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

by Robert Daniels

  One thing she and Pappas had agreed on was that there was no way Pell could have gotten past the cameras, key cards, and personnel on duty. Which meant her theory that he was working with someone on the outside had hit a wall. Over the past thirty-six months, he’d only had two visitors: his mother and some college student writing a paper about him. His mother had passed away the following year and the college student had graduated from the University of Georgia and was now doing a fellowship at a New York hospital.

  Jack was inclined to agree: Pell was somehow working with the killer. The missing finger signature withheld from the public virtually confirmed it. He explained this was a trait psychologists had observed among serial killers. For reasons known only to Pell, after killing his victims, the serial killer had cut off one of their fingers as a souvenir. That made their connection certain. Add to that the “Clever Jack” comment and it only reinforced the theory.

  Beth was in the process of making out her notes regarding her meeting with Howard Pell when Lieutenant Fancher signaled for her to come into the office.

  “How’s it going?” Penny Fancher asked after Beth was seated.

  “Not great,” Beth said. “We’ve been getting the typical mix of calls from the public wanting to help. Two gave us conflicting descriptions of suspicious men they saw at Underground Atlanta and a bounty hunter called several times to ask if a reward’s been posted yet.”

  “Wonderful. What about the others?” Fancher asked.

  “You don’t want to know, boss.”

  “That bad?”

  Beth rolled her eyes. “Two angry ex-wives sure it was their former husbands. We checked anyway. Both have solid alibis.”

  “Maybe I’ll call in about my ex,” Fancher said. “We’re taking a beating in the press.”

  “I know,” Beth said.

  “Chief Ritson wants to meet in the conference room later this morning to discuss our progress. He’ll probably assign two more detectives to the task force.”

  “That’s fine,” Beth said noncommittally.

  “He’s also thinking of calling in the FBI.”

  This was the last thing Beth wanted to hear.

  “If he does, we’ll lose the case, Lieutenant. You know how they operate. Besides, we already have Jack Kale.”

  “Losing the case may be the point, Detective,” Fancher said.

  “That’s not fair. We’ve only had it two weeks. If it wasn’t for Jack Kale, Donna Camp would be dead.”

  “Let’s see how things shake out in the meeting,” Fancher said. “Right now, the chief wants to get a feel for where we are.”

  “Fine,” Beth said.

  “By the way, where is Jack? I left a message on his phone, but I didn’t see him come in.”

  “He mentioned something about going over to Atlanta Gas Light to talk to an engineer,” Beth said.

  “Why?” Fancher said.

  Beth raised her shoulders.

  “See if you can get hold of him,” Fancher said. “Burt Wiggins said they’re shooting for nine thirty.”

  “Will do.”

  She was in the process of texting Jack when he walked in the door. She was immediately conscious of his aftershave, which she’d come to associate with his presence over the last few days.

  “Morning,” Jack said.

  “Good morning. I was just texting you.”

  “How come?”

  “Chief Ritson wants a nine thirty status meeting. According to Penny Fancher, he’s toying with the idea of calling in the FBI.”

  To her surprise and annoyance, Jack wasn’t upset.

  “They have lots of resources,” he said. “It might not be a bad idea.”

  “We don’t need them,” Beth said. “This is our case and we’ll solve it.”

  Jack smiled without humor. “I wish I was that certain.”

  “What were you doing at Atlanta Gas Light?” Beth asked.

  “Ben identified the yellow area in the video as a pipe. I was trying to pin down who it belongs to.”

  “Any luck?”

  “Nothing. Someone from Georgia Power’s coming by later.”

  “What about telephone and cable?” Beth said.

  “Ben Furman has calls into them. The problem is we have so little to work with. We were hoping to get lucky. I’ve looked at that damn video twenty times and can’t shake the feeling I’m missing something.”

  “It’ll probably come to you when you least expect it,” Beth said.

  “It had better be soon,” Jack said.

