“Frank, I need a favor.”
“I’m not throwing anyone else off the case, so don’t ask.”
“It’s not that. I need you to send me everything the Bureau has on the Vincent Ash case. He was a—”
“I know who Vincent Ash was, Sin. There isn’t anyone who was with the feds back in the sixties and seventies who doesn’t remember the ‘Midwest Mauler.’ But what does he have to do with anything?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Please.”
Frank groaned. “Have you spoken to Charlie about the Vincent Ash case?”
“No. Why?”
“You’ll understand when I send the information. I swear, you’re going to send me to an early grave, you know that?” Sin remained silent and waited. “Give me a half hour and I’ll send the files to your personal email.”
“Thanks, you’re the best.”
“Keep me informed, Sin.”
“I will. Gotta go.”
While she waited, she dug through the facts she’d found. Joanna had certainly seen tragedy in her life. When she was only fifteen her parents were killed in a car accident.
She met Vincent Ash in December of 1968 and married him three months later.
This is all bullshit, Sin thought. Stuff I could find in a Lifetime movie.
As she was thinking, her email chimed. Sin glanced at the sender, saw it was Frank, and opened the PDF file he’d sent.
Sin began to read, surprised to learn that the person who wrote the file was Charlie.
Sin remembered Charlie telling her that he had joined the FBI in 1968. He had been assigned to the Des Moines office. This case began in 1969, so it made sense that he would be a part of it. Still, she didn’t expect to find his name.
As she read, she remembered Charlie talking about a case that always left him wondering. He had said that he worked a case that never sat well with him. One where he questioned the outcome.
Sin read the file multiple times, attempting to read between the lines. It was all very neat, but something was missing. Sin began to understand why Charlie never felt comfortable with how the case ended.
The case stated that on May 25, 1971, another coed was found dead from asphyxiation, the Mauler’s signature. He killed all nine of his victims by choking.
Sin printed the pages as she read them for what seemed the hundredth time. This is where the story seemed to get squirrely.
Charlie worked the case with a senior agent and another relatively new one, Raul Sanchez—Sin stopped and smiled when she read the name. “Raul Sanchez? Well that explains how the mayor obtained my information. Raul, you and I are gonna have a little conversation.”
She shook off the thought and continued to read.
Charlie and Raul tracked Vincent Ash back to an address in Davenport, Iowa. By the time they broke into the home, Vincent lay dead with gunshot wounds to the chest and head. Joanna lay close by—her face lacerated with deep bruising on her neck. Next to her lay the murder weapon.
Sin pulled up a second file on Vincent Ash. He was a slightly built man—five-foot, seven inches—and had a wiry frame. At twenty-nine, he worked in three different schools as an adjunct. He taught American Literature and Introduction to Poetry. And his thesis had been written on the work of William Blake, with an emphasis on his Songs of Innocence and Experience.
Sin searched the information and found that, A Divine Image, was among the Songs of Experience.
“This case is starting to make sense,” she mumbled.
She read the rest of the file and then switched back to the data on Joanna Ash.
After her parents were killed in a car accident, she was placed in the system, and was transferred twice due to her attitude. At the age of sixteen, she quit high school. At seventeen, she met and married Vincent Ash.
Joanna was pregnant at the time of Vincent’s death but miscarried in the hospital. The file ended when Joanna was only nineteen.
Typing like a mad woman, Sin brought up the information on Miranda Stokler. Seven years later, Miranda’s bio began in Miami, Florida. The more she studied the files, the more frustrated Sin became. “There are so many pieces to the puzzle, but how do they fit, or are they even pieces to the same puzzle?”
As Sin continued to think out loud, she dialed Frank’s number.
“Did you get the files?” he asked.
“I did. Thanks.”
Sin let Frank know what she found and what she felt. She held nothing back. Finished, she waited for Frank to respond.
“That’s a lot of hearsay, even coming from you, Sin.”
“I know,” she sighed. “But if I’m right, and my instinct tells me I am, I’m going to need help.”
“What kind of help?”
“I want my unit back together on this case.”
“Sin, you know my thoughts on that. It was the main stipulation on bringing them into the Bureau. Alone, each of you is a loose cannon; together, you’re—”
“Listen to me before you say no,” Sin interrupted. “The people I’m working with are great. Gonzalez is a quick learner, but he’s young. Evelyn is a gift from above. She is a wealth of information and has all sorts of contacts. And Jack, well, you were right. People can change. But,” she continued, “if this case connects to Ash in some way, I’d feel a lot better working with people who I know like the back of my hand.”
“I appreciate your candor, Sin, but even if I was to agree, I don’t even know where your friends are. They are all split up and deep in the field.”
“I happen to know that Fletcher and Garcia are in Orlando and in between assignments. Even those two could make a big difference.” Sin gathered her papers and placed the laptop in her backpack while she waited for a response.
“I don’t know how you continually get me to change my mind, but I swear, Sin, if I allow this, you are not”—Frank’s voice got louder to accentuate his command—“to go shoot up
