If She Saw

“I’ll do that,” Kate said as Palmetto took his leave.

When Palmetto had closed the door behind him, DeMarco playfully shook her head. “You ever get tired of hearing people sing your praises?”

“Yes, actually,” Kate said, but not in a rude way. While it was uplifting to be reminded of all that she had done throughout her career, she knew deep down that she had always just been doing her job. Perhaps she done her job with a bit more passion than others had, but it had been just that—a job well done…a job she could not seem to leave behind her.

Within a few minutes and some help from the station’s systems administrator, Kate and DeMarco had access to the station’s database. They worked together, looking into the pasts of the Nashes and the Langleys. Neither family had records of any kind. In fact, both families had records that made it hard to imagine anyone having a grudge against them. As for the Langleys, they had served as foster parents for a few years of their lives, so they’d had to undergo rigorous background checks several times throughout the course of their lives. The Nashes were heavily involved in their church and had been on several mission trips in the past twenty tears, most notably to Nepal and Honduras.

Kate gave up after a while and started pacing the floor. She used the conference room’s dry erase board to jot down notes, hoping that seeing everything written down in one place would help her to focus. But there was nothing. No link, no clues, no clear course of where to go.

“You, too, huh?” DeMarco said. “Nothing?”

“Not so far. I think maybe we just go with what we do have rather than trying to find something new. I think we need to reevaluate the fabrics. While the forensics tests came up with nothing, maybe the fabric itself can point us somewhere.”

“I don’t follow you,” DeMarco said.

“That’s fine,” Kate said. “I’m not sure I do, either. But I’m hoping we’ll know it when we see it.”

***

Kate felt the first true pangs of fatigue as she and DeMarco drove from the police station to the forensics lab. It was a stark reminder that she had not slept in about twenty-seven hours and that her work day had started insanely early. Twenty years ago, this would not have bothered her. But with fifty-six staring her right in the face from a few weeks across the calendar, things were different now.

The drive to the lab was only five minutes, located in close proximity to a little network consisting of the PD, the courthouse, and a holding jail. After showing their IDs, they were escorted past the front desk of the forensic sciences lab and into the central laboratory area. They were asked to sit in a small lobby for a moment while the technician who had been in charge of the fabric swabs was paged.

“You think there’s any chance the fabric is just some kind of calling card for the killer?” DeMarco asked.

“It could be. Might not have anything to do with the why of the case. It could just mean something to the killer. Either way, right now it seems that the fabric—from a blanket of some kind, I feel quite sure—is our only real connection to him.”

It made Kate recall a gruesome case she’d once been a part of early in the nineties. A man had killed five people—all ex-girlfriends. Before killing them by choking them, he had forced each one to swallow a condom. In the end, he had no real reason for doing so other than his hatred for wearing condoms during sex. Kate could not help but wonder if these fabric fragments would turn out to be just as insignificant to the case.

Their wait was a short one; a tall older man came hurrying out of a door directly across from them. “You’re with the FBI?” he asked.

“We are,” Kate said, showing her ID. DeMarco did the same and the man studied each one quite carefully.

“Nice to meet you, Agents,” he said. “I’m Will Reed, and I ran the tests on the fabric from the recent murders. I assume that’s why you’re here? Agent DeMarco, I believe you are the one I sent the picture to earlier?”

“That’s right,” DeMarco said. “We were hoping you could shed some more light on those scraps.”

“Well, I’d be more than happy to assist with whatever you need, but if it’s about those two scraps of fabric, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can offer. It seems that the killer not only went through great lengths to shove the fabric into the mouths of the victims, but that he was also quite careful about not leaving any traces of himself behind.”

“Yes, we understand that,” Kate said. “But without any firm physical results to go on, I was wondering if there’s anything you could tell me about the fabric itself.”

“Oh,” Reed said. “That, I can help with.”

“I’m of the opinion that both scraps came from the same source material,” Kate said. “Most likely a blanket.”

“I think that’s a safe bet to place,” Reed said. “I wasn’t too sure until I saw the second scrap. They fit together rather well—color, texture, and so forth.”

“Is there any way to tell how old the blanket might be?” Kate asked.

“I’m afraid not. What I can tell you, though, is what the blanket is made up of. And it stuck with me because as far as I know, it’s an odd fabric combination for a traditional blanket as you’d think of one. The vast majority of the blanket is made of wool, which, of course, is not uncommon at all. But the secondary material used in the fabric is bamboo cotton.”

“Is that all that different from regular cotton?” Kate asked.

“I’m not positive,” he said. “But we see a lot of clothes and fabric-related material come through here. And I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve come into contact with something with noticeable traces of bamboo cotton. It’s not a very rare material but it’s just not as widespread as your basic cotton.”

“In other words,” DeMarco said, “it wouldn’t be too hard to locate companies that use it as a primary material?”

“That, I don’t know,” Reed said. “But you may be interested to know that bamboo cotton is present in lots of fluffier blankets. It’s quite breathable from what I’ve seen. You’re probably looking for something on the pricier side. As a matter of fact, there’s a warehouse just outside of town that manufactures the very sort of thing I mean. Pricy blankets, throws, sheets, that sort of thing.”

“Do you know the name of it?” DeMarco asked.

“Biltmore Threads. They’re a smaller company that nearly went belly up when everyone started buying everything online.”

“Anything else you can tell us?” Kate asked.

“Yes, but it’s sort of grisly. With the Nash woman, I believe the fabric was shoved so far down that she nearly vomited, even that close to death. There was stomach acid on the fabric.”

Kate thought about the amount of force and effort it would take for someone to do that…about how much of one’s hand would go into the victim’s mouth.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Reed,” Kate said.

“Certainly. Let’s just hope I don’t see a third piece to that blanket anytime soon.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Eerily enough, the drive to the Biltmore Threads warehouse took Kate and DeMarco down the same stretch of road they had taken into Whip Springs at four o’clock that morning. The factory and warehouse were located down a two-lane road that snaked off of the main highway. It was tucked away, along with the stretch of dying grass that served as its landscaping, in the very same woods that had hidden the Nash home from the main road.

From the looks of the parking lot, Biltmore Threads wasn’t doing quite as badly as Will Reed had suggested. The place looked to employ at least fifty or so people, and that was based on just this time of day. With a factory like this, Kate assumed there was shift work involved, meaning another fifty or so would probably come in later on for the night shift.

They made their way inside, walking into a dingy lobby. A woman sitting behind a counter looked up at them with a peculiar expression. It was evident that they didn’t get many visitors.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

DeMarco went through the round of introductions and after they showed their IDs, the woman at the counter buzzed them in through a door on the far end of the lobby. That same woman met them there and then led them down a small hallway. At the end of the hall, she opened a set of double doors that led onto the Biltmore Threads production floor. Several sets of looms and other equipment Kate had never seen were thrumming with life. On the far side of the large work floor, a compact forklift was carrying a pallet of stacked cloth elsewhere into the warehouse.

After leading them carefully around the edge of the floor, the woman stopped at another door and led them inside. Here, there was a thin hallway adorned with five rooms. The woman brought them to the first one and knocked.

“Yeah?” a man’s voice boomed from inside.

“We’ve got visitors,” the woman called before opening the door. “Two ladies from the FBI.”

There was a few seconds’ pause and then the door was opened from the other side. A dark-haired man wearing thick glasses greeted them. He looked them up and down, not out of nervousness but sheer curiosity.

“FBI?” he asked. “What can I do for you?”

“Can we have a minute of your time?” Kate asked.

“Sure,” he said, standing aside and allowing them into his office.