Beck consulted the list on her phone and checked off each of the case files, ending with the one for Macy’s friend, Lauren Webb. The first thing that had stood out while she pulled files from the boxes was the fact that they weren’t all grouped together. Macy had acted like it was a known fact the murders had been linked, and if that were true, it wouldn’t make sense to file them separately. She didn’t need a detective shield to know that much.
You’re reading too much into this. Just keep your end of the bargain—no need to go overboard.
Beck shrugged off her inner voice. So far, looking up these cases files was the most interesting thing she’d done since being promoted. For a moment, she flashed back to riding with Macy to the murder scene yesterday. On the drive, she’d been jacked up with the excitement and nervous anticipation of rolling up on a crime scene, and with her shield in her pocket, even more so than ever before. But when they’d arrived, she’d been struck with the disappointment of being stuck waiting in the car because she was neither assigned to the case nor welcome among most of her colleagues. Her disappointment had turned to stubborn resolve, prompting her to leave the car and follow Macy to the scene. It had been a stupid idea. She’d managed not to run into any of the cops gathered there, but she’d seen Detective Hanlon looking in her direction, and she likely would’ve been discovered had she stayed much longer. Her carelessness could’ve cost her her future with the department which led her to wonder if she even had a future here—a thought that was both paralyzing and freeing at the same time.
She looked around the room. She might not be able to escape this unit, but there were plenty of cases she could work to solve right here in this room. As long as she kept up with the useless log Mendoza insisted she focus on, she could do whatever she wanted with the rest of the time she was assigned to this outpost. Why not start with the case of the Parks and Rec Killer.
If she was going to really dig into this project, she should probably know a little more about the circumstances surrounding the death of Macy’s best friend. She stared at the file. It was thinner than she would’ve expected after all these years, but she wasn’t sure what she expected. The boxes she’d retrieved the files from were covered in dust. It wasn’t like someone was dropping in every so often to line the folders with new facts and findings. As much as she hated to admit it, when the Parks and Rec Killer stopped his spree, there’d been some new pressing case, ready to take its place. The media was always ready to move on to the next new thing, which left the officers on the force to choose between focusing their assets on older cases or the shiny new ones and the shiny ones almost always won out.
She turned to her computer and typed Parks and Rec Killer into the search engine. Rows and rows of responses confirmed there had indeed been a serial killer, and at the time anyway, the Dallas police believed the cases lined on the table in front of her were all connected by virtue of being his victims. She scrolled through the first few articles, curious about the news coverage at the time, and found several sensational articles all seemingly designed to spark fear in the hearts of young women who might be inclined to visit the city’s parks alone. She lingered over the Dallas Gazette articles, checking the byline, but the reporter’s name was Wayne not Macy. She wasn’t sure why she’d expected to see Macy’s name since she knew Macy had only been an intern at the time. Maybe the author’s strong voice reminded her of the other articles Macy had written. Maybe it was simply the way most reporters recounted the facts, and she was using her speculation as an excuse to think about Macy.
As if she needed one.
She shrugged off the thought and turned her attention back to the files. The locations were all different, but the manner and means the killer had employed were essentially the same in each case. The victim had been found within fifty feet of the main trail at each location, hog-tied—likely postmortem—and strangled by a length of plain hemp rope that could’ve been purchased anywhere. The police hadn’t recovered any DNA from the scene other than that of the victim and there were no signs of a struggle—no defensive wounds, no skin of the killer under the victim’s fingernails. No shoe prints or evidence to indicate a body had been dragged through the dirt. No witnesses, no security camera footage. The only evidence the killer had ever been at the scene was the body he left behind.
She found some notes from one of the detectives indicating they had tried to find a connection between the victims, but other than the fact they were all female and in their early twenties, they didn’t have a lot in common. Two college students, a teacher, a hair stylist, and an accountant. She kept reading—a quest to use an objective perspective to find an overlooked clue—and was completely immersed in the reports when a loud bang caused her to jerk to attention.
She looked up to see Mendoza leading a woman into the room and noticed she’d opened the door with such force it had swung into one of the metal shelving units nearby.
“Ramsey, come here,” Mendoza said.
