Hide and Seek (Criminal Profiler #1)(82)

“You never know.”

Fifteen minutes later, the two were sitting at the conference-room table looking at the telecast of a leather-bound chair and the Mercer County seal mounted on the wall behind. Seconds later a man in his sixties settled in front of the camera. He had a white mustache, a cleanly shaved head, and he wore a khaki shirt with the sheriff’s star pinned over his heart.

“Sheriff Tanner,” Nevada said. “Appreciate you talking with us.”

“Glad to help. Apologize for not being around when you called, but as you’ll learn, this job will take you to every corner of the county. How’s it up there in the valley?” he asked.

“Fall came and went fast. It’ll be a long winter.”

“I hear that.”

“I’m joined today by Special Agent Macy Crow,” Nevada said. “She’s working a series of rapes and a murder all connected by the same DNA.”

“Afternoon, Agent Crow.”

“I appreciate the time,” she said.

“Of course.” He rustled through papers. “I pulled the case files you referenced in your message, Sheriff Nevada. I didn’t think anything would come of that ViCAP application I submitted.”

“New details have been entered in the system,” Macy said.

“We found a body in Deep Run.” Nevada opened a tablet and then an email from Tanner. “Agent Crow thinks we have a serial offender who remained active after he left our area.”

Tanner flipped open his file. “Guys like this don’t stop until they’re caught.”

“Who’s your victim?” Macy watched as Nevada opened an attachment. The motor vehicles picture of a young brunette came onscreen.

“Her name was Becky Taylor. I sent you her picture and several crime scene photos about ten minutes ago.”

“I have them right here,” Nevada said. He viewed the image of a woman curled on her side. She was dressed and her hands and feet bound with red rope.

“The medical examiner figured she was exposed to the elements for about five months when found in late April,” Tanner said.

“And the cause of death was strangulation?” Macy asked.

“It was.”

“What about a bite mark?” Nevada asked.

“Upper right thigh,” Tanner said.

The older sheriff glanced at the file, shaking his head. “Becky was nineteen when she was murdered. She was arrested for prostitution and drug charges several times. I did some asking around the trailer park where she grew up. They tell me the deck was stacked against her from the get-go. No daddy and a drug-addicted mom. She was pretty much on her own as soon as she could walk.”

She sounded like Cindy Shaw. “Known associates?” Macy asked.

“They knew her at the truck stops where she did most of her work. Everybody knew of her, but no one could say for sure when she vanished or who she was last seen with.”

The world swallowed up girls like Becky Taylor who turned to the sex trade for so many reasons, including money, acceptance, and even affection. “According to the ViCAP report, the DNA was degraded.”

“That was 2017, so unless you folks at Quantico got more fancy ways of testing DNA, there’s not much to be done.”

“Can you send the DNA to Quantico?” Macy asked. “It wouldn’t hurt to run it through our labs.”

“You give me the address, and I’ll get it there.”

“Thank you.” Macy tapped her pen against her yellow legal pad. “Were there any other girls like Becky who vanished?”

He ran his fingers over the length of his mustache. “Girls go missing all the time.”

“Any report of johns who tried to strangle sex workers?” Macy asked.

“I can do a search and see if any of the girls filed complaints. It’s going to take some time.”

“That would be great. We’ve got his DNA, and we think he had a chipped front tooth.”

When the conference call ended, Macy went up to a whiteboard and taped up the pictures of Tobi Turner, Cindy Shaw, Becky Taylor, and Beth Watson. All the women had long dark hair and were in their late teens or early twenties.

“Where did Cindy Shaw live?” Macy asked.

“In a small mobile home park.”

“Like Becky.”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to visit the park where Cindy lived. There might be someone there who remembers her.”

“Let’s go.”

“You don’t think I’m chasing a ghost?”

“I don’t know what you’re chasing, but looking at that board, I see a direct link between Cindy and the other three victims. It makes sense to determine if anyone remembers her.”

“Maybe I’ve been processing logical evidence stored away in her brain.” Even as she spoke the words she really wanted to believe, they didn’t quite ring true.

They drove to the small Stafford Estates, located twenty minutes from the center of town. Truck tires painted white and cut in half, along with handfuls of winter pansies, marked the entrance and the gravel road that fed into the park between the rows of about two dozen mobile homes.

Nevada pulled into the park, and they drove down the center past several units before they reached a white one trimmed in black. There were a couple of lawn chairs outside, and it reminded Macy of her pop’s place.