Barbara reported Angela missing and was told by the police that they would file a report. They did so, but it went ignored. Due to her recent behavior, the police were certain Angela would turn up somewhere strange.
She did. Angela was found eleven days later, after being discovered strangled to death in the trunk of her car. The initials J.R. had been spray-painted on the inside of the trunk’s lid.
Chapter Eight
FORT COLLINS, COLORADO
An FBI forensics team found the point of entry into Angela Shaffer’s apartment. The rental unit on Angela’s right was vacant but mirrored hers exactly. Wildcard had cut away the piece of wallboard separating the bedroom closets then attached springs, hinges, and a pressure latch. It was done so well that the seams were difficult to detect.
At some point, Wildcard might have learned the alarm codes, while a bottle of wine was found to have been spiked with Rohypnol, known by the street name of roofies.
One of Angela’s neighbors, an old woman with hair dyed jet-black claimed to have seen Wildcard come out of the vacant apartment once. She had taken him for a thief. The young police officer who spoke with her asked if she had reported the break-in.
“What was there to report? The apartment over there is empty; what could he steal?”
“Can you describe him, ma’am?”
“He was wearing a hood and sunglasses, and he had a beard, and of course he was a black guy.”
The white officer had looked up from his notebook at the mention that the suspect was of African-American descent. The cop spent his evenings at night school studying to be a psychologist. In all the reading he’d done on serial killers and spree murderers, the overwhelming majority of them were Caucasian males.
“A black man? Are you certain?” he asked the woman.
“Yeah, I’m sure, he was one of those light-skin ones, but he was black.”
“Is it possible he could have been Hispanic?”
The old lady shook her head. “He was black. Anyway, aren’t all criminals black?”
“No, ma’am, they are not,” the cop said. He wrote down her description despite his dubiousness. He didn’t believe the old woman was making up what she’d told him; he did think she was letting her prejudice color her recollections.
He had a habit of rating those he interviewed on a scale of 1 to 10. If he rated the person a 1, that meant he thought they were a lying A-hole, while 10 indicated that he believed they were beyond reproach. A 4 went next to the old woman’s name, then the cop moved on to knock on the next door.
* * *
Like Wildcard’s other victims, Angela Shaffer posted book reviews frequently. They were often witty but filled with personal attacks and vitriol. Erica had perused dozens of them on the plane ride to Colorado. She found the negative tone reminiscent of the others posted by Wildcard’s previous known victims.
Their love of reading and reviewing books seemed to be the only things linking the five victims together. Erica’s superiors assigned more agents in the Bureau’s research and technology division to help with the case.
While that research was being performed with computers and advanced algorithms, Erica was doing her own analysis. She did so while staying overnight in Colorado. She assumed there must be a method behind the seeming random madness of the murders. Erica sat up in bed while diagramming the killings in random order while listing their attributes.
David Burke. 38, lived in New Orleans.
He was bound and gagged after a physical assault. Expired from a shotgun blast after having to endure the agony of knowing he would die once he was seen by his neighbors. Burke’s rescuers accidentally killed him, as his murderer intended.
Stuart Hawkins, 44, lived in Elko, Nevada.
Mr. Hawkins was the owner and manager of a dry-cleaning business. He was discovered stabbed to death inside his apartment. Hawkins was found lying on the wrong side of his queen-size bed, placed there by his killer. Hawkins’ murderer had applied gold paint to his front teeth after he had removed his tongue. The tongue was discovered with the victim’s cat. The cat had not been harmed. Hawkins’ underwear had been removed and placed back on him with the fabric deliberately twisted and turned inside out. Before leaving the scene, Wildcard had taken a pen and written nonsensical sentences between the lines of the words on the pages of a book.
Harriet Holbrook, 48, of San Antonio, Texas.
She was discovered bound and gagged with a tea cup jammed far enough up her anal cavity to cause fatal internal bleeding. Hot tea was used to scald her beforehand. Neither the cup nor the tea was hers. They had been brought to the crime scene by the killer.
Rudolph Brenner, 77, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Died inside a vacuum chamber. Experts agreed that the killer would have had to perform research or possess experience to use the chamber. Profilers have speculated over the possibility that Wildcard has a background in science. Either that, or he possesses enough intelligence to gather the information needed to operate the advanced device. This murder ended the debate over whether he planned his kills. Unless Wildcard held or retains a position where he routinely works with vacuum chambers, he shouldn’t have had the knowledge to use one.
Angela Shaffer, 29, of Fort Collins, Colorado.
Died from strangulation after being stalked and harassed for days. Wildcard orchestrated events so that the authorities would doubt Miss Shaffer’s claims.
Erica spent hours going over the book reviews written by the victims. She focused on the reviews on books authored by writers with the initials J.R.
All five of the murder victims were harsh in their criticism of the books they didn’t like. More than one of Harriet Holbrook’s reviews made Erica wince. The woman had been malicious and disdainful in her critique of a number of novels. She was also the only victim who seemed to be unpleasant in real life. Her offensive personality was no reason to kill the woman, and a negative book review was hardly a motive to murder someone.
