CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In Sam’s office a few minutes later, Paige stood at Sam’s desk as he told Mrs. Hendershot of what they’d learned about Jason Orr. The woman paled.

Sam reached out and cupped her shoulder. “Marian, I need to ask you, did your husband ever mention Jason Orr?”

“No.”

A knock sounded on Sam’s door. At Sam’s nod, Mrs. Hendershot got to her feet. She opened the door on her way out. Harry, who’d returned from escorting Tom Culver to the agents, entered accompanied by Dom and Mike.

Mike said, “Fingerprint analysis on the items we found at Hailey’s came in. It confirms Culver’s ID. Orr’s a match.”

Paige accessed the data base from her phone. “I have Orr’s home address.” She recited it. “It’s in the same neighborhood Corbett robbed.”

“We need a warrant for Orr’s house,” Harry said.

Sam addressed them all. “I’ll see to it. Harry, Dom, go to Orr’s house. Mike, go to the PD station. Call me if you have him.”

Harry, Dom, and Mike left.

Paige rubbed her brow. “You think it will be that easy? That they will find him at home or work?”

“No,” Sam said. “I think Orr knows we’re closing in on him and he’s gone under.”

Sam punched numbers into his phone. His call to Judge Fielding’s chambers went through at once. Paige left Sam to relay the information and likeness of Orr to the Bureau offices across the country. When she returned, Sam was on a speaker call with Harry.

“Not answering his bell,” Harry said. “No car in the driveway. No lights on inside. We went to the back of the house, and a back window in the door there looks tampered with, same as the other houses Corbett broke into.”

“Sit on the house,” Sam said. “Paige and I are on our way to pick up the search warrant. Call Columbia. Get our forensic people up here to take the house apart. That son of a bitch has been one step ahead of us since the start of this but maybe there’s something in that house we can use to track him.”

“What about the PD station?” Paige asked.

Sam ended the call with Harry. “Mike called. Orr’s not there.”

Sam arranged for roadblocks five miles out around Kirk and issued a nationwide alert for Jason Orr. With the search warrant for Orr’s house in their possession, they met Harry and Dom at Orr’s house. Mike arrived shortly after. Harry and Dom took the back entrance. Sam and Mike went in the front. Weapon raised, Paige followed, but mindful of her foot, remained by the door and gave the other agents additional cover.

Orr’s house was a single story dwelling. It didn’t take long to determine that Orr was not inside. They spread out, each taking a room to search. The rooms were sparsely furnished. In a room designated as a home office, Paige found a laptop. She booted it but it was encrypted. They’d need one of the Bureau techs to crack it. The rest of the search didn’t take long and netted them nothing.

The forensic team arrived. Paige recognized Bob from the Thames investigation.

Bob smiled. His eyes crinkled beneath his blue tinted eye glasses. “Sam, we meet again.”

Sam shook Bob’s hand. “Yes, we do.”

Harry and Dom also exchanged greetings with Bob.

“We’ve got a laptop we need a look at right away,” Sam said.

Bob nodded. “We’ll get a tech on it first thing.”

Agents from the Columbia office descended on the Kirk field office. Sam spoke with them and then dispatched them to their duties, along with Harry who would oversee the lock-down of possible targets in Kirk, and Dom who would initiate interviews with Orr’s coworkers and neighbors, and oversee a canvass of the areas.

When the agents left Sam said to Paige, “Work with one of our analysts. We need to find out where Orr would go to ground.”

Sam’s phone rang. As Paige walked away from him, she heard him address the mayor. Not long after, Sam left the office.

Paige called an analyst, then too wired to sit and wait for the return call, she left her desk. In the break room, Mrs. Hendershot was brewing a fresh pot of coffee. Paige noticed the woman had not regained much color in her face.

“Coffee, Agent Carson? I’ve also ordered sandwiches.”

The Kirk County office was considered a possible target and Sam had secured the building, but Paige didn’t point out that the agents assigned here were outside and would remain there. She and Mrs. Hendershot were the only two people inside and with the other agents from their office and from the Columbia office in the field, that wasn’t likely to change. Paige got the feeling that brewing the coffee and arranging for the food were more a coping mechanism for Mrs. Hendershot than fulfilling a need. “Coffee would be good.”

Mrs. Hendershot watched the coffee drip into the carafe. “Is it possible that Martin’s killer has been this near to hand all of these years and we’ve never known it?”

With all that was going on, with her husband’s murder unresolved and no doubt her hope that Orr would reveal what happened to Martin on that day and finally provide some closure, Paige felt both compassion and anger on Mrs. Hendershot’s behalf. Paige could only imagine the torment and the sense of betrayal Mrs. Hendershot must be feeling knowing that her husband’s killer had been walking among them all this time. And that he was also a member of law enforcement.

The sandwiches arrived but Paige didn’t eat. The day wore on. From the window in the lobby, Paige saw that the lights in the parking lot and on the street were now on. She left the lobby and was helping herself to a third cup of coffee when her phone rang. The Columbia office. A tech analyst was on the line with the information on Jason Orr.

“Orr was born and raised in New York State,” the analyst said. “He moved to Kirk County twelve years ago after working three years for the NYPD. He’s worked for the Kirk PD for the last ten years. He’s had two partners in that time. One retired. One died of cancer last Christmas. Prior to working for the Kirk PD, he was in the military.”

“What branch?”

“Army. He worked as a gunner. Took an honorable discharge after receiving several commendations.”

“Personal info?”

“Two siblings. Sisters. Parents deceased. He’s divorced. His former wife, Loriann, no longer lives in Kirk County.”

“What about the sisters?”

“They’re in Buffalo where Orr was born.”

