Cold Truth

24

“Tell me again why we’re going to Plainsville?” Cass sat back in the bucket seat of Rick’s Camaro and strapped the seat belt.

“We’re going to exchange information.”

“I think we’ve given Mitch pretty much everything we have. What’s left to exchange?”

“He’s apparently hit the mother lode with his request for information from the law enforcement agencies he contacted. He says he’s got a pretty impressive time line of our man’s activities over the past twenty-some years. I’d say that alone is worth the trip.”

“Why doesn’t he fax it to us?”

“Apparently it’s still coming in. Remember, it’s been less than a week since he sent out his requests. Some agencies are still getting their data together.” Rick stopped at the corner and turned to her. “Is there a problem here that I don’t know about? Is there a reason you don’t want to go? Because if there is, let’s talk about it now, before we get onto the highway.”

“It isn’t that I don’t want to go.” She shifted in her seat to face him. “It’s just that I feel I should be here with Lucy this afternoon. When she meets with the sketch artist.”

“You can’t be in the room with Lucy when she and Kendra get together. Kendra wouldn’t permit it.”

“Why not?”

“She wants as few distractions as possible. If she’s dealing with a child, maybe she’d let a parent in. But other than that, she prefers to be one-on-one with her subject.”

“Oh. Well, then…”

“I expect we’ll be back here by the time Kendra is finishing up, so you can see Lucy when it’s over. But I doubt Kendra would let you sit in.”

Cass nodded. “All right, then. Let’s go.”

Rick took a left and headed toward the bridge between Bowers Inlet and the mainland.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” He nodded toward the bay as he crossed over the narrow bridge.

“Beautiful. I love it. Love seeing the sun set over it every night.”

“Have you ever lived anywhere else?” he asked.

“Only when I was in college. Other than that, my whole life’s been on the Jersey Shore.”

“Where’d you go to college?”

“Cabrini. Outside Philly.”

“I know it. I went to Penn. ”

“Is that where you dropped the Texas accent from your speech?”

“Actually, I lost that a few years earlier.” He slowed for the entrance to the Parkway. “I went to boarding school in Connecticut.”

“How’d you end up there?”

“Not my choice.” He turned on the radio and began to search for a station that was more music than static. “My mother’s idea.”

“Oh.” She wanted to ask what had prompted his mother to send him away at a young age, but hesitated.

“She felt it best at the time.” He knew she was too polite to ask, and knew, too, that they had at least an hour together in the car. They had to talk about something.

“You mentioned once that she had remarried.”

“Married. She and my father had never been married.” He settled for classic rock out of New York.

“Right. Sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” He smiled. He knew it was an awkward subject. “When she married my stepfather, and began having a family with him, I guess she felt the contrast between us was too great. Caused people to ask too many questions that were embarrassing to not only my mother, but her husband.”

“What contrast?”

“All of her children with Edward-her husband-are blond and blue-eyed. I, being one-fourth Mexican, stood out like a sore thumb in the family portraits.”

“You’re part Mexican?”

“I sometimes think that’s my best part.” He tried to smile again, was less successful this time. “My grandfather-my mother’s father-was Mexican. My grandmother was Swedish. Some combo, eh?”

“What about your father’s parents?”

“Irish and Italian.”

“Quite a combo, indeed.”

“And you’re, what, Irish and…?”

On the radio, Sting was singing about fields of gold.

“The Irish is that apparent?”

“Oh, yeah.” This time when he smiled, it was genuine.

“Irish and German and French.”

“Gotta love America.” He shook his head. “Gotta love that melting pot.”

She looked out the window at the seemingly endless vista of scrub pine. Less than a mile away, new shopping centers and strip malls abounded. The changing face of the area wasn’t totally to her liking.

“Did you hate boarding school?” she asked softly.

“At first, yes. Yes, I did. After a while, though, I adapted. I learned to make the best of it.”

“How?”

“Well, for one thing, since I was bigger than everyone else, I wasn’t bullied much. For another, I was a strong athlete. And I was smart.”

“What sports did you play?”

“Football and baseball.”

“Were you very good?”

“Actually, I was,” he admitted. “All in all, once I got used to the fact that I wasn’t going home until the end of the term, I was okay. I adjusted.”

“You were a smart little boy, then. Lots of kids rebel when they’re sent someplace they don’t want to be.”

“Is that the voice of experience speaking?”

She nodded. “After I lost my family, I went to live with my aunt and uncle-Lucy’s family.”

