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Chapter 20

“Was there a full moon out last night or what?”

Sherri looked up from her stack of files, surprised at Quinn’s sudden outburst. He was sitting at his desk with his own pile of paper work, filling out reports from the incidents he had investigated that morning.

“We had five cases of vandalized property along Old Route 8 between here and Carterville, a domestic disturbance on Oak Ave, and a case of shoplifting at the Dollar Store on West Maple. Who the hell steals from a Dollar Store, for Pete’s sake?”

“What was vandalized on Old Route 8?”

“Mailboxes.”

Sherri suppressed a smile. Welcome to small town America.

Quinn signed the last report, stuck it in the folder, and placed it in the OUT box on the corner of his desk. He was about to start ranting again when the front door opened and a pair of strangers walked into the office. The elder of the two men had bushy brown hair, a thick moustache, wire-rimmed glasses, and was dressed in a tweed jacket with patches at the elbows. The younger man had thick black hair, a full beard, glasses with smoke grey lenses, and was dressed in an old army jacket and baseball cap.

“May I help you?” asked Sherri. The older man turned to her and smiled.

“I certainly hope so.” He took his wallet out his pocket, opened it and extracted a business card, which he handed to her.

“My name is Dr. Daniel Prescott. I am a professor of psychology and sociology at Bluestone State University, and this is one of my graduate students, Mr. Jack Crow. We are here to do field research for one of our projects. I was hoping to speak to your sheriff.”

“He’s very busy right now Dr...” She glanced at the card. “Prescott.”

“Please, I won’t take up too much of his time.”

Sherri sighed, rose from her desk, walked to Mathies’ office door and knocked.

“What kind of research are you doing?” asked Quinn suspiciously.

“We are doing a psychological, sociological, and economic assessment of the effects of violent crime on rural towns.”

“Effects? I can tell you the effects! People are scared shitless!”

At that moment, Mathies opened the door of his office. He glanced over at Quinn, then looked at the two strangers and asked, “What is going on here?”

“Ah, Sheriff Mathies,” said Prescott, “I was hoping to have a few minutes of your time.” He removed another card from his wallet and handed it to Mathies.

“As I’m sure Sherri here has told you, I’m very busy, Mr...” Mathies looked down at the card and stopped.

“Dr. Prescott. So pleased to make your acquaintance.” Mathies continued to stare at the card in silence.

“He’s here to do research,” offered Sherri. She looked back and forth between the two men. Prescott appeared calm, while Mathies looked startled, a mixture of emotions crossing his face. Finally, his expression cleared as he looked at Prescott with relief.

“Yes, Dr. Prescott,” said Mathies, “I do believe I can spare the time. Please, step into my office.”

Quinn could not contain himself any longer.

“Rick, what are you doing? We don’t—”

“Charlie, I need to speak with you, too. Just a minute.” Mathies opened the door wide in order to allow the two men to enter his office. “Please have a seat. I’ll be right there.”

He walked over to Quinn, put one hand on his shoulder, and said in a low voice, “Charlie, look, I really think you could use a break. You’ve been overworked lately, and frankly the stress is really starting to show.”

“But Rick, I don’t think—”

“Everything will be fine here, don’t worry. Why don’t you take a day or two of vacation? It’ll do you good. I’m sure you could use a rest.”

“What...whatever you say Rick.”

Mathies patted him on the shoulder, turned and walked back into his office, closing the door behind.

Quinn stared at the door, seething. I may take a day or two of “vacation”, but I’ll be damned if I’ll rest. There are just too many questions to be answered, and it looks like I’m the only one asking. After a few moments, her turned to Sherri and said, “Well, I guess I’ll see you in a day or two.”

“A day or two? Where are you going?”

“Rick thinks I need a break. I guess he’s right.” Quinn grabbed his coat and headed out the door.



Mathies studied the two men seated across from him. They didn’t look like profilers but perhaps this was all part of Glinn’s plan to keep a low profile.

“Thank you for coming. I...well, we’re really in a bind here. It’s been almost two weeks since the murders, and we have no leads. No physical evidence, not witnesses, not even a possible motive.”

The elder of the two men nodded.

“Mr. Glinn provided a copy of the case file. I must admit, the situation is perplexing.”

“Eli said that you would be able to help...” Mathies glanced at the younger man, “although I was under the impression that he was only sending one person.”

“Mr. Crow has certain skills which may prove to be crucial for analyzing the data that I collect.”

“Eli did mention to you the, ah, special situation surrounding this case?”

“Yes, and not to worry. Mr. Crow is completely discrete. However, I would appreciate if you would not mention his involvement to Mr. Glinn. He tends to frown on nepotism.”

“I see...”

Prescott removed a notepad and pen from his jacket pocket. “Now, Sheriff Mathies, do you have any new information for me?”

“Well...there was one thing that might be related to the case.”

“Yes?”

