by Blake Pierce
Rohm quickly replied …
No. I think I’m in a safe situation at the moment.
Riley typed …
We need to talk.
As Riley waited for a reply, Jenn said, “Flores gave you her address. Maybe you could suggest that we meet her there.”
“No,” Riley said. “It might spook her to know that we’ve tracked down that information. Let’s just be patient for a few seconds.”
Finally the woman typed …
Meet me at the restaurant at the Stott Hotel at 4:30.
Before Riley could type a reply, she saw that Joanna Rohm had suddenly gone offline.
Bill said, “Stott Hotel—yeah, I was there once. It’s not far from Union Station.”
Riley glanced at the time. Hopefully the meeting Cullen had set up would be over in time for them to meet with Joanna Rohm by 4:30.
Bill added, “It’s a swanky place with a really high-class restaurant. This woman could just be some kind of rich eccentric who wants attention.”
“Maybe,” Riley said.
But she had a gut feeling that the truth was somewhat different.
She also felt sure that Flores was right. Joanna Rohm was genuinely scared.
The question was—of what?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As the train came to a stop at the platform in Chicago’s Union Station, Riley heard Jenn let out a growl of disgust.
Riley looked outside and spotted the cause of Jenn’s dismay.
Bull Cullen was standing on the platform, waiting for their arrival.
Riley said to Jenn, “Surely you’re not surprised to see him. We are here for a meeting with him, after all.”
Jenn said, “Yeah, but I guess I hoped he wasn’t going to meet us right off the train. What a drag.”
Riley resisted the urge to say again …
“You’re going to have to work with him.”
But of course, Jenn knew that already.
Or at least she’d better, Riley thought.
Riley, Bill, and Jenn stepped off the train, and Cullen strode across the platform to meet them. Riley didn’t fail to notice how Cullen not-so-subtly leered at Jenn as he approached. Jenn avoided making eye contact with him.
Riley suppressed a sigh.
These two really don’t mix, she thought.
She sensed that they weren’t going to get through this case without some kind of an altercation between Jenn and Cullen. She could only hope that whatever happened wouldn’t be too disruptive of the work that lay ahead.
Cullen grinned at them in his usual cocky manner.
“I’ve got good news, and some not-so-good news,” he said.
“OK,” Jenn said in a tight voice. “Give us the not-so-good news first.”
“Well, it’s not really news, I suppose. We haven’t found the killer. But the good news is he’s through killing. He’s not going to murder anybody else.”
Riley exchanged surprised glances with Bill and Jenn.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“You’ll find out,” Cullen said. “Come on, the meeting is already underway.”
Riley and her colleagues followed Cullen through the concourse into the station’s cavernous Great Hall, then up a wide flight of stairs with brass railings. After going up another flight of stairs, they arrived at the offices of the railroad police, where they went into a large conference room.
Riley was startled by how crowded the room was. As soon as she and her colleagues got seated, Cullen took his place at the end of the table and made some general introductions. A number of railroad police investigators from both passenger and freight units were there. She recognized a few of the faces from the Barnwell crime scene. She also recognized some agents from the Chicago FBI field office, including Special Agent in Charge Proctor Dillard, with whom she and Bill had worked in the past.
Riley was anxious to get right down to business.
She asked Cullen, “How do you know the killer isn’t going to strike again?”
Cullen grinned and clicked a remote that brought up an image on a large screen. It was a photograph of a vehicle that had been burned to smoking cinders in the middle of a field.
He said, “My guys got wind of a report about this SUV—a Nissan off-road vehicle. Somebody deliberately torched it in a field about twenty-five miles outside of Barnwell. It didn’t have a license plate, and it was too thoroughly incinerated to get DNA samples or any other useful information. But …”
He clicked the remote again and brought up two more pictures. One showed the tire tracks Riley had already seen alongside the railroad tracks near Barnwell. The other showed a similar set of tracks, obviously from the crime scene near Allardt.
Cullen said, “The FBI guys compared the tire tracks left at the two crime scenes, and they both were made by the same vehicle. The tracks are consistent with the type of vehicle that got torched.”
Riley just looked at Cullen. She didn’t quite understand what he was getting at.
Cullen shrugged and added, “What are the chances that the burned vehicle wasn’t the one used by the murderer at both crime scenes?”
“Slim to nonexistent,” Riley said.
Cullen nodded and smiled.
“Which means that our killer deliberately destroyed his vehicle to get rid of the evidence. And that surely means that he got skittish and doesn’t plan to commit any more murders. We still don’t know who he is, but all we’ve got to do is track him down. And we’re not up against the clock. Nobody’s life is in danger.”
Riley glanced across the table and made eye contact with Chief Dillard. He shook his head at her, obviously as bemused by what Cullen was saying as Riley herself felt.
A bit cautiously, Riley began, “I hate to say this, but …”
“But what?” Cullen asked.
Before Riley could continue, Jenn spoke up sharply.
“You’re jumping to conclusions. The only thing the burned vehicle tells us is that the killer is smart. He knows that the SUV was going to be easy to track down, and he didn’t dare keep it, much less use it a third time. He probably has a new vehicle by now.”
