Into the Night(48)

He blinked. “It’s... I told you, the door is locked.”

“Then unlock it,” Bowen ordered. “Now.”

More officers came forward, their expressions tense.

“I don’t have the key!” Officer O’Neil said, his eyes wide. “There’s...there’s usually a backup for all of the offices at the front desk, but that key ring wasn’t there this morning when I came in—”

Bowen shoved through the crowd and stopped in front of the locked door.

“Bowen?” Tucker called out. “What are you doing?”

Bowen didn’t reply because he was too busy kicking in the door.

“You can’t do that!” Officer O’Neil yelled. “This is police—”

The door flew inward and Macey saw that Captain Henry Harwell was inside, sitting at his desk. He was in his chair—his body tied to the chair—and blood soaked the front of his shirt. Blood from the giant slash that went from one ear...to the other.





CHAPTER ELEVEN

“SO...ARE WE supposed to think that the police captain was some kind of killer?” Jonah asked hours later as they stood inside Harwell’s office. An office that was now an active crime scene.

The body had been taken away. Macey was currently with the ME. Bowen had been left with Jonah and Tucker, and he grimly stared around the room. The crime scene team had come and gone, and they’d found nothing to help their investigation.

Because this bastard knows what he’s doing.

“I mean, that is the MO we’re looking at with this perp, right?” Jonah said as he carefully skirted the desk. “He goes after killers that he’s profiled. And the last guy—Curtis Zale—you hadn’t even realized he was hunting, not until our perp contacted you.” His gaze trekked around the room. “Maybe it’s the same thing with the dead captain. Maybe he was a killer, too. One who hid in plain sight.”

Just like with the other victims, a nail had been found in Harwell’s body—two nails, actually. His hands had been nailed to his desk. Bowen moved behind the desk, trying to figure out just why the killer had set the scene in such a manner.

“Could be possible, I suppose,” Tucker mused from the right, “that Henry Harwell was working with Curtis Zale. I mean, perhaps all those murders occurred in the mountains because Harwell was making sure no one investigated the disappearances?” His voice roughened as he added, “Wouldn’t be the first time a law enforcement officer went bad and, though it’s uncommon, serial killing teams do work together.”

Bowen wasn’t ready to buy that the captain had been a killer. “The perp is ballsy as hell. He’s throwing his crimes in our faces. The guy came into a police station.” The whole fucking place was a crime scene. “Based on the blood spatter we found outside, we can assume that the killer attacked Harwell next to his Jeep, and then the killer brought the captain back in here.” Because the blood had pooled on the chair, on the floor. “The amount of blood here tells us this is where he died. He brought Harwell back in here specifically to set the scene for us. If the perp attacked Harwell outside, in that back parking lot, he could have easily killed him there.” His head lifted from the marks on the desk and he met Tucker’s stare. “But he didn’t. The perp brought Harwell back in here to deliver a message to us.”

“What message is that?” Jonah wanted to know.

“He thought the captain was guilty, all right.” Once more, he stared at the marks left on the desk. “Did you see the files that were beneath Harwell’s hands? The hands that were fucking nailed to the desk? They were the files on Curtis Zale’s victims. Our killer was blaming Harwell for those crimes.”

That was easy enough to see. But when Curtis had been making his grand confession at the end, he’d never implicated anyone else. He’d taken all of the credit himself.

“Because Harwell was guilty?” Jonah said.

Maybe. Or maybe something else was at play. “Dig into his personal life,” Bowen said. He knew Jonah could hack into the guy’s life far too easily. “See if there isn’t something that stands out to you. Missing money. Absences. Property that wasn’t listed on official records. Trouble with a current lover or even an ex. If Henry Harwell had skeletons in his closet, we’ll find them.”

A knock sounded on the open door.

Bowen looked up. Officer O’Neil stood there. His face was pale and the lines near his mouth appeared deeper. His gaze studiously avoided staring at the desk. “Dr. Amelia Lang is in interrogation room one. She’s waiting for you.”

The police station had security cameras in place—cameras that had stopped working right after Amelia Lang left the night before. As far as they knew, she was the last person to speak with Harwell before he’d been murdered.

Other than the killer, of course.

The video footage had showed Dr. Lang walking out of the front door. A few moments later, Captain Harwell had gone out the back.

Then the security feed had just stopped.

“Jonah, let us know what you find,” Tucker ordered as he led the way to the door. He cast a quick glance at Bowen. “You’re standing in for this one, right?”

Standing in, but not leading the investigation. FBI orders. Jaw locking, Bowen snarled, “Yes.”