LET ME BREATHE, page 17
Hope surged in Ashley’s chest, her gut telling her that they were finally on the right track. She leaned forward in her seat.
“There’s a field out on the Marbury Highway that was once owned by Pryecorp,” Ashley stated. “Do you know whether the company ever disposed of any chemicals there?”
“I had heard Daphne Lochridge was killed next to the highway,” Birdie said, the wheels of her mind visibly turning. “But I didn’t know it was on the Pryecorp land.”
The response made Ashley realize that Birdie was attempting to fit the puzzle pieces together herself, seeking information as well as providing it.
“Did you know Daphne?”
“We were acquainted, but it was her husband’s family that I knew well. The Lochridge line stretches back into the history of Sparks County almost as far as mine.”
The look that lit up Birdie’s face revealed that she’d enjoy nothing better than to regale them with stories regarding her heritage, but she seemed to realize that they didn’t have time for a lengthy visit.
“I know you didn’t come here for an ancestry lesson, so I’ll save that for another time,” she stated.
The somber expression returned to Birdie’s face as she continued. “The Prye brothers went out of their way to hide what they were doing. But yes. Chemicals are buried on the Marbury Highway property.”
The fact that Pryecorp had conducted their activities in secret confirmed Ashley’s assumption that few people were aware that the land had been utilized as a dumping ground.
But the killer obviously knew.
“We have reason to believe that the person who murdered Daphne may have been an employee of Pryecorp. Someone who would know about the buried waste.”
A spark flashed in Birdie’s eyes. It was clear that a suspect had popped into her mind. Ashley waited a moment for the woman to divulge the name, but Birdie remained silent.
“You have an idea of who the killer might be, don’t you?” Ashley prompted.
The woman clenched her bottom lip between her teeth as though she was weighing her thoughts.
“I do have a suspicion, but it’s not based on anything recent.”
Telltale signs of psychopathy often emerged in a person’s youth. It wasn’t unusual for a serial killer to commit other crimes—such as harming animals—years before gaining the confidence to embark on an actual murder spree.
Did Birdie know the toxic waste killer?
“Don’t worry about the timeframe,” Ashley said. “Tell us who you think may have murdered Daphne.”
The woman nodded. “Twenty plus years ago, manufacturing plants were run completely different than they are today. There were very few laws protecting employees. One of the supervisors was known for being abusive toward the workers, especially the women. A rumor circulated through town that he tried to rape a young woman in the bathroom, but she never pressed charges. Not long before the business closed, the Prye brothers let him go. He retaliated by setting the building on fire.”
Although sexual assault wasn’t one of the killer’s hallmarks, violence definitely was, and vengeance ranked as a possible motive for the murders.
“What was the name of the supervisor?”
“Keep in mind that I’m only speculating about the murders,” she said. “But the man who started the fire at the plant was Edward Jarvis.”
Ashley noted that the supervisor’s last name began with the letter J. Had they finally uncovered the killer’s identity?
“Can you give us a physical description of Mr. Jarvis?”
“It’s been over two decades since I last saw Edward. It was the day they sentenced him for the fire. I remember he was tall with brown hair.”
So far, Jarvis fit the profile. But it was likely that the majority of men in Sparks County had brown hair.
Wyatt pulled a copy of the sketch the TBI artist had drawn of their supposed suspect from the inside pocket of his sports jacket. He unfolded the paper and handed it to Birdie.
“Does this look like Edward Jarvis?” he asked.
Birdie retrieved a pair of reading glasses from the side table and slipped them on. She studied the drawing.
“I suppose it could be him,” she said, with only a trace of doubt in her tone. “But he was much younger back then. His face was thinner.”
That didn’t surprise Ashley. Most people gained weight as they aged. Although the man in the drawing wasn’t heavy, she could imagine that his cheeks might have filled out a bit over the years. And Birdie must have seen at least a hint of resemblance between Jarvis and the drawing. Otherwise, she would have immediately ruled the man out.
