The Rainy Day Killer

by Michael J. McCann

  She reached her Suburban, thinking hard. Yes. It was the man she’d seen briefly in the store, passing the end of the aisle with the camera slung over his shoulder. She opened the hatch and began unloading her cart.

  An engine chuffed to life behind her.

  She began to hurry, lifting several bags at once.

  A Honda rolled behind her, heading for the parking lot exit at the front of the store.

  Gears shifted behind her. She looked over her shoulder and saw the van ease out of its parking space.

  The man turned the steering wheel with his left hand, watching the Honda, ignoring Montgomery. He rubbed the side of his face with his right hand, blocking Montgomery’s view of his features.

  She could tell that he was white, neither large nor small, and perhaps in his early thirties. His hair was short and dark. His hairline was slightly high and a little rounded, with a part on the left side. Exactly the way it looked in Esther Banks’s composite sketch, which she’d distributed to hundreds of people already.

  It was him. It had to be.

  The Rainy Day Killer.

  All she could see now was the rear end of the van as it followed the Honda. The license plate was coated with dust, but she was able to decipher the shapes of the numbers and letters. She committed them to memory.

  She threw the rest of her groceries into the Suburban, slammed the hatch, and shoved the cart away. It bounced against the bumper of the pickup truck parked next to her and rolled away, down the lot.

  “Hey!” yelled a man across the lot who was loading cases of beer into the trunk of his car.

  “Sorry!” she called out, hurrying up to the door of the Suburban. As she fumbled in her tote bag for her keys, she looked around and saw the van turn right, at the front of the store, still following the Honda out of the parking lot. Her eyesight was good enough to see the man’s face move briefly in her direction, but it was too far away to get a good look at his features.

  Keys in hand, she got behind the wheel and gunned the engine to life. She backed out of her space, cutting off another vehicle trying to leave the parking lot. A horn sounded. She spun the wheel, waved apologetically in the rear view mirror, and hit the gas. She whipped around the corner, passed the front of the store in a blur, exited the parking lot and turned right, onto the side street. Ahead of her, at the intersection, the van was making a right-hand turn from a stop sign into the heavy traffic on MacArthur Avenue. She hurried up to the intersection.

  She looked left at a steady, unbroken stream of traffic with no openings. A block away the traffic light was green. She’d have to wait for it to turn red, apparently, before she’d get an opening.

  She grabbed her cell phone from her tote bag, plugged it into the hands-free system, and speed-dialed a number.

  “Donaghue.”

  “Lieutenant, it’s Eleanor Montgomery.”

  The light down the street turned red. She eased forward as two cars approached, anticipating the hole in traffic behind them.

  “Hi, what can I do for you?”

  She turned the wheel and stepped on the accelerator, racing out into traffic. “Lieutenant, I think I’ve got a visual on our suspect in the Olsen case.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.” She jammed on the brakes. Traffic was stopped ahead of her, waiting for another red light. The van was second from the right, in the inside lane. “I’ve just left the Food Basket on MacArthur Avenue in Springhill. We’re stopped at a light at the corner of, ah, Wilson Boulevard. It’s a white delivery van, I think a Dodge Grand Caravan, no markings, dirty, three to five years old, Maryland tag eight bravo lima, alpha zero five. We’re heading east on MacArthur. The light just turned green. He’s moving straight ahead.”

  “I’m putting you on hold.” The line went quiet as Montgomery shifted her foot from the brake to the accelerator and began to move forward to the intersection. The van was out of sight ahead of her. She checked her mirrors and over her shoulder, saw a gap on her left, and moved into it. She floored the gas pedal, trying to make up the distance between her Suburban and the vanished van.

  She tensed as Hank’s voice came back over the radio speakers. “Eleanor, I’ve called it in. The district is initiating pursuit, so stand down. You should hear the sirens in a moment. Stand down, you’re not authorized to pursue.”

  “But he’s right here,” Montgomery said, craning toward the windshield, trying to spot the van. “He’s right ahead of me. I’ll stay on him until they get here.”

  “Do you still have a visual?”

