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“About?”
“Being engaged. She said they were engaged for a few weeks, and told Jamie Finch that they’d dated for ‘a while.’ Cal said they were never engaged, that the relationship wasn’t all that serious, they only went out a few times, and he made a mistake sleeping with her after a wedding when he was drunk.”
“Does he have reason to lie?”
“His girlfriend. He didn’t tell Jamie about his relationship with Marcy, even after she moved here, even when he had an opportunity. He didn’t tell her about being pulled over or running into Marcy all over town, until after Marcy outed their relationship to Jamie at the park. Marcy admitted to pulling him over and outing their relationship, said she assumed Jamie knew. She feels bad.”
“You don’t believe her?”
“I don’t have any reason tonotbelieve her.”
“But.”
“But.” Kara wanted to know who was lying. If Cal was lying, the reasons could be innocuous—he didn’t want to hurt his fiancée. It didn’t bode well for their future, but hey, at least it would make sense.
But if Marcy had lied, that was a whole other problem.
“She wasn’t suspicious with your questions?”
Kara tilted her chin up. “I’m insulted.”
Matt looked at his phone. “Catherine has a profile and Ryder found additional information. Wants us in for a debrief.”
He looked at her as if he wanted to say something else, but the streetlight changed, and they crossed the street.
Once everyone—including Michael Harris and Jim Esteban—was gathered and seated in the conference room, Catherine began. She stood in front of the whiteboard, which had been completely erased. Kara was more than a little interested in her profile.
“Kara brought up a point earlier that while the sheriff has been more than helpful, because Friday Harbor is a small town our investigation may be compromised. In light of that, I thought keeping key information off the whiteboard was prudent. But I’m going to use it for the moment to illustrate what we’ve learned so far. Agent Neil Devereaux thought that five deaths, all considered accidents, were suspicious. In order to come up with a profile, I looked into these cases with the assumption that they were connected as homicides.”
She wrote five names on the board:
Jason Mott
Brian Stevens
Eric Travers
Missy Douglas
Billy Clark
Kara leaned forward, interested to hear if Catherine had been able to connect the deaths.
“With Kara’s help, Ryder has been instrumental in finding missing information,” Catherine said. “Neil took years to find much of this information because he didn’t have a specific direction, but Ryder was able to uncover important facts after re-creating Neil’s notes and emails in only two days. There are still some holes and some follow-up with local agencies, but we have enough information to put together a profile—accurate if, and only if, Neil’s theory is right, and these five people were all murdered by the same person.”
Catherine drank some water and continued.
“I managed to reach Travers’s wife as well as Douglas’s fiancé. Both had spoken to Neil earlier this year but didn’t have much new information to share with me. Douglas’s fiancé had the impression that Neil was writing a book about missing persons, but he couldn’t specifically say that Neil had told him that. Regardless, I was looking to fill some holes in the information we have.
“My profile is questionable for a number of reasons,” said Catherine. “It makes several assumptions, including that Neil Devereaux was the target, and the explosion was to hide the fact that he was the target. In my experience, broad acts like the bombing ofWater Lilyrarely have individual targets. At the same time, I trust Neil Devereaux as a reasoned and experienced FBI agent. He had been looking into these deaths, and he either saw something that we don’t or his analysis was removed from his possession. If Agent Devereaux had additional information on the Mowich Lake drownings, or the other deaths, where is it? Either he hid the information for some reason, he had it with him when the boat exploded, or it was stolen.
“I’m making more assumptions than I’m comfortable with, but we’re also on a clock here, not just because the bomber may seek to further point fingers at Island Protectors, which could result in additional lives lost, but because according to Jessica Mott, Neil believed that the killer was a summer resident. That both helps and hinders our investigation. A residentallsummer, or someone who comes here for two weeks for vacation? We don’t know. So what I’m focusing my profile on is a person who killed five people over a thirteen-year period. I’m coming at this from the idea that if Neil showed up at my office at Quantico and offered this evidence, what would I say?”
Catherine turned to the board, writing as she spoke. “Neil believed that these five people were murdered and their deaths were made to look like accidents.
“Two college boys who drowned in an icy lake after drinking too much.
“A hiker who disappeared while on a treacherous path, leaving camp early one morning, alone. A teacher sailing alone, got drunk and drowned after being knocked unconscious by the boom on his sailboat. Neither body was ever found.
