Glimpse of Death: A Riveting Serial Killer Thriller

by Leslie Wolfe

  Once outside, they huddled together in front of the building, and Tess looked up at the apartment complex, then at the surrounding areas.

  “So, she’d seen the glimpse over there,” Tess pointed toward the building across the street. “He was standing right there, under that tree. I wonder who else saw it. Didn’t Renata say that Stacy screamed?”

  “Yeah, she screamed and he vanished,” Fradella replied.

  “Then maybe someone else saw him. Let’s try that apartment over there, the corner one, left of Stacy’s. I just saw the curtains move.”

  They rang the bell on that apartment door, and heard someone’s guttural, raspy voice shout, “Just a sec.” It took more than that, but eventually a man opened the door and welcomed them inside, albeit struggling somewhat in the process. He used a wheelchair, and every time he moved around, he banged into a wall or a piece of furniture. The apartment was small and smelly, but he didn’t seem to care.

  “I was wondering when you’d show up,” he said. “That girl, such a shame.”

  “Did you see the man with the rope?”

  “Yes, I did. I couldn’t see anything else, didn’t see his face; it was dark already. Days are short this time of year. But that Stacy, she’s one hell of a dyke. She screamed fire, like you’re supposed to, if you want anyone to give a shit. But he was quick to disappear, and I didn’t see where.”

  Tess frowned and looked at the man, observing lots of details. Unshaven, with a poorly kempt head of thinning hair, and pale, with scorched lips, probably from too much vaping. Paraphernalia scattered everywhere was a testimony to his habit, just the icing on the overall caked mess of dirty dishes, clothing, and food wrappers. He probably didn’t get out much, resigned to spend all his days behind that curtain, looking at strangers.

  “How come you saw him? Were you looking out the window at that time?”

  “At all times,” he laughed bitterly. “I’m sick and tired of shitty TV, and I can’t afford HBO. Look at me, what the hell else can I do?”

  Tess could think of many things, but this wasn’t the place nor the time. There was nothing there that could help with their investigation, no new information, no leads. Again, nothing.

  “You know what I wish for?” the man said, keeping his eyes riveted on the thin traffic on his quiet street as Tess was getting ready to leave. “I wish this goddamned window would face a really crowded place, where I could see people all day long, not just have to wait for my five neighbors to come home.” He pulled an e-cig out of his pocket and, with one drag, filled the room with a cloud of vanilla-scented fog. “If my window would face a boardwalk, or a mall food court, that would be something, wouldn’t it? I could see people, real people, like you guys get to see. And I know how to read people too; one look, and I can tell you everything there is to know about them. Who’s happy or sad, who’s getting married and who’s getting divorced. Can you make that happen, Agent Winnett? Can you get me such a view?”

  Tess didn’t recall how she got back to the car. Something that man said made a lot of sense. A boardwalk, a mall food court, where people would pass by and be seen by the unsub, without leaving any trace in any system. No credit card transactions, no cash payments, lost among thousands of anonymous faces in the crowd, yet registering on the rapist’s keen radar.

  She speed-dialed Donovan and put him on speaker.

  “Shoot, and make it quick and painless,” he said, sounding serious.

  “Hey, D, I need a big favor.”

  “Oh, no,” he quipped.

  “I need to know what are the areas of this metro with the highest foot traffic, where our unsub could have seen the victims. I’m talking about places where the women didn’t need to use a credit card or a form of identification. No paper trail, got it?”

  “Like the airport and such?”

  “Yeah. Look at shopping areas, downtown streets, boardwalks, areas where the unsub could have spent inordinate amounts of time without getting noticed. Once you have these locations, can you look at the victims’ cell phone histories, see if they’ve spent any time in one of those areas recently?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Not at all, D. You’re our last chance, and Stacy’s. Don’t let us down.”

  She ended the call and leaned back, letting a loud breath of air leave her lungs. Maybe there was some hope. Maybe they needed someone like Stacy’s bitter neighbor to draw it out for them.