She surreptitiously slid a book over the stack of files she’d been reviewing and joined Mendoza and the other woman, who she now recognized as Councilwoman Renee Villa, on the other side of the room. When she reached them, Mendoza smiled, and it struck Beck immediately that something was off since this was the first time she’d seen her sporting something other than a surly look. She glanced at Villa, wondering what power she had to turn Mendoza into a person who smiled.
“Detective Ramsey, this is Councilwoman Villa. She’s here to get a tour of our unit. I told her you are logging the files as the first step in digitizing the process, and that you’re making excellent progress considering the short time you’ve been working with us.”
Beck waited, but apparently Mendoza’s statement was supposed to elicit a response. That the files were going to be digitized was news to her, but it was good news because it would be much easier to locate information if it was electronic, even better if it was tied to a database with keywords, but she sensed Mendoza wasn’t interested in her non expert IT knowledge. “Thank you, Sergeant.” She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Councilwoman. I happen to live in your district.”
“I hope that means you only have good things to say about me.”
Villa’s smile was infectious, and Beck couldn’t help but smile back. At least until she caught Mendoza eyeing them suspiciously. Geez, did the woman never ease up? Beck remembered what Mendoza had said on the first day about how none of these cases were solvable, but the mayor’s office had taken a special interest, and she also recalled that Villa and the mayor were close allies which probably explained Villa’s presence here. She decided to take a risk. “I’d be happy to show you around this room if you like.”
“That would be perfect,” Villa replied. “Would that be okay with you, Sergeant?” They both turned to look at Mendoza who had plastered on the fake smile again.
“Of course. Whatever you need. The chief said you’re to have full access.”
Mendoza’s words were flat even with the fake smile and Beck wasn’t fooled, but if she’d been sent by the mayor, then technically Villa outranked Mendoza and Beck was happy to take orders from someone who appeared to be genuinely interested in providing justice to the victims who were represented in these files.
She spent the next half hour walking Villa through the room of files and answering insightful questions about the way they were stored and the log she was working on. When the questions came about digitizing the files, Beck shot a look at Mendoza who merely shrugged. “I’m pretty new to the unit and haven’t been briefed on the next step yet, but I’m sure the plans are already in place.”
She wasn’t sure of any such thing, but throwing Mendoza under the bus wasn’t her style. She immediately thought of Jack and wondered what he would say about that. She shook away the thought. This was different. She didn’t know for certain Mendoza was shirking her duty. She might not think much of these cold cases, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t working them. For all she knew, the hours Mendoza spent in her office with the door shut was a product of her intently reviewing the files and conducting her own investigations.
Probably not, but it wasn’t her battle to fight.
Sure it is.
She heard the words in Macy’s voice and wanted to brush them off, but she couldn’t. Macy was right. These cases were as important as any others. More so because of how much time had passed without any justice for the victims and their families. One more thing she had in common with Macy Moran.
* * *
Macy walked through the door at Sue Ellen’s and glanced around at the already crowded bar wishing she’d countered Beck’s suggestion of the bar as a meeting place. Not that she had anything against bars, obviously, but Sue’s was one of the last places she’d seen Lauren alive.
Within five minutes of wandering through the club, the crush of the crowd coupled with the cascade of memories caused her heart to pound and her hands to shake. She hadn’t found Beck and she no longer cared enough to stay and risk having a breakdown in front of a bunch of complete strangers. She passed a group of women who gave her strange looks which told her she had only a few moments to make it out before she completely lost it, but as she got close to the door it seemed to recede into the distance making escape elusive. She turned in a panic, desperate to find a way out, and ran smack into Beck’s tall frame.
“Hey, I’ve been looking for you,” Beck said, her words sounding slightly muffled like she was underwater. She looked at the door and frowned. “Are you leaving?”
“I can’t be here.” Macy pushed forward and lunged toward the door, determined not to let anything get in her way. Once outside, she lunged around the corner of the building and leaned forward, putting her hands on her knees, gulping for air. Breathe. Breathe.
She had no idea how much time had passed before she was finally able to breathe normally. As she started to stand up, the weight of a hand on her back startled her out of her reverie and she whirled around to find Beck standing behind her wearing a concerned expression.
