The Coast-to-Coast Murders

by J. D. Barker

  All three of them stared at me like I was some kind of crazy person.

  Jessica told Sammy to play the video again.

  Nicole said, “She slammed me against the wall. She was so strong, incredibly strong. I managed to get hold of a pair of scissors and I stabbed her in the shoulder. Then I ran. I got outside and made it into her car, but I couldn’t get it started. It looked like it had been hot-wired or something. I tried, but she knocked me out. She had a rifle and she hit me with it.”

  Sammy paused the video again. The three of them looked at me.

  “This is bullshit,” I said, fuming. “That’s not what happened.”

  Jessica leaned toward me. “Show us your shoulder, Megan. Your left shoulder.”

  “What?”

  Jessica pulled the corner of her own tank top off her shoulder. “Just a quick peek among friends.”

  “No way.”

  “We’ll get a warrant.”

  I crossed my arms.

  “If she didn’t stab you, what do you have to worry about?” Detective Dobbs said.

  “I hurt my shoulder at Windham Hall when I was trying to get away from Mitchell.”

  “Show us.”

  I glared at all of them, then stood. “You know what? I’ve got nothing to hide.” I reached behind my back, tugged down the zipper of my dress, turned around, and pulled the top down. “When I crawled under the bed, trying to help Nicole, I got caught on a nail or something sticking out of the floor. Or maybe it was on the bed frame, I’m not really sure. But she didn’t stab me—nobody stabbed me.”

  A camera flashed behind me. I covered myself and spun around. Jessica set her phone down on the table. “You can get dressed now.”

  I turned around and pulled the top of my dress back up. “I told you.”

  “A doctor should look at that. It may be infected,” Jessica said.

  I fell back into my seat. “It’s just a bad scratch. She’s lying. I don’t know why, but she’s lying, and all of you are buying it.”

  Sammy was fiddling with his computer again. “Do you know what a Ring doorbell is, Megan?”

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Six

  Megan

  I’ve seen the commercials.”

  “It’s a smart doorbell,” Sammy said, “with a motion sensor and a camera. Any time the doorbell detects motion, it records it and uploads the video to the cloud. Nicole Milligan had one installed when she realized someone was killing off people associated with Dr. Fitzgerald.”

  Jessica tried to take my hand. I pulled away. “This will be disturbing for you, but you need to see it,” she said.

  Sammy turned the MacBook toward me.

  The footage was grainy, shot in the dark with infrared. Black-and-white.

  Me, running from the car in front of Nicole’s house to the front door, a rifle in my hand.

  Mitchell’s voice: “Hey, Nicki! Knock-knock!”

  I kicked the door in, ran inside.

  Mitchell again: “Was that our buddy Larry on the line? Did you say hello for me?”

  “This is bullshit!” I shouted. “It’s fake! Somebody doctored it, like those photoshopped pictures of Michael and Alyssa!”

  Jessica wasn’t watching the video; her eyes were on me. “Show her the other one.”

  He clicked on a thumbnail image on the screen.

  Nicole ran from the front door and scrambled into the driver’s seat of the car. A moment later, I came out, the rifle in my hands. I brought the butt of the gun down into the car window, shattering the glass. Nicole screamed. I brought it down again, smashed it against her head.

  “Stop!” I shouted.

  Sammy did.

  The screen froze with me leaning through the destroyed car window on the driver’s side, my hand on Nicole’s throat.

  “Give me an iPhone and ten minutes, and I could put you in that video,” I said. “I don’t know who’s doing this or why, but it’s not real. None of this. Somebody is trying to frame me just like they did Michael.” Then I got it. I understood. They were all in on it. “Did Mitchell work for you? Is that why you’re protecting him?”

  “Let’s talk about Molly,” Jessica said.

  “Who?”

  “The manager at the motel in Needles. Did you kill her because she saw your face?”

