The receptionist sounded surprised. “Well, yes, I mean, of course. He leaves his formal outfits here all the time, and I know he wears a size ten shoe. Do you need his collar size?”
"No, that’s all good. Thank you," Owen said.
He turned and hurried to the door. May followed him out, and they rushed back to the car.
"So, we know a lot now. That was great work, Owen," May said. She felt stunned by the way the evidence was now piling up. "We know his mindset has changed and that he's been obsessed with death and feeling that people should not survive accidental events. And we know he's been spending a lot of time at home. And his footprint fits the killer’s."
"That home office needs to be searched," Owen said. "There is likely to be a treasure trove of evidence there."
"I agree," May said. "But I'm not sure that it will help us find him now. Right now, we need to know where he is, urgently. I'm sure he's not at home. So there are two ways we can locate him."
"We can get his car details and put an APB out on it?" Owen suggested the first, and most obvious, solution.
"We can. And the other thing we can do is to track his personal phone. It's obviously a very well-guarded number. Veryprivate. Because of that, I don't think he would have bothered to turn it off or leave it at home if he was out stalking a victim."
Owen frowned. "Do you think we can do that? There are usually a lot of hoops we have to jump through. That might take an hour or two to set up."
"Not if we ask Kerry to help," May said. "The FBI can get it done faster. Kerry can probably organize it in a couple of minutes. And I know she'll be glad to help. She'll do whatever she can to get him caught." May paused, remembering her sister's words. "Especially since she said, according to the profile, this is a very dangerous killer."
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
As she drove back to the Fairshore police department, May felt as if all the puzzle pieces were finally falling into place. The funeral director, Burgess, was their suspect. She was sure of it. All they needed now was to track him down. They had done everything they could to make a start on that. They had put out the APB on Burgess's car. She'd called Kerry, who was going to get her FBI colleagues to locate his private cellphone.
May had no idea which of the options would come through with information first, but for now, she was going to make the call that she and Owen should go their separate ways.
There were two critical areas to focus on in this case.
The first was to search Burgess's house, and May felt sure that there was going to be important evidence in that house. Plus, he might have left clues there as to his whereabouts. So, the house search had to be done right now, and Burgess lived on the outskirts of Fairshore.
But they couldn’t both go there, because the other area of focus was the territory where he was operating, the area where he was making his kills.
So far, his killing ground was out in the rural countryside beyond Chestnut Hill which was close to where his wife’s accident had occurred. And that was twenty miles away. One of them needed to patrol the farming area, to keep a lookout for his car, and to try and get to the next murder site as soon as possible when the call they were waiting for came in. May knew that the local police were already on the alert. That would help her too.
In a few minutes, Kerry might be able to track his phone. When that happened, they needed to be on site and ready to act. Every minute would be precious.
"I’ll go and search his house," Owen said.
May nodded, feeling pleased that he’d left the patrolling to her.
"I’ll go out to the farmland area and start searching for him while I wait for Kerry’s call,” she said. “Can you ask the control room to notify the local police to be on the lookout? In both places?”
“I'll do that. I’ll take backup on my side, and make sure the police in the farming community know the latest updates. Please be careful, though, May.”
"I promise I'll ask for help immediately when I find him," she said to Owen.
She arrived back at Fairshore, noticing as she stopped that the parking lot outside the police department was filling up fast. The media had arrived. The locals were crowding in. People wanted answers. May hoped that the next hour would provide the answers, without the terrible and seemingly inevitable threat of another death.
“Good luck with it,” May said to Owen. He nodded, and ran to his car.
She set off again, powering along the main road, choosing the route that would lead her out to the farming country where this killer had been picking off his victims.
Going out of town in Fairshore didn’t take much time at all. Soon, May was heading along the quiet roads between Fairshore and Chestnut Hill, past tracts of countryside that were wide and green and looked peaceful and calm.
She watched the houses that were dotted along the way with some dread, wondering if the killer was watching one of these houses right now, preparing for his next attack. She drove on, willing herself to think as hard as she could about the killer, about his mindset and his state of mind. She tried to imagine the things he was feeling, and the things he was thinking.
He was a broken man, she was sure of that. He was a man who had been crushed by the tragedy that had befallen him, and he had been unable to get over it.
At the same time, he had become obsessed with death. He felt that death was part of the natural cycle, and saving someone from death was a crime. That was what he believed, and so now he was fighting this crime. He was a man on a twisted, murderous mission.