Once Shadows Fall: A Thriller (A Jack Kale and Beth Sturgis Thriller)

by Robert Daniels

  “I know, but—”

  “Ritson’s protecting the department,” Jack said. “He knows it. I know it. And he knows that I know it.”

  “But you took the job anyway,” Beth said.

  “The killer’s just warming up. If we don’t stop him, more people will die.”

  Beth stared at him for a long moment and then at Pappas who raised his eyebrows.

  “Shit,” she said. “You must think I’m a bitch.”

  “The thought crossed my mind,” Jack said and took a sip of his club soda.

  Beth responded by slowly raising her middle finger then excused herself to go to the ladies’ room.

  “Well, that went well,” Jack said.

  “She wants to prove herself,” Pappas said.

  Jack nodded. Both men sipped their drinks quietly for a time and then turned to watch a waitress in a short, black skirt lean across a table to collect some glasses.

  Jack said, “Leering is frowned upon in a man of your position.”

  “Yeah? So what were you doing?”

  “Checking for concealed weapons.”

  Pappas chuckled and clinked his bottle against Jack’s glass. “You gonna be able to manage the investigation with your teaching?”

  “I took a leave of absence,” Jack said. “Our dean thinks it will bring credit to the university.”

  “Let’s hope.” Pappas paused for a beat, then asked, “Mind if I ask you a question?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’re not in this for the money. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the glamour of the job that brought you back.”

  “Hardly,” Jack said.

  “So, just between us, why are you here?”

  Jack took a small sip of his soda and then set the glass carefully down on his coaster and centered it.

  “The easy answer is I don’t like not knowing.”

  “Not knowing what?” Pappas said.

  “Who the killer is. Why he’s killing people. Why he’s leaving clues. Why he decided to imitate Howard Pell. The more I think about it, the longer the list gets.”

  Pappas digested this for a moment.

  “All right,” he said, “that makes sense. How ’bout the hard answer?”

  Jack ran the tip of his forefinger around the rim of his glass and didn’t reply immediately. The pause seemed to stretch before he continued.

  “When you were in uniform, you ever work an accident?”

  “A few.”

  “What’s the first thing you did if there was a crowd?”

  “Told everyone to keep back. Sometimes I’d have one of them run for a blanket. Maybe call for a doctor if they could get there before the EMTs.”

  “In other words, you followed your training and took control of the situation.”

  “Sure.”

  “You directed people to do certain things, because if you didn’t, they would just stand around believing someone else was taking care of the problems.”

  “I guess so.”

  “That’s human nature. Psychologists have a fancy name for it, diffusion of responsibility, but it comes down to this: people always assume the other guy is doing what needs to be done. That’s rarely the case.”

  “No argument from me,” Pappas said.

  “And if someone doesn’t take responsibility, things start to unravel,” Jack said.

  “Like how?”

  “How we choose to live,” Jack said. “Society has a structure—some of it good, some of it bad. The bottom line is what you see when you look in the mirror each morning—one of the crowd, or someone who’s there to stop a predator. When people ignore who they are, they’re just fooling themselves. Most of the time it doesn’t work out. You do what you’re put here to do.”

  Pappas nodded and didn’t interrupt.

  “A doctor pal of mine asked why I didn’t tell Beth no when she shanghaied me up to the farm. I didn’t answer him at the time, but I gave it some thought and concluded that’s what I was doing—trying to ignore who I am.”

  “Mirror’s a tough critic,” Pappas said.

  “Very,” Jack replied.

  “Glad you’re in,” Pappas said, holding out his hand.

  “Thank you,” Jack said as they shook.

  The detective’s next question wasn’t entirely unexpected. Jack was tempted to tell him he said only one question when they began.

  “Are there any . . . ah, issues I should know about?”

  “Not really,” Jack said.

  “There was some stuff in your file about separating from the feds for medical reasons.”

  When he got no response, Pappas held his hands up in a peace gesture and said, “I’m not tryin’ to get in your business. It’s just I don’t need you droppin’ dead of a heart attack or something in the middle of the case.”

  “You can rest easy. It’s nothing to worry about. You have my word.” He then shifted the topic and asked, “What’s the story with Detective Sturgis?”

  “Everybody in the department had the same question. You ever hear of William Camden?”

  “The author?”

  “She was married to him. Normally, she doesn’t say much about herself.”

  “Understandable. She seems like a private person.”

  “She worked for some fancy travel magazine up in New York as an editor or something. I don’t know. Her dad’s a cop up in Charlotte and a real decent guy. I’ve met him a couple of times. So no big deal for a kid to follow in her father’s footsteps, right?”

  “Sure.”

  Pappas took a sip of his drink.

  Jack said, “That’s the official version, right?”

  Pappas glanced around before he continued. “I hear she had a baby sister who hanged herself. Apparently, the kid was bullied in school pretty bad. Beth was the one who found her. She was like fourteen at the time. I figure that had something to do with it.”

  An image of what that must have been like flashed into Jack’s mind. He shook his head to clear it.

  “She told you that?”

  “She told Lenny Cass. That’s her regular partner. Poor schmuck’s laid up recovering from a hernia operation. Sometimes you tell your partner stuff you don’t tell anyone else. Keep it quiet, okay?”

