Once Lost

But Riley knew that the horror wouldn’t leave him.

His words echoed through her head …

“Times have changed.”

He must have felt as though the world had gone mad.

And maybe it has, Riley thought.

“We’re terribly sorry this happened,” Riley told him.

Then she and Jenn headed back toward the excavated spot.

Teague’s team now had the covered body up on a gurney. They were awkwardly moving it over the tilled soil toward the medical examiner’s vehicle.

Teague approached Riley and Jenn. He spoke in that seemingly perpetual monotone of his.

“In answer to your question, how’d she die … I got a better look, and she’d been bludgeoned, hit more than once. So that’s it.”

Without another word he turned and walked away to join his team.

Jenn let out a scoff of annoyance.

“Well, it sounds like the examination is done as far as he’s concerned,” she said. “He’s a real sweetheart.”

Riley shook her head in dismayed agreement.

Then she walked toward Chief Sinard and asked, “Was anything else found with the body? A handbag? Cell phone?”

“No,” Sinard said. “Whoever did it must have kept those.”

“Agent Roston and I need to meet with the girl’s family as soon as possible.”

Chief Sinard frowned a little.

“That’s going to be pretty rough,” he said. “Her dad, Drew, was just out here a little while ago to identify the body. He was in pretty bad shape when he left.”

“I understand,” Riley said. “But it’s really necessary.”

Chief Sinard nodded, took a key out of his pocket, and pointed to a nearby car.

“I figure you two are going to need your own transportation,” he said. “You can use my car as long as you’re here. I’ll drive on ahead in a police vehicle and show you where the Philbins live.”

Riley let Jenn take the keys and drive. Soon they were following Sinard’s police car toward the town of Angier.

Riley asked her new partner, “What are your thoughts at this point?”

Jenn drove in silence for a moment as she seemed to mull the question over.

Then she said, “We know that the victim was seventeen years old – within the age range of about half of the victims of this kind of crime. It’s still an unusual case. Most victims of serial sexual predators are prostitutes. This one may fall into the ten percent who are victims of acquaintances of one kind or another.”

Jenn paused again.

Then she added, “More than half of these kinds of murders are by strangulation. But blunt force trauma is the second most frequent cause of death. So in that sense this murder may not be atypical. Still, we’ve got a lot to learn. The most important question is whether we’re dealing with a serial killer.”

Riley nodded grimly in agreement. Jenn wasn’t saying anything she didn’t already know, but whatever her misgivings might be about her new partner, at least she was well informed. And they were both facing the possibility of a terrible answer to that last question, both hoping the answer was “no.”

In a matter of minutes they were following Sinard into Angier and driving down Main Street. Riley saw nothing to distinguish it from other Main Streets she’d seen throughout the Midwest – bland and characterless rows of shops, some of them old and some of them new. She detected no hint of charm or quaintness. Riley had much the same feeling about the town as she’d had during the drive across the rolling prairie – a sense of something dark lurking behind the veneer of Midwestern wholesomeness.

She almost gave voice to her thoughts. But she quickly reminded herself that it wasn’t Bill who was at her side, but a young woman she barely knew and still didn’t know if she could trust.

Would Jenn Roston share Riley’s feelings, or even want to hear them?

Riley had no way of knowing, and it bothered her.

It was hard not having a partner she could talk to freely, expressing ideas as they came whether they made sense or not. She missed Bill more with every passing minute – and Lucy as well.

The victim’s family lived in an older but well-kept brick bungalow on a quiet street with large trees in the yard. The curb and the driveway were crowded with parked vehicles. Riley guessed the Philbins had a lot of visitors at the moment.

Sinard stopped his marked patrol car in the street and got out. He gestured Jenn toward a small parking space and stood giving directions to help her squeeze the car into place. Once the car was parked, Riley and Jenn got out and walked toward the house. Chief Sinard was already on his way to the front door, his patrol car still double-parked in the street.

