“Okay, that’s the last I’m gonna say about it… So listen, I’m callin’ ‘cause I ran your stuff for ya’.”
“Were you able to keep it off the books?”
“Flew as low as I could,” he told her. “I owe an acquaintance out in KC a bottl’a bourbon. The really good shit.”
“For what?”
“Well, it is Christmas Eve ya’know… Gettin’ things done on the sly wasn’t exactly easy.”
“This acquaintance a badge?” she asked.
He snorted. “Trust me, you’re better off not knowin’.”
“Yeah, okay. I get it,” she said, then thought silently to herself, Aren’t we a pair, trying to protect each other… Playing out our own version of the Gift of the Magi.
Ben added, “Oh, by the way, you’re payin’ for the bourbon, just so ya’ know.”
“Am I getting my money’s worth?” she asked.
“Guess it depends,” he told her. “Number one, your buddy the sheriff is damn near a fuckin’ Boy Scout.”
“That good, huh?”
“Yeah. Just about as clean as they come. Did twenty-four years with the KCPD, Missouri by the way… Fifteen of those were as a detective, and ten of those were spent heading up a child predator task force.”
Her mind wandered for a moment to the file attached to the cryptic email and what it had contained, but she decided it would be better to keep the information to herself for the moment. Instead she replied, “Given the history, I can easily see that. Merrie Callahan’s abduction was likely the truly defining moment in his career.”
“No shit… Well, he had a hell of a clearance rate on cases too, so I see what ya’ mean about the whole Sherlock thing. He was directly responsible for putting away a whole lotta seriously sick fucks… On top of that he received several honors…boatload of commendations… Oh, and never fired his service weapon in the line of duty.”
“Lucky bastard…” Constance breathed.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Ben agreed. “Anyway, married to Kathy Carmichael, three daughters, blah, blah, blah. Normal stuff, nothin’ spectacular. Retired from KCPD, hung out there for a while and did some consulting for the task force, then moved back ta’ Hulis in oh-two. Elected sheriff oh-three in a special election ta’ fill the vacated post, and that’s where he’s been ever since. Re-elected oh-four and oh-eight.”
“Two-Thousand Three was when the first murder occurred,” Constance announced.
“So you thinkin’ it’s him? He’d have the inside info, and he’d know how ta’ cover shit up.”
“Yeah, that’s true…but…no…” she replied, drawing out the word and ending it with a fat pause. “I’ll admit it’s a weird coincidence, that’s for sure.”
“Well, there was one other thing that showed up,” Ben said. “Don’t know if it means anything.”
“What’s that?”
“In oh-four someone from the FBI recommended Sheriff Sherlock be put on administrative leave pending a psych eval.”
“Who?”
“Dunno. Paper trail’s thin as one-ply. Lucky it showed up at all ta’ be honest. Seems that it came outta your office in Saint Louis though.”
“Curious,” she muttered. “Well apparently they didn’t find anything, or he wouldn’t still be sheriff in this county, or anywhere else for that matter.”
“Nope. Nothin’. Passed with flyin’ colors. But ya’know, it still might make ya’ wanna rethink your position on this guy.”
Constance quietly considered his point, then finally said, “No. I just really can’t see it, unless he’s got me completely snowed.”
“Well, don’t turn your back on ‘im, okay?”
“Don’t worry. What else?”
“Well, that’s it for him. There was nothin’ on Merrie Callahan at all. And the only thing I could find on Colson was his record prior ta seventy-five and his time served at Gumbo. Real sick fuck, that one.”
“You won’t get any argument from me,” she replied. “But I already have all that info.”
“Well, then that was a bust.”
“I figured it would be. Just needed to check. What about Reese? Anything?
“Actually, yeah. The pastor is a different story.”
“What did you find?”
“Well, he’s clean as far as an NCIC search…”
“I guess I’m not surprised by that,” she grumbled.
“But like I said, I still managed to dig up somethin’. Just for the hell of it I had a genealogist friend of mine pull a court records search on divorces in Missouri. Took a bit of siftin’ after the fact since I told ‘im to shotgun it so it’d be less conspicuous, but he found your guy,” he explained. There was a quick shuffle of paper at the other end of the line, then he said, “Wanda Corinne Reese versus Edgar Virgil Reese, dissolution of marriage. Filed and final in seventy-seven.”
“Seventy-seven…” Constance expressed her thoughts aloud. “Okay, so based on what I was told his mental breakdown occurred prior to the divorce, so it had to have happened before seventy-seven then…”
“Yeah…well while I was lookin’ I accidentally ran across somethin’ else. Not sure if it’s important or not, but turns out that from seventy-three till early seventy-six, Pastor Edgar Reese was Deputy Sheriff Edgar Reese.”
“You’re right… That is interesting,” she said. “Did he quit or was he fired?”
“There was a hearing, but I couldn’t get details. Might have been a psych eval or somethin’.”
“How early in seventy-six?” Constance asked.
There was a sound of paper rustling as Ben checked his notes. “Says here his service to the citizens of Hulis ended mid-January.”
“That’s not long after the Merrie Callahan abduction.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Like I said, don’t know if it means anything, but it seems a little hinky ta’ me. I mean, it’s a small town and he almost had ta’ be involved in the investigation back in seventy-five. If these murders are some kinda copycat, maybe he actually does know somethin’. Hell, maybe he’s actually your guy. Ya’ already know he’s a wingnut.”
Constance thought about the new information for a moment, then brought her free hand up and stared at her nails, remembering Reese’s seeming agitation over them earlier in the day. Still gazing at the disco pink lacquer she breathed, “It definitely makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
Just under an hour later, Constance was out the door and on her way to the sheriff’s office. Fortunately, at some point while she was sleeping, the lot had been at least partially plowed, so she wasn’t going to be faced with another frigid stroll. Good thing too, because strapping herself into an ice-cold bulletproof vest had been a rude enough awakening as far as she was concerned.
“My life upon this globe, is very brief,” replied the Ghost. “It ends tonight.”
CHAPTER 22
6:38 P.M. – December 24, 2010
Sheriff’s Department
Hulis Township – Northern Missouri
“Was wonderin’ when you’d show up,” Sheriff Carmichael said as Constance dragged in through the door of his office and then without a single word parked herself in the straight-backed chair across from him.
He waited while she settled herself, absently inspecting the worn point on the number two pencil he held threaded through his fingers. After a quick frown he tossed it atop the folded newspaper on the desk in front of him, abandoning the crossword puzzle he had been half-heartedly working, and focused his attention on the petite federal agent.
“I left a message for you with Clovis this morning,” she eventually replied, her voice hoarse and emotionless.
“Yeah, she told me.”
“Sorry. I was following up some leads. She said you’d be here anyway.”
He nodded. “Well, that’s true enough… So…leads, huh? I could go for some good news. Find anything you wanna share?”
Constance didn’t answer immediately. The information in the recently cracked electronic document had only served to add a whole new layer of complexity to this case, raising more questions instead of giving answers to those that had already plagued the investigation for years. Since she didn’t know exactly what Carmichael was keeping from her, it seemed prudent to play some things close to the vest for the moment, and the contents of that document were chief among them. However, there definitely was one thing she wanted to discuss with him.