Fatal Hunt Read online

  ‘I’ve only just begun.’

  A chill ran through the two men as they looked at each other.

  “I was afraid of this.” Captain Wells said. “I hate to even say it out loud, but it seems like someone is targeting law enforcement spouses. First Dan Yates, then Marsha Denard, and now Emily Williamson.”

  “Looks that way, Captain. Sir, it looks like she willingly opened the door, thinking she was getting a flower delivery. She probably never even saw it coming.”

  “I would agree, Jeff.”

  The two men walked back outside to talk to Jack and Calvin.

  “Officers, who called it in?”

  “The mailman, sir. He’s sitting on the curb over there.” Calvin pointed towards where a man sat with his head between his knees. “He’s not doing so good.”

  “I can see that.” The Captain and the Detective walked over to him.

  The man looked up as he heard their footsteps approaching. He stood up and stared at them.

  Captain Wells crossed his arms across his chest.

  “Rick.” Disgust rose like bile in the Captain’s throat.

  “Hey, Abraham. Of course, it would be you.”

  Detective Boaz was confused when he saw the look of pure distain cross the Captain’s normally neutral face. He didn’t know that Mailman Rick was the very reason that the Captain was now a bachelor.

  “Just tell me what happened.” The Captain said with a sigh of resignation.

  “Alright. This is my walking route and her mailbox is right by the door, so I walked right up to what you saw. The door was wide open.” The man swallowed hard, visibly shaken. “I didn’t even go to her. I just called 9-1-1. I knew there was no helping her. I don’t know how you do this, Abraham.”

  “Did you see any vehicles or people around?” Detective Boaz asked.

  “No. Not a soul anywhere and the street was totally empty.”

  “That’s all for now.” Captain Wells said, clearly ready to get away from him. “We will contact you if we need anything else from you.”

  “If you think of anything else, please call me.” Detective Boaz handed him his card.

  The two men walked back to the house as the ME arrived.

  Dr. Forrester grabbed his bag from the passenger seat and strode up the sidewalk. He clucked his tongue and knelt by the body.

  “Weren’t they newlyweds?” He asked.

  “Only been married around six months.” Jack answered. “Angie is trying to locate Sam now. He is going to be devastated.”

  Captain Wells’ phone rang.

  “Captain Wells.” He said crisply. After a few moments he answered. “Got it. Thanks, Angie.”

  “Angie found Officer Williamson. He’s on the way in, let’s go.”

  The Captained turned to Jack and Calvin.

  “Call me when this is all gone. Officer Williamson doesn’t need to see this.”

  The Captain looked at Emily Williamson and Dr. Forrester caught his eye.

  “We will take very good care of her, Abraham.”

  Captain Wells nodded at the doctor and he and Detective Boaz left to break the news to Officer Williamson. The Captain knew that the poor man’s life would never be the same again.

  Chapter 38

  In the car, Detective Boaz glanced over at Captain Wells. The Captain’s knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel so hard. He cleared his throat.

  “Captain, it looks like you were right about someone targeting spouses. No way this is a coincidence. First Dan Yates, then Marsha Denard, and now this.”

  “I can’t believe we dismissed Dan Yates as a hunting accident.” He shook his head in frustration.

  “So, Dan Yates was shot in the chest by a long range rifle, Masha Denard was shot point blank in the stomach with a shot gun, and now we have what can’t even be called a stabbing, more like a carving. That poor girl.”

  “Sir, how are you going to break it to Officer Williamson?” The Detective did not envy Captain Wells that job.

  “Jeff, there’s no good way. Angie has him on ice in my office.” Captain Wells pulled into his parking place and went in and braced himself to tell the officer the devastating news.

  Chapter 39

  Colleen was so excited! Her first hit on makeamatch.com. He sounded so promising. Colleen was tired of men just looking for a one night stand. She was ready to commit. She wanted the American dream … white picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a dog.

  She eagerly began a chat with the Professor. A Professor … now her Mother can finally back off. One more word about grandkids and she was going to lose her mind!

  ‘Brian gave me grandkids, but his selfish wife insisted that they move to be by her family.’ Her mother was relentless.

  “Come on, respond …” Colleen murmured as she watched the screen.

  Her girlfriends said she was overzealous about getting a boyfriend and that it would chase any interested guys away. What did they know? They all got married right out of college to guys they had dated since the beginning of time. Clueless. They had no idea what it was like for her.

  She had decided to pursue her career and wait for romance later. Maybe that was a mistake since her ‘career’ is still where it always was … in the toilet.

