Robert Hunter 06 - An Evil Mind

by Chris Carter

  Again Taylor didn’t reply.

  ‘If I answer “no” to Robert’s question, there’s no point in having any more interviews. There’s no point in asking any more questions. There’s no point in keeping me here, because I can’t give you what you need.’ A ghost of a smile graced Lucien’s lips. This was certainly amusing him. ‘Tell me, Agent Taylor, does it make you mad that an outsider can do your job better than you?’

  Don’t let it get to you, the voice inside Hunter’s head said to Taylor. Don’t get upset. Don’t let him under your skin. From the corner of his eye he could see Taylor struggling with her anger, and if he could see it, so could Lucien.

  Taylor didn’t take the bait. She did struggle with her anger, but she kept it under wraps.

  Lucien chuckled proudly and his attention returned to Hunter.

  ‘The answer to your question, Robert, is – yes. I can tell you the location of all the bodies that can be found.’ He calmly sipped his coffee. ‘As you might understand, some can never be found. It’s a physical impossibility. Oh,’ he said casually, ‘and I also know all of their identities by heart.’

  Once again, Lucien tried to read Hunter’s expression. Once again he failed, but he detected a hint of doubt in Taylor’s eyes.

  ‘I’m willing to sit through a polygraph test if you think I’m deceiving you, Agent Taylor.’

  He’ll easily beat it. Hunter’s words from the early-morning meeting came back to her. He’s probably counting on a polygraph test.

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ she finally said.

  Lucien laughed animatedly. ‘I see. Did Robert tell you that we both beat the polygraph when we were in college, just for fun?’

  Taylor didn’t confirm it, but she didn’t know that Hunter had beaten it as well.

  ‘He was much better than I was, though,’ Lucien said. ‘It took me months to master the technique, but he got it down in just a few weeks.’ He looked at Hunter. ‘Robert always had tremendous self-discipline and concentration control.’

  Something different coated Lucien’s last few words. Taylor thought it was jealousy, but she was wrong.

  Lucien lifted a hand in a ‘wait’ gesture.

  ‘But why should you believe a word I’m saying? I haven’t done much other than lie to you up to now.’ There was a lengthy pause. ‘As I’ve suggested, you could try a lie-detector test.’ Lucien threw his head back and laughed a full-fat laugh. ‘I wish you had. That would’ve been fun.’

  Neither Hunter nor Taylor looked amused.

  ‘You don’t have to say it, Robert,’ Lucien commented, anticipating what Hunter was about to say. ‘I’m pretty sure I know the procedure. To establish a thread of trust between us, you’ll need some sort of token of good faith, isn’t that right? If I were a terrorist holding hostages, this is the point where you would ask me for a hostage, just to prove that I’m willing to play fair.’

  ‘You’ve got to give us something, Lucien,’ Hunter agreed. He hadn’t shifted from his relaxed sitting position yet. ‘Like you’ve said, you’ve given us nothing but lies so far.’

  Lucien nodded and finished his coffee.

  ‘I understand that, Robert.’ He closed his eyes and drew in a deep, tranquil breath, as if he were just sitting in a flowery garden outside somewhere, appreciating the delicate perfume that traveled the air. ‘Megan Lowe,’ Lucien said without opening his eyes. ‘Twenty-eight years old. Born December 16 in Lewistown, Montana.’ He slowly ran the tip of his tongue across his upper lip, as if his mouth had started to salivate at the memory. ‘Kate Barker, twenty-six years old. Born eleventh of May in Seattle, Washington. Megan was abducted on July second, Kate on July fourth. Both were independent street-working girls, working in Seattle, Washington. Megan was the brunette whose head was found inside the trunk of the car I was driving. Kate was the blonde one.’

  Lucien finally opened his eyes and looked at Hunter.

  ‘The remains of their bodies are still in Seattle. Would you like to write down the address?’

  Thirty-Five

  Director Adrian Kennedy, who was watching and listening to the interview from the holding cells’ control room, immediately got the bureaucratic machine running to obtain a federal search warrant. Being an FBI director has its advantages, and despite the early hour and the fact that Washington State is three hours behind Virginia, Kennedy managed to get a warrant signed by a Seattle federal judge in record time.

