by Spencer Kope
I’m a little more suspicious of walk-ins these days.
Still, Chas seems to be on the level.
“About two months ago,” he jabbers, “I go out to my truck to go to work and I notice this piece of paper lying on the seat. It stands out because I keep my truck neat—no garbage, no clutter. My sister, Peggy, she’s got like six months of fast food bags, empty soda bottles, candy wrappers, and crap like that on the floor of her car. It’s disgusting. I don’t know how she can drive around like that. Know what I mean?”
He pauses, like I’m supposed to respond to that. I just nod my head in agreeable disgust.
“Well, like I said, the paper stood out and at first I thought it dropped out of my notebook—I keep a notebook to track my sales statistics, sales techniques that seem to work better than others, that sort of thing.” He produces his leather-bound portfolio and flips it open to the indexed pages with their color-coded entries. “The note was folded into quarters, though, and I don’t fold my pages, as you can see. The creases weaken the paper and distort the text. It’s just not a smart practice.”
I’m starting to like this guy.
“So then I’m thinking someone stopped by to visit while I was in the bathroom or asleep, and they just left a note in my truck—weird, I know. But when I open the note, there are just these fifteen entries, one to a line, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they’re first initials and last names. The top eleven entries have a little check symbol next to the name, and the first ten have a line through the name.
“So now I’m thinking it’s someone’s fantasy football notes or something like that and I put it in the glove box in case someone comes looking for it—at this point I’m still thinking it belongs to one of my friends; one of my three friends, actually. I find that any more than three or four friends at a time is a bit of a burden, don’t you? Anyway, there it sat. I completely forgot about it. And then I saw the newspaper this morning. J. Green, T. Rich, D. Grazier, A. Lister, they’re all on the list. So now I’m thinking this isn’t fantasy football. This is like a death list or something. Am I right?” He pauses. “Which means this is the killer’s list and he was in my truck for some reason.”
I suddenly feel that prickly sensation you get when the hair rises on your neck, and I hear myself asking, “Do you have the list?”
“Sure,” Chas replies, “it’s right here.” He reaches for his shirt pocket and I shout, “No!” startling both of us. Holding a finger up, I say, “Don’t touch it. Stand right here and I’ll be back in a second.”
Rushing into the reception office, I bark two words: “Tami. Gloves.”
Without missing a beat, she tosses me a box of disposable latex gloves. I pull out a pair and toss the box back.
The latex groans softly as I pull them on, first the left, then the right. Gently, I reach into Chas’s shirt pocket and retrieve the folded paper. With my left hand, I lift my glasses an inch and gasp aloud at the brilliant amaranth and rust. The paper is awash in it, almost as if the bastard had rubbed it over his body.
“Chas,” I say, “I think you’re my new best friend.” I hold up that single universal finger, the one that everyone understands regardless of language or culture—no, the other universal finger. “Stay here for just a moment,” I say. His eyes are fixed on my index finger like a drunk doing a sobriety test. Probably doesn’t help that I have it six inches from his face.
Tami’s on the phone when I rush into her office. After listening politely to the person on the other end of the line for twenty seconds—an eternity—she says, “Please hold,” and directs the call to Detective Forgendirgenstern or something like that and smiles at me as she hangs up the phone.
“You called that one spot-on,” I say, thumbing toward the reception window and the lobby beyond, where Chas is taking a seat and looking around at the plaques and pictures on the wall.
“You got something?”
“Just the Holy Grail, that’s all.” I hold up the paper.
She smiles and nods. “The Holy Grail looks different than I thought it would.”
“Yeah, yeah. Can you boop-boop Jimmy for me? He wandered off somewhere with the sheriff and I need him to interview Chas ASAP. I’m running to the copy room to burn a few million of these.” Pointing to the lobby, I add, “Don’t let him leave! I don’t care if you have to tase him and duct-tape him to a chair.”
“I don’t have a Taser.”
“You’ll think of something.”
