by Steven James
“Yes.”
“We know when the anonymous tips were called in.”
“That’s right. And in most of the crimes so far, we know the times and locations of the abductions or murders. I’ve already input those.”
She stood. Paced to my bookcase. “And because of the videos from the entrance to the hospital, we know when Kelsey Nash arrived at the morgue…”
“We know when Brigitte Marcello bought the Chinese food she took to Taylor’s.”
“And,” she added, “we know that John flew to Chicago sometime after dumping Brigitte Marcello’s body, and that when he returned to Denver he drove from the airport to the morgue.”
I was about to say something, then paused. “What?”
“Well, I mean, not for certain, but at least it’s probable. Based on the audio message in the mine, we can assume that John traveled to Chicago after disposing of Brigitte Marcello’s body.”
“I don’t like to assume.”
“But you are assuming-you’re working from the premise that John didn’t fly to Chicago. Doesn’t it make sense to run your data at least once, assuming that he did?”
I stared at her for a moment.
It struck me that even though she wasn’t in the Bureau and we’d only worked half a dozen cases together over the last year, it was beginning to feel like she was my partner. And I liked how it felt.
“You might have a point,” I said.
“It pains you to have to say that, doesn’t it?”
“You have no idea.”
Thoughts of the cases I’d worked with Lien-hua tried to climb into my mind, but I slid them aside and pulled up the FAA’s archives of arrival and departure schedules for the last three days to figure out which airport John might have used.
The ranch lay on the southern edge of Clear Creek County, fifty minutes from Denver and three thousand feet higher in the Rockies than the Mile-High City.
The property contained a few rolling fields dotted with pines and was hemmed in by thick spruce forests and steep rocky cliffs. National forest land bordered the ranch on three sides.
Elwin Daniels had owned the land until three weeks ago when he bequeathed it by default to the man who was watching the blood spurt from his neck.
Red sunlight streaking the air.
And since the property lay at the end of a remote, unmarked dirt road and the good people of Clear Creek County tended to keep to themselves, Giovanni hadn’t had any trouble with neighbors stopping by to chat with the reclusive rancher he’d killed.
He turned onto Piney Oaks Road.
Less than five miles to the ranch.
It only took a few minutes to analyze the flight schedules from Denver International Airport and Colorado Springs Airport. While I did, Cheyenne pulled out an oversized map of Denver County and unfolded it on the other end of my desk.
By comparing arrival and departure schedules with the time of Friday’s anonymous tip about the location of Sebastian Taylor’s body, I realized that John would have needed to fly out of DIA instead of Colorado Springs.
To cover all my bases, I ran the names from the suspect list against the passenger manifests and, considering how careful John had been so far, I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t find any matches.
Based on the current theories of distance decay, I reorganized the data and calculated the most likely travel routes from Bearcroft Mine to Taylor’s house, from Cherry Creek Reservoir to the airport, and from the airport to Baptist Memorial Hospital at the times of day John would have been traveling.
Hit “enter.”
The hot zone shifted west of the city.
I felt the familiar thrill of being in the middle of a case as things heat up. “Do you have the list of greyhound owners?”
“Let me check with Kreger; he was heading that up.”
She tapped at her phone while I pulled up the satellite imagery of the Denver metroplex. A moment later I heard her identify herself to someone on the other end of the line.
“Ask about the greyhounds,” I said. “If anyone from Clear Creek County recently purchased one.”
She relayed the question, nodded to me as she listened to the answer, then tipped the phone away from her mouth and told me, “A man named Elwin Daniels. Ten days ago. MasterCard purchase. He lives on a ranch in the southern part of the county.”
The location lay less than two miles from the revised hot zone.
I typed in his name. Pulled up his address. Zoomed in using FALCON.
It’d been three minutes since the last satellite pass, but we had footage of a car halfway up the winding dirt road to the ranch. The Infiniti had tinted windows, so it was impossible to see the driver’s face. I focused on the rear bumper to try to read the plate number.
Cheyenne spoke into the phone, then said to me, “According to Elwin’s DMV records, he’s seventy-two years old. So, probably not our killer.”
You need to get to that ranch, Pat.
“Cheyenne.” I froze the picture. Magnified the image. “Get us a helicopter.”
Sharpened the resolution.
Yes.
Got it.
I grabbed the car’s license plate, enlarged it, then tapped at my keyboard and ran the numbers.
Beside me, Cheyenne was requesting a chopper. Dispatch must have suggested Cody Howard, the department’s chief helicopter pilot, but she told them rather brusquely, “We’ve been through this before: I don’t fly with Cody. Get us Colonel Freeman.” Her sharp tone surprised me, but then the name of the man who owned the vehicle flashed on my screen and I stopped worrying about why Cheyenne preferred to fly with the colonel.
The Infiniti belonged to Thomas Bennett.
The owner of Bearcroft Mine.
I sent my chair toppling backward as I stood. “Let’s go.”
As I sprinted for the hall I yanked out my cell and called dispatch to get some cars and an ambulance to Elwin Daniels’s house.
45
Colonel Cliff Freeman fired up the helicopter as Cheyenne and I slipped on our headphones and headset mics so we could communicate en route.
