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“Agent Cole, it’s Chief Dixon. I need to see you right away. It’s about ... well, it might not mean anything, but it’s that amusement park. It reminded me of something that might be related to what’s happening.”
“Okay. When can you get here?”
“I’m already on my way. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
“All right. See you then.”
He hung up. Now what? This case was driving him crazy.
Jeff barely had time to make himself a cup of coffee when he heard a knock on his door. “Come on in,” he called out.
Chief Dixon walked in with a large file under his arm.
“Coffee?” Jeff asked.
“Sure. Thanks.”
“How do you take it?”
“Black.”
Jeff put an extra cup under the spout, added the K-Cup, and pressed it down. When the coffee was ready, he carried it to the chief. He was already sitting in a chair in front of Jeff’s desk.
“How are the Abbotts doing, Chief?”
“About the same. Thanks for asking.”
Jeff sat down behind his desk. “Okay. What’s going on?”
“I was at the command post yesterday when Agent Donovan left for that old amusement park in Ashville. I remembered something.” He shook his head. “I can’t guarantee it’s connected to this case, but it just seems—”
“Just tell me about it.” Jeff didn’t want to be rude, but he really needed to get to the hospital soon. Monty phoned last night to tell him he and Nathan planned to be there before Logan was taken to surgery, and Jeff wanted to join them.
“Do you know Magic Land’s history?” the chief asked.
“I do now. It was built decades ago by the mine owner who founded the town of Ashville, which was near the park. When his mine gave out, he left, and the whole community pretty much shut down. Now Ashville’s basically a ghost town. Two different times the park was purchased by people who thought they could make it profitable, but that never happened. It finally closed down for good about twelve years ago. Between neglect and vandalism, it’s in bad shape.”
“Right. Except there’s more. One of the reasons the last owners walked away was because of the murders. When they heard about it, that, combined with the struggle to keep the park viable, led them to finally abandon the place.”
Now the chief had his attention. “Murders? What are you talking about?”
“It happened fifteen years ago, when the park was still open. Memorial Day weekend. The police were called that Saturday evening after they’d closed the park gates. A carnival group had come in to add to the park’s festivities, and one of the carnies was missing, as was a teenage girl who’d visited the park that night. It took two days to find their bodies. A lot of woods around that area, but it turned out they weren’t all that far away. Just well hidden.”
“That’s terrible, but I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.”
“It’s ... it’s the girl.” The chief opened the file and removed a photo, then placed it in front of Jeff. “Her name was Emily Marsden.”
Jeff picked up what was obviously a school photo. Emily was a beautiful girl with long black hair and, he noted, bluish-gray eyes.
“A coincidence?” he asked.
“Maybe.” The chief showed him another photo, this one a snapshot. “The carnie was this young man. Thomas Tedder.”
Jeff stared at both photos. “Did they catch who did it?”
The chief shook his head. “The police had nothing to go on. No evidence at the scene. No footprints because of thick ground cover, no weapon, and no indication they’d been killed somewhere else and then their bodies dumped there. They suspect the two went off into those woods together and someone followed them. They interviewed everyone who worked at the amusement park the night they went missing, especially the out-of-town carnies. They couldn’t find a suspect among them or from any of the neighboring towns.” He sighed. “This was a tough one for everyone involved. Emily was a local girl. Both kids were well liked.
“The police finally decided the killer was probably someone from out of town. Someone who’d already taken off. Eventually, they gave up any hope of finding him.”
“So the case has been unsolved all these years?” Jeff asked.
“Right. I’m leaving this with you. I gave the same information to the ASAC at the command post, but she isn’t sure there’s a connection either. I mean, a lot of girls have long black hair, and this was nine years before the first woman went missing. Could those murders be connected to what’s going on now? I think it’s possible, but you’ll have to decide if this could be what you call the trigger for your UNSUB’s actions. I hope it helps.”
Jeff reached into the file and pulled out some other photos. Two bodies. A young man with so many stab wounds he couldn’t count them all. And a girl with so much blood on her white dress that it almost completely hid the bright-yellow daisies.
