The Coast-to-Coast Murders

by J. D. Barker

  “Another gun?”

  She shook her head again and pointed toward a door off the kitchen. “Basement,” she managed.

  Back down the hall, I heard a loud grunt from Michael.

  I left Nicki balanced against the sofa, ran into the kitchen, and opened the basement door several inches, hoping he’d think we’d run down there. I opened one of the cabinet doors too.

  In the living room, Nicki was shuffling toward the ruined front door, her strength slowly coming back.

  The blast of a rifle.

  The plaster to the left of the door exploded.

  Michael was in the hallway behind us. The scissors fell from his hand. A deranged grin filled his face. “Five, one thousand. Six, one thousand. Seven…”

  His bloody hand reached for the charger on the rifle and pulled it back. The spent shell ejected, bounced off the wall, and fell to the floor. A new round replaced it. He started toward us, slowly at first but picking up speed with each step.

  I shoved Nicki through the broken door and pulled it closed behind me.

  Michael slammed into the other side.

  The doors to the Toyota Michael and I had arrived in were still open. Nicki scrambled around to the passenger side, got in, and yanked the door shut behind her. I was in the driver’s seat and pulling the door closed when Michael finally came out the front, that grin growing on his face. He took his time, moving with slow, lumbering steps. Blood dripped from his back, although not as much as I’d hoped, leaving a trail in the concrete.

  My eyes dropped to the bundle of wires hanging at the base of the steering column. I had no idea how to hot-wire a car. Four of the wires were stripped at the end. I grabbed them at random, touching metal to metal. The second pair sparked.

  Michael tapped at the window of the driver’s-side door. He puckered his lips, blew me a kiss, then smashed the glass with the butt of the rifle.

  Tiny bits rained down on me, slammed into my cheek, got caught in my hair.

  Nicole screamed.

  Michael said, “The Johnny Depp thing, Meg? It’s in your file.”

  He raised the butt of the rifle again. I remember it coming toward my head, but nothing after that.

  Chapter One Hundred Three

  Dobbs

  Dr. Rose Fitzgerald proved to be much faster than Dobbs had expected. He caught a glimpse of her through the swaying branches and trees, a red bag at her hip, but she vanished a moment later as she lumbered over a hill and down the other side. The path was relatively worn, clearly frequented, but in the dark he was leery of moving too fast and turning an ankle on a root or some unseen divot in the earth.

  He heard rushing water long before he saw it, but he hadn’t been prepared for what he found when the path dipped down and turned a hard right.

  A gorge—four, maybe five hundred feet deep. Several waterfalls, a rushing river running beneath, and the lights of a power plant nestled in the rock near the bottom on the far left. The trees opened up, the sky reached down, and Dobbs felt his legs go weak at the sight.

  A suspension bridge connected that end of the gorge to the far side, at least three hundred feet long and six feet wide. Thick cables, wood, and wire held in place by who knew what dangling across a slice of Mother Nature where it had no business being.

  Dobbs hated heights.

  Hated wasn’t a strong enough word.

  The cold, still air. The dark. The loud, rushing water far below. All of it somehow made this place seem both large and small at the same time. Another sign, like the one at the start of the path, read CORNELL, with an arrow pointing toward the bridge, but he couldn’t see the university from here. There was nothing but the gaping mouth of another path at the far end. Nothing but isolation.

  Fitzgerald was about a third of the way across, the cables and wooden boards gently rocking back and forth with each step she took.

  “Doctor, stop!” Dobbs shouted.

  To his surprise, she did. Nearly at the halfway point, she froze and turned toward him, one hand gripping the railing, the other on the strap of her bag.

  “We need to go back, Doctor—to the house!”

  She smiled then. Even from this distance, Dobbs could see it, and that smile frightened him. Unlike the smile back at the house, this one was genuine. She wiped the smile from her face a moment after it appeared, as if she thought showing her true emotions was some kind of weakness. “I can’t go back. None of us can. You don’t see that yet, but you will.”

  Dobbs took several steps out onto the suspension bridge.

