Authors: Tammy Cheatham
Stepping
up to the podium at the front of the room, Emma waited while officers from the
sheriff’s department and the city police department filed in and took seats. Taking
a deep breath she scanned the room, looking for the Greens.
“Good
morning. My name is Emma Gage-Echo and my title is Supervisory Special Agent
with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Making eye contact with the two men
she’d pegged as Pete and Chad Green she continued, “I’m guessing that some of
you saw my picture in yesterday’s paper, but that is not what I’m here to
discuss today. I am currently working with Chief Echo and Sheriff Crawley
regarding the murders occurring in and around Pine Ridge. My official position
with the FBI is Criminal Profiler, and I want to share my tentative impressions
of the killer with you.”
Moving
to the front of the podium, she leaned against the metal edge of a desk. “Before
I begin, are there any questions?” A hand at the back of the room went up.
Here
we go
, Emma thought. Pointing to the fiftyish man Emma asked, “Officer
Green, right? You have a question?” Others in the room turned to look at Pete
Green, waiting to see what he would say.
Nervously
pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose Pete Green stammered, “Yeah, I
have a question. What are you and the new chief doing to find this killer?” His
voice dripped with insinuation. “Hugging in the airport?”
Emma
smiled.
So that’s how it is. I’ll play along
. Standing she let her eyes
drift around the room, making contact with several officers in the crowd before
landing on Pete. “Ah, so hugging in the airport is offensive to you, Officer
Green?”
Snickers
sounded around the room.
“Just
to please you, Officer Green,” Emma said, “I’m going to address your questions.
However, it has absolutely nothing to do with the issue of finding a killer. I’m
not sure how the citizens of Pine Ridge welcome friends, but where I come from
it’s perfectly acceptable to hug a friend in the airport or anywhere else. I’m
also certain that you caught my name. Emma Gage-ECHO, surely you occasionally hug
your
wife,
Officer Green, assuming that you’ve got one that is.”
Outright
laughter from the crowd this time.
From
his post near the door, Tate leaned against the frame, a faint smile on his
lips. Green doesn’t know what he stepped in messing with Em, but you can bet
there’s going to be some of it left on his shoes.
Noticing
that Pete’s face was now the appropriate shade of red, Emma resumed. “Does
anyone else have questions before I continue?” She noted the shaking of heads.
“Perfect. We can now move to the real reason that you’ve been called here today.
Our killer.” Glancing at Tate she winked, and he nodded his approval.
“The
UnSub is a male, confirmed by ME reports. He’s in his early to mid-thirties and
can clearly be classified as a sociopath. His primary hunting ground so far has
been in and around White’s Lake Resort and there is a strong indication that he
frequents geocaching sites. This UnSub is going to look normal in every way. He’s
friendly and most likely maintains normal relationships with friends and
family.” Emma stopped speaking when a hand went up at the front of the room. “Yes?”
A
well-built man in a dark brown sheriff’s department uniform stood. “Yes ma’am. You
say this psychopath hunts at the lake, but Ms. Parker was killed in town,
wouldn’t that change your profile?”
Smiling
Emma explained, “That’s a good question. First of all, Ms. Parker had been at
the lake and it has been confirmed that she was searching for geocaches the day
of her death, as was the Babcock child. It’s possible that the UnSub followed
her back in to town. Secondly this, UnSub is not a psychopath, but rather a
sociopath. He’s meticulous in planning these kills, brings his own kill kit and
leaves no clues. While both the sociopath and the psychopath are extremely
violent, a psychopath would behave more erratically, killing without a specific
plan and would most likely leave clues that so far haven’t been left for us. Does
that answer your question, officer?”
At
the officer’s smiling nod, Emma continued to field questions around the room. Knowing
that she had this group under control, Tate stepped out and motioned for Martin
to follow. Stepping into the central lobby, Tate and Martin greeted the search
volunteers and passed out assigned grids for the day’s search.
