The Rainy Day Killer

by Michael J. McCann

  Karen nodded and turned away again, lifting the cell phone back to her ear.

  “Of course I am, Hank, so I won’t stay on the line very long, since it looks like the lovely Miss Karen’s calling in the choppers as we speak. And, by the way, I know she has plans coming up that will take her out of state. If you were me, would you choose her, or the lovely stay-at-home Officer Montgomery?”

  “Why don’t you just show yourself, Bill, and one of the helicopters can pick you up. We’ll talk about it then.”

  “Oh, thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll pass. Decisions like this are so hard to make. I do have another place set aside as a back-up love nest, but on the other hand, a road trip to the Alleghany Highlands does have its appeal. I’ll let you figure it out, Hank. Maybe Father Ed has some insight for you. Gotta go. Later.”

  The phone went dead.

  “What’s going on?” Cassion said, walking up to him. “Are you talking to him?” She held out her hand. “Let me talk to him.”

  Ignoring her, Hank looked at Karen, who shook her head.

  The sound of a helicopter rose in the distance.

  Hank put the phone in his pocket and looked at Martinez. “He’s nearby. He had a visual on us.” The helicopter passed overhead and moved in a slow arc over the surrounding buildings.

  “What did he say to you this time?” Cassion demanded.

  The duty sergeant in charge of the scene joined their circle and held out a cell phone to Martinez. “Commander, I have Commander Morency on the line for you.”

  Martinez nodded, took the phone, and walked away.

  “He’s still playing the game,” Hank said to Griffin. “Still threatening to try for a cop.”

  “Stainer and Montgomery?”

  Hank nodded. “Made it sound as though he’d settled on Karen. Said he knew she was about to leave town for Virginia.”

  Karen stepped out from behind him, putting her phone away. “Hunh. Bring it on.”

  Hank shook his head. “He also said he had another captivity site ready, so he’s probably bluffing. Mickey didn’t get anything?”

  “No,” Karen replied, “same old bullshit. Hank, we want this guy to come after me. All I need is one opening, and I’ll put two right in the middle of his fucking nosebrow.”

  “We want him alive to stand trial,” Cassion said.

  “You’re taking a week’s leave,” Hank said to Karen. “You’re getting married, for God’s sake.”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky,” Griffin said, watching the helicopter circle around for another pass. “Maybe they’ll catch him today.”

  “Not likely,” Cassion said. “Not with just one bird in the air.”

  Martinez rejoined them, with Turcotte beside her. She handed the cell phone back to the duty sergeant, who’d been wordlessly listening to the ongoing discussion, then held up her own phone. “I just spoke to the chief. He just met with Exler,” she said, referring to State’s Attorney Warren Exler, “and they convinced a judge to issue a John Doe arrest warrant based on the DNA profile from that eyelash hair. The chief turned around and used the warrant to call in the capital-area task force.”

  Cassion frowned. “Task force?”

  “A joint task force with the state, the county, the FBI, and the U.S. Marshals Service,” Hank explained. “We’re a participating member, but I don’t remember us calling them in before.”

  “I don’t get it,” Karen said. “What the hell does that mean to us?”

  “It means,” Martinez said, “that we no longer have the lead, internally. This case is now being run by Special Ops.”

  “Oh, fuck me,” Karen spat.

  “But it’s a homicide investigation,” Cassion protested. “It belongs to me.”

  Martinez shook her head. “It’s now a fugitive apprehension operation, as far as the chief’s concerned. Everything gets turned over to Miller right away,” she said, referring to Lieutenant Ted Miller, who was in charge of the unit within Special Operations that handled liaison with outside agencies. She hiked a thumb at the crime scene across the street and looked at Turcotte. “The one and sole objective of all that work over there now is to get this guy’s ID for Miller. Understand? Either you and Byrne play nice with Special Agent Carson, or the FBI’ll be talking directly to the task force and leaving the GPD completely out of it.”

  “This is bullshit,” Cassion said.

