“Good work, Leigh. I really appreciate all the time you’ve put in this weekend. Hopefully it’ll be over soon.” Luke scrubbed his face, his beard scraping his palms. “I have to shave. Maybe that’ll help me feel human. Tell Chase I’ll be there in five.”
Five minutes later he slumped into a chair between Chase and Ed and looked around the table. Pete and Nancy were there, as were Chloe and Nate. Talia Scott was back from the Ellijay cabin, and she and psychologist Mary McCrady looked fresher than the rest of them. “We ready to start, Chase?” he asked.
“Yep. Germanio is still hunting for Helen Granville, so we’re just waiting for you.”
Luke straightened in his chair. “We have an ID on Kasey Knight, one of the homicides, and we may have an ID on one of the missing girls, Ashley Csorka. Her dad’s on his way from Florida with DNA samples.”
“I’ll put a rush on the urine samples we took from the mattresses in the bunker,” Ed said. “I’ll start PCR on the samples he brings. We’ll have an ID by tomorrow this time.”
“Good,” Chase said. “What else?”
“Daniel saw part of the registration number on the boat as it pulled away,” Luke said. “Leigh’s narrowed possible owners down to a couple dozen.”
Chase took the list. “We’ll check it out. Anything else?”
“Just what Nate and I found.” He gestured to Nate.
“We found catalogs with girls for sale-the company is Fine Young American Flesh and its logo is the swastika,” Nate said. “I was able to match photos of three of the five homicides. Kasey Knight wasn’t in any of the catalogs.”
“How many did you end up finding?” Luke asked.
“Just the three I’d found when you came by. Why?”
“Because Kasey was missing for two years. At three quarterlies, the catalogs only go back a year or so.”
“So?” Chase asked.
“So Kasey wasn’t part of the Fine Young Flesh business,” Nate said. “But she was still in the bunker.”
“Just another piece of the puzzle,” Luke said, and Chase sighed.
“This puzzle is like one of those round ones that’s all yellow,” he grumbled. “Can we trace any of the pictures on Mansfield’s hard drives?”
“We’ve got a third of ICAC working on it,” Nate said, “but twenty-five hundred gig is a lot of photos.”
“The ones I’m most interested in are the ones Mansfield took on the sly,” Luke said. “They’re not staged, so they’re more likely to yield something useful.”
Nate nodded. “But they’re grainy, so it’s slow going. If you don’t need me for anything else, I’ll get back to it.”
“Ed?” Chase asked, when Nate had closed the door behind him.
“Oh, lots of good stuff,” Ed said, “to mystify and confuse.” He put two plastic bags on the table, each containing a gun. “This one,” he said, tapping a revolver, “was found in Kate’s hand. The other one was found in the grass.” He got up and drew a triangle on the whiteboard. “Kate was standing here, at the top of the triangle. This,” he pointed to the point that jutted out to the left side, “was where we found the second gun. It’s a semiauto with a silencer. This point at the bottom is where Ms. French was standing.”
“What comes next is my favorite part,” Chase said sarcastically.
“We found the slug that went through Gretchen’s arm over here.” Ed pointed to an area outside the triangle, to the far right. “You guys keepin’ up?”
Luke frowned. “How is that possible? Unless it ricocheted, there’s no way it could have come from Kate’s gun.”
“Because the bullet that hit Gretchen French didn’t come from Kate’s gun. It came from here.” Ed pointed to where they had found the semiautomatic.
“So the semi shot Gretchen?” Nancy asked.
“No,” Ed said. “There were three guns-Kate’s, the semiauto, and a third gun that we didn’t recover. The third gun shot Gretchen and the semiauto shot Kate, but Kate Davis didn’t shoot anybody.”
Pete shook his head. “I have a headache now.”
“Join the club,” Chase said. “Ballistics says the shot Kate fired was likely a blank.”
Chloe blinked. “Why?”
“So who shot Gretchen?” Talia Scott asked.
“Nobody knows yet,” Ed said. “We’re going through the video of that area, but there were people running around everywhere after the first shot was fired.”
“So if Kate didn’t shoot Gretchen,” Luke said, “what did she mean by ‘I missed’?”
“We did get a good angle on Kate with our surveillance video,” Ed said. “When we realized she’d shot a blank, we went back and looked at the video again. She wasn’t aiming for Gretchen or Susannah. She was aiming over here.” He pointed to the area where the semiautomatic had been found. “She was aiming for whoever shot her.”
“And if that’s not interesting enough, there’s one more thing.” Chase slid a photo across the table. “Kate’s autopsy photo.”
Everyone drew a breath.
“She has the swastika brand,” Chase said. “Hell.”
“I think we need to get some more information on Kate Davis,” Luke said. “It’s time for another visit to Mayor Garth. Will you come with me, Chloe?”
“Of course. Do we have any information on his wife?”
“The BOLO on her Chrysler minivan isn’t showing up anything,” Pete said, “but she’s on the move. I’ve got her cell phone records right here. She’s called Kate Davis’s cell phone a couple times a day since she left on Thursday. She’s headed west. Today she was in Reno. The last call to Kate’s phone was at two p.m. today. Lasted five minutes.”
Luke frowned. “Two p.m.? Kate was already dead by two p.m. today.”
“I know,” Pete said. “Did they find a cell phone on Kate’s body?”
“No,” Chase said. “But somebody answered the call, or the voicemail would have picked up. Let’s get that phone account transferred to one of ours. Chloe, can you make that happen?”
“Yeah, but it’ll take some time. I think I know a judge that’ll help me speed it up.”
“Thanks,” Chase said. “Pete, does Garth’s wife have family out west?”
“No. She has an aunt who lived in Dutton, but whose neighbors say moved away after she married Garth. Nobody has a forwarding address on the aunt. I’m still searching.”
“Did you talk to Angie Delacroix?” Luke asked. “The hairdresser? Susannah says she knows everything that goes on in the town.”
“No, but I will.” Pete ran a hand over his bald head, trying for levity. “I need a trim.”
Everyone smiled, but sadly.
“I checked Mrs. Davis’s credit cards,” Pete went on. “I found activity in all the places she’s called from. I called the local police in the towns where she stopped. They’re sending me security tapes from the places the credit cards were used. At least we can try to find out if she’s driving a different vehicle. Whoever has Kate’s phone might have told her Kate’s dead. I’m betting that will make her go even deeper under.”
“Maybe the hairdresser will know who else she’s calling,” Chase said. “Nancy?”
“I’ve searched all day for Chili Pepper, the arsonist,” Nancy said. “His parents say they haven’t seen him in years because he’s a no- account SOB of a son. The neighbors back up the parents. I found his girlfriend’s house and she denies knowledge of his arson activities. She says he’s nicknamed Chili because he’s hot in bed.” She grimaced. “Which is really gross, trust me.”
“Lovely individual,” Chloe said. “Anything he can’t do without, any addictions?”
“Yeah. I found syringes in his girlfriend’s house. I asked to use the bathroom and snuck a peek in her medicine cabinet. I know,” Nancy said when Chloe looked indignant. “I saw a bottle of insulin with Clive Pepper’s name on it.”