“I see.” Kane scrubbed both hands down his face and looked at Jenna with disbelief all over his face. “Look at the files, there has to be a link.” He reached into his pocket for a bottle of pills and took two swallowing them with coffee.
“Headache?” Jo frowned. “Migraine? You’re as white as a ghost.”
Needing to cover for Kane, Jenna shook her head. “He’s okay. Dave was shot in the head on a case, sometime ago. Smashed his kneecap as well but we caught the serial killer. Since then and a metal plate in his head, he gets the occasional headaches.”
“You don’t need to make excuses for me, Jenna.” Kane seemed to draw down his curtain of professionalism. “I’ll be fine.” He waved a hand at her. “We need to find a link.”
“Let’s get to it people.” Jenna went through the DC cases and then back to the Louan bombing. “Hmm, a magistrate’s secretary, a social worker, and a lawyer.” She looked up at Kane. “The only similarity is the social worker.”
She scanned the files again, went into the backgrounds of all the people involved. She looked up at Carter and the words fell out before she realized the implications. “What were the names of the car bombing victims? I can’t find them in the files.”
“The file is closed and opening it goes way above our paygrade.” Carter looked at her over the top of his laptop. “They are John and Jane Doe.”
Jenna went over the other victims’ files, taking her time, and then the similarity slid home. “Oh, I’ve found something. All the victims are involved in family law in some way or another. A family law lawyer, a social worker and the secretary of a Family Court magistrate.” She drew a breath. “Then the Wood family, both husband and wife worked as social workers. The killer has a problem with family law, not FBI agents, unless the agent was involved in arresting him for child abuse or something similar.”
“No, he wasn’t.” Carter narrowed his eyes at her. “So, you figure I’m right, the wife was the target?”
“But why target a secretary?” Jo looked aghast. “She wouldn’t have any sway in family court matters.”
“If you’re correct there’s more of a link than we anticipated.” Kane leaned forward in his seat, his expression granite. “We need to hunt down any cases they were involved in and cross match the names to see if any of our suspects came in contact with the Wood family.” He glanced at his laptop screen. “The Woods moved to Louan recently from Blackwater. Did either of them ever work in DC?”
“I’ll get Kalo on it first thing in the morning.” Jo observed him closely as if assessing him. “The plate in your head obviously doesn’t interfere with your reasoning. Just out of interest, any side effects?”
“Apart from the headaches, no.” Kane frowned. “So, you found no evidence at all apart from the detonator in all the cases so far?”
“Nothing, no footprints,
nobody saw him, we had zip.” Carter popped a toothpick into his mouth. “All remotely detonated, he could have sent them in the mail for all we know.”
Although the lack of evidence was daunting, Jenna was determined to find the bomber. “Look at what evidence we do have, not what we don’t have. This guy is careful, he’s not going to leave any evidence. Heck we’ve dealt with so many serial killers who do the same thing. They’re smart and these days he’d have to be dumb not to know about DNA evidence. People watch TV shows, they’re fully aware of forensics, which makes our job harder.”
“But nobody is perfect.” Kane leaned back in his seat and placed the side of his boot on one knee. “They all make mistakes, maybe very small but we usually find them.”
“Oh yeah.” Jo smiled. “Trophies being their biggest mistake. They know keeping items from a kill is dangerous but they can’t resist it.” She looked at Carter. “Has Kalo found anything on Suffolk to do with explosives?”
“Nothing specific but he did purchase some Semtex a year ago to blast a boulder from his property. He was building a shed apparently.” Carter looked at Jenna. “Which is good enough for me, he’d have to know how to detonate it. It’s a putty similar to C-4.”
Jenna couldn’t avoid the eyeroll. “Yeah, I know about Semtex.” She thought for a beat about Suffolk. “At least Suffolk hasn’t directed his anger toward any of us. That has to be a first.”
“Did you have to say that?” Kane winced. “You know what happens when you tempt fate around here.”
Jenna laughed. “Moving right along.” She glanced at her notes. “I figure we look at Cleaves and Dexter again. It will mean another trip to Louan but after finding Sophie in Black Rock Falls, we need to know if they were over this way on the day we found her body, same with Suffolk.” She looked around the table. “We know all three men interacted with Wood and they all went to DC at the same time. If we can link one of them to the DC Family Law offices, we have our man. That’s enough for tonight. I figure we’re real close to closing this case now.”
“So do I.” Kane looked at her and his eyes softened. “It will be good to lay the ghosts to rest.” He looked at Carter. “You ready to leave?”
“Yeah.” Carter looked relieved and closed his laptop. “I sure need some sleep.” He collected the empty cups from the table and headed for the kitchen.
“One thing before it slips my mind. Did you find out where Sandy Rowley disappeared to today?” Jo stood and picked up the coffee pot and a plate of cookies. “You haven’t mentioned her.”
Jenna smiled. “She’s fine. She was heading into town for an appointment with Doc Brown when she had the flat tire. Rowley said she hurried from Miller’s Garage and made it in time. That’s why her phone was turned off.”
“She’s not ill, is she?” Jo frowned.
Jenna shook her head. “Not that I’m aware.” She collected the rest of the plates and stared at Kane busy on his laptop. “You told Carter you were leaving and you’re working again. You need to get some rest. We’ve gone as far as we can with this case tonight. Whatever you’re doing can wait until morning.”
“Oh.” Kane gave her an angelic smile. “Sorry, I was just checking tomorrow’s specials at Aunt Betty’s.” He rubbed his stomach. “Mmm ribs. They’ll be worth the wait if we’re driving to Louan. It will be something to look forward to after a busy day.”
The sudden change in his demeanor made her smile. The anger at the man who’d murdered his wife had melted away as fast as it had emerged, or he was better at hiding his emotions than she’d imagined. Whatever the reason, she’d play along. “That’s a good idea.”