“Are you okay?”
Damn. She hadn’t wanted this at all, let alone in front of Beck. She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. “Go away.”
Beck raised her eyebrows, but she didn’t move. “Do I need to call someone? Harrison? Donna?”
“I’m fine.” She wasn’t, but she didn’t need more people to see her losing it. After all these years, she should be able to keep her shit together. What the hell was wrong with her? She continued to take deep breaths. She could do this. She had to do this if she was going to maintain any level of objectivity when it came to her work on this piece. Finally confident she could handle whatever came next, she pushed off from the wall and pointed to the sidewalk. “Are you coming?”
Beck merely nodded and followed her back into the bar. Macy squared her shoulders and pushed through the crowd. A drink was what she needed to dull the buzz, and she headed directly to the downstairs bar. When the bartender approached, she ordered a beer and turned toward Beck who ordered the same.
“Go grab that table,” Beck said, “and I’ll bring the drinks.”
She obeyed, happy to let Beck take charge although she’d never admit it, and she made it across the room just in time to snag the table from a crowd of barely legal kids. She waved at them as they shot her disgruntled looks. “When you’re thirty-something, you’re going to need to sit down too,” she called out as they walked away.
Once the disgruntled kids cleared out, she had a perfect sightline to the bar. She watched Beck pay for the drinks, pick them up, and head her way. She moved through the crowd with confidence, seemingly oblivious to the many heads that turned toward her as she walked by. She couldn’t blame the gawkers. Beck was striking and gorgeous and she was riveted and more than a little blown away that all these other people would be left drooling when Beck sat down at her table.
“It’s more crowded in here than I thought it would be,” Beck said as she set their drinks down and slid into the seat across from Macy.
“It’s Friday night.”
“When I was young, we started much later than this.”
Macy grinned. “Me too. Nowadays, when the clock strikes midnight if I’m not home I turn into a gay pumpkin.”
“Is that different than a regular pumpkin?”
“Probably not.” Macy took a drink of her beer, hoping they’d moved past her anxiety attack. Her hopes were quickly dashed.
“Are we going to talk about what happened outside?”
“I’d rather not.” Macy stared into Beck’s eyes, willing her to let it go. “Not right now.”
Beck’s eyes narrowed a tiny bit, but she didn’t look away for a few moments, as if she was trying to read her mind. Finally, she spoke. “Okay.”
Macy had been expecting a lot more, but then she remembered to be relieved Beck was willing to let it go. She decided to change the subject rather than examine what was going on in her head. “I turned in my story today.”
“The one about me and Jack?”
“That’s the one. It’ll run in tomorrow’s paper.”
“Am I going to be upset?” Beck asked.
Interesting question. Macy didn’t spend time wondering how the subjects of her pieces reacted. The story was about them in the sense they were the subjects, but it wasn’t about them when it came to how it was received. She really didn’t care if the people she wrote about were impressed or annoyed with what she wrote because she was merely recording events, not creating them. But for the first time ever, Macy found herself anticipating the reaction of a subject, and the feeling was at once confusing and exciting. She searched for something to say that wouldn’t give away her emotions until she’d had a chance to examine them more closely on her own.
“I was fair,” she said.
Beck held her gaze for a moment, and then nodded. “I trust that you were.”
Silence hung in the air for a moment, and Macy mentally sorted through ways to break it. She wanted to dive in and ask Beck about the files, but she sensed she needed to warm up the subject to keep from spooking her. “How was your day?”
Beck looked surprised at the question. “It was good. Full. I spent a lot of time going through files.”
That’s it. Macy had to ask. “Did you find anything interesting?”
“Hard to tell.” Beck drank from her beer and then set her glass on the table and started fiddling with the coaster. “I did take some time to check out the press coverage of the Parks and Rec Killer from ten years ago. I was kind of surprised not to see your name on any bylines.”
“You shouldn’t be. I was a senior in college. I was lucky to get to do research or fact-checking for a big story. There were definitely no bylines to be shared with the intern.”
“Funny, because when I was reading the articles your paper carried about the Parks and Rec Killer, the voice sounded a lot like the other pieces you’ve written.”