“And things weren’t good there?”

“It wasn’t bad,” she said. “I know they did all they could for me. And being with Lucy was a comfort, in a way. She and I had always been very close. But…”

“But it wasn’t your home, and it wasn’t your family.”

“I felt as if I’d walked into someone else’s life. I wanted my own life back. I wanted to go home,” she said simply. “I wanted my mother and my father and my sister and my house. As much as Aunt Kimmie loved me, she was Lucy’s mother, not mine. And Lucy, as close as we were, was not my sister. I wanted things to be the way they’d been. I never really was able to accept what had happened.”

He’d turned the radio down when she’d started to speak, he wanted to catch every word. He knew instinctively this was not something she spoke of often. He wanted her to know that he understood this, and therefore offered her his full attention.

“So you rebelled how?” he asked.

“Name something.” She laughed dryly. “I drank. I smoked. I stayed out at night. Much to my aunt and uncle’s dismay. They just didn’t know what to do with me. Looking back, I feel bad that I put them through so much. They tried really hard.”

She bit her lip and stared out the window.

“I’m sure the situation was difficult for your aunt, too.”

“I had no concept of that as a child. I wasn’t aware of anyone’s pain except my own. If she grieved, I didn’t sense it. I only knew that my entire world had collapsed under my feet. I had no sense of anyone else’s suffering back then.”

“Well, you were pretty young.”

“Seven that summer.” She bit her lip and stared out the window. “When I became old enough to understand things a little better-which wasn’t until I was in college-I was surprised that I had survived it all. You simply don’t realize how much pain the human spirit can endure.”

“You seem to have turned out all right.” He reached over and took her hand. “Better than all right. You might be the strongest woman I’ve ever met. And I’ve known some truly tough women.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Everyone has a choice. You get into situations you hate, places you don’t want to be, you have a choice. You go with it and make it your own, or you fight against it relentlessly. Smart is knowing when to stop fighting. Strong is knowing when to move past it and take what you have and turn it into something you can live with.”

“Easier for some than for others.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Cass. It isn’t easy for anyone.”

Having no response, she turned her face to the window once again, and watched the trees whiz past as the car sped along. She’d already revealed more of herself to him than she had to anyone in a long time, and she wasn’t sure why.

She leaned forward and turned up the volume on the radio. Right then, she had nothing more to say.

“So, what have we got here?” Mitch asked as he followed Regan into her office. “Anything new come in since I left last night?”

“The fax machine hasn’t stopped,” she told him. “It’s eating me out of house and home. Well, out of paper, anyway.”

She pointed at the stacks neatly arranged atop the desk. “These came in late last night, this other stack was in the tray this morning. The ones that are still in the tray have arrived since the time I got up at six, emptied the tray, and made my breakfast.” She paused. “Speaking of which, have you eaten?”

“I have, thanks for asking. The restaurant next to the motel does a decent omelet. But if there’s coffee…”

“There’s always coffee. I think you know where to find it by now.” She pointed him in the direction of the kitchen.

“Need a refill?” he asked from the doorway.

“I do. Thanks.” She handed him her cup.

The fax machine beeped, signaling more incoming.

“Released a flood here, I do believe,” she muttered to herself as she stapled the pages of the last fax together.

Mitch returned with two cups in hand. “What was that?”

“I said, we’ve opened the floodgates. I can’t believe how many unsolved murders are out there.” She shook her head. “And these are only the ones that fit our profile.”

“Well, let’s take a look and see how many actually do.”

She handed him a stack of papers.

“These are already separated. They’re from all over the country.”

He sat in one of the leather chairs near the corner of the desk and leafed through the faxes.

“This looks like the real deal here, this one from Texas. This could be our guy.” He continued reading, his face a study in concentration. “This one, the one from Idaho, not so sure. Let’s see if there’s any DNA we can compare to the DNA profile we already have.”

He bent over the pages, turning them thoughtfully.

“I like this one from Kentucky,” he murmured. “Let’s see what else they have on him…”

“Before you get too engrossed, there’s another fax you need to look at before Rick arrives.” She handed him a folder. “This came in from your office early this morning. I kept it separate from the other faxes.”

He opened it and paged through it. “The scoop on the four names Rick gave me. Christ, any one of these could be our guy… did you look at these?”

She nodded.

“That was my first thought, too. All of them are in a position to get around.”

The sound of a car door drew her to the window.

