. At least long enough to get Halley’s keys and car. We need a BOLO for Cathy Esworthy, stat. Is she in the system?”

Ross pulls up her driver’s license. A pleasant woman stares back at them. “I gotta say the driver is much younger than this woman. She’s clean, too. Not even a traffic ticket. Her husband’s an upstanding businessman as well, has a bunch of Porsche dealerships all over the South.”

“But his wife has a Camry?”

“Third car registered to them at the Brockville address. They also have a 2017 Cayenne and a mint 1987 944. Red. The Camry—maybe it’s a kid’s car?

I wouldn’t want my son driving a Porsche until he’s off my insurance.

” Laughs, and Theo’s stomach does a strange dance.

He won’t have a son. He’ll never be able to make a joke like that.

Especially now that Halley’s left him. That was always her dream.

A dream he refused to help make come true.

A dream he’s willing to reconsider if she’d just fucking come home.

He pushes the thought aside.

“I’m calling Sheriff Brockton,” he says. “If Esworthy lives there, he’ll know about the car.”

Lemke’s phone rings, and as he listens, he frowns. “All right. I’ll come get her.” He hangs up. “There’s a woman named Donnata Kade in the lobby. Says she has information about the murders in Marchburg.”