Burleson responded, “I had no idea. That’s awful.”
Nick waved him off. “It doesn’t really change anything for me or my family. We have already been dealing with her being murdered. For me, at least having some control over trying to catch this guy makes me feel a little better. I have some amount of control. I’m certainly more motivated than ever now.
“Here’s what I want you to do. Catalogue all this information so we have the comparatives from the five homicides. Let’s call the woman in Grand Junction Jane Doe #1, along, of course, with Steven Blair, Victor Robinson, Miles Hunter, and Alisha. I want to see the work-up of the similarities and differences. Let’s look at the progress this guy is making every time he does another one of these. I’m certain he’s getting better at this as he goes, and he’s perfecting his model. Once you have that work-up done, we’ll go see Bosworth and show him this. I don’t want anyone else other than him to know about this.
“And one other thing. Anything having to do with Alisha, I believe it’s most appropriate if you handle it. I should be kept in the loop as I would be with any of the information, but I shouldn’t get too close to that case, as much as I would like to.”
“What about the media, the Governor?”
“We’ll deal with that with Bosworth, but not until then,” Nick responded.
“But what about the Pueblo folks?”
“I doubt you’ll hear from them today, but if you do, tell them we haven’t finished the analysis yet, so we haven’t definitively matched anything up. I’m sure Bosworth will have us notify them as soon as we finish with him.
The ever-expanding team reconvened in the video conference room.
“This is Gloria Gonzalez reporting live from Denver Police Headquarters. As we reported to you earlier, the Governor has announced a task force to investigate a spree of killings by a serial killer on the loose here in Colorado. Joining me here today is Marilyn Burg. Ms. Burg is the Governor’s Chief of Staff. The Governor has appointed Ms. Burg to oversee the task force in the hunt for this vicious killer. Welcome Ms. Burg, and thank you for joining us today.”
Nick peeked out from behind the black-out curtains and across the street at the Capitol building, and sure enough, a small crowd had gathered around the scene he was seeing live on television. He could never be a politician.
“Thank you for having me, Gloria,” she replied, smiling, as if she were the judge at the all-important annual chili cook-off.
“Ms. Burg, can you tell our audience the status of the investigation?”
“Of course, Gloria. With the formation of the task force, the investigation has taken a new level of priority throughout law enforcement in Colorado.” Nick rolled his eyes. Great, we’re looking for a serial killer and you’re offering platitudes.
The door burst open, and Randy Herde charged in, the room shaking with his presence.
“Great,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it, boss,” Bosworth replied, “looks like she’s not going to say anything, other than the good old political doublespeak.”
“Have any of you spoken to this woman yet?” Herde asked, looking around the room.
All heads shook except Bosworth, who replied, “I put a call into her right after the press conference this morning. She and I have traded voicemails. She has agreed to come over and meet with us tomorrow morning.” This was news to Nick, and evidently to Burleson and Burns, too, based on their reactions.
“We’ll see how she wants to handle all of this,” Bosworth continued. “I’m not much on sharing police investigations with civilians, particularly politicians who talk to the press,” he said, waving at the television.
“Okay,” Herde said, and stormed out as quickly as he had stormed in.
They turned back to the television as Marilyn Burg was concluding, “We do hope to make an arrest very quickly in this case.”
Nick shuddered, and Bosworth cursed. They would have to live with commitments made by people who knew not one thing about police investigations, particularly concerning serial killers.
Tuesday ⌁ day 16
Nick rose before dawn. He sat on the edge of the bathtub and searched the Denver Post online edition. Tom Wylie’s follow-up story featured prominently. He fetched the print edition from the driveway and found the story on the front page above the fold. No surprise, really, but he would have enjoyed another day or two to investigate without all the distractions he knew were coming for him and his team. Given the early hour, he spread out his planning documents on the dining room table and began the tedious task of organizing once more.
Nick pushed aside the darkness, an ache only a parent losing a child can understand. He would use this pain for motivation. Nothing would stand in his way.
He had the comparatives Burleson pulled together from the day before. Now he added Alisha to the mix to see the common elements and the deviations.
All five victims were found in cheap motels. Alisha and Jane Doe #1 were both strangled, and all three men were stabbed. All were killed at other locations and placed at the scene. All five rooms were acquired for cash by someone who was never seen again—different person at each scene, apparently. All victims were dressed in some kind of costumes and cleaned thoroughly prior to being placed in motels. Steven Blair’s death was recorded on video. He assumed Victor Robinson, Jane Doe, and Miles Hunter were, too. Was Alisha? That would be almost too much for him to bear.
Steven Blair had a link to child pornography, but nobody thought that meant anything. Burleson had not even put that on the list. It probably was a nonstarter, but Nick was still not convinced.
One common element, as strange as it might seem, was that all were found in different jurisdictions, but all in Colorado. “Of course,” he thought. “The killer isn’t going to make it too easy for us. He’s going to make us find all of them.”
At that moment, Nick realized the killer was toying with law enforcement. Is this all about some kind of elaborate, sick game and his daughter was killed because of it?
