Mounted Read online

  “All right. I’m going to make some calls on that as soon as we’re done here. I want to see that vehicle and talk to whoever found it.”

  “You’re thinking that it could be under circumstances similar to how Katelyn Willard’s was found,” Duffield said.

  “Well, it’s a thought,” I said. “We need to know one way or another.”

  “Agreed,” Duffield said.

  “If you need us to go through it, just let me know, and I’ll get a team out,” Witting, the forensics lead said—those were the only words he spoke during the meeting.

  I nodded.

  Duffield finished compiling his notes and went around the room with questions he needed clarification on—then he wrapped the meeting and instructed everyone to be in by eight the next morning for the conference at nine.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  William had snapped the final photos of his completed mount of Courtney Mouser with both his cell phone and his film camera. He scooted his chair closer to the table the mount was sitting on.

  “So much better,” he said. “I think this may just work out.”

  He’d prepped the head in the same fashion as the others, prior to testing out his new technique. Her skin had been removed from the skull and gently fleshed—he’d sealed the back with spray lacquer. The woman’s eyes and brain had been removed from her skull prior to him boiling it and removing the bits of flesh that remained. Her hair had been set aside, trimmed and dyed. William had sculpted the modeling clay to the skull and replaced the facial skin. After that, as he’d been doing with the hands, he dunked the head in a pot of melted flesh-tone wax. When the wax dried, he smoothed it to a perfect shape, cut the wax away from the glass eyes, applied false eyelashes, airbrushed features, and replaced the hair. The completed result was far superior to the previous attempts.

  William was almost ready to place the mount on the wall, but he had something else in mind first. He scooted his chair back, took the mount from the table, and walked downstairs to the basement. He stood before the laundry room door, and an uncontainable smile broke across his face. William set the mount outside the door and entered. He looked to the right, at Erin in her cage—both of her hands were through the metal bars and holding the lock that secured the door. William stared at her wrists and saw the handcuffs were removed. His eyes went to her ankles, where her shackles were also gone. Erin’s head quickly snapped up, and her eyes met his. She yanked her hands from the lock and immediately retreated to the back of the cage and away from the door.

  “Well, well, well. It looks like you’ve been busy down here,” he said.

  She didn’t respond.

  “Pick up the cuffs and place them back around your ankles. Do the same with the ones that should be around your wrists.”

  “No.”

  “Either do it, or I’ll leave you to starve to death in that little cage, covered in your own mess. Don’t think for a second that I won’t. I’ll brick off this damn room and leave you in here to rot.”

  He stared through the metal bars at her and crossed his arms over his chest while he waited. A solid minute of silence passed before she began moving and obeying his orders. She clicked the cuffs back around her ankles and then resecured her wrists.

  “What did you get a hold of to get you out of the cuffs?” he asked. “Toss it onto the floor. Outside the cage.”

  “I don’t have anything,” she said.

  “Right.” William approached, crouched, and looked around the lock area where her hands had been when he walked into the room. He spotted a small piece of metal hanging from the keyhole of the lock. He couldn’t identify the piece or where it might have come from. “Where did you find this?” He pulled the piece of metal from the lock and held up the small, thin scrap, not much bigger than a toothpick, in front of his eyes.

  Erin said nothing.

  “Looks like I walked in just in time.” William walked to the washbasin beside the washer and dropped the piece of metal into the drain. Then, he returned to Erin and knelt in front of the door. He inspected the lock and gave the door a yank. “It looks like your lock-picking skills still need some work.”

  “I only needed another few minutes,” she said with a bit of a smile. “I will get out of here.”

  “Good luck with that.” William ran his knuckles across the door of the cage, making a thump with each bar they hit. “So are you ready for the big reveal?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “It goes along with what I told you that I wanted you to think about earlier.”

  She said nothing.

  “This has all been leading up to this.” William smiled, baring his teeth at her. “Here it comes.” He rose from in front of the cage, walked to the laundry-room door, and scooped up the mount from just outside. He walked it back to Erin and held it next to the bars as he crouched back down. “Ta-da! What do you think?”

  Her eyes were locked on the mounted woman’s head.

  “You see how the hands are arranged? That’s going to be where you hold the microphone. See, I’ve been practicing building these. This one here is my latest. I think her name was Courtney or some shit. I dunked her head in wax after I peeled her face off, scooped out her brain, and got her all ready. I think the wax will do the trick so she doesn’t start decomposing like the others.”

  Erin’s eyes remained fixed on the mount. She still didn’t make a sound.

  “Well? Come on. Don’t leave me hanging.” William chuckled to himself. “Don’t leave me hanging. That kind of fits with the whole mount thing.”

  William watched her. She appeared to be leaning in to get a better look at his creation.

  “Get up and close. She won’t bite.” He put the mount just an inch from the metal bars. “Arr rarr rarr!” William shouted, making his best dog impression as he yanked the head back and forth.

  Erin slinked back to the far end of her crate. “That’s not real.”