Riley wondered – were they going to meet an innocent grieving family and many sincere and well-meaning friends and loved ones?

Or were they about to encounter people who might be capable of murder?

Either way, Riley always dreaded this kind of visit.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

For several long moments, Riley couldn’t put her finger on what struck her as odd about the house where Katy Philbin had lived. As soon as she and Jenn walked in through the front door she had felt a tinge of unease.

As Riley had expected, the living room was crowded with people – well-wishing friends and neighbors, most of them women. In typical small-town style, the community was pulling together to help a family in a time of crisis.

So why did the scene strike her as somehow strange?

Then Riley realized – everything seemed uncannily organized and proper. All the people appeared to be wearing their Sunday best. They had brought food and had arranged it on the dining room table, and everybody was either tending to assigned tasks or eating and talking in hushed voices.

It reminded Riley of many funeral receptions she’d been to, the kind of event that might take place after a burial. It hardly seemed possible that Katy Philbin’s desecrated body had been found just this morning. How had this orderly gathering come together so spontaneously and quickly?

It’s that kind of town, she reminded herself.

Riley felt weirdly out of place in this world where everybody seemed to know just what to do at any given moment and for any occasion. It had been a long, long time since she’d lived in this kind of community – not since she’d been a child, really. And she was far from comfortable about being here in this kind of setting.

All this neighborly activity seemed too rehearsed, too automatic, for Riley’s liking. After all, the girl’s death hinted that something evil lurked beneath this veneer of rural propriety and decency. She couldn’t shake off an irrational feeling that all this kindness and good will was an enormous lie.

Riley and Jenn followed close behind Chief Sinard. He was saying kind things to everybody as he moved among them, and he obviously knew everybody by name.

Sinard struck Riley as truly the perfect small-town police chief. He also had the ruddy complexion of a man who had been exposed to all the weather that the Midwest had to offer. Riley felt sure he’d lived in this part of the country – perhaps this very town – all his life.

Riley remembered that his brother was Forrest Sinard, the FBI’s executive assistant director. She’d met Forrest Sinard a few times, and he’d struck her as witty and urbane, hardly the rural type at all. She wondered how two brothers had wound up following such different paths in their lives.

A man and woman seated in the back of the room were the center of everyone’s attention. Chief Sinard introduced Riley and Jenn to Katy’s parents, Drew and Lisa Philbin.

Lisa seemed barely aware of the two agents’ presence.

“Why not?” she kept asking her husband. “Why can’t I?”

“It’s best not to, honey,” Drew kept saying, holding her hands tightly. “Believe me, it’s best.”

“If not now, when?”

“I don’t know. Soon maybe. Not yet.”

Riley understood what was going on right away. She remembered Chief Sinard mentioning that Drew had been to George Tully’s field to identify his daughter’s body. Now his wife wanted to see the body too, but Drew wanted to spare her the horror – at least for the time being.

Lisa looked all around in tearful confusion.

“She’s my daughter, and I’m her mother,” she said, choking back a sob. “Katy needs me. Where is she?”

Riley felt a pang of sympathy.

Denial, she thought.

It was going to take a while before the reality of Lisa’s daughter’s death sank in.

Meanwhile, Riley guessed that she and Jenn ought to address most of their questions to Drew.

She said, “Mr. Philbin, we’re terribly sorry for your loss, and we hate to disturb you. But my colleague and I need to ask you a few questions.”

Still holding his wife’s hands tightly, Drew simply nodded.

“When did you notice that your daughter had gone missing?” Riley asked.

Drew knitted his brow as if trying to remember.

Shock, Riley thought.

Although he had accepted the reality of his daughter’s death, Riley knew that he was still struggling with confusion. She worried whether he might find it difficult to answer even the simplest questions.

“Last night, I think,” he said. “No, the night before last.”

Lisa appeared to be emerging from her fog of denial at least a little. She said, “Yes, it was the night before last. She was out late for a club meeting at her school. We expected her late, but she didn’t come home at all.”