“I’ll threaten him vigorously with my letter opener.”
“See?” I say with a grin. “That’s creative. I like that.”
As I head down the hall, Tami’s voice booms over the PA system requesting that Special Agent Donovan report to the front desk.
An hour later, we have everything we need, including Chas’s white 1992 Ford F-150 pickup, which is impounded pending a thorough sweep by at least two crime scene investigators. Chas is gracious enough to sign a consent form allowing a search, so we don’t need a warrant. It probably helped that Jimmy rented a new Mustang for him.
Jimmy has an expense account.
I don’t have an expense account.
I once asked why I don’t have an expense account and was told I don’t need one. I don’t need a pet whale, either, but it would be cool to have one.
Back in the conference room, Jimmy plops down in a deformed chair that looks like it fell out of a Salvador Dalí painting. When he turns to the left it thu-thu-thu-thu-thumps; when he turns to the right it squeaks like a miniature banshee; when he leans back it groans like some restless spirit with its finger in a vise.
I’m thinking Jimmy needs to take that expense account and buy the sheriff a new chair, one that’s not possessed. Better yet, a dozen chairs, that way they all match.
“So,” Jimmy says, “what are we thinking?”
I’m thinking I need a damn expense account.
I put the thought aside and say what Jimmy already knows. “He steals cars to commit the abduction and then returns them to the exact spot they were stolen from so the owner is none the wiser.”
“Chas was adamant that he never leaves his keys in the ignition,” Jimmy throws out, “and there was no evidence of tampering on the ignition—at least none I could see.”
“So he’s got some car skills,” I say, “or an assortment of shaved keys.”
A favorite among car thieves, shaved keys are nothing more than old car keys that have been ground down a bit. The locks and ignitions on older vehicles, like Chas’s truck, tend to wear down and loosen up over time so that even an inexperienced thief can often start the car in twenty or thirty seconds with a shaved key.
“An auto thief turned serial killer?” Jimmy wonders aloud.
“Or a serial killer turned auto thief.” I shrug when Jimmy looks up. “It’s not like he’s interested in the cars, right? He’s just covering his tracks. Actually, it’s pretty smart—and kind of scary. How else do you explain Chas’s death list? We know Sad Face didn’t toss it through the window as he strolled by; his shine was all over the interior.”
Jimmy leans forward, sips at his coffee, and thinks for a moment. “You’re certain the only other shine you recognized on Chas’s truck was Lauren’s? Not even a hint of Alison, or maybe—” He sees the look on my face and quickly holds up his hand. “Right, right. Sorry. It’s just that Chas’s truck looks a lot like the one in the Walmart surveillance video. It’s even the right color.”
“White’s a popular color for trucks.”
“It’s not just that. You said it yourself, that he’s probably using a shaved key. Doesn’t a shaved key have to have started as the same make: a shaved Honda key to steal a Honda, Chevy for Chevy—”
“Ford for Ford.” I see where he’s going with this. “So maybe he only has one shaved key and has to keep stealing the same type of truck?”
Jimmy taps his nose with his index finger.
“That helps a little, but not much,” I say
. “The Ford F-150 is a popular rig.”
“Yeah, but ask yourself this: Why that type of vehicle?” He reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a wallet that looks like a booster seat, and extracts a $50 bill with his thumb and index finger. Dangling it in the air a moment, he places it gently on the table, slides the booster seat back into his pocket, and says. “Fifty bucks says that’s the same make and model he owns. Probably had a copy of his own key made and then shaved it down.”
I don’t have a $50 bill in my wallet. I have a debit card, my driver’s license, and a punch card for the place where I get my hair cut (three more punches and I get one free). No $50 bill, though. If I had a $50 bill it would probably elope with the expense account I don’t have.
