by S L Shelton
**
4:55 a.m.—Denver International Airport
We arrived at Denver International Airport and bought tickets. As soon as we had them, John nodded his head toward the bathroom, and I followed him in.
“What’s up?” I asked after he did a cursory check of all the stalls to make sure we were alone.
“I need your piece,” he said in a low voice.
It took me a second to realize he was talking about the gun he had given me. I reached under my coat and withdrew it before handing it to him. He pulled the slide back a little and looked into the chamber before opening his bag a bit and tucking it in.
“Spare magazines, too,” he added. “TSA won’t let you through security with those either.”
I handed them over as well. Once they were in his bag and it was zipped up, we proceeded to security.
“How much info can we get from CSPD on the other victims?” I asked as we walked.
“I’m almost certain it raised eyebrows that we didn’t show up at the crime scene,” he replied.
“Why don’t you call Detective Lee and see if you can get the identities of the guys Gaines killed,” I suggested. “You can tell her we don’t want to get underfoot of her CSI team and are going to start chasing down leads on connections.”
There was a long pause while he considered what I said, or perhaps he was just figuring out what he would say to Detective Lee. But in either case, after a moment, he pulled out his phone and dialed.
“Good morning,” he said to the person on the other end. “It’s Special Agent Stark.”
Lee, I thought.
“Oh, no,” John explained. “We don’t want to step on your CSI’s toes. Besides, I figured the FBI would already be up there, getting in your way. I didn’t want to add to that.”
There was a short pause. “We’re still on the case, but my brilliant investigative partner suggested we follow up on connections instead of trying to duplicate your efforts on the forensics,” he said. “It’s your team, and unless the Bureau brought their own guys, we’d be relying on your findings anyway.”
A short pause, and then John laughed. “Don’t let them hear you say that,” he said with a chuckle. “But yeah, you’re right on the money.”
“Yeah,” he answered soberly. “That’ll work.”
He paused and then turned, looking at me, smiling. “Yep. He’s right here,” he said, looking at me with one eyebrow hooked high.
After a second’s pause, he laughed. “I’ll tell him. Thanks, Detective. I’ll let you know what we come up with.”
He ended his call and continued to walk toward security with a grin on his face.
“What?” I asked.
“She said she didn’t see a wedding ring on your finger and would like to take you out to dinner after this is all wrapped up,” he said. “Her treat.”
“Right on,” I grunted with a grin as we arrived at the TSA portal. “Agent Rhodes got game.”
“Oh, it plays,” John chuckled as he flashed his ID.
The TSA Agent gestured him around the metal detector and I began to follow.
“Sorry, pal,” John said, turning to me. “You have to go through security.”
I went through the metal detector and had my bags x-rayed. Once through, we hurried to our gate. I heard the chime on John’s phone as we jogged down the corridor.
“That will be the IDs on the vics,” he informed me. “Detective Lee said she’d send what she had.”
Once on board the plane, he handed me his phone, and I typed in the information on the three victims. When I was done and had started my search, he put a card down on my keyboard. I turned it over and saw a handwritten ID and password.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s FBI CJIS access info,” he said in a low voice.
My mental flowchart filled in the details for me.
CJIS: Criminal Justice Information Services. Integration includes, LEO (Law Enforcement Online), National Crime Information Center, IAFIS (Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System) and the Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
Cool! I thought. Sure beats the heck out of hacking the CSPD system with my virus.
I nodded and plugged the data into my system quickly before we pulled away from the gate.
“You’ll have to put that away, sir,” I heard a woman’s voice behind me as the data started to spool in.
I looked up and smiled at the flight attendant. “Yep,” I replied as I closed my laptop, leaving it running in the background. “Sorry.”
I slipped it into its case but left the lid up so it wouldn’t overheat under the seat in front of me.
As soon as we were airborne, and were told we could use electronics again, I pulled it back out of its case. The data was extensive.
One of the men Mark had tortured and killed was named Roy Mullen. He and his wife, Georgia, were members of an ultra-conservative splinter of the Tea Party called Limited Access Government, or LAG Party.
I wasn’t familiar with the group. One of the first items I read explained why…the group had been banned from the Tea Party for openly advocating violence against immigrants, homosexuals, and other minorities.
Wow… Hard core assholes. Way to go Tea Party, booting those nozzles out.
Roy Mullen had been detained several times during protests stemming from Tea Party and LAG Party events—fighting with Tea Party members as well as counter demonstrators. His wife also had a few run-ins with law enforcement, along with a few other members of Colorado Springs LAG, for verbal assaults, trespassing, and a couple of instances of shoving counter demonstrators.
Interestingly, Roy and another one of his dead companions had several older assault arrests, including a sexual assault and two assault and battery convictions.
I looked around to make sure the flight attendant wasn’t near and then pulled up my web browser to search for “Colorado Springs LAG party.”
I got to its member web page and saw a list of events ranging from protest planning meetings to daily, ad-hoc “Radio Parties.”