  “What? No. I…”

  “Erma Eads too, right? She could identify you. You couldn’t have that. You’ve never left a witness. Her brother, Roland…it was you who shot him in the parking garage, wasn’t it?”

  I could feel my heart beating hard; my cheeks burned. I was trembling. I wanted to jump across the table.

  Jessica produced the pill bottle again and pushed it toward me. “Are you sure you don’t want one of these?”

  I snatched up the medication and threw the bottle against the far wall. “I don’t need the goddamn pills! Why are you protecting Mitchell?”

  Jessica placed her palms on the table. “Megan, there is no Mitchell. There never was.”

  “You’re insane,” I shot back. “All of you.”

  Jessica ignored me and went on. “Your housekeeper, Ms. Neace, she told us Dr. Fitzgerald created a Mitchell persona, down to the finest details. He tried to instill it in Michael, tried for years, but it didn’t work, so he moved on. He moved on to you. And it did work with you. Fitzgerald subjected you to the same treatment, the same torture, as Michael. You just don’t remember.”

  “No way.”

  “She said you sometimes spent days as Mitchell, even weeks, and while you were him, Dr. Fitzgerald would lock you in that room in the basement at Windham Hall to observe you, to document everything. He and Patchen would sneak you in and out through the back door so none of the residents saw you. Neace said you were only six years old the first time. This has been going on your entire life. If the Mitchell persona presented while you were home, if Mitchell was on the mark and they didn’t have time to get you to Windham Hall, they’d lock you in your room.” Gimble paused for a second, considering this. “At some point, you figured out how to get out, or Mitchell figured out how to get out, and that’s when the killings began. You, Mitchell—you used Michael as cover and went after everyone who knew the truth.”

  “I’d never hurt anyone.” Then I remembered something. “Mitchell’s birth certificate! Nicole had it hidden in her house, in a music box!”

  Detective Dobbs gave Jessica an awkward glance. “You mentioned that in your statement, the birth certificate, so we asked Nicole about it. She said she had a cassette tape hidden in the music box and you took it, not a birth certificate. She made copies and gave us one.”

  He reached back down into his box and took out a microcassette recorder. He set it in the center of the table and thumbed the Play button. My heart thudded as I heard Dr. Bart’s voice.

  “We’re so close,” Dr. Bart said. “Do you feel it? Like electricity in the air. It’s damn near palpable. Thick and tingly. The hair on my arms is standing up.”

  I’d heard it before. The conversation I heard over the phone at Nicole’s house.

  Dr. Bart went on. “If you have to kill her, you can. I promise you, there will be no repercussions. I’ll dispose of her body. You need not worry about that. She won’t be missed. Isn’t that right, sweetie? Nobody loves you. Poor little trashy thing.”

  My heart beat against my rib cage like an angry kettledrum.

  “Do you feel it?” Dr. Bart asked again, his voice anxious, a fever to it. “Who is on the mark?” he asked softly.

  Silence then.

  The longest silence.

  “Mitchell. Mitchell is on the mark.”

  “How can I be sure?”

  “I have no reason to lie,” the voice told Dr. Bart.

  My voice.

  I heard him cluck his tongue the way he used to do. Twice. Then another. “If you kill her, I’ll believe you.”

  “Okay.”

  The voice was deep, thick, far lower than usual, nearly identical to Michael’s,
to Mitchell’s, but unmistakably mine.

  I had been shaking my head without even realizing it. The word no slipped from my lips over and over again, and I had to bite my tongue to get it to stop.

  Dobbs switched off the tape.

  I twisted my hands together, pulled my index finger back, and welcomed the pain it brought, anything to distract me from this. “I killed Mitchell,” I finally said in a low voice. “He was trying to hurt Michael. That’s what I did.”

  Jessica’s hand found mine again. This time I didn’t pull away.

  She said, “Megan, I don’t know how to tell you this. There’s no easy way, so I’m going to just come right out and say it. You killed Michael. If you somehow saw Mitchell, thought he was Mitchell, it was a hallucination. Nicole saw you go after Michael with the scissors. She tried to stop you, but you were too strong. You overpowered her.”

