Spree

by Michael Morley

  She called his cell but it tripped to messaging. “Lieutenant, it’s Angie Holmes. Call me when you get this. I have some information for you.”

  She hung up and paced. Bit on a nail. Poured a glass of water and paced some more. She hated this isolation, lack of involvement and drought of information. She paced some more and wondered why Jake hadn’t mentioned that he and Pryce had zoned in on a suspect. The cop must have contacted him late in the evening, after they’d spoken.

  Remorse began to raise its ugly head. She couldn’t help but think what would have happened if she hadn’t told Jake she’d wanted to be alone that night. The truth was hard to live with. If they’d been together then, they’d still be together now.

  Her phone rang.

  She snatched it off the table. “Hello?”

  “This is Connor Pryce.”

  “Commander, I’m told you might have a suspect in custody in relation to the mall incidents?”

  “In relation to the shooting, yes. Not necessarily the bombing.” He hoped he didn’t sound indelicate. “Doctor Holmes, I’m very sorry for your loss. I didn’t know Jake that well, but from our little time together I could tell he was a good man and a very fine agent. I hope this difficult time passes quickly for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry but I have to go now; we’re about to interview the suspect.”

  “Commander, I think the man who shot those people in the mall also killed Jake.”

  Pryce ran the possibility through his head. “Do you have any proof of that?”

  Angie wasn’t done. “And I believe he may have carried out the mall bombing and the Strawberry Fields massacre.”

  “Proof?”

  “Not forensic proof. Nothing physical. But I’m starting to see strong psychological connections between the cases.”

  He let out a sympathetic sigh. “Doctor, I think you know that even if I agreed with you, which I don’t, by the way, then I’d need more than psychological assumptions to charge someone. Now forgive me, I really do have to go. Again, my condolences for your loss.”

  26

  The Olympic Conference Center, LA

  Shooter rolled Thornton’s trousers down around his ankles and used them to soak up the blood pooling at his feet.

  He unraveled two toilet rolls and tamped the flow before he climbed the partition that separated the locked cubicle from the vacant one next door. He slithered down onto the toilet unit and stayed still, in order to listen and make sure the restroom was clear. It seemed everyone was back in the conference hall. No doubt the afternoon session had begun.

  He walked to the sinks, washed his hands and checked himself in the mirrors.

  No blood. No mess. No clue as to what he’d just done. He glanced down at the locked cubicle floor and for the moment no blood was visible.

  Shooter walked out into the foyer. It was empty now. Doors to the nearby hall were closed. Behind them, businessmen no doubt listened intently to some bullshit about quantitative easing and stock market confidence.

  Before leaving the Center, he took the stairs back to the baby change room, opened the panel beneath the sink and swapped briefcases. Inside the discarded one lay the gun and plastic sheet that had protected him from the spatter. It had all gone well. Smoothly. To plan.

  Fifteen minutes after fatally shooting Sean Thornton, Shooter walked back into the Best Western and returned to the room he’d hired for two nights.

  He turned on the TV news, stripped off his clothes, wrapped them in a hotel laundry bag and pushed them into his suitcase. He pulled a pillow out of its case and used it as a giant mitt to cover his hands while he emptied the two plastic bags that contained the dead man’s belongings.

  Only Thornton’s driver’s license and around three hundred dollars in cash were of any interest. The picture would make a unique souvenir for his wall, while cash was always welcome. The guy had numerous credit cards, including an AmEx Black, but Shooter wouldn’t be using any of them. ATMs had cameras and cops could get your fingerprints from the keys, even when messed up by hundreds of other prints. He’d grown up knowing all about police and what they could do. He’d even heard some CSIs could get DNA from surfaces that you’d only breathed on or coughed near.

  Shooter showered and put on cheap blue jeans, an old brown sweater and a scruffy black bomber jacket. He looked like an average working guy as he strolled outside the hotel.

  Clouds masked the heat and the streets smelled of scorched rubber as he walked past Januk’s Ford and caught a bus back to Skid.

  Before approaching the old shoe factory he walked the block. Checked out the parked cars and people on the sidewalks. Only when he was sure it was safe did he unlock the gates and make his way inside the litter-strewn compound.

  Shooter disabled the alarms and traps. The smell of bleach stung his nostrils as he entered the cool, dark building. Bleach and death. A pungent reminder of his dismembered supervisor.

  The tapes in his control room showed there’d been no suspicious activity while he’d been away. He poured a glass of water and pushed open the door to the room he’d christened Death Row.

  “Hello, my friends. I’ve missed you.”

  Rows of dead eyes stared back.

  “I have someone new for you.” He held up the driver’s license. “This is Sean Thornton. You all know Sean—’course you do—he’s the husband of that bitch of a sheep, Mary.” He smeared glue on the back of the license and slapped it on the wall next to the photograph of Tanya Murison. Pride of place. “Welcome, Sean.” He pressed again. Wiped squashed glue away with his fingers. “Make yourself at home.”

  27

  Douglas Park, Santa Monica

  The moment Angie began writing on her apartment wall she knew she was never going to be normal again.

  Not unless she caught Jake’s killer.

