Flashback (Kendra Michaels #11)

“Impressive, isn’t it?”

“Trust me, a lot of the case files I see around here aren’t nearly as thorough. I was looking at the dates on some of the transcripts, and those girls were seventeen and fifteen when they took their first witness statements. They could give a seminar.”

“Find them, and maybe they will.”

Perry pursed his lips and looked slightly pained. He clearly didn’t believe the sisters would be found alive. “I’d love to sit in the front row for that.”

“You and me both.”

They rounded a corner, and he gestured for her to enter a doorway ahead of him. “Welcome to my makeshift command center.”

Kendra entered a long conference room where every square inch of wall and table space was taken up by the Morgan sisters’ files. Perry had neatly separated the files according to each of the Bayside Strangler’s victims, with photographs and newspaper clippings higher up, and interview transcripts down where they could be more easily perused. Each of the written records was color-coded with strips of removable tape, though Kendra couldn’t immediately discern his coding system.

“Nice,” she said. “I flipped through my scans, but sometimes it’s easier to grasp when you can look at them this way.”

“Well, my boss is going to want this conference room back soon. Especially since these cases aren’t active. Right now, we can’t even prove they’re a relevant part of our investigation.”

Kendra looked at photos of the last two murder scenes, which for some reason were especially vivid and disturbing. “Has anything jumped out at you?”

“Rather than look at the facts of these cases, I’ve just been trying to follow the chronology of the sisters’ investigation. That’s what the colored tape is for. Ever since the Morgan sisters started this project, they’ve been focused on adding to their body of knowledge by interviewing new subjects and finding new and different evidence and written material.” He pointed to an interview transcript with green tape placed on the upper-right-hand corner. “That all changed here, last August. For the first time, they doubled back and re-interviewed someone they’d spoken with years before. For the past six months or so, that’s pretty much all they’ve done.”

Kendra followed the green-tape-marked transcripts down the length of the room. “You’re right. That’s a cold-case technique, isn’t it? Re-interviewing the witnesses years later to see if the stories have changed?”

“Exactly. Once again, those sisters knew what they were doing. In the intervening years, people may die, relationships might fall apart, witnesses could have guilty feelings about things they withheld… There are all kinds of reasons why a round of fresh interviews might shake loose some new information.”

“Did it work for Chloe and Sloane?”

“I’m still studying that. You might follow up in your files. They definitely got more information. At first glance, it seems like there’s less of a tendency to place the victims on a pedestal, but that’s not uncommon with the passage of time. At least two of the victims’ acquaintances now admit to a sexual relationship with them, where they didn’t before.”

“Seriously?”

Perry tapped the green-coded transcripts. “Victims three and five, Leah McLane and Katrina Burge. One guy knew that the significant other is always the number one suspect and didn’t want the heat. And the other guy was married at the time, so there’s that. There’s no reason to think one of them is our guy. It’s just the kind of thing that shakes loose when you re-interview so long after the fact. But there may be something else here, I don’t know.”

“Good work, Perry.”

“Thanks.”

She turned and walked out of the conference room.

“What happened to you?”

They were the first words out of Marlee Davis’ mouth when Kendra turned up at her front door. Kendra had been trying to fool herself into believing that her forehead wound was barely noticeable, but that clearly wasn’t the case.

“Oh, this.” She waved her fingers over her forehead. “I’m afraid Sloane is going to need a new window.” Kendra handed her Sloane’s door key.

“What?”

“My visit to your niece’s condo was… eventful.”

Marlee opened her door wide for her to enter. “Get in here.” She motioned toward her sofa. “Can I get you anything? Water? Cold compress? Paramedic?”

“It looks worse than it is.”

Marlee made a concerned face. “Are you sure?”

“Well, that’s been my story since the moment it happened, so I guess I’m sticking to it. But seriously, I’m fine.”

“If you say so. Do you plan to tell me what happened?”