"That's strange," Sam says.
"But today, there was something that really stood out to me. His paperweight."
"His paperweight?" Dean asks. "Putting aside the obvious question of who still uses paperweights, why would that stand out to you?"
"It was a black sphere, like a ball. Not one of the ones with the flat bottom. I've seen it before. Antoine St. Claire, the lawyer I spoke with about the stabbing of Brad Coleman, had one on his desk. And so did Warden Light at the jail. There was either a run on black marble spheres, or it means something."
“No coincidences,” Sam repeats. “Good observation.”
The door to the conference room opens, and Noah comes in.
"Hey," he says.
"Grab a seat," I say, gesturing to the other side of the square table set away from the main conference table. "Lorenzo Tarasco sent me home with enough food for about eight of us."
"Or one night of research," Dean says.
"Thanks." He sits down and grabs one of the plastic forks I found in the coffee room and put in the middle of the table with napkins. "Did you find anything new?"
"Nothing to write home about yet. There's a link with a judge between two of the murders, but other than that, they aren't connected in any way. And the only link between them and Lakyn is Xavier."
"We still haven't been able to account for the time between when she was last seen and when she left that message," Dean adds. "We're trying to trace that, which will be helpful in narrowing down who she could have been in the car with."
"Well, this might help," Noah says, taking a flash drive out of his pocket and handing it to me.
"What's this?" I ask.
"The information recovered from Lakyn Monroe's phone,” he says.
“The techs were able to get something from it?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he nods. “Being put in that interior pocket of her pants protected it from being completely crushed when she landed on it. The fabric also provided some protection from the elements and the fluids from her decomposition. You might be able to go through what's on it and make some sense of it.”
“How about Lilith Duprey?” I ask. “I know she was brought in for questioning.”
“She was,” Noah nods. “I'm satisfied that she didn't know anything. That's not her land. Her farm backs up to the woods right next to where the body was found, but she rarely leaves home. It's just her, no husband or children. She goes into town to get supplies, then goes back. She doesn't know any of the people who manage the cornfields or the maze. She seemed pretty horrified that she was living next to a dumping ground. Not that I blame her.”
"What about that old building?" Sam asks.
After going back to Sherwood for a few days, Sam returned to Harlan to assist with the investigation in cooperation with Noah and the rest of the team. We went back to the crime scene a few days ago. It would seem as if that section of the cornfield would be less gruesome now that Lakyn's body and the bones found several yards away have been removed. But somehow it is just as bad. The deep holes in the ground, the tire marks from the coroner's vehicles, and evidence flags all over are the remains of what happened there.
That area is stained, the energy burned into the atmosphere and the ground. It will never be fully redeemed. No matter how much time passes, that field will carry the memory.
"That's part of the contested grounds. FireStarter LLC, the company that operates the other fields and the maze, doesn't have anything to do with those backfields, or that building and the surrounding area. Apparently, there have been land disputes over it for a long time. Right now, the official record shows that land is owned by the town of Harlan," Noah explains.
"And nobody knows who plants it? Or uses that building?" Sam asks incredulously.
"The representative of FireStarter says the only time he or any of the others within the company has encountered somebody back in those lands, it was a man whose family used to have a claim to it and came back to work it. Under the impression that if he worked it for a certain amount of time, it would be legally his," Noah says.
"Like pioneer days," I note. "Stake your claim and work it for seven years, and it's yours."
"Something like that. Only this time, it seems working the land means filling it with bodies."
"Who is this man?" Dean asks. "What's his name?"
"Rod Jennings only referred to him as Shaw. He didn't know anything else about him," Noah says.
"Rod Jennings?" I ask.
"The Firestarter representative. He's in South Carolina but has family here."
"One of the family doesn't happen to be Sterling Jennings, does it?" I ask.
"That's his brother," Noah confirms.
I get to my feet and go over to the table with the notes spread across it.
"Sterling Jennings was the judge for Xavier's case, and the Raymond James case," I say, pointing out the name under the two case headings.
Picking up a pen, I make a note. My computer is at the other end of the table, and I go to it. Inserting the flash drive, I pull up the information from Lakyn Monroe's phone.
"Anything?" Sam calls from the table.
"The notes and datebook are blank. No contacts other than Xavier. I don't think this was the personal phone she used in her regular life. It's a burner phone, like the one you carry, Dean. Just for when she was working on these cases."
"Why would she do that?" Noah asks.
"To keep the two entities separate. Possibly to protect all the information that would be on a phone: contacts, financial records. You have to
