Eleven (Brandon Fisher FBI Series #1)

by Carolyn Arnold

  I was the first to hit the staircase.

  The CSI held it up in gloved hands. “Found it sitting in the stones for that candle over there. Pretty much right in front of us this whole time.”

  The CSI pointed to the dining room table where Deb had a curved dish showcasing three pillar candles on a bed of rubbed stones. She said they added a decorative touch.

  “Any latent prints?”

  The CSI smiled. “A partial.”

  “What about the range on this thing?”

  The smile faded. “I’m not a tech but some of these things can have a huge range.”

  “We’re talking a mile, a few?”

  “A few. I think I’ve even heard tell of some of them being enabled with WiFi.”

  “Meaning connected over the Internet?”

  “Yeah.” He gave me a look that communicated, did you just fall onto the planet.

  I was starting to believe the advances in technology hurt us more than they helped. “Great.”

  Jack pulled out a cigarette, stuck it in his lips but didn’t light it. “Think of it this way. The unsub likely planted these devices in the last twenty-four hours. Your wife went to her sister’s yesterday morning. I’d assume he came in after she left.”

  “So he could still be around the world. Really what’s to say our unsub isn’t rich?”

  “We know Bingham doesn’t have money. There’s nothing in his accounts, and he lost his house.”

  “After his sister died.” I spread a hand over the gun in my holster. “Before that his sister paid the property taxes. What if Bingham left all his money to her?” I shook my head. “And if he did give everything to his sister, where did it go when she died? We know it didn’t return to Bingham, and she didn’t have any children—”

  “Hmm.”

  I’d take that as Jack was impressed.

  “How do we know this person isn’t some recluse from Salt Lick that no one knows about?” All of the possibilities were causing a stress headache to set in. “But then I guess we’d have them by now because they would have been watching the crime scene. Something would have tipped us off to them.”

  “Would you have suspected Royster’s involvement?”

  He had me there.

  “I’ll have Nadia run a background on Bingham’s sister’s financials and see if we can find out where the money went.”

  “And one more thing, why would Bingham leave all his money to his sister? The man was only going away max of five years. Did he figure he’d be found out?”

  Jack pulled his cigarette from his mouth and latched his eyes with mine.

  CHAPTER 26

  The next morning Jack and I were at our head office wading through forty boxes in regards to the eleven Sarasota murders. They accounted for suspect interviews, character references, issued warrants and recorded notifications that were made to next of kin for those who were identified.

  The murders were pegged between the years ’71 and ’84. The bodies were found in eighty-six. Five of them remained unidentified. The average cooling off period between kills was estimated at one to two years.

  I had asked Jack why the FBI wouldn’t have been called in on the case back then. He couldn’t provide me with a satisfactory answer, and with all leads exhausted the case had gone cold.

  We had the boxes carted to an empty office which had appeared large enough before they were piled inside. Now there was barely standing room around a conference table the size of my dining table that sat six adults comfortably. Some boxes didn’t even make it inside the room but sat outside the doorway. The box belonging to the first victim was on the table.

  As Jack said, always start at the beginning. He also added that if we could establish a connection, a trigger, an emotional connection between Bingham and the first victim then we’d have something to move on.

  He held up a mug full of sludge, at least that’s how he termed the coffee from the break room, to his lips when Paige and Zachery walked in. “You made it.” He spoke with the mug against his lips, took a draw on it and set it down on the table. “You should have brought us something to eat.” Jack dropped into a conference chair. He finally succumbed to his exhaustion. I had given up on standing over an hour ago.

  The clock read just after ten in the morning, and we had been working since five.

  Zachery’s eyes went over the room, taking in all the boxes. “It looks like it.”

  “That’s what happens when you have eleven murders. Lots of paperwork.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Jack passed me a glance. “Yeah, get your writing hand ready, Kid. Ours is going to look similar—”

  “It’s already starting to. But the only thing is we’re going to catch the bad guy.” Zachery smiled.

  “Cocky and confident as always.” Jack returned the smile.

  Paige and I weren’t really part of the conversation between the other two. She watched me with that fawn-like quality to her eyes again—soft, wanting, knowing, and vulnerable. When she looked at me like that she had no idea what feelings it conjured up. Today, though, all I could think was did she look at Jack the same way?

  “Glad your wife was okay.” She smiled at me, the awkward, slightly forced kind that had me questioning the truthfulness of her words.

  “Thanks.” I held a file in my hands and put my attention back on it. “The first victim’s name was Anna Knowles. Her picture wasn’t one recovered from Bingham’s cell.”

  “Maybe Bingham had a special connection with her, or the murder wasn’t intended,” Zachery said.

  “Possible. Anyway, she was a mother, and left behind two children, one boy and one girl and a husband. Detectives interviewed the husband at length. There were at least a few boxes dedicated to him from what I could tell. He claimed his wife dropped the daughter off at a babysitter’s and never returned.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got this under control.” Paige smiled again.

  “Yeah we pretty much have the case solved.” I glanced up from the file and smiled at her.

  “You can be such a smart ass sometimes.”

