CHAPTER SIX

When they split up the following morning, Mackenzie was surprised to notice that Ellington seemed particularly somber about it. He hugged her a bit longer than usual in the motel room and looked rather depressed when she dropped him off at the Stateton PD. With a wave through the windshield as he walked inside, Mackenzie headed back for the main road with a two-hour-and-forty-minute drive ahead of her.

Being in the woods, the signal on her phone was spotty. She was not able to place a call to Jones’s second potential suspect, Robbie Huston, until she was about ten miles outside of Stateton city limits. When she finally got the call to go through, he answered on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Is this Robbie Huston?” she asked.

“It is. Who’s asking?”

“This is Agent Mackenzie White with the FBI. I was wondering if you’d have time to chat this morning.”

“Um…can I ask what about?”

His confusion and surprise were genuine. She could tell even over the phone.

“About a resident of the Wakeman Home for the Blind that I believe you know. I can’t reveal more than that over the phone. If you could give me just five or ten minutes of your time this morning, I’d appreciate it. I’ll be coming through Lynchburg in about an hour.”

“Sure,” he said. “I work from home, so you’re welcome to just come by my apartment if you want.”

She ended the call after she got his address. She plugged it into her GPS and was relieved to see that getting to his apartment would only add another twenty minutes to her drive.

On the way to Lynchburg, she found herself far too distracted by the facts of this current case, bogged down with the hundreds of unanswered questions surrounding her father’s old case and the new death that had brought it back to light. For some reason, the same people who had killed her father had killed someone else in a very similar fashion.

And once again, they had left a cryptic business card behind. But why?

She’d spent weeks trying to figure it out. Maybe the killer was just cocky. Or maybe the cards were supposed to lead investigators to something else…like a twisted sort of cat and mouse game. She knew that Kirk Peterson was still on the case – a humble and dedicated private detective back in Nebraska whom she didn’t know well enough to trust completely. Still, the fact that someone was actively keeping the trail as fresh as possible was reassuring. It made her feel like the puzzle might be nearly shut to her but that someone had snuck a piece off of the table and was holding on to it, determined to put it in at the very last moment.

She’d never felt so defeated by anything else in her life. It was no longer a question of whether or not she could bring her father’s killer to justice, but more about putting a decades-old mystery to rest. As her mind was wrapped around it all, her phone started ringing. She saw an the sheriff’s number in the display, answering and hoping for some sort of clue to the current case.

“G’morning, Agent White,” Sheriff Clarke said on the other end. “Look, you know the cell reception down here in Stateton is crap. I’ve got Agent Ellington here, wanting to speak to you really quick. His cell phone couldn’t get the call out.”

She listened to the phone being jostled on the other end as it was handed over to Ellington. “So,” he said. “Lost without me yet?”

“Hardly,” she said. “I’m meeting with Robbie Huston in a little over an hour.”

“Ah, progress. Speaking of which, I’m looking at the coroner’s report right now. Hot off the presses. I’ll let you know if I find anything. Randall Jones is coming in pretty soon, too. I might see if he’ll let me speak to a few of the other residents up at the home.”

“Sounds good. I’ll be driving past cow pastures and empty fields for the next three hours.”

“Ah, the glamorous life,” he said. “Call if you need anything.”

And with that, he ended the call.

This was how they exchanged barbs back and forth all of the time. It made her feel a little foolish for her earlier worries about how he was feeling about whatever it was that was evolving between them.

With the phone call having brought thoughts of her father’s old case to a close, she was able to better focus on the case at hand. The digital thermometer on her car’s dash told her that it was eight-eight degrees outside already…and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet.

The trees along the side of the back roads were impossibly thick, hanging over the road like an awning. And while there was something mysteriously pretty about them in the weak light of an early southern morning, she couldn’t wait for the wider expanses of major highways and four lanes that would lead her toward Lynchburg and Treston.

***

Robbie Huston lived in a trendy little apartment complex near the central heart of Lynchburg. It was surrounded by college-owned bookshops and coffee corners that likely only thrived due to the large private Christian college that loomed over most of the city. When she knocked on his door at 9:52, he answered almost right away.

He looked to be in his early twenties – wiry, uncombed hair, and the sort of soft complexion that made Mackenzie think any work he’d ever done was from behind a desk. He was cute in a frat boy sort of way and was on the verge of either excitement or nervousness to actually have an FBI agent knocking on his door.

He invited her inside and she saw that the inside of the apartment was just as nice and modern as the outside. The living area, kitchen, and study were all one large room, separated by small ornate dividers and flooded with natural sunlight that poured in through two huge picture windows on opposite walls.

