Taker of Lives: A Gripping Crime Thriller

by Leslie Wolfe

  Not to worry, my dear, soon the world will see you for who you really are, all that you really are. I will set you free.

  Date and Time

  The conference room at Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office looked just as Tess remembered. Scratched and scuffed walls and furniture that had taken a beating over the years. But a newish, 50-inch TV was mounted on the wall, and a wide whiteboard on wheels, someone had pushed against the wall, was next to the door. A small coffee maker on a side cupboard, and there was a Polycom SoundStation speaker phone at the center of the stained conference table. In short, everything she needed to get started.

  Satisfied, she set her laptop bag on the table and unzipped it, Donovan’s words still resonating in her ears.

  “What do I have to do to get away from you, Winnett?” Donovan had asked, the moment she’d appeared by his desk.

  “You could always say no,” she offered reluctantly. “But you’d be missing out on an interesting case.”

  “What case? A suicide? Puh-lease, Winnett. I’m heading out for Key West tonight, trailing a forty-two-foot, Huntress, center console boat, equipped with fourteen-hundred horsepower of pure Mercury thrust, radar, Fishfinder, and a cooler filled to the brim with Bud Light on ice. Hell, if I wanted to, I could run to Havana for Bud Light and be back before supper. It’s the last remnant of my racing days, of my long-lost glory before I was turned into a cyborg and chained to a desk. You can’t compete with that, sorry.”

  She had no idea Donovan had been a racer. Who knew? He seemed so docile and coolheaded. She decided to appeal to that side of him, the new Donovan who loved a good challenge.

  “I’m offering a sexual predator who’s just getting started, and all evidence is digital. Without your help, there is no case.”

  “Nice buttering up. This so-called case of yours can’t wait until next week?”

  She hesitated. “Maybe it could, but we can’t be sure.”

  He paused a moment before replying. “Winnett, you’re the bane of my existence. All right, I’ll give you twenty-four hours of my life. Make the most of them, because come tomorrow at 5:00PM, I’ll be gone.”

  “You’re awesome,” she said, then kissed a stunned Donovan on the forehead, before he could react, and stormed out of there.

  Her next stop had been Captain Cepeda’s office, on the second floor at Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. He listened to her make her case with a doubtful stare and a ridge between his eyebrows, but eventually approved her request reluctantly, saying, “The Sheriff’s Office can’t afford to keep billing detective time on wild goose chases. If the feds are willing to waste time, I’ll take it. I’ll give you forty-eight hours, not a moment more.”

  She’d almost chuckled, thinking Donovan had given her twenty-four. Then a troublesome thought came out of nowhere. SAC Pearson, usually the fiercest of them all, hadn’t objected much, nor set a deadline for the investigation. Whatever was in that green folder had knocked him off his game.

  She hooked up her laptop to the guest Wi-Fi network and dialed Donovan on the conference phone, just as Michowsky and Fradella walked in. Michowsky’s frown still lingered; he probably wanted to be with his family, which is to be expected from happily married people with children on their days off. She felt guilty for a millisecond, wondering if the reason why they were all there on the eve of Memorial Day weekend was personal, driven by the ghosts of her past. Was she raising hell over little more than a suicide? Was she as delusional and as stubborn as some people called her behind her back?

  Then she saw the determination on Fradella’s face and pushed her guilt aside. Doc Rizza had an innocent girl’s body on the cold, stainless steel, exam table down at the morgue, and that wasn’t a delusion. She was doing what she had to do, what needed to be done. Her job.

  “Shoot,” Donovan said in lieu of hello. His voice was neutral, professional, focused.

  “Hey, D,” Tess said, “we’re all here. Let’s trace the—”

  “Ahead of you already,” he replied. “I tried to trace the images posted online and isolate the device or network they were posted from.” He paused for a moment, and Tess held her breath. “No such luck,” he continued. “However, I’ve recovered EXIF metadata from the image file.”

  Michowsky’s frown deepened, while he muttered something under his breath.

  “In English, please?” Tess asked.

  “Digital cameras store all sorts of other data in the image files. These bits of information are called metadata and the format in which metadata is stored in image files is called EXIF, short for exchangeable image file. It stores GPS coordinates, date and time the photo was taken, sometimes the date and time the photo was downloaded or uploaded to social media if that was done straight from the camera, and other technical information about the camera make and model, focal distance, aperture, and so on.”

  “Don’t tell me we’ve got him already?” Michowsky asked, rubbing his palms together with excitement.

  “Whoa, cowboy, hold that horse,” Donovan reacted. “We have GPS info that puts the location precisely at the victim’s home, but we already knew that, barring some expert Photoshop skills. We have date and time: April 15, at 11:43PM.”

  “April 15?” Tess reacted. “Why wait until now to tell her?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t the unsub who sent the text message,” Fradella said. “Maybe it went viral and someone else wanted her to find out.”

  “You’re correct,” Donovan said. “The photos are now hosted on hundreds of different sites, but I was able to pinpoint when and where it was posted first. On a press release, issued on April 16 at 3:02AM, using a free service operated from Asia.”