  A call came in through the car’s system, redirected from Michowsky’s phone, and he picked it up immediately.

  “Go for Michowsky, Fradella, and Winnett,” he said.

  “Yeah, it’s Detective Greene from Broward County. Just finished talking to Lisa Trask’s manager and some of her colleagues. No one knew anything about an affair, or any romantic involvement with a coworker. She was the quiet type, nose to the grindstone, albeit a little sad.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Michowsky replied, sounding just as disappointed as they all probably felt.

  “One more thing, that’s probably irrelevant. She worked as a key account manager at the bank branch. Her biggest client was University of Miami Hospital; it outsourced with the bank all its receivables processing, the checks from patients, through a service called, ‘lockbox.’ Lisa Trask managed the hospital receivables. I don’t think it’s that—”

  “Greene, I could hug you right now,” Tess replied, then ended the call. “I’ll be damned,” she muttered.

  “Share,” Fradella said. “What are you thinking?”

  “It’s this damn hospital. It ties in somehow. Two of the victims have it in common.”

  “And two don’t,” Michowsky said. “This is thinner than air; you’re reaching.”

  “I know it’s thin, but there’s something in my gut that won’t let go. The hospital ties in somehow.”

  Her phone chimed and she recognized Donovan’s caller ID. She took the call on speaker. “Go ahead, make us happy.”

  “Now the Operational Technology Division won’t talk to me either, just so you know. I have a list of almost 150 high-pedestrian traffic areas, from hotel lounges, to airports, downtown shopping, hospital lobbies, piers, and boardwalks. We need to narrow it down before I pull in the cell histories to cross-reference, or we’ll be doing this all month,” Donovan said.

  “Did you just say hospitals?” she blurted out impatiently.

  “This is how you piss me off, Winnett. If you know something, why waste my time?” he sounded angry.

  “I don’t, D, honestly. Which hospitals are showing up on the list?”

  “Baptist, Mount Sinai, Holy Cross, Cleveland Clinic, University—”

  “University of Miami?” she interrupted, although she already knew the answer.

  “None other,” Donovan grumbled. “Next time, just ask me to verify a theory. I can work as an adult, you know. I can be trusted.”

  “Come on, Donovan, it was just a hunch, and an implausible one at that. Were Sarah Thomas and Stacy Rodriguez at that hospital in the past few months?”

  She heard the clacking of a rapidly typed-on keyboard, and Donovan mumbling something indecipherable. She held her breath, waiting for his findings.

  “Yes, and yes, although I can’t tell if they spent any amount of time there; I have no data for that. They could have been just passing by, nothing more.”

  “I’ll take what you can give. Now we need to figure out why these women were at the hospital. Were they really at that hospital, or just passing by the street? Look at everything, family members who might be sick, relatives who work there. Ask around. Nothing came up during the background check we did the first time, so we’ll have to dig even deeper.”

  “Already on it,” Donovan replied morosely, then promptly cut the call.

  They rode in silence for a while, then Michowsky tapped her on the shoulder.

  “You know, that gut of yours, Winnett? It’s scary.”

  51

  A Name

  When Tess, Fradell
a, and Michowsky arrived back at Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, they found Doc Rizza buried in data. Squinting in front of the wall-mounted screen, he scrolled through endless lines in a report showing names, addresses, and drug regimens.

  “What are you up to?” Tess asked.

  “The rapist unsub has a genetic mutation, autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. Typically, once the disease has been diagnosed, the patient receives a prescription for tolvaptan, which slows the progression of cyst development. I’ve asked for a report on all tolvaptan prescriptions in southern Florida, male patients only, and this is it. More than six thousand names.”

  Fradella whistled and scratched his head, while Tess approached the screen with a deep frown marking her forehead.

  “I thought this was a genetic mutation, Doc. It’s supposed to be rare, right?”