  In thick black felt pen she marked out four separate sections of what she saw as one single inquiry: STRAWBERRY FIELDS, SUN WESTERN SHOOTINGS, SUN WESTERN BOMBING and one just called JAKE.

  Try as she might, she couldn’t bring herself to write the word MURDER next to his name.

  Beneath the headings, Angie listed all the crime scene locations, the number of dead and injured, the dates and times of the attacks and the weapons used.

  At first, they seemed vastly different and unconnected. One was midmorning, one early evening and one in the dead of night.

  The Strawberry Fields massacre was almost fifty miles from the Sun Western attacks. It was rural, not urban. An AR rifle was used, not a MAC-10. Those kinds of weapons usually had very different personalities peering down their barrels. Then there was the bombing at the nighttime memorial. And of course Jake’s homicide, carried out with a Glock 18. The use of so many different weapons sent out confusing messages. In isolation, she’d speculate that the UNSUB was a gun enthusiast or someone with a military background, but the limited skill shown in using them suggested that perhaps he’d stolen, found or borrowed the weapons. The use of the bomb and his lack of emotional attachment to any single gun also indicated that he didn’t have an arms obsession or weapon fixation.

  Before Angie got distracted by examining details of the explosives or Jake’s murder, she wanted to revisit the conclusions she’d come to while writing up her notes on the Sun Western shootings.

  Physically, she’d seen the offender as a black male, twenty to thirty, around six feet tall, maybe 160 pounds and in good health. He’d had no obvious limp, no curvature of the spine or any peculiar features that distinguished him. His clothes were baggy but his legs seemed slim and muscled. He appeared well nourished and therefore he wasn’t an addict of any kind. He’d had a plastic watch on his right hand but the sports bag had been slung over his right shoulder. This was confusing. Right-handed people usually wore watches on their left hand and right-handed shooters tended to sling bags over their right shoulder. She marked down the possibility that the UNSUB was ambidextrous. This would put him in an elite g
roup of about only 3 percent of the population. It was also possible he had a dominant left eye or perhaps had suffered an injury to his right hand or arm and been forced to teach himself to use his left hand. Angie knew she was grasping at straws, but right now that was all she had.

  Psychologically, she homed in on three key areas.

  His use of weapon.

  The leaving of a note.

  The level of planning and premeditation involved in the crime.

  These factors more than any others indicated that he was articulate, intelligent, imaginative and driven. He was out to prove something. Teach someone a lesson. Show the world he was right.

  Angie deduced that he had completed high school and perhaps even a college education. His report card would show him to be smart but rebellious, a student who could be Grade A when he wanted—and probably out of the class and on his way to expulsion when he didn’t. He’d have clashed with authority. Probably gotten sacked from early jobs or work experience schemes.

  Angie doubted he had any significant criminal record. Perhaps there’d be some recreational drug use, but nothing serious, certainly no violent or sexual offenses.

  She was sure he would have been too intelligent to have gotten sucked into gangs and manipulated by people of lesser intelligence but bigger muscle. Instead, he’d have grown isolated and developed chameleon-like skills that allowed him to become socially invisible and therefore not picked on.

  The offender’s lack of concern for other people and his willingness to kill and maim showed an absence of any decent male or female role models in his life. As a consequence, she thought it unlikely he would be in any long-term sexual relationship. The combination of troubled characteristics meant it was almost certain he would live alone in a low-income neighborhood.

  Angie was pleased with what she was pulling together. Her overview summarized him as a highly organized, sociopathic offender with Machiavellian and egotistical tendencies who would repeatedly kill until he was stopped. Her filter chart for investigators suggested they looked for:

  Black male, 20–30.

  6 feet tall, 160 pounds in weight.

  Physically fit, well nourished.

  Not substance-dependent.

  Well educated and intelligent. Argumentative when challenged. Maybe works in job beneath his abilities.

  Perhaps orphaned and institutionalized at early age.

  Not in sexual relationship and lives alone.

  Financially independent but not wealthy.

  No sexual or violent criminal record.

  Possibly ambidextrous or left-handed.

  Angie reviewed each point and couldn’t find fault with any.

  She looked again at the text lines she’d isolated and prioritized from the transcript of Jake’s speech.

  Line 3.… the mind behind these acts is a cowardly, spineless, gutless one…

  Line 6.… the kind of person parents would disown…

  Line 9.… the worst criminals in prison would consider him too vile to be allowed a cell alongside them…

  She was drawn again to line three. Was this the key to the UNSUB’s rage? Had one or both of his parents called him “cowardly,” “spineless” or “gutless”? The thought resonated. Maybe he wasn’t orphaned. Maybe his father was a law enforcement officer, a man who hated criminals, who had disowned him because of his ways and had branded him as worse than many of the people he’d locked up?

  The thought fizzed like a flare in Angie’s fogged and painful head. It would explain a lot. Especially if his father happened to be a serving officer—a senior lawman in LA.

  She took it a step further.

  Perhaps he was a very senior officer, like John Rawlings. A man who had publicly humiliated his only son by prosecuting him for smoking dope.

  She called Chips. “I’ve just been thinking, a couple of years back, the LAPD’s venerable chief of police had his son Jason busted.”

