The Coast-to-Coast Murders

by J. D. Barker

  “I haven’t killed anyone.”

  “There will be a line of people drawing numbers to stick the needle in your arm.” She lowered her voice. “If this place weren’t crawling with cops, I’d drag your ass out of this van and put a bullet in your head myself just to be sure some lowlife attention-seeking lawyer didn’t get the chance to get you off on some insanity plea, you crazy fuck.”

  “I saw him,” Kepler said. “In the car with her.”

  “Your sister drove out of here under her own power.”

  Kepler quickly shook his head. “No. I saw him get in the car with her. That’s why I turned myself in. You need to help her.”

  “Saw who?”

  “Mitchell,” Michael said softly.

  Gimble’s eyes narrowed. “Who the hell is Mitchell?”

  “I think he might be my brother,” Michael said, but even as the words came out of his mouth, he seemed unconvinced.

  “You don’t have a brother.”

  “I remember him. I thought he was some kind of imaginary friend when I was little, something I made up. Now I’m not so sure.”

  Gimble reached into her pocket, pulled out a bottle of pills, and slammed it down on the floor between them. “Recognize those?”

  Michael hesitated, then nodded.

  “Dorozapine. An antipsychotic. Your antipsychotic. My people tell me it’s meant to treat schizophrenia, dissociative disorder. It’s meant for people like you. It’s one of many prescribed to you.”

  Michael tried to lean forward again. “If Mitchell did all this, if he killed all those people, including your friends, he’ll kill Megan. You need to stop him.”

  Gimble snickered. “You did all this. I saw you walk out of the woods holding an MP5. The same gun you used to shoot at me and at the propane tank—and at this sister you seem so worried about.”

  Kepler shook his head again. “I found the gun. Right after I saw him in the car with Megan. I picked it up, but I never fired it.” He yanked at the chains on his wrists. “Test me. You can do that, right?”

  Gimble didn’t reply.

  “I know where he’s going next.”

  Gimble stared at him for nearly a minute without a word, anger burning under her skin.

  Kepler’s eyes fixed on her. “Nicole Milligan.”

  She couldn’t take this anymore. She got out of the van, slamming the door behind her.

  She found Vela on the outside, listening.

  “I didn’t want to interrupt you,” he told her. “But I needed to hear what he said.”

  “Tell me this is all bullshit,” Gimble said, her fingers twitching.

  “You heard what Longtin told us. Fitzgerald studied Longtin in order to understand his illness. He said the doctor wanted to re-create it. If that’s true, and that’s a big if, somebody like Kepler would provide the proper template. His childhood trauma, the death of his mother, what her boyfriend did to her body while he was hiding in the closet…all of that makes him susceptible to a psychotic break. If there is a Mitchell, he exists only in Kepler’s mind. He’d see him as a real person. There’s a good chance they might even interact. Or the other personality could take over completely. It’s very possible a Mitchell personality took over, committed the crimes in Kepler’s history, and he’s totally unaware of it.”

  “He said he saw this other person in the car with his sister,” Gimble pointed out.

  Vela shrugged. “It’s very possible he did. That doesn’t mean he’s real. Hallucinations are common among those suffering from his condition.”

  The coroner’s vehicles must have arrived while she was talking to Kepler. Two men in white were loading up body bags.

  “There’s not a drop of blood on him,” Gimble said. “These people were all killed with a knife. We didn’t find that either. How do you explain that?”

  Vela shrugged again. “The knife is probably out there in the woods somewhere. All this rain, maybe that washed the blood away. I don’t know. Forensics isn’t my specialty.”

  Gimble flagged down one of the FBI investigators, a young agent, early twenties. She wore white coveralls, and her jet-black hair was pulled back. “There’s a man in this van. I need you to collect his clothing and test everything for GSR. Can you do that?”

  The agent nodded.

  Gimble added, “Take someone else with you. I want a weapon on him at all times. The cuffs stay on—cut the clothing off him if that’s what you need to do.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Special Agent Gimble, Agent Gimble, or just Gimble, but never “ma’am,” she thought. But she had much bigger problems. She knew the name Nicole Milligan. “Milligan was on that list of patient files you pulled, wasn’t she?”