Whoever he was, Wildcard was insane. He would continue to kill if he wasn’t stopped and had likely been killing before the spree began.
The epiphany came for Erica after she had read the same phrase within several of Harriet Holbrook’s reviews—This book was not my cup of tea. Holbrook had died by having a tea cup inserted into her rectum, a tea cup that wasn’t hers.
As often happened when a case broke wide open or significant progress was made, Erica felt a fluttering in her stomach. She described the feeling as if a cluster of butterflies was let loose inside her. She had that sensation again and it told her she was on the right track.
Could Wildcard have killed Harriet Holbrook that way because of this phrase? Erica thought. The idea seemed absurd, and yet, so was the method of killing.
Dave Burke, the third victim, seemed fond of titling his reviews with the word, Predictable. His death had been predictable, given the way Wildcard had rigged the shotgun to go off beneath him.
Despite the late hour, fatigue fled from Erica as she tried to decipher the keys to the other killings.
Angela Shaffer often wrote the words—Unbelievable to say the least, whenever she thought a book’s plot or theme were far-fetched. She had been found to be unbelievable in the days leading up to her death.
It’s too bad zero isn’t an option were words written in dozens of 1-star reviews penned by Rudy Brenner. Zero became an option when he died in an artificial environment that had zero atmosphere.
Despite the seriousness of the subject she was researching, Erica found herself amused by Wildcard’s sick sense of humor.
When she looked for a phrase or the language that would explain Stuart Hawkins’ death, Erica was stymied for nearly an hour.
Laying the man’s body on the opposite side of his queen-size bed, painting his front teeth gold, and removing his tongue were bizarre enough. When you factored in the twisted underwear and the scribbling in the book, it became even weirder.
When at last, Erica had figured it
out, she leapt from the bed and began pacing. Finding the hotel room too small, she dressed quickly, grabbed her purse, and ventured out into the hallway to walk.
Stuart Hawkins had also used the phrases—Not my cup of tea, and It’s too bad zero isn’t an option, but there was another phrase he was fond of—Cliché-riddled. Hawkins had criticized a number of books as being hackneyed or riddled with clichés. Clichés such as, waking up on the wrong side of the bed, cat got your tongue, all that glitters is not gold, don’t get your knickers in a twist, and reading between the lines.
Wildcard was insane, but he was certainly creative in his mode of killing.
After walking off some of the nervous energy her discovery had given her, Erica made a stop on the way back to her room. Along the hotel corridor was an alcove with ice and vending machines. As a celebratory treat for deciphering Wildcard’s method, Erica bought a candy bar. When she returned to her room and climbed on the bed, she ate the candy while starting a new list.
The sun was rising outside the window of her hotel room by the time she was done; however, she was certain she’d uncovered a possible suspect.
When you cross-referenced the list of authors with the initials J.R. against the phrases unearthed, one name stood out.
The phrases, Not my cup of tea, Predictable, Unbelievable to say the least, I wish zero could be an option, and Cliché-riddled were used often by the victims. They had each used their favorite phrase when reviewing the work of a writer who wrote about a character who was an anti-hero.
The character’s name was Johnny Revenge. His fictitious exploits were penned by a writer named Jude Rowland.
Erica attempted to pull up the author’s website. No website existed. When she saw that there were no photos of him on his books’ pages, she searched the internet, and came up empty. She got on the phone to Washington to request a search.
Ten minutes later, Erica was looking at a picture of Jude Rowland taken from his New Hampshire driver’s license. She felt a thrill pass through her as she took in Rowland’s handsome bearded face.
Erica ran her index finger over the image on the phone and wondered if she had just found Wildcard.
Chapter Nine
RURAL NEW HAMPSHIRE
Jude Rowland began his day as he did most mornings. After rising early, he sat at his desk and began writing. It felt good to get back to his regular routine after having spent so much time on the road.
Writing had been a passion for Jude since he was a child. After college, he had worked as a reporter while penning his early novels. His newspaper articles had been written under the name he’d been born with, Joseph S. Revene. The cozy mystery series he’d written at the time had modest success, enough to allow him to quit the day job.
Jude had penned that series as J.S. Revene. Most readers assumed that J.S. was a woman since the series featured a savvy elderly female librarian. The widowed librarian was named Emma Caruthers. Mrs. Caruthers loved to solve mysteries and murders in her spare time.
After he’d written his first thousand words of the day, Jude started the coffee maker and headed for the shower. Once he was dressed, he went outside to the kennel. Jude owned three German Shepherds, their names were Riddle, Clue, and Hunch.
The main area of the kennel was a wire enclosure tall enough for a man to walk around in. It had a slanted roof covered in shingles and could be accessed from the home’s enclosed back porch. The porch had a large doggie door set to the left of the regular door. That allowed the dogs to come and go from the porch during inclement weather. Outside, a narrower section of the kennel ran several hundred feet in a semi-circle behind the house. It was a yard high and had been constructed with wooden sides topped by wire mesh.
