Once Chosen (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 17) Read online

  Her rookie partner had just used the classic Krav Maga tactic of using a makeshift weapon—her jacket—to thwart her opponent. And she had used it well.

  They climbed into their car and headed for the police station.

  In a breathless, ecstatic voice, Ann Marie said, “Wow, that was … a rush! Does it always feel like that? Taking down a bad guy, I mean?”

  Riley smiled. At the moment, she felt little else except aches and pains. She didn’t feel the least bit elated.

  “Not always,” she said.

  “Too bad,” Ann Marie said. “I could get to like it.”

  As Riley continued to drive, she found herself unexpectedly curious about her new partner. Meredith had said that Ann Marie skipped some of the requirements for entering the FBI Academy, just as Riley had. Like Riley, she had impressed a senior agent by solving a difficult case on her own, and had been admitted based on recommendations.

  Riley had been pushed into thinking about a serial killer because he had murdered her own college roommate and another friend. She had nearly been killed herself.

  What, she wondered, had pushed Ann Marie? What kind of case had she solved?

  Riley said, “Maybe it’s time you told me a little more about yourself, Ann Marie Esmer.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Driving close behind Sheriff Wightman’s car, Riley waited for Ann Marie to answer. But the young agent just turned and looked at Riley as if she had no idea what she meant.

  Of course she doesn’t, Riley realized.

  She explained, “You got recruited because of a murder case you solved. I’d like you to tell me about it.”

  Ann Marie laughed a little.

  “Oh, that,” she said. “That was just a silly thing.”

  A “silly thing”? Riley wondered. She found it weird to think of a murder case as a “silly thing.”

  Ann Marie continued, “Anyway, it had to do with these twins in Georgetown …”

  Riley couldn’t help but interrupt.

  “Twins? Do you mean the Bristow twins case?”

  “Yeah, that one,” Ann Marie said. “So you’ve heard of it?”

  “Yeah,” Riley said, trying not to sound too startled—or too impressed.

  There had been quite a bit of talk around Quantico last year about the Bristow case. Riley hadn’t been involved with it, but from what she’d heard, it was a peculiar one, even by her standards. She didn’t know many details about it, just that it had some kind of twist to it that investigators had almost missed.

  Riley was glad that she was apparently going to hear all about it now from someone who had actually been involved. She’d never have guessed that her young partner would know anything about that semi-notorious case.

  “Please fill me in,” she added.

  Ann Marie shrugged. “Well, one day at Dad’s mortuary, this guy named Glenn Bristow brought his identical twin brother’s body in for cremation. They’d been rock climbing, and his brother, Ethan, had fallen to his death. Dad asked me to conduct the bereavement interview while he was preparing the body for cremation.”

  She sighed happily. “I really like that part—talking to people about their grief, I mean. I’m good at it, I really know what I’m doing. I guess it’s because I’m such a people person.”

  Riley wasn’t surprised to hear her say that. She remembered vividly the rookie’s skillful professionalism when she’d interviewed Allison Hillis’s mother. She also remembered finding Allison’s performance to be shallow and insincere. But Lauren Hillis hadn’t seemed to feel that way at all. Ann Marie had managed to put that bereaved woman fully at ease in a way that Riley couldn’t have pulled off.

  She really is good at it, Riley had to admit to herself. A real people person.

  But Riley still wasn’t sure if she herself was one of those “people” that Ann Marie did so well with.

  The rookie went on, “Glenn had come to the mortuary with his wife, Barbara. They were really leaning on each other for support. In fact, Glenn seemed to be taking his brother’s death hard. They’d been pretty much inseparable their whole lives, he said.”

  Riley said, “And they really were identical, right?”

  “Well, to look at, yes,” Ann Marie said. “But in some ways they apparently weren’t so similar. Glenn said the whole thing was horribly ironic. Although they sometimes climbed together, it wasn’t one of Glenn’s main interests in life like it was his brother’s. Ethan was the better climber and was actually in much better shape. That day he was leading the way like he always did. But he fell. Glenn said he just barely managed to keep from falling too.”