  Jack told him he would.

  “Bottom line is she’s a little rigid in her views but she comes down on the right side of things,” Pappas said.

  “How do you know it’s the right side?” Jack asked.

  “That’s the side I’m on.”

  Jack nodded. “So she became a cop.”

  “Did real good at the academy, I’m told. Smart as a whip.”

  “I can see that. We’ll need all the help we can get. She mentioned she’s new to Robbery-Homicide.”

  “Also true,” Pappas said. “You’re on probation for six months after you transfer. Before landing here, she was making cases against polluters and toxic dumping in Environmental Enforcement.”

  Jack screwed up his face.

  “Right,” Pappas said. “That’s why she’s so hot to prove herself.”

  “And right out of the box, she gets stuck with me as the APD’s poster boy. I can see why it doesn’t sit well.”

  Pappas lifted his beer bottle in a toast.

  “Crap,” Jack said. “I’ll make sure she gets credit for everything.”

  “Proving you belong to the bosses is one thing. Proving you belong to yourself is something else.”

  “For a big dumb jock, you’re pretty insightful.”

  “I have my moments.”

  They broke off their conversation as Beth returned. Several men at the bar tracked her progress.

  “You boys have a nice talk?” she said.

  “Yeah,” Pappas said. “We bonded.”

  Puzzled, Beth frowned and looked at Jack.

  “There’s something I’d like to ask you,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “What were you feeling when you were at t
he scene?”

  “Feeling?”

  “Right. What was going through your mind?”

  Beth glanced at Pappas to make sure she wasn’t the subject of a joke. The detective raised his shoulders. Around them, the murmur of conversations and restaurant sounds blended into a white noise.

  A long moment passed before she said, “I remember feeling sad.”

  “Why sad?”

  “That piece of dress we found in the pipe. It was a cocktail dress. I thought it was so sad that she went out hoping to have a nice time and it ended like this.”

  “And what else?”

  Beth frowned. “There’s nothing to base this on other than your comment that we might not be alone, but that just brought it together for me. As soon as you said it, I definitely had the feeling we were being watched.”

  The seconds seemed to stretch as Jack held her eyes.

  “I need you to keep right on thinking that way every minute until this case is over. We’re dealing with an incredibly dangerous individual. Do not let your guard down even for an instant.”

  Beth and Pappas looked at each other.

  “Are you trying to scare me?” Beth asked.

  “Absolutely.” There wasn’t the slightest trace of humor in his face when he said it.

  Chapter 24

  On Monday morning, three uniform officers and two men dressed in suits were in the conference room when Jack arrived. They were talking among themselves. Rather than interrupt, he moved to the end of the room where a large urn of coffee and a plate of pastries had been set up. He poured himself a cup and picked out a chocolate-glazed donut and dropped a dollar into a shoebox someone had set up for honor payments. His self-imposed ration was two cups in the morning, which he had at his house. Of course, they were small cups, so he decided to risk a third.

  Outside the window, a light rain had begun falling. On the wet pavement below, a scattering of brightly colored umbrellas glided across the sidewalk. Waltz of the gumdrops.

  Beth was in the middle of writing notes about the murders on a whiteboard. Jack checked his watch. It was three minutes to eight. The voice mail he received from her the night before indicated they would meet at eight o’clock.

  Eager to prove herself, he thought.

  Dan Pappas appeared alongside him and picked out a donut covered in sprinkles.

  “Sprinkles?”

  “The best,” Pappas said, keeping his voice down so as not to interrupt Beth.

  “You have no taste in donuts,” Jack said.

  “I must, I’m a cop.”

  “Who are the suits?” Jack asked.

  “Frick and Frack.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s just what we call them. The tall one’s Ed Mundas. His partner’s Dwayne Stafford.”

  “I take it they’re joining us.”

  Pappas nodded. “They’re good men. Beth asked the lieutenant for more help. With three murders, we need to put some people on the street.”

  “Agreed,” Jack said as four more detectives entered the room. Two he recalled meeting during the Scarecrow case. The other two weren’t familiar to him. He turned to Pappas. “My message last night said the autopsies have been moved up.”

  “She also called the deputy chief at home on Saturday night and asked him to intercede with the ME. He phoned Dr. Andrews himself and voila: more troops, instant autopsies.”

  “Anything special so far?” Jack asked.

  “Two of the three were Tasered,” Pappas said, “plus all of ’em had Seconal in their blood, so you were right about that. Two were missing the ring finger on the left hand. The vics at the farm both died of asphyxiation; the lady at Lake Lanier, drowning.”

  Jack was quiet for a moment, then said, “Lady at the lake,” half to himself.

  When Beth finished, she introduced Jack to the others. Stafford and Mundas were both tall, slender, and spoke with noticeable southern accents. It was hard to tell them apart. Jack tried to associate their names with their faces but, after a moment, wasn’t sure which was which.

  “What I’d like,” he said, “is for you two to start interviewing the victims’ neighbors. It’s possible the killer simply happened on them by chance, but it would be nice to know if any of them were connected, beyond just being friends or knowing Jerome Haffner.”

