Page 66 of Remember Her Name

Gretchen beat her to it, reading off the facts as she located them. “There were witnesses who saw Roger Bell entering the Cook residence. Other witnesses who saw him only a block away after the murders, covered in blood. Unfortunately, his clothes were never found. Once he was arrested, he refused to talk.”

“But Quinn saw the knife,” Turner said. “That didn’t count?”

Josie sighed. “I saw it when I first went in. Peluso didn’t notice it, but I did. I was willing to testify to that, but the judge ruled in favor of the defense and the knife was kept out.”

The ancient printer sputtered to life. Gretchen stood up and walked over to it, waiting for the pages to emerge in the output tray. Once she had what she needed, she walked to the corkboard. The rest of them watched as she pinned a photofrom the Cook crime scene under a photo from their present-day scenes.

She narrated as she went. “Evan Cook was the father. The positioning of his body most closely resembles the way our killer staged Cleo Tate’s body.”

Evan Cook had been stabbed in the front parlor, just off the foyer. He had turned on his side after being attacked. He’d been found with one hand gripping the edge of a chair, as if he’d tried to pull himself up.

“Amelia Cook was his wife,” Gretchen went on, pinning another photo over part of the map, nowhere near their present-day crime scene photos. “The mother. Her body position doesn’t match up with any of our victims.”

Although the pictures showed the individual victims, Josie remembered from just having perused the file that Amelia had been found in the hall that led from the foyer to the dining room, her body like a discarded marionette, rolled partially onto her shoulder, her arms twisted round one another.

Turner’s fingertips beat out a rhythm on his thigh. “You mean any of the victims we’ve foundso far.”

Ignoring him, Gretchen took another photo and put it under Stella Townsend’s crime scene picture. “Iris Cook. Thirteen years old. Daughter of Evan and Amelia. She was found in the breakfast room, on her stomach like she was trying to crawl away. Then there’s the visiting student, Miranda O’Malley. She was found near Iris. Her positioning matches that of Everly Rowe.”

Miranda’s photo went beneath Everly’s—both on their backs, one arm flung outward, each one bearing the most stab wounds because Miranda was Bell’s main target. She’d been found in the corner of the room, behind the overturned table. Josie wondered if there would have been less bloodshed if Bell had foundMiranda alone at the home, or had he always intended to kill them all?

Empty-handed, Gretchen turned toward them. “Then you’ve got another kid, Simon Cook, seventeen years old. Found in the kitchen, stabbed in the back. Finally, a toddler, Felicity Cook, three years old, also in the kitchen, stabbed once in the abdomen and once in the chest. No photos of them.”

Josie’s mouth was suddenly dry. The memory she’d worked so hard to bury for the last fifteen years came rushing back. Peluso dropping to his knees beside the boy, finding a pulse, rolling him over to find tiny Felicity Cook sheltered beneath her brother’s body. Peluso had immediately started working on Simon while Josie did what she could to keep the life from draining out of the tiny girl’s fragile body, at least until the EMTs arrived.

“There are no photos,” Josie choked out. “Not from the scene. They were both alive when we got there.”

Noah said, “Did they survive?”

Josie remembered getting the news from Peluso a week later that the girl had finally been upgraded to stable condition. He’d known how badly shaken Josie had been from trying to save her. “I’m pretty sure Felicity survived,” Josie said. “But I don’t know about Simon. I wasn’t involved in anything more than the initial call and I didn’t follow it. I was just trying to keep my head above water back then, being new, and after the disaster with the murder weapon, I didn’t much want to think about it.”

She didn’t mention the way she’d spiraled into alcohol use.

Gretchen returned to her desk, clicking her mouse a few times. “They both survived, at least until trial. The charges against Bell for those two victims were attempted murder.”

Turner went back to his desk, sitting and tossing his basketball at the net over and over, missing every time. “So what are we looking at here? It’s obviously some kind of revengetour, targeting everyone in law enforcement who screwed up the scene and got the knife kept out. But why?”

Josie spun her chair around to face him. “Because Roger Bell was acquitted of all charges. He went free.”

FIFTY

“Are you kidding me, sweetheart?” Turner went perfectly still, which was weird since normally, he was in a perpetual state of motion. Then, with a groan, he took one of the two dollars in the jar on his desk and pushed it down into Josie’s, which was already full to bursting. “Let me try this again. Are you fucking kidding me?”

Gretchen angled her computer screen so they could all see the court dockets. The not guiltys seemed to go on forever. “Josie’s right.”

Noah rubbed at his jaw. His five o’clock shadow had appeared while they were on shift. That was how long they’d been chasing the Polaroid Killer. “I don’t remember this case.”

Josie stood and leaned across her desk, peering at the documents Gretchen had pulled up. “The trial concluded two years after the murders. You would have just joined the department.”

“How was this guy not convicted though?” asked Turner, picking up his basketball and squeezing it in his fist like a stress ball. “Two victims survived.”

Josie vaguely remembered the grumblings in the department after Bell got off. Back then, the men she worked with were moreconcerned about the fact that Bell’s acquittal made them all look stupid than with the reality that a mass murderer was walking the streets again. Only Peluso was well and truly stricken. She tried to call up the details of their conversations about the case or the news reports, but nothing came to her.

Taking her seat again, she opened her internet browser and searched for the case. A few minutes later, she had some answers. “Simon Cook testified at trial that he was upstairs in his bedroom when the stabbings occurred. He said he heard screams and ran downstairs where he found his entire family and Miranda O’Malley bleeding.”

“He didn’t see Bell?” asked Gretchen.

Josie kept reading. “He testified that when he entered the breakfast room, Bell was straddling Miranda, stabbing her. Felicity was near the doorway to the kitchen, making noises.” She had to stop for a moment, remembering the gurgling in the tiny girl’s throat.

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