Would he contact his sisters? Paige would ask agents in the New York office to pay them a call.

“No social media,” the analyst continued, “which would give us some insight into the man.”

“How long has he been divorced?”

“Four years. Uncontested. Irreconcilable differences were cited as grounds.”

“Any children?”

“No.”

“Has the ex-wife remarried?”

“No.”

“Where is she?”

“Arcanville.”

The tech recited an address and a landline telephone number. Paige jotted down the information on a napkin. She hadn’t been in Kirk long enough to know the outlying districts and would need to look up the location. The analyst spoke on but there was nothing Paige could use to track the man. She thanked the analyst then ended the call.

After Paige requested agents to go to Orr’s two sisters, she learned that Arcanville was a tiny town with a population in the mere hundreds, and a two hour drive away. Paige would speak with Mrs. Orr herself.

Paige stopped at her desk for her purse and keys. Mrs. Hendershot wasn’t at her desk when Paige entered the lobby. Paige left the woman a quick note.

I’ve gone to Arcanville to speak with Orr’s ex-wife.

—Paige

Night had fallen. Paige flashed her ID and cleared the roadblocks Sam had set up. Traffic was light at this time. She arrived in Arcanville within the two hour time frame.

She left the town, but as she did she also left behind any street lights. The road she was looking for wasn’t named. Squinting in the darkness, Paige struggled to make out the county numbers that identified the roads.

It was almost midnight by the time Paige pulled up to a rundown farmhouse. She had not called ahead, not wanting to give Mrs. Orr an opportunity to refuse to speak with her. Paige knocked on a sturdy blue door that looked new, an incongruous sight since everything else Paige could see looked original to the old house.

“Who’s there?” A timid voice came from behind the door.

“Mrs. Orr,” Paige called back. “I’m Special Agent Paige Carson with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I need to speak with you. It’s urgent.”

“I don’t know anything that would interest the FBI.”

“May we speak inside?”

A long moment passed then Paige heard five locks being disengaged on the door. Finally, a woman with fine brown hair peeked from behind the door frame.

Paige held up her identification and repeated, “May we speak inside?”

Mrs. Orr stepped back from the door. She was wearing a long coat over pajamas. Paige noted that once they were both standing in the entrance, Mrs. Orr engaged each lock once again.

The woman led the way to a small living room off the hall. An old sprung couch was centered in the room with an entrance to what looked like another hall behind it.

Mrs. Orr waved a hand at the couch. “Sit, if you’d like.”

“Thank you.”

When they were both seated, Mrs. Orr asked softly, “What is this about?”

“I’m trying to locate your former husband.”

Mrs. Orr paled, so much so that the fine capillaries on her face looked like red lines on a white map.

“I don’t know where Jason is,” she said. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

She clutched the cushions of the couch. “Not since the divorce. I don’t know where Jason is.”

The woman looked terrified. Paige recalled that the reason for the divorce had been an uncontested “irreconcilable differences”. But was there more than that? “He’s still living in Kirk County. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“Do you still have any friends in common?”

“Jason doesn’t have any friends.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He is a very self-contained man. He doesn’t need the company of others. Now, I don’t know where he is. I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

“You say he’s self-contained. Where would he go to be by himself?”

Her agitation visibly grew. “I don’t know.”

“You were married to him. You know him.”

“I don’t know him. No one truly knows Jason.”

Paige found it curious that Mrs. Orr didn’t ask what the FBI wanted with him and decided to shake things up by posing the question herself. “Mrs. Orr, you haven’t asked me why I want to find your former husband.”

“I don’t want to know. Whatever Jason has done, I don’t want to know.”

“Why do you assume he’s done something? Not that he’s missing?”

She clutched the couch cushions harder. “I don’t believe he’s missing.”

“Why do you think he’s done anything?”

Tears shimmered in Mrs. Orr’s pale eyes. “Because I knew it was only a matter of time before he would.”

“What do you think he’s done?”

“He’s hurt someone else.”

The analyst hadn’t mentioned any domestic abuse charges or allegations but it sounded to Paige that Mrs. Orr was speaking of abuse. “Like he hurt you?” Mrs. Orr did not respond but Paige could now hear her quick intakes of breath. “He granted you a divorce.”

“Jason divorced me. I didn’t ask for the divorce. I didn’t leave Jason. I never would have. I’m too afraid of him.”

Present tense, Paige noted. Mrs. Orr was still afraid despite the divorce.

“He left me,” Mrs. Orr went on. “That’s the only way I could get away. He didn’t marry me because he wanted to share his life with me. Jason had his own thoughts, his own plans. He didn’t need a wife and I never thought he really wanted one. I was just window dressing.”

A cover, Paige thought. She leaned toward Mrs. Orr. “This is very important. He must have had places he liked to go. Think, please. Try to remember. Where would he go to ground? Where did he go when you lived together?”

Mrs. Orr shook her head and her loose brown hair fell across her shoulders. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to know.” She rose from the couch. “I’m sorry I can’t help you. You need to leave now.”

Mrs. Orr’s gaze shifted from Paige to something behind Paige, and her eyes widened in terror.

Paige swung around on the couch, drawing her gun from the holster on her belt as she did. Jason Orr now stood behind the couch. He appeared as surprised to see Paige as she was to see him.

Paige raised her gun, but before she could get off a shot, Orr lunged at her, sending them both sprawling to the wood plank floor. Paige’s weak foot gave out and she hit the floor hard, her gun skittering across the scarred surface, out of her reach. She struck her head on the coffee table. Before she could shake off her daze, Orr drew his own gun from a holster clipped to the front of his belt and hit Paige in the head.

Orr said, “Honey, I’m home.”

It was the last thing Paige heard.