by Rachel Ford
The piece was only a minute and eighteen seconds long. It included eleven seconds of me threatening him, played twice, and a handful of few-second-long clips of me looking angry. The rest was commentary and credits.
It was a self-aggrandizing, self-pitying puff piece. He repeated “hazards of the job,” “on the front lines,” and “in the line of duty,” more times than any podcaster had business saying. He was “in the trenches.” This was “the kind of thing,” he had to deal with “on the regular.” But, he promised his stalwart viewers that he wouldn’t be put off.
“The truth is out there. And I’m coming for it. Wagley out.”
Jason thought it was hilarious. “You’re going viral, man.”
I thought Wyatt Wagley was going to have a real problem if I ever saw him again. But I had more pressing business than finding a self-absorbed shit stirrer.
I needed to get to work. I’d wasted about twenty hours already. Well, maybe not wasted. But they were gone, anyway. So I left off the cleanup; that’d wait.
I checked in with Megan and left her my number. She’d seen the clip too, and she was crying again. It took another twenty minutes before I could reasonably extricate myself.
But I was on the road at quarter past ten. I tried Clark’s phone first and got her voicemail. Not surprising. Not with a fresh murder. But disappointing anyway.
I tried my boss next. That call got picked up, and I got the answer I wanted. Of course she understood. Of course I could take whatever time I needed. I had plenty of PTO stored up. We’d worry about the details later.
I decided to swing back to the church. I didn’t know if it would be open in the circumstances. But I knew it generally was. Andy had been quite proud of that: they’d grown enough to keep it open seven days a week. They weren’t at twenty-four hours a day yet. He’d emphasized the ‘yet’ with a smile. We’ll get there. You wait and see: this place is going to be a haven for Kennington. Night or day, whatever you need: we’ll be there.
It was open, and an old guy poked his head out of a side office when I stepped in. “Help you?” he asked. Then he added, “You with the police?”
I shook my head. “I was here for the vigil. Yesterday?”
He nodded. “Terrible business, what happened to pastor.”
I nodded too. “I know.”
“There’s going to be a candle lighting ceremony tonight, but that doesn’t start for a few hours yet.”
“I’m actually here because I think I left my glasses. Mind if I look?”
“Didn’t see any glasses when I locked up.”
“I’m always losing them in the couch cushions. They probably slipped behind the pew.”
He shrugged. “Knock yourself out. Chapel’s unlocked.”
I thanked him and headed toward the chapel. He headed back into his office.
I wasn’t going to the chapel, though. I was looking for some kind of church directory, and I figured that would either be back by the offices in hard copy, or on one of the computers in a digital format. So I followed the old guy.
He’d ducked into a medium-sized office and half-closed the door behind him. I figured that had something to do with the northwestern hallway windows, and the wall of light streaming in through them.
I crept past his office, keeping a wide berth of the narrow opening.
I knew where my brother’s office was because I’d been to it before. His was at the end of the hall, the biggest office in the building. The one with the brass nameplate on the door: Pastor Welch.
I took hold of the handle and slipped inside, keeping my eyes on the hall as I shut the door after myself – just in case the old guy had heard something or noticed a shadow from the corner of his eye.
But he didn’t emerge from his office a second time, and I closed the door.
A voice sounded behind me. “Mr. Day?”
I spun around. My mind registered the voice a moment before my eyes landed on the speaker. “Detective Clark.”
She eyed me with undisguised curiosity, bordering on suspicion. “What are you doing here?”
“Detective Clark,” I said again.
“We’ve established that.”
I tried to think of something to say. I came up empty, so I stalled instead. “I tried to call you earlier.”
“So you – what? Came looking for me?”
“No. No, I – well, I had a question. I couldn’t reach you, so I thought I’d see if I could find the answer myself.”
“By what? Breaking into a church?”
“I’m not breaking in. This is my brother’s church. It’s his office.”
She crossed her arms. “You know, I’ve been doing this for a while now, Mr. Day. And in my experience, people don’t usually creep into places they’ve got some right to be.”
“No,” I admitted.
“So what were you doing?”
“Looking for a directory.”
“Why?”
I thought for a good three seconds. It felt like an eternity. Her eyebrow started to creep up her forehead. I didn’t have a good lie, so I decided to go with the truth. “Did Megan tell you about Andy’s last meeting? The last one he made, I mean?”
“The counseling session? Yes.”
“I thought…well, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to rule them out as suspects.”
“And you needed the directory why?”
“Because if they’re members of the church, it should have their info.” I added, “So I could pass it along to you.”
I didn’t know if I convinced her, but she nodded anyway, and held up a printed roster. “I do have it. But that doesn’t explain why you were creeping into the office.”
I laughed nervously. I’d started out by lying to her, and now I was going to tell her a truth that she probably wouldn’t believe. “My sister-in-law and I haven’t got on in – well, since before she was my sister-in-law.”
“She mentioned something of that.”
“Yesterday, we…I don’t know…reconciled.”
“In which case, your actions make even less sense.”