“Rick and Cass are here.” She disappeared from the room, the sound of her footsteps leading to the front door. She was back in a moment, Rick and Cass in tow.

“This is an incredible home,” Cass was saying. “The grounds are beautiful.”

“Thank you. My father’s doing-I’m afraid I contributed nothing to the décor, nor to the landscaping.” Regan smiled and pulled a chair closer to the large desk. “Cass, have a seat. Rick, if you’ll pull that chair up, we can get right to it.”

Regan took the chair behind the desk, and sat back, motioning for Mitch to begin.

“First of all, we’ve had phenomenal response to our requests for information from agencies around the country. I’m still going through them, but thus far I’ve got a pile of an astonishing sixty-seven unsolved murders that fit our killer to a tee.”

“Sixty-seven?” Cass gasped.

“Sixty-seven that merit a closer look, yes. No guarantee it’s him, but they’re looking damned good. There are another several dozen that are long shots, but all in all, I think this guy has been busier than any of us could have imagined.”

“Well, if we take those sixty-seven and put them in order of date, we should have a pretty fair idea of where he was in what year,” Cass said thoughtfully. “If we match that up with where the four prime suspects were during those times, we should be able to determine which one is our man. Or if none of them are.”

Mitch nodded. “We’re already on that. John is having someone back at the office feeding the data into the computer as we speak. He should have something for us soon.”

“Chief Denver needs to know all this,” Cass told him. “He should have all the information you have.”

“He already does,” Mitch assured her. “I spoke with him yesterday afternoon, faxed over the nuts and bolts. Didn’t get to send him everything because his fax machine jammed.”

“Damn thing.” Cass shook her head. “We’ve been having problems with it for months. We just haven’t gotten around to replacing it. Give me copies of whatever didn’t go through, and I’ll deliver them this afternoon.”

“I’m one step ahead of you.” Regan smiled and handed her a brown envelope. “All copied and ready to go.”

“Thanks.” Cass slid the envelope onto the floor between her and Rick’s chairs.

“Well, let’s look at what you do have on these four,” Rick said. “Let’s see what they’ve been up to since leaving old Bowers High.”

“Bayshore Regional,” Cass corrected.

“Whatever. Let’s take a look.”

“Regan, can you toss these through the copier behind you? Let’s give everyone their own set.” Mitch handed her the stack of papers he’d withdrawn from the folder, and she stacked them on the copy machine to her right and pushed Start. The machine printed and collated four sets in slightly more than a minute. Regan collected and stapled them and passed out the packs.

“Okay, let’s take a look at William Calhoun. Age forty-five, currently separated from his wife. Resides in a small town outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico. William is a pilot who’s logged in many a mile with Universal Airways.”

“He looks good,” Rick said.

“He looks even better when you learn that there’s a large number of unsolved murders along the border, not too far from where he lives,” Regan told them.

“Before you get too happy over Calhoun, take a look at Jonathan Wainwright. Son of the chief of police who investigated the murders back in ’79,” Mitch reminded them. “Widower whose wife died under questionable circumstances. Like Calhoun, he currently lives in the southwest. Left college after two years to join the army. Special Forces for nine years, then left the army to work for a private security firm.”

Rick’s head shot up. “Mercenary?”

“Possibly, with that background,” Mitch agreed. “We’re looking into that, too.

“Then we have Kenneth Kelly. Son of Judge Kelly. Divorced three times. Two children, one by each of the first two wives. Latest ex-wife lives in London. Four years of college followed by a master’s in international studies. Has worked for the U.S. Commerce Department since grad school. London, Brussels, Sofia… this guy’s been around.”

“They’ve all been around,” Rick muttered.

“And the last one? That was only three,” Cass pointed out.

“Joseph Patterson. Same age as the others. Single. Never married. Son of a man who was mayor in Bowers for fifteen years. Did a stint in the Marines, then went to work for JTS for the past eighteen years. Sales-he managed most of the south and the southwest.”

“JTS. The software company?” Cass asked.

Mitch nodded. “Right.”

“He would have done a lot of traveling…”

“It could be any one of these guys.” Rick shook his head. “They all had jobs that permitted them to travel. Domestically and internationally.”

“So how do we narrow it down?” Regan asked.

“With luck, Lucy will do that for us,” Regan said. “She’s meeting with the FBI’s sketch artist in about two hours. Hopefully, we’ll have a face by the end of the day.”

“And with the information we get from the Bureau’s computer, by then we’ll have zeroed in on every place this guy has been for the past twenty-six years.”

