Before He Feels
An older woman sat behind the desk, sorting through a large binder. When she heard Mackenzie and Ellington enter, she looked up with a huge smile. It was a beautiful smile but it also showed her age. Mackenzie guessed her to be reaching seventy.
“You the agents with the FBI?” the aging lady asked.
“Yes ma’am,” Mackenzie said. “I’m Agent White and this is my partner, Agent Ellington. Is the sheriff around?”
“He is,” she said. “In fact, he’s asked me to direct you straight to his office. He’s quite busy fielding calls about this latest horrible death. Just head down to the corridor to your left. His office is the last door on the right.”
They followed her directions and as they headed down the long corridor that led to the back of the building, Mackenzie was taken aback by the silence of the place. In the midst of a murder case, she’d expected the place to be abuzz with activity, even if it was the middle of nowhere.
As they headed for the back of the corridor, Mackenzie noticed a few signs that had been posted on the walls. One said: Prison Access Requires Keycard. Another read: All Prison Visits Must Be Cleared by County Officials! Approval Must Be Presented At Time of Visit!
Her mind started to race with thoughts of the maintenance and regulations that must have to be in place for a prison and a police department to share the same space. It was quite fascinating to her. But before her mind could get going any further, they reached the office at the back of the corridor.
Gold letters had been painted on the upper glass portion of the door, reading Sheriff Clarke. The door was partially open, so Mackenzie slowly opened it to the sound of a man’s burly voice. When she peeked inside, she saw a heavyset man behind a desk, speaking loudly into his desk phone. Another man was sitting in a chair in the corner, furiously texting something on his cell phone.
The man behind the desk – Sheriff Clarke, Mackenzie presumed – interrupted himself on the phone as she opened the door.
“One minute, Randall,” he said. He then covered the mouthpiece and looked back and forth between Mackenzie and Ellington.
“You with the bureau?” he asked.
“We are,” Ellington said.
“Thank God,” he sighed. “Give me a second.” He then uncapped the mouthpiece and continued with his other conversation. “Look, Randall, the cavalry just arrived. Will you be available in fifteen minutes? Yeah? Okay, good. See you then.”
The heavyset man hung up the phone and came around the desk. He offered a meaty hand to them, approaching Ellington first. “Good to meet you,” he said. “I’m Sheriff Robert Clarke. This,” he said, nodding toward the man sitting in the corner, “is Officer Keith Lambert. My deputy is out patrolling the streets right now, doing his best to find some sort of lead on this rapidly growing clusterfuck.”
He nearly forgot about Mackenzie when he was done shaking Ellington’s hand, offering another handshake to her almost as an afterthought. When she shook it, she did the intros, hoping it would clue him in to the fact that she was just as capable of leading this investigation as the men in the room. Instantly, old ghosts from Nebraska started rattling the chains in her head.
“Sheriff Clarke, I’m Agent White and this is Agent Ellington. Will you be our liaison here in Stateton?”
“Sweetie, I’ll be just about your everything while you’re here,” he said. “The police force for the entire county numbers a whopping twelve people. Thirteen if you count Frances out there at the front desk and dispatch. With this murder spree going on, we’re spread just a little thin.”
“Well, let’s see what we can do to lighten your load,” Mackenzie said.
“I wish it was that easy,” he said. “Even if we solve this fucking thing today, I’m going to have half the board of supervisors for the county up my ass.”
“Why is that?” Ellington asked.
“Well, the local papers just got wind of who the victim was. Ellis Ridgeway. The mother of an up-and-coming scum-sucking douchebag politician. Some say he might make the senate within another five years.”
“And who is that?” Mackenzie asked.
“Langston Ridgeway. Twenty-eight years old and thinks he’s John Fucking Kennedy.”
“Is that so?” Mackenzie said, a little shocked that had not been included in the reports.
“Yeah. How the local paper got that information is beyond me. The morons can’t spell right half the time, but this they get.”
“I saw signs for the Wakeman Home for the Blind on our way in,” Mackenzie said. “It’s only six miles from here, is that correct?”
