The Watcher

“Sure,” Nic said. “I’ve got the balls, if you do.”

Griff chuckled under his breath.

Nic smiled to herself, an internal don’t-screw-with-me smile; but outwardly her facial expression remained unchanged.

“There it is—” Nic pointed to the left. “Old Stillwater Road.”

Griff slowed the SUV, and then turned left onto the twolane country road. After going over two miles, they had seen little except open fields, probably once planted annually in cotton, but now planted in corn. The pavement, filled with potholes and covered with cracked and crumbling asphalt, needed repairs.

Nic saw two vehicles parked alongside the roadway about a quarter of a mile ahead of them. As they got closer to the truck and the Jeep, she noticed two men standing in the shade of a large maple tree near a narrow bridge. Griff pulled the SUV in behind the other two vehicles and killed the engine.

“Be nice,” Griff said. “Act like a lady and not a hard-ass FBI agent.”

Glaring at him, she made a hissing sound.

Laughing, he opened his door and got out. Before he had a chance to round the hood and open her door, she jumped out and met him at the right front bumper. He nodded in the direction of the big tree.

“Ladies first,” he said.

She walked ahead of him, up the side of the road and into the area near the bridge. The two men standing there watched as she and Griff approached. The younger man, wearing a tan Stetson and brown leather boots stepped forward.

“Mr. Powell?” he asked as he held out his hand. “I’m Sheriff Touchstone.”

Griff shook hands with Dean Touchstone, who appeared to be in his early thirties. He was hazel-eyed, brown-haired, Texas-lean, and sported a thick, old-cowpoke mustache.

He turned to Nic, removed his hat, and nodded, “Ma’am.”

“This is Nicole Baxter,” Griff said. “She’s working with me on this case.”

Nic had to bite her tongue to keep from correcting him and saying that he was working with her and not the other way around. But she forced a smile and shook hands with the sheriff.

“This is Vance Coker.” The older man nodded to Griff and gave Nic an appreciative appraisal, the kind men give most women at first glance. “Vance is the one who found Gala Ramirez’s body hanging from that tree right there.”

Vance was probably sixty, short, wiry, and gray-haired. At least what hair he had left was gray. He had the kind of weathered skin that a person has after years of sun exposure.

“Vance owns this land,” the sheriff said.

“Been in my family over a hundred years,” Vance added.

“He found Gala’s body hanging from that maple tree there by the bridge, the first of August. Me and Ellis, one of my deputies, came out just as soon as Vance called us.” Dean Touchstone turned his head and stared at the tree. “It’s been over ten years since we had a murder in Durant County.”

“Sure was a troubling sight,” Vance said. “That poor little gal was strung up like a piece of beef, her ankles bound together and her head scalped. You can’t imagine what that looks like if you ain’t never seen it. Real troubling.” Vance shook his head back and forth.

“Was she naked?” Nic asked. “Was there any evidence she’d been sexually assaulted?”

“She wasn’t naked,” Vance said. “She was wearing shorts and a blouse, both of ‘em bloody. Real bloody.”

“She wasn’t sexually assaulted,” Sheriff Touchstone said. “The coroner’s report ruled out rape.”

“What did the coroner’s report tell you other than she hadn’t been raped?” Griff asked.

Ignoring Griff’s question, Touchstone looked at Vance. “Thanks for meeting us here. I appreciate it.” He turned to Griff. “You folks have anything else you want to ask Vance before he leaves?”

Beating Nic to the punch, Griff asked the farmer half a dozen questions. His answers were succinct, but not very informative.

“If that’ll be all, Mary Lou’s holding lunch for me.” Vance looked to the sheriff for permission to leave.

Touchstone nodded. “Thanks again, Vance.”

As soon as the farmer got in his truck and drove off, the sheriff faced Griff and Nic. “I’ll give you folks the basic facts of the case, but that’s all. I’m not opening my files to you and I’m not sharing privileged information. Understood?”

Nic smiled. “Yes, Sheriff, we understand. You can’t divulge privileged information to just anybody, not even private detectives.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Touchstone smiled at her, a flirting twinkle in his eye.

Griff cleared his throat. “As I mentioned when we spoke on the phone, what we need is to confirm that the similarities between Kendall Moore’s murder and Gala Ramirez’s murder are enough to indicate a link between the two and possibly point to a serial killer.”

“I understand,” Touchstone said. “But I don’t want y’all bandying around the words ‘serial killer’ in Stillwater. Folks are upset enough by the Ramirez girl’s murder without hearing that there’s a serial killer on the loose.”

“We don’t intend to speak to anyone else in Stillwater,” Griff said. “You’ve already told us that Gala was hung upside down from that tree.” Griff nodded to the grand old maple. “Her feet had been bound and she’d been scalped, but she hadn’t been raped and she wasn’t naked. Could you confirm her cause of death?”

“She’d been shot in the head.”

“The scenario you described fits Kendall Moore’s murder,” Nic said. “What we need is for you to contact SAC Doug Trotter at the FBI field office in D.C. and tell him you suspect that the same person who killed Kendall Moore in Ballinger, Arkansas, might have killed Gala Ramirez.”

Squinting against the noonday sun, Touchstone replaced his Stetson and focused on Nic. “I tell you what I’ll do—I’ll call the police chief in Ballinger and if he backs up everything y’all have told me, I’ll contact the FBI.”

“Thank you.” Nic rewarded him with a wide smile.

“You folks staying on overnight? If you are—”

“We’re not,” Griff said. “My plane is waiting for us in Lufkin and we’ll be taking off from there and heading back to Tennessee. But if you need to get in touch with me, with us, you have my cell number.”

“Sure do,” Touchstone said. “But I don’t have yours, ma’am.”

“If you need to reach Ms. Baxter, just call me,” Griff told him.

Pudge booked a first-class ticket from Baton Rouge to Nashville. Once there, he would use a fake ID to rent a car and then drive on to Knoxville. He would check into a cheap motel as close to Amber Kirby’s apartment as possible and the following day he would begin observing her. Within a couple of days, he should know enough about her daily routine to choose the best time to abduct her. He couldn’t be certain, of course, but because she was an athlete and had to stay in superb physical condition, he assumed she ran at least once every day. If he was lucky, her routine would include either an early-morning or a late-night run.

Before he packed, he needed to choose a disguise. Nothing elaborate, just enough to change his appearance so that if anyone remembered seeing him, they wouldn’t describe him as he actually looked. After unlocking the wooden chest at the foot of his bed, he sat on the floor and casually went through the contents. He laid out a brown mustache that matched the color of his hair; then he found a pair of black-framed glasses. He added an Atlanta Braves baseball cap to the subtle masquerade items he would use. While in Nashville, he’d find a Wal-Mart and buy some inexpensive clothes. Nondescript. A cotton shirt and trousers. A pair of athletic shoes.

A couple of loud taps on his locked bedroom door reminded him that he was not alone in the house. Allegra was here. But he never worried about the old woman. She was a trustworthy old soul and even if she saw or overheard anything unusual, she didn’t have enough sense to figure out what was going on.

“Lunch is ready,” she called through the closed door. “I fried up some of them fresh catfish that Pappy Rousey brought by this morning.”

“Thank you, Allegra. I’ll be right there.”

“Don’t you dawdle too long and let my fried conrbread balls get cold.”