Refolding the paper, Birdie handed it back to Wyatt.
“Was the fire the reason the plant closed?” he asked.
Ashley had wondered the same thing.
“Oh, no,” she said shaking her head. “The business had much bigger problems. The Prye brothers repaired the damage done by the fire. When the plant closed, Savendyne Chemicals purchased the building and all the equipment. And Savendyne is doing so well that they’re expanding again.”
A chirping sound startled Ashley.
Birdie fetched a cell phone from her cardigan pocket and checked the screen. A smile brightened her face.
“I’m going to have to cut our conversation short,” she said. “I have to leave for the hospital. My granddaughter is in labor.”
“Congratulations,” Wyatt said, rising from the sofa. “And thank you for your help. We’ll show ourselves out.”
As she headed back down the Victorian’s porch steps, a layer of anxiety lifted from Ashley’s shoulders. Maybe they’d be able to prevent another murder after all.
Climbing into the passenger seat of the SUV, she glanced at Wyatt. His mood seemed better as well. As though he believed they hovered on the cusp of apprehending the killer.
She heard his cell ring.
Lifting the phone from his pocket, he glanced at the screen.
“It’s Brenda,” he told Ashley.
“Clark,” he answered, confidence now in his tone.
She could hear their boss’s muffled voice on the other end of the line.
“As a matter of fact, we’ve got a new lead,” Wyatt said. “A solid one.”
He paused for a moment, listening.
“Will do,” he stated before ending the call.
Caught in the middle of backing out of Birdie’s driveway, he dropped his phone on the center console. As he maneuvered the SUV onto the street, his cell rang a second time.
With the phone right beside her, Ashley saw Kaylee’s name pop up on the screen.
Wyatt swerved onto the shoulder of the road and unbuckled his seatbelt.
“You okay, baby?” he answered.
Ashley turned her head and rolled her eyes. Did men still call their love interests baby?
He pushed open the driver’s door and hopped out.
As she watched Wyatt pace in front of the SUV, frustration grew in Ashley’s chest. Her faith that things were back to normal—that her partner had committed himself to stopping the killer—dissolved. She realized that Wyatt would likely run out on her again.
And this time, Brenda would probably fire him.
When he’d finished his call, he slid back into the SUV without saying a word.
Wyatt must have really fallen hard for Kaylee. So much so that he was willing to risk his job for her, not to mention the fact that he’d put the investigation in jeopardy.
And the woman had to be aware of the power she wielded over him. Did Kaylee not care that yanking Wyatt away from the case might end up costing another victim her life?
Ashley decided to break the silence. She’d had enough.
“Does your girlfriend need you to go back to Briarwood?” she asked, not even attempting to hide her irritation.
A strange look crossed his face. “What are you talking about?”
Did he not realize that his phone had been right under Ashley’s nose when it rang?
“I couldn’t help noticing that call was from Kaylee.”
Wyatt stared at Ashley like she had two heads.
“Kaylee is my seven-year-old daughter,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
A sick feeling hit Ashley as though she’d been punched in the stomach. She held Wyatt’s gaze as he sat in the driver’s seat of the SUV, regretting her acrid words. Believing that he’d abandoned the hunt for the Sparks County serial killer over a tiff with his lover, Ashley had spoken from a place of deep frustration.
She’d never dreamed that Kaylee was an innocent, seven-year-old child. She now understood that whatever was going on was far more serious than she’d imagined.
“I’m sorry, Wyatt,” Ashley said, her cheeks burning from embarrassment. “I didn’t realize that you had a daughter.”
It wasn’t the first time that she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion regarding her partner. And although she’d promised herself that she’d give Wyatt the benefit of the doubt after the last time she’d read him wrong, she’d stuck her foot in her mouth again.
It was no wonder that he refused to trust her with the details of his personal life.