“I asked her about the Taggerts. She said she couldn’t give that information out, for privacy reasons. And – look, the honest to God truth is, I didn’t want to piss her off. I didn’t want the secretary or whoever he is to see me back here, and get word back to her.”
“Well,” she said, “I can’t imagine why your sister-in-law ever would have had a falling out with you, Mr. Day. But your secret, such as it is, is safe with me.”
Then she added, “And, for what it’s worth, the Taggerts had nothing to do with Andy’s disappearance. We already interviewed them. They left here and went out to lunch. And there’s about two dozen witnesses from the restaurant who can back that up.”
I frowned. “Two dozen? That doesn’t seem…kind of suspicious to you?”
She smiled. “Not really. That counseling session? Your brother recommended divorce over irreconcilable differences. He – Henry Taggert – talked her – Kaitlin Taggert – into lunch, to talk things through one last time. It ended in…”
She drew out her notepad, the same one she’d scribbled in during our interview. “A screaming match. He grabbed her wrist. She threw her drink at him – non-alcoholic, per the bartender, on account of the pregnancy.
“One of the diners threatened to – and I quote – ‘beat his ass’ if he didn’t let her go. She paid for her food and left. He ordered a drink. The manager called the cops. One of our officers came and talked to him.
“At which point Henry decided he wouldn’t be driving after all. He’d had half a Manhattan already, and wasn’t sure about the breathalyzer. So he called the other woman – who, by the way, is also pregnant.”
Detective Clark was grinning. “Which did not go well for him. She hung up as soon as he told her what he needed.
“So then he had to call his brother, who took forty-five minutes getting there. They left in the brother’s truck and had to come back for his car th
e next day. At which point, your brother had already missed his next meeting, so was, presumably, already missing.”
“And Mrs. Taggert?” I said.
“Is 5’4” and seven months pregnant.”
“Oh.”
She smiled, the amusement of earlier replaced by compassion. “I know you’re anxious for answers, Mr. Day. But you can trust me: we are leaving no stone unturned.”
I nodded. “But you don’t think it’s random?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No. But you’re here, in my brother’s office, picking up the phone directory. Which you wouldn’t need to do if he’d been randomly targeted by a passing crazy man.”
“No stone unturned,” she said again. “Speaking of…your brother: do you know if he had any connection to Shelby Dandridge? Did he know her through his work maybe? One of the charities he was involved with?”
I shook my head. “No idea. But it was the judge, then?”
“It was the judge’s house,” she said. “And there was a note. There will be an official press release, but until then…I’m sorry. I can’t say more.”
“But it was the same guy?”
“We’re not ruling anything out. But at this point, yeah. All indications are that they’re the same person.”
I had learned nothing, but made progress anyway. I’d removed the Taggerts from my suspect list without wasting much time on them.
I left the office with the same care I’d taken not to be spotted the first time. I spotted Detective Clark’s cruiser on the way out: a dark sedan parked beside an older model Mazda SUV. The SUV’s dash was full of solar powered knickknacks: plastic flowers that swayed in their pots as the sun hit them, and a weird little bird that danced, and so on. The old guy’s ride. His wife’s décor.
But just as obvious as the old-person vibe coming from the Mazda’s interior was the undercover cop vibe coming from Clark’s car. And I felt stupid for having missed it.
I should have noticed it. Especially since the parking lot was far from full at the moment. There were four vehicles in the lot: my own, the Mazda, Clark’s unmarked cruiser, and a second sedan, this one still occupied. Another graying parishioner who had come to light a candle for Andy, I guessed.
I took a breath and took a long look around. I’d missed every red flag. I’d missed the car. I’d missed the significance of the old guy’s question. You with the police?
My head wasn’t in the game. I’d been getting too wrapped up in – well, everything else. I’d have time for that later. Right now, I needed to focus. I needed to think, and work through finding this son-of-a-bitch.
That’d make everything else a hell of a lot easier.
I got into my vehicle. It smelled vaguely of fast food, and souring milk. I’d need to clean it soon.
But for now, I headed home next, thinking as I drove. Clark hadn’t told me much, but she’d still given me plenty to think about. She’d been careful to avoid confirming or denying a casualty at the Dandridge place. Which struck me as odd.
The Nursery Rhyme Killer killed people. It didn’t take much to deduce why he’d showed up at the judge’s house.
So why be so tight-lipped about it?
Then there was the business of checking out Andy’s office, and for that matter checking into the Taggerts.
She’d said no stone unturned. But it wasn’t like the force was busting at the seams with manpower, or budget. They wouldn’t waste time chasing dead-ends. Not with some kind of psychotic killer stalking the streets.
So she had reason to suspect the killings were more than random opportunity. Reason enough, anyway, to spend time looking for a link between my brother’s work and his killer.
Chapter Ten
I parked outside, buzzing the windows half-way down to let the growing stink out. The day was a warm one, and I didn’t want to find out what things would smell like after an afternoon of everything baking.
Then I headed to the house. I lived in a single-story residence on a backstreet on the outskirts of Kennington, surrounded on three sides by public lands. I had half an acre of yard, that I paid a guy to mow twice a month as soon as the snow melted until it started back up again.
