Relentless (Elisabeth Reinhardt Book 1) (27 page)

“It’s a damn cemetery,” Chester swore at the ground around him, “What did these bastards do, grab every girl in the city and bury her on this G-d damn farm? Where are all the police reports on these missing girls, for Christ’s Sake?”

The police and CSI’s had uncovered yet another body, two bodies just a few feet away from each other. This was clearly
ground zero, their first burial ground, maybe another reason the killers kept coming back to this farm. The two young women they had just discovered had been in the ground about 8-10 years, maybe more.  Cadaver dogs worked the site for the next two hours, one more body was discovered. In spite of the snow and the frozen ground, three more bodies were added to the total! It was unbelievable! Three more young women found dead in HIS jurisdiction, buried right under his nose. In the ground all these years! Who were these girls and where had they come from? Did the killers kidnap them from another state and bring them here to the Raines Family Farm to torture and kill them? If so, that presented a variance in the pattern. Still killers evolved and if these were the first victims the pattern could be very different. With all known kills and kidnappings, the women were taken to an area not too far from where they were abducted. If these were not local girls that meant that they were kidnapped from a greater distance and brought here. The question was: Why? If these were their first kills, why had they changed their pattern? It made sense that the farm would be in their comfort zone, so what made them stop? Why use Parklands instead of the Raines farm? Had their kill zone been discovered? Was there someone out there who knew that these killings had occurred? If that was the case, why had that person failed to report the crimes?

All hands were on deck at this point, tracking down these newest leads. Every member of the Task Force was
actively working the case. None of them had slept for over 30 hours and there was no rest in sight. Reinforcements kept arriving, but briefing them and getting them up to speed on the cases was time consuming itself.  Keeping the work force functioning and in communication with one another was like 10 full time jobs. Lou and Chester spelled one another as reinforcements poured in from neighboring counties and bordering states.

As
Will Schmidt relocated the mobile command center to the most recent crime scene, he discovered the killers’ most recently stolen vehicle off the road behind some bushes. A CSI team was dispatched to search it. Two officers with computer expertise arrived to help Will navigate the data stream. Information on the newest bodies zipped through the internet to Quantico for cross-checking the national missing person database. Officers prepared incoming evidence so it could be flown to Quantico. West Virginia’s Chief Medical Examiner and two assistants were slated to arrive from Charleston to process these latest victims. A steady stream of uniforms traipsed through the snow from crime scenes to vehicles carrying evidence and talking into their cell phones.

National news helicopters circled overhead and dozens of media vans pulled up, discharging reporters and cameramen. Lou and Chester set up a temporary press area for impromptu news conferences. Cameras flashed and reporters milled about, talking with one another and ambushing anyone who passed by. The road was closed to all but the most urgent local traffic.
Radio and TV announcers continually repeated warning messages to local residents. Calls came flooding in: everyone from governors to senators and congressmen to the President, himself, asking for information and offering help. Phones rang continually, demanding time and attention. Hurricane, West Virginia was catapulted into the national news. ‘MORE BODIES FOUND IN HURRICANE’ splashed across America’s newspapers. The peaceful, quiet community had just become the crime capital of the Western world. It was mindboggling!

Lou and Chester tore away from the chaos
to discuss their priorities and team assignments. They needed people to work this new crime scene - a mass grave was what it was. This new situation, now in the national spotlight, had overtaken the hunt for the killers themselves. The irony was infuriating. Because they found more bodies, they were less able to search for the killers. They didn’t know where the Parkland Killers were at this point, but they could not lose their focus. They decided to split up, Chester would stick with the hunt for the killers and Lou would manage the newest crime scene.

Lou said,
“They probably are not still at that church, if they ever had been there, but searching the church is still a priority.” They agreed to keep trying to get into the church without creating a Constitutional crisis! Chester called the Bishop at the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston to find a way to get their police and dogs into the church before lunchtime.

All the roadblocks would be kept in place and extended to include interstate highway ramps and all major roads and highways.  Neighborhood patrols would continue at least through the day. They had contacted the local Board of Education and asked that the schools
remain closed until further notice. They asked that all major businesses and factories remain closed so that parents could stay at home with their children. They asked the Governor of West Virginia to declare a state of emergency in Putnam County and close down all government agencies. The requests were granted.  The city of Hurricane closed its doors.

Marie was at the hospital with the Raines family. Both brothers had been transported to the hospital where Hattie remained in Intensive Care.  Her condition was extremely precarious. Her four children sat together in the ICU waiting room grieving their dead father and waiting to see if their mother would recover.  They were in shock and hardly able to process what had happened, but Marie felt it was important to learn as much as she could about Jake and Reggie Lee so she stayed with them, encouraged conversation and questioned them as gently as possible.

“Anything might be important,” she told them, “Just tell me everything you remember about them, habits, likes, dislikes, friends, interests.” It had not been a family tradition to sit and talk about things, especially feelings and difficult times. The four of them had never sat together and talked about their family like this. It was awkward at first, but as they talked, it became a little easier. “If we talk as a group, that might help you all to remember things,” Marie had said. While they waited praying for their mother to survive, they reminisced and while they talked, Marie listened.

After a few hours the brothers wandered off together. Their shock was wearing off and
it had begun to dawn of them that their family situation was fragile and possibly still dangerous. They phoned their wives and discussed the situation and asked them to take the children and move in with relatives in case Jake decided to come after them. The brothers decided to stay at the hospital and guard their mother and sisters. They didn’t know if Jake would come back and try to kill them but anything was possible. They decided to arm themselves and take shifts guarding their women-folk. It was what their Papa would want them to do. As they stood near the coffee pot in the ICU waiting room Marie stepped over to them. She handed Dale a stack of pictures she’d taken of the jewelry she found in Hattie’s flowered jewelry box and asked if any of the items looked familiar to him. He flipped through the pictures without a word, shook his head ‘No’ and handed them to his brother. Clint flipped quickly without comment until he got to a picture of a small silver cross with vines wrapped around it. The color drained from his face as he stared at the picture.