“Tate,
have you seen today’s paper?” Martin asked.
“Nope,
but tell me that there’s not another picture of my personal life in there today,
please.”
“Nothing
on you. The front page has a picture of Walt and King and says that Jewel is
offering a five thousand dollar reward for information about her daddy.”
Whistling
through his teeth, Tate said, “That should get the phone lines hopping. Maybe
we’ll get a good lead with that much money on the table.”
“I’m
sure we’ll get calls, but I don’t think the news is going to be good when we
find Walt. It’s been too long and if he was able, I know Walt would have called
Jewel by now. There’s no way that he would have kept King out this long without
going home to feed him either. Curtis has volunteers manning the phones in four
hour shifts today and he’s going to call either you or me with any leads. Him
and Walt has been friends since high school, when they both played on the
football team. This is tearing him up.”
Tate
watched Emma walk into the room, her FBI persona still in place. Motioning Tate
over, she waited by the door. “I need to talk to you for a minute before we go
out on the search team. I think it would be best if Martin joined us too.”
“Sure.
Let’s go into my office.” Crossing the hallway, Emma, Tate and Martin closed
the door behind them. “So what’s up?” Martin asked. “You find something, Miss
Emma?”
“Maybe.
You know that I got the logs from the geocaching web owner showing everyone who
logged caches at the site where Babcock was murdered, all of Parker’s finds,
except the one for the day she was murdered, and a detailed roster of finds on the
other caches in the county. I did a cross reference and didn’t find that Parker
and Babcock had been to any similar cache sites, but a lot of other people had
found the same caches as both Parker and Babcock.”
Confused,
Martin asked, “So what’s the link?”
“Well,
seeing how many people found the same caches as both our victims got me
thinking. How does he decide who to kill? Clearly he hasn’t killed everyone
who found these caches, so why Parker, why Babcock? I don’t think he sits in
the woods and waits for a victim that fits a certain profile to come along
either. He hasn’t been consistent enough with his victim selection for that to
be a consideration at this point.”
“Maybe
it was just random,” Martin reasoned.
Emma
smiled, but discarded the idea. “Could be Sheriff, but I don’t think so. This
guy is too meticulous in his planning and I can’t believe that he would plan so
well for the actual kill and then wait for a random victim. What did catch my
eye is that each time one of our victims found a cache, they took something
from it, leaving something of theirs in return. That’s one of the rules of the
game. They log what they took and what they left in its place. What if our
killer is selecting his victims not by the site but by what they take from the
cache?”
Tate
sat on the corner of his desk. “That’s a little bit of a reach, Em. How would
he know who took what? He’s killing the same day that they find the cache and neither
Parker nor Babcock logged their find from that day, so he can’t be going into
the site after they find it and then tracking them down somehow.”
Nodding,
Emma agreed. “I know it’s a long shot, but I think it’s worth looking into. Did
you ask the Babcocks or Parker’s friend what they took? If not, then I really
think we should, to rule this theory out if nothing else.”
Martin
spoke up, “Sounds a little far-fetched to me too, but I can’t see what it’d
hurt to ask them about it, Tate. Why don’t you and Emma run by the diner on
your way out to search for Walt and talk to Reva, and I’ll call the Babcocks. I’ll
call you if I get anything from them before I go out on my search.”
CHAPTER 29
Fingering
the coin in his hand, Gavin traced the etched design. He tossed his backpack
into the rented car he’d left hidden in the park, and then slid behind the
wheel. “I had it made for you Mama, it’s our coin. I’ll be home soon. Maybe
we’ll go buy a big house with a yellow kitchen, just the way you like it.”
Pulling
the car into gear, he drove through the park without stopping at the gate. Gavin
knew that his mother wasn’t going to leave the center and that there would be
no big house with a yellow kitchen, but talking to her and planning a future
for them both was something that he needed to do. Driving through Pine Ridge,
Gavin smiled when he saw all the cars and people in front of the courthouse.