  Even though Lucien had told Hunter and Taylor that the key to the location where the two victims’ remains were stored was on the same keychain they had used for the house in Murphy, Kennedy wasn’t willing to wait. He wasn’t about to send Hunter, Taylor or any other agent all the way from Quantico to Seattle, just to check if Lucien was lying again or not.

  With a federal search warrant secured, Kennedy placed a call to the FBI field office on 1110 3rd Avenue in Seattle, Washington. At 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time, a team of two agents was dispatched to the address Lucien had given Hunter and Taylor – a commercial storage unit.

  ‘So where are we going, Ed?’ Special Agent Sergio Decker asked, as he took the driver’s seat and switched on the engine of the midnight-black Ford SUV.

  Special Agent in charge, Edgar Figueroa, had just climbed into the passenger seat. He was in his mid-thirties, tall and broad-shouldered, with a bodybuilder’s physique. His dark hair was cropped to a centimeter of his skull, and one just needed to look at his nose to know that it had been broken at least a couple of times.

  ‘To check a self-storage unit on North 130th Street,’ he replied, buckling up.

  Decker nodded, backed the car up, took a right on 3rd Avenue and headed northwest toward Seneca Street.

  ‘What case is this?’ he asked.

  ‘Not ours,’ Figueroa replied. ‘I think a call came in from high above in Washington, DC or Quantico. We’re just going to verify the veracity of the address.’

  ‘Narcs?’ Decker questioned.

  Figueroa shrugged and shook his head at the same time. ‘Not sure, but I don’t think so. DEA isn’t involved as far as I know. I wasn’t told much, but I think this is supposed to be victim’s remains.’

  Decker’s eyebrows arched. ‘Stashed in a commercial storage unit?’

  ‘That’s the address we have,’ Figueroa confirmed.

  Decker took another right and merged onto the I-5 North, heading toward Vancouver, British Columbia. Traffic was slow, as expected at that time in the morning, but not excessively so.

  ‘Do they have somebody in custody?’ Decker asked.

  ‘As far as I understand, yes. And again, I think they’re holding him either in DC or Quantico.’ Another shrug from Figueroa. ‘Like I said, I wasn’t told very much, but I did get the impression that this is something big.’

  ‘Do we have a warrant, or are we just going to talk our way through this, using our FBI charm?’ Decker joked.

  ‘We do have a warrant,’ Figueroa said, consulting his watch. ‘A court marshal is meeting us at the address.’

  The trip from the FBI office on 3rd Avenue to the independent self-storage building, located on the north side of the city, took them about twenty-five minutes. Just like most self-storage buildings, from the outside this one also looked like a regular warehouse. It was painted all in white, with the self-storage trade name in huge green letters across the front of the building. The large customers’ car park at the front of the unit was practically empty, with only a handful of cars scattered around the lot. A young couple was unloading the contents of a rented white van onto an industrial-size wheeled cart. The van was parked by loading dock number two.

  Decker parked the SUV by the side of a small decorative green garden directly in front of the unit’s main office. The ground was still wet from the rain that had stopped about forty minutes earlier, but judging from how dark the sky looked, rain was on its way back.

  As both agents stepped out of the car, a woman, probably in her early forties, exited a white Jeep Compass
that was parked just a few yards away, four spaces to their right.

  ‘I’m US Court Marshal Joanna Hughes,’ she said, offering her hand. She didn’t have to ask. She could easily tell that Figueroa and Decker were the two FBI agents she was supposed to meet.

  Hughes’ chestnut hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, which made her forehead seem too large for her round face. She wasn’t exactly an attractive woman. Her nose looked a little too pointy, her lips too thin, and her eyes seemed to be constantly squinting, as if trying to read something that was just a touch too far away. She was elegantly dressed in a cream business suit and beige, pointed high-heel shoes. The agents formally introduced themselves and shook hands.

  ‘Shall we?’ Hughes gestured toward the reception.

  An electronic ‘ding-ding’ bell rang as Figueroa pushed the office door open and he, Decker and Hughes stepped into the excessively brightly lit rectangular room. Both FBI agents kept their dark shades on. Hughes just wished she had hers with her.