“Clint,” Marie said, “do you see something you recognize?” Frozen he continued to stare at the picture. She moved beside him so she could look at the photo in his hand and waited.

He remained mute, then turned abruptly and walked off. “I’ll take the first shift,” he said to Dale and moved off in the direction of the Men’s Room. Dale went out to get some ‘shut eye’ in his car. Behind the wheel he lowered the seatback and fell asleep, windows partly cracked to let in fresh air. Through the silent snow-covered parking lot he heard occasional voices of people walking back and forth from the hospital to their cars. He was immune to sounds fading into unconsciousness when a familiar voice startled him.

“When
will they be starting…?” she asked. “…that may be critical. Right! Can you get that for me? I’m on my way…”  Marie Del Monte was rushing to her car, shouting into her cell phone as she ran.
Something must have happened
, Dale thought as he peered over the steering wheel.
Something big!

The
killers lay on their stomachs and watched from the roof as the police cars turned down the road leading back to the farm. They were about to get up and head back into the church, when a Chevy station wagon turned into the driveway. Two grey haired women sat in the front seat. They had missed the exiting police caravan by a matter of minutes. Chatting happily, the women climbed out, opened the back of the wagon and began sorting through boxes of freshly cut flowers. They had a box of tall vases and some gardening tools. One of the women, leaning on a carved cane, slowly carried an armload of flowers up the snowy steps to the church to unlock the door. The other woman, stout and bundled, joked cheerfully as she carried more flowers up the steps. The Woman’s Auxiliary Flower Committee had arrived to prepare their weekly floral arrangements. The killers eyed one another, rose quietly and climbed down the ladder into the church.

When on opening the door a stack of canned goods toppled over with loud clanging noises, the two women stared in amazement. Someone had been playing games outside the Sanctuary while the good Father was away. That seemed sacrilegious to the women who frowned in disapproval. They
had spent the morning buying flowers in a neighboring town. Old friends, they had lived in Hurricane their whole lives and knew the back roads like the backs of their hands. They used only shortcuts and were blissfully unaware of the police and criminal activities swarming around them. The flowers were unloaded after several trips. The Sanctuary doors were opened, the wilting flowers collected and carried into the kitchen along with the boxes of tools and vases they had brought. Momentarily, their alarmed voices drifted up the stairway.

“What in the world went on in
this room?” they cried and said, “Oh my goodness, I’ve never seen such a mess in all my days,” and “Who in the world would do such a thing? We’d better clean this up before the bugs crawl in here.”

“Looks like starving vagrants broke in
here and ate their way through the fridge,” they exclaimed. The ladies of the Woman’s Auxiliary Flower Committee busied themselves cleaning up the kitchen, washing out plates and glasses, washing the floor and wiping off the dirty counters. They then made several trips back and forth sweeping up dried bits of flowers, cleaning the vases and cutting the fresh stems to the right length, arranging and puttering. They had to admit, this trip had been more than they bargained for. Both of them were anxious to finish up here and get home to their own chores.

The killers crouched on the first floor landing plotting how to capture the two old women when they heard a car pull into the driveway and sputter to a stop. For an empty church, this place is swarming with people, they thought, as Father Mitchell Wallington, a 58 year old man wearing a priest’s collar and suit, carried his suitcase into the entryway.

“Good morning, Ladies,” he said in a jovial voice.

“Father,” they smiled in unison, “you’re back so early!”

“Why, yes,” he replied, “my sister was discharged from the hospital and so I decided to come back early. Gladys, how is your leg doing these days?”

“Oh, you know, it gets worse in the cold. The arthritis, you know.”

“Lois, how is your Herb doing, any better with his breathing?”

“Well, you know Herb, he’s so stubborn, won’t slow down. It’s always this or that. But, I do get him to take that medicine that the doctor ordered and I think he’s doing better.”

“That’s good to hear,” said the priest, “So what’s new around here?”

“Well, nothing much,” the ladies answered, “The only thing is that kitchen. It was a horrible mess. We’ve never seen anything like it. Whoever used it last was a terrible slob.”

“Is that so?” Father Wallington asked frowning, “I didn’t think anyone was scheduled to use that kitchen while I was away. The last group scheduled to use the church was the Teen Bible Study group and they usually have only cookies and juice. What kind of a mess was it?”

“Oh, dear,” the ladies said, “it was all kinds of food all over the place. Leftovers, soda, cake, wine…”

“Wine?” the father interrupted, “You don’t mean the holy sacramental wine, do you?”

“Why, yes, Father,” the woman with the cane replied, “it’s the only wine we have here in the church, isn’t it?”

She continued with a shrug, “We put all the bottles in the recycling bin in the hallway.”

“All the bottles? You mean there was more than one?” asked the priest incredulous.

“Yes, Father, you can go see for yourself,” Gladys replied.

“I think I’ll do that,” Father Wallington said as he hurried off toward the kitchen.

“Oh and Father,” she called after him, someone piled up all these canned goods in front of our front door. They make a terrific racket when we opened the door.”

He returned moments later, his face ashen. “
You are quite right, ladies, it is quite strange,” he said with concern, “I don’t think any of our parishioners would do such a thing. Well, you ladies best be on your way, I know you worked extra hard here today and the Lord appreciates all that you do for him. The flowers look lovely.” He walked the women to the front porch. The three chatted amiably for a few moments. While the killers hung over the bannister, the priest gave each woman a brief hug as they departed.