“Is that what you typically rely on?” Gesch inquired skeptically. “Luck? Your perp making a mistake? Is that how you solved all of these cases I’ve heard about?”
Mac shrugged, nonplussed by the little jibe. “Sometimes yes and sometimes no. What frustrates me is this investigation is so spread out. Typically, I’d be in the middle of what they’re doing in Harrisburg, Salisbury and Dover, going around to every family member, friend, coworker and potential witness to see if the picture rang a bell with anyone. I’d be out hunting, trying to make my own luck. Waiting on others is, for me, a little weird.”
“Mac, if we don’t get anything out of this today, what would be your next move?” Gesch asked.
Mac had actually given that some thought. “Serials often, not always, but often start with someone they see, maybe not daily, but someone that triggers something. So, if we don’t get anything today, I want to go to …”
“Harrisburg.”
“Right. Old-fashioned police work. Pound the pavement. That’s how we found our image here. It’s how we’ll eventually solve this thing. One little piece at a time. This image is unlikely to get us home. It’s just a piece, but all the pieces matter.”
In the early evening, Mac and Wire walked out of the field office to stretch their legs, taking a stroll towards the Verizon Center arena in search of a good cup of coffee. After four blocks, they found a coffee shop, where they ordered large iced coffees and continued their walk, stopping at the Navy Memorial Plaza and grabbing a bench to drink their coffees and enjoy the warm early evening air.
“How much do you see Sally?” Wire asked.
“Not as much as I’d like.”
“But enough?”
“No,” Mac shook his head. “No, it’s never really enough, but it is what it is with her job, you know. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know,” Wire replied wistfully. “I work so much these days, my business, the six months of the election investigation, doing this case with you, the book. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for a personal life. It makes me wonder if I could ever find someone who would, you know …”
“Be there.”
“Yeah.”
“There’s someone for everyone, Dara, I truly believe that.” Mac turned to face her, “Wait a minute. You can’t actually be worried that there wouldn’t be someone for you, do you. Dara?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve never had that relationship, the one where you dive into it with both feet and really commit with someone. I’m thirty-three years old and I’ve never had it.”
Mac scoffed, “Dara, you are far too normal, smart, not to mention ridiculously hot, to go without someone if you want to find someone. If you truly want to find someone, there is someone for you. I mean, what about this guy you got laid with repeatedly?”
Dara shook her head and smiled, “He’s the type for getting laid with repeatedly. He’s not the type for the other part.”
“Don’t undersell the value of great sex.”
“Is that what you and Sally have?” Dara asked mischievously, a smiley smirk on her face.
“Yeah, we do, actually,” Mac answered seriously. “It’s born of a great relationship. It gets better all the time and I think it is part of what makes us closer. I mean, look, I was married once and Meredith and I were never as close as Sally and I.”
“Is Sally that someone for you, Mac?” Dara asked more seriously. “I mean, is she really the one?”
Mac looked at her with raised eyebrows, “Do you and I really know each other well enough to have this conversation? I mean, you’re sounding a little like my mom here.”
“We’ve gone this far, why stop now.” Dara turned serious and she wasn’t prying. This discussion was as much about her life as it was about his. “We’re friends, we’ve bonded. You and I know each other pretty well, been through a few intense situations together. I trust you with my life if we get in a situation, and you can trust me with yours.” She took a sip of her iced coffee, “I envy you and Sally, is all. It just seems you two are awfully happy together.”
“We are. We’re committed to each other, I know that.”
“How do you know that?” she asked curiously. “How do you know you’re committed? I mean, don’t get angry at me for saying this, and I’m not channeling your mom here, but I don’t see a big rock on her finger.”
Mac thought for a minute. It was a fair question. “For one thing, every decision she or I make is made with the impact to us in mind. We make decisions together.”
“Such as?”
“Coming to Washington. She wanted to come when she got the offer from the Judge. However, she didn’t say yes until she talked through it with me. There was no way I was going to say no and I think she knew that, but still, we had to talk it through. What did that move mean for us? It was a ‘we’ decision, not a ‘me’ decision.”
“Is it enough? Is what you have now enough?”
“In the long run, no. But it’s enough for right now,” Mac answered.
“Do you two have a plan?”
“A plan?”
“Yeah, you know, like marriage?” Wire asked. “I mean, what comes next?”
“A specific, laid out, step-by-step plan,” Mac shook his head. “No. I … I think, no, I know we both want to be married again someday, or at least I think so, but we haven’t really felt the need to do it. Frankly, the ‘m’ word doesn’t come up very often.”
“Scared?”
“Oh. I think we both are,” Mac answered, sipping his iced coffee through the straw. “This may shock you, but we don’t really talk about it.”
Wire looked at him skeptically.
“I swear to you, we really don’t talk about marriage. Commitment—yes, but marriage?” He shook his head, “No.”
“Why not?”
“Honestly, I don’t think either of us really thinks being married would change our relationship right now. I really don’t think I could love her more than I already do. I don’t know that putting the ring on her finger would change my commitment to her or hers to me.”
“What would? What would change the relationship? What would push you two over the precipice?”
