“So the killer buried her alive,” Abbott said.
“In commercial-grade potting soil,” Micki said. “Available at any garden store. Oh, and he buried her in the bathtub. I sent a team to the apartment where Samantha lived. It hadn’t been rented out yet. Or, luckily for us, cleaned very well. We found soil under the edge of the grout around the tub and a few particles in the drain trap.”
“What about Martha Brisbane?” Abbott asked.
“Afraid of water,” Carleton said, scanning the page, then his face bent in sympathy. “Oh. Her father drowned. Martha saw it happen. She was five at the time.”
Noah clenched his jaw. “You know, I keep thinking I can’t hate this guy any more, but I keep finding a way. To have read that, then to have used it…”
“He’s a sociopath,” Carleton said simply. “A sadistic sociopath. He gets pleasure from the pain of others. Christy Lewis, phobia of snakes… Just because.” He looked up with a shrug. “That’s what she wrote. ‘Just because.’ ”
“So she didn’t have any kind of traumatic event?” Jack asked.
“Or she didn’t want to share it,” Carleton said. “There may very well not have been one. I see a lot of patients with snake phobias and many can’t tell me why. Some of it is instinctive. Snakes are dangerous and humans have developed a fear of dangerous things. Survival of the fittest and all that.”
“And now Rachel Ward,” Abbott said. “With her fear of fire. Does she mention why?”
“She says she’s afraid of right-wing Republicans, which is a NOYB answer-none of your business. Subjects will use sarcasm when they don’t want to tell you the truth.”
“But,” Olivia said, “he could have googled her and found that out, like Jack did.”
“But it wasn’t that simple,” Jack said with a frown. “Somebody had to dig. I googled her first, and didn’t get anything. I ran a background, saw she’d used a different name five years ago and checked the marriage licenses. I googled her ex to get the story.”
Noah met Jack’s eyes and gave him a “well-done” nod and was relieved at Jack’s brisk nod back. “So,” Noah mused, “our killer understood her right-wing Republican answer was just a ruse and dug deeper. I find that strange.”
“Why?” Abbott asked.
“Exactly,” Noah said. “Why? Why not just accept it at face value and pick somebody else? There are five hundred names on the list. Why Rachel Ward?”
“Maybe because she was so available,” Jack said. “She was online every night.”
“Possibly,” Noah said. “I talked to a few neighbors last night who said she kept to herself, never went out, a real-world introvert. In Shadowland she was a cabaret dancer who’d take home a dozen ‘men’ a night.”
“I don’t get the whole virtual sex thing,” Abbott said with a frown. “Is it common?”
“Not uncommon, according to Eve. Not that she gets it either,” Noah added hastily.
Abbott’s eyes rolled. “If Rachel had a liquor bottle under the seat of her car and a BA of oh-fifteen, he probably met her at a bar. Find out where.”
“Not many bars in town,” Jack muttered sarcastically. “But it’s a start.”
“What about the car I saw last night?” Olivia asked. “The brown Civic.”
“Nothing from the BOLO,” Micki said. “And Girard’s wife’s car was in the garage.”
“I want to know what connection Girard has to this guy,” Noah said. “He’s either faster than a speeding bullet, or Girard has a serious enemy.”
“Who is Girard?” Ian and Carleton asked at the same time.
“Axel Girard is the owner of the car that followed Christy home,” Jack said flatly.
“His wife owns the plate I saw leaving Rachel’s neighborhood,” Olivia added.
“He’s also an optometrist,” Abbott said. “And a model citizen.”
“Every victim’s eyes have been glued open,” Ian said. “Being an optometrist can’t be a coincidence. I assume he has an alibi or you would have arrested him already.”
“He had a so-so alibi for Christy, but he had a hell of an alibi for Rachel,” Noah said dryly. “As in two of our guys sitting in an unmarked car a few houses down, all night long.”
“That is a hell of an alibi,” Carleton said. “Any chance he sneaked out?”
“Possibly”-Noah shrugged-“but the timeline doesn’t work unless he drove a hundred-twenty the whole way home.”
“So where is Girard now?” Carleton asked.
“I had him brought in,” Noah said, “more for his own protection than anything else. If anything else happened, I’d know exactly where he was. But I let him go this morning. We still have a car watching his house.”
“Chat with Dr. Girard,” Abbott said. “Find out why a killer has such a hard-on for him. There has to be a connection. This guy has been too damn meticulous. If nothing else, I want to know if there’s any way Girard had access to that list. What else?”
“Dr. Donner and Jeremy Lyons,” Jack said. “We need their whereabouts. Right now they have the most access to study files.”
“You haven’t talked to them yet?” Olivia asked, surprised.
“We couldn’t find Donner,” Noah said. “He never showed up after morning classes. I met Lyons in the Deli with Eve, but when Jack and I went back to the university, he was gone, too. Then we caught wind of Axel Girard and spun our wheels for hours on him.”
“Go back today and get their alibis for Christy, Rachel, and Martha,” Abbott said. “What about your panty pervert? Taylor Kobrecki.”
“We checked with his pals,” Kane said, speaking for the first time. “He’s in the wind.”
“His LUDs show calls from Bozeman, Montana,” Olivia said, “as recently as this morning. If he’s with his cell, he couldn’t have killed Rachel. We put Bozeman on alert.”
Kane shrugged. “But it wouldn’t be the first time a perp had someone else take his cell out of area to establish an alibi.”
“I’d be surprised if he was that clever,” Carleton said. “I checked him out. High school graduate, but barely. Special needs classes, no organization. He doesn’t have the acuity to form a plan like this. I think your resources would be best used elsewhere.”
“Agreed,” Abbott said. “Anything else?”
“Maybe,” Noah said. “Usage logs from the study show another participant who went from heavy play time to nothing, overnight. Her name was Amy Millhouse.”
Jack looked perturbed. “Was?”
“Yes. She committed suicide three weeks ago.”
“We checked all the suicide reports,” Jack said. “Nothing looked like these scenes.”
“I know, that’s why I said ‘maybe.’ We should check it out.”
Abbott gave Noah a pensive look. “Do it. Then find Donner and Lyons. Check out everyone who knew about that damn list. Olivia, Kane, find out where Rachel met him last night. Somebody has seen this guy. Meet back here at five. Web, you stay.”
“I just found out about Amy,” Noah said when everyone left. “I should have told you.”
Abbott leaned back and studied him. “Why didn’t you?”
“Eve called me this morning, after I’d talked to Girard in holding. She was showing me the graphs and Millhouse’s obit when she got a text, we think from Kurt Buckland. It was a quote from the guy who assaulted her back in Chicago. She was shaken up.”
“I guess so. And?”
“And this Buckland’s been trying to pressure her to give him details on this case.” He told him about Buckland’s visit to Sal’s and the photos of him and Trina.
Abbott listened, frowning. “I’ll get somebody on it. You focus on this case. Got it?”
“Yeah.”