As we took off, I used my cell to pull the DMV photos for Thomas Bennett and Elwin Daniels so that we could visually identify the two men if either of them were at the ranch.
By the time I looked up, we were already soaring over the foothills toward the Rockies.
Giovanni dragged Thomas Bennett’s unconscious body into the barn and laid him on the hay-strewn ground.
He took a moment to close and latch the twelve-foot-tall sliding doors so that they could only be opened from the inside. The only other way into the barn was through the tack room.
With the doors shut, the barn was lit only by the sparse lightbulbs dangling from the beams high overhead and the four tiny windows on the east side.
The familiar odor of dried manure and dusty hay surrounded him, but now it was mixed with the stench of the stale urine on the floor of the greyhound’s cage.
The cage hung in the middle of the barn, about twenty-five feet away, suspended three feet above the ground by four chains cinched around the beams high overhead.
Giovanni had named the sleek, jet-black greyhound Nadine, after his grandmother whom he’d pushed the knife into when he was eleven. And now that he hadn’t fed the dog in four days, he knew she’d be motivated to eat whatever type of meat he offered her.
Even if it were still moving.
A wheelchair sat beside the cage, but the floor of the barn was too rutted and had too many loose boards to wheel Thomas around, so Giovanni picked up the man’s legs and pulled him across the hay.
As he passed the horse stalls, the Appaloosa and the black mare-the only two horses currently in the barn-watched him from behind their gates. The Appaloosa neighed and stomped at the hay as he passed, but he ignored her.
He arrived at Nadine’s custom-designed cage: four feet wide, eight feet long, and just tall enough for her to stand. Because of its weight, it barely swayed
as she paced impatiently back and forth. He hoisted Bennett into the wheelchair.
From inside her cage, Nadine let out a burst of vicious barks that betrayed the fact that she’d grown up domesticated.
She stopped and locked her eyes on Giovanni. Snarled.
He’d expected her to be in a nasty mood, but the low feral sound coming from her throat surprised him. The amphetamines he’d injected into her throughout the week must have been making her even more aggressive than he’d anticipated. “Easy, girl,” he said. “Supper’s on the way.”
Bennett’s limp body slumped in the wheelchair, and Giovanni took a moment to prop him upright.
Then he retrieved a roll of duct tape from a shelf near the tack room and returned to the wheelchair to begin the preparations.
I spent the flight reviewing what I knew about the case, trying to discern whether Thomas Bennett was more likely the victim or the killer, but I didn’t have enough data to confirm or disprove either possibility.
We made it to the ranch in less than nine minutes.
“There!” Cheyenne pointed to the gray Infiniti FX50 parked beside the barn. A field stretched between the house and the barn, but had so many scattered pine trees and so much uneven terrain that I couldn’t see any good landing spots.
I asked Cliff, “What do you think?”
He shook his head. “Closest I can get is that field to the southeast.” He pointed to a meadow that lay about six or seven hundred meters from the ranch house.
I wasn’t sure how fast Cheyenne could run, but she sure appeared fit. And although I hadn’t been jogging much since last winter when I’d been shot in the leg, I’d recovered pretty well and I figured I could make it to the ranch in less than three minutes.
“Up for a run?” I asked her.
A gleam in her eye. “Only if it’s a race.”
I liked this woman. Liked her a lot. I patted Cliff’s shoulder. “
Take us down.”
He nodded and aimed the helicopter toward an opening in the trees.
46
Giovanni finished duct taping Thomas’s left wrist to the wheelchair. Tugged the tape tight. Ripped it off. Set down the roll.
There. Both wrists and both ankles were secure. Thomas wouldn’t be leaving that chair.
The spaces between the bars of Nadine’s cage were only wide enough for her muzzle, but that didn’t stop her from viciously attacking the air less than two feet from Giovanni’s arm as he stood nearby.
He felt a spray of her hot saliva on his forearm.
“Almost time,” he said, being careful not to get too close to her. “You’ve been more than patient. Just a few more minutes.”
Confident that Thomas couldn’t wriggle free, he walked past the cage to retrieve the duffel bag and the bucket of rose petals from the shelves near the maze of round hay bales on the barn’s west side.
He carried the duffel bag and the roses back to the wheelchair, set them down, and glanced at Nadine.
The top of the cage could be unlatched and had an opening through which Giovanni had lowered the tranquilized dog a week and a half ago. The cage’s only other door lay on the end a few feet from Thomas Bennett’s unconscious body. When unlatched, this second opening wasn’t large enough for the dog’s body, but it was large enough for her head.
That was the feeding door.
Greyhounds are smart, so it hadn’t taken Giovanni long to condition Nadine to eat whatever he placed in front of the feeding door.
He unzipped his duffel bag and pulled out a silk sheet, then smoothed it across the ground.
He would be needing that for the body.
Cheyenne beat me to the ranch house, but not by much.
The barn lay a hundred meters past the house on the other side of the field.
We drew our weapons. “You take the house.” I tried to hide how out of breath I was. “I’ll get the barn.”
A quick nod and then she was on her way to the porch.
I rolled under a length of barbed wire fence and ran toward the barn.