  *

  Pam Dorsey couldn’t feel her fingers any longer. Her hands were still tied behind her back. The plastic restraints had cut off the blood supply. Her son was bound as she was. The poor thing was plainly terrified. At first he’d struggled wildly trying to get free and help her. She loved him for that. But gradually, his struggles had grown weaker and weaker. He lay on his side now, staring numbly into the darkness. She tried to catch his eye to reassure him. Too bad there was no one to reassure her. She had no idea where they were or where the madman had taken them. She only knew they were in trouble. Big trouble.

  The only thing she was certain about was the person who kidnapped them was the same man who tried to wall up that woman at Underground Atlanta. Pam had watched the newscast with a neighbor as she prepared dinner only two nights earlier. How could she have been so stupid going to the park at dusk? She should have said no. But Aaron wanted to play with his boat so much. She looked at her son lying a few feet away, wanting to hold him, comfort him, and tell him everything would be all right.

  Mostly she wanted to convince herself that she hadn’t sacrificed his life over a toy sailboat.

  Chapter 47

  They had to bring more chairs into the conference room to accommodate everybody. The mood was somber. No one was talking. No one was on their phone. A few people were busy scribbling notes. On the wall were photographs of the three murdered people. Next to them was a chart Beth had constructed setting out what they knew of the killer along with the location for each of their deaths. Jack watched the second hand on a wall clock move and waited along with everyone else.

  Two detectives who generally worked white-collar crimes were also present. Beth had met both men but didn’t know them well. Dave Childers, the older of the pair, had a salt-and-pepper moustache and was in his late fifties. He was wearing a gray sport jacket and black pants. His partner, Jimmy Lee Spruell, was the one who had the run-in with Jack at the last meeting. He was approximately thirty years old, about six foot two, and had a reputation around the department as being a hot head. The few times she had any contact with him he had come off as arrogant. Considering the earlier friction between Spruell and Jack, she wished the lieutenant had asked another pair of detectives to join them. But from what Dan Pappas had told her, Jack seemed to have handled the situation well enough. Hopefully, they would put aside any personal issues and concentrate on the task at hand.

  Stafford and Mundas were also there, as was Dan Pappas. Despite the early hour, he already looked rumpled. Deputy Chief Ritson and his aide, Burt Wiggins, entered the room at 9:31 AM. The chief began without preamble.

  “We’ve got a mess here, people. I assume most of you have seen the newspapers and television reports by now.”

  He looked slowly around the room at the assembled faces indicating there was more to his point than he had articulated, then pulled a USA Today from under his arm and opened it for everyone to see. The headline read, “Atlanta Police Baffled.”

  “This doesn’t make our department look good,” Ritson said. “Are we baffled?”

  The question hung in the air. As the case lead, Beth knew she ought to respond. Dan Pappas surprised her by saying, “We don’t have all the answers, but we’re making progress.” He pointed to the wall with the photographs and continued, “We know the bastard’s white, he’s tall, left-handed, and has light-blue or gray eyes. We also have his DNA, courtesy of that gal who tried to coldcock him at Undergrou
nd Atlanta. There were enough skin cells on her shoe for a match.”

  “We knew these things two days ago. Tell me something new.” He turned to Beth, as she expected he would, with his next question. “What happened to that subject you picked up?”

  “Merkle? We had to cut him loose, Chief. He looked good, but his alibi checked out.”

  “Did you happen to catch WGST this morning? ‘Atlanta Police Stumble Again,’ I think the topic was.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Beth said. “We’re doing our job and we’re doing it the right way. When a subject looks solid, we pull him in for questioning. It’s important to eliminate the good ones from the bad.”

  “She’s right, Chief,” Pappas said.

  “So what are we dealing with?” Ritson asked.

  Beth hesitated, waiting for Jack to respond and tell them about Lemon, but for some reason, he remained silent. It looked as if something was distracting him. After several seconds, the silence began to feel strained.