  “Don’t.” Fitzgerald raised her free hand. “Right there is fine. Not another step.”

  Dobbs stopped moving, but the bridge didn’t; it continued to sway. Not much, just enough to remind him solid ground was ten feet at his back. The center where Fitzgerald stood swayed far worse, but she seemed oblivious to it. Her eyes remained fixed on him. “You need to let it all burn,” she said. “Fire is one of the few things in life that can truly cleanse. Anything else is no better than slapping a coat of paint on a rusty car. You can hide the cancer for a little while, but eventually it eats right through, worse than ever. Fire, though; fire is final. There is no coming back, no resurrection. Maybe that’s what Barton should have done years ago. Set fire to the whole damn thing. I told him to. God knows I told him to more times than I can count, but he was always so damn stubborn. He couldn’t see past the moment. He couldn’t see where it would all go. I could. And rather than smother that child with a pillow when I had the chance, I let Barton continue his work. I allowed it to fester. That kind of blood doesn’t wash off. It’s under my nails, where the water can’t reach it.”

  A wire safety mesh rose from the railing to the cable high above the bridge. Dobbs watched as Fitzgerald grabbed it, pulled it apart, exposing an opening. “I cut this two days ago. I told myself if someone fixed it before I came back, I wouldn’t do it. I suppose I gave myself an out.”

  Dobbs started toward her.

  “Don’t!” she shouted, leaning into the opening. “You’re not fast enough. Don’t even try. Don’t give me a reason. Stay right there.”

  Dobbs froze. She was right. He was more than a hundred feet away. “Jumping isn’t the answer.”

  “There is no answer,” Fitzgerald said, shaking her head. “He’s coming home, and I have no intention of giving him my last breath. I don’t owe that to him. I owe no one.”

  “Megan needs you,” Dobbs said, edging closer. “We can protect you. Let me help you.”

  “Give Larry my regards.” Fitzgerald smiled again. “I always liked this bridge.”

  Dobbs ran. He forced every ounce of energy down into his legs and shot toward her. The bridge jerked beneath him with each step. He ignored the height, the rushing water below. His only focus was her. He grabbed for her, reached across the impossible distance, fumbled for her arm, her clothing, anything, but she was right—he wasn’t fast enough.

  Chapter One Hundred Four

  Dobbs

  In his mind’s eye, Dobbs saw her fall. Her determined eyes never left him as she fell through the air, down toward the water, then bounced off the rocks below with an almost silent thud. The current didn’t so much take her as wash over her, white water folding over her like a liquid blanket, enveloping her, tucking her in for the night. In his mind’s eye, he saw all this, but he hadn’t actually seen it. She was simply gone by the time he reached the place she had jumped, nothing left to indicate she had been there, nothing to see but the white frothy water rushing angrily below.

  Dobbs stood on the bridge as minutes passed, leaning over the edge with one hand wrapped in the broken mesh, just staring down at those rocks. When he finally pulled himself back through the opening and collapsed on the wooden planks, he remembered to breathe.

  His phone started to ring.

  He fished the cell from his pocket and pressed the answer button without looking at the caller ID. “Yeah?”

  “Bring her ass back here. We’ve got her on
arson. Probably obstruction. I don’t care how many attorneys she throws at us.”

  Begley.

  Dobbs forced himself to stand. He started back down the bridge, the path, toward the cars. “She’s dead.”

  “What?”

  Dobbs told him.

  Begley was silent a moment, processing this. He finally said, “The house is gone. Well, not completely, not yet. The fire department is here, but at this point, they’re just trying to contain it. She spread some kind of accelerant inside. One of our guys said the upstairs carpet went up with a blue flame that rolled down the hall and up the sides of the walls. Probably gasoline or alcohol. I’m sure the fire marshal will figure it out. The roof collapsed a few minutes ago. If any worthwhile evidence survives, it will be days before we can dig it out. Hold on a second…”

  Dobbs stepped off the bridge, went past the sign that said CORNELL, and walked toward the cars.