The idea Beck had read enough of her work to detect a voice made her happy, and Macy decided to confide in her. “I interned for the reporter who had the beat at the time. Wayne Paxton. He may have let me write a decent amount of the copy, and that’s probably what came across when you read it.”
“But only he got the byline?”
“No biggie. That’s how it works. Like I said, I was only an intern.” Macy considered her next words carefully. “Wayne was a little distracted at the time. His wife had just been diagnosed with cancer—the first diagnosis in a protracted illness. She battled it for years and, during that time, Wayne was torn between digging deep into the story and taking care of her.” She took a drink from her beer and started fiddling with the label. “I chipped in. Until Lauren died.”
Beck nodded, her eyes full of sympathy. “Too close to be objective?”
“More like too angry to make sense, but something like that.”
“But it’s okay for you to write about it now?”
Macy replayed Beck’s words, but she didn’t hear any judgement behind them, only curiosity. “Some might say no, but I would argue I’m the perfect person to write about it because I never gave up on finding the truth. Did Lauren’s death affect me deeply? Absolutely. But it’s not like I’m at the scene, recounting the facts. The piece I’m working on is a retrospective, an accounting of what happened at the time and what’s happened since. I’d argue that with my unique perspective, there is no one more qualified to write this story.”
She stopped and stared at Beck, trying to discern whether or not she got it and was rewarded with a slow nod.
“It’s like when a cop is shot in the line of duty. Everyone throws in to assist with the investigation and no one rests until the shooter is brought to justice.”
“Exactly.” Macy slapped her palm on the table for emphasis. “I may not have the answer by the time I’m finished writing, but at the very least the story might spur someone’s memory and prod them into coming forward with evidence that can help find the killer.” She smiled, happy that Beck finally understood where she was coming from. “And with your help, we may get there so much faster.” She leaned forward, arms on the table. “Did you bring the files?”
Beck stared into her eyes for a moment before she answered and Macy held her breath, hoping Beck had not let her down.
“I didn’t. I—”
Macy didn’t wait for the excuse part of the answer. “Really? We had a deal. Are you telling me you decided I wouldn’t mind or notice you changed the terms?”
Beck reached out and put a hand on her arm. The touch was firm and warm and strangely calming. “Are you done?” she asked.
“Depends on whether you’re going to say more stupid things.”
Beck pointed to her head. “I read the files. All of them. I can tell you exactly what’s in them, but removing them without authorization will cost me my job and then I’d be no use to either one of us. Make sense?”
It was Macy’s turn to nod slowly. “You have a point, but I don’t know you well enough to know how good your memory is.”
“Quiz me.”
It was a silly suggestion. Or was it? Macy did a mental sort of the facts of the various cases and settled on victim number two. They hadn’t talked about her or any of the details of her death, so she could be sure Beck wasn’t pulling facts from their conversations. “Tell me the name of the second victim.”
“Dawn Michaels,” Beck replied without hesitation.
Macy responded with another question. “Where was she found?”
“Samuel Grand Park. It was a Saturday. She’d gone out with her boyfriend the night before, but he hadn’t stayed over because he had an early shift at the coffee shop he managed. She went for a run early Saturday morning, and the last person to see her alive was the guy mowing the golf course.” She stopped to take a breath and then plunged right back in. “Her body was found in a wooded area, away from the recreational parts of the park. She was bound like the others, and she’d been strangled with a piece of easy to acquire rope.” She crossed her arms. “Do you need to hear more?”
“Impressive,” Macy said. “But you know what would be even more impressive?”
“What’s that?”
“If you told me something I don’t already know.”
“Is that so?” Beck leaned forward. “You know what would make that a lot easier? Maybe if you weren’t so secretive. If you shared what you already know, I’d know where to focus.”
Macy sucked in a breath. With Beck so close to her, she was the one who needed some focus, and she struggled to process Beck’s words. She was right. It didn’t make sense to hold the info she did have so close to her chest at this point, but did she really trust Beck enough to bring her completely in?
Before she could fully comprehend the implications, she opened her mouth and blurted out, “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.”