The entries for Radio Parties included several well-known conservative radio shows on the program list, but focused primarily on System Buckers, which revolved around the syndicated Buck Grimwall daily radio show.
I browsed the Buck Grimwall website and found a link for the previous day’s program. I put my earbuds in and began to listen as I continued to parse the victims’ records.
I had heard the man before while flipping through the radio stations in my car in the afternoons. It sounded as though he was talking past a pint of phlegm in his throat. I sat back while I read the arrest information and listened as he started into his daily lineup.
Near the top of his list were the lesbian couple and their baby who were murdered in Colorado Springs. His comments about them were less than complimentary.
“So this couple—” he said. “This lesbian couple in Colorado Springs was apparently murdered in their home last night—along with their baby. Their baby.”
“How was it their baby?” came the producer’s voice. “Was it a clone of both their DNA or something?”
“I don’t know…I don’t know. But let’s not be insensitive,” Buck said, mockingly taking the high road. “So anyway. This lesbian couple had this baby, blah, blah, blah, and they moved to Colorado Springs to start this new family of theirs.
“So last night, apparently someone broke in and set the place on fire, killing the couple and their baby.
“Anyway…and don’t get me wrong. I think it’s terrible that these people died. But this morning…oh and the…I guess you’d call her the daddy lesbian—she worked for a defense contractor out there in Colorado Springs.
“But this morning, guess who the first group out on the airwaves was to denounce this as a hate crime,” he asked.
“The Baptist Ministers Association?” his producer responded sarcastically.
A phlegmy laugh rolled out of Buck. “Ha ha. No… T
he uh… hold on, I have it here. Oh yeah. The LGBT Alliance Against Defamation. The LGBTAAD—Legbitaad,” he said, laughing.
“Now…there may very well be some lezzie hater group out there that committed this, uh, this crime. But I haven’t heard anything from the police about this being a hate crime…I mean, it might not even be a crime at all. It may just turn out that they forgot and left the stove on.”
“You’d think in a house full of women, they’d know how a stove worked,” his producer said.
Buck laughed. “No. No,” he sputtered between chuckles. “Don’t be cruel now, Rob. This is a tragedy.”
“Right. Tragedy. No jokes,” Rob replied.
“So anyway. Oh, and apparently the mommy lesbian actually gave birth to their little baby. A baby girl, I think it was,” he said slowly, his judgment dripping from every word. “Looks like they were getting a head start on the next generation.
“Now I’m not condoning violence in any way, shape, or form. Don’t read that into my next statement. But…I mean…Colorado Springs is a fairly conservative area, is it not?” he asked, clearly knowing the answer already.
“Yes, it is…very conservative. We’ve got a lot of listeners out there,” Rob replied.
“That’s what I thought,” he replied. “It seems to me that a lesbian fam-i-ly…” he said, separating out the syllables for the word. “It just seems to me they wouldn’t be happy in a place like Colorado Springs to begin with.
“Not that they don’t have a right to be there. But I think they’d be happier someplace else…like…like Gay York or El Gay California.”
“I think right now they'd be happier anywhere,” Rob added.
“Right. Right. We can’t be insensitive. This is a tragedy. A horrible, horrible thing. But I can’t help but wonder if their happy little fam-i-ly would be alive and well if they had chosen a more suitable place to live—that’s all I’m wondering.”
He finished his rant and moved on to other news. After a few minutes he took some calls. Several of the callers, who simply wanted to be on the radio, agreed with all Buck had said. One even went so far as to say that maybe this will help other alternative families choose their homes more carefully.
“Yes,” Buck agreed. “If any good comes from this tragedy, maybe that’s it.”
I had heard enough. I turned off the feed, sat back and closed my eyes, inviting my internal flowchart to fill my vision. There were three variables that kept my chart dead ending at question marks.
1. What was Mark doing that required the CIA travel ID?
2. Was the ID blown, and if so, who blew it?
3. Was Mark crazy?
Without answers to those questions, I had no way to formulate a path to him. We'd just have to keep following the satellite imagery. If he were crazy, he might be looking for a new target, unsatisfied by the three men he'd already murdered.
But if he wasn't nuts, and the ID use and his sister's murder were connected, then he might be moving up the food chain.
I leaned over to say something, but I saw John sleeping so I kept my theory to myself, deciding instead to take a quick nap. I was certain it would be a no-sleep weekend, and this might be my last chance to grab some shut-eye.
Jeez, Buck. What a cockwaffle, I thought as I began to drift off.
**
5:15 a.m.—Colorado Springs, Colorado
HEINRICH BRAUN was awakened by the shrill tone of his cell phone. He reached across the bruised prostitute in his bed and picked up the phone without bothering to turn on the light. The prostitute—Violet—flinched and began cowering again as she had only hours before, when she had cried herself to sleep.
“Braun,” he answered, ignoring the girl.
“Ned Richards directed me to call this number and to give you any updates concerning activity in Colorado Springs,” came the male voice at the other end.