  He could hear a dinging chime coming from the open door of Fitzgerald’s BMW.

  Begley came back. “I told one of the patrolmen she jumped. He’s going to scramble the locals and take care of things there. I need you to get back here. We’ve got to figure out our next step.”

  Dobbs leaned into the BMW. It smelled vaguely like Fitzgerald’s perfume. “What was the name of the guy Vela said ran that orphanage? Do you remember?”

  Begley thought about this for a second. “Patchen, Lawrence Patchen. Why?”

  Give Larry my regards.

  On the passenger seat of the BMW was a visitor’s pass for Windham Hall.

  Chapter One Hundred Five

  Gimble

  The explosion hadn’t been the propane tank but a rented SUV about halfway up Longtin’s dirt driveway.

  The local sheriff showed up ten minutes later, followed by three deputies; the helicopter was twenty minutes behind them. U.S. marshals and federal agents out of the various St. Louis field offices filtered in too. They were combing the woods in pairs. Several large floodlights had been erected around Longtin’s cabin. The chopper flew over for what must have been the dozenth time, tethered to the ground by a beam of light sweeping the trees. Gimble pressed her hand over her ear and shouted into her phone. “What do you mean, she jumped?”

  Begley told her. The fire at the house. The bridge.

  “Christ,” she muttered.

  Two EMTs wheeled Longtin’s body out of the cabin to a waiting ambulance. Vela was right behind them, talking to the older of the two. She couldn’t make out the words. The coroner had two vans en route. In addition to the murdered marshals she had found on the side of the house and near the woodpile, they had found four others. Two were still missing. Garrison’s body had been lying beside his SUV not far from the cabin, a deep stab wound in his left leg at the femoral artery, another across his neck. He’d bled out before he could get a shot off.

  The sheriff walked over. He’d come out of the woods. A tall, skinny man in his late fifties with a thin, graying mustache and dark eyes magnified behind small, round glasses. Rather than a typical wide-brim hat, he wore a baseball cap with SHERIFF across the front. She’d forgotten his name. Didn’t really care.

  “There’s something you need to see,” he said. His accent was more Texan than Midwest. He didn’t wait for a response, just turned and started back toward the woods.

  “Begley, I’ll call you back.” Gimble hung up and followed after him. The ground was a spongy, muddy mess. She tried to step on weeds and fallen leaves, but it did little good. Her tennis shoes sank into the earth, each step making a sucking sound in the mud. The sheriff wore tall rubber boots that came halfway up to his knees. He didn’t seem to care where he stepped. Although the entire area was considered a crime scene, the rain had made the collection of shoe prints all but useless.

  He led her up a hill, through a small clearing, and onto a ridge overlooking a portion of Longtin’s wooded driveway and cabin. A crime scene photographer and two local CSI investigators were huddled over another body. Yellow tape had been strung around four trees, creating a large box around them. Two battery-powered floodlights illuminated the area.

  Gimble felt her chest tighten. “Is that another marshal?”

  “No, ma’am. We’re not sure what we’ve got here,” he replied.

  He ducked under the yellow tape and stood several feet from the body. He took off his baseball cap, scratched at the top of his bald head.

  Gimble came up beside him.

  The body—a man—was lying on his stomach, his legs stretched out straight behind him, his arms reaching forward. The back of his head had been crushed. Rainwater pooled in the cavity, a mix of loose hair and flakes of brain matter.

  Gimble asked, “Did you find a rifle?”

  “A rifle? No. Why?”

  She ignored the question and pointed at a large rock lying about a foot from the body in the mud. “Is that the murder weapon?”

  The older of the two CSIs nodded. “Most likely. The rain gave it a good wash, but I found a few hairs caught in the surface.” He pointed toward the rock with the tip of a pen. “The body didn’t collapse like this; the limbs would be more random, bent. This person was already lying on the ground in a straight, prone position, and someone came up from above and behind with the rock. Took him completely by surprise with a single blow.”