  The one thing that Colleen especially had going in her favor was her beauty. She had a porcelain complexion with milky white skin tones. Her sparkly green eyes crinkled prettily at the corners when she smiled and her red hair was curly and long. She looked like an Irish princess.

  “Yes!” she squealed. “Finally.”

  She and the Professor chatted all afternoon.

  Chapter 39

  The next day arrived with full on sunshine, and higher than normal temperatures. A perfect day for sunglasses and cracked windows. Kacey left the house after playing with Thor and didn’t even need a jacket.

  She turned the music up, cranked her window down, and sang her heart out on the way to the Municipal Building. She was in a good mood as she made her way to her desk. As she started to open her mouth, Mike’s phone started making noises before she could utter a word.

  Mike looked down as his phone ‘pinged’ a notification that he had received a text.

  “It’s your favorite doctor, Kace. He has something for us.”

  Mike and Kacey walked into the all too familiar morgue.

  Dr. Forrester was looking over his bifocals to read the scales. Mike looked in fascination as Kacey fought to keep her breakfast from reappearing. The doctor looked up at them, smiled, and snapped his vinyl gloves off.

  “Ah, my two favorite detectives … I have something to show you.”

  Dr. Forrester led the way to the cold and sterile vaults that held the remains of their two victims. He stopped by the vault that held Alice Benning first. He slid it open and turned her head slightly to show the detectives where someone had cut a small bit of hair from behind her ear. He shut the drawer and went to Donna Sanis’ and showed them that the same thing had been done to her.

  “I’m not sure exactly what to make of this, Detectives, but I would say that your killer took a little trophy from both women.”

  “I would agree, especially since the hair was taken from exactly the same area.” Kacey said.

  “Anything else?” Mike asked hopefully.

  “There is one more thing.” Dr. Forrester removed his glasses and led them back out into the main area.

  “I just wanted to verify that the contents of both women’s stomachs show that they probably had dinner at the same French restaurant. If I remember correctly from your statement, Joanna McKinley was taken to a French restaurant on her “date”. You might have a connection there.

  “A couple of officers already went and checked for video ... they don't have one ... and interviewed the workers. Nothing. Plus, he paid in cash. We have the sketch now, so we can go this afternoon.”

  “I will be releasing the bodies to the families later today. These ladies need to be laid to rest.” Dr. F
orrester turned sad, yet beautiful, brown eyes to them.

  “Detectives, you need to catch this guy. I believe this is only the beginning.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Mike said as they turned to leave.

  “I’m sure the funerals will be soon.” Kacey said. “We will go, but we need to have extra eyes, I think. I’ll ask Captain Wells about that.”

  The detectives went back to the station to add the new findings to their thickening case files.

  “What’s going on here?” Kacey asked as they noticed some very somber faces.

  “You didn’t hear?” Officer Robb answered after overhearing her. “Emily Williamson was murdered at home yesterday.

  “What?!” Mike exclaimed. “Tommy’s wife?”

  “That’s the one. She was carved up something awful. Captain Wells and Detective Boaz are on it.” Calvin hurried on through to meet Jack at the squad car.

  “Poor Tommy.” Kacey said, wiping tears from her eyes.

  “Yeah.”

  The next few hours of the day were spent waiting to get the information from 'makeamatch' and trying to find anyother connection with these women.

  Kacey looked at her watch.

  "The lunch rush is over, let's take this sketch to the restaurant and show it around."

  The detectives got their jackets and went to see if they could get some kind of ID on this guy.

  The restaurant was everything you would imgine it would be. Kacey felt like her eyes were on a visual feast! There was blue and yellow toile evrywhere and every bit of trim and accent was painted a soft cream color. A brick wall seemed to be original to the building and added the perfect backdrop for some pretty intimate seating.

  "Wow, Mike. This place is something! How have I never been here?"

  "Pretty impressive."

  "May I help you?"

  A young man in a long apron approached them from a side room.

  Mike and Kacey introduced themselves and showed him their badges.

  "We were wondering if you could help us identify this man."

  Kacey handed the server the sketch that Joanna had provided.

  "I feel like I may have seen him before. But I don't know if it was here or not."

  "Is your boss here?" Kacey asked.

  "No, ma'am. Just me and the sou chefs. We close from 3:00 to 5:00 to get ready for the dinner crowd. I was just on my way to chcek if the door was locked when I heard you come in."

  "I see. Well, when he comes back, show him the sketch and please give him my card and tell him it's extremely important that he contact me as soon as possible." Mike said, handing over his card.

  "Yes sir, I will."

  I’m ready to call it a day,” Mike said, as he opened the door for her. “I think you should too. Your eyes are so dark, you look like a football player.”