“Well, now you know,” he said, breaking eye contact.
The SUV’s engine roared to life.
“Wait,” Ashley said, touching Wyatt’s arm.
She felt as though they’d reached a breaking point, and she had to make things right. They were responsible for protecting each other’s lives. She feared that if they didn’t resolve their differences now, the battle of emotions might get one—or both—of them killed.
And Ashley blamed herself for the wide gulf that had formed between them.
Wyatt shifted the SUV back into park.
“What?” he asked, his voice clipped.
She took a deep breath.
“I realize that I sounded like a bitch when I asked if you were going back to Briarwood. And I was wrong to base my feelings on an ill-conceived assumption.”
“You sounded jealous.”
Stunned, Ashley glared at Wyatt. Did he actually believe that she had developed romantic feelings for him? Inviting him to share the motel bed had obviously been a mistake.
“I can assure you that jealousy played no part in how I acted. For your information, I happen to be involved in a committed relationship with someone.”
“Daniel Lansing?”
Had Wyatt eavesdropped on her phone conversations or read her text messages?
“How did you find out about Daniel?”
“Your boyfriend didn’t waste any time marking his territory. He made sure that the word got around.”
Anger raged in Ashley’s soul. She resented the fact that Wyatt had referred to her as if she was Daniel’s property.
Biting her tongue, she counted to ten. Both she and Wyatt were upset and primed to lash out at one another. She had to calm down and take control of the situation before she said something else that she would regret.
Once her temper had dissipated, she began again.
“I’ve had trouble reading you since the first day we met,” she said. “And I’m sure you’ve struggled to understand me as well. But when we’re in sync, we make a good team. It would be a shame to let that go. I want us to learn how to communicate with each other—to talk things out. If we don’t, our partnership is doomed to fail.”
He nodded. “Okay. You want to know how I feel? I’m pissed.”
She hadn’t expected him to be quite so blunt. But she was grateful that he was talking instead of giving her a dose of his usual silent treatment.
“Is it about more than me assuming Kaylee was your girlfriend?”
He paused for a moment. “I always get the feeling that you expect the worst from me. And I don’t know why. Or what to do about it.”
Ashley’s stomach dropped. He was right. She’d had difficulty reading Wyatt, but he’d seemed to pick up on her thoughts loud and clear.
“I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes—that I allowed myself to form an opinion about you based on idle gossip,” she admitted. “But I promise I won’t do that in the future. I’d like for us to start over and try to build a strong partnership.”
He sighed. “Well, if Kaylee needs me again, I’m out of here. You need to understand that. I’d die before I’d let her down. And don’t get the idea that she’s a spoiled child. She’s not.”
If something was seriously wrong with his daughter, no one could fault Wyatt for putting her first. Ashley would do the same if she had a child who needed her.
“I hope that Kaylee isn’t sick.”
He met her gaze. She could tell that he was debating what he would say next.
“Her best friend died. It was a hit and run, probably a drunk driver. Kaylee saw the whole thing. She held the little girl’s hand until the ambulance got there. And now she’s terrified that she’s going to lose me. Or her mother. We’ve been taking her to a psychologist, but she keeps having panic attacks. Meltdowns. She needs reassurance that everything will be okay. And if that means I have to take off and go see her, I will.”
“Absolutely, you should.”
Her heart ached for Kaylee. Watching someone die in an accident—especially someone you love—was devastating even for an adult. Ashley couldn’t begin to imagine the pain the child must be suffering. And the experience would probably haunt Kaylee for the rest of her life.
Ashley wished that she’d made an effort to straighten things out with Wyatt sooner. She could have been a source of support for him rather than a burr in his side. But she vowed to act differently going forward. The next time he needed a shoulder, she’d be there to provide it.
“Just do one thing for me,” Wyatt said. “If you can’t figure out why I’ve done something, or don’t understand something I’ve said. Ask me. Okay?”
Ashley nodded. “I promise.”
