by Madyson Grey
“I’d like to, just because I want to be down here and in the thick of things,” Victoria said. “I guess that’s morbid, but it’s true.”
“Not morbid. We just need to be here. I do, too,” he said.
“Why don’t you go in there now, then, and make sure everything is ready to open. Get the till open, check stock, and make sure it’s clean. It will give you something to do for one thing, and for another, it’s been three days since anyone has been in there.”
“Yeah, good idea.”
Rafael leaned down to give her a quick kiss on the lips, and then he turned back to the men while Victoria went to the door of the gift shop and unlocked it. When she opened the door and started to walk in, she stopped short and screamed.
Rafael and the other men nearby came on the run.
“What’s the matter?” Rafael demanded as he grabbed Victoria, who was standing in the doorway in shock.
All she could do was point to the floor. There, lying on the floor, was another Asian girl, bullet hole in her forehead, and note in her hand. It was déjà vu all over again. The three agents pushed past the couple to examine the body. Agent Carr put on gloves and took the note from the girl’s hand.
He read it out loud. “Here’s number two. You thought you could catch me, but I’m too slick for you. Shut this park down, or number three will be here tomorrow.”
“Maybe we should,” Victoria said. “I don’t want any more girls to die.”
“No, ma’am,” Agent Carr said. “As hard as it sounds, to close down won’t accomplish anything. We don’t know that these girls won’t die anyway, and maybe in a much worse manner. But if you stay open, he has to keep coming in here. The more often he comes in, the better chance we have of catching him. Sacrificing a few girls to save many seems hard, I know. But it is the best way.”
“What I’d like to know is how he got in here in the first place,” Rafael said, frustrated. “There were officers all over this place. And the cameras were operating. Maybe they will show you something.”
“We’ll want to look at that footage ASAP,” Agent Carr told him.
“It all ties in to my laptop, which is, uh, where did I leave that?”
Rafael went back outside to the bench where the security system was.
“Here it is,” he said, picking up the silver computer. “Let’s take it back inside and I’ll fire it up for you.”
He set the laptop on the gift shop counter, turned it on, found the camera program, and opened it up. When it was ready, the agents all crowded around to view the film from the previous night.
They watched for quite a while before one of them said, “There. Right there.”
“Can you pause this?” Agent Blackburn asked. “Back it up a few seconds to where this movement is.
Rafael stepped in front of the laptop, rewound the film, and then paused it when a dark figure appeared on the screen. Then he moved aside so the agents could examine the scene.
“Rafael, can you tell where this location is?” Agent Carr asked him.
Rafael studied the frame for a couple of minutes.
“It’s so dark, it’s hard to tell. But I think it’s over that way, at the edge of the flower garden, just over there in front of this building.”
Rafael was pointing as he spoke.
The men continued to look at all of the video captured from each of the cameras all that previous night. The shadowy figure in that one frame showed up again, picking the lock on the gift shop door, and then carrying the girl’s body inside.
While he was doing this, the officer who was patrolling that area was clear down at the opposite end of his assigned area. As he walked back toward the gift shop, the man inside silently closed the door, so that when the officer walked by the shop, he didn’t see anything out of place. It was all just as neat as if it were staged. What if it were?
“Not likely,” Agent Carr stated. “Just perfect timing on the part of this creep. He’s done his homework. Probably sat out there in the dark and timed the officer’s beat, and knew how long he had to get the door open and the body inside before he came back. I’ll send this video to our local office where our experts will work their magic on it and enhance the perp’s face so we can begin to identify him.
“He’s likely just the messenger boy, but if we can catch him, we may be able to squeeze information out of him.”
“Squeeze him until he squeals,” Rafael said darkly.
“Oh, we will,” Carr assured him. “We will.”
Chapter Eleven
The agents finished their examination of the body and one called for the coroner. Sergeant Losey was also called to come in and see her before she was taken away. He corroborated Rafael and Victoria’s story that this woman was laid out exactly as the first one had been. He read the note, and shook his head sadly.
They also called in the officer whose area to patrol had been around the gift shop. He watched the video in disbelief as the perp entered the gift shop when he was at the other end of the area.
“He must have been watching me to see when I was far enough away that he could get in here,” the officer said.
“You can’t be everywhere at once,” Sergeant Losey consoled him. “No one can. We’ll just have to keep at it until he’s caught.”
By the time the front gate opened and people began streaming in, the body was gone and the public was unaware of the drama that had been unfolding that morning. As Rafael watched the people come through the gate, he wondered just who the undercover agents were. He sure couldn’t tell, so he hoped that if any perpetrators came in, too, that they wouldn’t know, either.
Victoria, too, as she waited on customers in the gift shop, wondered who each person was. Her paranoia nearly got the best of her when a fortyish man ogled her as she was ringing up his purchase of a souvenir mug. He gave her the creeps, the way his eyes raked all over the upper part of her body that he could see, and then came to rest on her modestly covered breasts. Fortunately, her lower half was hidden behind the counter, or else she would have felt visually raped right there in public. She was close to feeling that way as it was.