  “It most certainly is,” William said. “Well, do you see the resemblance? She looks just like you. Same hair, same eyes, same high cheekbones and trashy-looking fake eyelashes. I imagine your mount will be pretty spot-on. I’ve had plenty of practice.”

  “You’re not scaring me with your little game here,” Erin said. “And your whole threat and what you just described don’t really work together.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A wax head above a fireplace?”

  “Oh, yeah, the fireplace here doesn’t work, so we’ll be fine,” he said. “Aside from that, that was more of me just saying it. Hell, I didn’t even have a fireplace at the time. Just kind of a coincidence that I do now. That is where you’re going to go, though. So I guess it all kind of works out.”

  “Whatever. More little games,” she said.

  William stood, took a few steps back, and stared at her in her enclosure. His nose twitched. Annoyance overtook him because she still didn’t believe her fate. William turned and left the room without saying a word. He walked to the den, hung the mount on the wall by the cable hanger on the back, and took a moment to straighten it. He returned to the laundry room and picked up the chain he’d been using to walk Erin. William fished the cage key from his pocket, knelt, and unlocked the door. He jammed his foot in front of it so it wouldn’t open all the way.

  “Hands through the gap,” he said.

  The woman didn’t obey.

  “Put your damn hands through, or I’ll get the pole.”

  Erin sat in the back corner of her cage, not moving.

  “Do I need to count like you’re a child?”

  She crawled on her knees to the door and placed her hands through the gap. William attached the chain and let the door open. Erin crawled out on her hands and knees.

  “Stand,” William said.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Not far. Come on.” William walked toward the door and tugged at the chain.

  Erin, her ankles shackled, shuffled after him. Wi
lliam led her from the laundry room and paused a few steps into the larger room with the table in the center. He looked back at Erin, who’d stopped just outside the doorway of the laundry room.

  “This is what you wouldn’t let me see? A room covered in plastic?”

  “Well, it’s usually covered in blood. Sometimes there’s a headless body on the table when you come through. I wanted the whole thing to be a surprise.”

  She said nothing but rolled her eyes.

  “This one or one of the far ones?” William asked.

  “What?”

  “Freezers,” William said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  He said nothing and tugged at the chain, leading her to the chest freezer across the room. He stopped before it and pulled back the plastic hanging over it. “Lift the lid and have a look inside.”

  She didn’t move.

  “You’re so difficult.” He wrapped the chain around his left forearm in case she tried to get away and reached out his right hand. His fingers moved under the lip of the chest freezer’s lid and lifted it up. The cold air escaping the freezer hung before them. “Well, have a look.” William stared at Erin, waiting for her reaction.

  She looked inside. William watched the horror cover her face as she stared down at the headless, handless, frozen female corpses.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I sat at an empty desk in the serial-crimes unit and waited on hold for a deputy by the name of Eric Vernon. After a couple phone calls to the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, I’d learned April Backer’s car had been released to her family, and the deputy I was waiting on hold for was the first to respond to the vehicle. A minute or two later, a man came on the line.

  “Deputy Vernon,” he said.

  “Agent Hank Rawlings. I’ve been informed that you were the first to respond to the abandoned vehicle belonging to an April Backer. I had a couple of questions regarding the vehicle.”

  “I tagged it,” he said. “I didn’t hear about anything else regarding her being reported missing until days later, and the car had already been towed.”

  “You tagged it, meaning a tow-away warning?” I asked.

  “Correct,” he said.

  “Okay. Well, the questions I have are regarding the vehicle itself if you have a second.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Were her personal items inside? Purse, phone?”

  “I did a quick look through with my flashlight. I didn’t see a purse or phone or anything, though. Yet someone could have taken them from the vehicle. It was open.”

  “Was the driver’s window down?” I asked.

  “Actually, yes, it was,” he said.

  Got him. That was the first real clue linking things together. We more than likely had our guy on video. Another thought came just as quickly—we also had another possible victim.

  “What about the keys? Were they in the ignition?” I asked.

  “I guess I didn’t really look. The tow company might know. I’m pretty sure they have to do a check-in or walk around or whatever you want to call it with the vehicles they bring into their lot.”

  “Do you know the name of the company that towed it?” I asked.

  “The place we use is called Shelby Tow and Haul. Their lot is just down the road from the station here.”

  I pulled out my notepad and a pen and wrote down the name of the tow company. “Phone number there?” I tapped the tip of the pen on the page.

  “I don’t know it off hand,” he said.

  “Do they tow twenty-four hours a day?” I asked.

  “They do.”

  “Okay. I’ll just look the place up. I appreciate the help.”

  I clicked off from the call and searched the tow-truck company on my phone. A listing came up that included business hours for their office, which had closed a good hour and a half prior. I tried their twenty-four-hour tow line to see if I’d have any luck. The phone rang in my ear.

  “Shelby Tow,” a man answered. “This is Herb.”

  “Hi, maybe you can help me out. My name is Agent Hank Rawlings with the FBI. I actually had a question on a vehicle that you guys picked up.”