  “Polycystic kidney disease is a mutation, but more than half a million people suffer from it in the United States. To make things worse, tolvaptan is prescribed for a number of other ailments, such as congestive heart failure, hyponatremia—”

  “All right, I get it. Doc, can you please send the list to Donovan, and ask him to cross-reference it against all hospital personnel? Maybe it’s time to finally get lucky.”

  “The hospital, again?” Doc Rizza asked, raising his eyebrow.

  “Long story, but I believe we’re on to something.”

  Michowsky stepped out of the room to take a call, but then immediately returned and put the phone on speaker. “Go ahead, Mr. Thomas,” he said.

  “I received your message, saying to call you about Sarah.”

  “Yes… We need to know if Sarah ever visited anyone, or spent any time at the University of Miami Hospital.”

  Silence took over the open line.

  “Mr. Thomas?” Michowsky said.

  “She was doing that again, huh?” Matthew Thomas replied, the sadness in his voice clear, tangible.

  “Doing what, sir?”

  The man hesitated before speaking, and this time Michowsky gave him the time. When he eventually spoke, he sounded overwhelmed.

  “Sarah’s mother died four years ago in a car crash; a drunk driver in a pickup truck T-boned her Honda only a mile away from home. She was pronounced brain dead, but she was an organ donor. A nurse who worked in that hospital was next in line to get a heart.” His voice was choked and faint. “Sometimes, Sarah went over there to see the nurse. She never talked to her, and, from what I know, that nurse didn’t know who Sarah was. But Sarah, when she missed her mother, went over there and hung around in the cafeteria, waiting for that nurse to come downstairs for lunch. I asked her not to do that anymore; it wasn’t healthy for her. She’d promised…”

  His voice broke, and all they could hear for a few seconds were raspy, forced breaths of air, the kind people take when trying to control their emotions.

  “Thank you, Mr. Thomas, we appreciate your help. Once again, we’re very sorry for your loss.”

  As soon as Michowsky ended the call, Fradella jumped to his feet. “Sarah was a stalker?” he asked. “Got to admit I didn’t see that coming.”

  Tess shook her head, while a cryptic smile bloomed on her lips. “Don’t care a single bit, because now we’re three out of four. We’re on to something here, guys. Let’s talk to Renata again, see if—”

  The conference line cut her off, but she didn’t mind.

  “Donovan, I was just thinking of you,” she said cheerfully. “What do you have?”

  “A couple of things. Stacy Rodriguez worked for a software development company called Something Software.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we know that,” Tess interjected impatiently. “What about it?”

  “Well, that company won a bid to build the hospital’s new EMR system. For all nonmedical personnel, that’s short for an electronic medical records system.”

  Tess felt a wave of excitement bubble in her chest. “Yes!”

  “Stacy attended project meetings and conducted user-acceptance testing with hospital personnel, at least two or three times per month. You nailed it.”

  “Awesome,” she said, feeling the tension and the urgency to act on the information she’d just received.

  “Next, I’ve cross-referenced the list of patients who take this, um, tolvaptan, against any payables and tax records the hospital has issued in the past year. The only match so far, because the thing is still grinding, is a new employee by the name of Michael Walden. He’s an imaging technician who works on the main floor, in Diagnostic Imaging. He’s been there only a few weeks. Before that, he was at Mercy.”

  “Great work, D, thanks!” She sprung to her feet and beckoned Fradella to grab his stuff. “It makes sense. The man who spiked my IV was very comfortable trolling that hospital; he knew where the cameras were, he knew how to disappear, and what clothes to wear to not draw any attention.”

  “Whoa, don’t you rush arresting people, Winnett. The search is still running; it only went through the paystubs for now, because that’s a single database, easy to search. Forms 1099 and vendor employees are a different ballgame, not to mention all long-term, patient family members who spend time in that hospital. This man has no criminal record whatsoever.”

  She felt a wave of frustration course through her brain, when she remembered the composite sketch drawn based on DNA markers. “D, can you push me his photo?”

  Within a second, the photo of a man popped up on the wall-mounted screen. She took out her smartphone and pushed the composite to the same screen, positioning them side by side.

