* * *
Nester called in early that afternoon with news that he had tracked down the mayor in Montana and was working with the Montana field office to get the man on a plane back home. “There’s a storm preventing the small plane from flying right now, but the mayor said he’d head out tomorrow morning and meet you at his house late afternoon.”
“Make sure agents escort him to his plane, and also be clear that if he doesn’t fly right here, I’ll have him arrested for hindering an investigation,” she said.
“No problem, boss.”
Finally. She had a few choice words for the mayor. She and Huck could practice breaking ice on the rivers in the morning, and then she would interview the Bearings. She believed his son, the attorney, would also be present. “Have you found anything else about Mrs. Bearing’s movements?” She placed her phone on speaker.
“No, and I can’t find any spa where she had a reservation,” Nester said. “I’m thinking she just lied to her husband and never made reservations since she planned to stay with Pastor John for a couple of days and go on that snowmobile trip. They certainly weren’t hiding their affair.”
Laurel sipped her herbal tea. “Have we found anybody to corroborate Pastor John’s alibi that night?”
“No,” Nester said. “So far, we haven’t found anybody who saw him that night, and we don’t have any CCTV that far out. I’m still working on it, though. He said he was home alone, so tracing his path to and from the church isn’t going to be easy.”
The pastor seemed to blur the lines between his professional and personal lives too often. Of course, Laurel was dating Huck. But an FBI agent and a Fish and Wildlife officer had a different relationship than a pastor and his parishioner. “What else have you discovered?”
“I’ve just started a background check on Tim Kohnex. Everything he told you so far checks out. He was a basketball coach after he played for Alabama. The guy was pretty good, then blew out his knee. During his time in Arizona, he notified police about crimes several times, but it was all kind of floofy.”
“I need clarification on the word ‘floofy.’”
Nester sneezed. “Floofy—meaning it’s like he knew stuff afterwards. You know, like when he came in and told you that another blonde would be murdered by the river. Anybody who’s watched a show about a serial killer pretty much knows if two blondes have been found killed in a ritualistic manner, a third will be found soon. That kind of thing. Where he could claim he had a vision, but also where most people could have guessed at it.”
“That was my insight when I spoke with him.” Even though his apparent intensity had given her pause. She wasn’t an imaginative person, but anybody could get caught up once in a while. “Keep researching him. I’d like to know his movements around both murders. See if we can tie him to Delta Rivers or at least to the crime scene by the Iceberg River.”
“You’ve got it,” Nester said. “Also, the toxicology reports came back on both victims.”
Laurel rubbed a knot in her neck. “Were drugs discovered in their systems?”
“No drugs. They were both clean of drugs other than the alcohol in Mrs. Bearing’s system. She was over the limit to drive safely but not to the point where she would’ve lost consciousness.”
Laurel relived the scenes in her mind. “So the killer either had the ice already prepared or subdued the victims and cut a hole in it without allowing them to escape.”
“My guess is he scoped the places out in advance.”
“Agreed,” Laurel said. “Which gives us another chance to place the perpetrator at the scenes. He would’ve had to have been there at least once before. No doubt he scouted the areas several times.”
Nester hummed softly. “The church is an odd choice, isn’t it? People come and go from there a lot. Do you think this guy has a problem with religion?”
“I don’t know,” Laurel said. “The only tie we have between the two crime scenes is that we had earlier crime scenes in the same vicinities.”
“That’s creepy as hell,” Nester muttered.
He wasn’t wrong.
She sighed. “Maybe we need to speak to the public again. What have you discovered about Delta Rivers?”
“Fascinating woman. I traced her most recent location to a commune in Santa Fe. It’s a place called Trust the Land, and according to the woman I spoke with, Delta Rivers lived there for the last fifteen years.”
How intriguing. “That’s a long time. It’s a commune?”
“Yes. The commune is a cohousing community that exists on the precepts of sustainability, cooperative living, and family creation. I think by that they mean you choose your family. There’s a common house, kitchen, all that stuff, and they grow their own food. It sounds like they’re a bunch of artists as well, and Delta was one of them.”
Laurel rearranged her schedule in her mind. “How well did this woman with whom you spoke know Delta?”
“Extremely well. Her name is Opal Garcia, and she’s the current president of the commune. I’m running a background check on her now. It should be completed in about an hour.”
“Excellent,” Laurel said. “Did she say she’d meet with me?”
