LET ME BREATHE, page 20
“Naw. He never did that.”
Jarvis’s behavior wasn’t adding up. But Ashley guessed that it was possible that the man wanted to keep his relationship with Norma—even marry her—while he continued to stalk and kill other women. Ashley remembered reading about Ted Bundy’s long-time girlfriend, Elizabeth. The couple had lived together during the time he’d committed some of his murders.
A soft tap on the bedroom door stole Ashley’s attention.
It was Deputy Foster.
“Just wanted to let you know that they’re ready to load Wyatt into the ambulance,” he said.
Ashley needed to touch base with Wyatt before he left for the hospital. To make sure that he was alright.
“Thanks,” she said. “Hey, do you have anything in your cruiser that can cut these locks off?”
Foster stepped closer to the bed. “Yeah, I think I do.”
Meeting Norma’s gaze, Ashley said, “I’m going to go downstairs and say goodbye to my partner, and then I’ll come right back, okay?”
She didn’t want the woman to be alone any longer than necessary. Not after the trauma Norma had suffered and the news she’d just received.
With her mind racing, attempting to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, Ashley trudged down the stairs, Foster close behind. As she crossed the threshold of the front door of the farmhouse, she caught sight of the paramedics wheeling Wyatt’s stretcher down the driveway toward the ambulance.
Wishing they could be alone, so she could fill Wyatt in on the details of Norma’s abduction, Ashley sprinted across the yard. There was something gnawing at her. Something that didn’t feel right about the case. But that conversation would have to wait.
She caught up with the paramedics just before they lifted Wyatt through the rear doors of the ambulance. The mask of pain had vanished from his face. She realized that he was probably flying high from the medications they’d given him.
“How are you feeling now?” she asked him.
His lips curled into a smile. “Pretty good.”
And by tonight, he probably wouldn’t even remember the ambulance ride. Or anything she said to him now.
“I’ll see you later at the hospital,” she promised.
He smiled again, just before the paramedics closed the doors.
As the ambulance lumbered down the dirt driveway, Ashley wandered over to Jarvis’s blue Chevy, rammed into the oak tree. Why had he picked Hannah, Trina, and Daphne? What was the link between the three women? And what had motivated him to kill? She knew the answers to those questions had likely died with Jarvis.
DNA from the three victims would probably be lifted from the rear seat of the Chevy. If Ashley and Wyatt had only known the make of the car when it was first spotted at the waste treatment facility, they could have issued the BOLO sooner. Before Jarvis had killed Daphne. But at that time, they’d lacked the details to put out an alert. They’d had to wait until after receiving a clearer description of the car from the woman who worked at the preprocessing center. Ashley circled around the rear of the sedan.
She froze, a realization hitting her like a bolt of lightning.
Now she knew for certain what her instincts had been trying to tell her.
The toxic waste serial killer was still alive.
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
Anxious to speak with Wyatt in private, Ashley sank onto the stiff, beige armchair next to his hospital bed and waited while the grandmotherly nurse checked his vitals. He’d been lucky. The bullet had only penetrated his calf a half inch before passing straight through. Although he’d be hobbling on crutches for a while, the doctor expected a complete recovery from the gunshot wound.
Ashley wished that Jarvis had fared as well.
And that she’d had the opportunity to question him about Pryecorp. Based on Jarvis’s reaction, it was obvious that he’d been aware of the toxic waste buried on the Marbury Highway property. Would he have been able to shed some light on the murders? Now that he was gone, she’d never be privy to the information he’d held.
The nurse patted Wyatt’s shoulder.
“You let me know if you need anything, hon,” she told him.
The nurse flashed Ashley a sweet smile and then disappeared into the hallway.
Wanting to ensure their conversation wouldn’t be overheard, Ashley darted across the hospital room and pushed the door closed.
Wyatt met her gaze as she returned to his bedside, a quizzical expression covering his face.
“I can tell you’ve been dying to say something,” he stated. “What is it?”
At least the pain meds hadn’t affected his ability to know when something was on her mind.
“Jarvis is not our killer,” she blurted out.
He paused for a moment, as though he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.
“What are you talking about?” he finally said. “Of course he did it. And if we hadn’t stopped him, he would have killed the woman upstairs.”
Ashley shook her head. “The woman I found chained to the bed is Jarvis’s ex-girlfriend. He was planning on forcing her to marry him.”
“Seriously?” Wyatt seemed to be processing the information. “That doesn’t mean he’s not the killer.”
If the fact that Jarvis had never intended to murder Norma was the only evidence for the man’s innocence Ashley had collected, she might agree with Wyatt. But other—more important—details ruled Jarvis out.
“The Chevy belonging to Jarvis is not the dark blue sedan the killer was driving at the preprocessing center.”
“How do you know?”
Wyatt had never had the chance to get a good look at Jarvis’s car. Not at the end that mattered anyway.
“Because Joelle told us that the car she saw in the parking lot had a bumper sticker advertising Rock City. There’s no bumper sticker on Jarvis’s sedan.”
Wyatt shrugged. “Jarvis could have taken it off.”
