Chapter Nine

Due to the late hour, Quinn Tuck had understandably been pissed off when Mackenzie had called. Still, he told them how to get into the complex and where the spare set of keys were. It was just before midnight when Mackenzie and Ellington opened up Claire Locke’s storage unit again. Mackenzie couldn’t help but feel that they were running in circles—not a feeling that was especially encouraging so early in the case—but she also felt that this was the right move.

With the doll from Elizabeth Newcomb’s unit in mind, Mackenzie stepped back into the unit. Perhaps it was just being aware of the late hour, but the place seemed a bit more foreboding this time around. The bins and boxes stacked in the back weren’t quite as perfect as the ones in Elizabeth Newcomb’s unit, but they were still tidy.

“A little sad, isn’t it?” Ellington said.

“What’s that?”

“These things…these bins and boxes. Chances are no one who cares about what’s inside of them will ever open them.”

It was a sad thought, one that Mackenzie tried to push to the back of her mind. She walked to the back of the unit, feeling almost like an intruder. She and Ellington both checked over the contents for any dolls or other disturbances, but found nothing. It then occurred to Mackenzie that she was expecting to find something as obvious as a doll. Maybe there was something different, something smaller…

Or maybe there’s no connection here at all, she thought.

“You see this?” Ellington asked.

He was kneeling next to the right wall. He nodded toward the corner of the unit, in a thin space between the wall and a stack of cardboard boxes. Mackenzie dropped down to her knees as well and saw what Ellington had spied.

It was a miniature teapot—not miniature as in a small teapot, but more like a playset teapot that little girls might use for an imagined tea time.

She crawled forward and picked it up off the floor. She was rather surprised to find that it was made not of plastic, but of a ceramic material. It felt just like a real teapot, only it was no bigger than six inches tall. She could set the entirety of the thing in her hand.

“If you ask me,” Ellington said, “there’s no way that was set there by accident or by someone just tired of packing shit into the unit.”

“And it didn’t just fall out of a box,” Mackenzie added. “It’s ceramic. If it had fallen from a box, it would have shattered on the floor.”

“So what the hell does it mean?”

Mackenzie had no answer. They both looked to the little teapot, quite pretty but also dingy—just like the doll in Elizabeth Newcomb’s unit. And despite its small size, Mackenzie felt that it represented something much larger.

***

It was 1:05 when they finally checked into a motel. Mackenzie was tired but also invigorated by the puzzle that the doll and the little teapot offered. Once in the room, she took a quick moment to change out of her work clothes and into a T-shirt and gym shorts. She powered up her laptop as Ellington changed into more comfortable clothes as well. She logged into her email and saw that McGrath had assigned someone to send them every single file they had on the Salem, Oregon, storage unit murders from eight years ago.

“What are you doing?” Ellington asked as he stepped up beside her. “It’s late and tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

Ignoring him, she asked: “Was there nothing in the Oregon cases that pointed to any of this? To a doll, a teapot…anything like that?”

“I honestly don’t recall. Like McGrath said, I just ran cleanup. I questioned a few witnesses, tidied up reports and paperwork. If there was anything like that, it didn’t stand out. I’m not ready to say the cases are linked. Yes, they are eerily similar, but not identical. Still…it might not hurt to eventually look into it. Maybe meet with the PD in Salem to see if anyone closer to the case remembers anything like that.”

Mackenzie trusted his word but couldn’t help but scan through several of the files before giving in to the need to sleep. She felt Ellington rest a hand on her shoulder and then felt his face next to hers.

“Am I being lazy if I turn in?”

“No. Am I being over-obsessive if I don’t?”

“No. You’re just being very dedicated to your job.” He kissed her on the cheek and then fell into the room’s single bed.

It was tempting to join him—not for any extracurricular activities, but to just enjoy some sleep before the frantic pace tomorrow would be sure to bring. But she felt that she had to find at least a few more potential pieces to the puzzle, even if they were buried in a case from eight years ago.

From a cursory glance, there was nothing to be found. There had been five people killed, all found in storage units. One of the units had contained more than ten thousand dollars’ worth of valuable baseball cards and another had contained a macabre collection of medieval weaponry. Seven people had been questioned in regards to the deaths but none had ever been convicted. The theory the police and the FBI had worked with was that the killer was abducting his victims and then forcing them to open up their storage units. Based on the original reports, it did not appear as if the killer was stealing anything from the units, although it was obviously next to impossible to be certain of this.

From what Mackenzie could see, there were no peculiar items left behind at the scenes. The files contained pictures of the crime scenes and of the five victims, three of the storage units had been in a messy state, having not seen an obsessively organized touch like that of Elizabeth Newcomb.

Two of the crime scene images were strikingly clear. One was from the scene of the second victim, and the other from the fifth victim. Both units had been in a state of what Mackenzie thought of as organized chaos; there were piles of things here and there, but they were thrown together haphazardly.

Looking at the picture from the second crime scene, Mackenzie scoured the background, zooming in as much as she could without causing the screen to go all pixelated. Near the center of the room, on top of three precariously stacked boxes, she thought she saw something of interest. It looked like a pitcher of some kind, perhaps something to put water or lemonade in. It was sitting on what appeared to be a plate of some kind. While there were other random objects sitting out in the open, these appeared to have been placed with care in the very center of the room.

