SIXTEEN

“Uh-uh. Not a chance in hell.” John shook his head adamantly. “No way did Woods have an accomplice.”

“But maybe there was someone in the background. Someone he confided in.” Portia sat opposite her boss in his office and leaned both elbows on his desk. She’d come in extra early hoping to catch him before he got caught up in other cases.

“No one was in the background, and the only person he confided in was me. Trust me on this one, Portia. There was only Woods. I knew how he thought—what he thought—back then. I knew who and what he was. No way was he sharing with anyone. That was all Sheldon Woods, all the time. Him and only him.”

She opened her mouth to speak but he ignored her.

“Look, we had his lair. We found the place where he took his victims. We went over that place with a fine-tooth comb. The evidence guys got a ton of trace out of that place. Hair, fibers, skin, blood, fingerprints from the kids. But there was no semen, no sweat, from anyone other than Woods.”

“You had enough to pull DNA from the samples?”

“Yes.”

“Did you run the DNA?”

“Yes.” He paused, then said, “And you’re wondering where the results of that testing might be. It should all still be in the evidence file.”

“So you were able to match the thirteen original boys with the DNA from trace found in the house…,” she said thoughtfully.

“Right.”

“But you ran DNA on all the samples you found…”

“That’s how we know there were other victims.

Which doesn’t mean he might not have killed elsewhere, of course. But yes, we tested every sample we had. It was years before the lab techs would speak to me again.”

Portia could tell from his smile that John had an idea where she was going with this. “So you have DNA results that haven’t been matched to anyone yet.”

“Which you could use to try to find a match to the boy from Christopher Williams’s grave.”

“Which could prove that the boy was in fact killed by Woods, but still wouldn’t tell me who he is.” She bit her bottom lip. “What if we had DNA from a relative of the other boys, the ones who are still missing?”

“You mean the thirty-some boys from the area who’d gone missing between nineteen ninety-six and ninety-nine?” He shook his head. “First of all, you don’t know that all of those kids are still missing. Second, you get in touch with the parents or the siblings of those kids and ask for hair samples now, they’re going to think maybe you found their kid.”

“Maybe we did.”

“I don’t know. That’s a lot of people to get stirred up, get their hopes up.”

“But if he belongs to one of them, that’s one more boy brought home, John. One more boy with a name.” She watched his face, knew he wasn’t comfortable with the idea. “And wouldn’t that narrow things down? Help us sort out who we’re looking for? If we get a match from any of the trace from ten, twelve years ago, with a family of a boy who’s been missing, at least that family will know what happened, right? And if we knew the names of the boys, we wouldn’t need Woods to tell us who. We’d only need to know where to look.”

“If you have the names, he’ll never tell you where he buried them. It’s part of his game,” John reminded her.

“But we’d have something to trade. Cannon says he likes his freedom.” She stood up, her idea taking shape. “We change the game. We give him the name, he gives us the place, he gets his little outing.”

“The lab people will go ballistic if you show up with a bunch of samples and ask them to start looking for matches.”

“They go ballistic a couple of times a week. They don’t scare me.” She smiled. “Anyway, aren’t they there to serve?”

“Right. You be the one to remind them of that. Be sure to let me know how that goes,” he said. “Look, let’s take this one step at a time. Get some of the boy’s DNA to the lab, see if they can match it to any of the DNA results they have on file from the first go-round.”

“All right.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, a clear indication that it was not really all right. “But I still think we could be using that DNA to determine if any of those missing boys were Woods’s victims.”

“You’ve already got calls into the police departments that filed the reports back then, right? So if they took the initial reports, worked the original missing persons cases, maybe they have something that we could test. Something of the child’s that the parents might have given them after the kid disappeared. Maybe you can get the DNA and spare the parents at the same time.”

“You really don’t want me to contact these families, do you?”

“No. Not if there’s another way to get a DNA match. I hate to see you raise the hopes of all those people, make them relive that nightmare all over again.”

“I’m thinking those nightmares never stopped,” she said.

“Pull all the evidence files from the original cases, see if you can eliminate the ones we already know about. Then talk to the lab. If you can sweet-talk someone into working on this, then you have my blessing.”

“Thanks. I’ll get right on it.” She stood. “There’s still the matter of who killed this latest victim. I drove to the prison from the grave site. Got Woods out of a sound sleep. He didn’t understand what I was saying at first. He didn’t know about the boy, John. I’m convinced of it.”

“Portia, the guy’s a really good actor. How could anyone have known where that grave was if Woods hadn’t told him?”

