Dead in Her Tracks (5 page)

CHAPTER SIX

H
is energy restored with a jump-start from Nell’s espresso, Zane returned to the Wayside Motel. He spotted Charlie watching him from the window of the lobby and decided to see if the manager had any gossip to share about his customers.

“I hear you’re steering business away from me, Zane,” Charlie complained the second Zane stepped in the door.

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That family from out of town. The Phillipses. I heard they were told to go stay at Dixie’s. Everyone knows Dixie doesn’t take customers during the winter months.” He scowled.

Zane halted. “Seriously, Charlie? You wanted them to stay in the same motel where their daughter was murdered? Don’t you have any feelings?”

“She wasn’t murdered here. I heard what the examiner said. Just because she was found here, doesn’t mean you need to be scaring away my customers by telling them someone was killed here. She could have been killed anywhere.”

“For fuck’s sake, Charlie. Their
daughter
died. Grow a heart and put yourself in their situation.”

“It’s hurting business.” He glared and Zane noticed his comb-over looked extra thin today.

“That’s not my problem. How can it be hurting business when you’re the only motel for miles? How about you replace the sinks and bedspreads? Update the rooms a bit. Stop charging everyone for Wi-Fi. That’d help your business.”

“You don’t know anything about the business of running a motel.”

Zane closed his eyes, took two deep breaths, and opened them, staring hard at Charlie. “Do you have any news for me? Anything about Vanessa Phillips?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll get to work. A business I do know something about.” He strode out of the lobby and barely kept himself from slamming the door. Charlie hadn’t cleared the snow from the motel walkways, and Zane had to step carefully. He hoped someone slipped and sued.

Room 127 was occupied by Tim Sessions, the trucker with the sexual assault record. According to Kenny’s information, Tim had checked in on December twenty-third and was still staying at the motel. Tim had answered all of Kenny’s questions on Christmas Day, and claimed he hadn’t seen or heard anything unusual until the cops showed up. It was the standard answer Kenny got from everyone. Tim’s room was next door to the unit where Vanessa had been found.

Zane knocked and the door opened promptly. No waft of alcohol spilled out. Instead Zane was greeted with a little too much Old Spice. Tim Sessions was dressed in jeans and cowboy boots. Zane knew he was twenty-eight. He looked like a young, all-American rodeo champion. Not a sex offender.

“I figured you guys would be back as soon as you ran me through the system,” Tim said, holding out his hand to Zane.

“You know why I’m here then,” said Zane. Tim had a strong handshake, his hands heavily callused. A working man’s hands.

“I know what’s on my record. As soon as I heard about that girl next door, I knew I’d get more questions. Seems logical.”

Zane relaxed the tiniest bit but didn’t let down his guard. He’d met some awfully good liars in his line of work. “This will just take a minute.”

Tim let him inside. The only indication that anyone had stayed there was a water glass and a novel on Tim’s nightstand. The room was immaculate. Except for the standard thinning carpet and frayed bedspread.

“Did you see Vanessa Phillips at all?” Zane held out the photo.

Tim took the picture and shook his head. “I didn’t know anyone had occupied the next room. The only women I’d seen around here were the housekeepers and the waitstaff at the bar across the parking lot.” He looked up at Zane. “She was killed in the room next door?”

“We don’t think that’s the murder site, but she was found there. What brings you to town?”

“Just passing through.”

Zane lifted an eyebrow and waited. People who were just passing through didn’t stay for four days. Especially truckers.

“Well, I was passing through until I got sick. I was only going to stay the one night, but I came down with some nasty food poisoning or flu. Today’s the first day I’ve felt human. I think it might have been the shrimp I ate at the bar. Good thing I wasn’t in the middle of a job.”

“You missed Christmas?”

“Yeah, I talked to my mom on the phone. I was headed their way for the holiday. They live in Leggett.”

Zane shook his head. “Don’t know it.”

“South of here in Northern California. Redwood country.”

