Free The Killing Kind by M. William Phelps Page A

them by their behavior.
     
    On November 23, Matt Hensley acquainted himself further with the case. He sat in on an interview that the YCSO conducted with Stella Funderburk, Heather’s mother, which took place inside the GCPD station house.
    Hensley was in the sergeant’s office watching the interview on a closed-circuit video monitor. He was with YCSO detective Alex Wallace, who briefed Hensley on all they knew by then about each case, bringing him up to speed on every detail of the investigation.
    Wallace mentioned a few names to Hensley, saying, “We served a search warrant on Tim Gause’s house. He’s been our focus really.” Wallace also talked about Nick’s prime suspect, Danny Hembree, who was a repeat violent offender. The YCSO had learned that Danny Hembree had been in and out of jail and prison for most of his adult life. Law enforcement knew his name well.
    “Hembree’s the boyfriend of Nicole Catterton, Heather’s sister,” Wallace explained. “According to several people we interviewed, he was the last person to be with Heather, along with a few other people.”
    “Where’s Hembree living?”
    “He’s been staying with the Catterton family.”
    Hensley was immediately interested in Danny Hembree, as was the YCSO. Anyone involved in the amount of crime that Danny had been connected to needed to be looked at closely. There was also a report, Wallace added, that Danny Hembree had been seen with Randi before she disappeared. But they were looking to track down the source of the information and button it up. If true, the evidence was overwhelming on that alone: Same guy last seen with two dead girls. What were the chances he didn’t have anything to do with their deaths?
    “He drives a red four-door Ford Escort,” Wallace explained, looking at his notes from the case as they talked. “Nicole and Hembree, they lived at the house with Heather and Nicole’s father, Nick.”
    Nick was probably as good a source as anyone else to interview.
    Hensley and Wallace turned their attention to the interview the YCSO was conducting with Stella Funderburk, who had explained how she’d been hanging around the house one day earlier that week and something happened she thought might be important. Stella was still feeling the effect and sting of her daughter’s death. Heather’s murder had been devastating to her family, an already broken bunch. They had no idea how to deal with it. Not being the mother she had dreamt of being to Heather, Stella was dazed by the blow.
    Nicole had walked into the room where her mother sat, Stella explained to detectives, as Hensley and Wallace looked on from the other room. Nicole was wearing what Stella described as “new jewelry.” This was something in the Catterton house everyone noticed: It wasn’t every day that Heather or Nicole wore flashy jewelry. So it stuck out, Stella said, when one of them had something new.
    Nicole never had any money, so Stella asked about the necklace.
    “Where’d you get it?”
    Nicole said, “It’s Randi’s.”
    Nicole had been wearing a piece of Randi Saldana’s jewelry.
    This was a major lead, if it was true.
    “We spoke to Randi’s family,” Wallace told Hensley as they watched. “They claimed that Randi was very protective of her jewelry, especially, and would never give it to anyone.”
    Law enforcement brass was in the midst of creating a task force, figuring that to catch a serial killer before he killed again, two hands were surely better than one, but a dozen was even better than that.
    “There’s a meeting tomorrow morning,” Wallace told Hensley.
    Hensley said he’d be there.
    “You know,” Hensley commented later, “South Carolina had two bodies, and with this task force, they were hoping to stop another body from showing up before it happened. Of course, we found out that both the girls were drug users . . . and ran in similar circles. We needed to look at their lives.... When both were last seen, we confirmed,