  “He took the pictures, then went straight to distributing them. He wanted her hurt badly,” Tess said. “He did everything in his power to ensure maximum damage.”

  “If we can’t track him,” Fradella said, “we could ask the press release service provider to share the IP—”

  “You’d be wasting your time,” Donovan said. “That is, if they even bother to reply.”

  Tess stood and started to pace the floor without paying much attention to her surroundings. She tried to portray this unsub in her mind. What does someone like that look like? How does he talk, how does he interact with people, with society? Is he married? Does he have a job? Nothing jelled; there were too many unanswered questions to allow her to sketch any hint of a profile yet.

  She stopped her pacing and leaned over the table to be closer to the conference phone. “Let’s send this case to the Cybercrime Unit,” she said, “maybe they can do more.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Donovan said, with a bitter chuckle. “Do you have any idea how many leaked celebrity nudes are out there? Gazillions. They’d laugh in your face, Winnett.”

  “This isn’t a leaked, nude selfie, Donovan. This is the only evidence we have in a crime that cost a young girl her life.”

  “I get that,” he replied, sounding a little irritated to be admonished like a child. “Otherwise I’d be halfway to the Keys by now. That said, you have to accept there’s a limit to what can be done starting from a photo published all over the internet.”

  “How fast did the photo turn viral?” she asked, unfazed by his pushback. She was already exploring other avenues.

  “Fast. I ran a comparative study with a Kardashian photo that was released last year, and it trickled though media just as fast, if not faster.”

  “How come? Christina Bartlett wasn’t nearly as famous,” Fradella said.

  “These photos were pushed,” Donovan said, “using all the tools out there. Press releases, automated publication on hundreds of channels like blogs and forums, Pinterest, Instagram. Your unsub knows his stuff, I’ll give him that.”

  “But he didn’t know to remove that photo metadata, did he?” Tess mumbled. “Maybe he’s not that technical.”

  “Most people don’t know that metadata exists,” Donovan added. “He used a good camera though, a Nikon
DSLR. Top shelf, $1,500 price range, but not something we could trace.”

  She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Who would do something like that to another human being? She hated to admit it, but it sounded more and more like a personal vendetta than a sexual offender in the making. At least the evidence pointed in that direction.

  “All right, let’s handle this investigation old-school.”

  “Meaning?” Michowsky asked.

  He seemed unusually quiet, preoccupied. What was it with everyone?

  “Meaning we have the date she was assaulted. Let’s check some alibis, download some home security footage, interview some people.”

  “How about me?” Donovan asked. Can I go to the marina and hook up my boat trailer?

  Tess replied. “Let’s dump Christina’s phone and see what else was going on in her life. Go over text messages and social media. See if you notice a change in her social media activity after April 15. I’d like to figure out if she knew she’d been assaulted.”

  “Got it,” Donovan said. “I’ll check if any of her online friends have posted anything in relation to these photos. If anyone is, say, overly enthusiastic or involved with the events surrounding her death.”

  “Try to track down the sender of that text message too, will you please?”

  “Done and couldn’t,” Donovan replied. “Another one of those free service sites that doesn’t even require a login.”

  She shook her head, feeling a wave of frustration send a rush of blood to her head. They needed a break and weren’t catching any.

  She thanked Donovan and hung up, then immediately dialed the Bartletts’ residence.

  “Mr. Bartlett,” she said, the moment she recognized the baritone at the other end of the line, “this is Special Agent Winnett.”

  “What can I do for you?” he asked, in a voice lacking any intonation.

  “On April 15, were you and your wife at home in the evening?”

  Several noises indicated he’d set the phone down and switched on the speaker, then they heard Bartlett ask his wife.

  “We had a late-night fundraiser, but we were back by one, one-thirty, maybe a bit later. Why?”

  “Do you remember noticing anything out of the ordinary that night when you came home?”

  “N—no,” he replied, and Tess could hear Dr. Bartlett also say no in the background. “That’s the day he was here? When we were out?”

  “I remember something,” Dr. Bartlett intervened, her voice remote at first, but then closer, as she probably approached the phone. “Christina wasn’t feeling very well; we were a little worried while we were out.”

  “Do you recall what was wrong with her?” Tess asked.

  “She felt a bit faint, and her blood pressure was low. I gave her a Coke and she felt better, although I had to fight with her to make her drink it.”

  “Why?”

  “The calories,” Dr. Bartlett replied. “She counted calories for every bite she put in her mouth. In the morning she was still a bit pale and tired but seemed okay. She left for a photo shoot in Paris right after I’d gone to work.”

  “How about the alarm system? Do you recall it being off when you came home?”

  A moment of silence ensued while the Bartletts tried to remember something that had seemed trivial at the time, more than a month ago.

  “Probably, yes,” Bartlett replied. “Usually we don’t arm it until all of us are home.” His voice broke, as if the memory of his daughter knocked the air out of his lungs. “But video was still running, it always is, whether the system is armed or not. You have all the data.”

  “We do, and we’ll go over it in detail,” she said, feeling pessimistic without any real cause. Or maybe because she knew that someone so organized wouldn’t leave the premises without addressing the security tapes.