Mac looked at a family of four walking fifty feet away and gestured, “Kids, I suppose. I want kids someday. I love kids. I want a family.”
“Does Sally?”
Now she’d asked a question to which he admittedly didn’t for sure know the answer and three years into a relationship he should. Like marriage, kids were not something that they often talked about, perhaps afraid what the other’s answer might be. She certainly seemed to like kids and absolutely doted over her nieces and nephews with gifts and love. Sally was on the computer all the time with her brothers and sisters, checking out kid and baby pictures and was always excited to see the newest addition to the extended Kennedy or McRyan family. She loved to buy clothes and ship them off, to hold and play with the babies. When they were back in St. Paul, they did a lot of babysitting. But did Sally want kids of her own? He assumed so, but then again, they never really specifically talked about it. “I don’t …” his phone rang before he could finish his answer. “McRyan.”
“It’s Gesch. We need to go to Harrisburg. We might have gotten lucky.”
CHAPTER NINE
“We’re blown.”
“I could get used to this,” Mac remarked lightly to Wire through his headset.
One thing about working on a priority federal investigation, you get access to all the tools and toys of the eight-hundred-pound US Government gorilla. In this case, the FBI chopper screamed through the night carrying Gesch, Delmonico, Mac and Wire and making a beeline for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
The Reaper’s first victim, Melissa Goynes, was a bar manager and waitress at the Nittany Lion Sports Bar in Harrisburg. Gesch explained that two Harrisburg detectives attached to the Reaper Task Force had set up camp at the Nittany Lion all day with the photos and video from Dover, talking to every cust
omer, salesman, distributor and employee who came in the door. Throughout the day they’d struck out, the images not registering with anyone. However, there was a big pay-per-view for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) tonight and the bar was packed to capacity with lots of regulars hanging out looking to watch the matches.
“Mac, your instinct to think that the killer may have focused on someone he saw frequently for his first victim may have been right. The picture and video started resonating with some patrons a few hours ago,” Gesch stated. “The people at the bar named this guy,” Gesch reported, handing a DMV photo to Wire.
“Cedric Lewis,” Wire stated, reading from the DMV photo. Lewis was 6’1 ¾”, two hundred twenty pounds and broad shouldered. He had a beard and the mouth looked kind of like the man’s in the images from the hardware store. She handed the photo to Mac, “Your thoughts?”
“What triggered it for them?” Mac asked Gesch as he took in the photo.
“The image from the surveillance camera reminded them of a guy who comes into the bar from time to time, especially when they have the MMA fights on. He works out at a local gym, Wrex Gym, which has a rather bold and colorful logo so that’s part of how they remember him. He usually wears clothes with the logo on it. In any event, Harrisburg tells me that staffers started looking at the photo, recognized the beard, hoodie and sunglasses look, and they think it’s this guy.”
Mac took the photo from the hardware store and held it next to the picture of Lewis. After a minute, he shrugged. “It’s possible.”
“There’s more,” Gesch added. “Our guy has a criminal record with a history of smacking ladies around. Two domestic charges in his past and a restraining order from an ex-girlfriend. Apparently, he’s been in a fight or two at the Lion and at another bar down the street where apparently he drew a big knife. He likes violence, or at least is violent.”
Mac gestured for the file. Gesch handed it to him and Mac began thumbing through it. “He’s an MMA fighter himself. Looks like on the local circuit, does some sparring with bigger names.” He took another look at the DMV photo and his measurements. Mac thought back to his University of Minnesota days, working out on campus for hockey and interacting with other athletes, including wrestlers. Minnesota has one of the best wrestling programs in the nation. This guy cut that look. “He has the look of a wrestler. Maybe even a heavyweight back in the day, his neck muscles are massive and you can just tell he has a broad chest, thick through the shoulders.” As he studied the photo more, he zeroed in on the eyes, which were dark, set back under a large brow and troubling. In Mac’s view, the picture said, “Don’t Fuck With Me.” In reading the profile on Lewis, something bothered Mac, something about him perhaps not being right for it. However, he had the right look and his background of violence, use of a knife even, suggested he could be right. “So where is he now?”
“We don’t know,” Delmonico answered. “Harrisburg has two units sitting on his apartment complex, but he hasn’t shown. The gym he works at is closed for the night. His cell phone must be turned off as we can’t track him that way. He’s in the wind right now, which suggests he might have bolted town, but we’ve got an all points out. But there is one other possibility, which is where we’re headed.”
“What’s that?” Wire asked.
“It’s 8:40 right now,” Delmonico replied. “The people at the bar say he usually shows up for the pay-per-view MMA events, so, if he hasn’t gone to ground, we’re hoping he’ll show tonight. The main fights start a little after 10:00 P.M. eastern time.”
The chopper landed in the Harrisburg Police Bureau parking lot. The Harrisburg task force detective was named Angelo Dorsett, a short, stout, barrel-chested man with a high and tight military haircut for his jet black hair and a thick black beard around his mouth. He greeted them off the chopper. Introductions were quickly made and Dorsett hustled everyone into two unmarked cars, one black and one car silver. “The bar is less than ten minutes away, up on Forster Street.”