She stared until her eyes started to ache and could still not be certain what she was looking at. Knowing that it might be a long shot, she opened up an empty email to send directly to two agents she knew would act fast and efficiently—two agents whom, she randomly thought, she and Ellington needed to invite to their wedding: Agents Yardley and Harrison.

She attached the files she had received to the email and wrote a quick message: Could either of you look into the files for these cases and see if anyone ended up taking an inventory of what was inside the storage units? Maybe check with the owners of the storage facilities.

Knowing that there was very little left to do, Mackenzie finally allowed herself to go to bed. Because she was so tired and the day came falling down on her in a heap, she was asleep less than two minutes before her head hit the pillow.

Even when the eerie sight of the doll from Elizabeth Newcomb’s storage unit surfaced in her head, she managed to ignore it—for the most part—and drift soundly to sleep.

Chapter Ten

Mackenzie wasn’t at all surprised to wake up at 6:30 and find that Agent Harrison had come through. He was practically a research guru and had quickly learned his way around files, folders, and copious amounts of data. His email contained two attachments and a typical to-the-point message.

The two documents attached are inventories taken by the FBI. These are all we have because the families of two of the other victims refused bureau requests to go through their stored belongings. The fifth is missing because the owner of the facility auctioned the contents off three days after the death. Seems like a bastard thing to do, but the victim had no family to come collect her belongings.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you need anything more specific.

Mackenzie opened up the attachment and found a very simplified list prepared in a simple Word document. The first was seven pages long. The second was thirty-six pages long. The longer document was an inventory for a unit belonging to Jade Barker. The name clicked with Mackenzie instantly; she pulled up the crime scene images from the original documents and saw that the messier one had been Jade Barker’s—the same one with the possible plate and pitcher sitting directly in the center of the image.

Mackenzie did a quick search through the document and found the two items listed on page two.

Toy pitcher.

Plastic toy plate.

Behind her, Ellington was getting dressed. As he buttoned up his shirt, he came over to her and looked at the screen. “Damn,” he said. “They came through for you, didn’t they?”

“Yes, they did,” she said, pointing at the two items. She then considered something for a moment before asking: “Where exactly is Salem, Oregon?”

“Northern part of the state. I’m not sure where.” He paused, looked at her with amused irritation, and sighed. “You planning on taking a day trip?”

“I think it might be worth it. I’d like to get a look at the sites and maybe speak to some of the family members.”

“We have family members to speak with here,” Ellington pointed out. “Starting with Elizabeth Newcomb’s parents. And honestly, I’d like to have a chat with the policemen that originally went into that storage unit to get a detailed report.”

“Sounds like you’ve got your morning planned out, then.”

“Mac…Salem is like four hours away, I think. No sense in splitting up just so you can be on the road all damn day just to hopefully get a fuzzy idea of what happened out there eight years ago.”

Mackenzie opened up a tab on her laptop and typed in Seattle and Salem, OR. Without looking back to him, she said: “It’s three and a half hours…say three with me driving. If all goes smooth, I’ll be back by dinner.”

“If all goes smooth,” Ellington echoed.

She smiled and stood up. “I love you, too.”

With that, she kissed him and rather wished she had retired to bed a little earlier last night.

***

“Harrison, I need you to find some more information for me.”

There was something about driving and speaking on the phone that exhilarated Mackenzie. Sure, she knew it was frowned upon but in her line of work, she saw it as the ultimate form of multi-tasking.

“And good morning to you, too,” Agent Harrison said from the other end of the phone. “I take it you got my mail?”

“I did. And it was a tremendous help. But I was wondering if you could do some more digging for me.”

She knew he would agree. In the past, he’d have to worry with what McGrath would think. But with Mackenzie’s new role and position directly under McGrath, she knew that Harrison would push her request to the top of his pile.

“What do you need?”

“I’m heading toward Salem, Oregon, right now to get a look at the crime scenes and interview anyone that I can. I’d like for you to see if you can find the names and contact information for any family or close friends of the victims that live in the area.”

“Yeah, I can get on that. How long of a drive are you looking at?”

“About three more hours.”

“You’ll have everything you need before you get there.”

“Thanks, Harrison.”

“So, is this case like some weird sort of pre-honeymoon thing for you two?” he asked.

“Far from it. I guess you could say it’s sort of like foreplay,” she joked.

“Yeah, that’s too much information. Let me get back to work for you. Happy trails, Agent White.”

They ended the call, leaving Mackenzie to stare out at Interstate 5 with nothing but her thoughts. She kept thinking about the image from the storage unit of Jade Barker, dead for about eight years. If the plate and pitcher she had spotted in the image were the same two objects that had been inventoried by the FBI, what did it mean? Sure, it was a thin connection to some weird findings in this new Seattle case, but where did it lead? Even if she left Salem with irrefutable proof that the killer was leaving behind tea party–themed trinkets and toys (and yes, she included dolls in a tea party theme), did it really accomplish much of anything?

Sure it does, she thought to herself. It gives us a bizarre path to pursue. It lets us hone in on one specific feature of the crime scenes—a feature that apparently means something special to the killer.

And there was one more thing, too. It would give them a glimpse into just how dangerous and warped this killer could be.