  Vela nodded. “Fitzgerald treated her after she was raped.”

  “I need an address,” she told him. “Whatever contact information we have.” Gimble started to walk back toward the cabin, then stopped and turned to Vela again. “If there was a brother, there’d be a record, right?”

  “There is no brother,” Vela replied.

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  “Kepler’s birth certificate was issued by that orphanage, Windham Hall. He wasn’t in the system when they brought him in. He was most likely born outside of a hospital. If his mother gave birth to a second child, there probably wouldn’t be a record of him either.”

  “Where are you on getting into that place and pulling records?”

  “They’re not returning my calls.”

  Gimble frowned, turned away. “I told you to get the local field office out there. Did you do that?”

  “I haven’t had a chance. Things have moved too fast,” Vela replied.

  Gimble felt her face flush red. She hated repeating orders. “Get it done, right now. I want a warrant within an hour.”

  “We’ve got Kepler in custody. What’s the point?”

  Gimble turned to him, and apparently just seeing her face was enough.

  Vela raised both hands. “Okay, okay.”

  His phone was out and pressed to his ear when she stepped back into the cabin.

  Chapter One Hundred Seven

  Written Statement,

  Megan Fitzgerald

  It was the sun in my eyes that woke me. A bright red on the other side of my eyelids. I didn’t open them. I didn’t want him to know I was awake.

  We were driving again.

  Beside me, Michael was drumming on the steering wheel, humming along to “Angela” by the Lumineers, and for one fleeting moment, everything was all right again. Michael and I were just on another road trip, one of his deliveries for work, windows down, morning air blowing through our hair.

  The side of my head throbbed, and I remembered the butt of the rifle coming down on me, crashing into my skull, Michael at the other end of it.

  “Christ, Meg, why did you make me do that?” he said from beside me. “You’re the last person I want to hurt.”

  I felt his hand on my leg. He squeezed my knee. “You’re all I’ve got.”

  His fingers were cold.

  I opened my eyes.

  Shards of glass from the shattered window sparkled in the carpet, on the dashboard, the center console. This was the second time I’d woken up in this car.

  Michael gave my knee another squeeze and smiled at me. “There’s my girl.”

  My hands were bound with duct tape; my ankles too.

  I was wearing a different pair of blue jeans.

  “I’m afraid you wet yourself earlier, when you fell asleep,” Michael said. “I had to change your clothes, clean you up. Couldn’t have you sitting in that filth.” He smiled again. “Don’t feel bad about it or embarrassed. It happens, I understand. It would have been better if it didn’t happen, but it did, so I took care of it.”

  I tried not to react to this, but the muscles in my legs clenched anyway. Michael must have felt it. His hand left my knee and returned to the steering wheel as the Lumineers made way for Mumford and Sons. He star
ted humming again.

  “Michael, what are you doing? Where are we going?”

  Speaking aloud, the movement of it, caused my head to ache. I squeezed my eyes shut against the pain for a moment.

  Michael glanced at me, a sympathetic look in his eyes. “I’d offer you a painkiller, but I’m afraid I don’t have anything.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  He smiled again, his gaze back on the road. “We’re going home, Meg. We still need to have a chat with Dr. Rose and Mr. Patchen. Of course, there’s Dr. Bart’s funeral today. Neither of us should miss that. Dr. Rose would be horribly upset, don’t you think?” He glanced down at the dash. “We’re making great time, though. I think we’ll be able to knock out everything with time to spare as long as we don’t run into any traffic or weather. And look at that sky…it’s shaping up to be a spectacular day.”

  “Michael, I think we should go to the police,” I said. “Turn ourselves in.”

  He only stared forward.

  I craned my head to look in the back seat. Our bags were still there. “We’ve got Dr. Bart’s files. If we turn in everything, they’ll understand. They’ll have to listen to us. None of this is your fault. He did this to you.”

  “You make it sound like a bad thing.”