  There was a small seating area to the left of the door. A light brown four-seater sofa and two matching armchairs had been positioned around a round chrome and glass low table. A few magazines and several brochures of the storage facility were neatly arranged on the tabletop. There was also a water cooler in the corner. Sitting behind the wood and acrylic reception counter was a young man who looked to be no older than twenty-five. His eyes were glued to his smartphone. He seemed to be either texting ferociously, or really absorbed in some ridiculously entertaining videogame. It took him at least five seconds to finally look up from the tiny screen.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked, putting the phone down next to the computer monitor in front of him and standing up. He gave the visitors an overenthusiastic smile.

  ‘Are you the person in charge here?’ Marshal Hughes asked.

  ‘That would be correct, ma’am.’ The kid nodded once. ‘How can I help you today?’

  Hughes stepped closer and displayed her credentials. ‘I’m US Federal Marshal Joanna Hughes,’ she said. ‘These two gentlemen are federal agents with the FBI.’

  Figueroa and Decker reached into their suit jacket pockets, producing their IDs.

  The kid checked them before taking a step back. He looked a little confused. ‘Is there some sort of a problem?’ His enthusiastic smile had completely vanished.

  Hughes handed him a piece of paper with the US government stamp on it.

  ‘This is a federal search warrant giving us legal permission and right to search storage unit number 325 in this establishment,’ she said calmly but in a very authoritative voice. ‘Would you be so kind as to open it for us?’

  The kid looked at the warrant, read a few lines, pulled a face as if it were written in Latin, and hesitated for a second. ‘I . . . I think I need to call my boss for this.’

  ‘What’s your name, kid?’ Decker asked.

  ‘Billy.’

  Billy was about five-foot-eight with short blond hair, which was spiked at places with styling gel. He had a three-day-old stubble and a couple of earrings in each ear.

  ‘OK, Billy, you can call whoever you like, but we don’t really have time to wait.’ He nodded at the warrant. ‘As Federal Marshal Hughes has explained, that piece of paper, which has been signed by a US federal judge, gives us the legal right to look inside unit 325, with or without your cooperation. Neither you nor we need your boss’s permission to do so. That’s all the permission we need right there. If you don’t open the door for us, unfortunately for you, we’re just going to have to bust it open, using any means necessary.’

  ‘And we won’t be legally responsible for any damage caused,’ Figueroa added. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  Billy had started to look very uncomfortable. His cellphone beeped on the counter, announcing a new incoming text message, but he didn’t even glance at it.

  ‘That copy of the warrant stays with you,’ Decker added. ‘So you can show it to your boss, your lawyer, or whoever you please. That guarantees that you’re not breaking the law, or company rules, or doing anything you shouldn’t be doing.’ He paused and checked his watch. ‘We’re on a pretty tight schedule here, Billy. So what’s it going to be? Are you going to let us into the unit, or are we busting it open? You’ve got to make a choice.’

  ‘You guys aren’t punking me, are you?’ Billy asked, his stare moving to the glass window behind both agents, as if he was trying to spot a candid camera somewhere.

  ‘This is official, Billy,’ Hughes replied, her tone telling Billy that that was no joke.

  ‘You guys really FBI?’ Billy now sounded a little thrilled.

  ‘We really are,’ Decker replied.

  ‘Look, I’d like to help,’ Billy said. ‘I can let you into the building. No problem. But I can’t open the door to unit 325 because it’s padlocked. None of our doors has an actual key locking mechanism, just a very thick sliding bolt. Our customers can buy a padlock from us.’ He quickly indicated a display just behind him with several padlocks in all different sizes. ‘Or bring their own, but they’re not required to supply us with an extra key, so none do. Once a unit is rented out, we don’t have access to it anymore. It’s a completely private affair.’

  Figueroa nodded, and thought about it for a moment. ‘OK. Can you give us the details of that account?’

  ‘Sure.’ Billy started typing something into the computer behind the reception desk. ‘Here we go,’ he said after just a few seconds. ‘The unit is one of our medium, special ones – ten feet by ten feet.’