Jude had it built that way so the dogs could get some exercise when he was gone from the house for long periods. It also allowed the dogs to patrol the rear of the home.
Jude owned forty-three acres that was mostly forest. It had been in his family for generations. Near the house, there was an unused barn and a large tool shed. A small lake gave the land a picturesque appearance. It would have been an ideal place to raise a family, but Jude was a loner and always had been.
The dogs had been cooped up in the kennel for weeks while he’d been gone, and Jude felt they deserved to be spoiled. He let them out and laughed as they romped about rejoicing in their freedom. More pampering came when he fed them a meal of chopped steak, instead of their usual high-nutrient kibble.
After breakfast, it was back to the computer for more writing. Once he’d finished, Jude headed off for a walk around his property.
It was near the lake where he spotted the shoe prints in the dirt. It had rained the night before, so the ground was muddy, and the prints were fresh, if somewhat smeared. They looked to have been made by a pair of sneakers. Someone had been on his land. Jude filed that fact away to be considered later and continued his walk.
As he moved along, he thought about his next book, forming the plot in his mind. Jude was always thinking ahead, planning, and conjuring new ideas.
His current series, Johnny Revenge, had earned him millions of dollars. Each of the seventeen books had sold better than the previous ones had. There had also been interest in Hollywood of turning the first book into a movie, although, that had fallen through.
After he’d earned enough money to live on for the rest of his life, Jude had lost interest in how much he was making. There was more than enough, even if he lived to be a hundred. Knowing that left him feeling content, at least, financially speaking.
What Jude did care about was growing his readership. He was popular within his genre, but he wanted to be a household name and widely read.
Most other writers would have sought to accomplish these goals by creating a presence on multiple social media sites and engaging with their readers. However, that just wasn’t Jude’s way. He was a private person and had no interest in spending his time chatting online. That was time better spent writing books. Still, Jude had ambition, along with a plan and the drive to accomplish his goals.
* * *
When he’d reached the western side of his property, he stared at the cottage that his parents used to rent out occasionally. It had been their home when they’d first married. Jude’s grandmother had been fearful that her only son might move away after marrying Jude’s mother. She’d built the cottage as a wedding gift to keep her son close to the family.
Jude’s father and grandfather didn’t get along well and a separate home on the family’s land seemed like a good compromise.
Jude’s parents lived in the smaller house for five years until Jude’s grandfather passed away of a heart attack. After that, the couple moved in with Jude’s grandmother. By then, Jude’s brother John had been born.
In the years that followed, Jude’s grandmother, and later his mother, allowed certain people to occupy the cottage. A love of art was an interest shared by the mother and grandmother, and so the “Little House” as they called it became a sort of artists’ retreat during the summer months.
More than a dozen artists stayed there over the years for free. When the last one left, Jude’s mother went away with him.
It wasn’t an old house and had still been in good shape after his father’s death, but Jude never did a thing with it. He had no use for it and didn’t want any strangers living there. He often wondered why he didn’t have it demolished or burned to the ground; perhaps someday he would.
Turning away from thoughts of the past, Jude whistled for the dogs and headed back to his house. He had planned to spend the day watching old movies but now wanted to write more instead.
Although he published an average of about four books a year, including two Johnny Revenge novels, Jude wrote double that amount. No one knew that, not even the editor he used. Like his money, Jude had enough words banked to last him the rest of his life.
He never suffered from writer’s block and couldn’t conceive of ever running out of ideas. Writing was his
joy in life and there was nothing else he wanted to do.
* * *
The sky had grown dark on his meandering trek back home, as a storm approached. Jude opened the door on the rear porch, and after disarming the alarm system, he wiped his shoes on a large brown mat. The door mat was square and made of coco coir fibers in a herringbone pattern. The dogs’ paws were also wiped clean as they trod across the mat.
After following Jude inside the house, Riddle, Clue, and Hunch gulped water from a bowl in the kitchen, then followed Jude into his office.
The hounds settled in atop a mound of soft blankets piled near the desk and went to sleep. Jude checked footage from the hidden cameras he kept by the lake. His intruder had been a man in his thirties. The guy had climbed over the six-foot-high wooden fence that separated Jude’s land from his neighbor’s.
After retrieving a football, he tossed it over the fence before climbing back over. Jude recalled hearing something from Molly about a new family moving in. The man with the football must be the husband. He’d ask Molly about it when he saw her.
Molly was Molly Jackson, Jude’s friend, housekeeper, and cook. She came by once a week to clean the house and did the cooking and shopping. Jude only ate twice a day, breakfast and dinner. He could handle breakfast, but Molly prepared his evening meals and froze them in containers. Jude had known Molly since he was a boy. She had been his mother’s best friend and was the only person he trusted.
With the mystery of the shoe prints at the lake solved, Jude began writing again. He tapped away at the keyboard as thunder rumbled and a hard rain approached from the south.
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