Stefanie wondered where this left Kenneth Braison as asuspect in being the mastermind—if not actual culprit—of the drug-induced deaths of Jasmine and Mia. Were the cold case and current cases now thought to be unrelated?
“Do you think that Bella could’ve known her father was having an affair with Lynda—if, in fact, he was?” Campbell asked curiously as Stefanie rested her head on his firm chest.
She lifted her chin musingly. “Probably not. I think most cheating parents go to great lengths to keep it a secret,” she told him. “Especially from their children, who would then be put in a rather awkward position as to whether or not to reveal this to the other parent.”
“Maybe best if she didn’t know—which would have meant knocking Stuart Reston off whatever pedestal she had him on.” Campbell sighed. “Unfortunately, the cat may need to be let out of the bag—no disrespect to your wonderful cat, Curlie,” he quipped. “If we get anything else concrete on the Boxleitner homicide that can tie it directly to Stuart Reston, it will have to made public—the town’s namesake or not.”
“I understand,” Stefanie said acceptingly. She just wondered if Bella would. “So, do you still feel that the Braison Family is behind Jasmine’s and Mia’s deaths?”
With his arm wrapped around her, Campbell waited a beat and responded, “That’s still open for consideration—but, as of now, there’s reason enough to believe that someone within the cult’s orbit is involved in the fatal fentanyl poisonings. Question is who—and to what degree? If not Kenneth Braison, then another cult member…” Campbell ran a hand along her bare shoulder. “Beyond that, it’s not far reaching to think that they could have a serial killerin their midst—if not outside of the Family—on a deadly mission of targeting followers—”
“Hmm,” Stefanie murmured reflectively while taking comfort being in Campbell’s much-needed company. She thought about Mia and Jasmine and who could be next if an unidentified killer was roaming free to poison Braison Family members one by one.
Chapter Sixteen
The next day, Campbell sat inside his Chevy Tahoe in the police department lot. He was looking at his laptop, requesting a video chat with FBI Special Agent Rudi Villanueva, based in the Bureau’s resident agency in Boise. She happened to be a criminal profiler who specialized in serial killers, whom he had worked with in joint task force investigations when he was with the Boise Police Department.
When Rudi accepted the call, her heart-shaped face appeared on the screen. In her late thirties, she was green-eyed and had blond hair in a whisper pixie. “Hey, Sawyer,” she said cheerfully.
Campbell grinned. “Good morning, Rudi.”
“How’s life treating you in Reston Hills?”
Great on the romance front, he thought, but that wasn’t the purpose of his call. So he responded frankly, “Not as well as I’d like these days…”
“Oh?” Her eyes widened. “What’s up?”
Campbell told her about the two fentanyl-mixed-with-carfentanil fatalities connected to a cult, including the victims both found in the nude, with no indication of being sexually assaulted. Though it appeared as if the deaths were unrelated to the two decades old murder ofLynda Boxleitner, it seemed worth throwing it into the mix, given the notable similarities.
“I’m wondering if the overdoses, coming so close to one another at the same park, could be something more than the supplying of fentanyl and its analog as a drug-induced homicide,” Campbell put out. “Such as the deliberate actions of a serial killer operating inside or outside of the Braison Family cult—possibly for years…?”
Rudi contemplated the info he’d shared with her for a minute or two, digesting it as her profiler side kicked into gear, before responding coolly, “Aside from the realities of the fentanyl epidemic and its devastating impact on communities across the country, these scenarios you’ve laid out are certainly thought-provoking.” She drew a breath. “So, without having more time to delve into the deaths and their characteristics, with respect to fatal ODs, there does seem to be some symmetry between the two recent deaths and the death twenty years ago—which isn’t to say they are directly related or orchestrated by the same person. That being said, the cult angle is interesting.”
“Okay,” Campbell said after hanging on her every word. “How much so?”
“Well, by its very nature, a cult is typically associated with a religious group of sorts that indoctrinates its followers to buying in to whatever philosophy they’re selling—usually going against the grain of mainstream society and, at times, drifting into questionable or aberrant behavior.” Rudi sighed. “Anyway, based on what you’ve told me, the way I see it, there are likely two strong possibilities here relative to serial murder… The first is that the two recent drug-related deaths are ritualistic killings by the cult in a ceremonial method of maintainingcontrol over their followers—which, if true, would still qualify as serial homicides.”
She ran a hand through her hair and continued, “The second, and probably most likely possibility, is that someone today—either within the Braison Family or not— was influenced by the Founder’s Day homicide from twenty years ago. So there is a copycat killer deliberately mimicking it or pretending it’s the same killer to perhaps throw you off from the real agenda, while substituting the thallium sulfate for the more accessible fentanyl to carry out the killings.”
Campbell peered at the screen and stated, if hearing her words correctly, “So, the unsub—if there is one—is probably reenacting the murder of cult member Lynda Boxleitner as a smokescreen to perpetrate the modern-day cult-related killings of Mia O’Dell and Jasmine Roxburgh with another motive in mind?”
“That’s where I would go with this and what you need to figure out,” Rudi suggested. “Of course, there’s always the possibility—slim as it might be—that a cold case killer has lay in wait for two decades, till the opportunity came to resume Braison Family members.”
“Hmm…” Campbell weighed that angle. His current belief was that Stuart Reston had likely been the one to use thallium sulfate to kill his lover, Lynda Boxleitner. Thus, there was little reason to think that someone else—perhaps who had been incarcerated for another crime or otherwise prevented from acting out—had chosen to target followers of Kenneth Braison. Campbell preferred to believe that a killer was motivated to kill based on present circumstances and not past ones. “We’ll see where this goes,” he said. “Appreciate your thoughts.”
Rudi smiled. “Always happy to help whenever I can.” She paused. “Good luck with your investigation.”
“Thanks.” Campbell ended the video chat. He certainly wasn’t counting on luck to solve this, but he was happy to accept it nevertheless. He closed the lid to the laptop and went inside the building.
* * *
“STUARTRESTON?” GLORIA’Smouth stayed open in shock, as she stood in the conference room, which had a curved big-screen monitor, a rectangular wooden meeting table and leather chairs with wheels.
“Yeah, looks like he could have killed Lynda Boxleitner,” Campbell reiterated, standing beside her, after giving the chief and Georgina, along with other detectives sitting around the table—including one from the Cold Case Unit—the rundown on what he and his father had gotten out of Reston’s former gardener, Sidney Sedwick. “If Sedwick is to be believed—and his argument was pretty persuasive, I must admit—he got his hands on some thallium sulfate at the request of Reston, who used it to poison Boxleitner, his lover—presumably to keep their tryst from being exposed, as she may have threatened to do.”
Gloria sighed. “Reston wasn’t even on our radar as a suspect, which I’m sure Mason told you,” she said, her voice rising an octave.
“He did,” Campbell acknowledged, hoping his dad wouldn’t be blamed for missing the boat here. “Guess Reston’s prominent position in town and even apparently having an alibi of being with his wife, Eloise Reston, at the time Lynda Boxleitner was killed was more than enough to keep him from being looked at strongly as asuspect. And Sedwick had an alibi as well that held up.” Campbell suddenly felt the need to defend his father’s original investigation. “Whereas Wendell Braison—whom Lynda was also linked to romantically and as a member of the Braison Family cult—was a more likely person of interest in her death, given the manner in which she died and other circumstantial evidence that pointed in Braison’s direction.”
