Before He Feels

“You found her?” Ellington asked.

“Yes. At about nine forty-five last night. When she didn’t make it back for curfew, I started to worry. After half an hour, I figured I should come check to see if she’d fallen or panicked or something.”

“Were all of her clothes in place?” Mackenzie asked.

“As far as I could tell,” Randall said, clearly surprised by the question. “In the moment, I wasn’t really thinking in such a way.”

“And there’s absolutely no one else on that video footage at the home?” Ellington asked. “No one following her?”

“No one. You’re welcome to look at the footage for yourself when we get back.”

As they headed back through the garden, Ellington brought up a question that had been brewing on Mackenzie’s mind. “It seems very quiet today in the home. What gives?”

“I guess you’d call it mourning. We have a very tight-knit community at Wakeman and Ellis was so loved. Very few of our residents have come out of their rooms all day. We also made an announcement over the PA that we’d have agents from DC coming to look into Ellis’s murder. Ever since then, hardly anyone has come out of their room. I guess they’re freaked out…scared.”

That, plus no one following her out of the home rules out the murderer being a resident, Mackenzie thought. The meager file on the first victim stated that the murder occurred between eleven o’clock and midnight…and a pretty good distance away from Stateton.

“Would it be at all possible for us to speak to some of your residents?” Mackenzie asked.

“It’s absolutely fine with me,” Jones said. “Of course, if they’re uncomfortable with it I’ll have to ask you to stop.”

“Of course. I think I could – ”

She was interrupted by the ringing of her phone. She checked it and saw an unfamiliar number in the display.

“One second,” she said, taking the call. She turned away from Jones and answered: “This is Agent White.”

“Agent White, it’s Sheriff Clarke. Look, I know you just left here but I’d really appreciate it if you could hustle back down as soon as you can.”

“Sure. Is everything okay?”

“It’s been better,” he said. “I’ve just got this jerk-off waste of space Langston Ridgeway down here. He’s demanding to speak with you about his mother’s case and he’s starting to cause a bit of a scene.”

Even in the sticks, you can’t escape politics, Mackenzie thought.

Irritated, she did her best to respond in a professional manner. “Give us about ten minutes,” she said and killed the call.

“Mr. Jones, we’re going to have to head back to the sheriff for now,” she said. “Could you have that security footage cued up for us when we come back?”

“Of course,” Randall said, leading them back to his car.

“And in the meantime,” Mackenzie added, “I want a list of anyone you have even the slightest suspicions about. I’m talking employees and other residents. People that would know the reach of the security camera in the garden.”

Jones nodded somberly. The look on his face told Mackenzie that this was something he had considered himself but had not dared put much belief into. With that same expression on his face, he started the car and took them back to Wakeman. Along the way, Mackenzie again noticed the silence of the little town – not tranquil, but more like the calm before a storm.

CHAPTER FOUR

The first thought that popped into Mackenzie’s head when she saw Langston Ridgeway was that he looked like a praying mantis. He was tall and skinny, and he moved his arms like awkward little pinchers when he talked. It didn’t help that his eyes were huge with fury as he yelled at everyone who tried speaking to him.

Sheriff Clarke had ushered them into the small conference room at the end of the hallway – a room that wasn’t much bigger than his office. Here, with the doors closed, Langston Ridgeway stood as tall as he could while Mackenzie and Ellington endured his wrath.

“My mother is dead and gone,” he moaned, “and I’m inclined to blame the incompetence of the staff at the damned home. And since this sorry excuse for a sheriff refuses to let me speak to Randall Jones in person, I’d like to know what you two FBI goons intend to do about it.”

Mackenzie waited a beat before responding. She was trying to gauge his level of grief. With the way he was behaving it was hard to tell if his anger was an expression of his loss or if he was genuinely just an atrocious man who liked to shout orders at others. So far, she couldn’t tell.

“Quite frankly,” Mackenzie said, “I agree with the sheriff. You’re angry and hurt right now, and it seems like you’re looking to pass blame. I am very sorry for your loss. But the worst thing you could do right now is to confront the management at the home.”

“Blame?” Ridgeway asked, clearly not used to people not simply folding and agreeing with him right away. “If that place is responsible for what happened to my mother, then I – ”

“We’ve already visited the home and spoken with Mr. Jones,” Mackenzie said, cutting him off. “I can assure you that what happened to your mother was the influence of outside sources. And if it is internal, then Mr. Jones certainly knows nothing about it. I can tell you all of that with absolutely confidence.”

Mackenzie wasn’t sure if the look of shock that came over Ridgeway’s face was the result of her disagreeing with him or because she had interrupted him.

“And you gathered all of that from one conversation?” he asked, clearly skeptical.

“I did,” she said. “Of course, this investigation is still quite young so I can’t be certain of anything. What I can tell you is that it’s very hard to conduct an investigation when I get calls that end with me having to leave a crime scene just to listen to people yell and complain.”

She could nearly feel the fury coming off of him now. “I just lost my mother,” he said, each word like a whisper. “I want answers. I want justice.”

“Good,” Ellington said. “We want the same thing.”

“But for us to get it,” Mackenzie said, “you need to let us work. I understand you hold sway around here, but quite frankly, I don’t care. We have a job to do and we can’t let your anger, grief, or arrogance get in the way.”

During the entire exchange, Sheriff Clarke sat at the small conference table. He was doing his very best to contain a smile.

Ridgeway was quiet for a moment. He looked back and forth between the agents and Sheriff Clarke. He nodded and when a tear slid down the side of his face, Mackenzie thought that it might be real. But she could also still see the anger in his eyes, right there at the surface.

“I’m sure you’re used to throwing instructions around at small-town cops and suspects and whatnot,” Langston Ridgeway said. “But let me tell you this…if you drop the ball on this case, or, for that matter, disrespect me again, I’ll make a call to DC. I’ll talk to your supervisor and bury you.”

The sad thing is, he thinks he’s fully capable of such a thing, Mackenzie thought. And maybe he is. But I’d sure as hell love to be a fly on the wall when someone like Langston Ridgeway starts barking at McGrath.

Rather than escalate the situation, Mackenzie decided to stay silent. She glanced beside her and saw that Ellington was clenching and unclenching his fist…a little trick he resorted to whenever he was on the verge of getting irrationally angry.

In the end, Mackenzie said, “If you let us do our job unhindered, it won’t come to that.”

It was clear that Ridgeway was searching for something else to say. All he could come up with was a muffled hmmph. He followed this by turning quickly away and leaving the room. It reminded Mackenzie very much of a child in the midst of a tantrum.

After a few seconds, Sheriff Clarke leaned forward with a sigh. “And now you see what I’ve been having to deal with. That boy thinks the sun rises and sets around his spoiled ass. And he can go on and on about losing his mother all he wants. All he’s worried about is the media in bigger cities finding out that he dumped her in a home…even if it is a nice one. He’s worried about his own image more than anything else.”

“Yeah, I got that same feeling,” Ellington said.

“Do you think we can expect any more interference from him?” Mackenzie asked.

“I don’t know. He’s unpredictable. He’ll do whatever he thinks might improve his chances of getting public attention which will later turn to votes for whatever tainted sea he guns for.”

“Well then, Sheriff,” Mackenzie said, “if you have a few minutes, why don’t we sit down and go over what we know?”

“That won’t take long,” he said. “Because there ain’t much.”