  ‘Special?’ Decker asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Billy said. ‘It’s one of our units that’s fitted with a power socket.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘It was rented out eight months ago, on the fourth of January, to a Mr Liam Shaw,’ Billy continued reading from his screen. ‘He paid for it a whole year in advance . . . cash.’

  ‘No surprise there,’ Decker said.

  ‘The unit is located on Corridor F,’ Billy added. ‘I can take you there now if you like.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ Figueroa and Decker said at the same time.

  Thirty-Six

  Until they had some sort of confirmation that Lucien was telling the truth about the self-storage unit in Seattle, no one saw any point in moving forward with the interviews. Director Adrian Kennedy told Hunter and Taylor that Washington FBI agents, armed with a federal search warrant, had already been sent to verify the veracity of Lucien’s statements, and they should have an answer in the next sixty minutes or less.

  Taylor was sitting alone inside one of the conference rooms on sublevel three of the BSU building, staring at the untouched cup of coffee on the table in front of her, when Hunter opened the door and stepped inside.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

  For a moment it seemed like Hunter’s question hadn’t reached her, then she slowly turned and looked up at him.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

  An awkward few silent seconds followed.

  ‘You did well down there,’ Hunter said in a non-patronizing or condescending tone.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Taylor replied with a sarcastic nod. ‘Except for starting out with the wrong first question, you mean.’

  ‘No,’ Hunter told her, taking a seat across the table from her. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, you see. No matter what first question you came up with, Courtney, Lucien would’ve thrown it back at you and tried to discredit you, tried to make you feel inferior, tried to shake your confidence and make you believe you’re not good enough, because he wants to get under your skin. And he knows he’s good at it. In college he used to bully professors that way.’

  Taylor kept her eyes on Hunter.

  ‘He wants to get under my skin too, but he knows me a little better than he does you, or at least he did, so right now he’ll want to test the water with you to see how you respond, and he’s going to keep on pushing harder and harder, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Let him push,’
Taylor replied firmly.

  ‘Just remember that to Lucien this is like a game, Courtney . . . his game, because he knows he has the upper hand. Right now, there’s only one thing we can do.’

  Taylor looked back at Hunter. ‘We play the game,’ she said.

  Hunter shook his head. ‘Not the game, we play his game. We give him what he wants. Make him believe he’s winning.’

  Adrian Kennedy pushed the conference-room door open and peeked inside. ‘Ah, here you are.’ He was carrying a blue dossier with him.

  ‘Anything from Seattle yet?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Kennedy responded. ‘We’re still waiting, but it doesn’t look like Lucien was lying about the identities of the women found in his trunk.’ He flipped open the dossier. ‘Megan Lowe, twenty-eight years old. Born December 16 in Lewistown, Montana. She left Lewistown when she was sixteen, six months after her mother allowed her then boyfriend to move into their house.’ Kennedy instinctively nodded at Hunter. ‘She first moved to Los Angeles, where she spent the next six years. All indicates that she was indeed a street-working girl. After LA, Megan moved to Seattle. Line of work seemed to have stayed the same.’ He turned a page on the report he was reading. ‘Kate Barker, twenty-six years old. Born May 11 in Seattle, Washington. She left home when she was seventeen and moved in with a boyfriend, who at the time was an “aspiring musician”. Not confirmed, but it seems like the boyfriend was the one who first got Kate to prostitute herself.’

  ‘Money for drugs?’ Taylor asked.

  Kennedy shrugged. ‘Probably. The abduction dates Lucien gave us, July second for Megan and July fourth for Kate, will be hard to confirm, as neither of them were ever reported missing.’

  That wasn’t surprising. Prostitutes account for the third-largest number of unsolved murders in the USA, just behind gang and drug-related killings. Every day thousands of street-working girls in America are raped, beaten up, robbed or abducted. They aren’t targeted because of how attractive they look, or because they carry cash with them. They are targeted because they are easily accessible and extremely vulnerable, but most of all because they are anonymous. The vast majority of street-working girls live alone, or share with other working girls. They don’t normally have a partner for obvious reasons. Many of them are runaways with little or no links to their families anymore. They live lonely lives, with very few friends. Statistically, only two in every ten street workers that go missing are ever reported to missing persons.