  “What’s the question?”

  “Well, I need to know if the keys were in it when it was towed.”

  “What kind of car, and how long ago was it picked up?” he asked.

  “One second.” I dug through the file to find the information from the missing-person report. “The vehicle was a 2003 Honda. One week and one day ago.”

  “So that was last Monday, then?”

  “Correct.”

  “That would have been Clint who picked it up,” he said. “I have Mondays off. You’d probably want to speak with him.”

  “Last name?” I asked.

  “Ruben.”

  I jotted the driver’s name down. “And do you have a number for this Clint?”

  “Well, I’d probably want to check with him before handing out his phone number. I’d appreciate it if he did the same for me.”

  “Can you do that for me?” I asked. “I’m knee-deep in an investigation and need to get this checked off my list. It’s kind of time sensitive.”

  “I guess I can give him a ring.”

  “Appreciate it,” I said. “Let me give you my direct number to call me back.”

  He took my number down, and I clicked off. I scooted my chair back and walked to Duffield’s office. He stood at his door, clicking off the lights inside.

  “Duffield,” I said. “Our guy on the video might actually be our guy.”

  “Did you find something out with the car?” he asked.

  “I just got off the phone with the deputy who put a tow-away warning on April Backer’s car. He said the window was down when he came up on it, just like Katelyn Willard’s.”

  “Were her personal effects still inside?”

  “He said he didn’t see anything, but someone seeing a car with the window down out on the side of the road in the country could have stopped and helped themselves.”

  “Not out of the question,” he said.

  “I tried the company that towed it. I’m waiting on a call back to see if the keys were still in it when they showed to take it away.”

  “It would help,” Duffield said. “Just the window down, while probably not a normal occurrence for a vehicle left on the side of the road, could still be a coincidence. If we start adding a couple of things to that, keys in the ignition and the like, we could pretty safely link it up with Katelyn Willard’s abduction.”

  “Shit. I just thought of a couple of other things that could help.”

  “What’s that?”

  “In the video, the guy never hands back whatever the paper was that Katelyn Willard handed him,” I said. “Odds are it was her vehicle registration, but we need to be certain. I need to check to see if it is missing from her vehicle. Then, I need to see if the registration from April Backer’s car is in the vehicle or not.”

  “Both missing would be another connection,” Duffield said. “I was just about to head home, but if you need a hand, I could probably stick around.”

  “No, that’s fine,” I said. “Beth already left. I’m just going to take care of these couple things and call it a wrap for the night anyway.”

  “All right. If you come up with something, give me a ring.”

  “I will,” I said. “Have a good night.”

  Duffield nodded and disappeared down the hall. I walked back to the empty desk and had a seat. I took out my cell phone, found the number for the Oldham County Sheriff’s Office, and dialed. After a recording came on instructing me to dial 9-1-1 if I had an emergency, I pressed zero and was connected to the front desk.

  “Oldham County Sheriff,” a man said in a gruff voice.

  “Agent Hank Rawlings, FBI. Is Chief Deputy King in?”

  “I think he’s gone for the evening,” he said. “Did you want me to put you through to his desk to leave a message?”

  �
��Actually, I don’t think I necessarily need the chief deputy. I’m looking to see where the vehicle belonging to Katelyn Willard is. She’s a woman who was reported missing yesterday.”

  “Let me see if there is anyone around that can help you out with that. Can you hold for me for just a minute?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I heard a click and then some light jazz music. A second later, a beep sounded in my ear, signaling that I had another call. I took the phone from my ear and glanced at the screen. The call was coming from a number I didn’t recognize. I clicked over.

  “Hank Rawlings,” I said.

  “This is Clint Ruben with Shelby Tow and Haul. I just got a call from Herb Spiner, saying you had a couple of questions about a vehicle.”

  “Yes, I do actually. Can you hold on one second for me?”

  “No problem,” he said.

  I clicked over to the call on the other line, heard jazz music, and clicked back.

  “Still there?” I asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Okay, basically I needed to know if the keys were in the vehicle when you arrived to tow it.”

  “In the vehicle, no. But I found them when I was hooking the car up—kicked them, actually. The owner must have dropped them when they were trying to deal with the flat, I guess.”

  “Were there any personal items in the car? Phone or purse?”

  “I didn’t see either,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “What’s going on with this vehicle, anyway?” he asked. “I mean, that the FBI is calling and questioning about it.”

  “It’s an open investigation, so I can’t really discuss it.”

  “Figured as much.”

  “I appreciate the call back,” I said.

  “Yup.”

  “Take care.” I clicked back to the other call. The music was still playing, so I sat and waited another three or four minutes until the gruff-sounding dispatcher came back on the line.

  “Agent?” the man asked.

  “I’m here.”

  “All right. I asked around the station here a bit and didn’t get anyone who really had any info on this vehicle, so I called the chief deputy at home. He wanted me to give you his number so you could just call him.”