No Man's Land

29

FOUR PHOTOS.

Four dead women.

Puller stared at the pictures he had laid out on his bed at the hotel.

Was his mother the fifth?

Her throat crushed?

Her skull pulverized?

Never found?

Lying all these years in some makeshift grave?

He covered his eyes with his hands and tried to bring some calm to nerves that threatened to run away from him.

He had never felt this way on the battlefield. Certainly there was fear. Only a fool would not fear death while bombs and bullets were whirling all around like lethal snow. But his nerves had always held. That had allowed him to do his job as a soldier.

That had allowed him to survive.

He could not solve this case if his nerves would not hold.

He drew several long breaths and withdrew his hands and stared down at the pictures.

Victims of a serial killer usually had something in common. The killers picked their victims based on shared characteristics, at least in the person’s demented mind.

Young. Professional. Female. Three characteristics.

And national security. A fourth characteristic.

Lots of things were classified back then, just like today, Puller knew. If the Feds had stonewalled a homicide investigation, the work the women did must have been really important. But they had to work somewhere. The problem was that the Tidewater area was home to a huge military footprint and thus DoD contractors were all over the place like ants at a picnic and had been for a long time.

So how had the killer gone about hunting for them?

And why Williamsburg?

Was it because the killer was from there? Or because he had migrated there from some other place?

Puller looked at the background sheets on each of the victims. He read through the bios of the slain women.

An engineer, a biologist, a chemist, and a computer programmer. Where they had worked had been redacted from the files. Puller shook his head. That was unheard of. How could the police establish a connection if they had no idea where the women worked?

However, it had been determined that they didn’t shop or eat at the same places. They didn’t live in the same buildings. They didn’t get their cars repaired at the same shops. Two banked at the same bank, but that was all. This was before the era of smartphones and email, but hardline records showed no contact among any of the women.

If there was a common thread, it had escaped everyone’s attention.

But the obvious connection was the national security tag. Only they hadn’t been allowed to follow up that lead.

So maybe I should look at the case a different way, then. Not from the evidence. Not from the victims. But from the killer’s perspective.

That was far easier said than done.

Getting into the head of a psycho was not going to be pleasant.

He had looked down at the pictures again when his phone buzzed. It was Knox.

“Yeah?” he said.

“You didn’t say much on the trip back.”

“I didn’t have much to say.”

“I’ve got to check out for a bit, then I’ll be back.”

“Problems?”

“Like you, my entire career is based on problems.”

“Well, good luck.”

“You too,” she said, her voice a little strange, he thought.

Puller clicked off, set his phone down, and looked at the photos again. He was getting a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. This whole case screamed cover-up. And he still didn’t know if his mother’s disappearance was even connected to it. He could be wasting time working on a case that might have nothing to do with what he had set out to accomplish.

But as he looked down at the photos of the dead women he also realized he could not just let this drop.

He pulled out his phone and called Ted Hull. He wanted to fill him in on what he’d found so far and hoped that the CID agent would reciprocate.

An unfamiliar voice answered. “Joyce Mansfield.”

“I’m sorry, I must have called the wrong number.”

“What number were you calling?” asked the woman.

Puller told her.

“No, that’s right. But I just got this number assigned yesterday.”

“The person I was calling works as a special investigator for Army CID. Are you with CID?”

The woman laughed. “I do work for the government. But I’m with the Department of Agriculture. The only thing I investigate is soil depletion.”

“And you just got this phone number? Are you in a new job?”

“No, been at the same desk for four years. I’m not sure why I got the number, but I wasn’t about to turn down a new phone. It’s a new Samsung,” she added excitedly.

“Okay, thanks.”

Puller clicked off and stared down at his phone.

What the hell is going on?

He was about to make another call when his phone rang.

Don White, his CO, sounded more anxious than Puller had ever heard the man before. And he didn’t waste any time.

“Puller, you’re being reassigned. There’s a flight to Frankfurt tomorrow that leaves at zero six hundred from Andrews. You’re going to be on it.”

“I don’t understand, sir. I thought I had leave time.”

“That’s been canceled,” White said sharply.

“Why?”

“You don’t need to know why.”

Puller flinched at this rebuke. He and White had always gotten on well. “Can I ask what’s the assignment in Frankfurt?” he said curtly.

“You’ll get full particulars when you get there. I’ll email the details of the trip.”

“Sir, can you tell me what’s going on?”

“I just did, Puller.”

“And the case with my father?”

But White had already clicked off.

Puller sat back and numbly stared down at the photos on the bed.

Apparently the stonewalling had just picked up again after thirty years.