“On the money,” Clarke said. “I was just talking to Randall Jones, the manager over there. That’s who I was on the phone with when you came in. He’s over there right now to answer any questions you have. And the sooner the better. He’s got the press and some county bigwigs calling him and bugging the shit out of him.”
“Well, let’s head over there,” Mackenzie said. “Will you be coming with us?”
“No way, sweetie. I’m swamped as it is here. But please do come back by when you’re done with Randall. I’ll help you however I can but really…I’d love for you two to take this ball and run with it.”
“No problem,” Mackenzie said. She wasn’t quite sure how to handle Clarke. He was up front and bluntly honest, which was good. He also seemed to really love dropping curse words. She also thought that when he called her sweetie, he wasn’t being insulting. It was that weird sort of southern charm.
Also, the man was stressed beyond his means.
“We’ll come right back here when we’re done at the home,” Mackenzie said. “Please call us if you hear anything new between now and then.”
“Of course,” Clarke said.
In the corner, still texting on his phone, Officer Lambert grunted in agreement.
Having spent less than three minutes in Sheriff Clarke’s office, Mackenzie and Ellington walked back down the corridor and exited through the lobby. The older woman, whom Mackenzie assumed was the Frances that Clarke had mentioned, waved at them briskly as they made their exit.
“Well, that was…interesting,” Ellington said.
“The man is in over his head,” she said. “Give him a break.”
“You just like him because he calls you sweetie,” Ellington said.
“And?” she said with a smile.
“Hey, I can start calling you sweetie.”
“Please don’t,” she said as they got into the car.
Ellington drove them half a mile down Highway 47 and then took a left onto a back road. Right away, they saw a sign for the Wakeman Home for the Blind. As they got closer to the property, Mackenzie started to wonder why someone would have chosen such a random and isolated location for a home for the blind. Surely there was some sort of psychological meaning behind it. Perhaps being located in the middle of nowhere helped them to relax, removed from the constant droning noises of a larger city.
All she knew for sure was that as the trees grew thicker around them, she started to feel more choked off from the rest of the world. And for the first time in a very long time, she almost yearned for the familiar sights of those cornfields of her youth.
CHAPTER THREE
The Wakeman Home for the Blind did not look at all like Mackenzie was expecting. In contrast to the Staunton County Police Department and Correctional Facility, the Wakeman Home for the Blind looked like a marvel of modern design and construction – and that was a view Mackenzie arrived at before they even stepped foot inside.
The front of the place was made of large glass windows that seemed to make up the majority of the walls. Halfway down the sidewalk toward the entrance, Mackenzie could already see inside. She saw a large lobby that looked like something straight out of some sort of spa. It was friendly looking and inviting.
It was a feeling that only intensified once they stepped inside. Everything was very clean and looked new. In the research she had done on the way to Stateton, she’d discovered that the Wakeman Home for the Blind had only just been built in 2007. When it had been built, there had been a slight hurrah within Staunton County, as it brought in new jobs and commerce. Now, however, while it was still one of the more prominent buildings in the county, the excitement had died down and the home seemed to have gotten swallowed up by its rural surroundings.
A young woman sat behind a curved counter along the back wall. She greeted them with a smile, though it was clear that she was troubled. Mackenzie and Ellington approached her, introduced themselves, and were promptly asked to take a seat in the waiting area while Randall Jones came out to meet them.
As it turned out, Randall Jones was very anxious to meet with them. Mackenzie had been sitting for no more than ten seconds before a set of double doors leading to the back of the building opened up on the other side of the waiting room. A tall man wearing a button-down shirt and khakis stepped through. He tried on a smile as he introduced himself, but, just like the receptionist, he could not hide the fact that he was tired and very troubled.
“I’m glad you’re here so soon,” Jones said. “The sooner we can get this wrapped up, the better. The small-town grapevine is on fire with this one.”
“We’d like to get it knocked out as soon as possible as well,” Mackenzie said. “Do you know exactly where the body was found?”
“Yes. It’s a rose garden about half a mile from here. It was originally going to be the site for Wakeman but some weird county zoning regulations messed it all up.”
“Could you take us there?” Mackenzie asked.
“Of course. Anything you need. Come with me.”
