“This guy isn’t static if he’s killed Jenna and a few others. How he sees Maggie will have migrated over the years too. That’s assuming the cases on the board are all his. We may be looking at clusters of two or three different individuals’ crimes.”
“I’m inclined to think the three smothered victims are linked, but maybe not to Jenna.”
“Exactly.” David scanned the blue sheets, then stacked and placed them back in the folder. “The unsub we’re after will have changed over the years as the crimes happen, and his behavior, any letters he sends, will reveal that.” He handed the folder back.
“A good point.” Evie returned the folder to its box and went on to the next one. Sorting through all that was here was going to take hours. She glanced at the conference room, aware they had shifted attention away from the other case while David helped her solve this one.
“Your PI, David. You were going to check out crimes that happened around the Englewood area, where Saul may have disappeared that Saturday night. Later today I’ll spend an hour looking at that for you. I don’t want to leave his case entirely cold while we pursue this one.”
“I’m sure Saul would understand,” David replied, “but thanks, Evie. We’ll get both cases resolved if they can be. It just makes sense to push first where there’s movement, and Jenna’s case feels that way, and may still be flowing into current crimes. Saul’s looks to be ended.”
Fourteen
Evie studied the latest database matches. Ticket purchases made at the Triple M website yielded sixty-two names in common with at least three of the five concert locations and dates. There were twelve matches for all five concerts. A strikingly high number of matches, she thought, given the dates went back nine years, with locations crossing four states.
She started at the top of the list and went hunting for what she could learn. Kyle Kendrick, 18 Hillcrest Road, Pawnee, IL. That put him south, in the middle of the state. He’d bought tickets to all five concerts of interest. Was he still living there? She pulled up the DMV database and found that he still lived at the same address. He was forty-three now, placing him at the high end of the likely age range. She searched the marriage and divorce records but came across nothing under his name. She moved to business records and found his name and address under business ownership. She tracked the business number in the Doing Business As database and came up with Shirts for You. She found a matching website with a shop address in Pawnee, IL. Kyle was a T-shirt vender who, going by the website content, followed a lot of popular bands.
Probably not Kyle, she concluded, but she doubted he was the one going out to the concerts and actually selling the shirts now that the business looked to have prospered. He’d hire a college kid, provide a ticket to the concert as part of the deal. She’d probably find Kendrick or his shop name in the vender list at the various concert venues. She could ask who he had paid to work the five concerts; maybe she’d get the same name for all five. She picked up the phone and made the call, found Kyle a rather puzzled but cooperative man willing to dig out that answer for her. She thanked him for his help and moved on to the second name.
Lucille Johnson, 79 Marigold Lane, Evanston, IL. DMV showed her to be sixty-nine. A bit more digging came up with the surprising bit of info—she was a music-magazine staffer. Evie made another call and this time got a recording, left a message that she would be interested in talking with Lucille about concert venues in the Midwest.
She was going to have to wade through a cottage industry that had latched on to the Triple M band as a lucrative group for business reasons to get to the fans buying tickets because they loved the music. But the only way to separate the groups was to identify each individual. Evie could feel the clock running as she followed names and generated information. Some she found in the business-license database, sometimes there was an arrest on file, while for others there was a permit issued—T-shirt vender, ticket broker, food vender. They all were efficiently buying tickets to every one of the concerts, taking the discount by ordering directly from the website. But these kinds of leads would be buying tickets for a lot of bands, and for now she wanted only Triple M fans.
She found her first probable fan—Garry, with two r’s, Nichols, 552 Rowlings Road, Gurnee, IL. That put him close to the Illinois-Wisconsin border. DMV showed a Garry Nichols now resided in Chicago. He would be the right age, thirty-one now. She searched for a criminal record, found a long one. Multiple drunk-and-disorderly arrests, short jail times, a B&E—that caught her attention—two restraining orders issued four and five years ago, cited as at fault in a traffic accident causing injuries two years ago. “Garry, you and I need to get better acquainted.” Evie sent the information to the printer.
She heard the door open, glanced around to see David. She looked at the time, realized it was later than she had thought. “How were the interviews?”
“Productive, but negative. I can eliminate both union guys.”
“Well, I’ve got more names—those who bought multiple tickets through the band’s website.”
David smiled. “More names is always a good thing.” He pulled free a yellow sheet of paper taped to the conference room glass door. “You’ve found there was trouble in Englewood around the time of Saul’s disappearance.”
She’d taped the page there to make sure she didn’t forget to tell him. “A bookie was murdered that weekend. And a domestic disturbance ended with a husband shooting his wife. There were three B&Es, two car thefts. Someone was eventually charged in every case. It might make sense to ask at least the B&E and car theft guys, ‘Did you see anything that night?’ They’re out of jail now and look to be living reformed lives. Who knows, but one of the car thieves might have taken Saul’s car. We’re looking for information only, and if we’re willing to pay to get it, maybe something helpful comes our way.”
“That’s a very good idea.”
“Great. I need to rebuild my hoard of good ideas. It’s been thin the last few days.”
David laughed. “I’m going to write up these notes, then I’ll help you work those ticket names.”
