“I’d say prove it to me.”
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s set aside your sister for a moment. You’ve heard about the Hannah Lloyd case? That was a brutal crime. Some of the evidence pointed to her next-door neighbor, a convicted pedophile. We arrested him, but the DA couldn’t prove it in court, and the trial ended in a hung jury. He went free. Then he offed himself, before the prosecutor could mount a new trial. A very convenient death.”
Kate blinked. “Are you implying somebody killed him?”
He cleared his throat. “I think your sister and Hannah Lloyd met the same fate—same killer, similar modus operandi. Both died as the result of asphyxiation—suffocation or strangulation—and both had hair cut off. I believe the same psychopath was behind those two murders, as well as some of the other disappearances in the area.”
She shook her head numbly. “Are you talking about Makayla Brayden? She was into drugs. She hitchhiked and came from a broken home—three factors that put her at risk of victimization by a stranger.”
“Kate,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, can I call you Kate?”
She nodded.
“Call me Palmer. Here’s my theory. I’m sure it’s tempting not to want to think about this, okay? He’ll be dead in a few days. But if you’re anything like me, you can’t help but connect the dots and realize things don’t add up. That somebody else is behind everything that’s happened in Blunt River County over the past two decades, including your sister’s homicide.”
A chill crept over her. He was asking her to fundamentally shift her entire way of thinking. For half her life, Kate had believed that Henry Blackwood had murdered her little sister. She shook her head. “If that’s the case, then Henry Blackwood was set up. Is that what you’re saying?”
The detective shrugged. “It’s a distinct possibility.”
“But that’s crazy. It would mean whoever did this went to a great deal of trouble to make him look guilty. It would be wildly elaborate and hugely risky. What’s your evidence?”
“We can go over the evidence later on. I’ve got boxes of the stuff at home. But there are other victims. Nine, to my knowledge.” He wiped a daub of grease off his chin. “Look, I retired last year. And confidentially… can I confide in you, Kate?”
She gave a reluctant nod. “Sure.”
“I have cancer. It was in remission, but now it’s back.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said sympathetically.
“Slow-growing Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Ten years ago, I was treated with chemo and radiation, my cancer went into remission, but there was a recurrence five years later. More treatment. I was in remission again. Now they tell me it’s spreading. I’ve been told I’m therapy-resistant. So I applied for a clinical trial in New York for immunotherapy, but there’s a long waiting list.”
Kate didn’t know what to say.
“Anyway, I found a clinic in Tijuana that specializes in the same immunotherapy as the clinical trial. Hey, I know what you’re thinking: medical tourism. But I’ve read up on it extensively. The therapy is non-toxic, harmless at worst. For me, it’s a no-brainer.”
Kate nodded, unprepared for this confession.
“Look, I’ve made my peace with it. You can only go through so many rounds of chemo and radiation before it knocks the piss out of you. But my bigger point is, it adds urgency to my mission. Not many people know about the recurrence, so please…”
“Of course. I won’t tell a soul.”
He waved a hand dismissively. “Anyway, back to what I was saying before. When Hannah’s body was found in the woods, her hair had been shaved off, just like your sister. And both girls died as the result of having their air supply cut off, one way or another. This is why I believe the two cases are related.”
Kate stared at Palmer. “You don’t buy that Hannah was murdered by her neighbor?”
He squinted at her. “No. I think there’s a bigger picture here.”
Kate felt a heavy sadness dragging her down. “I’ve always wondered why Blackwood shaved Savannah’s head.”
“What’s your best guess… being a psychiatrist and all?” he asked. “What does it signify?”
“That’s just it, it doesn’t make sense. Savannah was a little girl. Small for her age. I’d understand if he’d shaved the head of a grown woman, but a little kid…”
“What do you mean—grown woman?”
“To shave a woman’s head is to shame her. To separate her from her femininity, her sexual power.”
Palmer wagged a finger at her. “You’re good. You went right to the heart of it. No bullshit. I like that.”
“It’s Psych 101.”
“On the contrary. And I should know. I paid a lot of money for behavioral profiling back in the day. I’d like to get your take on some of the other missing girls, see if there are any other similarities between them and your sister’s case, besides the ones I’ve drawn.”
The bell jangled above the door again, and two middle-aged cops walked in. They waved at Palmer, and he waved back. He finished his sandwich and chased it down with the rest of his Coke. She listened to the ice chips clinking against his glass.
“My colleagues think I’m crazy,” he confided. “But a long time ago, I noticed a connection, and I’m convinced there’s a bigger story here. I want to prove those bench-warmers wrong.”
Kate thought it sounded like bravado. “Do you have any kids, Palmer?”
He shook his head. “Just an ex-wife. The divorce rate for cops is pretty high. My wife used to complain because I worked all the time. She called me cold and distant, and that’s funny, because I’m actually a warm and fuzzy guy. But I used to spend all my days hunting down killers, thieves, and rapists. That changes a person. We grew apart. I don’t blame her. I couldn’t stop obsessing over these cases, including your sister’s.” He grabbed another napkin from the dispenser and wiped his face. “Now I can’t stop investigating, even though I’m retired. It’s like the wheels won’t stop turning.”
“Were any other girls buried alive?” Kate asked, curious and resentful at the same time. She didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t want to be drawn into his obsession; and besides, what did that say about the court system and justice? What about Henry Blackwood? How could he possibly be innocent? After all this time? Kate knew all about copycat killers. She’d taken criminal psych courses in college.
“We don’t know. Some of the girls are still missing. The rest were either strangled or suffocated before the bodies were staged.”
“Staged?”
Palmer cleared his throat. “To look like accidents,” he explained. “Like I said, we can go over the evidence…”
She touched her coffee cup. It was cold. “The way she died still haunts me,” she confided. “Buried alive. People say upsetting things without meaning to… I’m digging up dirt, six feet under, I clawed my way out… a bunch of harmless clichés, right?” She shook her head. “It stops me cold.”
He looked at her with compassion. Then he tapped his index finger on the table and said, “Would you be willing to check out some of these cold cases for me? See if you can spot any details that might correspond to your sister’s case? Something you’d forgotten about?”
Kate groped for an excuse. She resisted it with every fiber of her being. She already knew who killed Savannah, knew it in her bones… and yet… could it be? She’d not known about Hannah Lloyd’s hair being shaved off before. It wouldn’t hurt to look at the other cases, at the very least.
“If I look at the files and come to the conclusion you’re wrong about this… then I’m going to tell you. Point-blank. Because if you can’t prove it to me, if you can’t convince me he’s a hundred per cent innocent, then I’m going to forget about it. Let him fry.”
He nodded. “Maybe I’m wrong. On the other hand, perhaps we can solve this puzzle together?”
“Don’t get too excited. I give a lot of weight to the jury’s verdict.”
“That’s exactly what I need,” he told her. “A pair of skeptical eyes.”