If there was one place on the planet that Sam loved to be, it was his log cabin deep in the woods on the outskirts of town. He’d inherited it from his grandfather, and kept it largely decorated the way it had been when his grandparents were alive. It wasn’t fancy, but it had everything Sam needed, including fond childhood memories. The furnishings were practical—overstuffed furniture, braided rugs, and a small television. The only thing that wasn’t practical was his grandmother’s china cabinet filled with fancy glassware and china that Sam never took out.
The warm cedar log walls were decorated with deer heads and mounted trout and bass caught by Sam’s grandparents. A large moose head adorned the river rock fireplace. Sam’s ex-wives had hated the place, stating that the taxidermy gave them the creeps. That didn’t seem to bother Jo. She always made herself right at home, which she was doing right now by rummaging in his fridge, a disappointing endeavor because she was looking for something other than his favorite Moosenose beer.
“I knew I should have stopped at the package store and brought my own,” she said, using an elk horn bottle opener to pop the top. She took a swig, then made a face. “Tastes like dirt.”
Sam sipped his beer. To him it tasted like a fine blend of summer and relaxation.
“Anyone in there?” Mick’s voice drifted in from the front of the house. Sam glanced over the half-height bookshelves that separated the kitchen from the living room, his gaze lingering just a second on the photo of his daughters before continuing on to see Mick peering in from the other side of the screen door.
“Come on in,” Sam shouted, and then turned to Jo. “Better grab the whiskey.”
Lucy greeted Mick in her usual tail-wagging manner. He crouched down to her level and ruffled her fur before standing to accept the tumbler of whiskey from Jo.
“How’s it going? Anything new?” Mick asked as they took seats around the oak mission-style coffee table.
Mick sipped his whiskey, his brows raising higher and higher as Sam filled him in on their visit to Menda at the prison. When Sam was done, Mick leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs, the glass resting between his knees.
“And there’s no way Menda could have done it?”
“Nope. Reese did a full work-up. He wasn’t in that area.”
“That’s creepier than hell that people idolize and follow serial killers,” Mick said.
“No kidding.”
“We also might have a lead on one of the victims,” Jo said. “My sister remembers a young girl who had an older boyfriend from up north. She went with him one day and never came back.”
Mick nodded thoughtfully and then said in a soft voice, “How is your sister?”
Jo shrugged and glanced down at the phone. She’d told Sam earlier there had been no further texts from Bridget.
“Says she’s getting her act together.” Jo’s voice was casual, but Sam could tell by the way she picked at the corner of her beer bottle label that she cared deeply about her sister. She was just afraid to get her hopes up.
“If your sister’s friend is one of the victims, maybe her family can tell us something,” Mick suggested.
“Maybe,” Jo said. “They’re checking to see if she’s one of the victims. We still haven’t identified the other remains, so it could just be the girl took off. Runaways are like that.”
Mick turned to Sam. “What about the meth lab? Anything new on that?”
“Not much back on that yet. The Staties and the FBI are still going over things,” Sam said.
“And Menda claims no knowledge of that.”
“Nope. Says it was family land and he’s never been there.”
“And you don’t have any other leads?”
“None, other than the fact that the skeletal remains had that bog birch leaf, and the leaf came from the cabin, and the cabin was a meth lab.” Jo blew a few corkscrew curls off her forehead, took another swig of beer, and made another face. “Maybe Holden Joyce is right and we’re trying too hard to prove that Thorne is involved, and that’s blinding us to other suspects or clues.”
“I don’t think so.” Mick pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “I did some research and came across this incident from Thorne’s past. It’s not public. He was a juvenile, so the records are sealed, but I have my ways.”
He unfolded the paper and tossed it onto the coffee table. It was a police report.
“What’s that about?” Jo asked.
“Seems that Lucas Thorne wasn’t a model child. He and his friend Robert Summers were pulled in on suspicion of cat mutilation.”
“Cat mutilation?”
Lucy whined and looked at them disapprovingly. Apparently she didn’t like the idea of cat mutilation even though her relationship with Major was tenuous at best.
Mick made a face, “Yeah, apparently they killed a neighbor’s cat and not in a nice way. Not that there is any nice way to do that.”
Jo put her beer down and leaned forward, pulling the report toward her. “This is great!”
At their raised eyebrows, she grimaced. “Not that a cat got killed, that Thorne did this. This is common behavior among serial killers. They start with animals, then progress to people.”
Sam appreciated that Jo had been doing her homework on serial killers, but it was too bad they couldn’t exactly use this information officially. They’d have to get some sort of a warrant to unseal the record, but how would they explain that they even knew it existed?
“So, we aren’t off track,” Sam said.
“No, and the timing makes sense. What if Thorne really is a disciple of Menda? If he’s following in his footsteps, doesn’t it make sense that he might use that old cabin on Menda’s land, sort of as a tribute?”
Sam snapped his fingers. “And then when he discovered his wife’s company was buying it, he had to move the bodies.”
“But how would he know that land was Menda’s? It was in the trust and no one knew he even owned it,” Jo asked.
“Who knows with Thorne? He’s got contacts and he might have been determined enough to find out. It’s not impossible. After all, we did it.”
“Good point.”
Mick stared into his tumbler, swirling the amber liquid. “I think it’s a little far-fetched that the guy is both a drug dealer and a serial killer, don’t you?”
Sam glanced at Jo. Holden’s words came back to him. Was he grasping? “It might be, but it might not be. At least we can check him out for both. That doesn’t mean I’m going to be blind to other suspects.”
Mick nodded. “I hope it is him. Putting him away would solve a lot of problems, including a personal one for you and me.”
Sam nodded. Earlier that summer, Thorne had come into possession of a knife that Mayor Dupont had been holding as leverage over Sam and Mick. Where Dupont had gotten it was anyone’s guess, but the knife led to something in their past, something Sam wasn’t particularly proud of, and DNA evidence on the knife could be taken the wrong way with disastrous results for Sam and Mick. But with Dupont out of the way, the knife was no longer a threat.
Sam squinted at the report. “Wait! Richard Summers. Isn’t that Beryl Thorne’s brother?”
Jo nodded, “The one who is sick.”
“I remember Harry said that’s how Beryl and Thorne met. That he was a friend of the brother.”
Mick looked up from his drink. “I wonder how sick this brother is. Too sick for us to ask about Thorne? If they were that close, maybe the brother has information we could use to nail him.”
“I don’t know. If Beryl was taking over the company, he must be pretty ill.” Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to push his way in to talk to the sick brother. It could alienate Beryl.
“If he’s too sick, getting access to talk to him could be problematic. I get the impression that family protects their own,” Jo said.
“True. It might not be easy to get access to him, but I know someone we can get access to, and that person might make an even more informative source.”