[2017] The Extraction

by Steven F Freeman

  An image of the criminal’s personality forms in my mind. Organized…angry…low-key…keeping his emotions in check while he constructs elaborate revenge plans. Oswald Pritchard, Evan’s dad, matches this description to a T. Even though his son admitted to his crimes, Oswald instructed Fitzroy Academy to bar my entrance to their property. Talk about holding a grudge. Was his anger sufficient to carry out a revenge plot? Judging from today’s events, the answer appears to be “yes.”

  At the end of twenty minutes, I reach the end of the school’s long perimeter road, arriving back at the main entrance.

  Nothing.

  I park the security car next to the curb and ring Sampson. “Sorry for earlier. Look, I just drove all over the school grounds. I can’t find anything that matches the last line of the poem. Do you have any ideas?”

  “Grinder, I’ve never even been to that school.”

  Exiting the car, I begin to pace, all the while continuing with fading hopes to scan for something, anything, that connects with the final clue.

  I reach the edge of the landscaped circle that greets all incoming traffic. Decorative plants of various sizes fill the space, and a low wall of red brick runs along its rear border.

  My roving eyes land on the wall. And my heart skips a beat before accelerating. “Sampson, I think the answer to the last clue is right in front of me.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Trin’s heart pounds, and her mouth turns as dry as the Sahara, rendering speech difficult.

  The mechanical voice chuckles—an evil, robotic noise. “Yes, you heard me right. I will kill you.”

  Time to think fast. Pushing back a surge of terror, Trin purses her lips in a desperate attempt to wet them enough to speak. “Why bring me here if that was really your intention? If you were going to kill me, you would have already.”

  “Wrong. I need you to live a while until…until a certain deadline is reached. Then sayonara, chicky.”

  The kidnapper must be using some kind of voice disguiser. There’s no way he could type responses for his phone to read off so quickly.

  “Why would you do that?” asks Trin.

  “Even as we speak, your fiancé is desperately looking for you. I gave him a very specific interval in which to find you before you die.”

  “You must not know Decimus,” says Trin. “He’ll find me.”

  “I do know him, and I assure you he won’t.”

  “In that case, why not kill me now?” says Trin. “Your story still doesn’t fit together.”

  “Ahh, but it does. And that’s because I not only know Farr, but I know him better than you do.”

  “Explain,” says Trin, her mouth drying out again.

  “When the police find your body, their forensics team will tell him your exact time of death. If I bump you off now, before the deadline, he’ll go on the warpath. He’ll hunt me down for as long as it takes to find me. But if I wait until after he runs out of time, he’ll know he failed you. He’ll beat himself up about it forever. Will he hunt for me? Yeah, but his heart won’t be in it. After a while, he’ll give up. And I’ll be safe.”

  “When is this deadline?” asks Trin.

  “That’s my little secret,” says the voice with a hint of glee. “But don’t worry, you’ll find out soon enough.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “Really?” Sampson asks me. “What clue is right in front of you?”

  Mounted to the middle of the landscaping wall is an ornate carving.

  “The school crest is on a wall a few dozen yards away,” I reply. “The outside of the crest is formed by curved swords. The steel blades meet at the tips.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Curved swords. Where history’s bent. It fits.”

  “I guess.” She sounds dubious. Of course, she usually did when we worked together. “Only one way to find out.”

  “Already on my way,” I huff as I run towards the carving. “I’ll call you later.”

  I reach the crest. The next box should be buried around here. Heavy chips of pine bark coat the ground within the landscaping area. Have any of them been disturbed recently? Automatic sprinklers have recently soaked the entire landscaping circle, rendering it impossible to tell if any mulch has been moved.

  Oblivious to the muddy soil, I fall to my knees and begin brushing aside the chips directly under the crest.

  Bingo!

  A wooden surface lies flush with the ground. Another moment of digging reveals edges, and I pull the container from its shallow hole. It’s another pine box, identical to the one I found at the FBI building’s fire pit.

  Pine—the kind of wood used in old days to make coffins. Coincidence? Or warning? No time to worry about that now. Or ponder the question of how someone entered these secure grounds to bury the box. At this moment, my only priority is reading the note.

  Dirt clods tumble off as I flip open the top of the box.

  Like before, a folded sheet of white paper with “Farr” printed across it constitutes the container’s only contents.

  I unfold the paper and read the next set of clues, the next step on the path to save Trin.

  City folk don’t understand country people

  Rich folk don’t understand the poor

  When a rich city man attacks a poor country lady

  A rich city judge will convict the lady for sure

  Suffering souls don’t get no justice

  Innocent women must take a stand

  Go back to the source of vengeance for ladies

  Where the juice of justice taints the land

  The pattern of this note matches the last one in an unexpected way. An easy clue in the first stanza references a particular criminal I’ve helped catch in the past. But surprisingly, the offender isn’t Evan Pritchard. This second note points to Edna Haas, another criminal.

  The poem’s second stanza, which contains the more challenging clue, presumably gives some information for finding the next box of clues—although at the moment there’s no telling what it means.