“I’d take that bet,” I say boldly, for a guy with no $50 bill in his wallet, “but I think you’re probably right.” Then, in a somber voice, “I also think Chas’s aptly named death list is exactly that. And based on what he wrote down, it looks like Sad Face preselects his victims well in advance.” I hold a facsimile of the list up, but Jimmy only glances at it. I’m sure he already has it memorized. “The check next to each name indicates he’s kidnapped them. Then, when he kills them, he draws a line through the name. So the last time he touched this note was right after he killed Alison Lister and abducted Lauren Brouwer.”
“I know,” Jimmy says in a quiet voice. He’s silent for several long moments, lost in thought. Eventually he turns slowly in the moaning chair until he’s facing me directly. “I think we need to focus on the last four names on the list, the ones without the lines or checks. If we can figure out who they are, we can break the cycle, throw him off his game. Save some lives.”
“What about Lauren?” I want the words to come out calm, matter-of-fact, but when they leave my mouth they have an edge to them, an urgent and raw vibration that hints at distress. Inside I’m screaming, I promised her mother. I promised! Somehow that internal scream cuts through mind and matter and attaches itself to those three words: What about Lauren? I realize that I’m clutching the locket in my pocket—Lauren’s locket—and rubbing it with my thumb as if it were a worry stone.
“We’re not giving up on Lauren,” Jimmy insists.
I wish I could be so sure.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
June 29, 2:45 P.M.
“I ran all four names through CLEAR,” Diane says, referencing the massive public records database run by Thomson Reuters and used for corporate security, fraud investigations, skip tracing, and other purposes. It’s a favorite tool of the FBI and other law enforcement because you can locate just about anyone.
Whenever you order cable TV at your new apartment, apply for a loan, get a new cell phone, apply for water and sewer service, or set up just about any other “public” service, the data is added to the tens of billions of public records stored in various corporate databases.
These are the databases that CLEAR calls upon when a query is run. And for those in law enforcement there’s a special version of CLEAR that provides more and better information. It’s a bit Orwellian, but the database is an indispensable tool and a favorite of Diane’s.
“P. Nichols is most likely Peggy Nichols,” Diane continues, “the twelfth name on the list; she moved to Florida last month. Looks like she just closed on a three-bedroom rancher in Punta Gorda—that’s a bit south of Sarasota. I’ll include her new phone number in the e-mail.”
“Can you call the Punta Gorda Police Department as soon as you’re off the phone and advise them of the situation? And if they don’t have a PD, call the county sheriff’s office.”
“I called both before I called you. They tended to agree that the chance of Sad Face going all the way to Florida is remote but promised they’d notify Peggy and take the appropriate precautions until we give them the all-clear.”
“Well … good, then. You’re one step ahead of me.”
“Of course I am.”
The tap dance of fingers on the keyboard drifts through the phone and then Diane continues. “Number thirteen, M. Milne, is Melissa Milne. I’m close to a hundred percent on that because there haven’t been any other Milnes pictured in any of the fifty-seven newspapers I’ve scanned, at least not in the last year and a half. Melissa lives in Redding; the address the sheriff’s office has for her looks like it’s still good. Same with number fourteen, Nikki Dearborn, and her husband Tyson. Their place appears to be a twenty-acre mini-ranch just outside Anderson.”
“How about B. Contreras?” Jimmy asks.
“That one was a little tougher, but it’s most likely Becky Contreras,” Diane says. “I had four different addresses for her in the last two years. After some cross-referencing, which wasn’t pretty, I was able to trace her to an apartment in Corning.”
“Corning?”
“It’s a small town fifteen to twenty miles south of Red Bluff, population less than eight thousand. It’s also known as Olive City and is home to the Bell-Carter Olive Company. Wikipedia says it’s the largest ripe olive cannery in the world.”
“Fascinating,” Jimmy replies dryly. “Do you have an address?”
“It’ll be in the e-mail with the others,” Diane replies a bit tersely, taking Jimmy’s lack of interest in the mechanics of olive production as a snub against olives and, by association, olive lovers—which must include her.
“And when can we expect this e-mail?”
