this again, too. It was signed by an individual he had never heard of, a Deputy Randall Gray. His official contact info was that of the sheriff’s department, Monroe County, Florida, but he had included his cell phone number.
Rudkowski opened the attachment. He recognized the photograph as the one taken aboard Marian Harris’s yacht during a cocktail party at sunset. Following her disappearance several months later, everyone in the snapshot had been identified, tracked down, and interviewed by Key West PD, the sheriff’s office, and/or FBI agents.
Rudkowski, who had closely monitored the case, had requested colleagues in south Florida to keep him in the loop of their investigation, since the Harris woman’s mysterious disappearance bore similarities to other unsolved missing person cases with which he was familiar.
The case cooled and then went cold. Two years, give or take, had passed.
He had heard nothing further until her body was discovered, roughly three months ago. It had been a grisly find. Because of the swampy environment in which she’d been buried, her body was badly decomposed. It had yielded no clues as to who had nailed her inside the crate. The bloody claw marks on the inside of the lid indicated the unsub was a sicko of the lowest order.
While authorities in Florida were investigating there, Rudkowski rounded up a team of agents and used every criminal database, domestic and abroad, to search for a connection between Marian Harris and perps known to have buried their victims alive.
A distressing number of known suspects were still at large. Some remained unidentified. Of those who had been captured and convicted, a number of them were deceased. Several had been executed for their crimes, one had been killed by another inmate during a prison riot, others had died of natural causes while incarcerated. Which left those living out their remaining days behind bars. Rudkowski saw to it that all among that number were questioned.
One had actually confessed to Marian Harris’s abduction and murder, but he was a schizophrenic and habitual confessor, who liked to brag about gory atrocities he hadn’t committed. He had, in fact, been incarcerated in San Quentin when the Florida woman disappeared.
Of those questioned who denied ever having heard of Marian Harris, there wasn’t any incriminating evidence to indicate otherwise. None could be linked to her.
The investigation again had stalled.
Rudkowski wondered why he’d been sent the familiar photograph now without a note of explanation. If newfound evidence had regenerated the investigation, why wasn’t there an accompanying brief bringing him up to speed?
He closed the attachment and went back to the email. His gaze snagged on the last word of the brief message. Too. I.e., in addition to. Also.
His Monday morning tanked.
Muttering foul epithets, he snatched up the receiver of his desk phone and told his assistant to get Deputy Gray on the line. Then he waited, drumming his fingers on his desktop until the call was put through.
“Gray?”
“Yes, sir, Agent Rudkowski. Good morning.”
Like hell it was. “I’m calling about the photograph you emailed me last night.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Has there been a development in the Marian Harris case that I’m unaware of?”
“No, sir. Well, I don’t believe so.”
“You just emailed me this on a whim? Out of the blue? Why?”
“Well, because your name came up during a conversation I had with Special Agent Easton. I assured him that you had been notified when Marian Harris’s remains were discovered. Your contact info was on the last communiqué between the FBI and our department, so I had your email address.”
Rudkowski was seeing red, but it wasn’t the deputy’s fault, so he kept his voice as level as possible. “When did this conversation take place?”
“With Agent Easton? Yesterday.”
“Did he say what had prompted him to call your department?”
“He said that, like you, he specializes in missing persons cases.”
“Um-huh.”
“He was calling specifically about the missing person case in Lexington. I’m sure you’ve heard about it.”
“Over the weekend, I unplugged from the office and just now came in. I haven’t seen anything about it.”
“Well, Easton said there are similarities to Marian Harris. He wanted to compare the cases.”
“Of course.”
“He asked me to access the case file on Harris and give him an update. I asked for a few hours, because I had other stuff to do, but I had it all in front of me when he called back.”
“I’m sure he appreciated that.”
“I guess, but…I don’t think he knew her remains had been found. He seemed upset when I told him about her being buried alive and all. Y’all