Nick’s head ached with this new information. But there was no time to process it further. His cell phone chirped. Checking caller ID, he saw that it was Chief Detective Bosworth.
Without preamble, Bosworth said, “It’s all about the Coalition of Values.”
“What?” Nick replied.
“It’s all about the Coalition of Values,” he repeated. “Think about it.”
“That makes sense now that you say it, but how did you get there?”
“I don’t know if it’s actually all about the Coalition of Values, but for whatever reason, this guy seems to have gotten a hair up his rear over this organization, and he’s been abducting people going to these events and using them for his sick pleasure.”
“But how does he get them?”
“You’re two steps ahead of yourself, there,” Bosworth replied.
Nick’s head was spinning with ideas immediately. “The first thing we have to do is find out who Jane Doe #1 is. We’ll do that by looking at old Coalition of Values attendee lists. We will deploy significant resources figuring out who is missing and home in on these victims’ identities. We’re going to find out these people were in from out of town, at these events, and got taken.” Nick had sworn Burleson to secrecy on Alisha, so Bosworth did not know she was in the mix. And Alicia wasn’t involved with the Coalition, at least not that he knew of. Nick could not articulate, even to himself, why he was not more forthcoming. Likely, he speculated, it’s because he didn’t want to be pulled off the investigation.
“That makes sense,” Bosworth said.
“Boss, I’m heading downtown,” Nick replied, almost excited. “I’ll get this all laid out, and we’ll hit this hard when everyone is in.”
“Sounds right to me,” Bosworth said as he disconnected.
The sun had yet to make an appearance as Nick gathered his files and headed to the office.
“Nick, we have Jane Doe figured out,” Burleson announced a
s he charged through the door.
“Let’s have it,” Nick replied, ready to fill in the blanks.
“You’re not going to like this, though,” Burleson continued. “Her name is, or was, Denise Watters. She was a hooker. This was harder to figure out than Robinson because she was a street walker in Phoenix. She wasn’t there for any convention. Phoenix Police didn’t really even take her disappearance seriously. As you know, hookers disappear all the time and turn right back up in another city.”
“This doesn’t fit with the other ones,” Nick stated the obvious.
“That’s the problem,” Burleson agreed.
“What does this mean for us?” Nick asked the group.
“I think this stumps the band,” offered Sandy Burns as she looked up from a growing pile of documents.
“All right, Burleson,” Nick said. “This one is yours to work. Spend the afternoon developing two or three theories about how all this ties together. Present this to us as soon as you’re ready, preferably early afternoon. We will sort through where to go from there. Dammit.”
The group was frustrated. Just when they thought they were making great progress, this blew a hole in all the working theories they currently had going.
“Dad, thanks, I really appreciate it,” Nicky said to his father.
“You’re welcome,” Nick replied. “We’ve had long talks, and I’m sure you’ve learned your lesson, so I won’t say anything more, except this. I love you with all my heart, and I always will.” He moved to his son and hugged him tightly.
With everything else going on, Nick also had been working with determination to deal with his son’s situation at school. After numerous and extensive conversations, he had convinced Principal Bulger it was in the school’s and Nicky’s best interest to reinstate him pending the results of a final investigation. Nicky had only missed four days of school, all but one excused once the final results were in, so his grades had not been negatively impacted.
Nick acted quickly and resolutely. He intervened to have the Denver Police Department run full fingerprint analysis on all the evidence. Josh Wicker’s fingerprints were found on the locker where all the items were stolen, the small baggie containing cocaine found in Nicky’s backpack, and all over the stolen items. Nicky’s fingerprints were not on anything other than his personal possessions. As the investigation progressed, they found Wicker had run into similar problems at other schools, one of the reasons he had transferred to Denver West at the beginning of the new year.
Nicky still had been caught smoking pot, and that was not good. Nicky was on probation for the rest of the school year, both at home and at school. He understood and was appropriately contrite. Nick believed the problems were in the past. Phyllis had been too busy to deal with any of this.
As Nicky left the living room, Phyllis arrived with a treat for Nick. She was carrying two large ceramic mugs with fresh lattes. Some time back Phyllis had decided she loved Starbucks. Nick was inherently cheap, so he had figured out how to make them at home, acquiring all the required accessories: espresso machine; separate milk frother; coffee bean grinder; Starbucks coffee beans; Starbucks sugar free vanilla syrup; and, of course, large mugs. It was a treat to have lattes at home and cost a fraction of the six bucks it cost at Starbucks.
“This is good, thank you,” Nick said, sipping from the steaming concoction. At some point he would confront Phyllis and settle things, and sooner rather than later.
“You’re welcome,” she said, sitting, apparently ready to talk. This made Nick nervous, they didn’t have many casual conversations anymore.
She started, “Something’s been bothering me all week, and I wanted to talk to you about it.”
Great, here we go, Nick thought. Can’t I at least enjoy a bit of quiet? He didn’t say anything, but simply nodded.
