by David Archer
In fact, I wondered if it was really fair to either of us. Dex was a nice-looking guy, in a rugged, Marlboro-man way. He was about six feet tall, well built and with some nice back and chest and shoulder muscles, and his mustache gave him a slight sinister look that made him seem mysterious. He could probably have almost any girl he wanted, but he was always available when I called and needed someone to make me feel better about something. Maybe I was keeping him from finding the right girl for him; I was dead sure I wasn’t her.
“Ready?” he asked, and I shook my reverie off as he set a plate in front of me. The butter and syrup were already on the table, so I slathered my first two waffles with both and shoved a piece of bacon into my mouth.
Oh, and then I moaned! That man can do things with bacon that ought to be against the law!
I picked up another piece and started to shove it into my mouth, but Dex suddenly jumped up and ran for the bedroom, and I stared down the hall. He came back a moment later with my phone, which was ringing, and I answered it quickly before it could go to voicemail.
“Hello?”
“It’s Alfie. You might want to come over here as soon as you can. I’ve found some things, and you’re gonna want to see them.”
EIGHT
Dex and I finished breakfast in a hurry, and then I went and got dressed. We headed straight to Alfie’s place and got there in less than fifteen minutes.
“Okay, so you asked me to look for other cases like this one, and I found some. There are four of them, to be exact. One was five years ago in Bakersfield, California, then a year later it happened in Jacksonville, Florida, then a year after that in Provo, Utah. The next year got skipped, or at least I couldn’t find one, but then last year there was a case in Tucson that matched up. In each case, about a dozen women went missing over a three-week period, and within a month after the disappearances stopped, the police got an anonymous tip about a mass grave. Almost all the bodies from each group were there, but they determined in each case that most of them only died just before they were buried. They were all poisoned, and some of them were still alive when the burial took place. They know because there was dirt from the graves in their lungs, so they were breathing when it got shoveled in over them.”
“Oh, God,” I said. “That means these women are probably still alive.”
“There’s a good chance of it, yeah,” Alfie said, “but remember, I said most of them were still alive. There were two women, one in Bakersfield and one in Jacksonville, who turned up dead before the rest, and a few of the ones in the mass graves showed signs that they had been frozen for some time before being buried. The only connection the police ever found between the victims on these cases was the fact that each of them had called an abuse hotline in the weeks before they vanished. As far as I can tell, no one ever noticed whether there was a three-day delay between the last call and the abduction, like we found yesterday.”
“But this is way too similar to be coincidental,” Dex said. “I think it has to be the same guy. Is there any chance you can find the recordings of any of their calls? Cassie said they have to keep them for a long time.”
Alfie shook his head. “I can’t find any phone information on any of the victims, and the cases aren’t active in the respective police department computers. I can’t find any way to connect them to a particular abuse line, and each of these cities has several of them. I get the impression that a lot of churches and other charities are into running them, not to mention a number of corporations. It’s almost like it’s a business of some kind, because there are so many organizations into it. Is there some way to legally make a profit from this kind of thing?”
I shook my head. “Not really,” I said. “They generally get funding from state or federal governments, sometimes from churches, other charities, philanthropic organizations or direct sponsorships. I know that St. Mary’s has a budget of about a quarter million a year that they get from the diocese and some grants, but I don’t think there’s ever very much left over.”
“I’ll bet you’d be surprised,” Alfie said, scoffing. “The reason so many rich people start charities isn’t to do good works in the world, but to have a place to hide money. If you need something, you have the charity buy it and then the money you spent turns out to be tax-deductible, because you donated it to the charity. There’s also a thousand ways to show expenditures on the books, even though no actual money changed hands. I think just about every charity shows a loss, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t bonuses being paid to their top people.”
I must’ve been looking at him doubtfully, because he rolled his eyes. “What? You doubt me? Remember, Princess, I work for lawyers who want to know where the money gets hidden. I’ve seen this scam a million times. Whoever is behind these abuse hotline ventures is making money, count on it. Otherwise there wouldn’t be so many of them.”
I made a face at him, a childish one. “Okay, but that doesn’t have anything to do with this case. I need to know about what it’s going to take to find and rescue these women.” I thought for a moment, then looked back at Alfie. “Hey, did any of the abuse counselors in those cases get phone calls like I do?”
“Good question,” Alfie said. “I didn’t think to check on that, but let me scan through the police files. This shouldn’t take long, just hang tight for a couple minutes.”
I’ll say this for Alfie; when he starts looking at computer files, there doesn’t seem to be anything else in the world that could distract him. His hand was flying around with the mouse, and I was amazed to see the cursor jumping from one monitor to another. Sometimes he would click something on one monitor and it would open on another, then he’d spin his stool around, scroll through whatever file he was looking at, and then be on to the next. The guy must read at a rate of thousands of words per minute.