Braun was actually in Colorado Springs—waiting for Gaines to appear. He hadn’t expected the morons from the LAG Party group to kill Gaines’s sister and her partner, but the assault would do one of two things—either Gaines would get the message and drop his freelance continuation of the Justice Department investigation or he would come to Colorado Springs to seek revenge. Braun had counted on the revenge.
“Well?” Braun asked, rising from the bed.
“The gentleman you had a watch on has been murdered, along with two companions,” the man replied.
Revenge, Braun thought as a smile crossed his face. Now we can track him.
“And, sir,” the man continued. “It appears the men were tortured for some time before they were killed.”
That bothered Braun. Tension filled his chest as he realized they had probably revealed his own meeting with them. That would complicate things.
“And you have SATINT on the perpetrator?” Braun asked, uncertain his orders for satellite tracking had been followed.
“Yes, sir,” the man replied.
“Where is he now?”
“He’s on his way west on Route 40 in New Mexico near the Arizona border,” the man replied.
“Arizona?!” Braun exclaimed in anger. “How old is this information?”
“The 911 call was made at 1:17 a.m.,” the man replied. “But it wasn’t relayed to CSPD until closer to 1:30 a.m.”
“Four hours!” Braun yelled. “You waited four hours to tell me?!”
“Sir, I only just received the order to call you ten minutes ago,” the man replied nervously.
“You tell Richards—” he started angrily. “Never mind. What is he driving?”
“The perpetrator, sir?” the man asked.
“No! The dead man,” he snapped. “Yes, the perpetrator… Gaines. What is he driving?”
“It appears to be a late model Crown Victoria, sir,” came the reply. “I can’t give you a color until we have daylight imagery.”
“Call me back as soon as you have any new information. No more delays,” Braun commanded, ending the call before he could hear a reply.
He rose from bed and turned on the light. He stood naked in front of the prostitute, who had pulled the covers up close around her neck. He reached down and tugged on the covers, pulling them from her and exposing his handiwork from the night before. Her body was covered in bruises and bite marks. He smiled before starting to get dressed.
When he finished dressing, he opened his wallet and pulled a large wad of bills out, tossing them on the bed at her feet.
“Checkout is at noon,” he offered with a smirk as he grabbed his bag and left the room. “Feel free to order breakfast and put it on the room tab.”
On his way through the lobby, he dropped his room key on the counter.
“I’m not sure,” he said with a concerned look on his face, “but I believe I saw a disheveled young woman disappear into my room as I entered the elevator. You might want to have security check.”
A surprised expression appeared on the desk clerk’s face. “Thank you, sir,” she replied. “I’ll get them to take a look.”
He turned and walked away; a satisfied grin appeared on his face as soon as he heard the woman at the desk call for security.
I hope they get to see my work, he thought as he handed the valet his ticket.
**
7:30 a.m.—Albuquerque, New Mexico
John slept until the flight attendant woke him to put his seat up. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
“Shit,” he muttered, looking at his watch. “What did you find?”
“Arrest records, Tea Party and LAG party affiliations—the connection between the three men,” I replied.
“Anything to connect them to Gaines?” he asked as the plane started its decent.
“Not really,” I replied. “But I’m still digging. They just seem to be a bunch of homophobic pricks who get together and listen to other homophobic pricks on the radio.”
When the plane had landed and rolled up to the gate, we deplaned and walked up the ramp. John’s phone rang as we got t
o the terminal.
“Temple,” he said after looking at his phone. Then, after a short pause, “Where?”
There was another pause. “On our way.”
“What?” I asked as he spurred us along the exit tunnel from the plane.
“A new package,” he said as we emerged into the terminal. “I called ahead so they'd know the flight.”
“They?” I asked.
“Stop it,” he replied quietly as we walked out into the open next to the gate. There was a man standing in the gate area with a phone to his ear, staring at John. John closed his phone and walked toward him.
As we approached the man, he put a paper bag on the floor and walked away before we reached him. John picked it up and handed it to me before pointing toward a corner of the gate seating area.
I sat and extracted the pocket drive containing the imagery. As soon as my computer booted up, I began spooling the new images.
“I’m going to go grab us some coffee,” he said. “Do you want something to eat?”
“Fruit and meat of some sort,” I replied without looking up. Then, as an afterthought as he walked away, I added, “No salt in my coffee, please. I like it bitter.”
He chuckled as he trotted off.
When the images had finished spooling, I picked up the overlapping time tags and began tracing Gaines’s Crown Victoria along Route 40. The stop frame tracing of his movement stopped west of a small town named Gallup, New Mexico. I zoomed in on the image and watched the heat signature inside the car as it sat in place for what equated to almost an hour.
“What’s the scoop?” John asked, arriving with coffee and a breakfast biscuit for me.
“Looks like he stopped outside a place called Gallup to take a nap,” I replied.
“How far away from here is that?” he asked.
“A little more than two hours,” I replied. “He was really flying to make up that much ground.”
“He probably wasn’t too worried about troopers in that Crown Vic. It had GS plates on it.” John muttered, referring to federal government-issued plates. Police would not be inclined to pull over a car belonging to federal law enforcement.