“Did you report her missing?” Jenn asked.

Lisa and Drew looked at each other uncertainly.

“We did – didn’t we?” Lisa asked her husband.

Drew stammered, “Y-yes. We called Chief Sinard … I can’t remember exactly …”

Riley looked at Chief Sinard, who said, “It was Lisa who called me. She called last night. I put out a local alert online.”

Riley noticed that Jenn seemed to react to this information with suspicion. They knew that Katy had almost certainly been killed Wednesday night. She hadn’t come home, but her parents hadn’t reported her missing until last night, Thursday night.

Jenn asked Lisa, “You mean you waited a full day? Didn’t you know that another girl had already gone missing?”

Lisa’s eyes darted among Jenn’s, Riley’s, and Chief Sinard’s faces.

She replied, “We did hear about that. But we didn’t actually know her. And she just ran away, didn’t she? It was … it had … nothing to do with us … with Katy … Did it?”

Riley knew there was nothing she could say in reply. After all, as far as anybody knew at this point, Holly really had run away and might turn up at any time.

But that didn’t stop her partner from asking questions.

Speaking rather sharply, Jenn said, “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Why wait so long? Didn’t you start worrying when she didn’t show up Wednesday night?”

Riley started to cut her partner off, but she told herself that Jenn’s suspicion was understandable. At this point, every person they met – especially male – might be Katy’s killer. That might even include Drew Philbin.

But Riley also worried that Jenn might let her suspicion get the best of her. She was definitely not as skillful at questioning as Lucy had been. Even Bill had been better at putting others at ease. Riley knew that she herself tended to be blunt sometimes and she had depended on her partners to be friendlier.

Lisa seemed to be on the verge of panic.

She stammered, “I … we … this isn’t …”

Drew gently interrupted his wife.

“What Lisa means to say is that this has happened before. I don’t mean that Katy was ever gone for this long. But she stayed out until the wee hours of the morning once before without calling home. We thought she was doing something like that again.”

Lisa nodded and chimed in, “And we did call other people yesterday morning – her ex-boyfriend, some of her friends, even a couple of her teachers.”

“But not Chief Sinard?” Jenn asked.

Lisa looked shaken and ashamed.

“We just … we didn’t think …”

Before Jenn could prod Lisa and Drew with more questions, Riley touched her on the shoulder to quiet her. She ignored the sidewise glance that Jenn gave her. Riley had a pretty good idea why the couple might not have called the police chief right away, but now was no time to get into it.

Riley asked the couple, “Did Katy mention being frightened of anything or anybody recently? Was anything making her uneasy?”

Lisa and Drew looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Not exactly,” Lisa said. “But she hadn’t been herself lately. She’d been quiet, stayed in her room a lot, and she seemed … I don’t know, sad or upset about something. She wouldn’t tell me what it was all about.”

Drew shook his head.

“Lisa’s right,” he said. “She was behaving oddly. She used to be so happy and enthusiastic about everything – school, sports, friends.”

Lisa said, “We kept waiting for her to pull out of it. Whenever I asked her what was the matter, she said it was nothing.”

Lisa paused for a moment. Then she said, “I think she changed when she broke up with Dustin.”

Riley’s attention quickened.

“Her boyfriend?” Riley asked.

“That’s right,” Drew said. “Dustin Russo.”

“Did she say what the breakup was about?” Riley asked.

Lisa shrugged slightly.

“No. She wasn’t telling us much of anything around then.”

Riley asked, “Did anything about Dustin’s behavior worry the two of you?”

“Not really,” Drew said. “I mean, he’s a kid. He’s just a regular teenage kid.”

“Did Katy keep a diary?”

“If she did, it would be on her laptop. We never snooped.”

“Of course,” Riley said. “But we’ll need to go over it.”

Drew was silent for a moment, then said, “Anything that might help. It’s upstairs, in …”

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