She wished she could take his picture and show it to the police, but that was impossible. But just as he turned to leave, Sergeant Losey came through the door. She motioned to the departing man’s back, and raised her eyebrows in question. The sergeant turned and followed him outside. Pretending to be looking at his smart phone, the sergeant snapped a photo of the man, who turned his way just at the most opportune time.
Then he went inside. As soon as Victoria was free at the register, he asked her why she had singled out that man. She told him that he just looked at her in a disgustingly creepy manner. The sergeant smiled and told her that some men are just that way, and that didn’t make him a sex trafficker or murderer.
“I know, Sergeant,” Victoria said quietly. “I’m just so on edge, and his eyes were so, so, creepy. I felt like I was being raped just with his eyes.”
“I know the type,” he told her. “We see all kinds. I did snap his photo, and I’m going to send it in to be run and see if he has any outstanding warrants or a record. Just to be sure. But I suspect he’s just a sleaze-bag.”
Victoria continued to work the counter, while Sarah, who was usually at the register, was milling through the shop, assisting customers, and also watching the crowd. All of the employees had been briefed on what was happening, so they were all on the alert.
The day progressed as all other days before it had. The crowds were just as thick as any other day. A few made mention of the news report, but many seemed to have not even seen it. For which everyone was glad. Because the second murder victim had been found with the police and FBI already on the grounds, there had been no radio call, and therefore no reporters caught wind of it, which they were all glad of.
Rafael and Victoria drove home for a quick lunch, but then went right back to the park. They didn’t want to miss anything that might happen that day. But neit
her of them spotted anyone or anything that was out of the ordinary. They didn’t really expect to, but they had hoped.
At closing time, they had a meeting with all of the policemen and FBI agents. The night shift had come in before closing, posing as late guests, but all discreetly gathered in the barn for a briefing before the day shift left. Several of them came in with “therapy” dogs, which in fact were trained police dogs.
It was dark when the plainclothesmen left the barn and faded into the night. There were twice as many of them as there had been the previous night. They hoped that no one could sneak past them this time.
Rafael and Victoria drove home, him on the quad and her in the Chrysler. Lena had supper waiting for them when they came in. She was anxious to hear how the day had gone. They talked over supper, filling her in on the day’s happenings. She was feeling much better, thank you.
They all turned in early that evening. Rafael and Victoria were so tired, both from the long, stressful day, and from the lack of sleep the night before. Just to be on the safe side, they both took an over-the-counter sleep aid, hoping that would suppress any nightmares that might threaten to disturb Victoria’s sleep.
It must have worked, because they slept straight through the night and awakened at their customary hour of five o’clock the next morning. After breakfast, they both rode down on the quad, on pins and needles to know if they would find another body that morning.
According to a prearranged plan, they both walked in on the back path as they always did, checking the doors of the train depot and gift shop, checking the farmhouse door, but not entering any of them. Then they went to the barnyard and looked over the animals, petting the ones who came to the fence.
Then they casually walked into the barn. Several agents and officers had gathered in there, one at a time, after seeing the couple enter the park. They had nothing to report. It had been a quiet night, they all said. Regular entry checks had been made every fifteen minutes all night long into the train depot, the gift shop, the ticket booth, the farmhouse, and the barn. Nothing.
Agent Carr said that wasn’t unusual. Often times a perp will be active for a day or two, and then stop for a few days, hoping the police with relax their vigil. However, when Mickey came into the barn, he was holding a folded piece of paper in one trembling hand, which he had found taped to his front door. He gave it to Agent Carr, who unfolded it and read it aloud.
“You think you’re on guard, but you’re not. There’s a weak link in your chain. Check the swimming pool at the house on the hill.”
Just then, Victoria’s phone rang. It was Lena. When she answered it, everyone could hear Lena screaming. They all took off on a dead run up the hill to the Riveras' house. Sure enough, there was another dead Asian girl. This time she was floating in the pool on an inflated air mattress.
The note read: “Fooled you, didn’t I? This is number three, but I have an unlimited supply. You know what to do to stop the killing.”
“This means that they know where we live,” Victoria told Rafael in a wooden tone. “Now none of us are safe. You, me, Mama, Grandma and Grandpa. No one. Maybe not even your mama.”
“Why didn’t our alarm system go off?” Rafael demanded.
The agents searched the pool area and the places where the alarm sensors were. There was evidence of tampering with the sensor that guarded the pool entrance gate.
“This man is very smart,” Agent Carr told the group. “But we are smarter. We’ve got to work together to outsmart him. Meanwhile, I’m going to ask you, Rafael, to take your family and move them to one of our safe houses. They will have twenty-four-hour guards, none of whom have been involved in this duty here at the park, just to rule out a mole. Not that I suspect any of these men, but one can’t be too careful.
“You and your wife will still come to work as usual, but Victoria’s mother and grandparents will have to stay there for their own safety until we can catch this creep.”