“I just sent it, didn’t you hear the click?”
“I must have missed it.”
“I thought as much.”
“Bye, Diane.”
“Mm-hmm.”
* * *
Within the law enforcement community there are nicknames and acronyms for just about everything. It’s much like the military in that sense. For example, a holster sniffer is a police groupie, a woman—or man—who loves the uniform and the authority it represents. At the opposite end of the spectrum is your standard asshat, a drunk or high knuckle-dragging degenerate looking for trouble.
Flip-a-bitch means to make a U-turn; a fishwalk is the ground-dance a suspect does when being tased, also known as doing the funky chicken; and leering and peering with the intent to creep and crawl is generally what an Adam Henry (asshole) is up to when you just can’t figure out what he’s up to.
Within this extensive cop vernacular is the term law-enforcement-friendly, which describes a citizen who generally appreciates the police and is cooperative; an upstanding citizen who is always ready to help.
Melissa Milne is not law-enforcement-friendly.
Melissa Milne hates cops.
Jimmy is nearly speechless. “Miss Milne, I just told you that a serial killer has you on his target list.”
“And I told you to get off my porch, ass monkey.”
Ass monkey? I mouth to Walt; he just shrugs.
“Ten women are dead,” Jimmy practically pleads. “It’s been all over the news.”
“I don’t give a— Hey! Where are you going?” she suddenly barks, pointing two cigarette-encumbered fingers at me as I start walking toward the side of the house.
“I’m just checking to see where that smell’s coming from,” I reply, glancing down the side of the house. “Smells like … fresh marijuana; a lot of it.”
“The hell you say.”
“The hell I do say,” I shoot back. Jimmy’s giving me a confused look and hustles off the porch and over to my side. “What are you doing?” he hisses.
“She has a grow-op upstairs,” I say flatly. “The windows are covered with newspaper and she’s got a pretty good ventilation system going. Plus, she’s making eight to ten trips to the shed in the backyard every day. Nobody makes that many trips to their shed every day and still has a yard that looks this crappy.”
Jimmy’s impressed. He steals a glance at the second-floor windows to confirm the newspaper and sees that every single window is covered.
“How’s that help us check for Sad Face’s shine?”
“Watch.”
Turning
, I make my way back to the ass-monkey expert and lean on the bottom porch rail. She’s just glowering at me, not sure what to think or say. “Here’s the way I see it,” I tell her. “You let us walk around the edge of the property, let us check the outside of the doors and windows to see if they’ve been tampered with, and we won’t need to get a warrant to search the inside of the house … particularly the upstairs.”
She catches my meaning immediately and the corner of her left eye gives an involuntary twitch. She stands there a moment—fuming mad; she knows I have her cornered. “Fine!” She spits the word at me, thrusting her head to add force. “But you better be gone next time I look out.” Without waiting for a response, she turns and lets the screen door slam behind her.
It takes less than five minutes to give the place a thorough walkabout. There’s no sign of Sad Face. Not on the ground, at the windows, on the cellar door—we even check the mailbox.
Nothing.
Still, she’s on the target list, so Walt assigns a deputy to park discreetly on a parallel street that offers a good view of the entire property. It’ll be that way with the other targets as well: a twenty-four-hour protection detail, seven days a week, until Sad Face is caught. It’s not going to be cheap, but it’s better than the alternative.
The next stop is the Dearborn Farm just outside of Anderson, California. After following I-5 south from Redding for about twelve miles, we exit onto Riverside Drive and make our way to Dersch Road. Three or four miles down the road we cross over Cow Creek and soon turn into the driveway on the left. A black metal arch stretches over the gravel entry announcing DEARBORN RANCH in large white letters.
It’s not really a ranch. I know this because ranches have longhorn cattle and horses and five hundred acres of grazing land and a ranch house with a metal triangle that you ring when it’s time to come in for lunch or dinner.
All I see is goats, hundreds of them.
It should be called Dearborn Goat Farm.