The unmarked units stopped two blocks short of the bar on a side street sitting a half block back from Forster, which was a busy main thoroughfare. Mac and Wire climbed out of their unit and walked up to Dorsett’s, which was leading the group and carrying Gesch and Delmonico. Wire leaned down to the passenger side front window to speak with Dorsett. “How many men do you have inside?”
“Just two inside, but I have a unit watching the front,” Dorsett answered. “I didn’t go in because my face has been on the news with this case. I didn’t want to spook him if he saw me.”
“Then Delmonico and I shouldn’t go in either,” Gesch replied. “We were on the news here a few weeks ago and certainly we were on the news plenty today.”
“We’ll go in,” Mac suggested. “We have no profile on this. Our only problem is we don’t know who your men are, Detective Dorsett.”
Dorsett took out his handheld radio. “My two people inside are detectives Stiglitch and Lee.” Then into the radio, “Stig, I have two people coming in, Feds, one guy probably six-one, short blond hair, blue eyes, casually dressed in jeans, black sport coat with a blue and white button down, open at the collar named McRyan. He’ll have a tall brunette with him, skinny blue jeans, white T-shirt, black jean jacket, coming in the front door, her name is Wire.” Dorsett looked up to them and pointed with his radio. “Walk up to Forster, cross the street and then turn right and the Nittany Lion is two blocks up on the left.”
Mac and Wire took their guns, checked them quickly and stuffed them behind their backs and began walking the rest of the half block on Susquehanna Street to Forster Street. At Forster, Wire said, “Wait a second.” She pulled her hair out of her ponytail and played with it until it fell nicely just below her shoulders. Then out of the inside pocket of her jean jacket she pulled out some lipstick and applied it.
Mac took it all in, admiring. He rarely saw her with her hair down looking like this. It was always business.
“What?” she asked. He was staring.
“Nothing.” Were he not a man madly in love, he’d be awfully tempted.
Forster was a busy boulevard, two lanes in either direction with a tree-lined median down the middle. They made their way across the street, turned right and walked along the sidewalk, seeing the neon marquis for the Nittany Lion two blocks ahead. Wire slipped her left hand under Mac’s right arm.
“Fulfilling a fantasy,” Mac quipped as they walked.
“You are so full of yourself,” Wire retorted. “We’re undercover. We should look like something besides cops. You’re just good looking enough that people would think it’s possible, just possible, you could be with me.”
“Ouch.”
The Nittany Lion had large windows along the front and as they approached the entrance, Mac looked to his left inside and saw what must have been at least forty large flat screens mounted high up in the middle over the bar and on the walls. Just inside the front door was a sign that said capacity of three hundred, and it looked like all of that and probably more were packed inside the bar. Mac took in the layout of the place, which was really a large open floor plan. There was a large rectangular bar occupying the middle. Another circuit of tall tables and stools surrounded the bar all the way around. Then there was a step up and a third ring with tables to the left and back and deeper booths with tall dividing walls for privacy along the right side under a lower hanging ceiling. The rear entrance was visible, offset to the left of the bar and near the hallway to the restrooms in the back left corner. It was a large and open space.
Wire grabbed Mac’s hand and led him towards the bar. He stood behind her as she ordered Diet Cokes with limes when a voice whispered in his ear, “Name is Stiglich.”
“McRyan. Wire is ordering,” Mac answered, glancing just briefly right to see the Harrisburg detective, a man with light brown hair, dressed in blue jeans with a bulky V-neck nylon navy blue Penn State pullover.
“I’m parked on a bar stool by the front door. Lee is wearing a Phillies sweatshirt and kh
akis, sitting on a stool on the right corner at the far end of the bar. I talked to the owner and he’s got a booth for you two over to the right, about halfway down the walkway. We should have it covered then.”
“Any sign of our boy?” Mac asked quietly out the side of his mouth.
“Not yet.”
Wire turned around with two drinks, made eye contact with the Harrisburg cop, who then moved past her to the bar. To cover talking to Mac, he ordered. Mac tilted his head to the right and then he and Wire pushed their way through the crowd, climbed two steps and then walked left down a walkway, finding the empty booth with a reserved sign on their right. They each took a side of the booth, Wire with eyes to the front of the bar and Mac watching the back.
It was 9:34 P.M. They each casually sipped at their sodas while scanning the bar, the DMV picture of Lewis pulled up on their cell phones.
The pay-per-view fights started at 10:00 P.M.
“Do you ever watch these MMA fights?” Wire asked.
“I did one time. A friend bought the pay-per-view for an event like tonight. It struck me as human cockfighting.”
“It should be illegal.”
Mac shrugged. “Since the time of Rome, we’ve had gladiators. This is just the latest incarnation of it.”
“We who are about to die, solute you,” Wire quipped, quoting from Gladiator.
“At my signal, unleash hell,” Mac retorted, quoting General Maxiumus and they both shared a chuckle.
The anticipation in the bar grew as 10:00 P.M. approached. The volume on the pay-per-view was turned up so that the crowd could hear the announcers analyze the night’s fight card. There were three undercard matches before the main event between two heavyweights. A last minute surge of people filled the bar.
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