Cold Truth

16

“I’ll bet this backs up but good later in the summer,” Mitch observed as he drove over the two-lane bridge that led onto the small island where several of the bay towns were located. “Who still has two-lane bridges these days?”

“You’d be surprised.” Regan smiled. “I remember when some of the causeways ended in drawbridges. I’ll bet some still do.”

“Doesn’t seem very efficient.”

“You don’t come to the Jersey Shore looking for efficiency.” The smile widened slightly. “If you want efficient, you go to Florida.”

She pointed to acres of salt marsh off to her right where, twenty feet from the causeway, two herons fished amidst tall reeds.

“This still looks the way much of the shore area looks. There are miles of marshes and back bays, areas that will never be developed.” Her right arm drifted out the window and rose and fell as her hand rode the noontime breeze. “This is convertible weather. We should have taken my car.”

“I can put the sunroof down,” he offered.

“No offense, but why bother? On a day like today, you want more than the fresh air. You want to be able to lean your head back, get some sun on your face. You want the breeze along with the fresh air.”

“Fine. If we ever come back, you can drive.”

They passed a marina, where several boats of various sizes sat at their moorings, others sat on concrete blocks or on trailers. A sign advertised live bait, along with an all-you-can-eat clam bar. A Sunfish was heading out to the bay, and a couple of kids in a small outboard politely gave the sailboat a wide berth. They chugged past it slowly, then gunned the motor and took off, the Sunfish tossing in their wake.

Regan took a deep breath, the smile still in place. “My dad used to bring us to a place like this when I was little. I don’t remember the name of the town, but I remember how it smelled. Salty and warm. It was a big deal for me. The beaches are so different from the beaches in England.”

“You lived in England?”

“Until I was twelve. My mother was British, living in London when she met my father. They married there, then moved here when my father’s writing career took off.” Regan stared out the window. “She never really did adjust…”

“Where is she now?”

“She died a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

They rode in silence until they reached the main road into Bowers Inlet.

“Looks like a nice town,” Mitch said as he took a left onto Mooney Drive. “Nice little houses on little sandy lots…”

“Like every little town on the Jersey Shore,” she told him. “They all look pretty much the same-except for maybe Mantoloking. Of course, there are differences, but in most places, you pretty much always see the same kind of little beach cottage, the same narrow two-lane streets. The same little ice-cream shacks, the same little grocery stores…”

“What’s with Manna-what was it?”

“Mantoloking.”

“What, no beach cottages? No ice cream?”

“Let’s just say the cottages are a lot bigger there.” She mused. “But every shore town has a place to get ice cream. It’s mandated by code, I think.”

“Does the Bowers Inlet code require the residents to name their cottages?” He read the names as he drove by. “Sanctuary. Bill’s Bungalow. Summer Breeze…”

She laughed. “There’s the police station, on the next corner. Do you think your friend is here yet?”

“There’s his car,” Mitch said as he parked next to a black Camaro. “Let’s go on in and see what’s what.”

They entered the cool lobby of the police station and waited while the receptionist called back to the chief’s office. A pleasant blond woman with an easy smile and a professional manner came to escort them to the conference room.

“Lovely day out there, isn’t it?” She beamed. “We’ve had some great beach days this past week.”

She led them to the last door at the end of the hall.

“Everyone’s already here, you go right on in.” She held the door open for them.

“Thank you,” Regan and Mitch said at the same time.

“You’re welcome.” She closed the door quietly behind them.

“Agent Peyton?” No doubt who was running this show. The man at the end of the table was obviously the chief of police. He had in charge written all over him.

“Yes, sir.” Mitch placed his black satchel on the floor next to the table and extended his hand.

“Chief Denver here,” the chief introduced himself. “This is Detective Burke. And I’m assuming you and Agent Cisco know each other.”

“Detective.” Mitch nodded a greeting. “Cisco.”

“And you are…” The chief pointed to Regan.

“Regan Landry, Chief,” she said before Mitch could introduce her.

“Are you with the FBI, too?”

“No, actually, I’m a-”

“Ms. Landry is a consultant for the Bureau on this case,” Mitch spoke over her.

“A consultant? What kind of consultant?” Denver ’s eyes narrowed.

“Ms. Landry has information about the Bayside Strangler that she’s been sharing with us,” Mitch said.

“If you have information about the Bayside Strangler,” Denver stared at Regan, “why didn’t you share it with us?”

“I did try, Chief Denver.” She arched a brow. “Actually, I tried on three occasions. None of my calls was returned, so I called the FBI.”

“Let’s see what you’ve got, then,” he grunted, vaguely remembering those pink While You Were Out slips, but not recalling exactly what they said. “Something about a writer?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. I’m a writer. And I will most likely write a book about this case.”

“And that entitles you to sit in on an official meeting how…?”