  Riley said, “That can happen. Even the best of climbers sometimes make mistakes. It can be because of overconfidence.”

  Ann Marie agreed and added, “This time it was an equipment failure, but that could be put down to carelessness because of overconfidence. Glenn said he felt awfully guilty about it, even though the accident obviously hadn’t been his fault. No one ever blamed him at all. To me it looked like a classic case of survivor’s guilt.”

  “I suppose morticians see that sort of guilt all the time,” Riley said.

  “Oh, they sure do,” Ann Marie said. “But there was also something about the whole situation didn’t feel right to me. In fact, when I thought about it, I got to tingling all over. It was a really weird feeling, like nothing I’d ever experienced before.”

  Riley was startled. A tingling sensation usually signaled her that she was getting an important hit on a killer’s way of thinking.

  When Riley didn’t reply, Ann Marie added, “But I guess you know that feeling well.”

  Riley nodded and said, “It’s the way you feel when a hunch is coming on. Paying attention to it can be important.”

  “Right, well, I didn’t understand that at the time,” Ann Marie said. “But I definitely noticed how Barbara didn’t seem to share Glenn’s grief over his brother’s death. Even though she was going through the appropriate motions, she just seemed kind of—I don’t know, cold about it.”

  With a tilt of her head, Ann Marie added, “Pretty soon Glenn got really overcome and he couldn’t talk anymore. He said he had to get out of the room for a few minutes to collect himself, and I found myself alone with Barbara.”

  “What happened then?” Riley asked.

  “Well, Barbara confided to me in a whisper that she didn’t feel sorry for what happened to Ethan at all. He might have been Glenn’s identical brother, but except for their physical resemblance, she said they couldn’t have been more unlike each other. Glenn was a responsible man and a wonderful husband. Ethan was a bum and a ne’er-do-well, she said, and he sponged off of Glenn a lot.”

  “What else did she say?” Riley asked.

  “She said she’d also been worried about them going rock climbing together. Glenn just wasn’t as good at it as his brother. She was annoyed with her husband for even going up again. Ethan had never had a bad fall, never even broken a bone. But just a couple of years ago, Glenn had suffered a short fall when they were out together. He’d broken an ankle and had promised her he wouldn’t climb again. But his brother really wanted them to go up together, and Glenn could never say no to him.”

  “And the better climber fell,” Riley commented.

  Ann Marie shrugged. “Anyway, the wife agreed with Glenn about one thing. It was ironic that Ethan wound up getting killed. But it was clear that as far as Barbara was concerned, it was no great loss.”

  “That does sound cold,” Riley said.

  “Oh, she was positively icy, at least about Ethan,” Ann Marie said. “But she really did seem to love Glenn and be truly concerned about him. Anyway, I was around when Dad put the body in the cremation chamber. As usual, it took a couple of hours to cremate the body. During that time, Dad and I heard some small popping sounds. Dad wasn’t bothered by it. Sometimes that sort of thing happens during a cremation. But I just had this feeling …”

  Ann Marie shuddered a little.
/>   “After the cremation process,” she said, “Dad and I took the remains out of the oven, and they cooled off for a while. I insisted on helping Dad with the next step, which was picking out any metals that might still be mixed up in the remains—stray jewelry, pins and screws from surgery, that kind of thing. Sure enough, I found something odd.”

  Riley waited for her to continue.

  “I found three bone screws in the remains,” Ann Marie said.

  Riley was starting to understand the role Ann Marie had played in the case.

  “So the question was …” Riley began.

  Finishing her thought, Ann Marie said, “What the heck was a man who’d ‘never had a broken bone’ doing with those screws in his body? They were the kind of thing that might be used to repair a broken ankle. It didn’t make sense—but of course it really did.”

  “Did you go straight to the police?” Riley asked.