“Then you weren’t too far from home.”

“Too far to drive in that crappy weather with my gut acting the way it was.”

He looked pretty healthy to Zane. “Tell me about your record.”

Tim looked away, his expression going blank. “She was seventeen. Told me she was nineteen.” He turned back to Zane, his gaze hardening. “We were in love, but her daddy didn’t like it, so he reported me. I was twenty and that made it illegal. End of relationship and end of story.”

Zane was silent.
Not what I expected to hear.

“You’ll be paying the consequences for a long time,” he finally said.

“Tell me about it.” Bitterness rang in the young man’s tone for the first time.

“What’s she doing these days?” Zane couldn’t help but ask.

A wry smile twisted Tim’s lips. “Married with three kids. White picket fence. And a drinking problem.”

“I think you’ll land on your feet,” Zane said.

“It’s been eight years. I’m ready for some solid footing.”

Zane ended the interview and sat in his car for a few minutes. He’d been twenty and had dated a younger girl. He’d definitely been young and dumb but at least he had walked away without any consequences. He could see himself in Tim Sessions’s boots.

He mentally moved Tim down a few slots on his suspect list.

“We’ve got a situation at Fletcher’s Bar!” Sheila hollered at Stevie in the police station.

Stevie looked up from the notes she’d been writing from her interview with Tony and Dana that morning. She glanced at the clock and realized she’d missed dinner. “Where’s Zane?” she shouted back.

“He’s right in the middle of it.”

“Shit.” Apparently she wasn’t the only one who’d missed dinner.

She grabbed her coat and strode toward the front door. “Who called?” she asked Sheila as she passed by her desk.

“Angie. She says there’s a few guys flinging insults, and Zane’s trying to cool things down. She says it’s going to erupt at any second.”

Stevie flew out the door. Angie knew how to size up drunken men. Ten years of waiting tables at Fletcher’s had given her a lifetime of experience.

Five minutes later Stevie pulled her car into the parking lot next to Zane’s and eyed the rifle clamped by her console.
Not yet.

Her bulletproof vest felt heavy as she jogged to the door of the squatty old building. Too many times she’d responded to calls at Fletcher’s Bar. She never knew what to expect inside. One time she’d arrived and found everything had settled down and the men were slapping each other on the back like best friends. Another time she’d arrived and found two men on the floor with stab wounds.

She yanked open the door.

This was more like the second time. Zane had Amber Lynn’s stepfather, Tony Cooper, in a headlock, yelling at him to hold still. Two other men were holding the arms of a guy who seemed intent on beating Tony’s head in. Zane met her gaze. “Get him down!” He nodded toward the other guy.

Stevie stepped forward and opened her mouth to order the second guy to stop fighting, but he yelled at her first. “Out of the way, bitch!” He tried to fling himself at her but was held in place by his friends.

She planted a foot and kicked him in the groin, and he collapsed with a scream, barely stopped from hitting the concrete floor by the guys still holding his arms. They winced and looked away.

She grabbed one of his arms and twisted it behind his back and snapped on the cuffs. His friend politely held his other arm for her as she repeated the motion. She shoved him onto his chest on the floor.

Tony Cooper stopped thrashing in Zane’s headlock. “You gonna behave?” Zane asked.

Tony nodded, and Zane slowly released him.

“What happened?” Stevie asked. Zane was breathing heavily, but she didn’t see any bruises or blood on him. She swallowed hard, tamping down her own adrenaline, which had been pumping hard since Sheila yelled at her. She kept a professional distance from Zane, fighting her instinct to touch him.

“That asshole accused me of killing Bob Fletcher,” Tony said, pointing at the guy on the ground. “I didn’t kill no one.” Tony’s right eye was starting to swell, and blood dripped from his nose. Zane grabbed a napkin off a bar table and thrust it at him.

“Who is that?” she muttered to Zane.

“Beats me.”

Stevie squatted next to the guy still writhing on the floor. “Got a name?”