  “It could work,” she muttered, “it could be him. Keep in mind only a few of the facial features in the drawing are DNA-based. Hair type and color, eye color, skin color, the balding tendencies, the nose.”

  “He looks different, this Michael Walden. He looks… harmless,” Michowsky said.

  “To you, maybe. But there’s something… haunting in his eyes,” Tess replied. “Something too intense to be any good. Let’s not waste any more time and bring him in. Donovan, you’re my hero,” she added, and, just before hanging up, she heard her analyst groan.

  “Then why didn’t Katherine Nelson recognize him? We’ve profiled this unsub as the kidnapper, right?” Michowsky asked.

  “That hospital is huge,” Tess replied. “Katherine worked in Pediatrics, and this guy is in Imaging, downstairs. I think it still holds.”

  Michowsky made a quick call to dispatch, requesting backup, then they all headed for the elevator. Tess pulled out her phone and dialed the hospital main number, then put the phone to her ear. She didn’t want that particular call handled on speaker, thinking about her own privacy.

  “What are you doing?” Fradella asked. “We shouldn’t announce ourselves, you know that.”

  “You’re forgetting I know people there. That tends to happen when you live somewhere for a week.” As soon as the switchboard took the call, she requested, “Nurses’ station on third floor, please.”

  A quick couple of rings, and then someone picked up. “Nurses’ station,” a man’s voice said.

  “Melissa Henderson, please.”

  There was a brief hesitation, then the man asked, “Who’s calling?”

  “It’s Tess Winnett, her former patient,” she said, feeling the bite of worry in her gut.

  “Ah, Agent Winnett,” the man said, sounding almost relieved. “It’s Elliott Giraldo, Melissa’s supervisor. She… didn’t show up for her shift today. Didn’t call, didn’t leave a note or send an email. She’s not picking up her phone, and we were just wondering what to do, considering Dr. Nelson’s—”

  “Got it, Elliott. We’re on it; I’ll be in touch.” She hung up, then stared blankly ahead, while pallor took over her face and the chill of fear traveled through her veins. She didn’t even register the speed at which Fradella drove the car, or the squealing tires as he took the on-ramp on the way to the hospital.

  “They took Melissa, my nurse. The motherfuckers have Melissa, and now they’re go
ing to kill Stacy.”

  52

  Not a Fit

  “We really have to move on this,” Tess said. She felt the tension build in her neck, and blood rush to her head. “Gary, have one of the backup units pick up Michael Walden and put him in an interview room at county. Todd, take the next exit. Let’s go to Melissa’s home, see what we can find.”

  She entered the address Donovan had already sent into the car’s GPS system, and for a few seconds, let her mind absorb the new facts. How did Melissa Henderson fit in all this? Quick and easy answer, she didn’t. Not by a long shot.

  As if reading her mind, Fradella turned to face her for a split second, then asked, “Was she cheating?”

  “No,” she replied quickly. “No, she wasn’t. She doesn’t fit the victim profile. I can’t figure out why they took her.”

  “She has dark hair, but short,” Michowsky said, “and she’s about the right age, and pretty. Has a son, Charlie, age six,” he continued, reading from the data Donovan had sent to their phones. “But how can you be sure she wasn’t cheating? Was she depressed?”

  “She was struggling with something,” Tess admitted reluctantly, thinking of Melissa’s red, swollen eyes, and the black circles that surrounded them. “I asked, and she said it was family problems. I read between the lines and assumed husband problems.” She dialed Donovan as she was talking, and he picked up right away.

  “Ask,” he said simply.

  “The background check you did for Melissa Henderson’s husband, how deep did you go?”

  “I did a good, thorough job, if that’s your real question,” he replied, sounding almost offended. “He came back squeaky clean, spotless.”

  “Family history? Work?”

  “I looked at the whole thing, and nothing popped up. Whatever this is, I don’t think Derek Henderson is a part of it.”

  “Okay. Send me the name and address for his place of employment. We’ll pay him a visit anyway.”