I hit the voice mails on the office phone. I have six messages. One’s from a TBI detective complaining to me that one of my friends (that would be Gwen) has been up in Valerie interfering. I ignore it. The next is from his commander. I pay slightly more attention, and make myself a note to kiss and make up. Don’t need that TBI commander crawling up the chain of command. I’m doing a good job, but success is a fragile thing.
The other four are from different cities I called yesterday about potential matches to Sheryl Lansdowne’s identity. The fact that all four gave me a call back is shocking, but what’s even more concerning is that every one of them leaves me a name and direct number and says they want to talk. Not just “send info,” but talk. Three out of four of these are small towns, granted, but still . . . that’s one hell of a batting average for cases that should have been long gathering dust.
I start from the top: with the detective from Wichita. She tells me that their missing person fits Sheryl’s description, and I confirm it from prints they’ve sent in. Then the detective starts telling me what isn’t in the missing person’s notice. “Took about two weeks for us to locate a relative of the old lady who passed on,” she says. “He came into town about a week after that to settle her affairs, and found out that she’d been writing a hell of a lot of checks out of her savings account—about ten thousand dollars’ worth—to our gal Mary Hogue here. Who by that time had been reported as missing by a friend from down the block. The old lady kept a good supply of cash at home, and all that was gone, as well as a few pieces of nice jewelry.”
“And Mary?”
“Gone like a summer breeze. She left all her stuff behind, but it wasn’t much at all . . . a bank account with just enough to keep it going for another month, rental furniture, an old car that turned out to not be worth what it cost to tow it off. First glance, she looked normal as anything. But when you dig into it, she really had no roots.”
“Just had to look presentable long enough to find somebody to con,” I say. “Jesus. So, the old lady—”
“Yeah, getting to that. The son demanded an autopsy and got one. The old lady was poisoned. Antifreeze. A real bad way to go too.”
I’ve never worked such a case, but I’ve heard how painful that is, and how deadly. It can take days, weeks, months. Poisoners are some of the coldest murderers there are. “Any idea how she ingested it?”
“Drinks are the easiest method. Iced tea. Pop. Anything like that. It tastes sweet.”
“Let me guess, Mary was a real good neighbor who had that nice old lady over for a glass of iced tea before she turned up sick?”
“We think so.”
“But you didn’t charge her with murder?”
“Couldn’t,” the detective says briskly. “There was never solid evidence Mary Hogue poisoned the old lady, only that the old lady was poisoned; hell, the coroner wasn’t even sure it wasn’t accidental or suicide. If we’d been able to get Mary in and really press her, we might’ve been able to build a case. But we had nothing—no evidence, no leads on where she’d gone off to. Everything went cold. But trust me, we remember.”
The Wichita call is a template, as it turns out. Sheryl’s name changes, but the circumstances are always similar. She moves to town, builds up a good reputation, lives a normal but poverty-level life . . . and finds some kind soul to pull her out of her desperate circumstances. Who’s left dead broke, or dies of apparently natural or accidental causes, or just plain vanishes. But there’s never enough to put out a murder warrant on her. Never.
In every case, the prints match to Penny Carlson / Sheryl Lansdowne.
I put the phone down, finally, and turn to Prester. He’s waiting expectantly, fingers poised over his keyboard. “Sheryl Lansdowne might be one of the coldest damn serial killers nobody’s ever heard of,” I say. “I figure we can pin at least six prior victims to her easily, and there are likely more. That’s not even counting the number of people she’s stolen from and conned but didn’t kill. She always uses hands-off methods, seems like: poisons, falls down stairs, drownings.”
We both think about that for a while. What it takes to embark on a career of ice-hearted murder like that and slip away without a trace every single time. She’s never been arrested for anything serious enough to get her into a national database, and by moving state to state, she’s been keeping herself off the radar.
We may never know exactly how many people she’s killed. Only that it’s probably more than we have found.
“Best write it all up and send it to TBI,” he says. “They’re going to want to take it federal, most likely, since it’s a multistate investigation now. This goes far beyond our little town, Kez. Let it go. If she’s out there somewhere, she’s going to be found.”
While I’m finishing the write-up, an email comes in from the TBI. The bones we found on the grid search belong to Tommy Jarrett. He’s been lying up there in those hills since the day he disappeared. He didn’t leave Sheryl and those soon-to-be-born kids. And I sincerely doubt it was any kind of an accident.
Sheryl. It keeps coming back to Sheryl.
I don’t want to just trust someone else to do these dead children justice, but Prester’s right: I don’t really have any choice.
It’s over.
It doesn’t feel over.
Gwen calls just as noon approaches, and she’s got a lot to give me, because she’s got the 411 on Douglas Adam Prinker. I’d honestly just about forgotten about him in the rush of revelations about Sheryl, though she’d mentioned the name and I’d intended to get into it. But Gwen’s beaten me to it.
Turns out Mr. Prinker—who’s alleged to have been doing slow rolls past Sheryl’s house, according to the neighbor Gwen interviewed—has a shady record, including multiple domestic violence complaints. Currently newly married with one child, and I feel for that woman; Douglas isn’t likely to change his ways.
There’s a white van registered in his name, but it’s so old it’s got to be on its last thousand miles. His credit report is littered with unpaid bills, and his trailer is threatened with foreclosure. Breaking four hundred on a credit score would be a really good day for him. To him, Sheryl must have seemed like she had it all.
Could be it’s just that simple. Maybe Prinker saw an opportunity to grab a woman with money, meant it for a robbery, and something went hard sideways. Given Sheryl’s history, that would be ironic. But if so, why take her? No action on her bank account, nothing on the two credit cards active under Sheryl’s name.
Gwen’s included Prinker’s employment history. He’s working part time at the Norton landfill, and when I call, he’s at work.
“Landfill?” Prester leans back in his chair. “I assume you got this.”
I’m putting on my jacket and wishing I’d worn older clothes. “Yeah, I got this,” I say. “Unless you’re so bored you can’t miss this chance to smell the sights.”
“Kezia Claremont, I searched that damn landfill twice looking for two different murder weapons in my career, and I have done my stinky-garbage time. You enjoy yourself.” He goes back to typing, but then glances up as I pass. “And watch your back.”