“You kicked me in the balls.”
His eyes were squeezed shut, his long hair covering most of his face.

She looked up at the two men who’d been holding his arms, seeing the reproach in their eyes. Men were protective of their family jewels. She abruptly realized one was Ryan Phillips, Vanessa’s brother. She narrowed her eyes at him. She hadn’t expected to see the mourning brother in a seedy bar like Fletcher’s.

“Anyone know his name?”

“That’s Jake Powers. Worked with Bob,” answered the second man.

Stevie took a closer look at the man on the floor. Sure enough. “Hey, Jake. Looks like you found a great diet plan.” The man must have lost a hundred pounds since she’d seen him last. “Looking good. Except you could use a haircut.”

“Fuck you, Stevie,” Jake moaned.

She stood up with a grin. If anyone had had a foot to the balls coming, it was Jake Powers. He’d leered at her and Carly since they were teenagers. He was a creep who’d done odd jobs for the bar and motel for years. He had a way of fading into the background, but the women in town always complained that he stared at them. He didn’t ever touch them, but he certainly had his fill of looking.

“Tony killed Bob,” Jake choked out. “Asshole did it because Bob killed Amber Lynn.”

Stevie remembered there’d always been a bit of hero worship on Jake’s part toward Bob Fletcher. It added to his creep factor.

“Well, sounds like Bob may have had it coming then, right? You can’t kill someone’s stepdaughter without paying for it,” Stevie said, trying to make Jake feel she saw his point. “How do you know Tony did it?” she prodded.

“Because he came in here all gloating and shit because Bob was dead.”

Stevie paused. “That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

Zane exchanged a glance with Stevie. It wasn’t the concrete evidence they’d hoped to hear. She bent over and hauled Jake to his feet. He reeked of booze and swayed, struggling to keep his balance. She looked at Ryan Phillips. “What are you doing in here?”

“Just getting a drink,” he said. “I can only be around my parents for so long.” His gaze was bitter, and Stevie understood. His family was in mourning, and he was looking for a temporary escape. “Amber Lynn was the other girl that was killed, right?” Ryan asked. “Are they fighting about the guy who killed her?”

Stevie nodded. “We still don’t know if he’s the one who harmed your sister.” She strongly suspected Bob had killed both women. The timing was too close to be coincidental. They just needed proof.

“Let’s let Jake sleep it off back at the station,” Zane said.

“No!” Jake straightened, his eyes wide open. “That’s where Bob was killed! They’ll get me too!”

“Who, Jake?” Stevie asked. “Who will get you?”

The man started to struggle in her grip. “I don’t know, but I’m not going to sit there all locked up and waiting for someone to come slash my neck.” Panic flooded his features.

“He under arrest?” Angie stepped forward, looking from Stevie to Zane.

“That depends,” Zane said. He glanced at Tony. “You pressing charges?”

Tony glared from Jake to the other men in the bar, who were listening and watching intently. “No.”

“Then he’s not under arrest. But I can’t let him drive home drunk,” said Zane.

“I’ll drive him home,” said Angie. “I’ve done it enough times before. He’s been a wreck since we found out about Bob, that’s all.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Jake slurred.

“You want Angie to drive you home?” Zane asked him. “You swear no more fighting tonight?”

“Yeah. I wanna go home.”

Zane nodded at Stevie, and she removed Jake’s cuffs. Angie grabbed an arm and steered him into the back of the bar. The tension level in the bar dropped twenty degrees.

“Go home, Tony,” Zane ordered. The man glared at everyone but turned and left.

Stevie took her first deep breath as Zane looked around the room. “I don’t want to come back tonight,” he said to the crowd. Murmurs of agreement went through the group.

Zane gestured to the door. “Let’s go.”

Stevie was ready to leave. Her man was in one piece, and she couldn’t wait to tell Carly she’d finally gotten some satisfaction with a boot to Jake Powers’s crotch.