A sense of peace settled over her. Maybe she and Wyatt would make it as partners after all.
“Are we good?” he asked her.
“Right now, I’d say that our relationship is probably the best it’s ever been.”
And she meant it.
“Well, while we’re sitting here, let’s pull the record on Jarvis,” he said.
Wyatt grabbed the tablet and Bluetooth keyboard he kept in the SUV. It took a moment for him to log onto the TBI database.
“He’s got several priors in addition to the arson,” Wyatt stated. “I see a couple of DUIs, an unlawful weapons charge, and two domestic assaults.”
Ashley had suspected that they’d find a violent offense.
“Is there a recent mugshot?” she asked.
“Umm, the last one is from five years ago.”
Wyatt swiveled the tablet, giving Ashley a look at the screen.
While Jarvis wasn’t a perfect match to the TBI sketch artist’s drawing, there were definitely a few similarities in the facial features. But Ashley noticed that Jarvis was fifty-one years old. They’d been looking for a man in his early forties, but that had been based on Curtis Crick’s age. Fifty-one wasn’t that far off.
Taking the tablet back, Wyatt’s fingers danced across the keyboard.
Ashley watched for a change in his expression, hoping that he’d uncover something that would link Jarvis to the murders.
“Bingo,” Wyatt said, a smile tugging his lips.
“What did you find out?”
“I’m looking at the DMV records. Guess what’s registered to Jarvis.”
A rush of adrenaline hit Ashley. “A dark blue sedan?”
“Yep. It’s a Chevy, and it’s sixteen years old.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
The late-autumn wind moaned, whipping through the bare branches of a grove of oaks, as Ashley slid out of the passenger seat of the SUV. Although she was wearing a navy fleece jacket to protect her from the chill, goosebumps broke out on her arms. It almost sounded as though the stiff breeze was whispering a warning.
Runnn! Runnn!
The soft howl urging her and Wyatt to flee from the white two-story farmhouse owned by Edward Jarvis.
A red pickup rested in the hard-packed dirt driveway, but Ashley didn’t see the old blue Chevy sedan registered to the man. Did Jarvis somehow know that they were looking for the car? Was he hiding the sedan in one of the outbuildings on the property? Maybe he’d sold the vehicle to a local chop shop. The car could have been sliced into a million pieces by now—DNA, fibers, and other evidence linking the former Pryecorp supervisor to the murders lost forever.
A thought hit Ashley. She realized that Jarvis might have a relative working at the Sparks County Sheriff’s Department. A leak in the department would explain his reason for choosing not to return to the waste preprocessing center. He could have known that Wyatt and Ashley had organized a dragnet at the facility. And someone with inside knowledge could have tipped him off about their search for the blue sedan.
She was thankful that the sheriff hadn’t yet been told that they’d zeroed in on Jarvis. At the moment, only Birdie Tomlinson Porter and the TBI possessed that information.
Wyatt circled around the nose of the SUV and joined Ashley on the walkway pieced together from river rocks. She glanced at his face. He appeared calm and in control. Obviously, Ashley was the only one spooked by the eerie atmosphere surrounding the century-old house nestled deep in the heart of the mountain. Maybe she was being silly, imagining a threat where none existed.
But Ashley’s instincts had proved true in the past.
Her gut feeling had forewarned her about Curtis Crick’s plan of leading Wyatt and Ashley into an ambush. Was Jarvis waiting for them? Were they already in the crosshairs of his rifle?
Slowing her pace, Ashley allowed Wyatt to mount the steps of the wooden porch first. She scanned the windows on the front of the home. The curtains were drawn, and she didn’t see anyone inside.
According to the information that they’d gathered online, Jarvis was a widower. His wife, Colleen, had drowned in a local lake two years prior. At the time, the sheriff hadn’t suspected foul play. But now, Ashley wondered whether Jarvis could have had a hand in his wife’s death.