Giovanni dipped his hand into the bucket, caressed the rose petals. Smooth. Velvety.
Fragrant.
He cupped a handful and tossed them onto the silk sheet, and they fell in gentle curling patterns that made him think of great, crimson snowflakes. Red on white. Petals the color of blood landing on a silken field of snow.
Jacked on adrenaline, I arrived at the barn built of wooden boards, baked dry in the Colorado sun.
Assess the situation.
Assess and respond.
I checked the Infiniti.
Empty.
Then turned to the barn.
The best way to get killed is to rush into a situation like Rambo. I’ve known too many agents and police officers who’ve died in the line of duty because they reacted instead of anticipated.
Be careful. Be smart.
I ran around the southeast corner and tried to picture what lay inside. I’d grown up on a farm in Wisconsin, so I knew barns, and this one probably had a tack room, the seed room, horse stalls, hay bales, dead farm equipment. This barn was nearly twenty-five meters long and twenty wide-larger than I’d thought at first.
Looking for a way in, I circled around the south side, saw that the four-meter high metal sliding doors were closed off. Tried sliding them open.
Locked.
Inside the barn a dog was barking. Wild. Ferocious. I’m not an expert on dogs, so I didn’t know what a greyhound sounded like, but this one sounded more like an attack dog than a racer.
No sign of anyone outside the barn.
The dog growled, then barked again.
As I ran around the corner, I noticed a standard-sized door at the far end of the barn. Probably to the seed room or the tack room. Or maybe an office. Or hay storage area. Whatever it led to, I was going in.
The dog’s agitated barking told me it wasn’t alone in the barn.
I sprinted toward the door.
47
Giovanni was still scattering rose petals when he heard Thomas Bennett stir.
He pulled his ski mask from his pocket. Put it on.
“Where am…” Bennett’s voice was garbled. He was still waking up. “What’s going on?”
“I was hoping you might sleep through this, Thomas.” Giovanni was lying but tried to sound as convincing as possible. He emptied his hand of petals and then faced his captive. “It’ll be a bit more distressing for you this way, I’m afraid.”
The door was locked.
I peered around the corner of the barn and saw no other doors, just a line of small windows.
Back to the door then. I could shoot out the lock, but if the killer was in the barn with Thomas, the sound of the shot would alert the killer and put Bennett in more imminent danger.
Of course, he might have heard the helicopter.
But with all the barking, he might not have.
At least for the moment I decided not to announce my presence. Instead, I yanked out my keys, flipped open my lock pick set, and slipped a pick blade into the keyhole.
Thomas was still disoriented. Giovanni saw him look vaguely in his direction, but a moment later when Nadine growled and sprang toward the bars, the meaty slap of impact seemed to jar him awake.
He stared at the dog, then jerked his head down and gazed at the wheelchair, the bindings. Tried to wrestle free.
Failed.
Tried again, but he was secure.
His eyes widened with confusion and fear. “What are you doing? Where am I?”
Giovanni set the bucket of rose petals on the ground. “How did I do there a moment ago? When I said I hadn’t expected you to be awake? Did I have you convinced? It’s important for me to know; I’ve really been working on my acting.”
“What?” A tremor in his voice.
“The truth is, I was waiting for you to wake up.”
Thomas let his gaze travel around the barn and then land on the dog. “What’s going on? Who are yo
u?”
“My name is Giovanni and I murder people, and you’re about to become my next victim.”
Thomas became frantic. Struggled uselessly to get free. “Let me out of here!”
Giovanni walked to the wheelchair and disengaged the wheel locks.
His captive tried desperately to pull his arms and legs free, but the duct tape snugged tighter the more he strained against it.
He positioned the wheelchair so that the man’s knees were under the cage and his chest was less than a foot from the feeding door’s opening.
Nadine seemed pleased.
“No,” Thomas cried again. “Please stop. Please.”
“On Thursday night I gave a man who was about to die the option of wearing a gag,” Giovanni said. “I’d like to extend the same courtesy to you, although I should probably tell you that I’m not expecting your situation to last as long as his did, so it might not even be worth the trouble.”
Nadine shoved her muzzle through the bars and snapped. Growled.
“Why are you doing this?” Thomas’s voice was becoming shrill, girlish.
“I did bring one along however,” Giovanni said, ignoring Thomas’s question, “just in case, and I’ll be glad to accommodate you, if you like.”
“What do you want?” Thomas’s voice had fallen from a shriek to a whispered plea. “Please, don’t do this. You don’t have to do this. What do you want? Money? I can get you money. A million. I swear.”
Giovanni took that as a no regarding the gag. So, two for two. Maybe his victims weren’t taking him seriously enough. Next time he would make sure he’d been unequivocally clear about their situation. He set the wheel locks so that the chair wouldn’t roll back from the cage once things got started.
Then he stepped back. “Now, in Pamfilo’s story, after your death your wife is supposed to join a convent and live a godly and abstinent life, but in today’s culture that seems unlikely. I decided instead that I would just help her along with the abstinence part. The surgery is relatively simple. I’ll be visiting Marianne as soon as we’re done here. I promise not to make her suffer long. That should be of some comfort to you.”