CHAPTER SEVEN

T
he next morning Zane held the diner door open for Stevie. The scent of eggs, bacon, and coffee greeted them.

“I’m starving,” Stevie muttered. She held up a hand to Hank, who was sitting at a lonely table near the back, waiting for them.

Good choice.
Zane didn’t want half the town listening while Hank updated them on Bob Fletcher’s autopsy results. He hadn’t liked the meeting location, but Hank said his schedule was tight, he needed to eat, and Zane would have to wait until his official report unless he wanted a briefing now.

Murder and maple syrup.

They greeted the medical examiner, and Zane held up two fingers to the waitress, signaling for coffee for Stevie and him. They needed it. They’d had a hard time falling asleep after the brawl at Fletcher’s last night. Nothing like an adrenaline dump in one’s stomach to make sleep stay away. Stevie had gone home with him and clung tight to him all night. They’d needed the one-on-one time.

He knew she was close to agreeing to move in with him. One of the hardest things he’d ever done was sit back and let her come to the decision in her own time, but Patsy had assured him it was the right path to take. Clearly the universe was trying to teach him patience.

Moments later they both had gotten coffee and ordered omelets, and now they watched as Hank wiped his mouth with his napkin, a time-for-business look on his face.

“Bob Fletcher had the remains of a Suboxone tablet under his tongue,” Hank announced quietly, glancing behind Zane and Stevie to make certain no public ears were listening.

Zane set down his coffee cup. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. What’s Suboxone?”

“A treatment for opioid addiction. It dissolves under the tongue and helps relieve the addict’s withdrawal symptoms.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” said Stevie.

“It’s been around a few years,” said Hank. “It can become addicting itself, so it’s controlled. Bob had classic symptoms of a narcotic addiction.”

“Damn it!” Zane wanted to hit something. “I’m tired of finding out about people’s drug habits in this town. It’s like discovering dangerous mold inside your home’s walls. It can contaminate everything.”

“Did one of you give it to him?” Hank asked. “Or did you check to see if he had it on him?”

Zane looked at Stevie, and she frowned in confusion. “We didn’t give him any medication. And I know he was thoroughly searched before he was put in the cell. He wouldn’t have had access to anything like that in there.”

“Well, he got it somehow. I imagine during the time in your cell he was craving his narcotic fix pretty bad. Shakes. Sweats. Nausea. Someone gave him something to take the edge off.”

“Kenny wouldn’t do that,” said Zane. Stevie nodded vehemently in agreement.

“So that leaves your killer,” stated Hank. “He gave him something to make him feel better and then murdered him. Don’t know what I think of that.”

“That makes no sense,” said Stevie.

“Unless the murderer did it to get close to Bob,” suggested Zane. “Show him he had something to take the edge off and then killed him when his guard was down. Bob was a beefy guy, used to handling the drunks in his bar. To kill him by slashing his neck, you’d have to be up close and personal.”

“About that,” said Hank as he bit into his toast. “The angle and depth of the cuts tells me your killer is right-handed. I know that’s not a big help because most of the population is right-handed.”

“Then Tony Cooper definitely isn’t our man,” said Stevie. “I had the pleasure of watching him eat scrambled eggs yesterday. He used the arm closest to the window in his home, his left.”

Zane nodded. “The left was his dominant arm during the fight last night. I’ve already talked to a few people who said he was in church all morning on Christmas, so his alibi holds up anyway.”

“Where’s that leave us?” Stevie whispered. “Another killer walking around Solitude?”

“Was there anything in your findings to tie Bob Fletcher to Vanessa Phillips’s death?” Zane asked Hank. His brain was working overtime.
Did they have one or two killers still in town?

Hank shook his head. “Not in either autopsy. You’re going to have to do some more old-fashioned police work to verify your killer.”

Zane nodded, meeting Stevie’s gaze.

“We’ve hit a dead end on fingerprints and witnesses,” said Stevie. “I sent a few pieces of trace evidence to the state lab, but that can take weeks. People are starting to lock their doors at night. Especially the young women.”