  My eyes welled up with tears. I tried to speak; couldn’t. My entire body trembled, this unbelievable cold enveloping me, eating me.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  Someone knocked on the door. The three of them looked up, not me. I glanced at my wrist, at a watch that wasn’t there.

  Mitchell came into the room in a blur, the scissors with the purple handle in his grip. He went for Jessica first, diving through the air. He crashed into her, and the scissors sank into her neck. He pulled them out and stabbed again; her blood spurted across the wall.

  Dobbs tried to stand, tugging at his gun, while Mitchell pounced on—

  The knock again.

  The door opened.

  “Agent Gimble?”

  No Mitchell.

  Not now.

  Not ever.

  The man standing there was in his mid-fifties, bald except for a ring of gray hair. He wore a dark suit and a maroon tie, had thin glasses perched on his nose. “The assistant director would like to have a word with you.” He nodded at Dobbs. “You too.” He told the IT guy he was wanted on level two.

  As he said these things, he glanced at me. I could only imagine I looked a fright.

  Jessica was looking at me too. “Wait here, Megan. We’ll be right back.”

  Seemed like a silly thing for her to say, since they locked the door behind them.

  Michael was standing in the hallway, watching me through the window. I wiped away the tears and smiled at him.

  He told me what to do.

  Everything would be all right.

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Seven

  Gimble

  Gimble and Dobbs followed the agent down a series of hallways; Gimble had been told his name but couldn’t remember it. Her brain was a muddled mess. As they walked, he rattled off additional information—the case was moving fast.

  “We’ve got another body.”

  “What?”

  “A kid named Roy Beagle. He worked the Sharper Image counter at Laughlin/Bullhead International Airport near Needles, California. They found him locked inside a Mamava pod, strangled, with his pants around his ankles. He had a feather sticking out of his mouth. Been there at least four days. Cleaning crew found him.”

  “Jesus,” Gimble muttered.

  Dobbs asked, “What’s a Mamava pod?”

  “Nursing station for mothers. They’re in all the major airports now,” the agent replied. “We also found her prints on the MP5 recovered on the edge of the woods back at Longtin’s cabin. The investigating officer believes she was the one firing on the propane tank and that she dropped the weapon a moment or two before she came into view. Voice analysis proves you were speaking to her, not Kepler, over the comm system. Same thing at the truck stop when you were in the helicopter.”

  “She sounded just like him.”

  “She believed she was him,” the agent said. “We think she set the SUV on fire after she left your line of sight and used the explosion as a distraction to kill the sniper.”

  “Or Michael killed him—we may never know.” Gimble’s fingers were twitching.

  “The ballistics are a mess. According to forensics, the round we recovered from the Honda’s door was a nine-millimeter and originated from the cabin, not the sniper’s rifle. The angle’s all wrong.”

  “Vela,” Dobbs said softly.

  “Had to be,” Gimble replied.

  “That’s not what I mean,” Dobbs said.

  And when she looked up through the open door of SAIC Paul Grimsley’s office, she understood. Assistant Director Warren Beckner had flown in from New York that morning and taken over the space. He stood behind Grimsley’s desk. Special Agent Omer Vela was sitting in a chair opposite him, a cup of coffee in his hand.

  “What the hell is he doing here?” Gimble spat, charging into the room.

  Beckner raised a hand. “Control yourself, Agent.”

  Her face burned. “He sabotaged this investigation! He tried to kill me! I have reason to believe he released Michael Kepler, an action that led to the man’s death. We also have evidence that he took unauthorized shots at Megan Fitzgerald—this man should be in custody!”

  “Lower your voice and take a seat, Agent,” Beckner told her. “Detective, come in and close that door behind you.”

  Dobbs looked at Gimble, then closed the door.

