Kane added cream and sugar to his cup. “It goes way past that, I’m afraid.” He shrugged. “She wants me out of her life.”
“No… she wants you to fight for her, Dave.” Emily smiled at him. “Not give in and run away the moment she raises her voice. She’s a strong woman and needs a strong man.” She sighed. “And that’s all I’m going to say on the subject. I’m not taking sides, so don’t ask me.”
Kane sipped his coffee and grinned at her. “Yes, ma’am.”
Thirty-Three
Black Rock Falls
Wolfe stared at the somber faces on the screen. The isolation must be getting to the team as not one of them, apart from Emily, greeted him. He pulled up files and cleared his throat. “I’ve identified all three victims. As it happens, all three completed DNA profiles for various things and all showed up on the databases. I’ve contacted their local law enforcement agencies and all have come back to me that the next of kin have been notified.” He waited for a reaction but none came. “Moving right along. The earrings found at Storm’s and Longfellow’s crime scenes don’t belong to Dakota Storm. I found a DNA trace on both the earrings; small amounts of blood and tissue were trapped under the stones. I ran the samples and came up with a cold case from twenty years ago. Many cold-case files, as you know, have been reopened due to the advances in DNA. These earrings belonged to Diane Tate out of Black Ridge, Montana. She died from multiple stab wounds. Before she died, the local cops found two murdered men in the woods, close by the house. They’d been killed at different times. One of them was the local priest. Tate was a single mother. She had a son, Paul, a religious choirboy who was staying over at a friend’s house at the time of Tate’s murder. He was ten years old and went into foster care. They never found a trace of the killer. These earrings were ripped from Tate’s ears during the murder.”
“Twenty years ago?” Jenna frowned. “The ski resort is new. There must be some mistake.”
“Unless our killer is the same person who killed Diane Tate and the men.” Kane stared at the screen. “Do we have a photograph of Diane Tate?”
Wolfe smiled. “As it happens, I do.” He scrolled through the files and sent one through. “Blonde, small boned, and pretty.”
“Ah, we have a problem.” Kane cleared his throat.
Wolfe listened with incredulity as Kane brought him up to speed with the profiler information and what had happened to Julie. “So, it comes down to the risk of leaving her there and risking another trip down the mountain?”
“From what we experienced last night and the conditions this morning, she has less chance of being murdered.” Jenna pushed both hands through her hair. “She is aware of the situation and isn’t a fool. She’s with a group of friends right now and we’ll be checking on her all day.” She sighed. “It’s up to you. If you want her back home, we’ll get her down the mountain. Just say the word.”
Torn between wanting Julie home and the potential risk, Wolfe moved his gaze to Kane. “What do you think?”
“I’ve given her my stun gun. Her tracker ring won’t work up here. We have no reliable wireless signal.” Kane stared back at him over cyberspace. “I’d prefer she were off the mountain, but Jenna is telling it how it is. We came close to sliding over the side. It’s dangerous out there right now.”
Wolfe nodded. Kane had made the first tracker ring for Jenna, when he’d arrived in Black Rock Falls, but over the years he’d made significant improvements. With one click, the rings allowed the team to track the wearer on their phones and the one-way communication, sent them vital information, should one of the women be in trouble. “Their rings will work. I’ve upgraded them to satellite. Like the pair of you since the upgrade on the ranch, your new phones have a red panic button on the main screen. It works with your satellite sleeve or wireless.”
“Mine too?” Jenna frowned. “Is that why you wanted my ring?”
Wolfe nodded. “Yeah, I thought I’d told you. Anyway, back to the case. Anything else you need to know about the Tate murder?”
“Was she raped?” Kane’s attention moved to his laptop.
“No. All the victims died from sharp force trauma. Multiple stab wounds. The woman’s main injuries were to the face and neck. The men received similar injuries but had their genitalia removed. It was a gruesome scene from frenzied attacks. I’ll send the autopsy reports on all the victims.” Wolfe sent the files. “I leave it to you to discover why a killer leaves a trophy behind from one kill to the next. Assuming this is the same person.”
“Unless the killer was a kid at the time, none of our suspects would be old enough. The oldest one we have is thirty-two. The son you mentioned had an alibi and it would be hard for a kid to take down three adults.” Jenna looked up at him. “I assume he was considered at the time of the murder of his mother, but what about the others?”
Wolfe consulted his notes. “I’ll send you everything I have, but it doesn’t look like they were able to establish the approximate time of death for the men. They didn’t look at the boy because his alibi was solid. He was sleeping over with a friend, in the same bedroom. They’d have noticed him missing and he would have been covered in blood if he’d slipped out and then returned. The kid discovered his mother’s body after school the next day. From the report, he was acting normal all that day at school but was hysterical when he ran to a neighbor’s house to tell them what had happened.”
“Where did they live?” Kane raised both eyebrows. “Nobody heard anything?”
Wolfe sighed. “Black Ridge, just outside of Blackwater. They lived out a ways, on the edge of the forest.”
“Okay thanks. Getting back to our cases. What did you find on Dakota Storm?” Jenna’s serious expression was set in stone.
Wolfe surveyed the line of faces. All but Emily had their mouth turned down. The atmosphe
re was unusual and troubling. “In simple terms, she drowned. The splinters found in the head wound caused by blunt force trauma match the log you found at the scene and the blood is a match. I conclude she was struck from behind but not killed, strangled to the point of unconsciousness. But she was alive when the pen was stuck into her eye. The subsequent injury wasn’t fatal but would have rendered her unconscious. She had pond water in her lungs.”
“That was overkill.” Rio pushed a hand through his dark hair. “He wanted her to suffer. It didn’t last long enough for him. I’ve heard of killers who strangle just enough to make their victims black out, then bring them around for round two.”
“Yeah, that’s up close and personal.” Kane sipped his coffee.
“So, this would fit a revenge kill.” Jenna made notes. “We have a theory that this killer has some beef against members of the publishing industry.”
Wolfe nodded. “It seems logical, but there are easier ways to kill. This person toys with his victims, like a cat with a mouse. Have you seen the way a cat tosses a mouse around, lets it go just to chase it down again? They amuse themselves by torturing the mouse. This killer is the same.”