  “It’s a done deal,” Martinez said. She glared at Turcotte. “Go. Get on it.” She turned back to Hank. “You all right?”

  Hank shrugged. What was there to say? His position as lead investigator in two homicide cases had just disappeared. At best he would be a post office, forwarding information from the FBI lab to Special Ops while the task force honchos carried out the hunt for the bastard who’d just spoken to him on the phone a few minutes ago. What was he supposed to say? That he was relieved he no longer had the responsibility? That he was looking forward to a nice little break?

  “I agree with Cassion,” he said. “It’s bullshit.”

  “You know it isn’t. It’s a question of resources, like every other damned thing. We’ve been running after this guy blindfolded with both hands tied behind our backs. Now there’s an army after him. This is how he’ll get caught, Hank, and you know it.”

  A second helicopter swooped overhead. It bore the markings of the U.S. Marshals Service. Hank was surprised at how quickly they’d gotten airborne and on the scene. He knew Martinez was right. He knew that Chief Bennett had made the correct decision.

  But he was damned if he was going to admit it.

  32

  Thursday, May 30: mid-morning

  One week later, Karen stared out the window in the passenger seat of Sandy’s black Suburban as they tooled along the I-495 toward the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, which spanned the Potomac River south of Washington. They’d been on the road for forty-five minutes, it was a bright, cloudless morning, the Beltway was busy but moving, and they were just beginning a week’s leave. Sandy was humming something under his breath as they approached the bridge, but Karen felt uneasy, as though she were sitting on a bag of broken glass.

  It had nothing to do with the fact that she wasn’t behind the steering wheel, since sharing the driving with her beloved spouse-to-be was something she’d already conceded would be a part of her new life as a married woman. It was other stuff, and she’d been stewing about whether she should come out with it now or wait for a better time. She’d been waiting so long now, she thought she’d waited a little too long.

  “What are you thinking about?” Sandy asked, his eyes on the traffic in front of them.

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on, it’s not nothing. I heard you on the phone with Hank this morning. Don’t tell me you’re still upset about that case.”

  She snorted. “What a load of crap. All they’ve done is flush him out of wherever he was holed up. Now he’s in the wind, and who knows where the hell he’ll turn up next.”

  “It wasn’t a bad move,” Sandy said, “using the DNA profile as the basis for a John Doe arrest warrant. More and more jurisdictions are doing it now.”

  “Yeah, but in rape cases where the statute of limitations is about to kick in. We’re talking homicides, Sandy. And not even two months old.”

  “I know, but the fact of the matter is, a judge signed off on it and your chief called in the Marshals. The case is out of your hands now. That’s all there is to it.”

  Karen bit her lip as they passed beneath big orange signs that warned of the drawbridge ahead. Traffic was slowing down as they moved across the bridge. The Woodrow Wilson was the most heavily-traveled crossing on the Potomac, and a major traffic trap when the drawbridge was up. Thankfully the warning lights weren’t flashing, meaning that the drawbridge was down, but volume was heavy, and brake lights were flaring in all six lanes ahead of them. They were facing a four-hour drive to Sandy’s parents’ place in Virginia as it was, and this wasn’t helping her mood.

>   Looking at the Washington Monument in the distance, she thought of Ed Griffin’s crack a month ago about federal agents marrying local cops. She knew at the time that it was a joke, and she didn’t have a thin skin when it came to stuff like that, but she did worry about how Sandy felt. Would he find it hard to relate to local priorities when he was busy chasing The Big Picture?

  Don’t be a knob, she told herself. She was transferring anxiety to other stuff, and she knew it. The fact of the matter was that she wasn’t pissed this morning because the Rainy Day Killer case had been re-assigned, and she wasn’t feeling angsty about Sandy’s professional perspective versus her own. What a load of crap.