Cullen looked baffled.
Before Jenn could really lay into him, Riley silenced her with a stern look.
She changed the subject by asking Chief Dillard, “Has somebody followed up on the alibi that Weston Bruder gave us for the time of his daughter’s murder?”
Dillard replied, “We checked out each of the people he said he’d spoken to. We didn’t tell them where Bruder had claimed to be, but their responses all backed up his story.”
“Has anyone talked to Reese Fisher’s mother?” Riley asked.
Dillard nodded. “I sent a couple of my people to Tandy Place, the assisted care facility where she’s living. The poor woman is deeply demented and can’t fully grasp what happened to her daughter. She certainly couldn’t give us any useful information.”
Riley nodded and looked at her list of loose ends. There was just one more topic that she’d left a question mark beside.
“I take it the footprints at the two crime scenes also match,” Riley said.
“They do. They were definitely left by the same man,” Dillard said.
And that man didn’t have a limp, she remembered. It wasn’t Red Messer. She hadn’t thought it could be, but she was glad to have him cleared.
“I’m glad we’ve cleared up those little details,” Riley said. “So now it seems most likely that we are dealing with a serial killer, not a one-off followed by a copycat. That’s important information. We weren’t sure of it till now.”
Bill added, “You brought us from Quantico to give you a profile. And it seems unlikely that we’re dealing with the type of killer who’s going to stop after two murders. The pressure is still on us. We can’t let another victim die.”
“Are you sure that he’ll—” Cullen began.
“You’d better count on it,” Jenn said.
Cullen’s mouth dropped open a
nd his face reddened.
This isn’t helpful, Riley thought.
After all, Cullen was in charge of the railroad police here in Chicago, and Riley and her colleagues had just made him look foolish on his own turf—not only in front of his own agents and detectives, but the Chicago FBI people as well. Tweaking a male ego like Cullen’s served no useful purpose in a situation as dire as this.
Besides, Riley knew that Cullen’s assumption that the killings were over and done with wasn’t stupid—not coming from a law enforcement officer used to dealing with collisions, suicides, and even the occasional murder or terrorist threat. He simply had no knowledge of psychopaths.
Riley said, “Look, I can think of one scenario under which the killer might actually be finished killing. It’s not likely, but it’s possible. Deputy Chief Cullen, I asked you to have your agents keep track of Chase Fisher, the second victim’s husband. How is that going so far?”
Cullen seemed to be regaining his poise.
“My people have been tracking his every movement,” he said. “He’s not doing anything suspicious.”
Riley was anything but surprised.
“Well, keep watching him. There’s still a chance—a really dim one, I think—that he killed Reese Fisher because of her infidelity. If so, he could have set up the earlier killing as a ruse, to make us think we were dealing with a serial killer. If that’s the case, he might not bother to kill again. As I said, it’s not a likely scenario, and we’d better not count on it, but we can’t ignore it.”
Bill said, “The victims’ lives don’t seem to have been related in any way, except that they both sometimes rode a commuter train in and out of Chicago. We have to proceed with the most likely assumption. That it’s a serial with a more generalized personal motive.”
Riley paused for a moment.
Then she said, “Can you bring up pictures of the two victims? When they were alive, I mean?”
Cullen clicked his remote, and ID photos of Fern Bruder and Reese Fisher appeared side by side on the screen.
Pointing, Riley said, “The women were ten years apart in age—Fern was twenty-five and Reese was thirty-five. One was married, one was single. Still, we can see a certain physical resemblance between them. Both had brown, curly hair, slender faces, aquiline noses. Those similarities might just be coincidental and tell us nothing about the killer’s tastes and preferences. But they also might be meaningful. For example, women with those features might remind the killer of someone in his past.”
Special Agent in Charge Dillard spoke up.
“Agent Paige, you say that Chase Fisher is a long shot as a suspect. Why is that?”
Riley thought for a moment.
“As Agent Jeffreys just said, it’s likely that there’s a more generalized motive behind these murders. In serial cases we often encounter killers driven by their own demons, their own compulsions. This man might not want to kill, but can’t stop himself, despite intense feelings of guilt. His motives are probably murky, even to himself. But the railroad is part of his obsession somehow. He’s triggered by something in his past, and it has something to do with trains.”
Riley drummed her eraser on the table. She wasn’t very satisfied with what she’d just said. It wasn’t much of a profile, and it wasn’t much to go on. But in her gut, she was wary of the usual textbook assumptions she might otherwise make. The killer clearly had psychiatric problems, but she somehow suspected that he’d never actually been institutionalized. And since neither victim had been sexually assaulted, the killer didn’t seem to be sexually motivated.
Riley’s eye was drawn to a tall, gray-haired man who seemed to be lost in thought, jotting down notes on a notepad. He didn’t quite seem to belong to any group here—neither the railroad police nor the Chicago FBI.
Cullen apparently noticed who had attracted her attention. He looked along the table at the older man, then grinned and said, “Any ideas you’d like to share with us, Grandpa?”