“Um…can I get you some coffee or something?” he asked. “I’ve still got some left in my morning pot.”

“Coffee would be great, actually,” she said.

She followed him into the kitchen where he poured her a cup and handed it to her. “Cream? Sugar?”

“No thanks,” she said. She took a sip, found it quite good, and got to the point. “Mr. Huston, you often volunteer at the Wakeman Home for the Blind, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“About how often?”

“It depends on my workload, really. Sometimes I can only make it down once or twice a month. There have been months when I was able to make it down once a week, though.”

“How about lately?” Mackenzie asked.

“Well, I was there on Monday of this week. Last week, I went on Wednesday and the week before that I was there on Monday and Friday, I think. I can show you my schedule.”

“Maybe later,” she said. “Speaking with Randall Jones, I found out that you will go to play board games and maybe help move furniture and clean. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right. Every now and then I’ll read to them, too.”

“Them? Which residents in particular have you read to or played board games with in the past two weeks?”

“A few. There’s an older gentleman by the name of Percy that I play Apples to Apples with. At least one caretaker has to play, too…to whisper what the cards say to him. And last week, I talked quite a bit with Ellis Ridgeway about music. I also read to her for a while.”

“Do you know when you spent this time with Ellis?”

“The last two trips down there. Monday, I let her listen to Brian Eno. We talked about classical music and I read her an article online about some of the ways classical music is used to stimulate the brain.”

Mackenzie nodded, knowing it was time to throw her biggest card on the table. “Well, I hate to tell you this, but Ellis was found murdered Tuesday night. We’re trying to find out who did it, and as I’m sure you understand, we had to look into anyone who had spent time with her recently. Especially volunteers that aren’t always in the home.”

“Oh my God,” Robbie said, his face going paler and paler by the moment.

“Before Mrs. Ridgeway, there was another murder in a home in Treston, Virginia. Have you ever been there?”

Robbie nodded. “Yes, but only twice. Once was for a sort of community service thing we do through Liberty, my alma mater. I helped remodel their kitchen and did some landscaping. I went back a month or two later to help where I could. It was mostly just relationship-building stuff.”

“How long ago was this?”

He thought about it, still shaken by the news of the two murders. “Four years, I’d say. Maybe closer to four and a half.”

“Do you recall meeting a man named Kenneth Able when you were there? He was also killed recently.”

Again, he seemed lost in thought. His eyes almost seemed frozen. “The name doesn’t sound familiar. But that doesn’t mean I never spoke to him while I was there.”

Mackenzie nodded, growing more and more certain that Robbie Huston was far from a killer. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw his eyes gleaming with tears as she gulped down some of the coffee he had given her.

Can’t be too careful, though, she thought.

“Mr. Huston, we know for certain that Mrs. Ridgeway was killed half a mile away from Wakeman’s grounds sometime between seven-oh-five and nine forty on Tuesday night. Do you have any sort of alibis for that stretch of time?”

She saw that searching look for a third time but then he started to nod very slowly. “I was here, in the apartment. I was on a conference call with three other guys. We’re starting this small little organization to help the homeless downtown and in other surrounding cities.”

“Any proof?”

“I could show you where I logged in. I think one of the other guys keeps pretty good notes of the calls, too. There will be all kind of time-stamped message threads, note edits, and things like that.” He was already heading for his laptop, sitting on a desk in front of one of the large windows. “Here, I can show you if you want.”

She was now positive that Robbie Huston was innocent but she wanted to see it through. Given the way the news had affected him, she also wanted Robbie to feel like he had contributed something to the case. So she watched over his shoulder as he went to the conference platform site, logged in, and pulled up his history not just for the last few days, but the last several weeks as well. She saw that he had been telling the truth: he’d been taking part in a conference call and planning session from 6:45 to 10:04 on Tuesday night.

The whole process took him less than five minutes to get through, showing her the notes and edits, as well as when he logged in and signed out of the call.

“Thanks so much for your help, Mr. Huston,” she said.

He nodded as he walked her to the door. “Two blind people…” he said, trying to make sense of it. “Why would someone do that?”

“I’m trying to find that out for myself,” she said. “Please do call me if you think of anything that might help,” she added, offering him one of her cards.

He took it, waved a slow goodbye, and then closed the door as she made her exit. Mackenzie almost felt like she’d just delivered the news of the murders to family members rather than a kind-hearted young guy who seemed to genuinely care about both of the deceased.

She almost envied that…feeling genuine remorse for strangers. Lately, she had seen the dead as nothing more than corpses – unnamed mounds, ripe with potential clues.

It wasn’t the best way to live a life, she knew. She couldn’t let the job wipe out her sense of compassion. Or her humanity.