  “Thank you,” Tess said, “that’s all for now. We’ll be in touch.”

  “Agent Winnett,” Bartlett said, “please keep in mind what we discussed. I’m counting on you.”

  She hesitated for a split second. There wasn’t much she could say.

  “Like I said, Mr. Bartlett, I’ll be in touch.”

  Tess ended the call, then dialed Gallagher, reminding herself to be polite and contain her bursting disdain for that heartless jerk.

  “Hello,” he said, his voice unbelievably cheerful. In the background, the sound of young women laughing came across loudly, together with clinking glasses and some music.

  “Agent Winnett, FBI,” she introduced herself coldly. “Where were you on April 15?”

  “Let me check my calendar,” he replied immediately, sounding a little out of breath. Then the background noise subsided with the thump of a door closing. “Um, I took my mother to Jacksonville that weekend. We left on Sunday morning. She had a Monday appointment at the Mayo Clinic, at 6:00AM. Can you believe those people?”

  “And you were with her the whole time?”

  “Yes. She’s suffering from heart failure. I had to wheel her through an entire day of appointments, lab tests, an MRI, and whatnot. We flew back on Tuesday.”

  “Are you certain about that, Mr. Gallagher? We will verify.”

  “Positive,” he replied, sounding very sure of himself. “It’s in my Outlook.”

  “We’ll be in touch if we need more information,” she said, then promptly ended the call.

  Fradella did real-time database searches to validate Gallagher’s alibi, using Tess’s laptop logged into the FBI systems. He scrolled through Gallagher’s credit card charges, highlighting those for airfare and hotel, restaurants, car rental in Jacksonville. Everything checked out.

  Without a word, Tess speed-dialed Donovan’s number.

  “We struck out, D. We have nothing.”

  A long moment of silence, thick and ominous, while no words were spoken.

  “All right, Winnett. I’ll tell them to go ahead without me. You owe me one.”

  10

  Assumptions and Scenarios

  Tess stared at the clean whiteboard, gnawing on her index fingernail without realizing, focused on the web of thoughts and theories that ran through her mind, trying to disentangle and arrange them into heaps of actionable data. The problem with having too little information is uncannily similar to having too much information; both situations are magnets for speculation and confusion.

  Behind her, a coffee maker whistled and dripped into a paper cup, while Fradella and Michowsky chatted casually, venturing hypotheses about the unsub’s ability to enter premises without detection, without leaving a single trace of evidence behind. The smell of fresh coffee filled the air, dissipating the gloom brought by the dark windows and flickering fluorescent lights. Sunset had come and gone, hours ago.

  She picked up a dry eraser marker and split the whiteboard into three vertical sections, then labeled them, Victimology, Assumptions, and Desired Outcome, respectively. The victimology section took more than half the space, and she started drawing a table with many columns in the lower half of it.

  “You’re doing a victimology matrix?” Fradella asked. “With only one victim?”

  She threw him a quick glance, and instead of responding, she went over to the assumptions section and wrote, Personal Vendetta vs. Repeat Offender.

  “We need to get creative and organized,” Tess said. “We don’t have much else to go on.”

  “But we’ve never done a matrix with one vic,” he protested, although less energetically than before.

  “There’s nothing to lose if Christina is the only victim. We’ll just have a lot of empty whiteboard space. No harm in that.”

  She wrote Christina’s name as a line header, then labeled columns one by one, with every detail she thought would become relevant if her initial hunch proved correct and the unsub was an evolving serial offender. She grouped physical features together, like race, hair color, eye color, age. Then she added a column labeled Sexual Assault and wrote No on Christina’s line. She hesitated for a moment, th
en added another column labeled Famous, and wrote Yes below. Finally, she wrote Crime Scene as the next column title, and marked Home below.

  “Anything else?” she asked, without turning around. She knew the two detectives were paying attention; their chatter had subsided for a while.

  “I’d add something about the security of the home,” Michowsky offered. “Maybe with qualifiers, like high, medium, and low. Bartlett’s residence is a ‘high’ in my opinion,” he added, making air quotes with his fingers.

  “Yup,” she said, then added the information as a new column labeled Home Security.

  “I’d put occupation,” Fradella said, “because it ties into the fame part.”

  Tess frowned a little. “I’m not following.”

  “People can be famous for a number of reasons, but this girl was highly visible. People saw her on a daily basis, loved her image, her face, the beauty ideal she represented. There are famous scientists or authors out there and no one cares what they look like. Their physical aspect is irrelevant.”

  “That’s an excellent point,” Tess replied, adding one more column labeled Occupation, and wrote Model below.

  No other suggestions followed, so she moved over to the assumptions section.

  “Let’s brainstorm and add pros and cons,” she said drawing a large T under the words she’d written here earlier, Personal Vendetta vs. Repeat Offender. She waited, but no one offered any inputs. “I’d say Access speaks for personal vendetta,” she said, writing the word in the left column. “The unsub knew his way quite well around the Bartletts’ home security and schedule. He picked the one evening when the Bartletts were out late. Unfortunately, we can’t ask Christina if she opened the door for anyone she knew, but there were no signs of forced entry.”