“Because right now I’m bringing more to the table than I’m taking away.”

Regan opened her files and handed Denver the notes her father had received. He studied them without comment at first.

“How do I know these are legit?” he asked. “How do I know that you didn’t make these yourself, to get into the investigation, give yourself an edge over the competition? You don’t think you’re the only person who might want to write a book about all this, do you?”

“No, of course not. But since my father apparently had planned on doing that some twenty years ago, I think I have first dibs on the story.”

She opened the file flat onto the table.

“My father-Joshua Landry-you may have heard of him?-received correspondence over the course of several years from someone I-and Agent Peyton-believe to have been your strangler.”

“Joshua Landry. Of course, of course. Wrote some good stuff.” Denver softened. He looked at Mitch. “You believe her? You think Landry was contacted by our strangler?”

“I do. The information we found in Josh Landry’s files dovetails perfectly with information I’ve culled from the FBI computers. Look here…”

Mitch proceeded to show Denver the lists of victims they had compiled, the news clippings, the faxes he received that morning from several of the investigating departments.

“Huh.” Chief Denver nodded slowly. “It answers the question What’s this guy been doing all these years?”

“He never stopped, sir. He simply moved around. Looks to me as if he was pretty careful to hit small towns, where they were less likely to have the sophisticated equipment and investigative techniques being used by some of the departments in larger cities.”

Denver nodded again. “Tougher to track the pattern if the agency doesn’t bother to report to the national data banks. Not that we had those twenty-six years ago. It’s only been the last eight, ten years that we’ve been keeping all our records on computer. Took us that long to get our computer system in, train somebody to use it, then have the data entered. Wouldn’t be any big surprise to me if some of these small towns down south”-he tapped on the list Mitch had given him-“still haven’t gotten all their open cases on record.”

“That’s why we requested information from the state agencies as well as the small local police and sheriff departments. We’re hoping by the time we’re finished, we’ll have a complete list, be able to pinpoint exactly where he was every year since 1983.”

“Since 1983, eh?” Denver adjusted his glasses and glanced down at the list. “In 1983 he was in Pittsburgh, according to this list. Where do you think he was between August of 1979 and May of ’83?”

“That’s one of the blanks we’re hoping to be able to fill in.”

“What do you know about your victims, Agent Peyton?” Detective Burke asked.

“Well, let’s see. We know that they were about the same age, they were all killed in the same manner.”

“Rape followed by strangulation isn’t a particularly novel way of killing someone. What else do you have?” She turned in her seat and focused on him.

“I have some news clippings that were in Landry’s files.” He gestured to Rick to send his file back to him. Rick slid it down the table. Mitch took the clippings out and laid them in the center of the table. “Take a look.”

Cass stood and studied the squares of newsprint.

“Chief, maybe you should look at these women.”

Denver did, then spread out photos of the women who had been murdered over the past week and a half.

All five in the room stared at the pictures.

“I can’t believe how closely these women resemble one another.” Regan was the first to speak.

“Neither can I,” said Cass, “but the appearance is obviously important to him. It’s one of the few things we know for certain about him. That he only likes dark-haired women of a certain age and body type.”

“And that he poses them all in the same manner,” Rick added.

“What?” Mitch turned to Rick. “What manner is that?”

“Here.” Cass passed a photo from Linda Roman’s crime scene across the table. “And here… our victim number two. Then three…”

Mitch studied the photos, then looked at Denver.

“Have you thought about bringing in one of the Bureau’s profilers? I think we need some insight into this.”

“I’ve put in a request. We’re just waiting to hear who and when,” Rick told him.

“Never worked with one myself, though of course I’ve read the books. John Douglas. Hazelwood. Ressler. Interesting topic,” Denver said. “And all those TV cop shows seem to have one pop up at times like this.”

“How much of this information are we going to release to the press?” Cass asked.

“None of it, for now.” Denver looked around the room. “Unless someone has another idea?”

The two agents shook their heads. Regan didn’t react, knowing she had no say in such decisions.

“I can’t believe this guy has been getting away with murder for so long,” Rick said. “How the hell has he stayed under the radar all this time?”

“Obviously, he’s moved around a lot, judging from the list Agent Peyton has,” Cass noted.

“But to have no suspects here,” Mitch said, “and so far, the reports I’ve received from these other agencies indicate no suspects there, either.”

“Maybe we should go back to those agencies-Georgia Bureau of Investigation, for example, had several old cases on record-and see what evidence their cold files hold. There might be something that contains some DNA.”

Cass nodded. “Right. At the very least, we could start comparing DNA samples. That way, we can confirm if he was in fact involved in these cases, instead of speculating. Who knows, some of the file boxes could contain old clothes worn by a victim, or something found at the scene that might contain hair or skin. You never know what might have been saved.”