  “And I don’t even have to work at it.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” She took a folder out of the box and took a seat at the table. Zachery followed her lead.

  “So what else do we know?” Zachery tapped the flat of his hands on the table.

  “The husband was suspected of his wife’s disappearance back in ’71 but friends and family confirmed they were a loving couple. When her body was found in ’86, the husband was cleared based on lack of evidence. There was no way to prove his involvement. A Detective Jenkins was the lead on the case. He’d visit Knowles once every year until his early retirement back in—,” I paused and lifted up his background that we had pulled, “—Back in 2001.”

  “How were the bodies found?” Paige leaned across the table, her elbows bent, and she cupped her chin in her hand.

  “They were digging up the property for a new land development. At first they thought maybe it was an old graveyard but the land didn’t have a record of that. And when they realized they were all killed the same way, they knew it wasn’t a mistake in paperwork misplacement,” Jack said.

  “Did Bingham own the property? Why not just trace the bodies back to him?”

  “There was no connection to Bingham whatsoever.” I put the file I had in my hands back on the table. “Basically it was in an industrial area. The building had been used as a feed mill and abandoned long ago. The city owned it for years but never did anything with it. It just sort of sat there.”

  “Making it an ideal location.”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “How did they die?”

  “Just like with our case, the last victim was preserved by the burial. They had the coinherence symbol cut into their torso. It’s believed they all suffered the same way.” I tossed a photo towards Paige and looked at Zachery. “Guess you were right.”

  “I can be sometimes, Pending.
” He smirked.

  “Were they disemboweled?” Paige studied the photo.

  Jack answered, “Asphyxiation. Speculation is a plastic bag because there was no trace left behind.”

  “It would be consistent with Bingham’s personality of wanting power and control. Still why would he change his MO? Why all of a sudden start tearing out intestines and grinding them up for pigs?” For a woman nothing seemed to faze Paige.

  “And the eleven murders there started with a woman. In Salt Lick it was a man. He just continued his pattern,” I said.

  “Hmm.”

  I glanced at Jack briefly, unsure how to translate that moan.

  “I guess we have to figure out why the change in mutilation. Also why he chose the people he did.”

  “He said to you...” Jack directed his words to me. “Did he not? Confess your sins and be forgiven, don’t and be punished?”

  I nodded. My eyes traveled to Paige who refused to make eye contact.

  Zachery moved forward on his chair. “We know Bingham’s got some sort of God complex. Basically he believes he’s righteous for killing these people. No doubt his follower would as well. Bingham would have instilled this.”

  “We need to figure out the first murder and work forward. Honestly I have a feeling that’s where we’ll find our answers,” Paige said.

  Again, I nodded.

  “But why would they have targeted you? And your wife?”

  “My wife? To get to me, toy with me. Royster had mentioned no one was supposed to get hurt.”

  “But people did get hurt,” Paige interjected.

  “When Royster said no one was supposed to get hurt what was he referring to?” Zachery asked.

  I let out a rush of air. “Good question. Maybe just the victims he took part in killing?”

  “Well, that would be the last one in Salt Lick, Sally Windermere,” Paige said. “But maybe there’s more? I mean his brother went missing back in 2005.”

  “What about time lapse between the Sarasota killings? Do the files comment on that, Pending?”

  I eyed all the boxes before settling my gaze on Zachery. “From what we see one to two years.”

  Zachery reached for a file. “Guess it’s time for me to get reading.”

  “The rest of us can pretty much leave now. Zach will be done in twenty minutes.” Jack rose from his chair.

  “With the file in his hand?” I asked.

  “No, all forty boxes.”

  I watched Jack unsure if he was being blatantly sarcastic or serious. In the time I studied Jack’s face Zachery had closed the first file folder and was reaching for another.

  Paige stood up but didn’t back away from the table. “The one thing bothering me is did they look to the city and government officials? Someone had to be responsible for watching the building.”

  “Where were you to question the fifty squatters, plus the city board?”

  The voice came from the doorway where an older man in his late sixties stood wearing a visitor’s badge clipped onto his shirt pocket. Lines were etched in his face deep enough to place the flat of a finger in. His grey mustache was filled in more than the top of his head where hair formed a trace outline around his skull.

  I looked between him and Elise who was one of the administrative clerks entrusted to accompany him back here.

  Jack asked the question, “And who are you?”

  “Marty Jenkins.” The man walked into the room as if it was his office and we were invading his privacy. He latched his hands in front, making no motion of a handshake.

  Jack addressed Elise, “Who is he?”

  “Do you talk about most people like they’re not there when they’re standing right in front of you?”

  Elise’s eyes enlarged and she backed away with a shoulder shrug and opened palms.

  Jack addressed the man who already had his hands on a file box. “I have to ask that you get your hands off there, Martin Jenkins. This is part of an open investigation.”

  “Like I said it’s Marty, given name by my own mother. She didn’t believe much in naming people something others would distort by abbreviating.”

  I noticed Paige smirk before she raised a hand to conceal it.

  Jenkins sunk a hand inside the box and pulled out a file. “Anna Knowles. Nice lady. At least that’s how her friends and family saw her.”