  “Oh, you bet we did, Dad and I both, although Dad was pretty confused about the whole thing. I showed the cops the screws and told them what I thought was going on.”

  Riley nodded and said, “That it was Glenn’s corpse you’d cremated, not Ethan’s.”

  “Right. I figured Barbara and Ethan must have been having an affair, and they both decided to get poor Glenn out of the way so Ethan could take his place as Barbara’s husband. So Ethan was still alive and now he had a wife and property and a good income. The two guys looked so much alike, they didn’t think anyone would notice the switch.”

  “What did the cops say?” Riley asked.

  “They acted like I was crazy,” Ann Marie scoffed. “They said they’d already investigated the accident and found no evidence of foul play. They even said that it would be no surprise if a longtime climber had some kind of break repaired. They really just didn’t want to open a case against the man they thought was Glenn Bristow, a well-respected citizen. But I insisted that they check again, and this time I helped them. And sure enough, I found very slight plier marks on the harness that had failed in Glenn’s climbing equipment. The cops just hadn’t looked carefully enough, because they’d had no reason to suspect foul play. But I proved it was sabotage, pure and simple.”

  Riley said, “I guess the rest of the case must have been pretty cut and dry.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Ann Marie said. “There were no medical records of Ethan ever having had any kind of surgery, but his brother had definitely had an ankle repaired a couple of years back. After that, they could get warrants to check fingerprints and even DNA, and it turned out my theory was right. The cops were impressed with me, and the FBI got word of what I’d done, and … well, you know the rest.”

  Riley did know the rest, indeed. Ethan Bristow and Glenn’s widow were both found guilty of murder and sent to prison. They might have gotten away with it if it weren’t for Ann Marie.

  Ann Marie added with a shy laugh, “Anyway, like I told you—just a silly thing. Nothing at all like the cases you’re used to solving. Nothing like the one we’re working on now.”

  Riley figured it was small wonder that her partner had been recruited into the summer intern program, then into the academy. The kid obviously had potential.

  But potential for what?

  The case Ann Marie had solved was hardly a typical field case, and there was a sort of Nancy Drew quality to how she had solved it. It was all quite cerebral and free from physical risk. Riley wondered—might the kid be more suited to a career in forensics of some sort, for example forensic medicine?

  But then Riley reminded herself of how well Ann Marie had handled herself just now, starting at the very moment when Brad Cribbins took off through the back door of his house. She’d been fast, shrewd, and even athletic. If it hadn’t been for Ann Marie, Cribbins might still be on the loose.

  She did good work back there, Riley had to admit.

  And maybe, with some luck, they had caught the killer they were looking for. If so, maybe they’d find out when they questioned him at the police station. Riley certainly hoped so.

  Again she remembered what the killer had said about the Goatman in his message …

  HE WILL FEAST AND SING AGAIN

  ON THE HALLOWED EVE

  Riley shuddered deeply as she parked behind the sheriff’s car in front of the police station.

  Halloween’s tomorrow, she thought.

  We don’t have time for mistakes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Riley kept getting flashes of déjà vu. The room on the other side of the two-way mirror looked like a thousand interrogation rooms she’d seen before—the same soundproof panels on the walls, the same battleship-gray table, the same stark lighting.

  As she watched and listened to Sheriff Wightman badger Brad Cribbins with questions, the grilling seemed all too familiar as well. Even so, she was aware that the rookie standing beside her was following the proceedings with considerable interest.

  Every interrogation is different, Riley reminded herself. She needed to watch closely to spot the differences in this one.

  Ann Marie nudged her and asked, “I don’t get it. Why aren’t we in there asking the questions?”

  “We’ll get our chance,” Riley said.

  “But—”

  Riley interrupted a bit impatiently.

  “Just listen,” she said. “You might learn something.”

  In fact, that was what she was hoping for herself. As far as she was concerned, Sheriff Wightman was laying the groundwork for her own questions. And she was already getting a strong sense of just who Brad Cribbins was.