“They should be doing that anyway,” asserted Hank. “The city of Medford has had two women in their early twenties go missing in the last six months. Haven’t found a sign of them. One possibly took off with a boyfriend, but the mother of the other one swears she wouldn’t leave town.”

The hair on Zane’s neck stood up. “You know about Samantha Lyle, right?”

Stevie leaned forward, nodding as Hank shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“She vanished from Solitude two months ago. She’d been talking about going to Nashville, so a lot of people think she took off without telling anyone. But if she did, she left all her clothing behind
and
it was after having a fight with her boyfriend at Fletcher’s.”

“Fletcher’s again, eh?” asked Hank. “I’ve always known it was a cesspool, but it seems to be the eye of the storm, sucking in more victims.”

“That makes five women killed or missing, if we include the Medford women,” said Stevie. “Was Bob involved in all of them? He implied to Tyler that Amber Lynn was a spur-of-the-moment-type thing.”

“Even though we think his motivation for killing Amber Lynn was to get that flash drive back, the footage of him putting a different young woman in his vehicle suggests that he might have been involved in the disappearance of at least one other. Who we
still
can’t verify was Vanessa Phillips.” Zane rubbed a hand over his forehead. “It looks like we have a predator with a taste for young women, and Bob was involved in some way. I’ll reach out to Medford PD today and talk to the investigators, see where they’re at in their cases. I hadn’t heard about the missing women from out there.”

“I remember seeing a notice about one of them,” said Stevie. “I forgot until now. But
if
they’re all related, could Bob Fletcher be the suspect?”

“We’ve got him on video with a young woman.” Zane ticked off points on his fingers. “We know he choked Amber Lynn, Samantha Lyle was last seen leaving Fletcher’s after fighting with her boyfriend, and now two more women of the same age are missing. Holy crap . . . have we been blind?” Dread filled him. Had a serial killer been operating in southwest Oregon?

“But who killed Bob?” asked Stevie. “Was it vigilante justice by someone who knew what he was doing to young women?”

“Or someone who simply had a bone to pick with Bob,” Hank suggested. “He wasn’t the type to make friends.”

Zane met Stevie’s gaze. “We need to search his home. Today.”

Stevie stepped inside Bob’s small house and wrinkled her nose.
Ugh.
“Smells like a single guy lives here.”

Zane winced. “My place smells like this?”

“Hell no. You’re clean. I should have said it smells like a sloppy single guy lives here. And that there’s a reason he’s still single.”

Bob’s small ranch home sat far out of town, way back from the main highway. Snow covered the long winding dirt road to the house, and Zane had cursed three times as his wheels hit deep ruts. He’d taken the house key from Bob’s personal effects at the station, and they’d both bootied and gloved up before entering the home, their evidence kits in hand.

Stevie began by photographing every room. The house felt claustrophobic. The ceilings were too low for Stevie’s taste and the windows too small. She could hear the Rogue River as it rushed by about a hundred feet from the back of the house. Tall fir trees blocked any view of the water or of his neighbors.

“Definitely a private home,” observed Zane. “No one would have noticed his comings and goings. Or heard anything either. There’s got to be at least a half mile between him and his closest neighbor.”

Private enough to bring home unwilling young women?

“I don’t see any outbuildings,” said Stevie, looking out a back window. “Let’s start in his bedroom.”

After photographing every inch of the room, she and Zane pulled it apart. Mattress, box spring, under the bed, behind wall hangings, every inch of his closet and dresser. She made no comment about the huge stack of porn magazines and DVDs in a cardboard box next to his bed. They moved into the bathroom, which rivaled those at the Wayward Motel. He had a mold problem on the bathroom ceiling.

“Don’t men see that sort of thing?” Stevie asked, pointing upward.

“I’m sure he saw it,” said Zane. “I think he just didn’t care enough to do something about it.”

Men.

“You would have cleaned it, right?” she asked.