  “You charmer, you.” Kacey said.

  She reached in her bag to pull out her phone.

  "Todd has the results of the warrant. Let's go see him."

  Chapter 41

  The owner of Home Front Secuity began thumbing through the file he had made on Kacey Yates. He had noted the areas where she wanted the outside cameras and motion sensor lights. He already had most of what he needed on hand, so he was just about ready to set up an appointment to begin installing, if the detective decided to proceed. All he needed was for his shipment to arrive and he would have everything to start. He was pleased to see that it should be here today.

  The Yates job was the only one he really had going on, so he decided to purge some files. He had a lot of estimates that never turned into projects, so he could definitely throw those away.

  After a couple of hours, he made it to “Forsythe, Connie”. He clearly remembered sending his assistant to her home to give an estimate for cameras and motion lights. She thought they were charging too much and finally asked him to quit calling her.

  “If she had just told us ‘no’, we wouldn’t have kept calling her.” He thought.

  He never understood why people were just afraid to come out and tell him that they weren’t going to use his company? What did they think he was going to do? Throw a temper tantrum? Cry? Whatever. He usually had enough to keep himself busy.

  He had just shredded the “Forsythe” file when he heard the UPS truck pull in.

  “Ah, the lights are here.” He stood up and brushed his dusty hands off on a paper towel and went to sign for his package.

  Chapter 42

  Mike looked down at his phone as it vibrated on his nightstand.

  “I forgot I had an O.B. appointment this morning. I’ll be in as soon as I can.”

  Only Kacey would text in complete sentences. He swung his legs off of the bed and swiped his hands over his stubble. He stood and stumbled into the kitchen to start his single serve coffee.

  “Hmm … ‘mudslide’ … OK.” He muttered, reading the cup, and stumbled back to hop into the shower. As he let the hot water wash over him and wake him up, he began to think of the three women in his life.

  First of all, there was Jack. He couldn’t help grinning like an idiot every time he thought of her. She was so smart and beautiful and he fell more in love with her every day. He caught himself watching commercials and ads from jewelry stores. He wasn’t sure if he was to the point of actually proposing, but he couldn’t imagine his life without her.

  His sister, Sandy was always on his mind. She and Tom seemed to have it all together, but Tom was always gone. He left his family at least every other week and sometimes he was gone for an entire month. He was always slightly suspicious that Tom had another woman on the side, but when he saw Sandy and Tom together, they were clearly still deeply in love with each other, and devoted to their children.

  ‘Really none of my business, I guess.’ He mused as his thoughts switched to his third favorite female.

  Kacey was something else! He admired her rock solid faith and the dignified way she handled whatever life threw her way. He genuinely loved her like a sister. Kacey was a great partner and at this point they each knew what the other was thinking and their timing was perfect when they were interviewing a suspect.

  He was happy for her. That baby had been a long time coming and just what she needs right now.

  After he got out of the shower he stood in front of the mirror with a towel wrapped around his waist. He moved his head from side to side, trying to decide if he could forgo the shave today. ‘No’. He decided it had to be done.

  After that hard decision had been made and mission accomplished, he began getting dressed and let his mind wander over the two murders they were investigating. What would cause a woman to allow a complete stranger access to her home? Why would they agree to be picked up there? This ‘Professor’ must be a smooth talker to get that invite.

  As he poured Mika’s food into her bowl and refilled her water he wondered how she would get along with a puppy. Watching Queen Mika glare at him because he spilled a little water on the floor, he decided that the answer to that question was a solid “NO!”. Cats were jerks.

  “Spoiled.” He told her as she sweetly wrapped herself in and out of his ankles.

  Kacey’s morning was going a little differently than Mike’s. As she sat in the Obstetrician’s office she looked around at all of the women in various stages of pregnancy. You could definitely tell the new moms apart from the ones who were on at least their second child. She couldn’t help but eavesdrop as she mindlessly flipped through an old pregnancy magazine. The cover was missing so she didn’t even know what the title was.

  There were two 20 somethings in the corner having a slightly heated discussion over the merits of breast feeding versus using formula.

  “Who cares?”, thought Kacey, “As long as it gets fed.”

  Across from her was a very young woman with her mother. Kacey wasn’t sure which one was pregnant, but she suspected the younger one. They made eye contact, and Kacey smiled at her.

  “How far along are you?” The girl asked, shy
ly.

  "About five months."

  “That’s cool. What do you want?”

  “You know, I’m not sure I’ve thought about it. I'm trying to decide if I want to know beforehand or not. Either way it’ll fun. Baby girls can be dressed up so cute, but boys have better toys.”