“I’ve been asking myself that. There’s a copycat element to it, certainly. Is Woods putting someone else up to this, or has someone taken a page from his book and has decided, on his own, to follow in Woods’s footsteps?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past Woods, wouldn’t for a minute think he wasn’t capable of talking someone into doing something like that, told him where to leave the body so that you’d find it, mess with your head.”

“Maybe whoever killed this boy is messing with Woods’s head.”

“Which brings us back to the question, how did the killer know where to put the body, if Woods hadn’t told him?” John rubbed his chin. “I think we can assume that the killer wanted you to be the one to find it.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he did. But why?”

“My guess is that he’s trying to get your attention—probably because you have Woods’s—but you should talk to Annie about that.”

“I know she’s out of town right now, but I’ll give her a call when she gets back.” Portia shook her head. “I was so sure when I went to the prison that Woods was behind this, but after talking to him, seeing his reaction when I told him about the body…I just don’t know that anyone is that good an actor.”

“Figure it out, Cahill,” he said as he reached in his pocket for his ringing cell. “It’s all yours.”

Portia returned to her office and turned on her computer. Her mental list of things to do had grown so large that she could no longer rely on her memory, so she wanted to write it all down. She noted a number of new e-mails, one of which was from Will.

Portia—Douglas Nicholson living on Dufree Island, MD. Builds and repairs boats. Shouldn’t be hard to find—it’s a small island. Still working on Mama Woods but am closing in. And yes, I am good, thank you.

Dufree Island popped up the minute she typed it into the search engine; Will wasn’t kidding when he said it was small. One entry under “eateries”—a crab shack down by the dock—and one entry for lodging: Ida Ann’s B and B, which looked like a short row of small, whitewashed cabins. No stores of any kind unless you counted Doug’s Bait ’N Beer, which appeared to be located in the same place as the boat repair shop. There was only one way on or off the island, a ferry that only ran three times a day.

She mapped out a route and checked the time. It was still early in the day, but the ferry had already made its morning run and wouldn’t run again until the afternoon. Which meant she could get to see Douglas Nicholson, but not until later in the day, and if she missed the evening ferry, she’d have to wait until the next day to make her return trip. Or she could wait until tomorrow, when she could go early in the morning, talk to Nicholson, and take the ferry back tomorrow night. She was debating the pros and cons when her cell rang.

“So how much sleep did you get last night?” Jim Cannon asked.

“Not a whole lot,” she admitted. “I tossed and turned most of the night, but at least I did it on a full stomach.”

“You should have called me. I could have read to you from my latest brief. Guaranteed to put you to sleep.”

Portia laughed. “I’ll remember that next time.”

“I’m here for you, Agent Cahill.”

“Good to know, Counselor.”

There was a brief and somewhat awkward pause. Then they both began to speak at the same time.

“The reason I called…”

“I just got an e-mail…”

“Go ahead,” he said.

“No, no. You called me. You first.”

“I did a little checking. Neal Harper is living out side Annapolis. I haven’t been able to track down Keith Patterson, but Eloise Gorman—Woods’s would-be girlfriend—is living in York, Pennsylvania.”

“You’ve been a busy guy.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s not even nine yet.”

“You’re not the only one who tossed and turned last night. Anyway, I have addresses, phone numbers. How about we get together later and I’ll hand over the information.”

“Or you could give it to me now on the phone.”

“Where’s the fun in that? The least you could do is take me to dinner.”

“I’d be happy to take you to dinner. What are you doing this afternoon?”

“Isn’t dinner usually in the evening?”

“The place I have in mind is a few hours away, and if we’re late, we’ll miss the ferry.”

“The ferry?”

“Only way to get there, pal.”

“Where is there?”

“Dufree Island, off the eastern shore. Our computer guru found that Douglas Nicholson owns a boat repair shop there.”

“What time is the ferry?”

“There’s one at two, and another one back to the mainland at seven tonight. I think five hours should be enough to talk to Nicholson and have dinner.”

“Right now I’m on my way to court. I need to be there by ten, and I have no way of knowing how long I’ll be. I suspect this case will go into the after noon. Any way you could put this off a day?”

“I suppose I could,” she said thoughtfully. “It isn’t as if I don’t have anything else to do.”

“Or you could go on your own and meet me somewhere for dinner to tell me all about it.”

“Or I could do that.” She frowned. “I was thinking that Nicholson might be more willing to talk to me if you came along, since he knows you.”

“On the other hand, the fact that I represented his brother might make him less willing.”

