Circumstantial Evidence by Lisa Clark O'Neill

Author:Lisa Clark O'Neill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fbi, romance, suspense, southern, small town, serial killer
Publisher: Lisa Clark O'Neill

CHAPTER TWELVE

JESSE Wellington strolled down the sidewalk, sipping the coffee he’d picked up at Hawbaker’s sister’s shop. He’d spent last night at various bars along the river, talking to boaters, gossiping with the locals. Today he’d stopped by a few local contractors that specialized in docks, poked his nose around as much as he was able given the fact that he couldn’t compel information with a flash of his badge.

It was frustrating as hell.

Not that Hawbaker had been withholding information. In fact, once the man had started to come around to Jesse’s way of thinking regarding the nature of Sam Bryant’s and Matthew Hastings’ deaths, he’d become fairly generous with it. But Jesse didn’t feel like he was getting anywhere. Like he was heading in the wrong direction. Or more accurately, like he was traveling a path that was tangent to the one he needed to be on.

He’d stayed up most of the night, going over the four cases, including Bryant/Hastings, looking for any sort of pattern or similarities he might have missed. The thing that finally struck him – and he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t seen it before – was that all of the crimes were committed in an outdoor setting. Camping, hiking, fishing – all of the victims had been engaged in some sort of outdoor activity, what could be considered some variation of traditional male bonding – when they died. According to the information he’d badgered out of his friend and colleague, the behavioral specialist, when he’d dragged him out of bed with a phone call this morning, that pattern suggested that the outdoors could be considered the killer’s comfort zone. The supposed murder/suicides had taken place in different counties, and in this most recent case a different state, but they were all concentrated around woodlands, campgrounds or natural attractions of some sort. As they were so spread out, it was likely that their perp was intimately familiar with the area. He – and it was almost certainly a he – could have a job that put him in contact with father figure/son duos with an interest in the outdoors.

Jesse stopped walking, sipped his coffee, and eyed the display window in front of him. He’d already tipped Hawbaker off earlier that morning, and the police chief informed him that Matthew Hastings had bought a BB gun for Sam Bryant’s birthday – the bone of contention that caused the rift with the boy’s mother – from the local sporting goods store. Jesse’d put in a records request for the men involved in the other cases to see if he could find a common denominator along those lines, but until he acquired that information he could only work with what he had. And what he had was a dead boy, a dead man, and someone who’d almost certainly known that they were planning on going into the woods that day.

Hastings returned the BB gun to the store shortly before he and Sam set off on their expedition. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was a start.

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