Ashley didn’t buy that for a minute.
She tilted her head. “Why would he do that after all these years?”
“Maybe he found out we were looking for the car.”
Ashley had once considered that there might be a leak inside the sheriff’s department, but that possibility seemed doubtful now.
“I looked really closely at Jarvis’s rear bumper,” she told Wyatt. “The sticker was never on there. If it had been, the area that was underneath the sticker would be darker—not faded by the sun.”
Wyatt chewed his bottom lip. She could tell that he was debating whether or not she was right.
“I still think Jarvis did it,” he said. “Why else would he shoot at me?”
“Because he probably thought that we knew he’d kidnapped Norma. We were already at his farmhouse when he arrived home. And he never went upstairs. He may have believed that we’d already rescued her.”
Jarvis must have known that a kidnapping conviction would have resulted in a lengthy prison sentence, especially with his prior offenses. And it was obvious that he had chosen to die rather than be locked away.
Wyatt shook his head. “I don’t know. Jarvis fits the profile. And he worked at Pryecorp.”
The profile was one thing, but Ashley knew that Jarvis didn’t fit with the evidence they’d discovered at two of the crime scenes.
“The bumper sticker isn’t the only reason that I think Jarvis is innocent,” she said. “I spent over an hour searching through all of the closets at the farmhouse. I didn’t find a single pair of cowboy boots.”
Jarvis had been wearing black running shoes when they’d arrived at the man’s doorstep.
“Maybe he threw them out.”
She had guessed that Wyatt would say that. But Ashley had learned a key piece of information while rummaging through Jarvis’s possessions. One that Wyatt couldn’t deny.
“Let me tell you what I did find,” she said. “Jarvis had hiking boots, several pairs of worn running shoes, and some black loafers in the master bedroom closet.”
Ashley paused for emphasis, locking eyes with Wyatt. “They were all size twelve.”
A look of astonishment crossed his face.
Wyatt knew that the TBI crime lab had confirmed the footprints found at the landfill and at Daphne’s home had been made by a pair of cowboy boots that were size ten and a half.
His expression of surprise morphed into a look of concern.
“That means the killer’s still out there,” he stated.
Before Ashley could answer, a quick knock sounded on the hospital room door. A split second later, the nurse pushed her way inside.
“I’ve got your medications, Mr. Clark,” she said.
Ashley settled back into the chair again as the nurse injected something into Wyatt’s IV line.
He wasn’t the only one worried. Ashley knew that Daphne wouldn’t be the toxic waste serial killer’s last victim. And they still hadn’t figured out why the murderer had chosen the three women. So, it would be impossible to forecast whom he would target next. At this stage, their only hope was that he would return to the preprocessing center.
The sheriff had agreed to keep one of his deputies posted at the facility—out of sight—until further notice.
Still convinced that the killer was somehow associated with Pryecorp, Ashley wished that they had a way to access the defunct company’s employee roster. But with the business closing over twenty years prior and the owners now deceased, she realized that acquiring the records would likely be an impossible feat. There was a slim chance that they could obtain the information from the social security administration, but it would probably take months to receive a response to an inquiry.
The nurse paused next to Ashley’s chair.
“You can stay as long as you’d like, hon,” she said, kindness in her tone. “But he needs to get some rest.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The nurse shuffled back out of the room.
Wyatt shifted in his hospital bed. “I can rest later,” he said. “We need to figure out our next move.”
Ashley had fetched Wyatt’s tablet and keyboard from his SUV. She lifted them out of the carrying case and tried to get comfortable on the hard-cushioned chair.
They’d learned from Birdie Tomlinson Porter that Savendyne Chemicals had purchased the Pryecorp building and equipment. It stood to reason that Savendyne might have hired some of the defunct company’s employees. The workers were already trained in the handling of dangerous chemicals, which would prove to be an asset.
“Do you think it’s possible that the killer works at Savendyne now?” she asked.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
His words sounded a bit slurred. She wondered what type of drugs the nurse had added to his IV.
Ashley fired up the tablet and navigated to the Savendyne Chemicals website. Hoping that she might find a reference to Pryecorp, she clicked on the tab detailing the historical information for the company. The business was based in Atlanta. A large corporation, they owned plants in several states.
In the company’s news section, she found articles detailing the plans for the enlargement of the Sparks County facility. Ashley remembered Birdie mentioning the expansion. There was also an announcement for a new plant that would be built in Tennessee, but the exact location wasn’t given.
Switching to her favorite search engine, she typed in a query for Savendyne Chemicals, Sparks County, Tennessee.
A sea of hits popped onto the screen. The first dozen pertained to job listings and salary information, along with reviews from people who’d worked for the company. Ashley read through the entries, thinking that she might find an employee who’d also worked at Pryecorp. But the reviews proved to be of no help, lacking any mention of the defunct company.
On the second page of hits, a link from the local newspaper caught Ashley’s eye. It was an article regarding Savendyne’s expansion. The headline read: Savendyne Chemicals to Add 150 Jobs.
Ashley clicked the link.