“Or what might have been tossed out,” Denver noted.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Rick countered.

“And we should ask if these bodies… these other women… were left posed in any particular manner. That seems to be his signature. As telling as the DNA,” Mitch said.

“And don’t forget the fibers in the hair,” Cass added. “Who knows how long he’s been doing that.”

“What fibers?” Regan asked. “How long he’s been doing what?”

“Our crime scene tech found traces of light-colored silk in the hair of our current victims. She tracked it down-it’s silk satin ribbon that was last made eighteen years ago.”

“You haven’t released that information to the press?” Mitch asked, and Denver shook his head.

“I think we need to keep as much close to the vest as we can for now. All this fits together somehow. We don’t have a clue yet. I figure the less we give him, the better.”

“I agree,” Mitch said.

“What’s that all about?” Regan frowned. “He’s tying a ribbon in their hair?”

“But he takes it with him,” Cass told her. “We’ve never found ribbon on any of the bodies. Just the fibers.”

“That’s signature as well, isn’t it?” Regan asked Mitch.

“It would appear to be,” he responded.

“Two signatures? Do serial killers have more than one?”

“Keep in mind what a signature is.” Mitch leaned back in his seat, his arms folded across his chest. “It’s that special something unique to the killer that gives meaning to the killing. It’s what he needs to do to get fulfillment from what he does.”

“So he poses these women and ties silk ribbon in their hair… then takes the ribbon with him? What does he get from that?” Regan seemed to be thinking out loud.

“My gut tells me he’s reliving something that’s important to him, but I think that’s a good question for our profiler,” Rick said. “She will have a better feel for this than I do.”

“Okay, here’s another thing. Forgive me for stating the obvious,” Regan said, “but if we believe that the killer is the original Bayside Strangler-and we all seem to think he is-it follows that whoever is here now was here twenty-six years ago. But maybe not in the intervening years.”

“Because there haven’t been any other bodies-that we know of-until now,” Rick said.

“Oh, well, that narrows the field,” Denver said.

“Actually, it does,” Regan insisted. “If we understand that this person has been all over the country-he’s been halfway around the world-and has left a trail of bodies, though none of them here till now, then we have to think he’s been gone all this time. The killings may have started here, but he definitely took his show on the road for a long, long time.”

“The question is, what brings him back now? What brings this full circle?”

Denver and Cass exchanged a long, meaningful look.

“What?” Rick asked.

“The reunion,” Cass told them. “This week is reunion week. People have come from all over. They’re taking down the old high school and dedicating the new one. It’s an all-classes thing.”

“Maybe he came back for that,” Regan said.

“And once he got back here, the urge to kill-to repeat the past-was too strong,” Rick concluded.

“How many people do you think are in town for this reunion?” Mitch asked.

“It’s not only Bowers Inlet,” Cass told him. “It’s Tilden, it’s Dewey. Hasboro. Killion Point. All the little towns along the bay. It’s Bay Regional High. We all went to the same schools.”

“So we’re talking about how many people?” Rick asked.

“Couple hundred,” Denver replied.

“How do we narrow that down?” Regan frowned.

“Okay, look, we have to assume there’s an age range we can work with. He had to have been old enough in 1979 to have done to those women what he did, but still be young enough today to be physically strong enough to overcome healthy, strong young women.”

“Let’s say at the youngest, could he have been fourteen, fifteen, back then?” Cass suggested. “And the oldest he could be now? Mid-fifties, if he’s in really great shape?”

“We can use those as a starting point,” Denver agreed.

“And we can narrow that group even further,” Regan offered, “by figuring out who on the first list has been gone from the area and is here now.”

Mitch nodded. “And do an Internet search to track who’s been where in the intervening years.”

“We can do better than that.” Denver pushed a button on the intercom. “Phyl, I need you to call over to the high school and tell them I need a copy of every yearbook from 19…” He paused and looked around the group. “What we say, fourteen or fifteen years old back in 1979? He would have graduated in, say, ’81 or maybe ’82. If he was older than that… let’s see, it’s 2005, say he could be at the oldest maybe fifty-five? He’d have graduated…” The chief did some mental calculations. “Say 1968? Let’s go back as far as 1960. I’d hate to have missed someone because we didn’t factor in some unknown element.”

He turned back to the intercom.

“Phyl, ask them for all the yearbooks between 1960 and 1985. Just to be on the safe side. Tell ’em we’ll send a patrol car over to pick them up.”

“Will do,” Phyl replied crisply.

“We can look them over.” Denver addressed Cass. “You, me, Phyl. We can at least get a head start on eliminating people we know never moved away or ever traveled around like we think this guy has done.”

“If you get me the list of names,” Mitch told him, “I’ll start tracking them through the bureau. If we can get social security numbers for them, we can track them that much faster.”