  “You’ve hurt people, Michael. A lot of people.”

  “I’ve freed us. You and me. Don’t you see that? All of this is for us. With Dr. Bart out there, his patients out there, Dr. Rose—we’d never be free. Someone would always know about us. With them gone, we’re free. Finally free. All I’ve done is fix things, restore to us what is rightfully ours. I’ve taken our lives back.” He turned to me briefly, then looked back at the road. “They locked you up at night like some kind of animal. That will never happen again. I won’t let it.”

  “If we turn in the files,” I said, “they will listen to us. They’ll help you. Michael, please—I don’t want to see anyone else get hurt!”

  He clucked his tongue. “You really need to stop calling me Michael.”

  He pulled the wheel hard to the right and just barely made the off-ramp for a rest stop. The tires wrestled with the pavement as he slammed on the brakes and skidded. Somehow, he managed to maintain control. He steered the car off to the edge of the parking lot, next to a metal trash barrel, and threw it in park.

  “What are you doing?”

  He just shook his head. “Stay there.”

  As if I had a choice. As if I had a say in my current location.

  Michael reached into the back seat, grabbed my bag with Dr. Bart’s files, and got out. He dumped the contents of my bag into the trash barrel.

  “Michael, what—”

  “I’m not going to tell you again—stop calling me that.”

  He pulled a lighter from his pocket, ignited it, and lit one of the pages. The flames ate the paper, curling the page, glowing red, black, to gray dust. And when he couldn’t hold it any longer, he dropped it into the barrel with the rest. Within moments, flames were leaping up into the air. He watched it all, expressionless.

  I tugged at the tape on my wrists, but I couldn’t get it loose.

  From behind me, from inside the trunk of the car, someone started to beat against the back seat.

  Chapter One Hundred Eight

  Written Statement,

  Megan Fitzgerald

  “Michael, what’s that?”

  Michael gave me a sideways glance and waved a finger through the air. “Nope, nope, little sister. What did I tell you?”

  “Is that Nicole Milligan?” I craned my head toward the back seat, but I couldn’t see anything.

  “ ‘Is that Nicole Milligan…Mitchell.’”

  “You seriously want me to call you Mitchell?”

  “That would be the polite thing to do. It’s my name.”

  I looked around the seat, at our bags in the back. “Take one of your pills, Michael. The dorozapine. That will help. It’s not too late to fix this.”

  “Are you trying to make me go away already? We’ve got so much catching up to do. I’ve missed you.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’ve missed fresh air. I’ve missed the sound of traffic. You have no idea what it’s like to be hidden away from the world, not even forgotten, but unknown, a footnote nobody wants to write. I’ve been trapped in a jar. A caged rat locked away in the lab. It’s my time now. I’ve earned that.” Opening his eyes, he walked back to my side of the car, the fire burning behind him. His hand came in through the window, and he stroked my cheek. “It’s our time, Meg. Finally. When this is over, we can go wherever you want. I’ve got money stashed away. Passports and credit cards for both of us. We can disappear, just the two of us, and put everything else in the rearview mirror.”

  “There’s no escaping this,” I told him. “Your picture is all over the news. You’re on the cover of every newspaper. Websites. The last time I checked, the reward was around five hundred thousand dollars. Where do you think you can hide?”

  He was shaking his head. “Not my picture—his. They’re looking for Michael, not me.”

  “But you’re—”

  He pressed a finger to my lips. “Don’t say it. Don’t taint this for me. They wanted to hang a Kepler by the neck, so I gave them one. I’d be willing to bet they’re not even looking for me anymore.”

  I shook my head away from his finger. “What are you talking about?”

  “You read the files, Meg. It’s all right there.”

  “Michael, I don’t—”

  The back of his hand crashed across my jaw, slamming my head into the headrest. I raised my bound hands to my face and felt the warm trickle of blood from the corner of my cracked lip.

  “Michael is dead.” He said the words slowly, deliberately. Restrained. “Don’t call me that. Never again. Do you understand? They have their Michael, their one hundred and eighty-five pounds of flesh. He’s dead. There’s just us now, and as long as we stay together, as long as we have each other, everything will be okay.”