“Thanks.”
Later, he worked from the bottom of the list up while she went down from the top. They’d come up with eighteen names of interest when they brought the workday to a close just after eight p.m. “There are some strong candidates here,” he said. “We’ll spend tomorrow doing interviews, hopefully catch our man off-balance when we show up at his door.”
Evie nodded. “The fact it’s Maggie’s guy knocking on his door? There will be a reaction if he knows who you are.”
“It’s not going to be the guilty reaction you’re hoping for,” David cautioned. “Most, if not all, of the names on this list are going to know me on sight. I’m Maggie’s guy, and these are the ones buying multiple tickets because they like her music. They’ll not only recognize me, they can probably tell you all kinds of gossip about me.”
“Then we’ll look for someone who recognizes you and is also sweating because you’re a cop.”
David smiled. “I’ll take ‘fear of a cop’ as a good clue.”
Evie walked out with him to the parking lot, unlocked her car, and tossed her backpack on the passenger seat. “You interested in a movie? The new Fast and Furious sequel is playing.” It would do them good to stop thinking about work for a few hours.
“I’d normally take you up on that after a day like this, but I want to stop by Maggie’s house tonight, check security, make sure the furniture delivery and arrival of some of her things went smoothly. She’s due in Thursday midmorning.”
“You want company?” Evie asked, hopeful.
“Sure. Let me follow you back to the hotel, you can leave your car, and we’ll ride out to Maggie’s together.”
“Anything else surprising or interesting happen while I was gone?” Evie asked as they drove to Maggie’s place.
“I went to several open houses Sunday,” David replied.
“I’m glad. Tell me about them.
”
He clicked his phone on and passed it over. “Check the photos I sent Maggie. There are a couple there that would work at the right price.”
“You’d like owning your own place.”
“I like the tinkering it lets me do. The tree I plant, the shrub I cut out, the projects like putting in new windows or building bookcases. A home of my own means hands-on—and there’s always something to do.”
“I can see how that can appeal if you’re into DIY projects.” Evie showed him a photo. “Tell me about this one.”
She got him talking about the different homes, the pros and cons of the properties, keeping him on a subject unrelated to work. She peppered him with questions, because he was likely to ask her a personal question in return, about Springfield or about Rob, and she’d rather avoid that tonight.
“You’re chatty this evening,” David mentioned.
“Yeah. I’m distracting us both with your home search.”
David laughed and slowed as he entered a rather pricey neighborhood in Barrington. “It’s not a gated community, but they have a neighborhood association, and a private security presence patrols these blocks. It’s staffed by a mix of retired cops and military guys. Response times average two minutes.”
“I hope she never needs them, but it’s good they’re here if she does.”
“They’re decent guys, solid skills, and they were all thoroughly vetted once Maggie decided on this place.”
Even in the darkness, Evie could appreciate the surroundings. The landscape had some roll to it, curves in the road. Mature oaks provided continuity and, even without their leaves, a sense of canopy above the roadways.
This was a community with some historic homes walled off and gated, other more recent ones with expansive snow-covered grounds sloping up to the house. Spacious, but not McMansions, many set within sight of one another. It was a neighborhood, if a wealthy one.
David slowed for a curved driveway, the property surrounded by a tall stone wall. He punched in the security code at the entrance, and tall, black iron gates swung open. He pulled in and parked on the left side of the drive.
The house was fairly close to the road, the side yard filled with trees. Built of stone, it blended beautifully with the landscape, designed to follow the slope of the land. The smaller front yard had been laid out in crisscrossing walkways and tiered flower beds for what must make an inviting array of color in the spring.
“She has a beautiful home. I can’t wait to see it in daylight.”
“Maggie took voice lessons here, from a retired singer who had a famous career in the eighties. This has been her dream home ever since. When it came on the market a year ago, Maggie considered it a worthy reason to return to Chicago.”
David sorted out keys as they walked up to the front door. Evie studied the house, the recessed entry, the lighting, began to pick up signs of the security that had been added. David unlocked the door, entered a passcode on the security panel, paused, tapping his finger on the wall to count time passing, then entered a second code.
“I like the fail-safe system,” Evie noted.
“It’s useful. Do things in the wrong order, the patrol is on scene to check it out. Miss one of the steps, it’s the equivalent of calling 911. We’re set at maximum security right now since the house is empty.”
David turned on lights for the main floor. The entryway welcomed them, a long closet for coats, a comfortable bench on which to sit and put on boots, two tall tables for flower vases. The marble floor curved into a spacious cream-carpeted great room, a couch still wrapped in shipping plastic set in front of a fireplace. Two blue-and-silver-striped wing-back chairs flanked the couch. A grand piano commanded attention. Beyond it was another seating area with love seats and a square ottoman facing a large television.
The floor-to-ceiling windows showed a large backyard bathed in muted ground lighting, a pool now covered for the winter, a spacious patio with bench seating and tables and chairs set near a stone outdoor grill. Farther out, Evie could see the high wall circling the back of the property. “Maggie is going to be very comfortable here. And safe.”