Jones led them through the double doors he had come through. On the other side, there was a very small alcove that led directly into the home. The first few doors they passed were offices and storage spaces. These were separated from the residents’ rooms by an open office area where one man and one woman sat behind a counter space much like a hospital wing.
As they passed by the rooms, Mackenzie peeked inside one that was open. The rooms were quite spacious and decked out with nice furniture. She also saw laptops and smartpads in a few of the rooms.
Despite being located in the middle of nowhere, there apparently isn’t a shortage of funds to keep the placing going, she thought.
“How many residents live here?” Mackenzie asked.
“Twenty-six,” he said. “And they come from all over. We have one older man who came all the way from California because of the exceptional service and quality of life we can offer.”
“Forgive me if it’s an ignorant question,” Mackenzie said, “but what sort of things do they do?”
“Well, we have classes that cover a wide variety of interests. Most have to be specialized to cater to their needs, of course. We have cooking classes, exercise programs, a board game club, trivia clubs, gardening classes, crafts, things like that. Also, a few times out of the year, we organize outings to allow them to hike or swim. We even have two brave souls who have taken to canoeing whenever we go out.”
Hearing all of this made Mackenzie feel both insensitive, yet happy as well. She had no idea that people who were completely blind could become adept at things like canoeing or swimming.
Near the end of the hallway, Jones brought them to an elevator. When they stepped inside and headed down, Jones leaned against the wall, clearly exhausted.
“Mr. Jones,” Mackenzie said, “do you have any idea how the local papers would have already learned about the murder?”
“No idea,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons I’m so tired. I’ve been extensively questioning my staff. But everyone checks out. There’s certainly a leak but I have no idea where it’s coming from.”
Mackenzie nodded. Not really much of a concern there, she thought. A leak in a little town like this is almost a certainty. It shouldn’t get in the way of the investigation, though.
The elevator came to a stop and let them out at a small finished basement of sorts. A few chairs were spread out here and there but Jones led them to a door straight ahead of them. They stepped outside and Mackenzie found herself behind the building, facing an employee parking lot.
Randall led them to his car and when they got in, he wasted no time blasting the air conditioning. The inside of the car was like a furnace, but the air started its work right away.
“How did Mrs. Ridgeway get to the garden?” Ellington asked.
“Well, being that we’re in the middle of nowhere, we do allow our residents a certain amount of freedom. We have a curfew of nine o’clock during the summer – which drops to six o’ clock in the fall and winter when it gets dark earlier. The rose garden we’re headed to is a spot some of the residents go just to get out. As you’ll see, it’s a quick walk without any hazards.”
Randall backed them out of the lot and turned onto the road. He was headed in the opposite direction of the police department, revealing a new stretch of the road to Mackenzie and Ellington.
The road was a straight stretch that veered farther back into the woods. But within thirty seconds, Mackenzie could see the small cast-iron gates that bordered the rose garden. Randall pulled into a thin strip of a parking lot where there were only three other cars parked, one of which was an unattended police car.
“Sheriff Clarke and his men have been out here most of last night and early this morning,” Randall said. “When he heard you guys were coming, he had it abandoned. He really doesn’t want to get in the way, you know?”
“We certainly appreciate that,” Mackenzie said, stepping out of the car and back into the stifling heat.
“We know for a fact that this was the last place Ellis Ridgeway visited,” Randall said. “She passed two other residents on her way out, as well as me. Further proof of this can be seen on the security cameras at the home. She’s very obviously heading in this direction – and everyone in the home knows she liked to take late evening walks here. She did it at least four or five times on most weeks.”
“And no one else was here with her?” Mackenzie asked.
“Not anyone from the home. Honestly, not many people come out here in the dead center of summer. I’m sure you’ve noticed that we’re in the middle of a pretty rough hot spell.”
As they came to the east side of the garden, Mackenzie was almost overwhelmed with the smells. She caught whiffs of roses, hydrangeas, and what she thought might be lavender. She supposed it must be a nice getaway for the blind – a way to truly enjoy their other senses.