  “Mitchell…” The name felt wrong on my lips, but I said it anyway. “What about me, Mitchell? They’re looking for me too. I can’t hide from this. I’m all over the news too.”

  Nicole Milligan was beating against the back of the seat again, kicking the lid of the trunk. I could hear her muffled cries. I think I figured it out a moment before Mitchell said it aloud.

  “Nicki always reminded me of you, Meg. I’m not gonna lie—there were times when I pretended she was you. When I wanted her to be you. Seems fitting, don’t you think?”

  He looked back at me, determination in his gaze. “Aside from her, there are only two other people left who know the truth. I’ll make quick work of them—you can help me if you want to. Then we’ll be free. Finally free.”

  His hand ran through my hair, brushed it back. When his touch went to my bare shoulder, when I felt his fingers against my skin, my body tensed. “The two of us together, Meg. Can you imagine? I hope you can. I’ve thought about nothing else for as long as I can remember. That’s what kept me going, got me through it all. All those sessions with Dr. Bart. His little games. I’d have gone mad without you there. Knowing you were so close. I used to have a sweater of yours. I’d bury my face in it when Dr. Bart finally left me. I’d lose myself in your scent. I’d think of your smile, your delicate hands.”

  He reached to my lip, wiped the blood away. “I love your laugh, Meg. I always have. I promise, when this is all over, you will laugh again. I’ll make you so happy. You’re all that matters to me.”

  He looked down at his right wrist, then his left. His watch was gone. “We need to get moving. Patchen will be expecting us by now. After that, we’ve got a funeral to attend. We’ll say our final goodbyes to Dr. Rose and be on our way. Two adopted lab rats, finally free.”

  He leaned through the window.

  Mitchell leaned through the window.

  And he kissed me. As Nicole Milligan screamed from the trunk, he kissed me, and I thought
good and hard about biting him. In the interest of self-preservation, I held still.

  Chapter One Hundred Nine

  Gimble

  Test him again,” Gimble said with frustration, staring at the tech.

  The investigator just stood there. “I’ve tested him three times. There is zero gunshot residue on him or his clothing. He hasn’t fired a weapon recently. I tested for blood spatter too, and that came up negative.”

  “The rain washed it all away—had to be all the rain,” Gimble said, thinking out loud.

  The investigator shook her head again. “It doesn’t work that way. Visible signs, maybe, but barium and antimony can’t be washed away. You can’t even scrub them away. A casual douse in the rain wouldn’t do it, no way. I’m confident in the results.”

  Gimble said, “Maybe he wore gloves and tossed them in the woods?”

  “I tested his neck and his face in addition to everything else. People assume GSR only appears on the hands, but that’s not true—it gets everywhere. There’s blowback. Minute traces, mind you, but it would be there.”

  “This man hasn’t fired a gun?”

  “No, ma’am. I don’t believe so.”

  She hadn’t heard Vela come up behind her. He was holding his phone out. “I’m on with the local PD at Milligan’s place. You’ll want to hear this.” He raised the phone to his mouth. “Officer, I’ve got you on speaker with Special Agent Jessica Gimble. Can you repeat what you just told me?”

  Gimble pressed a hand over one ear and leaned in close to try and hear him over all the noise.

  Vela’s thumb pressed the volume button several times, raising it to the maximum.

  “…arrived here about thirty minutes ago in response to a neighbor’s noise complaint. Looks like someone busted out a car window in the street out front. The vehicle is gone but plenty of glass left behind. I found obvious signs of a break-in at the house—the front door was kicked in. The interior has been substantially vandalized. I’ve got a bullet buried in the wall near the front door. Looks like a rifle slug. Interior damage indicates a possible struggle. Four more bullet holes in the wall of a back bedroom from a small-caliber weapon. I’ve got blood on the floor in that room too, more on the floor in a hallway. Not enough to be fatal. We recovered all four slugs from the wall, no blood on them, so whatever caused the injury didn’t originate with those shots.”