Page 115 of Obsession

“What suspects do you have?” Sam accepted the file from Lane.

“None. We know someone sent notes to Kimberly Fisher and figure it’s the same person who gave her daisies, but we’ve been unable to discover who that person was.”

“What kind of notes?” Sam asked.

“They’re in the folder there.”

Sam flipped through the folder until he came to an envelope. When he looked inside it, there were three notes, each of themwith a drawing and message in printed text. One looked exactly like the card Emma had received with a dead rat on it. He held it up for her to see. “Look familiar?”

Emma’s fingers shook when she reached for the note. “It’s identical to the drawing I received.”

“Do you know if these were mailed to her?” Sam asked. Emma’s card had been slipped under her apartment door.

“There’s no way to know. Her sister found the notes in Kimberly’s home desk after her death.”

“How about the daisies? Any clue who sent them?” Emma asked.

Lane shook his head. “The flowers weren’t from a florist, so I couldn’t trace them that way. Kimberly lived in a cul-de-sac but had no security camera and neither did her neighbors. Except for an eighty-year-old gentleman with cataracts, all her neighbors were at work. And she had no enemies.

“We thought we had a lead when her sister mentioned there was a man in her office building who advised her to drop her deadbeat boyfriend, but she didn’t know his name, and our investigation didn’t turn up this mysterious man—she was a receptionist for a billing company and a lot of people stopped by her desk.”

“Where did she work?” Sam asked.

“In an office building not far from the medical center.”

“How about the other offices?”

“Mostly companies that had a connection to the medical center, although there were a couple of law offices and accounting firms.”

Emma tilted her head. “How about the boyfriend who was murdered?”

“He was another matter. A recovering alcoholic who had been abusive in the past. If she’d died first, he would have been our prime suspect. At one time they’d been engaged, but after he hit her in a drunken stupor, she ended the engagement. He promisedto go to rehab and stay straight. They had recently gotten back together after he got out of rehab.” Lane shook his head. “You’ve heard of the perfect murder? This was it.”

“You know there’s a similar crime up around Oxford?” Sam asked.

“Yes. I got in contact with the detective in charge after I entered the crime in RISS. Lieutenant Doug Marsh. The cases are practically identical. I talked to him this morning, and we set up a teleconference through my laptop for ten.”

Good. Lane had anticipated Sam would want to talk to the Oxford detective. He checked his watch. Another thirty minutes. “Do you think he might be available now?”

“Let’s see,” Lane said.

A few minutes later the detective appeared on Lane’s laptop. “Good mornin’,” Marsh said, his Southern drawl more pronounced than Lane’s. The Hinds County detective introduced Emma and Sam.

“Do you have a murder case that matches ours?” Marsh asked.

Sam turned the computer where he could see the detective better and Marsh could view him. He figured Marsh to be in his midforties. Since the detective sat in an office chair, Sam couldn’t tell much about his size other than Marsh’s broad shoulders filled the camera lens and his lean face led Sam to think the detective didn’t spend a lot of time sitting around eating donuts. “From what I’ve read and heard about your case and Lane’s, I believe they’re connected to mine. Happened ten years ago, and I suspect it’s our murderer’s first kill.”

“How come you’re just now investigating?”

“It’s complicated,” Sam said. “Until recently, there was only one body, that of Mary Jo Selby. The sheriff at the time believed a man who went missing about the time of her death was her killer, and the case wasn’t investigated thoroughly.”

Lane leaned forward. “I haven’t asked this previously, but what makes you think her murder is linked to our cases?”

“The daisies, and we believe the missing man was killed the same night. My victim received a bouquet of daisies not long before her death, and her sister couldn’t remember much about the man who gave them to her. I’m just now investigating because the missing man’s body was only recently found, giving me the opportunity to reopen the case. I’d already been looking for an excuse after I discovered the murder case file was missing.”

“What does the current sheriff have to say about that?” Marsh asked.

“The sheriff who investigated the Selby murder has dementia, and the sheriff we have now just took office. He’s still getting his boots on the ground.”

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