  “Not at the moment. The traffic’s heavy and I’m trying to get closer.” She grunted, shifting lanes, accelerating around a delivery truck and shifting back into the left lane. She’d gained three car-lengths. She saw a flash of white as a vehicle changed lanes about six car-lengths ahead of her. “Wait, I think I see him.”

  “Eleanor, stand down. Right now.”

  A white vehicle turned right, onto Blair Street. She reached the corner, turned, and saw the vehicle moving away from her. It was a white passenger car. It turned into a driveway halfway down the block. She put her foot on the brake, slowed down, pulled over to the curb, and shifted into Park.

  Behind her, on MacArthur, she heard a sudden commotion of sirens, a blatting klaxon, and roaring car engines. Red and blue lights flashed in her rear view mirror.

  “I’ve pulled over,” she said. “I’m on Blair, just off MacArthur. I lost him somewhere back there on MacArthur.”

  “Come in, Eleanor, and we’ll do a debrief. In the commander’s board room.”

  Montgomery closed her eyes for a moment, gripping the steering wheel tightly with both hands. Her heart was racing and her breath was short. She opened her mouth and drew in air, held it for a moment, then released it slowly. She closed her mouth and inhaled deeply through her nostrils, held it, released it slowly.

  “Eleanor? Are you all right?”

  She opened her eyes and looked out the window.

  A woman walked past along the sidewalk, holding a little girl by the hand. The little girl stared at Montgomery through the window, mouth open, eyes wide.

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  20

  Friday, May 10: noon

  Commander Ann Martinez got up from her desk and strolled out of her eighth-floor corner office, eating a spoonful of yogurt from the disposable plastic cup in her hand. Her secretary and administrative assistant didn’t bother looking up from their cluttered desks. The secretary was on the telephone with the deputy chief’s secretary, comparing schedules to book a meeting later that afternoon. The administrative assistant was making corrections to correspondence that Martinez would take to the meeting for Barkley’s signature. They didn’t look up, but they were aware of her movement through the outer office and knew where she was going.

  She paused in the corridor. The workstations in this corner of the floor were taken up by civilian administrative staff assigned to Detective Services Bureau, and most of the people had already disappeared for lunch. She liked this time of day because it was a little quieter. There was a lull in the bureaucratic chaos, a pause for breath that gave her a few precious minutes for the police work she still loved. She dabbed her lips with the napkin trapped between her little finger and ring finger and walked into the commander’s board room, where Cassion and Hank waited in uncomfortable silence.

  Using her foot to move out the chair at the head of the board room table, Martinez sat down and dipped her spoon into the yogurt, looking at Cassion. “I understand there’s been some progress.”

  “That’s correct.” Cassion sat up straighter. “There’s been a sighting of the UNSUB. He was observed earlier this morning at a location in Springhill, and I’ve learned that the vehicle he was driving, a 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan, is a rental vehicle registered to a leasing company located at 879 Cooper Street. I’ve directed a forensics team to that location, with orders to obtain the original rental documents,
video surveillance recordings, fingerprints, and any other physical evidence I can get from there. Stainer’s questioning staff as we speak, in case they remember him.”

  “Cooper Street,” Martinez said, dropping her napkin on the table. “That’s only a few blocks from here.”

  Cassion hesitated. “I guess it is.”

  Martinez glanced at Hank. “Cheeky bastard.”

  Hank said nothing, his expression neutral.

  “This will be the first involvement in the case by the FBI evidence recovery team,” Martinez said.

  Cassion looked confused.

  “You said you directed a forensics team to that location, Captain,” Martinez prompted.

  “Yeah, I called Byrne and ordered him out. Are we supposed to call the FBI, too?”

  “Criminalistics will,” Martinez said, “as you should remember. They’ll expect to receive the Bureau’s lab reports within twenty-four hours. I want to know if there are any hitches from Homicide’s perspective.”

  Cassion shrugged. “Whatever. Sounds like a pain in the ass to me.”

  “Hopefully it’ll prevent a few pains in the ass,” Martinez said. “Continue with your update.”

