Carter’s brain had traveled the same direction. “I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta ask . . .” He pushed off the rail where he’d leaned and came to sit next to Lincoln on the lounger across from Jo. “With that sort of personal history, I can’t square APD’s mishandling of a large number of missing persons cases involving meth addicts.”
“You’re right to question,” she said. “That’s why Mark called me over here. Too many coincidences stacking up.”
“How about clearing them up for us?”
“I was supposed to go to law school. Still might. But I joined APD instead, with an eye and mind toward combating the meth crisis. I had a mom who daily saw the damage, at work and at home. I watched my own father succumb to it.” Her voice had steadily risen, and she turned her face away, taking in a deep breath and looking inside the house. She caught Mark’s eye, he gave her another smile, and she slowly released her held breath. “When I joined APD, Barry was the chief, and I got to work some of those cases based on rotation. That’s how I met Mark actually. He was our federal point person for meth cases involving federal lands around here. I felt like we were making a dent, and when Larry took over and promoted me to detective, I thought I could make an even bigger dent.”
“He said he promoted you to do just that,” Carter said. “To work the meth cases.”
She scoffed. “Into the file room. Document the case, do an initial workup, file it, move on. If I suggested a follow-up, he’d find a different case that I needed to work right away.”
“Why do you think that was?” Lincoln asked.
“I had half a dozen speculations, all connected with Larry being the youngest of the Petticoats. Story around town goes he was picked on mercilessly growing up. Harry was brilliant and shy. Barry was a star athlete and outgoing. Larry was neither brilliant nor social nor athletic. He just followed the path he was supposed to and took his hits along the way. I thought maybe he was ignoring the meth problem because it had been one of Barry’s initiatives. Or because those were a lot of the same people who picked on him, my dad included. Or because he didn’t want anyone to know Ryan was one of them.”
Carter shot to the end of the chaise so fast the lounger wobbled. Lincoln grabbed him by the back of the jacket before they tipped over into Jo’s lap. Carter hardly noticed. “The chancellor of Apex U? He’s a meth addict?”
Jo nodded. “And Larry’s best friend since childhood. He was prone to disappearing on binges when he was younger. He got clean for a while, then backslid, right as he was being considered for the chancellor’s position. Larry pulled him out of a meth den and covered it up, and he’s been covering up the disappearances of anyone that could tie Ryan to it ever since, at the expense of all the work we’d put into combating the epidemic and finding addicts when they went missing.”
Lincoln smoothed out the creases he’d made in Carter’s coat while turning all that over in his head. He’d need to go to Molly to confirm what he could, and he still wasn’t sold on Barry not being Dr. Fear or at least involved, especially as he would have been the chief back in Ryan’s early drug days. So why was Jo convinced it was Larry?
“Back to my previous question,” he said. “You’re right. We’re here investigating Dr. Fear.” He went a step further in the trust department. “We suspect it’s an Apex founding family member, which is why we kept Larry and APD in the dark.”
“You were wise to do so,” Jo agreed. “Mark only called me in?—”
“Because we asked him to look into the missing persons backlog,” Carter said.
“He knows how frustrated I’ve been lately, and when you flagged that as potentially connected to the Dr. Fear case, he thought maybe I could connect some dots for you.”
“So finish doing that,” Lincoln said. “Why does Lawrence Petticoat fit the Dr. Fear profile?”
“Have you ever personally known a meth addict? Or done work with them?”
“Not meth,” Carter said. “But I worked a heroin sting before.”
“One of the things addicts often love about the high is the escape from reality.”
By that token, Lincoln thought, then why wasn’t Ryan the more likely suspect? Except he didn’t have gray hair, and the precision of the kills, the methodical crime scenes, the pattern that required travel did not speak to a drug addict’s disposition. It spoke to a cop who knew how to do all those things, who had something to hide, and who wanted to escape.
“He’s stuck here,” Lincoln said. “Larry is stuck here, taking care of his friend, surrounded by the same people who bullied him as a kid, and while they get to escape, by either leaving town or getting high, he’s stuck. And he didn’t even get the family homestead out of it.”
“Claustrophobia,” Carter said.
“Brought on by his life,” Jo said. “And by Apex.”
“And when it all gets to be too much,” Lincoln said, drawing the final conclusion, “he latches on to one of the passers-through and gets out of Apex for a little while. He escapes, as Dr. Fear.”
Fifteen
When ERT finished their preliminary collection, Carter followed Lincoln inside, through the kitchen to the dining area where O’Shea stood next to the cleared-off table. Jo crossed to her husband’s side and rose on her toes, kissing his cheek. “I’m going to head back to town. Keep an eye on Larry.”
“Do we know where he is?” Carter asked. If Larry was in fact Dr. Fear, he would have to put on a hell of a show the next few days, pretending to carry out his law enforcement duties while torturing Barry and Trudy. He wouldn’t have had to do that before, always attacking outside of Apex. That said, after twenty-five years avoiding detection, Carter didn’t put it past Dr. Fear.
“Larry called this in,” O’Shea replied. “Once I got here, I told him to leave. He can’t be the lead investigator on his brother’s disappearance, even if he is the chief.”
“Especially if he’s the prime suspect,” Jo said. O’Shea’s brows furrowed into a deep V, and Jo tilted her head toward the table, to where Carter and Lincoln were taking their seats. “They’ll fill you in.”
O’Shea waited for Jo to leave, for Agent Drake to join them, then demanded an update. By the time Carter and Lincoln were done, O’Shea’s brows had raced the opposite direction, flirting with his hairline. For his part, Drake had propped his elbows on the table and hung his head in his hands.