  “Yeah, I read about it. Kid had a blow habit. Shock, horror. What about it?”

  “They fell out very publicly as a result. Rawlings Junior went off the radar after that. No doubt took his grudge with him. Can you find out where he is now?”

  “Probably. No one with a legit ID is invisible these days. What are you chasing?”

  “A hunch, Chips. Just a hunch.”

  28

  Douglas Park, Santa Monica

  It was late afternoon when Crawford Dixon arrived unexpectedly at Angie’s place. He came dressed in respectful gray, and that included the color of his face.

  Angie saw him on the videophone door entry system, waiting in the lobby downstairs. She couldn’t let him in—the walls of her living room were plastered ceiling to floor with victim photographs, crime scene maps, UNSUB video grabs and countless notes scrawled in thick black ink.

  She thought about pretending not to be home but that seemed weak and wrong. Instead, she grabbed her jacket and keys, then went downstairs to head him off.

  The FBI section chief was pacing by the entrance buzzer, waiting to be let in.

  She opened up. “Hello, Crawford.”

  “Angie.” He fastened his jacket and became attentive. “I just came by to see how you are.”

  “That’s kind. Do you mind if we walk awhile? I’m going stir-crazy up there.”

  “Of course not.”

  She led the way. They strolled the tree-lined street outside her block, sunlight bouncing through thick canopies of maple, cedar and oak. “Any developments?”

  “Not in relation to catching Jake’s killer.” He turned to look at her. “But he will be caught. That I can promise you.”

  “Can you, Crawford?” She made no effort to keep the skepticism out of her voice. “Everyone seems to promise me that.”

  He walked a few paces to take a break, then asked, “Angie, have you given any thought to funeral arrangements?”

  The question hit her like a kidney punch. “A little.”

  He sensed she was still raw.

  “I know you and Jake weren’t married, but Sandra McDonald and I have insisted you are treated as his next of kin, at least as far as the FBI is concerned.”

  She tried to read between the lines. “To what end?”

  “Well, with your permission, I’d like the Bureau to take care of him—of all the arrangements.”

  She nodded. “Thanks, that would be a help.”

  “I’ve been talking to the director and we think it fitting to give Jake a hero’s good-bye and lay him to rest at Arlington. We’ll be petitioning for a memorial to mark his valor both inside and outside his time in the military.”

  Angie frowned. “I don’t want to sound strangely ungrateful, but I’m not sure that’s what he would have wanted.”

  Dixon seemed shocked. “What makes you say that?”

  She didn’t want to go into details. “As a young soldier, he wrote about wanting to be cremated, having his ashes scattered high in the night sky over the Pacific.”

  “Ahhh, a nice farewell for a young soldier, but not for the hero that he became.”

  “I suspect Jake was always a hero. The world just took its time noticing him.”

  Dixon could see this wasn’t the time to argue. “Will you think about it? Lots of people would like to show their respects and be there to honor him.”

  “Yes, of course I will. I’ll give it a lot of thought.”

  He smiled appreciatively. “So how are you holding up? Getting any sleep?”

  “Sleeping’s not a problem. The pain isn’t there when I sleep, but it’s all over me like wasps on a trash can when I’m awake.”

  “I understand. It’ll take a while.”

  “So I’m told.” She took a couple of silent steps, then hit on him for information. “A minute ago you said there was nothing new ‘in relation to Jake’—that kinda implies there is something new.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I’m guessing it’s in relation to the Sun Western slayings.”

  Di
xon stopped walking. “Angie, you should be resting and recovering, not guessing developments.”

  “I know Jake and Pryce were chasing a suspect”—she played coy—“so I suppose there has been an arrest and someone charged.”

  “Not quite.” He let out a resigned sigh. “But there is a man in custody.” He saw expectation in her eyes. “Don’t read too much into this, Angie. Ruis Costas is over with Connor Pryce at the moment, and I expect, from what Ruis has said to me, there will be a joint statement this evening about a man being charged—but for now, only in connection with the mall shootings.”

  Angie became agitated. “Don’t let them do that, Crawford. It would be a terrible mistake.”

  “What?”

  “It would be wrong, Crawford. The profile I started—”

  “Angie, you’ve got to drop your obsession with this case. I don’t want to be indelicate, but you’re not thinking straight.”

  Her face flushed with anger. “Is there evidence to support murder charges? I really suspect not.”

  He gave up more than he’d intended. “There are excellent ballistic and forensic ties to a suspect. A suspect who has already been linked with previous murders and has been pictured in almost exactly the same clothes as the Sun Western UNSUB.”

  The explanation took the wind out of her sails. That was a lot more convincing than she’d expected.

  Either she was wrong.

  Or the killer was even brighter than she’d thought.

  Angie turned back to her building. “I’ll call you about Arlington. Give me a day and I’ll give you an answer. Thanks for coming by.”

  29

  The sun had long gone down by the time Chips rolled up with pizza.

  Angie had hardly any appetite but knew she had to keep up pretenses and stay away from the dark clouds of depression that were closing in. “Hey, my man. I’m disappointed to see you in a plain white T. I miss your slogans. You want beer or soda?”