  As she’d observed when they’d chased him down, he was a big, muscular man—at least on the outside. But she sensed a weakness lurking just beneath that physical strength, a kind of vulnerability that was rooted in profound insecurity.

  Many of the killers she’d hunted down had shared the same characteristic.

  She could also tell that Wightman and Brad had acted out this scene together many times before. She remembered Wightman telling her that Brad Cribbins had always been a “bad kid,” with run-ins with the law dating back to when he was nine years old.

  These two know each other well, she thought.

  Right now, Wightman was trying to get the younger man to come up with an alibi.

  “We’ve been through all that,” Brad said. “I was working over at the mall.”

  Wightman snapped impatiently, “I’m not talking about when Vice Principal Swenson disappeared. I’m talking about when Allison Hillis went missing.”

  Riley could see Brad wince at the sound of Allison’s name. She wondered why.

  Brad said, “I’ve got no idea where I was.”

  “Are you sure?” Wightman said. “It was Halloween night, a year ago tomorrow.”

  Brad shrugged and smirked.

  “So maybe I was trick-or-treating.”

  It was obviously a wise-ass answer, but Wightman didn’t let himself be goaded by it.

  “You weren’t at work?” he asked.

  “I think maybe I was between jobs around then,” Brad said.

  “You have trouble holding down a job, don’t you?”

  “Can I help it if nobody wants me?” he replied despondently.

  Riley was startled by his change in tone. He wasn’t being wise-assed now. He seemed to sincerely feel unwanted. And Riley didn’t doubt that that was true.

  “Aw, don’t make me cry,” Wightman said in a mock whine. “At least your dad puts up with you. But then, I guess that situation isn’t all that great, maybe for either one of you. Tell me, are you going to live with that drunken old bastard forever?”

  Brad grimaced bitterly and didn’t reply. But Riley sensed a whole world of meaning in his reaction. She remembered the hulking, drunken man who had met them at the door. She’d known right then that Fred Cribbins must have been a violent, abusive father. Brad had almost certainly grown up in a state of what she’d heard psychologists call “learned helplessness.”

  Sadly for Brad, Riley guessed th
at he’d grown up without even realizing that he had become physically much stronger than his father, who was now pretty much a wreck from years of drinking. Fred Cribbins probably still beat his son whenever he felt like it. Brad didn’t know how to fight back—and he didn’t know how to move out and live on his own.

  Riley’s interest mounted as the interview continued. The sheriff wasn’t getting a lot of information out of him, but Riley was still gaining useful impressions. Brad kept slipping into that wise-ass attitude of his—an attitude Riley was sure he’d shown Yvonne Swenson during the many times he’d been called into the vice principal’s office.

  This told Riley a lot about how Brad dealt with people. He didn’t dare stand up to his father, so he took his aggression out on other authority figures, usually in the form of snide insolence.

  He felt like he had little to fear from people like the sheriff and Yvonne Swenson. After all, it wasn’t like they were going to beat him. Getting arrested now and again didn’t seem like such a big deal.

  The guy’s a sad case, she thought.

  But was he a murderer?

  Riley couldn’t yet tell.

  Finally Sheriff Wightman seemed to tire of Brad’s smirking evasions. He came out of the interrogation room into the booth with Riley and Ann Marie.

  “I’m done,” he growled. “He’s all yours.”

  As she and Ann Marie went into the interrogation room, Riley had four case folders tucked under her arm—not only the ones for Yvonne and Allison, but for the earlier disappearances of Henry Studdard and Deena McHugh. Riley had already instructed Ann Marie to always let her take the lead during the questioning.

  Not that Riley didn’t want the rookie to speak up at all. Riley knew that her “people skills” would probably come in handy as the interview went on.

  Meanwhile, Riley knew that she and Ann Marie both needed to play the “good cops” after the surly performance Sheriff Wightman had just given. They needed to put the suspect at ease, at least for the moment.