  Frick, or maybe it was Frack, took notes while the other listened.

  “Yes, sir. Will do. Ms. Sturgis already told us that. We’ll also be checking to see if the neighbors noticed any strange folk hangin’ around.”

  “Good.”

  “Vehicles, too,” his partner added.

  Jack turned to Beth and asked, “You got a tire print?”

  “It’s a Goodyear 275-I6, with noticeable wear on the inside. They’re commonly found on vans. About a grillion were sold last year.”

  “A grillion?” Jack said.

  “It’s a technical term,” Beth said. “You’ve been out of the business for a while.”

  Jack smiled. “What about the fluid drip?”

  “The vehicle probably belongs to our killer,” Beth said. “The drip is transmission fluid. If we find the vehicle, we can get a match and place it at the scene.”

  She’d been busy and was looking very pleased with herself. As well she should, Jack thought.

  “And the footprints on the hill?” he asked.

  “I’m assuming one was from Sarah Goldner. The sheriff’s checking the size against her other shoes with the family. The man’s shoe is a size twelve and different from what we saw at the farm. The sole is made of something called Vibram. It’s manufactured in China for Rockmart Footwear. There was nothing distinctive about the wear pattern. This one could be the real deal instead of a plant.”

  Pappas asked, “Where’s it sold?”

  “Everywhere,” Beth said. “There are about thirty thousand retail outlets across the U.S. You can also buy them online.”

  Pappas informed him, “We do have one piece of good news, Jack.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sheriff Blaylock had his deputies canvas the neighbors. Two of them down the road from the Donneley farm noticed a white panel van driving around before the killings. Seems everybody knows everybody up there.”

  “Excellent,” Jack said. “Let’s see if there are any reports of stolen vehicles matching that description. The killer probably wouldn’t risk using his own transportation.”

  “Will do,” Pappas said.

  “We should also see if any rental agencies have one out. If that’s the case, the killer might have acquired it near his own home, which would give us an area to concentrate on. Wouldn’t you agree, Beth?”

  “Oh . . . uh, sure. I’ll get on it.”

  As soon as the words were out, Jack realized he’d made a mistake. Despite running through what he viewed as the routine and sensible steps they should take, he was conscious of an elephant in the room—the unspoken question about who was in charge. The meeting’s focus was beginning to shift to him. Despite their discussion the previous night, Beth’s expression spoke volumes. She was putting up a good front but appeared awkward and uneasy. His comments were inadvertently undercutting her authority.

  He needed to correct the problem.

  “As most of you know, Chief Ritson asked me to consult with the department. Obviously, we have a serious situation on our hands. Detective Sturgis is still the lead on this case, so if there are any command decisions to be made, check with her. I’ll be around to offer assistance where needed.”

  Several of the uniforms nodded. As long as there was a clear chain of command, with one of their own running the show, they were happy. The bottom line was, no one liked being told how to do their job, particularly by a former fed like him. Word would filter through the department quickly.

  Jack took a sip of coffee and made a face. He’d forgotten to add sweetener. He took stock of the room they were in and couldn’t recall if he’d ever been there before. It was about thirty by fifteen
and had a long conference table with eight blue upholstered chairs and a window that looked out over the parking lot. From the window, through a thin line of trees, was I-285 or the “Perimeter,” as Atlantans called it. Cars moved in a steady stream at speeds that indicated the posted speed limit was more a suggestion than the law. Overhead were a series of fluorescent lights he associated with unpleasant places. Despite his being used to speaking with groups, he realized he was nervous. It had been a long time since he was around other cops. A brief sense of loss for his office at school and the comfort of his daily routine swept over him. There wasn’t much help for it now.

  Beth Sturgis resumed her talk with the uniforms. At one point, she looked up at him and then continued her conversation. He read nothing in her expression. What was she thinking? Had his speech worked? Was she still resentful? Well, he’d done his best. Maybe she was unsure what to do next. He often was. In the end, it came down to instinct. An investigation is like building a house of cards. You construct it level by level and hope it doesn’t come crashing down. This one had gotten off to a miserable start.

  *

  The meeting eventually broke up and people drifted back to their desks or to whatever they had been working on. Jack spent some time on the computer searching the FBI’s database for similar crimes and patterns and came up empty. He wasn’t surprised. It was nearly eleven o’clock before he closed the screen and went to the break room for a second cup of coffee.

  When Jack entered the room, the conversations abruptly died away. With the exception of Beth Sturgis, all the detectives who had been at the meeting earlier were there. Some averted their eyes. Others occupied themselves by fixing coffee or looking at the interesting things in the parking lot. He didn’t need to be a psychologist to know they had been talking about him.

  “Am I interrupting anything?”

  “Nah,” Pappas said, “we were just jawing about the case. You remember Dave Childers and Jimmy Spruell, don’t you? They were part of the original Scarecrow task force way back when.”

  “Of course,” Jack said, shaking hands with both men. “Glad to be working with you again.”

  Childers’s handshake seemed genuine enough, but Spruell’s was perfunctory. Moreover, he seemed to find Jack’s comment about working together again funny. Confused, Jack looked at him for an explanation.