The Innocent Girls: A completely gripping mystery and suspense thriller (Detective Casey White Book 2) by B.R. Spangler

Author:B.R. Spangler [Spangler, B.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781838882570
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2020-09-03T06:00:00+00:00

We’d filled Jericho’s kitchen table and his counters with open case files, spreading them from corner to corner and leaving none of the surface exposed. The aged-paper smell and the fraying folders tickled my nose and made my eyes water, threats of a sneeze imminent. A pot of coffee brewed in the background, a steady drip filling the room with a sweet aroma.

In preparation for the evening’s work, I’d changed into something more casual: sweatpants, sneakers, and a loose cotton top. Jericho had done the same, changing out of his slacks and dress shirt, and slipping into sweats and an oversized rock-concert shirt from Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar On Me concert tour.

“And these too?” he asked, spreading ten or more folders across the counter, opening them so we could review. “All of them are animal sacrifices?”

“They are.” There was a look of disgust on his face. “Yeah, I know. Really gross stuff.”

“Cheryl didn’t finish going through the files?”

I hesitated to answer, the progress she’d made had been a disappointment. “I think maybe there are too many.” We gazed at the number of files, my saying, “Definitely a lot more than I would have guessed.”

“You still believe there’s a connection with the summer solstice?”

I’d shut down most of the work activities on the solstice lead, but there was some credibility in our earlier theory of a serial killer having started at an early age, sacrificing animals, using the solstice as part of a ritual. I held up a mugshot, a teenager, charged with killing a puppy. Older now, any one of these perps may have escalated to human sacrifice. I couldn’t shut down the lead entirely. Not yet.

“It’s possible. What I want to do is make a contact sheet—include each perpetrator’s mugshot, their name and the court docket number for reference.”

Jericho held up a blank sheet. “How big?”

I gauged the size of the mugshots, and the amount of information I wanted. “Let’s say eight per page, two columns of four.” He went to his computer, an older iMac stuffed in a wall nook, an ancient printer on a shelf above it.

“What do you plan to do with your little mugshot book?” Jericho asked, opening a ream of paper, fanning the pages before filling the printer’s trays.

“I’m going back to Dowd’s church.”

“To do what?” he asked, slapping the keyboard, trying to wake the computer. “You’ve already been there. Doubtful you’ll get anywhere doubling back.”

I’d already thought into the next day and who it was I wanted to show the pictures to. Dowd had an alibi. A strong alibi. Yet I couldn’t shake the timing of his church’s arrival, and it coinciding with the murders. The murderer could be a member of the church, but we already knew that with thousands of potential murders, combing them would be nearly impossible.

“Entirely different purpose,” I answered, taking a picture of a mug shot, adding it to a note, and typing the name and court docket number. “When I was there, a lot of people were hanging around outside the church.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.