Sweetheart, I have already left a message for Pastor Nelson. As you know, it is very late in the day for most people to return a phone call; however, Marla thinks that Delilah remarried and moved out of state after Adam died. Daddy sends his love, as do I.—Mama. PS: Why are you arguing with your sister?
Sara stared at the postscript. Tessa had told their mother that they were arguing, which meant that the situation was more dire than Sara had wanted to admit.
“Something wrong?” Will asked.
Sara looked up. Nick was gone. They were alone in the room. “My mother’s trying to find Tommi for me.”
Will nodded.
And then he stood there, waiting.
Sara said, “I’m sorry about—about Callie Zanger. That must’ve been—”
“You drove back home today.” He picked up the empty file box and put it on the desk. “Did you have time to see anybody?”
“No, I had to drive back to meet the Van Dornes, then I got stuck in traffic, which took forever.” Sara felt a flash of guilt, as if she was hiding something from him. She decided to put it out in the open. “The storage facility is across from the cemetery.”
He stacked the folders and dropped them into the box.
“I didn’t go in.” Sara had stopped that regular habit years ago for the sake of her own sanity. “I put flowers on his grave once a year. You know that.”
He said, “It was weird watching you on the tape. You looked different.”
“I was eight years younger.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Will closed the box. He seemed like he wanted to say more, but he told her, “I’m tired.”
Sara didn’t know if he meant that he was physically tired or that he was tired the way he had been last night when he’d walked out on her.
She said, “Will—”
“I don’t want to talk anymore.”
Sara bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling.
“I want to go home, order a pizza, and watch TV until I fall asleep.”
She tried to swallow the cotton in her throat.
He turned to her. “Will you do that with me?”
“Yes, please.”
Grant County—Thursday
25
Jeffrey could only stare at Frank. “What did you say?”
“The dean called,” Frank repeated. “Another student is missing. Rosario Lopez, aged twenty-one, missing for the last five hours.”
Jeffrey heard a door open. Lena came out of the viewing room. Her BlackBerry was in her hand.
Frank told Jeffrey, “Chuck Gaines had his people turn the campus upside down. They’re searching the woods now. The dean sent out a call for volunteers.”
“Make sure everyone searches in pairs.” Jeffrey had broken into a cold sweat. Three students in three days. His nightmare was coming true. “Pull in Jefferson and White off patrol. Get them on top of that search. Meanwhile, I need you to find as much information as you can on Daryl Nesbitt.”
“Nesbitt?”
“He’s got to have an arrest record. His stepfather—”
“Hold on.” Frank had his notebook out. “Go.”
“Daryl’s got a common-law stepfather at Wheeler State Prison, goes by the name Axle, last name Abbott. He has a house in Avondale that Daryl is living in. Check the tax records. See if there are building plans or at least a plat that shows the orientation of the house on the property. Send Matt on a drive-by to check if anybody is home. Call the rest of the patrol shift and tell them to suspend the search for the dark van. Don’t use your radio. We don’t know if Daryl has a police scanner.”
Frank was still writing when Jeffrey turned to Lena.
She said, “I called over to Memminger. Felix was sleeping it off in the drunk tank the morning that Caterino and Truong were attacked. He wasn’t out until after lunch. There’s no way it was him.”
He told her, “With me.”
Jeffrey went back into the interrogation room. Felix Abbott was picking at the pimple on his chin. “Damn, dude, when can I g—”
Jeffrey grabbed him by the front of his shirt and threw him into the wall.
“What the—”
Jeffrey jammed his forearm into Felix’s throat hard enough to lift him off the floor. “Listen to me carefully, son, because right now, you’re either useful or you’re not. Do you understand?”
Felix’s mouth gaped open as he tried to pull in air. He struggled to nod.
“Beckey Caterino. Leslie Truong.”
Felix’s eyes went wide. He tried to speak, but his throat was crushed.
Jeffrey gave him a few centimeters of relief. “Do you know them?”
“They’re—” He gasped for air. “Students.”
“Daryl’s number was in their phones. Why?”
He struggled to breathe. His feet kicked wildly. His lips were turning blue. He coughed out, “Weed.”
“Daryl sold weed to Beckey Caterino and Leslie Truong? He’s a pot dealer?”