Lena looked as if she were ready to bolt right then, but Victoria took her inside her apartment and helped her to pack a suitcase and get ready to leave. Then the three of them went down to Erik and Signe’s house and broke the news to them. They weren’t a bit happy to leave their comfortable home, but they knew that it was for their own safety, so they complied. Soon they each had a suitcase packed also, and were ready to go.
An unmarked car came and picked them up and whisked them away to an undisclosed location. The coroner made his third pickup in three days from Rivera property. Rafael had to open the driveway gate to let him in, wondering how the perp got the body all the way up there.
Officers and agents were scouring the grounds looking for tire tracks or anything, no matter how minute, that might lead them to this Houdini who could slip in and out completely undetected. Rafael called the pool man to come drain the pool and refill it, only giving the excuse that the water had been in there for a year and he wanted it changed. That was true. Boy! Did he want it changed!
The workday went as smoothly as ever, with no sleazy characters and nothing to arouse the most sensitive suspicions. Rather than going home for lunch, Rafael called a local pizza place and had a couple of dozen pizzas delivered to feed the employees and the undercover agents and officers. This time, they entered the back door of the farmhouse, one or two at a time, where the pizzas were put in a room that was off limits and out of sight of the visitors.
Half an hour before closing time, one by one, the undercover agents slipped into their assigned hiding places, not to come out until after dark. A couple of them hid inside the farmhouse, one was in the outhouse, several inside the barn, including up in the hayloft, two were in the back room of the gift shop, one inside the train depot, one in the ticket booth, a couple of them were laying down all scrunched up in separate train cars, while others just faded into the darkening woods. No unsuspecting visitor would have been the wiser. Only a trained eye might have seen one or two disappear and wonder. But even such a person couldn’t have eyes everywhere.
Each of the three mobile homes had guards staked out in the bushes surrounding the homes. There were six agents up at Rafael and Victoria’s house, and three at the Ericksens’ house. Every single place on the entire property was covered, to the best of the ability of the combined efforts of the FBI, Westlake Village police, Los Angeles police, and LA County sheriff’s department. This was growing into one of LA County’s largest manhunts. And it all centered on the Riveras' 210 acres.
Chapter Twelve
Rafael and Victoria had been invited to stay at Mickey and Sarah’s place there on the park grounds. Clearing it with the FBI and police, they gratefully accepted. They really wanted to be there in case there was any action during the night. Rafael wanted to stay up on guard all night, but the powers that be nixed that idea, telling him that he needed his rest in order to be alert during the day.
So, reluctantly, he left the guard duty to the trained professionals and retired for the night. As soon as the last guest had left the park, the agents with the dogs made a complete sweep of the park, and all the way up to the homes, just to make sure that everyone had indeed left the grounds. They not only checked outdoors, but also inside every building on the park grounds, inside both the Rivera and the Ericksen home.
That evening, while the Dixons and the Riveras were eating a light supper, a thought occurred to Rafael. There were two homes on that additional property that they had purchased. The Ericksens lived in one, but the other one was empty still. It sat off across the driveway from the Ericksens, had a fenced-in yard, and could appear as if it were a separate property from the Rivera holdings.
Rather than go outside to look for Agent Taylor, the FBI man in charge of the night crew, Rafael called him on his cell phone.
“I hadn’t thought of it before, but I also own that empty house up there across from the Ericksens’ house. The one with the fenced yard. What if the guy is hiding out in there?”
“I wasn’t aware that that house is yours,
” Agent Taylor replied. “I’ll send a couple of men up there right now to check it out, and let you know.”
“Thanks, Agent Taylor. I appreciate that. Sorry I didn’t think of it sooner,” Rafael said.
“We should have asked,” the agent said.
Twenty long minutes later, Agent Taylor called Rafael back.
“There is evidence that someone has been in that house,” he told Rafael. “When was the last time you were inside?”
“I was in there just before and just after I bought it, which was late October of last year. I haven’t been in it since. Hadn’t decided what to do with it yet.”
“There is the smell of relatively fresh cigarette smoke in it, as well as a pad of paper that looks the same as the paper the notes have been written on. There are also traces of blood on the carpet. The dog that was taken inside became agitated, which is a sign that he smells fresh human scent that he is unaccustomed to,” Agent Taylor reported.
“There was no smell of cigarette smoke in that house,” Rafael affirmed. “I do remember that about the house. And it was totally empty and had been thoroughly cleaned, including the carpets shampooed.”
“So someone has been in there within the past few days, I would say,” the agent said.
“Definitely.”
“I’m going to leave a guard there tonight,” the agent told him. “I’ll have two of them and the dog hide in a bedroom closet and see if the perp returns there.”
“Okay, sounds good. Thank you. You guys be careful out there tonight,” Rafael said.
“We will, thanks. Good night.”
“Good night.”
“Well, there has been someone in that empty house of ours,” Rafael told Victoria and the others. “That may be where he’s been hiding and how he gets around the grounds so easily. How he has been able to get in there, though, is beyond me. The house is out in the open, with only a couple of trees in the yard.”