“Found with them?” Jason echoed. His stomach gave an unhappy lurch as he remembered Kennedy squatting beside Rebecca, taking his pen out, and leaning over her body.
“In their mouths,” Kennedy said. “Each girl had a mermaid in her mouth.”
Chapter Nine
“Who the hell has been erasing my notes off this board?” Chief Gervase glared at the weary officers seated in what was now being termed the Command Center of the Kingsfield Police Station. “Officer Courtney? How many times have I told you about taking it upon yourself to tidy up after me?”
Officer Courtney looked outraged. “I didn’t touch that board, Chief.”
No one else responded. Gervase, as tired as everyone else in the room after the long and arduous day that had followed the discovery of Rebecca’s body, seemed to give up. He released a long pent-up sigh and nodded at Kennedy, who was seated on the low, wide window sill.
“A couple of you have asked why I’m requesting the FBI to take point on this investigation when we’ve already got the State Police and other key resources. I’ll tell you why. Some of you remember Special Agent Sam Kennedy from ten years ago when he helped us bring Martin Pink to justice. Nobody knows the players in this case better than him. And that’s what we need right now. That kind of perspective and that kind of insight.”
Gervase sat down in a chair next to the whiteboard. Kennedy rose and took the chief’s place at the front of the room.
“First thing to keep in mind is we don’t yet know who the players are this time around,” Kennedy said.
“We know we’re dealing with a copycat,” Gervase said.
“It looks that way at this juncture of the investigation.” Somehow Kennedy’s concession hinted this didn’t mean a whole hell of a lot.
A slim, dark-haired woman put her hand up, and Jason recognized Officer Dale. Kennedy nodded at her.
“Is it possible we’re not dealing with a copycat so much as a previously unknown accomplice of Martin Pink?”
“We have a critical piece of evidence that would seem to suggest an accomplice,” Gervase agreed.
Jason could see Kennedy didn’t like the direction this was going, but ironically it was his own fault. He had been the one to show the mermaid charm to Gervase’s officers and George Simpson. It was inevitable word was going to spread. In fact, Jason realized, Kennedy must have been fairly shaken to have forgotten his normal inclination to hoard all possible information to himself.
No matter how certain Kennedy was that Martin Pink was the Huntsman, seeing that mermaid charm must have given him a very bad moment.
And on the topic of that critical piece of evidence, Kennedy’s antipathy for the idea the Huntsman might have had an accomplice seemed illogical given there was no way a copycat could have learned about the mermaid angle.
Or could he?
r /> It could be someone close to Pink or maybe peripherally involved in the earlier investigation. Someone who had never been noticed or had been safely forgotten.
Or someone who had never appeared on the radar because their relationship with Pink was relatively recent.
Maybe not an accomplice. Maybe an apprentice?
Jason tuned back in. Chief Gervase was saying, “Dwayne Pink passed two years ago. He always maintained he knew nothing about what his baby brother was up to, but that’s bullshit. He had to have some idea.”
Kennedy heard this out before saying briskly, “There are notable similarities to the Huntsman case. But we’ve also got significant deviations from the previous MO. To begin with, the remains of all other victims were found within twenty-four hours and within ten miles of where they were abducted. Their bodies were left in the woods, and there was no attempt to hide the remains. In fact, Pink enjoyed the idea his victims would eventually be found. He wanted to inflict maximum horror and outrage on this community.”
“Just because it took awhile to find Rebecca’s body doesn’t mean the killer didn’t want her found.” Boxner had only just arrived. He leaned against the back wall of the room, arms folded.
“Choosing Rexford to dump the body is a definite break with the previous pattern,” Kennedy said. “There were significant logistical challenges to transporting her so far from home which indicates her killer either did not want her found or that Rexford itself has some meaning for him. Or both.”
“What meaning?” Officer Dale asked. “How would we figure that out?”
“We won’t know that until we begin to compile the profile of our unsub. We may not fully understand that piece of the puzzle until we apprehend him.”
“It is definitely a him?”
“Yes,” Kennedy said. “Our unsub is unquestionably male and in peak physical condition.”
“Do we have an actual profile yet?” Gervase asked.