Felix’s eyelids started to flutter. “Y-yes.”
“For how long?”
Felix coughed.
“How long has Daryl been selling pot at the school?”
“Y-years.”
“What about Rosario Lopez?”
“I don’t—” He gulped. “I can’t—”
Jeffrey stared him in the eye. “Do you know her?”
“I never—” He gasped again as Jeffrey’s arm flexed into his throat. “No.”
Jeffrey let him drop to the floor.
Felix fell onto his knees. His face had turned red. He started coughing.
Jeffrey told Lena, “Cuff him to the table. Keep him isolated. No phone calls. Get him some water. Lock the door. Come find me.”
“Yes, Chief.”
Jeffrey wiped his hands on his shirt as he walked toward the squad room. He saw Brad at one of the computers. Marla on the phone. He could feel an electrical current running through everything. Another student was missing. They could be zeroing in on the killer.
“Matt’s on his way to Abbott’s house.” Frank came out of Jeffrey’s office. He read from his notebook. “Daryl Eric Nesbitt. Twenty-eight years old. He’s kept his nose clean, but my buddy over in Memminger says his juvie file’s as long as my dick.”
“For?”
“Dew-Lolly bullshit—street fights, shoplifting, truancy. But get this, when Daryl was fifteen, he was babysitting his six-year-old cousin. The girl came home with blood on her panties. Mom filed a complaint, but the family got her to withdraw it.”
Sex offender. Criminal history. Acquainted with the victims.
Jeffrey thought about Tommi Humphrey. Had she ever met Daryl Nesbitt? Had he watched her walking across campus and decided that he was going to hurt her?
“Chief?” Brad pointed to his computer.
Jeffrey saw the photo of Daryl Eric Nesbitt from his Georgia driver’s license. He looked like a con. His hair was greasy. His eyes were beady. He glared at the camera like he was posing for a mugshot.
Brad said, “Nesbitt’s got an outstanding fine for driving on an expired license.”
“Was he in a van?”
“Truck. 1999 Chevy Silverado. It’s impounded at the county lot.” Brad said, “I found the Avondale house. It’s in Woodland Hills on Bennett Way.”
Jeffrey walked to the large county-wide map that took up the entire back wall. He knew the section of town, which was exactly where you’d expect to find a car mechanic who didn’t play by the rules. “Number?”
“Three-four-six-two.”
Jeffrey traced his fingers along the road. He used a yellow Post-it note to mark the spot. There was one other row of houses behind Nesbitt’s current residence. Beyond that, the woods stretched out for miles, snaking along the back of the lake and leading to the college.
Proximity to the crime scenes.
“The house is two stories.” Frank was reading the monitor over Brad’s shoulder. “The tax records have the plat and original blueprints.”
Brad hit some keys. “I’m sending it to the printer.”
The first page was still warm when Jeffrey ripped it off the machine. Front elevation. 1950s Cape Cod with a square front porch and two dormers eyebrowed out of the roofline.
The second page came out. First-floor layout. Jeffrey turned the paper so the front door was facing his chest. The back door lined up straight across from him.
The entrance led straight into the living room, which took up the left front corner of the house. Dining room on the right. Hall closet and stairs on either side of a short hall. Den left. Kitchen right. Rear exit to the stoop off the back.
Lena had joined them by the time the third sheet of paper was out of the printer.
Upstairs. Four bedrooms, one larger than the other three. Two windows each. Small closets. Jeffrey knew the ceilings would be sloped with the line of the roof. One bathroom at the end of the hall. Tub, toilet, sink, small window.
The third page showed the basement. The stairs leading down were tucked underneath the stairs that led up to the second floor. In the drawing, the space was an open square with a small box to indicate the mechanical room. Support columns and footings were marked with open squares. Any illegal renovations would’ve been off the tax record, so there could be bedrooms down there, a den, laundry room, maybe even a cage with Rosario Lopez trapped inside. Sara had commented that the killer was learning with each new victim. Maybe the lesson from Caterino and Truong was that he needed privacy.
“Chief?” Marla called from the front of the room. “Matt’s on three.”
Jeffrey put him on speakerphone. “What’ve you got?”