  She said, “We’re not sure, and that’s the truth. No question the killer’s a copycat, but there’s a big wrinkle involved.”

  “Such as?”

  “In each of Howard Pell’s kills, he cut off a victim’s finger. Initially, the killer did the same. As you know, that information was never released to the public.”

  “You’re telling me we have a leak?” Ritson said.

  “Have or had,” Beth said. “If the killer’s trying to pick up where Pell left off, he had to obtain that information someplace. He could’ve gotten it from Pell. But no one’s visited Pell in quite a while. So if he didn’t communicate the details, someone else did.”

  “What if he used the mail?” Childers asked. “They don’t monitor outgoing stuff from what I hear, only the incoming.”

  “Dan’s going through Pell’s contact list. Prison regulations require the people who correspond with inmates be approved by the warden, or in this case, Dr. Charles Raymond, Mayfield’s resident psychiatrist. Dan?”

  “Pell has about thirty-five names on his list,” Pappas said. “One or two are relatives. A couple may be reporters or fans.”

  “Fans?” Ritson said, surprised.

  “I know it’s crazy,” Pappas said. “But some people think the guy’s a rock star. One lady actually wants to marry him.”

  “Be a helluva honeymoon,” Spruell commented.

  “What about the other bodies we found at Underground Atlanta?” Ritson asked.

  “They’re likely the work of Albert Lemon,” Jack said, speaking for the first time.

  Heads in the room turned toward him.

  “I did some research yesterday. Albert Lemon lived around the turn of the last century and was, by all accounts, the first serial killer Atlanta ever encountered. There are newspaper reports chronicling his exploits. There’s also a book about him that came out in 1972.”

  “How can you be certain it’s Lemon?” Ritson asked.

  “I’m not,” Jack said. “But everything fits. Pell basically picked up where Lemon left off.”

  “Why?” Ritson asked.

  “Pell was a student of history. After his arrest, we went through his house. There were books and articles everywhere about killers from the past.”

  “With references to Lemon?” Childers asked.

  “Not that we found. But there’s every chance Pell knew about him and was familiar with the details of his crimes. Pell dressed his first victims up as scarecrows, just as Lemon did.”

  “And cut off their fingers, too?” Childers asked.

  “That was something Pell added as his own signature. I suspect to branch out on his own.”

  “And the other victims?” the chief inquired.

  “Lake Lanier and Buford Dam didn’t exist when Lemon was around. He murdered the third woman by drowning her in the Chattahoochee River, quite similar to what the killer tried to do with Sandra Goldner.”

  “Go on,” Ritson said, folding his arms across his chest.

  “One of Lemon’s victims was buried alive in an old part of the city, a prominent banker named Joseph Elkins. His body was recovered when the building was torn down in 1906. A newspaper account I read talked about a man and woman who also went missing back then. The speculation was that they had fallen prey to Albert Lemon. From the style of their clothes, I suspect they’re two of the people we found in Underground Atlanta.”

  Childers said, “So Pell found Lemon’s hiding place and continued stashing the bodies there.”

  “The missing fingers on the three newer bodies make it seem that way.”

  “That is weird, man,” Spruell added.

  “It also means Detective Sturgis is right about a connection between Pell and the killer. The attempt at partial mummification is a new wrinkle. It means the killer is trying to branch out on his own. That may sound odd to the rest of us, but serials tend to view the world through a filter. In other words, his actions are logical to him.”

  “You said ‘attempt,’” Childers said. “That woman was pretty well wrapped up. How much more do you need to make a mummy?”

  “If he had followed the ancient practices, he would have removed her organs and placed them in Canopic jars. Entombing Donna Camp in Underground Atlanta is too much to write off as chance.”

  Beth and Pappas exchanged glances. That was basically the same comment Pell made regarding Jack.

  “What the hell are we dealing with?” Ritson asked.

  Jack was silent for a moment as he composed his thoughts.

