Page 10 of Absent Feeling

“Ifyou want to take a seat, I’ll get to you in a minute,” the officer said.

Simonheld up his badge. “FBI. We’re here about the Raymond Werdly and ConstanceBanks murders. I’d like to see the detective in charge of the case.”

Simonsaw the shift in the officer’s expression, from boredom to something likeshock.

“Yes,of course. Go straight through, and I’ll let Detective Heart know that you’rehere.”

Hegestured to a door at the side of the waiting area that led through to an openplan office area, where the officers and detectives of the Guisborough PDseemed to work at any desk they could grab. There weren’t many in there rightthen.

“Itseems pretty empty,” Amber said, obviously spotting the same thing.

“Myguess is that they have a lot of officers tied up at the murder scenes,” Simonsaid. “Two murders in two days mean that they’ll have to throw a lot ofresources at them at once to try to get a result.”

Ambernodded, but before she could say anything else, a detective came up to the twoof them. He was a man in his mid-twenties, a little taller than Simon andslender with it, with dark hair and brown eyes, wearing dark slacks and asports jacket over an open necked, white shirt. His badge was on a lanyardaround his neck.

“DetectiveHeart?” Simon asked, holding out a hand for the other man to shake.

“That’sright.” His grip was firm as he took Simon’s hand.

“I’mAgent Phelps, this is Amber Young.” Simon would have preferred to introduceAmber as an agent, but in spite of her being fully trained, he couldn’t do ityet. Not until she decided that she was actually going to take a job with theFBI.

“Iwant to say that it wasn’t my idea to bring the FBI in,” Detective Heart said,with a note of defiance in his tone. “I think that we can handle this, and allof this talk of a serial killer is too early.”

“Youhave a killer murdering people in the same way each time and leaving behind acalling card,” Amber said. “Isn’t that about as textbook an example of a serialkiller as there is?”

Simonwas a little surprised to hear her standing up to the local PD, when beforeshe’d often been nervous when it came to interacting with others. Maybe hertime at the FBI academy had helped to bring her out of herself.

“Istill think that we could catch him,” Detective Heart said, shooting Amber anot entirely friendly look.

Simonthought that he understood. Detective Heart was young, and he’d probably caughtthis case because no one else in the department wanted to be associated withit. He’d been planning on using the first murder to make his name there, butnow that the FBI were involved, he might not get that chance.

“You’restill the detective involved in the case, Heart,” Simon said.

“Butnow my job is just to liaise with you and make sure that you get what youneed,” Heart replied, with a note of bitterness. “I’m a glorified errand boy.”

“We’reall here to catch a killer.”

“Andthen you take all the credit.”

Simondidn’t have any time for this. “I want you to walk us through the most recentcrime scene.”

“Andif I have better things to do?”

“Listento me, Detective Heart, at the end of this, I’ll be submitting a report. Youcan either look good in that, or I can write about how obstructive you were.Your call.”

Thedetective stood there for several seconds. “All right, I’ll show you thescene.”

*

Thefirst thing Simon spotted outside the house where Raymond Werdly had beenkilled was the cluster of reporters, thronging there and obviously waiting forsomething to happen that they could write about. There weren’t as many as theremight have been back in DC, but it still seemed that there were more than atown like this could support, suggesting that some had come over fromWashington to get the best view of events on the ground.

“Beready when we leave the car,” Simon said to Amber as they pulled up behindDetective Heart’s car. “Keep moving and don’t answer any questions.”

“Gotit,” Amber said.

Simonled the way out of the car towards a house that looked as if it should havebeen a quiet, suburban place to raise a family. It looked neatly maintained,even ordinary, or would have if it weren’t for the police tape there to keeppeople back and the forensics van parked in the driveway. As soon as Simon leftthe car, reporters closed in on him and Amber, but Simon kept moving forwardwith Amber in his wake.

“Areyou with the FBI? Does this mean that Guisborough officially has a serialkiller?”

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