“Yeah, agreed.” Campbell was blown over at the parallel thoughts, unsettling as they were. Moreover, he was determined to keep the deaths from going beyond the Braison Family members—with Stefanie being his greatest concern in that respect, as someone who had inadvertently been touched by Mia and Jasmine. In this instance, he saw that as a negative that a killer might see fit to use against Stefanie.
* * *
MASON SAT AThis desk while Hopper sat in front of the picture window, staring out at the meadow.
With all the information, statements, photographs and whatever else he had been able to keep as a cold case reminder of what had eluded him as a police detective taking up much of his desk space and some of the floor—Mason went through it all once more, hoping to find the proverbial needle in a haystack.
Sipping black coffee, he bit back on the frustrations at seemingly going around in circles. Just as had been the case twenty years ago.Maybe I wasn’t meant to ever fill in the blanks, Mason surmised. Could be that some things in life were better left in the past.
He didn’t believe that to be the case in this instance. Especially when the past and present had merged asthough time had stood still. If Lynda’s death was related in any way to the recent cult-related deaths, Mason sincerely believed it was incumbent upon him to lend his son a helping hand. And put his own mind at ease for the bargain.
As Mason went through the main suspects in Lynda’s murder, he focused primarily on Wendell Braison, who’d had her under his thumb and in his bed as part of the cult manipulation and seemed more than capable of taking Lynda out if she crossed him. Or wanted out, if this went against his wishes.
But Braison was clever enough to keep from being boxed into a corner. They couldn’t lay a finger on him in terms of an arrest and conviction.
Mason took another look at his son, Kenneth Braison. He was supposed to have been in Boise when Lynda was poisoned to death. But what if he had doubled back to commit the deed? Wendell would have done anything to shield his son from trouble—including paying off as many people as he needed to cover for him.
Studying the material, Mason wasn’t feeling it about Kenneth being the culprit in Lynda’s death, for whatever reason. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t responsible for the recent deaths of his followers in the Braison Family.
Mason turned to another suspect, Roger Pennock. A forty-nine-year-old professor, he was seen flirting with Lynda at Harriette’s Café, where she worked part-time as a waitress, the day before her death. He was cleared after it was determined that he was in the hospital being treated for a peptic ulcer during Lynda’s estimated time of death.
Similarly, Howard Henesy, a thirty-six-year-old homeless veteran, who was found lurking near Reston HillsPark just after midnight on Founder’s Day in the vicinity of where Lynda’s body was found, was dropped as a suspect when it was discovered that he’d solicited the services of a local prostitute—the two spending more than an hour together smoking marijuana and having sex, around the time of Lynda’s death.
Mason sipped his coffee and sighed, nearly ready to call it quits on what was starting to look like a futile attempt at unlocking the past, when he came across another name that barely registered.
Sidney Sedwick.
Mason saw that Sedwick was forty-two at the time and worked as a gardener for Stuart Reston, whom Mason had done some off-duty security work for himself from time to time for extra pay outside of police work. Looking deeper at his notes, he noted that Sedwick had been seen with Lynda in his Ford F-150 pickup days before she was killed. He claimed he was only giving her a lift as a friend.
Sedwick’s solid alibi for Lynda’s death was that he was working with other volunteers all night on Founder’s Day preparations. Many vouched for him. Moreover, Stuart Reston backed Sedwick as a hard worker with not a bad bone in his body. Given Stuart’s stature in the town that bore his family’s surname, this carried a lot of weight in looking elsewhere beyond Sedwick—who had no criminal record—for a killer.
But now Mason found himself revisiting the former gardener as a possible suspect in Lynda’s death. Was his relationship with Lynda truly only platonic in nature? Or was there something more to it, such as sexual, at a time when Sedwick was divorced and lived alone?
As Hopper got up and made his way over to him,Mason couldn’t help but think that, as a gardener, Sidney Sedwick may have had access to the poisonous rodenticide and insecticide, thallium sulfate, that Lynda died from. Though the tasteless, odorless and colorless pesticide had been banned for decades at the time in the United States, it was still available and accessible in some other countries.
Could Sedwick have gotten his hands on some and used it on Lynda? Moreover, could he have graduated from thallium sulfate to fentanyl…and picked up where he left off in lethal poisonings of women in Reston Hills?
Mason chewed on these disturbing thoughts.
* * *
CAMPBELL SAT ONa mesh-back side chair in Chief Gloria Schecter’s office as he briefed her on the latest—and no less disturbing—death to hit Reston Hills Park.
“This might be the work of a serial killer—possibly spanning two decades,” he told her, bothered by the prospect.
Seated at her desk, Gloria’s eyes widened behind her glasses. “Go on…”
Campbell sighed. “According to the autopsy findings, Jasmine Roxburgh’s death was caused by acute fentanyl intoxication—or a lethal overdose of fentanyl combined with carfentanil—the same as Mia O’Dell. Both were found in the park naked—which, in and of itself is highly suspicious, even if they were under some delusional state from the effects of the fentanyl poisoning. The fact that they were members of the Braison Family—much like Lynda Boxleitner, who, as you know, had no clothes on when she died at the same location twenty years ago, albeit from thallium sulfate poisoning—suggests that thedeaths are linked to the cult either by association or by someone who has it out for the followers…”
“Hmm…” Gloria pursed her lips. “If it’s true that we’re dealing with a poisonous serial killer, then it would effectively exonerate Wendell Braison in the unsolved death of Boxleitner,” she threw out. “Am I right?”
Campbell considered this for a beat. “Yeah, that would seem to be the case—assuming we’re talking about the same killer of all three women…” He paused. “It’s still possible that Braison killed Lynda Boxleitner and someone else—perhaps Kenneth Braison—has taken up the cause, ritual, retaliation or whatever in using fentanyl to kill Jasmine Roxburgh and Mia O’Dell. We’re not ruling anything out at the moment,” he emphasized.
“Nor should you.” Gloria leaned forward and said, “Keep digging and see what you unearth. If these are serial homicides—especially two decades in the making—we may need to bring the FBI in on this investigation. Given our somewhat limited resources, any help would always be welcome.”
Maybe not always, Campbell thought, knowing the penchant the Bureau had to want to take the lead in any investigation they were involved in. Still, he wasn’t so territorial that he would turn his back on their assistance, if offered. But first, he wanted more clarity as to whether he was onto something about the serial killer angle. Or if it was possible that Mia’s and Jasmine’s deaths were simply fatal drug overdoses that had landed them in the park—with the nudity merely a reflection of their affiliation with the Braison Family and being comfortable with no clothes on for the freedom it gave them.
* * *