  “Despite what television and movies would like you to believe, we don’t have a large population of killers to study. Some comparisons are possible. Generally speaking, serial killers fall into two groups: sociopaths and psychopaths. The latter being the easiest to identify and catch.”

  “Why?” Penny Fancher asked.

  “Because they stand out and are easy to spot due to their behavior. As a rule, they’re white males between the ages of twenty-one and forty-two, badly adjusted, with little education, and often unemployed.”

  A number of detectives in the room began taking notes. Jack paused to give them time.

  “Sociopaths, on the other hand, are a cop’s nightmare. What’s the first thing we look for in a murder?”

  “Motive,” Beth said.

  Jack nodded. “With sociopaths, there isn’t always one, or at least their motives aren’t apparent. They’re generally well educated, follow what the police are doing carefully, and are adept at blending into a crowd and disappearing. Most of them are highly intelligent. This type often gets a kick out of seeing the police struggling to solve the case.”

  Beth said, “The killer had an observation point set up at Lake Lanier.”

  “But he didn’t do that at the farm or at Underground Atlanta, as far as we know, which is one of the inconsistencies that’s been bothering me,” Jack said. “Possibly the lack of cover didn’t allow for it.”

  “What about the clues he’s been leaving?” Pappas said.

  “According to Beth, he’s calling me out or trying to send me a message,” Jack said.

  “I still think that,” Beth said. “I think he’s saying that if you don’t figure out what he’s up to, the victims’ deaths are your fault.”

  “I agree,” Jack said. “To an extent. But there was no way for him to know I’d be called in where the first three people were concerned.”

  “Unless he started keeping tabs on Beth or you,” Penny Fancher said.

  Her comment brought silence to the room.

  “Interesting,” Jack said. “Watching me, certainly. The scarecrow motif might have been enough to ensure that I’d be brought back. At best, it was a calculated gamble on his part. I hadn’t considered that he might be watching Beth, too.”

  “What about territory?” Childers asked, looking at the map.

  “Another good point,” Jack said. “There tend to be three types. The ones who lure you to their place, be it a home or someplace else they’re using—”<
br />
  “That doesn’t work here,” Penny Fancher said.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Jack agreed. “The second type stakes out an area to prey on, like the Boston Strangler or David Berkowitz in New York. By far, they’re the most common.”

  Jack continued, “The last type seems to roam around when they go on their killing spree.”

  “Which is what we’re dealing with,” Pappas said. “The asshole started in Jordan and he’s worked his way to Atlanta.”

  “Is there a chance he’ll move on?” Beth asked.

  “Maybe he’s like a shark,” Spruell said. “You know, he’s found a good feeding ground.”

  “Possible,” Jack said. “The killer certainly seems more directed, particularly where I’m concerned. Everything he’s done has a purposeful feel to it, which is highly unusual in a serial killer.”

  “This is all well and good,” Chief Ritson said. “Are we anywhere close to catching him?”

  “I can’t say we are,” Jack said. “Obviously, we’re still trying to pin down the location of his latest victims. It’s been slow because he hasn’t left us much to go on.”

  Ritson nodded.

  “If you’re thinking of bringing in the FBI, I won’t argue against it,” Jack said.

  Ritson considered this for a long moment. “No,” the Chief said. “This is our case and we’ve got a good team. Let’s find this bastard and put him out of business.”

  Chapter 48

  Noah Ritson caught Jack’s attention after the meeting ended and motioned with his head for him to follow. He nodded at Beth, “You, too, detective.”

  Ritson’s office was large and contained photographs of him and Atlanta’s last five mayors, two governors, and a senator or two whose names Jack couldn’t remember. On a credenza to the left of his desk was a baseball bat autographed by most of the Atlanta Braves. Next to that was a football signed by the Falcons.

  The deputy chief pointed them to two chairs and took a seat behind his desk.

  He began, “Downstairs you asked me about bringing in the FBI. What about in a limited capacity as consultants?”