  The truth was that she was worried about what lay ahead. By getting into the passenger seat of the Suburban, shutting the door, and fastening her seat belt, she’d committed to a series of events that would change her life forever. At the end of this long-assed drive, she’d unbuckle the seat belt, get out of the Suburban, and walk into something that was way outside her comfort zone. While everyone watched, she’d have to look Sandy in the eye and make the commitment, while hoping she’d read him right over the last two years. Was he as wonderful as he seemed? Would he suddenly have gigantic regrets and change his mind?

  A wedding wasn’t supposed to be such a horrific ordeal, was it?

  Maybe somewhere on the Alexander ranch she could get in a little target practice. Shred a few silhouettes, put the new baby SIG through its paces, work off some stress. After a few dozen rounds she’d start to feel more like herself again. Nothing like a little firearms recoil to jolt you back to your senses and remind you of who you really are.

  The tires of the Suburban clacked over the metal seams at the edge of the drawbridge segment. Ahead, the drawbridge operator’s control tower jutted up in the middle of the bridge like the prow of a tugboat. She knew they’d just reached an important and very interesting spot on the map. The Woodrow Wilson was the only bridge in the United States that passed through three different jurisdictions—Maryland behind them, Virginia ahead of them, and for the next three hundred feet, the southernmost tip of the District of Columbia. It was like a convergence of the most important influences in her life at the moment, right there at that spot, high above the Potomac River.

  “I don’t think I should have a kid,” she blurted. “I don’t think it’d be the right thing to do.”

  Sandy took a moment to respond. “Because of the schizophrenia and your mother? You don’t want to pass it on?”

  “Correct. I don’t. And I’m not out of the woods myself. I could still crash, up to the age of forty, or whatever the hell it is.” She looked at him. “That’d be awful enough for you, but add a kid to the mix? Another kid with a mother checking out of her life and into the bughouse? And passing the genes on to her? I can’t take that gamble with someone else’s life, Sandy, I just can’t. It’s not fair, no matter how much I want a kid. It’s not fair to be that selfish.”

  “I understand.”

  She stared at his profile, watching his eyes flick from the rear view mirror to the side mirror to the traffic ahead. His expression was completely neutral. How could he be so goddamned calm?

  “I know you want kids, Sandy.”

  “I want kids if you want kids,” he said, glancing at her. “If you want to adopt, we can adopt. But if you want it to be just you and me, then it’s just you and me.”

  “You’d be happy with just that?”

  He smiled then, glancing at her again. “I’d be happy with that, and no ‘just’ about it. Karen, you’re more than a handful for me. You’re everything. Absolutely. Trust me on that one. Do you want to look into adoption?”

  “No. I want it to be you and me.”

  He nodded. “Then it’s you and me. End of story.”

  They passed beneath a big white sign with a cardinal on it that said, “Virginia Welcomes You.” On the right, Karen could see the waterfront of Alexandria, the colorful rowhouses of Old Town, and the jutting spire of the Masonic Temple. Just ahead, as they approached the end of the bridge, was Jones Point Park.

  “Well,” she said, “I guess we better finish this drive and make it all official-like.”

  “Roger that,” Sandy laughed.

  33

  Friday, May 31: morning

  A day later, Hank was listening to Martha Scanlan’s album The West Was Burning in the CD player of his rented Cadillac as he drove south on the I-95 on his way to Quantico to pick up Ed Griffin. It was another bright and sunny day, traffic was typical of a Friday morning, and Hank was grateful to have some time off.

  Before leaving, he’d briefed Helen Cassion on the active cases that would require attention while he and Karen were away. Horvath had decided at the last minute he wanted to attend the wedding, but Cassion had denied his leave request, so he would be there to continue working active cases with Belknap and Kaplan. With the Rainy Day Killer case in the hands of Special Ops, the workload would hopefully be manageable.

  Cassion, for her part, was ebullient. She’d gone through her interview in the competitive process for the position of captain on Monday, and was feeling particularly good about herself. She half-listened as Hank walked through the next steps the detectives would be taking on their most important cases, then impatiently waved a hand.

  “Yeah, yeah, Donaghue, I got it. I sign off on their reports, remember? I know all about this stuff.”