“Okay, got a bingo,” he said after a few minutes. “The only one of these that involve calls to a caseworker was the last one, in Tucson. Her name was Amber Miller, and she got a call from a distorted voice that warned her that she was going to be taught a lesson about interfering in the lives of men and their families. Just like you, Scripture was quoted, but it doesn’t say which ones.”
“I need to talk to her,” I said. “Can you get her phone number?”
“Won’t do you a lot of good,” Alfie said. “Amber Miller committed suicide two weeks after the bodies were found. She left a note behind saying she couldn’t live with the guilt of knowing she had gotten them all killed.”
I stared at the monitor in front of him, where he had brought up a newspaper article. It showed a picture of a pretty woman in her early thirties, and the article said that she had taken her own life.
“Well, that sucks,” I said. “I can understand, though.”
“Why?” Dex asked. “What this man did to those women wasn’t her fault, no matter what he told her. Cassie, don’t let yourself get caught up in that trap. It won’t be on you if he kills these women.”
“Damn right it won’t,” I said. “Because I’m not going to let him do it. I’m bringing them home, all of them if I possibly can.”
Dex laid his hand on my shoulder. “I believe you,” he said. “I just hope you won’t be too stubborn to accept some help, this time.”
I turned my head and looked at him. “We had a deal, remember? I don’t want you involved in anything that might be dangerous. I think I can handle this guy, I just have to get an angle to come at him from.”
“And how do you plan to accomplish that?”
“Well, the first thing I need to do is go visit Harvest of Hope. Maybe I can’t play any of these recordings for the police, but somebody there should recognize the bastard’s voice.”
“Good luck with that,” Alfie said. “Anything you want me to work on in the meantime?”
I thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “Somehow, this bastard has managed to connect these women to me, or at least it looks that way. That’s the only reason I c
an think of that he singled me out for his personal attention on these phone calls. Can you dig around and see if he’s managed to get into my files at St. Mary’s?”
“Sure, Princess. I’ll have something for you this afternoon.”
Dex took me to my car at McDonald’s and I took off toward Harvest. It was on South Utica Avenue, just off Seventh Street, and had operators on duty twenty-four hours a day. I pulled up in its parking lot and went to the front door, but it was locked so I had to knock.
It took almost a minute and a half for someone to notice, but then a woman came to the door and opened it, but then she froze up for a second when she got a look at my face. “Can-can I help you?” she asked nervously.
“I’m Cassie McGraw,” I said. “I work over at St. Mary’s Outreach, and I wanted to talk to you about one of your phone operators. Are you in charge here?”
She was busy staring at my face, but she shoved the door open wider so I could enter. “I’m Sheila Burnett,” she said. “I manage the facility on weekends. What’s this about?”
She led me into an office and we sat down. “Sheila, you are aware of the abducted women, right? I’m afraid that’s what I’m here about. I’ve been given a recording of a call made to your line by one of the missing women, and a man took the call. He was apparently talking to her about meeting up with her, and to be honest, I’m beginning to think he might be involved in the abductions. I’d like to play the recording and see if you recognize his voice.”
Her eyes were wide, but she nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said.
I had called up the email on my phone and downloaded the recording, so I laid my phone on her desk and hit the play button. Sheila sat there and stared at the phone while the recording played the first few seconds, but then she looked up at me and shook her head.
“That’s not any of our people,” she said. “I’ve worked with all of them at different times, and I would know if it was. I think that must be from a different hotline.”
“Sheila, are you certain? I can guarantee you this came from a call to your line.”
She made a face and leaned toward the phone, listening more closely. As the recording came to an end, she shook her head once more.
“I’m sure,” she said. “I’ve never heard that man’s voice before. I did recognize the woman’s voice, though. Her name is Wanda Sparks, and I’ve taken one or two of her calls myself. Was she one of the ones who was abducted?”
“Yes,” I said, concealing my disgust that she apparently hadn’t even listened to the news stories. Wanda’s name had been mentioned several times in them, and I found it hard to believe that anyone in our line of work wouldn’t know who the victims were by this time. “She seems to have been the first victim to be abducted. Is there anyone else here I could play this for? I’m telling you, this recording came from the servers on your hotline.”
I knew I’d made a mistake as soon as I said it, but it was too late. She looked directly into my eye and glared at me. “How could you have gotten it off of the server? That takes special access, with a password and everything.”
“This was sent to me by email,” I said, thinking quickly, “from an anonymous hacker who had managed to get it. I don’t know who it was, but whoever it was must be concerned about these women, don’t you think?”
“Then why wasn’t it sent to the police? Wouldn’t they be the logical ones to handle such a thing?”
Damn, she had me. “I’m sure they’ll be asking the same questions before long,” I said, “but I happen to know Wanda and her kids. When I heard this, I just had to start trying to find out who that man is, so I came on over. Isn’t there anyone else here I could talk to?”
Sheila stood suddenly, and I knew I was being dismissed. “I’m afraid not,” she said. “I think this is a matter you should leave to the police. I’ll show you out.”
