“Thank you,” she said pointedly. “See you later.”
“So give me the rundown on the ME. What’s he like?” Zooey asked after they’d loaded up into Abby’s truck and merged onto the highway.
“Dr. Jeffrey is in his seventies now,” Abby said as she let a red sports car that clearly had very important places to be pass her. “He was the county ME since the sixties. He’s an institution.”
“Did he seem shady during his interview?”
Abby shook her head. “Nothing really leapt out at me when we talked. But I didn’t even realize there were pages missing from the ME’s report, so maybe I just missed it. Over the course of the last year, I talked to Dr. Jeffrey, Sheriff Alan, who was just a deputy on the case at the time, and several of the other deputies who worked the case before the FBI took over.”
“I was looking over who was in charge on the FBI side,” Zooey said, flipping open the thick file she had in her lap. “It was an Agent Barson, who was kind of infamous at the Bureau.”
Abby frowned. “Infamous how?”
“Well, Barson was a really good agent when he started. But he also developed a really big cocaine problem.”
“Oh, God,” Abby said.
“Yeah,” Zooey said. “And he rode on the ‘I caught Dr. X’ wave for a while, so he didn’t get caught and fired until 2005. There was a whole internal investigation and then another one when Director Edenhurst took over. They reexamined several of his cases, but I guess this one didn’t ring any alarm bells, since Howard Wells confessed.” She paused, frowning out the window for a second. “I don’t get why he confessed,” she said. “Even if your theory that they met online is right, and he doesn’t know who our unsub was, why would he confess? Why not try to wriggle out of it? The forensic evidence alone could have maybe clinched it for a jury, but maybe not. Juries get frustrated when you talk too much science at them. And Wells is charismatic—he could have weaseled his way out of it.”
“He’d never be able to kill that way again, though,” Abby said softly. “He couldn’t perform his whole ritual. The strangulation, the marking of his victims. He would’ve had to change.”
“You think he confessed so he could keep his killing MO intact?” Zooey asked, sounding skeptical.
Abby shrugged. “You’re probably more of an expert on serial killers than I am,” she said. “But I’ve talked to everyone I could who knew Wells, and so much of what they told me was the same: He was a control freak, he had to have things just his way. One of his scrub nurses from his surgery days told me a story about how she would have to use a ruler to measure exactly one and three-eighths inches between his surgical tools on the tray, because anything less or more, he’d notice, and freak out.”
“We are dealing with an enormous ego,” Zooey said thoughtfully. “I mean, just with the surgeon factor—you have to have supreme self-confidence to be a successful one. But if he was ruled by ego, why did he quit surgery to go work in a morgue in the middle of nowhere?”
That was a good point. “Something must have happened,” Abby said. “What do you guys call it? A triggering incident?”
Zooey nodded as Abby pulled off the highway, taking the exit into town.
Castella Rock was the kind of town that had stop signs—and no stop lights. Only about 5,000 people lived in the town proper, most of the citizens living outside the town, on farms, orchards, and small ranches. Main Street split the town in two, with three streets on the east side of town, three streets on the west side. And not much south or north but farmland. There was one gas station, two churches, a tiny library that was more a labor of love than anything, and the school, which had gotten a fresh coat of paint this summer. Problem was, the strapped one-school district had bought the paint on discount, so now the school was painted an ugly, dirty-looking brick red.
Dr. Jeffrey lived with his wife, Mamie, in a sweet little white house with green shutters on Marigold Street. He was waiting for the two of them on the porch, sitting in the antique 1920s glider, leaning against pillows Mamie stitched herself.
“Howdy, girls.” He tipped his cowboy hat, gesturing for them to take a seat in the chairs across the glider. “Iced tea?”
“Please,” Zooey said.
“Thank you for taking the time to see us,” Abby said. “I know it was sort of last minute.”
“Oh, come now, this old man is happy for the company.”
“Well, you know I’ve been working on a book,” Abby said. “About Cass.”
Dr. Jeffrey nodded. “I think it’s a very nice way to honor her, Abby.”
Abby smiled. “Thank you. I hope so too. But you know me, I like having all the research in front of me.”
“I remember all your note cards,” he said with a grin.
“Exactly,” Abby said. “Zooey here, she’s got some STEM field experience in forensics and such.” She didn’t want to scare Dr. Jeffrey off by saying Zooey was with the FBI. “She’s been helping me figure out all the medical and science jargon,” she said, with a disarming smile, going full sweet country girl on him. “Anyway, Zooey is cataloging stuff for me, making notes, you know. And she noticed that there are a few pages missing from Cass’s autopsy report. I thought it was a mistake or something, but when I went looking for the original at the sheriff’s department, the same pages were missing.”
Dr. Jeffrey set his iced tea on the table. “Oh, you know how things get, over the years,” he said. “Sheriff Alan’s probably had to move those records in and out of the upstairs a dozen times because of that leaky roof. I’m sure those pages just got lost in the shuffle.”
He looked at his watch. “You know, Mamie’s gonna need me to pick her up from bingo soon.”
“Bingo doesn’t even start until noon,” Abby said, frowning, and the good doctor’s cheeks reddened at being caught in his lie. “August,” she said, her voice lowering in her seriousness. “What are you not telling me here?”
“Abigail,” he said, and it was more of a warning than anything. It sent chills down her arms. “You’re a sweet girl. A good girl. A talented girl. You don’t need to put tawdry details that’ll get a lot of people hurt in your book about Cass.”
A horrible prickling feeling spread from the bottom of her spine to the top. “Tawdry details? What are you talking about?”
Next to her, she saw Zooey bite her lip.
“Sir?” Zooey asked the doctor. “Was she pregnant? Is that why the pages are missing?”
Dr. Jeffrey didn’t need to say anything. The proof was written all over his face.
Spots danced along the edge of her vision as her ears roared. Pregnant? No! Cass would have told her. She would’ve confided in her.
Would she have really, after what Ryan told her? that horrible voice in the back of her head asked.
Her fingers clenched around the arms of the wooden rocking chair, her mind racing. Cass had been gone for almost a month the summer she died, visiting her grandma. They were supposed to get coffee the day after she got back. Cass had cancelled on her, and considering the fight they’d had before she left, Abby couldn’t exactly blame her.
“How far along was she?” Zooey asked.
“Three months at least,” Dr. Jeffrey said.
Three months. She might’ve known during their fight. Oh, God . . . that meant . . .
Paul.
Abby felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. Paul hadn’t just lost Abby that night. He’d lost his child. A child he hadn’t even known existed.
“August, why in the world did you keep this secret?” she demanded. “You hindered two investigations—the sheriff’s and the FBI’s.”
“I kind of want to know that too,” Zooey said. “Because this is vital information the FBI wasn’t given.”