  The investigation of Edna concluded about six or seven years ago. I’ll need to pull the old case files to make heads or tails of that second clue.

  I stow the pine box in the back of my Malibu, then jump into the driver’s seat and twist the key in the ignition. The engine turns but doesn’t catch. Why now?

  In desperation, I crank the engine several more times in rapid succession before it fires up. Breathing a sigh of relief, I peel out of the parking lot and hit the road.

  A glance at my watch reveals we’re down to twenty hours. A six o’clock sun dips low in the November sky. Like blood from a wound, panic starts to gush up. After a moment, I restrain it by focusing on the latest note’s message.

  I dial up Sampson and provide an update on the latest box of clues. “I’m headed to you to drop off the box so forensics can take a look,” I tell her. “In the meantime, can you bring up the Edna Haas file and have it ready for me when I arrive?”

  “Sure. And I’ll look to see if anything in those last two lines of the poem connects to the case details.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be there shortly.”

  I rocket eastward through city streets, heading back to the regional FBI building. Good thing it’s not too far away.

  As I weave between cars traveling at merely the speed limit, my cellphone rings. Probably Sampson again. I activate it without glancing down at the caller ID.

  “Hey, it’s me. Mom wants to know if you can bring a bottle of Chianti to dinner.”

  Shit! I forgot all about tonight’s plans with my mom and Dani, my twin sister. “Hey, I’m sorry, but I can’t make it.”

  “Dec…” she begins in that warning voice of hers, the one that says you’re gonna get shit from mom if you’re a no show again.

  “I know. Sorry. Trust me, I’d come if I could.” She recognizes my tone of voice, too. The one that says something serious is going down.

  Given that we’re twins, it shouldn’t come as mu
ch of a surprise to hear that Danica, ‘Dani’ for short, and I are super close…have been our entire lives. Close enough to say a lot without speaking much at all, a pair of introverts who accepted each other as best friends.

  Dani’s the only person who shortens my full name, Decimus, to ‘Dec.’ During our early teen years, we were vacationing at our parents’ summer house, a cozy A-frame on the shore of Lake Lanier, a sprawling reservoir just north of Atlanta. She and I were sitting together on a blazing August day, dangling our feet off a deck that runs straight out from the house’s back door. In a flash of inspiration, she concocted the nickname when she realized a shortened version of my name sounded like our wooden platform.

  “I’m calling you Dec from now on,” she said. “Hey, Dec! How ya doin’?”

  I threw her off my namesake into the water, but the nickname stuck. To her credit, she didn’t rat on me when Dad asked how she got all wet. It’s like that with twins. You can give each other hell, but no one else had better try it. And you have a friend for life, someone you can tell anything. Or…almost anything. During my profiling career, I shared almost everything about my work, but I did fudge a few of the most gruesome casework details, for her sake. No need for both of us to have nightmares.

  Dani takes the hint from my voice. “I’ll let Mom know we need to reschedule.”

  “Thanks.”

  She laughs. “No worries. It’s not like it’s the first time.” She shifts to a more serious tone. “Oh…Sherri called again.”

  “Sorry. Did you tell her to not bug you anymore?”

  “Like I always do,” she replies in a tired voice. “But you know how much that works.”

  Sherri is my ex. Some might say my crazy ex. But I know crazy, and she’s not that. Possessive and insecure? Yes. But not crazy. Four years ago, we divorced after barely a year of marriage. She couldn’t take the demands of my job. And I couldn’t take the demands of her. Not that I blame her completely. It takes a special kind of person to be the spouse of an FBI agent, and she didn’t fit the mold. But to be honest, that kind of interpersonal conflict is another reason I quit the Bureau. My work wasn’t draining only me. It took a lot out of those around me. Some people thrive in profiling work. Turns out I didn’t. I may have the knack, but I don’t have the temperament to live in a world of psychopaths day in and day out. Maybe if I’d had a spouse as supportive as Sampson’s, I would have lasted longer, but who’s to say? I only know that having a self-absorbed wife who bailed in a matter of months hastened the end of my career, as she never offered the support I needed to make the job more tolerable.

  “I’ll talk to her,” I tell Dani. “Or on second thought, I’ll text her. But I won’t be able to get to it today.” I don’t mention Sherri already texted me an hour ago. Of course, I didn’t reply, not with today’s craziness going down. I tried blocking Sherri on my phone after our divorce, but she called my mom and sister incessantly, harassing them until I unblocked her. She always did know how to get my goat, like “surprising” me with a tour of the viewing platform on top of the Empire State Building during our New York vacation when she knew damn well I’m pathologically afraid of heights.

  “Dec,” says Dani. “Is everything okay?” She can always tell when something’s bothering me.

  Like before, no need to burden her with my issues. Besides, I’ve nearly arrived at my destination, and I can’t afford to delay once I’m there. “Yeah. Just a lot going on today. I’ll have more time to talk later this week.”

  We end the call as I pull into the FBI building’s parking lot.

  But what about the latest note? The pattern of clues was the same as the previous one. But I’d swear someone different wrote this last one: the rhythm, meter and, frankly, skills of this author fall far short of the earlier notes. And this new poem contains only two stanzas, not three.