“The
search is on,” he snorted. Not slowing, Gavin followed the road out of town to
where it intersected with I-30. He pulled into the parking lot of a lonely
motel and walked inside.
Tate
and Emma entered the diner and took a seat at the bar. The place was packed and
Reva hurriedly took orders. Seeing them at the counter, she smiled and nodded
to let them know it would be a minute. Tate returned the nod.
“Coffee
to go Em?”
Before
Emma could answer, Reva stepped up to the counter with her pad in hand and
asked, “What’ll it be Chief? I see you’ve got company today. Waffles for two?”
Shaking
his head no, Tate replied, “Reva, I’d like you to meet Emma Gage-Echo. Emma’s
here unofficially as a member of the FBI to help with the murder cases.”
“Nice
to meet you, Reva,” Emma said. “I’m sorry about your friend, It’s hard to lose
someone you care about. I know you’re busy, but I have a couple questions that
I’m hoping you can help with.”
“Thank
you ma’am,” Reva replied, “Me and Saralyn were good friends and it does hurt.”
Noticing Burt glare through the open window above the counter, Reva hesitated.
“The diner’s real busy today and I got customers waiting, so if you could wait
about ten minutes until the other waitress comes in I’ll be able to take a
break and talk to you. That okay?”
“Sure
it is. We’ll take two black coffees while we wait, please.”
Tate
and Emma took their coffees and went to the only open table at the back of the
diner to wait for Reva. Fifteen minutes later, Reva slid into a chair across
from Tate. “Burt says I’ve got ten minutes, so what questions did you have for
me?”
“Reva,”
Emma asked, “on the day that Saralyn was murdered, you and she were caching out
at the lake right?”
Reva
nodded, “Yeah, but I already told Tate that.”
“I
know you already told Tate, but I was wondering if you recall taking anything
from the cache that you found that day?”
“Well
sure, we always took something and Saralyn kept a little plastic bag in her car
of things that we could put in ourselves. Nothing much, just things like
pencils, erasers or stickers. She was a teacher, you know.”
Tate
interrupted, “So do you recall what you took that day?
Wiping
her hands on a faded apron tied at her waist, Reva frowned, “Well, I think it
was some kind of coin. Saralyn kept it because she was going to log it.” Her voice
breaking, Reva continued, “I guess she never got the chance.”
Patting
the other woman’s arm, Emma asked, “Can you describe it, Reva? What color was
it? How big it was, anything that you can think of might be helpful.”
Reva
grabbed a napkin from a spring loaded silver box in the middle of the table and
wiped her nose then shoved the napkin into her apron pocket. “Well, I carried
it to the car and Saralyn said I should keep it, but I made her take it so she
could log the find better. It was a little bit bigger than a fifty cent piece
because it fit in the palm of my hand good, but it was gold colored not silver
like a fifty cent coin would be. Both sides had engraving, one side had a
picture of something and the other side had words but I don’t recall what they
were.” Glancing at her watch Reva looked behind her checking to see if Burt
was watching the clock too.
Following
her gaze, Tate stood and reached into his pocket tossing a five on the table. “Think
about it, and if you recall anything about that coin give me a call. You’ve got
my card with my cell number, right?”
Standing,
Reva reached for the empty coffee cups and nodded, “I will, and it was real
nice to meet you, ma’am.”
Turning
to leave, Tate and Emma weaved their way through the diner to the door and
stepped out. “So what do you make of that? Is she afraid of her boss or what?”
Tate
laughed as they walked to the SUV, “She’s definitely not afraid of Burt. He’s
scary looking, but that’s about as far as it goes. Inside he’s a softy. He
wouldn’t have said anything if she’d sat there for an hour, but he doesn’t like
any customer waiting for very long and Reva doesn’t like to upset him, or miss
out on any tips, I’d imagine. Tight as money is around here, she needs every
nickel she earns.”