Denver shook his head. “Don’t think the school will hand those out.”

“Maybe you could ask for everyone on the list to give a DNA sample,” Regan suggested. The entire group turned to stare at her as if she had suddenly sprouted an extra head.

“What?” she asked.

“We’ll have the ACLU all over us if we try to pull something like that,” Denver told her.

“They’ve done it in several places over the past few years. I read about it. The police in Massachusetts did this earlier in the year,” Regan protested.

“Right, they did,” Mitch agreed. “And the ACLU was all over them. These DNA ‘sweeps’ have been used eighteen, nineteen times. Only turned up a suspect once, and that was within a very small community of possibilities. Besides, the police department you’re talking about in Massachusetts did that as a last resort. We’ve only begun to narrow this down. You wouldn’t be able to do that without a fight. And fighting with potential suspects will only waste time. I say we follow the plan the chief outlined-narrow down the list by year of graduation, then see if we can determine who’s been out of state, out of the country. Then maybe-just maybe-we’ll have a list of potential suspects.”

“Well, then, unless someone has something else to add?” Denver scanned the faces at the table. “No? Okay, then, Agent Cisco, you’ll follow up with the profiler?”

Rick nodded. “I’ll make the call today.”

Cass stood and stretched, then said, “If there’s nothing else, I want to get back to the hospital.”

“Rick told me on the phone about your cousin being attacked,” Mitch said. “How’s she doing?”

“She was the same this morning,” Cass told him. “The doctors said she would come out of it, but they can’t predict when. She apparently was oxygen deprived for a time, we don’t know how long-and then there’s the trauma, the shock. She could come out of it tonight, or not for another week or two. No one wants to predict.”

“I hope it’s soon,” Regan told her as she gathered her files. “I hope she recovers quickly from this.”

“Thank you.” Cass turned to Rick. “If you have another few minutes, I’ll stop back in my office and see if the lab reports on the victim they found on the dock have come back from Tasha yet.”

“Ahhh, Cass…” Denver remained seated. In his hands, he held his glasses, which he appeared to be toying with. “I’ll get the lab results from Tasha and pass them on to Agent Cisco.”

Cass stared at him blankly.

“I need to take you off the case, Cass.”

“Off the…” Cass dropped her bag. “What are you talking about, off the case? It’s my-”

“Cass. You’re too close to one of the victims. And beyond that, I don’t know that you might not be the next target.”

“That’s bullshit.” An angry Cass grabbed a section of her own hair. “No long dark tresses here, Chief. And we all agreed he’s only going after women with long dark hair.”

“He also hit two women in the same day. Something he hasn’t done before. I don’t think we can safely predict what he’s going to do.”

When she started to protest again, Denver cut her off. “You messed up his game plan, Cass, when you walked in on him with Lucy. He has to be pretty pissed at you right now.”

“All the more reason for me to stay involved. I can draw him out.”

“I’m not using you as bait, Detective. And I’m not asking for your opinion. I want you to take a few days’ leave. I want you out of sight for a while.”

“So you want me to just go home and sit on my butt while the rest of you chase after this guy?” Cass was wide-eyed.

“Actually, no. You’re going to have to find someplace else to stay. Your house is off-limits. Have you forgotten it’s a crime scene?”

Cass grabbed her bag and walked from the room, slamming the door behind her.

“I knew she would not go gentle,” Denver murmured.

To Rick, he said, “Can you keep an eye on her? She’s not going to want to stay put, and we can’t afford to lose her.”

Rick nodded, and with Regan and Mitch left the conference room. Denver went to the window, which opened onto the back of the building and the parking lot. Cass shot through the back door and stalked down the sidewalk to her car. Denver could almost see her fingers trembling with rage.

“Sorry, Cassie,” he said aloud.

He thought back to the attack she’d survived as a child, recalled the efforts he himself had made to breathe life into her small body.

He sighed, knowing that at that moment she hated him. Well, he could take that if it meant keeping her out of harm’s way. And he wasn’t even sure that it would.

All he knew at the moment was that evil was afoot in the bay towns, and the probability was that the face it hid behind was a face he’d looked on at some point over the years, possibly a face he knew well.

It could be someone he’d met at the Dockside Bar last night, where so many of the old gang had gathered. Or one of the guys who over the course of the evening had stood next to him at the bar and asked about his older brother, Dan, or his younger sister, Karen.

Dear God, it could be anyone.

Maybe one of his own classmates. Even one of his friends. Or one of Dan’s.

He thought back to Dan’s group of friends, the kids who used to hang on the Denvers’ front porch every night of every summer. Of the guys who used to call the house, hoping to get a date with Karen.

Pretty Karen, who back in the day wore her long black hair parted in the middle.

A chill crawled up his spine.

He buzzed Phyl.

“Phyl, how are we doing with those yearbooks?”