  “The UNSUB was sighted by Patrol Officer Montgomery. She was off duty at the time and unfortunately let him get away. God knows why she didn’t call nine-one-one instead of Donaghue. I guess it’s his charming smile. I’ve ordered her to sit with a sketch artist to do a composite likeness. We’ll see how it compares to the sketch from the witness last week. Hopefully her memory’s a little better than her understanding of procedure.”

  Vertical lines appeared between Martinez’s dark eyebrows. “We don’t use a sketch artist in the GPD, Helen. She’ll have to sit with a technician trained in the software.”

  “That’s what I meant,” Cassion said. “The district’s conducting a sweep for the van, and as soon as it’s located, I’ll personally supervise a tactical intervention on site. I don’t want a repeat of the fiasco at the cannery, which went down before I came on board, or the screw-up downtown last weekend where people reacted without thinking, arresting the wrong guy. We’re finally making some real progress, and I intend to nail this sonofabitch with by-the-book, solid police work this time.”

  Martinez thoughtfully ate another spoonful of yogurt, keeping her eyes on Cassion. “I signed off on the tactical intervention at the cannery, Helen,” she said finally, “as you’re well aware. We have to act on every possible lead to find where this guy holds his victims, and if we’re wrong nine times in a row I don’t care, as long as we’re right the tenth time. Understand what I’m saying? That’s how investigations proceed, one step at a time, one lead at a time. And as for Mr. Kirk, the district responded to a complaint from a citizen who thought she was in danger. That’s what police officers do, Helen. It’s my understanding Mr. Kirk has no interest in filing a complaint, and even if he did, it wouldn’t amount to anything. I’m not worried about it, so you shouldn’t be.”

  “If you say so. I’ve also spoken to ASA DiOrio, and we’ve gotten a warrant for the video recordings at the grocery store. Horvath’s interviewing staff there now, and we’re hoping to get some live footage of this bastard, since Montgomery reported seeing him inside the store while she was shopping. Personally, I think the lieutenant and his Bureau headshrinker give this guy far too much credit. It was stupid to show himself to a cop like that. I think he wants to be caught, and it’s just a matter of being ready to jump on his next screw-up and nail him.”

  “I see.” Martinez glanced at her watch. “I’m not sure that I share your assessment, though. You’ll send copies of everything we get to Ed Griffin?”

  “I hadn’t planned to.”

  “It’s important to keep SSA Griffin in the loop. We need his analysis of the offender’s behavior each step of the way.”

  Cassion shrugged. “I’ve been in the Bureau, Commander. I’ve seen it from the inside, and this behavioral analysis stuff is just a lot of smoke and mirrors. They’re not real psychologists, you know. They’re just agents who read about this stuff and make elaborate guesses with all kinds of jargon thrown in for effect. It doesn’t fool me, or a lot of other people I’ve talked to about it.”

  “Your opinion’s noted and appreciated. I still want Griffin kept in the loop.” Martinez stood up, scraping the inside of the plastic cup for the last bit of yogurt, then she tossed the cup and plastic spoon into a blue recycling bin against the wall next to the open board room door. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

  “Not at this time,” Cassion said, getting to her feet.

  Martinez watched her cross her arms, fists clenched into her armpits in a classic defensive posture. She saw the tight lips and the narrowed eyes that flicked to Hank and back to her, and she didn’t need to be telepathic to know what Cassion was thinking. Six days ago, Martinez had chastised her for contacting the media directly when Thomas Kirk was arrested, rather than leaving that to Hank, as per the chief’s explicit wishes. Today she’d screwed up twice in a relatively short meeting, forgetting the FBI was now handling crime scene processing on the case and not knowing that the GPD used software to generate composite sketches rather than a forensic artist. Then she’d butted heads with her on keeping Griffin in the loop and taken a swipe at her for authorizing the tactical intervention at the cannery which, while non-resultant, had been a no-brainer. On a roll, she’d also sniped at Hank while criticizing Montgomery’s failure to call 911 when she first spotted the Rainy Day Killer.

