Her Shallow Grave (Detectives Kane and Alton)

“It’s not a problem in winter but in summer, I have a refrigerator that slides right in there. The power connection is at the back.” Reed looked at him and shook his head. “Take a look, I don’t have anything to hide. Do you mind if I get back to work now?”

Jenna nodded. “Sure, thank you for your time.” She led the way out into the cafeteria section and looked at Kane. “Was it him with Emily?”

“Same height and the voices are similar, both men are locals.” He glanced at her. “He seems a little too cooperative, maybe you can sweet talk him into allowing Wolfe to take a few swabs from inside his refrigerator?”

“Me?” Jenna looked at him in disbelief. “It wasn’t my charm that made him talk, you almost popped his arms out the sockets.”

“Well, I could if I’d wanted to but I didn’t. It was well within the guidelines of restraint; I can assure you. It worked, didn’t it?” Kane snorted. “I hope he’s on our list. I don’t trust him.”

Jenna nodded. “Me either and he’s one to watch for sure.”

Forty-Seven

After making a short visit to the shelters and showing Zoe’s photograph with no result, Jenna discovered that after leaving Axel Reed, the young woman had apparently vanished into thin air. She hunted down Claud Grady again to establish his whereabouts on the previous Wednesday night, the last time Zoe was seen alive. He seemed vague and uncooperative. “Mr. Grady, it was only last Wednesday, surely you remember where you were?”

“I wasn’t here, I dropped some donated coats to the soup kitchen and then went home, I think?” Grady looked at his hands. “I’m not sure.”

Jenna made some notes. “Okay, where were you on Sunday night?”

“Here, helping out, and then I went home.” Grady shrugged. “I live alone, Sheriff, you’ll have to take my word for it.”

“When you drive to Utah or Wyoming do you often give hitchhikers a ride?” Kane looked down his nose at him.

“Yeah, we all do. They’re good company.” Grady shrugged. “Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar.”

Jenna nodded. “Okay, thank you for your time.” She looked at Kane. “Let’s go. I need to drop by Aunt Betty’s before we head back to the office.”

Despondent and not looking forward to witnessing Zoe’s autopsy in a couple of hours, Jenna purchased a pile of takeout from Aunt Betty’s, climbed into Kane’s truck, and they headed back to the sheriff’s department. It was good to be inside out of the cold. They shucked their coats and Kane waved Rowley into her office. In a few minutes, Jenna had brought him up to speed with their investigation. She took a bite of her hotdog and stood to enter information on the whiteboard. After adding Axel Reed to her persons of interest list, she sat back down and sipped her coffee. “We have no proof that either of these men are involved.” She picked up the hotd

og, viewed it with dislike, removed the sausage from the bun, and tossed it to Duke. “But we have made a case on circumstantial evidence before, and so far, Reed was the last person to see her alive.”

“He could easily be the same man who asked Em to take a ride with him.” Kane pushed a slice of peach pie toward Jenna. “If I’d seen his eyes, I would’ve been able to make a positive ID.”

“It is suspicious but people do help out each other here.” Rowley scratched his cheek. “It may be innocent enough.”

Jenna took a bite of the pie and sighed. She had some idea why Kane was addicted to fruit pies. Fresh and warm from the oven, they were delicious. She dragged her mind away from pies and swallowed. “Ah, we’re attending an autopsy this afternoon. Do you want to come or are you still hunting down truckers?”

“No thanks. I have a ton of work here.” Rowley grimaced. “I did look into the routes used by the long-haul trucking companies and all in the surrounding counties cover Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado, which makes life a little more complicated. I’ve also been hunting down truckers with cabins or ranches in the area. There are over a hundred and most of them are snowed in but I drove out to two of them. Both were locked up tight for the winter. There’re quite a few truckers with ranches. I planned to check some of them out this afternoon unless you need me here?”

“Do the owners fit the profile?” Kane looked at him. “White male, late thirties to early forties, travels out of the state for work or pleasure?” He shrugged. “Well, that’s my take on him. We’ll contact Jo and see what else she has to offer on the profile of The Sculptor but I figure checking out those over fifty is a waste of time. I know it’s a myth that all serial killers are loners but due to the nature of the crimes, I figure this guy lives alone in an isolated area.”

Jenna looked across the desk. “He’d be nonthreatening and look like an ordinary Joe. Or he has an angle that makes women trust him from the get-go. He must speak to the women he kills to get their confidence. It looks like Zoe got a ride to her death willingly. The men from the soup kitchen were minutes away from her and if she’d screamed, they’d have heard her.”

“We have time. I’ll run this past Jo now, if she’s in the office. I’ll put my phone on speaker.” Kane pulled out his phone and made the call. She answered on the third ring.

“Agent Wells.”

“Hey Jo, it’s Dave Kane. Do you have time to run through the profile of The Sculptor with me? The gang’s all here sans Shane.”

“Sure, I’ve worked up a victimology as well that might help. I’ve only just received the final search results.” Jo tapped away on her computer keyboard. “Okay, we compared appearance of the victims across all of the kills we assume can be attributed to The Sculptor, including Zoe Henderson. The database picked up a ton of similar victims. From what I’m seeing, we may have underestimated the number of women he’s murdered.”

“How so?” Kane raised one dark eyebrow and looked at Jenna.

“I’ll explain in a moment but first, we need to discuss the killer’s MO. I’ve collected all the data of similar cases going back over ten years, and factored in your conclusions and observations. I have a list. I’ll email you a copy now.

All their cellphones chimed an incoming message at the same time.

He kills to type. Dark hair, five-five, slim build, and all have tattoos of some description.