“A couple of days ago, a man came to the office to talk about the case. He said he had worked a similar case about 12 years ago. I didn’t talk to him but my deputy, Charlie Quinn did. Charlie said the man’s description of the case matched this one. He set up a meeting for the three of us but unfortunately the man was in an automobile accident that morning. He’s in the hospital. Charlie believes the wreck wasn’t an accident.”

“The man’s name?”

“Cambry. Brian Cambry. He said he was from a little town in southern West Virginia called Pine Mountain.” Mathies looked at the two men. Prescott seemed mildly interested as he jotted a few notes. Crow was as expressionless as before, but Mathies noticed that the young man’s knuckles were white from gripping the arms of his chair.

“Interesting,” said Prescott. “Is Mr. Cambry expected to recover?”

“We’re telling everyone he’s still unconscious and in very bad shape, just in case it really wasn’t an accident, but the doctors think he’ll be OK.”

Prescott nodded. He flipped to a new page in his notebook.

“Can you tell me anything else about the victims? Any personal knowledge or observations?”

“There’s really not that much to tell. The Zoller family moved here about ten years ago. They bought a farm out by the state forest and started raising grain and cattle. The seemed to be the perfect family, close knit and loving. Mr. and Mrs. Zoller were not all that social but they did do a lot of work for their church. As far as I know, the kids were all good students and never had any discipline problems in school. They were involved in community service through their church. They’d ‘adopt’ a senior citizen who had no local relatives and check in on them, take them on outings, cook, do yard work, that sort of thing. The two oldest boys received athletic scholarships to college, and the girls were working for an extra year between high school and college to earn some extra money. I talked to their employers, and they never had any problems with the work the girls were doing. I’ve never had any problems with the family. I don’t think any of them ever got so much as a parking ticket.” Mathies sighed. “There was no apparent reason for anyone to kill them, especially that way.”

“Were they involved in any activities outside of school or church?”

“Scouts, 4-H, community choir and band. I’ve talked to the fellow members of those organizations and no one remembers any problems.”

“What about outside of town? The old two boys were at college. Did you have the opportunity to question anyone with that connection?”

“They were separate colleges out of state. I did talk to their roommates, but they weren’t aware of any problems, either.”

“Are there any members of the community that you feel were particularly close to the family?”

Mathies thought for a moment. “There is one of the seniors that the twins spent a lot of time with who might be able to help you. Mrs. Willamette. She told me that the Zollers were more like a family to her than her own.”

“Her address?”

“She lives in that shotgun house on the corner of Water Street and West Maple.”

Prescott made another note.

“Tell me about the survivor.”

“Mark Zoller. He’s still in Good Samaritan. One of the neighbors found him running from the scene, screaming, and brought him in. The doctors say he’s suffering from severe Post-Traumatic Stress and is not really responding to treatment. He doesn’t have any immediate family in the area, and so far we’ve been unable to locate any elsewhere.”

“Have you considered the possibility that he...”

Mathies glared at Prescott.

“If you knew Mark, you’d know that’s impossible. That is about the only thing I’m certain of with this case.”

“I see. Would it be possible to visit the young man?”

“I’ll see what I can do. Anything else?”

“Not at the moment.” Prescott snapped his notebook shut and returned it to his coat pocket. Mathies waited until he was finished before asking the question that had been on his mind since the beginning of the meeting.

“Now, Dr. Prescott, can you tell me exactly what you’ll be doing to help?”

“I assure you, Sheriff Mathies, we have a plan, but it is rather difficult to articulate at this time. I will be able to give you more details after we have collected some data.”

“You think this ‘plan’ will work? We’ll be able to catch this bastard?”

Prescott nodded.

“How will you keep me updated on your progress?

Prescott handed him a sheet of paper. “This is the address where we will be staying. We can meet later this evening to discuss our progress.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Sheriff Mathies?”

“Yes?”

“Make certain you are not followed.”

“Uh, yes, of course.”

“In the meantime, I’ll need the crime statistics from the past month. We need to keep up appearances.”

“Certainly.”

“Thank you Sheriff Mathies. I look forward to working with you.”

Prescott rose from his seat, shook Mathies’ hand, and turned toward the door. Crow stood up and shoved both hands in his pockets. As he turned to leave, his coat caught a pile of file folders that had been sitting on the corner of Mathies’ desk. With a grumbled curse, Crow knelt down and began collecting the scattered files. He placed the retrieved back on Mathies’ desk, muttered a brief apology and followed Prescott out of the office.

Sherri looked up as the men stepped through the doorway. Mathies’ expression betrayed none of what had been discussed, but he gave her a brief smile.

“Sherri, have you complied the crime statistics for this month?”

“No, not yet, I’m afraid. Why?”

“Dr. Prescott is in need of a copy for his project.”

“Oh, okay. I could have them for you by tomorrow morning.”

“Splendid,” said Prescott. He turned to Mathies. “Thank you, Sheriff. Your information has been most beneficial.” He turned and strode out of the office. The surly young man with him gave Sherri one final look before following reluctantly.

Sherri watched the two men leave and turned to Mathies.

“Rick, what was that all about?” Mathies gazed after the men for a moment before replying.

“Research.”

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