The coldness in her demeanor suddenly pissed me off, and I shot to my own feet. “Look, Sheila,” I said, giving her the full force of my Freda stare. “I know for a fact that what I’m hearing on this recording is improper behavior for any hotline operator, and I know for certain that this recording came off your hotline. To be perfectly honest, you’re making me wonder if you’re covering something up right now. Do you know who this is? Are you trying to keep me from finding out? Because, let me tell you something, I am the wrong person to get on the bad side of right now. You get me?”
Her eyes were wide again, but this time it was because she was scared. There is something about having a burned monster get in your face that makes people nervous.
“I-I’m not trying to cover up anything,” she said. “I swear, I’ve never heard that voice before. It’s not anybody who works on our hotline, I’m certain of it. Please, I assure you, if I knew who that was, I would tell you.”
I grabbed one of my business cards out of my pocket and dropped it onto her desk. “Well, if your memory suddenly improves and you get an idea of who it could be, I’d appreciate it if you would call me. I’m trying to save the lives of these women, Sheila, and I’m sorry if I came on a little strong. I’m just doing everything I can to make sure Wanda and the others come home safe.”
She licked her lips and seemed to soften a bit. “Listen, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be so brusque, I’m just—we can’t afford any kind of bad publicity. If you go around saying that’s one of our people when it’s not, that could destroy what we are trying to do here. We help a lot of women, we can’t afford to have rumors like that going around.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I said. “At the same time, there is some connection between your hotline and what’s happened, and I’m going to find it. You can count on that. If there’s anything at all you want to tell me, you’ve got my number.”
I turned around and walked out, not bothering to wait for her to show me the way. The door was one of those that is only locked on the outside, so it opened for me when I pushed on the bar and I stomped out to my car.
That left me with a problem, though. There was no way I could avoid playing that recording for the police, not after that. I grabbed my phone and called Alfie.
“Hit me,” he said.
“Alfie, when you sent me those recordings, did you send them from your own email address?”
“What do you take me for, an idiot? If you paid attention, you would have seen that it came from [email protected]. That’s how I send any sensitive information.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, good,” I said. “I’ve got to take it to the police, so I’ll just say it came from an anonymous hacker.”
“Wait a minute,” Alfie said. “Let me get into your email server for a moment and—okay, I’m editing the message that came with it. What do you want it to say?”
I grinned. “Say that you hacked it out of the HOH server and thought I might find it interesting. Any chance you can change the time on it to just a couple hours ago? I’d hate for them to realize I sat on it overnight.”
“That’s easy,” he said. “St. Mary’s is using some cheap email software, I could make it sit up and beg. I moved it to two hours ago and changed it the way you said. Go see the cops, it can’t be traced back to me. As long as you swear up and down you don’t know who sent it to you, you should be okay.”
I thanked him and hung up, then called Alicia on her cell phone. She was off on Saturday, but agreed to meet with me when I told her I had something important she needed to hear. I named a coffee shop and we agreed to meet there in twenty minutes.
She showed up right on time, bringing Niles along. I had gotten there first and grabbed a booth that was off by itself, and they slid in the other side of it.
“I got an anonymous email a while ago,” I said, “and it shook me up. It has some recordings attached to it, and the message says they came from the Harvest of Hope hotline. You know the hotlines have to keep recordings of all the calls they take, right? Well, these are calls made by most of the women who have been abducted, and
I think you’re going to find them pretty interesting.”
I showed them the email, then hit the play button on the screen to make Wanda’s recording play again. They sat and listened to it, both of them with wide eyes. When it finished, Niles looked up at me.
“I’m going to have to confiscate your phone,” he said, but I held up a hand to stop him.
“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Give me your email address and I’ll forward this to you. There’s nothing special about my phone, it just happened to be me that whoever sent this chose to give it to.”
“Just like it just happened to be you who gets the weird phone calls? Seems like an awful lot ‘just happens’ to you, doesn’t it?” He gave me a nasty look, but he told me his email address and I forwarded the message. He checked it on his own phone to make sure the recording would play, then looked at me again.
“If you got this almost 3 hours ago, why did it take you so long to call?”
“Well, because the first thing I did was go to Harvest and ask the lady in charge there today if she knew that voice. She swears up and down that she doesn’t recognize it, even insisted that it couldn’t be one of their people, but the hacker says that’s where it came from. If I were you, I’d get a warrant to check that server as soon as possible.”
“Cassie, you shouldn’t have done that,” Alicia said. “That could be considered interfering in a police investigation.”
“Damn right,” Niles said. “I could arrest you right now.”
“Look, I heard that recording and I freaked out, okay? I know Wanda, and I know some of the other women who have been abducted. It was just kind of a natural instinct to try to find out who was behind it, you know? I’m sorry, sometimes I’m just impulsive that way, but I knew I was going to have to get it to you. I’m sorry I went off half-cocked, all right?”