Hide and Seek (Criminal Profiler #1)(37)

The drive back to the sheriff’s office took her through the quiet streets slightly glistening after a gentle rain. She parked in front of the sheriff’s office, sipped the last of her coffee, and pushed through the front door seconds later.

The dispatcher tonight was an African American woman who appeared to be in her midfifties. Slender, she had brushed back her salt-and-pepper hair into a tight bun. Glasses perched on the edge of her nose as she looked up. Unfazed by the sight of Macy, she was clearly accustomed to late-night visitors.

“Can I help you?” Her voice crackled over the intercom.

Macy held up her badge. “Special Agent Macy Crow. I’m working with the sheriff.”

“I heard about you. I suppose you’re here for the evidence files.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m Deputy Morgan.” She pressed the button and the door unlatched.

Macy pushed through.

“Glad to have you.” She rose and walked toward the conference room with Macy. “The evidence boxes arrived a few minutes ago. I figured you wouldn’t be back until morning.”

“I don’t sleep well when I’m on the road.”

“I like to sleep in my own bed, myself.” She flipped on the conference-room light. “No evidence boxes for Tobi. All that was collected at the barn is with the Roanoke lab.”

Macy lifted one of the three blue file boxes. It was light. “Can you also see if there was a missing person file for Cindy Shaw?”

“Cindy Shaw?”

“She went to school with Tobi and vanished about the same time.”

Deputy Morgan shook her head. “I don’t remember the name, but I’ll have a look in the system.”

“Pull anything you have on Cindy Shaw, would you?” Macy asked.

The phone rang, drawing Deputy Morgan’s attention back to her console. Macy dropped her backpack in a chair and opened Susan Oswald’s box.

The evidence sticker on the side stated that the materials had been collected on June 15, 2004, by Deputy Marty Shoemaker and collected from Susan Oswald’s room. The chain of custody line stated the evidence had been transported from the scene to the locker but had never been checked out again.

There were five plastic evidence bags. The first contained the pantyhose, still coiled into a tight circle. The next bag held two single earrings that did not match. Another held the white fitted sheet from her bed, which had a square cut from the center for DNA collection. There was a bag containing her oversize green Valley High School T-shirt. And finally, a partial plaster mold of a footprint. A paltry collection from an offender who’d left years of pain in his wake.

Macy removed her yellow legal pad and made notes.

The shoe impression taken at the scene next to Susan’s window was a right-foot, size-eleven athletic shoe. She listed several shoe companies that could have possibly made it.

As she worked her way through the box, she scribbled more notes.

Collects keepsakes. Doesn’t use a condom. Shows remorse?

He was less interested in the sex than the violence. Most likely he craved the girls’ fear. He choked each to near unconsciousness and grew increasingly violent. The perpetrator was practicing. Experimenting. Building up skills, courage, or endurance for murder.

Macy picked up the bagged pantyhose and socks in the evidence box. She flipped through her file. According to Greene, “Ms. Oswald says he used the pantyhose to bind her.” And then in very bold letters the words: “VERY UPSET.”

Ellis Carter’s box also contained the cotton sheet that had been on her bed when she had been attacked, a single woman’s hiking shoe, and a strand of red rope that had been used to bind her hands behind her back.

Again, Macy searched Greene’s case notes. Rebecca Kennedy had also been bound with a red rope, and she had always assumed her attacker had brought the binding with him.

The first time the assailant hadn’t been prepared. But in subsequent attacks he came ready with rope. She added red rope to her list.

Macy spent the next few hours going through each box, reading all of Greene’s comments, and making more notes. He had interviewed the people who’d lived closest to the victims. One had reported seeing a shadowed figure on the road near Ellis Carter’s house, but when the neighbor had gone out to investigate, the person had vanished. He had also interviewed Rebecca’s neighbors.

She began to write down questions:

What was his trigger? Were there economic stressors in the area at the time? Was it personal? Did the offender harbor fantasies and finally act upon them?

Once she had inventoried the cases, she pulled up an electronic form for ViCAP and answered as many of the one-hundred-plus questions as she could. At four a.m., she hit “Send” and then followed up with a text to Special Agent Andy Jamison asking her to prioritize the case.

Macy’s phone chimed with a response almost immediately. Will do. As she packed away the boxes, her phone chimed with another text. This one was from Nevada. Where are you?

She wasn’t surprised he was awake. Insomnia was one of the traits they had discovered they shared in Kansas City. It was a prevalent condition in their line of work. What normal person could sleep after what they saw?

She typed back, Sheriff’s office. Evidence analysis.

Nevada responded, Treat you to breakfast. Walt’s Diner in fifteen minutes.