“Absolutely.” He busied himself in a bathroom cupboard.

Stevie suspected her brothers would have too.
Well, maybe not Bruce. Unless he worried about a woman seeing it.
She took a long look at the grimy tub that hadn’t seen a scrubber or Clorox in a long time. If she had wanted to kill someone, the tub would have been a natural place to contain the mess. But clearly Bob hadn’t cleaned it to erase evidence.

“Well, hello there.” Zane turned around, an orange prescription bottle in his hand. “If I hadn’t talked with Hank this morning, this bottle wouldn’t mean a thing to me.” He held it out for Stevie to see. Suboxone.

“Was he taking it regularly?” Stevie asked. She took the lid off the bottle. Half the number of prescribed pills were gone. “I wonder if he was trying to get clean from the oxy. Look at the label. He went out of town to fill it. He didn’t want anyone around here knowing he was taking the medication.”

“Are you saying our pharmacy might harbor gossips? Impossible,” stated Zane with a straight face.

Stevie smirked. “I suspect Donald knows everyone’s dirty little secrets. But I think he’s pretty good about keeping his mouth shut. Most of the time, anyway.”

They hit pay dirt again in the second bedroom. Cash. Lots of it. Stevie did a quick count of the bills that’d been tucked inside a paper bag and stashed in a short filing cabinet. “He’s got seven thousand dollars here. Could that be profits from Fletcher’s?”

Zane fanned out the cash on the floor. “I don’t think so. Look how nice and neat the bills are. And they’re big bills. Fifties and hundreds. Whenever I’ve been in Fletcher’s the crowd pays with cards or crinkled-up small bills. These look fresh from the bank.”

Stevie agreed. “It could be his savings. Maybe he doesn’t trust the bank.” She slid the cash into an evidence bag. The last time she’d found a big stash of cash in a search, the owner had been involved in drug dealing, and the rumors of drug dealing at the truck stop and Hank’s assertion of Bob’s drug addiction were firmly at the forefront of her mind. They moved to the kitchen and living room of the home.

“Oh shit. Look. We didn’t see this when you first took the pictures in here.” Zane opened the door to the small concrete back patio, and Stevie saw the outside doorjamb had been splintered next to the lock.

“Someone broke in. But when?” she asked.

“Bob never reported a break-in,” said Zane. “But if he was doing something illegal, I can understand why he wouldn’t. I think if he’d known about it he would have tried to secure the door somehow . . . he has a lot of cash to protect. But it doesn’t look like someone dug through his things, right? He’s a slob, but nothing is broken or emptied out as if a search had been done. And the cash wasn’t hard to find. Why leave it behind?”

“Could the cash have been planted for us to find?” Stevie asked.

Zane nodded slowly, weighing the idea. “But who has that much extra cash lying around for the sole purpose of incriminating someone?”

“No one in Solitude,” agreed Stevie.

She knelt next to the jamb and sniffed. “Smells like fresh-cut wood.” She pointed at the light layer of snow that the wind had blown onto the patio. “There’re splinters of the doorjamb on top of the recent snow. Not that Bob would have cleaned it up, but I think we need to consider that it happened after we locked him up. Or even after he was killed.”

Tension crept up her spine and she stood, scanning the woods behind the house. The snow was pristine in the open areas, no footprints. She closed the door, wishing she could lock it. “This place gives me the creeps.”

“If he killed Vanessa Phillips, he didn’t do it here,” said Zane. “I haven’t seen anything that indicates someone was murdered or held here. In a location as remote as this, he could have easily done so without raising suspicion.”

“So if he was smart enough not to bring them home, where would he have taken them?” She’d looked up the photos of the missing women from Medford and their faces were stuck in her memory. She hoped Solitude hadn’t harbored a serial killer with a taste for young women. “If Bob did it, he had a hiding place where he felt safe. Maybe we need to look deeper into the woods for some sort of outbuilding. He has three acres. Maybe we can’t see it from here.”