“Do you think Denver should bring all four in for questioning?” Mitch asked.

“I don’t know. By the time he gets them rounded up and into the station, we could have Kendra’s sketch. A positive ID would be better than pulling all four in and hoping that the face she draws belongs to one of them.”

Mitch nodded. “You have a point, Rick.”

“This could all be over within the next twenty-four hours,” Cass said as if she couldn’t quite believe it.

“If the cards all fall our way.” Rick nodded, then added, “Not that they usually do.”

“Can I fax these to the chief?” Cass asked. “I think he needs to see them right away. Let him decide if he wants to start pulling one or all of them in for some preliminary questioning. The danger there, of course, is that without probable cause to hold them, we can’t act on even our strongest suspicions. We’d have to let them walk when they want to, and then the Strangler could just flat-out disappear.”

“Let’s do it.” Mitch pointed to the fax machine. “But do it now, before we get another incoming. That machine hasn’t been silent for more than fifteen minutes since Tuesday.”

Cass slid the four pages into the fax machine and entered the number for the police department. The pages went through, but when she looked at the confirmation page, she frowned.

“System failure,” she read.

“Try it again. Maybe the machine is overheated,” Regan suggested.

Cass entered the number again and hit Send.

The results were the same.

“I think I’ll give Denver a call and let him know we have this. We can drop it off when we get back to Bowers.”

She speed-dialed the number for the station, but got a busy signal. She disconnected, then dialed the chief’s cell phone.

He answered almost immediately. “ Denver.”

“Chief, it’s Cass. I’m here in Plainsville with Rick at Regan Landry’s home. She and Mitch have put together some information on the four possible suspects that you’ll want to see. I tried to fax it to the station but it didn’t go through.”

“Good luck getting anything through that machine today,” he said curtly.

“It’s acting up again?”

“It’s jammed, been running nonstop.” He paused for a moment, then said, “I take it you haven’t seen the news today?”

“No. We left Bowers early and… don’t tell me there’s been another…”

“Around nine this morning, they found the body of a man who’s in town for the reunion, broken neck.” He declined to tell her that the body was found in a Dumpster outside the very inn in which she was staying, all but under her bedroom window. He still hadn’t decided what to make of that. His gut told him there were no coincidences; on the other hand, as far as they knew, the Strangler had never targeted that particular type of victim, or killed in that manner.

“Who was it?”

“A guy named Carl Sellers. Someone snapped his neck. I doubt you’d have known him. He’s in his mid-forties… left Bowers for college and I don’t think he’s been back but maybe two or three times since.” Even as he spoke the words, it occurred to the chief the victim had most likely been a classmate of the four they already had in their sights. Coincidence? His gut gave another twitch.

“And Cass-we just received a report of a woman going missing last night, early this morning, from downtown Tilden. She fits the description. They haven’t found her body yet.”

She hung up the phone without waiting for the chief’s good-bye. Turning to Rick, she said, “We need to go. Now. Back to Bowers.”

“There’s been another murder?”

“A man in town for the reunion.” Cass turned to Rick. “Chief says he’s in his mid-forties.”

“Same as these guys.” Rick tapped on the folder. “Classmates, maybe?”

“How the hell does that fit in?” Cass was already at the door. “And a woman went missing in Tilden last night. Chief says she fits the description of the others. They’re still looking for her.”

“Anything else you think we need to take back to Bowers?” Rick asked as he gathered the papers.

“We have a bunch of DNA matches-matches to one another, obviously nothing to match to your vics, but still… if we can pinpoint any one of these guys-or any other suspect-as having been in these cities on these dates, we’ll have the start of some serious evidence.”

“We’ll take whatever you have ready. The rest-”

“I’ll wait outside, Rick.” Cass waved to Mitch and Regan. “Thank you both. I’m sorry. I really am. But I have to go.”

“Go.” Regan nodded, and Cassie did.

Regan picked up the envelope Cass had left on the floor and handed it to Rick. “This has most everything we have so far. We’ll make copies of anything we get in today and we’ll bring it to Bowers Inlet if we can’t get the faxes through. Right now, Cass is jumping out of her skin. Take her back, Rick. She’s dying to get her hands into this.”

“She’s still on leave, as far as I know. She’s not going to get her hands into anything. Denver isn’t going to let her near it.”

Regan pointed out the office window. Cass paced impatiently alongside Rick’s car.

“I don’t think I’d want to be the one to tell her that.”