When they reached a bend in the trail that curved farther back to the east, Jones turned and pointed back behind them. “If you look through that break in the trees on the other side of the road, you can see the backside of Wakeman,” he said sadly. “She was this close to us when she died.”
He then stepped off of the walkway and squeezed past two large flowerpots containing red roses. Mackenzie and Ellington followed him. They reached a back gate that had been mostly hidden by all of the flowers, trees, and vegetation. There was a space of about four feet that was empty, save for some stray grass.
As they walked through, she could instantly see how it might seem like a perfect place for a patient killer to strike. Randall Jones had said it himself – no one came out here much when it got so hot. The killer certainly knew about this and used it to his advantage.
“This is where I found her,” Jones said, pointing to the empty space between the larger pots and the black cast-iron gates. “She was lying face down and bent into a sort of U shape.”
“You found her?” Ellington asked.
“Yes. At about nine forty-five last night. When she didn’t make it back for curfew, I started to worry. After half an hour, I figured I should come check to see if she’d fallen or panicked or something.”
“Were all of her clothes in place?” Mackenzie asked.
“As far as I could tell,” Randall said, clearly surprised by the question. “In the moment, I wasn’t really thinking in such a way.”
“And there’s absolutely no one else on that video footage at the home?” Ellington asked. “No one following her?”
“No one. You’re welcome to look at the footage for yourself when we get back.”
As they headed back through the garden, Ellington brought up a question that had been brewing on Mackenzie’s mind. “It seems very quiet today in the home. What gives?”
“I guess you’d call it mourning. We have a very tight-knit community at Wakeman and Ellis was so loved. Very few of our residents have come out of their rooms all day. We also made an announcement over the PA that we’d have agents from DC coming to look into Ellis’s murder. Ever since then, hardly anyone has come out of their room. I guess they’re freaked out…scared.”
That, plus no one following her out of the home rules out the murderer being a resident, Mackenzie thought. The meager file on the first victim stated that the murder occurred between eleven o’clock and midnight…and a pretty good distance away from Stateton.
“Would it be at all possible for us to speak to some of your residents?” Mackenzie asked.
“It’s absolutely fine with me,” Jones said. “Of course, if they’re uncomfortable with it I’ll have to ask you to stop.”
“Of course. I think I could – ”
She was interrupted by the ringing of her phone. She checked it and saw an unfamiliar number in the display.
“One second,” she said, taking the call. She turned away from Jones and answered: “This is Agent White.”
“Agent White, it’s Sheriff Clarke. Look, I know you just left here but I’d really appreciate it if you could hustle back down as soon as you can.”
“Sure. Is everything okay?”
“It’s been better,” he said. “I’ve just got this jerk-off waste of space Langston Ridgeway down here. He’s demanding to speak with you about his mother’s case and he’s starting to cause a bit of a scene.”
Even in the sticks, you can’t escape politics, Mackenzie thought.
Irritated, she did her best to respond in a professional manner. “Give us about ten minutes,” she said and killed the call.
“Mr. Jones, we’re going to have to head back to the sheriff for now,” she said. “Could you have that security footage cued up for us when we come back?”
“Of course,” Randall said, leading them back to his car.
“And in the meantime,” Mackenzie added, “I want a list of anyone you have even the slightest suspicions about. I’m talking employees and other residents. People that would know the reach of the security camera in the garden.”
Jones nodded somberly. The look on his face told Mackenzie that this was something he had considered himself but had not dared put much belief into. With that same expression on his face, he started the car and took them back to Wakeman. Along the way, Mackenzie again noticed the silence of the little town – not tranquil, but more like the calm before a storm.
CHAPTER FOUR
The first thought that popped into Mackenzie’s head when she saw Langston Ridgeway was that he looked like a praying mantis. He was tall and skinny, and he moved his arms like awkward little pinchers when he talked. It didn’t help that his eyes were huge with fury as he yelled at everyone who tried speaking to him.
Sheriff Clarke had ushered them into the small conference room at the end of the hallway – a room that wasn’t much bigger than his office. Here, with the doors closed, Langston Ridgeway stood as tall as he could while Mackenzie and Ellington endured his wrath.