But the story didn’t pertain to the additional square footage being added to the existing Savendyne location as she’d assumed. Instead, the article focused on the new Tennessee plant the corporation would be building. They planned to break ground on the facility in less than a year—here, in Sparks County.
The article featured a photograph of the governor shaking hands with the CEO of Savendyne. The Sparks County mayor and the head of the chamber of commerce flanked the pair. Ashley noticed something on the right edge of the picture in the background.
Her breath caught in her throat as she zoomed in on the photo.
“Wyatt!” she said, her voice a little too loud. “I think I may have just cracked the case wide open.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Excitement flooded Ashley’s chest as she leapt up from the armchair in Wyatt’s hospital room, his mobile tablet firm in her grasp. She’d finally found a missing piece of the puzzle. One that she suspected might point to the toxic waste serial killer’s motive.
“This could end up being a huge breakthrough for us,” she told Wyatt.
He stirred in his hospital bed. “What’d you find?”
Wyatt’s words still sounded slurred, his eyelids appearing heavy. Would the medications in his system squash the memory of what she was about to show him?
Ashley eased up to the side of the bed, careful not to disturb the tubes connected to his left arm. Leaning over, she swiveled the tablet around so he could see the screen.
“Savendyne is building a brand-new chemical plant here in Sparks County,” she said. “I found a newspaper article with a photo taken at the site. Look what’s in the background.”
Her fingers sliding across the screen, she zoomed in to the right edge of the photograph.
Wyatt seemed to study the picture, a blank expression on his face.
She’d expected more of a reaction. In fact, she’d thought that when he got a look at the photo, they’d be celebrating.
“Wyatt, do you realize what’s in this picture?”
He shrugged. “It’s blurry.”
The drugs the nurse had given him were obviously messing with his eyesight. And probably his cognition. She’d have to describe what was on the screen and hope he understood.
“There’s a real estate sign on the property,” she told him. “Hannah’s name is on the sign. She brokered the sale of the land to Savendyne.”
The photo proved Hannah had been associated with a company that produced a hefty portion of the toxic waste in Sparks County.
He nodded, but Ashley wasn’t sure the information had penetrated his brain.
“Wyatt?”
“Yeah,” he said, a grin finally breaking out on his face. “You found a link.”
Ashley felt a smile tugging at her own lips. Her words had cut through Wyatt’s drug-induced haze. But did he realize the full significance of the connection between Hannah and Savendyne?
They’d believed that the killer had murdered Hannah at the landfill because he’d thought of her as trash. That he was trying to send a message regarding the woman’s character. But now, Ashley realized that theory was likely wrong.
“Maybe the killer doesn’t want Savendyne to build another plant. What if he murdered Hannah as punishment for finding the property for the company?”
It was possible the killer believed that the additional hazardous waste that would be created by the new facility would end up destroying Sparks County. That the toxic chemicals would pollute the lakes, streams, and ground water.
“An environment—environ…”
Affected by the medications the same way as his eyesight, Wyatt’s tongue had tripped him up, obviously refusing to allow him to speak the word he wanted to say. But she understood what he’d meant.
“An environmentalist,” Ashley supplied.
He nodded.
“No, I think the killer is probably a Savendyne employee. Or at least, he used to be.”
It wasn’t just the old ballpoint pen discovered beneath Daphne’s bed that led Ashley to believe the murderer worked for Savendyne. If employed by the company, he could have knowledge of the exact makeup of the chemicals they produced. He would be aware of the impact the release of the hazardous substances would have on the community. On the wildlife.
Was that the reason he’d killed the rat? To demonstrate that even the rodents wouldn’t be spared from the harmful effects of the contamination?
Wyatt cleared his throat. “Trina? Daphne?”
She realized that he was asking whether Ashley had a theory on how the other two victims could be linked to Hannah and the construction of the new chemical plant.
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “But I’m certain Trina and Daphne are connected to Savendyne in some way. They have to be.”
Wyatt nodded again and then closed his eyes.
Ashley glanced at the clock hanging on the wall opposite the hospital bed. It was almost nine p.m. She decided that she should follow the nurse’s orders and let Wyatt sleep. He likely wouldn’t be able to fight the sedative action of the medications for much longer anyway.
When she got back to the motel, she got back to work.
Trina Hollis had been employed by the paper mill when she’d been killed. Could she have once worked for Savendyne? Ashley typed the victim’s name, along with the name of the chemical company into the search bar. No hits.
Disappointed, she tried the search again, this time with Daphne’s name. Still, no luck.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ashley clicked back to the Sparks County newspaper’s website. The first time that she’d opened the link for the story on Savendyne’s new facility, her attention had been drawn straight to the photo at the top. This time, she concentrated on the article itself, reading the story all the way through.
The last paragraph contained information regarding the location of the new plant. The property fronted the corner of Grosbeak Glade Road and Warbler Road. Switching to the property assessor’s database, Ashley pulled up the GIS map for Sparks County.
It only took a few seconds for her to locate the intersection. She tapped the link for the tax data for the parcel. When she saw the name of the land’s owners, adrenaline surged through Ashley’s veins.