I paid a different guy to plow the driveway whenever it snowed, and yet another guy to trim the trees and the fence of privacy shrubs every few years.
I didn’t have a neighbor on my side of the street in either direction for miles. My neighbor across the way was an old woman who hated people as much as she hated birds; and I’d randomly seen her taking potshots at them.
Birds, not people. Not that I’d seen, anyway.
Still, it was about as close to heaven as I could get. I was less than ten minutes away from civilization, but I could go an entire week or two without catching sight of a single human being.
Technically, the public lands were open to public use. But there were thousands of acres of them, and nothing particularly impressive about the endless swampy forest by me. So outside of duck hunts, I didn’t have much to worry about.
The mosquitoes might have been a problem, if I’d been more inclined to spend time outdoors. But Missy had come to the rescue there. She’d set up bug zappers all over my yard. And I dutifully hauled them out every spring, and ran extension cords across my yard.
I didn’t need a yard, or a house all my own. Not really. I could have done alright in an apartment.
But neighbors were like Russian roulette: five out of six might be alright, but the sixth would make you want to blow your brains out.
The simile didn’t completely work, I knew, since it hinged on desire rather than result. Still, when asked why I wanted a place of my own, I brought it out. And it usually shut people up.
Plus, it was true. I didn’t bother people. I didn’t want to be bothered. But I was a creature of habit. I liked to get up at the same time, and make the same kind of coffee in the same mug. I’d add the same amount of milk, and drink it down in the same seat, in absolute silence. Then I’d be ready for work. Each day, every day.
Except weekends, when I did the same thing but spun up my own computer instead of my work laptop.
I didn’t need screaming babies or stomping children or arguing adults waking me early. I didn’t want music blasting while I drank my coffee. I didn’t want the cops showing up because of parties running too long, or people screaming at each other.
And neighbors brought noise, and distraction, and violence.
I let myself in and shut the door after me. I turned the handle lock, and secured the deadbolt and the door chain. Overkill, probably, but I liked redundancy, and three was my lucky number.
I flipped the light switch, kicked off my shoes and headed into my den. My sanctum sanctorum was just a bedroom turned home office, but it was where my best brainwork happened.
My actual office was the den closet. It was big enough for my dual monitors and docking station, and a narrow desk and chair with appropriate lumbar support.
I had the same kind of chair in my den proper, at a larger desk, in front of a laptop with three monitors behind it. I had bookshelves on all four walls, but they were, none of them, full. My selection process was rigorous. No book would make it onto those shelves until it had been read three times, its references randomly spot checked, and its scholarship validated and revalidated.
And even then, it was subject to go in the garbage heap if I discovered intellectual or ethical shortcuts at some future point in time.
Still, I’d managed to accumulate a solid little library of books on mathematical theory, and psychology and history. The former tended to be easier to accumulate, as the latter two veered into pop science and sensationalism too often.
Few and far between were the laymen who picked up books on theoretical mathematics. But the psychology of murder? The history of murder? The Wyatt Wagley’s of the world flocked to them.
And ample demand meant ample supply: a supply of fluffy nonsense, half-facts, wild theories and pure bull
shit.
So it made finding good resources difficult. Difficult, but not impossible. I tended to avoid the bestsellers, the histories that were adapted into television shows, and anything written by anyone who promoted their book on talk shows.
Among the books and bookshelves were investigation boards. Or the so-called Crazy Wall. It’s where I charted my cold cases: connections between victims and suspects, and friends of suspects, and so on. Where I solved cold cases, at least to my own satisfaction. Where I validated my predictive algorithms against solved cases, or tried to, anyway.
Because that’s what I did in my spare time: I investigated murders. I researched murder. I tried to understand the psychology of killing. I had a theory that all murder could be predicted, given enough data.
The power of predictive analytics was already staggering. Its most public face was advertising, of course. And everyone knew how good that had gotten. I’d seen dozens of memes in various formats referencing bits of pop culture about the scary accuracy of our phones’ predictive powers. I didn’t always get the references, but I got the gist. The analytics had gotten so good that ads almost seemed to read the consumer’s mind.
They didn’t, of course. Just about every detail of our daily lives was logged somewhere. Something, somewhere tracked our purchases via credit card, check and online order. It tracked our movements via our phones, fitness trackers and vehicles. It tracked our media selections – movies, shows, music, podcasts. Even porn.
There were privacy laws and confidentiality agreements, of course. Your doctor couldn’t share your medical information. But your check-ins at the doctor’s office, or the hospital? Those could be scraped easily enough.
A credit card company couldn’t share your purchase history. But websites could and do track your online browsing history. Individual retailers can and do track your purchase history and make predictions based on it.
Bought running shoes and exercise pants? Maybe you’d get coupons for protein bars and muscle mass supplements the next. Or, depending on the size of the exercise clothes, weight loss supplements and meal replacement shakes. Maybe you’d get ads for exercise equipment or gym memberships.