She saw the look on his face and laughed, “No, this is work. I want to run something by you, something I heard at work this week.”
He relaxed and listened.
“I had a call from a colleague in Portland.” Phyllis began to explain what she thought was a most incredible story. “She has a patient who is delusional, or at least that’s what she and I both thought. But as I have turned this over in my mind, I’ve become concerned maybe I was too quick to pass judgment. Maybe this young lady really did experience this incredible thing.”
Nick listened, only half interested. He sipped his latte and listened to his sometimes wife.
Phyllis continued. “First of all, I should tell you that she’s a prostitute.”
“Of course she is,” he replied. “I would have been disappointed in less.”
She ignored him. “According to her, a man solicited her services. But once she got to the motel, he threatened her and forced her to bring another man to the motel. Now she wasn’t forced to get a specific guy, but she was forced to get someone from a specific organization that was in town for a meeting.”
Could this be the break they had been looking for? What organization? Would this help them better understand how the killer acquired his victims? Nick’s mind was now spinning one hundred miles per hour. His sat up and listened more intently.
Phyllis continued to tell the story of Sally Winfield. It seemed to Nick she was doing her best to maintain confidentiality while saying as much as she could. He listened as quietly as possible but interrupted intermittently to ask a question. He was certain this was the break in the case they had been looking for.
“When did this supposedly happen?” he asked urgently.
“I don’t know, I didn’t get into any kind of particulars like that. What difference does it make?”
“Do you remember the name of the organization?”
“Now that you mention it, I do. It’s that organization Gary Knight runs. What’s it called? The Values Cooperative or something like that? I remember thinking it was quite a coincidence given that guy has gone missing.”
“And you said she’s from Portland, right?”
“Yes, that’s right. Do you think this really could have happened?
“This is unbelievable. Not only do I think it happened, I think it’s the key to the case I’m working on right now.”
Phyllis looked incredulous. “That’s not possible.”
“Not only is it possible, I may actually have the video.” Nick told her in broad terms, without revealing anything too confidential, about the Mayflower case.
“Of course, I know about the serial killer here in Colorado that you’re working on, it’s all over the papers.”
“This is the guy, Phyllis. He makes videos.” Nick rose and hurriedly started gathering his things to head back to the office, searching for his always-elusive car keys. With all the advances of technology and remote work, he knew organizationally he had to be in his cube or in the war room to work most effectively.
“I have to get a picture of her,” Nick demanded.
“Who?” Phyllis asked, getting lost as Nick busied himself to head to the office.
“The woman,” he said impatiently. “The one you’re telling me about. She’s not delusional.”
“I can’t do that,” she replied. “That’s all confidential. I shouldn’t even have talked to you about this. You can’t use this for anything.”
Nick turned to Phyllis. “We’re talking about a serial killer here. This is the only witness we have. I have to have that picture. See if you can get your friend to get me a picture. I really need it.”
“Lynch,” he said, answering his cell phone without checking caller ID. He was at his desk working frantically, knowing the trail was warming up. Nick would sleep little until he found The Doctor. Experience and adrenaline told him so.
“I can’t find Christine Crawford,” Phyllis offered without preamble.
“Who?”
“The doctor from Portland, Christine Crawford. I called her to talk about getting a picture of her patient like you asked me to do.”
“How long has it been?”
<
br /> “I called her as soon as you left, and I’ve called every ten minutes since then. I’m getting anxious.”
Nick flushed, visibly concerned. “That’s not good. Hopefully she’s just out to dinner or something like that.” He appeared unconvinced.
“No, that’s not it. I called the Portland Mental Health Institute. She never showed up for work today. They called and texted but could not reach her. They’re worried about her, too. What should I do?”
“Let me make a couple of calls,” Nick replied.
“Be careful. Dr. Crawford and I both could get into trouble over this. I know we’re looking out for the best interest of a patient, but others might not interpret it that way.”
“All right,” he said, “I’ll try not to wear my gorilla boots.” At times when laser focused on a case, Nick could leave the battlefield littered with emotional casualties.
Nick called the lead investigator on the case in Portland, Mike Martin.
“Mike, Nick Lynch in Denver,” he announced as Martin answered.
“It’s late, Lynch. This must be bad.”
He briefed Martin on the essentials, leaving out as much as possible to protect the two shrinks.
“Okay, I’m on it,” Martin responded unenthusiastically.
“I really appreciate it, Mike.”
“Man I picked the wrong career.” Nick swore he heard a beer can open.
“All right, you do what you have to. Please get back to me as soon as you figure anything out.” He heard Martin mutter, “shit” as he was hitting end on his cell phone.
“Lynch,” he answered.
“Check your e-mail,” Phyllis said, again without introduction.
“Did you get it?” he replied.
“It’s there. I’m probably going to lose my license, but you have a picture of the young lady. I contacted the director of the center at home. He agreed to have it sent directly to you, with no name attached. The agreement was that you and you alone would look at the picture. If she is relevant to the investigation, then they will consider what needs to be done from there. Otherwise, you are to immediately delete the e-mail.”
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