  As he listened to Scanlan’s cover of the Dylan song “I Went to See the Gypsy,” his thoughts tracked back to Wednesday, which he’d spent in the hands of Human Resources. In the morning he’d written an in-basket test as part of the competitive process. He was given an information package containing an elaborate scenario in a fictitious police department, including an organization chart and a set of letters, memos, and reports, and his task was to respond to each document in what he judged to be the appropriate manner, whether by writing memos, delegating tasks, planning meetings, or whatever else might occur to him over the course of the three-and-a-half hours he was given to complete the test. Because he understood how in-basket exercises were designed, he hadn’t experienced any difficulty with them before. In the past, he’d racked up a perfect score. This time around, he expected the outcome to be the same.

  After a quick lunch at a chip wagon down the street, he’d ridden the elevator back up to the tenth floor for his interview with the three-person selection committee, consisting of the director of Human Resources, Mrs. Mona Bloodworth, Commander Jason Stone of Midtown District, and Commander Henry Dalzell of Intelligence. Both Stone and Dalzell were wearing their Class A uniforms, while Bloodworth, a civilian, wore business attire. Hank, although a sworn officer like Stone and Dalzell, was not required by departmental policy to wear his uniform, being assigned to plain clothes duty, so he wore a navy Armani suit he particularly liked, a crisp white shirt, a cobalt tie, and black oxfords polished to a high shine.

  Hank was the last candidate to be interviewed, they explained as he sat down, and the chief expected an eligibility list from them by next Monday.

  The first portion of the interview consisted of a situational judgment test, in which scenarios were described and Hank was required to explain how he’d respond to each of them if he were the captain responsible for the area involved. In a way, it was a duplication of the in-basket exercise in that it assessed his ability to analyze a situation and exercise good judgment, but instead of a paper exercise he was faced with departmental superiors watching his body language like hawks, ready to jump on his every word.

  Again, though, because he understood that situational judgment tests would assess his leadership skills, his personal aggressiveness, and his initiative in solving problems, he was able to anticipate the key words and phrases that would be printed on the answer sheets they were using to grade his performance. Solid preparation, an excellent memory, and a high IQ once again brought him through this test without a scratch.

  A sign warned him that he’d reached the off-r
amp for Exit 150A to Quantico. As he crossed the overpass, he glanced down and saw that traffic in the east-bound lanes of Joplin Road was moving briskly. He braked and took the ramp at a slow pace, spiraling down clockwise onto Joplin and under the overpass he’d just crossed.

  A white tractor trailer passed over his head as he moved beneath the overpass, and for an instant he flashed on the enclosed space beneath the Howard K. Chase Bridge where, more than a month ago, he’d huddled in his trench coat, hiding from the rain as they’d worked on Theresa Olsen’s body.

  Still an open case, with a suspect’s DNA profile but no identity to go with it.

  For Hank, the lack of progress made him feel as claustrophobic as the tons of concrete looming above his head. Two dead young women. A string of others before them. And the threat of more lives that would end in unspeakable horror.

  Up ahead, he saw traffic lights that marked the intersection of Joplin Road and the Jefferson Davis Highway.

  Wednesday’s interview had become more difficult when they moved from the situational judgment test to the portion intended to assess his personal suitability for the position. These questions were intended to gauge his loyalty and dedication to the department, his ethical judgment, and how his professional experience qualified him for the position. Bloodworth began with a series of soft questions about his education and his accomplishments as a child prodigy, his decision to forgo a career in the office of the state’s attorney for a cop’s life, and a few of his recent and more prominent cases in homicide. He’d answered similar questions when he’d been promoted to lieutenant and knew what to say. A few minutes later, however, Dalzell changed the pace by pressing him about his connections to the local Triad brotherhood.

  “Have you met with Lam Chun Sang, a.k.a. Uncle Sang, a known Triad figure, on at least one occasion in the recent past?”

  Hank acknowledged that he had.

  “Do you really expect us to believe that your conversation was limited to questions relating to the Jarrett case?”