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“Get me some paper and I’ll write it all down. But you have to get me an interview with that pretty reporter, Angelica Gomez.” A smile lit his eyes. “The whole world is going to know Roland Pockley.”
ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FIVE
Derrick had no intention of giving Pockley an interview with Angelica Gomez. He didn’t bargain with killers.
But he had to play along.
While Pockley made the list, Derrick took a break in Ellie’s office and researched Harvey.
He’d never been arrested and had no traffic violations. Mother died when he was two so raised by a single father. His father worked at a fish camp off the AT and died eleven years ago.
The timing of that could be significant. He’d lost his hunting partner and had to find another.
He’d accomplished that by meeting the others in Dr. Dansen’s class. From there, he’d attended a crime scene investigations program. He’d worked in Savannah for a while before moving to Widow Peak, where he’d joined local law enforcement, and had been working in the area for the last few years.
Derrick phoned Sergeant Williams, head of the ERT. He seemed just as shocked as Derrick and Ellie that Harvey was not only a killer, but he’d documented the crimes for his own personal collection. With his training, he knew how to protect himself from detection.
“Did you ever sense anything was off about him?” Derrick asked.
“No,” Sergeant Williams said. “He paid great attention to detail which made him good at his job. Although, he wasn’t social with any of the other investigators and definitely was a loner.” He paused. “We found recordings of each murder in a safe in his house. I’ll send them over.
Derrick thanked him and ended the call, then went to see if Pockley had finished his list.
As he entered, Pockley was thumping the pen on the table. He pushed the list toward Derrick with a smirk.
Derrick examined it and was satisfied that Pockley had detailed dates and names. Pockley had killed the two women Derrick had questioned Radcliff about.
Derrick would compare the list to the tapes Williams was sending over.
It was mindboggling that this conspiracy had gone on for a decade and no one had put it together.
On the table, Derrick laid a photo of the graveyard of animals McClain had discovered.
“This was your doing?” Derrick asked.
“Actually, that was Harvey’s idea,” he said. “His father was a hunter and took him with him in the woods when he was a kid. He talked about the thrill of lying in wait, stalking his target, then striking.”
“But you all participated in it?”
Pockley nodded. “It was practice. We kept score on how many each one of us killed just as his father made him do. His father filmed him pulling the trigger his first time when he was ten.”
That must have been how Harvey got the idea to film the murders.
“So his appetite for murder was whetted at an early age,” Derrick commented.
Pockley nodded. “The animals were fun but after a while we decided to up the game. Then Harvey told us about the time his father kidnapped a woman. He let her out in the woods and told her to run. Then he tracked her down and shot her.”
Derrick swallowed hard at the image that formed in his mind. One sadistic killer had bred another.
ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX
BLUFF COUNTY HOSPITAL
Lorna Bea twisted the hospital sheet in her hands, the devastation of learning what her father had done crushing her. No, she couldnotcall him her father, not ever again.
His name was Frank Wahlburg and he was a monster. He’d murdered her mother in cold blood. And he was supposed to kill her.
The fact that he’d chickened out made no difference. He’d taken her mother from her and kidnapped her, then lied about who he was.