  Beckner placed both hands on the desk and appeared lost in thought. When he looked back up at Gimble, he sighed. “We seem to have extenuating circumstances.”

  “No shit,” Gimble said.

  “I left my patience back in the city, Gimble. Don’t push me. Not today,” Beckner said. He picked up a sheet of paper from the desk, traced the edge with his index finger, then put it back down. “Apparently, Dr. Vela is not who he originally presented himself to be when he joined your team.”

  Gimble glared. “No—”

  Beckner silenced her with a glance. “He doesn’t fall under my purview. He’s not with the Department of Justice, not with the Bureau.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “So who is he with?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  Dobbs took a step forward. “Defense? DoD?”

  Beckner’s face betrayed nothing.

  Vela took a sip of his coffee.

  Gimble’s eyes didn’t leave Vela. “That’s it, isn’t it? Department of Defense?”

  “Things have gotten out of hand, and I’m here to put the train back on the rails,” Vela said.

  She turned to Beckner. “I don’t care who signs his checks. Are you aware he has a history with Fitzgerald? There’s a good chance he knew Megan Fitzgerald was our unsub prior to joining the investigation—he withheld information that could have prevented the deaths of more than a dozen people.”

  Vela took another sip of coffee. “I’m here to tell you, Megan Fitzgerald is not your unsub.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Newspapers, television, the internet…they all have Michael Kepler as your killer. That’s the narrative we’re going with. Any contradicting information you may have learned is to be treated as classified,” Vela told her.

  Gimble’s face somehow grew redder. “Narrative? This isn’t some kind of story you can shape and edit! Kepler may not be one hundred percent innocent in all this, but he certainly isn’t a killer. It was Megan all along! We found propofol in her locker at Cornell—the same drug used to kill Alyssa Tepper. She planted Michael’s DNA at the crime scenes. We can place her at each murder. We’ve got numerous phone calls between her and Roland Eads up until the hours before he was killed—looks like Eads was trying to build a case against Fitzgerald and that guy Patchen. He stole substantial amounts of information from Windham Hall. We found it hidden in a crawl space under his house. Megan most likely shot him in cold blood while her brother sat right beside him! We just found another body—some kid at the airport who—”

  Vela interrupted. “The boy at the airport will be ruled an unrelated isolated incident. As far as the rest, the recently deceased Michael Kepler is your killer. Megan Fitzgerald had absolutely nothing to do with any of it. In fact, whe
n she attempted to convince her adoptive brother to turn himself in, he kidnapped her. She was lucky to escape with her life. Somehow, she even managed to rescue his final victim. Anything she might have told you that’s contradictory to this is due to her current fragile mental state—her confusion and shock. She’s been horribly traumatized and is in need of care. I’m here to see that she gets that care at a properly equipped facility.”

  “Oh no.” Gimble shook her head. “You’re not taking her.”

  “‘Do you have any idea who was funding him?’” Dobbs muttered to himself.

  “What?”

  “That’s what the Fitzgerald housekeeper told us,” he said. “‘You don’t report that kind of thing. Not if you want to live.’ Fitzgerald wasn’t some rogue doctor; he was working for someone. Whomever Vela here answers to.”

  Gimble turned back to the doctor. “Who? NSA? CIA?”

  Vela said, “Kepler fits the profile. Frankly, he fits better than Megan ever could. All those bodies—the press wants someone like Kepler, expects someone like Kepler.”

  Beckner sat on the corner of the desk. “Megan Fitzgerald is mentally ill. If we attempted to prosecute, she’d never see the interior of a courtroom, you know that. She wouldn’t answer for these crimes. She’d end up in the care of competent doctors, which is where she belongs. This is best for her. As far as the press goes, the people need closure. Kepler provides that. This is the proper solution to protect all interests.”

  Gimble huffed. “I don’t believe this! Whose orders are you following?”

  He held up the sheet of paper. “If I could show you whose signature is on this document, you wouldn’t be arguing with anyone right now.”