“I think so. She wants this—the yard, the flowers, the property—to call home for the next thirty years. When she lived on the sixtieth floor of a high-rise and her apartment number in the building was a protected fact, security was an easier matter. But it didn’t have the setting of a normal life that she wants.”
Evie smiled. “I can imagine.”
David slipped off his shoes. “Yours are fine—it’s habit for me. I want to glance at what furniture came today, snap a few photos for Maggie, then check the last security upgrades that went in this month. Feel free to wander around. This’ll take me about thirty minutes.”
“Sure.”
Evie took her time, disappearing down a hallway, getting a feel for the place. The layout was nice: two powder rooms on the main level, separate pantry, mudroom, the spacious living room, a formal dining room, and a well-laid-out kitchen. Entertaining twenty or thirty people wouldn’t feel tight here.
She opened a kitchen cabinet, found dishes and glassware, opened random drawers and found towels and utensils in place. Pictures, awards, coasters, and candle holders rested on the dining room table, waiting for Maggie’s decision on where they should be placed. Framed artwork leaned against the walls in many of the rooms. Evie walked over to study some of the watercolors in the living room. Maggie liked ones with a light touch and soft colors.
David came back, phone to his ear. He waved toward the fireplace before pocketing the cell.
“There are cameras throughout the house?” she asked, curious.
“Yes. I know it’s creepy at first, but you learn to let it go. They’re on when Maggie requests it, when she has guests over she doesn’t know well or when she’s throwing a party and sensor security for the grounds are turned off. They’re a security blanket of sorts, for Maggie and for me.”
“Aren’t you worried someone could hack the system, turn on the cameras to watch her?”
He shook his head. “One of the benefits of having the finances for really good security, it’s all encrypted transmissions from here to the Chapel Security offices, and it flows over our own equipment, not carried by any public network. Someone can’t casually stroll into those offices, press a button to turn on cameras here. But to bulletproof it further, there are fail-safes. She can’t be watched without her knowledge. I can tell the cameras are on right now.”
“I suppose it’s the price of fame, having to prepare for trouble. But it’s sad that it’s necessary.”
David shrugged. “You’ve got a system at your own home because you’re a cop and someone might show up who doesn’t like you,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, two retired military dogs, both of them vigilant about uninvited guests,” Evie agreed with a little chuckle.
“It’s the same basic rule of thumb for Maggie. Try to keep her home life private, and use common sense for the rest.” He glanced out the window. “I want to look around upstairs, then walk the backyard. Come on up if you like.” Evie followed him.
David paused at the first bedroom, still empty. “There are five bedrooms, one of which Maggie will use as a studio. She likes writing her lyrics at home—probably here as it gets good morning light.”
He moved on to the master bedroom. Furniture in place, the bed made up, lamps on bedside tables, two upholstered chairs and a round table by the window. The suite didn’t have much character without Maggie’s personal things yet, but the bedroom looked comfortable and feminine.
David turned on lights in the walk-in closet. “There are safe rooms in the house on each floor. They were put in when the house was originally built.” He found the mechanism, and the back closet wall slid nearly silently to the left. “If an alarm sounds for an intruder coming in a window or door, Maggie has agreed to move to a safe room while security resolves the problem. That was our compromise for her not living in a fully gated communit
y.”
The small room beyond the sliding wall could handle three or four people, Evie gathered. A shelf held stacks of pillows, blankets, board games, water bottles, and what looked like a box of chocolate bars. Beside a small refrigerator was a discreetly placed commode. Evie decided she wouldn’t want to be in that room for more than an hour—basically like an elevator in size. “I’ve never seen one before.”
“Nothing elaborate, but once the door closes and seals, she’s safe. No one can get in, and she can’t come out—not until security or the police open it. It’s twelve hours before you can open the door from the inside. It’s heat-resistant and has its own air supply. You’ll be bored but okay, even with a tornado ripping through the area.”
“That entryway wall with the bench—behind it is another safe room?” Evie asked.
David smiled. “Yes. You’ve got a good eye for spaces. It’s entered through the mudroom off the hallway, with the same design as this one. The police and her security are notified when one of the safe room doors seals.”
“Let’s hope these rooms are never needed.”
“I doubt they ever will be. But I sleep better knowing the house has them. We call them the bad-weather plan for tornado sirens. Any other reasons remain unspoken.”
David finished his walk through the second floor, and then they headed downstairs.
“Maggie lives a very public life as a performer,” Evie mentioned. “Keeping her personal life private . . . all this matters. She is blessed to have you arranging things for her, David.”
“Thanks for noticing.” He sat down on the bench to put on his shoes. “Maggie jokes about the security, but she counts on it working.”
“It’s only going to get more intense, the more her fame grows.”
He nodded. “There’s room for security on-site, but hopefully that’s still a few years away.” David took out keys to lock up the house. “I appreciate you coming with me, Evie.”
“She’s found a beautiful place to call home. I hope she’s happy here for years to come and that one day it’s a family home, with your wedding photos on that fireplace mantel and your shoes permanently under the entryway bench.”
Threads of Suspicion Page 19