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Ellie ended the call as she peeled from the parking lot. The lights of the Java Junkie and parked cars at the college campus disappeared into a blur as she wound up the mountain road.
“Did Cord say anything else? Was there evidence of a child there?”
Ellie shook her head. “He wouldn’t disturb the gravesite, especially if he thought a child was buried there. He’d preserve evidence so we could catch this animal.”
As she sped along, she phoned Deputy Eastwood. “Shondra, I need you to question Professor Roland Pockley’s colleagues and get their impression of him. He may be involved in all this.”
“I’ll get right on it,” Shondra replied.
As she hung up, Derrick dialed the number for Dr. Morehead and put him on speaker.
“You interviewed Radcliff, didn’t you?” Derrick said.
“I did,” the forensic psychiatrist answered. “But he’s not talking, Special Agent Fox. He insists he didn’t kill the two women you’re looking for.”
“Do you believe him?” Derrick asked.
A hesitant pause. “I’m inclined to. Although he thrives on playing cat and mouse.”
Derrick wondered the same thing about Pockley. “By the way, Dr. Morehead, I looked at your credentials. You failed to mention that you attended Widow Peak College around the time Radcliff did. Did you know him?”
A heartbeat passed. “Not personally. There were over two thousand students at that time.”
Derrick’s mind teetered on the edge of disbelief. “Considering your profession, I would have expected you to have followed his trial. And that might have sparked your memory of him but you failed to mention it when we asked you to interview him.”
“I did not say I didn’t know of his case. But I didn’t know him personally. Radcliff is a psychopath, not exactly the type to be social or to make friends.”
“True, but it’s a small college. You may have heard things.”
“I don’t listen to gossip, Agent Fox. And for the record, that was my senior year. I was doing an internship at the time, buried with work, studying for the MCATS and applying to medical schools.”
“You took Dr. Dansen’s criminology class, didn’t you?”
“Yes, my sophomore year. Her class inspired me to study forensic psychiatry.”
“Did you know Frank Wahlburg or Roland Pockley?” Derrick asked.
“Not that I recall. Why?”
“We believe they formed a cult with Reuben Waycross, the man whose body we just found in Widow Lake. He was driving Amy Dean’s car.”
“You think Radcliff is connected to those three men?” Morehead asked.
“It’s possible,” Derrick said. “And that Amy Dean may have been the first victim in a long line of similar murders orchestrated by them.”
“If that’s the case, then I’ll help you get to the truth,” he offered. “As a matter of fact, I just arrived at Memorial Hall for the class reunion. I’ll keep you abreast if I glean any information.”
SIXTY-NINE
“Do you believe he didn’t know them?” Ellie asked as Derrick ended the call.
Derrick shrugged. “I don’t know. I remember some of the trainees I worked with at the Bureau and ones I served with in the military. But not all.”
“I don’t buy it,” Ellie admitted. “Dr. Dansen did mention one of her students was a psychiatrist.” She couldn’t help where her mind took her these days, not after all she’d seen on past cases. “What if psychiatry is a channel for his own criminal mind?”
“It’s possible, I suppose,” Derrick said. “But the Bureau has used him on numerous cases and no one has ever considered him suspicious. Just brilliant.”
The sky grew darker as they dove into the higher part of the mountains, the tips of the trees shrouded in black clouds. Dried up crops and wilting grass definitely in need of rain stretched before them, an outbreaking of brush fires a real threat.