The man cringed a little, and so did Riley. She could tell by Cullen’s patronizing tone that “Grandpa” was a less-than-respectful nickname.
The man looked up from his notepad.
“Just playing around with a little theory,” he said.
“Yeah? And what’s that?”
The man shook his head.
“I’m not ready to say. I need more data.”
Riley’s interest was piqued. She wished she could get a look at whatever was written on that notepad.
Cullen chuckled and said, “Well, good luck with that, Grandpa. Let us know when you’ve cracked the case.”
The man looked hurt now—understandably so, Riley thought. Without another word, he got up from his chair, opened the door, and stepped out of the room. He closed the door quietly behind him.
When he was gone, Riley asked Cullen, “Who was that man?”
Cullen laughed.
“His name is Mason Eggers—just a retired old fart who can’t accept the fact that he’s retired. He was a railroad cop for years, not a bad one in his day. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself anymore, and he keeps coming around whenever there’s a new case. He’s always got ideas and theories, and sometimes they’re not bad, as long as they don’t have to do with anything more serious than vandalism or theft. The poor guy was past his prime years ago, but I let him hang around.”
Riley felt a tingle that told her …
Cullen underestimates that guy.
She had an impulse to dash out of the room and catch up with Mason Eggers, but thought better of it.
The discussion at the table shifted to other details. Because both victims had taken trains out of Union Station, the Chicago team had checked and found that no railroad personnel had been at work on both trains.
They’d also pored over platform surveillance tapes, both in Chicago and at their destinations. So far they’d spotted both victims boarding or leaving their trains, but nobody suspicious following them. They couldn’t identify any passengers in common for both trains.
Of course, they couldn’t discount the possibility that the killer had a good knowledge of the surveillance system and had deliberately escaped detection. And unfortunately, the trains in question didn’t have security cameras inside the passenger cars. Such cameras were planned for commuter trains in the future, but hadn’t yet been installed.
After some discussion, Cullen made general assignments all around, and the meeting came to a close.
As Riley and her colleagues got up from the table, Bill glanced at his watch.
He said, “If we catch a cab right away, we should be able to make it.”
Cullen overheard Bill and said, “Where are the three of you off to?”
Jenn and Bill didn’t say anything. Riley didn’t want to tell Cullen they were on their way to meet with a woman who thought she might be the killer’s next victim. Cullen would surely want to come along, and he and Jenn would wind up at odds again. As far as Riley was concerned, the interview was likely to be sensitive enough as it was without having to deal with all that.
She said to Cullen, “We’ll let you know if it amounts to anything.”
Riley and her colleagues brushed past him and headed down the stairs. They stored their go-bags in a locker and hurried out of the building.
Within a few moments, they’d caught a cab and were on their way to the Stott Hotel. During the short drive, Riley remembered what Mason Eggers had said about his theory.
“I need more data.”
Riley knew just how he felt, and it scared her.
What if “more data” arrived in the form of another murder?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
As their cab approached the Stott Hotel, a line kept running through Riley’s mind …
I’m scared for my life.
It was from the Facebook post that Joanna Rohm had shared with her friends. And if Rohm had good reason for her fears, maybe Riley and her team would get their first real break in this case. Mayb
e they’d be able to stop this ghastly killer before he could strike again.
The cab pulled up in front of the Stott Hotel, and Riley and her colleagues got out. Riley was impressed as she stood on the sidewalk and looked up at the glittering steel and glass building overlooking the river.
“Swanky,” Bill had called it.
He wasn’t kidding, Riley thought.
She wondered—what did that say about the person they were about to meet?
They took the elevator up to the restaurant, which occupied most of the top floor of the building.
A stylish hostess greeted them as soon as they arrived. Riley said, “We’re here to meet Joanna Rohm. Is she here?”
The hostess nodded.
“You’ll find her in the lounge,” she said, indicating the way.
The three agents passed through the clearly very expensive restaurant. Due to the late afternoon hour, only a few customers were there. When they went into the plush lounge, Riley was surprised to see no customers at all.
Where is she? Riley wondered.
Riley and her colleagues walked over to the bar, where a tall female bartender with blonde hair was cleaning some glasses. She wore a clean white shirt and a necktie.
“Excuse me,” Riley said, “but we’re looking for Joanna Rohm.”
“That would be me,” said the bartender.
Riley managed to hide her surprise as she and her colleagues produced their badges and introduced themselves. They sat down on the comfortable, leather-upholstered bar stools.
Riley said, “Now I think I understand why you told us to meet you at four-thirty.”
“Yeah, business grinds to a halt right about now,” Joanna said. “We can talk privately.”
Joanna fell quiet and glanced around nervously.
Then she said, “I’m glad you’re here. Like I said, I’m scared.”
Riley said, “You said you were afraid you might be the railroad killer’s next victim. Why do you think that?”
“I knew Reese Fisher.”
Joanna gave Riley a significant look, holding Riley’s gaze. Riley squinted, trying to understand what the woman was trying to communicate.