  The chip on Cassion’s shoulder was large and obvious, and it had as much to do with her inexperience and lack of attention to detail as it did with her jealousy that Hank and Martinez worked well together. She was making mistakes, and they were not being swept under the carpet.

  Martinez looked at Hank, knowing he’d been told to keep his mouth shut and let Cassion handle the briefing. He looked back at her, eyes patient. He was honoring her request to work with Cassion. She appreciated it.

  “Keep me informed,” she said, heading out the door.

  21

  Friday, May 10: late afternoon

  Hank and Horvath stepped off the elevator onto the third floor, heading for the video lab in the back corner where Mickey Marcotte was waiting for them with footage from the Food Basket and the car rental outlet on Cooper Street. Unfortunately, their route took them past Turcotte’s office, and Hank wasn’t altogether surprised when the captain fell into step behind them.

  “Donaghue, a word.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Hank said to Horvath. He slowed to let Turcotte catch up.

  “Are you on board with this protocol with the FBI?” Turcotte asked. “They’ve taken complete charge of the van. Allenson’s reduced to a spectator. We found it; now they act like it’s theirs.”

  Hank’s cell phone began to vibrate. He took it out and looked at the call display. It was Karen. He and Turcotte were standing in front of an empty workstation near Turcotte’s office. It was unassigned—a clean desk, a clunky, outdated computer monitor, an empty waste paper basket. Hank stepped into the workstation, held up his hand for Turcotte to wait, and answered the call.

  “The Bureau’s taking over the van out here,” Karen said. “Byrne’s so wound up he’s ready to give birth to fucking kittens.”

  Hank turned away from Marcotte, “Byrne has functional authority and can dictate what they do, but the Bureau people will handle all the processing, and they’ll do it their way.”

  “Yeah, well, Butternut’s in the middle of it, trying to keep the peace.”

  “Is it the van Montgomery saw at the grocery store?”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s the one we want, all right.”

  “Okay, well, make sure they don’t miss anything at the scene, and stay out of the crossfire.”

  “They’re hauling the van away now. Oops, Butternut’s stepping between Byrne and the Bureau guy. I’m watching this. Christ, Byrne looks like he’s going to knock the guy’s fuckin
g head off. I should give Butternut a hand before somebody hits her by mistake.”

  “Karen, let them straighten it out themselves.”

  He was talking to a dead phone. Putting it away, he said to Turcotte, “They’re removing the van from the scene now, Mike.”

  Turcotte rubbed his face, sitting down on the corner of the desk. “Do you have any idea what our budget looks like?”

  Hank did, having seen it while helping Martinez with the divisional round-up in March, but he kept his mouth shut. He knew that Criminalistics had vacancies they were not being allowed to fill, but Homicide and every other area of the department were in exactly the same position. A shrinking population and lower median income in Glendale meant an eroding tax base which, when combined with less state aid, created a widening gap between revenues and expenditures, a shortfall that directly threatened the police budget along with every other essential service in the city.

  “I can’t believe what’s happening in this country,” Turcotte went on. “Cities are declaring bankruptcy, and they have no idea how they’re going to pay for their police departments. New Jersey’s homicide rates are through the roof, but cities there are shutting down municipal forces and outsourcing to the county, which has to turn around and create a new police department from scratch. In Colorado, they’ve got cities going through idiotic prioritization exercises and deciding to spend their police dollars on mall and university units instead of bomb squads, crime analysis, and SWAT. Look at this workstation.” He waved his hand around. “Empty square footage and no body to fill it. I’ve got two units in this section, Donaghue, and Byrne’s my only Criminalist Three supervisor. He’s stretched so thin I’m afraid he’s going to snap. I’m short three Criminalist Twos in the crime scene response unit, so I have to ask Allenson, Marcotte, and Beverley to double up from their regular duties in the forensic services unit whenever there’s a call, because we can’t send the Ones out on their own, unsupervised. We have to skimp on training and conferences, we have to use up all our obsolete supplies before ordering new stuff, and my second mobile unit needs a transmission overhaul and I have no idea how to pay for it.”