“My mother is dead and gone,” he moaned, “and I’m inclined to blame the incompetence of the staff at the damned home. And since this sorry excuse for a sheriff refuses to let me speak to Randall Jones in person, I’d like to know what you two FBI goons intend to do about it.”
Mackenzie waited a beat before responding. She was trying to gauge his level of grief. With the way he was behaving it was hard to tell if his anger was an expression of his loss or if he was genuinely just an atrocious man who liked to shout orders at others. So far, she couldn’t tell.
“Quite frankly,” Mackenzie said, “I agree with the sheriff. You’re angry and hurt right now, and it seems like you’re looking to pass blame. I am very sorry for your loss. But the worst thing you could do right now is to confront the management at the home.”
“Blame?” Ridgeway asked, clearly not used to people not simply folding and agreeing with him right away. “If that place is responsible for what happened to my mother, then I – ”
“We’ve already visited the home and spoken with Mr. Jones,” Mackenzie said, cutting him off. “I can assure you that what happened to your mother was the influence of outside sources. And if it is internal, then Mr. Jones certainly knows nothing about it. I can tell you all of that with absolutely confidence.”
Mackenzie wasn’t sure if the look of shock that came over Ridgeway’s face was the result of her disagreeing with him or because she had interrupted him.
“And you gathered all of that from one conversation?” he asked, clearly skeptical.
“I did,” she said. “Of course, this investigation is still quite young so I can’t be certain of anything. What I can tell you is that it’s very hard to conduct an investigation when I get calls that end with me having to leave a crime scene just to listen to people yell and complain.”
She could nearly feel the fury coming off of him now. “I just lost my mother,” he said, each word like a whisper. “I want answers. I want justice.”
“Good,” Ellington said. “We want the same thing.”
“But for us to get it,” Mackenzie said, “you need to let us work. I understand you hold sway around here, but quite frankly, I don’t care. We have a job to do and we can’t let your anger, grief, or arrogance get in the way.”
During the entire exchange, Sheriff Clarke sat at the small conference table. He was doing his very best to contain a smile.
Ridgeway was quiet for a moment. He looked back and forth between the agents and Sheriff Clarke. He nodded and when a tear slid down the side of his face, Mackenzie thought that it might be real. But she could also still see the anger in his eyes, right there at the surface.
“I’m sure you’re used to throwing instructions around at small-town cops and suspects and whatnot,” Langston Ridgeway said. “But let me tell you this…if you drop the ball on this case, or, for that matter, disrespect me again, I’ll make a call to DC. I’ll talk to your supervisor and bury you.”
The sad thing is, he thinks he’s fully capable of such a thing, Mackenzie thought. And maybe he is. But I’d sure as hell love to be a fly on the wall when someone like Langston Ridgeway starts barking at McGrath.
Rather than escalate the situation, Mackenzie decided to stay silent. She glanced beside her and saw that Ellington was clenching and unclenching his fist…a little trick he resorted to whenever he was on the verge of getting irrationally angry.
In the end, Mackenzie said, “If you let us do our job unhindered, it won’t come to that.”
It was clear that Ridgeway was searching for something else to say. All he could come up with was a muffled hmmph. He followed this by turning quickly away and leaving the room. It reminded Mackenzie very much of a child in the midst of a tantrum.
After a few seconds, Sheriff Clarke leaned forward with a sigh. “And now you see what I’ve been having to deal with. That boy thinks the sun rises and sets around his spoiled ass. And he can go on and on about losing his mother all he wants. All he’s worried about is the media in bigger cities finding out that he dumped her in a home…even if it is a nice one. He’s worried about his own image more than anything else.”
“Yeah, I got that same feeling,” Ellington said.
“Do you think we can expect any more interference from him?” Mackenzie asked.
“I don’t know. He’s unpredictable. He’ll do whatever he thinks might improve his chances of getting public attention which will later turn to votes for whatever tainted sea he guns for.”
“Well then, Sheriff,” Mackenzie said, “if you have a few minutes, why don’t we sit down and go over what we know?”
“That won’t take long,” he said. “Because there ain’t much.”
“That’s better than nothing,” Ellington said.