  Edna Haas herself is still doing time. Does this mean the families of two criminals have teamed up to work this kidnapping?

  CHAPTER 15

  Trin wishes she could wipe away the tear that has tracked down her cheek. But her wrists remain bound to the bedpost. She twists her head and uses her shoulder to get the job done.

  The mechanical voice of her captor has remained silent for a quarter hour. Is he still there, watching her? There’s no way to be sure.

  She shakes her head in frustration, sending strands of tangled ebony hair tumbling down, where they stick to the tears on her face.

  The irony of this kidnapping happening now, at this point in her life, doesn’t escape her.

  For the first time in her thirty-two years, she had felt at peace with herself and her future. After escaping her “we-were-too-young” first marriage, she had been happy to drift away from romance, finding contentment instead in friendships and her fascinating line of work.

  It was through that work she met Decimus Farr, whose easygoing manner hid one of the brightest minds she had ever known. Unlike many of her male colleagues, he had never shown an interest in dating, at least during the first months of their acquaintance. Of course, during that time, they had only spoken over the phone.

  Then, finally, they met in person. The sparkle in his eyes matched her accelerating heart rate. She never would have guessed Decimus’ gentle voice was housed in a muscular frame that looked to have walked right off the gridiron. He was a bit older than her, but his rugged good looks hadn’t suffered from the years.

  After that first encounter, they met for coffee. The man’s quiet interest in her life and quick perception of the joys and challenges of her job had surprised her. His lack of braggadocio about his own job had surprised her even more. Only over time, on successive outings, had she learned of his FBI career—how he had excelled in a role that took its inexorable toll. To survive, Decimus hid his vulnerability from everyone…everyone but her. Even then, he hadn’t exactly made a blubbering confession. Rather, she had witnessed the pain in his eyes on those rare occasions he spoke of his former FBI life. A wave of anxiety would wash over his face and disappear as soon as the dialogue of past death and destruction ceased. No wonder he had switched to Atlas Insurance. From there, he could apply his analytical skills without immersing himself in the world of psychopaths all day. Yes, he investigated fraud, but rarely did this crime involve murder and mayhem.

  The abrasive effects of Decimus’ profiler role had sandpapered him down to a gentle, genuine man—a person who, having seen the darkest side of human nature, appreciated all the more life’s bright moments. And so Trin and Decimus seemed to feed off each other, he drawing strength from her bubbly positivism, and she blooming under the sunshine of his attentive care. He really did treat her like a queen, perhaps more than she deserved. But since no one complains of getting more than they deserve, she hadn’t, either.

  Then he proposed. It was a cliché to say that it was the happiest day of her life, but it truly was. They filled whole evenings with plans of the life they would build together, dreams they shared.

  And now…this. Days or perhaps hours away from dying at the hands of a madman. Will she ever learn why? And will Decimus ever learn of her fate?

  She wishes there were some way to write a final note to him. Some way to tell him how much his love has meant to her, how the past year has been a dream come true. But even if the opportunity doesn’t arise, Decimus already knows this. She’s confessed it to him many times since their engagement.

  She thinks of his beautiful, blue eyes. And in doing so, another tear escapes from her own.

  CHAPTER 16

  Hurried steps bring me to Sampson’s desk. She sends the latest pine box and note to forensics for testing, then returns her attention to me. “What do you make of it?”

  “Seems like a different author to me. Edna herself or someone else on her behalf. Probably a family member or friend. If so, what’s the connection to Pritchard?”

  “I remember the Pritchard case, but not so much the Edna Haas one. I pulled the Haas files and glanced through them bu
t didn’t finish. What was that all about?”

  In a flash, the details of the case—a difficult one to summarize—flood my mind. Sometimes an extreme crisis can have that kind of restorative effect. Thank God I won’t have to waste time sifting through the case files after all.

  Edna’s case illustrates the beat-of-my-own-drummer approach to profiling I mentioned earlier. That’s not to say I didn’t follow any standard profiling techniques. I simply wasn’t as by-the-book as most of my colleagues. And in this particular instance, my instincts-based method proved to be just as effective as the more analytical approaches.

  My only hope of teasing out the meaning of the last box’s second clue lies in a review of the minutiae of this case. I begin sharing these details with Sampson…

  My first visit to one of this criminal’s crime scenes occurred after the second murder.

  I arrived to find the usual yellow police tape delineating a perimeter around the entrance of one of the trailer park’s shabbier homes.

  I flashed my credentials to a beat cop holding gawkers at bay.

  “You going inside?” he asked.

  “That was the plan.”

  He motioned to a plastic container resting on a chair. “Rubber boots and nitrile gloves are there. Make sure you put them on before entering.”

  “Thanks.” Like an FBI agent wouldn’t know that. But when you’re in this business, better safe than sorry is a working mantra, so I couldn’t blame the guy.

  I entered the trailer to find myself in complete darkness. Flipping the light switch produced no result. Looked like most of the bulbs were burned out.