  The sheriff understood then. “This is one of your shooters,” he said. A statement, not a question. “That’s why he’s lying like that.” He pointed back down the hill. “Clear line of sight to the driveway and the front of the cabin. So if he was the one taking potshots at you and the girl, who killed him? Your boy Kepler?”

  My boy Kepler.

  “Why was he shooting at any of you?”

  “Turn him over,” Gimble said. “I need to see his face.”

  The CSI looked to the sheriff, who nodded. With the help of the other investigator, they grabbed the body at the shoulder and down near the waist and rolled him over. The rain sloshed in the crater of his skull. Gimble fought the urge to throw up.

  Dark eyes. Blond hair. Forties. Not someone she recognized. She snapped a photo with her phone. “Any identification?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing on him. Nothing in his pockets at all. We’ll run prints back at the coroner’s office. He’s got an old scar on his left hand, nasty-looking thing. No visible tattoos.”

  Gimble glanced back at the cabin. The propane tank was around the other side. No line of sight from here. At least two hundred feet to where she thought she saw Kepler in the woods when she was at the log pile. No way he covered that kind of ground that fast, not through the trees in the rain. No way.

  He’s a truck driver from LA. Some kid who grew up in the burbs.

  What the hell were they dealing with?

  The radio attached to the man’s shoulder squawked. “Sheriff?”

  He reached up and pressed the button on the side. “Go.”

  “We found the red Honda. About a half mile from your current location. Tire’s gone, drove it on the rim. She ran it off into the weeds under a canopy of live oaks. Damn near missed it. There’s blood on both seats, on the steering wheel. No sign of the girl.” The voice paused, then came back. “I’ve got another set of tire tracks near it. Looks like a second vehicle had been parked here. Something small, judging by the wheelbase. I don’t see tracks driving in, only driving out, so whatever it is, I think it was parked before the rain started.”

  “Blood in both seats?” the sheriff said into the mic.

  “Yeah. Could be a second person. Hard to tell. The rain did a number on the ground. We’re pulling prints from the interior.”

  The sheriff’s eyes were fixed on Gimble. “Copy that.”

  Gimble was still looking at the cabin.

  The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. He nodded at the body. “You know what this is.”

  “Shooter number one,” Gimble replied flatly, turning back to him.

  She told him about the rifle shots, Megan Fitzgerald.

&nb
sp; “We’ve got a missing weapon, Sheriff. A rifle. I suggest you find it.” Gimble’s fingers were twitching. This didn’t make sense.

  Before he could ask her another question, she turned and went back down the hill.

  Sammy caught up with her as she approached the back of one of the FBI vans parked next to the cabin, his ever-present MacBook under his arm. “According to the fire marshal, the bullets didn’t pierce the tank. Looks like he rerouted one of the gas lines through the dryer vent. That’s why we smelled gas inside.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “I need to go to the St. Louis field office,” he told her. “I need access to several databases I can’t reach remotely.”

  She waved him off, only half listening to him. “Go.”

  None of this mattered to her. Not right now. The only thing that mattered was the person who had walked out of the woods with his hands held above his head shortly after that explosion.

  Gimble tugged at the door handle on the back of the FBI van, opened it, climbed inside, and tugged it shut behind her. She sat on a small bench above the rear wheel well and stared at Michael Kepler. “You need to tell me what the hell is going on.”

  Chapter One Hundred Six

  Gimble

  He’s got my sister,” Kepler said, attempting to lean toward her. He managed to move about two inches—his hands were cuffed to his feet, his feet were shackled to the floor of the van. The links of metal clanked as they rolled through the heavy eyebolt.

  “Who’s got your sister?”

  Michael Kepler didn’t say anything at first. He opened his mouth, ready to speak, thought better of it, then just shook his head. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “I know you’re crazy. It’s well documented. My people told me all about your medical history. You’ve killed, what, two dozen people? Three? I’m not even sure anymore.” Her face flushed red. She turned away from him for a moment, then looked him square in the eye. “Do you know how many of the bodies lying in the dirt out there were my friends?”