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Natalie violently rubbed her face then slapped herself on the cheek, like she was psyching herself up for a big game. “Look, I don’t know the specifics, but Kath said she got some crazy messages after she was on TV. That’s why you won’t find her on social media or anything. She deleted everything.”
Ella saw the puzzle arrange itself. Katherine might have shaken the cage that held the misogynists and paid a fatal price. She made a mental note to look into the owner of this nursing home as soon as she got to the precinct, and to recover Katherine’s erased messages from her personal and IAFV accounts. Digging into someone’s private social media interaction was an arduous process and a legal gray area, but Ella had a pal in tech who could get it done within the hour. Act first, worry about the paperwork second. That was how she liked it.
Natalie continued, “Sorry, I didn’t want to talk about this. I think Katherine made a mistake by exposing herself like that. But that was her. Fearless. Always fighting for the cause. But… look where it got her.”
Ella went and sat next to Natalie, put her hand on her shoulder. Natalie shifted her body around, accepting the approach. “None of this is Katherine’s fault. She was a warrior in a world full of cowards. We need more women like her.”
Natalie nodded, curled back up and said, “You’ll find who did this, won’t you?”
Ella got to her feet, not leaving without giving Natalie something to cling to. “Yes we will. Thanks to you, we have a lot to look into.” Ella placed her card on the fireplace. “Call us if you think of anything.”
The agents headed for the door, saw themselves out. When they reached the car, Ripley asked, “Precinct now? We’ve got a lot to look into.”
“Not yet,” said Ella. They might have intel on Katherine Parkinson, but there was another, possibly unconnected homicide to investigate too. “We should stop by the first victim’s crime scene. We still need to determine whether or not these two murders are related. If they are, something at the scene will tell us so.”
In the car, Ripley programmed the GPS for Vanessa May’s house. “Jesus, it’s ten miles away.”
A ten-mile geographical spread, especially for a first-time killer, was unlikely. Lust murderers tended to keep their murders within a contained area of around four to five miles, usually somewhere anchored by a familiar location like a home or workplace.
“Which is yet another clue that this is the work of two separate unsubs. Come on, we need to figure out exactly what we’re dealing with here.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ella had seen carbon copies of Vanessa May’s house in every suburb in America. Vanessa’s residence was postcard-pretty and characterless, with a neat front lawn, trimmed shrubbery, and a fresh pristinely white exterior. At a mere glance, it was worlds apart from the rough-around-the-edges trappings of the last crime scene – another tick in the two-unsubs column.
She spotted two figures waiting for her and Ripley on the driveway, one in uniform and one in tears. Ella watched a short hysterical woman pace up and down, distress lingering on every inch of her pale white surface. Ella left the car and placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder. The physical touch often had a magical calming effect.
“Friend of Vanessa’s?” Ella asked.
The woman stopped pacing and wiped her tears. “Yes. Sorry. Being here brought it all back.”
Ripley first saw to the waiting officer as he unlocked the door to Vanessa’s home for them. Then she joined Ella and her new friend.
Ella said, “I’m Agent Dark and this is Agent Ripley. You knew the victim well?”
The woman pushed a clump of curly dark hair behind her ears and said, “Friend. Neighbor. My name’s Tina. I’m the one who found Vanessa. The cop asked me to come meet with you.”
Tina must have been in her forties, smartly dressed and traditional with a slightly gaunt face that was amplified by her distress. “We appreciate you coming out, Tina. Could you talk us through what happened?”
“Two nights ago. It must have been midnight, maybe a little later. I heard a knocking, then a terrible scream, then some banging against the wall. Two voices, Vanessa’s and some guy’s. I thought Vanessa might have been getting wild or something, but I feared the worst. Then I heard her back door slide open – you can hear that thing creak from a mile away.” Tina trailed off.
Ripley asked her, “How did you find her?”
“I knocked on her door. We look out for each other around here. I thought maybe her husband had come back. Couldn’t see anyone even though the back door was wide open, so I called out. No reply. Something drew me to the bedroom, and that’s when I saw her lying there like a mannequin.”
Tina began pacing up and down again, away from the agents, peering through the window into Vanessa’s home. The sight brought a new wave of tears.
Ella turned to Ripley, one word hanging silently between them. The one word that always stood out like a beacon of light in the darkness.
Husband.
Back in Ella’s days with the Virginia PD, officers would immediately joke thatthe husband did itwhenever a dead woman fell into their laps. Thankfully, Ella hadn’t heard such non-PC comments in a long while, even though it was a sad statistic that around fifty women were killed by their husbands every week in the United States. It was a cliché for a reason.
“Tina, Vanessa had a husband? Her file says single.”
The neighbor spun back around. “Oh, she had a husband once. Real piece of work. They are divorced now, but he was still on her tail. Always chasing, begging her to take him back. Name is Lance Rumford.”
Ella made a note of it. Sometimes murderers hid the real target of their intentions among a batch to alleviate suspicion; sometimes they got a taste for murder after the first and wanted to chase that high. When Ella got to the precinct, she needed to look into this man.