“That is a possibility.” Portia bit the inside of her cheek, knowing that there was more to this than wanting Cannon along. She wanted his company. He was the real reason she’d tossed and turned the night before.

“However, tomorrow I have a pretty light schedule. I have a new client coming in but one of my associates can meet with her. So if there’s any way you can wait one more day, I’m there.”

“Tomorrow will be soon enough. I have a few things I should take care of today anyway. I guess I was just eager to get to him, see what he knows about Woods’s alleged abuse as a child. See if he knows what name his mother is going by these days. Maybe he even knows where she is.”

“I wouldn’t count on that, unless he’s had a change of heart over the past decade. There was some serious resentment toward her, some real animosity between them,” Jim told her.

“Maybe we can get him to talk about that.”

“I’m here at the courthouse,” he said, “and I’m running late. So I’m guessing dinner tonight is actually dinner tomorrow night?”

“Yes, if I’m going to be out of the office all day tomorrow, I should stay late today. But I bet the blue claws on the island are worth waiting for.”

“Sounds good. Where do you want to meet me?” She heard the sound of his car door slamming.

“My sister’s house is on the way to the ferry. Why don’t you meet me there? I’ll e-mail you the address and the directions.”

“Then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Great. Oh—and good luck this morning.”

“Thanks. I’m going to need it.”

She disconnected and put the phone on the desk. She pulled up his website, found the link to his e-mail address, and typed in the information he’d need tomorrow. Then turning her attention to her to-do list, she started making calls. First to the lab, where she somehow managed to talk Larisse into agreeing to run a test on the DNA of her lost boy. Her next call was to Tom Patton, the ME who still had the boy’s body. She requested that DNA specimens be sent directly to Larisse’s attention at the FBI lab.

On she went through the day, systematically checking the list she’d made and crossing off items as she completed each task. She called the prison and asked the warden to fax the rest of Woods’s visitor logs to her at the office. She took return calls from several police departments and made notes in the computer file she’d started on the missing boys. None of the officers calling had good news to re port, but three of the five did say they thought there may be something in their evidence locker that could be tested for DNA, and promised to send her what they had as long as she returned it to them along with a copy of the results, which she readily agreed to do.

She requested the evidence file from the crime scene—the “lair” where Woods had taken his victims—and was thinking about what she would ask Nicholson the following day, assuming he’d talk to her, when her phone rang.

“Agent Cahill, Trooper Howard Heller here. I just thought you’d like to know that we were able to positively identify the remains we found as those of Joseph Miller.”

“How were you able to do that so quickly?” She frowned. “There hasn’t been time for DNA. How were you able to identify him?”

“Joseph Miller was missing the second and third toes on his left foot and had an old fracture of his leg. Broke it in four places when he fell under a plow when he was three. The remains we found matched the injuries to a tee. His parents confirmed it.”

“I thought you weren’t going to involve the parents until you knew for certain it was their son.”

“News travels fast in the Amish community. The Millers were at the farm before the coroner had time to bag the remains. They looked at the leg and said they knew it was their son and they wanted to take him immediately to bury him.”

“And the coroner let them?”

“He completed his exam right there in the field, and yes, out of respect for them, he permitted them to take the remains.”

“Cause of death?”

“He said he can’t tell for sure, though he suspects strangulation. The hyoid bone was in pieces, but since it hadn’t fused yet, he couldn’t say that it had been broken. Other than that, there was no sign of trauma. No cracks to the skull, no slash marks on the ribs or sternum that would indicate he’d been stabbed. So it’s a tough call.”

“Thanks. I appreciate you letting me know.” She made notes, then doodled around them with squiggly lines. “What about the other boy?”

“That’s gonna take some time. There’s a lot more to look at there. There were bruises on the neck—we both saw those—but if there was other trauma, we’ll have to wait to hear about it.” Heller paused.

“I was able to find out one thing, though. According to the coroner’s office, there was no sexual assault involved.”

“No assault?” Portia stopped doodling. “Is he positive?”

“Said he was. Said right now, that was the only thing he knew for certain. Feel free to give him a call if you want any other information, but that’s what he told me.”

“Thanks for the call. I really do appreciate it.”

“No problem. I’ll get back to you when we have a cause of death or an identification.”

Portia hung up the call, puzzled. Every known victim of Sheldon Woods had been sexually assaulted, a fact he’d freely admitted. The assaults had been his primary motive when he abducted his victims, the killing had been his means of disposing of the boys when he’d tired of them. For Woods, the assault was the motive.

So if this new killer was a copycat—someone following in Woods’s footsteps—why no sexual assault? And if assault was not the motive, what was?