Dead End (Kaely Quinn Profiler #3) - Nancy Mehl Page 0,2
analyst predicted this man would not only change his disguise but perhaps take on the persona of a law enforcement officer. That’s exactly what he did. When they caught him, he was wearing a cop’s uniform. After his arrest, it didn’t take long to match his DNA to DNA found with one of the victims. And not long after that, they found his stash of keepsakes hidden behind a wooden wall panel in his house. He had a trinket from almost every woman he’d murdered.
Oliphant pleaded guilty to all the charges, saving the state from the expense of a trial. Currently, Iowa didn’t have the death penalty, so he sat in prison serving life without parole, allowing taxpayers to house and feed him. That didn’t seem right to him, but Everett couldn’t do anything about it. At least Oliphant’s reign of evil had come to an end. Everett had been the lead detective on the case, many times forced to look into the faces of family members who’d lost a loved one. It was the toughest thing he’d ever done. Not long before they caught Oliphant, Everett had a mild heart attack brought on by the stress of the case.
Thankfully, he recovered and was able to return to work, but those faces still haunted him. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he could make it through another serial killer case.
“When are you going to transport her?” he asked.
“Soon. We’ll look her over a little more closely when we get to the lab, and of course, we’ll contact you after the autopsy.”
“Holler when you’re ready so my people can process the scene.”
“I will. Don’t want to miss anything. Especially with this one.”
Everett was about to echo Jim’s sentiments when one of his officers came up. Officer Malone’s face was ashen.
“What in the world?” Everett asked.
“Uh, sir. We found another body.” The young officer’s voice was raspy with obvious distress.
“Another body?” Everett repeated. What was going on?
“Actually . . . there could be more. A lot more.”
Everett’s knees went weak. Not again. Please, God, not again.
Two
FBI Special Agent Kaely Quinn scrolled through yet another online newspaper article. She’d been hunched over her desk all morning, checking out drug cases across the country. The St. Louis FBI field office had been working with local police to stop the distribution of a new and dangerous drug called flakka that first appeared in Florida and then spread to Texas and Ohio. Now, after several cases of overdose in Missouri, there was a push to find out how it had landed here and who was selling it.
Flakka caused excited delirium, which exhibited itself in hallucinations and paranoia. Users also seemed to exhibit superhuman strength, making it hard for only one or two officers to restrain someone experiencing an overdose. Flakka was akin to bath salts. Since the drug could be swallowed, snorted, or injected, it could be easily concealed in public. The police and FBI had joined forces with the DEA and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Fort Lauderdale. Kaely looked for the same thing to happen across the country.
She sighed audibly. What was missing in people’s lives that led them to put their lives on the line for a quick high? Of course, she knew the answer. She’d once been searching for something to make life seem worthwhile too. Thankfully, she’d never tried drugs to fill the emptiness. She’d stayed away from all drugs and alcohol because she hated feeling out of control. Her fellow FBI agents had called her a control freak more than once.
Of course, when she’d found God, she realized that had to change. Little by little, she was learning to trust Him, but trusting people was still a problem. She liked to refer to herself as a work in progress. Unfortunately, in some areas the progress part was pretty slow.
She stopped scrolling when she noticed an article out of Des Moines, the town where she grew up. Where her father, Ed Oliphant, had acted out the foul wickedness festering in his soul. She hadn’t been back there since she was fourteen and her mother moved her and her brother to Nebraska.
The article said local police had uncovered several bodies in a rail yard near the city just over two weeks ago. The first victim they found, Rebecca Jergens, twenty-three years old, had been on her way to meet her fiancé, Paul Weigand, when she was killed. They’d planned to have a nice dinner at a local restaurant, where