Barbara Jean and Sanders had also sent updates on the Wyman Scudder and Cindy Dobbins murder investigations. The Macon PD weren’t giving out any pertinent information, but the Powell Agency not only had been able to discover the secretary interviewee’s name, but had already sent an agent to Macon to question her about discovering Scudder’s body. The info on Cindy’s murder had come straight from Sheriff Lockhart. As they had expected, no arrest had been made, and the killer was still at large.
So, where was the Copycat Carver right now? And who would be his next victim?
Derek had received several text messages from the agency’s contact who had driven up from Jacksonville to keep an eye on Durham.
And Griff had called Derek. After their brief conversation, Derek had remained silent for a good while. Finally, Maleah’s curiosity had gotten the better of her and she’d asked, “What did Griff want?”
Derek hadn’t answered immediately, as if he had been debating about what to tell her. “The Powell Agency took a phone call from Jerome Browning a couple of hours ago. He left a message for you.”
Maleah had braced herself. “What was his message?”
“Griff’s handling it, so don’t go ballistic, okay?”
“Damn it, tell me.”
“Browning said to tell you that he’s eager to see you again. And . . . he sends his regards to your brother Jack and his wife and son.”
“That slimy, lowlife son of a bitch. He’s threatening Jack and his family. My family!”
“Griff has talked to Jack and alerted him. And he’s sending around-the-clock agents to guard Jack and Cathy and Seth. And like Griff said, so far the copycat hasn’t warned us who he planned to kill next, so this probably isn’t a warning from him, just part of the game Browning is playing with you.”
“God, I hope Griff is right. If anything happens to—”
“It won’t. They’re safe. Griff is going to make sure of it.”
With the combination of daylight savings time, St. Simons Island being in the Eastern Time Zone, and the date being late June, nightfall didn’t occur until around nine o’clock. They reached the F.J. Torras Causeway in Brunswick before seven that evening, sunset nearly two hours away.
Derek knew that Maleah wanted to go to Dunmore, Alabama, where her brother and his family lived, that she wanted to guard them day and night, wanted to be the one to keep them safe. But he also knew that she would continue the investigation and allow Griff to send in other agents to Alabama because their best chance of finding and stopping the copycat was somehow connected to Jerome Browning. And Browning had chosen Maleah as the mouse in his cat and mouse game.
“Durham went fishing this afternoon.” Derek relayed the latest information from their contact watching Albert Durham. “Since then, he hasn’t left home.”
“At least we know he’s alive and well and we’ll be able to question him.”
“Yeah, but you know something’s off about that,” Derek said.
“Like the fact that Durham was relatively easy to find?”
“Right. If he’s the copycat killer, he wouldn’t want us to find him, would he?”
“It’s possible that the copycat has been using Durham, too, just as he did Wyman Scudder and Cindy Dobbins.”
“If that’s the case, then Durham is in danger. The copycat will be coming after him next.”
Maleah turned onto Demere Road, following the GPS directions toward Beachview Drive. “He was one step ahead of us in Macon and came in right behind us in Apple Orchard. If Durham isn’t the copycat, but just another pawn in his sick game, then maybe we can save Durham’s life.”
“If Durham isn’t the killer and the copycat knew where to find Durham, then why didn’t he come to St. Simons Island straight from Apple Orchard?”
“Maybe he did,” Maleah said as she turned onto Ocean Boulevard. “He may be here right now, watching and waiting for the opportunity to strike. It could be that the only thing standing between Albert Durham and certain death is our Powell contact who’s watching him.”
Derek shook his head. “If the copycat is already here, why didn’t he kill Durham when the guy left home to go fishing? Even if he knows we’ve got somebody watching Durham, that wouldn’t necessarily stop him. We were with Cindy last night when he killed her.”
“Yeah, but he took us by surprise. That’s not the case today.”
“My gut is telling me that there’s a missing piece to our puzzle.”
“Maybe Durham is that missing piece,” Maleah said. “Maybe he can fill in the blanks.”
“We should be able to find out pretty soon,” Derek told her when he saw the Beachview Drive rental come into view.
“Is that it?” She slowed the SUV in front of a pale peach stucco cottage overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
“That’s it.”
She pulled into the narrow drive and parked behind the late model Mercedes. “Durham’s car?” she asked, as she shut off the ignition.
Derek nodded.
“Where’s our guy?”
“See the white panel van across the road?”
Maleah searched for the vehicle when she got out of her SUV, found it, and waited for Derek to join her before approaching the cottage.
Side by side, on full alert, aware of every sound, every scent, every flash of movement, Maleah and Derek walked up to the front door. Maleah rang the doorbell. Derek scanned the area from the rocky shoreline and sloping sandy beach to the wooded area behind the house.
They waited. No response. Maleah rang the bell again.
Derek heard movement inside the house.
“Somebody’s in there,” Maleah said.
Derek nodded.
And then the front door opened. A pair of inquiring blue-gray eyes looked each of them over quickly and then asked, “May I help you?” His voice had the raspy quality associated with a lifetime smoker.
“We’re looking for Albert Durham,” Maleah said.
“You’ve found him. I’m Albert Durham.”
He vaguely resembled the debonair gray-haired gentleman in the publicity photo that had no doubt been airbrushed. Apparently Durham had shaved and gotten a fresh haircut before the photograph had been taken. But then, the man who stood in the doorway was on vacation, which probably accounted for the new growth of beard and the shaggy hair.
“I’m Maleah Perdue and this is Derek Lawrence. We’re employed by the Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency,” she explained as she and Derek showed the man their Powell Agency identification. “We’re here to ask you a few questions about Jerome Browning,” Maleah said.
“Who?”
“Jerome Browning, the serial killer known as the Carver. The man you interviewed for the biography you’re writing.”
“I have never heard of a Jerome Browning,” Albert Durham said. “And I can assure you that whoever he is, I am not planning to write his biography.”
“Are you saying that you have never visited Jerome Browning at the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville, Georgia?” Derek asked.
“I’ve never met this man Browning and I’ve never even heard of Reidsville, Georgia. And I have never visited anyone in prison, not in Georgia or anywhere else.”
Chapter 17