  “You’re the detective from the Sarasota murders.” Jack came up beside the man.

  Zachery glanced up between flipping pages.

  “Now I know how you got to where you are.” Jenkins’ attention went to Zachery and the flipping sheets of paper. “What’s he doing?”

  “And yet you made detective.” Jack glared at Jenkins who smirked in response.

  “Lead detective for the Sarasota murders actually. Eleven vics, five with no identities.”

  “We read that in the file.”

  “The papers were calling him the Symbolic killer. They always have to have a name.” Jenkins glanced at Paige and me. “And it makes our jobs easier to label them.”

  “I take it this has been your life’s work.” Jack’s hand skimmed over his shirt pocket, went down the side of his torso and came to rest on his hip.

  “Retired already, agent. Although I’m sure you pulled my background. You know being a retired cop isn’t all about golf memberships and yacht clubs. I’m just happy to have the mortgage paid off.”

  “So, what—”

  “Am I doing here?”

  Jack didn’t say anything.

  “My little girl went missing back in the early ’80s. She was never found. I hoped that one of the vics would be her.”

  “Wish they would have been,” Paige said, her words containing disgust.

  “Closure, that’s all. Do you know what it’s like to go to sleep at night wondering where the hell your daughter is?” He let out a snuff of air. “If not, then you can’t understand.”

  “I understand you want closure, but why—”

  “Like that? Because I’m not naive enough to believe the world is a good place—”

  “Special Agent Paige Dawson.” She crossed her arms. “I take it your daughter wasn’t one of the bodies found.”

  “Not that we’ve been able to prove.”

  “What about MtDNA? It was discovered back in ’61. Samples would have been taken from the remains.” Zachery put the file down on the table. “Its full name is mitochondrial DNA, and it has proven to be a great aid in solving old cases where the remains are skeletal. This DNA can be pulled from hair, bones and teeth unlike nuclear DNA.” He glanced at me. “That’s the common DNA you normally hear about. Anyway MtDNA can be used to match an individual to a family. It only takes on the characteristics from the maternal side. It’s fascinating really.” He paused as if assessing to see if his words were sinking in. “It remains unchanged for thousands of years only undergoing a significant mutation after sixty-five hundred years. Some believe our ancestry traces back to an African woman from two hundred thousand years ago.”

  Jack raised a hand to Zachery as if to say, enough of the forensic lesson.

  Zachery continued, “The technology’s available to us. Why haven’t you gotten the unidentified female corpses tested to see if one was your daughter?”

  “Her mother died years ago and I wasn’t really a part of their life. Not that I wanted it that way. But we were kids when she got pregnant. I was eighteen, her sixteen. I proposed. She wisely said no. Anyway life went on. My daughter’s mother has a sister, Tammy Sherman, but she can’t stand the sight of me.” Jenkins took out his wallet and extended a photo to Jack. “Her name was Donna. She was just nineteen when she went missing.”

  Jack looked at the photo, and then handed it to Paige and directed her to pass it along. “Did you file a missing persons?”

  “What was the point? I know those types of things get lost in the system.”

  Zachery handed me the photo. As my eyes settled on it, I recognized the face immediately.
My head snapped up to face Zachery who shook his head.

  Jack took the file that Jenkins had put on the table and put it back in the evidence box. “We’ll let you know if we can identify her.”

  “Oh no, you’re not pushing me out of this investigation.”

  “There’s no way—”

  “One officer of the law to another.”

  “Retired,” Jack corrected him.

  “Isn’t there one case that means so much to you that you lose sleep over it? Have you seen the bags under my eyes? I’m not here for a pity party, but I’m not leaving.”

  “We can have you escorted.”

  “You could. But I see in your eyes you won’t.”

  Jack didn’t say anything for seconds; I believe I heard the clock in the room tick off each one. “You help familiarize us with the files, the suspects and the investigation. But the minute—,” Jack pointed a finger at Jenkins, “—you are more in the way out you go. Understood?”

  Jenkins saluted Jack, soliciting another hidden smirk from Paige.

  “But first if I could consult with my team.”

  “Is there something you’re not telling me? You found her didn’t you? You recognize her?”

  “I just need a few minutes with my team.” Jack matched eyes with Jenkins, and the man complied and left the room. Jack closed the door behind him.

  “My god, Jack, his daughter was one of the photos found in Bingham’s cell,” Paige said.

  “We have to tell him.”

  Jack turned to me. “Absolutely not. At this point all we have is a photo. The rest has to be proven.” His eyes scanned all of us. “Are we clear on that?”

  We all nodded.

  CHAPTER 27

  We spent the next few hours going over the case as Jenkins recalled it. Zachery had read the entire contents of the record boxes and could relate with most of what Jenkins said. But what Jenkins did offer was a live recounting, not something simply documented and left for interpretation.

  “So why didn’t you refer the case to the FBI?” Paige asked the question of Jenkins.

  We were all seated around the table in the cramped office. An evidence file box had been pushed to the middle of the table to allow room for an extra-large pizza box. The pizza brought in for a late lunch had disappeared in a record time of twenty minutes.