Page 4 of Hunting the Crossbow Killer

“Can’t blame him. When he first arrived in town and his parole officer briefed me, I put a notice on our internal town website to alert people that a convicted murderer was now among us. It wasn’t fair to him to do that. But my priority is to keep my citizens safe. Keeping them informed of potential danger is part of that.”

“It’s not my place to judge you.”

He smiled again. “But you are. I can see it in your eyes. You’re young, what, mid-thirties?” He held up a hand to stop her from responding. “Forget I asked. My point is I have a few more years on you and I’m probably a whole lot more jaded. I’ve learned that people don’t typically change. Offenders usually reoffend. Period. So I keep my guard up.”

“You expect him to murder again?”

“If you’re asking whether he’s done anything alarming before today, or showed a propensity toward violence, the answer is no. But I’m open to the possibility and vigilant. I can well imagine you’re interested in looking into him, too, given his past, and this morning’s incident. You think he could be the killer you’re after?”

“I guess I’m like you, open to possibilities. Particularly after I got a quick look at the bow and arrows your people found, and the one that was cut out of the boat. While we don’t have any eyewitnesses about the crossbow that our killer uses and what it looks like, we do have confirmation that the kinds of arrows used are made specifically for a crossbow. And the feather with paint down it attached to each arrow is well documented from our crime scenes.”

She emptied the contents of the satchel onto the table and fanned through them until she found one particular picture, one that showed the feather that was this particular killer’s signature.

He stared down at it a long moment, then turned to glance at his prisoner before meeting her gaze again. “You have my attention, Special Agent Malone. Show me everything you have and tell me exactly what that anonymous tipster told you.”

CHAPTER THREE

Aidan paced the length of the holding cell, which took him all of three strides. He occasionally glanced at the glass-walled room where the chief and the FBI agent had been talking for the past half hour.

He had no clue what they were discussing, but it must be important since the chief was delaying interviewing him. Dawson had flat out told him he believed he was behind that stupid stunt at the festival. Refusing to listen to Aidan’s protests, the chief had promised to get the truth out of him after he made a few phone calls to try to calm the town leaders about the ruined festival.

It shouldn’t bother Aidan at this point that he was the first person the police picked up whenever something bad happened around here. After all, he was the only parolee in Mystic Lake and this wasn’t the first, second or even dozenth time they’d brought him in for questioning. But itdidbother him. It bothered him more than any of those other times, because this wasn’t for something juvenile like knocking over someone’s mailbox. This was shooting an arrow into a crowd, somethingAidan would never do, especially with innocent children running around. But Chief Dawson couldn’t look beyond Aidan’s past. To Dawson, a killer was a killer, regardless of the circumstances.

Aidan stopped pacing and plopped down onto the cot. As always, when he was at the police station he couldn’t help thinking about the past. He’d had a family once—a young son he adored, a wife he’d loved so much it hurt. They’d planned to grow old together, to spend their golden years with a score of grandchildren running around their front yard. But that was never going to happen. Not anymore.

He shoved to his feet again to continue pacing.

The front door opened. When Aidan saw who was coming into the station, he groaned. His parole officer was here. His shoulders slumped as he stepped to the bars to greet Mrs. Whang. But instead of taking her to see her client, Collier ushered her into the conference room.

His parole officer was speaking to an FBI agent, presumably about him. This couldn’t be good. Visions of having his parole rescinded and being sent back to prison had him sweating. He fisted his hands at his sides and waited at the cell door to be taken to the chief’s office, where he and his parole officer always met in private.

She wasn’t in the conference room for long. But whatever they’d told her had a notable impact. Her face was pale and drawn as she headed toward him. But rather than one of the officers letting him out to speak with her, Whang stood outside the locked door to his cell.

“Mr. O’Brien. We need to talk.”

A few minutes later, Whang left and it was Aidan’s turn to be led to the conference room. For the first time since leaving prison, in addition to handcuffs he was wearing leg shackles. He clenched his jaw against the added humiliation of two officers,Collier and Ortiz, escorting him into the conference room. Even more humiliating was what his parole officer had told him.

That he was under suspicion of being a serial killer.

Maybe it was a good thing that he was cuffed and shackled. Because right now a burning rage was flowing through his veins like molten lava. If his hands had been free he’d have likely punched a hole through a wall, or slammed a chair against one of the glass walls of the conference room.

Ortiz motioned Aidan to sit at the far end of the table. Once Aidan was seated, the officer secured the length of chain between his handcuffs to the steel ring bolted into the top of the table. Collier did the same with the leg shackle chain underneath the table, attaching it to a steel ring on the floor that Aidan had never even noticed before. No doubt he had the FBI agent to thank for being trussed up and for blackening his reputation even more than it already had been.

As the door closed, the agent smiled and nodded, since hand-shaking was obviously out of the question. Aidan wouldn’t have shaken her hand anyway. Right now he considered her enemy number one, ruining what little progress he’d made over the past year. Gossip blew through this town like the winds coming down off the mountains. By the time he was released—if he was released—everyone in Mystic Lake would be talking about his past again, and speculating about whether he was this so-called Crossbow Killer.

“Mr. O’Brien, I’m Special Agent Grace Malone. I work out of the FBI field office in Knoxville. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

He sat back, grateful that the handcuff chain was long enough to allow him that small comfort.

“I do mind. I’m already under arrest for allegedly shooting an arrow through a crowd of people, an arrow that could have killed children, let alone the two adults on that boat. If you’re here toarrest me for something I haven’t done, get in line.” He rattled the chains hanging from his handcuffs.

Her eyes widened.

Dawson swore. “We caught you with your bow and arrows after you ran into the woods to get away.”

Aidan leaned forward in his chair, desperately trying to tamp down his anger. But it was impossible to completely hide that he was mad as hell.

“Let’s deal in facts instead of conjecture, Chief. Fact—you found a bow and a quiver of arrows lying in the woods about ten yards behind where I’d been sitting on the hill, watching the festival. Fact—you don’t know yet whose they are. We both agree that they likely belong to whoever shot that arrow. Officer Collier’s your resident fingerprint expert, isn’t he? Have him compare any prints on the weapon to my prints that you have on file. I guarantee they won’t match.”

---